Re: An outstanding campaign

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 08:41:13 -0800

  Yet, most of my players do not do any mastering at all and I often wonder if they realise how much time it takes to get into a game and then prepare the sessions. Recent example of difficulties to find a suitable date to play and then some repoachful words on how difficult for them it is to remember the last game have somewhat damage my enthusiasm to spend hours of reading and plotting.

This is a pretty standard complaint among GMs :-).

Take some of the time you spend planning, and use it to retell the last day's adventure, then publish it (on the web, in a "Campaign newsletter", whatever) for your group. They then have one less reason to not remember what their heroes did last time. This also gives you a change to think about where the adventure has been, and where it can go. Perhaps a throw-away line from the adventure will prompt a new avenue of adventure (it's certain to have done so among your players - a quick mention of "Oh yeah, the ogre king died 100 years ago up in the hills" means that they'll want to investigate his cast;e/lair, insteda of continue on the course you've been working on for the past three months... Go with it, rather than trying to get them "back on track" with the kidnapped princess plotline. Or simply move the princess and her kidnappers to the Ogre king's cave, instead of the Port city you had planned - having "a little something put by" in the ay of areas or characters never hurts.)

Start each night's play with a quick recap of what's just gone on - a quick reminder for the slow of thinking among the players.

A technique to use is to end each night's play with a cliff-hanger. "Okay, you're hanging on to the vine with all your might, dangling over the 1000 foot fall. The vine is pulling out of the ground at an ever-increaing rate... See you next tuesday". used judiciously, it'll keep your players thinking about how to get back on solid ground (which will re-inforce "how did we get to this point?" as well.

HeroQuest lends itself to making the players do a lot of the work. It's relatively easy to say "you tell me" when they want to know about a myth or legend, or create a new culture or cult, etc. This may get some creative juices flowing, and make the player in question want to get a little more involved in the narrating aspect.

In the end, realize that you're up against the Internet, Video games, movies and TV for your player's "Playing time".

RR
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du pr�sent a fait ce qu'il a fait.
- Richelieu