What is your way to prepare for a session?

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>>51589444
>What kind of material do you prepare?
A hex map, with multiple wandering monster charts.
Several new set pieces, I make 3-5 simple* dungeons (or pieces of dungeons) between each session.
All my old, unused set pieces. Including dungeons that weren't fully explored (I can cannibalize snippets in a pinch).
A list of NPC faction agendas.
A rogue's gallery for quick, pre-rolled NPC stat blocks.
>Is there any degree of railroading that you apply?
Tweak the details and cast more hooks.
>How do you make sessions flexible?
Schrödinger's Details. If I haven't mentioned something to the PCs, I have no qualms with changing it.
>How much into details do you go?
In my notes?1-2 sentences per empty room.
2-3 sentences per room.
2-5 sentences per non-dungeon encounter.
4-7 sentences per non-dungeon set piece.
Plus maps.
>And how much room for improvisation do you leave?
Room decor, and anything I haven't explicitly prepped.
See also: Schrödinger's Details

*Two pages: One page map with notes in margins, plus one page of notes.

>>51589957
I always wanted to try out a good hexcrawl...

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>>51589444
>The thing is, I've always felt that I was a little railroady
Check the pdf to confirm.

> Most of the times I've gotten myself attached to prewritten material, and I felt that I restrained my players by doing so.
I understand the feeling, but does it reflect reality?
Can you think of actual examples?

>Now my material is basically an environment described in key terms, a simple logic attached to this environment and some driving forces to set some friction.
Clean design. I like it.

>At the actual session I improvise a lot and go with the flow of the game while trying to keep some motifs and imagery for the overarching themes. If I need an encounter, I just pull some stock enemy, give him a little quirk if needed, and hide all crunch in the narrative.
Well done.

>Sessions started to get more dynamic, there is far less crunch involved in the favour of narrative, world started to get more character to it and overall there were more climaxing moments, but for some reason I feel that I will not get away with this for too long.
There is a concept that you can only go to the well of improvisation for so long before you find yourself repeating yourself.
The options are: risk repeating recurring elements, refill the well with new inspiration, or adjust your methods.

>I often see a lot of GMs preparing really hard for each session and writing a lot of material. Because of that I feel that I'm getting lazy by spending just hour and half on preparations, and it's just a current party that I can pull this trick with.
This feeling is normal, but not necessarily truth. Pic related
Each to the own. What works for them might not work for you.
Also, many people will only work as hard as they need to. This is not necessarily lazy, but it can feel like it.

Questions answered in the next post.

And here's the pdf I mentioned

>>51590253
>What kind of material do you prepare?
General (vague as hell) map of local area
At least one “dungeon” map for intended use that session
Several opposed local factions for the PCs to interact with, fight, befriend, ally with, exterminate, etc...
A rough idea of what those factions desire and what they will do if the PCs do nothing
Idea for a proto-BBEG for each faction.
NPCs tied to PCs if possible
One exciting event to kick things off if the PC don’t.

>Is there any degree of railroading that you apply?
Hardset rules of what I don’t do made clear before games starts
I metagame “not splitting the party” as much as I reasonably can.
I have fudged away rolls that would kill fun
(very rare as I got better at fluffing failure, now reserved for things like a low level mook critting to kill a PC five minutes in, which has yet to happen)

> How do you make sessions flexible?
My standing rule is “If it makes sense, you can do it.”
This is more designed to force players to form their ideas from the characters perspective.
I approach it from an attitude of trying to excuse actions, not prohibit them.
As in, if a player wants to run a feather across the face of every goblin they kill and I ask him, “Why?”
If he says, “Because that’s what Altair does.”, I don’t allow it.
If he says, “Because I am offering their blood in dedication to the God of the Wind.”, I say fine and have them add their religion to their character sheet.

>How much into details do you go?
When fleshing out an important, plot important item or NPC? All out. Mostly for fun.
Otherwise I keep it light and simple.

>And how much room for improvisation do you leave?
As much as possible.
I don’t retcon my world though, so if I establish something and it bites me in the ass later, I take the bite.

