Ive been gaming for almost 35 years (a vast majority of which I GMd) and have suffered from chronic overprepping throughout. Ive read a bit here and there about cutting down on prep time but I just cant seem to get it.
When I sit down to prepare and adventure I have to ..
Draw up a fairly detailed map of the region the characters are in. (this includes the actual rivers, lakes, forests, towns, roads etc. all with appropriate names) Nothing in any module or campaign setting I have ever seen is actually complete.
Then I jot down a few notes on all of the above, getting a feel for the area and allowing me not only to allow my players some freedom but also the familiarity necessary to make the locale seem real during play. (referencing nearby towns and features during dialogue etc.)
Then there is the general work on government in the area, trade, ecology, typical encounters, racial makeup, a little history and the like.
Finally I get to work on the actual locations where the game is likely to be played.
Mapping a town, a bit of history, fleshing out some businesses and local color, populating with a few interesting NPCs, providing a couple lesser plot hooks.
Cities are a more complex and time consuming version of the above including details for individual districts, guilds, security and crime, more businesses and lots of notes on color to help make the place feel real when its visited.
Possible adventure areas have to be fleshed out a bit too, perhaps not as much as the actual location of the curent adventure but if theres a goblin haunted stretch of hills nearby, well it has to be populated and perhaps some notes on the lair jotte down, etc. etc.
you get my point. I typically prep for not hours, not days, but weeks! And thats for a single adventure. Now as long as the players dont move too quickly it gets a bit easier for a time, but even if they remain in the area, each new place they visit or come close to has to be detailed even further.
Its a fun exercise in creative thinking and writing but WOW its exhausting and slows any campaign down tremendously. My typical schedule is to play through an adventure, perhaps once a week for a few sessions, then take a month off to get ready for the next one.
My players have always commended me on the level of detail and emmersion possible in my games but Ive been hassled for being so slow too.
Thoughts?
hmm, once its been place in the world it seems almost "wrong" to move it. I mean, my campaign is in Taldor at present. I just finished a preliminary design of Ridonport. Its been built to fit that region, that kingdom, that culture - you know? It would take some massive reworking to plop it down somewhere else. Not to mention it would be obvious at the first glance of the map by the players.
Take a look at the section on Oppara for example in the Echoes of Glory companion to Taldor. Would you just pick it up and move the city to Galt?
In the real world most cities and towns resemble each other more than most people think. This is mainly due to the fact that people have the same needs no matter where they are. There is always going to be an inn near the docks for example because it is a good location for an inn. Your mills will always be located near a stream or river to turn the wheel. Everyone likes to think where they live is special but in reality they are not all that different. Even the names of the streets are the same. Almost every city in California has an Oak Ave or some variation of it. As someone who used to drive to different places every day for a living I saw this first hand.
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@ Grover: I'm in the EXACT same boat! I try to be spontaneous at the table, but in prep I'm a turtle. Here's the prep for my game tomorrow night:
1. I conceptualized a megadungeon for a friend a while ago so I'm re-using the concept. I had to re-site the thing though so...
2. I added a new section to my homebrew setting to have it make sense. This entailed a map of the new area, brief overview of the region's history, names for sights and land features, rivers and lakes, (sound familiar?)
3. I drew up a map of the small city the PCs will start in, near the dungeon. This came with high-level histories, background, NPCs, organizations, plots and conflicts, etc
4. I crafted a quick intro adventure, based in the city, to give a feel for the region. I crafted it module style and laid it out to print (I'll be making a hard copy to take w/me to the game)
5. Finally I began fleshing out the megadungeon concept: random encounter tables, a very rough map, some interesting monster NPCs and a couple minor plot hooks.
I have taken a couple weeks to gather all this together. Now on the plus side the players have said they like the megadungeon concept and the campaign will likely be a series of delves into this place. However should the players tire of the slog or otherwise deviate from this setup, I'll need to start the above process over again.
My advice is to re-use, re-name and re-purpose!
