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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9323170" data-attributes="member: 6801845">I'm pretty lazy on prep, but I like to plan for being lazy.  When we start a campaign, I discuss general themes and character ideas, where and when it's happening in my campaign world.  I get a general idea of type of campaign people want and I float a few myself.  So at the end of that planning, I get together a general outline. Where is the campaign starting, what factions and individuals are going to be important. For simplicity, I refer go both cohesive groups and individuals actors.So when thinking of actors, sometimes I think up a cool personality for an individual and build up from there, other times I go top down, there.  I think about  what the actor's motivations, goals, a general idea about how they're going about achieving goals and what they're willing to do.  Basically a LG actor wants what's best for the general good as they see it and will try to stick to that, NE will do whatever it takes and so on.  I don't use alignment as a straightjacket, and not all actors get alignments but it helps me distinguish them and gets me started thinking about their approach.So I decide that I have a wererat guild that is willing to do whatever it takes to survive and isn't above terrorizing people to get their way.  They're probably led by a forceful personality so I'll come up with that NPC.  Meanwhile I've decided that I haven't done a strong dragon for a while, so there's a green dragon who can change shape into human form.  They've been around for centuries, I can tie them in to a legendary pirate from the area, were they the pirate or just the power behind the throne?  Could be interesting either way, I may decide later. Meanwhile they secretly control the town and will try to trick the PCs into doing their bidding.  Throw in a couple others, some that I leave vague other than a name and a sentence or two, others that will be interacting with the PCs over the next few sessions.While I have general ideas of what is going on in the background, I don't really plan out campaign arcs or storylines right away, the different actors know what they're doing and I can extrapolate based on what impact the PCs are having but I only have general ideas of where things might head.  For the first session or three I'll have something figured out to give players an introduction to the area and what's going on but after that?  I just throw out potential leads and at the end of a session or story arc, and ask them what they want to do next so I can prep.  They can also make suggestions based on some other hint or tidbit I've thrown in.For an individual session I check my notes, update them based on what happened previous sessions and then flesh out the idea for next session.  Most of my planning, to be honest, is simply shower thoughts that I put down on paper.  Typically though the notes are maybe 200-300 words, a page or so typed up.  I may also copy/paste in some notes about the actors I think they might interact with.  Because I have a general idea of actors, I can figure out how those actors could aid or hinder the group's goals.  Sometimes I'll type up some note or journal entry for the players to read that will give some exposition or details.  Occasionally a cryptic map or bits and pieces that over time will make sense but individually don't mean much.Then I figure out reasonable enemies based on themes that they might face.  I generally figure out what monsters might be involved, and then figure out how many I need for medium and hard encounters (I almost never play out easy encounters).  Most of the time these will just be a list of the monsters involved, I'll figure out details of setting when and where the encounter happens.  Maybe 1 in 5-10ish encounters will have predefined setting where they will take place with potentially other goals.So that's it.  I know who's who, what they're doing and thinking, I have rough ideas of locale.  I spend time on regional and sometime local maps, I never do old school dungeons and a lot of exploration is TotM.  Even the predefined encounter settings, I'll just make notes and rarely use an actual map.  To me detailed exploration of a ruined castle, once you get past the general description and flavor, is kind of boring so I skip it so we can spend time of RP and encounters that matter.Other than that I have lists of taverns, business names, individual names broken down by gender and faction or species.  All of which means a lot of my prep is up front and then when running the game I know the outlines so I can fill in the blanks as we go.  Also means I really hated having to run virtual games where I had to do maps ahead of time.  Just not my thing.Works for me to just make things up as I go, as long as I have a foundation to start from.</blockquote>

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