Dear fa/tg/uys, let us have a civilised debate.
Which do you prefer: preparing an elaborate setting, worldbuilding and writing out as much as possible before a game OR keeping prep to a bare minimum, work with the input of your players and making up the largest part of your game on the fly?
>What games do you mostly play?
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
>Pros/cons of prep?
>Pros/cons of improv?
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?preferably calling them autistic
I 95% improve. My players seem to like it
Players can't tell the difference desu
>>46308286
That's a lot of improvement.
>>46307228
Stupid question.
You MUST do a little/lot of both in a game for it to actually function. Treating it as though it must be one or the other is literally the stupidest thing I have seen on /tg/ of late, worse than that awful fucking sword fight thread from yesterday.
>>46307228
This is a false dichotomy. You can both prep a lot and improv a lot. For example, dungeons, maps, and other things of physical layouts greatly benefit from prep as it makes them feel more real, while its the opposite case for talking to NPCs. Scripting what they say makes it feel more artificial and like a video game. Anything above some bullet points (they do know this, they don't know that and they hate Tom the Lizard) can actually make social interactions worse.
>>46308312
If done correctly, this.
/thread
>>46307228
>>What games do you mostly play?
Gurps
>>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
Running via roll20, I'm making maps and token, and I have some very important stat blocks handy.
>>Pros/cons of prep?
-I have stuff ready for complicated encounters or weird powers. It makes shot seem more fluid, as I don't have many 'wait, hold up a sec' moments.
-can take time, and sometimes best laid plans are made irrelevant by pcs.
>>Pros/cons of improv?
-easier to match the moment to moment tone of the game; gurps allows for very easy 'rule of 10' npcs. Especially mooks. So easy to do mooks.
-getting caught with my pants down because I eyeballed a stat poorly, or handwoven something ridiculous. Also, getting caught in a plothole...
>>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
Players kill plot important npc - flustered gm can't make plot work now. Panic.
>>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
Gurps is easier than anyone says; it's great for improved games if you learn it.
I prepare for monthes and then when game goes i improvise since games never ho by script. Preparing isnt against improvising it just means you have a solid base to improvise on
>>46307228
I paint broad strokes of setting and plot beforehand, then let the game fill the details in.
>>46308416
This!
Most of my plot is improvised session to session, based on the players interest. Keeps things fresh, and they always feel like they know what's going on (because they inadvertently write it for me)
>>46307228
Descriptions are better prepped. Maps are better prepped. Puzzles are better prepped. Stablocks (if you really need them) are better prepped. Combat is always better prepped, things just run smoother; that said, expect unexpected combat.
I personally prep results to knowledge/lore checks so I don't have to go "Hmmmmmmmm well you remember there's a thing and another thing". Actual descriptions and whatnot.
RP is better improvised. Conversations are better improvised.
Overall a lot of personal DMing fun (for me, at least) comes from seeing your elaborate machination blow a gasket and fly off kilter because of some ridiculously awesome shit your players do and then just flying with them for the time being. If you anticipate the particular tangent to last a while and maybe develop into its own campaign, prep the appropriate things but do keep in mind that your players have made it their story now and keeping an open ruling policy should increase the fun factor.
>>46307228
>What games do you mostly play?
A heavily revised and homebrewed version of D&D 5e.
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
Running in Roll20, i create various categories of "Stock unit" creatures, each category has different types of abilities and attacks in their NPC sheets, which i can each quickly edit and modify into whatever is required for an encounter.
I also pre-prepare all plot/world-specific "boss encounters/dungeons".
>Pros/cons of prep?
Pro - You can put a lot of thought, detail, and flair into upcoming game content by pre-preparing it.
Con - Overprepping can on occasion result in prepared content result in being made void and skipped by players, as >>46308388 mentions as well.
>Pros/cons of improv?
Pro - Depending on how it's used, it allows for a very free-flowing game that caters to the actions of the players.
Con - On occausion, you won't have any time to put thought & detail into things. (If this happens, i suggest that you call for a 5-minute break instead of panicking and half-assing an encounter/situation together.)
