A Deep Dive into Lazy GM Prep

By: Ahobo

One of the most popular GM prep books out there is Sly Floorish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. It has had a great effect on how I prep my games. However, as good as the book is it never really explains how to use your note in game. I hope to explain how I use my notes at the table, the key takeaway from Lazy GM prep that we can apply to reduce our prep and some pros and cons of the style.

The 8 Steps

You can get a detailed explanation of them here. Briefly we want to:

  1. Review the Characters
  2. Create a strong start
  3. Outline potential scenes
  4. define secrets and clues
  5. develop fantastic locations
  6. outline important NPCs
  7. choose relevant monsters
  8. select treasure and magic items rewards

The purpose of these steps is to create notes on all the possible things that might come up in a game. This allows for a GM to have a lot of “stuff” that can be thrown at their players.

How to Run a Game Using Your Notes

When I first learned about this method, I was very curious as to how a game was run using these notes. Up till that point, I had only really run games using a published adventure. These adventures usually organize themselves into scenes. The author will give detailed information of what and who is there as well as explaining what will happen when the PCs interact.

The closest thing to that in lazy DM prep is the 3rd step. However, the book explicitly saids that the GM should not spend much time on this step. Being ready to break away from this outline and only using it as a confidence booster going into the session.

It wasn’t till later that I started to understand. Lazy GM prep is not like running an adventure path. The scenes are not pre made for the GM. Instead, lazy gm prep emphasizes improv.

Using Improv to Refine Prep

As the name implies, Lazy GM prep is meant to be fast. From my experience, it does fulfill this promise. The way it does this is by breaking scenes down into their parts. In a scene, we have a location, some intractables and possibly some monsters or NPCs to talk to.

In a more structured game prep style, the GM will have to make all of the above things for each scene they want to have in their game. Depending on the game, this could involve a lot of prep. If the gm has branching paths, then there is also the chance of some prep being wasted. Players might also miss some key information as they skip past scenes via clever play.

Lazy GM prep gets over this by not coupling any pieces of a scene together. Instead, the GM creates scenes on the fly at the table using the lists of items he created before.

Think its time for players to get some info? Describe a location and maybe have one of your NPCs in it. Or maybe some items that when players interact with reveal one of your secrets. Things got to slow? Have some monsters appear and let the players get to the action. Need an up beat? Give the players some treasure or a boon of some kind to raise their spirits.

The GM uses their notes not as a script or a strict list of events. Instead we use it as a way to quickly throw together whatever type of scene we need on the fly.

This video shows the author of Lazy GM Prep going into detail of how to use your lazy notes.

Prep vs Improv

Lazy GM Prep is quick. But why is it so fast?

The speed of this system comes from it’s emphasis on improv. One way Sly describes it is that Lazy GM prep helps you “prepare to be unprepared”. It essentially removes the possibility of player’s “missing” any piece of your prep. Nothing is tied together.

Take a standard prepped scene. The GM might have a dramatic conversation with with a royal in a stuffy office room. Books lining the walls. The office might have some papers with key info for nosy PCs as well as other clues and interactables.

All together, it is a nice little scene. However, any GM that has played for any amount of time knows that such scenes can be a little impractical.

Players might make choices that remove this scene as a possibility. They might outright refuse to meet the NPC in their house, believing it to be a trap. Players might just out an out kill the NPC or not interact with all the interactables. The chances of wasted material is very high.

Contrast this with Lazy Prep. Whatever you feel you need to show to the PCs can be put in front of them on the spot. PCs think the room is a trap? Put key info where they choose to go instead. PCs attack? Summon some goons for them to fight. PCs dont interact with everything? Feed them key info using another source. Perhaps having a friendly NPC tell them. We lose the handcrafted nature of the scene, but gain incredible flexibility.

More Improv Less Prep

The more confident you are in improv, the less you can prep.

Writing notes takes time, but what do you really need to write? Lazy prep asks us to write down a starting scene, write some sentences of possible follow up scenes, some information the PCs might find on the adventure, locations, NPCs, monsters and treasure. It can actually be a fair bit.

Or is it?

My location descriptions tend to look something like this:

Dusty Crypt
"dry, cobwebs, choking dust"
**12 Caskets** -> along west wall, most broken, wood, blood stains inside them
**Bone Pile** -> human bones, some broken, white dust is from them
**Shelves of Vials** -> some labeled embalmer, most empty, notes on infection

The name, some key descriptive words for the room to help me set the scene. Followed by interactables with some key words to help me weave a description for curious players that choose to inspect something. The info they might find from inspecting the object I pull from the secret and clues list.

Some GMs might have even less notes. Opting to forgo specific interactables all together. Simply making them up as soon as the PCs enter the room.

Who Likes This

Lazy Prep works well for a GM that has played some games already. Before I started using it I had already run a long pre written campaign. I had some confidence in my ability to run a game. I also had learned what running these games is like.

This style is also good for a GM that likes to be put on the spot. This style of game requires some improv. Some GMs find that fun.

Busy GMs who want to prep less and have as little of their prep go unused as possible.

GMs that like having a lot of control on the game’s pace. The GM always has a lot of control over the pace of the game but this style of prep really promotes this. You have to create scenes on the fly and can make whatever scene you feel fits best at that moment.

GMs that like having a bit of surprise in their games are well served. Players are given a lot of autonomy in this style. The GM might have pre made a lot of stuff but exactly how that stuff appears and is used at the table tends to be wildly different from what a GM might have had in mind.

Who Does Not Like This

GMs that like having a solid script they can follow.

GMs that want a hand crafted story for players to play through.

GMs that like having intricate and detailed encounters.

Conclusion

Return of the Lazy dungeon master was actually one of the first GMing books I got. It took me a long time to really put the information in that book to use.

While the system can take a little bit to get used to, it provides a solid base for how to organize your adventures. When a GM is running the game, they have to juggle a lot of things at the same time. Having good notes can help keep the game running smoothly.

While I myself don’t use lazy prep exactly, I do still borrow elements from it. It has helped me refine my prep down to what I know I need at the table. I also find the 8 steps to be good to go over now and then since they are an excellent distillation of what is most important to have going into a game.

Creating and running a homebrew campaign does not need to be a massive undertaking. Focus on the key things you need to run a game. Have those things ready. Improvise the rest.