I enjoy the game allot, and so do my friends...
The only issue is that I feel as though I have to put in so much work, before/after every session, in preparation for the next session, which for me makes me not want to play as much.
Does anyone else feel this way?
I have felt that way in the past. Generally it happens when my players are not engaged and I feel like I'm the only one doing anything for the game. I don't mean being the only one doing prep work, I mean the players just sit there, pretty much waiting to be told what to do and what to roll.
Those times are an exception. Most of the time I'm happy to do the prep work, as creating a universe, town, adventure, etc. is very rewarding for me. If you feel like you're spending too much time, I'd advise cheating heavily. There are many pre-published adventures, including fan-created adventures that are of top quality. Link them together loosely in a story, and you're set. No need to reinvent the wheel on a weekly basis.
That's the other thing you might want to consider. How often are you playing? If weekly is too much work, maybe try every other week instead.
If it still feels like too much work maybe one of your friends is willing to take up the challenge of GM for a while. Taking a break from running a game and just playing in it can refresh your motivation and get those creative energies recharged.
I have felt that way in the past. Generally it happens when my players are not engaged and I feel like I'm the only one doing anything for the game. I don't mean being the only one doing prep work, I mean the players just sit there, pretty much waiting to be told what to do and what to roll.
Those times are an exception. Most of the time I'm happy to do the prep work, as creating a universe, town, adventure, etc. is very rewarding for me. If you feel like you're spending too much time, I'd advise cheating heavily. There are many pre-published adventures, including fan-created adventures that are of top quality. Link them together loosely in a story, and you're set. No need to reinvent the wheel on a weekly basis.
That's the other thing you might want to consider. How often are you playing? If weekly is too much work, maybe try every other week instead.
If it still feels like too much work maybe one of your friends is willing to take up the challenge of GM for a while. Taking a break from running a game and just playing in it can refresh your motivation and get those creative energies recharged.
I've done the pre-published stuff, but it doesn't seem to help me as much as one would think. I mean I read the adventure once, but its impossible to remember every single detail. So I end up having to often pause during a session to see where we are in the adventure.
I'm starting to think that perhaps what might be best for me is a more "improv" style of GM'ing... I just don't know if this can be effective? Or realistic...
It depends on your comfort level really, and how willing your players are to work with you. I hardly ever prepare anything before a session, except broad ideas that just come to me in the down time between; I never really sit down and hash out plot details. Part of this is knowing that if players aren't kept on a tight leash, they usually wander away from the carefully planned story anyway, and it's all for naught.
I think the most important things for a strong improv style is a good sense of cause and effect. Always be thinking through in the back of your head the logical repercussions of actions, regardless of whether or not they're apparent. It alleviates a lot of the need to come up with new story threads, if your players are coming up with them for you. Players steal a speeder? Logically, someone notices it's missing and reports it stolen. Now the police are looking for them, or worse, depending on where they are and who they stole it from. If they remain in the area, there's a chance they get confronted by an officer, or a local who recognises it. Maybe they sell it, but the fence later gets hauled in for questioning and gives them up. Later in the session, when it's least convenient, the police show up to arrest them.
The other mainstay of a successful improv game is letting your players take the lead in the narrative. Get them to create characters who are already telling stories, who have goals and ambitions. Some players aren't comfortable with this, and want to be led by the hand through an adventure, and that's okay, but if your group likes the taste of freedom, let them loose on the galaxy and don't have them waiting around on you to provide them with a quest. Get them to provide you with the story. Then, instead of having to do everything, you just have to keep creating steps along their journey. And obstacles. And thinking through the ramifications of the choices they have made. Not all of the obstacles you come up with have to be thought all the way through.
One of the most memorable sessions I ran was a game in which my group's benefactor, a Hutt, told them he wanted them to steal him an Acklay. A local gladiatorial ring had acquired one, and he was jealous, and wanted it for himself to feed people to. That was the extent of my planning. I had no idea what was going to happen, or what any of it looked like, but I gave them the goal and waited for them to tell me what they needed to know. Then I mostly had to just come up with logical answers to questions. They presented most of the challenges themselves.
The reality is, with this style, your encounters are going to be a little less fleshed out, your narrative is going to be a little weaker, and there will be less over-arching plot, where everything is tied together. Truth be told, I find all of those things difficult to do even when given prep time, so I'm not sacrificing much. In exchange, I get flexibility, and my players get to know that they are masters of their own adventures. They're usually willing to be a little more forgiving of when things are a little rough around the edges when they know what the trade-offs are.
I found after starting to GM I felt a bit exhausted at times at how much I would plan vs. how fast we would play. I'd spend ages fleshing things out that would be over in two hours and that'd be it. I'd enjoy playing but always feel like I'd gone overboard on planning.