If you devise a little village map on a lunch break or something and don't work it into the game, re-use or re-name it for later adventures. If you spot a cool build on these boards snag it lock stock and barrel, then drop it into your game (just make sure if it goes public you give credit and don't steal/sell marketed material).
I have a lot of my old notebooks from older games. Every so often I thumb through, grab something and drop it in. Also old Dungeon mags, old modules and any other source I can get my hands on. I also keep lists of names; I've bookmarked the Abulafia Random Generators; when I have a few minutes here and there while reports run I grab a pen and some scratch paper and jot builds if they hit me.
In short: I obsess.
But then when I sit down to prep time I try to pull all of these haphazard sources of pre-made material into a cohesive whole. I try; I don't always succeed. Where I fall down though isn't in overprepping or delivering the prepped material; its when I improv combat. If I don't consider the PCs first and just throw a fight out there, I tend to end up with fights way off - either ridiculously easy or insanely hard. Then, mid-fight the disparity starts to hit me I feebly attempt to overcompensate and screw the whole thing up.
Anyway sorry for the wall o text. Hope some of the above helps and I definitely feel your pain.
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Can you GM for me?
Can you GM for me?
Seriously, that sounds fantastic. Its not my style, heck half of the details in my campaign get filled in AS we play with me noting down names of npcs we make up on the spot. But the idea of a world so rich that even the campaign setting of golarion seems empty by comparison seems like alot of fun.
In terms of the OPs question, I know what you mean. Sometimes it can be frustrating as a player to not play because the dm is so meticulous. One of the dms in my group is like that. He has to plan out every detail, and then write down the stats for everything on separate sheets (he refuses to use copy and paste and printers to make this faster). Just that part can take him hours per session (think about all the possible npcs you could meet in a normal session and then think about writing them all down, carefully, by hand. Its alot).
If you arent happy unless you put in that much detail then, certainly you should keep doing that. Whatever is fun for you is what you should do. But like others have said, if you dont want to transplant things from place to place, I have a couple suggestions on re-use.
1. Keep the geographical scope of the campaign small. If you are running an eventure in City X, keep the story there. That way each prep session fills out details you wont need to write out later. If they dont venture far from the city, history, politics, trade, etc arent things you will have to redo. You just might need to add in a few new faces and characters for the continued story.
2. Dont transplant, expand. If they do move location to location, consider expanding existing groups, organizations etc to the new location. You made a theives guild in one city. Put a branch in the next they go to. Why does the den look so similar? Same group. You can even re-use npcs as they can actually be the same people in the other location. Which has the added benefit of recuring characters (something I think is really important to building a world).
3. Copy 80%. You dont have to put a carbon copy of one location in another, but they can be similar. New York and Chicago are not identical, but you could probably generalize like 80% of the details and they would be comparable. That way if the party goes from chicago to new york, you change a few names, a few streets, make the new map fit on a series of islands, and you have half your details in place in a relatively short time. Then you can work in the new npcs and politics and such, but the basic stuff (the inns, businesses, guard houses etc) can be reused with a slight re-skin.
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I do this, too, though I've cut it back quite a bit over the years. While it can still get out of hand now and then, I finally realized that I really like doing the prep, sometimes almost as much as the gameplay later. It's a big part of the game for me, at the end of the day.
Still, if you get complaints and think they're valid, there is some pretty great 3pp stuff out there that can be grafted in pretty painlessly. I'm eventually going to be using some of the Raging Swan villages. Really great detail on those.
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You could do a lot of non-region specific work at first. Design the maps but not the history, build the city and districts but not the major NPCs or population make-up. As Mysterious Stranger says, most cities and towns will look the same but for the small details.
This way you can have a backlog of maps and ideas that require far less work to specialize to a particular situation or area.
You could also approach it with modularity. So you have four cities (one on the sea, one on a river, one in a desert, and one in the highlands) and you have a bucket of dozens of special buildings (church to dragons, royal palace, gnome thieves guild, dwarven slave holdings, secret kitsune den, opium slum). You can have general city statistics attached to the city and NPCs/hooks written up for the buildings. So when it is time to go, you just pick a church that fits the city, a ruling building for the region, etc.
