Time management and short RPG sessions

[Scubba]

Real life has such an annoying habit of interfering with my gaming life.

How do people deal with short gaming sessions?

By short, I mean 3-5 hours, since I feel that real immersion, plotting, and PC accomplishment is best served up in steaming 8-12 hour chunks (chunks? ick!).

For me 1) it puts a pretty heavy weight on *preparation*. Always challenging to prepare the right things.

In the Hero system, 2) Combat must flow quickly, without stalls for rules, housekeeping, or player dithering.

But I'm interested in how people use smaller game sessions effectively, with plenty of player (and GM) satistfaction to go around.

[Curufea]

I think short games are best for settings and characters that all the players are familiar with. That way you don't have to spend time establishing the game.
Starwars, Lord of the Rings, whatever.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Scubba, do you mean 3-5 hours total time for the whole game/campaign, or 3-5 hours per game session, but still an ongoing campaign? I was assuming you meant the latter, but it sounds like Curufea may have thought you meant the former.

[Karmakaze]

Most of my weekly games are closer to three hours than five, and we manage. We all have day jobs, and some of us need to be in bed by 11pm, so we have a fairly narrow window to work with.

Mostly, we just deal with it. We try to streamline combat, and sometimes combats spill over into another session, at which point someone noted the phase and damage taken and brings it to the next session.

It really works out fine.

[Scubba]

Whether for a 3-5 hour *session* or *adventure*, I think Curufea's comment is probably pretty accurate. As much as I love creating new worlds, we just don't have that much time for lengthy explanations and introductions.

But those 8-12 hour sessions, however infrequent, are pretty nice.

On another tangent, offline gaming (be email between sessions) never seems to accomplish very much...

[Nolgroth]

My Thursday night game is slotted for 6 -10 PM (my time) and we seem to get a lot accomplished. Mind you, we are using a meld of familiar settings so there's a nod to Curufea's comment.

If you like to world build, you could always use e-mail as a medium to convey the information about your world that the players need to know. A web page is probably better and a blog of some sort (that allows the players to comment on the posts) is probably a great way to discuss things before/after the game.

Other timekeeping methods are to have a "no argument during the session" rule. Obviously, if the subject of the argument is a game altering one, that won't work, but minor ones could and should be handled later.

Have all the characters ready before the session starts. A quick clarification is one thing, but having to help build some elaborate power construct is time-consuming and should have been done before play.

Hmmmn. That's all for now. I'll post more as I think of them.

[Vondy]

My FTF game traditionally ran from 12-5 on Sundays. I don't think length necessarily leads to deeper immersion. Its a question of the groups ability and session quality. It also depends on how many players you have - the more players the longer it will take. I generally ran with 3-5 players, which I understand is a bit on the small side. I also ran solo sessions that tended to be 3-4 hours. I'll be honest and say it: I have more than one important thing in my life and 8+ hours for a session is well beyond my tolerance (despite 27 years in the hobby - or maybe because of it). Also, most of my games started with a character building and world introduction pre-game session, which is where the hand-outs and information was conveyed.

[Hugh Neilson]

On another tangent, offline gaming (be email between sessions) never seems to accomplish very much...

I like to use this for "down time" matters. You want to commission a high quality sword, or construction of a magic item? Do it by email. If this isn't working, consider imposing a rule that this is the ONLY way such matters will be addressed. In other words, if you don't do it by email, you don't get to do it at all.


My FTF game traditionally ran from 12-5 on Sundays. I don't think length necessarily leads to deeper immersion. Its a question of the groups ability and session quality. It also depends on how many players you have - the more players the longer it will take.

In my experience, sometimes longer games reduce immersion. Players get tired and fall out of character. It all depends on the players themselves.

[Thia Halmades]

Most of my weekly games are closer to three hours than five, and we manage. We all have day jobs, and some of us need to be in bed by 11pm, so we have a fairly narrow window to work with.

Mostly, we just deal with it. We try to streamline combat, and sometimes combats spill over into another session, at which point someone noted the phase and damage taken and brings it to the next session.

