How long do you spend preparing a game?

[Kzach]

So I recently found myself with a lot of spare time and by coincidence landed a DM'ing gig. I decided to go all out and create a 2D/3D scenario for it and planned out a whole set of encounters and customised monsters, etc.

The reason I landed the gig was because the current chair was feeling the time-pressure of his job and couldn't devote enough time to game prep. I worked out that I've so far spent roughly four hours putting this scenario together and will probably have to spend another two hours finishing it.

Six hours once a fortnight doesn't sound like a lot, but then I generally have a fair amount of spare time. I was wondering what the average was for most people in the hobby, hence the poll .

 

[Mercutio01]

My response pertains to 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D as I haven't had the chance to DM 4th yet. For other systems it varies a lot more depending on the system.

For the average 3 hour session, I would spend about 6 hours in prep, between adventure creation, NPC creation, map creation, statting, pulling monsters, and planning tactics. That was for a weekly session for about a year. That was entirely too much time spent in prep for a weekly game, and sometimes the planning was all for naught as the players totally didn't bite on any of the hooks I threw out there.

 

[hvg3akaek]

We only play once a month, and over that month, I easily will spend a t least 10 hours preparing, tweaking, organising, creating, writing, and generally setting things up. Playing 3.75 here (that is, 3.5, with a lot of rules from 4e for the DM's side)

 

[Hjorimir]

I can prep about 8 hours of 4e gaming fun in about 2 hours time. That gives me all the magic items, monsters, etc. The nuts & bolts, if you will.

That said, I spend about another 4 hours prep time to account for story-bording and mixing sound files for use in game.

Then there is the constant work I put into the setting itself. Homebrews are a labor of love after all.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I said 3-4, but that's very conservative. It's probably been 3-4 hours *a day* lately because I'm starting a new campaign and I've on vacation. I'm also not including the time it takes to write a review of the session afterwards.

Not that I mind.

 

[Woas]

If it takes me more than half an hour, it ain't worth it.

 

[EricNoah]

If I'm doing anything more elaborate than running a module straight (which rarely happens), I find I put in time on a one-for-one basis - about 4 hours of work for 4 hours of gaming. It's mostly NOT the nuts and bolts, it's just figuring everything out - the story/plot, getting setting details ready, maybe drawing a battle map or two out ahead of time, finding ways to make sure each character has a moment to shine, stuff like that.

 

[mac1504]

I generally spend 3-4 hours for my 4e campaign I'm running right now. Most of that time is spent preparing the custom tiles I make; photoshopping maps, printing out and then cutting and gluing to posterboard. I do virtually no adventure prep, as I've been running the 4e modules. That has been a deserved break after running a homebrew campaign for over 2 years prior to this campaign.

Even when I have had to do some customizing of the module (to fit a larger party mainly), the online tools and the character generator have been invaluable and time savers.

There is a bit of time spent prepping minis as well, but I can usually do that while watching TV.

 

[Piratecat]

The high-level nature of my last campaign ended with me spending easily as much time prepping as I did playing, probably more. Nowadays I spend less than an hour per game: scribble some notes, copy-n-paste monsters/treasure from the Compendium, write any handouts. I'm loving the lack of prepwork enough that I am now running two campaigns instead of one.

I still noodle over plot in the shower and while falling asleep, but I'm not sure that counts as actual prep.

 

[ggroy]

I usually spend a few hours of preparation for my 4E game.

I'll playtest the encounters by testing out the monsters fighting with the characters and how I think the players may possibly act. Essentially it's like playing "solo-D&D". If it turns out the encounter is too tough or too easy, I'll adjust accordingly.