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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7929401" data-attributes="member: 29398">I'm honestly not sure it does, though.It changes GM prep requirements, no question there, but the effort level is similar*.  Instead of working on designing the adventure etc. from scratch, the effort now goes in to tying the PCs' backstories together into something coherent that still fits with the setting.* - remember, you're used to doing it this way, so what's limited-effort for you might not be to someone else.  Conversely, I'm used to designing adventures from scratch and so find it less effort than would someone who's not done much of it.An analogy might be the use of published modules.  For some GMs they cut the prep time down to nearly 0 - just open the book and go.  But for others they don't cut the prep time by much at all, they just change the manner of work that needs to be done: instead of mapping and doing up stat blocks while having the backstory already done for you as part of your campaign, you're instead stripping out backstory and editing stuff to make it fit in your campaign while having the mapping and stat blocks already done.There's some other things one can do also, but they don't so much reduce overall work as move a lot of it to a more convenient time - that being, before play ever begins.My favourite among such things these days is to, long before session 0, have your setting's history (ancient and recent), pantheons, and local geography pretty much nailed down.  That way, once you start running the game you can in effect riff off yourself, in full confidence that everything will remain consistent.  The best part once play begins: the hard work is already done!Similar to Tolkein largely nailing down Middle Earth's history etc. before ever putting his authoring pen to paper.Of course, much depends on how much mileage one intends to get out of a setting.  If you're looking at running a 10-month single-linear-party quick-hitter of a campaign you can 99.9% likely get away with tons less setting prep than if you're looking to run a 10-year multi-party behemoth.</blockquote>

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