How much do you DMs prepare?

[MustacheManny]

I recently saw a YouTube video by Taking20 featuring the guys from WebDM about game prep, and as a new DM it got me wondering how much other people prep for their games and what they are prepping. How much of your game time is pre-planned and what are prepping before hand?

[MrStabby]

I spend most of my time worldbuilding, partially because it is fun. It is good preparation though for when the PCs do the unexpected, i.e. 98.7% of the time; if there are two doors they will blow a hole in the wall. Knowing factions and plotlines and having thought of a load of useful NPCs is good.

Of this, building factions is what I find most useful. For humanoids I will give a martial faction a couple of homebrewd feats and a distinct tactical doctrine. For more magical factions I will develop a spell list that represents their abilities. It helps build a consistent and thematically strong world but also gives you a quickstart when you need to pull together an encounter on the fly.

In terms of session specific preparation, I tend to be much lighter. I can populate areas with my pregen NPCs and put appropriate traps down or whatever but the most important thing to prepare I feel, is loot. Magic items have a long term impact on game balance and should be treated with caution. Make them exciting but think them through (and never ever let the PCs get a weapon of warning). Having the time to prepare loot is crucial.

[Sariel Vailo]

I prep world building and npc goals i prepare bbegs for the tiers.but never prepare monster encounters i look at the group see if they've novad.than i throw something nova worthy i let each combat become a focous for one character.everyone does not have to roleplay. Give me a reason why your character refuses to talk or only roleplays serious soldiery *******.if an npc wrote their background from a guild i have them help me flesh it out and ita now in the world.same for any military.just not monastary.

[Anonymouswizard]

Per session between ten minutes and three hours, but the quality drops if I spend less than about an hour. This is system agnostic by the way.

My preparation always begins with me looking over my generic NPCs (likely printed out on cards of my own design* with all their stats, then damage is totalled next to their initiative totals) and seeing if there's any I need to add, then familiarising myself with the recurring named NPCs. Only after that will I come up with an idea for a session, which will generally be a plot hook, a bad guy, and some generic locations to run theatre of the mind style.

After I've got that I might detail some new named NPCs, pick out some loot to give the PCs, or some detailed locations. I try to keep it loose, so that if the PCs decide not to investigate the factory but rather host a ball and hope the killer comes to it I have elements I can reuse with minimal replanning breaks. I also try to work out what the non-PC plot movers will do if not interfered with, and whether this plot will solve itself in a couple of sessions even if the PCs make no progress (very rarely it'll get an optimal solution).

I don't plan encounters or challenges beforehand, but let them arise as to what seems sensible (I don't run dungeons either). This tends towards a larger number of easy fights with untrained combatants, but those are over quickly allowing h major ones with important villains or rare set pieces (of which I have a few prepared at any time but no planned time for them) to be remembered.

* Not 5e ones yet, I tend to only play 5e not run it, and lost all my old cards with the USB stick I had them on.

[Waterdeep Merch]

My world-building preparation takes a month, minimum, upwards of three. This isn't due to physical time spent doing it, though there is a lot of that. It's because I like to sit on ideas long enough to see if they still sound good a week later.

I spend two weeks after world building talking to my players and incorporating them into the world. This includes adjusting the game world to fit the flavor of game my players may want, so long as I can make it work. If not, I either sideline the player or the entire campaign in favor of something completely different. I return to step one in that case.

Per session, I spend at least two hours the day before/day of preparing notes and balancing encounters. This time can balloon if there's going to be a lot of crunch or social dynamics, as I try to cover complex motivations and possible player choices as best as I can. Any DM worth their salt can tell you that you can't cover for everything, but I find you can determine at least 60% of player choice with some foresight, and nearly 85% or so if you really know the players in question well. The more complex your NPC's, the easier this is to adjust on the fly.

Two to three hours before the game (usually), I start preparing the food I'm going to serve the players. Sometimes we make it easy and order pizza, but I like going the extra mile and serving something tasty. Often I'll theme the food around the adventure. Often I'll pretend like I'm not spending a small fortune on a feast, and act like the $2-5 I'm brought per player covers my expenses. I'm not cooking food for them to get paid, after all. I'm cooking because I like to.

An hour before game time, I review all of my notes, both for the session and my overall setting. I draw out any maps I didn't finish during my original prep if I'm using miniatures, or familiarize myself with area layouts if I'm doing theater of the mind. I try out different accents and voices for my NPC's and monsters. I think about why they are doing what they're doing, getting into their headspace. I also think about my players and what they're going to want to do. I fret that my archer player isn't going to like the bow I plan on adding to the treasure, so I take another look at it and think about tweaking it. I worry that the trap may be unnecessarily punitive and may need some numbers lowered. I consider how I'm going to change things if things get too easy or too hard, or even if I should at all. I worry that not everyone is going to like the soufflé.

I worry, worry, worry, then I sit down at the head of the table with all my books, dice, notes and calculations, boxes of indexed miniatures, markers, and a screen to hide it all. I light some candles, put on some music, dim the lights, and pretend everything's easy.

[mephnick]

I basically just think about **** throughout the week at work. Most of my stuff is done already because my setting has been "complete" for about a year. I was much busier before when I was building it though.

[Demonslayer666]

I'd estimate 3-6 hours a week, sometimes a lot less because they didn't get as far as I thought they would. I like those weeks.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Too much, because once session actually starts, within an hour all the prep goes out the window and I end up making things up as I go.

[bovinelightfoot]

There is a fine line. I have played games dms do no prep and the game lays and sucks as expected. But i have had dms wjo over plan and dont want players tho go of on side tracks and dont know how to rebound or they just say no. Rule #1 dont say no unless they are breaking the game. Roll for everything. If you think it would be almoat impossible make the dc a nat 20 sor something( let them know ahead of time damn near impossible). Also have random names of people and places ready to go. You never know when a pc is going to want to talk to that dwarf at the bar you were just using as a drunk dwarf

[coolAlias]

I want to play at Waterdeep Merch's table at least once just to sample some thematic food. :)

For prep, I do way too much. It doesn't help that a lot of my prep time is interspersed with interruptions, so it takes probably twice as long as it would otherwise.

At the very least, I want to have a rough sketch (in words or drawn) of encounter spaces, NPC/monster stats and motivations, and the locations and descriptions of any loot, traps, etc.

I have all of the above for each likely adventure site, usually 2-3 per session, and I'm almost always able to use any unused material in a future session.

[Specter]

Before sessions? From 10 minutes to 1 hour.

But in general? Most of the time.

Because I think so much about literary theory and monsters and challenges, half of the stuff writes itself in the game, but that doesn't mean it wasn't prepared: it was prepared vestigiously months or weeks ago.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I want to play at Waterdeep Merch's table at least once just to sample some thematic food. :)
My personal favorite was last Halloween. I was running Curse of Strahd, and the players got to the point in the game where they accept an invitation from Strahd to have dinner at Ravenloft. I made every single food listed in the book, from the roast to the variety of root vegetables, alongside some seasonal surprises like a pumpkin pound cake layered with fake blood made of strawberry (called it pound of flesh cake). Before they got there, because they were en route and taking the roads, I served them trail rations as appetizers- mealy stone biscuits (intended to be flavorless, but turned out better than I wanted them to be) alongside dried fruits and homemade jerky and cheese.

I was up all night preparing, and had to give myself four hours to cook everything before the start of the game. Completely worth it, everyone had a blast.

[ko_sct]

My personal favorite was last Halloween. I was running Curse of Strahd, and the players got to the point in the game where they accept an invitation from Strahd to have dinner at Ravenloft. I made every single food listed in the book, from the roast to the variety of root vegetables, alongside some seasonal surprises like a pumpkin pound cake layered with fake blood made of strawberry (called it pound of flesh cake). Before they got there, because they were en route and taking the roads, I served them trail rations as appetizers- mealy stone biscuits (intended to be flavorless, but turned out better than I wanted them to be) alongside dried fruits and homemade jerky and cheese.

I was up all night preparing, and had to give myself four hours to cook everything before the start of the game. Completely worth it, everyone had a blast.

That's... really impressive. Congrats. I'm a little envious of your players.

Me ? I guess it vary somewhere between 10 min and 2 hours per session. Mostly 10 min. I end up improvising a lot of things.

[Jama7301]

My prep tends to happen at work when I have downtime, or on the bus. I make mental notes, and jot down interesting things when I get to my Google Drive account on my phone.

What sucks about it though, is that sometimes I'll end up with a lot of interesting pieces, but no real way to connect them all, and since I only run a few sessions every so often, I don't know if I'll get to use them.

Day of the game though, I'd spend at least a half an hour organizing before the game.

