OnWritingALinear

It has been suggested that a list of 'Things to think of when writing a linear' should come into being:

• When I (--Jacob) am planning a linear, I usually split my monsters into three rolling teams, playing encounters in approximate order. For added cunningness, rather than three teams of equal size I usually go with two big and one small, or one big, one medium and one small, team, because some encounters only need a few monsters. This means I have an extra constraint on which order I send my encounters in in ("they have to meet the Shoggoth before they meet the band of druids, because team B is up next"...), but it's not usually a problem.
• When I'm writing a linear brief, I append a map listing where each encounter will be played and which team will play it, and a kit list listing all the kit each team needs. That means I can just send them on ahead to get ready and read their briefings, and I can follow and answer questions rather than always having to be running on ahead choosing a location, picking who's going to play what, and explaining that encounter to them from scratch. I only run a couple of linears a year, though, so I can afford a fairly time-consuming approach. But even if you're pressed for time, a sketchy version of the "teams, map, kit-list, written-briefs" approach may well save you a lot of effort on the day.
• Always ask yourself the question "will this encounter work if it is drizzling or snowing?".
• Don't be too set on an encounter running in a particular way (I am really bad at this one). But unless you're really careful, and often even then, if you write an encounter based on the party doing this, this and this, they probably won't. I generally try (not always, and not always successfully when I do, so possibly "I should generally try" would be closer to the truth) to write encounters in such a way that coolness is likely to ensue in some way even if what I expect to happen doesn't.
• Always remember that how hard an encounter is depends as much or more on how many monsters are playing it as on what their stats are; be ready to restat on the day based on this.
• Try and come up with ways to make your fight encounters different from other fight encounters. One of the reasons I like writing undead linears is because I can send in weird gamist undead with special powers and weaknesses than mean that fighting them is a new experience; if you're using demons or fae or similar you might want to do the same. If you're using humans or goblins or what have you, rather than making each encounter "some fighters, with a caster or two", why not send it a wave of fighters and then a wave of casters, for two very different encounters.
• Foreshadow. Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. A linear which the PCs have seen coming a mile off feels immeasurably cooler than someone turning up in the bar and saying "come and do X with me tomorrow".
• Even better than just foreshadowing, give the players a chance to prepare for the linear, and reward them for doing so. Tell them beforehand that the Cult of the Jellyfish are in the area; if they do any research then let them find out that the Cult of the Jellyfish always use purple yin poison, and that the alchemists guild can make a preparation that makes one immune to purple yin poison for the day at a very affordable rate. It's a very rewarding feeling indeed to see an encounter that would clearly have been hard if you hadn't been proactive and clever beforehand, but that you can be smug at because you have.
• If you can, foreshadow a Deus ex Machina. It doesn't happen often, but every so often there will be times when two encounters trigger at once or someone doesn't see the restriction "once per day" on their statline, and a party gets rolled through no fault of their own. Making them fail in those situations is often suboptimal, and so is having a wandering Johnite show up out of the blue, but if you can arrange things beforehand so that there is an NPC about who might show up to give them a second chance (possibly asking a high price for doing so) then it feels far less forced.

Additional points, mostly to do with statting, from Valtiel

• Be prepared to restat combat encounters if you suddenly discover that your monsters are the best fighters in the society. It does make a difference, especially if they all have their favourite weapons.
• Often, telling monsters to act dumb is as good as or better than a downstat. Telling monsters to prepare and come up with a plan can be as good as an upstat.
• When restatting, in general: Don't increase the damage grade monsters are calling unless you're incredibly sure of yourself. The difference between taking five SINGLES in a fight and five DOUBLES is a lot. Normally, hit points don't go down (because then monsters die too quickly) and damage grades don't go up.
• THROUGH damage might sound interesting and different, but be very careful about using it. It's not normally more likely to put someone down than normal damage is, but it saps the party's healing reserves terrifyingly quickly because none of the hits are going onto easily repairable armour.
• If a monster has status calls or spells, remember to specify how many times they can do it AND how often they can do it.
• Never, ever, ever have more monsters calling FREEZE than there are characters in the party.
• If you're writing an undead linear, please ask for a copy of the undeath lore guide and stick to it, at least as long as you're using conventional undead. Sending in Skeletons that regenerate or Zombies with Halt calls goes against what the Undeath Lore guide, which some people have paid XP for. Invalidating 10XP worth of skills is a shitty thing to do. If you want undead to do odd things, you need to broadcast to the players that the undead will be doing odd things. Midwife Moon has unconventional undead but is also well-known for having unconventional undead.

