Hey,
the ROTRL campaign group I'm running at the moment only meets twice a month and I'm quite annoyed that between sessions my player forget lots of the background, NPC names, relations etc.
So we always have moments like:
"Wait, what's a runewell?"
"Ok let me talk with the priest, umm the one in Sandpoint, Brother Abs...whatever his name was"
"Karzoug who is that? Oh dear a Runelord? Of what? Necromancy?"
Any advice on how I can avert things like that?
p.s. my player are not willing to put more effort in RPGing, so they won't take notes, make character constellations etc. :-(
OK, it's simply that the players have other things going on?
You have two weeks between games :) Use them! :D
They seem to remember *stuff* but not details. Is that true?
Make/print NPC Portraits and label them: The old man is the Cleric, Brother Ambrosius of Sandalflip. Clip the pictures to the outside of your DM Screen. If you don't use a DM Screen, put up a "wall of infamy" so the players connect NPCs to their portraits. You can have a different wall for each of the areas that matter to your camplaign. Each of the notecards/portraits can have the back filled with notes (by the players) to remind them of what they know about the pictured individual.
If it is a matter of zeal, or lack thereof, you may be stuck fully with doing the leg work. But, if it helps to alleviate constant back-filling stuff the PCs should know it could be worth it :)
GNOME
Funnily we have that wall already and still such things pop up.
I know that it helps with names (at least that) though it does not help to remember the whole story.
we even have a Campaign Wiki, a Journal etc. but no one uses it...
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Hey,
the ROTRL campaign group I'm running at the moment only meets twice a month and I'm quite annoyed that between sessions my player forget lots of the background, NPC names, relations etc.
So we always have moments like:
"Wait, what's a runewell?"
"Ok let me talk with the priest, umm the one in Sandpoint, Brother Abs...whatever his name was"
"Karzoug who is that? Oh dear a Runelord? Of what? Necromancy?"Any advice on how I can avert things like that?
p.s. my player are not willing to put more effort in RPGing, so they won't take notes, make character constellations etc. :-(
Twice a month is the exact rythm of gaming sessions I currently have for my second run (as a DM) of RotRL.
To avoid similar problems, I use a website - googlesites is free and very user-friendly for those who have no skills in html, php, and so on - where I put geographical, historical, religious and social infos, and gaming sessions reports too.
The site is accessible only to my group members through profiles, has comment functions, and is pretty much an always available reference resource.
If a player arrives to an evening game without having looked at the site for updates, insights or just a recap of what they did last time, well, it's his own problem.
It takes some work to have it started up and running, but afterwards it's very easy to mantain and update as necessary.
How often does that happen? I mean how often does a player of your group (how many players are there?) turn up without having looked at the background?
In our group it's nearly always the case that no player looked at the info.
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At this point, your players don't seem at all interested in the campaign, or at least not in the aspects, they forget about.
Try to make them memorable. Is there anything that sets father Zanthus apart from the cleric Sureiwillhealyou they encounter in any temple in any city?, if not, make something up and present it to the players.
Perhaps he tends to forget about the point of the conversation at hand and geek out about the beauty of the new cathedral, perhaps he talks with a funny accent or develops a crus on a PC or a PC friend/brother/sister etc.
If they find lore about Karzoug, make sure that it contains descriptions of the horrible or awesome workings of his powerful transmutation spells.
If you can't get your players to take interest in these things, you will have to find another way to deal with it. don't make that aspect of the game a bothesome duty for yur players, or the will lose interest in the whole game. They play to have fun, not to get "homework" after each session.
Twice a month! That makes you non-stop rpg-ing machines compared to us!
If with only a fortnight gap they're still not remembering stuff, even with a notice board of useful stuff then you just might have to accept that this is their level and suck it up. Sometimes a DM's gotta do what a DM's gotta do...
Cheers
Mark
Hey,
the ROTRL campaign group I'm running at the moment only meets twice a month and I'm quite annoyed that between sessions my player forget lots of the background, NPC names, relations etc.
Do you take a few moments at the beginning of each session to review what happened in the previous session(s)? My gaming group's schedule is pretty irregular, too, and I usually ask one of my players to summarize the events of the last session, and fill in any gaps as he does so. This works because I have one player who's pretty good about reading the summaries I put up online. If I didn't have that, I'd summarize things myself, and make the summary as interactive as possible.
But yeah, if none of your players are interested enough to refresh their memories before the game, I'm not sure what else to advise.
