DM prep time with D&D

[Akrasia]

I spend A LOT of time preparing for sessions. I spend more time preparing than actually playing, but guess what, I like preparing for a session. I love working out cool class combinations and statting NPCs...

Yeah, I am sure that there are many DMs who feel this way as well, and for them prepping is a past time in itself.

There are many different kinds of DMs. I divide them, roughly, into 'engineers' (the ones who love all the 'crunch' and detail) and 'artists' (the ones who prefer to focus on world building, grand plots, etc.).

Most are a little of both, of course, but IME most DMs incline towards one or the other. However, a few 'uberDMs' are expert engineers and artists.

 

[ender_wiggin]

Yeah, I am sure that there are many DMs who feel this way as well, and for them prepping is a past time in itself.

There are many different kinds of DMs. I divide them, roughly, into 'engineers' (the ones who love all the 'crunch' and detail) and 'artists' (the ones who prefer to focus on world building, grand plots, etc.).

Most are a little of both, of course, but IME most DMs incline towards one or the other. However, a few 'uberDMs' are expert engineers and artists.

Lol. That's weird. I definately fit into your category as "artist", but I'm going to major in engineering....

 

[Akrasia]

Lol. That's weird. I definately fit into your category as "artist", but I'm going to major in engineering....

Heh, well one's tastes in DMing may differ from one's tastes or interests in other areas of life.

I spend my professional life working on detailed arguments (in the sense of contemporary analytical philosophy, not shouting at people). So when I DM, I want something completely different (that is, something more creative, less rigorous, etc.). I don't want more 'work'.

 

[maddman75]

Prepackaged adventures don't work for me. They almost uniformly come off as bland and railroady, unless I spend so much time reworking them that they really don't save any time. As for sticking to low levels, well I tried that. Players get upset if you tell them the campaign is going to end at 10th level.

 

[Akrasia]

Prepackaged adventures don't work for me. They almost uniformly come off as bland and railroady, unless I spend so much time reworking them that they really don't save any time. As for sticking to low levels, well I tried that. Players get upset if you tell them the campaign is going to end at 10th level.

Oh I agree. This is why I don't DM 3E anymore either.

But if one had to find 'time savers', ripping high-level NPCs and maps out of Dungeon might be one 'short cut'.

 

[dren]

Yes, DMing high level games is a task, I'll agree. But it's worth it, especially if you have really good players who show excitement, enthsuiasm and put in detail over both their game mechanics and storyline.

There are some good ideas listed here, but another is to just keep a notepad on you at all times...then jot them down when inspiration strikes you. When you are on a roll, you can crank them out beforehand, rather than the night before a game.

Another one is reuse and recycle: your own stuff! Yes, believe it or not, you can re-use many of the same baddies again and again, change the small details (hair colour, type of weapon/armor, their accent) as 95% of the npc is in areas that the PCs never see. Who cares if a fighter has ranks in climb, swim or animal handling??? Unless it is critical to a scenario or was previously encountered, most PCs won't (or shouldn't) tell the difference.

Lastly, I highly recommend a character creation program. Redblade 3.5 has saved me hundreds of hours of prep time. Use all of the free resources that are out there, ENworld, the Wizards freebie stuff, and even the 3.5 SRD sites are great at shaving time off.

 

[MadMaxim]

Well, I consider myself both an engineer and an artist, Akrasia, though I might be leaning a bit more to the engineering side of D&D. I do like to figure out how I can make this and that fit into the plot, but when it comes to statting the NPCs, I get really excited. But hey, I love numbers... Man, do I need a life...

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

You know, my first game I spent about two to four hours on prep time. My first few years of DMing were much the same. Sometimes I succeeded. Other times I failed.

But one thing I've managed to do is cut my time to less than an hour. This is how:

Make it up on the spot. Okay, so I know a rapier guy is here to challenge the thief. So, what.. 14 strength. He's a rogue/fighter. So, expertise. 2d6 sneak sounds good. Rest fighter. HP up to challenge - 5-15 more than PC.

Boom, excellent challenge. Hasn't failed me yet. It's also never failed when searching for a monster - I ignore CR and ECL. I check their MAIN abilities for how tough they are. If it's suitable for the level, I put it in.

Example of my pre-decent DM days. I faced the party against a large spider in a narrow corridor. Ouch, this thing had more hit points than the whole party and a base attack of +20, as well as nasty poisony stuff.

DM mistake 1: CR or ECL = anything making sense.

DM Mistake 2: Assuming anything but the bad guy or a powerful wizard will survive more than 12 given seconds of combat with the party, no matter the pc combination. They don't need stats; they need to make a decent challenge. Whats going to hit the fighter? Make your evil fighter able to hit it. Damage? Enough to be careful.

Maybe it's my players, but they will do anything in the world to hound an enemy to death if he's on the run. They won't let go. One personally leapt strait into a one way portal to the abyss so he could finish the BBEG.

So don't assume bad guys to survive in a fight. Smart bad guys realise that. They therefore don't prepare to fight; they prepare to prepare again.

You want to cut down your time. So; assume your guys will die, but only enough to give a decent challenge. (Or occasionally splat the odd unlucky player with a critical). Don't write them up other than (Ftr10,Rog8,Clr10). Look at the DM's book for a nifty picker of spells for relative levels. Don't prepare them all. Be smart; Prepare WHAT THEY WILL USE. Rnd1 Prismatic wall, Rnd 2 Dispel magic. Or whatever. Change only if neccesary; Your wizard won't be silly enough to let people get past without serious luck or smarts. He won't play fair.

Prepare about 5 rounds. Then teleport away. If you have a decent wizard, thats two dead PC's, a shitload of monsters to fight, dealing with Prismatic spray and he's teleported to the beach for a pina colada.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I spend roughly one hour preparing for each hour played, but only about 30% of that time is making stats. The rest of the time is figuring out what all my myriad of NPCs are up to and deciding what direction I'm trying to take the campaign with the next session. Hmm, when NPCs start leveling it can get kind of tedious, though, but only a bit more than usual.

I spend a lot of time because I want to, not because I feel I need to. For me, prep is almost as fun as the actual game, because I just love world building.

 

[Greatwyrm]

I spend roughly one hour preparing for each hour played, but only about 30% of that time is making stats.

That's pretty close to what I've experienced, too. We typically have on 10-11 hour session per month. I spend about that much time, in 2-3 hour chunks per night, planning the week before we play. Most of it is figuring out story stuff, then some stats, and treasure planning. Actually, I'd say the treasure and equipment planning is the most number crunching I do.