Be Prepared! (CSC)

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Clearly, the more preparation time spent on planning the scenario, the more detailed it will become (up to a point). Each DM win have his own style of preparation. Some will prepare adventures far in advance while others frantically get ready just before game time. Some DMs write out their adventures in minute detail, much like commercial adventure modules, while others make simple listings of room contents and still others scrawl out crude maps and write cryptic notes to themselves to jog their memories about what they intended. Each method is correct so long as the DM has enough material to smoothly and enjoyably run his adventure session.
==Allow Time to Design==
The DM must give himself adequate time to prepare for an adventure. Too little time and he cheats his players out of potential enjoyment. Too much time and not only has he created more material that he will use, but he has also cheated himself out of personal time that may have been better spent.
There is no way to say exactly "this is the correct amount of time to spend preparing for a game" since so much depends on the DM's design and play style. A good rule of thumb is for preparation time to equal playing time. If a game is going to last three hours, the DM should spend about three hours preparing. However, a DM who likes everything spelled out, with encounter descriptions he can read verbatim to his players will need more time, while the DM who can make things up on the fly may need considerably less.
Even if the DM is using adventure material prepared by someone else (as is the case with purchased or borrowed scenarios), he must allow preparation time. The material must be read and possibly even customized in advance to fit the DM's campaign. Slight plot changes and name changes, map modifications and so forth will disguise most adventures (players buy scenario packs too) and fit them seamlessly in the DM's campaign.
==Get Organized==
All too often a gaming session is ruined, or at least severely damaged, by a DM who can't find his material. He knows that he wrote it. He's fairly certain he put it into a notebook He just can't put his finger on it
Of course, it may not be that the information has been lost. If the party is engaged in a running battle with the monster they met earlier in the adventure and the DM recorded its statistics only in the section of the adventure which details the monster's lair, a similar problem arises. In this case, the DM must constantly flip between the changing encounter area descriptions and the page with the monster's stats.
Regardless of how the DM puts his material together, he needs to put it in a ready-to-use form. DMs can save endless flipping through notes by following these organizational tips:
* Make "at-a-glance" reference sheets for the non-player characters and monsters to be encountered. Record their vital statistics in a manner that is easy to use. Include armor class, hit dice, hit points for each creature, the number of attacks and the damage caused, movement rate, alignment, THAC0, the source material from which the monster was taken (for more complete details), and whether it has any special attacks or defenses. For NPCs, also give a brief listing of personality, appearance, unportant possessions, and speech patterns.
* Do the same thing for the player characters. It's very hard to secretly make a check against a character's Intelligence attribute if you have to ask for it
* Make maps so they can be used separately from their content descriptions. Use very simple map keys and symbols whenever you can.
* Keep descriptions of unique treasure items or new monsters separate from adventure writeups, possibly in a separate notebook.
* Use dividers with index tabs to separate sections of game information. It's so much easier to find a section clearly marked "Dungeon of Megadeath, level 8" than to hunt for a plain dogeared Page halfway into the notebook.
* Make a quick list of important adventure features (like monster lairs, key treasures, magical items, NPCs, towns, etc.) and note their locations within your notes, much like an index or a table of contents.
* Keep copies of your players' characters in your records. Be sure to include infomation the DM knows about the character, but that a player may not, such as cursed weaponry and armor or secrets from the character's past.
=="Know thy Stuff!"==
In spite of the DM's skills at adventure creation or how efficiently he organizes his notes, he must KNOW the adventure scenario before the game session, otherwise his players will quickly tire of "Wait a minute while I see what's supposed to be here." Read and review all relevant campaign materials ahead of time. Know where the players are and what they were doing last game, be familiar with their foes and up-to-date on the status of the world.
As stated previously, advance review is especially important with purchased or borrowed scenarios. When rulU1ing a game that is not of his own creation, the DM must spend enough time to become thoroughly familiar with its details. When a DM creates his own world and adventures, he usually has more background information in mind than he actually writes down. With a purchased or borrowed adventure, this is not the case. The information is present, but may be in such abundance that important details can be overlooked. Make notes in the margins (or on those little adhesive backed note papers) to highlight details or scenario alterations.
==Establish a Background==
Creating background information can easily become as involved as plalU1ing the scenario itself (if not more so). Background information encompasses the cast of significant NPCs (with individual descriptions, personal histories, and motivations for major NPCs see Making NPCs Live), player handouts, stories and legends that may be heard from the local folk, surrounding natural and unnatural environment, political and social situations, and any other special features that are not intrinsic to the DM's chosen adventure scenario. Most of this information should center around the town or setting in which the adventure begins (beyond that which the DM set forth in his creation of his world).
Detailing the personalities that the characters are likely to interact with, will prevent the necessity of impromptu creations during the game. The motivations and histories of NPCs can become the basis for future adventures.
==Your Changing World==
For every action there is a reaction. This law of physics also has truth in a fantasy game world as well. The characters' actions may cause a reaction in their world, even changing the nature of reality. For example: the player characters destroy a dragon that has been devouring sheep and cattle in an area. This alters both the area's economy and its political climate. The afflicted village may have been isolated from the outside world due to the danger of the dragon. Thus they enjoyed a treasure of autonomous freedom. Removing the fear and danger of the dragon alters this.
==The Passage of Time==
Organized DMs usually keep a calendar of events for their world. They plot the times of recurring major events such as seasonal changes, full moons, eclipses, holy days, festivals, gatherings, and so forth. From here the DM can go on to plot the future of the campaign, primarily those things outside the control of the characters, like wars, invasions, troop movements, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and so on. Characters always run the danger of blundering into one or more of these events. Furthermore, some of the occurrences in a DM's adventure plots may be time dependent. These too should be recorded as they occur, including any movements by major NPCs.
Thus, it is critical that the DM update the world situation from time to time to determine if the characters lllight be in a position to be affected by or encounter a time dependent event. Note that troop movements are often wider in scope than the location of the actual army. Recruiting may be taking place in the pes town, foraging for supplies may bring troops into their area, or scouts may be spying in the area and assume that all armed personnel are the enemy and report the characters' position to their commander. Thus characters may innocently become involved in a war they want no part in, but where treasonable desertion may be punishable by death.
The world calendar must also be updated to include any changes caused by the characters (such as the previous example of the dragon). It is possible that a small group of adventurers could alter world events significantly. Most generals must depend on their couriers to coordinate attack and movements. Capture of a courier could have dire effects on the ensuing battle and alter the entire world situation. If the characters were to capture or prevent the capture of such a courier, they have significantly altered their world, not necessarily for the better.
==A Note On Alternative Scenarios==
It's bound to happen. The DM can prepare for every imaginable alternative and outcome to his adventures and more often than not, his players will choose an option he either overlooked or, more likely, didn't imagine. Even so, it is possible to accommodate those adventurers who choose paths other than the one the DM would prefer (and squashing them like insects is not a particularly mature solution). If time permits, go through the scenario. Imagine what would happen if the characters do the wrong thing in a key encounter and survive. What if they drink the wizard's store of potions? What if they decide to pilfer the town instead of heroically defending it against unbeatable odds? What if they kill the NPC that they should have aided? What if they make friends with the bad guys? What if they don't complete their mission, but slink off into the wilderness? What if... ?
Don't write out fun blown solutions to these "what ifs;" just take notes of what might occur and where things could possibly go from there. Give some thought to how events (not characters) might be manipulated to put the plot line or world back on the intended track. In the likely event that whatever the players do is still beyond the DM's imagining, pay close attention to the section on "Winging It," or what to do when the players decide to go where no design work has gone before.