The worst DM advice that everyone gives

The advice shouldn’t be “don’t over-prepare” it should be “don’t over-rely on your preperation. Be prepared to improvise”

Take it from Eisenhower: Plans are useless, but planning is everything.

"Don't waste prep" was the big one for me. When I started I had a huge overpreperation problem, and the issue was wasting time on stuff that would never come up. One early session, for example, I prepared 5 full Dungeons, and the party didn't end up going to any of them. The phrase that spoke to me (which seems like basically the same place you landed here) was Brennan Lee Mulligan saying "You should prepare as much or as little as you need to feel comfortable improvising the rest."

i personally always saw the quote as: "dont try to cover every single base, prepare enough that you feel comfortable playing and dont exhaust yourself for the sake of a game meant for fun."

I think there is a third thing that "don't overprepare" usually means. "Don't let perfect get in the way of good enough" Your first game will never be perfect and trying to prepare for a perfect first session can lead to DM burnout before you ever run a session. Just give it a go and learn from your mistakes. Most players will be understanding and any existing DMs playing in your game will be there for you - we have all been there.

I agree soooo much about the preparing for history and a world, as those are important things that the players WILL notice the inconsistencies and holes in. and yes, absolutely prepare problems, not solutions. the players will figure the latter out and often times surprise you!

I always saw “overpreparing” as “don’t put all your eggs in the same basket”. It’s not necessarily talking about prep time and effort but moreso expectations. The more you plan for things to go a certain way the more disappointed you’ll be when they don’t, and that can lead to everyone not having a good time if it’s clear everyone went into it expecting something different. They’re essentially expressing that being able to adlib and improv is a much more useful ability to make sure things go smoothly than something you spent a week rehearsing

One thing that I've found incredibly useful for my Extremely ADHD DM brain is realizing that certain kinds of prep done early can relieve a lot of pressure/necessity for other prep later. When inspiration hits, I can pour a lot of time and enthusiasm into putting together maps and locations and NPCs and possible treasure and hints and plot hooks and who knows what else, not in a linear fashion but just in a 'fun learning about this world' fashion, because I'm excited and I want to play with my world. Inevitably, the first time or two that we venture into that location, the party will encounter SOME aspect of it all, but there's always a ton of things they don't go near -- which means that for the NEXT week, I rarely have to do more than refine one or two things in the back of my head while I'm doing laundry. I also generally keep prepared lists like "names common to this region", "moon phase calendar", or monster manual stat block page numbers. That's the kind of prep that took a little work at the start (again, while I was feeling VERY EXCITED about playing in this world and wanted something to play with between sessions), but now is just there whenever I need it, helping me improvise. The biggest thing about overpreparation that I've run into, aside from the real risk of railroading, is that if you spend too much time and energy and thought on your prep, it's possible to get bored of a scenario before it even happens in game. Stop while it's still fun and you're still excited. That's really key.

I think the only point of "over" preparing that really matters is when the DM is putting more pressure/stress on themselves than the amount of fun they're having actually playing the game.

This! This is good advice, better to over-prepare and then learn to dial it back to your comfort level, nothing is wasted if you learn something from it.

Honestly this was such a relief to hear as a new DM. I am a preparer by nature so when everyone told me to "not over-prepare" my first campaign, I felt like I was already a bad DM. I'm loving your videos! Thanks for all the ideas!

Longtime player, 1st time DM: just ran 1st session, I prepared waaaaay to many contingencies on "but what if my players do this??" I nearly fell into the trap of implementing countermeasures for creative thinking because it vaguely reminded me of a cheese strat I'd lost sleep building a countermeasure for. I think maybe this is what they mean?

The comfort level advice is not just good advice, it's very well explained, particularly for something I've tried and failed to impart to other DMs in the past. Nicely done, Ginny!

There's two other meanings to "don't over-prep", besides "don't railroad" and "don't waste prep" imo. The first is "don't stress out": lots of new DMs tend to stress about whether or not they have enough material yet, to the point where they never feel ready to actually start running a game. DMing shouldn't be stressful, or intimidating to the point where it turns people away from doing it! The second meaning is "don't burn out". Lots of new DMs are in a sort of honeymoon period where they spend every waking hour thinking about their next game, to the point where after a couple of months, they burn themselves out. If you pace yourself out, DMing can be much more sustainable as a hobby to do besides your job, school, or whatever else you've got going on. Definitely agree with the conclusion of the video though. Both of those extra issues are about finding what your sweetspot for prep lies.

"I'm here to explain myself and add a solution, like a god damn contributing member of this community" You have long earned my respect, but this is a great example of why you maintain it.

I was told "don't overprepare", but while preparing, I eventually realized that I do still need to prepare a lot, especially if I want to avoid railroading. If anything, I overprepared by looking up DM tip videos, like Matt Coville's video series, and read through the 3 base books (which I actually enjoyed overall. Lots of ideas). Like Ginni said, even if something you plan doesn't happen, you can still use it later. If the party goes off the path I planned, I like having ideas for side quests they might run into. My friend ran Strahd and one session was literally just us getting drunk in a bar. Nothing he planned happened, but we all had fun talking with the random NPCs he'd make up. Still everyone's favorite session.

My group introduced a routine a couple of years ago: at the end of each session we tell the DM where we plan to go next time. Essentially, if they give us two or three plot hooks we'll tell them which one we'd like to follow, and if we're already following a side quest etc. we'll tell them what our character's motivation is so they know how to keep it relevant/engaging. This means the DM knows how to plan the start of the session at the very least. Plus it gives us players some responsibility to keep the story going and not just wait for the DM to do all the prep for us. It's worked really well so far!

i always took "don't over prepare" more as a reminder that there is no perfect amount of preparation so you shouldn't put to much pressure onto yourself to prep every single detail that is probably not even needed. What I tend to say to the new DMs I help with their first session is: it is hard to prepare for the actions that you dont' know yet(the actions of the player) but you it is much easier to prepare for the actions that you do know (the actions of and reactions of the world around the player). Of course I elaborate on it and explain what I mean.

That stuff about "if players avoid an encounter you've prepared, just reskin it and throw it at them later" is perfect.

The version of this advice that I took to heart was "never force yourself to prepare more than you must." It hold a lot more nuance than "don't overprepare," despite echoing a similar sentiment. It's a caution against World Builder's Disease, which can be a massive trap for new DMs. But it's more open, too. You can let yourself go wild thinking about the world and the intricacies, but if you find yourself trying to force things, chances are you need to take a step back.