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My thinking is that more than one villain, one time, is probably too many. At least, I'd work from that presumption and pay attention to how the players reacted. Whatever problem the recurring villain is causing/presenting if/when they come back should probably not be the same kind of problem as...

Maybe recurring villains aren't a panacea. My own feeling as a player--and as a GM--is that once the PCs have solved a problem, it should probably stay solved; and fighting the same guy again certainly doesn't feel as though anything is staying solved. My approach is to keep important villains...

I've been really happy with the write-ups my wife does from her notes. They're extensive, and as player-side write-ups, they help keep me focused on the interests and goals of the players and their characters.

I should be clear, this is on my fortnightly-ish trips to the local library of my choice. I don't go shopping for books often enough anymore to have an established pattern.

There are people who interact with--get to the fiction of--games through the mechanics. I have been and am still sometimes one. This seems like a different thing from optimizing, which is itself a thing that isn't always a problem (as I said upthread). I mean, I don't think getting to the...

(Again, bouncing off what you said ...) One of the things about (though not exclusive to) most versions of D&D that's kinda optimization-adjacent is the ability to choose how complex a character you want to play. There's a general tendency for more-complex characters to have a higher ceiling...

This is as far as I got in the thread before feeling a need to respond. Anyone who I'm repeating, please accept my apologies. (Also, @Ruin Explorer , I'm not writing this directly at you, just using your post as a bouncing-off point.) It seems to me the problem isn't optimization, as such--as...

I should start making a point to find nonfiction to read, at some point. Of course, by the time I finish browsing the fiction I usually have ten or twelve books to tote around ...

And what they were addicted to would presumably not be anything like so unhealthful. (Intended more as an expansion than an argument.)

We were walking around Wind Cave (in the Black Hills) and had this guy turn our loop hike into a funky-shaped out-and-back hike. DO NOT PET THE FLUFFY COWS

If you're in (among others) Big Bend NP, needing to pee is a very good sign. This might be personal experience.

Well, that's going on my list to look for. Dunno that I'll buy a copy, but I might--I've been grabbing Hiaasen's novels from the library as I've come across ones I at least don't remember reading. I remember his early books being really good, and some of his most recent ones have been, but I...

Unless it's an explicitly goofy one. I mean, if someone thinks mine is funny, that's in the intended range.

I figured, but sometimes disagreements metastasize. Didn't want that to happen. Well, comedy isn't the only kind of improv theater, the only distinction I was making was going for the broader category. It certainly seems as though if you have the idea for the thing you're going to riff on, you...

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.