The Over-Prep Trap
Here's a stat that should make you reconsider your prep routine: GMs spend an average of 6 hours preparing for every 1 hour of play. That's a 6:1 ratio. For a hobby.
And here's the cruel part — most of that prep never gets used. Players ignore the dungeon you mapped. They befriend the villain. They spend two hours talking to a shopkeeper you invented on the spot.
The solution isn't no prep. It's the right prep. Fifteen minutes of focused preparation will serve you better than three hours of world-building your players will never see.
The 15-Minute Framework
Set a timer. Seriously. Here's what you prep in those 15 minutes:
Minutes 1-3: Review — What happened last session? Read your notes (you do take notes, right?). What did the players say they wanted to do next? What loose threads are dangling?
Minutes 4-8: Three Scenes — Not a plot. Not a story arc. Three scenes. Prep a location, a situation, and one NPC per scene. That's 9 total elements.
- Scene 1: Where the session starts (the consequence of last session's choices)
- Scene 2: A complication or discovery (something that raises the stakes)
- Scene 3: A decision point (a choice that has real consequences)
Minutes 9-12: NPCs — For each scene, write one NPC with a Want and a Secret (see our NPC creation guide). Three NPCs, two lines each. Done.
Minutes 13-15: Bangs — Write three "bangs" — dramatic moments you can deploy if the session stalls. A messenger arrives with bad news. An explosion in the distance. A betrayal revealed. You probably won't use all three, but having them means you're never stuck.
What You Should Never Prep
Some things are a waste of your prep time. Cut them:
- Dialogue scripts — You'll never deliver them as written. Prep the NPC's goal and personality, not their lines.
- Exact encounter balance — Fudge it at the table. Prep the vibe (tense ambush, desperate siege, puzzle trap), not the math.
- Player choices — If your prep assumes players will do X, they'll do Y. Prep situations, not solutions. Give them a problem and let them solve it however they want.
- Long-form lore — Players absorb lore through experiences, not exposition. Don't prep a history lecture. Prep a crumbling mural that tells the story visually.
- Maps for exploration areas — Describe the space. Let theater of the mind handle it unless combat requires tactical positioning.
The Session Notes Hack
The single best thing you can do for your next session is take notes during this one. Specifically:
- What did the players engage with? (Do more of this.)
- What did they ignore? (Stop prepping this.)
- What questions did they ask? (These are free hooks — they're telling you what interests them.)
- Any NPC names they invented or jokes that stuck? (Canonize these. Players love when their improv becomes real.)
- What did they say they want to do next? (This is literally your prep outline.)
Five bullet points after each session. That's 2 minutes of work that saves you hours of prep next week.
Random Tables Are Your Best Friend
When players go off-script (and they will), you need to improvise. Random tables make improvisation feel prepared:
- 10 NPC names — Pre-generate a list for your world's culture. Cross them off as you use them.
- 6 rumors — Things NPCs might mention. Mix true, false, and half-true.
- 6 complications — Things that can go wrong at any point. Weather, patrols, equipment breaking, old enemies showing up.
- 4 locations — Generic but evocative. A ruined watchtower, an underground market, a haunted crossroads, a monastery turned fortress.
These tables aren't prep for a specific session — they're prep for every session. Build them once, use them all campaign.
Automate What You Can
The parts of session prep that take the longest are the parts that don't require creativity: generating NPC names, writing location descriptions, creating encounter outlines, and making sure everything is consistent with your existing world.
Lorewright's Session Planner does exactly this. Select 2-5 elements from your world — a faction, a location, a couple of NPCs — and it generates session notes with encounter outlines, NPC dialogue hooks, and scene descriptions that are consistent with your existing lore.
That's not replacing your creativity. That's automating the busywork so you can spend your 15 minutes on the parts that matter: deciding what happens next, what choices to present, and what surprises to spring.