How Brennan Lee Mulligan Plans His DnD Sessions

Learn how the DM of #dimension20 and #criticalrole Calamity preps for his DnD games. We take a look at Brennan Lee Mulligan, DnD DM, to see how they use their time effectively.
MY LINKS:
Patreon: / bonusaction157
Discord: / discord
0:00 - Dungeons And Dragons How To Prep
0:13 - How Brennan Lee Mulligan Alternates D&D Pillars
1:18 - How To Prep For Improv In DnD Like Brennan
2:11 - How To Balance Prep For D&D like Mulligan
4:37 - How To Prepare Believable Worlds In DnD
5:15 - Brennan Lee Mulligan's Secret
6:04 - How To Create NPC's, Worlds and Player Characters
#dungeonsanddragons #dnd

[@LeeJCander]

I’m now up to my 8th session as a DM. I massively over prepared at the start. As I’m more comfortable now I prep less. Maybe 1-3 hours whereas before it could be 6+. What I will say is that fleshing out the world they will be engaging in takes time. But allows me to improvise better later.

[@peterrasmussen4428]

Congrats on the new title xD Prepping in the start of a campaign often takes a lot longer, because you don't know the world, the NPCs etc. But once you get going you start to have two advantages: 1, you can reuse NPC's and locations. 2, you know where your players are going, what type of choices they will make (typically). The best piece of advice I ever heard on prepping is, focus on the next session. Sure you can have an idea about who the Big bad is, your overall plot etc. But you don't need to know who the king is, while the players are still running around killing goblins in a forest in the middle of nowhere, trying to save a single village. At this point in time, knowing that the millers wife has an affair with the butcher will be much more interesting.

[@LeeJCander]

@@peterrasmussen4428 100% agree with that. So we’re currently on a single small island city. We know who the BBEG is for this area but the players also know they’re a long way off fighting her. At the moment they’re acting almost as recon soldiers getting information, forming alliances, getting weapons or resources for a militia group that lives in caves, hidden. They fought using Guerrilla tactics.

[@peterrasmussen4428]

@@LeeJCander sounds awesome :D I hope you have a blast with it.

[@icywinterof88]

I recommend the lazy dm guide

[@LeeJCander]

@@icywinterof88 that was one of the first things I bought! It’s genuinely great. I still use it if I haven’t much time, like the day before etc. Though sometimes I enjoy prepping ‘too much’ though this is usually spent fleshing out the lore and map as I was certainly guilty of rail roading the first two sessions as I had too clear an idea of what I wanted the guys to do. Now I just have ‘scenes’ And potentials.

[@vinz3160]

But what I also think is very important to remember and I learn that lesson all the time in my D&D games: If you overprep, do so. There's nothing bad about that. If you've prepped to much and the session pace is slow because "Let's talk to that NPC for 2 hours", then that is completely fine. Don't try to rush your party to/through something, just get to it next session; or the session thereafter. It just means you don't have to prepare as much for next session, so just chill out if your party wants it aswell and it fits your story.

[@BlankSlatePodcast]

One thing Brennan Lee Mulligan does really well is choose a fantastic evocative premise for his games. With a good premise, the ideas, and story arc of the game write themselves, and it's so much easier to improve with a core understanding of themes. Thanks for the great video

[@samurguybriyongtan146]

“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” ― Helmuth von Moltke the Elder As written, no session ever survives contact with players

[@TvorCrl]

I've tried prepping in bullet points. However, I've found it easier to run when I prep bullet points as only a summary of the overall session. Prepping in paragraphs helps me think through the details and makes it easier to keep the game at a good pace.

[@nightangelx1513]

I tend to create the bones of dungeons and towns in my free time and reflavor them to fit what the party is doing. Is the party hunting a monster underground ? Cool I have that awesome beholder dungeon I made awhile ago, we’ll just change it to Bullette or something.

[@entrootentropy]

I have trouble determining if I'm prepping "too much" or "too little" (in comparison to some recommended norm), because I don't know what exactly counts as prep work. Lately, I probably spend about 30 hours a week working on stuff that might be used in a session at some point - maps, minis, making drop-in npcs, making drop-in shops and locations, researching rules and edge-cases, making name and place lists, modifying loot tables, etc - but only about 30 minutes before each session that feels like "prep" because I'm actually reviewing what happened last session and going over fine details. Thus far, no matter how I've changed up my allocation of time, I tend to feel pretty underprepared.

[@Antonath]

I feel like I keep my time to maybe a maximum of 2-3 hours of prep for a session, though that comes after hours and hours of thinking about what happened, what can happen going forward, and tossing around ideas and seeing what fits best. I like to let my ideas brew and settle, so I usually write my actual session prep notes the day of or the night before which also keeps my mind fresh on what happened previously but also what I prepped.

[@Swamp_Hound]

the part with brennan lee's big secret was such a good take away, I'm going to be trying that as well thank you!

