How to Organize Your DM Prep Step by Step Guide

let's get you organized to run your very own ttrpg campaign I'm personally going to use Google Docs for this but you can use whatever program you want first things first we're going to set up five folder we have our world narrative session PC and NPC folders I'm going to start with the session folder first because that's the one you're probably going to be using most often when we go ahead and open up this folder we're going to see basic session template that have here I've run more than two dozen and campaigns to level 20 and this is the session template use for almost all of them at the top of my notes usually have an outline and this is used for just putting down information it doesn't necessarily show the order of events but likely outcome of the session so can visualize how things might go this outline can help me figure out what need to spend the most time working on then moving on have moment section to my notes and moment can be any situation that the characters can find themselves in breaking in to mansion fighting boss monster or even the moment where they start each session you see always make sure to plan the start of each one of my sessions where the players are picking up from the last session also like to make my combat encounters stand out little bit that way when I'm scrolling through the notes during session can easily pick them out also what like to do is Nest an encounter inside moment that way can flow from moment the start of an encounter what the situation is into the actual encounter itself find that that makes my campaigns run much smoother finally always like to add in this stalk Cliffhanger into my notes that way can have an ending that leaves the players wanting more it could be an NPC arriving to give new information to party or small cut scene where the players see an event that the PCS wouldn't usually know about always want the ending of session to get my players coming back for more and so planning these stock Cliffhangers can help me do that but once have my moments my situations and combat encounters at out of the way the next part of my notes is what like to call character moments and here's where detail the specific moments tailored to each one of the player characters in specific session this is usually done between an NPC or NPCs and specific player character and it's here where try to focus on advancing player backstories or writing down certain events that will trigger if player character interacts with the world in specific way for instance the brother of player is waiting in Tavern within the town the moment will detail where the brother is the opening situation of meeting the brother and specific events or beats that I'd want them to hit in the conversation maybe the brother needs to inform the player character that their father won the lottery in the conversation and so this is where make note of that next up we have the location details and this is where write down the information about specific locations in my campaign it's usually Baseline information descriptions about cities Tavern shops castles Etc that will need to access within session if the party has home based in particular City this area can get fairly descriptive from session to session usually I'll put at least one Tavern and one magic item shop in here depending on the campaign Tavern that the players can go to with NPCs inside that they can interact with and magic item with the name of the shop owner the name of the shop and list of magic items and their prices that the players are able to buy this way I've never caught off guard in campaign next we have the people Tab and this is where keep all the relevant NPCs straight and break down each NPC into two levels for session one being who they are at session level what they do what they look like what their voice is what their stat block is and what they are doing in the session then break down any plot relevant information about an NPC if they're plotting coup against king or part of guild that could help the party that gets put under plot information follower NPCs are usually detailed in their own separate documents since players will interact with them every session and like to give them some more depth and finally we have the plotline section and this is where detail at high level the plot lines happening in campaign however it's not just the bbg's overall plan the plotline section shows what each different villain and their factions are up to at that present moment when the session is happening it details what they want where they're acting who is helping them and how they're attempting to achieve the goal ideally the plotline section should be written as if the party did not exist what are the villains up to when the party is not getting involved with them now to be fair sometimes villain plot does require specific party member to do something for the villain or the faction and in that case the party members are only used as pieces without agency so overall this is how structure my session to session notes and don't worry I'll put all this up on my patreon you can sign up for free 7 days and just download everything don't worry won't care hair and then from here it's just about going through and creating new document for each new session next up though we're going to tackle our world folder and this details everything about your campaign setting and world this will probably have many different folders inside of it but put all that campaign information in one spot that way can find it if need to in given session and this is also where like to assemble all the music and maps and descriptions for my campaigns so that can just have them and and have that's right our sponsor for this video describe has done all that for me already describe is your One-Stop shop for everything you need to run an immersive and game they have thousands of descriptions for everything from Monsters to magic items and even spellcasting descriptions they're also releasing their new software Opus which is film quality audio library containing growing number of over 3,000 ambiences sound effects and musical pieces for your game they even have highquality interactive maps for your next game if you click the link in the description and sign up using the code enter the dungeon you'll get whole 4 weeks free on any tier you sign up for with describe if you want to level up your home game check out my friends at describe all right next we can tackle the narrative folder and this is the folder where put everything about the story of the campaign that's going on for instance this is where might put down the arcs of campaign now if you don't know what the three Arc structure is you can check out this video above right here but essentially we are planning out three different kinds of bigger and bigger arcs the largest of those arcs is the campaign Arc this is the story that's spanning the entirety of your campaign if you take something like curse of strad the campaign Arc is escaping barovia then you break it down into smaller narrative Arc this is kind of like season of your campaign what are you doing for the next 5 to 12 sessions in your campaign to keep it tight usually make my narrative arcs go between 9 and 10 sessions because that's what players can wrap their head around so if you're in barovia perhaps narrative Arc one is just getting to strad and meeting him for the first time then finally we have something called immediate arcs and the immediate Arc is just what's happening right then in your campaign if the narrative Arc is finding strad then the immediate Arc might be small component of that like Loca an NPC that saw straw last but there's so much more that usually put here like if I'm doing any brainstorming for narrative Arc this is where all that documentation goes or if I'm brainstorming villain's plot I'm putting the villain's plot in this General section to find out what type of character are they or maybe I'm having to plot out the the interests and the desires of faction that the PCS are going up against well I'm going to put that here too and from here we have have our player character folder and usually subdivide this folder into two different pieces that first subdivision comes from where I'm putting the actual backstories of my player characters just so that have them all in one place so can refer back to them at any given time and don't have to go hunting for them that second folder though is where do my backstory prep and that comes in the form of plot webs which I'm sure most of you guys know what plot web is by now if you've watched watch this channel so I'm connecting all the player backstories together and doing all of that work and then I'm also thinking about backstory secrets you see with most player backstories think that what they're giving me is kind of what the character knows about the backstory and then go about and fiddle behind the scenes and say you know what's really happening the player backstory or adding something more onto it just so that the backstory works in the campaign and the player is excited to learn secrets of their own character that pop up throughout the campaign and finally we have the NPC folder exactly what it says on the tin this is where keep information about all the major NPCs in my campaign so it's things like not only what they're wearing what they look like how they sound but what are their goals aspirations and even what are their stat blocks and then outside of these folders I'll usually keep one or two things might keep for instance like the campaign map so can easily pull it up or might put like the session zero document that use for all my session zeros out here or maybe even the campaign pitch document to show my players so if you want to see any more of those documents just let me know but again this is just how set up my campaigns and you can set Yours up however know that lot of you out there though have never actually seen someone else set up for their campaign this is the method that works for me so hope you get lot of use out of it now if if you're wanting more step-by-step tutorials about how to set up your next and campaign check out this video right here also consider going over and checking out my patreon offer oneon-one DM coaching over there and thank you for entering the dungeon