This lets you prep constantly, though with less time press and thus less work per day/week, and then spend a fraction of your normal time plugging in the various pieces. You'll probably still need to build a custom item or two central to the plot, but you won't have to build in all the supporting facilities.
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It sounds like it's something you actually really enjoy doing.
My overprep vice is mapping. I usually hand-draw color maps using Sharpies on giant sheets of 1" grid paper. It takes hours, but the maps look great, if I say so myself. Would my players be OK with maps quickly whipped out using dry erase markers on grid tiles? Sure. But my maps improve their experience, and moreover, I enjoy making them.
But if you don't want to prep that much, or if you need to spend less time prepping, just figure out which parts of the environment your PCs are likely to interact with. Prep those and those only. Wing everything else.
Also keep lists of stock things. Stock inn names, stock shopkeeper NPCs, etc. Individually, you can prep these however much you want. But you stop short of placing them in the environment. Then, when you need one (say, the PCs go into a shop you hadn't prepped), you just pull one off your list and put it in. That one comes off the list and becomes part of the environment permanently. Then, after the session, you prep another one to replace that one, and add it to the end of the list.
This way, you still prep broad strokes (town names, major roads, rivers, etc.) but the modularity of the granular details saves time prepping those. Realistically, PCs will interact with SOME of the details, but not ALL of them. So as long as you have enough for them to interact with, things that you can plug in no matter where they choose to go, you're covered. As far as they know, you prepped EVERYTHING.
If you dont get dissaponitet when your players just ride out of a town you have spend weeks making i see no problem.
I have a lot of faults as a GM, but overprepping is not really one of them. Although I think the vast majority of gamers would look at my game room and say "Are you kidding me? Look at all this crap!"
So I suppose I should clarify a bit what I mean by "overprepping".
I break my GM prep into two areas. One might be called "general GM background and campaign world construction". This is where I do the vast majority of my work as a GM. And I do a LOT of work in this area. I make terrain, I cast Hirst blocks and build towers, bridges, buildings, etc. I create NPCs and monsters and even will create custom miniatures for those monsters. But when I am doing these things, I generally am not doing them to prepare for a particular session, and I make it a point to make the majority of the stuff I make either modular so I can create a bunch of different specific game environments using the same stuff, or else I make generic things that I re-use generously.
For example, I really only have two Inns in my world. I don't see the point of making a new Inn for every town the players are in. An Inn is just a generic setting anyway, and it seems to me to be more work than is necessary to create a custom map or actual terrain structure for every Inn. I might rearrange the furniture and stuff, but it's just an Inn. The same is true for temples, magic shops, etc. They are all pretty much interchangeable.
The same is true for terrain. I've got a bunch of trees, hills, bridges, and maps with rivers, lakes etc. I just reuse them. I have a couple "forest encounter" maps a couple "desert encounter" maps, etc. I can put my terrain blocks wherever I want to for an encounter so I can set up whatever sort of tactical challenge I want without having to redraw anything.
I also create a bunch of encounter sets of NPCs and monsters and save them off in Combat Manager.
So virtually all of my actual "game prep" (which is the OTHER sort of prep) is all about the story I'm currently trying to tell. If the story is taking me somewhere that I need a different sort of map, terrain or monster minis, I'll try to map that out far enough in advance that by the time I'm actually prepping for the encounter, I'll have those elements.
But I also don't sweat it when I don't. If I have to pull out the dry erase marker to fill in some gaps, that's fine too. I just draw what I need and move on.
Thanks for the feedback guys, good stuff. As to if this is some kind of "humblebrag", no - its really not. I cant say Im not proud of how my game comes out but its certainly a undertaking and any advise to make it easier is welcome.
Im hearing several of you mention that the prepping is as much a part of your enjoyment as the game itself and that makes me feel SO much better. I thought I was a bit of an oddball. I enjoy the creative element at least as much, possibly more than the playing. At times I feel that roleplaying is simply a vehicle to drive my creative urges. Im not quite up to writing a novel but fleshing out a setting is great fun.
