One of the debates I see pop up on social media from time to time is “Low Prep Vs. High Prep.”

Some say you should do as little as possible and improvise because players are going to do things you don’t expect anyway. Others say you should do as much as possible so that you are ready to handle any situation when the players zig instead of zag.

I’ve tried both of those methods and learned that the answer, for me, isn’t strictly high prep or low prep.

I do whatever amount of preparation is required. That could mean low prep or high prep or something in the middle. It depends on the situation.

How complex is the adventure?

The time to prep a game largely has to do with the number of elements involved in the adventure. The more pieces I put into an encounter or adventure the more complex the interactions between those pieces become. The greater the complexity, the greater the amount of prep that is required.

A five room dungeon inhabited by a pack of goblins is not complex. That’s a low prep situation.

A five level dungeon inhabited by 15th level magic user with lots of minions, spells, and powerful magic items is very complex. That’s a high prep situation.

The more stuff players have to interact with, the more I need to prepare for how they might interact with that stuff.

Single Session or Campaign?

If I’m running a convention game, I don’t care about what is happening in the rest of the milieu. The preparation is limited to the information I need to run the adventure.

Prep for a session that is part of a campaign depends on what kind of campaign I am running.

If I am running a linear campaign where players are going from adventure point to adventure point then a lot of the game world can be ignored or vague though not as much as a one-shot convention game.

The castle on the hill? Just a model. The temple you have to raid to get the magic McGuffin to get into the next adventure location? That I need to prep.

Sandbox campaigns can require a lot of prep if players decide they are going in some part of the campaign world where I haven’t done much work. If they go on an adventure I prepped when I was building the campaign, It doesn’t require much time at all, I just have to organize things I’ve already created or placed in the sandbox.

It depends.

Anticipating player choices

When I’m creating encounters and adventures, I can anticipate a lot of the choices players will make. Part of that is experience. A newer game master will not always be able to anticipate players. I’ve been playing roleplaying games long enough that I have learned the general approach players take to most situations.

In situations where there are more options, like an environmental obstacle, a social encounter, or when players have the time to plan, it will require more preparation. Most of that prep is anticipating how I think players will respond to each important or complex encounter.

I ask myself some “What if,” questions and think about how to handle it.

“What if they fly/teleport/levitate/spider climb/look for a different route?

“What if they try to trick/trap/bribe/intimidate/seduce/charm/taunt this NPC?”

“What if they swing across the room on the chandelier?”

For key encounters I make a list of “If Then” statements.

If the players try to…

• …bribe the guard, he calls the rest of the watch.
• …to intimidate him, he raises the alarm and calls the rest of watch.
• …create a diversion and slip past when he’s not looking, that works.

I’m not going to go that far if the encounter isn’t important or complex. If the stakes aren’t that high, an improvised ruling based on what ever silliness the players try is fine and doesn’t require extra preparation.

Anticipating players gets a lot easier as I progress through a campaign. Players develop habits and tactics as they play a character or learn the strengths of other characters in the group.

If the party has a flying carpet and used it the last three sessions to avoid wandering monsters, they’ll probably use it to avoid wandering monsters this session. I might throw a flying monster encounter into the adventure to make things harder for them.

Anticipating player choices is a helpful technique to not only make sure I have enough material prepped for the session but also helps limit the amount of improvisation I have to do.

Improvisation

I’ve run heavily improvised adventures with some success but I try to avoid it.

Ever had a conversation that didn’t go well and think of a better response hours later? That’s what improvised encounters and adventures feel like for me. I usually think of something better after the game session.

Sometimes improvised encounters can’t be avoided. It happens. There are five smart and creative people sitting at the table with me and one of them thinks of something I didn’t. It would be a surprise if one of the players didn’t come up with something novel. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of roleplaying games. It can also be one of the most challenging things to learn as a game master.

I make improvising a little less difficult with lists, random tables, and robust NPC design.

Lists

I make a lot of lists as part of my sandbox campaign creation process. Most of those lists are placeholders. I make lists of factions, organizations, major NPCs, and places. Sometimes players go looking for something that is in one of those lists. I use the lists as a prompt for improvisation.

I also use lists other game masters have created. Names for improvised non-player characters, inns, taverns, organizations, guilds or anything else that I come across gets put into my general purpose game mastering binder.

Random Generators

Random generators are a tool I use for improvising. If I want to have NPCs that adhere to a particular aesthetic then I’ll create the generator myself. I have some generators I use to give NPCs unique physical or personality quirks that I wouldn’t necessarily come up with on the fly.

Having random generators to hand is also a matter of anticipating players. I know player characters in a city are likely to go looking for certain goods or services that they can’t get elsewhere. I can create a generator for that particular thing or class of things. Merchants, hirelings, henchmen, weapons, equipment are examples.

Background NPCs

I create a lot of NPCs when am building a sandbox. Most of them are just a few notes without stat blocks or details. I give them a few basic elements that can be fleshed out if the NPC becomes more important.

I’ve found that knowing what my background NPCs want, the obstacles they face, the resources they have, and a few elements of their personality is useful set of prompts for improvising encounters.

If players picked up a cursed item, and go looking for a cleric who can remove the curse. I pull out a high level cleric background NPC. “I’ll be happy to remove that curse for you but…” After the session, I’ll develop the NPC more.

Since I have a set of goals written down for my background NPCs, I can use this opportunity to get the player characters mixed up in the schemes and conflicts of various factions. This can create a snowball effect of player generated adventure objectives that makes future adventure prep even easier.

What is important?

My preparation comes comes down limiting my effort to the things that I think are important in the situation. What’s important depends on the situation.

I probably do less prep than any of the “high” prep game masters but more than the “low” prep game masters. I do what I feel is absolutely necessary and have some tools in my box just in case I have a problem that my preparation didn’t cover.

That’s what suits me and what makes me comfortable to improvise where I need to.