say wut about prep O.o

[rexx1888]

so. I recently started a new campaign. Pretty excited for it, but it only plays once every three weeks. To me, that seemed a bit excessive an was probably going to cause problems such as a lack of character connection and a pain to actually organise play every three weeks. So, since im excited i said something about.

long story short, the reason that the game can only be played once every three weeks is that the dm needs a week to decompress, a week to brainstorm and then will spend at minimum five hours, more like twelve though to actually write a module. Keep in mind, this is for a 6 hour play session.

is it me, or is this rather excessive, like, should this guy just be a writer instead??

seems to me that if you are enjoying writing the module more than playing the game there could be a small problem :\

am i right to be confused by this, or am i a jackass for suggesting we play more often??

[Sir Chuckles]

If you want to play more often, suggest that he use published modules instead of writing his own campaign.

Now I don't know what's going on in his life, but, for me, between classes, homework, family, work, and generally trying to not stare at this screen for 14 hours a day, it can take awhile to sit down a write up a big bad, his motivations, his minions, his plot, "his" world, things outside his world, proxies for when things go west instead of north west, and every little filling in between, and possibly more.

Even when I didn't have all that, and I was only "worried" about leveling up some character in some game, there's a very fine line between "writing a campaign" and "writing a short story for your English class".

I wouldn't call you a donkey, nor would I call you confused. You're just expecting something that he's not able to easily provide.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Everyone works differently. DMing is a pretty demanding role, and it's perfectly OK to need time to prepare... that being said, this does sound pretty extreme. Two weeks of essentially farting around? I don't know what exactly a "week of decompressing" entails, but... geez. I wouldn't want to criticize him as such, but... maybe he shouldn't be a primary DM. See if you can't set up some sort of rotating DM thing. Like, see if you can get someone else to DM as well, and alternate who's in the chair week by week. That gives both guys plenty of time to plan, while still giving the group a regular game.

[nyjastul69]

I dont think 5-12 hours for a 6 hour session is excessive. I spend about 1 hr of prep to 1 hr of game time. I can't really speak to the rest.

[XionUnborn01]

I think it depends a lot on the type of game you're playing.

If you're playing a RP heavy campaign, it does require more background work to fabricate everything that will connect throughout the campaign and many DMs change the world as their players act, which also takes time.

If you're playing a quick and dirty kick-in-the-door style light RP campaign, usually you wouldn't expect as much time between sessions.

Also you should take into account (which you may already have done) his work, school, and social schedules; he simply may not have a lot of time to dedicate other than a few days every couple of weeks.

If you really want to play more often, you could always volunteer to DM a side game. I don't know if you have any DMing experience or not, all I can say is that my players used to wonder why we couldn't do 3-4 days in a row of gaming until a couple of them took a turn trying to DM and realized how much managing and juggling is involved.

So, you might come across as needy/whining if you repeatedly suggest wanting to play more because you might not have all the information.

[Toliudar]

Some DM's are good at improv, but lots aren't. Some compensate with a LOT of prep time.

Are you enjoying the sessions? Are you happy that you're not the one running the game? If you answer yes to both these questions, I'd be inclined not to push for a different pattern. By all means raise it with the DM, but I'd do so in the context of 'I'm having a lot of fun in these sessions, and I just want there to be more of them'. And be ready for a no.

[Keneth]

12 hours to write a module? I spend more than 12 hours per session to modify existing modules or adventures.

Do you have any idea how much time it takes to write a stat block for every single NPC/unique monster from scratch? How long did it take you to fully flesh out your character? Now imagine you had to make like 5-10 of those for every session.

And yes, a huge part of being a DM is creating stuff. I'm not a great actor, and I don't all that much enjoy actual gameplay other than seeing what happens with my creations. I'm sure there are plenty of DMs out there who feel the same.

[VoxRationis]

If he's trying to just run adventures in a vacuum, it's probably excessive prep time. But the very act of creating a living, breathing world is extremely time-intensive, and plotting out the detailed activities of engaging, challenging, intelligent villains is even more so. Think about it: each region in the campaign setting probably has a half-dozen different cultures, critically important geography and climate issues, cities and towns to plan, important rulers and NPCs to jot down (each with at least a line about their motivations), current conflicts, a history which may take some time, linguistic changes, etc. Your DM may be a perfectionist about this sort of thing, and want to know what you'll find if you walk down the right fork instead of the left, or if you get lost because your ranger flubbed a Survival check. That kind of work is practically a full-time job in itself, and unless your DM is independently wealthy, he's probably working on something most of the time and wants to unwind some of the time, and while one takes joy in creativity, working 8 hours a day at a job and then 4 at a DM thing is too much.

