Minimizing Prep Time - Forked from "DMing: from fun to work "

[Nagol]

How do I minimise prep time? What an interesting question.

The answer would depend on what we do differently. Unfortunately, I don't know what you spend your prep time doing.

I run my own adventures in my own world. For a mid-level 3.5 campaign (levels 11-14 currently), my typical prep time is about 3 hours for a 5 hour session. About half of that is stat blocks (typically 4-6 encounters that I think are very likely to occur -- about half get used). I've built a bunch of tools to help -- treasure generators, encounter helpers, creature finders are the most commonly used.

But that's only half the story, I think. The other half is I reduce choice. My campaigns typically are restrictive in allowable character options and by the same token restrictive in DMing options. Fewer choices means faster design. The current campaign is core rulebooks only, for example.

I spend a lot of time before the campaign begins thinking about the themes I'm going to include in the world, interesting locales, fleshing out the macro-political climate, and fleshing out the starting location. By a lot, I mean probably up to a man-month in prep work. I run a sandbox style campaign so other than the initial situation, I don't spend too much time worrying about narrative control or expected developments.

Before the campaign starts, I bulid a future timeline. At the end of each session I review the consequences of player actions and adjust the timeline as necessary. Any new loose ends get listed with all the other campaign loose ends.

Before each session I review my future timeline, and look through the loose end list to determine if an interesting scenario presents itself. If it does, I flesh out some potential plot hooks, and adjust the future timeline to account for the addition to the world.

I pick a few of the scenarios I feel are most likely to be followed up by the players and stat them out if they haven't been set yet.

 

[Celebrim]

How do I minimise prep time? What an interesting question...For a mid-level 3.5 campaign (levels 11-14 currently), my typical prep time is about 3 hours for a 5 hour session....I spend a lot of time before the campaign begins thinking about the themes I'm going to include in the world, interesting locales, fleshing out the macro-political climate, and fleshing out the starting location. By a lot, I mean probably up to a man-month in prep work. I run a sandbox style campaign so other than the initial situation, I don't spend too much time worrying about narrative control or expected developments.

Ok, so this sounds a bit familiar. Let's say you spend 240 hours prepping the sandbox, you have to count that in your prep time. If you get 60 sessions out of the campaign, then you spent altogether 3 hours prepping + 4 hours world building per 5 hour session. That I find believable.

As for how I spend my time, that's a broad enough subject that it could be its own thread.

 

[Nagol]

Ok, so this sounds a bit familiar. Let's say you spend 240 hours prepping the sandbox, you have to count that in your prep time. If you get 60 sessions out of the campaign, then you spent altogether 3 hours prepping + 4 hours world building per 5 hour session. That I find believable.

As for how I spend my time, that's a broad enough subject that it could be its own thread.

The current campaign is in its 6th year, playing 20-25 times a year so I'm getting a lot more than 60 sessions out of it.

For limited campaigns I spend a lot less time up front.

 

[Dykstrav]

The single biggest thing that I do to cut down on prep time when I DM?

I don't do more work than I need to.

This might sound simpler than it is, but figuring out how much work you really need to do for a session is actually one of the most valuable DMing skills that you can develop. I've also found that new DMs often spend far, far, far more time prepping for a session than they need to. For example, I've seen DMs stat out the captain of the watch because a published adventure mentions that the characters can question him for information. You just don't need that level of detail in most cases (unless your characters go around picking fights with everyone they meet).

Part and parcel of this is knowing how much preparation that you are comfortable with. Some DMs insist on meticulous notes on the level of a professional product. Some DMs are comfortable with a brief checklist and a sketch or two. Most DMs fall somewhere between the two extremes.

 

[pawsplay]

- Use as many monsters out of the MM as I can.
- Become systematic in how I design NPC and unique monster stats.
- Perfect the art of the two page adventure outline.
- Do nothing original without justification.

There are hidden costs in developing those skills, of course.
- Learning the MM and developing interesting encounters from simple ingredients.
- Spending a lot of time laboriously making and testing NPC stats while I honed my skills.
- Spending time writing overlong adventure outlines, learning to condense them, and enduring badly improvised sessions when all else fails.
- Suspending my own prejudgments and letting all that is old be new again.

I honed a lot of my skills in marathon gaming weekends as a young teenager, often alternating an hour or two of prep with several hours of gaming, rinse and repeat. But you wouldn't have to be as intensive to pick up the same skills. The key is attitude, I think: I will write this adventure in two hours, now I just need to figure out how. Hint: spending your time on tweaking that awesome NPC is not time well spent if you your persons, places, and things are not yet fleshed out.

 

[Lanefan]

There's two different types of preparation - well, three if you count clearing off the table before the game - and how one defines prep-vs-game time depends on whether both types of preparation count or not.

The first type is all done before any dice hit the table. This is the world-building, the mapping, some general plot outlines, world and local history, deities and pantheons, cultures, adventure ideas, etc., etc. to whatever level you want to take it. This part I tend to ignore when counting "prep time" as to me it's the fun part and usually doesn't feel like work. Even the tedious bits.

The second type, which is what I think of when someone mentions "prep time" is how much do I have to do during the week to make that weekend's games sail smoothly. This varies wildly. Some weeks I don't really have to do anything. Other weeks - usually either when they're getting ready to divide a treasury or have left-turned unexpectedly and got me winging stuff - I have to spend a few hours at it.

The more completely you cover the first type of prep, the less of the second type you'll need to do.

Oftentimes I can get away with doing a small amount of "prep" on the fly during the game. If the party pick up an adventuring NPC or a hench, for example, I'll be busy rolling up its basics when nothing else is going on or when they're planning and-or arguing among themselves. Then later in the week I'll flesh it out if it's still at all relevant.

