When do you prep your session?

#21

Depend on what kind of game I’m running. For my casual guys, I usually use the time I have to get to where we’re playing to think of something. For my long-running campaigns, I do more prep before, especially if we’re starting a new arc. I like to think about the basic premise and scenarios one or two weeks before the game (we play every two or three months on the weekend) while I’m walking, so that takes more or less an hour (unless I get distracted by dogs, bikes, trees or other things). Then I percolate on that a bit and usually plan to write things down two or three days before the game (but often I just type some things up during the train ride shortly before the game).

I have yet to run something that needs a lot of prep for the Gauntlet. I guess I might prep more for that, though.

2 Likes
#22

I usually prep either on Wednesday, or on the weekend. How long that is before my next game is pretty variable, those are just the times when I have the most creative energy.

#23

Prep starts when I think about running the game, but until the day or so before, nothing’s really gelled. Notecards get broken out the day of to outline and stat out things.

2 Likes
#24

I don’t really believe in prep.

The Game is a conversation, right?

I prep for it the same way I do any other conversation; when my brains wils it, I think about what I might want to see in the conversation, get some ideas and then, as soon as it starts?

Throw it all away.

1 Like
#25

I don’t do any prep ever except creating forms and tables for possible use in play. After a session, I transcribe in great detail in the form of maps, lists, calendars, and new tables.

For me, one of the mantras of PbtA is, “No one cares about your stupid prep.”

4 Likes
#26

GMless one-shots are my sweet spot, so there’s not much prep to be done. But for longer games, my prep mostly consists of coming up with a juicy way to launch the next session. For example, I just finished the first session of a two-part Dead Scare game, and the PCs had just made it to the church where most of the neighborhood is sheltering. So sometime the day of the next session, I’ll come up with a good idea for who greets them and what they find at the church – but everything beyond that will be improvised during the game.

2 Likes
#27

I like to start a few days before hand. It takes me about an hour or three to write down 20 points about the upcoming adventure. I try to get NPCs, locales, motivations and plots hammered out. I write it in short form, just little reminders that’ll jog my memory.

When I run my game, I know what’s going on. I throw stuff at the PCs and have the world react to what they’re doing. I fill in missing NPC bits on the fly.

This works well for games like Fate, Masks, or D6 Star Wars. I don’t think I’d be able to do it for D&D or other games where you need detailed NPC stats.

All this being said, I actually don’t need any prep for my Vanagard games. The cards and runes provide all I need to make up everything on the fly.

I’m hoping to do a full on Vanagard RPG sometime. I major selling point will be less time for Norns to prep.

  • Chris
2 Likes
#28

I like to do prep just after players ask me an unexpected question or go in a direction I had utterly not anticipated, while the game is underway. It usually only takes half a minute or so, but it’s ongoing and intermittent.

6 Likes
#29

This is something I’m working on doing better. It’s also a good way to practice withdrawing myself from the Conversation, to keep it as something that is focused around the center of the table, between all participants, and not just a series of conversations between player and GM.

2 Likes
#30

Before starting a new game I tend to spend a lot of time pouring over the rules trying to internalize them so when we play there is zero looking things up. Ideally, even if I can’t remember the rule then I can make a ruling that is in the spirit of the system if I “get” the rules system.

After that, I try to do very little prep. I might roll on tables to get an adventure seed that’s about a sentence long and expand during play or I might look over the clocks for any actions the players have put into the game, otherwise, I prefer to just bounce off the players’ actions during the session.

@Michael I do the “explain things” in the car as well! Especially if I’m going to be introducing a new concept at the next session. I tend to teach systems piecemeal as we play (e.g., I never talk about combat until a session we’re about to have some, so I practice a little summary for it). Obviously this happens less over the life of a campaign but I find it really helpful.

1 Like
#31

I run my weekly Waterdeep: Dragon Heist session on Wednesday evenings, and lately I’ve been trying to do the bulk of my reading ahead on weekends. Then, I use my lunches on Monday and Tuesday to review what I’ve read and adapt it for my group and into notes I can use during session. I find that not waiting until the last minute (i.e., the hour before session) has dramatically reduced how stressed I feel about running the game. When I’m not running a published adventure, I’ve got a lot of mileage (no pun intended) out of putting on my favorite game soundtracks during my commute and simply thinking about the game while driving.

3 Likes
#32

Unless I’m playing a prep-heavy game (which I don’t really do anymore), I do more of a “get my head at the right place” prep (as in “consuming media that inspires me”) than prepping resources for the game itself. I tend to keep my prep at a maximum of one page of very sparse notes, just highlighting questions I want the players to answer and broad ideas for themes. That kind of prep takes at most one hour, and I usually do it the evening before the game.

8 Likes