D&D General Zero-Prep D&D Game?

[Distracted DM]

The one bit of prep I didn't mention is a list of names. I am bad at names on the fly, so I now have a Google doc of names and also use RPGs that include name generators. One of the adventures I'm working on includes multiple name generators in case the PCs decide to not murderhobo their way through the adventure.

So that's my big exception to improving my way through.

My big hang-up with names is wanting cultural consistency. I could rattle off a dozen made up fantasy names, but I try to use stuff like the Gygax Book of Names to give a more coherent feel to a locale... but it's honestly a PITA so half the time I have to just make something up or google quickly. And while I could usually make up random names, sometimes I do have brain farts- lists like you mentioned can be invaluable if you remember you have them :'D

 

[overgeeked]

My big hang-up with names is wanting cultural consistency. I could rattle off a dozen made up fantasy names, but I try to use stuff like the Gygax Book of Names to give a more coherent feel to a locale... but it's honestly a PITA so half the time I have to just make something up or google quickly. And while I could usually make up random names, sometimes I do have brain farts- lists like you mentioned can be invaluable if you remember you have them :'D

Yep. I’m so bad with names generally, real life too, that I just can’t make them up on the fly. I mean I can, they’ll just suck. Bob. Bobby. Bobbie. Bobcat. Bobert. Etc. That’s why I prep the lists ahead of time and just have them in my notes. I have a habit of building random generators in Excel for that. Click a button and here’s 100 random NPCs. Click a button and here’s 100 random whatever from wherever. I absolutely love random tables.

A recent find was the Nomicon by Matt Finch. Absolutely great book of random names. Really well organized and covers most real-world language groups and a few fantasy ones, too. Well worth checking out.

 

[Reynard]

My big hang-up with names is wanting cultural consistency. I could rattle off a dozen made up fantasy names, but I try to use stuff like the Gygax Book of Names to give a more coherent feel to a locale... but it's honestly a PITA so half the time I have to just make something up or google quickly. And while I could usually make up random names, sometimes I do have brain farts- lists like you mentioned can be invaluable if you remember you have them :'D

Fantasy Name Generator dot com. It allows you to pick cultures, real or imagined, so you can stay consistent if you want. Invaluable resource.

 

[R_J_K75]

Fantasy Name Generator dot com. It allows you to pick cultures, real or imagined, so you can stay consistent if you want. Invaluable resource.

I use it all the time, but it does have a tendency to generate some truly strange names or repeat names. Overall though it's the best one I've found.

 

[bedir than]

Leaning into @M.T. Black definition,

I think it's easier to do that form of zero prep, for me, within the world I've already created, continuing a campaign.
It would be a combination of points 1 and 2. As I have random encounter tables and notecard NPCs built for my world I could have PCs go where they want and pull out things that are random to inspire the improv.

Those custom tables and NPCs are handy for prep games too!

I always have a set of characters, scenes and monsters ready when the sandbox results in castles I didn't expect them to build.

 

[bedir than]

I'm currently inspired to make a new random encounter/scene table for my upcoming campaign.

 

[Enrahim]

It is really hard for me to do absolutely zero prep in that I generally always fantasize about what could happen in the game. The only exception might have been when I started a campaign with "you are on a small boat. The sail just broke and you have no oars. What do you do?"

If by zero-prep we are talking about no formal preperations like having statblocks, maps and such prepared that is my standard modus operandi when running homebrew. But those games are quite untraditional when it come to D&D, with a battle typically happening once every 5-6 session. It has worked great with curious and proactive players. They bring the inspiraton that I am just riffing off.

 

[Reynard]

Can we define "prep" as "writing down concrete gameplay related information prior to the start of the session"? Just so we have a common starting point?

 

[Charlaquin]

I think going truly zero-prep is a fool’s errand. Even a hypothetical perfect improviser can only ever produce something of approximately equal quality to a well-planned adventure, because improvising is just planning and executing the plan at the same time. It’s better, in my opinion, to focus on maximizing efficiency of prep. Spend your prep time on things that can easily be adapted to unexpected situations. Rough outlines, random tables, enemy rosters, lists of names you can pull out on short notice, multi-purpose maps, that kind of thing. Prep you don’t use this week becomes prep you don’t have to do next week, and that extra prep time can go to preparing yet more highly adaptable content to keep in the back pocket.

 

[Theory of Games]

Thank you for the responses - they've been most helpful.

Someone asked for a definition of "prep." To my mind, it is dedicated time spent reading material and/or preparing notes for the upcoming session. A couple of minutes in the shower thinking about tomorrow night's game is not "prep" by this definition. Sitting down at your desk for 30 minutes is prep.

When I posed this question, I could think of three possible ways you might do zero-prep D&D:

1. Pure improv, where you and the players devise scenes keep going.

2. A generative tool that creates the adventure for you as you go. Perilous Wilds is one such tool (it's for Dungeon World, but it is perfectly usable for D&D adventures).

3. A master tome that is concise enough to just consult "on the fly". Some say they used Wilderlands of High Fantasy in this way. The players move to a new hex, the DM looks up the location (at the table during play) and then plays it through.

I think all(?) of the no-preppers who have answered so far have fallen into category 1.

Don't forget having a published adventure and the core books. That's how I started out DMing in high school: someone gave me Ravenloft or The Ghost Tower of Inverness then I just read the boxed text and reacted to the players. There was no prep but we still had fun (usually).

As I've posted in the past, IMO you don't need prep for one-shots, but even when running a published campaign like Curse of Strahd the depth of activity the players will encounter requires the GM to creates some notes, at the very least.