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!
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
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
Hi, Maximillian,
Not sure my email reply went through because it dropped me here afterwards, so I'll repeat my comments just in case!
Nice post, but it's begging for a sequel: 'Improv What You Can't Prep'!
Mike,
Campaign Mastery