I think the best prep advice I've ever read was in either Stars Without Number or Worlds Without Number by KeviN Crawford which boiled down to: "Are you having fun prepping? Keep doing it. Are you not having fun prepping? Stop doing it. Do you absolutely need to prep this for the next session? Do it. Do you not need this for the next session? Then don't do it."
Can I just say how much I appreciate how short you manage to make your videos? A lot of D&D channels (which are good in their own way) make videos that often go longer than half an hour. They offer an interesting in-depth exploration of a topic, but it makes them difficult to use when you're looking for advice, especially when you're pressed for time before a session. That's where your videos really shine - every word is useful and to the point.
Good tips! One of the biggest red flag statements from a DM, in my opinion, is 'I am doing a LOT of writing' when prepping a game. More often than not, it means they are literally plotting out every beat of their story including the climactic battle and story endgame they want to see through. Not always... but usually.
In my experience that often refers to worldbuilding and setting design, but I often hang out with worldbuilder GMs so I might be part of an outlying group.
Hard agree with Mage's Musings here. As someone dipping my toes into the realm of worldbuilding & DMing, one of the inspirations for my doing so are my past DMs that have approached the hobby as a book-writing alternative and to varying degrees are dismissive to player autonomy or ability to drive the narrative in a nonlinear fashion.
In my experience (as someone who has said that a lot) it usually means that they're putting WAY too much time into writing out their history/world lore leading up to the player's involvement lmao
It can also mean they are overpreparing for multiple possible outcomes, or some things have complex and multifaceted ramifications that need to be put down in paper to be remembered. But, yes some just write novels and expect you to follow the beats.
It is, and it isn't - because misprep leads to this spiral where you keep ending up feeling like you didn't prep enough, so you prep more and more and more. Which leads to enormous amounts of material that you feel like you need to force the players through, because you're stuck in this spiral of anxiety about being unpreprared.
This is good advice, especially the very last statement that overprepping is not “creating too much”, but “creating things that will not be used anymore”
Another thing I would suggest as a dm is to suggest you use a setting that you're intimately familiar with. I often don't have to take any notes other than for events that happen within the narrative and NPC notes. I also recommend allowing the players to just free roam. If you allow them to just wander freely on the world map in a setting that you know well then they will wander into adventure on a regular basis without any work on you. Best advice is to just study one setting until you know it like the back of your hand. After that your prep time is cut down to 10%. Of course you'll always have to do a little prep for dungeons...
I absolutely feel this is key and often overlooked or set aside as being too time consuming. The worldbuilding knowledge shouldn't be presented as loredumps but instead should be understood by the dm to the extent that they have an intuitive understanding of the natural cause/effect outcomes thst will take place as a result of the PCs actions.
My session prep is usually 1 or 2 a4 worth of 'touchpoints' or possible encounters in the immediate area summed up in a simple note structure, I add some colors and simple symbols to help me find exactly what I need on the fly. My monsters are usually nothing more than; _AC, HP, Speed, and a simplification of it's actions and traits_
This video could be the thesis statement for Sly Flourish's book (Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master) - which is all about prepping motivations, actionable information, etc - and being light on prepping specifics/details. Great video, btw
I can't recommend Sly Flourish and his "Lazy DM" products enough for this purpose. His framework really helped me to better understand what was and wasn't useful when I was prepping. The secrets and clues concept alone is immensely helpful IMO. He has a UA-cam channel with a talk show and he does his own session prep live and posts them so you can see him using his own process as much as you want. It's really a great resource, as least for me.
In addition to this Video which helps a lot ♥ Dungeon Familiar's Session Prep Sheet is literally a chef's kiss for those who want a simple template to follow and also not overprepping. In fact, small templates for the important things to prep is pretty much... *G O O D!*
Watching your videos leads me to believe you are clandestine agent of Evil Hat Productions: teaching players and GMs to view D&D through a Fate Core lens. Kudos!
@@travisguzman5603 I would say by far is to have fun. Not every situation has to be serious or important. Example I had a player miss 2 consecutive bonus attack and they were supper bumbed out they weren't contributing. On their regular action they did an unarmed strike to the monsters face, then I was like "like a Rick Flair thumb to the eye" I saw everyone's face light up and start laughing. I had the monster fall backwards and prone. And threw a disembodied voice yell WOOOOO in the background
I think a lot of the "over preparing" issue comes from DMs who don't nessicaily have other creative outlets. It's easy to get obsessed over world building that your players will never see if you aren't careful. It's ok to make elaborate lore for your world as long as you go into the game knowing that 90% of it won't see the light of day. Not the most efficient way to run but if you enjoy world building for it's own sake then just make sure you have healthy expectations about what your players will realistically be interested in.
Great video as always! I particularly like the advice regarding "fudging" everything else. I spend so much time before sessions statting out big bads, or a new custom monster for a single encounter. But if I know the party will encounter it on equal footing there is no need to worry about the creature's stealth ability or what it can smell right now since, I don't intend for it to stealth against the. Great ways to save time and prepping woes!
