Poll for "homebrew" DMs

[Thurbane]

Just a quick poll for DMs who run a homebrew campaign (i.e. not a published setting or unlrealted adventures each week) - what amounts of time to you put into detailing and/or documenting your homebrew campaign world or setting?

 

[WmRAllen67]

I voted "1 to 3 hours a week"...

I also voted "other", since at this point, owing to the amount of grad school reading/ writing/ TA stuff I've got going on, one to three hours a week is a pleasant dream... :\

 

[Crothian]

When I'm running a game in it it is usually at least a few hours a week. And it's been going on for 8 or 9 years.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Well, I've been working on my new setting about 5 hours a week (on average) since May. I'm just finishing up. I've been tweaking and fiddling with my old setting for almost 25 years, off and on.

And that's over and above adventure prep.

 

[Mordane76]

I've been working on my campaign off and on for about two years now. I generally devote 5+ hours a week in random spurts in preparation time, plot development, and thoughts/mechanics on in-game cultures, races, classes, PrCs, etc. This time can increase if new products from WotC come out, as I generally strip-mine all new products for ideas and potential future plot arcs. My players are also occasionally involved in development as well.

 

[el-remmen]

I said "Other"

Because while I go through phases (like now) where I will work on developing a particular section of the setting 30 minutes to several hours everyday - once I get a level of detail I want for the region, I run a campaign in that general area and do little to no development until I know that either I will be starting a new campaign in another part of the world, or the current group is going to be visiting an area that requires development.*

I have been working on and playing in Aquerra since the summer of 1989 (when 2E came out) so whole sections have had both various tweaks and total overhauls over time. These days, I take chapters in the DM's Gazeteer that were 8 to 12 pages and expand them into 70 pages or more. For example, when I re-detailed the Archduchy of Wallbrook, I took the original 5 or 6 pages of info and made it into 80 pages in the process of a few weeks. Currently, I am redoing the Magocracy of Thricia - originally, that section was 9 pages of info. I added two more pages during campaigns I ran in the early 90's and then added another 4 pages at the end of the 90's - but so far in the revision I am at 81 pages and about halfway done (maybe slightly less than half) which I have done over the last month and a half or so.

I also occasionaly tweak around areas of Aquerra I am not planning I am running a campaign in, but usually I end up abandoning those projects, leaving a skeleton that can be fleshed out at a later date (which in a way, I guess that is what those early chapters were).

So anyway, it is hard to say how much time overall. . .

* of course character actions can force me to have to develop further while the campaign is running.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I voted 1-3 hrs/week, which includes about a half hour (if that) of designing the adventure for the next weekend, and the rest of the time thinking about plot points or preparing handouts or discussing characters with players.

 

[Wombat]

In any given week I'd say I put in about three solid hours; over time, I have put an incalculable amount of time, simply because every time I read a new book (fiction or non-fiction), write a paper (or journal entry or post), listen to a piece of music, look at a map, travel to a new place, eventually some part of that works its way in to my gaming.

I have created many worlds in my time, some for campaigns that lasted as long as five years, some that never got out of the "design phase". And all of these worlds have added to the other worlds I have created.

RPGs, for me, are the dumping ground for all my eclectic interests.

 

[Gold Roger]

Most developement of my homebrew is the effect of stray thoughts- the biggest written text on my current homebrew is a two paragraph blurb I wrote somewhere here. Since this developement is usually very random, the time is hard to pin down, but I guess it's 3 hours/week on average.

This developement however can take years of thoughts, playing and sudden writing. I hope I'll have it decently developed by the time of my next campaign.

 

[Graybeard]

Most of the time I prepare anout 1 to 2 hours before each session. We try to play every other week but often don't due to schedules. Some weeks I don't have time to prepare so I wing it. I have some various ideas in my head at all times so I just DM on the fly.