D&D 5E What is your usual amount of prep?

[Lanliss]

I am aware that there is a large community of people who have little to no prep time, preferring to improvise most of their adventure. This question is for those on the other end of the pool, who prefer to plot out the main path of a campaign, along with a few secondary arcs for the hell of it. I am getting ready to write up my first campaign, and would love some tips on what to do, what not to do, and a general guideline of how much time I should put in, assuming I want to hit somewhere around the lvl 7-8 point by the end.

Expecting a party of two, and I may need some tips on how to make it interesting with only two people. Would prefer to avoid the npcs path, and was planning on letting them each run two PC's. Both are under 15, so will probably bend a few rules a long the way as well, so any interesting ways to do that would be great.

 

[Gilladian]

If you have two fairly inexperienced players, I would have them each run a pc and a henchman who is a stripped down pc or maybe a champion 1 or 2 levels lower. Not two full pcs.

You'll find that while you may have the overall campaign arc in your head, you don't want to spend a lot of time prepping more than one adventure at a time. Leave plenty of flex for changes in direction. With only two players it is fun to indulge their desire to follow character driven options. Like "who's my daddy?" Or "that pickpocket will not get away with this for long!"

I usually spend 1-3 hours prepping for my 3 hour play sessions. Most of that is reading and revising the current adventure module, or outlining my idea for my own plot of the week, and maybe 15-20 minutes is spent thinking about how to tie current events to my desired meta-plot.
And never be afraid to pitch it out the window if your pcs run the other way when you mention liches in the ruins...

 

[Bawylie]

I'd let the players control NPCs from the basic rules (such as priest, guard, etc.).

As for prep, for me it's about ratios. 1:3. 1 hour of prep should yield 3 hrs of play at minimum. Otherwise I'm working too hard.

Generally my sessions are 3-4 or 5-6 hours with a 20-30 min intermission (during which, I sometimes adjust prep).

But in truth, prep and improv are skills. And they improve through practice and understanding what you'll need.

Because I have strong improv skills, my "plot" prep is fairly skeletal. I aim to hit 2-3 specific high notes, and end the session on some kind of hook or bang or whatever.

Sometimes I spend time designing specific encounters. Sometimes I go with general formats.

But I'm time limited, so I only prep what's strictly, absolutely and utterly needed.

 

[redrick]

I am aware that there is a large community of people who have little to no prep time, preferring to improvise most of their adventure. This question is for those on the other end of the pool, who prefer to plot out the main path of a campaign, along with a few secondary arcs for the hell of it. I am getting ready to write up my first campaign, and would love some tips on what to do, what not to do, and a general guideline of how much time I should put in, assuming I want to hit somewhere around the lvl 7-8 point by the end.

Expecting a party of two, and I may need some tips on how to make it interesting with only two people. Would prefer to avoid the npcs path, and was planning on letting them each run two PC's. Both are under 15, so will probably bend a few rules a long the way as well, so any interesting ways to do that would be great.

I personally love small parties, because it allows you to do a lot more with individual characters. Obviously, you'll have to adjust your expectations of how durable the party is. I agree with [MENTION=2093]Gilladian[/MENTION]'s and [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION]'s recommendation to not have two full PCs per player. Have a clear PC for each player, and then allow them to pick up simpler hirelings or companions as needed. These NPCs will follow orders in combat (be under player control), but might act independently out of combat, as per the DM's discretion. (They might balk at walking first down a trap-laden corridor.) I've done this with single player parties and had it work very well.

Are you looking to prep an "adventure path" with a clear outcome and a generally predetermined plot, or just a general direction that your campaign is going?

When prepping a new campaign, my practice has been to identify one or more potential "big bads", be these individual characters or groups and organizations. I like to come up with some secrets and mysteries related to these adversaries, that can be teased out over the course of the campaign. The players in my group are total suckers for "what's going on here", so doling out some mysteries over the course of the campaign keeps everybody engaged. I find it better to figure out the answers to these mysteries ahead of time, because it keeps me from getting into Lost territory. I usually do this in the back of my head over several weeks, keeping an Evernote entry on my phone where I jot down ideas while on the subway.

I like to have a map of the adventure region, with a number of potential adventure sites / characters marked off before my first session. The map usually takes me a little while, as I go through several iterations. I only briefly indicate the adventure sites or characters. This takes a few hours to get down, usually.

