One of my #DnD friends wanted to try DMing, but was worried it might be too much work. I shared some tips that may be useful to other aspiring (but lazy) Dungeon Masters:
Wear a wristwatch. Pretend the minute hand is the hour hand, and that's your in-game time. A two-hour game will last 24 hours for the characters. Whenever your players ask, "How long has passed?" you can tell them the exact time.
Steal movie plots. So far my players have visited a dragon zoo before the dragons escaped (Jurassic Park) boarded a ship on which everyone has been killed by a mysterious creature (Alien) and protected a woman who was prophesised to give birth to a great general (Terminator).
You can save time AND make the adventure more fun by not bothering to come up with solutions to the problems the players will face. They'll think of something, and if they roll well, it will work. If they roll badly, they'll think of something else.
(Whereas if you solve the problem preemptively, you find yourself trying to guide them towards your solution, which is frustrating for both you and them when they don't get it.)
Make up your own monsters and NPCs. That sounds like more work, but it's actually less. All you need is AC, HP and a single attack. No modifiers, no resistances, nothing.
The players won't realise how basic the stats are, because instead of frowning at long lists of numbers, you'll have the brain space to describe the creature and what it's doing much more vividly.
Your players don't need to know that the creature's claw attack, shortbow bolt and fire vomit all have an identical +5 to hit and do an identical 1d12 damage.
(To decide how much HP the creature should have, you can double the max damage of your strongest adventurer's attack. To decide the max damage your creature can do, halve the HP of your weakest adventurer. You want everyone to get a chance to hit it and feel threatened by it.)
Come up with the NPCs, items and locations independently of one another. That way you can give the adventurers the freedom to go wherever they like, and still have lots for them to do when they get there.
Whereas if your location is a church and your NPC is a priest and your item is a bible, and then your players don't even go to the church, that's a lot of wasted effort.
Speaking of locations, image search some things ahead of time. It's much easier to describe a room you've seen than one you just imagined.
That's all the time-saving DM tips I can think of for now. Anyone else want to share some?
Oh yeah! Base the NPCs on people you know, or (if you're a film buff like me) actors you're familiar with. The players shouldn't realise that you're doing it, but this makes it much easier to describe the NPC physically, and to make their voices feel authentic.
(Full disclosure, the voices are the bit I'm worst at - it's hard to do voices while ALSO guiding the plot in your head. I'm very open to suggestions on this.)
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