[LogosDragon]

A week of decompression!? I run four sessions a week, with each of my two groups playing twice a week. I have done so for coming on three years with only two significant breaks, one of which certainly wasn't a break for any of my mental faculties; I took a week and a half off for a funeral across the state about a year ago, and just recently my two groups banded together to force me to take a two-week break because one of the campaigns was getting very dark and a particularly emotional scene finally caused my mental health to start to crack. And I was still reluctant to take said break.

... But I'm a workaholic. Still, a session a week barring circumstances such as finals or other important exams shouldn't be unmanageable. And this is coming from a person who generally spends 10 or more hours preparing each session. And my campaigns don't even start until I've made an entire world fleshed out in extreme detail, so that's all situational prep based on what's going on.

Now, I don't expect ANYONE to follow my example, because I'm in the unique position of being a stay-at-home wife in a mostly diplomatic marriage. I have nothing if not free time. But I think most DMs who need several weeks between every session are just being lazy.

As a side note, I support the above suggestion that he should use pre-made campaign settings and modules if he can't handle his time better.

[Anlashok]

A particularly detail oriented DM spending a week or two crafting a module? Sure, that makes enough sense. A little longer than I think is necessary but it's within the realm of possibility.

An extra week to "decompress"? Yeahno.

[Crake]

Plus its worth noting that the party may well not get through his entire module in one sitting. What's he gonna do when you guys are stuck mid-module and the session ends? Still make you wait 3 weeks? I personally refuse to play in games that don't run every week by default (I'm fine with breaks every now and then if something goes wrong in people's lives, but assuming all else is fine, once per week) because I find that not playing at least once a week makes the game deteriorate quickly. People stop investing into their characters, because they aren't able to connect with them, which means they don't care about dying, which means they do stupid stuff, or they just don't do anything at all, yeah, it's just all around bad. I've seen it from both a DM and a player, I've just found that it doesn't work out.

2 weeks would be my absolute upper limit, and even then, only if the game looked particularly appealing.

That said, I'm a very roleplay focused player, I don't play the game for numbers, I'm the kind of player who would blow all my gold on a mansion while everyone around me buys their +3 maguffin of mega-killz0rz and the kind of DM who will roleplay out a visit to the library just to introduce the player to the world.

[hemming]

Once a week should really do it - but it is a lot of work (not to be underestimated). Three weeks - that's crazy

Have you considered running two games with the same group? If you or another player is willing to DM the second game, may be the easiest way

[rexx1888]

i ran a quite successful game for two years and used that to build a very very big roleplaying group, so im not on need of extra games as they generally try to keep me involved, as is ill be playing in three seperate games lol. I was just curious about whether its unreasonable to talk about weekly play. in my own opinion dming is a big responsibility, but part of that is playing weekly. Hell the next campaign i run will start with 2 sessions a week for say three weeks to get players connected to their characters.

basically there isnt really a way to solve this, the dm is quite certain that this is the only way he will ever run a game. I just needed a vent, and thought id see other ppls opinions and the differences out there in the world, which seem to be many :)

[Amphetryon]

That DM's creative process is his own; it is no more 'right' or 'wrong' than yours, mine, or any other DM's. If it is not one that allows you to enjoy the game, I'd suggest you find another game.

As to the notion that part of the 'responsibility' of a DM is playing weekly? Yeahno.

[rexx1888]

That DM's creative process is his own; it is no more 'right' or 'wrong' than yours, mine, or any other DM's. If it is not one that allows you to enjoy the game, I'd suggest you find another game.

As to the notion that part of the 'responsibility' of a DM is playing weekly? Yeahno.

^^^ this is not a helpful tone. You dont need to get combative about my opinions, its unnecessary.

if it is my own opinion about when to play a game, dont "yeahno" me. Its a responsibility i dont enforce in others, but its advice i consistently see bandied about by experienced folk, and i understand why. Players need the time to actually connect to their characters. Dm's have this tendency to get wrapped up in their own world building, but a player essentially isnt allowed to do that without permission. The irony to that is often that DM's then get pissy about players that dont "play right" or make insane decisions, and yet its simply a consequence of not having the time to know what your doing. Even actors have rehearsal time, but all players get is the capacity to write a backstory and even that is subject to a dm.

