Hi! I'm running a campaign as a DM since a while but has some trouble running encounters fast/smoothly and would be curious about tips, preparation, tools or any way to improve. For the context
I got a group of 7 players, with generally 5 of them present on any given session.
We play quite often (once a week) but for short sessions (2h at worse, 3h30 at best).
We like to play and are involved in it, but we're also adults with lives and kids and jobs and so we're generally somewhat tired (me, the DM, included).
I've a laptop in face of me instead of a DM screen (got my notes, scenarios, etc), including internet access
We're playing combats on a grid (either a blank one I draw on or a premade one from a sourcebook)
I've no issue "investing" a bit in tools/sourcebooks/anything that could help
I'd like to run more encounters (the players want it too), but it tend to be slow/sluggish on both sides (I need time to get my monsters stats, follow their hit points, etc, players tend to need some too). I mostly look for tips on the DM/my side.
Any tip/tools/best practice/whatever on how to run encounter smoothly most welcome - thanks!
It's a little difficult to make combat go 'fast' with that many people, especially if you're playing more than three monsters in the fight (adds up pretty quick). Prep helps. Try to read over the statblocks you'll be using before the session. This doesn't have to be a long time of 'studying' just familiarize yourself with the monster and what they can do. Unless your group is a very 'by the book' style of play, it's okay if you as the DM fudge your stats a little to make things more interesting. Like, if you can tell the players are getting tired and the monster still has 100 hp left, maybe knock it down to 30 or 40. I know it might seem like cheating, but you're the DM, and part of your job is to engage the players, and if combat as written isn't engaging, its perfectly within your right to change it up. another helpful thing could be a timer for combat. Depends on how green your players are, and this might intimidate some people, but using a timer for each initiative bracket could help speed combat up a little. (Each person's turn is a minute and a half, something like that, it will vary based on your group). Some verbal encouragement to the players to roleplay what's happening on their turn or to mind the other players' turns doesn't hurt either, as long as they're okay with it.
the best things I've found is honestly to use visuals like you're already doing with the board, and narrate what's going on each turn so everyone has a sense of what's happening at all times. The great news is it sounds like your players are already engaged and enjoying your combat, they just want more of it. If you can run with that energy and everyone is devoted to keeping the game going, you'll be fine
My fast pace rules: Trashmobs have only three states instead of hp: healthy, wounded, dead. That's easy to track. High damage rolls and they instantly bite the dust.
Serious opponents have 5 states of health. Healthy, wounded, heavily wounded, still alive, dead. Crits skip a state. (Nothing feels better than critting a "strong" enemy to death.)
Only Bosses have hp, and a considerable amount at that. When they take damage, round up. they take 3, subtract 5, they take 7, subtract 10.
Its tense when players are at 1 hp, but they'll never need to know if the BBEG had 2 or 9 hp left when the out-of-spells wizard decided to stab him in the neck with his quill sharpener in a hail mary maneuver..
What are you hoping to be able to do? In 2-3.5 hours, I don't see finishing more than 1 or 2 encounters in a session. And at high levels, or when casters start summoning things, it will likely go down to just 1 per session.
Honestly, 1 encounter per session is the best I could imagine with that length of time, even with 4 players. And you can forget any kind of real role playing occurring in the same session. The vague exception would be two back to back encounters. That was my experience when running an online VTT with decent automation and I imagine it would be slower IRL with standard pen and paper.
Still, one thought. Create flash cards for the most relevant monster stats and organize them according to initiative (possibly also create cards for the players, but not necessary). Make sure to put down HP, AC, Saving Throws, and Basic Attacks. Use the cards to track HP and any Conditions as they occur.
My fast pace rules: Trashmobs have only three states instead of hp: healthy, wounded, dead. That's easy to track. High damage rolls and they instantly bite the dust.
Serious opponents have 5 states of health. Healthy, wounded, heavily wounded, still alive, dead. Crits skip a state. (Nothing feels better than critting a "strong" enemy to death.)
Only Bosses have hp, and a considerable amount at that. When they take damage, round up. they take 3, subtract 5, they take 7, subtract 10.
Its tense when players are at 1 hp, but they'll never need to know if the BBEG had 2 or 9 hp left when the out-of-spells wizard decided to stab him in the neck with his quill sharpener in a hail mary maneuver..
