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The distinction I see--and I'm not looking to fight about this--is that "Prep to Improvise" seems to me to imply that you're doing your prep with the idea it will be the foundation of your improvisation (which seems pretty close to exactly right for improv theater); whereas "Prep what you don't...

While there's probably a difference between "Prep to improvise" and "prep what you don't feel comfortable improvising at the table," they do seem very similar in spirit, and I have no quibbles.

The thought I've seen expressed, that seems to suit my thinking best, is on the lines of "Prep what you don't feel comfortable improvising at the table." One of the things I like about that is that different people will have different comfort ranges, so there's really not a wrong answer--or...

Absolutely--and I think that higher-level play also strongly discourages extensive committed GM prep, because there is so much the PCs can do, so many ways for the players to (potentially accidentally) wrong-foot the GM.

Yeah, I've run 2 1-20 5e campaigns in my setting. I have another that's like 40 sessions in, and I started a fourth (this one in Tales of the Valiant) a couple-few hours ago.

I'm writing my own setting, and the longer the PCs stay somewhere, the deeper that somewhere gets. I'm happy to have PCs go back to a place, either in the same campaign or a new one, but I'm also happy to make new stuff up.

The fact you think a campaign that says in a place is harder to prep than one that moves around, and my experience is that it works the other way around, just seems to me to mean that our brains work differently. If the "tables" that you mention are random generation tables, the fact you find...

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.