As a DM, how do you prepare for games?

[TheRinni]

One of my favorite DMs of all time doesn't do much preparation outside of maps. He likes to improv, and he's very good at it. I, on the other hand, try to do as much preparation as possible.

I'm curious as to what other DMs do as far as preparation goes. Do you write out various NPCs, or do you make up personalities on the fly? Does every miscellaneous city have a map, or do you just have one large map? Do you plan various hooks, to get your players involved in plots? Do you have various plots/adventures planned, or do you just have one?

Oh, and how do you keep all these things organized? Notebook, laptop, memorization?

[Xerinous]

As far as plot goes, I like to have some idea of where the party will probably go, so I outline where I'd like the story to go, and what I think they'll do...which is, of course, almost never what they actually do...

I plan out encounters ahead of time, so I've got the numbers and descriptions for what will jump out of bush/from behind a rock/fall out of the sky and attack the group, because I hate coming up with that stuff on the spot.

I like to plan out plot-important NPCs' personalities ahead of time too, and their stats if I think they might see combat. NPCs like innkeepers and blacksmiths get personalities based on whatever I feel like assigning them when the party talks to them.

In the past I've written all of my notes in my Handy-Dandy notebook. I'll probably switch to my laptop though, easier to find stuff when you have a search function built in. Plus it's a little less obvious when you're opening something on a computer than when you're flipping through pages in a notebook.

[maximus25]

Last friday was my first game. Couple of hours before it started, "**** I don't have a campaign set up oh god oh god." I just set them up in a forest, set them against goblin barbarians, then some BBEG controlled the goblin they were trying to get information from because the goblins were taking human prisoners from a caravan.

They guessed it was an aboleth, I just went with it and was like, "Darn, you figured me out, you're good guessers. I'll be seeing you again."

Everything went better then expected.

[Kefkafreak]

I don't prepare anything, I think about the next session when I'm bored at work or whatever and improvise. I have the basic plot thought out, though it hardly ever goes as expected.

[SleepyBadger]

I remember the first time I created an adventure some 15 years back. I know I had everything planned to the smallest detail, the smell of rooms, decoration, clothes of NPCs etc. That's a nice thing to do if you have the time and don't get mad if your players simply walk the other way and so some of your preparations would be completely wasted. Since then I'm rather fond of improvising. I do have the whole campaign story mapped out in general (with the most important NPCs) and also think about ideas for the side adventures but I never pregenerate details If I have to come up with NPCs on the fly my characters are likely to meet again I would note the names and personalities I created for them so that they are consistent. As for the city maps, they are rarely an issue as the characters don't have one unless they buy one.

[Gwendol]

The plot and background are figured out, and I stat the villains out ahead of an encounter. Other than that there is much improvisation, and use of printed adventures and/or NPC databases. I'm lazy and don't like to spend much time dealing with the details.

Everything is on computer: even dice and maps.

[vampire2948]

I almost entirely improvise as I go along, usually spend some time thinking about it in the days before the session.

I think it is better to prepare something properly, though.