DM Prep

[Thymos]

In the DnD next thread people were talking about how DMs shouldn't prep all that much.

I disagree, but how I spend my prep seems to differ from some.

I spend my prep creating some villains, some plot to keep things going.

Most of my prep time is drawing out encounters I have planned or setting up things I think will happen so that I don't need to spend time on the table setting this up.

One of my favorite things to do though is design an encounter with no idea how the players will solve it, but hand them a lot of tools. I think I once had a player ask my what they are supposed to do and I simply responded that I have no idea, I created the scenario and handed them tools to come up with their own solution.

Once I made an impossibly high tower (fantasy). When players reached the top of the encounter there was a golem (which they roleplayed it out so the golem did not fight them), and the mcguffin item. Then monsters started climbing the tower and it started to fall. I had stuff in the tower, but no real idea of how they would escape. They ended up created a hot air balloon, which was completely awesome and ended up very memorable.

[Wrathzog]

Personally, I'm terrible improvisation, so I tend to put a lot of time into planning out sessions and the campaign in general. I try to keep extensive notes on all the major factions, NPC's, and cities in the "world-space" of the campaign.
The notes on the PCs tend to be fleshed out between sessions while I interrogate the players for more information that I can as seeds for future encounters. Oddly, the people who are more forthcoming with information tend to get more of a focus than those that don't. WEIRD.

Encounters are generally handled via Excel spreadsheets, so those tend to be the easiest things to design. Dungeons are generally stolen from other adventures.

Looking back on it, I'll put anywhere between 2-4 times as much time into planning a particular session than actually running through it.

[Juton]

There are two problems with always (key word always) requiring MCs put in a lot of prep time. The first is MCs get busy like everyone else, so if they can't put in the required hours before the game starts then the game is canceled for everyone. The second is the MC is also a player of the game, forcing one player to put in way more effort isn't fair.

That being said we should probably decide how much prep work actually constitutes a lot. My prep time for MCing a 3.5 ran a couple hours per session, which usually lasted 4-5 hours. So is one hour of prep for two of gaming a lot, not enough, or just right?

[wotmaniac]

Most of my prep happens before the game even starts.
Being as all my material is created from whole cloth, I spend dozens of hours on setting, establishing a robust framework off of which I can easily improvise-as-needed. I then spend another several-dozen hours working out general flowcharts of "if-then" situations that would foreseeably arise from the various plot hooks (both ones that I plant, as well as the ones that seem to emerge from the setting itself). I also put together some plug-and-play encounters, as well as some stock pallet swaps for said encounters.
So, potentially as much as 100 hours of pre-campaign prep.

Given that, the only real "prep" that I do between sessions is working out the rippling effects of the previous session, and coming up with seemingly-relevant plot-specific encounters (which sometimes only involves customizing some of the aforementioned plug-and-play encounters).
So, 1-3 hours of between-session prep, for a 6-10 hour session.

[darkmaster]

I don't do a lot of D&D DMing, mostly I DM M&M since I know the system better and don't need to do as much shuffling. That said, generally my prep involves coming up with a plot hook or two, building some stock enemies, one of more guest characters who may, or may not, get involved in an adventure, and a boss enemy of some sort. And that's pretty much it, the adventure advances however it does.

[Red_Rob]

I like to use published adventures, as this allows me to vary how much prep time I spend on the game. If I'm short of time I can just read through the adventure and run it as written, if I have more time available I'll customise it to our playgroup's style, put in sideplots relevant to their characters, or rewrite sections I think are lacking or don't flow well.

One of my favorite things to do though is design an encounter with no idea how the players will solve it, but hand them a lot of tools. I think I once had a player ask my what they are supposed to do and I simply responded that I have no idea, I created the scenario and handed them tools to come up with their own solution.

I've done this a fair few times. Sometimes I'll have an idea of something they could do using their abilities, other times I'll just have there be a challenge and see what they come up with.

[Hicks]

I find that the most satisfying adventures for me to plan and run are the ones with no predetermined solution. An objective is presented, a time limit is impressed, and set off the players to see how they solve it. Since you are not planning the interaction, just the initial states and DMing the response to the players, it takes way less set up, and you get to see unexpected solutions to a problem you didn't solve.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

DM Prep is important. The better the DM and the better the system, the less prep is required for a good game.

