Purchased modules don't save you any prep time. In fact, they take more time for me.
Planning, prep, motivation and you?
- Thread starter payn
- Start date
I wrote up a setting ... it must be coming up on seven years ago, now, and I'm running my second and third campaigns in it (the third campaign is the same table as the first one, new characters in a different part of the setting). My idea when I wrote the setting up was that I'd be running multiple campaigns in it, and that's held up.
I've worked out some high-level choices, like what I'm allowing as far as classes, subclasses, folk, and what houserules I want to adopt. Those have been pretty stable.
The first thing I consider before starting a campaign is where in the setting I want to start it. The first one, I started in what was at the time the only city I had worked out in even any vague detail. The second one, I started at a remote trading outpost. The third one, I started in what is the largest city in the setting. Making that decision kinda narrows down some of the next few options, I've found.
After that, there's some consideration of what I want to do for the instigating event. Generally, my approach when starting a campaign is to get the PCs in the same place at the same time, establish that the status quo is pleasant, then threaten the status quo. Usually this entails that there's some larger thing threatening at least the local setting, so whatever I go with here, I'm going to be running with for some time, so I want to choose well, here.
Once I have an idea of the where, at least, I'll tell the players about where they're going to be starting. For my third campaign, that was a 5000+ word overview of the city, and the statement that they'd all been in the city for years and knew it pretty well. Then, once they'd made their characters and given me as much backstory as they were going to (ranging from a paragraph or two to a handful of pages) I asked all the players, one at a time, to fill in some of the intentional blanks in the city by giving me a couple of people, a place or group, and an event there, and how their characters connected to this. Their backstories are up to them to share, but the additions to the city were public.
Once I have the characters, the place, and the instigating event, I'm ready to run the start of the campaign.
While the campaign is running, I pay attention to opportunities to drop in connections to the PCs' backstories, or to their established ties to the setting ("established ties" here could be from before or during the campaign). Since the campaigns are fortnightly, I have plenty of time to think about what's going on between sessions, and I have a player who takes pretty extensive notes and shares them, so I always have good references for what has already happened. Most of the time I do the actual sit-down prep the day of the session or the day before, it's mostly just looking at the situation and seeing where the PCs seem to be taking it (or trying to take it).
At the table I run a mostly improvisatory style, I don't prep where the session is going to go, or where the campaign is going to go, I just trust that I know what's going on well enough that I can answer any relevant questions reasonably quickly. If I need to decide a narrative thing, I try to do so quickly and with consideration for what the PCs have done (and I believe I mostly succeed at this).
I've worked out some high-level choices, like what I'm allowing as far as classes, subclasses, folk, and what houserules I want to adopt. Those have been pretty stable.
The first thing I consider before starting a campaign is where in the setting I want to start it. The first one, I started in what was at the time the only city I had worked out in even any vague detail. The second one, I started at a remote trading outpost. The third one, I started in what is the largest city in the setting. Making that decision kinda narrows down some of the next few options, I've found.
After that, there's some consideration of what I want to do for the instigating event. Generally, my approach when starting a campaign is to get the PCs in the same place at the same time, establish that the status quo is pleasant, then threaten the status quo. Usually this entails that there's some larger thing threatening at least the local setting, so whatever I go with here, I'm going to be running with for some time, so I want to choose well, here.
Once I have an idea of the where, at least, I'll tell the players about where they're going to be starting. For my third campaign, that was a 5000+ word overview of the city, and the statement that they'd all been in the city for years and knew it pretty well. Then, once they'd made their characters and given me as much backstory as they were going to (ranging from a paragraph or two to a handful of pages) I asked all the players, one at a time, to fill in some of the intentional blanks in the city by giving me a couple of people, a place or group, and an event there, and how their characters connected to this. Their backstories are up to them to share, but the additions to the city were public.
Once I have the characters, the place, and the instigating event, I'm ready to run the start of the campaign.
While the campaign is running, I pay attention to opportunities to drop in connections to the PCs' backstories, or to their established ties to the setting ("established ties" here could be from before or during the campaign). Since the campaigns are fortnightly, I have plenty of time to think about what's going on between sessions, and I have a player who takes pretty extensive notes and shares them, so I always have good references for what has already happened. Most of the time I do the actual sit-down prep the day of the session or the day before, it's mostly just looking at the situation and seeing where the PCs seem to be taking it (or trying to take it).
At the table I run a mostly improvisatory style, I don't prep where the session is going to go, or where the campaign is going to go, I just trust that I know what's going on well enough that I can answer any relevant questions reasonably quickly. If I need to decide a narrative thing, I try to do so quickly and with consideration for what the PCs have done (and I believe I mostly succeed at this).
John Dallman
Hero
Nobody publishes the kind of scenario I want to run.
MichaelSomething
Legend
Which is....
At a minimum, no one is publishing scenarios focused on the PCs at your table--or mine, for that matter.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
First things first - welcome back to enjoying more gaming. Mental health is a big thing.
