DM Prep/Advice thread

At the end of every job I give my players 2-3 new ones to choose from, usually with just some light intro about what each of them is gonna be. Some of them will never see play so you only plan in depth for the ones the players go for.

I have at least 30 pages of this for my campaign. It is not even a third of the total campaign.

I like to create a few basic ideas for a campaign and the setting (if not based in the real world) and then I flesh out a few factions. I typically tend to let players give some ideas for me to fill in the blanks, and then I write about it later. For the campaign i've been running with my friends for the past year, I've gotten about 140k words written over a few word files, which is the most writing ive ever done for a pnp campaign. In the others I've ran its typically been between 20k to 70k.

I have trouble focusing, so I literally allot time to prep. I set an alarm, and from there I will spend about 3-4 hours reading and writing stuff out. Not every day, but when I find myself with a decent amount of time.

The one time I ran anything, I basically just wrote ideas down on a notepad while waiting on pick ups or deliveries at my job. My players are fucking maniacs though. So there's a lot I just straight up cannot plan for.

Like, for instance, in a Mouseguard game, I set them up against an Otter, he was going to be this one-time, kaiju fight. Bit off a guy's head as a preamble to their fight.
They captured, befriended and formally recruited it into the Mouseguard. So, the best advice I can give you is whatever plans you make, never make one you aren't willing to discard. Or alter.

I usually only prep when I'm inspired - but when I am, I usually make enough content for about three sessions in one sitting (even if half of what I prepped goes out of the window the moment the players do anything).
And sometimes I also just create stock enemies/quests/situations that I can apply anywhere should I feel like it. But even then, I still have to wing a lot of stuff.

What I find the best is to have some prep, just to get the general idea of stuff, but to be ready to wing a lot of stuff on the fly.

Spend 6 hours planning beforehand. If you've planned as much as you can and you have time left over, look for places where your players might choose to go off the rails and try to figure out how they could. Plan for what happens if they do.

Write dialog. Rewrite it to make it more flavourful.

Though combat heavy sessions will require less prepwork than sessions that are heavy on the roleplay.

If you think you'll be caught with your pants down, you need to sit down and take a mature look at your story and complete it. Period. You cannot get around this unless you're doing 100% kick in the door fun with beer and friends playing and nobody cares about the story in the first place. And if you are, hey, have fun. But you sound like you got a good story hook going and want to take it somewhere.

No matter how simple it is, tell yourself a complete story. A group of renowned adventurers is attacked by mysterious mercenaries and investigating them leads to discovery of a secret cult in the middle of reviving a Lich. Beat up the head cultist to stop the ceremony. If you have the full story, you can add as many details as you want. You just want to be sure you can complete it without pulling stuff out of your ass. This is doubly true if you're trying to tell a mystery or the like.

You won't do well telling complicated grandiose stories until you have a few light ones under your belt. It is VERY easy to fatigue trying to do a massive full homebrew world with a gorillion interesting arcs and zones you've lovingly polished and written full sperg-lore for.

The trick is that if you have say, eight interesting stories that piece together into a colossal arc, you can disguise it. Take the first and make it a small episodic campaign. Lace a few bits you can use later to make people think "it was foreshadowed! wow!" later. If people like the first, you can run the second.

Obviously this isn't 100% set in stone, but if you're new to DMing I've made these mistakes myself. The story falls flat really badly if it needs all seven parts to function and your inexperience has things strained by the end of part two. Another great benefit to episodic is that if for any reason things fall apart, it's easier to let a small story die than to spend a year building up an amazing one and then OOPS TWO OF THE PLAYERS HAVE REAL LIFE PROBLEMS AND THE GROUP IS TORN IN HALF IN A WEEKEND.

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>on watch. d4x10cp + d4sp ea; barrel w/ 60 spears; small table, 2 benches, keg of water"
I can't even read this lmao

Rolled 1, 2 = 3 (2d4)

D4x10cp+d4sp seems to refer to..how much money they have on them.