It really works out fine.

This is how we get down as well -- our average session is only 3 hours long, so I've learned to really compress alot into that time as best as possible. Some days I have enough material to go for a full six to eight hours, but for the most part I'm "locked in" to the 4 hour window, and I usually prepare the exact amount of material to go that distance.

As far as immersion, my players immerse almost immediately because they're all queued up for the game; they only get to play once every two weeks (by force of schedule design, not choice). We have no real problems with this; it ain't college where I can do 16 hour all nighters and make up 99% of the plot as I go. ;)

[Scubba]

Other timekeeping methods are to have a "no argument during the session" rule. Obviously, if the subject of the argument is a game altering one, that won't work, but minor ones could and should be handled later.

Too true! There are really only a few major culprits that spell 45 minutes of 'downtime'. A good GM/PC or PC/PC grudgematch argument is one of them.

It takes a fair amount of commitment by GM & PCs to stay focussed on enjoyable gameplay.

[steamteck]

We play Saturday from about 5 to 11 or 12. until about 9 we get some interruptions by the kids ( but they're pretty well trained. leave the adults alone and they may forget to put us to bed on time.) We are seriously immersed and plots are sometimes very intricate with tons of ongoing threads. it really depends if your players are like mine and are willing for an adventure to take long as it needs to and happy to have it in "chunks". Its worked for my group for 30 years and centuries of game history.
My wife and I also play several times during the week ( I GM she plays) and our minimum window is about two hours to make it worthwhile 3 is better but real life and kids don't cooperate all the time.

[OddHat]

All characters prepared well before the game.

3 act plot, no more than 2-3 scenes per act, with a prologue and an epilogue that can be cut for time.

Try to keep it down to two combats.

Don't make part of the goal of the Big Bad to capture the heroes unless you plan to leave them imprisoned as a cliffhanger at the end of the session, or unless their escape is the main point. They'll spin in circles trying to escape and you'll either need to build their cells from Absurdium or stick them full of "power damping" drugs.

For that matter, keep the bad guys goal clean and simple. If he has a Master Plan, don't try to fit the whole thing in one session; give the players one small part to deal with and save the rest for the next game(s).

Keep notes.

[RDU Neil]

All characters prepared well before the game.

3 act plot, no more than 2-3 scenes per act, with a prologue and an epilogue that can be cut for time.

Try to keep it down to two combats.

Don't make part of the goal of the Big Bad to capture the heroes unless you plan to leave them imprisoned as a cliffhanger at the end of the session, or unless their escape is the main point. They'll spin in circles trying to escape and you'll either need to build their cells from Absurdium or stick them full of "power damping" drugs.

For that matter, keep the bad guys goal clean and simple. If he has a Master Plan, don't try to fit the whole thing in one session; give the players one small part to deal with and save the rest for the next game(s).

Keep notes.

Similarly... my group had a standard 4-5 hour weekly (mostly) game and they were perfect length. Granted we played in a campaign that had two decades of history... but even then, the individual sessions needed to fit a certain time frame.

I'd say 1 combat max... either leading off or ending the evening. Also, when appropriate, leave the evening on a cliff-hanger. Lots of time I'd have a combat just ready to begin as the session ended. One of the best ways to get an evening going quickly, start with "Initiative!" Or "Segment 12, what's your Dex?" if you play the standard rules.

The way Oddhat breaks up things in "scenes" I would do it with "one or two big things that need to happen, be found out, discovered, whatever. Keep your "plans" as the GM pretty simple... the players will fill in the rest. Lots of times, I'd be lucky to get one or both things in place... the players would drive what they want. Your job as a GM is to just frame it with either short term closure or a good clif hanger ending.

Again... YMMV, but it worked for us for years.

[CrosshairCollie]

Lessee here now ... we generally run from aboug 7-7:30 to about 11. 3.5-4 hours, less considering we lose probably half an hour to forty-five minutes on catching up with weekly events and news, the occassional phone call, and the fact that our host has two teenage children and three free-roaming pets.