First, I love to build settings. It's my minigame when I'm not at a table. I have a document of more settings than I have life left to run them, and I keep coming up with more. So at the beginning of a new campaign I take a few of these that are scratching my "yeah, it's time" itch and pitch them. All of them differ from generic or kitchen-sink settings enough that they will bring their own questions and charm the entire time I'm running them.
I put together a group out of gamers I know, and ones they vouch for, with committing to the schedule before even picking which pitch. Since the pandemic it's usually been a bi-weekly weeknight, play down one.
As all of this is happening, people are discussing the pitches and stuff on Discord. We usually have picked which of the pitches not long after we have all the players, if not we have an informal "Session -1".
Session 0 is not just about creating a party and all that, but also about player needs from the world. If it doesn't impact what I have planned (and at this point I have setting, and some thoughts about campaign seeds, so there's not a huge amount planned, then I allow it. And I've had huge changes get suggested. Last complete campaign had the world be the body of a murdered god and the skull it's moon, dwarves genocided, several common races artificially made, portals to fiendish realms and an order of knights to watch them. This gives me great player buy-in, as it is their world too. Helps maintain their interest, gets immediate motivation on quests realting to things they came up with, etc.
I then start to plan a campaign. I go out through some Act II ideas, but I'm willing to give them up based on player interest and character actions. I often have multiple hooks available, and ready to improv if they go in a direction I hadn't expected. I don't run level-specific settings, but I do telegraph when the characters think something will be particularly hard - or easy.
So as the campaign is going on I have:
High level planning - where the current Act of the campaign seems to be heading, and all the various fronts and influences going on.
Wide planning - what are the most likely things they are going to be doing next, worked out in broad strokes with room to flesh out and not a lot of details.
Narrow planning - things I expect to come up this session, down to the stat-block level.
Yes, a chunk of my planning the characters don't hit into. But it's done only at a high level and not a big investment of time. I often get to recycle it when the circle back, or expand it if it would grow without intervention. Plus having it makes it much easier for me to improv when they go in a direction I wasn't expecting because I know the movers and shakers and dynamics of what's going on.
Staying motivated is all about my group. That energy from running a good session, the AH HAs! as they figure out things that go together, and all that. In my planning, I try to kill the PCs - repeatedly and without remorse. But at the table I'm their biggest cheerleader and their successes energize me, while their failures fill me with resolve.
Now, I have ADHD, so my motivation triggers differ some from neurotypicals. Creative and urgent are among them to a generally higher degree, and important is less of a trigger than it is with some. The creative part - thinking up what comes next, having the flexibility to adjust what's there because it's all homebrew setting and adventures, plus practicing Schroedinger's Plots where nothing it true until it hits the table during a session so I have given myself permission to improve things as long as no retcon is needed. That creative work just happens at random times in my life. The detailed session prep I usually leave for the night before (or sometimge the night of) the session, though occasionally I'll get caught up in something and hyperfocus on it, and when I emerge from the zone hours later I have things like a fully stocked dungeon with lots of lore.
Then there comes a point where I'm done. My last four campaigns were 4, 7, 3.5 and 3 years each, playing bi-weekly and usually taking a gap during the summer. But there come a point where I'm doing it for the players instead of for myself, and I'm getting better at noticing that, and then steering it to a conclusion when that happens. Let me correct that - those campaigns all had successful and satisfying conclusions, what I'm getting better at is giving the players the choices that lead them to those sussinctly when I start to burn out.
When I'm done with a campaign, I usually take a break before running again, at least 3 months. Sometimes the group continues with someone else stepping up to run, other times it dissolves and I'll build anew for the next campaign.
One point of motivation is that I try also to be a player in a different game, so I don't start to miss being on that side of the GM's screen.
I hope you can mine this for points that are relevant for you. The summary is the creative work keeps me engaged with large-scale prep, I just enjoy the actual running, and the player are what motivates me for the detail-level prep. I focus the campaign and to a lesser degree the setting around player interest and limited authorizal control to motivate them, so they stay engaged. And we have a regular schedule we have marked on our calendars in advance to keep the tempo moving.
Here's this for me, I don't know how much of it is more generally applicable. Also, while you posted this in TTRPGs general, I'm talking about D&D and other games like them. For the Story Now games I run it's much less prep and therefore less motivation needed.
First, I love to build settings. It's my minigame when I'm not at a table. I have a document of more settings than I have life left to run them, and I keep coming up with more. So at the beginning of a new campaign I take a few of these that are scratching my "yeah, it's time" itch and pitch them. All of them differ from generic or kitchen-sink settings enough that they will bring their own questions and charm the entire time I'm running them.
I put together a group out of gamers I know, and ones they vouch for, with committing to the schedule before even picking which pitch. Since the pandemic it's usually been a bi-weekly weeknight, play down one.
As all of this is happening, people are discussing the pitches and stuff on Discord. We usually have picked which of the pitches not long after we have all the players, if not we have an informal "Session -1".