I apologize if this is rudimentary, but building and running encounters through the DnD Beyond Encounter Builder is a great way to run initiative, and track hit points. Your monster HP is clickable from the initiative order, as are all their stats. It is a pretty good tool..
I handed off a few things to the players, like giving one the initiative order, and calling out who was up, who was on deck, and who was in the hole. This serves as a reminder to the players coming up in the initiative order to get ready and be ready.
Find a way to streamline Conjure Animals, Animate Object and other time-consuming summoning spells. (One of our players made a macro for his Animate Objects spell that saved us from ten attack and damage rolls.) We also generally peer pressure everyone to avoid using these spells, so they come into play sparingly. Besides, with 7 players already, do you really need/want another ten "allies" clogging the turns?
We run games in person, all with laptops and we use Roll20, a free virtual table with adventures coming with everything in it, from monsters statblocks, tokens, maps, and narrative text, magic items, handouts etc...
It saves the DM a lot of time especially with maps and monsters, and is well organized with initiative turn tracker,5E character sheets etc..
I would supplement your laptop with a tablet on a stand to have the stat blocks handy (e.g. in some picture viewer software making it easy to flip between them)
Try to prep some prefered tactics of the party's opponents and have those laid out in notes on paper you my need a DM screen or somesuch for this
Hi! I'm running a campaign as a DM since a while but has some trouble running encounters fast/smoothly and would be curious about tips, preparation, tools or any way to improve. For the context
I got a group of 7 players, with generally 5 of them present on any given session.
We play quite often (once a week) but for short sessions (2h at worse, 3h30 at best).
We like to play and are involved in it, but we're also adults with lives and kids and jobs and so we're generally somewhat tired (me, the DM, included).
I've a laptop in face of me instead of a DM screen (got my notes, scenarios, etc), including internet access
We're playing combats on a grid (either a blank one I draw on or a premade one from a sourcebook)
I've no issue "investing" a bit in tools/sourcebooks/anything that could help
I'd like to run more encounters (the players want it too), but it tend to be slow/sluggish on both sides (I need time to get my monsters stats, follow their hit points, etc, players tend to need some too). I mostly look for tips on the DM/my side.
Any tip/tools/best practice/whatever on how to run encounter smoothly most welcome - thanks!
Best practices are going to vary wildly from DM to DM. How much are you leveraging D&D Beyond? Are you world building or using WotC's published content? How much if any time do you set aside for encounter design? Have you looked at any of the virtual table tops ? once they are set up they can aid in encounter design
- DND Beyond: I have it trying to use the encouter runner but find it a bit cumbersome for now. Having access to the monstre sheets really help, and I can set it up before the session which is good.
- VTT: as we play "offline", having a physical grid/figurine on the table works better (we don't want to play each on our laptops) - now I'm not sure if a hybrid setting could help (ie having the VTT run on my laptop and replicating one way or another) ? Any you'd recommand, specifically to run encounters ?
- VTT: as we play "offline", having a physical grid/figurine on the table works better (we don't want to play each on our laptops) - now I'm not sure if a hybrid setting could help (ie having the VTT run on my laptop and replicating one way or another) ? Any you'd recommand, specifically to run encounters ?
There are people that use a VT such as Roll20 or Fantasy Ground and display maps on a flat screen TV laid down and play with miniature directly on it.
I preload the party, NPCs and monsters into a spreadsheet that shows stats and weapon to hit and damage. I have to remember the spells. That's usually where I screw up. I forget this monster would use their cool spell. But at the start of combat I have already rolled initiative for the non-party. The party rolls initiative and I use the spreadsheet's sort function to place all the entities into initiative order. The spreadsheet helps me quickly move through the order and keep things straight. The players mark damaged enemies. If the enemy get significant damage I describe it is "Bloodied" or "Staggering" or some other adjective that indicates he's pretty hurt. Unintelligent enemies generally charge straight in and focus whoever harmed them or if they've been fighting an enemy for two or three rounds they stick with that enemy. Smart enemies will draw attention and another group will swoop in from another angle. Many enemies will attempt escape if they are "near" death, although that varies with enemy.
So my prep involves preloading a spreadsheet with the mob and rolling initiative. Then, if I have more time, I go over all the extra combat abilities one more time. If I have loads of time, I may even run a practice battle and this helps me remember what spells are likely to come into play.