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How often does that happen? I mean how often does a player of your group (how many players are there?) turn up without having looked at the background?
In our group it's nearly always the case that no player looked at the info.
It has happened twice last year. Having a time window of about ten days (I write down the session report about three-four days after the game) ensures the possibility to gather the spar time needed to read it.
If it's a longer/different piece of info (such as a regional description, or the history of a place, or a detailed religion written for the cleric/druid) the relevent game session is scheduled to be at least a month away, so once again, all the time needed is available.
Even if a player hasn't read up something, the other have, so a quick summary is provided by the game group and not only by me alone.
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I ran a game every two weeks for years. Players will forget stuff no matter how involved they may be. I found the best way to jog their memories was to do a review right at the table. It worked like so:
I offered a 5% exp bonus for that game for a player who gave the recap of last game. Someone always bit on that bait. As they gave the recap they inevitably made errors and I gave 20-100 XP to players who corrected errors. The recaps usually took 10 minutes with me providing prompting at some point. I found that refreshing their memory right before the game really brought them up to speed and got them ready to go. It reminded them of unfinished business from the previous game and they were eager to complete it.
I also provided a 5% XP bonus to players who kept a game journal. Now only one or two ever did so but they were invaluable during the recaps.
All the other stuff, pictures, blogs, letters etc will only be read by one or two dedicated players and even then they may read it a week or so before the game and forget it. The recap draws them all in as everybody likes to keep things straight and gets the game started.
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I run a game two weeks out of the month. In order to help keep the story straight I put the onus on the players.
I bought a campaign journal, each game one player is nominated as a Chronicler. The chronicler keeps notes of the game during the game. I use those notes to keep the campaign chronicle updated online.
At the beginning of the game I use the chronicle to recap previous sessions.
I don't expect my players to remember proper-names. I know who they mean when they say: "The architect", "the hermit" or "the werewolf". I gently remind them of the name, and slip into character.
It'll help to remember players usually are only interested in what contribution their character had to the game. Don't take it personally, they probably love the story your telling, they just have some trouble with the details.
Campaign notes and recaps are your answer.
"Previously, in Campaign X ..." works for us.
We are an eight strong group and of the seven players, only 2-3 of them can reliably remember much beyond what they did personally. "Previously, in ..." works nicely as a memory jogger and game settler. Nearly everyone has trouble remembering names of npcs at some point or other.
Bottom line: if the players keep coming back, they're interested enough to be playing so don't assume you're doing anything wrong.
It's not that I think that i was doing something the wrong way. The problem is rather that after about 20 years of DMing I have enough of doing all the stuff.
On the weekend we had a discussion about the points that annoy me and we came to the conclusion that although everyone enjoys gaming, no one wants to put more effort in it (more than zero).
I decided to split up - now it's there turn to think about how much they enjoyed our sessions and maybe how much theyre willing to change anything to gon on gaming. Since none of them ever wanted to DM (too much work) without me their hobby is also at a dead end.
How important is it for the players to know every NPC's name? Is it not enough to know what they are, what they do, and where they are form? That seems like all the pertinent information to me.
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My Face2Face group meets once per month. We've had enough scheduling conflicts recently that we haven't played since September, and won't until Feb...
I try to keep all pertinant info on Obsidian Portal but getting them to glance at it every now and then is quite the difficult task...
My solution is a 2-3 days before the session, send out a recap. Remind them about the NPCs they met recently, what agreements they entered into, and what they are currently working on. I find it not only cuts down on this sort of thing, but it often gets people excied about the next session and sparks some planning before game starts. Unlike a wiki, people actually remember to check their email.
Purchase a digital audio recorder, and make some quick notes after each session to recap at the next one. It will save you alot of typing. If the players are up to it, you can even record the game session. Be clear if you intend to post such sessions for others to hear.
I tend to start each session with a "When last we left our heroes...", and I use these couple minutes to get the refresher out.
"When last we left our heroes, you find yourselves at location X, sent here by such and such to reclaim the shiny peacock. Through research you discovered that this item is the only thing that can stop the Great Badness from rising in the north and his ever increasing armies of vampiric tarrasques."
I take a couple minutes for a Q&A and then proceed. Even then there will be hiccups with parties that do make notes. I myself when I ran ROTRL had to go over the differences between "No no, Runeforge is the place, Runewell is the item." I love the idea of the Wall of Shame to list off important people that they can deal with and will incorporate that.
