DMs with limited time, and wasted efforts

[Quasqueton]

I seem to end up with an inordinate amount of self-written/prepared adventure material that never gets used in my campaign. It seems that a lot of my time-consuming effort during the week is wasted when game time comes around.

For instance, (and this is not really from my campaign, so don't concentrate on these specifics):

I make up a lair of strange, evil monsters living in a cave complex too near a halfling village. In the game, the PCs discover the tracks of the strange creatures, and follow them back to the cave entrance. And then they walk away from the adventure and go elsewhere.

I make an interesting and notable encounter with a local patrol who can give the PCs some useful information about the old abandoned temple they are heading to. And when the PCs spot the patrol on the road, they detour around them to avoid the encounter.

I create an Assassin's Guild in the main city of the campaign. An assassin attacks the PCs in the night trying to kill a particular PC. The next morning the PCs decide to not bother investigating why they were attacked, and instead decide to just leave town.

I create a bandit gang with a special treasure. The PCs come across the recent remains of the bandits' attack, with clear evidence of who did it and where they may be now. But they figure they need to keep on their current travel, and so merely bury the dead and then walk away.


In years past, these situations wouldn't have bothered me much. The unused material would get filed away for possible use in a later campaign. But now adays, with work, family, etc., time is a valuable thing -- and I don't have much of it. So the time spent creating encounters and adventures ignored is time wasted. It actually is frustrating, now.

I don't want to railroad the PCs in my campaign. I want the PCs to have the freedom to chose their way through my world. But sometimes. . . it just gets aggravating when I've spent all my very limited free time making an adventure for the game, and it just gets ignored, bypassed, or missed.

Those of you who are DMs with jobs and families and other constraints on your D&D-creation time: do you have these feelings too? I don't want to be mad with the Players, as they are not intentionally "wasting my time" or anything like that. But sometimes, when I sit down to make up all the NPCs of the Assassins' Guild, I start wondering, "Is this even going to matter in the game?" When I start mapping out that dragon's lair, I start thinking, "Are they even going to go into it?"

I'm having a sort of crisis of faith, here. Recently it seems that 50% of my work preparing for my game is wasted effort.

Quasqueton

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I ran into the same exact issue. I was even going to quit D&D for a while (let's face it, it's rather preparation-intensive, moreso than any other game I know of), then I made the "mistake" of picking up Eberron.

Somewhere while reading through Eberron, I realized..hey...why don't I do it like I do the other games I run? That is, insead of drawing huge maps, figuring out big lists of encounters ahead of time and creating hordes of treasure..just improvise it all. Now, I get a general idea of what the party may run into, what they may need to do and a few interesting locations/rooms for them to visit, all in my head. Then, I just react. I let the story guide me rather than me trying to guide the story.

Edit - Lest it sound like I was saying Eberron was a bad purchase/game..it's not. I have an Eberron campaign starting up next Friday.

 

[hong]

I take the position that making new monsters and NPCs, statting up encounters, writing plotlines, etc is something that I can enjoy for its own sake. If the party meets these NPCs and encounters, then that's a bonus. If they don't, then I've still had fun anyway.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Don't be shy about using on-line tools.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/news.php?page=toolbox

It makes the creation of your stuff easier and the dungeon generators can always be used in a pinch.

 

[Malar's Cow]

If it weren't for those pesky players...

One important rule that I've learned through similar experiences to your own: No adventure survives contact with the players. No matter how hard I try to think of every possibly contingency, the players will come up with something I hadn't even considered. So, to compensate, I do one of two things:

1. Use published adventures, and customize them to suit my campaign.
2. Create multiple adventure frameworks. Nothing terribly detailed, just a few notes about plot, location, main BBEG, hooks and a few ideas about monsters and treasure. I have several of these I keep in a notebook. Therefore, when my players blatantly ignore the none-too-subtle hook I toss them to get the 'expose the thieves guild' adventure underway, I simply go to the next idea and see if they bite on that one. I give my players a lot of latitude in their choices. Hey, if they don't want to do a dungeon-crawl, I really can't force them to, and I hate railroading.

Once the players have taken the bait on an adventure, I will then flesh it out, stat up the NPC's and monsters, detail the treasure, create the maps, and develop the plot more fully. Since we only game about once every fortnight, it still gives me the time I need to detail an adventure. I only do so when I know the PC's are gonna definitely go through it.

 

[Whisper72]

While Nichtchilde's idea is a good suggestion, I know that not all DM's like / are as good at winging it as others, so this may not be an option. Also, to wing things and do it well, you need to have several small ideas in the back of your head (i.e. some prepared encounters, thought they need not be statted out completely), and have a good sense/knowledge of the game world.

That aside, it also seems a bit of a problem with the players themselves. I mean, they play for the fun of it as well right? So, if a bait is hung, which is obviously something you prepared for them, why do they consistently turn away from them... maybe they do not like some type of encounters? Try to get a better feel for the type of action the PLAYERS want, before thinking up encounters for the PC's... Talk to them...

