### The danger of preparing too little or too much (1:20)

Unless you are a both a very veteran GM and a professional improviser, you should prepare, and even if you are - preparing things will help you raise the level of your game.

### General advice (4:10)

Always be ready to throw everything away at a moment notice.

GM prep is like a battle plan, it rarely survives an encounter with the players.

Done is better than perfect (AKA perfect is the enemy of done).

Prep contributes only a certain percent to the experience. The prep you THINK matters most might not be the best use of your time.

The players don’t know what was planned.

After a game, the GM is usually the only one who remembers their GM ‘mistakes’. Players usually only remember the general experience. So take it easy, eh?

### How Uri prepare (11:00)

Is this a campaign or a one shot?

What is the mechanic? (high crunch or low crunch and GM build vs collaborative build)

Is there a specific meaning/theme/idea I wish to convey?

One-shots are less forgiving since you usually have less time and you can’t extend things.

For mechanics heavy games I try to prepare the mechanical elements, but I try to make life easy for myself with a few cheats:

* Prepare stat blocks with everything pre-generated (stats after boosts etc, many general pre-gen adventures will have these as well).

* I prefer to write the general battle plans before the battle.

* Reskin known monsters. I LOVE trolls and goblins, half of the encounters I ran were with trolls and goblins but they are never actually trolls and goblins. I simply reuse stats and select new reasons for the regeneration.

In collaborative games, like my current Fate Accelerated campaign I prefer to focus less on the plot and in stead focus on creating locations and NPCs. Maybe have a general idea or the barest of plots.

[City of Mist](https://www.cityofmist.co/)

[Mistborn Adventure Game](https://www.crafty-games.com/shop/mistborn-adventure-game/)

### Eran’s prep (27:40)

[Lasers and Feelings](http://www.onesevendesign.com/laserfeelings/)

[Dungeon World](http://www.dungeon-world.com/)

[Masks](http://www.magpiegames.com/masks/)

[50 Fathoms](https://www.peginc.com/product-category/50fathoms/)

[The Enemy Within](https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2012/3/1/about-the-enemy-within/)

[Fronts from Dungeon Worlds](https://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/gamemastering/fronts/)

[London Falling](https://www.paulcornell.com/books/novels/london-falling/), by Paul Cornell

[Xcrawl](http://goodman-games.com/xcrawl/)

### Summary (49:50)

Email us at [email protected] with questions, topic suggestions, and comments on this episode.

[We have a Patreon page](https://www.patreon.com/dwarfcast), in case you'd like to support us in a monetary fashion.

[Our Facebook group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/dwarfpodcast)

### Taking the load off

Uri - Author recommendation: [Drew Hayes](http://www.drewhayesnovels.com/)

Eran: [Crystal Heart Kickstarter](http://uptofourplayers.com/crystalheart) coming Nov 20!

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