Cordwainer Fish
Imp. Int. Scout Svc. (Dishon. Ret.)
Prep is the godawful stuff you have to chug before a colonoscopy. It's like Satan's lemonade.
What is "Prep"?
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Yeap.
"Now this is extremely nasty. But we can't prosecute you for that."
-John Cleese, speaking about crunchy frogs, colonoscopies, and what not to drink before sitting down for four hours with your friends, probably.
Committed Hero
Adventurer
I don't see why it wouldn't include meditation if it helped you in the next session. Even watching movies can help if they give you inspiration.
Spectral Anomaly
Explorer
Reading the recipe all the way through once or twice to ensure I understand it, making sure I have all the required ingredients at hand (including utensils), and generally just making sure that the workspace is set up to begin the slaughter.
aramis erak
Legend
Campaign prep, GM:
- surveys of potential players
- setting study
- subsetting selection
- initial adventure selection/creation
- Adventure writing/selection
- adventure study (especially if using published ones)
- source material reference checking (especially for licensed settings)
- NPC writing
- Subsubsetting reference locating
- player introduction writing/copying/tweaking
- Collating needed tables if not in standard references.
- figuring out what player impacts are upon this new session (especially if using published ones)
- Drawing/redrawing maps.
.On the fly: not having an adventure prepped. Often, never having an adventure prepped.
You can prep for on the fly - especially if done as a hex-crawl - regional maps, encounter tables, ready-to-insert semi-detailed NPCs (tho' this can tend to create quantum shopkeeper issues). Likewise, much of such prep is reusable... if not in the same campaign, in later ones in the same subsetting.
The two can be slid between in the same campaign, or for longer adventures, the same adventure.
Ahh Prep. Prep isn't a 'thing' it's a hundred different things that may or may not get done depending on the system, the players, and the proclivities of the GM in question. One factor is familiarity. As a GM when I'm running for a table of players I know well I usually end up doing less prep than I do for a table of players I don't know even if the system is the same. Familiarity also applies to the system. The more familiar you are with system X, no matter what it is, the more likely it is that you can prep less because you know more precisely exactly what you need. Third is specific to the system - some systems require more prep than others. This idea encompasses not just mechanics but also genre. Populated hex crawls are a ton of prep at the front end compared to something in a flavour of PbtA. Added to this is the comfort level of the GM specifically about prep. This isn't about need but comfort - some GMs need the security blanket of tons of prep to feel prepared, and that fine. Other GMs are quite happy to have some loose ideas crayoned onto some dirty napkins and running with that, which is also fine.
Genre more specifically also indexes prep amount and type to some extent. Urban games, ones with factions and intrigue, are usually more complex to prep than wilderness and dungeon exploration. Any genre that allows for easy and far ranging travel, say in space, or whatever, is also more prep just based on what you might need to handle in a given session. A fantasy hex crawl is bound pretty hard by movement rates and is far easier to anticipate than a space opera game where the party can jet off to a new star system at the drop of a hat. Also related to genre is the flavour of game the table expects. Mysteries, for example, require more prep than some other types of games. Also related to genre is our old friend familiarity. A table full of players who have never played an investigative game mitigates for more thorough prep than a table full of old hands who are (hopefully) less like to miss your set of telegraphed clues and hooks.
I'm not sure what number I'm on, so I'll just say the next comes personal taste set next to the system. Every Gm has their own personal comfort recipe for what they want on hand for a session. Some GMs like random tables, some like stacks of NPC and locations, some like a post-it with doodles. Some GMs want pages and pages of notes and sometime get criticized for 'over-prepping' which is nonsense. Whatever you need at your elbow to run a game is what it is. Some people need to write a lot of stuff to help them internalize the ideas tey want to work with. Judging someone else's process is rude and usually not helpful.
Genre more specifically also indexes prep amount and type to some extent. Urban games, ones with factions and intrigue, are usually more complex to prep than wilderness and dungeon exploration. Any genre that allows for easy and far ranging travel, say in space, or whatever, is also more prep just based on what you might need to handle in a given session. A fantasy hex crawl is bound pretty hard by movement rates and is far easier to anticipate than a space opera game where the party can jet off to a new star system at the drop of a hat. Also related to genre is the flavour of game the table expects. Mysteries, for example, require more prep than some other types of games. Also related to genre is our old friend familiarity. A table full of players who have never played an investigative game mitigates for more thorough prep than a table full of old hands who are (hopefully) less like to miss your set of telegraphed clues and hooks.
I'm not sure what number I'm on, so I'll just say the next comes personal taste set next to the system. Every Gm has their own personal comfort recipe for what they want on hand for a session. Some GMs like random tables, some like stacks of NPC and locations, some like a post-it with doodles. Some GMs want pages and pages of notes and sometime get criticized for 'over-prepping' which is nonsense. Whatever you need at your elbow to run a game is what it is. Some people need to write a lot of stuff to help them internalize the ideas tey want to work with. Judging someone else's process is rude and usually not helpful.