You're very right - and remember that stats usually only come into play if players actually start fighting somebody. It's perfectly fine to have statless monsters and NPCs running around the world - maybe players won't fight them, maybe they'll befriend them? Maybe they'll find a way to defeat them without using stats at all like dropping half a mountain on them? Who knows? And IF worst comes to worse, there are so many 'base templates' in all kinds of bestiaries for things that you can usually stat stuff on the fly or... fudge it. :D
Greetings I've recently subscribed to your channel because your content is not only informative but also easy to learn. I especially like your Geopolitical videos and your videos on medieval court structures (possibly my favorite video you've made). I hope to see more in the near future.
Stay tuned. I'm getting a geopolitical risk analysis certification in the real world in August from Florida Atlantic. I'm going hard in the paint on geopolitical stuff afterwards
My biggest problem with prepping is that mostly my groups will, for example, go right-hand search rule in a dungeon then one day randomly decide to start on the left side instead. I've got the right path prepped sufficiently, but nothing on the left. Often what I'll do in that case is give them the right side stuff anyway and then make up something else later for the original right path. Now that bites me less, though on occasion they'll go down the right fork, then suddenly reverse course and go up the left fork. So, now that I'm winging everything, I don't prep much at all but instead furiously scribe notes to keep track of what I just made up. Which means I'm making copious amounts of notes, just not up front anymore.
I still believe that prepping is a sliding-scale for GMs and it largely depends on their personality, GM style and what they enjoy. It's the 'prep vs improv' or 'prep vs execution' scale and everybody places somewhere on it. There people I know who enjoy pouring hours of work into prep - sometimes out of necessity because they feel insecure about their ad-hoc and improvisation skills - and I know people who could run two sessions off a single PowerPoint chart. The latter runs the risk of being inconsistent and chaotic if not supported by enough improv talent. It's like the composer vs violinist comparison. One is big on 'prep and creativity', the other is big on perfect and inspired execution.
I do my best to only have 3-7 details per faction, NPC, and point of interest before players start living in the world. Now, depending on the size of the region and density of points of interest, that's still a good deal of initial work, but it leaves enough room to expand and develop as the PC'S decide what they are interested in while having enough of an idea of what various groups are wanting and doing. Also, totally agree with the mechanics focus!! I often don't have a 100% solid stat block until during combat, though for set-piece battles I definitely do.
Another great video, Baron! Absolutely, short sweet and to the point notes are not only easier to write, but easier to read too. I will say though, I think having static DCs can be a good thing at times. Fluid DCs are absolutely common, and the players roll is often used by the DM to instead determine the outcome rather than simply checking if they pass or fail. However, monsters should gave some set abilities and AC and all that, as they are useful to have. The reason being that if even stuff like AC and monster damage is fluid... then what's even the point of the rules? There has to be something objective to base things in at times, and combat is one of those times. If it's all fluid, then it's... kinda bullshit, no? It's a set challenge for the PCs to overcome. Now, you can add more monsters if the fight is too easy, lower monster HP if too hard and all that, but I feel much point still stands.
Ultimately it's a collaborative storytelling experience so keeping the mechanical aspects fluid to better serve the story is a good idea; however, I do agree with you, it becomes a bit too freeform and interpretive if you just fudge everything. You don't want the mechanics to be the roadblock for a good story, but you also don't want to just be telling a story with no mechanical skeleton underneath it either (unless maybe you're a truly exceptional storyteller to begin with)... The mechanics are meant to provide a tangible form to the narrative mass, in a way. Now I am pretty sure the very wise Baron knew and assumed all of this, instead simply focusing on explaining how to avoid DM overencumbrance. Similarly I'm sure they'd tell us not to give our players a success on every roll, since that would become obvious quickly and introduce extreme diminishing returns, not to mention ruin the experience by making it more (pre)determined. Same goes for being a hardass DM and just having them fail everything.
@@drago939393 "Ultimately it's a collaborative storytelling experience so keeping the mechanical aspects fluid to better serve the story is a good idea; " I don't really agree with this statement. DND is, IMO, small scale collaborative wargaming with an emergent storytelling element. Mechanics are a huge part of DND (and a huge percentage of the ruleset). One of the primary functions of the mechanics/dicerolling is to derail the narrative. If you're not interested in the mechanical parts - there are systems that are way better at collaborative storytelling - and systems with way more concise, elegant mechanics that get out of the way quicker.
@@rich63113 I did imply all of that, not sure why you stopped the quote there lol. Anyway, it just depends on what people want from the game, DnD as a game itself can provide a whole lot. It's definitely not a wargame with storytelling tho, at most it's storytelling with a wargame skeleton. With that said, DnD is also an ubiquitous catch-all game nowadays, so the Average Joe plays it regardless.