Fact is, there is a huge imbalance between players and dms that needs to be fixed if the medium is ever going to go anywhere. its evidenced by the idea that a player is just their to play the game. Its the sort of stuff that leads to rail roads and insane characters and lazy disinterested players. if my dm wants to spend three weeks doing prep for a game in his "creative process" then i, as a player, should have some sort of say in that. Especially when the process is likely to let the game take a flying jump off the nearest cliff due to any number of messed up things(which will be a waste of my time as well as his, since im expected to be invested in my character). Better yet, i would argue that even though i may not build the game world, i have as much importance in it as the dm, because if i as a player AM NOT THERE then there is literally no point to that world. If it isnt seen by a player, it might as well not exist. You can have all the fancy plans you want for the next town, but if i get distracted, walk into a bear cave and die, im probably not going to see it.

Look, you can have your own opinions on this stuff, and that doesnt make you wrong, but dont discount me just because my idea of a dm's responsibilities is different to yours.

final note, if you are a dm that spends countless hours on prep, i will point out that that is a really daunting thing to let your players know. The fact that my dm has at minimum 2 weeks of prep time in brainstorming and writing is freaky, because any decision i make that isnt anticipated or predicted may just wipe out a chunk of that time making it entirely pointless. Sure he can move the signposts around, but at that point why does he need 12 hours :\ its just a stressful thing to think that playing the game might inadvertantly make him rather upset :\

[HighWater]

I feel like I need to defend those who also have an active life outside of DnD. Please be advised that there are several intensities to DnD. To some DnD is a game, to others it's a hobby, and to others it's a lifestyle or even an obsession! Quite a few DMs (and players) fit in class 1 and 2, for them playing every week is too exhausting and too much of a time sink, they have other stuff they want to do as well!


... such as a lack of character connection...

Lack of character connection? Not been a problem for me so far, not been a problem for my players so far... If you only play every few weeks, play time becomes more valuable and you have more time to consider what happened last session. Players can easily become -more- attached, as they've already invested months into their current character.



long story short, the reason that the game can only be played once every three weeks is that the dm needs a week to decompress, a week to brainstorm and then will spend at minimum five hours, more like twelve though to actually write a module. Keep in mind, this is for a 6 hour play session.

5-12 hours direct work actually writing the adventure for 6 hour play seems about par for the course. Needing "empty" time outside that to come up with interesting ideas is normal. Good ideas can take weeks to grow, especially in a homebrew setting and especially if this setting has an interactive, progressive story. Yes it does take (at least) that much time to customise DnD and play something other than Stock Forrest of Random Encounters, especially if the DM doesn't have years of experience under the belt.



seems to me that if you are enjoying writing the module more than playing the game there could be a small problem :\

No, this is not the problem, this is the solution. If you DM but only enjoy the gameplay and not the gamecraft, you probably shouldn't be DMing. As stated above, creating quality DM-work requires a bucketload of time. If you don't enjoy doing that work, the people who profit from your effort should -pay- you. Do you want to pay your DM a salary? If your answer is no, please be glad if the DM likes making up a good story and putting together interesting encounters.



am i right to be confused by this, or am i a jackass for suggesting we play more often??

If you've never DMed, you have a right to be confused. It's almost impossible from a players perspective to truly appreciate the hard work that goes into DMing. Suggesting you play more often should only be done in the most positive of ways. "I think this is awesome and what you're doing is awesome, I wish we could do this more often! I'm so interested in what's coming next!" - is about the only way to encourage a DM to increase the pace (but if he doesn't have time, he simply doesn't have time, you need to respect this, just because he's the DM doesn't mean he's not entitled to a life). If you go about implying he should work harder (and is lazy) so you can have your fix more often, well... That will probably decrease the quality of the campaign while also likely increasing time between sessions rather than reducing it.

Long story short: DMing can be very time and energy-intensive, not everyone is as... invested... in DnD to sacrifice all other things they're doing...

