How to run a Dungeons and Dragons Session With Zero Prep... And Get Away With It!

Any writer worth their salt knows, that to be a good writer you have to write… But to be a great writer you have to read!

Rocking up to a game you’re DMing with zero prep is perhaps the worst move any DM could ever do. You certainly would never expect a Rolldark Professional Dungeon Master to ever do such a thing (nor would you catch them!) Though if you’re just starting out as a Dungeon Master, this is a mistake that can often take place, and here is how you can get away with it.

Read

It stands to reason that if you’re playing D&D you most likely love Fantasy Novels. There are thousands upon thousands to choose from by many excellent authors, all with rich imaginations. Now, you might not be a best selling author, but as DM you need to start thinking like one, and a habit they celebrate most for improving their imaginations is reading other people’s work.

Effectively when you think about it writers are improvising, they’re making stuff up on the fly. And all of that content is born from the inspiration gained from other writers. Reading is brainfood, and you’ll be surprised what you’ll get from it…. providing if you do it regularly!

Watch Films

I mean this must seem a bit silly as our popular culture is all about cinema. It’s how most of us spend our evenings and without realising it, we are all film fanatics. But when I say watch films, I mean tear them apart! And get under the skin of characterisation.

Many of the our onscreen heroes suffer from colourful and brilliant flaws that go unnoticed. Ripley in Aliens is torn by the guilt of leaving her daughter on Earth and is thus motorvated by protecting Nuet at all costs, even if it means risking her own life. Robocop can’t escape his past and the overriding emotion driving his vengeance.

Flaws can give any character instant depth. An example of this could be an innkeeper who runs the place by himself. Over the mantelpiece is a crude artists drawing of his family, though he never talks about them, but has this odd obsession with keeping the highback chair by the fire empty. Anyone who dares sit it is instantly cast out of his pub without question.

Understand Story Structure

Star Wars is the classic example of the hero’s journey, which was originally outlined by Joseph Campbell in his best selling novel of the same title. He argues that the one repeating story has existed throughout our time. George Lucas used the framework for the first Star Wars movie.

Once you have such a structure locked clearly inside your mind, you will easily be able to make up stories on the fly. All you do, is outline it on your notebook as the story unfolds. Player decisions can also help you out massively as ultimately it is they who lead the story, but it’s down to you to populate it and colour the world with conflict, depth and imagination.