bradorsomething ,

Sexy goblin

Triasha ,

First, vibe check. Let the players shoot the shit a little more than usual out of game. While they do this, you do a little last minute brainstorming or note-taking/reworking.

Second, if you let them drive the convo, they will usually give you some clues when they finally get bored and start asking each other to calm down and start the game. Things like "I want to find out what so and so has to say about the mission we just got from who's his face!" Or "I want to kick that (minion of the bbeg)'s ass! Let's get moving!"

This tells you what your players want. Now you have some focus on what you need to spitball.

Now it's down to your improv skills. Yes-and helps a ton here. You ask what they do and it just works, or works with consequences. Ask them to roll some checks and if they roll high and it isn't stupid they succed and do the thing or get the info.

If they roll low something bad but not lethal happens. Minions show up, NPCs laugh at them, etc etc.

If you panic, ask them to roll a check and figure out what is is for while they are rolling the die and adding the result. At some point it's just art which you get good at with practice.

Good luck!

Atlas48 ,
@Atlas48@ttrpg.network avatar

I gave myself a vague outline of a plan, I'll wing it.

invertedspear ,

It’s easier for me because my table is a bunch of 9-12 year olds. Most of the time I’m just prodding them to do something, anything, then I get rewarded with the monk randomly punching someone in the bar because “we hadn’t had any combat yet.” I made some nemesis NPCs but I can never predict what these kids want to do so I wing it the whole time.

Crozekiel ,

Npc with a sob story, but they're shy so it takes some conversation (time to think and roll with what the players think might be going on) before they will reveal it.

sirblastalot Mod ,

I don't schedule a game if I'm not going to be prepared

DAMunzy ,

Didn't have three weeks to overthink it? I'm not ready! 😭

sirblastalot Mod ,

3 weeks to do real life shit, 4 days to procrastinate, and 3 days to hurriedly slap everything together :P

fl_sp ,

Is that honestly such a big deal? If it's long term chronicle/campaign than i'm sure you have lots of plot threads hanging around waiting to be woven into a new story. If it's a new chronicle just make a session zero - players will keep talking a make most work for you. And if it's a one-shot.. Well, than you improvise, i guess.

Ziggurat OP ,

That's a fair point. In general when not prepared in long term campaign, I have enough running stuff to not need to prepare more.

But reading some other forum, it seems that some people are super anxious about prep and need hours of prep for every game night. Sure sometimes, I am on a creative mood and want to do these hours of prep, and come with a twisted plot, some maps and illustrations. But very often, I can just use all the ongoing stuff to improvise.

So I agree, not such a big deal

TheGreatDarkness ,

I think one way I have seen was to at first session get list of few details about PCs, then pull out an adventure based on it. Eg. If your cleric told you there is a food his religion forbids, he is suddenly ordered to deal with a heretic who argues othertwise.

Gutless2615 ,

Get yourself Sly Flourish’s Lazy Dungeonmaster and The Return of the Lazy Dungeonmaster, first of all.

To answer the question, think of a strong start, maybe a combat to give me room to think between turns. Think of 10 secrets and clues. Grab a map from Dyson. 5 Room Dungeon it. And if you’re pressed for time, ChatGpT can be super handy pulling together tables and last minute prep.

spittingimage ,
@spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar

If I have nothing prepped, it's goofy random sidequest night.

One of my favourite sessions ever started when the player the session was focused on called out due to work. With my plans derailed I had ninjas crash through the window, steal her famous recipe book, then run off and leap into the back of a van with her biggest rival at the wheel. It turned into a driving battle on the highway with characters leaping from vehicle to vehicle while a supervillain chef pelted them with capsaicin-laced muffins. It ended with an elderly PC duking it out with a morbidly obese NPC (neither of which had any points in fighting) in front of a police station. They traded single points of damage until the cops finished laughing and arrested them both.

Etterra ,

Wait for everyone to arrive. Even the late ones. Then order pizza. Fuck around until pizza arrives. Then everybody has to stop whatever they're doing to eat the pizza. By now it's 2 hours after starting time. Have NPCs socialize with the party. Throw a pack of goblins or something at them. Have the party go fight with the locals over how much of a reward they should get. The store is closing in 10 minutes so we have to pack up for the night. The end.

8bitMage ,

Play Battlestaions
This was my last group’s actual fallback… that started to become our main game because it was more interesting than my campaign O.o

Azzu ,
@Azzu@lemm.ee avatar

If I have absolutely nothing prepared, like I don't even know anything about the world or the situation the players are in, then I reschedule session 1 ;)

You almost never have nothing prepared. If I didn't prepare for a session, it just means whatever was there gets built upon in a more rudimentary way, areas have less detail, characters are more rough, no nice maps, but otherwise everything is exactly the same. The stuff you do in preparation just means that the session will be better. If you don't prepare, you'll essentially just do "preparation" on the fly and it's called improvisation. You don't do drafts and discard them for something better, you just always go for the first thing that comes to mind.

So idk, for me, not preparing for a session is pretty simple, I just do everything the same just in less time.

BaldProphet , (edited )

The Gamemaster's Apprentice is the single tool you need for this scenario. Add in a playing card oracle and you can basically randomly generate a session on the fly.

Archfossil ,

Nice suggestion, threw it in my cart for later! Looks really cool.

Susaga ,
@Susaga@sh.itjust.works avatar

So, like usual then?

If it's a new game, I start off with a basic adventure I always have tucked away. A good starter adventure is a lifesaver sometimes.

If it's an ongoing game, then we probably have stuff we were still doing? Just recycle the prep from last time wherever possible and play for time. "Oh, yes, you have the treasure from the depths of the dungeon, but now your rivals have seized the place and you need to fight your way back out! Totally not just doing this to reuse the dungeon map."

If it's an ongoing game and we just had a good cutoff point? Thank god that player just arrived. Ask them what they're expecting will happen this session, nod sagely at their guesses and work from that. "Oh, you're hoping you'll fight that cult sometime soon? You never know, it might come up sooner than you think!"

Everything else is just good prep advice. Keep generic NPC templates and tokens you can use for anything. Use a whiteboard for any maps you need. Give your players control of the plot so you don't have to come up with it.

Ziggurat OP ,

ive your players control of the plot so you don’t have to come up with it.

Indeed, this is an under-stated GM tip, player can come up with the plot. It eases the GM life

Susaga ,
@Susaga@sh.itjust.works avatar

It's part of the reason I love running heists: the players are the ones doing most of the planning.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

My players stumble upon an abandoned version of one of my Dwarf Fortress cities.

I already know the whole layout backwards and forwards without needing to work with a map, and it has traps, epic architecture, purpose to every room, little random stuff scattered through, and I can usually come up with some kind of theme or ending to the dungeon for if they get that far into it. Easy peasy.

Postmortal_Pop ,

Exactly this, but for my world building hobby. I've been setting on a fully formed civilization with clashing cultures, centuries of history, historical figures, folklore, and recipes for more than a decade now. If I don't have a mission lined up in game I can just slot in my own lore.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Yeah. Or video game levels you love, or fiction, or anything. As long as it’s something you thought was badass when you were dealing with it, then you’ll probably have it fleshed out already in your mind so you can put your main focus into making it badass when your players are going through it, not just fumbling around with encounter tables or whatever.

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