A couple of my players also try to help. One will write down the initiative and let people know whos next or remind me I was about to skip someone. Another tries to keep track of bane, bless, prone and all that stuff. We try to use markers and stuff.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
What are you hoping to be able to do? In 2-3.5 hours, I don't see finishing more than 1 or 2 encounters in a session. And at high levels, or when casters start summoning things, it will likely go down to just 1 per session.
Nonsense! 5 players in 2 hours can knock out at least three encounters, and here's how.
1) Efficient setup. Use simple or premade maps. (You can get a lot of mileage out of one map if you rotate it, use different starting positions, or connect it end-to-end with another map.) Don't try to find the exact right miniature for every monster -- use generic ones if possible, in fact. Say, red for one type of enemy, blue for the other, green for the big guy. Group them up, all the blue guys share one initiative.
2) Easier fights. Don't worry so much about CR. Just put stuff where it makes sense that stuff would be. End fights when it makes sense that enemies would surrender or flee. (Make it really clear that runners are defeated and aren't coming back to stab the party in their sleep. Nothing is more boring than a chase using combat rules.) Simple fights don't need grids. These include fights against one monster (even if it's not easy), fights in very small spaces, and fights against enemies with one obvious and dramatic tactical advantage (ex: archers in a tower). Just leave the grid out of it, it's faster.
3) Recap the situation each turn. "Rob, you're up. There's two goblins harassing Elmo, you can reach them but the goblin near you would hit you on the way over. What are you doing?" Deliver the info they can already plainly see. Seeing it and hearing it are two different things. Commit with your monsters. Technically they can shift tactics every turn but that's confusing and often meta, and confusion slows down play. That goblin will keep attacking Elmo. That means Klud can run up and heal him and Klud isn't worried about getting attacked by the same goblin. It's fine. I promise.
4) Model the behavior you want to see. You'll get quicker turns from your players if you make quicker turns yourself. RISK MISPLAYING. You're running games of attrition here, it doesn't matter if some of your fights are easier than you thought, because you have more. Likewise, you don't want your players spending a million years analyzing every possible choice on their turn every turn. But if every turn carries the threat of death then they will. If you always play perfectly then they will. They have to. So expand the margin for error.
5) Reduce ambiguity. Is this a room where the only thing to find is a piece of lore? Then don't let the players linger for ten minutes trying to make sure they're not missing the hidden treasure. The characters can linger. "You search the place for ten minutes and find only cobwebs" is 11 words. Very quick to say. Fast forward past meaningless choices. Don't say, "there's a door." Say, "as you open the door..." Note: If it's a trap, give them their roll to check. Pretend they're playing smart unless they tell you they're not.
You did not answer my second or third question. I don't like to assume so I will ask again are your world building or are you using Published material either by WotC or 3rd party Published material. How much time are you spending on encounter design.
My groups meet every other week on Sunday and Monday due to my work schedule we cannot play every week. Sunday Group mees via Foundry VTT and Discord (we are spread out over a three state area). Monday group meets in person we use the foundry for map presentation. one less thing i have to carry around ... We leverage D&D Beyond extensively in both groups for reference, character and encounter building.
I set aside two hours for encounter design I make eight combat, eight trap and two to four social encounters and the combat encounters take maybe a half an hour the traps half that the bulk of that two hours is social encounters. I Spend countless hours in any given week working on maps, designing NPC's, filling in areas of my game world.
As plaguescarred pointed out Flat screen tv's with a little work can be made into an effective battle map
Note VTT use does not nor should it imply everyone is behind a laptop... but it can be conjectured that we have access to a mobile device which can act as a character sheet via the D&D Beyond app. which means you could roll dice or use the apps integrated features to roll.
VTT that i can recommend
Maptool you can get it here. there are multiple frameworks you can use i suggest this one, Rod Takahara has a slick parser that you can paste monsters from DDB into and it will add it to the game Monster manual. Note Maptool is free, the Framework is free , the Maptool community is very active in both forums. so if you run into trouble you can ask question.
Roll20 is an option however in this case if you are using the free version you have limited storage and you would have to purchase the digital monster manual they are currently running a special sale for the DM Bundle to get more storage space you would have to invest in a subscription
As plaguescarred mentioned and my cousin would whole heartedly support there is also Fantasy Grounds. I do not suggest this unless you have more money than common sense as the VTT just to play is is either a subscription, everyone pays 39 for the standard license or the dm outlays 149 and that is before purchasing any books.
D20Pro is another option it there is a price tag but not nearly as steep as fantasy grounds at 50 dollars for a gm license which includes six guest licenses However its support for 5e is meager at best.
next on my list is The Foundry one time 50. dollar fee when combined with D&D Importer and D&D Beyond Gamelog both of these features are pay features but they vastly improve the quality of game life as players can opt to run their characters from the D&D Beyond App with the D&D beyond gamelog and the D&D Beyond can import content from D&D Beyond Monsters and encounters
Last is the Above VTT Chrome Addon which essentially can turn D&D Beyond into a VTT, and it is free.
Other Useful Links these are things that I have either used or it caught my eye at some point.
Hi! Thanks for the info. I'm using mostly home brew (we're used to that), even if I'm looking at some prebuilt material mostly to steal encounters. I'm not spending a lot of time in prep but this is an area I could spend more.
If I take your example, I'm generally well prepared on social encounters (those tend to form the core of our campaigns), but I need more on the encounter side if I want to make them run fluently.
The VTT for the DM only is something I did not though much about and need to do some tests - thanks.
Something I'm also looking at is using existing scenario and complement the social/story side while using their encounters.
Hi! I'm running a campaign as a DM since a while but has some trouble running encounters fast/smoothly and would be curious about tips, preparation, tools or any way to improve. For the context
I'd like to run more encounters (the players want it too), but it tend to be slow/sluggish on both sides (I need time to get my monsters stats, follow their hit points, etc, players tend to need some too). I mostly look for tips on the DM/my side.
Any tip/tools/best practice/whatever on how to run encounter smoothly most welcome - thanks!
It's a little difficult to make combat go 'fast' with that many people, especially if you're playing more than three monsters in the fight (adds up pretty quick). Prep helps. Try to read over the statblocks you'll be using before the session. This doesn't have to be a long time of 'studying' just familiarize yourself with the monster and what they can do. Unless your group is a very 'by the book' style of play, it's okay if you as the DM fudge your stats a little to make things more interesting. Like, if you can tell the players are getting tired and the monster still has 100 hp left, maybe knock it down to 30 or 40. I know it might seem like cheating, but you're the DM, and part of your job is to engage the players, and if combat as written isn't engaging, its perfectly within your right to change it up.
another helpful thing could be a timer for combat. Depends on how green your players are, and this might intimidate some people, but using a timer for each initiative bracket could help speed combat up a little. (Each person's turn is a minute and a half, something like that, it will vary based on your group). Some verbal encouragement to the players to roleplay what's happening on their turn or to mind the other players' turns doesn't hurt either, as long as they're okay with it.
the best things I've found is honestly to use visuals like you're already doing with the board, and narrate what's going on each turn so everyone has a sense of what's happening at all times. The great news is it sounds like your players are already engaged and enjoying your combat, they just want more of it. If you can run with that energy and everyone is devoted to keeping the game going, you'll be fine
Updog
My fast pace rules: Trashmobs have only three states instead of hp: healthy, wounded, dead. That's easy to track. High damage rolls and they instantly bite the dust.
Serious opponents have 5 states of health. Healthy, wounded, heavily wounded, still alive, dead. Crits skip a state. (Nothing feels better than critting a "strong" enemy to death.)
Only Bosses have hp, and a considerable amount at that. When they take damage, round up. they take 3, subtract 5, they take 7, subtract 10.
Its tense when players are at 1 hp, but they'll never need to know if the BBEG had 2 or 9 hp left when the out-of-spells wizard decided to stab him in the neck with his quill sharpener in a hail mary maneuver..
What are you hoping to be able to do? In 2-3.5 hours, I don't see finishing more than 1 or 2 encounters in a session. And at high levels, or when casters start summoning things, it will likely go down to just 1 per session.
Honestly, 1 encounter per session is the best I could imagine with that length of time, even with 4 players. And you can forget any kind of real role playing occurring in the same session. The vague exception would be two back to back encounters. That was my experience when running an online VTT with decent automation and I imagine it would be slower IRL with standard pen and paper.
Still, one thought. Create flash cards for the most relevant monster stats and organize them according to initiative (possibly also create cards for the players, but not necessary). Make sure to put down HP, AC, Saving Throws, and Basic Attacks. Use the cards to track HP and any Conditions as they occur.