>how much money is there
>a barrel full of spears for them to throw?
>the table
>what they're sitting on
>water for them to drink

These are the GMs notes, intended for only the GM to read. As long as the GM can read them it's all good.

Others being unable to read them is a bonus.

>It is VERY easy to fatigue trying to do a massive full homebrew world

Worse still, your players will never appreciate all the worldbuilding you've done because most of the detail is stuff that they will never see. So I'd suggest using an existing setting unless you can't find one that will work with the story you want to run.

Though one tip for worldbuilding: Your players are very unlikely to read any background detail you provide them beyond a short summary of the setting. So I'd suggest a setting where the PCs start off not knowing much about the setting. For example, I'm planning on running a game set on a colony world that has gone strange in some very specific ways*. The PCs will all be colonists that are awoken from cryo at the start of session 1, having been in cryo since before humans first set foot on that world.

*These ways being central to my plot, but not found in any setting I'm aware of.

>So I'd suggest using an existing setting
I always thought creating his own setting is important part of DM's fun.

My advice, as someone who had both a good experience as a GM and a bad experience as a player this week.

Any time you expect the players to do combat, have the environment planned out. Fighting on a flat plain generally leads to dull encounters wherein the players just roll and look glassy eyed until someone crits or botches.

No one has fun when the situation is in "You are in a killbox. The enemy have cover and you don't. They also have surprise. Fuck you."

Meanwhile, the party panicking because they separated and half have been ambushed in a tiny kitchen with the enemy grappling the rogue into a burner, while the other half is stuck on a narrow staircase with the badnik's buddy throwing barrels like it's Donkey Kong is memorable and dynamic. The paladin went down, and the warlock blew a hole in the wall to drag her to safety.

Start fights wherein players are at the disadvantage, but not because of GM fiat but because they weren't paying attention. Make fights on ledges, where a push or a grapple could send a player down a waterfall. Have enemies trying to herd the players into muddy terrain. Have cowardly enemies that play possom before going for a kill. Have enemies that don't know about the traps of the dungeon and rush head first into them.

Most of all, give players options beyond what's on their sheet. Whether that means tactical options on a battlefield, bonuses to a well thought out plea for a truce, or something as simple as mist making it hard to see.

Sketch a map, name a few towns
Think up a couple cool npcs.
Have some encounters statted out
Cool treasures

Even if the players go off the rails I just reskin/recycle whatever

>Figure out what you couldn't make up on the spot at the table, and prepare that.
This is solid advice. Another part of that , I think, is making stuff you can easily play off of. The idea is to have an inventory full of ideas that can be expanded upon on a moment's notice. This is why I spend time worldbuilding despite it will be largely ignored by the players. Knowing the context for everything makes it a lot easier to improvise.

Prep but don't prep entire story plots. Prep NPCs, places, things happening, interesting encounter's. Then use these as your imporv makes for a good time to use them. Also take notes during the game of what goes right and speculate why and test those theories.

It's possible to over-prepare. The more you have prepared the less tolerant you'll be of having to change or abandon things that were prepared due to the party changing what they're doing - and you need to be able to flexibly handle that.

Be comfortablet hat you can handle the next session or two and know, in a general sense, what's happening plotwise. Don't really try to plan down details beyond that point or you'll either railroad or grow frustrated when players do unanticipated things - and that's supposed to be the fun part, not the frustrating part.

If you enjoy it, go ahead.

Just be aware that it's effort that isn't likely to contribute much to what your players think of your campaign, except for possibly distracting you from doing things that would help.

One other tip: Plan to give players significant choices. These are choices where:
- You have at least two obvious options for the players to pick between.
- You can not predict which option your players will take.
- Their choice will have a significant effect. As in, you will be throwing out* some of your notes because they are no longer relevant.

Oh and if the players pick a third option, let them.

*Or saving to reuse later.

>*Or saving to reuse later.
Never throw anything out. You never know when something will come in handy again - even in a different game. It costs nothing to keep a dropbox of old maps, campaign notes, character sheets, etc.

Agreed, with one exception. If you're sure you'll never GM for a specific system again you can throw out anything that is pure statblock.