Hey! This year, I’m trying to get better at session prep, so we’ll be talking about it every time I run a session.

For last week’s Curse of Strahd session, I didn’t have a ton of time to prep stuff. But, here’s what I did.

The things I did to prepare are:

  • Write up a recap of what’s happened

We’ve only had a few sessions, and it’s been a while since our previous one. So, I wrote up a few paragraphs summarizing the events of past sessions, to be read at the start of the session. Writing this helped me remember where the PCs had been and what their current situation was. It also jogged the players’ memory and helped get things rolling when we started.

Even in groups where the players handle session recap, I think it’s helpful for the DM to remind themselves what’s happened in the past. This goes double for groups that don’t meet very often (once a month or less frequently).

  • Skim over the relevant chapter

The characters were fighting within the Wizard of Wines winery, so I skimmed back through that chapter. I made a couple notes (very short) and reminded myself of NPC-related details. I reminded myself where on the map the characters were currently located, and which locations they had already explored.

I didn’t look over other chapters or speculate on what areas the PCs might travel to next. I was able to get away with this because our session ended up being very combat-heavy. The players only explored the area they were already in, and they fought more of the enemies they had fought in the previous session.

The players were in a situation where they needed to fight their way out or risk further complications. If they were in a more open situation, I probably would have needed to do more preparation.

  • Modify the holy symbol of ravenkind

At the end of the last session, the players found one of the important items in the adventure. Problem is, this holy symbol canonically requires attunement by a good-aligned cleric or paladin to use its properties. The party doesn’t have one of those, so I cut its buff to Turn Undead and changed it so that it only required attunement by a good-aligned character of any class. If a cleric turns up, they can attune to it and make use of the Turn Undead feature, but for now, I’d rather let the current characters have access to most of its power (instead of none).

This session prep is pretty minimal in my book. But, it worked well since the characters only stayed in one area and fought a bunch of stuff, instead of travelling around and engaging with a bunch of elements from different areas. The players talked among themselves a lot during this session; they had learned that the foes in the winery could pose a serious threat if they weren’t careful. And, their caution payed off! They saved the winery successfully.

Next session, I’ll probably have to take a different prep approach, since they’ll be travelling on the road towards Krezk…