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
My players ended up brefriending the first planned boss encounter of a campaign. I put two hours into prepping that fight beforehand. Everything turned out great in the end though, and he remains a valuable ally to this day.
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
Wat?
>>46308604
>A heavily revised and homebrewed version of D&D 5e.
I'm always curious to see what people change in 5e.
Prep the worldbuilding, prep the start, bullshit the rest.
>>46308711
I threw out all the classes and remade them from scratch.
I threw out all the standard monsters and D&D story/setting and put in things that, unlike standard D&D, are significantly less boring than watching paint dry.
I got rid of vancian casting, replacing it with a resource system.
I rewrote all the inspiration rules.
The players are loving it.
Movies, Videogames, Books & Anime, fully improv
d. It's just a game to me though, I don't really go in for a Story or Narrative style of play.
>>46307228
Why not both?
Prep the world, improv the story.
Making a script usually isn't a good idea. At least for me.
Instead I come up with the characters and such I expect them to run into or potentially run into, and what motivations those individuals have. Same with the areas they may or may not encounter.
That way the session/campaign isn't thrown off if the players decide to go completely off hte rails.
As a DM, I use a mix of the two.
I have a general idea of what I want, the important NPCs are established, the main goal clearly established, a basic outline for how the adventure will run, but the fluff is left blank for heaps of shit.
Maybe the players insult someone and they will show up later on in the adventure, maybe they kill someone who was going to important later on, I will just transfer those stats and shit to someone else, the players will absolutely skip over 90% of your fluff almost 100% of the time so taking the time to have a backstory, mannerisms, and such established for everyone in the bar is a total waste of time, laying out an entire town instead of two or three key locations is also a waste of time.
Make shit up as you for that stuff, however, and this is key, WRITE IT DOWN!
While you are making it up as you go, keep what you made up consistent. It might be important later and lead to other adventures. That random NPC you acted out on the spot at random might be enjoyed by your players and he should show up later and be flushed out more, but the big bad you carefully crafted might be boring when actually interacting with the PCs. Don't be discouraged by this, just ask yourself 'What was shit about this guy?' to make sure you don't hit those garbage elements again.
One of the things I also implement is a progress tracker while playing. I have a line with marks all along it. Think of a number line from high school with ten ticks on it. I will put a token representing the characters on the top line and a token representing the opposition, whatever it is, on the bottom. If the PC's play appropriately then they move to the right, if they dick around with nonsense then the baddies advance to the right. That little element snaps the bullshit closed, keeps the bard from trying to fuck everything for example, and gets them back on track. (continued)
>>46312366
IF the opposition makes it to the end of the track before the PCs do? They pull off whatever they were trying to do and the PCs are now having to deal with clean-up.
I have had the princess be sacrificed and the resulting demon have to be put down from the players dicking around too much or playing excessively stupid. If they do something blatantly dumb (not a shit roll, but just stupid ideas) it might cause the opposition to jump up by a large amount. For example, my group decided to start a bar fight while they were supposed to be questioning people for information. The line of reasoning being that the fighters would cause a distraction while the rouge would pick random pockets for information from people that seem shady.
They got arrested and thrown in jail for a week which caused the opposition tracker to go up by five. Didn't hide the body of a person they killed in a secret compound, right outside the main chamber door that was housing the stuff needed to complete a terrible ritual and fuck off somewhere else to rest and do not hide the body after they are told, by ME, that they should probably hide the body? The opposition tracker goes all the way over the right because an enemy is obviously in the compound now so the opposition is on the alert and their time table has moved up drastically.
>>46309173
No offense lad, but you are going to change the classes completely, alter the monsters, and change the magic system then you are not really playing D&D anymore at all.
prep the setting, improv the session
that's the best way. if you prep the session, you're going to get a few quantum ogres. if you improv the setting, you'll forget things.
>>46307228
both.
I
>prep world
>prep cultures and significant figures
>prep bosses
>prep large dungeons and traps
>prep music
>improv NPCs
>improv smallscale maps of areas not intended for combat
>improv enemy number and type (usually mark dX number of enemies on cheatsheet though)
>improv boss dialogue
>improv road encounters/travel
There is one thing, however, I refuse to improvsnacks
As everyone said, bit of both.
