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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 5027370" data-attributes="member: 2">Oh, those are bad questions.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Game prep averages a half an hour, plus some plotting in the shower and as I'm falling asleep; I'd say an hour per game. This is down 2-3x from my old campaign (which, notably, was higher level); the days when I was spending as much time prepping as playing seem to be far away. DDI gets all the credit for this. I figure out how I want the session to run, scan for appropriate monsters, and then alter their stats as needed to make sure they seem unique. Likewise, I scan the compendium for appropriate magic items.One thing thart is helping tremendously is keeping a separate word doc for each level. This document keeps a chart of what treasure parcels I've handed out (and what they were, and to whom), lists of important NPCs, copy-n-pasted monster and treasure stats, any handouts, and my ongoing plot notes. I'd be floundering if it weren't for these.I wrote down a bunch of information initially on my campaign wiki. Since then everything is tracked in those campaign docs, but not elsewhere. I also digitally record every game and just archive those recordings on my PC.On a separate note, running this 4e one-shot has shown me something interesting. I find 4e a fun system for my campaigns; the condition tracking is sort of a pain in the ass, requiring a white board to really track conditions efficiently, but everything is fast with good tactical options now that everyone knows their character. For a one-shot, though, I'm finding 4e to be sub-optimal. Players get information overload as they sit down to two pages of power cards, and feats tend to create rules exceptions that you have to remember in order to use. The game's strengths in a campaign become weaknesses when I'm trying to get everyone up to speed on new characters quickly. "The Caprian Foreign Legion Goes to Tea" only works because it's focused on stunts, skill challenges and roleplaying instead of on combat.Moral of the story? I'll probably run fewer D&D one-shots going forward, instead using systems that have low learning curves and simpler characters, and keep 4e as my campaign game of choice.</blockquote>

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