Prep Time Vs. Play Time

[Mr. Kaze]

Don't give a DM too much time to prep - we just have more time to plot out the nasties and villians, for better or worse - LOL

The most relentlessly brutal fights in my current weekly campaign came right after we got back from taking December off... I'd had a month to prep and create monsters that just plain shouldn't be (certainly not with the MM's stated CR). So now my players get really paranoid about having to skip a session for fear that more bizarre and hideous things will be showing up in their path.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time on the plotline (who's who, who's what, who's where and why anybody cares) but I've stopped doing hardly any per-session prep work because my players always go off on an totally unexpected tangent within the first few minutes anyway in an effort to outsmart my NPC minions.

"Here's that tool you need to execute a sneak attack on the enemy fortress," I say, "the reinforcements to replace the last PC you lost will be here in a couple of days."

"Okay," say the players, "since we're shorthanded anyway, let's go harry that front gate in a suicidally insane fashion!"

I have yet to figure out this latest strategy of theirs...
::Kaze

 

[Emirikol]

Is this a poll for DM's or players. I'd imagine most players don't have to do s*&t to prep except make sure their character's name is spelled correctly, as the thankless job of DM is where all the work is (as I've just recently discovered by becomming a player again).

jh

 

[diaglo]

Is this a poll for DM's or players. I'd imagine most players don't have to do s*&t to prep except make sure their character's name is spelled correctly, as the thankless job of DM is where all the work is (as I've just recently discovered by becomming a player again).

lazy players perhaps.

but my old players always did prep work.

as do i as i player.

and some of the guys i game with now.

heck, you have to with the new edition

 

[Zandy]

The last guy in our group who DM'ed hadn't done so since 2E. We were uncertain about it, but he "had a great idea". Those of us who HAVE been DMing warned him that 3E takes a much longer time to prep, especially at the upper-teen levels we were at. Creating an NPC from the ground up, with full feats and skills, is a time intensive job. To make it worse, he isn't internet-literate other than email, so he didn't have access to all the utilities.

Well... we only lasted 2 nights in his campaign. It was obvious he didn't put in the time needed, and had no concept of CR levels, etc. He has since told us that he didn't listen and should have...

So... the next campaign we started was mine. I spent 65 hours preping the world, PC backgrounds (with the players) and first adventure. I usually spend about 10-20 hours before each 5 hour session. But, I have spent less time lately as I have some adventures stored up that the group hasn't encountered yet.

 

[d4]

as far as session prep goes, i generally put in somewhere between 0 and 15 minutes per 5 to 6 hour session. there've been times i've walked into the game cold, sat down, and started GMing. my players always say they're having fun, so i guess i'm doing all right...

at the beginning of the campaign, and every so often thereafter, i spend some time working out NPC stat blocks. (stat blocks and lists of random names seem to be pretty much the only work i need to do ahead of time -- once i have them i can pretty much wing everything else.)

and even the stat blocks don't take me very long. after talking to others and seeing some other people's posts here on the boards, i realized i must be insanely fast at generating NPCs. i can usually crank out 15 to 25 NPCs in an hour, even mid-level NPCs. so a few hours at the start of the campaign usually gives me enough stat blocks to last me several months of gaming, at the very least.

 

[the Jester]

Just thought I'd give this thread a kick to the front page for anyone who missed it.