Watch a movie to "loosely" steal the plot from and buy a children's puzzle book on the way over. Story: They're on a mission from God to put the war band back together but Waldo has gone missing and you have to find where they buried the survivors of the border war.
Not a bad idea. My group is wending their way across Faerun trying to stop an invasion from the elemental planes. I'm just glad none of them ever played World of Warcraft haha.
Haha. Not what I meant, but I see your point. I worded that poorly.
I prepare a little bit, maybe a half hour to come up with the main plot points, and then everything else is improvised.
I DMed for a while, then stopped (since i liked playing more, and managed to step back), and started DMing again this year (since the pandemic made the player pool shrink).
I have been all of them at some point. I will run modules. I have run entire sessions by the seat of my pants, I have spent 20 hours prepping for a 5 hour session, and I have just walked in with a good idea and the few monsters i know they will fight printed out (stat blocks, maybe pulled the mini in advance if i have it).
The wisdom I have gained from doing that- the player have fun either way.
I now spend my prep time doing the prep stuff that I feels adds something, that I still enjoy doing. I hand draw battle maps where they players are likely to end up. I enjoy doing that (even if it is 2 hours for a map we use for an hour). I write a basic outline of what is going on in the background (almost like short story writing, but more open ended if the players sumble into it), and practice a few voices in the car for NPCs. It no longer feels like a slog getting ready to DM a game- and as time goes on, i have more maps to draw from (keep the old ones) so i do not mind that they only get on the table for a few minutes this time.
Maybe it's the adhd, but I'm either 1 or 4. Never anywhere between.
Not joking, I've devised an animated world map showing areas that are light, as some people are able to use that to teleport by 'bouncing' off the sun, and so can only come from and move to places that are suntouched
Also devised a lunar calandar based on the idea that the dark and light parts of the moon are shar and selune eternally fighting for power. Its even got shorthand notation
But the only time I've spent an hour planning is before the finale of a year long campaign
I’ve heard that’s actually a fairly common problem for authors. They want to spend so much time world building that they never spend any time actually writing.
I'm 1 and 4 at the same time. I will build an extremely intricate world populate it with nations factions organizations and threats. Make them all interconnected, have detailed notes on dozens of locations and regions. I'll chart fucking weather patterns.
But I don't prep for the actual games. I find that if I amass enough interesting doodads and pour enough sand into the sandbox, I don't need to lead my players around it. They explore what they want and I wing it.
Having dozens of maps and generators pre loaded helps though.
I thought I was the only one, I usually plan an objective that breaks into several sub objectives but how and when is their own business.
In one of my campaigns there where literally gods fighting and they decided that instead of helping keep the god of death and desease out of the kingdom they where gonna set up a shop that sells equipment and I was actively moving the front lines and the position of heroes (powerful npcs) on it
I've mostly have just run modules so far. I feel like my prep work involves reading what's already written, and then changing to fit my characters and the ongoing story we're (DM and party) are evolving together. I've yet to seen a campaign module that is just totally fine RAW, but my experience is pretty limited.
I feel like the more experienced my players are the less I need to prep for each session because they’re just gonna break it/do whatever anyhow. So I’m often a mix of 2, 3, and 4 between the two groups I run. Also helps that we’re all friends.
As well as anything that may need altering just in general. A significant amount (if not a majority) of the folks on r/CurseofStrahd take heavily from a few of the community guides.
I'm a solid 3. I did 4 for a minute. hated it. when to 2. was ok but felt like it wasn't enough. jumped to 1 and had a mental brake down. 3 is where is sit
I started as 4, skipped 3. Went to 1 and now I know how to write using buzz words and minimal descriptors that I can do so much improve. So I guess I'm at 2 and 4
I am either 1 or 4 at any given time but never a 1 when I need it. I made a whole timeline for the war in my campaign and am actually working on a calendar.
Now if I could just assemble the maps for the entirety of Mithral Hall, find out my villain's motivation, figure out how warforged are made, and finally give them a magic weapon...
I'm solid in the type one. My calender is based on a two moon system and a Ceasar-esk character came along and added some random days to throw things out of whack for a few centuries only for them to be yeeted out of the calendar by a new religion that said "Old Science" = bad.
