- You can't swing a dead
displacer beast in D&D communities without hitting one extremely
common piece of advice for Dungeon Masters: Don't overprepare. This advice is everywhere. (screenshots popping) It's the most common
advice beginner DMs get when they ask for tips, and people often tell me this even when I'm not asking for advice. I hope y'all have hellish resistance, because this take is gonna
be hot: That's bad advice. Ah! My flesh! And I'm not the only one who thinks this. Dan Dillon, a game designer for D&D, had a whole Twitter thread
about this a few years ago, and I actually had a great
conversation on this subject with Mark Hulmes, the DM of High Rollers, just the other week, and we
were kind of on the same page. Not only do I think don't
overprepare is unhelpful advice, I think it can even be
potentially harmful to new DMs. But I'm not here to drop a
spicy take as engagement bait and then disappear. This isn't Twitter. I'm here to explain myself,
and then provide a solution, like a goddamn contributing
member of the community. So let's get started. (soft music) There are a few reasons
I think don't overprepare is bad advice, the first of
which is, it's oversimplified. Shocking on the internet, I know. There are so many things
that go into session prep. Everything from mapmaking to worldbuilding to encounter balancing to creating NPC and mapping out quests to picking loot. It could refer to narrative descriptions, reviewing notes from previous sessions, creating rolling tables. The list goes on and on. So, what prep is this
advice even referring to? Is it saying prepare all those
things, but only a little? Is it saying prepare some of
those things, but not others? Everyone probably has
a different definition of what overpreparing looks
like in their own head when they say this, but what's in their head
doesn't necessarily translate to the people hearing this advice. The wrench in the gears
here is the word "over", who's to say how much preparation
constitutes overpreparing? That implies that there is an
appropriate amount of prep, but doesn't actually
explain what that amount is. Without that distinction, this advice is functionally meaningless. It's like giving someone directions and all you tell them is, "Go
north, but not too far north. Good luck! Hope you find it!" Every DM has a different
style and different needs, so even if this advice
came with a description of how much prep is too much prep, it still wouldn't apply universally. Some DMs are capable
of coming to the table with zero preparation and
delivering a great game. And others are decidedly not. Most DMs fall somewhere in the middle, where they benefit from
certain kinds of prep, and not from others. - Even if that's true, saying this advice is
harmful seems like a stretch. - Honestly, I don't think it is. I mean, for one thing, I
think there's a very real risk that DMs who prep too little
might end up with a game that feels superficial and boring. Improvisation is all well and good, but there's also a place for thoughtful, intentional choices, and it can be very difficult
to make those off the cuff. Sure, you can improvise a
dungeon crawl, or a random town, or a short quest, but
if you want politics, or mysteries, or secrets, or history, that's gonna require at
least a little preparation outside of the game to execute. I'm sure there are some DMs who can wing an entire compelling
campaign arc, but not many. I also think it can be harmful to new DMs to imply that investing time
and thought into their prep will make their games worse. D&D is a pretty complicated game. I mean, it requires textbooks to play. And some of the key parts of gameplay, like combat encounters, are complex enough that you
need a lot of experience to be able to execute them
well with no preparation. Before you've built up experience and learned what does
and doesn't work for you as a dungeon master, prep
can be pretty crucial. I received this don't
overprepare message early on as a dungeon master, and I really did try to take it to heart. So instead, I underprepared, which left me stressed and
scrambling during sessions. And once I realized that this
advice didn't work for me, every time I heard it, it just made me feel like I was a bad DM. After all, if this was the advice that everybody but me found useful, I must be the one doing something wrong. So I kept ignoring my gut, and forcing myself into situations where I had to improvise things that I knew I wasn't good at improvising, and my games suffered for it. It was only once I accepted
that I thrive as a DM when I feel thoroughly prepared that I finally started doing game prep that actually worked for me. - I think you're misreading
what don't overprepare means. You're taking it too literally. - You're absolutely right. I know that what I just described is not what people mean
when they say this. But it's what I heard. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. If your advice requires
some hidden context in order to be useful, context
that you don't provide, then the advice is worthless. So let's talk about what people do mean when they say don't overprepare, and how we can shape that into advice that's actually useful. - ...source of parchment for our needs? That's your problem. Our contract locked in pricing. - Whoa, Francis, you look different. - Oh, it's you. Yeah, my mapmaking business, Summerpike's Quill & Compass, is booming and it's gonna really blow
