Shorten Prep Time?

[Torke Steelpike]

I love this game, so do a lot of my friends. However, the one thing we all agree on that we don't like about it is that it takes a long time to prep. Prep for one game can take upwards of 5-10 minutes between card shuffling, rebuilding our character decks, building location decks, etc. Does anyone have any tips or anything to quicken prep time? I know saving character decks is one, but sometimes I'll be able to play with a couple different groups of people, so i can't really save their decks all the time.

[Hawkmoon269]

I prep the first scenario and character decks for my groups ahead of time, that way when we get together we can just start with the first one, which gives us a better shot at doing more than one scenario in a session.

For subsequent ones, the only thing I can recommend is to share the work load. Set out all the locations, and than have each player take a type of card, shuffle it, and deal the correct number out to each location. If everyone helps, it goes faster.

So nothing magic or extra intelligent there. But that is all I've got.

[kysmartman]

I wish a game I owned or played had a 5-10 min setup time so I have no problem with the setup time. For the record, I own Mage Knight, PACG, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Marvel Legendary. Hell, when I play Axis&Allies with my friends it typically takes more than 10 minutes to get everything set and ready to go. Mage Knight if I play it on my computer takes about 10 minutes to get going.

[Torke Steelpike]

The other card games we play are Cards Against Humanity and Munchkin. Both are fairly quick in comparison to set up.

[Calthaer]

Hawkmoon's suggestion(s) is / are really the best way that I've found to shorten the prep time. You can save a lot of time with that first scenario of the evening by doing everything in advance...subsequently, you just have to have everyone pitch in. Skimping on time for setup seems to me to be detrimental to the experience, as you don't get the fully randomized potential for each location deck.

Some of those files on BGG also help a bit with setup, like these Location Deck Needs. This lets you easily see how many of a particular card type you need for a scenario and simply dish it all out (and then distribute it). Unfortunately, these don't appear to have been updated with AD3 and AD4 scenarios.

[Vrog Skyreaver]

I have all of my scenarios stored in order with the villain and each unique/named henchmen that goes into it. Then I have everything listed in the box in order that they appear on the cards (weapons, then spells, then armor, and so on).