There is something distinctly gratifying about completing a period of pre-game GM prep and feeling ready to run the game. In recent weeks, I’ve developed an approach that has effectively unstuck me from past failures and this post summarises that development.

Prepping for RPG sessions was a long-term barrier for me as GM. Regular listeners to RPR over the last five years will have heard me repeatedly begin a new game, run one or two sessions, and then buckle under the pressure of GM prep. The main reason was that I had too high expectations and to little structure.

The process I am currently using looks like this:

• As soon as possible AFTER a session, write a summary of what happened.
• Make a list of presumed player actions for the next session.
• Set a prep time limit – I currently opt for 50% of session play time.
• Prioritise the presumed player actions from the most likely to least likely to happen.
• Prep the least possible practical notes to run each of those actions, in order of priority.

In terms of prepping for the player’s presumed actions, I try to focus on grabbing what I might need to present. Generally, this includes a quick description of the scene and then any clues that I might need to seed into that scene so that players can make informed choices. Lastly, I grab stat blocks for anything that might need fighting.

Having built a skeleton plan around what I think the players are most likely to do, I expect to improvise around that outline. I’ve found that there are countless details that I can’t predict the players will invoke through their questions and interactions, but trusting myself to improv is enjoyable once I have the broad strokes sketched out.

The act of summarising the session after it is over helps me to feel confident that I’ve recorded the pertinent details that arose through play. In other words, the worry with improv is that I’ll forget something but recording the session summary quickly after – usually the next morning – eases this fear.

If I get more time in the week, I drop small bites of extra Tiny Prep into my lunch hours. Naming a person, place, or thing in the world take less than a minute. Sketching out a quick description takes maybe a minute more. Doing that five days a week while I chomp my sandwich soon accumulates.

That’s how I am running Fellmyr at present. The main benefit is that I am gaining confidence as a GM who can balance pre-game prep with in-game improv.

Game on!