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Minimizing Prep Time - Forked from "DMing: from fun to work "
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<blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 5164812" data-attributes="member: 23240"><p>My average preparation time is a little less than my average session time (7-8h). In games that do not require complicated mechanics I may reduce it to about 3-4h while very crunchy games (ex. high level 3e) make it longer.</p><p></p><p>I think that the most important time-reducing factor is that I always begin preparations with a concept already in my head. I need to write it down, add and correct some details, make up the numbers - but I have the general situation ready and I may build on it.</p><p>I also don't get into long NPC descriptions. They need to be interesting, but don't have to be detailed. Two sentences of background, two sentences of personality, a single strong motivation, a few relations and emotional ties, two or three distinctive traits in looks or behavior. Excluding mechanics, an NPC is ready in 15 minutes and two paragraphs. And I usually need 2 to 6 of them, no more - the rest are just extras, with one-word looks and personality, improvised on the fly whenever needed.</p><p></p><p>I build situations, not stories. I create NPCs with their goals, methods and abilities and let players interact with them, without planning where they will be encountered, when and what they will tell the PCs. I create a dungeon only writing down a few important monsters, traps, treasures and possibly NPCs in there, quite often with no maps and never with any assumptions what the party will do there. I never try to predict what my players will do and prepare for it - I just show them a piece of the world, with many things happening there. I let them decide what to do and I just react to it. Requires quite a lot of improvisational skills sometimes, but that's something I'm good at.</p><p></p><p>A nice consequence of this approach is that I'm quite often surprised by how the story evolves. That is much more fun than playing out a pre-defined story with players participating only within its bounds.</p><p></p><p>Even when I need to focus a little on mechanics, it does not take very long. Most games I play have more narrow power scale than D&D, put less focus on balance and make it much harder to die (either because combats are rare or because death is not the default result of lost combat). Because of this, I don't need much precision when preparing the numbers - I just give my NPCs what feels right, usually including some strong combos and some definite flaws. I'm not afraid of making them too strong or too week - they are there to make things interesting, not to fit a "perfect NPC" template.</p><p></p><p>I'm a simulationist at heart, but I don't need a system to guide me in most cases. I get a good feel of the settings I run in and my players trust me to make sensible rulings instead or rule lawyering. We only need detailed notes and mechanics for the most important parts of a game and there are not so many in a single session.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="steenan, post: 5164812, member: 23240"] My average preparation time is a little less than my average session time (7-8h). In games that do not require complicated mechanics I may reduce it to about 3-4h while very crunchy games (ex. high level 3e) make it longer. I think that the most important time-reducing factor is that I always begin preparations with a concept already in my head. I need to write it down, add and correct some details, make up the numbers - but I have the general situation ready and I may build on it. I also don't get into long NPC descriptions. They need to be interesting, but don't have to be detailed. Two sentences of background, two sentences of personality, a single strong motivation, a few relations and emotional ties, two or three distinctive traits in looks or behavior. Excluding mechanics, an NPC is ready in 15 minutes and two paragraphs. And I usually need 2 to 6 of them, no more - the rest are just extras, with one-word looks and personality, improvised on the fly whenever needed. I build situations, not stories. I create NPCs with their goals, methods and abilities and let players interact with them, without planning where they will be encountered, when and what they will tell the PCs. I create a dungeon only writing down a few important monsters, traps, treasures and possibly NPCs in there, quite often with no maps and never with any assumptions what the party will do there. I never try to predict what my players will do and prepare for it - I just show them a piece of the world, with many things happening there. I let them decide what to do and I just react to it. Requires quite a lot of improvisational skills sometimes, but that's something I'm good at. A nice consequence of this approach is that I'm quite often surprised by how the story evolves. That is much more fun than playing out a pre-defined story with players participating only within its bounds. Even when I need to focus a little on mechanics, it does not take very long. Most games I play have more narrow power scale than D&D, put less focus on balance and make it much harder to die (either because combats are rare or because death is not the default result of lost combat). Because of this, I don't need much precision when preparing the numbers - I just give my NPCs what feels right, usually including some strong combos and some definite flaws. I'm not afraid of making them too strong or too week - they are there to make things interesting, not to fit a "perfect NPC" template. I'm a simulationist at heart, but I don't need a system to guide me in most cases. I get a good feel of the settings I run in and my players trust me to make sensible rulings instead or rule lawyering. We only need detailed notes and mechanics for the most important parts of a game and there are not so many in a single session. [/QUOTE]
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