Thanks for your advice. Another good video. I like it way more to be told to optimize and synthetize preparation in order to make it efficient, heuristic and easily usable while saving time, rather than being told to not prepare this or that because it takes too long and feel lost afterwards when running the game. Your videos reflect that efficiency and are easy reference to come back to. I'm a big advocate of quality over quantity.
i prep the world. by the time a campaign starts i have the BBEG and maybe 3-4 big multi-session missions and then a bunch of missions that i can plop anywhere on the map to buy me a week to prep for when the players go off the rails
I would love to see a video on how to prep the giant 5E adventures commerce such as curse of strahd or tomb of annihilation. I struggle to take everything in and stay consistent from session to session.
I try to apply a variety of methods when preparing different things. A random wilderness encounter? It's exactly that, I draw or set a scene with whatever comes to mind, the enemies are determined randomly, and whether or not there's a unique scenario in occurrence. A big ol deep dungeon dive? I have notes for every room, but they are just bullet points, nothing is without some relevance or description, but it's never more than a sentence or two of writing.
Professor dungeon master had a similar video. I, as a player, enjoy the drama of the die roll when I know my target number ahead of time. The cheers or moans around the table as the d20 is cast adds to the game, in my opinion. If we're going to go for simple, I would rather do runehammers room DC. Everything in the room has the same DC. Simple, but everyone knows what they're targeting. On your index card, you just have to have one number up in the corner.
This gave me a fair bit to think about. Detailed descriptions might become a bit of a comfort blanket...I think I should pivot to this instead. One suggestion: as great as your visuals are, this is primarily audio content for me. If I'm just listening audiobook-style, the silent title screens break the flow a bit and I feel like I lack context for the beginning of the next paragraph.
Awesome video. ++ on broad descriptions and focusing on the unique and unusual when planning locations. And, a request. I would've loved to hear brief examples of how some of your advice plays out. For example, how you use those few bullet points of an NPC's motivations to craft interactions on the fly.
Prepping is part of my hobby as a DM and I love it as a time sink. But I love to prepare strong pillars and random tables to imrpovise on. For example: Strong pillar in my world is a civil war after the king's death. random encounter I: A group of refugees; Landmark: Hot bath/well. They find a place to rest. But when I have "A foggy swamp" as a Landmark they will have lost a few members, had a hard time to find food and are in desperate need of safe passege. So I prepare to be not prepared ;) 1d100 adventure seeds, 1d100 landmarks, worked out factions etc. are my way to prepare.
I tend to make my outlines action/reaction based, rather than NPC or location based. But I follow the same basic principles. I might note a "suspicious merchant gives hint about gang activity." Now that social interaction can be activated at any point the group encounters a merchant. Or maybe, "a pickpocket urchin initiates a chase through the crowd, ultimately leading the group to an abandoned house." Once again, any street or event will provide the setting to put this encounter into the game. With these types of encounters laid out, and a few random encounters combat tables, I can let the group act very spontaneously and still keep the story moving.
My problem right now is the module I'm running (Dungeons of Drakkenheim) is very wordy. I wish they'd used bullet points instead. That was the best part of Dragon of ice spire peak.
You can't mention fudging dice in passing without most of the comments being on fudging. I think it deserves its own video. The fudging the issue is actually an issue with the GM "knowing" what will happen before the dice are rolled as evidenced by the GM not following the outcome on the dice begs why the dice were rolled in the first place. The problem is most TTRPGs don't spell out what should be happening prior to any dice roll. The GM doesn't decide what happens, the GM isn't narrating a novel, the GM isn't trying to kill the player's characters, the GM isn't trying to save the player's characters. The GM's job is to assess a situation and understand what the worst, best, and most likely outcome of a given action is and then allow the dice to decide for everyone at the table what happens. This is why the argument that the GM can adjust the modifiers therefore the GM can fudge the roll is misguided. If there isn't a spectrum of worst, best, and most likely outcome for an interaction that all work, then dice should not be rolled. Sometimes all outcomes would be positive outcomes, and sometimes all outcomes would be negative outcomes. The very best outcome of the players rolling to intimidate the king in front of the court might be the intimidate was so successful they are taken seriously and the king skips past the torture and orders the guards to kill them on the spot. If you understand the best, worst, and most likely outcomes then there is no need to fudge any non-combat dice roll. As for combat dice rolls, the problem there is when characters have main protagonist syndrome. Character death used to be much more common, and it was more common for a reason. Success isn't possible if failure isn't possible. Even if resurrection was fairly common, it cost a point of constitution forever every time. Unless you subscribe to great man theory, history doesn't turn on chosen ones, it turns on what actually happened out of the many possible outcomes. Player characters having an elaborate back story and pre-planned grand character arc from level one is the very definition of excessive pre-planning that is trouble for all the reasons excessive planning is trouble (see, brought it back around in a circle). When that character gets into combat and all of that back story and expected character arc holds the combat hostage. You can pretend to attack the character but it is all pretend because you'll fudge that final roll that matters and if the final roll doesn't matter then none of them do. Fact of the matter is, you shouldn't be negotiating with terrorists. If the chosen one catches an arrow to the face then the chosen one catches an arrow to the face then they obviously were not the chosen one based on the fact that they are dead. Ultimately, excessive pre-planning by the players in the form of elaborate backstory and expected grand character arcs is the player is using the game to try and read a novel at the GM and is just as bad as the GM writing an elaborate novel that they read at the players. Both the GM and players should have terse bullet pointed outlines and general motivations, and the game itself should be emergent based on those two sets of prep coming into contact with each other in a manner that isn't pre-planned. Dice are essential for this, as it breaks human inclinations to rail-road on what should happen, instead of reflecting on what could happen. After all, if the game is one of emergence then "should" is the known arch enemy of emergence. If you are fudging dice rolls, you've missed the entire game.
