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When I was a young game master, I had all the time in the world to dive into rulebooks and all their extensions, devouring them cover to cover. To prepare a game session, I could spend hours, even days, creating monsters, NPCs (non-player characters), and imagining how the story would unfold. I devoted so much time and energy that a cancellation or postponement would hurt me deeply. Over time, responsibilities and priorities changed: studies, partner, children, work, house, etc. Time became a rare resource and it's impossible to continue creating stories like before. Nowadays, my preparation time for a session ranges between 0 and 4 hours, but most often, I only dedicate an hour. Fortunately, technology has helped me become more efficient in creating stories and preparing game sessions. I use artificial intelligence without hesitation to generate ideas or structure a draft. Being far from the players, we use Roll20 to play online, and when we play Dungeons & Dragons, I use monsters whose tokens have already been created in advance. The players understand that I can no longer be as meticulous as before, and from time to time, an inconsistency or contradiction might slip into the story. To help me, I developed a storytelling technique I personally call "The Pantry Technique." ## The Importance of Player Impact One thing I've noticed about players is their enjoyment when they have an impact on the story. Although very structured scenarios have their advantages, a freer structure can offer something epic if well-prepared. The Pantry Technique applies the 20/80 principle, or Pareto's law, to have many more elements ready to be used spontaneously during a game session. When you prepare a quest for the next session, 20% of the time you spent in preparation contributes to 80% of the fun you'll have during the session. You just need to focus on the essentials and sacrifice what would make a quest worthy of being published by Wizards of the Coast. Achieving a very high-quality level represents 80% of preparation time and only contributes to 20% of the fun with friends. ## Concrete Examples **Traditional Method:** A group of adventurers is hired by a noble to retrieve a magical item hidden in a forgotten dungeon. The number of traps, difficulties, and locations are predetermined. There is a map with monsters already placed for potential encounters. The game master has determined the magical item's power and the characters' reward. The rival adventurers' group integrated into the quest has been created along with their NPC sheets containing their powers, special abilities, etc. The objectives of the rival group are determined. **Pantry Technique:** The game master decides that a mysterious dungeon and a mysterious item exist. Without going into details, he establishes that adventurers can hear about it through rumors, a riddle, a player's contact, or through a noble who wishes to hire them. An AI can create a good riddle and often contacts have already been created during previous sessions. Use as much as possible an element related to a player or an event from a previous session: a player's tendency to highlight his rogue's attention to rumors, a riddle engraved on a portal that was not ultimately used in a previous session, or adapting to let players discover documents and maps in the noble's chest they decided to steal on a whim. Give a few clues that lead in all directions at once and let the players take the direction they want. This can be one of the paths you planned or a completely new path. Do not hesitate to reuse differently what you have already created. For example, if the player didn't use the riddle, you can reuse it as a ward for the magical item. Also, if the role-play with the rival group lends itself well, feel free to change your mind and integrate an unbeatable monster unless they ally with the famous group. The player will have a lot of fun using his character's incredible persuasion power. The Pantry Technique is about keeping all these role-play elements in mind without going in-depth and using them spontaneously. Combining elements from players' role-play and incorporating a few of them together can be particularly successful because it will feel like a long-planned climax. That said, it's not as easy as it sounds. ## Conclusion Improvisation is not always necessary. Players may be tired and prefer to simply follow the game master's default quest. They may dive headfirst into your basic quest thinking they have disrupted your plans. Just keep the role-play elements in mind for future use. Perhaps the rival group they allied with will save them in extremis in a future quest. Perhaps the magical item is cursed and will be the object of another future quest. Sometimes amusing things happen like a player inventing a phobia of spiders for their character or even a love story with an NPC. When that happens, put it in your pantry for later.