DMs, what´s your preparation-to-enjoyment ratio?

[Falkus]

Surprisingly, as my campaign's progressed deeper in Paragon Tier, I've found my prep time decreasing and decreasing. The reason being that my players have so many options and paths they can choose from now, planning the specific of each session is virtually impossible. Instead, I just keep track of NPCs, the world situation, the progression of the bad guys plans, etc. and have a stock of monsters and enemies the PCs are likely to face. I more or less handle each session on the fly, then update my notes accordingly.

 

[LostSoul]

I put a lot of time into setting creation - maybe 20 hours? it's hard to say, since it was broken up into smaller chunks - but now that is done, I find there's very little to prep for. I spend about 15 minutes a week thinking about what the NPCs are up to, but I don't have to write anything down. I usually do it as I'm falling asleep.

I did draw up a small 5 room dungeon once; that took about two hours. I am planning on doing the same for next week.

I guess if you add it all up I'm at a 2 hours of game time to 1 hour of prep, and that ratio is getting better since the bulk of prep was up-front setting creation.

 

[Haltherrion]

I´m asking because I recently found something out: When I prepare less, my players have more fun. Last week I prepared nothing and everyone had a blast (with basically an extended bar brawl ending with a burnt down tavern and the characters in jail). Everyone told me how cool the adventure was and that they want to continue in this style.

I think one of the main reasons is, that I´m constantly present when improvising stuff. I think about how to create more enjoyment all the time. On the contrary, when running selfmade or premade adventures, I´m often not fully there, instead thinking about the next encounter, whether I should cut a few monsters or whatever.

I´m asking because I recently found something out: When I prepare less, my players have more fun. Last week I prepared nothing and everyone had a blast (with basically an extended bar brawl ending with a burnt down tavern and the characters in jail). Everyone told me how cool the adventure was and that they want to continue in this style.

I think one of the main reasons is, that I´m constantly present when improvising stuff. I think about how to create more enjoyment all the time. On the contrary, when running selfmade or premade adventures, I´m often not fully there, instead thinking about the next encounter, whether I should cut a few monsters or whatever.

My games seem to go better with preparation and best with both preparation and flexibility. Meaning, for me, it helps to have encounters ready to go and some thought into interesting plot hooks but if the players do something unexpected, it is nice to run with it. Often there are ways to incorporate the prep'd stuff into the unexpected path anyway. I don't write classic modules but I do like to do a "deep dive" in a focus area if I can identify one appropriate to where the game is.


My upcoming arc is an example. As a meta step, I asked them what they wanted to do next. Some options were multi-session arcs:

1. odd jobs in the current location as they had been doing
2. follow up one of the PCs connections and get involved with some intrigue among some human kingdoms
3. go an expedition that promises a far amount of fighting
4. something else they wanted to suggest

For me, to do intrigue right requires proper context and preparation, a fair amount of it, and I didn't want to do it unless they were interested. For #1, odd jobs can certainly be ad lib'd but they can easily be prep'd as well.

Anyway, they went with #3. For that, I've prep'd some encounters to use that vary from none (if they sign on with a caravan) to a lot. The encounters will be randomly selected if needed based on where they are going and what route they chose. Unused ones can always be used later.

For their destination location, I've worked up the notable people and creatures in the area, some locations, some of the local tribes/groups, some possible random encounters, and the locations of certain places of interest to them.

How they interact with it is up to them and many prep'd things may not get used but having them available gives me lots of options and as I usually do, if something different pops up, I'll go with that.

I've had some good ad lib'd sessions but if that's all I try to go with, my game tends to fall below the type of game I'd like to run. But I don't claim to be great at ad lib'ing.

 

[Lanefan]

There's two types of prep time.

One is the pre-campaign prep, where you build the world, history, cultures, maps, etc., etc. and at least try to come up with some stories and-or adventures to shoehorn in there somewhere. This is where all the time goes; I spent well over a year designing my current campaign before dropping the puck...I've learned that the more time spent on this part the less time you need to spend later, as so much of the campaign can kinda run itself.

The other is the during-campaign prep., which if you've done the pre-prep right should usually be minimal. The between-sessions time is now spent record-keeping and fine-tuning...and reading modules to see if they're worth bothering with.

I have no problem winging it, except I've occasionally winged myself into a corner (beer was probably involved too); and I've run entire and quite successful adventures off a single sheet of scratch notes and diagrams.

A good example is the one I just started this evening. Last session one of the PC Clerics got quested by Corellon: I had to dream up a quest on the spot (I had no idea this was coming, thank you dice) so I muttered something about "start at the tower of the halo" and left it at that; and they went on dividing their treasury from the prevsious adventure.

During the week I spent an hour scribbling down a page of quick notes on what a "tower of the halo" might represent - and that'll be the printed part of the module right there, along with a rough map - so that tonight when the Cleric went asking bards and sages what this was all about I had something (only very slightly) more concrete to talk about. But at least I now know what and where the "halo" is, and what it does, and what defends it, and why, etc....even if the PCs still don't.