the audio for this is wonky. didn't notice at first cause I was painting some terrain and listening lol! Also this is some good advice, 8/10 I share your videos because your one of the few trying to take a serious look at talking head advice.
@@DungeonMasterpiece Sorry I should have just said, instead of saying a funny word lol. Your audio is just out of sync with the video, otherwise no other issue!
is there a D&D marketplace where I can sell my D&D stuff, since the gaming shop shut down for an unprecedented reason, and the next closest place is an empty Denny's or 30 miles away. ? I have a large collection of AD&D Spelljammer and lots of things that DM's use.
Wonderful video, a real look at effective prep instead of heuristics of prep. I'm curious if there is a similar threshold of world building. I'm in the middle of consolidating my fantasy setting in a big way, and running into the age old problem of, 'when is it done?'
It's never complete - but if you're worldbuilding for DnD - it should be "done" as soon as you can plop players in it. Don't let worldbuilding prevent you from playing. Figure out your central tensions in the world, determine how those central tensions affect the "little people" in some section of the world, and get playing.
I find myself agreeing with Baron a lot in many of his videos, and even at the start of this one, but I have to hard disagree with the "just gut check DCs on the fly" when those are by far the easiest thing to prep. If you have goblins, you know their Passive Perception and their Stealth skill already, the idea that they're hard to get is silly. If you go through the trouble of adding a trap to a room, it takes 30 seconds to right down the DC to find find it and another DC to disarm it. Just by adding the trap you've already done 90% of the work, to not just finish it adding DCs seems just wasteful. Ditto for secret doors, investigation checks in rooms with Points of Interests, etc. I'm one thousand percent on board with not writing pages of narrative for NPCs or writing out five paragraphs describing a flooded kitchen, but adding DCs to the things that you really spent the time adding to your world isn't difficult and will actually save you a lot of time and worry in the long run. Also, players will _know_ what they rolled, so going with gut checks can feel really shady to them if you aren't consistent.
As an autistic DM who loves Pathfinder/3.5, I find this topic weirdly sad. I prep the town, the characters, the items and the dungeons because the players want a game and a story. They want to explore the world, and the world should have interesting aspects, challenges and (admittedly, random) but also designed treasure. That does require a good amount prep, and is it not reasonable to spend some time making such things? Social improv is…difficult though doable, and doesn’t yield the same results as a curated place with things to explore, no?
4:57 unless you have large fluctuations in your DC checks, then this approach doesn't work at all. This is specific advice for DMing in 5e, not in general. It doesn't work for pathfinder or such. 5:14 Fudging rolls and checks is a great way to invalidate player agency. There's a reason you don't let your players know you're doing it, because it's wrong. Bragging about finding this workaround loophole is not a good thing.
I think the best prep advice I've ever read was in either Stars Without Number or Worlds Without Number by KeviN Crawford which boiled down to: "Are you having fun prepping? Keep doing it. Are you not having fun prepping? Stop doing it. Do you absolutely need to prep this for the next session? Do it. Do you not need this for the next session? Then don't do it."
Can I just say how much I appreciate how short you manage to make your videos? A lot of D&D channels (which are good in their own way) make videos that often go longer than half an hour. They offer an interesting in-depth exploration of a topic, but it makes them difficult to use when you're looking for advice, especially when you're pressed for time before a session. That's where your videos really shine - every word is useful and to the point.
Good tips! One of the biggest red flag statements from a DM, in my opinion, is 'I am doing a LOT of writing' when prepping a game. More often than not, it means they are literally plotting out every beat of their story including the climactic battle and story endgame they want to see through. Not always... but usually.
In my experience that often refers to worldbuilding and setting design, but I often hang out with worldbuilder GMs so I might be part of an outlying group.
Hard agree with Mage's Musings here. As someone dipping my toes into the realm of worldbuilding & DMing, one of the inspirations for my doing so are my past DMs that have approached the hobby as a book-writing alternative and to varying degrees are dismissive to player autonomy or ability to drive the narrative in a nonlinear fashion.