up when DungeonFog introduces their new community hub in May. - Oh, that's right, DungeonFog. The mapmaking tool that
makes it easy to create and customize beautiful
maps for your games. - Yeah, but not everyone
wants to make their own maps. The community hub makes it
easy to find the maps you need from other artists, like me. You can browse by category or theme. Plus, it shows you
recommendations, new artists, popular maps and even lets you follow your favorite map makers or check out their whole map
library on their profile. - Well, it looks like it's
really working for you. - It is. As a map maker,
I even get insights on who's using and modifying my maps. I'm building a real community here and the new preview pages
make it easier than ever to share maps on social media. - I'm really proud of you, Francis. I know we didn't get off
on the best foot, but- (phone rings) - Francis. What? I thought I made it
clear that ink shipments were to be weekly. If you can't keep up with
Summerpike's demands, there are other suppliers
out there who can. Oh, you're still here. - I mean, it's my office. - Right. Well, you can
check out DungeonFog to get notified when the hub goes live. You can even sign up for a free account to find maps for your games
or start making your own. Good luck with everything, Jenny. - It's Ginny. - [Francis] I expect that ink
to be at my shop by sunset! (door banging) - Huh. Anyway, now that I
have more experience as a DM and I've spent years in D&D communities, I understand how this advice is intended. When people say don't overprepare, they're really saying something
else, two things, actually. They're saying don't railroad, and they're saying don't waste prep. Let's look at these one at a time. First up, don't railroad. - What does that mean? Urban Dictionary says it's
about an unjust conviction. Or a guy (beep) with a (beep). - Okay, that's enough. If this is your first
time hearing the term, in this context, to railroad means to force your
players down a certain path, like how a train has to
follow railroad tracks. Instead of a train, you want your players to feel like they're in an ATV, they can go anywhere they want, even if that's off the road
and into the wilderness. To me, saying don't overprepare when you mean don't railroad
is a case of mistranslation. It's not the act of preparation that causes DMs to railroad their players. Some DMs prep very little
and still force their players to follow a certain path. And many extremely prepared DMs make the choice to follow
their players' lead. That's because it's not really
about how much you prep, it's about how you respond
to your players' actions at the table. Which brings us to part
two: Don't waste prep. To be more specific, don't
waste time preparing things that you may not end up using. This is inherently tied
to the railroading thing, because if you spend a lot
of time preparing something that your players will only encounter if they make certain specific choices, you might feel compelled
to force your players into making those choices so that you don't have to
toss all of your hard work into the garbage. But just like the don't
railroad translation, this one breaks down
because of an assumption, that assumption being: The more you prepare, the
more you're attempting to predict players' choices. And this is absolutely false. It is entirely possible
to prepare thoroughly while still allowing your players freedom during the actual session. - Okay, but how? If the answer isn't preparing
less, then what is the answer? - A fantastic question! I would like to propose
a revision of this advice into two parts that I think
are more helpful to beginners than don't overprepare. First, prepare flexibly. Some preparation is valuable no matter what your players choose to do. Dan Dillon put it well
in that Twitter thread that I mentioned before: "Preparation is not about a script. It's about having a solid understanding of what's going on in the
world around the PCs." For example, in one of my home games, a cult has been spreading a drug that siphons magical energy. The DM, Jesse, undoubtedly
knows where the drug is coming from, what it does to users, and what the cult is getting out of it. All of that is prep. But he has no idea what we're
gonna do to try and stop it or if we're going to
try and stop it at all. We could decide to capture and
question one of the cultists, or to examine and treat one of the users, or to investigate the drug itself, or even to take the drug
and see what happens. We could ignore the drug completely and pursue other threads. No matter what we do, Jesse's prep allows him
to figure out what's next. None of it is wasted. Of course, sometimes you
really do need to plan past player decisions. When Mark Hulmes and I talked about this, he suggested a simple
way of looking at it: "What's important, and how
can your players reach it?" Sometimes you need players
to reach a certain point or learn certain information. Instead of defining the path that your players have
to take to get there, center your prep on that certain point or certain information, and let your players reach it using whatever path feels
natural during the session. Maybe they learn about
the royal conspiracy by eavesdropping on a noble, or by bribing or threatening an informant, or by accepting a quest to dismantle it, or by being invited to participate in it. As long as you have a
thorough understanding of the conspiracy itself, you can give players the
