Six (or Seven) Hours and Thirteen Minutes

So I put the last touches on the scenario today. Its like done done, I feel like I don't even need to give it the once over before we game next time (I will, because that's in like two weeks, but still). It only took me six hours and thirteen minutes to complete. This includes updating the logbook, Walthuler's missive, and one of my three special surprises for everyone, in addition to the scenario itself. (There was another surprise that I was working on as well, but that's a side project and is my own special thing so I would feel wrong adding the time spent on it to my total.) I also didn't start timing myself until I was about four pages in, so we'll call that another forty-five to sixty minutes. I thought scenarios took longer. Seriously. I have quoted numbers and time spent to Jeremy before and said crazy numbers like fifteen hours or "its like a part-time job" and the like.

Yeah, being a DM is like a part-time job in addition to everything else going on in your life. This is true if you are a remotely competent one. I just thought it took more time to do the actual scenario than it did this time. I mean, six or seven hours is two or three diligent afternoons spent on work. I broke my time total down by day and discovered my problem, and its a surprisingly obvious one. I don't spend an hour doing the scenario. I put on a show for an hour and spend ten minutes over the course of it working on the scenario. Only twice in my totals did I actually log time close to an hour, everything else was ten minutes here, twenty there, and forty-three over there, etc. That's my fucking problem. I drag the scenario out over the course of two or three weeks and it feels like I've been on it for a month, when I've only done five hours on it. If I could just force myself to spend a full hour here, a full hour there, etc I'd be squirting scenarios out twice a month. If I could work more diligently and on a smaller scale we could game once a week for two hours or three at a time (in a utopia where all our work schedules worked out that is).

I'm glad I timed myself. I started it as a "I'll show them!" with a brandished fist at my players, kind of a "look at how much time I put in and you guys can't even learn the rules about running and action conversion without me holding your hand" type of thing. Six or seven hours isn't that big a deal, especially when broken into fifteen or twenty minute chunks over the course of three or four weeks. Time to let go of the dark side Steve and perhaps get over yourself.