It doesn't make any difference what others think--if you want to make your world ultra-detailed, do it. It'll make your job easier.

The barometer I personally use for whether or not the world needs to be detailed is the DM/GM's ability to improvise on the fly. If, like me, that's not one of your strengths, then you need to at least have a skeleton or broad outline so you don't end up going "Uh, derr...um?" when the players throw you a curve ball. The level of detail of that outline depends exactly on your ability to roll with the players.

The main problem is that DMs/GMs tend to want to tell a specific story that they went to a lot of trouble to outline, while players tend to want to play in a freeform sandbox, and they view the DM/GM as the "computer" that deals with encounters and narrative. So, unless you're very good at improvising on the fly and remembering the details that you came up with after the session, you really ought to design a sandbox.

Also, don't get too attached to any specific story that you want to tell, because odds are the players WILL throw you a curveball and derail the plot you wanted them to follow. In fact, come up with as many different stories as possible, then try and connect them together somehow at the major plot points of each story. That way, you'll cover as many bases as possible and have at least some sort of clue where to roll with the punches.

What I personally like to do is start with the seed of a base story. At each major plot point, I try to think of at least a few different choices (like one of those Choose Your Adventure books), then I flesh those out in a recursive process. It's a lot of work, and it won't cover ALL of the bases, and you still need to be able to improvise on the fly, but it'll help you be more prepared.

-Mel

I stopped preparing more than 1 session in advance, and even then, it consists of about 10 note cards.

Most recently my group attempted to convince a dwarven city to stop dumping it's slag out the front door into the nearby river, it didn't go over well. After finding out the dwarves major cities had been sacked by an unknown force, one of the players said screw it, I am going off on my own to find out who they are, leaving the rest of the group behind. So, why prepare, someone always disregards my plan and does there own thing anyways, better to play largely off the cuff. If I come up with something relevant I write it down for future reference.

Most of the time my female players are all trying to sleep with each other anyways, so why bother writing anything, what they come up with is plenty entertaining for the 2 guys (myself included) in the group. My group has 6 players. Yeah, my groups perverts are all female.

I recommend lining both sides of your intended path with Elder Gods and/or Ragnarok-just-caught-you-naked traps. That way, side tracking will be interesting but very very short.

Lotus: Where do you all play? Just curious

I tend to try and DM sandbox style I have an overview document as to what major events are occuring in the world at large and I move these along as I feel I need. If the PC's like they can focus on one of these major events or ignore them it's totally their call, either way the events proceed. Outcomes can be changed by the players

Some pointers for on the flying.

~ Forget the Monster manual, pick out about 6-8 monster templates for their current lvl. Simply grab these when your on the flying but describe as whatever you want. 6 tentacled purple blobs or scaryworms that drop out of the ceiling and grab them. It's te description/action of the critter the Players see not the stats.

~ Scatter items, random keys bits of maps anything (don't over do it or your players will look like junk merchants). When you need to tie one of these items into your story it'll look like you planned the key 5 sessions back when really your just adlibing it in , but the players don't know this.

~ Don't be afraid to call a 5min time out if you need to arrange your thoughts.

~ keep a pile of maps and layouts handy and a rough list of NPC's.

~ Bend/ad-lib the rules as you feel it's needed, my players are used to me doing this now, although it annoys rules lawyer players but from an apprehensive player perspective they never know what their going to get so it normally creates more suspense/fear/excitement .

Check out Gnome Stew lots of great pointers there: http://www.gnomestew.com/

Main thing is have fun and don't worry if something doesn't go to plan, your players will never know .

Never underestimate the power of a party to mess up a great adventure.

I've grappled with this for years. and along the way have learned one basic rule: if the players can go any other way, they will.

An extension to this rule is that the party will ignore or misinterpret any clue that is not clearly spelled out in 60' foot high neon lights using small words and short sentences

What seems to work best is giving the players REALLY obvious clues about their next destination (e.g. the map with the location clearly identified; the name of the person they need to talk with, who just happens to be known to everyone they ask; etc.).
Even then they can still get it wrong. So make sure you have a backup clue to use when they mess up the first one.

Also, always find a way to give the party the essential clues needed to keep the adventure going, no matter what they do or how stupid they are.
For example, if the party has to talk to someone to get an important piece of information, they assume they will find a way to muck this up really badly (e.g. accidentally kill the contact or offend them so badly that they refuse to talk with the party). So do something like prepare a piece of paper containing the essential information and have the party find it after they've ruined the contact.

I just noticed Gnome stew has an open article on this very topic at the moment

Sorry I only check their about once a fortnight:

http://www.gnomestew.com/uncategorized/ ... -do-you-do

thanks for all the awesome replies guys. lots of good stuff here. i think what i'm going to do is to follow the DM guides formula somewhat. that is, create my world (realms, city names, locations, etc) and give back story on each place. and then come up with something about that place that's going on at the moment. and then finally, come up with 1 or 2 npc's for each location...maybe they are in the middle of the "thing" that's going on at the location.

i'm not talking about 47 pages of back story dating back 1000 years or anything, but just maybe how the place came to be (if it's some ruins or something like that. or maybe a dark forest and how it became "dark"). and then go into what's going on at the location, and who's involved. i found myself creating that kind of thing for one of my towns, and then immediately i was able to come up with some side stories on the fly about how altering events in this city will effect everything else.

to me this gives the DM (me ) a sense of knowing what is going on in my world. so if the players walk up to a dungeon that i've painfully created over 3 days and say "screw it, let's go chop down some trees"....i'll at least be able to tell them that the closest forest is a "dark forest" or whatever and what happened there. and also, why there are gnomes knitting sweaters in the middle of the forest. . the rest i can make up on the fly.

....so.....i think i'm starting to feel better about my next dm session. THANKS so much for the tips guys. it really helps to hear what experienced dm's are doing. i have quite a bit of work ahead of me in creating my world, but it's kinda fun to do it, so no biggie. plus i'm a planner and a rules nazi so i gotta have everything lined up in advance so that if my players want to destroy my sandbox, that's cool....i just need to know what happens as a result in the country next door to where they are!

I try to give out a one-page handout giving an overview on the setting, genre, and major tropes/character types I see as important. This helps me make sure that the players and me agree on the kind of game we're playing; so people won't bring their barbarian hermit to my game of courtly intrigue.