# Prepping locations, not plots

Justin Alexander once wrote to [not prep plots but to instead prep situations](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots). And now you can [watch his mouth say words out loud about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpoSNmey0c) because of cool camera tech. That's good advice, but I'd rather prep a location with a situation in mind. Situations are things to sometimes give extra thought to, but they're not usually the focus of prep.

In the OSR Discord server, Bread said "I think that the game happens at the table, and as the GM that's a valid time for me to advance the story as much as the players. It doesn't mean being less simulationist, it just means that the world is moving during that time, and my job between sessions isn't to account for what the players might do but to determine the consequences from what they have done and update the world accordingly[.]"

I agree.

I don't prep a story. I don't prep a plot.

I prep locations. That means characters (with motives), monsters (with motives), traps, terrain, weather, etc. It doesn't mean a path to completing *my* quest, such as taking down a Big Bad. The most I do is make some bads. I make some of them big. 

Players might go for the Big or they might go for the Bad that they really hate because of what they know about him/her. My players tend to hate slavers and misogynists more than bad kings and defeating them seems more surmountable. They go for them... when they go for anyone. Sometimes they team up with a baddie or at least act as if they do for a bit.

When players (who have motives) interact with worlds that contain other things that have motives, that's a story.

I put things in places and players go to those places and do things to the things in the places. I tell them what happens when they do. That's refereeing. It's fun.

You can take a step closer to making story without losing any of the above though. You can prep a timeline. I don't do that, but I probably will sometime. 

Instead, I just check the motives of characters that are likely to do things that will affect the world my players are engaging with and have them do the things they would do during the week of downtime between sessions.