GM preparation question

How many of you, when you're preparing for a game, spend more time doing development than you actually spend running the game? I know I do, by quite a bit. We only game once a month, for a 4-6 hour session (nominally from 2-8pm, but usually shorter). I spend most of the month in between writing up details of the next adventure(s), creating new characters and background materials, et cetera. Right now, I've entered a new phase of my campaign, with a new ship. I've spent most of the past two months doing background - new factions in the conflicts, deckplans for the ship (only half finished, but going well) and other game administrivia. Right now, I'm creating the crew. I let this go until after the first session on the ship, only generating the DTI mission Commanders and the XO of the ship, so I could come up with some new characters on the fly at first. Now, I actually generating those characters, as well as the ship's crew. I prefer to run smaller ships with less than 50 crew, so I can generate full stats for everyone on board, complete with pictures this time around. Sometimes I get lazy and recycle stats from old NPCs, changing a few skills around and writing a new background. One character I came up with yesterday in play was the ship's counsellor. No cheesecake bimbo here, this guys is a full psychiatrist with an MD and a PhD in Psychology. I decided that he looks a bit like Fraisier Crane, but that he's not as much of namby pamby. he comes right out and tells you what he thinks. If you're just feeling sorry for yourself or some such, he'll tell you to "Suck it up" and stop wasting his time. If you need some emotional support, he'll oblige and give you what you need, but with a blunt no-nonsense air about it. Yesterday the Captain found out something that threw him for a loop, badly, so the Doc comes up and says, "OK, you've had a shock, but that'll pass. Here, have a cup of chamomile tea." When the Captain reached for the tea, the Doc grabbed his arm and gave him a hypospray, said "You'll be fine, sir," and walked out, muttering soto voce "I've got patients with real problems). The captain relaxed, went out onto the bridge, sat in the big chair and sipped his tea.

That reminds me of an NPC in my old campaign, a Tellarite counselor. If you went to him with a problem, he'd argue with you until you decided you could just deal with the problem on your own.

I would love to say i always do, but when i'm running a game (Star Trek in particular, where each adventure can more or less be finished in 1 session) i would only prepare the fleshed out NPCs that will recur. The one shots I'll make up on the fly.

I do not always have the luxury of all the time I want.

When I run a game I prepare for improvisation. Just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, the game preparation survives contact with the players ;)

So I can put a lot of effort into learning about the settings (but for Trek, it is already done by watching and rewatching episodes :) ), and to set up important NPCs and their agendas. So it can mean a lot of preparation before the first session takes place.

But with that planning done, I tend to just think about some potential scenes and outcomes (not out of need, but because I probably think about it anyway) and what the important NPCs are up to. Then I just set things in motions.

If the question is if I read, write, talk or think about gaming more than I actually sit with a group and roleplay... definitely. :eek: