Don’t Over Plan-Prepare.

Thorough preparations are a must for successful adventures at any level of play. High-level characters, however, usually have the resources to set their own agendas, and you should avoid spending too much time and effort on adventures and encounters the players might choose to ignore.

Effective preparations start with an adventure plot (see the Plots section on page 35). Once you have decided on a plot, gather up all statistics, maps, and other materials needed for your encounters. Make some notes about what each encounter area in the adventure is like. Stick to the basics for now; note what the areas look, smell, feel, and sound like, and who or what is in them. Design any random events or rumors the player characters might encounter. If you’re generating events or rumors from a table, roll the dice ahead of time and record the results.

Your preparations should be aimed at making sure you have what you need in terms of hard data—monster statistics, NPC personalities, treasure lists, and so on—in a form that you can locate and use quickly. You should not be trying to choreograph every moment in the game; instead, you should be trying to have everything you need readily at hand so that the action doesn’t stall while you decide what happens next.

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