What I find usually takes more time is the record-keeping afterwards: making notes for my own records and stats; writing up the game logs; converting them to html and putting them on the website, and otherwise keeping my parts of the site up to date.

Lanefan

 

[I'm A Banana]

My prep time is more under 4e than it was in 3e, but I still manage a pretty good ratio.

1. Use Prepublished Material. There's about 700 pages of raw monsters, and the DDI has something over 5,000. 3e/PF has plenty of online resources (like the Monster Finder). Use keyword searches to match your theme (e.g.: "goblin" or "fire" or "bat"). Try to fill out a variety of roles, and quickly note the special abilities (auras, at-wills, recharges, encounters). If you can't fill a group, or if you're lacking role variety, search for other critters at about the level/CR you want, and reskin as necessary.
2. Thow out hooks like candy. I like to have players tell me their characters' goals and dreams so I can specifically work them into the rewards for the challenges I come up with. If a character really wants to avenge his father's death at the hands of orcs, all I have to do is toss out rumors of orcs, and the character's on board. Wealth and power are typical "one size fits all" motivators.
3. Let the Player Lead. Once I have motivated players and a few encounters, I let the players tell me how they get there. If I have a map, I'll maybe introduce some hazard on the way. If not, they just get the encounters. I prep more than I use so that the choices the players make are distinct (so this choice is going to be Encounter 1-A and encounter 1-B: does the party climb the mountain, or go through the underpass? Here's some hints as to what may lay in store:...). Become reactive, rather than active. Let them do whatever they want, and just react. Say yes. Say "you can try." Say "Yes, but..."
4. Embrace the Chaos. Their action, and your reaction, and their reaction to your reaction, and then your next move....all of this creates something of a spiralling effect out of a single grain of chaos. Stay consistent, don't contradict, and keep saying yes. See where the ride takes you. Reskin your encounters as necessary.
5. Go Big. Let the players accomplish something significant. Let the challenges be big. Let them smash the orcish tribes. Let them kill the rampaging monster. Let them thwart the nefarious plot. Let them have a significant effect on the world when they're done.

It's served me well for quite a while. It's very much "a butterfly flaps its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world." A little bit of unexpected chaos churns the whole affair.

 

[Celebrim]

The current campaign is in its 6th year, playing 20-25 times a year so I'm getting a lot more than 60 sessions out of it.

Congratulations on such a successful campaign. Six years is alot of gaming.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1) Play only published scenarios.
2) Play only in well supported published game worlds.
3) Choose scenarios that aren't event driven and have a low expectation of role-play.
4) Choose scenarios that are very combat heavy, as those require the most time to resolve in play relative to prep time.
5) Be willing to go with simple hooks like, "The ruler orders you do something or he'll chop off your heads." or "A magic portal sends you to the start of the next adventure."
6) Play with players who happily stay on the railroad.

Hooks, reskinning and role-play are things that I find to take the least prep, to the point that they can be done on the fly. Even if you do them ahead of time, they're the least work-like things to be doing.

The time consuming stuff tedious stuff is statblocks and maps.

 

[Garthanos]

I expect you set yourself higher quality standards than most, that's part of it.

Other than that there are two solutions:

1) Just make up. It is much easier to do this with a small amount of highly targeted prep consisting of:
a) some general world info
b) adventure synopses (see below)
c) lists of names
A Monster Manual helps massively. Also, the usual D&D stuff like random encounter tables, random treasure tables, etc.

Between Doug McCraes answer and Kamakaze Midgets I will add

TRUST YOURSELF and dont afraid to not be perfect.
Wash rinse WARP and reuse material you have already created.
Knowing your players and there characters motivators helps to get them in the game so if you can be involved in helping them create the characters that helps... it can be where tons of material will build itself.

My prep time is more under 4e than it was in 3e, but I still manage a pretty good ratio.

1. Use Prepublished Material. There's about 700 pages of raw monsters, and the DDI has something over 5,000. 3e/PF has plenty of online resources (like the Monster Finder). Use keyword searches to match your theme (e.g.: "goblin" or "fire" or "bat"). Try to fill out a variety of roles, and quickly note the special abilities (auras, at-wills, recharges, encounters). If you can't fill a group, or if you're lacking role variety, search for other critters at about the level/CR you want, and reskin as necessary.
2. Thow out hooks like candy. I like to have players tell me their characters' goals and dreams so I can specifically work them into the rewards for the challenges I come up with. If a character really wants to avenge his father's death at the hands of orcs, all I have to do is toss out rumors of orcs, and the character's on board. Wealth and power are typical "one size fits all" motivators.
3. Let the Player Lead. Once I have motivated players and a few encounters, I let the players tell me how they get there. If I have a map, I'll maybe introduce some hazard on the way. If not, they just get the encounters. I prep more than I use so that the choices the players make are distinct (so this choice is going to be Encounter 1-A and encounter 1-B: does the party climb the mountain, or go through the underpass? Here's some hints as to what may lay in store:...). Become reactive, rather than active. Let them do whatever they want, and just react. Say yes. Say "you can try." Say "Yes, but..."
4. Embrace the Chaos. Their action, and your reaction, and their reaction to your reaction, and then your next move....all of this creates something of a spiralling effect out of a single grain of chaos. Stay consistent, don't contradict, and keep saying yes. See where the ride takes you. Reskin your encounters as necessary.
5. Go Big. Let the players accomplish something significant. Let the challenges be big. Let them smash the orcish tribes. Let them kill the rampaging monster. Let them thwart the nefarious plot. Let them have a significant effect on the world when they're done.

It's served me well for quite a while. It's very much "a butterfly flaps its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world." A little bit of unexpected chaos churns the whole affair.