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>>51590280
>And *here's* the pdf I mentioned
oye

>>51590253
>update never.

>>51589444

just find out flags (plot hooks given by the player characters) and their kinks (what kind of scenes would make one of your players happy enough to orgasm).

Begin a new plotline on-the-fly based on the flags, and every so often sprinkle in one of the kinks. Always keep the plot running. A plotline the players are already invested in is taking preparation away from your next session.

When in doubt or not having a plan, throw them a combat encounter. Most systems contain very direct rules for combat and example enemies. This gives you a breather to come up with something new.

Between sessions I prepare about 30-60 minutes. For the first session it's always a lot more, because you need to basically check for flags and kinks on the way.

>>51590300
>When will it update? Soon?
>They look at you with a troubled, uncomfortable glare, like that of a man who must explain to his paraplegic daughter that her dreams of becoming a ballerina will never come true.

>>51590253
>I understand the feeling, but does it reflect reality?
>Can you think of actual examples?

There were some big cases. Mostly because I didn't thought out some moments well enough and tried to turn the tide back where it flowed to what seemed to me a better narrative. Players didn't complain in the end, though. However, since then I though that I need to change my attitude.

Thanks a lot for the PDF, btw. It cleared some misunderstandings to me.

>>51591787
>tried to turn the tide back where it flowed to what seemed to me a better narrative.
This sounds like trying to retcon or undo player actions to reach a more manageable state.
This, and the whole idea of a "better narrative" is an easy mistake to make.
How I used to fudge more is a good example.
Threads on /tg/ have actually dissuaded me from fudging as much as I used to.
Take the "Cinematic Battle" example:
>Fighter crits the enemy with a climactic critical strike, pulling off an impressive move and bringing it down to 1hp.
>Bard anticlimactically hits it for 3 damage with a slingshot and it dies.
Now, you could make the argument that it would be more cinematic for the impressive blow to finish the enemy off.
However, I consider that a failure of narration:
>Staggering from the fighter’s blow, the enemy wavers, but bears down on the group.
>The bard quips a clever line and shoots straight and true, striking it between the eyes, with an audible crack, it reels from the strike against its skull and collapses.
Unless there’s something like "the enemy happened to be the fighter’s personal sworn nemesis that he vowed to slay himself", I see no reason to fudge.

>Thanks a lot for the PDF, btw.
No worries. Just /tg/ getting stuff done.

>>51589444
I've found less prep and more player involvement to be more my/the group/groups I want's style over the last few years. While there's some inherent derivative aspects of more improvised storytelling, I've found asking the players for input adds a lot of things I wouldn't have through of but can fuck with and keeps them from getting bored with just me going off about my stories. A couple indigames have good reads on how to approach this like Dogs In The Vineyard and Apocalypse World. I think of a question for each player every session, have questions for locations, monsters, npc, etc. To keep it from getting too all over the place we all talk about themes we're interested in and try to work with those.

On the other end, I've taken a lot from the osr blog scene, in that there's no such thing as wasted prep if its not too crunchy. Monsters are about 8 stats and a few sentences of evocative ideas/motivations. Locations are a strong image, a hook and a short random table. Also procedural generation/random tables for starting ideas, taking modules and making them suit your needs, stuff like that.

Prep wise I have a map of the region we all made together (re; Beyond The Wall/Further Afield), an index card for each location with notes, ideas and such for them. An index card for each character, npc, etc. with goals and progress/modifications based on what players do over time. I have/make a stack of about 6-8 encounters and 6-8 locations, if the players encounter something while travelling I just get them to draw it randomly and put it together. I write more as needed. I usually have about 3-4 dungeon/larger encounters that are keyed to locations on the map we made, things characters and npcs have been doing etc. that I usually build out of a 1page dungeon I think is cool, or a module I like and want to work with.

Lose lists of names and traits and junk like that are kicking around too. Index cards man, they're dope.

6 hours initial prep, 2-4 per session?

Don't prepare more than 10 minutes for every hour you plan to play. Make the rest up as you go.