In my experience (as someone who has said that a lot) it usually means that they're putting WAY too much time into writing out their history/world lore leading up to the player's involvement lmao
It can also mean they are overpreparing for multiple possible outcomes, or some things have complex and multifaceted ramifications that need to be put down in paper to be remembered. But, yes some just write novels and expect you to follow the beats.
I cringe hard whenever I hear "I am writing a campaign." Given that I follow more than a few younger and newer GMs on social media, I cringe a lot.
My take away is overprepping is a misnomer, and that the actual concept being referred to is misprepping or prepping the wrong thing.
It is, and it isn't - because misprep leads to this spiral where you keep ending up feeling like you didn't prep enough, so you prep more and more and more.
Which leads to enormous amounts of material that you feel like you need to force the players through, because you're stuck in this spiral of anxiety about being unpreprared.
I really appreciate the eloquence of this comment. It ties into the video's emphasis on efficient storytelling
This is good advice, especially the very last statement that overprepping is not “creating too much”, but “creating things that will not be used anymore”
Another thing I would suggest as a dm is to suggest you use a setting that you're intimately familiar with. I often don't have to take any notes other than for events that happen within the narrative and NPC notes. I also recommend allowing the players to just free roam. If you allow them to just wander freely on the world map in a setting that you know well then they will wander into adventure on a regular basis without any work on you. Best advice is to just study one setting until you know it like the back of your hand. After that your prep time is cut down to 10%. Of course you'll always have to do a little prep for dungeons...
I absolutely feel this is key and often overlooked or set aside as being too time consuming. The worldbuilding knowledge shouldn't be presented as loredumps but instead should be understood by the dm to the extent that they have an intuitive understanding of the natural cause/effect outcomes thst will take place as a result of the PCs actions.
My session prep is usually 1 or 2 a4 worth of 'touchpoints' or possible encounters in the immediate area summed up in a simple note structure, I add some colors and simple symbols to help me find exactly what I need on the fly.
My monsters are usually nothing more than; _AC, HP, Speed, and a simplification of it's actions and traits_
This video could be the thesis statement for Sly Flourish's book (Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master) - which is all about prepping motivations, actionable information, etc - and being light on prepping specifics/details.
Great video, btw
I can't recommend Sly Flourish and his "Lazy DM" products enough for this purpose. His framework really helped me to better understand what was and wasn't useful when I was prepping. The secrets and clues concept alone is immensely helpful IMO. He has a UA-cam channel with a talk show and he does his own session prep live and posts them so you can see him using his own process as much as you want. It's really a great resource, as least for me.
In addition to this Video which helps a lot ♥
Dungeon Familiar's Session Prep Sheet is literally a chef's kiss for those who want a simple template to follow and also not overprepping.
In fact, small templates for the important things to prep is pretty much... *G O O D!*
Watching your videos leads me to believe you are clandestine agent of Evil Hat Productions: teaching players and GMs to view D&D through a Fate Core lens. Kudos!
Not over prepping is my strongest trait, but not by choice.
@@Barquevious_Jackson with 3 little kids to take care of, I literally prep once I have my D&D table set up.
@@Barquevious_Jackson I did when I first started, but I got really good at improv which works perfect for my home brew.
@@jm25ro what would you say is the most important thing you learned about improv? I am struggling a bit.
@@travisguzman5603 I would say by far is to have fun. Not every situation has to be serious or important. Example I had a player miss 2 consecutive bonus attack and they were supper bumbed out they weren't contributing. On their regular action they did an unarmed strike to the monsters face, then I was like "like a Rick Flair thumb to the eye" I saw everyone's face light up and start laughing. I had the monster fall backwards and prone. And threw a disembodied voice yell WOOOOO in the background
I think a lot of the "over preparing" issue comes from DMs who don't nessicaily have other creative outlets. It's easy to get obsessed over world building that your players will never see if you aren't careful. It's ok to make elaborate lore for your world as long as you go into the game knowing that 90% of it won't see the light of day. Not the most efficient way to run but if you enjoy world building for it's own sake then just make sure you have healthy expectations about what your players will realistically be interested in.
Great video as always! I particularly like the advice regarding "fudging" everything else. I spend so much time before sessions statting out big bads, or a new custom monster for a single encounter. But if I know the party will encounter it on equal footing there is no need to worry about the creature's stealth ability or what it can smell right now since, I don't intend for it to stealth against the. Great ways to save time and prepping woes!
You're very right - and remember that stats usually only come into play if players actually start fighting somebody. It's perfectly fine to have statless monsters and NPCs running around the world - maybe players won't fight them, maybe they'll befriend them? Maybe they'll find a way to defeat them without using stats at all like dropping half a mountain on them?
Who knows? And IF worst comes to worse, there are so many 'base templates' in all kinds of bestiaries for things that you can usually stat stuff on the fly or... fudge it. :D
Dungeon Mastering is forever. Boy you said it! Fantastic vid once again. Glad you're feeling better and recording.
