The hard work of running a game is mainly in preparing for it. Various maxims have been created over the years, saying a GM should spend X hours preparing per Y hours of gaming, but it’s not just about time spent. If you don’t take your players into account and have a clear picture of how to get what you want to happen done in the game, you’ll end up preparing a lot of material that won’t be used because you assumed something would happen... and then it doesn’t, and you’re off your map. The PCs don’t stay in the town you’ve intricately detailed. They don’t respond to the cries for help they hear. They slaughter all the enemies too quickly for word to get out so more will come soon.
While being ready to improvise can help, it is often more obvious to the players than you think. If you don’t miss a beat, it can be perfectly plausible that the Big Bad Evil Guy was scrying on the enemies fighting the PCs the whole time. But if you just have more enemies show up because that’s what you prepared, and then scramble for the explanation, it’ll be less fun for the players, who will feel like their choices don’t matter. Putting them on the rails is OK, but you have to at least be ready to give them different scenery depending on where they go. It would be even better to have prepared for your players - knowing they are sneaky, quick, and deadly in combat, you could have planned ahead that the BBEG is always constantly scrying on all his mercenary forces to keep them in line.
The most important kinds of preparation are these:
- Know your players. If you have a talker who loves to interact with NPCs, target any “NPC knows this” hooks at him, for example. If you have a combat monster who loves to see his modifiers stack up and describe his glorious kills, make sure you have some satisfying battles for him. If you have an explorer who is always seeking out the far corners of the game world, make sure you have something interesting for her to find when she goes into a weird corner.
- Know their characters. You don’t have to design challenges based on their stats, but you do have to know ahead of time whether the challenge will be easy, difficult, or impossible, and describe it accordingly. If you don’t want them to get to the BBEG’s fortress, a lava moat won’t cut it if half the party can fly. You’ll need lava wyverns and magma cannons too, bristling from the volcano fortress. Alternatively, you can leave it at the lava moat, and decide that getting in isn’t the difficult part. Just don’t be caught by surprise when they tell you, “I’m carrying him, she’s carrying him, and he’s carrying him and her, and we’re flying over.”
- Know your goals. You probably want something out of the game, just like your players do. You’re the GM: prepare to make it happen. Make sure you have a list, written so you don’t forget, of the main things you’d like to accomplish. Keep one for each play session, and a list for the overall arc of the game. Don’t treat them as set in stone - go ahead and update them if your desires change. Do keep a record of what you changed it from, so you’ll know where you were before in case you change your mind again later.
- Have a Plan A. Let’s be honest, people are often predictable. Be ready for things to go in their normal course. Have all the stats, NPCs, locations, etc. you’ll need for this.
- Create broad contingencies. There are probably a few ways your Plan A is most likely not to apply. Have something ready for all of these, something flexible you can adapt to the specific actions that break your mold. Elements which can be found in broad types of setting like “rural” or “urban” are good for this, or catch-all hooks aimed at particular PCs which can help pull the group’s interest back to the flow of play you want.
- Identify critical points in Plan A; create specific backup plans for these points. So, following your plan, the PCs are sure to come up to this one fight with the BBEG’s henchmen, while you plan to have him taunt them and leave. You’ll need a backup plan for the henchmen dying too fast, the PCs ignoring them to engage the BBEG, the PCs wussing out and running, and the PCs catching the BBEG’s interest with an interesting bargaining chip to negotiate.
These elements of planning are in the order of importance. So if you do nothing else, know your players, because that will give you a basic read on who has fun doing what. If you haven’t had much time to prepare, you can just throw some challenges of your players’ favorite flavors together, and they won’t mind - it’s the GMing equivalent of mom’s casserole. Just make sure you’re the mom whose kids love her casserole, not the mom whose casserole prompts dad to order pizza. So keep the right ingredients ready to hand - fight scenes for your combat lovers, investigations for the mystery lovers, potential lovers and rivals for the social-fu crowd.
Knowing the characters and your ultimate goals are about equally important. Both of these prevent you from getting stumped in play. Stumped GM, stopped action, no fun. If you know what the PCs - and, equally important, all your NPCs - are capable of, you’ll be able to decide how the action goes easily. If you know what you want to do, you’ll go ahead with it smoothly. To this end, keep a cheat sheet of your PCs’ biggest bonuses and powers, and don’t be afraid to ask to look at their character sheets frequently. You could even be the one to keep everybody’s character sheets between games so you can use them for planning.
Besides planning for each play session, there are other kinds of preparation you can bring in to make things more fun. Some of these are extras which add to the immersiveness or simply the enjoyment of a game session, some are factors outside the game that affect it and are important for a GM to consider.
Play Space
Are you hosting the game? I usually am. Sometimes a game store, college, or convention is the game’s host. Sometimes it’s one of the players rather than the GM. Whoever it is, as GM, you can improve your game by making sure you finish your checklist for the space you’ll be playing in every time your game meets:
- Is the space large enough for the number of players, with enough seats? This is pretty basic, but in a new space, or a public space, or one you haven’t thought about in a while, you can end up being surprised. Pay particular attention if the number of players in your game has just changed, or if your space has changed on you.
