As much as I love being an “improvise first” game master, I do fair bit of preparation ahead of planned game sessions.

At the very least, I have a decent diagram that shows me the different factions, events and locations.

For example, here's two graphs that I set up for a Dresden Files RPG session I did a while ago.

First off, there's a mindmap of the major players, objects and things they do.

And then, because it is a time loop adventure, I needed to make sure I grokked the timeline:

(Apologies to my non-german peeps – the text is all gobbledygok to you now :) )

Anyway, this sort of thing is nearly always part of my prepwork. Additionally, I of course set up at least rudimentary stat blocks and rules for the different NPCs and enemies, but how much I do here varies highly from game to game.

And when I run a Raiders of Arismyth game, which is very much focussed on battlemaps, 3D terrain and miniatures, I of course need to set those things up too. I prize myself for being a fast game master.

That means that I put a lot of effort in to prevent those moments where a player announces and action or asks me something, and I then need to look for the answer in a stack of paper for a few minutes, or where I'd fiddle with the music to get it juuust right, or having to fetch a miniature from the other room.

So I stole an awesome idea from Wyloch – The staging box: I have boxes that have shelves in them, where I can “stage” different parts of the adventure: Whole rooms, areas, corridors, encounters, and so on.

So when I need them, I can just reach into the right shelf and presto, the new dungeon set piece is on the table. Mine are actually a bit bigger though: That way I can use pre-arranged and decorated rooms, made from Dungeon Blocks. To make them nice I decorated the boxes with old RPG posters and illustrations, Mod Podge is good for that, and it makes the boxes even sturdier.

I do recommend doing prep, even if you're otherwise mostly improvising. #pnpen #preparation

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