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The irony is not missed
Greetings I've recently subscribed to your channel because your content is not only informative but also easy to learn. I especially like your Geopolitical videos and your videos on medieval court structures (possibly my favorite video you've made). I hope to see more in the near future.
Stay tuned. I'm getting a geopolitical risk analysis certification in the real world in August from Florida Atlantic. I'm going hard in the paint on geopolitical stuff afterwards
This has been the most helpful advice on note taking as a DM I've ever seen. Thank you!
It's really nice that you take the time to give examples like with the kitchen description.
My biggest problem with prepping is that mostly my groups will, for example, go right-hand search rule in a dungeon then one day randomly decide to start on the left side instead. I've got the right path prepped sufficiently, but nothing on the left. Often what I'll do in that case is give them the right side stuff anyway and then make up something else later for the original right path. Now that bites me less, though on occasion they'll go down the right fork, then suddenly reverse course and go up the left fork. So, now that I'm winging everything, I don't prep much at all but instead furiously scribe notes to keep track of what I just made up. Which means I'm making copious amounts of notes, just not up front anymore.
I still believe that prepping is a sliding-scale for GMs and it largely depends on their personality, GM style and what they enjoy. It's the 'prep vs improv' or 'prep vs execution' scale and everybody places somewhere on it.
There people I know who enjoy pouring hours of work into prep - sometimes out of necessity because they feel insecure about their ad-hoc and improvisation skills - and I know people who could run two sessions off a single PowerPoint chart. The latter runs the risk of being inconsistent and chaotic if not supported by enough improv talent.
It's like the composer vs violinist comparison. One is big on 'prep and creativity', the other is big on perfect and inspired execution.
I do my best to only have 3-7 details per faction, NPC, and point of interest before players start living in the world. Now, depending on the size of the region and density of points of interest, that's still a good deal of initial work, but it leaves enough room to expand and develop as the PC'S decide what they are interested in while having enough of an idea of what various groups are wanting and doing.
Also, totally agree with the mechanics focus!! I often don't have a 100% solid stat block until during combat, though for set-piece battles I definitely do.
Another great video, Baron! Absolutely, short sweet and to the point notes are not only easier to write, but easier to read too.
I will say though, I think having static DCs can be a good thing at times. Fluid DCs are absolutely common, and the players roll is often used by the DM to instead determine the outcome rather than simply checking if they pass or fail.
However, monsters should gave some set abilities and AC and all that, as they are useful to have. The reason being that if even stuff like AC and monster damage is fluid... then what's even the point of the rules? There has to be something objective to base things in at times, and combat is one of those times. If it's all fluid, then it's... kinda bullshit, no? It's a set challenge for the PCs to overcome. Now, you can add more monsters if the fight is too easy, lower monster HP if too hard and all that, but I feel much point still stands.
Ultimately it's a collaborative storytelling experience so keeping the mechanical aspects fluid to better serve the story is a good idea; however, I do agree with you, it becomes a bit too freeform and interpretive if you just fudge everything. You don't want the mechanics to be the roadblock for a good story, but you also don't want to just be telling a story with no mechanical skeleton underneath it either (unless maybe you're a truly exceptional storyteller to begin with)... The mechanics are meant to provide a tangible form to the narrative mass, in a way.
Now I am pretty sure the very wise Baron knew and assumed all of this, instead simply focusing on explaining how to avoid DM overencumbrance. Similarly I'm sure they'd tell us not to give our players a success on every roll, since that would become obvious quickly and introduce extreme diminishing returns, not to mention ruin the experience by making it more (pre)determined. Same goes for being a hardass DM and just having them fail everything.
@@drago939393 "Ultimately it's a collaborative storytelling experience so keeping the mechanical aspects fluid to better serve the story is a good idea; "
I don't really agree with this statement. DND is, IMO, small scale collaborative wargaming with an emergent storytelling element. Mechanics are a huge part of DND (and a huge percentage of the ruleset). One of the primary functions of the mechanics/dicerolling is to derail the narrative.
If you're not interested in the mechanical parts - there are systems that are way better at collaborative storytelling - and systems with way more concise, elegant mechanics that get out of the way quicker.
@@rich63113 I did imply all of that, not sure why you stopped the quote there lol. Anyway, it just depends on what people want from the game, DnD as a game itself can provide a whole lot. It's definitely not a wargame with storytelling tho, at most it's storytelling with a wargame skeleton. With that said, DnD is also an ubiquitous catch-all game nowadays, so the Average Joe plays it regardless.
@@drago939393 I didn't say you implied anything.
Read what posts actually say.
