I was thinking about Monster of the Week and was inspired by the GM Holocron described in an old episode of the…

I was thinking about Monster of the Week and was inspired by the GM Holocron described in an old episode of the Order 66 podcast for the Star Wars RPG. You could use a tool like Evernote to create a handy compendium of things to pull together for any story as needed. Instead of just prep for this story, you have a compendium of prep work to draw from as needed.

Imagine a digital notebook of monsters, minions, locations, and bystanders (especially bystanders) that is tagged and searchable. You just write them down when ever your inspired. Each one is defined enough to be useful but has all the “hook” points that would tie it to your story open.

Now next time your running the game you suddenly need a Victim Bystander to plug into your small rural town, because things have stalled. You check your notebook for notes tagged bystander, victim, and small town and see that you’ve got a sheriffs deputy you wrote down 6 months ago when you were watching a movie. A quick search for location, maze, outdoors and small town, and you’ve got a note you wrote down when you were hiking 2 months ago. You’re ready to roll because the deputy and the forest have a personality, description, motives and names—maybe even pictures, ready to go.

It could speed up your prep for any individual story because it will spread it out over many instances of natural inspiration instead of that time just before your game when you sit down to think it all up.