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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8694610" data-attributes="member: 2629">The definition of immersion is deep mental involvement.  Engagement is a deep emotional investment. There is a nuance, but they're highly related and everything I described would be applicable to someone that is highly immersed in a game of D&D.And you can happen to pull off a good event with entirely improvised moments.  Entirely possible.  All DMing involves some improvising, afterall.  We don't prepare every little feature.  However, you can also far more easily %$@! the pooch.The question here is whether planning to improvise will tend to result in a better, or even equal, game than planning out a session in advance so that it ties together better.  And, as is the case pretty much everywhere in life, the actual truthful answer is that more preparation gives you a better product in the end.  There is a point of diminishing returns, but we're talking about the basic approach to a game preparation, and you're kidding yourself if you think that wandering into a session and wining it is going to work.  That is the same mentality that some C students in school have towards an exam ... "I don't need to study ... I can just figure it out."Let's say we have three DMs.  One (DM 1) totally improvises on the spot.  One (DM 2) has a really rough idea for a dungeon delve and just improvises as the PCs go.  The last (DM 3) takes the time to figure out how much the PCs can do in the available time, designs a dungeon to fit the available time, uses an environment/map/terrain that was designed intelligently, and has ties between the events in the session that make sense.DM 1: You can have fun in this type of game.  However, it can also blow up in your face far more easily than the other two styles.  When I see DMs fail, it is often because they are just pulling it off the cuff and have no overall idea on how to proceed.  Their NPCs are often flat because they lack motivation tied to the campaign/adventure.  When this approach is attempted for an entire campaign, it often flops and people lose interest after a few levels.  Why?  Because it is just a bunch of short bursts of gaming with nothing tying it together.  The greater picture isn't there.  DM 2: A little preparation is better than no preparation, but it can still be improved upon.  There can be a greater picture there with a little preparation, but if it is out of focus it can step on itself.  In this scenario, where the DM only worries about the big beats and doesn't sweat the samll stuff, the small stuff can blur the image.  The PCs can get confused by dungeons that do not make sense ... confusing a bad design element with a clue that gos nowhere.  Further, every time they stop to consider something that feels out of place it takes them out of the game.  If you want to keep your players interested and off their phones/computers, taking this a step further can help.DM 3: When well executed - which takes a lot more than just planning - a well planned game will give your players answers to all of their questions and pull them in deeper into the game.  Quality preparation can make sure that every moment at the table matters.  It can make sure that you don't end up with pointless side quests where the players end up confused why they're doing them.  It can give you a chance to develop storylines that engage players more than the encounters.  I've played for over 40 years.  Consistently, when DMs put in the effort, it shows.  I have enjoyed games run by DMs that do not prepare much ... but I've seen some of those DMs really improve when they added the pregame effort.</blockquote>

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