IMO.
You could print up crib sheets on the people they met and what they do and hand them out to the players.
i.e.
NPC cast:
Bobjohn - mayor, asshat.
Johnbob - Merchant, owns the pink scabbard where the party got in a bar fight last session.
Bobbysue - Super badass witch who the fighter insulted and who now wants to kill him and everyone around him.
Suebob - the person you’re trying to rescue.
I vote for beginning each session with a recap of the plot so far and not worrying if the players forget the occasional proper name.
It's not that I think that i was doing something the wrong way. The problem is rather that after about 20 years of DMing I have enough of doing all the stuff.
On the weekend we had a discussion about the points that annoy me and we came to the conclusion that although everyone enjoys gaming, no one wants to put more effort in it (more than zero).
I decided to split up - now it's there turn to think about how much they enjoyed our sessions and maybe how much theyre willing to change anything to gon on gaming. Since none of them ever wanted to DM (too much work) without me their hobby is also at a dead end.
It seems to me your addressing a different issue here then the problems of players having trouble remembering NPC names or what happened last.
Peoples solutions here don't sound like they will help you because what you really want is your players to be more invested and to take on more of the work load.
My personal experience with this is that it is essentially the DMs job to do anything the players don't actually volunteer to do.
I both play in a game and run a different group. In the game I run I do 99% of the work but then I get to be the leader and the players are going through my story (well actually Age of Worms - but in my homebrew world). Its a lot of work but it is fun and I do get some benefits - they pay for my DDI subscription and are expected to feed me on game night.
In the game I play in some one else has all the power and all the responsibility. I show up with my character and try and make the whole group experience good for everyone but I expect the DM to do the work here - its his game after all. I'll wrack my brain trying to remember where we were and what was going on and if the DM sends out emails I read them as well as keeping my character updated but after that I think my work is done. In fact I see this as one of the benefits of being a player - your main job is just to show up and be ready to play.
My personal opinion is that you might do what you can to see if you can become a player in some group. My suspicion is your suffering burnout - heavily compounded by resentment that no one else wants to do any of the work. Being a player is the solution to this in my experience and, if you manage that I bet your itching to DM again (even with all that responsibility) in about 18 months.
I'm going to be the big mean meaniehead and say that if the players are too lazy to jot down a couple notes at the bottom of their character sheets, and then they can't remember what happened a mere two weeks before, then they just need to suck it up. It is the players' jobs to remember the stuff that is important to their characters, and it is NOT HARD, nor time consuming, to lift a pencil and quickly jot down names of pertinent NPCs, macguffins, etc. If they forget what a Greater Grockleshpring is, they will remember when it's devouring them as if they were gingerbread men.
Players should be willing to do this very simple thing out of interest in their own characters' development and survival, let alone interest in the campaign as a whole. If they can't be bothered, then it's time to play board games instead.
I run my sessions once a month if we're lucky, but we have a dedicated campaign chronicler (one of the players (Lathiira here at the boards) who takes notes and transcribes them into a campaign journal), another player who tracks treasure found, and everyone jots down notes about stuff that at least their character would take note of. Do we need the occasional reminder of what happened? Sure. But it should never delay the campaign notably, lengthily, nor repeatedly.
My expectation of a player's behaviour is like DeathQuaker's.
The whole issue doesn't end with NPC names and story bits-certain of my players don't know their spells, nor their class abilities nor feats etc.
I just think that when someone is so openly uninterested in the game it's not worth my time.
The starting point of my discussion was that if we would've played more often maybe rules etc. would've been learnt automatically so this could've solved at least some of the problems. But a weekly gaming date wasn't on their mind either.
The whole issue doesn't end with NPC names and story bits-certain of my players don't know their spells, nor their class abilities nor feats etc.
I have much less tolerance for repeated ignorance of the rules that your PC uses. But I will sheepishly admit to occasionally forgetting NPC names or having a completely unfounded misunderstanding of plot points.
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Here is the problem. The DM works really, really hard. The amount of work done before a game is lost on players. They might level their characters up before the game starts or they might try to do it right as a fight starts. Work between games is a foreign concept to most players.
The work before the game is just the beginning. During the game we have to be active the whole time. We are always on. Players get to be on one at a time. That is why we all have problems with talking at the table.