Beyond that, I go one adventure at a time. I find that I usually spend too much time prepping at the beginning of the adventure, but can get by on autopilot by the end of the adventure, as I am able to just mildly update prep that didn't get used from previous sessions. So 2-5 hours or so at the beginning of an adventure (more if playing on Roll20, less if playing in person), as I draw up maps and jot down monster stats, etc. By the end of an adventure, I can do all my prep on the subway home from work before my game.

 

[HEEGZ]

If running a published adventure, I read the whole adventure first. I will also try to re-read the part I'm running that session within 10 minutes prior to running it with players.

For plots that I run online in NWN2, or homebrew stuff, I don't prep anymore. I've spent enough time in the past that I can pretty easily come up with ad hoc adventures and so on.

I do however spend a considerable amount of free time reading about RPGs, DMing, gaming, and fantasy stuff in general. This helps make it alot easier to just sit down and DM without any prep.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Most of my prep time goes into drawing maps. The remaining work goes into me reading the adventure module ahead. I at least read the whole dungeon description of the dungeon my players are about to enter. And finally on level up and occassionally, I update my spreadsheets that list the most importants stats of all characters, update my internal item lists and check if the character sheets of everyone are still correct.

Edit: Oh and after a dungeon I write a "What could have been". And occasionally I spend them time thinking about certain rules problems and how to solve them best.

 

[Mercule]

Currently, I'm running PotA for my group. I've read through it a couple times. My weekly prep consists of putting likely encounters into DM Minion. If I have time, I'll add some stuff into my Obsidian Portal site. I used to use OneNote for my notes, but I decided that a wiki served the same purpose, with the added benefit of giving my group something to look at, if they cared (if not, it's no more effort, for me).

 

[Lanliss]

You all have been a big help. I set up a couple of hirelings to run with the pair, one of which is a Life cleric (the only healer they had was Pally, who was also their front line). I have a blank hex map that I plan to turn into my continent, which I believe they will cross over several times. Will most likely do a basic hack'n'slash, with maybe a puzzle or two thrown in. I plan on this being extremely "beer and pretzels", at least at first. I may pick up the difficulty later on, and maybe throw in some social things. Do you forsee any problems, knowing it is not a serious game, with me throwing a magic item at each of them(not their helpers, only two items.) I was thinking the gloves of missile catching may be good for the sorc, and maybe the pally will get the Eyes of Minute seeing or a Driftglobe. Actually have a few to pick from, that I handpicked as not giving a massive mechanical advantage to them. Would even these simple items cause unforeseeable problems?

EDIT: because auto correct hates me.

EDIT 2.0: was wrong about pally, is a barb. No significant change, at least on my end.

 

[Bawylie]

Don't worry about it. You'll drive yourself crazy worrying about possible abuse.

 

[redrick]

You all have been a big help. I set up a couple of hirelings to run with the pair, one of which is a Life cleric (the only healer they had was Pally, who was also their front line). I have a blank hex map that I plan to turn into my continent, which I believe they will cross over several times. Will most likely do a basic hack'n'slash, with maybe a puzzle or two thrown in. I plan on this being extremely "beer and pretzels", at least at first. I may pick up the difficulty later on, and maybe throw in some social things. Do you forsee any problems, knowing it is not a serious game, with me throwing a magic item at each of them(not their helpers, only two items.) I was thinking the gloves of missile catching may be good for the sorc, and maybe the pally will get the Eyes of Minute seeing or a Driftglobe. Actually have a few to pick from, that I handpicked as not giving a massive mechanical advantage to them. Would even these simple items cause unforeseeable problems?

EDIT: because auto correct hates me.

If it's just the two of them, being a little over-powered isn't the end of the world. A little magic can go a long way, and you might find yourself surprised at how much they can handle, but there's always bigger, badder monsters.

That being said, I always think it's smart to start stingy with loot. You can always give more out, but once you start giving it out, it's hard to turn the knob back. So I always think it pays to give a little less than you think is "appropriate" at first, and then adjust up as you go.

(You can overdo that. I ran Gold=XP for my first 5e campaign, and, in the first 3 sessions, the party found only 10 or 20 gp between themselves. I faced a mutiny after that.)