Tim’s Theory of Inverse Preparation

1) The more you prepare ahead of time for a non-dungeon-crawl-style
game session, the more the players will diverge from your predicted
path.

2) The one night you just chuck it and don’t prepare anything at all is the night that for once, the players don’t want to sit around an B.S. the whole time.

Theory Explanation

1) In any game where the players get to remotely choose their own
path, you must make assumptions about their actions in order to prepare
for them.

The more you prepare, the more assumptions you need to make. Layering
assumptions on top of assumptions is like averaging averages – it’s
guaranteed to make an Ass out of U and Me.

2) Players can sense weakness, and will go for the jugular.

Well, OK, there is more to it than that. People, especially geeky
people, appreciate having a skeleton on which to hang their
conversation.

Whether that be a recently seen film or sporting event, or your desperate attempt to get somewhere in your game, having something in common to talk about gives people jumping off points for their own discussions.

No game=no skeleton, and conversation peters out after a while, leaving
everyone looking at you wondering why they drove 2 hours to get here if
you are such a slacker….