Finally, since we do all the work and pay attention during the whole game then we usually remember the most about the game. We know the most about how the game works because we need to know it to create our campaigns. Even involved players only remember stuff their character directly influenced. I have run years of games with players who asked what spell to use or how do I use this class power.
We volunteer to do this to ourselves. Getting mad at the players, some of whom are there to basically hang out with friends, is not productive. We live in the game, they just visit it.
One solution is to just quit. Another is to focus on the players who do care to work at it.
The best solution is to just have fun. Keep the game moving. Reiterate information when required and keep going.
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Are you having fun running your game?
If not, then it might be time to hang up the GM hat, or find another group. Burnout is a big problem for GMs. Especially when they feel overworked and under appreciated.
If your players are intentionally lazy and uninterested then that's unfortunate. Let them know that the 8-12 hours of entertainment you give them a month (twice the amount of time they'd get watching any individual weekly TV show) comes with a certain amount of "buy in". If they can't invest in the world, then it's better you don't either.
Perhaps someone else should grab an AP and take over the GMing reigns. Or you might want to change to a more casual dungeon-crawl style game, where plots and NPCs take a back-seat to slaying monsters and taking their stuff. It's a different kind of fun that doesn't require you to work so hard.
Ultimately put the responsibility in the player's hands to change their behaviour. If they won't then you have your answer.
I did exactly that and half of the group realized they weren't interested in RPGing anymore at all. They told me that they hadn't realized it until I forced them to think about our whole situation.
At least that took a large chunk of my disapointment away. Nevertheless, now we're stuck with a DM and just two players left -_-
Someone else had a similar issue that I answered:Here
The OTHER key point I run with is there is no conversation at the table about crafting stuff, or updating characters. Thats all done between sessions on Facebook - game day is for game time, and once we are on the game is rolling.
My pet hate as a player, and its a deep deep loathing, is when people spend an hour or more of time waste because there is an inevitable debate about cost/availability/time etc on crafting, or buying something. Drives me nuts.
When you hit my table, you play as you arrive.
If you haven't 'levelled' you will be playing with the stats you have.
Sorry to hear your group shrunk though, on the upside at least you aren't peeved. Surely you can pick up another player or two though!
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Hey, I forget names and such when I DM, let alone playing. (Though I forget when playing MUCH more often) So much is happening that a name isn't important to the player. They are trying to figure out why they are meeting this person, what their character's motive vs. the npc's perceived motives are, and possible readying for combat.
As long as they are interested, having fun, and trying to remember, don't overanalyze it.
If it really bugs you, which obviously it does:
Have them keep journals and quiz them every game - give small rewards, such as chocolates.
Create your own Wiki and put important information up there.
Keep a Google Doc spreadsheet with all of the NPCs they have met or heard about and a short description.
Do a 5-10 minute recap of the last session, including all of the names and terminology learned.
I'm in the same situation. We play about every 2-3 weeks. It's tough because as the GM, I spend hours every week drawing maps, statting up NPCs, crafting adventure hooks, etc. So after a few sessions where I try to set up this epic event and a horrible danger to the world lurking in the dungeon, one of my PCs and my best friend, starts the session asking "Why are we down here again?" It definitely deflates your feelings of confidence as a GM when that happens but I try to realize that he's not playing the game as often as I am. He has a fulltime job, plus a family, a pregnant wife, is writing his second novel and working on his publishing company. So I try not to take it too hard when he can't remember every mysterious hint I drop along the way. Same goes for the rest of group. Like the others have suggested, I've begun a campaign journal I can e-mail to everyone. This helps everyone, including me, because I have a fulltime job, plus grad school, and I can't remember every mysterious hint I drop along the way. I guess the best advice I can give is to know your players and work on a style of gaming that both you and them can enjoy. RPG gaming is a very unique social hobby. Most group hobbies involve a lot of competition between individuals where RPGs involve collaboration for enjoyment. Communication about what everyone expects from the game is important to create a consensus of what type of game is fun for everyone. And that might mean making the PCs aware that us GMs like it when the PCs remember the name of that NPC they befriended and who has helped them time and again.
My group also only meets twice a month.
All of my players on are Facebook. I created a Facebook group for the game. After every session I post a game summary, including experience awards, key NPC's dealt with, and any related commentary.
Other threads include uploaded maps, character portraits, etc.
Players are encouraged to add comments. They also post game fiction (lots of wannabe writers in this group), and hold character discussions via the group.
It works.
+1.
I just don't know how you'd get by these days running an intermittent game without tools like FB to keep it all on track between sessions.
