Join me in just prepping what's fun

13 Aug, 2026

Today, in conversation with mandy brown, I realized that prepping slides is neither fun for me nor for my students, but I do it because it's expected. My best classes have been filled with activities, worksheets, and interaction with students¹. This kind of class prep is way more fun for me than fighting with PowerPoint/Keynote².

I think prep for RPGs should be the same. I have been seeking the "perfect" amount of prep for my games for a while. Trying to determine in advance what I should prep rather than improvise. Figuring out what makes the perfect NPC. However, the best moments in my game I almost never prepped in advance. I was messing around with the Lazy GM's 8 Steps, but even that felt too much like work and not enough like fun³.

Instead, I find myself wondering: what would happen if I just prepped what feels fun? Not fun for the players, fun for me. Ultimately, I am not responsible for their feelings of fun. I can't reach in and tweak the appropriate neurotransmitters. But, I suspect that if I am having fun while prepping, the players will have fun as well.

Below, I've written some examples of what that might look like for ongoing games.

Blades 68

• A cool location without a specific purpose (rather than stressing about whether it would be a good heist location)
• An interesting action a faction might take (without worrying too much about the faction clocks)
• A few character names and traits
• A weird anomaly that could interact with the characters next session

Stonetop

• Flipping through the Wider World setting book to the relevant pages
• Drawing up a few cool monsters relevant to ongoing threats
• Idly consulting my existing threats, deciding to make a new one as it calls to me.

Mythic Bastionland

• Looking around at some nearby hexes to where the players left off, and dreaming about what might be in them
• Refreshing my memory on upcoming Omens
• Writing a letter that exposes some drama between Holdings

I suspect this works for every game and every amount of work imaginable. The fun part of Fabula Ultima or Draw Steel is making cool, balanced encounters for your heroes to fight. The fun part of Apocalypse World is barfing forth apocalyptica and impossible tradeoffs. The fun part of His Majesty the Worm is the dungeon you create. Notice that all of these are different levels of work, but they're all fun (ideally) for the people who are running them.

Try prepping just what's fun and discarding the rest. Let me know how it goes.