THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE FOR MOST DMs!
This quote is taken from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States. Now, he was talking about military planning, but it’s so true for most DMs, myself included, especially when running either published campaigns or homebrews that have an overarching narrative.
Why? Well, the Quote Investigator site where I confirmed the quote and its wording explains it so well:
The details of a plan which was designed years in advance are often incorrect, but the planning process demands the thorough exploration of options and contingences. The knowledge gained during this probing is crucial to the selection of appropriate actions as future events unfold.
I couldn’t have said that better myself. (Believe me. I tried.)
As hinted at in the quote from Quote Investigator, one potential pitfall of planning is to be too married to your plans. Assume your players will do something you absolutely did not foresee and be ready to throw your plan out the window at the first decision point in your D&D or PF2e gaming session. (Or whatever RPG you enjoy.)
As noted by the quote, while you’re planning you should be thinking about options that you can do if the players do X, Y, or Z at key decision points. Will they do X, Y, or Z if they don’t do the initial thing you hope/think they’ll do? Probably not! But the process of thinking about X, Y, and Z and what you do in the case of those being chosen means you’ve gotten in-depth to understand the problem to solve at that decision point and better able to handle whatever is thrown at you on the fly!
In a recent video on The DM Lair YouTube channel, Luke explains essentially three different variations of this. (The video is titled “Avoid These 15 Dungeon Master Mistakes!” Go watch it.) I can’t remember the heading titles, but at one point he says, “don’t write in stone” your plans for a session. The PCs might kill off an NPC that you were planning to be a recurring enemy or they solve a puzzle in a completely unforeseen way. He described that as killing your darlings, which is very apt. Lastly, he says don’t assume player choices but instead think of options. I don’t fully agree with the wording there. Thinking of the options requires making some faux-assumptions about what you think the characters might do. Without them, what are you planning for? But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, it’s where the explanation from the Quote Investigator about thinking through options and contingencies meets the road. You gain enough insight to act on PC choices that you couldn’t know about.
I think we’ve discussed this enough for today. You get the picture.
Are there DMs who do no or almost no prep and planning? Of course there are. For the most part, they’re playing the game in a different way than the rest of us are. If you like to have a game plan, plan away! But know some tricks for keeping your session prep efficient if you don’t have oodles of time on your hands…which most of us don’t. But this is a topic for another day.
What are your thoughts about planning/prepping for a session? Let me know below!