The One Note Card Challenge. Streamlining Your Session Prep.
Could you fit all of your session notes on a 3x5 note card? For many Game Masters this may feel like it would be an incredibly difficult challenge, perhaps even impossible. However, in my experience dealing with session prep, less is often more. The more focused you can make your notes. the less you will have to reference and the more useful your notes will be. Most of your prep is subject to the actions and reactions of your players so the more prep that you can cut back on, the better.
My biggest fear has always been to show up to a session unprepared. As such, early on I would often over-prepare for every eventuality. This led to a fair amount of wasted prep on my part and unnecessary time spent flipping through notes during the session. As time went on, I gained proficiency with the systems that I ran and I found that I had to prep less and less. One of the things that will save you a lot of time prepping is to have a good foundational understanding of the rules for the system you are running. This will allow you to be agile and be able to react to the story on the fly. Also, try to anticipate the rules you might need to know and reference them before the session. For example, if your characters are about to embark in some lengthy overland travel, you should consider reviewing the travel rules along with some possible obstacles they may face. Another thing I did to help become more adept at session prep was to read some books and articles on how to streamline it, including Never Unprepared and The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, both of which I highly recommend if you want some unique (and sometimes opposing) perspectives on session prep.
Let’s take a look now at how I streamline my session prep and how you can too!
First, I like to summarize all of the major plot points that might happen during the session. Then, I make a list of possible locations that the players may visit in their travels along with any monsters or non-player characters they may encounter. I also write the page number of anything I am referencing, along with any skills or important traits I want to remember. The goal here is just to have an outline of what you need for your session and where you can reference it if you need more information. My outlines tend to be small flowcharts and/or bullet-pointed lists. For example:
Receive Quest: Find the missing villagers>Search for clues>Travel through the dark forest>Explore the haunted mine>Fight the monster
Village Tavern - Learn about the missing villagers
Innkeeper
Captain of the Guard
Various patrons
Hall of Records - Learn about the town curse from readings
Record Keeper
Wizard Researcher
Dark Forest - Wolf Attack!
1 Dire Wolf MM.321 -Pack Tactics
6 Wolves MM.341 - Pack Tactics
Haunted Mine
Cave In! DC15 Dex save (3d8 Bludgeoning)
Brown Bear MM.320
4 Gnolls-MM.195
1 Gnoll Pack Lord - MM. 195
Treasure - +1 Mace, Decanter of Endless Water, Bag of Holding
If you are anything like me, I think you will find that slimming down your prep actually allows for and encourages you to think on the fly a lot more and helps you to improv and react to the actions of your players more naturally. Next time you sit down to prep your next session ask yourself how much prep is really necessary to run your session well. Can you keep all of your session notes on one card? Challenge yourself. And let me know how it goes!
Take Heart,
Karington Hess
Game Master and Founder of Open Heart Games