@@rich63113 Then why did you write a bunch of redundant stuff? 😂
Thanks for your advice. Another good video. I like it way more to be told to optimize and synthetize preparation in order to make it efficient, heuristic and easily usable while saving time, rather than being told to not prepare this or that because it takes too long and feel lost afterwards when running the game. Your videos reflect that efficiency and are easy reference to come back to. I'm a big advocate of quality over quantity.
i prep the world. by the time a campaign starts i have the BBEG and maybe 3-4 big multi-session missions and then a bunch of missions that i can plop anywhere on the map to buy me a week to prep for when the players go off the rails
Loving the ASOIAF thumbnail.
I would love to see a video on how to prep the giant 5E adventures commerce such as curse of strahd or tomb of annihilation. I struggle to take everything in and stay consistent from session to session.
Alright dude, when is your book coming out? This all needs published in a single easily referenced source, because this is gold.
I need to write it first! 🤣
I try to apply a variety of methods when preparing different things. A random wilderness encounter? It's exactly that, I draw or set a scene with whatever comes to mind, the enemies are determined randomly, and whether or not there's a unique scenario in occurrence. A big ol deep dungeon dive? I have notes for every room, but they are just bullet points, nothing is without some relevance or description, but it's never more than a sentence or two of writing.
Great video. I was literally drafting a Podcast episode using NPC goals to create more interesting and reactive stories a week ago before I saw this.
Thanks Baron. Always helpful.
Excellent advice! I figured out a lot of this stuff the hard way over several years of DMing.
God I’m so bad with overprepping, I get so into the stuff I’m coming up with that I forget to think about what would be fun (for the players, I mean)
Love the visual pun with the classic Strahd art. Keep up the high quality content!
Professor dungeon master had a similar video. I, as a player, enjoy the drama of the die roll when I know my target number ahead of time. The cheers or moans around the table as the d20 is cast adds to the game, in my opinion. If we're going to go for simple, I would rather do runehammers room DC. Everything in the room has the same DC. Simple, but everyone knows what they're targeting. On your index card, you just have to have one number up in the corner.
Wooo welcome back ✌️ hope you’re doing alright!
This gave me a fair bit to think about. Detailed descriptions might become a bit of a comfort blanket...I think I should pivot to this instead.
One suggestion: as great as your visuals are, this is primarily audio content for me. If I'm just listening audiobook-style, the silent title screens break the flow a bit and I feel like I lack context for the beginning of the next paragraph.
Add up all the HP from your players characters and then divvy up the sum to the particular monsters that they would like to fight
Awesome video. ++ on broad descriptions and focusing on the unique and unusual when planning locations. And, a request. I would've loved to hear brief examples of how some of your advice plays out. For example, how you use those few bullet points of an NPC's motivations to craft interactions on the fly.
Great video
Loved the goblin art!
Prepping is part of my hobby as a DM and I love it as a time sink. But I love to prepare strong pillars and random tables to imrpovise on. For example: Strong pillar in my world is a civil war after the king's death. random encounter I: A group of refugees; Landmark: Hot bath/well. They find a place to rest. But when I have "A foggy swamp" as a Landmark they will have lost a few members, had a hard time to find food and are in desperate need of safe passege.
So I prepare to be not prepared ;) 1d100 adventure seeds, 1d100 landmarks, worked out factions etc. are my way to prepare.
Spot on, love your channel
I tend to make my outlines action/reaction based, rather than NPC or location based. But I follow the same basic principles. I might note a "suspicious merchant gives hint about gang activity." Now that social interaction can be activated at any point the group encounters a merchant. Or maybe, "a pickpocket urchin initiates a chase through the crowd, ultimately leading the group to an abandoned house." Once again, any street or event will provide the setting to put this encounter into the game.
With these types of encounters laid out, and a few random encounters combat tables, I can let the group act very spontaneously and still keep the story moving.
Excellent advice.
As a new DM, I needed this.
"dice-based gut-check phenomenon"
that's what I got out of this one
My problem right now is the module I'm running (Dungeons of Drakkenheim) is very wordy. I wish they'd used bullet points instead. That was the best part of Dragon of ice spire peak.
You can't mention fudging dice in passing without most of the comments being on fudging. I think it deserves its own video.
The fudging the issue is actually an issue with the GM "knowing" what will happen before the dice are rolled as evidenced by the GM not following the outcome on the dice begs why the dice were rolled in the first place. The problem is most TTRPGs don't spell out what should be happening prior to any dice roll. The GM doesn't decide what happens, the GM isn't narrating a novel, the GM isn't trying to kill the player's characters, the GM isn't trying to save the player's characters. The GM's job is to assess a situation and understand what the worst, best, and most likely outcome of a given action is and then allow the dice to decide for everyone at the table what happens. This is why the argument that the GM can adjust the modifiers therefore the GM can fudge the roll is misguided. If there isn't a spectrum of worst, best, and most likely outcome for an interaction that all work, then dice should not be rolled. Sometimes all outcomes would be positive outcomes, and sometimes all outcomes would be negative outcomes. The very best outcome of the players rolling to intimidate the king in front of the court might be the intimidate was so successful they are taken seriously and the king skips past the torture and orders the guards to kill them on the spot. If you understand the best, worst, and most likely outcomes then there is no need to fudge any non-combat dice roll.
