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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CydKnight" data-source="post: 7128132" data-attributes="member: 6873462">What is a long campaign but several short ones strung together?  I try to approach each game session as a one shot.  Sure there may be some aspects of it that have been built upon from previous campaigns so I simply build those important aspects into the current session's preparation.  Trying to keep track of every detail in a campaign book will be overwhelming to most DMs so I like keep handy only what is relevant for the session at hand.  When I start to feel overwhelmed, I narrow the focus.Planning ahead for a direction of the campaign that may happen in the future is sometimes useful but often when I do so I find players heading off in a completely different direction or approaching in a completely different way than I imagined (or envisioned based on the campaign book).  If you are at all like me an not efficient at improvisation, it may be necessary to scale back your focus (and the player's) closer to current events.  Keeping their focus narrowed, limits their choices which limits the need for long hours of preparation each session.  To some this may seem like railroading, and I suppose to some degree it is, but I think some at times is necessary to keep things moving forward.  You can still allow players to choose the direction of the campaign but you choose when to make those choices available to them and build that into your one shot game session.l also find that embracing the campaign as if I created it myself helps a lot in keeping track of current events.  It's not the past events I have trouble remembering so much as names which isn't as important as their function in the campaign along with future milestones and how they tie-in with current game play.  Usually if I can just keep track of current events without focusing too much on what I think will be future events, I find it easier to improvise if it becomes necessary to keep the campaign moving forward.So all this to say I try to prepare each game session as a one shot.  When I have trouble figuring out how to approach it in this way, I ask myself how would I set-up this session if it were intended to be a stand-alone one shot?  When I look at it in this way it is far less intimidating.</blockquote>

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