Stealing Smart: 10 Easy Steps to Prep Any D&D Session

In our most recent episode, we discussed how much you should prepare to get through in a session, how best to manage the pacing and flow. It was a great way to showcase our unique styles of running a game and show how you can handle the different types of players that populate your game group.

As I have discussed in other episodes, my current form of prep, a template of sorts that I have cobbled together, answers the question of how much one should prepare.

Prepare for the next session. Period.

I’ve learned over the years from running multiple games in multiple systems for multiple groups of players that the old adage of “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is all too true. In this vein, I’d like to detail how I prepare for a session that leaves all the room for the organic decision-making that the players are going to bring – all the times they’re going to turn left – whether you’re running a completely homebrewed campaign, published material or a “kit-bashed” mixture of the two.

You know me, dear readers. I don’t like working too hard, and I love my “kit-bashing.” My current method of prep is cobbled together from my own way of organizing what I feel is important to remember for the session while borrowing heavily from two amazing DM’s: The Lazy Dungeon Master himself, Mike Shea, from SlyFlourish.com and Mark “Sherlock” Hulmes, Dungeon Master for the live-play program High Rollers and his excellent series DM101 on YouTube.

I organize my session notes using Google Docs. I find the ease with which I can update it from any device in real-time to be an excellent way to space out my prep time. I don’t have to sit and come up with everything in one go, I can revisit it throughout the time between sessions – a little bit here, a little bit there … voila!         

So, without further ado …

1. Session Prep – Episode 1: The Template

I, like DM Tony, generally approach running a campaign like writing or directing a wonderfully open-ended Choose Your Own Adventure story or television series. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end … all of which (aside from the beginning) will undoubtedly change!

I used to break out session notes into “Chapters” but realized that this was limiting my ability to respond and adapt to the players reshaping of the world and the story. So, I now focus on the next session by giving it a title – something evocative or something that holds a clue for the next session. Then, when I send a teaser text to my players prior to the next session to make sure schedules, game time, etc., still align, I get to fire up their imaginations with the reveal of the next episode.

2. Where We Left Off

Always remember: Bullet points are your friend. I make a couple of these every session that tell me where the PCs are, what time it is in the world, what level  (if any) they achieved, whether they finished with a short/long rest, and what they were engaged in when the previous session ended.

This is the “Previously on …” section of your favorite TV show. I usually make these handwritten notes at the end of a session after handing out XP or handling end-game discussions so I can refer back when I start prepping for the next. This handful of bulleted notes will set the stage for when you begin building your encounters in the “Possible Locations” section later.

3. The Set-Up

Just like the title suggests, this is how you begin your next session.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as the party awakens at their campsite or the inn (or barricaded in a creepy room on the second floor of the Death House in Barovia!), and you give them free rein of the day. However, it’s often a great time to set the PCs up with something that will create the impetus for them to get back into game mode: some sort of encounter. In one of the Curse of Strahd sessions, the Set-Up was that the PCs were awakening at Old Bonegrinder, having chased off the hags, and I was going to have them meet Muriel Vinshaw, a wereraven, that could provide some needed information before they hit Vallaki. It doesn’t always have to be “Orcs Attack!”

However, it totally can be “Orcs Attack!”

4. Secrets & Clues

In his book, The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Mike gives his general points to consider when prepping for a session. They’re all great, but the one that could forever change the way you prep is what he calls “Secrets and Clues.” Simply put, you’re coming up with 10 secrets or clues that provide information on NPCs, locations, events, or just general world history and lore.

The beautiful thing about them is that they don’t exist until the PCs encounter them – the secret or clue is not tied to any one NPC, location, etc., where the PCs will uncover it – they could be anywhere. This method provides some powerful world-building for you when prepping a session and gives the world a much more organic feel, as these pieces of information can flow naturally depending on what your PCs are doing or who they might be talking to.

As an added benefit, these are easy to pop into your Google Doc at any point in the week when they occur to you.

5. Random Encounters

For most game sessions, I will prepare a short list, much of which can be reused session to session, of possible random encounters that could be triggered. I’ll consider the environment the PCs are in and the time of day they might be traveling to populate this list. I mean, it’s always possible that they run into a nest of Hook Horrors in the forests surrounding town … but it makes a bit more narrative sense that they’d run into, I don’t know, forest creatures, don’t you think?

I like the idea of random encounters, especially when the PCs are traveling overland, to give a feel of randomness and danger to the world. These encounters can sometimes lead to a whole new session as well. This happened in my Slaver’s Bay campaign. A random secret dropped by road builders while the party was traveling to the town of Thrace led them straight into a giant warren of troglodytes and a boss battle against a Bog Drake. Great times … see the end of the article for these actual session notes!

