Hello,

I bought this PDF last year or maybe the year before, I don't remember well. I know I bought it because it has been advised to me by an ex-friend.

I begun to read it once but stopped after buying Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master which became my method of prepping of choice, including for totally other games than D&D 5.

In fact, Never Unprepared is quoted in the "References & Additionnal readings "of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master so I recently decided to read it completely.

And I'm glad I did it. This is a great reading and a great explanation of the creative process and I understand why Sly Flourish has put this book on his reference works.

The two PDF can work together. I explain myself: while I like the Return of the Lazt Dungeon Master method, it works better when I have already an idea of the adventure I will run. Never Unprepared helps me brainstorming, selecting and conceptualizing my adventure and Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master helps me on the Documentation Phase.

Plus Never Unprepared is setting-neutral and system-neutral while Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, while versatile, was written with D&D 5 in mind so Never Unprepared is still unvaluable for that.

Buy it, you won't be disapointed as even if you don't need it, there are still plenty of great advices.

This is a gem. If you are looking for a way of giving the preparation process a more formal approach, to attend a certain level of quality and your own capabilities of self-criticism, this is a must. Beware, it is not a lightweight read to just move forward. But the organization of the book makes it easy to read concise points.

[Originally published in 2012. For some reason, DTRPG changes the date when you edit, bumping it back to the top. Sorry for that : I simply divided the paragraphs properly.]

I'll say it right off the bat : "Never Unprepared" is not the book you are looking for if you want to actually get better at preparing your games. Even if there are some useful things buried in it, it's mostly hollow talk and useless advice. This comes as a big (and bad) surprise to me : Eureka and Masks are both very good products that you should buy, Gnome Stew is a very interesting blog that you should read, and posts from NU author Phil Vecchione about prep are really a must. Here is my more detailed review.

The book is 131 pages long, with a very complete index and a table of content, so you get about 120 pages of material. It is divided in 14 chapters, one of them being the conclusion and another one listing references and inspiration, plus a foreword, an introduction and a "how to use this book" passage. Quibble here : introduction and conclusion should be treated the same, so both a chapter or none, while references and inspiration should not be a chapter. The main 12 chapters are divided in three sections, and I'll treat each of them separately here.

The first section, "Understanding Prep", contains seven chapters and fills about half of the page count. Another quibble : the first two chapters feel like an introduction, and maybe should have been lumped together into one. In chapter 1 (Prep is Not a Four-letter Word), the author explains why he believes prep has a bad reputation, and why it should not be this way. In chapter 2 (The Phases of Prep), he gives an overview of the five phases of prep that will each get its own chapter : brainstorming (sparking ideas, chap. 3), selection (choosing some ideas, chap. 4), conceptualization (expanding and fleshing out ideas, chap. 5), documentation (making actual notes, chap. 6) and review (making sure you did not make any mistakes, chap 7).

I could go into details of each of those chapters, but it would be repetitive. They all takes a lot of time explaining what is the phase, why it is important, what problems could happen if you do too much or not enough of it, but does not give much actual advice to accomplish it successfully. There is a "Techniques for Improvement" subsection in each of them, but they're all useless. For example, the three given in the Documentation chapter are really nothing more than "think before you write", "don't write things you don't need" and "make sure you are comfortable with your pen or computer software".

I also have issues with the division of phases itself. It does not strike me as the best one to help people understand and get better at prep. The author insists a lot about the fact that conceptualization and documentation are really distinct phases (the first being the thinking, the second the note-taking), but it strikes me as mostly a matter of semantics. I mean, yes, you can distinguish the act of thinking from the act of writing things down, but in the spirit of getting better at prep, a much more productive distinction, in my opinion, would have been to talk about first preparing the general outline of a session/story arc/campaign, then preparing individual scenes in more details. Reading the book, I am under the impression that the author actually sometimes confuses his own phases with these.

The second section, "Prep Toolbox", contains two chapters : chapter 8 (Tools for Prep) and 9 (Mastering Your Creative Cycle). I thought the section would provide tools to prep my sessions, like templates, plot flowcharts and whatnot to use and hack to fit my needs, and boy, was I wrong. Instead of that, the "tools" of chapter 8 are all about the things you use to prep, like notebooks, computer and pens. I kid you not, there is a table listing pros and cons of pen and paper vs computer, stuff like "paper tools don't require power" but "can't capture audio and video". If the chapter was talking about how to get most of different online tools (here are some great generators, here is how to use Obsidian Portal, etc.) or how to prepare material for your games (draw some battle mats, write conditions on index cards, etc.), that could have been acceptable. But no, there is not a single word on that. What you get instead is stuff like "If you use a notebook, you shouldn’t have to worry about the pages falling out" (p. 68).

Chapter 9 comes down to "make a schedule and plan some time for prep", and seriously blow this thing out of proportion by advising to also plan how your creative energy cycle on a hour-by-hour basis using a 0-to-3 scale (with a color-coded table and graph).

