D&D session preparation
I just bought and started reading Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep by Phil Vecchione. In the introduction he states: "The end result is that many GMs hate to prepare their session notes. I have yet to encounter a GM who is excited to prepare their notes—at best, they have made some kind of uneasy truce when it comes to getting their prep work done." Apparently I am not a typical GM, because for me preparing a D&D session is already half of the fun. I prepare session notes, create maps and tokens when needed, make initiative riders to sit on top of my GM screen, make index cards for monsters, and even sometimes play through the upcoming battles to familiarize myself with the powers the monsters have.
What I don't prepare is a detailed campaign background or the various roleplaying aspects of Dungeons & Dragons. My campaign outline is a two-page document, basically just listing the adventures I want to run, and how they are connected to form a greater whole (at level 1 my players found the first hint that will ultimately start an adventure at level 6). My NPCs I mostly improvise, with the session notes only containing what information is essential for the NPC to tell the players.
I think that roleplaying games, whether pen & paper or on a computer, have a "mechanics" part of combat, and a "content" part of story and roleplaying. The huge advantage of the pen & paper version over the computer version is that the story is one that grows out of interactive storytelling. Thus I don't prepare story, because I want it to evolve from the interaction with the players. What I prepare is what motivation and plans my NPCs (including the villains) have, and by just knowing that I am able to roleplay them to act reasonably to the actions of the players. The last thing I want is to railroad my players into something, just because the written-down story says so.
The advantage of the computer version of roleplaying games over the pen & paper version is that a computer is obviously much better at handling numbers and keeping track of status effects and the like. Some DMs cop out of that problem by going for pen & paper systems with a minimal amount of numbers and math. But as I and my players enjoy tactical combat, I need to be able to efficiently run a more complex system like D&D 4th edition. Thus the preparation of maps, tokens, monster index cards and ini riders, all of which help to run combat smoother. I am currently pondering how to best handle the various status effects of 4th edition. I've seen some nice acrylic 4E status effect tokens on the internet, but haven't found a shop yet that would be willing to deliver those to Europe. If I can't find any of those, I'll probably make cardboard rings with status effects written on them, although cutting those out will be annoying.
As Phil Vecchione says in his Never Unprepared book, Silence is Death in a pen & paper game. That is not only true for roleplaying situations, but also for combat. Combat has to flow smoothly to be enjoyable, and that isn't possible without preparation. You don't want to discover during combat that some monster has an ability that applies a status effect of which you aren't sure how it works, and be forced to start flipping rulebooks in the middle of combat. Knowing what the monsters abilities do also allows me to start planning tactics ahead of time, to make a battle plan for the monsters that goes beyond "rush the players". If there is one thing that computer games have taught me is how annoying it is to fight enemies with a bad AI, so I always assume that even a "stupid" orc has some fundamental grasp of tactics; after all he is supposed to be fighting a lot.
In summary, I think session preparation is important to guarantee an enjoyable game of Dungeons & Dragons. Especially for tactical combat. Complex combat systems and the need to prepare for them sure aren't for everybody, but I consider them to be "advanced" Dungeons & Dragons, and the difference between a roleplaying game and just improvised theater.
What I don't prepare is a detailed campaign background or the various roleplaying aspects of Dungeons & Dragons. My campaign outline is a two-page document, basically just listing the adventures I want to run, and how they are connected to form a greater whole (at level 1 my players found the first hint that will ultimately start an adventure at level 6). My NPCs I mostly improvise, with the session notes only containing what information is essential for the NPC to tell the players.
I think that roleplaying games, whether pen & paper or on a computer, have a "mechanics" part of combat, and a "content" part of story and roleplaying. The huge advantage of the pen & paper version over the computer version is that the story is one that grows out of interactive storytelling. Thus I don't prepare story, because I want it to evolve from the interaction with the players. What I prepare is what motivation and plans my NPCs (including the villains) have, and by just knowing that I am able to roleplay them to act reasonably to the actions of the players. The last thing I want is to railroad my players into something, just because the written-down story says so.
The advantage of the computer version of roleplaying games over the pen & paper version is that a computer is obviously much better at handling numbers and keeping track of status effects and the like. Some DMs cop out of that problem by going for pen & paper systems with a minimal amount of numbers and math. But as I and my players enjoy tactical combat, I need to be able to efficiently run a more complex system like D&D 4th edition. Thus the preparation of maps, tokens, monster index cards and ini riders, all of which help to run combat smoother. I am currently pondering how to best handle the various status effects of 4th edition. I've seen some nice acrylic 4E status effect tokens on the internet, but haven't found a shop yet that would be willing to deliver those to Europe. If I can't find any of those, I'll probably make cardboard rings with status effects written on them, although cutting those out will be annoying.
As Phil Vecchione says in his Never Unprepared book, Silence is Death in a pen & paper game. That is not only true for roleplaying situations, but also for combat. Combat has to flow smoothly to be enjoyable, and that isn't possible without preparation. You don't want to discover during combat that some monster has an ability that applies a status effect of which you aren't sure how it works, and be forced to start flipping rulebooks in the middle of combat. Knowing what the monsters abilities do also allows me to start planning tactics ahead of time, to make a battle plan for the monsters that goes beyond "rush the players". If there is one thing that computer games have taught me is how annoying it is to fight enemies with a bad AI, so I always assume that even a "stupid" orc has some fundamental grasp of tactics; after all he is supposed to be fighting a lot.
In summary, I think session preparation is important to guarantee an enjoyable game of Dungeons & Dragons. Especially for tactical combat. Complex combat systems and the need to prepare for them sure aren't for everybody, but I consider them to be "advanced" Dungeons & Dragons, and the difference between a roleplaying game and just improvised theater.
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