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Message: <blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6711623" data-attributes="member: 6777696">I personally love small parties, because it allows you to do a lot more with individual characters. Obviously, you'll have to adjust your expectations of how durable the party is. I agree with [MENTION=2093]Gilladian[/MENTION]'s and [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION]'s recommendation to not have two full PCs per player. Have a clear PC for each player, and then allow them to pick up simpler hirelings or companions as needed. These NPCs will follow orders in combat (be under player control), but might act independently out of combat, as per the DM's discretion. (They might balk at walking first down a trap-laden corridor.) I've done this with single player parties and had it work very well.Are you looking to prep an "adventure path" with a clear outcome and a generally predetermined plot, or just a general direction that your campaign is going?When prepping a new campaign, my practice has been to identify one or more potential "big bads", be these individual characters or groups and organizations. I like to come up with some secrets and mysteries related to these adversaries, that can be teased out over the course of the campaign. The players in my group are total suckers for "what's going on here", so doling out some mysteries over the course of the campaign keeps everybody engaged. I find it better to figure out the answers to these mysteries ahead of time, because it keeps me from getting into Lost territory. I usually do this in the back of my head over several weeks, keeping an Evernote entry on my phone where I jot down ideas while on the subway.I like to have a map of the adventure region, with a number of potential adventure sites / characters marked off before my first session. The map usually takes me a little while, as I go through several iterations. I only briefly indicate the adventure sites or characters. This takes a few hours to get down, usually.Beyond that, I go one adventure at a time. I find that I usually spend too much time prepping at the beginning of the adventure, but can get by on autopilot by the end of the adventure, as I am able to just mildly update prep that didn't get used from previous sessions. So 2-5 hours or so at the beginning of an adventure (more if playing on Roll20, less if playing in person), as I draw up maps and jot down monster stats, etc. By the end of an adventure, I can do all my prep on the subway home from work before my game.</blockquote>

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