Time Saving Techniques for the GM

[cranewings]

So my party is hitting 8th level. One or two are already there. The amount of time it takes to prepare a game becomes intolerable for me after a certain point. At the low levels, I usually spend about 3 hours writing plot points, NPCs, descriptions, finding period names, looking up historical facts, blah blah blah. Then when I'm done with that, I crank out some stats for goblins or 3rd level fighters or whatever in about 5 minutes and I'm done.

That's not the case at this level. I spend longer reading about a single monster I might use than I spend writing up all the combat encounters at APL = 1. To help this, I've been trying to cut as much fat out of my prep time as possible.

1) I've stopped writing up treasure. Unless a magic item or artifact is straight-up what the game is going to be about, I don't detail it. I just inform them that the horde is worth X GPs and that they can spend it when they get back to town. Any magic items in the found in the hoard can't be identified until they return to town to consult Toban's Spirit Guide or whatever. By then, they can just sell them and buy whatever they want.

2) Moral Grey Areas and Puzzles: I try to put as much decision making and discussion into the game as I can. Usually after just a minute or two I can tell what the players are going to decide to do, even if they argue about it for another 10. This gives me time to read up on monster abilities or detail stats while they are talking, and helps insure I didn't bother writing something up that they are going to bypass anyway.

3) Recycle Statistics: if I write up a dungeon or town and the PCs don't go their, I make sure to keep track of it and retool it for later. I don't have time to write up fresh NPCs when the players managed to not meet them in the place I thought they were going. While it isn't something I'm proud of, if you haven't seen it yet, it hasn't rendered.

[SterlingEdge]

Before:
I run half pregenerated adventures and half homegrown. That gives me twice as long to prepare my own games.

There are online name and treasure generators.

As I write, if the scenario looks too easy, instead of adding and tracking more mobs, I just add a class level to a mob or two. Adds 10 more HP, +1 hit, and a feat.

I run the adventure as a player in my head. That way I don't need to refer to the book as often.

During:
As we start the session I write all the PCs Armor classes and saves so I don't have to ask.

My PCs roll initiative once per combat, saves roll time.

After:
My players graciously wipe down my maps, put them away, and gather my minis, and put away my gaming tables.

If time is short, I hand out treasure and prestige points via email.

[Kegluneq]

Indeed. Treasure and leveling often is something I do via email. Echo the above.

I also encourage a certain amount of 'fudge' to save time. For instance, at eighth level, in Rise of the Runelords, for example, the PCs would be up against ogres and the like. Are the PCs going to care overmuch about every single ogre's class levels? Not in my experience. So I fudge a bit. That seems like -just about- enough to kill that one. That other one has -just a few more- hp. No need to calculate out the specifics ... especially when my PCs were hitting for 30-40 hp at a time. Only the most determined and asinine of players will try to break down the full composition of the foes I put on the table, because after a little while it won't matter. So I try never to waste too much time building a stat-line I cannot reuse later or just fudge from beefing up an example monster in the bestiary.

Which raises another point: minimize scenario setup time by focusing on the terrain and the scene setup rather than the monsters. The most memorable encounter in my last campaign was a random encounter, and it was memorable not because the monster was interesting -- it was a straight from the book dire crocodile -- but rather because the swampy terrain was the real challenge. And that took scarcely a minute to set up and properly introduce.

[Guy Kilmore]

When the group I DMed for first formed, we discussed what we wanted out of a game. A couple of the people mentioned they have never played high level and would like an opportunity to play a high level game.

The setting is homebrew, once I got backstories from characters and wove them together, I created NPCs. What I did was imagine who the long term villains/allies were and the intermediate villains/allies were. I then generated them all, or at least got them partially statted out. (I was using PCGen and just converted to Hero Lab, these things save time in creating a monster/NPC.) I also made level mooks. It was fun. When they encountered a NPC group known as the Peacekeepers the first time, the mooks BBG was just a higher level Mook. Now they are higher level, one of the midlevel mooks who they were scared of are now a pushover. Of course, this gets the attention of other BBEGs which scales the power level. (I hope that made sense). It makes for alot of front end work, but in the back end it saves me time. I can also tweak things as the game progresses and the PCs make different choices/do different things.

In game, to speed up time, I use a timer. Everyone gets about a minute. I also have fun during discussion time, I tend to time those when I can. I aso like using an RP timer. For example, the PCs stormed a dungeon, freed a bunch of prisoners, but didn't get their target. They managed to do so quietly and they were wondering how to proceed forward. They freed an NPC fighter who was in the dungeon. They tasked him with getting the prisoners too weak to fight out through the sewers to their ship in the harbor. While they argued strategy. I had him setting up watches, organizing people. (Basically I was just walking around the table, yelling out orders on occassion. I would roll a die for a chance encounter, and eventually had a guy yell that a patrol was coming.) It was a good time, lends urgency, and keeps game play moving.

Also, +1 for the Ghostbuster's reference.

[blue_the_wolf]

I use the fudge method,
lots of recycle
focus on scenario more than the monster (thus I use fewere random monsters but love to have interesting environments, once ran combat in the head of a colossal golem)

I need to consider the treasure thing... I tend to figure out treasure before a battle because I want the NPCs to use stuff. would not make sense for the bad guy to NOT use his +2 battle axe or NOT try to drink healing potions when injured and able to get out of the battle.