Celebrim
Legend
Encounters can just be long and this is pretty much true of any edition except perhaps Basic.
1) No PrC's. PrC's are 3e's worst innovation. Stick as much as possible to a small selection of books; don't just add everything the players ask for into the game. Be picky about it. For the love of the game, don't just say 'anything from an official book'. 3.X killed itself with rules bloat, especially rules bloat from the player side of things. Consider its effects on game balance, spotlight balance, and speed of play before letting it in your game. You'll get some argument, but explain your reasons and in the long run they'll think you for it - especially since many of them now have experience with 3.X's dysfunctions and will notice the difference. DMs need lots of rules to quickly arbitrate a wide range of situations as they come up, but lots of player rules that come up all the time slow the game to a crawl. Stick to 3.0 over 3.5 in all but a few areas (haste, for example).
2) Don't over prep mechanicly. I prep on average 10 hours a week and almost none of it is mechanical preperation like stat blocks. If you are the sort that can wing a game with just stat blocks and a rough outline, you can probably prep in 3 or 4 hours or less. While 3.X has some great monster creation rules, prefer to be loose in their adherence to bogging down your preperation with minutia. You don't have to calculate all the monsters skills correctly. 90% of the time, you won't have to make skill checks for the monster at all, and if you do, is it really worth agonizing over whether the monster or NPC has a +9 or +10 bonus. Don't worry about being 'off by one' on a skill bonus or calculated attack bonus or anything else unless you are going for publication. If you are only off by one (maybe), then you are close enough.
3) Use and reuse. Almost all of 3.5's mechanical preparation is in stat blocks. Find stat blocks for common monsters in a condenced 3-5 line form resembling the old 1e blocks, or compose them yourself. Then just cut and paste it into your notes. Once you have a condenced stat block, you can thereafter reuse it in other sessions. Remember what I said about no PrC's and limiting the player's options to those that you feel you can tolerate? A good portion of the reason for that is that if you deescalate from the power creep of multiple supplements, the NPC's you create don't have to be tweeked out power rules users either. And by simplifying the NPC's so that they don't need 3-5 classes carefully selected and composed for synergy, you can vastly simplify NPC creation. Basic NPC stat blocks for generic sea captains, knights, bandits, pirates, witches, necromancers etc. can be cut and pasted over and with minor tweaks and rearrangements become the stat block of your new NPC. Once you have the stat block of a 5th level knight or pirate, if you need a 6th or 7th level one, its pretty easy to do. The more prep you do and the longer your campaign goes on, the more of these little building blocks you'll have and the easier future prep will get. Word processors to the rescue.
4) Play slow and be happy with it. My current 3.X campaign (heavily houseruled, I grant you) is now up to around 50 4 hour sessions during 2 years of play. Yet the players have just obtained 6th level. Yet no one at my table feels I think that they are being cheated because in my world, 6th level is a pretty darn important person, and because even from 1st level they have been doing important and epic things. Slow down your leveling and your leveling expectations. Role play. Linger on a level long enough that a player utilizes all his powers several times before leveling up again. Treat leveling up not as the goal of the game, but an occasional reward or marker of the PC's increased stature within the world. One of the main reasons for this other than increasing players satisfaction and contentment (trust me on this) is that you are easing your preperation time as well because the stuff you've been using will stay relevant for a longer period. If you are leveling up every other session, it's like throwing all your past perperation out of the window as irrelevant. 20th level shouldn't be the goal of your play. Having a good time on the journey should be the goal of play.
5) Play old school. Dungeons are hugely effective in terms of preperation to play time. In character conversations are hugely effective in terms of preperation to play time. Don't allow the skills to short cut play. The purpose of a skill check is to arbitrate the varied fortunes that might result from a risky action. You use diplomacy checks to arbitrate the outcome of a conversation, not to stand in its place. You use search checks to arbitrate the outcome of an investigative action, not to stand its place. Treat it like the fortune in the middle mechanic it is, and you won't have any problems.