[some guy]

so. I recently started a new campaign. Pretty excited for it, but it only plays once every three weeks. To me, that seemed a bit excessive an was probably going to cause problems such as a lack of character connection and a pain to actually organise play every three weeks. So, since im excited i said something about.

long story short, the reason that the game can only be played once every three weeks is that the dm needs a week to decompress, a week to brainstorm and then will spend at minimum five hours, more like twelve though to actually write a module. Keep in mind, this is for a 6 hour play session.

is it me, or is this rather excessive, like, should this guy just be a writer instead??

seems to me that if you are enjoying writing the module more than playing the game there could be a small problem :\

am i right to be confused by this, or am i a jackass for suggesting we play more often??

12 hours of preparation is a lot, too much for me, to spend on 6 hours of gaming. This DM could probably spend his/her time more effectively, but eh. I try to spend 1 hour of preparation to 3 hours of gaming. Mind you, when I was inexperienced, I spent more time on preparation. My preparation is also skewed towards more time spent on preparation at the start of a campaign.

But the playing frequency depends on the person having fewest time. If the DM says 'once every 3 weeks', that's it. You could ask for a higher frequency, but I don't give it a high chance. This frequency probably works best for this DM. Most you could do, is set up another gaming group.


That DM's creative process is his own; it is no more 'right' or 'wrong' than yours, mine, or any other DM's. If it is not one that allows you to enjoy the game, I'd suggest you find another game.

As to the notion that part of the 'responsibility' of a DM is playing weekly? Yeahno.

And this.


One last thought; I ran one small campaign once which ran weekly. It really helped with the flow of the campaign, details were also better remembered. But it was only possible because it was in a period in which everybody had enough free time and everybody was on board for it from the start.

[Amphetryon]

^^^ this is not a helpful tone. You dont need to get combative about my opinions, its unnecessary.

if it is my own opinion about when to play a game, dont "yeahno" me. Its a responsibility i dont enforce in others, but its advice i consistently see bandied about by experienced folk, and i understand why. Players need the time to actually connect to their characters. Dm's have this tendency to get wrapped up in their own world building, but a player essentially isnt allowed to do that without permission. The irony to that is often that DM's then get pissy about players that dont "play right" or make insane decisions, and yet its simply a consequence of not having the time to know what your doing. Even actors have rehearsal time, but all players get is the capacity to write a backstory and even that is subject to a dm.

Fact is, there is a huge imbalance between players and dms that needs to be fixed if the medium is ever going to go anywhere. its evidenced by the idea that a player is just their to play the game. Its the sort of stuff that leads to rail roads and insane characters and lazy disinterested players. if my dm wants to spend three weeks doing prep for a game in his "creative process" then i, as a player, should have some sort of say in that. Especially when the process is likely to let the game take a flying jump off the nearest cliff due to any number of messed up things(which will be a waste of my time as well as his, since im expected to be invested in my character). Better yet, i would argue that even though i may not build the game world, i have as much importance in it as the dm, because if i as a player AM NOT THERE then there is literally no point to that world. If it isnt seen by a player, it might as well not exist. You can have all the fancy plans you want for the next town, but if i get distracted, walk into a bear cave and die, im probably not going to see it.

Look, you can have your own opinions on this stuff, and that doesnt make you wrong, but dont discount me just because my idea of a dm's responsibilities is different to yours.

final note, if you are a dm that spends countless hours on prep, i will point out that that is a really daunting thing to let your players know. The fact that my dm has at minimum 2 weeks of prep time in brainstorming and writing is freaky, because any decision i make that isnt anticipated or predicted may just wipe out a chunk of that time making it entirely pointless. Sure he can move the signposts around, but at that point why does he need 12 hours :\ its just a stressful thing to think that playing the game might inadvertantly make him rather upset :\
If you found my tone inappropriate, I apologize, and only hope you will extend me the same courtesy when I find yours to be similarly inappropriate.

[hymer]

@ Amphetryon: Just wanted to say that was a very charitable and reasonable way to respond, and your post before that was equally fair.

@ OP: You come across to me as much too busy finding fault. You feel insulted for being disagreed with in a thread where you ask for opinions? I'm not a native English-speaker, so you'll excuse me if I didn't realize that 'yeahno' is a horrible insult rather than a way to show disagreement. You get angry at the DM using a lot of prep time for your campaign? How about feeling privileged instead? If you don't think you're playing often enough, run your own game alongside, or get another group up alongside the one you're in now.

You've gotten several great pieces of advice above, especially the 'Encourage him, but don't push him' bits.