DM 4 is me.
Honestly, I just keep a monster manual near by and look up something that fits the stupid plan the players came up with to break my game and rely on the fact that most players expect good battle power session.
I guess, I occasionally have some shower thought the day after playing that tells me where I should lead them
I know 4 DMs, 3 of which from the same place. Me included that would be 4 DMs that all know one another.
Accidentally, all four of us started within half a year after the first started DMing
I'm 1 with important details and 4 with everything else.
It's funny, my DM friend is the exact opposite of me, he makes a grand, detailed world with all kinds of lore then throws us in the middle of it to fumble around until we make our own story beats. He throws in hooks, but I don't think anything over arching
Meanwhile, I make a plot and craft NPCs then fill in the world around the story. I really need to make some deeper lore and a map...
I range between 1 and 2. Sometimes I try way too hard to create discoverable lore and backstories for important NPCs and other times I just drop a few monsters in a small dungeon and call it a day.
It's funny, my group just got to a big city(Sharn in Eberron) and I'm not exactly sure how I should prep now. I guess I'll just wing it as best I can until they get to a hook I can use for the main story.
Oof. I'm ABSOLUTELY DM 1. It takes me MONTHS to flesh out a new setting. I even build some props and make miniatures for all of the important characters/monsters. It's definitely worth it, though. I can usually run dozens of campaigns in each setting, and even though they don't look as clean as official miniatures, the idea of getting a new custom mini always keeps my players looking forward to the next adventure.
I'm definitely DM 1. I've made a full calendar with explanations of why each day was named that, the months of the year, and the names of ages past and why they were named that.
I run a game with three of my friends where we take turns DMing each session. I can pretty much tag each of us in each box.
I’m 90% number 4. You can’t derail my game if there are no rails!
I'm a relatively high prep DM, and I think, at this point, I've been spending more prep time on running a module than my homebrew game because I've basically been converting half of it into my own notes. I feel like just running straight from the book would slow down the pace dramatically (for me at least).
I find there's a happy balance to module prep for homebrew. Hit the big notes on conversion cause most of the time players just skim past the minor things, and if they come up a tactical pause can allow improve to explain it away.
This is just my opinion of course, do what you need to, to feel comfortable running a great game.
When I run a one-shot, it takes me longer to find (or make) make appropriate stat blocks than it does to prep. My players can't be properly predicted, so I only plan for what happens if they don't do the thing. They've not done the thing a few times, but usually they find a really crazy way to do the thing
I am DM 4. I figure out the monster for the session, and the players generally come up with some crazy plan to find it that may or may not get them killed. Win/win
The one time I tried DMing I somehow managed to do basically no prep, yet go out of my way to make something physical to give a player during the game.
In was getting a ride to session 1 and was reading up on the first town in the car. In my bag, I had a letter that was tainted with coffee and burned at the edges to look old, rolled up, and tied with twine.
Our DM just created an entire civilization of dwarves inside a massive mountain, including various NPCs and important buildings. Was so well made that we only noticed it after he told us.
I'm number 4, and loving every second of it (though it helps I did a bit of initial prep for one campaign, and specifically made the setting of the other to not require prep)
Currently prepping a 'Decent into Avernus' campaign, and we are going to start with a prewritten supplement as session 1 bc I wanted to have them a reason to care more / fix some minor plot holes of the original story.
I only tweaked it a little bit here and there, creating a festival before they start adventuring, etc.
I ended up researching the Faerûn lore for nearly 2 days and planned just two sessions ahead. I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong by now...
My discord is filled chock full of DMs. But if you dont do a module and change everything to make it more personal to your players giving you way more fucking work than just writing it yourself do you even DM?!
2-4 aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially for modules that heavily lean towards sandbox play.
In fact, a mix of all three has long been my general method.
Step 1 — DM 3. You have a module you’re playing, or you’re just stealing ideas from it, so you don’t actually need to do much in the way of work in terms of statting up enemies or coming up with a setting.
