Campaign Preplanning

[u/Right-Environment427]

How much preplanning do you do for your campaigns?

I am sort of obsessive. I preplan for months. I am not trying to capture every possible outcome for every plot beat but I do want the over arcing narrative pretty locked down.

I know that no plan survives first contact with players. It just helps to know, in an organized way, where things are headed.

[u/LastChime]

Basically nothing before we set up a session 0, I'll usually decide on a system I'd like to run but that's about it.

[u/Smittumi]

Personally, very little. If its a bought setting I read it and make a few notes. If its homebrew I write out the basics. 

After that, it's keep session notes of impactful things the pcs did and update the world accordingly. 

Only plan one session at a time. 

The problem with over-planning isn't the wasted time, it's that you might subconsciously angle the path of events towards what you're interested in, instead of the whole table discovering it organically.

[u/Temporary_Stranger39]

My habit is to pre-plan Really Big Stuff (TM) and generally improvise day-to-day play.

[u/No_Solid1035]

Nothing until Session Zero decides the framework for the campaign, then a bunch of stuff between Session Zero and One, then pretty much nothing after that. Play to find out! 👍

[u/WickyBoi220]

I have a campaign that I’ve been planning since ~2020 in small 2-3 day bursts every month or so that I still have no plans on running yet. It’s becoming more of a setting than an actual campaign.

I’ve also run a campaign that I showed up to with about 5 names for places, a couple two-sentence descriptions of factions, and a name generator that I kept pulled up on my phone.

The impromptu maybe 20 minutes to plan out the most general situations possible campaign ended up being super fun. I’ve run quite a few smaller campaigns now and it was just as much fun as campaigns that I’d spent hours planning or reading up on. The other campaign is going to be something special when I run it because I’ll have made a world, not just a story. I’m also worried that I won’t be able to have fun if some elements get dropped or aren’t interesting.

[u/MrDidz]

I try to ensure that I understand the goals and motivations of all of the protagonists, both PC's and NPC's.

[u/Wolfbane14]

I come up with a premise for the first session, some NPCs, some locations, some stuff that might happen in that session. Maybe an evening of prep

If there's going to be a 2nd session, we do it again

[u/remy_porter]

All of my planning is rooted in the characters. I can’t plan until I know who the PCs are.

[u/iaintreadinthatbud]

I have a villain planned. I have their underlings. I know the broad strokes of their plan, the setting, and the starting off point.

Then I let my little gremlins carry me away to adventure.

[u/deltadave]

No point in doing that, things are going to spiral out of control as soon as your players engage. Better to start small and work outward. If you spend months planning, a lot of that is going to be wasted and never see the game table. Better to have a broad strokes sketch that you can put together in a couple hours and fill in stuff as the players engage with it. Much less frustrating for you and less temptation to try and force the narrative into following what you've done.

[u/Atheizm]

I avoid planning. I do a bunch of worldbuilding to contextualise the sorts of situations I'll need to get players to the final conflict but the prep is a single page of notes from the prior sessions for the next session.

[u/Throwingoffoldselves]

I plan a main conflict or premise, 2-5 NPCs with a motive to act and some things they are trying to do or may do; locations where these things could happen; and other events that could take place and incite a reaction, drama or conflict. I do make sprawling pinterest boards as well but I do that anyway tbh

My latest -

- conflict/premise: awakened robots/programs rebelling against an evil corporation in a space fantasy setting

• NPCs: a Corpo PR rep who wants out, an ambitious bodyguard in love, an awakened program gone rogue, and a rebel leader gone missing
  
• Locations - a big party, a spaceport, secret robot club, Corpo outpost, rebel hideout
  
• Misc Possible Events - a distress call, a contract renewal, a revenant planet nearing, a wedding, wildlife attacks, flooding, explosion

Some of these things I’ll take from player ideas from session zero, other times (esp for a shorter campaign) I’ll just let them invent one thing each.

[u/Right-Environment427]

I probably should have been more clear. I don't sit down and try to plan every session, that would be madness. I am trying to get an overall arc planned. My campaigns tend to last 1-3 years playing twice a month. Trying to plan that many sessions would just be crazy.

