How much Prep Work....

[Blackhawk748]

How much prep work do you usually put into a session? How about for a sandbox game?

Personally i wing it both times, but im trying to get some advice for a buddy im trying to convince to DM. I think ive got him thinking about it and i figured some advice would be helpful. My main issue is that, as stated above, i wing it and that probably isnt the best advice for a first time DM.

[RegalKain]

I wing 99% of my sessions in no small part because my group can turn a "deliver this letter to the man standing next to me" quest into "summon the elder evils and burn the world" in about 10 seconds. That said either use one of the many online generators or pre draw a few various dungeon maps, write down monster stat blocks on index cards. Read up on a few spells you are planning to use and index card them as wwell pre-roll encounter initiatives for your monsters. Spend a few hours before the players arrive learning what their characters can do if you have any grapplers etc try to learn those rules. Depending on your group you may be unable to plan specific things. So instead preroll a bunch of possibilities and roll with it as your players go full ADHD on your plans. :)

[OldTrees1]

I have found that sandbox games respond best to 90% Improv and 25% Prep. (yes 115% does involve some "cheating")

Prep comes in 4 stages:
Stage 1(free time, like being on GitP): Increasing familiarity with the system, balance and homebrewing
Stage 2(4+ hours before the campaign starts): Intuitive familiarity with the setting of your sandbox game
Stage 3(1 hour before the campaign starts, 5 minutes each session): Flexible time schedules for all NPC major players in the sandbox
Stage 4(10 minutes each session): Minor detail prep for areas the players might get to. Keep track of these notes.

[jedipotter]

I create stuff all the time. Around once a day, I'll find some time to make something..like and NPC or an Encounter. And some days I make more. So after a while, I have a big file to use.

[Sir Garanok]

Depends on the party and dm's experience,for low levels a few hours could get the job done

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by jedipotter
I create stuff all the time. Around once a day, I'll find some time to make something..like and NPC or an Encounter. And some days I make more. So after a while, I have a big file to use.

I tend to be like this too. One of the benefits of being a Metro commuter is a comfortable place to sit and write while you're heading home. Usually too dane-bread to do any serious reading after a day in the cubicle, so that's when I'd pull out the notebook and sketch characters, encounters, creatures, maps, anything at all.

Also, doctor's offices. Spent a lot of time in those these past couple of years, and I've written out a lot of character, storyline and encounter notes in those comfy chairs.

[Red Fel]

I have found that sandbox games respond best to 90% Improv and 25% Prep. (yes 115% does involve some "cheating")

Prep comes in 4 stages:
Stage 1(free time, like being on GitP): Increasing familiarity with the system, balance and homebrewing
Stage 2(4+ hours before the campaign starts): Intuitive familiarity with the setting of your sandbox game
Stage 3(1 hour before the campaign starts, 5 minutes each session): Flexible time schedules for all NPC major players in the sandbox
Stage 4(10 minutes each session): Minor detail prep for areas the players might get to. Keep track of these notes.


I create stuff all the time. Around once a day, I'll find some time to make something..like and NPC or an Encounter. And some days I make more. So after a while, I have a big file to use.

Very much these. Generally speaking, as RegalKain notes, your precious plans won't amount to much by the time your players get their grubby mitts on them. What you can do, instead of planning the campaign, is plan the pieces; lots of tiny moving pieces you can swap in and out as the situation demands.

Keeping a quick-reference of ideas for locales, NPCs, organizations and other encounters is a great way to keep afloat when the players take the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Any time you come up with an idea, jot down a quick note, then write it down in your Folder of Big Ideas later. NPC concept? A quick note - race, class(es), basic gist, oversimplified stat block - will do the trick. Great idea for a kingdom? Sure, why not, the PCs will be in a forested hilly region eventually. Evil cult? Ooh, nice one, save it for when you have a big city with a sewer.

The most important prep work, however, is system familiarity. Everything else is workable. Don't want to keep a notebook? Not every DM needs one. Don't want to pregen NPCs? That's fine. But if you don't know how the system works - or, in the very least, if you can't run the rules in a consistent way - things tend to fall apart. That's the one you've got to have. I'm not saying memorize the system (although if you could, you totally should); rather, I'm saying you should have sufficient familiarity to be able to reference needed rules quickly. Naval combat? Hold on, let me grab a copy of Stormwrack. That template? Let's see what Savage Species has to say. Question on a soulmeld ruling? Right here in Magic of Incarnum. Knowing page numbers is even better. If you find yourself running into particular rules repeatedly (e.g. one player just has to play a grappler) it helps to know that particular mechanic down pat, or at least have a note on your DM screen with page numbers for ease of reference.

[troqdor1316]

I have a good habit of multitasking. Generally, I only need to prep a very basic framework for encounters of various kinds in my games, and from there, I can pretty much run things smoothly until I hit a snag, (maybe the players did something unexpected) then just wing it from there while I look up what I need to figure out how to get things back on track.

