Prepping With Limited Time

This past weekend, my gaming group did not reach quorum, and I was staring down another blown session. There has been a string of them with this group, and we have struggled to get games going. I was itching to run something. Rather than canceling the session, I told the remaining players we could play another game (Mutants in the Now), and that I could throw something together quickly. 

Then all sorts of things came crashing into my schedule, and the time I was going to use to prep the game went from plenty to some. My resolve to not cancel was strong. This game was going off, but with less prep time than I was expecting. So, I had to be discerning in my prep. That’s what I want to talk about today: how to prep when your time is limited.

What is Prep?

Let’s define prep. If you are a long-time reader of mine or a listener of my various podcasts, you know this definition.

Prep is what you need to feel comfortable bringing the game to the table. 

Prep can take all sorts of forms, and what you need for a given game will be defined by the game you are playing, the stories you are telling, your GM weaknesses and strengths, and the group you run for.

What that looks like is going to take a lot of forms. It could be fully detailed notes, it could be some stat blocks and an outline, a post-it note, it could be some index cards and a handful of minis, or just some time organizing a few thoughts in your head. As long as what you prep makes you confident to run the game, then that is your prep. 

A quick aside about ‘prep is bad’

There is nothing I can’t stand more in this hobby than people bad-mouthing prep. When people say that you don’t need to prep or that prep is bad, they are either trying to brag, gatekeep, or are “one true way” gamers. That kind of thinking can fuck right off. If you need to prep, you prep. 

I have run fully detailed prep games, and I have run totally ad lib-ed games. What I choose to prep for a given game is based on the things above. Prep what you need…the way you want.  

Exit soapbox. 

Prepping with limited time

With a limited amount of time, which we will define as less time than you would normally need to produce your normal prep, we have to get judicious with what we prep. Instinct is going to say start at the beginning and get as far as you can before time runs out. I disagree. What that gets you is a very detailed start that trails off over time. Good starts are nice, but they are not often the most memorable parts of the game, which tend to fall around the middle and towards the end. 

Rather than prep chronologically, prep by priority. What I mean is to prep the game based on what parts you need the most support with. This way, you have invested your time and focus into the parts that will be the biggest help at the table, while you leave less detail to the parts that you feel more comfortable running unsupported. 

Here is an approach based on prepping by priority:

Building a Foundation

The first thing we need is some kind of understanding about the overall session. This can take several forms. It could be a formal outline, it could be a series of questions, or my personal favorite, the What’s Going On document. For attribution, this was inspired by Fear The Boot’s What’s Really Going On document. 

The What’s Going On document is a summary of what will happen in the game if the characters were not involved. What would the adversaries do? What things would go unchecked? This document crystallizes, for me, what the story is about and where it is trying to go. Often, by the time I have this written, I also have a pretty good outline of the story. This document is often a few paragraphs to a page of text.

What Support Do You Need?

Now that you have a story in mind, what do you need to prep to best support yourself running this story? Do you need a list of NPCs? Some stat blocks? A list of clues? A map? Do you need some tokens or minis? What are the things that you will struggle doing on the fly at the table, or make you hesitant to go to the table without them? Take a few moments of introspection and then make a list.

Prep Your Priority List

Now, prep your priorities, and don’t worry about making a fully chronological adventure. Start by putting the priorities down and invest the time into them to make them as functional as possible for yourself. 

Prep The Non-Essentials

If you have time remaining, fill in the rest of the prep any way you like. This is the stuff you could have made up on the fly, but with a few extra minutes, you can add some extra details, some specific lines of dialogue, a few tactics, etc. 

Doing this for my Mutants in the Now game

I started with a short What’s Going On document, with a few paragraphs about a rendezvous that would turn into a rescue mission. 

I then thought about what I needed for prep. Mutants in the Now is pretty crunchy and has a strong emphasis on fighting, so I knew I needed some stat blocks for the adversaries that the characters would encounter. I also needed to quickly rough out a layout for the location where the rescue operation would take place. There was also a small amount of investigation needed for the rendezvous to turn into a rescue, so I listed out some possible clues. 

In OneNote, I made a quick outline of the major scenes. Then I jumped into filling in the priority sections, listed above. I wound up having some extra time, and I then went back through and jotted a few sentences for the other sections. 

In all, it was less than I would normally prep for a session, but it was more than enough for me to run the game. I had the prep I needed and was relaxed coming to the table. The game went off great, and we all had a lot of fun.

For A Limited Time

In an ideal world, we will always have enough time to prep our games. Sadly, life is not like that, and even when we budget our time carefully, things will happen and steal that time away. Rather than canceling a session because we could not do our full prep, we can prep by priority, using the little time we have to get the most bang at the table. 

It’s possible that one could just always prep this way, and perhaps some of you already are. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it can be a big time saver.

By the way, if you do want to learn how to cut down your prep, check out my book Never Unprepared.

What do you do when you are short on time and need to prep?