Due to a lot of stress and distractions in my work and personal life of late I have run a couple of recent gaming sessions with less preparation than I would normally make.
To my great surprise after both of those “low-prep” sessions my players have stated how much they enjoyed that particular adventure.
After some contemplation and discussion with my players I’ve hit upon a couple of reasons why these more improvised sessions may have been more enjoyable to the players, and I’m hoping to use this knowledge to improve future sessions – regardless of how much preparation I choose to do.
What are those reasons? Player empowerment and a more relaxed pace.
Player empowerment
Both of my low-prep sessions serendipitously fell on periods within the campaign which required the players to make decisions about where they would go and what they would do next.
Thus, rather than preparing for every possible outcome, I simply left the players to their own devices.
It turns out (perhaps unsurprisingly) that knowing they are in control and making more large-scale decisions, as opposed to the micro-level decisions players make adventure in and adventure out (for example, in a dungeon crawl), made the players feel empowered and more invested in the story and their characters.
Relaxed pace
Usually when we play via Roll 20 I prepare battle maps in advance, so that when the occasion for combat arises I can just drop the players’ tokens on and roll initiative.
Because I hadn’t planned out the combat encounters in these improv sessions (I only had a vague idea of what the players might face) there were periods of more relaxed interaction, both in and out of character, whilst I drew up the battle maps. I believe this led to a much more relaxed and lighthearted adventure – at the end of the day we’re all there to have fun!
Concluding thoughts
Perhaps the most important lesson in all of this for me is that I should not be afraid to wing it!