As for combat dice rolls, the problem there is when characters have main protagonist syndrome. Character death used to be much more common, and it was more common for a reason. Success isn't possible if failure isn't possible. Even if resurrection was fairly common, it cost a point of constitution forever every time. Unless you subscribe to great man theory, history doesn't turn on chosen ones, it turns on what actually happened out of the many possible outcomes. Player characters having an elaborate back story and pre-planned grand character arc from level one is the very definition of excessive pre-planning that is trouble for all the reasons excessive planning is trouble (see, brought it back around in a circle). When that character gets into combat and all of that back story and expected character arc holds the combat hostage. You can pretend to attack the character but it is all pretend because you'll fudge that final roll that matters and if the final roll doesn't matter then none of them do. Fact of the matter is, you shouldn't be negotiating with terrorists. If the chosen one catches an arrow to the face then the chosen one catches an arrow to the face then they obviously were not the chosen one based on the fact that they are dead.
Ultimately, excessive pre-planning by the players in the form of elaborate backstory and expected grand character arcs is the player is using the game to try and read a novel at the GM and is just as bad as the GM writing an elaborate novel that they read at the players. Both the GM and players should have terse bullet pointed outlines and general motivations, and the game itself should be emergent based on those two sets of prep coming into contact with each other in a manner that isn't pre-planned. Dice are essential for this, as it breaks human inclinations to rail-road on what should happen, instead of reflecting on what could happen. After all, if the game is one of emergence then "should" is the known arch enemy of emergence. If you are fudging dice rolls, you've missed the entire game.
The 12 word bullet points just changed my life
Awesome!
the audio for this is wonky. didn't notice at first cause I was painting some terrain and listening lol! Also this is some good advice, 8/10 I share your videos because your one of the few trying to take a serious look at talking head advice.
Hmm audio is wonky? Can you point to where? I'll see if I can figure out what went wrong
@@DungeonMasterpiece Sorry I should have just said, instead of saying a funny word lol. Your audio is just out of sync with the video, otherwise no other issue!
is there a D&D marketplace where I can sell my D&D stuff, since the gaming shop shut down for an unprecedented reason, and the next closest place is an empty Denny's or 30 miles away. ? I have a large collection of AD&D Spelljammer and lots of things that DM's use.
Wonderful video, a real look at effective prep instead of heuristics of prep. I'm curious if there is a similar threshold of world building. I'm in the middle of consolidating my fantasy setting in a big way, and running into the age old problem of, 'when is it done?'
This is a good idea for an episode
It's never complete - but if you're worldbuilding for DnD - it should be "done" as soon as you can plop players in it. Don't let worldbuilding prevent you from playing.
Figure out your central tensions in the world, determine how those central tensions affect the "little people" in some section of the world, and get playing.
When I get this notification, I know that I'm going to be a better DM
omg what a video!
Rather than DC's could you set a desired number of room interactions depending on how much you and your players want to engage with the environment?
✨Engagement✨
I find myself agreeing with Baron a lot in many of his videos, and even at the start of this one, but I have to hard disagree with the "just gut check DCs on the fly" when those are by far the easiest thing to prep. If you have goblins, you know their Passive Perception and their Stealth skill already, the idea that they're hard to get is silly. If you go through the trouble of adding a trap to a room, it takes 30 seconds to right down the DC to find find it and another DC to disarm it. Just by adding the trap you've already done 90% of the work, to not just finish it adding DCs seems just wasteful. Ditto for secret doors, investigation checks in rooms with Points of Interests, etc.
I'm one thousand percent on board with not writing pages of narrative for NPCs or writing out five paragraphs describing a flooded kitchen, but adding DCs to the things that you really spent the time adding to your world isn't difficult and will actually save you a lot of time and worry in the long run. Also, players will _know_ what they rolled, so going with gut checks can feel really shady to them if you aren't consistent.
As an autistic DM who loves Pathfinder/3.5, I find this topic weirdly sad. I prep the town, the characters, the items and the dungeons because the players want a game and a story. They want to explore the world, and the world should have interesting aspects, challenges and (admittedly, random) but also designed treasure. That does require a good amount prep, and is it not reasonable to spend some time making such things? Social improv is…difficult though doable, and doesn’t yield the same results as a curated place with things to explore, no?
Vampire geopolitics?
They are coming!
4:57 unless you have large fluctuations in your DC checks, then this approach doesn't work at all. This is specific advice for DMing in 5e, not in general. It doesn't work for pathfinder or such.
5:14 Fudging rolls and checks is a great way to invalidate player agency. There's a reason you don't let your players know you're doing it, because it's wrong. Bragging about finding this workaround loophole is not a good thing.
6:23 "Dm'ing is forever after all" AAy YOO!!🤌 🤣🤣