I have only rarely had that players did not follow the tracks I laid. Naturally you have to avoid railroading, but IMC the players want to see the next bit of the story, so follow it... it has something to do with maintaining an interest / having an overarching storyarc. If all adventures are essentially seperate encounters, from the p.o.v. of the players, it matters little which bait to take and which to let slide. Apparently some bait failed to interest the players in some way.

I know this may sound like criticism, but please don't take it that way. I am just trying to say that there appears to be a mismatch between your evaluation of 'good bait' and the perception / feeling of the players when presented with that bait, and them apparently deeming it uninteresting. This may be because of divergence in tastes over time, or never having been outspoken / communicated on a meta level with the players about what kind of stuff they want their PC's to do / what kind of stuff they as players like.

Talk with them, and see what their answers are. Do not be mad at them, try to work this out together. A hobby is not meant to be frustrating, that's what you have a job for... Hope this helps...

 

[diaglo]

I take the position that making new monsters and NPCs, statting up encounters, writing plotlines, etc is something that I can enjoy for its own sake. If the party meets these NPCs and encounters, then that's a bonus. If they don't, then I've still had fun anyway.

ditto.

i also do like Q and save them for later use.

i'm currently digging out adventures and monsters i statted 25 years ago to run against the current PCs.

 

[Mulkhoran]

I feel your pain, Quasqueton. It's incredibly frustrating, and can wear away at you sometimes. Nightchilde's example is great, if it works for you. Some DM's can't just pitch it all and go improv, just depends on your style.

If switching to a mostly-improv style doesn't work for you, then:

Reading your examples, it sounds like your PCs aren't big side-trek fans. It seems they put their primary adventure goal first, and don't like deviating. Can I ask you: Do you place a lot of emphasis on time-sensitivity in your games? If so, maybe they've developed a concern about staying focused and moving fast.

I'm not sure how you approach campaign philosophy, but you could always take the material and encounters that they're missing, and place them directly along the path of the adventure they *are* pursuing. I know that *sounds* like railroading, but if they've already chosen a particular path, you're just modifying the specifics along that path.

I mean, even if they're walking away, they're going *somewhere*. Of course, you'd have to be accepting of modifying things post-creation, and different DMs have different feelings on that.

Also, examples like the Assassin's Guild and Bandit encounter like you gave don't necessarily have to be the kinds of things that just go away. If someone tried to kill one of them, and it didn't pan out, that has the potential to grow to a big enough problem that they *can't* ignore. Again, I know some people would call it railroading, but hell, if someone wants to kill them, and they take out an Assassin, and the hunt increases in intensity........that's just the world reacting to them. And with the Bandits, who knows what consequences could result in just leaving that behind....especially if the evidence was lost, and it started to look like the PCs were the culprits...........

I realize these sound like rat bastard ideas, and I'm certainly not recommending this happen every time.....but if it's happening that frequently, a little more "push" could help you get your material into use without stifling the game.

Lastly, and this is utter, blind speculation, but are you sure the PCs are seeing what you want them to see in these situations? I myself have put what I thought were clear links or situations in front of my players before, and had them walk away. When asking about it later, I'd sometimes find out: "Huh? We had no idea.....I don't remember you saying that.....Wasn't clear..." Those kinds of things. Again, no one's fault, but clear communication is sometimes not easy to see, no offense intended, as I said, it's speculation.


*stares back at post*

Um, yeah............sorry bout that. Wow, rambling............

In short (yeah right!), don't give up the good fight. Hang in there, and remember that DMs do a great service to their players by providing them an entire world to play in. Remember the things that gave you satisfaction, and make you happy about DMing, and hold to that. Good DMs are hard to find.

Good luck! (oh, and uh, lemme know if you need another pc...... )


- Mike

 

[robberbaron]

I have the same trouble with my players and I have taken 2 dissimilar actions in the past.

1. Prepare the very minimum I can get away with and arrive with plenty of ideas for when they digress.
2. If something is prepared and not used I put it aside and use it later.
Sure, I have lots of stuff never used, but I dare say I'll use most of it eventually.

 

[Gnimish88]

Speaking as a player...

Frankly, I feel that the open-ended, completely character driven story method of play that has become popular lately(?) is highly over-rated. I much prefer a good story with the understanding that, to a point, you need to follow the GM's lead over spending half the session arguing over what the party should do next and whether or not a given character would go follow this or that course. Granted, I am a tactical player who enjoys overcoming challenges over roleplaying out every little bit of my character's personality. I have seen many cases where people roleplaying their characters led to deadlock and no-one having any real fun.

With a nod to Quas, when this happened in his game he had a discussion about it with the group and we did a mini restart of the campaign, most people making new characters and the group continuing with a definate goal in mind and a direction to get us started.

Hmm, kind of rambling there. I guess the point of all that would be to say it is best to talk to the players about what kind of game you want to run, explain your time constraints, and make it clear that if they choose not to follow plot hooks or make characters whose personalities would prevent them from doing so that the game will be pretty short.