I’m always looking for ways to approach my game prep that results in great gaming experiences that are fun for my players – and, importantly, easy for me at the table. I’ve used a few methods, and I’ve got a few go-to structures that I often use for one-shots. But alongside this, I’ve started doing my prep in three stages, and it’s producing great results – so I thought I’d share it here.

Basically, I do my prep in three stages – each of them, ideally, a few days apart. Now, I know there’s conflicting advice on this – Lowell Francis has blogged on Age of Ravens about doing his prep an hour before the session – but I’m trying to invest a little bit more time than that. This is often prep to feature on Unconventional GMs, so it needs to be tight enough to run for the first time confidently, and clear enough that I can speak without filler words on camera. Looking back at some earlier videos, I really didn’t have enough prep – you can tell by counting the “ummm”s!

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Stage One – Sketch

This is, invariably, done with pen and paper. I’ll pull the one-shot into a flowchart of structure. What’s in that structure depends on the game; often it’ll be Three Fights or a Five Room Dungeon, with a bit of a Swell in the middle. Sometimes, I’ll use Teos Abadia’s Showcase 5-Room Dungeon structure to demonstrate a system. Often it’ll be a compromise between this, and what the plot/story demands. This has brief notes on how a scene will work – whether it’s primarily roleplay, investigation, skill challenges, a fight, and so on.

It’s pretty rough and doesn’t often take long. It might be preceded by some random table rolls to get inspiration, and I might go through two iterations – like I did with this Star Trek session (which will shortly be published here)

Stage Two – Crunch

The next step goes into a Word or Google Doc, and I write up each scene with the mechanical content – and enough description for context – to run it. This takes the longest, usually – and it might involve some book-flipping, and even a bit of maths if I need to balance combat or try and make things work out for the players. 

Here’s what one scene from the Star Trek Adventures session looks like:

Stage Three – Fluff

The final stage is often my weakest area as a GM. I go through and add bullet points describing some of the scenes, to give players enough cool details to hang onto and for me to describe the scene in an engaging manner.

My bible for this is The Alexandrian’s Evocative Descriptions post – I’m not ashamed to say I have this printed out next to me now! Adding these in bullet points makes it easier for me to rattle through them at the table, and prepping them means I actually give some thought to communicating an evocative scene! 

Putting it Together

Once my prep has the fluff added, I’m pretty confident I can get it to the table. A few things to note

• I try to do each stage at least a couple of days apart from one another. It keeps it fresh, and also helps me remember it at the table
• I don’t think the notes you get are that useful to somebody coming in blind to read it – and that’s not my intention, really. The process, rather than the output, is what helps this prep lead to high quality gaming
• This is a relatively new approach for me – you’ll see that Ghost Town has a similar structure

Next post, I’ll share the Star Trek adventure in full – and it should be recorded soon so you can watch it as well!

Have you tried a similar method? What stages of prep do you go through for your one-shots? Let me know in the comments.