The Incredible Heaviness of Randomness

As illustrated by the random dungeon generators at the back of AD&D DM's Guide and the need for an entire Monster Manual to create a quick run, effortlessly random scenarios are not an easy thing to achieve. But the work is worth it.

A little bit of structure

And while random charting has been a thing for at least a decade now, it was going on before. Still a level of detail prevents too much variation from session to session. This is especially helpful when the sit-downs may months or even a year apart from one another.

Making the sausage.

The product in hindsight.

Then when sitting down with the group that knows your every move and habit as a GM/author, from many, many, many times before; things don't have to be stressful. You aren't even certain where you're going. But the details line up, a suggestion of a plot gels with a roll of a couple dice, and the players have some ideas as to where they would like things to go as well. Things usually work out just fine.

A habit that I have as this sort of GM is to make notes keeping track of improved milieu from everybody at the table. This is both a good and bad thing. The continuity keeps the player's happy. When I have a change of mood, I still have to incorporate that pesky detail from earlier. The benefits though, PCs engaging in my universe using my own thoughts from three sessions ago, just means I can take my foot off the gas of cobbling stuff together and just worrying about the pacing.