Prep What You Can't Improv

Email Update

It’s easy to spend hours and hours prepping for a D&D game. Heck, that’s half the fun, sometimes!

But if you’re on a time crunch, here’s my recommendation:

Focus your prep first on what you can’t improvise at the table.

This will be something pretty personal to you, but I’ve found it a good compass to help focus my prep.

Handouts are a good example of this in my case, as are brushing up on stat blocks I know the players will run into if I’m unfamiliar with them.

On the other hand, for example, I don’t spend too much time inventing NPCs beyond a broad brush stroke of “who is this person and what do they want?” The rest comes out at the table. Prepping combat, especially if I’m running a pre-written adventure, is usually me glancing over the battlefield to make sure there’s something to make it more than just a “we stand there and you stand here” slugfest (something that a lot of WotC adventures—and my own, to be fair—don’t always hit the mark on). But that’s a topic for another email!

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Random GM Tip: 2+2 Storytelling - The Alexandrian

Community Spotlight: 5 One-Shots to Play This Summer - D&D Beyond

3 Tips for Building Exciting Monsters - The GM Is Always Right

Creating Better Taverns in DnD - The Alpine DM

How to make your game badass by stealing from Borderlands - Scroll for Initiative

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I am indeed back. Again. For the however manyth time it is. :P It’s not because life has settled down, though. Far from it! But I do have a better handle on running multiple games per week now (with more to come soon).

And my plan this time with d20 Digest is more sustainable for me where I am in life right now: A weekly email, sent to you every Thursday evening, to give you some inspiration and useful things heading into any weekend games you might have.

I appreciate you!

Now get out there and tell a story!

Peace,

Maximilian