6. Planned Encounters

Similar to the Random Encounter list, I will generally place any planned encounters for the session here. Again, like “Secrets and Clues,” these encounters don’t have to exist until the players discover them somewhere. As we’ve said in previous episodes, and as Hulmes discusses in the above video, the Wizard’s Tower encounter you prepared can exist anywhere in the world … let’s call it “Schrodinger’s Encounter,” it both exists and doesn’t exist until you open the box!

Additionally, I usually like to have at least one combat encounter (or possible combat … remember, Persuasion is useful!) in each session. Sometimes we’ll have a session of only combat or only social encounters or investigation, but it’s nice to let players roll their dice to play with their toys and not just make ability checks.

7. Possible Locations

This section allows you to focus your prep on what is possible for the PCs to encounter. There is only so much distance that PCs can travel in a given time period (and plenty of random or planned encounters that can slow that up!) With this in mind, the “Possible Locations” are any areas that are reachable by the PCs in the next 4-6 hours of gameplay (I apologize to all you DM’s who have PCs with Teleport or Plane Shift … the next 4-6 hours of gameplay could, quite literally, be the Multiverse!)

As I’ve said before, why bother building encounters half a world away that the PCs won’t get to yet? Spend time planning for what they’ll hit next, allowing the “Secrets and Clues” to drop hints about those possible future encounters or lore about the world that can come into play as the story develops.

Hulmes discusses this at great length in the above video. Suffice it to say, I would plan 3-4 possible locations that the PCs might venture into. This could be areas of the wilderness, places in a large city, or even adjacent sections of a dungeon. Location, for our purposes, can be thought of as encounters or scenarios.

8. NPCs

Here’s the real bread and butter that can transform your game from a set of really cool and well-crafted encounters in a tabletop game to a real-world that affects and is affected by the PCs’ words and deeds: NPCs.

There’s no need to build out every possible being that the PCs could possibly encounter in a game session. What is needed though, in my opinion, is several NPCs that look, feel and act real. These are the NPCs that create the atmosphere and environment that your PCs are encountering. Having townsfolk that are wary of adventurers (because adventurers bring trouble) will create a very different feel than townsfolk that place a jobs board out with various monsters to hunt and treasure to be rewarded. In this vein, I will generally build out 3-4 NPCs in each location that are more than just Human Town Guard A and Dwarf Blacksmith X.

To “build” these NPCs out, I generally will create a slightly detailed description, (hair color, facial hair, types of features, body build, clothing, etc.) to create a visual. Sometimes I’ll just write out a character from a movie or TV show. In the Slaver’s Bay campaign, I had described Auntie Abigail, the night hag that had begun to plague the party, as “The Bride from Insidious.” Easy to remember and really evocative.

Second, I generally write down their overall attitude (helpful, surly, suspicious, etc.), their goal in their day/life (i.e. run a successful tavern and provide for my family) and a secret (i.e. I’m actually the leader of a demonic cult and a 20th level mage). These three things give all the guidance you need to roleplay how this person would act in almost any situation. It doesn’t hurt, if you’re able to, to add a slight accent or style of speaking that portrays this as well. Don’t be afraid to ham it up, I have yet to see it not increase player engagement.

9. Treasure

Give me shiny, valuable things! I want magic!

Who doesn’t, am I right? In this section, I will generally list some of the treasure that is possible to find within the session. Similar to a lot of my other notes, these aren’t necessarily tied to any particular location or character. They can be parceled out over a whole session or several sessions.

If I’m running a published campaign, like Curse of Strahd, I generally forgo this section, as the adventure has treasure built-in. For kit-bashed campaigns like Slaver’s Bay, I will generally roll out random treasure hordes from the DMG and list the results here. Then, whenever appropriate, I have a handy list of usable treasure that isn’t exactly tailor-made for these specific PCs. For me, this gives an additional sense of realism to the game and helps to create unique ways to utilize magic items that might, at first, seem odd or out of place. Nothing says you can’t place some of your PCs’ wish lists in this section as well … but don’t be afraid to create some randomness in the world.

To assist you in visualizing what these session notes look like, here is an actual set from the session of the Slaver’s Bay campaign I mentioned earlier.

10. Wrapping It Up

I make handwritten notes to myself over my session notes throughout the game. Maybe its the name of the NPC that wasn’t built out that the party just HAD to talk to. Maybe its plot points that I need to remember from something the players said. Maybe I’ll tick off the “Secrets and Clues” that they discovered. At that point, I’ll make my 2-3 bullet points for “Where We Left Off” and I’m on to the next session!

These session notes are a constant work in progress – adding and subtracting sections or needed material for the next game – but the general framework has been serving me well now through several campaigns.

You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel … there are amazing resources out there with experienced and new DM’s alike sharing what worked and works for them and what doesn’t. Think of it as crowd-sourced D&D … just always remember to steal smart!

As always, heroes … LIVE THE ADVENTURE!