More Tiny Prep

As I tinker away with my game stuff I find myself disappointed with the transience of my prep. I often just make a few notes or maps and this allows me a framework for a session which is largely improvised from that base. I enjoy running games that way and find more focussed prep to feel a bit like homework and therefore I don’t tend to do it. 

Tiny prep appropriate tools

However I do frequently feel underprepared for a session as a result of this. Also, I sometimes lack the required mental energy to play this way and in the moment wish I had more to fall back on than half a page of barely comprehensible scribbling. 

Trying to concentrate more on the Tiny Prep method has resulted in two things. One is a greater volume of material. My previous method of staring out of the window, waiting for inspiration to strike is inefficient. Writing down a sentence, even if it’s just the name of one setting appropriate detail, is progress and often leads to inspiration. These small things add up to something greater. Given I feel I’m short of time for thinking about games at the moment, the efficiency of Tiny Prep is essential.

The other is more coherent notes. In this I’m making more of an effort to produce stuff that is reusable. The effort that goes into a campaign can often be specific to that game on that Sunday or whenever and that’s fine and good. However there are some things I’ve prepped and run that I could use again but the notes no longer make sense or they’re buried in a thousand different notebooks, Frequently I doodle and scribble of my notes while GMing which renders them messy and awful by the end of the session. Or the PCs do something unexpected and I draw maps and plan as I go in session but these artefacts are on loose sheets of paper that subsequently disappear. Again, this is inefficient. Settings that I could use long term, i.e. for the rest of my life, should benefit from this development. All that prep could serve a greater purpose. Maps and locations could be reused. If I wheel the Grim North out for another convention type game for instance (I ran Warriors of the Grim North for Burrito Con online and felt like I was tightly prepped for the game but when I’ve reviewed my notes to run it again, it was like “Oh my God, how did I ever pull this off?”) or if I end up running it for my boy and his gang when they’re a bit older.

So as I prep at the moment, I’m making a conscious effort to be a bit neater, rough maps in pencils and then ink them. Scan more stuff so it’s backed up digitally, and inversely copy tables I draught on my phone at lunchtime into appropriate notebooks when they’re complete.