I could not believe I was reading those two chapters in a book devoted to prep, especially since the author repeats many times in other chapters that feeling comfortable using your notebook or software or whatever is important. Think of it this way : of all the things that could have been done in a section titled "Prep Toolbox", NU chooses to elaborate on things third-graders are told on their first day of class. Seriously, this section is so ridiculously inane it's almost insulting.

The last section, "Evolving your style", contains three chapters : chapter 10 (Your Personal Prep Templates), 11 (The Prep-lite Approach), and 12 (Prep in the Real World). Even if it is far from perfect, this is the most useful section.

Chapter 10 opens with this line : "Up to now I’ve avoided talking about what actually goes into your session notes" (p. 86). That hints at how useful the first 9 chapters were. This one gives you some actual usable advice about how you should organize your notes to make them more effective and useful, things like a list of "a list of common GMing weaknesses and some ways to compensate for them" (p. 90). Even if the ratio of good stuff/useless stuff is better here, there is still a lot of filler, like the first 4 pages of the chapter that are repeating things you read before, the "Paper vs Digitial" subsection (that again?) and unfortunately the whole "Template Maintenance" subsection, supposed to give you tips on improving your templates, that just gives you hollow tips of the "if it is too long, make it shorter" kind. It's the best chapter of the book, but I would give it a 3 out of 5 note at best.

Chapter 11 gives you some advice to actually reduce the prep you do, like ways to simplify the stats of your NPCs or to make maps way faster. Even if the presentation is incomplete, they are interesting and useful ideas that you can actually use to prep faster (still, like in the previous chapter, they are swimming in filler). You should know that the author already wrote a series of posts about it on Gnome Stew. The good stuff in this chapter is pretty much directly lifted from it, and there is actually more in the blog posts than in the chapter. NU actually tells you that if you want more details (about all these things that could actually improve you prep), you should go read them.

Chapter 12 gives advices on how to deal with problems that are all variation on either "I need to prep something really fast" or "I want to remove something from my scenario". The way to handle them comes down to "cut down on some phases of prep" and "go back to some phase of prep". There is also the "I was planning to prep my game Thursday, but some other thing came up" problem that meets the "plan some other time to prep" solution. It's a useless chapter.

In my opinion, all the problems of the book comes down to the fact that there is a lot of space dedicated either to explaining and analyzing (and repeating) stuff that really does not need much of it, or to deliver advice that are self-evident and begs the question. For example, the whole chapter 4 is basically only advising you to know your players, your game, your campaign and yourself as a GM. Unless things like "some players love a long dungeon crawl while others want to play out trade negotiations" and "having space aliens invade your Dragonlance® campaign in flying saucers is likely to cause a disruption at your table" are eye-openers to you, the elaboration of those four elements is pointless. To help you with those tasks, there is nothing aside providing really general questions that you probably already ask yourself ("what are your favorite parts of a session?") or don't even bother to because they'll come naturally to your mind when needed ("does your game feature a social combat system?").

Among all that, you will find some good things in the book, but they often feel very incomplete. The reason is that the good stuff is usually only there to illustrate some truism like "your notes should be well-organized" instead of being presented and detailed as a tool in itself. Here is an example taken from the Brainstorming chapter : "What kind of session do I want to have? (As in a chase, a rolling fight, a heist, etc.)" (p. 22). Someone in desperate need of ideas gets a lot more help from reading "a chase, a rolling fight, a heist" (and would get even more if he could read all these words folded in this "etc.") than from being told to ask himself the suggested question. Some chapters are less bad than others, but this is characteristic of NU as a whole, and it's very irritating.

You'll also find some usable but really bad advice. The worst offender is probably on page 44, where it discusses the eternal "A problem has an infinite number of solutions, but your players will only ever pick one" issue. NU's answer? "It’s better to expend energy on the most likely solution, plus perhaps the two next most likely contingencies if you have time." It's like saying that if you prep well (and more than you'll use), you will never be surprised by what players will throw at you. Of course, that is very false. It could be argued that preparing for those situations is exactly what prep is all about, and NU does not even seem to acknowledge that they happen.

Bottom line is that any book that wants to be "The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep" is going to face the problem that not everyone has the same issues with his prep and does not want to achieve the same things with his game. A good one would feel like a knowledgeable worker walking you down the aisles of a big tool store, telling you how to use each of them so you can make an informed decision about which ones you'll bring back home. "Never Unprepared" feels much more like this knowledgeable worker sits in your living room, telling you that you should really go to that tool store and choose stuff you will need, weighting the pros and cons of using a handbasket or a cart to shop and, sometimes, letting you catch a glimpse of some shiny things that he brought from his own toolbox.

A great read that dives into the rare touched subject of how and what to prep and time management. System agonist and can be applied to others things beyond DND as well.

The product has been edited after the fact to replace content, namely the Sean Patrick Fannon foreward. I have no side in the Fannon affair, and do not even own a Shaintar book, but am extremely uncomfortable with the precedent of removing content from a published piece on the grounds of the author's behavior.