For my more serious campaigns I tend to prep more, for my lighter campaigns I tend to improv more.
>What games do you mostly play?
I currently only run a game of L5R and will be starting a game of DND 4e
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
L5R: Virtually none. During the week, I brainstorm ideas for where I want the current arc to go. I have ideas for later arcs, but I've had to throw out like 90% of the ones I came up with so far, because they had stuff conditional to what I planned players to do, and never did, so it's really just enough planning to run the next session or two.
4e: Build combat encounters beforehand. This current game was more of a settings pitch than anything else, and is run at totally random intervals, so I really just design that.
>Pros/cons of prep?
Better encounters, more coherent overall narrative. Any sort of divination/precognition type effects make sense. I'm bad at making plot hooks my party will follow, so this doesn't always work out.
>Pros/cons of improv?
Takes less time. My players ignore the plot hooks but get really attached to specific things that happen, so it lets me make those into plot hooks.
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
>Plan out an entire arc based on a murder mystery type situation
>Wizard magics the answer in like the second session into it
>Have to cancel a couple of sessions in the middle of it anyway
>Forget the original/actual plot
>Shoehorn in the next arc's plot hook into the confrontation.
>If you read the old logs, it contradicts the fuck out of itself
Good thing no one reads those but me.
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
I only like one of my player's characters. The rest seem literally designed to annoy me.
>>46307228
I write down what i need to remember about locations, characters and small quests and routines.
Otherwise i improvise.
Keeps me from railroading and the players from going full randumb.
>>46307228
>>46307228
You have to do a little of both. Times where I have planned out too much went horrible and times where I had nothing planned were too shallow and reactive.
It's not a strict 50/50. I would say that ideally it would be about 40% planning, 60% improv.
Source: over a decade of being forever DM
>>46307228
Extensive prep with lot's moving parts is what I'd LIKE to do, thankfully I'm very good at improv.
I like to prepare but am always ready to throw it right out the window. Good to have an ideaof the logistics of the world though, so you have things to draw from if you're stuck
>>46308350
This, we shouldn't even bother with extremes.
>>46307228
I think everyone falls somewhere in the middle, don't you? I tend to improv more because I've been burned too many times pouring gobs of time into fleshing things out that players either aren't interested in or simply circumvent for something I come up with on the fly.
My strategy now is to flesh out things that interest me, so that the time I'm devoting to it isn't a chore, and then either toss them in a big pile of 'mite B useful' or at least if all else fails I have something to mentally draw from when I need to bullshit.
What I've been doing is crafting a setting, and just simulating how it'd work out in front of the players and react to their actions.
Downside to this, i would imagine, is that these settings are rarely prepared for PC levels of Wizard, or "I spec harder into [x combat task] than most people in this scenario could ever prep for." Though I could imagine this is more of a personal flaw, than a flaw with improv.
>>46317550
Extremes galvanize people, though; we're trained to see things in extremes.
Years of being a storygaming swine has made me very good at just pulling things out of my ass. If it seems to catch on, I then expand upon it in my downtime.
>>46307228
Prepare just enough to be able to improv efficiently.
Preparing too much means you'll either be a railroading piece of fuck, or you'll end up having to throw out most of your work. Preparing too little tends to slow down the game as you constantly have to adapt to the dumb shit your players are pulling.
The things you prepare are basically the setpieces of your campaign. That might include combat encounters, but also important NPCs or locations. Preferably, these are all things that are recycleable. For example, your party comes to a croassroad. One of these roads leads to the dungeon you've prepared, the other doesn't. If your players don't go towards the dungeon, you should have a plan to use at least part of the prep that went into the dungeon for whatever they do instead.
In the end, being good at improvising is more important than being a good planner, but they both enhance eachother if you do it right. And of course, it depends on your players. If your players are the kind that enjoy a simple dungeon crawl most of all, you can prepare like 90% of your games ahead of time if you wanted to.