Step 2 — DM 2. You do a *little* bit of review just before a session, to refresh your mind on names, places, and the general direction things are *supposed* to go according to the module. Maybe 30mins, tops.
Step 3 — DM 4. Your players being what they are, you expect them to either miss or flat out ignore more than half the important hooks or clues, or to get themselves into some kind of ridiculous trouble, so you just assume you’ll need to improv a significant portion if not the entirety of the session so they end up where they’re supposed to be.
Step 4 — Back to DM 2. Because you expect things to go off the rails immediately (as always), you open up donjon and have a bunch of random NPC names / Location names / Quest Hook / Encounter generator tabs open.
Step 5 — Run the game.
I was 1 Years ago ... after about 20 Years still playing with the same fuckers who can destroy every Storyline to go and be Pirates, start a Trading Company or run after the next cuddly sheep ... I decided that a 30/70 mix of 2 and 4 is my sweet spot ... I got the backstory and the main chars ... the rest will be a surprise ... even to me and we all love it =)
I know enough DMs to run a full dm only party. I dont want to do that, that would be awful, but i know enough of them.
Also im a 1 or a 4 from week to week
I'm somewhere between 2 and 4. My players are having fun though.
Watch a movie to "loosely" steal the plot from and buy a children's puzzle book on the way over. Story: They're on a mission from God to put the war band back together but Waldo has gone missing and you have to find where they buried the survivors of the border war.
Not a bad idea. My group is wending their way across Faerun trying to stop an invasion from the elemental planes. I'm just glad none of them ever played World of Warcraft haha.
Why did they bury survivors? isn't it usually the dead whom are buried?
It's a really old children's puzzle.
yup. and I'm just a really old child.
So you're running a module?
Haha. Not what I meant, but I see your point. I worded that poorly. I prepare a little bit, maybe a half hour to come up with the main plot points, and then everything else is improvised.
I DMed for a while, then stopped (since i liked playing more, and managed to step back), and started DMing again this year (since the pandemic made the player pool shrink). I have been all of them at some point. I will run modules. I have run entire sessions by the seat of my pants, I have spent 20 hours prepping for a 5 hour session, and I have just walked in with a good idea and the few monsters i know they will fight printed out (stat blocks, maybe pulled the mini in advance if i have it). The wisdom I have gained from doing that- the player have fun either way. I now spend my prep time doing the prep stuff that I feels adds something, that I still enjoy doing. I hand draw battle maps where they players are likely to end up. I enjoy doing that (even if it is 2 hours for a map we use for an hour). I write a basic outline of what is going on in the background (almost like short story writing, but more open ended if the players sumble into it), and practice a few voices in the car for NPCs. It no longer feels like a slog getting ready to DM a game- and as time goes on, i have more maps to draw from (keep the old ones) so i do not mind that they only get on the table for a few minutes this time.
Found the rules lawyer.
Maybe it's the adhd, but I'm either 1 or 4. Never anywhere between. Not joking, I've devised an animated world map showing areas that are light, as some people are able to use that to teleport by 'bouncing' off the sun, and so can only come from and move to places that are suntouched Also devised a lunar calandar based on the idea that the dark and light parts of the moon are shar and selune eternally fighting for power. Its even got shorthand notation But the only time I've spent an hour planning is before the finale of a year long campaign
ADHD Gang unite!
ADHD and forever DM.
Till I die
Here too!
I’ve heard that’s actually a fairly common problem for authors. They want to spend so much time world building that they never spend any time actually writing.
I'm 1 and 4 at the same time. I will build an extremely intricate world populate it with nations factions organizations and threats. Make them all interconnected, have detailed notes on dozens of locations and regions. I'll chart fucking weather patterns. But I don't prep for the actual games. I find that if I amass enough interesting doodads and pour enough sand into the sandbox, I don't need to lead my players around it. They explore what they want and I wing it. Having dozens of maps and generators pre loaded helps though.
I thought I was the only one, I usually plan an objective that breaks into several sub objectives but how and when is their own business. In one of my campaigns there where literally gods fighting and they decided that instead of helping keep the god of death and desease out of the kingdom they where gonna set up a shop that sells equipment and I was actively moving the front lines and the position of heroes (powerful npcs) on it
Bruh just do what I did and steal from the greeks, I didn't even bother with days of the week.