I was without players for a couple years and found I still enjoyed "prepping" for a game I wasnt sure would ever come. I eventually started using the Mythic system to help me roleplay myself just so I had a motivation to keep world building. Sounds crazy I know.
All that is find but it still means my games are often delayed and Id like to work on that. You guys have some great ideas but each one seems to sacrifice the permanence, the 'reality' if you will, of the campaign world. I realize that might be necessary but oh man will it be tough.
Im one of those guys that makes up stuff the players will never know.
In a recent game the players came across an old stone bridge spanning a small stream several days from the nearest settlement. They thought it was odd way out there but moved on without much notice. I of course know everything about that bridge, the legend connected to it etc. They probably never will but it makes the setting feel so much more real to ME since I do.
As a fellow overprepper, I say keep on overprepping if you enjoy it!
It's always easy to recycle anything that isn't used, too.
These days I GM solely in PbPs. The pace gives me plenty more time to react to PC actions and respond with the level of detail I crave.
That being said, I'm probably still doing about an hour of prep work most days.
Yes pace is everything. When Im roleplaying solo its not an issue at all which is so liberating. I may sit down, decide on a course of action for the PC group and then realize I need to flesh out some detail before they can proceed. I stop the game, click into prep mode and spend an hour working up that next element then pop back into game again and play it through. There have been times Ive spent 90% of the evening on campaign info and only a small fraction actually playing. A completely different dynamic than with real players.
Random generators are your friend. Names, stats, geography... you name it, there is probably a random generator for it. I find these quite useful for doing the broad strokes, and filling in the details afterward often lets my world lead me to places that I hadn't imagined beforehand!
Need an NPC? Randomly generate a name and stats, maybe even some personality quirks, and then use the generated data to underpin the details you flesh out. Why is her name Aurellia the Angry? What do the random stats tell you (and accordingly, your players) about her appearance, build, and habits, and what sort of class or profession might a person such as this be drawn to?
Same steps for a community, culture, region, etc. Go random*, let your world surprise you!
Now, for those who must plan well in advance, I am not suggesting that this be done on the fly; you can continue to prep these things well in advance. I simply advocate saving time where you can by letting something make some of the decisions for you. I will say, however, that I have run several very fun spur of the moment games by simply grabbing some dice, navigating to the appropriate generators, and giving my impromptu players 45 minutes to an hour to create their characters while I get things set up.
*Of course, any randomly generated results can and should be tossed aside if you hate them, or they totally make no sense for the application. But you should save the results anyway, for use elsewhere, if you can.
Any links to your favorite generators Moro?
I don't think it's a humblebrag. The same thing ails me and I agree it can be a barrier to actually running regular games.
My latest idea for dealing with this is to scale my setting waayyy down. In terms of total geographical landmass, and also in terms of number and size of settlements.
You sound like an amazing GM sir.
Maybe you could get someone to help you? A "Co-GM" if you will.
Have you discussed this with your players? Do they know what goes into the immersion-vs-timeliness equation?
You might work with them on setting the right scope for campaigns: since you have a depth-first, rather than breadth-first, approach as a GM, take advantage of that. If you focus on adventures and campaigns that linger in locales for longer periods of time, and players who are on board with that, you'll be able to make full use of your painstaking prep.
Focus on larger dungeons, and on mystery or intrigue plots, which both encourage sticking around for a while and can rely benefit from level of detail you pot into your npcs. Don't worry about "giving equal time" to overland exploration or travel plots.
I can hear you objecting, "but that doesn't let me tell the stories i want to tell," --honestly, from where you say your focus is, I really think it does.
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Any links to your favorite generators Moro?
Any links to your favorite generators Moro?Here is an incredible random generator
OMG that is one of the greatest things I've ever gotten on these boards!
@r to the 2: use these links man! These maps may be a bit primitive but you can pump out a "Big Picture" in a minute and then spend the next few weeks making smaller detail maps.