So my solution was to just stop planning so much. I'd take a loose idea of what was going to happen and run with it. I'd also get pre-published adventures and rip out all the parts I liked and leave the rest. I've found this has helped me a lot. For instance when we played Long Arm of the Hutt I didn't like the party scene, so I took it out and simplified the plot. The players started to nudge the story in a different direction so I just went with it, ignoring what we were "supposed" to do and it made for a smoother and more enjoyable game.
A good tip is to prepare some simple encounters in advance, like statted up minions for an ambush or a little social encounter. You don't need details really, just the stuff to save you time. Most things you can invent on the fly. I try to never predict how an encounter will end these days, instead I just present the problem and let the players tell me what happens. Obviously I have a loose idea of what they could do, but I try stay open to the fact that they'll likely surprise me!
The prep work is half the fun for me. I enjoy worldbuilding to an unhealthy degree, and I usually don't care if it doesn't come up during play. I can always use it later, and by knowing something and not mentioning it I can a.) give the world a sensation of depth, and b.) more effectively foreshadow later turns of events. But everything from designing NPCs and encounters to set pieces and backstory, I love doing it all.
That said, there are times when I don't enjoy it, specifically if I don't grasp the capabilities of the PCs or if the players are new. That's when I tend to get anxious, as I'm not sure if my encounters are balanced the way I want them to be, or that the players might not enjoy what I've thought up. I'm running a Pathfinder game right now where I'm more anxious than not, since I don't know my players that well and the system isn't as intuitive for me as this one.
My group has decided to take turns running the different Star Wars lines and we schedule it so that one person GMs a chapter/story for a couple months, then it's the next person's turn. This gives a GM plenty of time to prep and still play since we're not switching off frequently.
I did prep for my game like it was a part-time job, but after running for a year and a half I feel like I have all the pieces I need to build a story on the fly (I run a semi-sandboxed game, fueled by the concept of Fronts from DungeonWorld.) I spent a good deal of time building NPCs and setpieces and Fronts, so now I can pick up pretty quickly. It was a lot of work to put together this GM Holocron, and while it will never be complete, it's now a formidable tool I can use.
I don't, after running Pathfinder and Savage Worlds for so long, I really enjoy the Star Wars lines because I spend 1/10th the time planning. Most of my adventures fit on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and comprise of a few stat blocks and hints.
As someone else suggested, maybe you can run the game every other week, and another player can GM the other weeks.... then you'll play and GM and you'll have the time that you need?
Personally for me, the prep work is a big part of the fun. I love 'world building' and coming up with the various conspiracies and NPC plots that are happening behind the scenes.
Sometimes I'll take each session and map it out in the sense that "they'll probably face 2 out of these 3 encounters, and in each case here are a variety of choices they *might* make, and what could possibly happen."
It's a lot of work, but to me that's fun.
However like others have said, this system is GREAT for improvising! You don't really need to do a lot of prep work unless you're trying to get your plots to be incredibly complex or doing sophisticated heists or something.
Enemies are easy to make up on the fly, you can just say "Oh these guys have a 15 wound threshold and they'll do a Ranged Light pool of 2 Greens and a Yellow", or just grab one of the Adversary cards when you need an enemy. Reskin it if you need to, but stats are easy to fudge.
The plots and NPCs can be more challenging to improvise, but you should try it! You could find it takes the weight off before the session AND gives you the option of being surprised even more at the sessions!
I run into a session with about 5-10 minutes of prep. Give it some thought, bookmark a few stat blocks, and write down a handful of interesting ideas. I've done it for the past ten or twelve game sessions straight with my AoR group. We have a blast.
Listen to "GMing A-Z with Jay" – you'll be glad you did.
I haven't quite gotten my prep time down to 10 minutes, but it's definitely less now that I put forth the work to build my holocron. I tend to stew my ideas for a while so they don't end up being last-minute Sith Rancor slugfest or something equally lame. The rotating GM part will help me keep from getting burned out again.
Also, I really wouldn't worry about pausing during the game. I've never known a GM that didn't have to go "um, one sec... Ah right, here's that room." or "Oh, hum, didn't expect that. One second." It's just part of playing a live game.
Also, I really wouldn't worry about pausing during the game. I've never known a GM that didn't have to go "um, one sec... Ah right, here's that room." or "Oh, hum, didn't expect that. One second." It's just part of playing a live game.
Exactly. As a GM, there are always times that the players do something totally unpredictable and I have to say, okay, give me a minute... get some ideas, and then bring 'em back. Besides that gives them time for bio breaks et al.
I definitely take advantage of "let's break for a few minutes to hit the restroom/snacks" as a time to gather my ideas and think of what's going to be in the next bit.
I'm pretty firm about not breaking to look stuff up in books at the table (I very seldom have rulebooks on or at the table), but when you need to develop an idea for the next section it's a great time for a group recess for a couple minutes.