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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5190761" data-attributes="member: 85870">In a sense, this whole thread is an adjunct to the "Cognitive Dissonance in Encounter Design" thread.The real question is--how much preparation should the average GM be expected to spend on a weekly/monthly basis to produce the best possible sessions/campaign? Obviously, the rules system as a whole plays a big part in this. Probably the three biggest criticisms of D&D 3.x were A. Magic classes outshone their counterparts B. High-level play was difficult to manage or GM, and as a result, C. GM prep time was too high.Well, 2 of the 3 biggest criticisms of the 3.x system are directly GM-preparation related. And 4e's paradigms of character, monster, and encounter design were developed as a direct result. But the underlying point of this is that D&D is very much adversarial in its designs--it's a combat- and challenge-focused system, where the goal is to put the power in the hands of the players to face the challenges placed in front of them. There are other rules systems that fall under a completely different set of assumptions about the nature of the player and GM's relationship, that don't have nearly the same amount of "adversarial" tendencies. Each system has an expected level of GM "preparation" that ultimately "fits" that system's needs.</blockquote>