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Minimizing Prep Time - Forked from "DMing: from fun to work "
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5165476" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>To some extent, everything must be done on the fly. You can't prep everything. And since you can't prep every NPC, alot of NPC's get built 'on the fly' and almost every conversation is built 'on the fly'. I certainly find it hard to prep more than one conversation per session, so you reserve conversation prep for only the most critical NPC's and role play events.</p><p></p><p>But I disagree that NPC and dialog prep are less time consuming, or that they provide a better prep to game time ratio that map making and combat. </p><p></p><p>In fact, probably the best prep to game time ratios is in the creation of large dungeons. I know from experience that I can create dungeons faster than players can explore them, and if I just want to create 'random stuff'', an old school dungeon is one of the easiest things to create on the fly. </p><p></p><p>The hard part of dungeon design isn't creating content, its making that content clever such that it constitutes an interesting puzzle as well as an environment for hack and slash. Big sprawling dungeons are easy, but quickly bore most experienced players. I don't think I could get away with the megadungeons of my youth with most adult players. The trick to dungeons is being just as big as you need to be, and that requires alot of thought. It's a skill I'm still developing. Anything that requires alot of planning is time consuming. </p><p></p><p>Good hooks therefore are to me the hardest and most difficult part of a DM's job. Every good adventure in my opinion has to have a twist in it - a point where the players perceptions of events suddenly shift. That moment of discovery is often the highlight of the whole adventure, and is often even more satisfying than eventually defeating the villain. Every good adventure in my opinion begins with, "Something has happened here." and inevitably finding out what has really happened should feel like a significant achievement. For me, the hardest part of a design is hooking the player into, "Something has happened here and this is why you care." in a way that doesn't seem trite after a while. Creating webs of clues and secrets and then turning them into some sort of meaningful activity on the characters part is hard.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ok, maybe I should do your statblocks and maps and you should prep NPCs and dialog.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5165476, member: 4937"] To some extent, everything must be done on the fly. You can't prep everything. And since you can't prep every NPC, alot of NPC's get built 'on the fly' and almost every conversation is built 'on the fly'. I certainly find it hard to prep more than one conversation per session, so you reserve conversation prep for only the most critical NPC's and role play events. But I disagree that NPC and dialog prep are less time consuming, or that they provide a better prep to game time ratio that map making and combat. In fact, probably the best prep to game time ratios is in the creation of large dungeons. I know from experience that I can create dungeons faster than players can explore them, and if I just want to create 'random stuff'', an old school dungeon is one of the easiest things to create on the fly. The hard part of dungeon design isn't creating content, its making that content clever such that it constitutes an interesting puzzle as well as an environment for hack and slash. Big sprawling dungeons are easy, but quickly bore most experienced players. I don't think I could get away with the megadungeons of my youth with most adult players. The trick to dungeons is being just as big as you need to be, and that requires alot of thought. It's a skill I'm still developing. Anything that requires alot of planning is time consuming. Good hooks therefore are to me the hardest and most difficult part of a DM's job. Every good adventure in my opinion has to have a twist in it - a point where the players perceptions of events suddenly shift. That moment of discovery is often the highlight of the whole adventure, and is often even more satisfying than eventually defeating the villain. Every good adventure in my opinion begins with, "Something has happened here." and inevitably finding out what has really happened should feel like a significant achievement. For me, the hardest part of a design is hooking the player into, "Something has happened here and this is why you care." in a way that doesn't seem trite after a while. Creating webs of clues and secrets and then turning them into some sort of meaningful activity on the characters part is hard. Ok, maybe I should do your statblocks and maps and you should prep NPCs and dialog. [/QUOTE]
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