I'm absolutely stealing this! Thank you.
I apologize if this is rudimentary, but building and running encounters through the DnD Beyond Encounter Builder is a great way to run initiative, and track hit points. Your monster HP is clickable from the initiative order, as are all their stats. It is a pretty good tool..
I handed off a few things to the players, like giving one the initiative order, and calling out who was up, who was on deck, and who was in the hole. This serves as a reminder to the players coming up in the initiative order to get ready and be ready.
Find a way to streamline Conjure Animals, Animate Object and other time-consuming summoning spells. (One of our players made a macro for his Animate Objects spell that saved us from ten attack and damage rolls.) We also generally peer pressure everyone to avoid using these spells, so they come into play sparingly. Besides, with 7 players already, do you really need/want another ten "allies" clogging the turns?
We run games in person, all with laptops and we use Roll20, a free virtual table with adventures coming with everything in it, from monsters statblocks, tokens, maps, and narrative text, magic items, handouts etc...
It saves the DM a lot of time especially with maps and monsters, and is well organized with initiative turn tracker,5E character sheets etc..
I would supplement your laptop with a tablet on a stand to have the stat blocks handy (e.g. in some picture viewer software making it easy to flip between them)
Try to prep some prefered tactics of the party's opponents and have those laid out in notes on paper you my need a DM screen or somesuch for this
Best practices are going to vary wildly from DM to DM. How much are you leveraging D&D Beyond? Are you world building or using WotC's published content? How much if any time do you set aside for encounter design? Have you looked at any of the virtual table tops ? once they are set up they can aid in encounter design
Hi!
- DND Beyond: I have it trying to use the encouter runner but find it a bit cumbersome for now. Having access to the monstre sheets really help, and I can set it up before the session which is good.
- VTT: as we play "offline", having a physical grid/figurine on the table works better (we don't want to play each on our laptops) - now I'm not sure if a hybrid setting could help (ie having the VTT run on my laptop and replicating one way or another) ? Any you'd recommand, specifically to run encounters ?
Martin
There are people that use a VT such as Roll20 or Fantasy Ground and display maps on a flat screen TV laid down and play with miniature directly on it.
I preload the party, NPCs and monsters into a spreadsheet that shows stats and weapon to hit and damage. I have to remember the spells. That's usually where I screw up. I forget this monster would use their cool spell. But at the start of combat I have already rolled initiative for the non-party. The party rolls initiative and I use the spreadsheet's sort function to place all the entities into initiative order. The spreadsheet helps me quickly move through the order and keep things straight. The players mark damaged enemies. If the enemy get significant damage I describe it is "Bloodied" or "Staggering" or some other adjective that indicates he's pretty hurt. Unintelligent enemies generally charge straight in and focus whoever harmed them or if they've been fighting an enemy for two or three rounds they stick with that enemy. Smart enemies will draw attention and another group will swoop in from another angle. Many enemies will attempt escape if they are "near" death, although that varies with enemy.
So my prep involves preloading a spreadsheet with the mob and rolling initiative. Then, if I have more time, I go over all the extra combat abilities one more time. If I have loads of time, I may even run a practice battle and this helps me remember what spells are likely to come into play.
A couple of my players also try to help. One will write down the initiative and let people know whos next or remind me I was about to skip someone. Another tries to keep track of bane, bless, prone and all that stuff. We try to use markers and stuff.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Nonsense! 5 players in 2 hours can knock out at least three encounters, and here's how.
1) Efficient setup. Use simple or premade maps. (You can get a lot of mileage out of one map if you rotate it, use different starting positions, or connect it end-to-end with another map.) Don't try to find the exact right miniature for every monster -- use generic ones if possible, in fact. Say, red for one type of enemy, blue for the other, green for the big guy. Group them up, all the blue guys share one initiative.
2) Easier fights. Don't worry so much about CR. Just put stuff where it makes sense that stuff would be. End fights when it makes sense that enemies would surrender or flee. (Make it really clear that runners are defeated and aren't coming back to stab the party in their sleep. Nothing is more boring than a chase using combat rules.) Simple fights don't need grids. These include fights against one monster (even if it's not easy), fights in very small spaces, and fights against enemies with one obvious and dramatic tactical advantage (ex: archers in a tower). Just leave the grid out of it, it's faster.
