Filling a scene

Building your story · guide 3 of 5

Once a scene has a name and a place, you can fill it with everything the moment needs: the people the party can meet, a fight, a puzzle, an encounter and shops. So when you run it, it's all in one place.

Add the people the party can meet

Open the scene and go to Who's there. Choose an NPC from the list and press Add. It saves straight away. If they don't exist yet, press New NPC. When you finish the NPC wizard, they're added to this scene and you come straight back.

Changed your mind? Press the cross next to a name. The NPC is only taken out of this scene, never deleted.

Add a fight, a puzzle or an encounter

Press Next for What happens. A scene can hold one encounter, one puzzle and one combat, in any mix, and each saves as soon as you add it.

A fight

Press Add combat. There are three ways in. Create with Wizard builds a fight one section at a time. Auto generate rolls a fight sized for your party from the SRD bestiary. Or choose a fight you've already made, and press Add.

To auto generate, pick the difficulty, and a terrain if you like. Nothing is saved until you accept, so re-roll as often as you like. When it looks right, press Accept and start setting up. The fight is made and put in this scene, and Open fight takes you to it whenever you're ready.

A puzzle

Add puzzle has two ways in: write a new one with the wizard, or choose one you've already written.

An encounter

Add encounter can auto generate too. It rolls one from Critsmith's built-in table of two hundred, skipping any you've used in this campaign. Re-roll until one fits, then press Accept and add to scene for editing. That's a ready-made idea in seconds, saving you time on prep.

Each one now sits in the scene as a card. Remove from scene takes it out without deleting it. And if something is already in another scene, the list tells you, so you can reuse it without making it twice.

Add shops

Below are the shops. Add as many as you like, from the list or with New shop. While this scene runs, the party can use them, as well as any shops at its location. Perfect for a travelling merchant on the road.

When you run the scene

When you run the scene, it's all waiting on the Run screen: the NPCs, the shops, the encounter and the puzzle. The fight waits with a Start combat button. Running a scene never starts the fight for you, so you choose the moment.

Set it up once, and everything's at hand when your players get there.