With Champions games, this usually comes down to a fight every other game tops, effectively breaking one long game session into a part one, then cliffhanger, and part two.

[Scubba]

I'd say 1 combat max... either leading off or ending the evening. Also, when appropriate, leave the evening on a cliff-hanger. Lots of time I'd have a combat just ready to begin as the session end. One of the best ways to get an evening going quickly, start with "Initiative!" Or "Segment 12, what's your Dex?" if you play the standard rules.


With Champions games, this usually comes down to a fight every other game tops, effectively breaking one long game session into a part one, then cliffhanger, and part two.

There are quite a few in our group who feel a little let down if there isn't even a taste of combat in an evening...but that just means they can't stop thinking about it until the next game 2 weeks hence--and that's a good kind of anticipation.

[Diamond Spear]

5-7 hours seems the norm these days what with life and all conspiring to keep sessions to that length. That said I’ve never found it hard to have “real immersion, plotting, and PC accomplishment”. It is just a matter of arriving ready to play and having an interesting game to play. The only real effect I’ve found longer sessions to have is that you can, for instance get the equivalent of two nights worth of four hour sessions done in one night. In other words quality isn’t going to suffer, just get stretched out.

[BlackSword]

Sunday night we have a game session from 6 - 10pm. When I run I never have much problem filling the time or worrying about running over. The time is nice because it allows for cliffhangers most weeks. I don't worry about getting an entire adventure in each night. If the adventure ends midway through, the PCs go on to their next goal. If the adventure runs long, I try and build to a cliffhanger to end the session.

[bigdamnhero]

Our sessions also tend to run 3-5 hours; IMHO if your players can't get into character in that time, they probably never will. The one downside from an immersion standpoint is that players aren't likely to remember every detail from previous adventures, so they may need a bit more reminding. A good recap is invaluable here, either emailed to the group ahead of time or read out loud at the beginning of the session. Doesn't mean you can't run long, involved plotlines -- just don't expect your playres to connect the dots from seperate sessions over the course of several weeks without a little prompting.

As for getting things done by email in between sessions, it just depends on the players. My current Champions group gets a lot of the administrivia done that way, including character advancement, supplies & logistics, non-immediate research (ie - "My character is going to start reading up on Edomite magic for when we run into DEMON again..."), and so forth.

[Scubba]

A good recap is invaluable here, either emailed to the group ahead of time or read out loud at the beginning of the session. Doesn't mean you can't run long, involved plotlines -- just don't expect your playres to connect the dots from seperate sessions over the course of several weeks without a little prompting.

I think this has been one of the 'silent failures' of our games lately. Games where we do this go well, games where we forget or are too busy to do this leave people confused and/or less satisfied.

[Lamrok]

Four hour sessions are probably the norm in out group - Zornwil often runs longer, but even then, he usually divides a long session between two different games. It has become near impossible for me to allocate more than four hours in one chunk to anything besides work. Personally, I think four hour sessions promote better roleplaying and more "fun per minute." To make things even trickier, I generally run only once a month (we have other GMs who run on other weekends.)

- People need to show up ready to go and reasonably on time. If we're going to shoot the breeze, we typically do that after the game.

- The GM needs to have everything set and solid. No stopping to think or futz around with things. I use a checklist to make sure everything is ready, and have an organizational scheme I use to make sure everything I will need can be reached and deployed quickly. Do as much as possible before the players show up. I will do the physical setup as much as two days ahead of I'm going to be busy on game day. The game should be ready to go within a minute or so of the players' arrival, and combat setup shouldn't take more than a minute or two.

- Drive combats forward. Push players to make quick decisions when their turns come up - they can do their thinking while other players are taking their turns. Make sure you can can handle the GM end of combat very quickly.

