DMs, what´s your preparation-to-enjoyment ratio?

DMs, what´s your preparation-to-enjoyment ratio?

I´m asking because I recently found something out: When I prepare less, my players have more fun. Last week I prepared nothing and everyone had a blast (with basically an extended bar brawl ending with a burnt down tavern and the characters in jail). Everyone told me how cool the adventure was and that they want to continue in this style.

I think one of the main reasons is, that I´m constantly present when improvising stuff. I think about how to create more enjoyment all the time. On the contrary, when running selfmade or premade adventures, I´m often not fully there, instead thinking about the next encounter, whether I should cut a few monsters or whatever.

Good observation on the "not fully there" thing.

I've had similar experiences, where I've been stressed out about going into a session unprepared, and it's turned out to be very memorable. However, it's the forethought and planning that allows me to create (or *try* to create) the pacing, foreshadowing, themes, NPC characterisation, and atmosphere that I think make a campaign memorable as opposed to a single session.

For me I think "winging" it is much easier when "winging" it with your own adventure ideas than trying to wing it with a published module. Just as you said, with a published module you tend to be thinking ahead and when the PCs do stray from what it covered you, as the DM, end up improvising on the fly while trying not to compromise something later on in the module.

If you improvise on the fly in your own adventure or ideas there much less worry of compromising something later on as it is easier to roll with it.

So for me, I find I need to spend more time prepping a published adventure in most cases than I do simply coming up with some basic ideas for plot hook and running with it on the fly.

I find that preparation increases my enjoyment. Of course, I enjoy prepping descriptions, cues, small snatches of flavour conversation, etc. Things to remind me how I was planning on running an encounter.


RC

I and my players, I think, have the best experience when there's a mix. Enough preparation that I have an idea of what might happen and how to react to different PC actions in a way that makes sense (and so that I don't slow the game down or seem unprepared), but likewise a loose enough hand on the tiller to let the game flow as it will.

In my experience, I find that the most important preparation is in the set-dressing department: Coming up with names for NPCs (even minor roles), envisioning interesting environments, and so on. These are the things that I find hardest to do creatively while under the pressure of the moment; if I don't prepare in this manner all my NPCs end up being named "Joe." I can wing, or fake, or look up stat blocks on the spot, but I can't come up with a name to save my life.

CharlesRyan said:

In my experience, I find that the most important preparation is in the set-dressing department: Coming up with names for NPCs (even minor roles), envisioning interesting environments, and so on. These are the things that I find hardest to do creatively while under the pressure of the moment; if I don't prepare in this manner all my NPCs end up being named "Joe." I can wing, or fake, or look up stat blocks on the spot, but I can't come up with a name to save my life.

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I have a *horrible* time coming up with names on the fly. Luckily I know this going into it and I keep a list of names in my binder that I can use on the spur of the moment.

Saved me just last session when the druid asked the guard of a small outpost village at the gate what his name was. Had I not had my list of names I would have stammered and come up with something lame. Instead, a quick glance at my list, the guard now has a name and I simply cross that name off the list. Once the list dwindles I go create some more names when I am not under pressure between sessions.

Just noticed that Gnome Stew has a post today about reducing prep time.

Prep-Lite Manifesto- The Template - Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog

In most cases, linerly increasing enjoyment with preparation time. There may be some tail off for very high levels of prep time, but I've never been able to get there. The tail off in enjoyment of the session is definately somewhere greater than 10 hours of prep per hour of game time, but of course, that's hard to achieve if you have any kind of life and there are diminishing overall returns on the enjoyment for the DM. Realistically, 1-2 hours of prep per hour of game time is a minimum necessary for real fun both for me as a DM, and me as a player under another DM.

You can really really tell the difference between the DMs that prep and do the work and those that don't. There are probably people out there that can improv well, but I've never met them. There are definately DMs out there that misinvest there time in the wrong sort of prep, but that's a different matter.

The more I prep, the more there is to do, the more likely any given choice by the players will have some immediate substance, the more likely there will be coherency, consistancy, and depth, the easier it is to improv successfully, and the less likely it is that there will be dead gaming time where everyone is bored and I'm struggling to figure out 'what happens next'.

IronWolf said:

Just noticed that Gnome Stew has a post today about reducing prep time.

Prep-Lite Manifesto- The Template - Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog

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I have two responces to his article.

First, he's spending his prep time on the things that really matter and which are hard to do under pressure. His template for creating adventures is as good of advice as I've seen for newbie DMs on how to prep. That's all good.

Secondly, with that amount of prep he can only run a simple linear adventure and THAT linear adventure. I don't think I've ever had a session go as predictably as that. I could see his template working, but only with about 3 to 4 times as much effort as he says he wants to put into it. And, while you could get away with a bottom-up template of a bigger area and more possibilities than he's prepping for (and in full confession, I've been doing it for a few weeks now), you are still going to get even better results out of fleshing out that template.

Seriously, unless you are just an absolute freakin' Game Master Master with 20 years of experience, you just aren't going to get away with 90 minutes of prep each week. And even then, you are going to essentially be relying on rehash. It's not even a reasonable goal. As a DM you should be aiming at least a 1:1 ratio of prep time to game time or you are cheating your players (and probably yourself). If you can't hack that, you can't DM, and I'm still awaiting the exception that disproves that after nearly 30 years of gaming.

These days more than 30 minutes of prep is too much. That's why I rarely use minis any more.

I definitely agree that my games are a lot more fun when I'm winging it.

Here are some of my rules on winging it:

1) Have an overall gameplan for the night -- even if it's just 2 lines worth of plot hooks.

2) Pre-written adventures are an invaluable tool. For me its maps and instant treasure lists. I spend a few minutes marking treasure with a highlighter. I am the the worst when it comes to on-the-fly treasure!

3) The players don't know when you've made a mistake. Don't flub around apologising! If it looks like the players reacted positively then act like that was your plan all along and run with it! I've had some awesome nights because of some misread lines in the read-out box (ah yes, the dreaded "giant stone crab" that was actually meant to be a "giant crab spider" -- one of my favourite accidental monsters that caused the players all sorts of amusement and grief).

4) Always keep a sheet of random names handy. No-one can quickly make up good names that don't start following similar patterns.

5) The golden rule when winging it -- make sure you scribble down some damn notes while you're making up all this bulldust! It's a real life-saver for the next session.

I used all of the above when I ran the players through Paizo's Final Resting Place adventure in Dungeon. By the end I was making whole parts of the adventure up just based on pictures in the adventure. It was a fabulous night (two PC deaths! Woo!) and I've had some great player feedback.

Edit: So, yes, pretty much the exact opposite of what Celebrim said there.