Also:
You guys have some great ideas but each one seems to sacrifice the permanence, the 'reality' if you will, of the campaign world. I realize that might be necessary but oh man will it be tough.
When making your gameworld, try to think of it from the point of view of the players. If you don't have players, imagine yourself at a complete stranger's table. You (the GM) might understand that these ruins are a historical throwback to a time of the great empire that stretched all the way up the coast, but to your players they're just an adventure site. When they leave and go south instead of north, surprise them (and yourself) by adding the next "imperial" element there instead.
"Permanence" as you put it is relative. The game world, it's tapestry of lore and the map on which it's set only reveals itself as you (the GM) draw back the fog of war. In other words: the only way your players know a detail is because you give it to them.
I've homebrewed a world called Karnoss. In the lore I've revealed over the last 2 years I've said that south of the area the campaign's explored so far is the "Old Provinces" and such, but no one's ever really been interested so I didn't even bother to map it. Then I made this megadungeon for a friend of mine for his Forgotten Realms campaign which he decided not to use. It had all kinds of FR flare in the overview and "flavor text". Then my players, on deciding to do a reboot in my Karnoss game said they wanted a megadungeon campaign.
I took Flamenwing Castle out of mothballs and sited it in Karnoss. It really didn't fit with most of the background I'd written for the areas of the game they'd already played; there's no massive dragons in central Karnoss. So I just made up a large, 200-mile expanse of coastline in one of the "Old Provinces" and dropped Flamenwing into it.
The ruined castle was supposed to be on the Sword Coast, along the trade way south of Waterdeep in Forgotten Realms. Its now on the Trade Way; a road that once connected the city of Karnoss, capitol of the fallen empire to Izmok, the next major city of the empire. It belonged to a paladin of Bahamut; now in Karnoss the paladin worshipped Apsu. That section of the Trade Way in FR had open plains, woods and hills; along the Trade Way in Karnoss there are the Bonefrost Mountains and nearby hills, The Blackwood Forest and open plains known as the Firthmore Marches.
I love the act of creating. Like you I often knit the whole quilt as one. But over the last few years I've taken on a harder mindset and started crafting "patches"; little sections of my game that I can connect to others in a couple ways. When I need to, I join a couple together and slowly the tapestry of Karnoss has come into focus for both my players and me.
I don't think it's a humblebrag. The same thing ails me and I agree it can be a barrier to actually running regular games.
My latest idea for dealing with this is to scale my setting waayyy down. In terms of total geographical landmass, and also in terms of number and size of settlements.
Ive decided to narrow the campaign down to one kingdom (Taldor) for the time being, giving me a chance to concentrate my efforts there. The Inner Sea is almost overstocked with adventure potential, you can make any one area provide hooks for entire character careers.
Any links to your favorite generators Moro?Here is an incredible random generator
That one is one of my two go-to generators.
I feel you sir!
Remember you don't have to prepare everything up front, you can always throw in things to slow down the PC's progress and give yourself more time to finish up the dungeon or next adventure etc.
Also, this book has helped me tremendously, though I still spend way too long prepping for each session myself.
I'm sure you can pick up the PDF for cheaper but I can't get to it at work right now.
Here is the other.
I... don't understand that site. It doesn't seem to be a random generator, just a wiki with rather short lists of things.
My GM prep usually comes in the fifteen minutes before my players arrive...
I cant even imagine how that is possible. Sure, one can 'wing it' in the short term, making up NPCs, locations and backstories and the like on the fly but anything truly detailed, coherent and consistent takes a little bit of thought, unless you are simply running a premade dungeon hack or whatever.
The Sign of the Hammer and Dragon (the Hammered Dragon Inn)
Description
The inn is a two story common house; the first level is stone-walled while the second is half-timber and adjoins a neighboring building. The inn has a heather-thatched roof. Accommodations consist of several large rooms with beds and straw mattresses.