[Brookshw]

DM styles and all that aside (or not)

Maybe there's a way to help him improve his prep time? What's his biggest timesink? There are plenty of online map generators, some of which include traps, room descriptions, treasure etc, would using these help? There are plenty of premade maps on WoTC. There are creature advancers that can roll gear into stat blocks. He could ask the players to help contribute back stories for npcs.

I can't tailor advise to help without knowing more about how he utilizes prep time. Of course maybe he only wants to play every three weeks and if that's the case maybe find a 2nd group to play with?

And if it does boil down to numbers crunching, well, I advocate for time purposes a dm should never be afraid to just hand wave whatever makes for a reasonable encounter.

[TheIronGolem]

I ran a pretty successful campaign where our time between games could be anywhere from "every two weeks" to "it's been three months since our last game".


I largely credit the success of that game to the use of a tabletop/play-by-post hybrid model. Basically, you do PbP in between live sessions. It takes a little practice to get a "rhythm" down, because you want to arrange things so that crunch-heavy stuff like combat mostly happens at the table. But it worked quite well for my group, and the players appreciated being able to give their characters an "inner life" that you don't usually get to do in tabletop, since they can safely go on for several minutes about how their character feels about what's going on without disrupting gameplay.

[VoxRationis]

I would like to add that I'm coming from the perspective of being a student far removed from their regular group, such that I can go a semester between sessions (ah, life, the ultimate distraction). Thus, a session every two weeks is pretty often compared with my frequency of gaming.

[mucat]

Did he make it clear that he wants to run sessions more often, if he could speed up his prep work? Because there is a conversation pattern that goes, roughly:

A: "I'm kinda busy, but here's how much stuff I can do for the project we're discussing."
B: "Why can't you do more?"
A: (Ought to just say, 'I told you why. I'm busy,' but instead gives partial list of reasons.)
B: (Picks apart those reasons.) "Now that I've shown your reasons are no good, you'll do more, right?"

Make sure you're not inadvertently being Person B here. :smallwink:

[icefractal]

Not everybody wants to run every week. I mean, some people do, and that's great, but it's not a universal thing. Me, for example - even if I was running from already prepped material, every other week sounds about right to me. After all, I like to play some of the time too! If the players had the attitude "you have to run every week", then I'd just shrug and not run at all.

Also, 1:1 prep to game is actually a pretty good prep ratio for 3.x, especially if the characters are high-level and/or optimized. You can't just throw standard encounters from the book in that case, unless you want it to be a cakewalk. Which means either custom-building NPCs or filtering through a bunch of monsters to see which ones are actually appropriate, and both of those take time. And that's just the direct combat - in a sandbox or political game, there's going to be a lot of NPC plans/reactions to figure out too.

[Telonius]

Schedules can be a real issue especially after college. Put commutes, jobs, significant others, and young children into the mix, and it can be a real challenge to balance everything. Personally, I'm DM'ing once every two weeks, and I'm not sure I could manage more than that; that's even *after* I'd completely written out the adventure, 1-20.

That said, three weeks does seem like quite a bit of time between sessions. I feel bad enough for only being able to meet twice a month. It's at the outside of what I'd consider reasonable. Any more than that, and I'd worry about players forgetting important information between sessions, having trouble getting back into character, forgetting rules, and generally doing an even worse job than the average group at staying involved in the game.

[ArendK]

Every group has its own preferences. When I was in high school/college? We were gaming multiple times a week easily and that was still maintaining a social life (a.k.a. a non-gamer girlfriend who eventually wound up a gamer).
I'd DM a lot of it, and different groups I would prep for differently. Combat happy groups? It was easy to build a dungeon full of monsters and a boss of the week to kill and we'd all be happy. A lot of the early, more frequent games were like this. Role-playing began developing in the college years for a Story-tellers group.

A group of Story-tellers that want a functional world to work in? That takes time. We as DM's want to have fun ourselves telling a story alongside our friends. Knowing the intricacies takes time, and while some can improvise, why rely on it? I'd started spending considerable prep time learning/designing the intricacies of the world we'd play in (thankfully, we started focusing on published campaign settings like Eberron, where we could all focus on LEARNING and IMPLEMENTATION as opposed to homebrew where the DM has to design it, memorize it, and then teach it to the group). We found campaign settings worked great as everyone could get a jump on the same page.
My prep time for these games that maybe occurred once a week? About 10-15 hours minimum. That's counting grabbing a book to catch obscure rules, or read on an area. Or taking pen to paper and designing encounters, dungeons, NPC's, potential plot layouts, character hooks, etc. etc.