Also, when I'm using unconventional undead, I've usually a) given out a list of them (without too many deliberate bits of misinformation) IC beforehand and b) used new names for them - a monster called a Bone Shambler with stats "as skeleton, but regenerates" will generally ruffle far fewer feathers than a skeleton which doesn't do what skeletons do, especially if you warn people it's not a skeleton.--Jacob

• Healing with nasty side effects - ideally roleplay consequences later. - is very cool. If the character party did well earlier, they won't need it. If they're battered, they'll just have to either carry on battered or take the healing and suck up the consequences.
• Try to avoid bringing bulky kit that will only be used once, nobody likes carrying it. The obvious item here is shields - the statues on Atlantis were going to be sword-and-shield fighters until I realised that we'd then be lugging the shields across the meadows for two encounters.

If you really need bulky kit, try to either put it into the first encounter and have someone take it back to a car after that, or run a backwards linear, leave it in a car, and have someone go back for it. Both of these cause headaches and, as Valtiel says, are best avoided, though.--Jacob

• If you're bringing a huge pile of kit, know that there will be a point where one person has to carry all of it. This person will probably be you.
• I often try to ensure that there's an opportunity for one of the monster crew to go through the whole linear without having to fight, in case someone is really tired, slightly ill, or physically injured on the day.
• Writing a list of the kit and weapons needed is a very good idea. I disagree with Jacob about maps being useful, because sometimes your map gets invalidated by a group of picnickers or a huge pool of mud that gets in the way of where you wanted an encounter, but I guess it's personal taste.

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I approve of these points, in general. Something that might be worth talking about, though, is whether the now-common practice of splitting the monster crew into specific teams is giving the same people (often those who are good at, or enjoy, fighting) all the challenging combat-heavy encounters, leaving the rest of the monsters with little or no combat and hence little or no fighting practice. It can be worked around, it's just something to raise and consider. --Pufferfish

If it's not being done on a "who wants to be in which team" basis it certainly is; if it is it probably isn't, although it can - in particular, my approach of having one team of only one or two people risks that, although I like it even so for other reasons. --Jacob

The fact that one monster team often ends up with fights from start to finish isn't entirely intentional - it's partly because swapping kit around is a pain (so Team Demon get nothing but fights because nobody wants to negotiate with the demons), partly because I at least tend to maintain a Team Not Fighting which leaves the other two teams fighting a lot, and partly because some fights only work with the largest of the three teams. We don't pick teams based on who can fight and who can't, we pick teams based on who wants to be in each team. Occasionally there's a named NPC who needs to be played by a particular person, or a role that one particular person would be great at or has expressed an interest in, but for the most part people choose their own teams. Besides, we have weapon practices for people to get, well, weapon practice. And if someone actively doesn't want to fight then you should let them avoid it, otherwise you're turning into a PE teacher. --Valtiel

What Valtiel said --Zebbie

Unfortunately, this doesn't actually work in practice. Because I can't fight in every encounter or I would die, I have to go in Team Not Fight on every single linear, which means I never get to do *any* fighting. Which sucks. --Pufferfish

The third team generally has a mix of combat and non-combat encounters. In fact, I can't think of a single linear where the choice has been between fighting all the time and not fighting at all. --Valtiel

My experience is that, generally, there's a small "team non-fighty", then a "team big fighty" and a "team mob fighty". So a team that will have its combat encounters be a few huge stompy monsters, and a team that plays the horde of bandits. Quite often, "team big fighty" attracts the combat enthusiasts, but I reckon it's possible to have lots of fun in either. - TheKremlin

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A question:

I generally stat or at least tweak the statting of a linear on the day, when I see what the party and the monsters are like. Which of the following should I be taking into account, and which should I be saying "bad luck, that's your problem due to X/well done, due to X, you get an easier linear?"

1: How much XP the PCs have?

2: How powerful the PCs stats are? (N.B. I think one can only really aim to one of these two.)

3: How much flange the PCs have brought with them (as distinct from inherent power which they haven't paid a price for)?

4: How many PCs there are?

5: How many monsters there are?

6: What do I think the relative hard skills of the monsters and PCs are like?

7: The fact that I know that one of the PCs is planning to backstab the others?

8: The fact that I think PvP? may possibly break out?

9: The fact that e.g. all the PCs have polearms and all the monsters have one-handed swords?

I also sometimes tweak partway through a linear. Which of the following should require me to tweak, and which should I just say "bad luck/well done" to?

A: The party are really/barely battered, I think it's because they've been competent/incompetent (I know Pufferfish strongly disapprobates this one)?

B: The party are really/barely battered, I think it's because I've over/understatted so far?

C: The party are really/barely battered, I think it's been an averagely-statted linear and they've been averagely competent but my monsters have been extremely/not very competent?

D: A PC has just left the linear, for IC or OOC reasons?

Is there anything obvious I've missed from either list?

--Jacob