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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7934073" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Yeah, it can be tough. I find it's tough for a RPG setting book to do all the jobs that are expected of it. Usually, any individual book will offer a few things that are useful, and then the rest is just filler, and it can be hard to determine the difference. I like shorter, to the point kind of guides than to the big encyclopedic volumes that give you all the world's history and every town and so on. There seems to be a push these days for guides that are more "teach a man to fish" in approach. I hope that continues.Yeah, definitely. There's no need to detail every NPC. If something comes up, and all of a sudden you need stats for the Captain of the Guard, there are plenty of stat blocks that would suit. Knowing where to find them, or printing certain ones ahead of time for ease of reference is the key here. The use of index cards can be great here. I've done that where I jot down as much as I can for any monster on an index card for reference during play, and I include the book and page number where I can find it. Then I can clip those index cards to my DM screen (which otherwise almost always goes unused) or to a clipboard so I can reference them easily. I used to use them for initiative too, and would cycle through the cards. When I came the Troll's turn, I had its stats right there on my card. We've changed how we do initiative, but until we did I found that very helpful.Yeah, I think trying different tools is key to finding the right ones for you. Like you mention that setting guides don't really work for you, but I think it would probably be a good idea to check one out occasionally to see if there might be one that does something different, that does work for you. Yeah, sometimes I might intend for the references to be noticed, other times no. With the Riggs and Murtaugh, it was really just so I had a dynamic between the two (old veteran/young reckless guy) and could lean on physical descriptsions of Danny Glover and Mel Gibson. I think I had the Murtaugh guy say "I'm too old for this $#!+" but I wasn't concerned if anyone picked up on it at all. It was more about the mnemonic trigger of "These guys are like Riggs and Murtaugh" giving me a guide in play and saving any details I needed to prepare or anything like that.I find that the more players are engaged, the more likely they start speaking more and discussing more, which gives the GM a chance to breathe. This is one of those intangible benefits, and again, what does the trick will vary, but if you can engage players and get them discussing things in detail, and deciding on how to proceed, it'll not only buy you time, but you may hear something they say that inspires you, and you can incorporate it into play.Yeah, I have general ideas on things, but the players definitely go off in their own crazy ways at times. For many folks, the keyed dungeon is kind of the classic archetype of an adventure, so having a dungeon that is not fully mapped or stocked ahead of time just doesn't make sense. I would have agreed years ago, but my group and I have moved away from that kind of site based adventure, so it's made more sense to try different approaches.I usually don't give out ACs until a few attack rolls have given an indication of where it likely is....but yeah, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. What does keeping it secret yield in play versus just saying it right up front? I think GMs have to ask these questions and decide what's actually best rather than just doing what they've always done. They may decide that what they've always done is best....if so, great.....but there may be things where you discover that, in play, doing things differently actually is an improvement.Yeah, i try to get my session bullet points and NPC list all on one page just so it's easy to read, etc. I don't cram all the monster stats etc. on that, just my general notes. I also make up index cards for important NPCs and hand them to my players. Ideally, I'll even have a picture of some sort that I print and stick to the card. I find it helps the players keep track of NPCs and I don't have to constantly remind them of who everyone is, because they can check it themselves.That's a great alternate method. It may not save time, but you never know.....maybe someone would just continue to go back and forth in their mind about the best way to proceed, but if they gave the decision up to a method like that, it may help them commit. I don't know if I'd say rare. I think this is likely something that kind of works out because some of the "work" that goes into running a game is the kind of activity that some people really enjoy. I like pondering what may come next, and different challenges or ideas I'd like to throw at my players. The two reasons I don't do more prep are (1) I don't have as much time as I used to, and (2) I prefer to not commit too strongly to whats happening in the game so that my players are kind of deciding what comes next. I've had to adjust for both of these things.</blockquote>

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