freedom to approach it in whatever way they like. - That all sounds very nice, but some prep just doesn't work that way. Like, what about combat encounters? - You're right, encounter
prep can take a lot of time, and players might completely avoid it. But remember, combat can
be reskinned or relocated. If your players don't end
up going into the forest where you had prepared a
fight with some wolves, then maybe it becomes a fight with some feral dogs in the city, or some escaped giant squirrels or something at the circus. The players talked their
way out of that fight with the guards that you
spent an hour preparing? That's fine, those guards are bandits now, and the party can encounter
them in a few sessions when they leave the city. Or you can sit on that
encounter for the next time that your players
inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of some guards. I think one of the best ways to do this is to focus your encounter
prep on the mechanics of the fight rather than the flavor. Flavor can be improvised,
but balance takes more work. The more you can develop
this flexible mindset, the less pressure you'll feel to make sure that players
do the "right" things, and the more you can adapt
to the way that they want to interact with your world. - Okay, sure. But one time my players said
they were gonna board a ship, so I spent the whole week
coming up with a crew and researching seafaring combat, and then they changed their mind and teleported to the other
side of the continent. - Ouch. Listen, sometimes
D&D is just like that. The freedom to do literally anything is part of what makes
this game so exciting. Even flexible planning can still break when it's bent too far. It's an inevitable part of DMing that you'll occasionally prep things that you don't end up using. But the more you can
allow for player agency in your game prep, the less
often this will happen, and the easier it'll be to laugh it off and let it go when it does happen. Which brings me to the
second part of my advice: Prepare to your comfort level. Personally, as a DM, I
thrive on feeling prepared. If I don't feel like I'm
ready for the session, I feel anxious, and that
comes out in my DMing. I am the most fun and the most
engaged as a dungeon master when I feel confident, and
preparation gives me confidence. I'm a person who loves lists
and spreadsheets and notes. It's just who I am, even outside of a tabletop gaming context. I would much rather
have prepared something that I don't end up using than need something that I didn't prepare. I'm not by any means saying
that it's not possible to overprepare. It totally is. All I'm saying is that that's a line you're gonna have to locate for yourself. There are plenty of DMs who
would look at my game prep and say that I overprepared. But if Ive prepared to my comfort level, then I know I've done
the right amount of prep. Once you've established that you're not gonna
railroad your players, what's the worst case
scenario of over-preparing? If it's just that you prepare
something that you don't use, you get to decide whether
or not that's a problem. I recently created a small town where I knew players were gonna
spend at least a few days. Could I have come up with
all my NPCs off the cuff? Probably! But having a list
of NPC names, descriptions, and brief personality notes made me feel totally ready for the game, and gave me a lot of
confidence during roleplay. The players didn't meet
every NPC, but who cares? For me, it was worth it. Likewise, you can decide how much you're comfortable improvising, and let that inform your decisions. One key part of all of this and a big part of my
beef with this advice, is that beginner DMs often don't know their
own comfort levels yet. You can read and research
and ask for advice, and it can be helpful, but ultimately, nothing is gonna teach
you what works for you except for actually doing it. It wasn't other DMs telling
me "don't overprepare" that taught me how I like
to plan for sessions. It was sitting down in
front of a blank document and preparing for sessions. And then running sessions, and then reevaluating whether or not I prepared the right things. Wash, rinse, repeat. That's what I'd like to see
us teaching beginner DMs: Learn, explore, practice, and figure out what kind of DM you are. That's why in these videos, I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to make you
think, bring up new ideas, and challenge your assumptions. For more advice that I think
beginner DMs need to hear, make sure to check out this video about five DM lessons that
I wish I'd learned earlier. - [Josh] You okay down here? - [Ginny] Yeah, I'm filming a part where I fall off of a
chair because there's fire and then I say, "Ah, my flesh!" - [Josh] Okay. - [Ginny] Bye! - [Josh] I'm glad your flesh
is okay. (Ginny laughs)
The only thing you can’t over prepare with is names. Unless you like names like “uuum Barry” and “uuuuuuhhh other Barry”
I mean, even though I'm just a nobody and certainly not a YouTube 'celebrity', I still disagree. Overpreparing is as bad, or worse, as not preparing at all. You can't prepare for everything. Your party will do things you are not prepared for. This means that when you prepare, prepare for flexibility. Be ready to adapt, improvise, overcome. Overpreparing leads to railroading, and that's bad DMing.
Just my take on it, but one with, oh... about 30 years of playing various editions under my belt. Most of it as a DM.