How Much Planning Goes Into Your Gameplay?

So... when you've been sitting behind the GM's screen as long as I have, you learn to make... adjustments in your session planning based on your players. Thanks to one particular player who got in the habit of finding the fastest shortcut through a plot due to a railroad happy previous GM, I tend to plan an inciting incident, the characters who can help, the characters who will hinder, and my intended "victory conditions" and improv the path to get there, keeping in mind which PC I intend to highlight that story and any themes and story arcs I may have going on.

I apply about that same amount of planning to my Sims play, with the added backstory of my main characters, since the characters being featured are always mine. :smiley: