I am the anti-preparation DM

[Pants]

So, during the last two sessions, the PC's have been in the Barbarian lands territory. They've been trying to get allies to help battle an army undead. Now, I left off the first session with the PC's gaining the aid of one of the clan lords and them preparing to head to the Jarl/King of the Barbarian Lands. I had three weeks to prepare and I didn't do ANYTHING. I had no names, no agendas, and only a little history background. Also, the only thing I had to distinguish the king was some vague notion of 'he's like Robert Baratheon from aSoIaF, only smarter.' So the PC's head to the capital and I have nothing, I end up creating a couple of other clan lords, giving them agendas, and giving the King an agenda all in the space of a few seconds.
By the end of the session, the King has asked one of the PC's to kill one of the clan lords so that he can unite the clans and go to war against the undead. The King is then subsequently killed by one of the other PC's and the other two have allied themselves with man they were hired to kill. Meanwhile, one of the other nobles has seized control of the capital and is currently hunting the killer and tensions in the city are high. Also of note, the PC's are ignoring the current political situation to get revenge on a bunch of adventurers they met 7 years ago. And I planned nothing.
Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else?

 

[Halivar]

You know what they say: all battle plans are moot once the opening shots are fired. IME, you can only plan so much. For everythig else, have a list of names and a stat sheet for every class at appropriate level on hand.

Oh, and steal plots from books/movies/video games you know the folks in your campaign don't know anything about...

 

[Crothian]

Happened to me last week. One of the guys had had surgery and I was not thinking that we would be playing for a few weeks. But he wanted to get out of the house and called me earlier in the day, asking if we could game that night. So, I got the word out to the group and we gamed. I run an open ended game, the players are free to choose their own direction, so planning for them is always hard. I do prepare for most of the games becasue it has been shown from my experience that preparing for games equals more fun for everyone.

 

[nopantsyet]

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else?

Absolutely! I try to do alot of general preparation in terms of knowing what's going on in the world and having developed plot arcs, knowing the ecologies and populations. But when the time comes, whether I've spent eight hours or none of dedicated prep time, the improv circuit kicks in and we create the game together.

There are frequent debates on planning vs. improv in DMing, and the latter group often take alot of heat from the former. Pay them no mind and do what works. I would have a real hard time creating a publishable adventure, but that doesn't mean my games don't come out every bit as good.

 

[Berandor]

This is what DMing is all about. If it was just reading stuff from prepared sheets of paper, anyone could do it!
Seriously, you can only prepare for so much, and you can be sure your players go a different route than you planned.
I try to have the agenda of the major NPCs at hand, as well as a rough plan of what will happen when and where, in addition to any scene(s) I might prepare with special detail. That way, when (not if) my players decide to investigate something else, I know how that changes the plot and can adapt to it.
Then, I smile my cruel DM smile and nonchalantly say, "Sure, you can do that... if you are really sure that you want to do it."

 

[Desdichado]

That's pretty much the way I work. In fact, we've specifically made that a stipulation of our latest game; it has to be improv! See the story hour in my sig to see how it's gone so far; and give comments while you're at it!

Unfortunately, after playing two weeks in a row, we've just had two weekends without a session, though, so we're a little behind. We'll pick up again with yet another DM next Saturday.

 

[King_Stannis]

If I'm running a preset adventure, I stick to it. But when I'm not constrained by it, I usually wing-it. I like it because it allows me to be receptive to how the players affect the world.

 

[Cecil]

Well, sorta.....

I like having a set of organizations (including goals) and assets (including rough idea of people involved) pre-determined.

I tend to have a few "stand-bys" prepared (lists of names to assign, prepared character stats--no descriptions, and prepared generic locations to throw down) and then wing-it from there.

The stand-bys give the illusion of more in-depth preparation, but it's really the interaction of players that fuel the inspiration--the stand-bys are the tools that allow one to take advantage of it easily.

It also allows me to jot down quick notes on the location sheet, etc. so that once something has been identified--it stays that way.

 

[MerakSpielman]

The more you learn how to run games with minimal preparation, the harder it is to catch you off guard. I DO require my players to tell me more or less where they're going, so I have a general idea, but sometimes, mid-game, they've been known to take off and do sometime I had never thought of. When that happens, you gotta either A) tell them you don't have anything prepared if they do that (Railroading! interfering with character free-will!) or B) ad-lib like crazy.

Have a few maps and encounters in your game bag that can be tossed in anywhere. It goes a long way to making your players think you have the whole darn world mapped out!