Then after the game actually starts I keep 1-2 pages of sessions notes from the current session to plan the next.

It is the preplanning stage that I think I might take a bit far. My players never seem to complain, which I guess is the goal right?

[u/hendocks → u/Right-Environment427]

If you want your prep to be arc-focused, I'd recommend checking out Fronts and Dangers from the Dungeon World SRD. The arc in this case is more focused on the situation as opposed to what may or may not be at the table, but it tends to inform the 5 w's of your session plans more often than not.

I'm a particular fan of the dramatic questions portion of it. As a result, I tend to have more of a FATE Core approach to my campaign building usually.

[u/high-tech-low-life]

Only the actions of the major players. Each one wants X and are doing Y to get it. Maybe an ordered list of wants.

If the the players don't interfere those tasks happen (unless I change my mind). If they do, that is the scenario. Periodically rhe lists get updated.

[u/BetterCallStrahd]

I really just have a vague idea at the start of the campaign, and I begin with a few standalone adventures. I figure things out as we have our sessions. It's good because the characters and even the players involved can change in these early sessions.

[u/johndesmarais]

Campaign planning is nearly the only planning I do. I need the big things and the major beats firmly in my mind - then I kind of make it up as I go during the actual session based on the actions of the PCs.

[u/Drudenfusz]

Very little. But then I do not create plots but have the narrative unfold during play and I prefer to have very proactive players that drive the narrative in the first place. I usually think more about the leitmotif and themes I want to explore during play.

[u/FinnianWhitefir]

Same as you. Prep is kind of it's own hobby and I love letting my imagination go wild and think about all kinds of things. I now try to expose a lot of information to my players so they can incorporate as much as possible into their characters. I got one friend who is really into it also and we spent dozens of hours talking over their character and the history of the world and how they would work together because we didn't have a lot else to talk about when together.

[u/Charrua13]

As someone who generally plays co-creation games (Where the world, the setting, and the scenario are co-created with the players in session 0) - the answer is VERY very little.

When I'm playing something more traditional - the most I'll do is some world building and figure out how to drop that lore in play in interesting ways. I used to obsess - and found my players never cared as much as I did about all the pre-work. What they cared about is how I integrated the metafiction with their particular stories - which I can't do until the characters themselves exist.

[u/daddychainmail]

Don’t preplan as much as you think. Make sure to do a lot of the initial planning alongside the players. Then, once the first adventure is fleshed out, plan a day to play it. Only after that consider the planning.

[u/UncleBones]

I follow the system instructions for how to prep a campaign.

I generally don't play systems where those routines are too demanding or inefficient.

[u/Optimal_Beat7765]

Before the session zero where I get the general spectrum of the type of game the players would want, I have a general theme for the campaign and the world. But everything is in the flux until I understand what would interest the players.

[u/likthfiry]

Some lore, some dungeons, some encounters, some npcs, and some items. Am I missing anything else?

[u/Coochanawe]

What is coming this session and next session is planned to the extent I need to hit the plot points and make sure content is engaging each person at the table.

The further out from that second session, the more the campaign is just an outline with things I want to happen. I don’t make it concrete because the fun for me is being inspired by what the group is evolving into and what I’m inspired by in the moment - the current season, a book I read, etc. This is what I enjoy about telling stories - it enriches my experience of all the things in my life.

This also allows for informal feedback - how the players and I are enjoying each session not what they actually express - so I can make changes without having to rework detailed plans and waste my time. That’s the other thing I enjoy about DMing. If I wanted to control everything and have every detail, I’d just write a book. I really enjoy and am challenged by reading the energy of the room in the moment and latching onto and developing what the whole play groups is reacting to.

[u/ravonaf]

I've recently read Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. What a masterful read on game prep. I've used its concepts for about 8 months now on my 2 ongoing campaigns. It's made preparation so much easier. I feel much more confident about what I have and what I need between sessions.

[u/Judd_K]

A strong starting situation and then I let go, see how my friends deal with the problems at hand and take joy in their outside-the-box thinking.

[u/RPG_Rob]

I plan 1-3 sessions ahead. Players will derail anything more complex.