DMs: How Much of Your Prep Work Never Gets Used??

[der_kluge]

A better question is - is the time value of prep-work worth the payoff? One of my biggest complaints about d20 is that I might spend 30 minutes statting out some NPC or templated beast, only to have it slain in about a minute and a half.

There's just not any cost-benefit. This is especially true at higher levels.

 

[Meloncov]

Almost nothing a write doesn't get used eventualy. Most of the prep I do is either stating out creatures (which, if not used when planned, go in a file to be used later) and campaign world design

 

[Zappo]

Yesterday, the PCs were supposed to go into a mysterious tower to look for supplies for a trip through a barren land. Instead, they decided to take the long way through the jungle instead. So now I've got a mysterious tower which went unused. But this simply means that I'll find some other reason to send them there some time in the future.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I loose about 15% if I keep to planning to only the next session, 33% if I go 2 or more games ahead. Many adventure ideas get completely discarded, some can be altered to reuse. Most of the lost work is in statting up enemies, even if the idea gets reused, they have to be completely redone. Its not that the players take left turns, its that I come up with an idea that isn't fully fleshed out, or I miss the oppertunity to drop the hook into the adventure.
I statted up 4 locations on an island, but the party lacked the motivation to go exploring them, I had one hooks ready to go, but the players were hot on the trail of another quest, and the locations felt like sidetreks or interruptions. One location was designed to introduce a new PC, but her concept fit better in eleswhere.

 

[Crothian]

Exactly the same with me. I find myself retro-fitting my cool, unused ideas in later games.

Forget later games, I use it a few weeks later in the same campaign!!

 

[diaglo]

normally i'd say i use about 30-40% of my prep work. the rest gets put aside in case the party ever does decide to go there.

 

[FickleGM]

pr...prep...prep work...what is this thing you speak of?

Seriously, I prepare so little that only about 5% of it or less goes unused.

 

[Psion]

I'd say 20%.

I generally use the technique of shuffling stuff to later that others have mentioned.

But often, if an idea sits on the back burner for too long, I get bored with it and decide to move on.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I use very little prepwork at all. I sketch out a rough framework of the adventure, make some notes about important NPC's or encounters, and let it ride. So I'd say +90% of my prepwork is used.

 

[satori01]

I would say upwards at most around 30%. Sometimes you have an event that could end in say 1 of 3 ways, which means you know you are going to be planning for contingencies that the party wont see.

Frankly that is the price you pay as a DM when you create complex scenarios and truly want to leave the decision up to the party,(and the lovely lovely consquences), and I wouldnt have it any other way.