- Having good visual aids is a strong helper. I use a whiteboard to track NPC names, important plot hooks, and other plot or session-specific info. Put some thought into other ways that tokens or other physical widgets can speed things up and keep players clearly informed about what is going on. Much time can be lost when players don't exactly understand what the GM is trying to communicate - especially in combat. Clear communication really makes a big difference.

- When planning a run, think about what can be cut and what can be added to make the session perfectly fit the time allotted. Watch the clock. Make sure you end at a suitable point, and not in the middle of something (this is really more of a tip for running once a month, I guess.)

- Document everything that happens. I use a Yahoo group to host discussions and my writeups of each session. Writeups include a quick summary of experience points and other significant changes that will carry forward to the next session. Players can use the group for pre and post game discussion including offline roleplaying.

[musasino]

Prep:
Great advice Lamrok. Taking the time to really lay things out just as they're needed is an invaluable boost to the players' experience! Plus, many times the players just can't make every session -so we can't count on a continuous cast of characters in each session. Anyone have a good tactic for dealing with the "I'm here one week, gone the next" ?

Recap:
Keeping a running journal of the characters' actions really builds a story! Instead of doing it from the GM's perspective, I've tried to get the players to write recaps from their character's perspective -by awarding them temporay dice of Luck, etc. So far... no luck ;) Because of the short length of a play session, it's essential to hit the ground running, so I may have to start writing the recap myself.

Combat:
Keeping the players informed and in synch with the events of a multi-turn battle has always been a challenge for our group. We usually coach the less decisive players to think about their character's actions a couple segments before they need to act. And we've been exploring a few custom tools to track Speed and Dex, with some real success!

I'm curious, do many gaming groups rotate the hosting/GM responsibilites, or do you all typically meet at the same local, at the same time, and the same GM?

[copeab]

How do people deal with short gaming sessions?

By short, I mean 3-5 hours, since I feel that real immersion, plotting, and PC accomplishment is best served up in steaming 8-12 hour chunks (chunks? ick!).

For me 1) it puts a pretty heavy weight on *preparation*. Always challenging to prepare the right things.

I like short gaming sessions, or at least medium ones with a break in the middle.

I don't prepare much before a session, preferring to improvise. I can improvise well for 3-4 hours before needing a recharge before another 3-4 hours.

Also, I mostly game online these days, where a four hour session is about equal to 1-2 hours at a table.

[Scott Baker]

Lamrok - This is good advice that I wish more GMs would take to heart. And thanks for providing me with a short checklist for my own game now that I'm getting back into the GM saddle.:)

[Scott Baker]

Recap:
Keeping a running journal of the characters' actions really builds a story! Instead of doing it from the GM's perspective, I've tried to get the players to write recaps from their character's perspective -by awarding them temporay dice of Luck, etc. So far... no luck ;) Because of the short length of a play session, it's essential to hit the ground running, so I may have to start writing the recap myself.

A number of years ago, when I was running regular Champions sessions, I offered an extra Experience Point for any character whose player provided a write-up of the session from their character's perspective. There weren't any limits on how many write-ups could be submitted. Even so, I had very few takers. I was a little surprised at the results.

[Scubba]

I offered an extra Experience Point for any character whose player provided a write-up of the session from their character's perspective.

I've lucked out with a couple of players who really enjoy doing this, with very little prodding.

At least, they like to do it as long as our storyline is thriving. When their write-ups become intermittent, I know their interest is waning...

[bigdamnhero]

Anyone have a good tactic for dealing with the "I'm here one week, gone the next" ?
It helps if the PCs have real lives out of costume. In my current group, one of the PCs sometimes has trouble getting away from his day job. Another one is kinda flaky and occassionally forgets to bring/charge/turn on her team radio. Then there's Phillip, aka Built To Last, who is a big Dead Head; anytime the player can't make a game, the excuse is "Oh, there must be a Dead concert somewhere." (And yes, the character is crazy enough that Dead concerts come before heroing. :) )

Of course that works better with more episodic games. Having characters disapear in the middle of an adventure (or even in mid-battle) is a little trickier.


