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Message: <blockquote data-quote="masshysteria" data-source="post: 4864810" data-attributes="member: 16055">GM CommentaryGame prep is one of those funny things: certain aspects I hate and certain aspects I love.I love coming up with NPC's the evoke strong feelings from the players or interesting location descriptions or fun plot lines. I'm really not a fan of writing up a bunch of stats or making sure encounters are balanced or paging through rules. But, I enjoy running a good game so I put up with the bad and really try to minimize it.I keep all my notes and stats in Microsoft OneNote. Every computer I use on a regular basis has OneNote, so I keep the files on a flashdrive and work on any of the computers. I've adopted electronic note keeping because I'm a poor organizer of papers and I like the ability to easily edit my writing. I also find with OneNote it is easy to type in a few notes as the game is unfolding. This is the main reason I ditched TiddlyWiki for GMing purposes.My adventures get broken into scenes. Each scene is prewritten and includes cut-aways for PC Interaction, skill checks or fights. I make sure to add in interaction breaks so I'm not just telling the players a story. But, I've found if I write good dialog the players just jump right in like a normal conversation.Here's an example scene from Episode I: Scum & Villainy where the PC's meet Selene:A few scenes play out almost exactly as planned, that's the benefit of knowing your players. Most I have to improvise a few lines, like I did with the above scene. And still others take off in a different direction and I have to come up with a new ending on the fly, like I had to do with the Deal with Ming. (I expected the players to fight and kill him!) But I've found if I keep my encounters/scenes focused I can take it in a new direction pretty well. I've also found it easier to get the players "back on the tracks" if the scenes are focused and not too long. Of course one of my GMing philosophies is some railroading is fine as long as it feels like riding a roller coaster and not a rail car.Some scenes take awhile to write, others fly by as my fingers struggle to keep up with my brain. But I try to add a lot of flavor to these writings. It keeps the game interesting and I enjoy writing a good scene.But, I don't really care for writing up stats. This had led me to three things: One, all my mooks and nameless NPC's are stat blocks from the books. Two, I reuse my NPCs creating colorful reoccuring characters. Three, if I don't need stats for a character, like in the case of Nakko, they don't get them or get made up on the fly.NPC stats are also the one exception to my all electronic notes rule. It is a pain to keep bouncing between two windows or tabs to check the story and some stats, so I've started printing out the NPC stats.I haven't really tracked how long I prepare for each session. I usually spend a few nights thinking up plot lines, cool scenes or characters, and paging through books. I then spend a few nights typing everything up.</blockquote>

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