So close... so far away

I keep hitting moments where I feel ready to start running a game, then feel overwhelmed considering all the bits that still need to get addressed before starting. I look at the encounters and think, 20-30 minutes prep and I'm ready to go. Then I remember all the details about exhaustion, wilderness travel, etc. That is more than a half an hour...

There is a difference between game prep and session prep. That is the crux of the lesson I'm learning. Session prep is probably not an issue for me. It flows pretty naturally out of the many years we've spent playing across 5+ versions of the game. There are aspects that need addressing, particularly how far you expect to get in the session, and any linking narrative to make it work. It is also helpful to look over the encounters you have planned in order to refresh your sense of the layout and setup, and to consider the motivations of the combatants you have in mind, both your own, and those of the party.

As for the game prep, part of the difficulty stems from my attempt to use the published adventure lines - last year, Storm King's Thunder, and currently, The Tomb of Annihilation - rather than build my own. When I've built my own, I've been able to choose an idea, build a hook to draw the party into the adventure, then develop the overarching story as the whole develops. With the published adventures, its necessary to familiarize yourself with the story arc as it exists, then identify the hooks (or create them) that will draw the party in.

This adventure, in particular, seems to incorporate a lot of tricky elements as part of the story process - such as the death curse, the environmental issues (exhaustion), and the randomness of travel conditions (everything from guides to survival checks to avoid getting lost). These require even more prep beyond familiarity with the storyline.

Fortunately, I think these can be managed pretty well with a basic outline of what checks need to be made, how often, and in what order and to what effect. Once the game is in progress, much of it will slip to the background (appropriately) as a series of checks, almost like the ones that have become unwritten checklists over the years. Namely, what is your marching order? Are you setting a watch during the night? What is the guard rotation going to be? And other similar considerations. What is concerning with this path is that there are several new elements to include, and effects that arise from how those elements develop.

Most of my concerns are from nerves in the end. The anxiety of beginning a new campaign. The concern over managing several new elements. At other times, I might have forgone some of them and just used the encounters, but with this adventure, those elements have been woven centrally into the narrative, so that you need to include them for it to flow correctly. Knowing this just adds to the anxiety. My initial fear is that mastering them will require hours of game prep prior to beginning session prep, but I'm confident that is only a response to the fear. In practice, the time will be much more reasonable. The key is to find the most efficient way to get a handle on how to manage them in-game.