This is a question for GMs and players alike...

Do you prefer plans to be well conceived and detailed, or do you prefer a more free-form approach to planning?

Personally, I prefer bullet points. Assess the situation in broad strokes, affect each point with a plan and a simple back- up plan in the event things go ploin shaped, and deal with details only as they arise. Here's why:

Minutiae drags game play to a crawl. The interesting bits (ie: actually doing something) are minimized, over quickly, and ultimately less fulfilling.

I've taken to giving my players 3-5 bullet points, asking them to consider which of them is best qualified to address each, asking for "extended" checks -one check ahead of time to represent their planning, handing out boost for good role play and ideas, and another roll when the bullet points actually become an issue- and leaving the so-called minutiae to the final tally of results. I set a time frame for each bullet point, which determines the base time required to complete the entire operation. Maybe I set a # of Success requirement, maybe 1 Success is enough, but I keep the players in the dark about that, for tension. I keep a tally of the other results as well, and those determine boons or bungles in the plan, but only as each bullet point arises.

If left to themselves, many players will spend entire sessions doing nothing but planning, fretting about details and possible snags, and creating elaborate backup plans and contingencies. I'd prefer them to deal which situations as they arise rather than spend four hours playing "but if".

I'll start by saying I don't believe there is any right or wrong way to GM as long as you're work with your players and everybody is good with your methods/style.

With my PCs I provide enough flavor details to set the scene and mood and allow them to do the rest. I keep the details as brief as possible as to not bog them down, but feel it's their story and they should be in control of the hows, whys, whats, wheres, & whens of their actions. Partly because I've found that PCs have a tendency to lay waste to ridgid plans so I decided to just go with it.

So far it's been a blast doing this. They're having a load of fun even if it's fighting over how to achieve a task. That has caused some rather unexpected results from what I had intended for. That's part of why I allow for it. Keeps their world their own. Gives them a more dynamic or open world feel.

But that's how I run my games and it works with my players. Every group is different and each has their own definition of fun.

If left to themselves, many players will spend entire sessions doing nothing but planning, fretting about details and possible snags, and creating elaborate backup plans and contingencies. I'd prefer them to deal which situations as they arise rather than spend four hours playing "but if".

I think this isn't a function of bullet points vs detail, instead it's a function of time pressure. If the players have no ticking clock to plan against, then sure, they'll take forever. Sometimes my players seem to want to have a committee meeting while a rancor is bearing down on them, to which the antidote is "well, he was at extreme range, but now he's at long range..."

Every movie plan or heist is up against a clock, sometimes several. They might have a week to "plan", but in that time they also have to get the equipment, steal the codes, bribe the guards, etc. And there are often complications. So if there are enough ticking clocks, their plans will become bullet points by necessity.

I stick with bullet points because things rarely go as I foresee.

This is a question for GMs and players alike...

Do you prefer plans to be well conceived and detailed, or do you prefer a more free-form approach to planning?

Personally, I prefer bullet points. Assess the situation in broad strokes, affect each point with a plan and a simple back- up plan in the event things go ploin shaped, and deal with details only as they arise. Here's why:

Minutiae drags game play to a crawl. The interesting bits (ie: actually doing something) are minimized, over quickly, and ultimately less fulfilling.

I've taken to giving my players 3-5 bullet points, asking them to consider which of them is best qualified to address each, asking for "extended" checks -one check ahead of time to represent their planning, handing out boost for good role play and ideas, and another roll when the bullet points actually become an issue- and leaving the so-called minutiae to the final tally of results. I set a time frame for each bullet point, which determines the base time required to complete the entire operation. Maybe I set a # of Success requirement, maybe 1 Success is enough, but I keep the players in the dark about that, for tension. I keep a tally of the other results as well, and those determine boons or bungles in the plan, but only as each bullet point arises.

If left to themselves, many players will spend entire sessions doing nothing but planning, fretting about details and possible snags, and creating elaborate backup plans and contingencies. I'd prefer them to deal which situations as they arise rather than spend four hours playing "but if".

If I just do bullet points, they want the most detailed minutia imaginable -- they'll see their new employer at a press conference, and want to know reporter's names, network affiliations, the networks' typical spins on issues, etc, etc, etc.

If I spend hours in game prep coming up with the names and network affiliation of every reporter, what their preconceived slant is on the issues at hand, etc, for a press conferences that's going to take up less than 5 minutes of game time, and that the players are only going to observe... they'll move along to the next thing and never touch on it.

I have a bullet points draft, that evolves accordingly with player actions and interests.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/205326-work-in-progress-of-my-fd-campaign-world-building/?p=2098177

Bullet points and an internet link to Wookieepedia.

As a rule of thumb, I'm anti-planning when it comes to RPGs. Unlike real life (well, usually...), role-playing games don't provide enough data points to put together a good plan. The dice-rolling and the improvisational dialogue are there to gloss over the prep-work.

Good plot comes from character motivation. I create NPCs with motivations and goals instead of story arcs. The story arcs and plots grow out of the conflicting motivations between the npcs and pcs. Plus it makes the campaign more fluid, real and adaptable.

I spend most of my time writing potential Lore and other Knowledge checks for places, people, events, and special items. That's where all of my depth goes. The reason why is because these things always come up, and they're always useful.

I go in this order:

1. Star System

2. Planet/moon/location

3. Factions involved

4. Specific features/cities/points of interest of location

5. Specific people involved with the factions

6. Specific people involved with specific features/cities/points of interest

Whatever your plot is, it's going to include all of that - or at least it should. Going through this list and organizing it will take care of a lot of your problems. And for everything else, I always fall back on one simple rule:

"If I don't have awesome Lore for it... it probably isn't important. It doesn't matter, unless it does."

And if doesn't matter, I don't sweat it. It's the players' job to search for the story. Not to play Table-Top "Committee Decision About Useless, Boring, Crap Simulator."

If it's good enough to be awesome, I probably thought about it. If I didn't - it probably sucks. In the off chance that it doesn't suck, and I legit didn't consider it - then it's either legit awesome, or not. The test is whether or not it makes me think of something I can immediately riff on. If I can - then it's legit awesome. If I can't - then it legit sucks anyway, and I still don't care.

I keep the structure of my plot as an outline. Giving them detailed lore is kind of a must. But you want short, concise, effective notes for things you need to know, but don't need to tell them. If the players are on point - then it's cool. If they aren't - then I have the Lord and Knowledge to fall back on.

Players who spend forever on simple challenges need a simple kick in the butt. Enforce penalties and reward decisive action. Some debate is always good, and it's inevitable. You don't want to kill discussion. The players should be conversing. But if you've got a 6 hour session, and they've spent 2 of them deciding on whether or not they should push a stupid button because they don't know what it does: the answer is clearly, "Don't push it."

Indecision IS a decision. And I have no time for people who don't understand that.

At the end of the day, you are the GM, and you have a lot of responsibility. But you're playing the game, too. You can't let people waste your time on superfluous nonsense just because they think it's incredibly interesting to collect butterflies and other insects that don't exist in the first place.

I think Sixgun put it the best. Once you know who your NPCs are and what they want and what they're willing to do to get it everything else is kind of superfluous. Of course, it never hurts to have material prepped about things like location and local history and other errata. Personally, I like to map out the entire location the adventure will be taking place, (I'm not talking down to the inch or anything like that but I should know what the name of the cantina is) populate it with a few named NPCs, and from there I just let the players do what they want. They're usually good about not taking too long doing stupid stuff and if they are it's always a good idea to know which group of ruffians, be they storm troopers or swoop gangers, is most likely to turn the corner and ruin their day.