New Release - The No-Prep Gamemaster: Train Your Brain to Run Tabletop Roleplaying Games - Second Edition

A little background. I own the first edition of The No-Prep Gamemaster, and I like it. I found that I was already employing many of the techniques described, but it did a good job of helping me identify my strengths and weaknesses as an "improv-style" DM, as I often refer to myself. Was the author's voice a little off-putting? At times, but nothing a few years of honing one's writing skills couldn't fix ;)

Thus, I found myself looking at the preview file of the Second Edition of The No-Prep Gamemaster: Train Your Brain to Run Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Sure, its a damn long litle, so I'll shorten it going forward to The No-Prep Gamemaster 2e. Much better.

From what I saw in the preview, it's worth the current price of 2.99. So, I grabbed a copy of The No-Prep Gamemaster 2e and will put it at the top of my review pile for after the June Convention Season (I have NTRPG Con later this week and Central NY Con the following weekend.) I'm excited to delve into The No-Prep Gamemaster 2e and give you my full thoughts on it, but at 2.99, it qualifies as an impulse buy for any prospective (or seasoned) GM.

Are you a game master who’s short on time, overwhelmed by prep, or tired of burnout? The No-Prep Gamemaster is your solution.

This updated and expanded second edition of Matt Davids’ well-known guide offers a practical, inspiring approach to running unforgettable tabletop RPG sessions, with little to no prep beforehand.

Inside, you’ll discover:

• A mindset shift that takes the pressure off GMing
• How to improvise encounters and adventures on the fly
• Tips for training your brain to generate ideas naturally
• The power of random tables and how to use them
• Ways to engage players without hours of planning
• Practical reflections to help you improve with every session

Whether you’re a brand-new GM or a veteran looking to rekindle your love of the game, this book is packed with tools, insights, and encouragement to help you prep less and play more.

Let go of the guilt. Embrace the chaos. Run better games.

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Re-learning a Slightly Painful Lesson....

Today instead of doing something "fun" I've bee trying to fix a mistake I made. What was my mistake? Well despite knowing better I utterly failed in properly backing up some important RPG files.....

I'm one of those guys who should know better, but can still manage to mess stuff up anyway, despite my best efforts (i.e. my best isn't good enough). I generally believe in the adage that if you don't have your important files backed up in three places, you don't have your important files. Most of my files are saved on a couple of computers and I have a couple of larger (8TB) portable drives that I use to keep a tertiary backup at my family's farm, which is a good 12 hour drive away. Whenever I visit I bring one drive and swap it out with the one that is already there.

Thing is I cannot afford to back up ALL of my files because I have my entire video collection on a home server....I will be fixing that soon, but not soon enough to save all of my 3d printing files. I had a lot of .stl's on a portable drive and I-kid-you-not as I went to pick it up to make a copy of everything on my home server I knocked it off of the table. Now the drive doesn't work.....

"Luckily" a good chunk of my files are available to download again from DriveThruRPG and MyMiniFactory, but most of the stuff I had picked up on Patreon over the years...... *POOF*. Anything that was actually conveniently organized........*POOF*.

I'm probably 30 hours into downloading what I can......and once it's organized I'm thinking that I need to burn these to some M-Discs.

Now all of my "regular" RPG files are at least thrice back-up, but please....take my pain-in-the-ass (it's actually a little sore as I'm taking a break from downloading and organizing a bazillion files.....to type this) as a mental note for you to back your files up. Have at least three copies and one off-site.

Session Recap and I Need to Take a "Prep" in the Sandbox

Session Prep really is turning into a four letter word, but I'll get back to that.

Last night marked the return of one of our group's original players to the group, which puts the current number of PCs at five.  It also adds a cleric to the mix, which is the first healing that they'll have that doesn't come from potions or rest.

There was a crapload of in between session stuff -  the usual mix of spell acquisition for the casters, equipment shopping for the fighter and thievish folks and gladiator games for the gladiator in the party.  Well, not FOR him.  He just spent all of his loot arranging for, putting the purses up and throwing the general party in the surrounding town area for the gladiatorial games.  A fun time was had by all.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'n running my current ACKS campaign as a sandbox style, or sandboxie, game. I'm not so sure it's the purest sandbox out there, but it works well for it's purposes so far.

One of my players hit me with a ton of inquisitive emails prior to the game session. Thankfully, one of players had some thoughts on where he felt the party should be heading to during the night's game play.  Literally minutes before the game (as I was out most of the day) I reread some adventure info the party was likely to stumble upon while making the trek.

I use a combination of adventure sources for my sandbox.  I have some megadungeons planted, some smaller ruins of my own design, and handful of story hooks and dungeons from one sheets and the like.  I've been a big fan of adventure seeds and such since my early days of DMing, when i ran a sandbox styled campaign without even knowing that was the label.

So, forewarned with a probable route and destination for the party, I pulled out my notes and refreshed myself.  The Gnomes from Christian's 000 Hex Series made an appearance, as did one of the NPCs.  I had already planned on using a One-Sheet in the area where they planned to cross a large river - I just didn't expect it to be yet.  No matter, they are doing well, especially as they have the extra body in the party now.  They've already fought and defeated a handful of ghouls, including one that was "cut" in half by a coffin lid that the party's warrior was intending to use to pin her to the side of the coffin (natural 20 with 18 strength.  ouch!)  eat, I think it's playing out well so far.

The problem is the prep.  Prepping for a sandbox isn't like prepping for the next installment in a 12 adventure chain.  It's more like having the chain's links scattered across a board and watching your players randomly assemble it.  Knowing and preparing for everything they could possibly do is an enormous, and probably futile, task.  Conversely, not being prepared enough can lead to silence at the gaming table as you try to recall, remember, create or stammer your way through the next encounter.

I'm very thankful I'm pretty good at improvising in general.  That being said, my party is definitely keeping me on my toes ;)

Operation: Preparation Sandbox (after suitable period of Procrastination)

Tomorrow we pick up the ACKS campaign after taking last weekend off. Which means I'll be doing some game prep before Date Night with the wife (which just happens to coincide with Prom Night for the son and probably followed by Pick Me Up Night). Which means my game prep time is limited.

Have I mentioned in the past that I am a horrible procrastinator? Actually, I'm a pretty skilled procrastinator, but I'd rather not be a procrastinator at all. Especially when crunch time doesn't leave you with too much time.

I've been reading Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep from the folks at Gnome Stew. They sent me a prerelease copy (if memory serves in releases on June 4th), and I've been slowly working my way through it in the midst of everything else going on. So far, the one big thing that's struck home with me is that there is little discussion of game prep in the circles I travel in

There's lots of talk on how to GM, how to run a game session, how to run a campaign, the pros and cons of GM Fiat, why D&D Next Rocks / Sucks - but we don't talk much about GM prep. Not because it's a dirty secret, but because it's something that generally isnt as much fun as actually playing the game.

So, tonight I get to do some rushed game prep (although I may skim forward in Never Unprepared to pick up somethings that may expedite the process). Tomorrow, another birthday party for my son at my inlaws. Tomorrow night we game! Sunday I'll continue my quest to procrastinate less with my game prep (as i run a sandboxie campaign, I need to be ready for most anything, including improvising.)