GM Prep

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I meticulously detail out every path I think the players might take. My last game had 40 pages of notes for a game that lasted 5 sessions.

Then I get burned out and don't want to play anymore.

>>50423745
>Then I get burned out and don't want to play anymore

No shit.
Here's an old GM trick.
Prepare the bare minimum adventure material or use an adventure module.

IMPROVISE THE REST.


No one benefits if you are only using a small percentage of your prepared material.

I'll suggest to you what I should have done years ago: run a beginner module for your game. Not just any old one, but one specifically made to be easy to DM for. I recently ran Lost Mines of Phandelver for my group who've been playing 5e since it came out, and learned a ton about how to prep and what's important/what's not.

>>50423949
Also seconding this.

>>50423949
This. For My most recent campaign (and one of the best so far) I only had planned the players on board a passenger airship and It would be attacked by bandits after they explored and talked for a while.

What i do is ride off what the players say/do to build the story and lore.

> bandits start attacking airship
> one player didn't really get why the bandits would be attacking a passenger ship instead of its sister cargo ship so he asked the captain whats all in the cargo hold.
> Didn't write this up so I said the captain doesn't know.
> Players are surprised the captain didn't know what his own ship was transporting (had it loaded up by a local lord before it took off.
>Players thought that there must be something secret that the lord put in the cargo hold for secret transport, which to them explains why the bandits would be attacking.
> I went along with this and placed a magic gem in the room that the players then decided was a main quest piece that they went all around adventuring to find its meaning.
>mfw i had nothing past bandits and airship planned.

>>50422080
I have one page each for the following:

>Plot points and Events
>NPCs
>Monsters/combat opponents
>Locations

That's about it.

>>50422080
>Worldbuilding
Locations, maps, big-name NPCs

>Sessions
Scenes, encounters, NPCs, loot, potential endings

>Scenes
Short description of the important bit of this scene in one or two sentences. (i.e. "The dragon seduces the bard and tells the party of the princess that has kidnapped the local bandits")

>>50422080
>List of relevant names
>Basic map
>Improvise everything else
>Take notes over the course of the session to remember what is now canon for future improvisation

As long as you can keep it consistent between sessions then your players will probably never notice if the majority of your work is improvised.

>>50422080
Depends on what kind of game you're running. I have a sandbox game right now so my notes are somewhat comprehensive as it tracks what everyone else in the world was doing when the players did their last session, and what they will probably be doing next.

However before my games were fairly streamlined so they just had setpieces, names and encounters listed out and I was good to go.

>>50422080
Write up a few index cards with stats for important NPCs, a handful of monsters or encounters, and a few plot hooks. Grab a world map I drew up or found online, and wing it. I'll usually just see which of the hooks grabs their attention and build off of that, filling in details on the cards as we go, letting their actions fill out the story.

That way, I can judge how much combat, politics, and puzzles to add to my deck of cards, based on how they attempt to solve the first challenges. Sometimes I will literally shuffle the deck and just draw a random card to see what happens next. If the story starts to pick up a clear direction, that's when I start building out a stronger outline, but it still relies largely on a card system, just because they're easier to work with than a book.

Firstly pick an Antagonist, and their motives. Then see figure out when to make his appearance. After that figure out when and how will players face him, and at what level. This is the end of your campaign, first know that. Don't go into major detail, but at least know how everything ends because it has to have an end, if it does not it gets borring and feels like a waste of time for the players.

When planing sessions make stuff bullet points and write down vauge descriptions/motives of npcs. Write down some basic history and look/feel of locations.

Then improvise everything in between,

>>50423745

Don't prep plots. Prep situations, NPCs (find out what motivates your NPCs) and locations. By knowing your stuff well you can improvise a lot easier.

Get also "immersed" in your setting. If you for example run a Roman era game watch HBO's Rome or bunch of documentaries. You can steal ideas and add small details to your game easier.

Lastly read this article: Don't Prep Plots http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

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I'm running a sandbox Pokemon game, so I don't really prepare anything. Mostly because im lazy, but also because I don't have to. All the locations have already been mapped, npcs already established, wild Pokemon already tracked, gym leaders given teams.

All i needed to do was give it a plot, which boils down to: Hey, no one has caught legendary Pokemon before. Go do that. Everything else takes care of itself.

So my advice to GMs is usually, "Let someone else do it for you".

I make stat blocks and loot and that is about it.

I have an idea when I go in but then adapt to what the players are doing.

>>50422080
Very Little.

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>>50422080
>How do you do GM prep?

It depends on your adventuring group, really.

If you are dealing with roleplayers, you draw a rough map of your game world (one continent should be fine) with locations for cities, dunegeons, kingdoms, political borders, terrain features, terrain types, etc...

Make a few more maps of the specific locations... create adventure hooks, NPC's, random encounters, pre-generated monsters, plot lines, political intrigues, Machiavellian plot twists, planar incursions, mysteries, traps, riddles, unique creatures, sentient magical effects, demonic wars, towns infested with lycanthropes, vampiric cults, etc...

Tie it all together with interesting narratives, detailed maps, even more detailed descriptions, ambiance, atmosphere, lighted candles, a pre-mixed soundtrack, maybe several selections of incense, mood lighting, stone carved dragon goblets, detailed painted minatures, a DM screen with beuatiful artwork on the back and tables and charts on the front, a round table with oak chairs, and a fine selection of hors d'oeuvre and red wine (or desert wine)

If your party consists of chaotic neutral min-maxers, you get yourself a GO (or chess) board, lego men, a notebook of pre-selected monster encounters, a road atlas of Paraguay, an album of screamo music, a case of mountain dew and cheese puffs... and then you start them all off in an unnamed tavern that immediately gets attack by an army of kobolds for no explicable reason.

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>>50422080
At the end of the session, I note down everything that happened, and think about what the consequences of everything the PC did or didn't do could be. I think about how the world changed, what the NPCs will plan to do, what new bullshit might arise, etc. Then I let it rest.

Also, whenever I find cool stuff, be it in real life, fiction, essays, whatever, I think about what part of it is cool and gameable, and I jot it down in a notebook. Then, before a game session, I think back about what happened last time and what I thought could have changed from that, maybe take something from my notebooks, and use those as guidelines on how to react to the PCs actions.

-No plot. Never predict what the PCs will do. Play to find out what happens.

-Use the dice as a reason to say "yes". Justify random encounters instead of saying "no this doesn't make sense".

-Play the world in a way that makes sense and is interesting.

For first session, it is OK to say "this is going to be about X" and start things right in the middle of things, to get the game started.


Don't-s : don't prep plot. don't predict player behaviour. don't get attached to your NPCs/monsters/whatever. don't "keep that cool idea for later", use it NOW. don't cheat (if your system requires cheating, consider that maybe it really doesn't, or that maybe it sucks and you need a better one).

This applies to Traditionnal Roleplaying Games, Storygames, Old-School Roleplaying Games, New School Roleplaying Games and Organized Play Pretend Operations.

>>50429715
Sources: I've been DMing for 8 years, and spend most of my days reading cool stuff and talking with people with much more experience than I do about RPGs.

Did I mention using the Internet to learn more about your hobby is also a great way to improve your DMing in general?

>>50429458
>>50429715
>>50429747
thats all the info you need op
said by the neckbeard trimmer himself