[Fuchs]

A big part of my prep time is typing up the notes from the last session and updating NPCs and locations so I can keep ahead of what consequences actions have, and what plots are running where. I prepare adventures like Hicks mentioned - preparing NPCs and their goals and means, and see what comes of it. Usually it's about 2 to 3 hours per session, but a part of that is taken up by doing the renders for the illustrations.

[tussock]

I like having no more than about an hour prep for 6+ hour sessions, but I don't count reading time because I do that anyway. That's a lot easier with some games than others.

Of course, I'm relying on a lot of in-game randomisation and improv to get through, which doesn't always work well, and limits how strictly I can stick to the rules for NPCs in various games. Tables are very good there, attitudes, treasure, monsters, clues, ....

[icyshadowlord]

From my own experiences, prep time (and effort) tends to vary depending on the situation.

[hogarth]

I also like published (D&D) adventures so that time-consuming things (well, time-consuming in D&D) like maps and stat blocks are available beforehand.

[MisterDee]

I've realized over the years that doing too much prep is a recipe for DM burnout or ragequit.

Pre-campaign start, I'll spend perhaps 10 hours on getting an initial area ready. So I'll have an overworld map covering the starting village and nearby points of interest, a basic list of potential hooks, and a first adventure.

I don't do huge complicated metaplots and ginormous full-world maps anymore. It's just too frustrating when the PCs don't bite for whatever reason and you're left with sixty hours of work sent down the drain.

(With one exception - I'm running the entire Ptolus book at the moment, with everything tied together in a plot structure. But I'll let the PCs walk off rail if they want, and anyway since I don't have to create anything else that's not an issue.)

When prepping an adventure, I do perhaps an hour of discussion with the PCs first, to get an idea of what they want to do. Then I type out the adventure plan (which will take perhaps two hours, up to four if I'm planning a complicated battle scene) and throw the encounters together in CombatManager (ten minutes of work usually, but that can climb fairly quickly if using classed NPCs that I have to create in Herolab first.)

Note that I don't do Big Dungeons anymore either. I usually run short adventures (3-6 encounters) so I can get away with handwaving the exploration.

So I probably average out at one hour of prep per hour of gaming, for adventures that are player-instigated but don't require much improvisation, and which will run smoothly without having me fumble through books and the like.

But that 1:1 ratio is only possible because I don't have to do setting-creation, and because I get to use Combat Manager and Hero Lab.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Some of the best games I've ever run have been zero prep- but then again, so were some of the worst.

[RobbyPants]

I've realized over the years that doing too much prep is a recipe for DM burnout or ragequit.

...

I don't do huge complicated metaplots and ginormous full-world maps anymore. It's just too frustrating when the PCs don't bite for whatever reason and you're left with sixty hours of work sent down the drain.

For this reason, I don't think I'm ever going to attempt a big campaign like this without first pitching the idea at the players. I've yet to get seriously burned on this, but I've seen entire adventures go down the drain from both ends of the screen.

Some of the best games I've ever run have been zero prep- but then again, so were some of the worst.

True dat.

[Blasted]

From experience, my games run much, much better the more prep is put in.
With the premade campaigns I run, I do 2-3 hours prep for each session, with probably 10 or so for the first game. I like to prepare useful handouts and gaming aids to keep people engaged. I generally try to have at least one character specific handout or secret per session.

My games from scratch can easily double that time. I find creating a good campaign a real time sink. My first After Sundown regular game took up an immense amount of time. Especially in keeping people informed of the rules and background.
I'd like to run a second game, but the amount of effort is keeping me back at the moment.

[Wiseman]

I have DM'd in person all of two times, and the rest are play by post. Despite how long I tended to have to plan, I ended up making it up as I went along most of the time. I had a general plot, but no real plan on how to get there.

Looking back, I probably could have done with more planning.

[Aryxbez]

In any tale of people's games, or DM preparatory measures, I've always found that I seem to be "extremely" slower than others. Where I Know I need more than a day to plan things for a upcoming session. I can easily spend a few hours coming up with ideas for an adventure, or even building a single encounter! Doesn't help that I tend to be lazy, but once I get started on prep, I tend to have good momentum that can possibly mean a couple sessions or more, worth of content for my group.

In the end though, mostly just need context, general idea of the NPC's, and encounters built beforehand, the rest I can do a fair job of bringing to life for my players. Though I'm terribad with treasure, and a system that has good items and system for this, could go a long way for making a DM's job easier.