Recap:
Keeping a running journal of the characters' actions really builds a story! Instead of doing it from the GM's perspective, I've tried to get the players to write recaps from their character's perspective -by awarding them temporay dice of Luck, etc. So far... no luck ;)
With my last group I (the GM) wrote the summaries, tho I tried to write them from the PCs' perspective. With my current group, one of the players volunteered to keep the log. Tho I expect there will still need to be a certain amount of editorial imput from the GM.

[ngross]

A number of years ago, when I was running regular Champions sessions, I offered an extra Experience Point for any character whose player provided a write-up of the session from their character's perspective. There weren't any limits on how many write-ups could be submitted. Even so, I had very few takers. I was a little surprised at the results.

Maybe it is the group that I am part of..... We went the little more high tech route. I provided network access (during gaming) and blog space. Instead of them writing notes in their notebooks, they now put everything in their blogs as it is happening. No need to transfer/transpose notes. It also makes it easier for them to organize and search through their information.

We are lucky in that everyone has a laptop (or an extra one for the person that does not), so it was not a big transition. It does make the gaming table a little crowded, but they seem to really like doing this. It also makes things easier for me, since I can search their blogs also.

[AliceTheOwl]

My sessions usually run from 5 - 9 PM on Sundays, theoretically every Sunday. I'm not sure I'd like running a session much longer than that.

I usually plan for two combats per session, but I reward players with in-game goodies for avoiding combat. I've also gotten into the habit of giving them short recaps of what's going on, what they're doing, where they're going, etc.

The "shooting the breeze" thing I actually find helpful to do at the beginning, because what happens is the players settle into their characters' personalities while they're going back and forth.

I suspect it's easier to run a short session with only 3 players, though.

[Karmakaze]

It would be rough for me to find a regular 8-hour chunk out of my life, even out of my weekends. If we waited until everyone was available for 8 hours at a time, we'd never game. Several of our players have second jobs or work schedules that take them over the weekend.

Right now, we game Mondays and Wednesdays (although the groups are slightly different), alternating weeks (so it's 4 games in total). Some of the group work the 10:30-7 shift, so we don't generally start before 7:30 (and one player, despite being unemployed, still can't seem to show before 8:00 -- we start without him). We usually wrap sometime between 10:00 and 10:30, so it's really a 3-hour maximum per session.

We don't have much of a problem getting into character -- we all know our characters pretty well. It's also not at all uncommon to go entire sessions without combat, which may be why we're able to fit the games into 2.5 hour chunks - combat does eat a lot of time.


Of course that works better with more episodic games. Having characters disappear in the middle of an adventure (or even in mid-battle) is a little trickier.

If a player is missing for a game session, then we generally assume they're around, but not "onscreen" (they're doing research, dealing with secret id stuff, whatever). If the PC possessed information we need for the scene, the GM will "sockpuppet" the PC to pass the information over to us (not generally stuff they know from IC scenes, but information from skill rolls/contacts.) If they vanish during a combat (which doesn't come up often), they're knocked out but don't keep the damage when they return, or they're handwaved as fighting some NPCs in another part of the battle, which wraps up just as the battle does...

[JohnTaber]

My Star Hero campaign has been run for almost 3 years now with every session being 4 hours. We play 1 session per month only as that is all I can manage right now. I have found a couple of things that help make everything work. Most of these things I would NOT do if we played longer sessions:

+ Recap - I summarize what happened in the previous session. This way everyone gets up to speed faster.
+ Keep Stories Tight - As others mentioned I try and keep the stories tight and focused.
+ Keep Decisions Limited - This one is probably going to draw some flak. I keep the options that the players have to a dull roar. I don't have the campaign stories completely open. I try to drive them a bit more than I do for longer sessions. NOW...I am not "railroading". I am just simply forcing the action a bit more. When I started to ease this off after about a year one of the players ASKED to be directed more due to the short session lengths. The others agreed so that is what I do. I think it works better for shorter session.
+ Provide Log Snips For Critical Data - This makes it faster finding material about important topics.
+ Create Logs Immediately After The Session - My first suggestion above reads from this log. ;) By doing a fairly detailed log players who may miss a session can get caught up.