I try to be the DM that I'd love to play for. Well-informed, flexible, and willing to put in the effort. I'd had a DM design entire worlds before. When I asked him information about what setting and such we were going in and he said "my own homebrew" I asked him if I could get a "players version" of the world to reference in making a character a part of the world. I'd take aspects of his setting and asked questions. Bear in mind, this was just prior to really getting into the pure-role play aspect. Gradually, other players started catching on and making their characters in the same light.

Spoilered for length and not exactly relevant

He'd built a kingdom that based it's power on it's influence over the waterways and other water sources in the area. While it wasn't the most original idea in the world, the capital symbol was almost a city of fountains and water-references. Since the DM had designed the world to be decidedly open as far as religion and deities. So we could have the historical mythological deities alongside Forgotten Realms or the 'classic' D&D gods. I'd picked Istishia (sp?) since I'd just finished a Favored Soul of Kossuth in a previous campaign that he'd run.

We'd needed defense combined with speed, so I thought about it and built a defensive monk. Working within the kingdom and mirroring Kossuths set-up regarding monks; I built three orders of monks for the Water goddess (IIRC, Istishia is actually a male, but it seemed more flavorful to play it as a woman). I think it was the Order of the Gentle Rain (LG), the Rising Tide (LN), and the Tsunami (a philosophy that aggression and LE). We started a little higher level (around 8-9) and I didn't just want to be a monk punching things, so I decided that the quarterstaff was an underused weapon that I was going to make feared. I'd envisioned the character to be a "philosopher of combat arts," having studied the combat styles of all three Orders. Because the characters played were supposed to have established themselves somewhat at this point, we were encouraged to build a little history and flavor into our various bits of equipment. My quarterstaff I had a little bit of a hard time thinking of until I actually had my stats (we played a unique stat gen method that was OBSCENELY over-powered, but let us play just about whatever we could envision), I realized I had the build for a pretty decent combination of unused monk-methods.

1. My quarterstaff became the "Water Dragon Pole," an ancient artifact of our monastery. For kicks, I requested to make it adamantine. The DM, being reasonable to ideas and crunch both, agreed, but that it would require a 14 STR to wield like a normal staff, would do lethal damage naturally, -2 to hit when trying to deal non-lethal damage, but otherwise he'd agreed to it. I buffed it out with just a frost enchantment and a +2 or 3 bonus on one end. Feat-wise, I built him into the philosophy. IIRC, my build was akin to the following...
(Note that this I think is actually lower than what I had, but still close enough)
16 STR
16 DEX
12 CON
13 INT
17 WIS
10 CHA

Feats-
1-Power Attack, H; Improved Sunder, Monk-Stunning Fist
2-Monk-Combat Reflexes
3-Combat Expertise
6-Ability Focus (Stunning Fist), Monk-Improved Trip
9-Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike)

Not the most horribly optimized character, but it fit with what I wanted to do.
The Combat Expertise represented the defensive aspect of the Order of the Gentle Rains style- defensive and gentleness, letting an enemy wear themselves out, and not causing harm.
Improved Trip and Stunning Fists focus represented the Order of the Rising Tide, where it was about control, and not necessarily causing pain and punishment, but stopping a problem in its tracks with minimal issue.
The Power Attack/Sunder route represented the Order of the Tsunami. Aggression and unstoppable destruction were its calling cards.
And Improved Natural Attack got picked up because at that point because Monk. I was hard-pressed for feats I really wanted and I didn't want to jump into all the splat books.

In combat, I had a blast playing him. The "Dragon Pole" became legendarily lethal. If it was a foe we didn't want to survive the encounter, usually, I wouldn't care if I lost initiative, as I was out front with my weapon drawn and at least aware of the attack incoming with good Listen/Spot. I'd stocked up on Dex/Wis/AC stat boosters for the rest of my WBL. So most of the time, I'd get a nice breeze as the enemy missed. Since I wouldn't have to waste the extra action to close distance, I'd start by announcing power attack (depended on the enemy, but at least 3 usually) and starting with a trip attack. More often than not, I won those bouts. As they lay prone, I switch to a two-handed grip on the Dragon Pole and swung for the fences. When they get up, we whack them again. If I was reasonably sure I didn't want them getting up, a Stunning Fist was slid into the fray to hope to keep them down. Of course, with all this talk of prone enemies, of course the Rogue had to come snooping by...dual-wielding little devil...