>>46307228
>What games do you mostly play?
I've run year+ long games of Pathfinder, OWOD Vampire Dark Ages, and L5R 3rd edition. I play in Silver Age Sentinels, Pathfinder, and modfied D20 Modern. Just finished our L5R campaign a month ago, glad to be taking a break.
>How much do you prepare before a game and how? For Vampire, I spent maybe 3-5 hours a week during the week sending emails and conferring with players on their actions between sessions and stuff between players and their sires. For Pathfinder, I had long ago laid out a very basic plot roadmap and just let the players do their thing. If you put even a small carrot out there players will eventually take a nibble or find a carrot you didn't even know you had. Either way I would run with it. For L5R I spent maybe an hour a week on prep, either drawing an area map or writing a description of a city or a few people, that was it.
>Pros/cons of prep?
Pros, looking bad ass when your mystery finally gets solved and your players are all smug they figured it out and whooped up on the bad guy. Getting a huge amount of in game and out of game RP from having hugely detailed npcs.
Having copious notes to fall back on when the details get fuzzy.
Cons, it's tons of work, can be addicting, and stressing, and you wind up with some wasted material that can be re purposed later but sometimes isn't.
>Pros/cons of improv?
Pros, No prep time needed. Feel like a bad ass when your plot comes together and blows player minds and you didn't write a sentence of it.
Much more flexible and no wasted material, sometimes leads to things that a plot train would have missed.
Cons, 0 fallback material besides what you write down during session. Note takers will call you out on shit. Sometimes you lose a thread of story and can't pick it back up. More minor mistakes, lots more. Retconning may be necessary because you fucked up and hard to manage because you have no backup.
>>46320433
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
I burned myself out hard on Vampire, when I was writing 40-50k word emails for 4 different players every week, it became a burden at some point and the quality started to slip a lot which led to a less satisfactory conclusion for the second arc of the game.
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
>>46307228
Our DM has always run things on about 70% prep, 29% improv, and 1% telling us to act like fucking adults once in a while.
It's sort of obvious when he's switching gears due to us getting off his flowcharts, because he'll call a break or tell us to go do something tedious (like planning out our purchases or figuring out the general plot to the mission) while he sits there and tears at his notes like a rabid badger.
>>46307228
I'm kinda in between.
>>46307228
I've played under a number of GMs who did little or no prep and relied entirely on improv. Some of them were very proud of this, and would bring it up frequently, as a badge of honor, proof of their skill. They always believed that they were just as good, sometimes better, without having planned anything.
They were all shit. Some of the worst GMs I've ever played with. They had their moments, but 90% of their games would be boring and repetitive, with no sense of direction and no sense of growth. Having played with them in other games, I knew that they were all at least better, some of them actually good, when they had done some work ahead of time.
Improv GMs always seem to be high on the idea that they are great at it, but they almost never are.
>>46307228
>What games do you mostly play?
D&D, currently 5e
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
Before the campaign I prepared the world and its culture and its cities. Before arcs I prepare the city properly, the villain for the arc and his plans. Before sessions I "update" the city based on what the players did last and change up the villains plans to accomodate any setbacks that arose from the party interfering.
>Pros/cons of prep?
Prep gives you stuff to build off of and more interesting things to do. Also helps immerse your players when there's a bit of detail in everything. Cons are of course just that it can waste your time if it never comes up and you're not big into railroading.
>Pros/cons of improv?
Its good to make your players feel like what they do matters and can lead to some hilarious moments when you think of shit on the fly. On the other hand you can accidentally improv your way into a corner and say stuff that contradicts some of the stuff you have prepared
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
Never really had anything go horribly wrong in a game so far mostly because I do prep a lot but can improvise when needed to
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?I took over the group as DM after the first arc when the original DM had to work overseas and he didn't give me a good majority of his notes so I have to work off of what I learned of the world and the other players from when I was just a player in the party. This wouldn't be so bad if the DM hadn't homebrewed so much shit and done so many allowances for things that shouldn't be (such as letting our paladin do damage with his shield when he shield bashes with the shieldmaster feat, pretty much letting him dual wield with a sword and shield). And then some of the players have the gall to ask for even more allowances (aforementioned paladin player is now bitching that his shield doesn't deal magical damage)
I prep a ton between games, making maps, characters, encounters, and plothooks with plans for the party doing different things.