Hope this helps...great topic. :D

[Scubba]

+ Keep Decisions Limited - This one is probably going to draw some flak. I keep the options that the players have to a dull roar. I don't have the campaign stories completely open.

This GM falls into this trap all the time. Some of my favorite storylines in fiction are wide-open, gigantic, continent- and era-spanning constructs. But it's an old story that bookish epic storylines don't usually make for great RPG'ing.

Not that you can't have a big storyline, but mete it out little at a time. Hmm, I think I see the topic for my next thread...


Hope this helps...great topic. :D
Thanks!

[Sir Ofeelya]

My sessions usually run 5-6 hours. Occasionally we do a bit longer. Any more than that now and I start to fall asleep.

[Hugh Neilson]

Plus, many times the players just can't make every session -so we can't count on a continuous cast of characters in each session. Anyone have a good tactic for dealing with the "I'm here one week, gone the next" ?

This can be a hot button. Our group simply makes that PC an NPC for the session. Generally, that means he's "there but not useful" during many scenes and run by someone else during combat, with GM intervention if there are issues that the other players aren't aware of (an unknown Psych that would change that character's actions, for example).

Some players, however, are dead set against anyone running their character if they aren't around. If the GM wants a game where those characters simply aren't around, I think it comes down to campaign planning. You need to have discrete episodes so that there's a break between sessions and the character doesn't vanish into the ether between phase 3 (end of last week's game) and phase 5 (start of this week's game). It makes cliffhangers impractical. You need a sort of "old JLA/Legion" feel where all of the members aren't around for every mission, and you need to design scenarios that don't depend on a specific character's presence, or have a number of scenarios prepared so you can pick and choose based on who showed up for the session.

[Karmakaze]

Some players, however, are dead set against anyone running their character if they aren't around.

My (rather unsympathetic) reaction to that is "Well, then start showing up to sessions, or at least give enough advance notice that other arrangements can be made."

[AliceTheOwl]

That tends to be my take on it, as well. We had a lot of people not showing up for games after we'd arranged it around THEIR schedules, for times that were less convenient to the rest of us. That seemed like the height of arrogance, to me.

[Sir Ofeelya]

If somneone cannot make a scheduled session I will NPC their character. I have a pretty good idea how the players will react in certain circumstances, so I play their character that way. I will not however, make them "take the lead" if they never do it. I also will not kill a PC who is being NPC's. That seems a little unfair so a killing wound will be fudged to some lesser injury.

[Hugh Neilson]

My (rather unsympathetic) reaction to that is "Well, then start showing up to sessions, or at least give enough advance notice that other arrangements can be made."

I'm in agreement, but I have seen some players who are very sensitive to the issue. My players generally arrange for a specific other player to run their character if they are not available.

[Vondy]

My group had a "buddy system" in place for situations where a player didn't show up. Players had an assigned buddy who would play their character if they didn't show up. The general rule was that if the absent player's character wasn't critical and could be "fobbed off" on some ambiguous normal ID task, an administrative task, or following up on side-line issues that might or might not be important, then it was assumed they were doing that and we wouldn't hear much about them in a session. If they had to be there the buddy would play them as close to their understanding of the absent player's style as possible. In general, as the GM, I tried to avoid screwing with the character too much (certainly no death's or grevious injuries), and would frequently try to create a side-issue for the character to "exit stage left" over if it was reasonable to do so.

[Markdoc]

5-7 hours seems the norm these days what with life and all conspiring to keep sessions to that length. That said I’ve never found it hard to have “real immersion, plotting, and PC accomplishment”. It is just a matter of arriving ready to play and having an interesting game to play. The only real effect I’ve found longer sessions to have is that you can, for instance get the equivalent of two nights worth of four hour sessions done in one night. In other words quality isn’t going to suffer, just get stretched out.