All the grindy crafty stuff can happen there too, preserving the game time for gaming.
I'm going to be the big mean meaniehead and say that if the players are too lazy to jot down a couple notes at the bottom of their character sheets, and then they can't remember what happened a mere two weeks before, then they just need to suck it up.
See I'm happy to do the post game recap via Facebook and circulate it to the group so then there is one clear version of what the players know on record. This also helps as not everyone can make every session, so a clear 'what went down' helps them stay on the pulse.
See I'm happy to do the post game recap via Facebook and circulate it to the group so then there is one clear version of what the players know on record. This also helps as not everyone can make every session, so a clear 'what went down' helps them stay on the pulse.I'm going to be the big mean meaniehead and say that if the players are too lazy to jot down a couple notes at the bottom of their character sheets, and then they can't remember what happened a mere two weeks before, then they just need to suck it up.
I'm glad you do that. I also noted that we have a campaign chronicler. (Look under campaign journals, "To Slay the Immortal.") Please don't take people's quotes out of context and make them sound like they don't do something that they actually do. It makes you look like you didn't read the post you're actually replying to.
Even so, AS A PLAYER, when I am not a GM, I ALWAYS take notes about things pertinent TO MY CHARACTER. E.g., "Beholderkin who likes me: Garm." "Dwarf I had armormaking contest with: Billy in Panner's Alley." "Dragon bit my arm off last session." "Hydra in Willow Valley likes old cheese." "Jango wants to kill me because I took his sword." I am not going to make the GM do EXTRA WORK--on top of all the other stuff a GM has to do--to remind me of the stuff I need to know for my character's sake. This is not a hard thing to do either, and I in fact know few players who don't at least jot down a couple things to make sure they remember stuff.
Absolutely players and GMs should confer to remind each other what happened in a previous session in whatever means people have that is most convenient to them. (My groups are old fashioned; beyond the campaign journal, we just do the old, "Is everyone on the same page about what happened last time?" discussion before the session starts.) The problem posed upwards is that no one was even bothering to take note of anything at all, whatsoever, which is a little too lazy, IMHO, of course. Fortunately since then the OP seems to have found resolution to the issue.
Hey,
the ROTRL campaign group I'm running at the moment only meets twice a month and I'm quite annoyed that between sessions my player forget lots of the background, NPC names, relations etc.
So we always have moments like:
"Wait, what's a runewell?"
"Ok let me talk with the priest, umm the one in Sandpoint, Brother Abs...whatever his name was"
"Karzoug who is that? Oh dear a Runelord? Of what? Necromancy?"Any advice on how I can avert things like that?
p.s. my player are not willing to put more effort in RPGing, so they won't take notes, make character constellations etc. :-(
My group also meets twice per month (sometimes only once, but we try to gather once every two weeks), and we have kept that rythm for a few years already, so we are very familiar with the exact same issues you describe (some of my players take a few notes, though, but not all of them).
So I decided to close the gap by creating a campaign journal which I regularly update and send to all the players, which does two things: Help them remember the details of the campaign, and give me something to do those boring Sunday afternoons when I have nothing going on and I want to roleplay.
I started doing very simple journals (just a pointed rundown of the events in chronological order, such as "Day 1, the party did This, That and That Other Thing"), but with time I have been making them more detailed, using images that fit with locations and NPCs, using timelines, adding lots of background info that expands as the characters progress through the campaign, etc. The journal for our current Pathfinder campaign, Masquerades of Katapesh, turned over 100 pages last weekend, with dozens of entries for each creature, named NPC, location, history bit, item, deity or whathaveyou, plus a detailed timeline of events.
It doesn't have to be that detailed, but keeping a journal with regular updates has helped tremendously with my group, which is good hearted but rather bad in the memory department (myself included; I once picked up a campaign in the wrong dungeon, and we only noticed about half the session through. "Well... uhh, the ogre and the room disappear and you guys wake up. Yes, it was a dream. Yes, like in Super Mario 2"). Now they always remember the name of every NPC, the location of every important place, the lore behind every item or book they have read, which has both greatly enriched the campaign itself and easened the flow of the story (I still maintain my old system of having one player volunteering to tell the tale of what has transpired so far -from his character's perspective, of course, and narrating like it was the opening of a series- in exchange of experience, since it helps freshen up things and it is fun, but now it is more like a plus than a fundamental necessity, since they read the journal).