How do I plan my second session?

[glossy estuary]

Hii! I'm a new DM and ran my first ever session last week which was really successful and was just wondering how to plan and prepare the second session? Any tips are most appreciated! <3

[cunning ridge]

First, congratulations on a successful first session!

You'll get different answers depending on who responds here, but most of us will suggest prepping situations and letting plot develop from how the players respond to those situations. To keep your situations going, you'll want to think about what the players did in the first session and what the consequences of those actions might have been. Then prepare and keep at hand some things you can quickly generate or reference at the table, usually things you can't or don't want to improvise (for me that's NPCs and various adventure seeds, both of which I inject randomly to keep things from feeling too linear). I also like to have some tables of things that reinforce the flavor of my setting, but you may not want/need that if you're in a regular fantasy world with all the regular fantasy tropes. And finally, you might want to spend time on some specific adventure locations if you are pretty sure the PCs will be going that direction, though you can easily over-prep this way.

You can spend time creating encounters ahead of time, but keep in mind that players may make choices that don't bring those encounters into play.

[glossy estuary]

ooooo okie firstly thank you so very much for the advice its super helpful!! - and secondly, would you recommend its better to plan out the towns and npc's first and then create the dungeon/monster encounters for that session? or vice versa?

(sorry if i explained that badly xD )

[harsh pier]

it really depends on the campaign, honestly, and the sort of group you're working with

if the group is more into town action RPing, you'll want to set up the town and the NPCs.

if you got a bunch of combat hounds that enjoy killing things on graph paper, get those encounters squared away.

otherwise, take your best guess and/or do whatever sounds more interesting for you

[modern verge]

I would recommend the dungeon and monsters first, if only because that’s most likely the source of conflict in the session. I find that understanding the conflict is one of the most important parts of prep work.

[glossy estuary]

yeah that's probably smart thank you very much! :>

[glossy estuary]

okie thank you so much :))))

[brave condor]

Personally, I go back to my cellar filled with billions of documents scattered around which I threw down here because I prepared it and my players never got around to it, and then I hope to reuse some of it.

Jokes aside (not really pls i need help), focus on what is the most important aspect to your game and divide your attention to it. If your players like a great story with story-driven combat, then focus on what steps are coming up next in regards to forwarding the story. Don't overwork yourself unless you like torturing yourself and you deserve it.

Good luck with your next session and I hope it will be another success!