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

[prabe]

I actually think it is harder because you should be thinking about all the connections and moving parts in that location, and how the last session would impact those things. That's prep.

But an episodic travelogue? The only consistency is the PCs and those are player responsibilities. The GM can justvroll up a town and dungeon on tables while the players argue about the division of last session's treasure. Easy peasy.

I can't emphasize enough how important good tables are for this style of play.

The fact you think a campaign that says in a place is harder to prep than one that moves around, and my experience is that it works the other way around, just seems to me to mean that our brains work differently.

If the "tables" that you mention are random generation tables, the fact you find them not just useful but necessary is another indication. The best (at this point just about the only) uses I have found for them are names and treasure, and the only names I roll for these days are like shop/bar names and such.

I just do this in play, or during my walk as I build a possibility cloud. I’m not sure our brains let us show up to anything but a one-shot without at least a little percolating!

Whatever has already happened in a game is both a foundation and a constraint for deciding what might happen next.

 

[prabe]

I like campaigns set in a certain region rather than the party constantly moving from place to place. My preferred region is Waterdeep, Undermountain and Skullport, just because I've ran many campaigns there over the years. There is so much there that a whole game could take place there without ever having to leave.

I'm writing my own setting, and the longer the PCs stay somewhere, the deeper that somewhere gets. I'm happy to have PCs go back to a place, either in the same campaign or a new one, but I'm also happy to make new stuff up.

 

[R_J_K75]

"The players really miffed the Black Gutter Gang two sessions ago. I need to use them as opposition in whatever they do next." Is that prep?

No, I don't think of it as prep. I have ideas for our game all the time, but they aren't fully realized and I don't think of prepping until I sit down to flesh them out. It usually evolves from the initial concept.

 

[R_J_K75]

for no/low prep play, they also need to be accessible and easy to use. I found old school books of tables to often be a slog to use.

True. Some are better than others, but the ones I use I have done so for years so there easy enough for me to use on the fly. WotC during the 3.x era had a lot of cool tools you could download or just use online. For instance, there was an adventure idea generator, a FR calendar generator. They would release some cool little tool every few weeks, if they still do I have no clue.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm writing my own setting, and the longer the PCs stay somewhere, the deeper that somewhere gets. I'm happy to have PCs go back to a place, either in the same campaign or a new one, but I'm also happy to make new stuff up.

I've dabbled a few times over the years to create a setting, but the game usually petered out before anything substantial came of it that was worth revisiting. My go to setting is mostly FR just because it's the one I'm most familiar with. I have a habit of over-prepping more detail than I need. It usually pays off eventually but sometimes it details that are hard to convey without some heavy-handed exposition.

 

[prabe]

I've dabbled a few times over the years to create a setting, but the game usually petered out before anything substantial came of it that was worth revisiting. My go to setting is mostly FR just because it's the one I'm most familiar with. I have a habit of over-prepping more detail than I need. It usually pays off eventually but sometimes it details that are hard to convey without some heavy-handed exposition.

Yeah, I've run 2 1-20 5e campaigns in my setting. I have another that's like 40 sessions in, and I started a fourth (this one in Tales of the Valiant) a couple-few hours ago.

 

[R_J_K75]

Yeah, I've run 2 1-20 5e campaigns in my setting. I have another that's like 40 sessions in, and I started a fourth (this one in Tales of the Valiant) a couple-few hours ago.

It's definitely safe to say I think that the longer a campaign goes on the easier it is to pick up where you left off and run sessions with little to no prep providing there's little character/player turnover.

 

[prabe]

It's definitely safe to say I think that the longer a campaign goes on the easier it is to pick up where you left off and run sessions with little to no prep providing there's little character/player turnover.

Absolutely--and I think that higher-level play also strongly discourages extensive committed GM prep, because there is so much the PCs can do, so many ways for the players to (potentially accidentally) wrong-foot the GM.

 

[R_J_K75]

Absolutely--and I think that higher-level play also strongly discourages extensive committed GM prep, because there is so much the PCs can do, so many ways for the players to (potentially accidentally) wrong-foot the GM.

We started a new Waterdeep campaign this passed Monday using Shadowdark. We tried 5E2024 and I just don't care for it. I was running a Greyhawk game from the new DMG, and one of my players asked if we could do more of a campaign of one-shots set in WD. Over the last few years we've done a lot of switching of systems and genres so I gave the other 2 players an ultimatum. If we were going to switch yet again, then everyone is DMing. We decided to play every other week, and I started, laid out a good foundation for everyone to build off. It will be interesting to see what the other two players come up with.

 

[overgeeked]

Absolutely--and I think that higher-level play also strongly discourages extensive committed GM prep, because there is so much the PCs can do, so many ways for the players to (potentially accidentally) wrong-foot the GM.

Exactly. One big reason to switch the typically proactive and reactive roles between the referee and the players. If the PCs are proactive and the referee is reactive, there’s no wrong footed happening. Just keep putting obstacles and opposition in their way. Don’t bother with a planned plot or storyline. PCs pursuing their goals and the referee putting opposition in front of them will create a story.