Scenario Checklists

When preparing to run a pre-written scenario, processing all the information can be overwhelming. A good scenario, after all, includes lots of alternate scenes, optional encounters, plots and subplots. (While your humble scenario writer tries to make everything as clear as possible, the scenario also needs to be entertaining to read, detailed enough to be useful, easy to reference in the moment of play, and short enough to be affordable, all of which are at odds with ‘easy to absorb on first reading’.)

One technique I’ve used when reading scenarios is to pull out the things that the player characters must achieve – the clues they need to find, the key events that need to happen and so on. (In a GUMSHOE scenario, these checklist items correspond to core scenes.) Write down the items in roughly the order they should occur, but be flexible – only a completely linear scenario can be presented in scene order.

So, taking (S)Entries from Night’s Black Agents as an example, the key checklist items are

[ ] Get briefed by Rudek about the mission – secure Lennart laptop, deliver it to Anton

[ ] Steal the laptop (any plausible plan works)

[ ] Make contact with Anton

[ ] Get ambushed

[ ] Get revenge

A more complex example might be The Kingsbury Horror from Trail of Cthulhu. The Kingsbury Horror’s full of evocative side treks and encounters, but the actual list of events that must happen is fairly short.

[ ] Get briefed by Sheriff O’Donnell – task is to find torso killer, ten previous victims; three of which were regulars at Lester’s bar and associates of Frank Dolezal

[ ] Investigators see the red stone in Doleza’s photographs

[ ] The investigators find clues pointing to van Schaen

                  [ ] the photograph of the Whirlpool painting, bought by the van Schaen family

                  [ ] van Schaen’s thesis in the library

                  [ ] the photograph of the concrete wall, matching the architecture of the CIRR trains stations built by the van Schaen family

                  [ ] any number of other weird coincidences or surreal clues as time breaks down

[ ] Investigators confront van Schaen in his secret lair in the East 24^th Street station.

Often, a scenario containing multiple chains of clues or events all leading to the same thing. Depending on your confidence in improvisation and adaption, you can summarise the whole chain as a single checklist item:

[ ] The investigators find out about the mummy in the library

or break each link down as a separate item.

[ ] Get hold of the ledger [ ] Question the warehouse owner about discrepancies in the ledger [ ] learn about the mysterious box delivered to the library [ ] Run into Hollister at the club [ ] Spot the mysterious tattoo [ ] Consult Egyptologist in British Museum and discover it’s the Maw of Set symbol [ ] Follow Hollister to the library [ ] Interview Maris and learn about her dreams [ ] Visit the obelisk (Cleopatra’s Needle) she describes in her dream and discover her dreams are accurate psychic visions [ ] She dreams of the library

Each of those chains ends with the investigators going to the library; they only need to follow one of them to get there. However, a good scenario includes multiple parallel routes, and the players may investigate several of them at the same time. A checklist can help orient you on what actually matters right now. For example, if I know that I’m going to end the game session in about twenty minutes and want to finish up with the players going to the library, I might look at my checklist and see:

[X] Get hold of the ledger [ ] Question the warehouse owner about discrepancies in the ledger [ ] learn about the mysterious box delivered to the library [X] Run into Hollister at the club [X] Spot the mysterious tattoo [ ] Consult Egyptologist in British Museum and discover it’s the Maw of Set symbol [ ] Follow Hollister to the library [X] Interview Maris and learn about her dreams [ ] Visit the obelisk (Cleopatra’s Needle) she describes in her dream and discover her dreams are accurate psychic visions [ ] She dreams of the library

None of the chains is close to completion – but I could quickly gloss over the interrogation of the warehouse owner, turning a scene that’s supposed to be roleplayed out in its entirely into a quick “the warehouse owner’s unwilling to talk – how do you sway him? Intimidation? Cool. You imply that you’ve got friends in high places, and pretty soon he admits that he delivered a suspiciously sarcophagus-sized case to Dr. Hollister’s residence in Mayfair.”) Or, you could cross the threads of the mystery, and have Maris dream about a mysterious man in a library, with a tattoo of a strange symbol – the same symbol they saw on Hollister’s wrist! (Dun dun dun!)

In all cases, the key is knowing what the players need to know or do to progress. Everything else is secondary and disposable.