The Process of Prepping

I am severely autistic so I love worldbuilding, even though I have no games to run.
Start with a map. Read up on geology a little, make the mountains make sense, Chuck rivers and lakes where rivers and lakes should be. Now plonk some people in, maybe a few centuries before your game takes place. What do they need? What's important to the running of their civilisation? Food? Wood? Coal? Iron? Trading capabilities? Where would they find these, or how far are they willing to travel? Now you've got some towns, but who rules over them? What other factions are there? What external influences are there? Are people mostly racist against Dwarves, but there's still some who smuggle in Dwarven metals that are vastly superior?

See where you go from there. Build the plot naturally from the world, don't try to cram a world around a plot

I have two rules:
- Prepare short term sparingly
- Prepare reusables whenever possible

Short term stuff is whatever I'm happy to waste effort on. Plan to waste 90% of prep that relates to a specific situation, it'll get ignored or destroyed or countermanded in play.

Reusables are the long term things. Overland encounter tables. Random history-building books in a library. Rumours.
Things I can use over and over again, or things I'll only need to change gradually.

Never plan specifics in the long term. It will always be wasted effort.

I break these rules often, but it helps me focus when I realise I'm writing up 12 random effects from pulling a lever nobody's likely to pull.
Ideally I should be able to run my game from a bunch of random tables and skill, but that's impossible, so I do what I can.

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Not DMing currently, but when I did, I took notes on paper despite DMing online. Had a big old sketchbook-style notebook, and would do session prep on one side and notes of that session on the other, with wonky little arrows connecting shit. Usually tried to do a decent amount of prep work the day after a session so everything's fresh, then revisit it throughout the week.

I like fantasy soundtracks for my background music, and shit like Wardruna that's provoking without being distracting. I collect neat pics (pic related) online in a 'session brewing' folder to consult when I'm dry or feel like something new. Also keep a notepad on my desk 24/7 to accumulate + develop interesting things - NPCs, setting info, plothooks, literally anything. Once a page gets full I sort out the info and put it in my proper notebook (2 sections, one for plothooks/ideas, one for setting info)

I fucking love notebooks.

I flip-flop between "fuck I can't be bothered to prep why can't they just get stuck in a dungeon" when the players are hanging around in the campaign map and "fuck this is getting boring why can't they bum around in the campaign world and talk to factions" when they've been dungeon delving for a while.

Basically I prep while they're in a dungeon and use my prep when they leave.
Works ok.
No set thing I use, just scribble or type things into whatever's closest when I'm feeling inspired.

My big problem is, I have difficulty sitting down and JUST writing notes and prep, if I don't have the news, or a TV show, or something on, I feel like I'm wasting time (as idiotic as that is).

>>50715675
Macro worldbuilding is the only thing I am consistently able to motivate myself to do, likely because of my archaeological and anthropological autisms.

>>50715815
I like your idea to focus on developing reusable assets, maybe I'll start off with stuff like encounter tables and random snippets of news.

>>50715867
I used to have a big binder back in highschool, maybe it's time I made a new one! I also like your idea of doing prep right after a session, I'll give it a go next time around.

>>50715966
How do you keep your stuff organized that way? It's sort of what I'm doing currently but I constantly am losing stuff.

>>50716217
Maybe try playing DnD vids in the background? Something like Matt Colville or anyone else who talks about GMing.

If you hit a roadblock doing prep for a single session, take a break and roll some quick treasure/loot. See if any of the loot combinations trigger any ideas for you; if not, scribble them down on an index card and save it for later. If you already have combat encounters planned, reread the MM descriptions. Make jot notes about setting the tone of an encounter, even if it's not an encounter you plan to use immediately (ex. how the goblin cave smells, what sort of sounds the party hears from outside the council chamber, etc).