I’ve been running table top role playing games for over a decade on and off, and I’ve settled into a prep routine. It’s heavily borrowed, if not outright stolen from other GMs on the Internets, and I encourage you to steal and adapt what I’m doing as well. If I had to guess, this way of preparation is stolen directly from the Lazy GM’s table.

I’ve learned that in order to run a successful session, I need to prepare the following:

  • Discoveries: What my players need to discover.
  • Scenes: Where things happen.
  • Clues: Some thoughts on how to expose the discoveries.
  • Key NPCs: Some names and primary aspects of non player characters.
  • Enemies: A few stat blocks or references to enemies.

And all of the above fits on a single page: I find it enough to run the session while providing player freedom without having to completely invent everything on the fly.

Here’s an example for a Numenera game I ran a few weeks ago, where I adopted the idea behind the “Mother Machine” module from “Explorer’s Keys: Ten Instant Adventures for Numenera”:

A picture of a journal I use to prepare for tabletop role playing games.

In this example, the village under players’ protection is attacked by “tarza”, never before seen monsters. For historical reasons, my players are initially expected to blame a neighboring tribe of abhumans for the attack. The monsters are in fact part of a defense mechanism which is attempting to exterminate so-called “cinomar”: doppelgangers who are impersonating some of the villagers.

Discoveries

This section cover key information and plot twists, and it’s the one I start with. I use it as a tool to outline the adventure, and it’s helpful to refer to if I get stuck.

These are the details players should unravel throughout the session, and I usually check them off as the players find them. In fact, you’ll see I check off most bullet points on the page as the session plays out.

Although, now that I’m looking at the example I provided, the discoveries are not marked. I guess I’m not very consistent.

Scenes

This is the primary tool I use during the game. Scenes outline encounters - be they social, exploratory, or combat related. Scenes help me form a general idea about locations the adventure will be taking a place in, as well as some of the key action sequences.

I often use scenes to help me control pacing: If I’m running a 3 hour game with roughly 5 scenes planned, I know to hurry up if I haven’t gotten to any of them at a one hour mark. It’s often a good time to narrate a time skip, tie up an ongoing investigation, or suggest a direction for the party to move in.

Now this doesn’t mean that the adventure is limited to these scenes. If (or more accurately “when”) the adventure goes off rails, I reskin these scenes or use them for an inspiration to quickly throw together a new scene.

Clues

Clues are ideas for how to surface discoveries. These are not strictly necessary if you’re really creative, but if you’re anything like me - these are a godsend.

Clues are concrete ways for players to discover plot points outlined in “Discoveries”. “The assassin had a letter signed by the big bad”, or “The drunken sailor lets slip about a cult in the town”. I aim for one clue per discovery, but it’s not a hard rule.

The list should not be exhaustive, and should not be strictly followed - I treat this section as an exercise in creativity. I find it more impactful to try to come up with clues as I play – players often search in places I haven’t thought of - so I place the clue to a discovery wherever the players are looking.

Key NPCs

This is a list of key non player characters relevant to the game. I try to keep number of named NPCs low to help my players remember them better, and I try to use as many recurring NPCs as humanly possible.

I usually add an aspect for each of the NPCs - a short description in a few words, something that makes them stand out in some way.

This list doesn’t have to be exhaustive – you’ll probably want to use the running list of NPCs for your campaign as a supplement for unexpected recurring characters, and a list of pre-generated names for unexpected encounters.

Enemies

The last thing is enemy stat blocks for quickly referencing if (again, “when”) a combat breaks out.

For Numenera, these are not particularly complex - most enemies are described by a single number and a few key things about them. I’d imagine for D&D and other combat focused systems you’d want to put a bit more effort in making sure you’re building balanced combat encounters, so that would warrant a section of its own.

I tend to spend a little under 20 minutes on all of the above, and I get to use it in three out of four games – the fourth one tends to go off the rails completely, and I’m okay with it. Without investing as much time into prep, it’s easy to be taken on a ride by the players.