How I Prep for my Weekly Gaming Session

How I Prep for my Weekly Gaming Session

My long-term campaign prep and short-term weekly prep are quite different.  The long-term campaign prep is more intensive early on and is ongoing throughout the campaign.   The weekly prep is relatively short and quick but the long and short-term prep definitely influence one another. 

Short Term \ Weekly Prep

Prep for the next game takes place during the current game.  I take notes as I go.  Names, professions, and locations of key NPCs, particularly unexpected or improvised NPCs are written down. Magic items picked up by the party are noted.  The date and time of the end of the session are also noted.  I am pretty confident I can remember what happened in the session and do need to write that down during the current game.   My notes are quick and dirt, usually a bulleted list and just a few words, rarely complete sentences.

During the off week, I create an outline for the next sessions.   It usually has the session number and date as a heading.   Then in the body is a brief outline with bulleted notes.

Review: 

- What is the overall goal or goals of the party right now.

- What did they do last time (short and sweet)

- What is the current date and time and where are they now.

- Magic items are listed, and often prepare magic item cards to hand out if the item is identified or used.

Looking Ahead:

My games run three hours, so I tend to plot out no more than 3 or 4 major events or encounters, one per hour.   This also helps me pace the next session to see the likely events.  

- Event one, just a note.  Key NPCs, monsters, encounter location, treasures.  The notes are very bare bones.   Event one is usually a lock, I know where they stopped and I almost always know what will happen first.

- Event two, logical guess, similar rough notes.

- Event three, another guess similar rough notes.

I do not and will not railroad my players, so sometimes events two and three don't happen.  However the longer you game with your players the better your feel for what they will probably do and you can make some pretty good short-term guesses.  If you didn't use a particular encounter, it may come up later on, you can often re-use things that went by the wayside.

Another idea that really helps is understanding what your antagonists are doing and why.  They are not waiting for your players to show up and mess up their nefarious plans, but they are actively trying to achieve their goals.  It player characters get in the way, they will take action.  This can often drive your encounters.  Guy Sclanders over at How To Be a Great GM has great videos about this.  He often suggests a concise sentence to explain what's motivating your bad guys.  "<Bad Guy> wants <Something> by <a specific time> but is having difficulty because <insert reason>."   His videos will help you work out this sentence and idea.  This can really help propel your short and long-term action forward.

I also happen to use a spreadsheet for tracking in combat.   My spreadsheet creature name, Max Hp, Current Damage, and Remaining Hit Ponts.  I have a few formulas set up, so I just drop the current damage from a PC in a column and I can see the total damage done and remaining hit points very quickly.  We are usually face-to-face, but when we switch to Roll20 or another VTT, I'll put the spreadsheet down and keep track of things over there.

Long Term Prep

Working out the modifications, goals, and obstacles faced by your antagonists and key NPCs is the big chore here.   I can't recommend Guy Schlanders videos enough if it's your first time trying to do this.   This will help with the long-term action in your game and your short-term prep as well.   I often think about what my major NPCs are doing before each new session and why.   Did the PCs destroy one of their outposts or uncover a spy?  How will they react and why?  They are not inert and personally, I find discovering what they think and do in response to player interaction with the world fun and rewarding. 

If the NPCs learned something due to player action in a specific week, I will make note of that.   I have used word documents, spreadsheets, mindmaps, and Visio documents with swimlanes to track my NPCs.  Use whatever document you want, but I do think it's important to have something fairly concise you can look at to remind yourself who knows what, how did they learn it and what are they going to try to do next.   This may have implications far beyond one session, but it may also directly impact your weekly planning.  I find it valuable to keep this up to date and glance at it briefly each week.  Even if nothing has changed, I need to know what NPCs want and what they know or perceive.  

Maps

I primarily use Dungeondraft, Dungeon Painter Studio and Wonderdraft for my map prep.  I have a post dedicated to my thoughts on mapping software. I prep maps both as part of my long-term prep and short-term prep.   I do review what maps I anticipate needing for the next session and if I have them great, an if not I crank them out quickly using Dungeondraft.   Typically I just need to print them or quickly review them.   I am not above borrowing maps I have found on the net.  Unless I need something specific, there is nothing wrong with using a pre-existing map.  Often times looking at maps produced by others sparks ideas for my campaign.  It often meets my needs and saves me time.

I do have a good sense of important locations the party is likely to explore during the course of a campaign and do create them as part of my long-term prep.   Sometimes my long-term prep informs what I must have in location maps, and sometimes creating the map sparks new ideas.

At some point, I will get into my process for creating, printing, and uploading maps, but that is worth an entire post on its own.