Deadlands Preparation IV

Ok, I think I have the main plot for all three days down.
Looking at my plans, the next thing would be to decide on the locations and so forth.
Luckily this will go much easier, since the plot demands certain locations in certain places.
The first adventure will take place in a city, probably New Orleans, the second on a steamer up the Mississippi and the third somewhere much further west, with prairies and so on, I think.
I might put day one on the steamer and make day two a travel adventure, starting out on the boat and trying to get west, so that the gap between the second and third day is not as large as it is no.
This will depend on the details of the adventures, subplots, npc's and so forth.

Something I have to find out now, is the exact number and character of pc's in the posse. I know te number of players, but some of them are thinking about creating new characters, so I need to find out their exact plans to include hooks and challenges for each pc.

Apart from this, I'm rather pleased with my progress so far and will devote the rest of the day to the fleshing out of npc's and subplots.

Deadlands Preparation III

Ok, so now I have a shadow of a plot for three days, a shadow of a villain and a few cool scenes.
The next problem will be to make some of the things more concrete, including the location where things happen.
The first thing I will now work on, is the villain. He must be scary, after all, this is supposed to be a horror game, at least in parts.
The whole concept of a Deadlands adventure, at least for me is about the overcoming of real evil by the power of big guns. Victory however, must be paid for with humanity and morals, no one can stay a saint while fighting evil.
It is this dilemma between good versus evil on one side and cold rationality versus humanity on the other.
These four concepts form a carthesian grid of sorts, with the perfect neutral character at the null-point.
The goal of my villains is now to drag the players from that point into the extremes, giving them choices that lead them ever further from moral and psychological equilibrium and then confronting them with the consequences of their decisions.
Sounds grand and noble, right?
Well, the difficulty lies in breaking these ideas down into a cool adventure, so that the players have a lot of fun, blasting away at everything, right up to that point, where they realise what they have done and are scared of themselves.
I Think, I'll make use of dreams to drive some points home, but I won't go into more detail. Fleshing out the main villain will probably take some more time, I just wanted to get these ramblings out.
Oh, and there might in fact be a steamboat in the adventure. Thank Terry Pratchett for it.

Deadlands Preparation II

Ok, so I have not yet cleared up all ideas, but the one I like most at the moment has lead me to another problem:
Do I try out novel concepts, like flashbacks and so on, or do I stick with a sequential plot?
I'd really like to open the game with a scene from later on in the adventure, but am uncertain about how it would work out.
The point is that flashbacks and so on work very well in long-running campaigns, I think, but can feel like overkill in a short adventure. Now, some of the characters that will appear in the game, have been around in the Weird West for some time so they are to all purposes long-running characters, which makes me incline towards using the flashbacks and time-jumps.

These narative devices also add to a more cinematic feel, which is exactly what I'm aiming at.
So the structure of the adventure will be something like this:
First day: Begin with a boom, perhaps a scene from later on in the narative, then roll back a bit and play the part where the heroes meet again and set out for some adventuring.
Second day: The heroes are now in the deep shit. Their plans from the first adventure have seemingly succeeded marvelously, but then something wicked their way comes... with a vengeance. The Day should end with anoter big boom.
Third day: Begin at the point where we began the first day, but now there follows not the flashback but the story continues from that point onwards. End with anoter big bang, the biggest bang possible, since it is the end of the adventure.

Things I need to watch out for are manifold. The largest issue I have, is the problem of consistency. If the adventure begins with a scene from very late in the narative, I need to have a way to lead the story to that point, no matter what the players do. This sounds a lot like railroading and in the purest sense of the word it is.
The trick will be to make it feel as if it was a natural development and not planned from the start. And possibly have a backup plan to explain the beginning, if the players manage to derail the adventure to an extend that makes it impossible to reach that particular scene.
I'll now try to fit my ideas into that frame and see how it turns out.

Deadlands Preparation I

This winter, like the years before, we will play a three days game of Deadlands. It has become something of a tradition and although it takes place a week later than the previous years, I am already certain there will be a game next year and so on for the foreseeable future.
The role of Marshall (GM in Deadlands lingo)
is once again taken by me and so I am now planning the adventure.
Now, this has always been a daunting task for me, what with me being something of a complete failure when it comes to game preparation and planning.
It's not that I don't want to run the game or even prepare for it. It's rather that I just can't seem to concentrate on the work until I'm at home for crhistmass. Then I start reading all kinds of Deadlands books, usually while knitting some winter clothing. The problem with this approach is that
I usually end up with lots of random ideas and no coherent plot.
This year however, I'll try to improve on this. I know, I promised that the last times as well, but I'll try to
write about my progress and my approach in order to actually get a result.

I will, for the moment at least, refrain from posting any details of the adventure, in case any of my players read this and use it against me.
If anyone is interested and asks me about it, I might put up a write-up of the adventure afterwards. So without further ramblings to the matter at hand:

The facts about the adventure, or at least the ones I already know:
It should run for three days, I know the number of players and most of the characters they will play.
That's about it. What I want to achieve is a three-part adventure that has a complete plot and is absolutely awesome, so that the players want the year to go by faster in order to play again.
How will I get to this goal?
I have no idea, so watch me trying. The obvious advantage for you is that you can laugh at me, if I fail, without suffering my embarassment, when I wreck the adventure in front of my players.

Even before I start the preparation proper, I usually have a few ideas, very faint and disconnected, that float around. This year is no different in that respect and my first action will be to identify those ideas that make the most sense and are the most awesome.
Then I'll try to come up with a plot that can loosely be split into three parts. Each of these parts should feel like a complete adventure, but the first two should end with a cliffhanger to keep the players hooked for the next day.
The adventures also need a few sliding sections that I can remove or stretch out, depending on how fast the adventures run, to keep the time-frame.
After the first fixing of the plot, I need to decide on a location, if none is dictated by te plot itself.
After this it is time to write down more details concerning each adventure part, npc's, locations and so forth.
And then, hopefully, I have a finished adventure for thre days and enough time left to review it once and maybe even look for fitting background music.
That's the plan for now and this evening will be spent with the examination of the ideas I have and trying to make them fit into a whole.
We'll see how that turns out.