Fellow GMs, how much do you actually prep for your games? I get pretty invested into that stage, usually coming up with (or stealing) a plot hook, turning it into an objective or premise matching my party's general feel. If I can I get some minis and terrains to match the game and tend to work with scenes for which premises I have prewritten but improvising the in-betweens based on party choices. I know some people improvise whole campaigns on the go but that's not what me and my players are into.
>>96664454Depends on the game. In general, I only prepare quests, general idea of locations, most significant potential plot points, and key NPCs. The rest is improvisation.During my Vaesen campaign:- Personal quest for each player, based on his or her dark secret- A couple of key NPCs- Three BBEGs for choosing and their stories- Filler quests, one per creature from the book- List of inventions and news from 1985 to explain politics and tech level of the world- Three potential endingsDuring my Spire campaign:- Seven key NPCs, each with a loose questline- Eight potential endings- More or less remembered all the graphomania about setting from the book- Global home rule mechanics for spreading influence through the floors of the cityDuring my current homebrew campaign:- hand-drawn map, updated from session to session- About twelve locations and connected quests- Personal quests for each player- A couple of key NPCs and BBEGs- Logic and fluff of the worldFor my Slugbluster sessions:- Metaplot, tweaking setting a timeline of the gameFor my current Mythic Bastionland sessions:- Hand-drawn map- Metaplot about the City quest, lore and philosophy behind it
>>96664454Very minimal prep guy here. Mostly I prepare stuff that I know will require some kind of battle map. The rest of my preparations are short cliff notes on various topics that I can see coming up during the session.Usually the only specific I bother with are the most important of NPCs, general zeitgeist of locations they go to, and major enough happenings to be worth an investigation/involvement. Everything else I do is improv.
>>96664454If I'm running my preferred World of Darkness games, I can often get by on a session outline (PCs investigating X, bad guy Y planning to jump them, get a call from NPC Z), a list of important characters and locations, and some broad notes for NPC stats/powers. Mysteries and more important scenes are worth a few paragraphs to run properly. I also will spend a lot of driving time practicing voices for NPCs, which gives me time to get into their heads and figure out how they will react to the PCs during the session.So, I do what seems a reasonable amount of prep, but much of the session is improvised. Give me a single evening and I can be ready to run the following day.I'm also running an online tactical game, so I need much more prep. Maps (sci-fi, built or customized to fit the setting or what the players are doing), tokens, splash art to give players a visual reference outside of combat. I need to assemble the encounters in our VTT, and then be ready to modify them if the PCs come up with a cool plan I hadn't expected. All on top of the usual prep.This is a lot more work, and I would not say it is commensurately rewarding, but I haven't figured out how to be more efficient with this particular game yet.Yes, captcha, I do indeed play with "DGAYS" quite often.
