There is an elusive quality in Game Master preparation, for me, the single greatest pain point in the hobby… time.
Problem:
Should you spend 4 to 10 hours prepping for every 4-hour game?
Not for me, that’s a path of disappointment, frustration, and reduces my quality of life because instead of living… I’m prepping.
Answer:
Prep once, then enjoy that life.
Example 1: Since the start of the year, I’ve run a barrowmaze game almost every Saturday, we are well into our 7th or 8th game. Each game we have 3-4 folks who return, and another 3-4 who rotate out every game as their schedules allow. I prepped precisely once, and then I stopped. I will record notes, but only during the game time, if it’s not significant enough to remember or document, it can be forgotten. There is no journal, there is no planning. When my players join to play, I participate to DM, we have an equal commitment to the game in time, effort, and it’s been divine.
Example 2: Joe’s got a campaign that we are almost a dozen sessions into. He’s done the same, but with LotFP.
What’s included in one prep:
My Tools:
Roll20
VTT Generic Tokens
VTT Spot Light/Ultimate Dungeon Terrain disk
Deck of random quests from Inkwell Ideas
Systems:
ICRPG
5 Torches Deep
(yes, both at the same time… and they are vital because they carry the cognitive load as sound systems should)
Mega Dungeon Setting: Barrowmaze
How do I do One Preparation?
Fist, read the Barrowmaze intro, gazetteer, and brief description of each region or game space in the game. I don’t understand the rooms in advance, they are not crucial until you play.
Setup 6 pages in roll20.
Page 1: Map of the town and Hex Map of the region, I’ve dropped a picture token in for each NPC, describing who they are and what they want.
Page 2: Map of the Barrowmores, use fog of war, and the party as 1 single “party” token they move around to tell me which barrow they want to visit next.
Page 3: Gridded page with my Generic Tokens for easy access and minimal in-game searching
Page 4: A Spot-Lite Terrain Page with an Ultimate Dungeon Terrain Disk in the Center
Page 5: Reference page with 5 Torches Deep Character Creation laid out.
Page 6: A generic Job Board with quests picked at random, and a daytimer set, so they expire. It’s flat impossible to do them all, by design. I also will set open jobs as the players generate exciting events into motion.
How does it play?
DM Jobs:
I Start us every day at 6AM in the morning in-game time, show the players the job board (unless asked to start at a different time). The party meets outside the Inn they stay in. I only worry about Tracking time, filling in the job board with single sentance jobs from a random deck, representing NPCs, Rolling to generate encounters, setup UDT tokens when needed, reacting to player ideas.
It is also the DM’s job when running this kind of sandbox game, to present things so that you don’t split the party, or if you do, keep to an Iron-Clad level of ICRPG Turn Order to hold all the players engagement. As players realize they have the freedom to wander away from each other, they will. If you don’t switch off intentionally to interact with all of them, boredom will set in. It is ideal to keep them together so that they can interact with each other instead of you most of the time. They are the heart of the story and what drives the world. Don’t be afraid to upfront tell them that directly.
What the systems do:
5 Torches Deep: Takes the load on to make “time” in the game work and matter. This drives the player’s actions as it puts pressure not to be out after dark, how long they can adventure before becoming exhausted, how long they have to complete a contract (quest), and meaningful supply limitations to drive decisions. It even provides rules to rapidly return home so you can start your game from a home base with new players every session. It’s delightfully simple and easy. It also makes it possible to integrate all 5e content instantly, giving you access to that flushed out Monster Manual. Monsters play as is, with exactly half the HP, done. The healing, magic and death rules bring it to an OSR level of potential danger, and the elation of earned success. Levels drive some players and provide personal progression and survival tools. XP is only provided for recovered treasure to a safe location.
ICRPG, as a framework for running your game with ANY system, takes the load off keeping things flowing, removes the unneeded details, and lets you focus what your players are doing. We use a single Target 11, and we follow turn orders everywhere but combats. (Monsters have their 5e AC to hit which works for better challenge tuning, and for Turn order in battle we use a unique technique which I’ll talk about some other day, it’s someone else’s invention, and I don’t want to steal their creation before they publish it). It’s a great framework to run the game from.
Player Jobs:
They decide precisely where they go, are doing, how they are preparing, and what quest is more important than the others. If they think it’s too dangerous, they return to safety. When they feel it’s also essential, they push things to the bloody end.
Commentary and Advice
It’s freak’n amazing to watch a game organically come together, because there is no plan, and there are no rails. Players drive what they want, if they wish to play a combat-heavy game, they charge into danger! All encounters are rolled at random from the barrowmaze setting on the spot. The things in the environment also come from the barrowmaze background to provide new sites and tools for the players, some times these have hilarious or deadly results, but so far, folks keep coming back and have had a good time.
We have also had sessions where players wanted to work through some intrigues that had surfaced. They spent 4-hours straight role-playing with Town NPC’s, and every person at the table seemed excited after it was finished as they uncovered and triggered significant events in the setting.
This style of game has the potential to be a meat grinder, so I let folks know that upfront. Death is 1000% possible because I don’t know if you will face 1 Giant Spiders or 6 Giant Spiders (1D6 Giant Spiders), the choice is still yours because you can run. However, I can say from both playing and DMing this style of game. If you die doing what you enjoy in an RPG, it’s not meaningless so much as fulfilling, because 1, you were doing what you wanted to do (not what I thought you would enjoy). 2, when there is victory, it means something much more.
I think this game works because once Players realize they are choosing their own adventure paths, they do the kind of content they want to do. When this happens, it helps account for the different taste in-game styles we all have; a clear consensus is reached at the start by the group, so expectations are set, and they know the game they will be playing that night.
My greatest fear at the start of this was that it would be a boring game because I hadn’t planned some grand adventure, which would unfold like a movie. I was afraid that the players would have no idea what they wanted to do and would stagnate. I was also fearful because I’ve heard it argued before that sandbox games are “bad” and unfair, that choosing a path is pointless. After all, players don’t really understand whats going on in the world around that corner and don’t have the same information the GM does. I was afraid of all of these things coming into this, no one wants to host a game that isn’t fun, and I could not have been more wrong on every single level. If you do this, people at large will have a good time, maybe a better time then you can imagine.
If someone doesn’t have fun, then don’t sweat it, because, in this kinda game, the mega-dungeon game, the sandbox game, anyone can join up at any time, building a shared “west marches” style persistent world. The people who do enjoy it, they’ll keep coming. You will get your life back with your one-time game prep. Then, the more you play in this world, the easier it will come to everyone, and the more comfortable your players will become with dreaming up what’s next.
Please, don’t take this as a condemnation on other styles of games, if you enjoy prepping for 10 hours, then rock on! If you only enjoy playing in one shot, on the rails, movie, or even video gamy experiences with this excellent story, a great storyteller has cooked up, then rock on!
I can only speak for myself, playing in and running this one prep style game… it’s a huge blessing in my life, so I wanted to share it with you. I want you to know it’s possible, and a hell of a lot of fun.