The stretching out is a problem since there's always a certain amount of fluffing around and "so last time, did we ask the priest about the mysterious ship?" and "What was the name of that merchant, again?" so that if you have a 5 hour game session - and that's as much I can get out of players with kids :( it's more like 4 hours actual playing time. A longer session gets more actual playing done.

I'm suffering it right now in my current FH game: while I was ... ahem... railroading the plot along, short sessions worked fine: task of the night, one or two fights or other significant interaction, done. Now we're reaching the investigation and decision phase, suddenly the plot has slowed down to a crawl as the players discuss, plot, check notes, go back to interview peple thay talked to before, etc. It's not all bad, since a fair degree of interaction is in character and the NPCs and backstory are getting some depth to them, but seriously, the game has been running about a year now and we've played about 6 weeks game time :eek: More, we've gotten about 1/10th of the way through my plotted story arc! Double :eek: At this pace, I'll be able to run this one plotline until I retire...

[Supreme Serpent]

- People need to show up ready to go and reasonably on time. If we're going to shoot the breeze, we typically do that after the game.

That never seems to work for us. If we try to jump right into the game, non-game stuff creeps up whenever there's any kind of lull, one player's getting solo time for a few minutes, etc. For our group at least, it generally works better to just write off the first half hour or so as a loss - let people get their drinks, chat about the week, talk about the latest movie etc. then get the game rolling once they've caught up.

[Scubba]

I'm suffering it right now in my current FH game: while I was ... ahem... railroading the plot along, short sessions worked fine: task of the night, one or two fights or other significant interaction, done. Now we're reaching the investigation and decision phase, suddenly the plot has slowed down to a crawl as the players discuss, plot, check notes, go back to interview peple thay talked to before, etc.

Participating in this thread has really reinforced what I probably already knew (albeit subconsciously)--the structure of your campaign should match your playing schedule.

When I was younger, we played every day in the summer. So we could explore lengthy storylines. Some days were more episodic in nature, but sometimes we would stick with the same encounter for days at a time.

But playing every other week, for only 4 hours at a time, we can't maintain that sort of continuity. Even with recaps and blogs and the rest, it's not feasible to expect the players (or the GM) to keep all the myriad threads and details alive in their heads.

So episodic runs, with occasional over-arching storylines are the most appropriate for this kind of schedule.

This has an unfortunate side-effect: some genres (like Superheroes) embrace this--it's part of the architecture (part of it's Comicbook DNA). Sadly, some genre (like epic Fantasy) continually bump up against the constraints of episodic storylines.

I look back at my recent campaigns, and see that many of them were not designed for episodicity from the beginning. And at that point, it's an uphill battle to hold them together...

[copeab]

Anyone have a good tactic for dealing with the "I'm here one week, gone the next" ?

In my 2049 police campaign, which mostly takes place in the city (Houston), if a player is missing and it's convenient, he gets called back to the station for some matter (depending on the character's niche). There was one extended trip to the Dreamlands, though, where I had to run two PCs and NPCs for a few sessions. In general, it's easier to have a player miss a session if they are operating around a home base than if they are on the road.


I'm curious, do many gaming groups rotate the hosting/GM responsibilites, or do you all typically meet at the same local, at the same time, and the same GM?

Since I game online, it's always the same place ;) Always on Saturdays, but starts at 7pm or 8:30pm depending on which campaign. I always GM.

[bigdamnhero]

I'm curious, do many gaming groups rotate the hosting/GM responsibilites, or do you all typically meet at the same local, at the same time, and the same GM?
Usually, the locale is the same. In my last group, family committments dictated where we could play; with my current group, it's strictly about geography.

As for GMing, my last group alternated weekly between two different GMs & campaigns, mostly to give the GMs an extra week to get ready in between games. With my current group, I'm the only GM.

[AliceTheOwl]

I've been the sole GM for the last almost-year, with my Via campaign. We sometimes change locations, but we usually meet at Josh's and my apartment on Sunday evenings.