It works for me, but like I said, it requires the ability to think about like three different things at once, so it might not work for everybody.

[RegalKain]

To build on what Red Fel said get a thing or three of post it notes. Mark pages in frequently used books so you can turn right to them. It will help shave off some time during runs.

Personally I use caimpagn cartographer 3 to do world building and stuff so my world maps are hand made are fairly sparse town wise. This allows me to brain storm small ideas and throw things in as I need to do so. It works for me but YMMV

[sideswipe]

personally i have a loose idea of what i want. example is my current campaign i know that the PC's believe they are good but are unknowingly releasing an uber powerful ancient horror capable of killing gods in a one on one fight. that their lord worships and the current kingdom are trying to keep sealed (unknown to all but the king and his 8 specialist wizards, who are the 8 bosses of the first part of the campaign).

i have phase one
phase two.....
phase 3 - profit!

the rest is all winged

oh and by the way, the focused diviner is one of the worshippers too.

each session is completely on the fly. i occasionally build bosses and custom fights.

[sakuuya]

For a brand-new DM, especially one who seems reluctant, it might be best to direct him to a good published adventure for his first outing. Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of familiarity with 3.5 modules, so I can't give you any specific recommendations, but I'll bet you can find some good stuff if you ask around.

[atemu1234]

I have never spent more than an hour or two designing a mission's story. From there I just draw up the map and stat out the NPCs. This takes about an hour and a half in total for a normal mission and for an excessively large mission maybe two and a half, tops.

From there, I simply stress being able to adapt. If a player goes "off the rails" have an idea of how to get them back on track. Having multiple tracks leading to the same destination is just par for the course, and having them find a map that helps them get through, even if you don't plan it, makes it easier.

[Kol Korran]

I am probably in the minority here. I also think a DM should be able to improvise and wing it. You can usually do it quite ok, without the player knowing it, but to do it REALLY well, I think you need to prepare more. I'll try to explain.

Most of my campaigns (Current one not included, which is an adventure path due to lack of time) Are built around situations, whether they are more plot based, or more sandboxy. The idea is that I don't build a direct path, but I build a large situation, with which the players can play, that can react to them and so on. If it's a sand box, then there are many such situations interwoven. If it's more or less of a more direct route, then there is a string Or flow chart/ interconnected web) of situations to deal with.

As Red Fel said- you need to know the pieces that can move, interact, and change. This is one of the keys. The other is to prepare how it fits in with the players' personalities, play styles and such, and the characters.

Thing is, you can easily plan a situation and have it sort of work out. But if you take time, think about things, think about relationships of powers, groups, NPCs, PCs and such, you can come up with what makes a much better gaming experience- Complexity, and detail. This is what I think the extra preparation is worth. You add more layers, and thus in a way- more pieces, more choices, more believability and so on.

Say you have some rogues guild. You can have the guild leader, say 2-3 head lieutenants, a rough sketch of a "regular rogue", and maybe a safe house, maybe 1-2 interactions. But lets say you wish to prepare more. You connect one of the lieutenants to one of the PCs background, you add some sort of a special "Trouble shooter" that can retaliate it the PCs create more problems. You add strategical strengths (political connections), weaknesses (Most believe in the opposite religion to one of the PCs, making them superstitious) and so on. You bring in more life into this.

Two points that I'd like to emphasize about this. First- EVERYTHING should be planned with the thought of "How would this make it more of an experience to the players?" Taking this design is the key here, and is often more important than simply what makes "in world sense" and interesting just to the GM. Secondly, as some have said, you should have some sort of a notebook for ideas that come. And while this may be enough for most games, I have found it very helpful if you don't just wait for inspiration, but actively set some time to think about issues in your game and design, as directed focused thought can lead to quite a few surprising and awesome ideas at times.

To sum up, my preparation process:
1) Go over the last session, what worked, what didn't work, what especially interested the players, what things would I want to develop further, what to discard. (Never get too attached to an idea. Learn to flow with the game). Also- what specific problems arose.

Write these things down. design a basic "to do list/ work plan"

2) The major part of planning is... just thinking about stuff. Working things out, wither from step one, or ongoing things for the future- new ideas, ongoing issues in the game, and so on. Focus on what would likely have an affect in the next two sessions (Since you don't know how quickly players can take a change.).

Focus on planning situations- complexity, choices, appeal and interest. Rework it as much as needed to make it a more appealing game experience.

Write major decisions and ideas down, write the loose major affects and potential choices in each situation. (Players may of course create new ideas, but you should be aware of the basic stuff).

I find that you can improvise SOOOOO much better when you have the information well understood.

3) Sit down for stats and crunch. (The part I hate most): Before a new campaign or an entirely new situation, this can take up some time. But once a basic situation is ready, this can usually take about 2-3 hours before a session. I usually do this the day before a session.