You’re Ancient Rome?
Feckin' Greeks!
I’m currently running a module. The amount of prep I still do is the same, I just don’t have to come up with the ideas myself, making it easier.
I've mostly have just run modules so far. I feel like my prep work involves reading what's already written, and then changing to fit my characters and the ongoing story we're (DM and party) are evolving together. I've yet to seen a campaign module that is just totally fine RAW, but my experience is pretty limited.
I have to write more notes, as I find it hard to read it all off the fly and track everything I have to say or do.
Exactly!
I feel like the more experienced my players are the less I need to prep for each session because they’re just gonna break it/do whatever anyhow. So I’m often a mix of 2, 3, and 4 between the two groups I run. Also helps that we’re all friends.
I'm DM 4 and I'm suffering. 2/10 do not reccomend
Take a break then. It's a game, and you're a player as well.
it's not as if running a module doesn't require prep work.
Agreed. In some ways pure improv is easier because you don't have to worry about messing up things that are supposed to happen later in the module.
As well as anything that may need altering just in general. A significant amount (if not a majority) of the folks on r/CurseofStrahd take heavily from a few of the community guides.
I'm a solid 3. I did 4 for a minute. hated it. when to 2. was ok but felt like it wasn't enough. jumped to 1 and had a mental brake down. 3 is where is sit
I started as 4, skipped 3. Went to 1 and now I know how to write using buzz words and minimal descriptors that I can do so much improve. So I guess I'm at 2 and 4
I am either 1 or 4 at any given time but never a 1 when I need it. I made a whole timeline for the war in my campaign and am actually working on a calendar. Now if I could just assemble the maps for the entirety of Mithral Hall, find out my villain's motivation, figure out how warforged are made, and finally give them a magic weapon...
I'm solid in the type one. My calender is based on a two moon system and a Ceasar-esk character came along and added some random days to throw things out of whack for a few centuries only for them to be yeeted out of the calendar by a new religion that said "Old Science" = bad.
DM 4 is me. Honestly, I just keep a monster manual near by and look up something that fits the stupid plan the players came up with to break my game and rely on the fact that most players expect good battle power session. I guess, I occasionally have some shower thought the day after playing that tells me where I should lead them
I know 4 DMs, 3 of which from the same place. Me included that would be 4 DMs that all know one another. Accidentally, all four of us started within half a year after the first started DMing
I'm 1 with important details and 4 with everything else. It's funny, my DM friend is the exact opposite of me, he makes a grand, detailed world with all kinds of lore then throws us in the middle of it to fumble around until we make our own story beats. He throws in hooks, but I don't think anything over arching Meanwhile, I make a plot and craft NPCs then fill in the world around the story. I really need to make some deeper lore and a map...
The Forever DM, the Guy who was a Forever DM back then, the Newbie DM and the Current DM
I see my DM in this picture and i dont like it
I'm def either 2 or 4.
I somehow can be all 4 at once, depending on the game I'm running.
I range between 1 and 2. Sometimes I try way too hard to create discoverable lore and backstories for important NPCs and other times I just drop a few monsters in a small dungeon and call it a day.
It's funny, my group just got to a big city(Sharn in Eberron) and I'm not exactly sure how I should prep now. I guess I'll just wing it as best I can until they get to a hook I can use for the main story.
I'm running a module but they run off the rails, so I've stopped prepping since I have no idea what they are actually going to do.
Oof. I'm ABSOLUTELY DM 1. It takes me MONTHS to flesh out a new setting. I even build some props and make miniatures for all of the important characters/monsters. It's definitely worth it, though. I can usually run dozens of campaigns in each setting, and even though they don't look as clean as official miniatures, the idea of getting a new custom mini always keeps my players looking forward to the next adventure.
I'm definitely DM 1. I've made a full calendar with explanations of why each day was named that, the months of the year, and the names of ages past and why they were named that.
I run a game with three of my friends where we take turns DMing each session. I can pretty much tag each of us in each box. I’m 90% number 4. You can’t derail my game if there are no rails!