It used to be that Josh was the sole GM; that's why I stepped up in the first place. He was getting the "always a GM, never a player" blues.

[Robert Harrison]

Real life has such an annoying habit of interfering with my gaming life.

How do people deal with short gaming sessions?

By short, I mean 3-5 hours, since I feel that real immersion, plotting, and PC accomplishment is best served up in steaming 8-12 hour chunks (chunks? ick!).


I disagree with your last quoted sentence. Game sessions longer than 5 hr are just too much for me. Immersion beyond the 5 hr period is best achieved with internet bluebooking carried out via email, Wiki page contribution, or posting by way of Yahoo group or similar forum set-up.

IMHO, if it takes more than 5 hr to tell a reasonably large chunk of a story, then something is wrong.

-Robert

[OneWingedAngel]

- The GM needs to have everything set and solid. No stopping to think or futz around with things. I use a checklist to make sure everything is ready, and have an organizational scheme I use to make sure everything I will need can be reached and deployed quickly. Do as much as possible before the players show up.

I'd be interested in this checklist, if you're willing to share. :help:

As far as who plays and who GMs, in my previous group, everyone GM'd occasionally. My current group is chalk-full of new players, so I run every game. I've found that players/people tend to invest more interest in the stories if they've run one or two games themselves.

[Lord Mhoram]

Our sessions run about 4-5 hours (4 till 8 or 9). Any longer would just be way to much. Sometimes I tend to lose it at the end of a 5 hours session. Now we usually spend the first haf hour or so chatting and such.

As for GMs, we actually have 4 active GMs. We rotate through the games after 3 or 4 session - when one game reaches a good break point, we switch GMs. It'm much easier on all of us GMs. :) It does mean that each game moves somewhat slower, but this way no one gets serious burnout.

[Fedifensor]

With my last group I (the GM) wrote the summaries, tho I tried to write them from the PCs' perspective. With my current group, one of the players volunteered to keep the log. Tho I expect there will still need to be a certain amount of editorial imput from the GM.

So...when are you going to post the logs? :)

[bigdamnhero]

So...when are you going to post the logs? :)
:D Working on it. FWIW, you can read the logs from my old campaign here (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47018). (Apologies for the self-promotion.)

[Vondy]

(Apologies for the self-promotion.)

Someone has to do it. :thumbup:

[casualplayer]

I find it works out best if you do your own self-promotion.

My games go til I or the players lose focus and I reach a good stopping point, generally about 2 hours. I like to set the stage, reach one false crescendo, subside a bit, then build for the finale or a cliffhanger. What would be 2-3 chapters, if my game was a novel.

I rarely have to stop just because the GM well has run dry. I've just learned that anticipation is the best sauce and closure is the best dessert, so that's what I feed my players.

[tesuji]

But I'm interested in how people use smaller game sessions effectively, with plenty of player (and GM) satistfaction to go around.

I don't think "session" so much any more as i think "episode".

My sessions are barely three hours long, less after the routine shooting breeze at the start.

I plan on three sessions on consecutive weeks for three weeks,. then a week break and another three sessions.

I work to make each trio of sessions be an episode, a short story arc, maybe even an adventure in its own right.

So, session 1 is the get warmed up and introduce the problem" and maybe a sub plot twinge. it should start with "something amiss" fairly quickly it should end with the first fairly big swerve.

Session 2 is the follow leads and unravel mystery. It should start with players following up on the swerve and running thru the hoops. it should end with the last big swerve before the climax. they now know "what we have to do".

Session 3 is the climax. Its pretty much that. It ends with a resolution of the episode's issues, though not necessariyly the plot. it might be all one big fight depending on what you guys like.

its usually good to have a little action in each session, but not necessary... depends on group.


Anyway... you dont have to follow the script every time and should vary it a lot, including "double episodes" where the story unfolds over six sessions.... but the general idea is the amount of stuff you used to consider ONE RUN (of 10 hours +) is divided deliberately into three smaller sessions wih reasonable dramatic breakpoints making each feel like the part of the whole.