30 minutes into the session they've jumped 3 sets of rails and I'm scrambling to slot at least SOME of my prep work into the game and making shit up on the fly. To this day they've yet to realize this is what's happening and are endlessly impressed with how well I seem to plan for their shenanigans......dear god I'm doomed when my luck runs out.
>>46328120
Then cut down on the prep and begin to learn the fine art of GM improv.
>>46307228
I run Pokemon games, so I do a mix of prep and improv. This last session included a gym battle, all of which was all prepared, and then route exploration, which was primarily improv. I try to make the important battles ahead of time to give them something memorable. Everything else can be done more loosely.
You need to do both. What kind of stupid fucking debate is this?
All prep is retarded railroad bullshit.
All improv leads to a terrible uninspired mess.
>>46307228
>What games do you mostly play?
D&D 5E and my personal homebrew under work.
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
I mostly prepare the major encounters and plot points that I expect to transpire during the upcoming session, but not in too great detail usually. I try to make an exception out of the most important events and encounters, or ones I am really inspired about,of the campaign though, even making timed playlists to fit the atmosphere.
>Pros/cons of prep?
+ Game goes more smoothly when the important bits are written down
+ More consistency in general
- Can take up very much time
- Players do the darnest things, it is impossible to plan for everything
>Pros/cons of improv?
+ Easy to adapt to the often surprising courses of action taken by the PCs
+ Good excercise for wits, creativity and imagination
-(+) It sometimes takes extra time and work to weave the improvised bits properly into the story, which can lead to new and interesting plot points
- Prone to unexpected consequences
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
I can't recall anything worse than needing to take a creative break to come up with something to keep things rolling, which was at worst 30 minutes. Never done really hard railroading either.
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
Too much prep and you'll end up with a world set on rails. Too much improvisation and it'll be one big mess.
>>46307228
>What games do you mostly play?
D&D 3.5, WFRP 2e, Dark Heresy & Friends, Mongoose Runequest, Eclipse Phase.
>How much do you prepare before a game and how?
I prepare a lot. However, it is a different sort of preparation than /tg/ seems to think of when they think "preparation".
I prepare in a flexible, modular manner. I have a binder of characters, monsters, encounters and locations, which can be slotted in as needed. If the PCs kill something important, the character gets slightly changed and then re-used at a later date. I also decide what's going on in the world around them, but I do not decide a "story" as if I can predict with any reliability what the PCs are going to do.
>Pros/cons of prep and improv?
It is not a dichotomy. Prep and improv are two parts of one whole. You prep so you can improv, you improv using your prep. The better your prep, the more you can improv, because you use the solid mechanics you have prepared as tools. You will use your prep in creative ways as you adapt to the player's actions and the roll of the dice.
>Times something went horribly wrong due to lack or excessive prep?
Never.
>A shitty opinion or accusation about the group of people you disagree with?
OP is a faggot for thinking that prep and improv are separate and opposed.
>>46308416
This.
Homebrewed a world, pantheon, a few civilizations, and some plots on the deity level. Thought of a long term campaign that heavily involved aquatic and underwater stuff that would reveal the history of a couple of races, and tried to bait them(lol) in that direction. Party, though not off the rails, is instead heading to the matriarchal druidic land-vikings because they're all terrified of what'll happen to them if they go on/in the water.
The party has done some crazy shit so far, and it's turned into a pretty good story. Improvisation within a general structure really lent itself to making world seem alive to the players.
Nearly 3/4 of every session is on the spot stuff. They have no clue, and the best part is that they love it.
one of the players made fun of an encounter I made (preparation), and then said she was sure I was bending the rules to the moment in order to try to kill them all (improv). she's my best friend's wife, so I couldn't kick her. so I don't DM anymore, and that means we don't play anymore. Thanks, Becky, you got just what you wanted.
