2019-06-10

Prep Time Poll Results

On March 28 of this year, I asked on the Facebook AD&D group the following poll question: "As DM, how much preparation time do you take before a single game session?". Over the next few weeks I got 310 responses. As you can see below, a bit more than 50% answered in the range of "Hours".




In the comments/discussion attached to that poll, there were a small number of people who answered with "years", or "my whole life", which are very interesting ways to look at it, I think. :-)


Edit: In Dragon #28 (August 1979), as part of the AD&D DMG rollout/promotional campaign, Gygax gave an interview in which he asserted, "For the amount of work that a DM has to put in — probably two hours for every hour of play — you’re going to get some real returns... "

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4 comments:

  1. Jeremy "frothsof" SmithJune 11, 2019 at 1:32 PM

    This is fascinating to me, as I barely spend any time at all prepping. I also like that it is probably more a matter of personal preference/fun rather than need.

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    1. DeltaJune 19, 2019 at 12:27 AM

      Likewise, I was kind of surprised when a close friend said his goal was no prep time (hence the poll). I think I've been reducing my (usually egregious) prep time, but getting it under the level of hours doesn't seem doable to me.

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  2. PaulJuly 3, 2019 at 2:47 PM

    Happened upon a similar poll here, thought you might like the extra data (though it may be difficult to extrapolate real comparable numbers):
    http://slyflourish.com/facebook_surveys.html#preptime

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    1. DeltaJuly 3, 2019 at 5:24 PM

      Thanks for that, very interesting! Looks vaguely in the same general direction to my eye.

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