[@ralphwreckzit9953]

So useful I'm a new DM I bought the essentials kit. D.O.I.P and I wanted to jump in Head first into D&D but needed insight for prep and this has it all. Ty so much

[@qcbatman5327]

my tips would be ...dont take to much pressure in your shoulder im sure u do great.And with time your be event better :)

[@ralphwreckzit9953]

@qcbatman5327 Thank you for the Insight Hope you have a good one.

[@adriel8498]

For me the most usefull thing to prepare is enemies and random npc and places, so I can use them when it makes sense.

[@Ed-zp2xo]

I enjoy prepping so I often spend hours at it, but I like to prep flexibly, by which I mean I prep dozens of NPCs, several merchants, several monsters with personalities of their own (if they're sentient), several taverns and so on. Then whoever I don't use in the following session, I still have in my folder so I can pepper them into future sessions

[@johnbiggscr]

A full session of just socializing would bore me to tears.

[@swcsomeonewhocares8707]

What?! 3Hour+!? >.> Wow i take a whole day...I'm prepping a whole world

[@danferrusquia2819]

My sessions are gonna be 2-2.5 hours each so I’m definitely using the Dimension 20 format of alternating combat/exploration sessions

[@csababalogh7969]

I love your perspective on DMing. You deserve an inspiration point. ;)

[@chrisg8989]

Biggest thing I spend my time on is the Combat encounters. Nothing worse than a clunky combat to grind the pace down to a hault, or a grossly unbalanced combat that either leaves your players feeling bored or helplessly under powered. Social stuff is easy to improvise. An engaging and memorable fight cannot.

[@bradstates3697]

My prep time is usually an hour of actual prep, and about 4-5 editing song covers about the last session 😂

[@crunchydragontreats6692]

I stole a city from 4e and a “dungeon” from AD&D. I spend most of my prep time reading the city and dungeon info along with making notes/translating stat blocks for baddies and NPCs. This has left me more time to work on PC story points, and rumor for soft and hard leads. Some of the rumors hold clues/keys to PC story points. I also have the game info running in the background of my brain almost all the time. I know this because every once in a while it pops up randomly to the forefront. 😂 Grab your ketchup and crunch away my friends.

[@samurguybriyongtan146]

Yeah, I like to mentally inhabit the space in the game. I think about the folks and things there and how the would react to anyone, not just the players.

[@grimmtales503]

Weird that your subs are hanging under 20k. That said, when Nate Black went indy, he too got stuck around that number for a while (and he is sort of a KZbin god). Your production value is amazing. Fun to watch videos, start to finish. Your key points blur because you give so many and you do not relate them to one another nor do you hold to your points too strongly ('highlighting / illuminating'' them). That's okay though! It seems to be your style now. Good luck! Lots of people love your work. Curious which of the Key Seven methods you will use to make money (or if you will stick to your KZbin 'cash for views'... ha ha HA ha ha... sorry, little joke there). If you want a Top Ten Request (in comments or in a video), let me know.

[@BonusAction]

Thanks! Yes I figured there are enough creators in the DnD space digging deep in to individual points, but I feel like their is a lack of fast paced, covering lots of ground fast content out there. Its also just the content I really like making, though I am sure I could work on linking everything together more cohesively!

[@Ampolitor]

It all depends on what you are running. If you are doing a homebrew then yes Prep time can be minimal because you are building that world brick by brick with every session. If you are playing a module like Curse of Strahd you have to prep,,,,a lot because there is so much going on in the background. If you don't spend the time and prep a module like that and try to wing it, it will bite you later on.

[@Morjixxo]

Alternating between pillars during the session is one of the easiest way to have a good and refreshing gameflow, it creates variety, alternate proactive and reactive phases, and provides good spots where to take a break. Is it possible to play 1 pillar sessions? Yes (a good DM, can do everything), but it's not a good advice.

[@StinkerTheFirst]

I like improvising. I'm a novelist, which means a lot of brainstorming followed by repeated vision, so the idea of spontaneous creation with looking back is really appealing. I rely on the "Yes, and" method of improv to create stories together with my players; I react to what they do and build on that. Having a module definitely helps with this.

[@BonusAction]

I agree! I think modules are a great way to do very little prep and exercise your improv at the same time!

[@HunterWoodMusicOfficial]

Story is about an half an hour of prep but we do terrain and stuff so it makes it like three hours because I have to paint etc

[@east2westfan]

Prep time!

[@dndisinteresting6741]

I don't prep. It was so much wasted time. It's impossible to predict what they will do. Good chance that they will join the opponents or just flee of something is not goong well. Or batteling each other. This is so much fun because we never know where its going to go. I can improv without a problem even a basic session. And the feedback i always got from my players was that they enjoyed my improv way more than the planning. We also have other dms and they do just the same as me.

[@coffeecaveman123]

I get it's an aesthetic choice, but I really do not like the progress bar in the right of the screen. It takes me out of the moment by reminding me time is passing, I'm watching a video, and the headspace I'm currently in will soon come to an end.

[@cleversoundvt]

First

[@khananand3075]

I love your voice and your accent. You sound so masculine - the raspiness of your voice plus that accent plus that gorgeous face equals delicious snack.