MattyHelms
Kobayashi
BedrockBrendan
L
Lundgren all pretty much nailed my ideal prep.
I tend to liberally borrow from relatively obscure media, at least obscure to my players, for plot points, scenes, twists, and interesting non player characters to use as examples (at least superficially) to base my games around. I then ruminate on motivations, fiendish plots, long term goals, and how they may adjust those if something interferes. I don’t try to be too specific but the more I’ve thought about that NPC the quicker I’ll be able to improvise how they act in the game when the players show up and do something out of left field. I like to start a campaign with an inciting incident, sometimes even in media res, And then let it develop according to the player’s decisions although certain planned events will happen at certain times if they aren’t interfered with.
Depending on the system I may work up base generic stat lines for the various NPCs (more needed in Cyberpunk 2020 than ICRPG or even Barbarians of Lemuria for example), I will work up my major NPCs, I will have a random table of period appropriate names (one of my weaknesses) with an accompanying one with distinguishing features or personality bits so I can flesh out random NPCs quickly, and I can normally run from just referencing rules off a decent GM Screen so I don’t have to crack books during the session.
While there is nothing wrong with running the various published railroads and mega campaigns I much prefer my RPGs to be a game of group improv between the GM and players using the rules to determine the outcome of questionable situations. As you might imagine I’m also a theater of the mind kind of GM in most cases.
I tend to liberally borrow from relatively obscure media, at least obscure to my players, for plot points, scenes, twists, and interesting non player characters to use as examples (at least superficially) to base my games around. I then ruminate on motivations, fiendish plots, long term goals, and how they may adjust those if something interferes. I don’t try to be too specific but the more I’ve thought about that NPC the quicker I’ll be able to improvise how they act in the game when the players show up and do something out of left field. I like to start a campaign with an inciting incident, sometimes even in media res, And then let it develop according to the player’s decisions although certain planned events will happen at certain times if they aren’t interfered with.
Depending on the system I may work up base generic stat lines for the various NPCs (more needed in Cyberpunk 2020 than ICRPG or even Barbarians of Lemuria for example), I will work up my major NPCs, I will have a random table of period appropriate names (one of my weaknesses) with an accompanying one with distinguishing features or personality bits so I can flesh out random NPCs quickly, and I can normally run from just referencing rules off a decent GM Screen so I don’t have to crack books during the session.
While there is nothing wrong with running the various published railroads and mega campaigns I much prefer my RPGs to be a game of group improv between the GM and players using the rules to determine the outcome of questionable situations. As you might imagine I’m also a theater of the mind kind of GM in most cases.