4) Familiarize yourself better: 1-2 hours before the session. If you have doen the previous, you shoudl allready be quite acquainted with the situation/s. This part is to refresh the memory and learn any specific problematic rules (Gaze attack, underwater movements, a complex trap) that may come. I like to use this part to try and get more in character of major NPCs and opponents as well.

5) At approximately the same time, write to yourself on a SINGLE page (No more) the major things you wish to not forget during the session, in BIG BOLD letters. (Play down the betrayer at times, give a chance for interaction. Don't forget the noble's son, and so on...) Put it on your GM desk when beginning.

A bit much, but I like it. It's quite fun as well, I love the planning part nearly as much as the game itself. It's worthy to note that even though the party wont' see all of what you planned- it doesn't get to waste. You get to recycle stuff, and after some time, you can use previously unused stats, NPCs and more with little changes. :smallbiggrin:

That's my way at least. I know a lot prefer to just "wing it", and it's fine. I think you can get much better results, and can improvise with much more depth, richness and complexity if you give things some dedicated thought and planning. A bit more is all it take.s

[janusmaxwell]

At a severe risk I'm going to out myself as the possible GM that Blackhawk mentioned and say that it's mostly nervous perfectionism combined with low self-esteem that's making me reluctant to DM a game, especially since I don't know if I'd have as much fun as a player...plus I've been a bit obsessed with the story of the ultimate failure/horror show DM and I'm a bit sensitive to the idea that I'd end up "Fanfic-ing" the setting/story/powers.

What I do have is mostly plans and ideas, some of which make me hesitate for fear of being too unbalanced for the players. On the one side it's "Oh is that a Tarrasque? *yawn* One-shotted, he's down..." and the other side is "You want use to take on an Elder Black dragon...with a ****ing STICK!?"

Plus the setting idea I had is ripped FLAGRANTLY from various games of my child-hood. Let's see how many of y'all can guess which **** I ripped off from the PS2 library and earlier systems...

The Setting is a Fantasy world with almost all the various fantasy races, except the ones that I'm very un-familiar with (I know what drow are and a general idea of their society with slavery, females in charge, and worshipping a spider-god, but beyond that I don't know ****) When I was first writing this idea so many years ago, It was just going to humans with absolutely no other races...but I can't have a campaign without elves/dwarves/orcs and stuff can I?

While this is a Medieval fantasy world, the origins of the world are supremely advanced. On the scale of Nano-technology and space-travel. The origin of the human species on the planet is actually what amounts to a "Colony ship" landing and the humans interacting with the new world and re-discovering stuff like magic and spirits. At a point there was a terminator style judgement day. On one side there's humans that had given themselves too far to machines. Less Borg and more mutated/armored flesh stuff due to nanites playing unholy hell with biological functions...like Bioshock Splicers if that stuff was caused by advanced tech. The other side were humans using various flavor's of magic, backed up by the supreme forces of the world, as well as very powerful Dragons representing some of the basic elements of Nature.

blahblah devestated the world blahblah high technology ended up forbidden from use blahblah now stories of "Demons" in this fantasy setting are what we would refer to as "Cyborgs, Androids, Mutants Etc". So instead of Summoning a demon from a summoning circle, an explorer might trip into/find an ancient factory for whatever and activate the security system. If he survived, he'd tell people "THERE'S DEMONS IN THERE!!!"

Over-arching plot: There's a church that effectively runs EVERY F-ING THING in this setting, much like Catholicism in Europe way back when. Oh there's kings and queens and governors, but the Church of Eva has all the real power. Why are they in power you ask? Sometime following the "Judgement day" Shenanigans a race of dragon-men came about (It's complicated) that had ludicrous amounts of magic and physical power. They were accepted but by no means trusted by humanity as a whole. (X-Men? What's that?:smalltongue:) Natural disasters started happening the world over and the Cult of Eva rose up to stop the manifold cataclysms and blame the dragon-men as the cause of it all. Despite the great power of The Brood (Catch-all term for dragon men) they were driven to extinction. This was propagandized by the church in their holy scriptures as evidence of the power of God against the unholy abominations. Truth was that the Brood realized if they actually warred full-scale the effects would be devastating. So they repeatedly ran and hid and were driven to ground, hoping with futility that people would realize they weren't the cause of the problem.

(Social commentary: Broad communications like Radio, TV, or internet are the only reason that peaceful demonstrations work. If you don't have a way of making people see and hear with their own eyes what is actually happening in a tense/revolutionary situation, the only information they'll get is the books and papers written by whoever is left standing. And anybody left standing is gonna claim to be the "Hero" of the fight rather than the villain)

So that extermination of the Brood was 1000 years ago. Holy scripture has painted the Brood to be on an equally horrifying scale to the ancient Demons (He-said She-said is easier when He or She is too dead to speak anymore...) The Church as ruled since then, but not with an iron fist. They don't actually need to, as they pretty much run everything. The only thing they do really militarily is the occasional purging of Demonic infestations as the Brood are all gone.

