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Message: <blockquote data-quote="papa_laz" data-source="post: 4721799" data-attributes="member: 7992">Hi all,I have a couple of questions/concerns which I have put into this one post for the sake of convenience. 1) I've recently started running a campaign in a homebrew setting which has so far gone fantastically. We've only had three sessions but so far the players and I have had a great time and the story and characters are progressing in ways I'd never considered. However I'm beginning to find the amount of preparation work required for each session to be something of a drain. On average for each hour of play I'm spending 3 hours designing the adventure, which to me seems like a lot. I'm something of a perfectionist and I'm quite meticulous with my adventure design and like to have every potential scenario covered. Also I like to write detailed descriptions of locales and lengthy chunks of NPC dialogue, things that the players have said are the best aspects of my adventures. For example, in the last session I had about 3 solid pages of descriptions and dialogue amongst the stat blocks and other technical details. I'm starting to feel that this level of detail is unsustainable as I have to do my uni work as well as fulfilling other commitments. I'm getting better at coming up with descriptions on the fly, and I'm decent at ad-libing dialogue, but I would never try to run an adventure without a solid base to work with. So what I really need is some methods I can use to minimise my preparation time, specifically cutting down on the time I spend writing without losing any, or much, of the detail. I also find making NPC stat blocks very time consuming and tedious, even when I lift them directly from the DMG. I'm sure many of you have had to deal with a similar predicament and if so do you have any advice?2) I've begun to toy with the idea of assigning XP on an individual basis for non combat encounters, such as bluffing, pickpocketing or whatever. During the first few adventures it became apparent certain players were pulling more weight than others, mainly in terms of roleplaying but also with their interaction with the world and willingness to be inventive to solve a problem. Because of this I decided to give a few hundred XP to individual PC's who'd used their initiative to solve a problem or made specific gains for the party or themselves using their wit. I've theorised that this may be an effective way to make all players engage with the world when they realise they will be losing out on precious XP if they are just content to coast along. Do people think this will work or will it break the game?3) Also on the topic of XP. Last session the party spent nearly the entire adventure being tortured and interrogated, and a small amount of time travelling. During the interrogation they really achieved nothing, and in fact did quiet a poor job of saving their own lives. One PC was poisoned, suffering permanent strength and con damage, and also had an eye ripped out. This is not due to gratuitousness on my part, but was the fault of the character for being repeatedly rude to the torturers and even breathing fire on one of them. The players then had the nerve to ask how much XP they earned at the end of the adventure even though the only thing they actually achieved was successfully tracking down the druids lost animal companion (which I will reward with a small amount of XP). I don't believe in handing out XP for no reason. To do so would render the entire rewards system meaningless. Personally I don't think almost getting tortured to death warrants a reward. If a session goes by without any actions that earns the characters XP then too bad. Escaping with their lives should be reward enough. What do you guys think?4) During roleplaying between the PC's arguments and even fights are frequent due to their evil alignments. In one particular situation two PC's were arguing and neither could convince the other, so one PC decided he wanted to take an intimidate check against the other PC to try and bully him into submission. I couldn't see any reason not to allow this, so I let them make opposed intimidate checks to see who came out on top. Personally I thought it worked quite well, as there are times when things just can't be adjudicated without a dice roll, and the game mechanics are there for a reason. I also have no problem with having PC's being the victim of bluff and intimidate checks from NPC's. The way I see it the fate of the PC's is decided by the luck of the dice roll just like any other character within the world. In my game the players aren't special and aren't given any privileges that NPC's don't have.I discussed this method of PC vs PC adjudication with one player after the game and seemed to think it wasn't the best way to do it and maybe it should have been handled with roleplaying. But as I said previously roleplaying had not resulted in a resolution, neither player wanted to back down, and I think having them make opposed checks worked quite well. After all If they wanted to fight each other they would roll dice, not jump around the room with plastic swords roleplaying the combat. What do you guys think about this method?If you got to the end of all this then thanks for taking the time to read it.Cheers</blockquote>

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