[Naez]

If it's a module or something usually about a week, reading and rereading to understand how each of the NPCs would react to the crazy **** my players pull. If it's something I homebrewed like a day, mostly to draw up maps. I already understand all the characters and their motivations, there are no set checks to me made, only what I pull out of the characters actions, and improvisation is my strongest suit as a DM.

[Malifice]

A couple of hours during the week.

Mainly budgeting encounters, and turning my mind to how I intend to police the adventuring day (NPC reactions, doom clock, hazardous environment, wandering or 'not so random' monsters).

A DM that doesnt do the above shouldnt be DMing in my book.

I also need a bit of time to do my conversions (Im running AoW converted to 5E).

[coffeeman]

I spent ~12-15 hours reading the rules for the starter set and reviewing the first half of the adventure until I knew just about everything cold. After the first session I realized that this was WAY overkill.

I'm likely going to be picking up the three core rulebooks, but my primary fear about getting into D&D 5e is my time constraints. Sure I can set aside a few hours a week to play, but to spend another couple hours a week preparing for a game, even if I purchase an adventure from WotC? Far less likely. Really bums me out, but I've enjoyed reading this thread all the same. I had way more time to prepare my 4e adventures back in high school, but those comparatively free days are long gone.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I tend to be a sandbox-builder GM. So I will spend weeks, perhaps even months, building a well fleshed out world for the players to engage in. However, I avoid railroading because instead of diving down to the minutae, I've got charts to roll on for various areas to see what they stumble across. If someone wants to do something, I generally at least let them try, and react accordingly.

[Dienekes]

I plan out, a lot, but part of that is because I really know my players well. They're the same guys I've GMed for since I started GMing in high school. I got really good at know what they would do, how to engage them, and so on.

However, what I planned has changed somewhat dramatically. Originally, I planned out a storyline, and then made contingencies in case my players would do things unexpectedly. This worked fairly well, write up until I made a campaign all about what happens when a king is killed, only for them to save the king in the first 10 minutes of gameplay. My poor planning, ended with me winging it for the day then going home and scrapping most of what I made.

Now, I don't plan out stories so much as I plan out events. The king is killed would be one such event, but instead of making a story about that and having things flow out of it. I jot down a bit of what will happen in the immediate aftermath of that event. Then I go on to the next event. What happens if the head general tells them to go on a scouting mission. What happens if they stumble on an orcish raider. What happens if they head over to the city tavern. I make a bunch of these, and then fit them into the game organically when they would make sense.

This has saved me a lot of headache.

[imanidiot]

I only run once a month or every six weeks orso when my DM needs more time. Therefore I typically spend 10 hours or so out of game for every hour in game. Maybe 4-5 hours a week.

[Hastati]

If I'm running a bought adventure, then I tend to create individual encounter sheets that list out the locations/rooms, creatures and their vital statistics (AC, HP, attacks, notes) in a chart. I have this done for the whole adventure in advance.

If I'm sand boxing it then I have some prepared encounters ready to go, but if the players go off on a tangent then I just wing it.

[Hrugner]

I just spend my free time thinking about it and maybe 20 minutes writing things up for the players, selecting tokens, and checking my combat balance before the game itself. So 20 minutes a week plus endless staring off into space.

[90,000]

Way too much.

So many wasted nights.

[Oramac]

and never ever let the PCs get a weapon of warning

Why do you say this? As a player, the Weapon of Warning is one of my absolute favorites. I admit, as a DM I haven't rolled on one the tables for my players yet.

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As for my prep, I'm only running the printed SKT adventure right now. My prep for it is (obviously) reading ahead in the adventure to have an idea of where they can/should go, but also thinking about my specific party and what would be thematically cool for each of my players, and the party as a whole.

For example: my party expressed an interest in going to the Underdark briefly. So, I'm moving the Stone Giant Lord to the Underdark. (there's even a sidebox in SKT about a stone giant trying to summon a Terrasque)

Also, one of my players is a GOOlock, so instead of the All-Father telling the party about this Stone Giant, the GOOlock's patron is going to tell him in a dream.

[kladams707]

I recently saw a YouTube video by Taking20 featuring the guys from WebDM about game prep, and as a new DM it got me wondering how much other people prep for their games and what they are prepping. How much of your game time is pre-planned and what are prepping before hand?

In a perfect world, I'd plan as much as I could and prepare for any unexpected twists the players throw at me.

As it stands now, the best I can do is have an outline in my mind and hope for the best.