Session 0 is not just about creating a party and all that, but also about player needs from the world. If it doesn't impact what I have planned (and at this point I have setting, and some thoughts about campaign seeds, so there's not a huge amount planned, then I allow it. And I've had huge changes get suggested. Last complete campaign had the world be the body of a murdered god and the skull it's moon, dwarves genocided, several common races artificially made, portals to fiendish realms and an order of knights to watch them. This gives me great player buy-in, as it is their world too. Helps maintain their interest, gets immediate motivation on quests realting to things they came up with, etc.
I then start to plan a campaign. I go out through some Act II ideas, but I'm willing to give them up based on player interest and character actions. I often have multiple hooks available, and ready to improv if they go in a direction I hadn't expected. I don't run level-specific settings, but I do telegraph when the characters think something will be particularly hard - or easy.
So as the campaign is going on I have:
High level planning - where the current Act of the campaign seems to be heading, and all the various fronts and influences going on.
Wide planning - what are the most likely things they are going to be doing next, worked out in broad strokes with room to flesh out and not a lot of details.
Narrow planning - things I expect to come up this session, down to the stat-block level.
Yes, a chunk of my planning the characters don't hit into. But it's done only at a high level and not a big investment of time. I often get to recycle it when the circle back, or expand it if it would grow without intervention. Plus having it makes it much easier for me to improv when they go in a direction I wasn't expecting because I know the movers and shakers and dynamics of what's going on.
Staying motivated is all about my group. That energy from running a good session, the AH HAs! as they figure out things that go together, and all that. In my planning, I try to kill the PCs - repeatedly and without remorse. But at the table I'm their biggest cheerleader and their successes energize me, while their failures fill me with resolve.
Now, I have ADHD, so my motivation triggers differ some from neurotypicals. Creative and urgent are among them to a generally higher degree, and important is less of a trigger than it is with some. The creative part - thinking up what comes next, having the flexibility to adjust what's there because it's all homebrew setting and adventures, plus practicing Schroedinger's Plots where nothing it true until it hits the table during a session so I have given myself permission to improve things as long as no retcon is needed. That creative work just happens at random times in my life. The detailed session prep I usually leave for the night before (or sometimge the night of) the session, though occasionally I'll get caught up in something and hyperfocus on it, and when I emerge from the zone hours later I have things like a fully stocked dungeon with lots of lore.
Then there comes a point where I'm done. My last four campaigns were 4, 7, 3.5 and 3 years each, playing bi-weekly and usually taking a gap during the summer. But there come a point where I'm doing it for the players instead of for myself, and I'm getting better at noticing that, and then steering it to a conclusion when that happens. Let me correct that - those campaigns all had successful and satisfying conclusions, what I'm getting better at is giving the players the choices that lead them to those sussinctly when I start to burn out.
When I'm done with a campaign, I usually take a break before running again, at least 3 months. Sometimes the group continues with someone else stepping up to run, other times it dissolves and I'll build anew for the next campaign.
One point of motivation is that I try also to be a player in a different game, so I don't start to miss being on that side of the GM's screen.
I hope you can mine this for points that are relevant for you. The summary is the creative work keeps me engaged with large-scale prep, I just enjoy the actual running, and the player are what motivates me for the detail-level prep. I focus the campaign and to a lesser degree the setting around player interest and limited authorizal control to motivate them, so they stay engaged. And we have a regular schedule we have marked on our calendars in advance to keep the tempo moving.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
I don't keep my motivation. Not for long.
And that's fine.
I have a variety of different aspects of gaming I enjoy. They compete for time. I swap between them as mood takes me, or as schedules force me. Many things get pushed back to the backest of back burners. I'll get to them eventually... or not. And yes, I feel guilty about doing this. But I then remind myself, it's cool. No-one's life is in the balance. As long as I get enough prep done for the next game session no-one but me is affected.
My advice, be kind to yourself.
And that's fine.
I have a variety of different aspects of gaming I enjoy. They compete for time. I swap between them as mood takes me, or as schedules force me. Many things get pushed back to the backest of back burners. I'll get to them eventually... or not. And yes, I feel guilty about doing this. But I then remind myself, it's cool. No-one's life is in the balance. As long as I get enough prep done for the next game session no-one but me is affected.
My advice, be kind to yourself.
Celebrim
Legend
I don't know. I do a ton of work but then every few years my excitement for prep wanes and I get burnout where I can't force myself to write.
The latest period started about four weeks ago. Just can't make myself sit down and do the disciplined work of detailing out a game. This after a pretty good run of like 3 years where I mostly was productive.
hawkeyefan
Legend
Set achievable goals. Be realistic about what you can accomplish. Don't plan out a 10-year campaign or a multi-volume story. Create one adventure. Write a short story. Complete something, beginning to end. Once you have, it'll be easier to do so again. Build on that little success. Learn from it. Apply what you learn. Do it again.
Just start small and take little steps.
Just start small and take little steps.
Or: Don't set out to write your whole big thing all at once. In the same way that writing ~1500 words a day will (if you keep doing it) net you a novel in a month or two, prepping a session at a time will (if you keep doing it) net you a long campaign.
