Are you a preparation junky?

[mazzoli]

I would say that I often obsessively prepare for my games, but when it comes down to it I just use my preparation as a guideline. I'm pretty good at just winging it, down to stat blocks and maps. That said, I do like to have stat blocks prepared ahead of time just so that I don't forget anything about what my enemies can do. I put them on index cards and have an index card file box full of enemies that I've prepared.

As mentioned above, I'm a worldbuilding junkie. Also as mentioned above I tend toward the political and economic portions of worldbuilding, with a strong penchant for cartography as well. The obsessive background work tends to be handier than any specific session planning outside of my session outlines.

 

[Richards]

I, too, put a lot of time into game prep. For every game session, I:

• Update the PC tracking sheet, with everyone's AC values, hp, spell slots, etc.
• Build monster stat sheets, with all the info I'm likely to need at hand in one place to run the encounter
• Create initiative cards for any monsters or NPCs that I don't already have from previous adventures
• If any PC leveled up since the last time we played, update their PC folder accordingly with new spells, feats, class abilities, etc.
• Create geomorphs for the areas they'll be exploring (sometimes these are individual rooms cut out of cardboard, sometimes these are large areas drawn on the back of a sheet from a full-sized desk-top calendar)
• Print out monster tokens for any creatures for which I don't have an appropriate mini of some sort

And this is usually on top of writing the adventure in the first place, which over time I've been doing more and more of (the earlier part of our campaign relied heavily on Dungeon adventures).

Johnathan

 

[talien]

Is there anyone out there like me that spends countless hours preparing content for their game? I spend my free time doing some sort of preparation work for my game. It is kind of embarrassing how much work I do (have done). Now that I use Maptool, my prep work has doubled.

Finally, a fellow junkie!

I rewrite entire scenarios. Rewrite 'em. From scratch, even though I purchased the scenario in PDF format. If I don't have the scenario in PDF format I scan it in by hand and THEN rewrite it.

Your post has reinforced my fear that running a game over Fantasy Grounds II will in fact just give me more things to prep, which will escalate the insanity.

 

[Lwaxy]

I only rewrite them when I need to adapt them.

 

[kitsune9]

[MENTION=18701]Oryan77[/MENTION]. Yes, I do extensive prep work that you described.

For example, for my Carrion Crown AP for the first adventure, it's essentially a timed adventure. I mapped out all the encounters on what day things will happen (spreadsheet). I use Publisher to create handouts and a character primer for specific character generation guidelines and houserules that I'll use.

I also spend time working on encounter tables for the County of Canterwall should the players decide to do their own thing after the module ends and go exploring. I also designed walled coach inns, wayside temples, and toll outposts as the players go traveling.

I copy and paste stat blocks from the Bestiary for encounters I've created, but I stat up NPCs as well.

For me, I also "job-cost" my prep. I figure for every 1 hour of prep spent, if I get 1 hour of game time out of it, it's a win for me. I know with my players if they get a nice handout(s) and an engaging adventure, it's worth it, even if I don't end up using half the stuff I created (which can always be reskinned for other things).

 

[haakon1]

I rewrite entire scenarios. Rewrite 'em. From scratch, even though I purchased the scenario i

Yup to buy modules and then re-writing them.

I call it "fitting it into the campaign".

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

I don't usually do a lot of prepwork that directly relates to the game I'm playing, but I'll come up with tons and tons of ideas that could make a cool adventure, which never usually get developed, and I'll have some of those that usually turn into campaigns with a HUGE amount of detail in the world, which usually bores my PCs, so I usually don't share all of it, as they don't want to hear the whole life story of some beggar living on the street who was a son of a well-to-do merchant, but who didn't want to be a merchant like his father, so he ran away with the girl he liked, but then got attacked by bandits and barely got out alive with nothing, and thus ended up on the street, with similar stories for just about everyone in the campaign. (Not the same story, but a similar level of detail)

 

[Libramarian]

I used to be, then I ran a few games with very little preparation and gained confidence doing that.

So I started doing that all the time, then had a few bad experiences where I was too tired or hungry and didn't really feel up for the game, and so the session bombed because I didn't have much to lean back on.

Now that's basically how I look prep -- how much do I need to do to be able to run a solid session at a relatively low energy level. Which is still rather less than I originally started with.

What I think would be a fantastic and doable product is an adventure module that is specifically designed to be run off the page with zero prep. Or maybe the prep would be just reading a few pages at the beginning. I have come to hate it when adventures say "read everything thoroughly before playing" because that usually takes as much time as just writing your own.

 

[haakon1]

What I think would be a fantastic and doable product is an adventure module that is specifically designed to be run off the page with zero prep. Or maybe the prep would be just reading a few pages at the beginning. I have come to hate it when adventures say "read everything thoroughly before playing" because that usually takes as much time as just writing your own.

The closest I've run was "Scourge of the Howling Horde" by Gwendolyn Kestrel, a WOTC module from 2006 (so late 3.5e).

I "only" prepped a big change to one of the rooms (the access to the Underdark), some details on the BBEG's background, notes on connections to the goblins in "The Sunless Citadel" and "The Keep on the Borderlands" with clues in the shaman's room, bringing in a hobgoblin who had escaped from "Sunless", adding details on the goblins defensive plans, and adding to their supplies and the leader's records some hints about connections to the "The Red Hand of Doom". Oh, and changing it from a 1st level to 3rd level adventure. And the background about the elvish mercenary caravan guards from Highfolk to give some flavor in town . . .

And of course the hook that the PC's dwarven jeweler/fence in the city tells them his moneylender friend in the small truckstop town of Barrow's Edge needs adventurers to clear an old dwarven temple, and is one of the few survivors of the fall of the Forge of Fury, who should know more about the scroll the PC's found in "Sunless Citadel" and should be able to scratch their backs with info on how to find the Forge, how to get in, and a bit about it's history, if they scratch his back . . .

So almost no prep at all, for me.

 

[OnlineDM]

I'm another MapTool DM, so I do a lot of preparation in advance. It's worth it, though, because if I ever want to re-run an adventure I've run before, it's ready to go. If I'm running a long adventure rather than a one-shot, I'll admit that I'm happiest when I have the whole thing prepared in MapTool before the first session, even if it's going to take months and months to get through it all. It's nice to be able to just roll with it when my players go in an unexpected direction.

I'm not as organized about campaign notes and the like. I try to outsource that to my players as much as possible.