This is Part III in my series Lessons from the Tabletop: Things I’ve learned about project management from Dungeons & Dragons. Read Part I. Part II.
Many dungeon masters fall victim to the trap of over-preparation.
Spending a lot of time preparing a specific plan for a game can make it difficult to let go of that plan (as I wrote in Part II). One might conclude that planning is a waste of time. As an absolute, this could not be more wrong.
“Planning is essential. Plans are useless.”
Rather than preparing for one story, a good dungeon master prepares for any story.