Dolmenwood Game Prep Again

Knowing I can really only prep on the weekend for a while until my brain catches up to my new job & I can adjust to that (give it a couple months but I will get there, I always do) I decided to bring out the toys. I'll also throwing in another OSE adventure I backed a while ago, and it fits into where the party is going. While one of the players has read through the adventure, it is more of a sandbox thing so there are a lot of ways to approach this. They have the Otter quest for the righting of the shrine, and because it was an Otter it is near the river that was pointed out by the Grimalkin Dandy Prisslwhiff, bard. But there are probably several sessions in that adventure, along with the shrine. 

Using the caves stuff, along with the goblin lair, I created a small dungeon. I won't post the reasons why they may go into this yet as they may read this post, but I have a few things I think will make them want 

to. I still need to populate it, though I have several ideas and things I want to test out. 

I'll probably gather the minis this week for what I need so that everything is in 1 place and easy to find. I am at least getting that organized! I even have a "box of minis I may need for this session" that also houses the character minis. It will get populated this week (twirls evil mustache). 

The AI version

original picture

I've also stopping running the Traveller game - with the new job it was just too much for me to handle. And I feel I was not doing a good job running the game. While it is my favorite RPG, I was apparently more stressed running it according to the players. Mostly because it is my favorite and I want people to have a good time, I worry more than other games I run. I was having fun but had too much going on to give it the attention it needs. Which is why I found an adventure for the Dolmenwood / OSE game that should give me a bit of structure and it is not all from my head.

I think part of it is mechanics. I am a huge fan of detailed mechanics. and Traveller (especially T5!) has some detailed mechanics for a lot of things. I have some interesting rules I wanted to try for the older OSE game I was running so the Druid could craft things. The players just don't want to do that sort of thing - too complicated and just wants GM fiat. More of a narrative style of play where the GM just does things is the approach this group uses the most. Which is good, but I like rule and things. Probably why I am a decent developer as that is all rules based. So that contrast between my preference for rules-based games vs narrative styled games is where some of my stress comes from as I need to relax how I want to run things to accommodate them. Which I've been doing (the NPCs handle all the details of ship stuff for the most part) but I feel that we're missing part of what makes Traveller my favorite game. Being my first RPG is also part of that!

Anyway, putting the Traveller game back on a shelf sadly, and will just run the monthly Dolmenwood game and be a player in the Tuesday night games for a few months at least, maybe longer.