How much time do you devote your campaign?

[Ashrum the Black]

On average I spend about 2 hours a week working on things. This time varies quite a bit depending on what's going on though.

I've had weeks that I spent close to 10 hours working on things as I advanced monsters, stated out new critters, and penned some NPC's. But then other weeks, such as now, I'll spend 20 minutes going through the material I've already designed just refreshing my thoughts. Even's out really.

Besides, there's just something about letting the characteras actually read the dwarven history form the wall themselves, or reading the snide letter from the traiter from an actual letter that is just to much fun sometimes.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Enough to wish I got payed for it.

 

[Kyramus]

How much time do I devote to my campaign world?

Every idle time that I get.
Even at work I'm thinking up stuff and jotting notes.

 

[Ziggy]

We play every second week, and I usually use something like 3-5 hours on the day before planning the scenario and statting the NPCs. The biggest time stealer is leveled NPC, it often takes me more than an hour to stat out a medium-level NPC, including skills, spells and equiment.

In addition I use lots of 5-minutes during the week jotting down ideas so that they don't disappear. I got everything on the portable computer I use at work, so the files are always there within reach. I've even done this in the middle of (boring) business meetings

.Ziggy

 

[John Crichton]

I can do up to 5-6 hours a night but that never happens on consecutive nights. Like others, a bulk of my creative thinking comes at the worst times (at work, about to sleep, while eating) so I have a ton of little notes sitting around in pockets that I take when I can so I don't lose the inspiration. I'd have to say that I could burn anywhere from 6-12 hours a week when making something brand new or converting something another system.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

I put a LOT of time into it, but that's also an unfair representation because it's being published as a setting book

 

[roytheodd]

I probably prep for a new campaign for about a month and I put in 2-3 hours a day like that. Once the game is running I put in about 4-5 hours a week.

 

[pogre]

45 minutes a night or so preparing for my weekly session. I write most of it out and do have module style keyed encounters.

30 minutes a night working on terrain, monsters, and other goodies for the campaign.

So 6-7 hours a week of preparation - My brother often helps with the terrain because he is awesome at making buildings from foamcore and balsa.

The upside is I am running three groups through it right now - so a lot of play for my prep.

 

[Desdichado]

Depends. I've run stuff with practically no preperation and done fine, and I've spent weeks detailing homebrews, many of which I've never run. I like certain aspects of DMing -- notably campaign creation. I dislike heavy preparation for individual sessions other than basic stuff like thinking of a few plot threads and hooks I can throw out, generating villains and NPCs that can be used as needed, etc.

But part of that is my intense dislike of railroading. I can throw out hooks when PCs flounder, but I prefer to let them decide what to do. So too much preperation for a single session would be wasted to me; I'd prepare for something and the PCs would do something completely different.

 

[Gothmog]

Well, back when I created my campaign world 10 years ago, I probably spent 10-15 hours per week on it, writing up histories, making maps, detailing gods, secret societies, etc. If you count time painting minis, then it probably went to 15-25 hours per week. We would game once per week on Saturday, from noon-2 am or so. That was back when I was doing my undergrad pre-med coursework, and had tons of free time.

Now that I am finishing up my MD/PhD, we only game about once a month, although it is an all-weekend game session. For one of those sessions (about 25 hours of gaming in all), I probably spend about 3 hours of prepwork on stats, and another 2-3 on painting minis I will need.

Recently I also started a solo campaign with my girlfriend, and we play pretty much every weekend for 5-6 hours. I do a lot of that on the fly, since she is more into roleplaying and the story, and not so much into combat. With that game, I probably spend maybe 1 hour or prep per week.