Prep a D&D session with AI

What does this setup do?

Prep a D&D session with AI: turn last session’s notes and the party’s plans into organized prep covering locations, NPCs, scenes, secrets, and encounters.

Who is it for?

Dungeon Masters who want a solid session in under an hour instead of a scattered evening of prep.

How do you set it up?

Tools

• ChatGPT or Claude (free tier is fine)
• Last session’s notes or a two-sentence recap
• What the party plans to do next (ask them if you do not know)

Steps

1. Ask your players what they plan to do next session. Prep guides agree this matters most: it narrows everything you prepare to the area they will actually visit.
2. Write a two-sentence recap of last session: where the party is, what just happened, which threads are open.
3. Feed the recap plus the party’s plans into the prompt. Ask for the six prep categories DMs use: Locations, Characters, Scenes, Secrets, Monsters, and Loot, each with brief 1 to 3 sentence descriptions.
4. Get your secrets list. The Lazy DM checklist calls for about ten secrets and clues per session: single-sentence facts, kept separate from how the party might discover them.
5. Ask for one strong start: a single descriptive sentence framing where the session begins. Then outline potential scenes in a few words per line, without getting attached to them.
6. Plan one or two fantastic locations per hour of play, each with an evocative name and three descriptive aspects. For NPCs, keep it to a name, their connection to the story, and an archetype.
7. Read the whole thing once and cut half. Anything the party will never reach is clutter. Keep the prep to one page you can glance at mid-session.

Help me prep my next D&D session. I am the DM.

Last session recap: [e.g. "The party cleared the goblin warren under Thornford and learned the stolen grain shipments were bound for Castle Dusk"]
Where the party is headed: [e.g. "They plan to travel to Castle Dusk to investigate"]
Party: [e.g. "4 players, level 5: fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard"]
Session length: [e.g. "3 hours"]

Give me session prep organized as:
1. Strong start: one descriptive sentence framing where the session begins.
2. Locations: 1-2 fantastic locations per hour of play. Each: evocative name plus three descriptive aspects.
3. Characters: NPCs they will likely meet. Each: name, connection to the story, one-line archetype.
4. Scenes: potential scenes, a few words per line. Do not over-plan; the players will surprise me.
5. Secrets and clues: about 10 single-sentence facts the party could discover.
6. Monsters and encounters: encounters that fit the scenes and location. Treat challenge ratings as a loose gauge.
7. Loot: what they might find, nothing campaign-breaking.

Rules:
- Keep every entry to 1-3 sentences. This must fit on one page.
- Do not decide what the players do. Prep situations, not plots.
- Flag anything that contradicts my recap.

Review the prep before the session. I run the game; this is raw material, not a script.

Which chat tools work with this prompt?

Paste the prompt into any of these assistants (free or paid tiers).

• ChatGPT
• Claude

What tips make it smoother?

• The players’ plans are the best prep filter. Five minutes asking "what are you doing next week" saves an hour of prepping the wrong dungeon.
• Secrets are the engine. Ten single-sentence facts give you something to reveal no matter where the session goes.
• Prep situations, not plots. The moment your prep assumes the party goes left, they go right. Scenes as bullet points survive contact with players; scripts do not.

Where do the claims come from?

Summaries use public sources linked below, not independent verification. How setups are picked.

• Read DragnaCarta (Flutes Loot)’s write-up (www.flutesloot.com)

  DragnaCarta (Flutes Loot): Three-step prep pipeline and the six prep categories: Locations, Characters, Scenes, Secrets, Monsters, Loot.

• Read World Anvil (summarizing the Lazy DM checklist)’s write-up (www.worldanvil.com)

  World Anvil (summarizing the Lazy DM checklist): Session building blocks: strong start, scene outlines, ten secrets per session, fantastic locations, brief NPCs.