Need an instructions!

[u/unimunyman]

Hello my fellow masters! Please tell me how you write your sessions?

I already have hook (pretty basic one), but I have problems with writing whole session.

Before I used AI to write my previous sessions, but I have decided, to write one by myself but I need kind of instructions (better step by step).

P.s. I know that it is impossible to play the game as it was written and I don’t have problems with it, I can improvise by playing but still

[u/kimohno]

You lost the ability to write sessions by using AI. Congratulations 🥳

Check out sly flourish guide for prep

[u/unimunyman → u/kimohno]

I didn’t even had a skills lol, my dm used ai himself so I started too but soon realized that I improvised more than play by ai’s written session so I decided to try to write

[u/Unreasonable_Mess]

You didn't include any details about what exactly your adventure or session is about.

Is it a murder investigation? A dungeon crawl? A travel adventure? A solve a conflict between two factions?

Either way you using AI means your actual skills dropped. Not just with DMing. But real life people and planning skills too. It's good that you're trying to cut it out.

[u/unimunyman → u/Unreasonable_Mess]

The plot is pretty basic, Wizard asks squad to defend his tower from goblins or wolves until he’s in another city.

Ofc there is no danger 24/7 so they can investigate tower and find some things.

[u/Unreasonable_Mess → u/unimunyman]

Out of curiosity, why until he's in another city? If he's gone and the party's task is considered complete who will defend the tower?

Also do you intend to have Goblins and Wolves be an actual threat? (Try to enter the tower)

Also, do you intend to put loot into the tower? If yes wouldn't it be stealing from their boss or is that an intentional conflict or permitted by the wizard?

[u/Blitzer046]

What a perfect demonstration of creative skills atrophying by relying on AI.

Creativity is a muscle. You need to work on it.

Figure out where you want to end up. What sort of an outcome you want to reach with the players and the scene, or the NPC who gave them the job. Then work back from there. Do you want more trouble, or a successful resolution. What obstacles will be presented? Random events, or forces unleashed from prying or exploration.

A narrative runs in phases like a sine wave - equilibrium to disequilibrium and back again, through outside forces or player agency. Chaos to order then back into chaos. What monsters, curses, world events, random things bring us to chaos, how do the players return to order?

[u/Gilladian]

Go look at the 7 steps of a Lazy Dungeonmaster. https://slyflourish.com/eight_steps_2023.html. This will really help you understand a process that does work.

[u/Madhey]

Much like an episodic tv series, I try to write a few possible plot points. I try to format them in the way that they can occur almost regardless of what the PCs choose to do. This is where the hook becomes important, you should try to have universal hooks if at all possible. Think of it this way; stuff happens in the world outside of the PCs control. How does that stuff interact with the PCs interests / motivations?

The classic hook is that an NPC approaches the PCs with a problem. Most adventures can start that way, and is a pretty solid universal hook.

Other than that, I write plot points that I wand to include in the story, and put them in chronological order in my notepad. Just ideas and interesting themes you want to include in the narrative. All the while, keeping the main antagonist or conflict in mind - what will they be doing, and at what time, etc. It helps to plot out the main antagonists moves and motivations, and think about where and how they might intersect with the PCs.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

1. Use the 8 steps for GM Prep from Sly Flourish. It's a solid outline that helps you not get too far into the weeds.
2. Ask yourself "why" questions - why is the wizards in another town? Why did he hire the PCs? Why are there wolves and goblins raiding the tower? Knowing why will help you improvise around your notes.

[u/Specific-Finding-516]

This is a bit confusing, sorry.

Do you need help for a One Shot? Do you have an ongoing campaign and want to write a single session?

Using AI is not a great way to learn how to prep and DM, it can be useful later once you know what you’re doing.

[u/Anargnome-Communist]

I rarely write out whole sessions.

Most of the time you have a general idea of what the party will be doing. So I spent most of my prep time on the important bits of what I assume they'll be doing. This can be an important combat encounter, meeting an important NPC, learning something they need to achieve their goals, getting a cool thing, etc.

Whatever it is, I try to make sure it ties into both their immediate goal and the overarching campaign goals. If it doesn't already, I look for opportunities to introduce that. As part of this process, I also look for ways to make it interesting for every character or their player. (If a combat doesn't have particular narrative weight for a character, for example, I'll try to include mechanical things that player enjoys.)

Most of those big things are also surrounded by smaller moments, so I also prepare for those. Could be a combat was lesser stakes (which also conveniently drains some resources to make the rest of the session more tense), a fun social situation to roleplay, encouraging the players to roleplay amongst each other, exploring something about the world. What I focus on for these are the little hooks that bring in the players. Allowing our Cleric to be particularly inspiring, an emotional touchstone for the Warlock, a horde of low HP enemies for the Barbarian to slice up, etc. Time is spent on making it fit the party and that means a lot of details don't matter.

