Originally shared by Andrew Huffaker
Sly Flourish just posted some data about D&D GM prep. He says that the majority of people spend half an hour per hour of game play to prep. So, 2 hours of prep for 4 hours of game play.
For DW, how long is your prep for a 4 hour block (assuming you are already a few sessions in)?
Comments are disabled on the original post… on purpose?
Anyhow… it depends entirely on the game and what I expect they’re getting up to. Like, my current game has them dungeon crawling into a vast ruined tower and the tunnels beneath it, with lots of moving pieces. I’ve spent a few hours prepping this place (maybe as many as 8 to 12, total) but over the course of months.
But most of the time? 30 minutes sounds right. If that.
I’d say half an hour on the day of he session and maybe that again spread amongst the week between sessions as ideas percolate.
Jeremy Strandberg Ray and I are talking on the original post, but maybe I accidently turned off comments somehow.
I should have put the option for zero prep, but I don’t think I can change it.
Charlie Etheridge-Nunn I’m kind of the same way. I wouldn’t say I spend more than 30 minutes on game notes, but I may make game materials like print pictures, make a hands-on puzzle, etc. Though, I spend a lot of time when I’m driving just thinking about where I could take the game, theory, etc.
Like 0 minutes before the game. Maybe 30 minutes total over a week when an idea strikes me and I make a note in some phone app.
My prep is pretty diffuse – a lot of thinking throughout the week, but not that much actual writing stuff down.
30-60 minutes prep time, including physical (handout, maps, minis, etc). all week thinking of it!
I’m pretty new to running Dungeon World (and any game in general), i’ve run about 10 sessions so far – so i’m still kinda pulling together my toolset. Cool magic items, favourite monsters, interesting gming techniques. I think I currently spend about 1 hour specifically on the upcoming game, and about another hour or two reading dungeon world zines and listening to discern realities or another podcast, taking notes and looking for ideas to steal. 🙂
It feels like 30min cuz i enjoy it so much, but if i add up all the small bits of time i spend and check the clock when i started and stopped, its more like an hour.
Then if i include all the time i day dream about it, its more like 12 hours :O
Robert Doe there seems to be a theme here. The amount of time we spend with pen and paper to prep.
And then there is the week leading up to it:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OG1sk-qxzq3UHHm6III1l-PLFEsOprO-gbVrepH-4Gv-rk8QLpaeaHBjAZvlI7brrXO8umBjajM_vkW6A6P9wxCv5Gt8IP9OX-U=s0
Skewing to the high end cuz I run one 36hr marathon session per year and dump 20+ hours of prep into it over the 360 days leading up to the event.