Orklord’s Haven

A few months ago, I was the Producer for a game of PTA for the Canon Puncture crew.  I lamented to the crew that we were a couple weeks away from the pitch session so there was no prep I could do.  I couldn’t make up PCs, think up plotlines, explore fashion or technology or anything to hang ideas off because I didn’t even know what setting or style or anything about the game.

In my college days, I had about about a 1 to 1 ratio of prep hours to play hours for our weekly game.  Since my college games ran in the 7-9 hour range, that meant I was prepping over an hour a night.  My prep involved working up stat blocks, looking up details in my trusty Almanacs (I had a few for my Vampire game that I set a couple years before present day), I created a one sheet with the outline of game events, I looked up sunset times, moon phases, looked through my SO’s book of character pics, made up maps, burned CD scores… all that fun GM stuff where you envision a story and then try to open it up so a player could step in and be part of the story and flex and change it.

But I’m well out of college, happily married with a wonderful three year old son.  My priorities for spending leisure time have changed and while I am still a big time gamer, I don’t have the in between sessions time I used.  So, I’ve recently come to appreciate and crave RPGs that require little to no prep to run.

Here 3 of my low prep go-to games with my notes on GMing and prep:

• Inspectres

For Inspectres, all you need is an opening scene, to introduce the client, to explain in vague terms the haunting or “case”, and then let the players run wild.  If you prep more than that, you will quickly find that the rules work against the GM who has a particular storyline in mind because as the players succeed, they describe the clues of import and they chart out the solution to the “case”.

• Primetime Adventures

Primetime Adventures (aka PTA), as mentioned above, is not built to be prepped beforehand.  I have played in a game where the pitch was half-done that worked very well (Producer-GM emailed us and said “Let’s do Star Wars Episode 50″), but usually this game is a no-prep game before you start off.  Once the game is going, all you should prep is the opening scene for each session and a few ideas for scenes and plots in the game (nothing big, just side plots to throw in if the game stalls, which is rare… if it is a choice between following a PC lead and using one of your backup plots, ALWAYS use the player’s lead).

• Don’t Rest Your Head

 For the first session, players make PCs and they give you the plot.  If you come in with an agenda, the fact that players make up the What Just Happened To You bit will create confusion, so just have a couple Nightmares (antagonists) in the book or of your own design that you like and try to tie them to PCs’ drives.  After the first game, your prep should still be light because the mechanics will drive more of the story.  Prepping imagery is more important for DRYH than prepping plot in my experience.

A few other low-prep games I’ve read or played a bit are Lacuna, Dogs in the Vineyard, 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars, Best Friends, Shab Al-Hiri Roach, Octane and Truth & Justice.

Any more low prep games out there I should try?