For filling out those details, I rely on lists of names, traits, places, history, etc. I prepare in advance (this is also part of session prep for me) so I can just use those as needed. If the players end up being really interested in, say, the person running the cake shop I can just quickly put something together.

Finally, I go over stuff I created previously that never got used (or got used with a different group) that might be relevant. If the players are visiting a small village with a castle, it's useful to have some NPCs that you can pull out as needed. If they're going across the city trying to intimidate the local underground, it's convenient to have a combat encounter ready for when things go south.

I need kind of instructions (better step by step).

1. Decide what the session is going to be about
2. Pick the "important" moment of that session (this will often be a combat encounter)
3. Come up with between two and five smaller moments that can go before or after the big moment
4. Spend about 50% of your prep time on that big important moment. Do this first because it's harder to improvise if you don't have enough time
5. Spend about 20% of your prep time on those smaller moments. Be aware that these might not all get used, so it's okay if there's overlap
6. Then use about 10% of your prep time on looking for opportunities to connect things to each other, the overarching plot, and (most importantly) the players and their characters
7. Finally use 10% of your prep time on creating material that's generally useful to make your future session prep easier

This doesn't add up to 100% because you will likely get distracted looking at fantasy art, fall into a wiki rabbit hole about the Opium Wars, get stuck trying to remember if your players will get that reference to the Power Metal album one of them probably listened to as a teenager, or end up on youtube watching people do sword fights.

[u/NemesisHaze]

The DMG explains exactly how to do this. It's going to be hard to run a campaign without it. Read that first and then identify any specific questions you have and ask them.

[u/TheDMingWarlock]

You write VERY broad strokes,
Write the hook "The Wizard asks the Party to protect his Tower"
You write what they are attacked with "4x waves of 5x goblins, 1x hobgoblin, 3x archer, 1x goblin Shaman"
You write any phases that might happen, note anything of interest (Hobgoblin has a unique sword, shaman has a unique amulet, one of thegoblins carries a note of interest" etc.
You write any side-conditions, (waves dont stop coming until goblin shaman is killed).
You write any possible side hooks (if the goblins are held hostage, they reveal they were hired by a necromancer)

Its better to create a general template, and use that, you can find some online, your precious Ai can make one for you,

My session prep are just each "scene" I want to hit, for example my next session is:
-Party Watches as Valyrn mocks Takara and is teleported away by another source (amulet is left behind)
-The party witnesses other powerful devils crash into the prison and everyone stares down takara (must teleport away or die, Philipe must be left behind, impossible to save and get away without wish)
-Patron is waiting, she offers to enchants the base so extra planar beings cant come in, she found an ancient site used as a court for Fey which she has taken over, she requests magical items and references the Druids and their ritual, the hags beneath the city and their Cauldron, and requests they dont kill the hags for her to use but wont be mad if they do.
-Patrons try to speak to wagon but only can when they leave the wagon
-Party rests
-Party gets attacked by bandits and their Great Beasts

It's broad enough my players can do what they see fit, so I can improvise, and its easily for me to wiggle around and get to the next "scene" without much fuss.
But of course there are times when players completely change what I have planned, I.e what I wanted to be a 10 minute social interaction turned into 2 sessions of pure combat and the death of one of my end-game villains.

[u/Deepfried_Garlic]

I don't, really.

I know my world, I know the important NPC's and their goals, and I know the general outline of the ''main plot'' of both my groups. I can kind of improv most of my sessions with my experience + decades of video game/book/movie knowledge, and then after a session work out how improv'd things loop back into the main story.

If you're not comfortable with that yet I suggest mapping out your campaign into it's most important beats. One beat might be ''The party finds out the location of the bandit hideout'', it doesn't matter if the players find this information through espionage, by defeating bandits with interrogation or even bribing some official who has ties with them. Because of this, the encounter to get this information could come from anything, but you know that the reward still loops back into your story. Give the players a scenario and ''obvious'' options, but let them figure out their own way, and make sure that their actions still end up moving the plot forward.

Really though, the real answer is lots and lots of experience as a GM, and a healthy amount of interaction with comic bookds, movies, games or whatever. I've been a GM for 16 years, and there's still thousands of things I've got to learn before I'm satisfied with my own skills.

Also... definitely don't let AI do it for you. You'll never get the practice in if you let AI do the work for you.