3) Recap the situation each turn. "Rob, you're up. There's two goblins harassing Elmo, you can reach them but the goblin near you would hit you on the way over. What are you doing?" Deliver the info they can already plainly see. Seeing it and hearing it are two different things. Commit with your monsters. Technically they can shift tactics every turn but that's confusing and often meta, and confusion slows down play. That goblin will keep attacking Elmo. That means Klud can run up and heal him and Klud isn't worried about getting attacked by the same goblin. It's fine. I promise.
4) Model the behavior you want to see. You'll get quicker turns from your players if you make quicker turns yourself. RISK MISPLAYING. You're running games of attrition here, it doesn't matter if some of your fights are easier than you thought, because you have more. Likewise, you don't want your players spending a million years analyzing every possible choice on their turn every turn. But if every turn carries the threat of death then they will. If you always play perfectly then they will. They have to. So expand the margin for error.
5) Reduce ambiguity. Is this a room where the only thing to find is a piece of lore? Then don't let the players linger for ten minutes trying to make sure they're not missing the hidden treasure. The characters can linger. "You search the place for ten minutes and find only cobwebs" is 11 words. Very quick to say. Fast forward past meaningless choices. Don't say, "there's a door." Say, "as you open the door..." Note: If it's a trap, give them their roll to check. Pretend they're playing smart unless they tell you they're not.
You did not answer my second or third question. I don't like to assume so I will ask again are your world building or are you using Published material either by WotC or 3rd party Published material. How much time are you spending on encounter design.
My groups meet every other week on Sunday and Monday due to my work schedule we cannot play every week. Sunday Group mees via Foundry VTT and Discord (we are spread out over a three state area). Monday group meets in person we use the foundry for map presentation. one less thing i have to carry around ... We leverage D&D Beyond extensively in both groups for reference, character and encounter building.
I set aside two hours for encounter design I make eight combat, eight trap and two to four social encounters and the combat encounters take maybe a half an hour the traps half that the bulk of that two hours is social encounters. I Spend countless hours in any given week working on maps, designing NPC's, filling in areas of my game world.
As plaguescarred pointed out Flat screen tv's with a little work can be made into an effective battle map
Note VTT use does not nor should it imply everyone is behind a laptop... but it can be conjectured that we have access to a mobile device which can act as a character sheet via the D&D Beyond app. which means you could roll dice or use the apps integrated features to roll.
VTT that i can recommend
Maptool you can get it here. there are multiple frameworks you can use i suggest this one, Rod Takahara has a slick parser that you can paste monsters from DDB into and it will add it to the game Monster manual. Note Maptool is free, the Framework is free , the Maptool community is very active in both forums. so if you run into trouble you can ask question.
Roll20 is an option however in this case if you are using the free version you have limited storage and you would have to purchase the digital monster manual they are currently running a special sale for the DM Bundle to get more storage space you would have to invest in a subscription
As plaguescarred mentioned and my cousin would whole heartedly support there is also Fantasy Grounds. I do not suggest this unless you have more money than common sense as the VTT just to play is is either a subscription, everyone pays 39 for the standard license or the dm outlays 149 and that is before purchasing any books.
D20Pro is another option it there is a price tag but not nearly as steep as fantasy grounds at 50 dollars for a gm license which includes six guest licenses However its support for 5e is meager at best.
next on my list is The Foundry one time 50. dollar fee when combined with D&D Importer and D&D Beyond Gamelog both of these features are pay features but they vastly improve the quality of game life as players can opt to run their characters from the D&D Beyond App with the D&D beyond gamelog and the D&D Beyond can import content from D&D Beyond Monsters and encounters
Last is the Above VTT Chrome Addon which essentially can turn D&D Beyond into a VTT, and it is free.
Other Useful Links these are things that I have either used or it caught my eye at some point.
Hi! Thanks for the info. I'm using mostly home brew (we're used to that), even if I'm looking at some prebuilt material mostly to steal encounters. I'm not spending a lot of time in prep but this is an area I could spend more.
If I take your example, I'm generally well prepared on social encounters (those tend to form the core of our campaigns), but I need more on the encounter side if I want to make them run fluently.
The VTT for the DM only is something I did not though much about and need to do some tests - thanks.
Something I'm also looking at is using existing scenario and complement the social/story side while using their encounters.