I accept that I am a hypocrite Mikael Andersson . Self knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.

The way I view it is there is an investment cost to any activity that is not me actually playing a character and doing shit, which is the main thing I want to do. That investment cost has a payoff in terms of the length of time I will play that character doing shit. This is because most situation/setting stuff is primarily fun as it is explored, not as it is created. There is little point to creating a bunch of stuff that will never be explored because there is not enough time. (Explored does not mean “actually seen in play”, exactly, more like “had some interesting effect on play”.)

My rough rule of thumb is 1/8. I can enjoy one part setup to 7 parts playing my character doing stuff. Going to play at least 8 sessions? 1 whole session is awesome. Going to play a four hour con game or one shot…maybe no more than 30 minutes of coming up with stuff? In that case I really would rather the GM shows up with more pre-gen, or do most of it on the fly.

If the set-up activities are piles of fun for me on their own (re: that cool soviet robot micro-game where you draw the map and the robots whose name escapes me), then my rule of thumb doesn’t apply as strictly. If I am approaching the game as a demo, where I am trying to get a taste of all its systems, then my rule of thumb might not apply at all.

Microscope, as Paul Beakley says, breaks the question.