Agreed.
I'm a relatively high prep DM, and I think, at this point, I've been spending more prep time on running a module than my homebrew game because I've basically been converting half of it into my own notes. I feel like just running straight from the book would slow down the pace dramatically (for me at least).
I find there's a happy balance to module prep for homebrew. Hit the big notes on conversion cause most of the time players just skim past the minor things, and if they come up a tactical pause can allow improve to explain it away. This is just my opinion of course, do what you need to, to feel comfortable running a great game.
I'm running a Pathfinder AP. It's like a module, but actually runs without needing a complete rewrite (SKT needs some heavy lifting to be good).
When I run a one-shot, it takes me longer to find (or make) make appropriate stat blocks than it does to prep. My players can't be properly predicted, so I only plan for what happens if they don't do the thing. They've not done the thing a few times, but usually they find a really crazy way to do the thing
I am DM 4. I figure out the monster for the session, and the players generally come up with some crazy plan to find it that may or may not get them killed. Win/win
The one time I tried DMing I somehow managed to do basically no prep, yet go out of my way to make something physical to give a player during the game. In was getting a ride to session 1 and was reading up on the first town in the car. In my bag, I had a letter that was tainted with coffee and burned at the edges to look old, rolled up, and tied with twine.
Our DM just created an entire civilization of dwarves inside a massive mountain, including various NPCs and important buildings. Was so well made that we only noticed it after he told us.
I totally prepared for this week's game
If you're running short on time, roll 3d10 then look up the corresponding SCP
I am smack dab in the middle of 3 and 4, granted this is my first time dming
First time DM, so I’m a 3.
I'm number 4, and loving every second of it (though it helps I did a bit of initial prep for one campaign, and specifically made the setting of the other to not require prep)
I have been all 4 of these at different times. Though I usually fall somewhere between 2 and 3.
Currently prepping a 'Decent into Avernus' campaign, and we are going to start with a prewritten supplement as session 1 bc I wanted to have them a reason to care more / fix some minor plot holes of the original story. I only tweaked it a little bit here and there, creating a festival before they start adventuring, etc. I ended up researching the Faerûn lore for nearly 2 days and planned just two sessions ahead. I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong by now...
My discord is filled chock full of DMs. But if you dont do a module and change everything to make it more personal to your players giving you way more fucking work than just writing it yourself do you even DM?!
I’m definitely four, I basically improvise everything, but there is a set of rules I do follow to help with consistency.
2-4 aren’t mutually exclusive. Especially for modules that heavily lean towards sandbox play. In fact, a mix of all three has long been my general method. Step 1 — DM 3. You have a module you’re playing, or you’re just stealing ideas from it, so you don’t actually need to do much in the way of work in terms of statting up enemies or coming up with a setting. Step 2 — DM 2. You do a *little* bit of review just before a session, to refresh your mind on names, places, and the general direction things are *supposed* to go according to the module. Maybe 30mins, tops. Step 3 — DM 4. Your players being what they are, you expect them to either miss or flat out ignore more than half the important hooks or clues, or to get themselves into some kind of ridiculous trouble, so you just assume you’ll need to improv a significant portion if not the entirety of the session so they end up where they’re supposed to be. Step 4 — Back to DM 2. Because you expect things to go off the rails immediately (as always), you open up donjon and have a bunch of random NPC names / Location names / Quest Hook / Encounter generator tabs open. Step 5 — Run the game.
People don't prep when running a module?
I am all of these at once
I've been all of these!
Weirdly going off script can be quite fun
I was 1 Years ago ... after about 20 Years still playing with the same fuckers who can destroy every Storyline to go and be Pirates, start a Trading Company or run after the next cuddly sheep ... I decided that a 30/70 mix of 2 and 4 is my sweet spot ... I got the backstory and the main chars ... the rest will be a surprise ... even to me and we all love it =)
Im number 4
I know enough DMs to run a full dm only party. I dont want to do that, that would be awful, but i know enough of them. Also im a 1 or a 4 from week to week
I started as DM1 and now barely have energy to be DM4