GMs: What is your prep to play ratio?

[LordEntrails]

D&D, which I've been playing for decades is about 15 minutes of prep per hour of play.

But now I'm running FrontierSpace for the first time and have bene doing so for 10 months. Probably 2-3 hours of prep for every hour of play. A lot of this is I'm creating new adventures, maps to my desire, fleshing out the setting, creating lore, etc.

 

[SlyFlourish]

About 30 minutes to an hour per three hour game.

 

[Piperken]

I tend towards 1:3, but this doesn't include when I draw maps on Chessex; I'm not amazingly quick with that or talented, so that adds to it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It varies quite a bit depending on the given game we’re playing and also where we are at in play.

For example, for my recent Mothership campaign, most of my prep consisted of familiarizing myself with the module A Pound of Flesh. It details a space station that was to serve as a home base of sorts for the PCs. Aside from that, I came up with some ideas for other locations nearby and some other setting details. Then we created characters as a group, and I then incorporated the ideas the players came up with for their PCs, or those implied by their PCs’ backstories and relationships. Once we started playing, my prep essentially consisted of thinking about what might happen next, and jotting down some bullet points… so maybe five to ten minutes of anything beyond daydreaming.

For my recent Blades in the Dark campaign, the setting already exists and the crew creation is a group effort… and most of the relevant details for play come up during that step. So I did barely any prep at all for that game. In between scores, I’d do the upkeep for the downtime phase of play… so I’d adjust faction statuses based on what happened in play and I’d come up with entanglements based on rolls. So maybe ten minutes of work between sessions.

For the current game I’m running, Teeth: False Kingdom, I do literally no prep. Everything is generated during play. If anything, I may think about ideas, locations, or characters that may be interesting or what not, but that’s about it. No actual preparation, nothing written down, no notes or bullet points, no maps or NPCs… nothing.

For my next game, I’m planning on running DIE. Because that game is so focused on the specific PCs that are created for play, I cannot do any real prep until we sit down and create the PCs as a group. Once we do that, which involves asking a crazy amount of questions about the characters and their relationships and aspirations and fears and all of that, then I use that material to prep a fantasy world that will put all of that grist to the forefront. I expect I’ll do a couple of hours of prep after that first session to prepare for session 2 and the campaign overall. After that, I expect I’ll shift back to a similar pattern as I have with other games… giving the game some thought in between sessions, then spending maybe ten minutes jotting down some possibilities for the coming session.

 

[el-remmen]

I find this impossible to answer. My prep is very staggered. Some days I can work for 20 minutes, others for 2 hours. I also like prep and world-building so I am always tinkering with stuff for future use, plus I love to paint minis and build terrain, and will often build things specific to adventures I have prepped and sometimes prep adventures to make use of something I made.

The closest I can come to an answer is to say that I do about 1 to 2 hours of direct prep per 3 to 4 hour session - which comes out to 1 to 2 pages of notes + 1 to 4 pages of stat blocks.

 

[TheHand]

I tend to do a lot of front-loading in my games… building the setting, creating NPCs, scenarios, and adversaries, so most of the prep tends to happen right at the start, but I’ll go with an average of 1 hour prep per 3 hours of play.

 

[SableWyvern]

This can vary widely. When I was running Blades in the Dark, after the first session I did literally zero prep. I'd turn up to the session with absolutely no idea what would happen that night.

Typically, I do a lot more than that, but often a significant proportion of it is pre-campaign prep -- worldbuilding and sometimes extensive system design/redesign. I might tinker away at something for years before I get it to the table. Ideally, this puts me in a position where I have a lot of stuff ready to fall back on if the unexpected happens in a session. Prior to any given session, I might do zero prep, I might be doing stuff that relates to background events, other parts of the world or other things that have nothing directly to do with what the players are currently engaged in or I might be prepping for the actual session.

Generally speaking, when the PCs are already engaged in a specific task, I don't find I need to do much prep related to that specific, ongoing task, as once I've establish the initial details it's mostly a matter of following along and seeing what happens.

 

[pemerton]

It depends on the prep that the system calls for.

I've run one-shots of Wuthering Heights, Cthulhu Dark and In A Wicked Age that require no prep at all: PC gen, and/or other parts of the game, provide the initial situation and a trajectory for play.

Burning Wheel is a campaign-oriented system where PC build and the play of the game provide situations and trajectory, so my prep has been limited to building NPCs and monsters (which can be fairly elaborate, if one wants it to be - half an hour or more per person/being is possible for a complex build). I've run plenty of BW with no prep, relying on the pre-built people/beings in the rulebooks.

Most recently I've been GMing Torchbearer 2e, and this game calls for prepared "dungeons" or similar places for the PCs to explore/loot. I've created/converted several, as well as using one published TB2e adventure (the Tower of Stars). For 20+ sessions (so probably 80 hours of play), I imagine I've build around five or six small areas, each taking (say) 2 to 5 hours - so probably 20 hours there - and have converted the T1 Moathouse, UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave, and the old White Dwarf Scenario the Halls of Tizun Thane, each taking (say) 10+ hours - so probably 40-ish hours there. So that's getting close to a 1:1 ratio of prep to play.

 

[aramis erak]

My preplay ratio varies by system and mode of play.
For my current sunday online group, using Daggerheart, looks like about 1:2 to 1:3...
Buffy, FTF, back in 08 or so, 1.5:1.
Traveller, typically between 1:20 and 1:4...
Star Wars, either WEG or FFG, 1:4 to 1:10.

 

[Deset Gled]

A few months ago I got back into DMing after enjoying the player side for the last ~5 years. This includes getting into DMing 5e and via VTT for the first time ever.

I'd estimate it has been about a 1 hour prep to 3 hours of play ratio so far. But a lot of that has been learning how to use the VTT efficiently. I anticipate it will be more like 1:4 as time goes on. I suspect I could get that down to 1:6 if I was willing to pay for more prefab stuff (or once my library gets full enough).

Back in the day, I used to DM 3.5e or SW WEG with much less prep time. But that required a level of system mastery and library of materials I will probably never have again.

I am also learning that VTT play tends to be much more front loaded than I'm used to. It takes a lot to get things set up but it sustains play longer with minimal effort at upkeep. I'm liking it a lot so far.