The political situations of the various kingdoms of the setting are about what you'd expect. You have some places that are completely stable and peaceful. Spots that are rife with territorial disputes and political maneuverings by nobles and their armies. The only X-factor (Which is where the party comes in) is that for the first time ever, a country where the ruling power was overthrown by a coup d'etat (common) has declared the worship of Eva to be illegal and open war on the Church itself. The over-arching plot is going to be dealing with this rebellion in whatever way they choose, while also being able to do stuff that's only tangentially related, or completely unrelated to this major point.

All of that is fluff, but as for crunchy stuff I've got 3 major ideas.

First is that this is a rather low magic setting. The equivalent of an Archmage here would be mid-level in a regular setting. There are undead but these were either created as a by product of "Demons" or as tortured spirits. So nothing like a true "Lich" who can kill you with a harsh word magically. The magical capabilities of players and people in this setting outright will be low, but that's where the Mediums come in.

Most magic that is considered common is either (A)From the Church, in the form of healing wounds in themselves and others, and rays of light that sear enemies/demons to ash. (B) Schools of magic (Druids/Sorcery/whatever) which are still in the process of creating and discovering ways to manipulate the world and enchanting weaponry in various ways. (C) Pagan temples that worship the raw aspects/concepts of the natural world and let devout/high-ranking followers use tablets/artifacts that grant them powers over those aspects, to varying degrees.

Why would there be Pagan temples allowed to run with the "Church of Eva" controls the entire freaking world? TL:DR for the same reason that Christians aren't forbidden from cooking their food/go mountain climbing/swimming/breathing. The pagan temples are less of "worship" but more as a respectful acknowledgment of these primal forces which doesn't actually cut into the Church of Eva's "bottom-line" and actively seeking to suppress these temples would cause unnecessary chaos and rebellion.

The Mediums of the Temples will come in levels (I'm thinking 3) with the most readily accessible being available in stores as sort of potent "Charms". These will allow the player to have access to 1 or 2 of the "Granted powers" in a Cleric of that particular Domain of a certain level. (Fire Medium: Player has access to a Firebolt as a 1st through 6th level cleric, with the level 6 type of Fire Medium being the most expensive but also granting the Fire Resistance 10 power along with the Fire Bolt)

The next levels of Mediums are only given out to shamans of the temples at various ranks or those who've shown themselves to be VERY respectful/mindful of this primal force of the universe. These charms have the Granted powers of whatever Domain they represent, plus access to the Domain Spells up to level 4, with the number of casts of those spells based 1+ the Bonus Spells table (They can choose whether to base their bonus spells off of INT/WIS/CHA)

The ultimate level of Medium's are completely one-of-a-kind and lost in the world somewhere, waiting to be found. Having them be in the Temples themselves would be tantamount to claiming "Control" over an element, which would be sacrilegious and arrogant. Plus, it'd be too enticing a target for a selfish thief or wannabe warlord. The powers of the 3rd tier medium would be Granted Powers of a Domain (Plus one more, custom), Access to the Domain Spells up to 7th level with the rate being 1+ Your ability score bonus +4. (You chose to base your Medium power of your INT which is 15? Your bonus spells from the Ultimate (whatever) Medium will be based as though your INT was a 19, and so on)

I Feel so happy about this one: The Desire Medium (which by itself is the Ultimate Tier medium) will give the user/wielder access to a spell that does more damage to an enemy based on how many types of buffs/resistances are currently in effect on their target. It won't destroy the enchantments themselves, but rather do an extra Die of damage directly to the target (Mage Armor, Fire resistance, Bulls-strength and Incorporeal? Take 4d? damage) Still deciding if this should be a D6 or a D8...

Anyway another aspect that I MIGHT implement cause I thought it was cool: Rather than stat points every 4 levels anywhere the players want, You get stat points every 3 levels, and 2 points at levels 9 and 18. The crux of the this however is that players have to alternate at levels 3, 6, 12, and 15 their stat points between the Physical traits (STR/DEX/CON) and their Mental traits (INT/WIS/CHA)

Example: Player hits level 3 and puts a point into his Str. At level 6 he has to put his point into his mental area and chooses Wis. At level 9 he's got 2 points which he can divide up between his mental or physical traits however he wishes with the only limitation being that he can't put BOTH points into a single stat (For this example he decided to boost his STR by 1 again and adds 1 to his Con). The process repeats for Levels 12/15/18

Anyway that's what I've got so far, but besides other details that I don't know if I should share for Spoilery reasons I haven't got the first clue if I'm up for the task of being a GM.