In the past I've sat down and prepped sessions to the walls only to have the PCs throw it all in a handbasket within the first ten minutes by doing something unexpected, leaving me winging it anyway. Now I find myself winging a surprising amount of what goes on, unless I'm running a canned module.

Lan-"flap flap flap"-efan

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've noticed that most of my better sessions occurred when I had done a lot less prep than I thought was necessary. I have a tendency to overprepare which, in my case, I think leads to the players having less freedom. When I got nothing then I'm very positive about the players car-azy ideas.

There's a sense in which any kind of prep inhibits freedom. What is more pregnant with possibility than the blank page?

 

[Celebrim]

There's a sense in which any kind of prep inhibits freedom. What is more pregnant with possibility than the blank page?

A box of crayons, a nice mechanical pencil, a set of paints and a blank page.

There are two ways you can go wrong here. You can underprep (or incorrectly prep) and end up with a linear adventure because you only planned one thing for the players to do (and which they must do). Or you can underprep and end up with a rowboat world where you can go anywhere but there is nothing really to see.

If you really want to give players freedom, they have to have places to go. A game without preperation is like a database without objects, or a game without polygons. You can start putting them in at the last minute, but its better to have a good stock already ready. It's like calling a compiler a video game. Sure, looking at it in one way, what's more pregnant with possibilities than an empty .cs file, but most of us prefer to play in games where someone put some effort in.

 

[Haltherrion]

There's a sense in which any kind of prep inhibits freedom. What is more pregnant with possibility than the blank page?

There are many refs who seem to have good success with little prep but while the blank page concept is a nice one, it doesn't always work all that well. Start with a blank page and you might end up with a bunch of doodles. Can doodles really compete with all the other types of entertainment available to your players these days? I guess if you are an outstanding doodler it can, but I'm not.


For me, preparing for a session helps me host a memorable game with continuity and complexity sufficient to make my players come back in a world where SOs, family, movies, video games and all sorts of other entertainments are competing for their time.

I don’t personally prep a true scenario, I create elements that I can use for the likely paths the players will take. These include plot hooks and if the players have “bitten” on a hook, I will prepare more information for that path. For instance, if they have shown an interest in intrigue among some petty kingdoms, I will work up the current political and dynastic situation, several ways that can get further enmeshed in that (typically people looking for some “special” services, maybe an incident or two that might bring them to someone’s attention), some prepared encounter groups suitable for that track and I’ll pull them in as needed.

My occasional co-ref tends to prep true scenarios and that works just fine. Less freedom but always an interesting game, often with some very memorable incidents.

The more ad lib’d sessions I’ve played in have been honestly less interesting. I don’t think the average ref does a great job with it. The game often becomes a series of unconnected incidents that doesn’t grab my attention long term. While I don’t like a true railroad, I generally prefer a well handled prep’d session to a well handled ad lib’d session and my players seem to as well.

I guess the way I look at it is: I want to play twice a month or more. If I want my players to be available that much, I need them to be excited and engaged about not just generic D&D and a get together with the guys but the current campaign itself. I want them to be looking forward to what they were doing, exploring an engaging ruin, defeating a memorable foe, whatever. For me, that requires preparing for the session to make sure that the entire session is interesting and moving along. If they want to spend two hours discussing what to do that’s fine but what isn’t fine is if they spend hours in uninteresting encounters because between all of us, the ref and the players, we didn’t happen on something terribly interesting to do. If I prep'd interesting things to do, that won't happen.

 

[Celebrim]

I willl add that by far the most often complaint I hear from players from other tables was, "Most DMs don't want to put the work in." I've heard stories about DM pet NPC's, being forced to ride the rails, DM's trying to run the PC's for the players, and DM's with bizarre in game fetishes, and a whole host of other DM flaws. I've never once heard a player complain, "My previous DMs prepared too much (or too well)."

The single biggest reason our hobby is dying (if it is dying, and I'm not convinced) is not enough DMs willing to put in the work. There are tons of players out there who would love to play, but can't find anyone willing to run the game, tell the story, build the world, create the adventures, etc.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I willl add that by far the most often complaint I hear from players from other tables was, "Most DMs don't want to put the work in." I've heard stories about DM pet NPC's, being forced to ride the rails, DM's trying to run the PC's for the players, and DM's with bizarre in game fetishes, and a whole host of other DM flaws. I've never once heard a player complain, "My previous DMs prepared too much (or too well)."

The single biggest reason our hobby is dying (if it is dying, and I'm not convinced) is not enough DMs willing to put in the work. There are tons of players out there who would love to play, but can't find anyone willing to run the game, tell the story, build the world, create the adventures, etc.

Yeah, I think there's probably a certain amount of truth to that.

Re: the OP - I actually enjoy prepping, so. . . enjoyment = 100%, and prep = some percentage rather smaller than that.

 

[BenBrown]

I find I run better games if I've spent some time prepping, even if the game goes totally off the rails of the way I expected. Helps me to stay in touch with the game world between sessions.