Location
Just northwest of the Market Gate surrounded by working class homes and shops. Honorable neighbors include Bolshire Square with a font dedicated to a great hero, Yobmoth’s Abbatoir, a grisly slaughterhouse providing butchery for local patrons and The Tinderwick Smokehouse for drying meat and fish.
Innkeeper
The innkeeper is a heavyset male dwarf named Solvek Irdheimson. He secretly leads a small cult of a Draconic God. His friends call him “Sol”.
Menu
1. Roasted Mutton and Onion, Tankard of Stout (10 cp)
2. Stewed Veal and Lentils, Tankard of Mead (10 cp)
3. Salted Sausage and Dried Parsnip, Tankard of Stout (8 cp)
4. Oat Bread and Blue Cheese, Mug of Mead (5 cp)
5. Boiled Sausage and Barley Bread, Tankard of Cider (10 cp)
6. Boiled Loach and Onion, Tankard of Bitter (10 cp)
7. Stewed Sausage and Barley Biscuits, Tankard of Beer (9 cp)
Patrons
1. Mulshveg: Female half-orc Fighter, N. Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 8. Mulshveg has red hair and amber eyes, and prominent fangs. She wears half-plate armor and wields a greataxe. Mulshveg suffers a severe allergy to fish.
2. Farin Stanavascel: Male Human Sorcerer (Infernal), N. Str 7, Dex 8, Con 8, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 15. Farin is short and slender, with silver hair and red eyes. He wears modest garments and wields a shortspear and spiked gauntlet. Farin has an animal companion, a tawny rat named Gamil.
3. Rinart: Male Halfling Ranger, NG. Str 12, Dex 15, Con 11, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 9. Rinart is tall and broad-shouldered, with thin blonde hair and amber eyes. He wears studded leather and wields a sling-staff. Rinart has an animal companion, a gray sheep dog named Sanja.
4. Hamund: Male human Bard, NG. Str 14, Dex 9, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 17. Hamund has blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and an easy grin. He wears studded leather and wields a heavy mace and buckler. Hamund is fascinated by illusions and phantasms.
5. Aldredhien: Female Half-elf Rogue, NG. Str 9, Dex 13, Con 8, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 11. Ladredhien has tangled white hair and blue eyes. She is romantic and anxious. Aldredhien seeks a party to rescue her companions from the Catacombs of Flamenwing Castle.
Rumors
1. Sose Horne has been searching the area near the Shrine of Everlight in the Evengarde District
2. A malefic hag is giving eldritch powers to common street waifs
3. Rotfen Tower is beseiged by the ogres of the Bonefrost Mountains
4. The woodsmen of the Blackwood sometimes find dark hollows filled with children
5. Scores of dragons have been gathering throughout the Cinderstorm Vale
6. A group of pilgrims has stumbled upon the secret temple of an ancient cult in the Ravenwood Forest
7. A water elemental has escaped from the tower of Buleusil the Mage
This was nearly ALL from TQBBNBB's wonderful link. I used the random inn generator half an hour before leaving for the game last night. Once I had the basics I added the "Location", I changed some names and minor details to suit my setting and then on a page of notebook paper I sketched out the common room.
My players had a little intro adventure (a romp through the cemetery) and got a little local flair there, then retired to the inn to cavort and get their next gig. I had Hamund the Bard on stage and the paladin did a Iomedaean war ballad with him. The bard then explained he's been kind of a regular here and knows the other adventurous patrons, so Hamund was their guide around the personalities in the Hammered Dragon. They also scored the rumor about the water elemental and the players met Aldredhein (all-dread-een) who hit on them mercilessly attempting to ingratiate herself so that the PCs would help her find her lost comrades.
This led to an interesting roleplaying moment with the paladin rebuking the woman as a harlot but then, after hearing her tale of woe taking the job anyway. Drinks were had (and spilled), the players had fun and we all got done what we wanted in the game. I only needed an extra 1/2 hour of prep time. Thanks random generators!
Any links to your favorite generators Moro?Here is an incredible random generatorThat one is one of my two go-to generators.
Thats awesome thanks! Takes a little clicking but there is a ton of stuff there.