There is some sound advice in here but it's diluted with filler material and what-works-for-you and generalities to the point that I felt it wasn't of value. It's a shame because I'm sure the author knows A LOT MORE than me about being a GM and preparing for sessions. I'd love to learn from him.

For example: There's a whole section on pens and paper vs. electronics but not a mention of any online tools like Obsidian or even Google Docs. Dropbox gets a passing mention but there are paragraphs about pens and pencils.

Selecting your tools has questions like: Are your tools reliable and available when you need them? Do the devices you use have long-lasting batteries? Do your tools work well in those locations?

Some of the best advice is to build templates and put fields on the templates for the things you are weak at, so you're reminded to do them. (Do you forget weather in your scenes? Add a weather field. Forget signature combat moves or tactics for your NPCs? Add a field.) It's good advice. I feel like I read 130 pages for that, and didn't get to see any true sample templates.

This book needed an editor. A ruthless, heartless editor.

There's a really long review here by Jordan R. and he's word-for-word correct.

Solidly ok. I really enjoyed Chapter 7 on how to review your prep, and Chapter 10 on creating and using templates for your scenes. For the value of those two chapters, I felt it was probably worth the price and worth my time spent reading the whole thing.

Much of the rest read like painfully dry time-management self-help. Maybe that's something other GMs need, but I don't need to be reminded of how few hours in the day I really have or how to shift my other tasks around to make room for game prep. I definitely, definitely don't need special little names for each type of life's normal interruptions. I'm an adult and have been juggling various combinations of marriage/school/work/kid/hobbies for a while. If I wanted a self-help time-management book I'm not sure I'd come here for it. But maybe this would help someone who is just getting started with trying to strike a balance in life.

I strongly suspect this guide would be more helpful for someone running a campaign. At present and for the foreseeable future I run published one-shots or short modules. I want to be better prepared for those, and as a newish GM, I hoped that this guide would help me. But I don't really need to brainstorm, somebody else wrote the material for me.

I do appreciate that the PDF was well bookmarked, so that if I do find myself wanting a refresher on brainstorming, conceptualization, and documentation, I might come back to this guide. If I can talk my new group into committing to a campaign one day, I'll probably be more glad I read this.

This is project-management for Gamemasters - to me a very motivational and truly helpful little book! As a beginner GM this well structured text helped me get a good grasp and an overview on the different tasks involved in gamemastering. This in turn makes it easier to fit this hobby into my weekly schedule. Especially if you liked David Allen's GTD, you will also enjoy this book. And as I am sure I will read it again, I can only give this book the best rating.

This book is pure gold. As the author states quite a few times - most people "do their thing" mostly on intuition. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it's so terrible it actually multiplies your work load. I like the fact the author takes a step back and doesn't enforce his views and solutions onto the reader but offers self-evalutation, while often stating the obvious and offering a possible way of solving different problems This book aims for no specific system, as that's something the reader must figure out for him self, however the pointers and hints dropped all along the book should facilitate this task greatly. All in all, if you struggle as GM or don't feel like everything is going as well as it should, this book is for you. Even GMs who have been running games for quite a few years might learn something new as this book demands to evalute one-self. If you feel like you could improve don't look any further. You have arrived at your destination.

I have been Gming games for decades and teach project management. It would seem I have little to learn from a short book on GM prep by a project management perspective. I was happily surprised. The book was inspirational -- particularly the system for session documentation. The book is professional organized making it an easy read and a satisfying buy.

So many good - and true - praises! Really, this book turns the GM's prep work almost into exact science. It really puts things in a good perspective! The author even analyzes possible 'short-of-time' scenarios and suggests how to cope with them. Love it!

I'm not a very experienced GM (just a dozen sessions), and this book showed me many things puzzling me before.

Very useful, it helped me flesh out techniques I had already been using and organize processes I already was employing. Recommended.

I wish I would have known about this earlier. It was reviewed on a podcast a very long-time friend of mine has been involved in for some time, and I only recently heard about this, purchased it and have been making my way, VERY slowly -I read slowly- through it. I agree with many of the other reviewers of this fine work... it's really about time we had something like this, essential and inexpensive.

This is some of the best Gamemaster advice I've ever read, and I've been GMing for almost twenty years, on a daily basis in some cases. The book is very well-organized, enough that I was able to implement its suggestions in real time as I was reading through it. While most of these concepts are things I've subconsciously discovered throughout my time as a GM, they're also concepts I've never properly mentally organized. This book makes the process faster, helps me remember every step, and brings up some ideas I never consciously considered.

Overall, one of the best RPG supplements I've ever read.

This was a really good book. It has some great insights and methods into how and why to prep for sessions. It's easy to read and understand. One caveat might be that it is somewhat loose, it doesn't tell you PRECISELY what to do but it does the next closest thing.

This book is solely about prep, and how to make prep more enjoyable. It's not about running a session or anything like that. If you're looking for tips about prep, and want to find a good mentality and methodology around it, then buy this book.