| How much prep time do you consider appropriate for an ST in a given week? For instance: I often find myself scrambling to put something together and then I kick myself during the game when I realize that I’ve forgotten something. On a related note: I have gotten pretty good at improvising. |
Errgg.....? However much lets you enter the game feeling comfortable, proud, and excited about what is about to unfold. You dont know the exacts of it because of player free will, but before each session you should have an idea of where its going to go(unless something gets crazy), who the important npcs are that they might run into, and have any big important battles, artifacts, puzzles, etc, all figured out.
How much time that takes really depends on your skills and your ability to focus. When crafting stories and adventures it is VERY VERY easy to waste a ton of time on stuff that might not matter, and spend much more time then I would on a story while not getting nearly as much as I did done.
So with all that in mind, its very hard to answer your question. I can tell you how much time I spend, and you can figure it out from there. My spent time though is generally very focused and I can get a lot done in the time I use(also, I find working with pencil and paper for planning things infinitely faster. Much like an old person, the computer just slows me down most of the time).
Average Time Spent Before Story:
Hero: 8 hours
Demigod: 24 hours
God: 48 hours
Thats obviously not all in one sitting, but split up probably over the course of a week.
Then as the story unfolds, I generally do smaller prep time before each game.
Nothing major changed: 30 minutes
Big changes happened last game: 1 hour
Unexpected Big changes that change everything: 4 hours
Fuck....what did they do! Rewrite everything 8 hours
Take those same numbers and multiply by the original time to get demigod and god stuff.
Then usually once a story or so, I get bored and add a big Event, or minigame or something that will probably take me 8 or more hours to set up, but then runs for 3-4 games. But I generally dont start those til demigod.
Any particular "Fuck....what did they do!" you folks would like to share?
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting...
our ST listed a few things that lead to plot derivations.
"Big Changes happened last game":
Freed Shiva from the Beurocracy by sheer dumb luck, accidentily turning him into a child in progress.
I think everybody sees how that could go wrong.
Lokis advice was totally the fault.
"Unexpected Big Changes":
Calling Hera out infront of Zeus and getting away with it was nice and really critical to our success.
Accidentily getting Persephone killed in the progress,
and thus causing Hades to grief stricken entomb himself? Ouch.
This causing mayor plotpoints our ST had planned to be nearly impossible?
Whoops.
Loki wasn't at fault, but could at least be described assecory.
"Fuck, what did they do?"
We accidentily managed to ally two Titan Avatars against Japan.
~5 Million casulties.
We are pretty sure Loki deliberately caused this,
but try and and tell Amaterasu that.
That happens like every other day around here. One PC accidentally turned his brother into a Titan Avatar; another gave one of her father's multi-star relics away to a god from another pantheon; then there was the time Geoff and Sangria got surprise-married, and the time Woody accidentally fell into the well of the Norns. I think John is so used to it he just has a bunch of resources labeled "backup plan material."
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