What's the hardest thing about preparing for RPGs

[ChaosGenerators]

The companion to What do you find hardest when running RPGs...

What gives you the most pain or takes the most effort when preparing for a game session or adventure?

 

[ccs]

Getting past my own procrastination. There's a reason I've gotten really good at winging it over the years....

 

[Lanefan]

Prepping for an individual session or even an individual adventure isn't where the headaches lie, as by that point most of the heavy lifting is long since done and a lot of it mostly runs itself.

It's prepping and worldbuilding for the whole campaign, well before it begins, that causes headaches. Maps of cities/realms/regions take far too long to do well and are garbage if not done well. A coherent history - even just an overview - takes a long time. Designing and writing up the local-specific pantheons takes a long time. Going over and fixing the rules is a neverending process. And so on.

The only part of individual adventure planning that I find a nuisance is mapping, particularly when it comes to lining up the various dungeon levels so the stairs that leave *here* on this level arrive *there* on that level and not somewhere unexpected.

 

[ccs]

The only part of individual adventure planning that I find a nuisance is mapping, particularly when it comes to lining up the various dungeon levels so the stairs that leave *here* on this level arrive *there* on that level and not somewhere unexpected.

Oh. That's easy to solve. You draw an arrow to the staircase, hole in the floor, etc and label it "Up/Down to A3" or such.
Since you're the DM & control reality, that's where it goes.
And if your ultra crafty players accurately map the place & notice a discrepancy? You shrug & claim "Magic".

 

[Lanefan]

Oh. That's easy to solve. You draw an arrow to the staircase, hole in the floor, etc and label it "Up/Down to A3" or such.
Since you're the DM & control reality, that's where it goes.
And if your ultra crafty players accurately map the place & notice a discrepancy? You shrug & claim "Magic".

Yeah, that won't fly around here.

When I'm DMing my lot do carefully map it, same when I'm on the player side, and in either case discrepancies like that reflect badly on the DM if it's a homebrew module and - occasionally - on the module author when it's a canned module*. Which means, in the end, I-as-adventure-designer have to mind my p's and q's.

* - most common here is a discrepancy between the drawn map (clearly shows 40' of stairs to a door) and the written word (only states 30' of stairs to a door).

Combine that with my own preference for there to be numerous vertical connections between levels in a typical dungeon (and not always just from one level to the next), and yeah - bring on the Excedrin.

Lanefan

 

[ChaosGenerators]

I've often found that creating stats for NPCs takes a long time. It's one of the reasons I stopped running pathfinder 1E.

Now for 5E I mostly just take an existing standard stat block (gladiator) and add one or two abilities if needed.

 

[delericho]

Detail. I'm good on the big-picture stuff, but turning that into detailed notes for the session/adventure/campaign - that's hard.

 

[ChaosGenerators]

Detail. I'm good on the big-picture stuff, but turning that into detailed notes for the session/adventure/campaign - that's hard.

Do you find yourself using a lot of monsters as they are and taking bits from published modules and settings?

 

[delericho]

Do you find yourself using a lot of monsters as they are and taking bits from published modules and settings?

I mostly find myself throwing something together, saying "that'll do", and promising to do better next time... only to not do better next time.

 

[Blackmoor_Film]

Make a map. Make some sloppy notes. Then I wing it.