Lets play something tonight!!!!!

[Stuart]

I run three groups a week for a total of about 9 hours playing time - some sessions are more intense than others. The pre game stuff is about 15 mins to half an hour but I have fairly detailed modules (each group is using a different one); each took a weekend to put together but will keep a group going for anywhere between 4 to 12 sessions. These have all the maps, hand outs, NPC's and items I need.

A $4.00 pdf (or so) in my experience will generally last a group about 1-2 months assuming that they play once per week for 3-4 hours and are reasonably pacey.

To convert one of these (depending on the intricacy of the maps - not a strength as Snikle knows) takes about 6 hours.

I should add that the biggest bugbear (pardon the pun) I have is players not showing up or those who show up for one session, get a free ruleset and vanish into the ether with what crudely equates to $20 or more of a ruleset ... YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE (and my patience at this is wearing a little thin).

[Snikle]

To convert one of these (depending on the intracacy of the maps - not a strength as Snikle knows) takes about 6 hours

Nah! Yeah that would piss me off on the stealing the rulesets as well. Maybe I should start running just straight modules rather than trying to come up with my own stuff, seems like that is considerably less planning that is needed. I will spend a couple hours making a map, another hour or more putting together extra artwork (treasures, people, buildings) for use in the game, and maybe a couple houss trying to figure out the direction of the next gaming sessions. All in all, I would say I usually spend about 4 to 8 hours planning each gaming session that then lasts 3 to 4 hours.
Now, on that note, allot of my maps and artwork gets reused on my website, or sometimes even a map pack or freebie over at FUM.

[Oberoten]

I thought about this while working on my ArsMagica set... (New graphics to and through, new charsheet etc. Just waiting for the next update to implement some minor automation. )

At first I thought cleverly to put my contact Info on the desktop or in the rulebook or something. Then I realized that with the curent spreading of all material you enter... that'd be asking for someone to come and growl at me for spreading what IS basically their product or a derivate thereof.

[VarnFury]

I think another thing why there more players then DMs sense it seem to be a issue is the fact most people are behind firewalls. They can connet to games yet they cant set one up sometime. I had mine working for a while... was to happy that i was gonna DM (Love storie telling plus who says i cant play? I just.. dont inculd my player in some things). For some reasons it stopped working and no one can connet even though i changed nothing... i tryed a few things and still no go.

other thing is the players themself. Some are really good and there others that disappear on ya or things come up and everything is dlyed.

[Ganadai]

For some reasons it stopped working and no one can connet even though i changed nothing... i tryed a few things and still no go.

I had this same problem, and it turned out to be my Dynamic IP. When I restart my computer sometimes my router assigns it a different IP address, so sometimes I have to reroute the port for FG to the new IP address.

[VarnFury]

I just figured that out 20 mins ago, though it doesnt work with my other IP address. Mine last digets go from 100 to 102.. 102 works.. 100-101 dont.

[joshuha]

Most routers let you specify a static IP that you can give your internal computers on the network. This way you can have the ports forwarded to the correct machine IP each time.

[Ganadai]

Most routers let you specify a static IP that you can give your internal computers on the network. This way you can have the ports forwarded to the correct machine IP each time.

*Sigh* But that would take a whole 5 minutes and I just don't have that kind of time.