Category Archives: Session Prep

Because Stonetop wants you to zoom out and see the passage of time, and because players are encouraged to co-create the village and its traditions, I’d often prep questions for my players to think about prior to the session. Initially, I’d send these out with a reminder for our biweekly game. My warmup questions were always to encourage my players to do some world building. Not all players are comfortable improvising in play. So then my players asked to get the questions the day before, so they would have some […]

Monster of the Week: Codex of Worlds is now crowdfunding on Backerkit! I lifted one of my prep techniques from the mystery countdowns of Monster of the Week by Michael Sands. These aren’t “whodunit” mysteries but instead mysterious monsters with mysterious agendas and mysterious weaknesses. As the book puts it­— Each mystery has a countdown: this is the sequence of the terrible things that will happen if the hunters don’t stop the monster. The countdown will be your guide to what will be going on off-screen as the hunters investigate. […]

After our Microscope worldbuilding, and before our first actual session of Impulse Drive, I ran a Session Zero based primarily on Stonetop’s Introductions procedure. Stonetop is a hearth fantasy PbtA by Jeremy Strandberg (you can back it here, for a limited time). Each playbook has two customized sets of questions: one set for the player to answer about NPCs and one set for the player as PC to pose to the other PCs. Here’s the process for the Ranger— Stonetop is about adventuring for the sake of protecting and growing […]

One of the great bits of tech from Apocalypse World 2e is the threat map, which provides a concise summary of campaign prep. You can adapt it for other systems as well, if your play centers on a holding or home base. Here’s an example from last year for my Stonetop campaign: D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker describe the process of using threat maps as follows: List the players’ characters in the center circle. As you name NPCs, place them on the map around the PCs, according to what […]

DMs and GMs have a lot of different ways they can prep for role-playing sessions, as I’ve learnt over the past three years: Prewritten Modules – When I took up DMing again, I turned to the DMs Guild for 5e adventures. I tended to buy Adventurers League modules – designed for 4 hours of play, they were quick to print out, read, and make notes on. (Less intimidating to me than a full book.) As a bonus, a module would sometimes last our open-table group two or three sessions. I […]

Stars & Wishes is a tested method to get positive feedback and constructive criticism, helping you understand what your players thought of your TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) session. Here is my adaptation of the method. I use these as my last two prompts at the end of every session (integrated into my custom End of Session move), encouraging each player to contribute: “Award a star to someone for a great moment of gameplay.” “Make a wish for what you’d like to see in a future session.” I love these prompts […]

When preparing to run a PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) TTRPG, keep in mind how experience is gained. Many PbtA games have an End of Session move that awards experience points. Make sure you’re giving players chances during the session that align with this move! Here is the End of Session move in Dungeon World: When you reach the end of a session, choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player of the character you have the bond […]

My normal prep uses the Lazy Dungeon Master Adventure Prep, though sometimes I turn to the 7-3-1 technique or what I call Monty Hall Prep. When my players in a Dungeon World campaign told me (in Stars & Wishes) that they planned for their PCs to return for a third time to a tunnel to search for the McGuffin, I decided to mix it up. I needed to think differently about this setting, which they’d already visited multiple times. And I’d been wanting to get better at thinking through and […]

You’re GMing an RPG game tonight, and you haven’t done any prep. Normally I use the Lazy DM checklist or the 7-3-1 technique or hexcrawl prep, but when I’m crushed for time I use what I call Monty Hall Prep: I read up on 3 different monsters, either from the Monster Manual, the bestiary of the system I’m playing, or these days from Keith Ammann’s book or blog. I write down 3 “doors” (locations) to choose from, foreshadowing but typically not naming which monster is “behind” each door. In play, […]