- Is it clean? You don’t want to be playing alongside last week’s pizza boxes and dirty plates. You’ll be happier if it’s been vacuumed, and the trash and recycling cans are emptied. This doesn’t mean you need to put out decorative pillows and scented candles, or otherwise be anything at all like Martha Stewart or that one guy’s obsessive-compulsive mom - it just means you’ll be able to have more fun with your game if a messy gaming space isn’t constantly getting in your way.
- Are the appropriate snacks and beverages provided? This is especially important if you have long games. If you’re playing for 3 hours, no big deal, though it’s still nice to have soda on hand. If you’re playing for 5, you’ll want snacks handy, or to make sure everyone ate right before game started. 6+ hours, and you might want to schedule yourself a meal break. Hungry, thirsty gamers are not happy gamers - this is especially true of you, the hard-working GM.
- Will anyone else be trying to use the space at the same time? Convention games and those meeting at game stores will have to deal with this partially, as will those meeting in other public spaces like college cafeterias. The real problem is when conflicting scheduling or space needs stick you with someone’s parents or wife hosting a party in the same room you usually play your game in, or trying to work on their computer in said room and objecting to the noise of the game. If you are an adult GM who owns his or her own home and have a space there to hold your game, that’s great, this part is fully covered - otherwise, make sure you talk to whoever else has a claim on the space you’re using ahead of time for each time your game meets.
Schedule
Time is as important as space. Arranging the confluence of the two is often difficult, and more so as the number of people to be brought together increases. A good play session usually needs to last at least three hours to be satisfying, and longer the less often the game meets. That’s something like a minimum five hour commitment between travel time, setup, and teardown, under usual circumstances. That’s often challenging for people with changeable work schedules, family commitments, schoolwork (particularly college or university courses), and other draws on their time. While it’s every player’s job to help make the game come together, as GM you are the center of communication for your game, and so managing the schedule ultimately falls to you. Get help from your players, but check off all the points on this list yourself as well.
- Set a regular meeting time. This could be every week (possibly multiple days a week for groups gifted with open enough schedules), every other week, every month, every few months... But make it regular and stick to it. Habit is a powerful thing, and if you turn it to your advantage, you’ll still have a game to run years down the road. Knowing exactly when the next time your game will meet gives you, and all your players, something to look forward to, and prevents things from coming up and ruining your plans at the drop of a hat.
- Establish standard channels of communication. This could be a twitter account for updates about your game, a series of facebook events for your game sessions, an email list, or phone calls to each player every time you’re going to meet. It could be all of the above. Make sure your players expect to hear from you, and make sure they know you expect to hear from them, about anything relating to the time you’re supposed to be playing your game.
- Create game-time ground rules. Is it acceptable for players to play games on their laptops during the play session? Listen to music on earbuds? What is the signal for pre-game chatter and friendliness to settle down so the game can start? When are people expected to eat/have eaten? Are there any other time-sharing issues you need to address with your group, like homework, or significant others? Take care of these so your game can be enjoyed with the level of focus you desire.
Extras
Audio and visual aids, even tangible, edible, or fragrant props can add excitement and immediacy to a game. All these things are extras; the main part of the game is in the mind, and is communicated through words. Whatever you do with extras like the ones I’m about to suggest, don’t let them distract from the game.
- Music: Opening Theme. Choose a song which you could picture the opening credits to your game showing to the tune of. Use it to mark the start of game time, it’s a great way to catch players’ attention. It also helps set the mood and tone of your game.
- Scene music. You might have something high-energy for a fight, or something in minor key for a horror investigation scene to heighten suspense. A little goes a long way. Choose it carefully, and don’t feel the need to fill the air with music the whole time.
- Sound effects. There are a lot of sound boards available on the internet, and all kinds of sound files and ways to find or make them, so do a little foley work for your game. Have a gunshot ready when you describe someone shooting at your PCs, or a motor revving when you describe them starting a road trip. Use these tricks for some of the most important sounds you want your players to remember.
- Food props. Serve your players something interesting their characters eat.
- Weapon props. Get yourself a prop that looks like the weapon your main antagonist uses, so you can gesture with it and create an image in your players’ minds. Preferably this should not be a real, dangerous weapon, because those are not toys. Even if you do own a real, sharp sword, for example, you should know better than to swing it around unsheathed in a room full of your friends. If your players are mature enough, you might use such a thing as a displayed prop, but exercise all due caution with such dangerous objects.
- Miniatures. Even if you’re not using any kind of map, it can help to visualize a scene for everybody to have a representation of their characters, and the NPCs in the scene with them. Miniature scenery can be a nice touch too.
- Character art. A picture is worth a thousand words, and can be shown to your players a lot more quickly to say, “this is who is talking to you.”
- Movie and television clips. Use a clip of the intro of the evening news before describing the in-world top stories, or play the movie that’s playing on the screen in the video store window while the PCs pass by, or maybe use an establishing shot from a movie set in a similar locale to your game to set up the kind of scenery you’re using.
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