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I pay Paizo and others to do that for me. :) So at most I just need to read the parts they'll be hitting next.
Kind of this. I make changes to the setting, but as a player and a GM I want all of us to be on the same page.
We have basically two or three "Worlds" we play in. There is a Forgotten Realms setting that is book plus the stuff that has happened in our campaign that changed the setting. Similar set up with Golarion, with less changes since we haven't been there as long.
How much the player wants to dig in is up to them, but I try not to change things the player expects to be there because I want the player to make rational choices and expect rational and logical outcomes.
It is harder for all of us if we don't have a shared setting.
I pay Paizo and others to do that for me. :) So at most I just need to read the parts they'll be hitting next.Kind of this. I make changes to the setting, but as a player and a GM I want all of us to be on the same page.
We have basically two or three "Worlds" we play in. There is a Forgotten Realms setting that is book plus the stuff that has happened in our campaign that changed the setting. Similar set up with Golarion, with less changes since we haven't been there as long.
How much the player wants to dig in is up to them, but I try not to change things the player expects to be there because I want the player to make rational choices and expect rational and logical outcomes.
It is harder for all of us if we don't have a shared setting.
I hear you but honestly, even the best published setting provide a bare minimum of information to game with. A couple of cities, a town or two and maybe a blurb on a couple of locations and thats it. Take Taldor for example. There is a little about Oppara there and Cassomir but little to nothing else on a kingdome with no doubt dozens of other smaller cities and scores of towns. Ridonport isnt even detailed and it stand as the 3rd largest coastal city in the country.
Unless you lock your characters into following the few areas the publishers have fleshed out a bit, there is a LOT of work to be done.
That said, the end of your post, which I have omitted, makes me feel like you are being a bit derogatory towards play styles other than the one you are most prone to using - dungeon hacks can be "truly detailed, coherent, and consistent" too.
Sorry, I can see where that might have sounded bad. What I meant by my reference to a hack was that these are pretty straight forward adventure. (kick in door, fight monsters, get stuff) They are confined to a single area and have fewer choices for the players to make and the GM to respond to. If the adventure is instead a confrontation between the PCs and the merchant's guild of a major city, its wide open and requires a different approach.
I dont mean to be critical at all. I opened this thread to learn how others prepare.
Prep lets me know the world better. I tend to run loose in an actual game, but I KNOW the world and what fits and what doesn't. I know why their are no half-Orcs, yet Orc-blooded Humans exist. I know why their are about a half-dozen 'cat' races that don't resemble each other but superficially. I know scads of other things, too. But some I leave to players to create during play. I know the 'whys' of the 15 point buy I use and granting a character 'ability' point per level rather than a +1 to a stat every 4 levels. Mostly, I deal in the mechanics or crunch, leaving the flavor and fluff to the players.
My players have fleshed in a lot, from Elvish maternal traditions, legalities and cultural taboos to why Goblins have so many sub-races (23 and counting). I do my best to stay out of their way, as they are normally more logical than I. I never would have thought to put the rendering yard down hill from the butcher's shop and barber shop.
Do not fill in everything, let your players into the creation process and they will surprise you with their ingenuity! I was banning oriental weapons and armor in my game until a player coughed up a reasonable explanation for the existence of heavy, yet non=metallic, armors. Another worked out a Portal system for the game that allowed certain story elements to go forward without creating the 'poof and we're there' get over. My spell point system is based on the HypertextD20 system, but with a BS session or four of refinement. A player came up with why we have to have spell components and Sorcerers count as magical beings. My players wanted a Ranger with MORE spell power and less Base Attack Bonus, a Class these boards helped to generate.
I see GMing as tossing problems to the players to overcome in inspiring ways. Their job is to keep me so entertained that I can't wait to run next time. My job is to keep the world in a state where they can both immerse themselves and tap inner creativity to flesh out the world, solve mysteries, accomplish goals and "defeat the defeatless"!
I know I'm going to get raked for this, but its worked for 37 years.
ooh, location. awesome.