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I think I agree that if the PCs are staying where they are for a while, it's easier to run with less prep than if they are persistently moving around; and I think I agree that if they're staying in a city, there's more likely to be a bolus of prep (the "gazette" you mentioned, I think) the GM...

Hymnic meter is a trap in the English language for hack poets, yes (lyricists arguably have an excuse).

Probably at least as good if people don't feel somehow inferior if it doesn't work for them. Probably best to encourage people to try stuff and see what works for them at their table/s.

Yes. What I was saying is that literally doesn't work at/for all tables. I'm aware how it does work--I've been at tables where it did. I agree that GMing doesn't have to involve doing a lot of homework--I don't prep anything like as much as the stereotypical GM, I'm sure conversations elsewhere...

My prep to start a campaign is a couple of hours to write up enough of the city that I can ask the players to fill in some blanks, then some time getting all the player-provided information where I can get to it and use it. Then I decide what's going on, and it usually takes me a few minutes to...

That will depend more than a little on your players, and how much time you're willing to devote at the start of your first session before getting to things, but yes. As it happens, I ask the players for how their characters are connected to at least where things are started--in the presumption...

If you're just starting a thing, you probably need to prep some starting situation, whatever "starting situation" means for what you're expecting/intending to run. For a sandbox, you'd need some of the local area and what's around it--things for the PCs to find out about and do; if you're...

Actually, sometimes there isn't a fight. And sometimes in my couple of lines of prep I have expected adversaries--how many of X, and and how many HP they each have; I can run them out of the books, even if I'm reskinning them (and I often am). Other times, there's like a bolus of prep that runs...

As best-loved? Probably. As better ... well, if you've ever had the (mis)fortune to slog through a book of all her poems, you know her signal-to-noise ratio isn't all that great. :LOL:

In the D&D 5e/Tales of the Valiant games I'm running, mostly the PCs end up in situation, and I react to how they handle them. I run fortnightly--and there are excellent player-side session notes I can look at--so I usually have plenty of time to think about what's going on, but there are times...

Back when I was working recording audiobooks, we recorded a book about Emily Dickinson that described her as "America's best and best-loved poet." My response was on the lines of "Best is arguable--the Brits do want to claim Eliot as their own, for instance--but America's best-loved poet is...

Cava is kinda big around here (started in DC, IIRC) and their dips are available in local specialty stores. Eggplant is an anathema ingredient for me, but the other dips I've had from them (and in their restaurants) have been tasty.

The bookshelves in my house are very loosely grouped--there are some categories we have multiple books in--and in many of the groups, the "organization" is ... distinctly archaeological. :LOL: Neither my wife nor I is a librarian.

There might be at least some usable information in the non-novel stuff people put in their novels--forewords, afterwords, acknowledgments, and whatever else. It's at least a place where an author might talk about another.

Combine it with a fake persona, a fake name, and a fake voice, and wait for the call from the Nobel Committee.

Life is the crummiest book I've ever read, there isn't a hook, just a lot of cheap shots, pictures that shock, and characters an amateur would never dream up.

There's also a lot of room, even in a novel that very much prioritizes telling a hell of a story, for ... non-story thoughts to percolate in. King of Ashes, for instance, has a ton of stuff going on besides the story, and the story doesn't suffer one iota.

Things always get worse before they get better ... but who said they'd get better?

Yeah, those end credits are awesomely done.

In case you need a visual reference ... (Seems more likely to be helpful if you're checking your inventory.) EDIT: I haven't read much of his Anno Dracula and related stuff, because I got really tired of vampires (and haven't gotten over that) and I have a strong preference against series...