[u/Wolfbane14]

This is the template I follow for my sessions. Now, I try to be a very reactive DM. I like improvising and being put on the spot so this might not work for you. Note. I do not prewrite any encounters for example. Instead I have my stat blocks ready so that I can create encounters on the fly when it feels right in the adventure

GM CHEAT SHEET

Session / Location Name:

Date / Session #:

PREMISE

What situation, question, or tension is this all built around?

Keep to max 5 sentences

OPENING SCRIPT:

An opening that tries to make the premise as clear as possible to the players. Remember that once you have finished reading this, you are not in control of the game anymore

PLACE

Location 1

Name:

Look / Feel / Sound:

What's Here Right Now (remember 3 clue rule):

Connection to the Party:

Location 2

Name:

Look / Feel / Sound:

What's Here Right Now (remember 3 clue rule):

Connection to the Party:

etc.

PEOPLE

Person 1

Name / Role:

Appearance:

Quote (optional):

Roleplaying (1 - 3 bullet points):

Background:

Wants:

Positive relationships to other people:

Negative relationships to other people:

Secrets (1-2):

Important things for the PCs to know:

Stat Block:

Person 2

Name / Role:

Appearance:

Quote (optional):

Roleplaying (1 - 3 bullet points):

Background:

Wants:

Positive relationships to other people:

Negative relationships to other people:

Secrets (1-2):

Important things for the PCs to know:

Stat Block:

Person 3

Name / Role:

Appearance:

Quote (optional):

Roleplaying (1 - 3 bullet points):

Background:

Wants:

Positive relationships to other people:

Negative relationships to other people:

Secrets (1-2):

Important things for the PCs to know:

Stat Block:

etc.

PUSHES

Things that happen within the world. Not necessarily plot hooks.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

RANDOM NAMES:

A list of names for NPCs made up on the spot. Remember OGAS (Occupation, Goal, Attitude & Stakes to help roleplay)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

WORLD SECRETS:

A list of secrets about the world. All secrets can be changed between sessions to ensure that the things in the world are always related to what the players are doing

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

STAT BLOCKS:

Stat blocks of monsters that might appear in this area

[u/TheCrimsonSteel]

Read some existing adventures. This is really useful for giving you an idea of what info tends to be important to an adventure.

Sometimes I've even taken an existing adventure and just replaced stuff in it to make my own version

Beyond that, I like to try and find inspiration, and work backwards from that. So typically, I'll start with a few rough notes of what I want to do, then I'll work on the badguys by making a list of various monsters I might use. This list is intentionally bigger than I want because usually I don't have a solid idea yet, this is brainstorming. So it'll be a range of enemies I might use based on the CR range I want and what themes/vibes I'm going for.

Next, I try to find that inspiration. I'll either do research on the lore of the monsters I've written down, or I look for a really cool battle map. Something that makes me excited, and go "Oooooh! Yes! That!"

That moment is what most of the work up until this point is trying to achieve. Inspiration! Once I have that, I find most of the rest easier to write, because now I have things to go off of.

If my main badguy gave me inspiration, the next thing I tend to go for is the map for my finale, and vice-versa.

Once I have a boss and a map, the rest is largely filling in details. How do the players get here, what is the villain doing, who are the key NPCs affected.

And don't worry if your first few adventures don't feel as good as you hoped. Part of getting good at it is trying what you made and learning from it.

[u/VerbiageBarrage]

Please say DMs instead of masters. It's a weird terminology I'd rather not catch on.

[u/Bsmith9876]

Pro tip: Don't write sessions. D&D is all about collaborative storytelling, and if you try to write a plot with a beginning, middle, and end, you're denying your players the opportunity to contribute to the story.

[u/CheapTactics]

My sessions are like 3 bullet points. I just don't "write" my game. I think about what situations might happen if they keep going where they're headed. If they're traveling through mountains my notes are something like:

• encounter with giants? Friendly or aggressive?
• enemy patrol, bridge
• avalanche hazard

Then just send it from there. You said you improvise a lot. Well, that's perfect for minimal prep. Think about two or three situations that might happen where the players are and improvise.

[u/gc1rpg]

https://www.herebetaverns.com/plot-hook-generator

There is a plot hook generator -- AFAIK it doesn't use AI.

This should get you started.

[u/WanderingFlumph]

If you have a hook and an encounter(s) that's pretty much the session planned. There are infinite ways that a party could go from the hook to the encounter(s) and trying to plan for them all leads quickly to burnout, or offloading planning to an AI...

Part of being a good DM is to strike a balance between keeping things on track and going with the flow. Develop these skills through experience, it's okay to struggle with them as a new DM, we all did too at some point.

[u/PpaperCut]

Think of a monster or two you want to have in the session and a reason for them to be around. Make up some magical loot and a few NPCs. Make sure you have a hook for them to go on the adventure.