If I couldn't trip them, then I'd work defensively and set up the aforementioned rogue to do their vile magic.

A character that was built for team-work, expanded on the world that was presented, and in a way that (I think) enhanced the game for everyone as far as verisimilitude and detail.

This was a GM that put a lot of effort into his world and game. But offering to help contribute to the benefit of all in some way can make everyones game more fun. But that's what worked at that table with that group with everyone's situation in life at the time. Peoples enjoyment of the game changes with experiences and time. I used to be a combat monkey, and I still am to an extent. But I also believe firmly in using combat to tell a story too, even if it isn't the optimal build to do so.

[Crake]

Honestly, from a DM who just got back from running a 16 hour game over the weekend, plus online games almost every week for just one game, a week to "decompress" is unacceptable from any worthy DM. I really need to agree with the OP here, it sounds more like the DM wants to write a book than DM a campaign.


No, this is not the problem, this is the solution. If you DM but only enjoy the gameplay and not the gamecraft, you probably shouldn't be DMing. As stated above, creating quality DM-work requires a bucketload of time. If you don't enjoy doing that work, the people who profit from your effort should -pay- you. Do you want to pay your DM a salary? If your answer is no, please be glad if the DM likes making up a good story and putting together interesting encounters.

Except when a DM is prioritizing his enjoyment in writing the campaign over his player's enjoyment in playing in the campaign. At that point, the DM should be paying the players for their time.

[Amphetryon]

Honestly, from a DM who just got back from running a 16 hour game over the weekend, plus online games almost every week for just one game, a week to "decompress" is unacceptable from any worthy DM. I really need to agree with the OP here, it sounds more like the DM wants to write a book than DM a campaign.

Could you explain why the pace at which you feel comfortable running games is the only correct pace?

[TroubleBrewing]

Could you explain why the pace at which you feel comfortable running games is the only correct pace?

This, for the entire thread.

If you don't like the pace he works at, join another game in the off weeks.

Incidentally, I find myself with the exact opposite problem: I have to run two games with two different systems on two different nights with two different groups to keep myself from going bonkers.

[HighWater]

Honestly, from a DM who just got back from running a 16 hour game over the weekend, plus online games almost every week for just one game, a week to "decompress" is unacceptable from any worthy DM.
I'd like to refer to the difference between DnD as a game, as a hobby, as a lifestyle and as an obsession here.


I really need to agree with the OP here, it sounds more like the DM wants to write a book than DM a campaign.

5-12 hours actual writing time (which includes statting up enemies, making environments and looking up various rules as generally not everybody knows them by heart), 1 week of not thinking about DnD (perhaps hard to imagine, but some people need time off DnD to enjoy DnD) and 1 week of occasionally mulling it over (which is what "brainstorm" usually means if the set time is longer than an hour), hoping for inspiration to strike, does not a "writer" make.


Except when a DM is prioritizing his enjoyment in writing the campaign over his player's enjoyment in playing in the campaign. At that point, the DM should be paying the players for their time.

Only if the players aren't enjoying it. Which was my entire point. The DM seems to only find the experience enjoyable if he runs it once every three weeks. Want to make him run faster? Pay him.
Or just find a second outlet for DnD excitement

Nowhere did the OP mention not enjoying playing though, the only statement being "Pretty excited for it" and his desire to actually play more.

Please, please, please remember that there are people who play DnD at a different intensity than others. This includes DMs.

[KorbeltheReader]

GM of a biweekly game, full-time career with spouse here. I totally get wanting a week to decompress: I don't touch my campaign until the week we play and am thankful for the time off. Also, I can totally see putting in 2 hours of prep for every hour played.

Sure, I could pick 3 monster encounters out of the Monster Manual, draw up a quick narrative tying them together, and call it a day, but I'd rather create rich npcs, monsters with a reason to be there, traps that are more than just wandering damage, and a compelling plot arc with some surprises and foreshadowing. Those things take a lot of time. Maybe not 2 hours per hour played (most of the time), but definitely 1 to 1 at least.