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I have been GMing for the same group of five players going on three years now. Unfortunately, since we're all adults with families and jobs and such, we can only game once every 4-6 weeks. On a game day we can put down 7-8 hour sessions, so we do progress through content at a reasonable rate (well, if ~25 sessions over ~2.33 years is reasonable to cover five Carrion Crown books).
The problem I've been having is keeping the players interested in the game during the time they aren't sitting in my living room holding dice. It is very hard to run an adventure path when none of the players can remember what happened five weeks ago, let alone five months ago when the adventure began.
I've tried providing emails after the game to recap what happened, I've tried going over the details of the last game before starting, and I've tried asking them to keep notes. None of this really seems to work. Considering the difficulty I have in getting them to use email to discuss things like treasure allocation and item creation requests, perhaps it just cannot be done? Perhaps they just can't/won't/haven't the time to pay the story much time outside of the dedicated time of a game day.
I was wondering if anyone else has had problems with long sessions separated by weeks of downtime. How do you handle it? How do you maintain the player interest in the story? Are there tricks or suggestions that helped? Ways to keep them involved or make them care at all about the plot-related goings-on? Is there a good bribery option? Is it is a lost cause given the periodicity of the games and the complexity of an adventure path? Should I just go to smaller shorter disconnected modules and give up on overarching story lines?
1) As far as recapping the game goes, I'd suggest trying to get the player to make a video diary of what they remember. I'm in a campaign we only play 2-4 times a year, but have been running for 12 years now. As a new initiative, having people record what they think about the game, has been a boon in planning it.
2) Talk to them about the problem. It is not your job to keep them involved, as much as it is their reasponsibility. Life tend to get in the way of things, but there is probably small thing they can do, like taking notes when they play.
3) I am not sure I would like to play that way with a pre-written campaign. My experience as a player and GM of those, is that they hit a point where they are less interesting than they used to.
If you as the GM take more charge of the campaign, it becomes easier to adapt it to the players and their characters. Of course you can include modules or parts of adventure paths anyway, but my experience is that running an AP is as time-consuming as running a homebrew game.
3b) The playstyle is of course a matter of preference. Personally I prefer narratives that are character-driven, rather than an adventure, where the characters interact with a series of preplanned events.
In my opinion (biased at that), it is better at engageing the players, and taking responsibility.
And it makes it easier for you, simply to ask them at the end of a session: What do you remember? What was fun? Was something left out this session, that you we're hoping for?
Based on this, you now which parts worked and which didn't, and can focus on the parts that did, as well as building on the plot hooks that the players actually noticed.
Considering the group situation, I would avoid adventure paths. Maybe stick to self-contained PFS scenarios and one-shots? It avoids having to have too much info filtering from one game to the next.
The problem is that for most folks, gaming is a tertiary concern, and they will NEVER think much about their game outside the table. I think it might be easier for your sanity to adapt yourself to their condition, than in trying to get them to maintain interest.
I've been playing in the same campaign for about three years. We're all adults with families. We just reached 7th level.
The interest remains because we're all the kind of people who just don't mind long-term projects like this. I don't know, it might not be an issue.
Well first of all, its fairly human to forget the details of what happened 4-6 weeks ago. I think there are two course of action that could help.
1. Try shorter adventures. Maybe an AP is simply too long for their attention span. It isnt for everyone. Maybe one of the new longer modules, or some of the linked modules would be a better idea?
2. Reward the things you want. I play with a sort of hero point system (I call them destiny points). Players who send out an in character journal entry after each session get an extra point. Characters who can recap the previous sessions events at the next one get a point. Players who organize the treasure/loot list into an excell sheet to speed up distribution via email get a point.
3. Consider pearing down your group. One thing I've noticed is that of my friends, some get really into the game, and some enjoy it but wont over enthuse. If you have a similar group, consider limiting it to just those you know will get involved. You dont even have to be confrontational about it. For your next game, send an email requesting those interested in playing to send you character ideas/input/background back via email. Make that your standard for who joins the game. You might have a smaller group, but it will be with the people that really want to play.
Our group sounds pretty similar to what you described. We play every 2-3 weeks but sometimes we have to skip a session so it can be a month between sessions. I have been both a DM and a player so I see it from both sides. My only suggestion (since you have tried the things that we typically do) would be to set aside time at the beginning of each session to make sure you have their attention and recap the adventure to date and answer any questions they might have in character. Good luck!
ditto to all those who suggested shorter adventures. make it more of an old style dungeon-back to town-next dungeon type campaign. since your sessions are so long, you can easily design each scenario to take only one or two sessions, and no long memory is really required.
It only works with the right group and players, but something I've seen used to good effect is having an online landing pad for one's campaign where people can role play, divvy up treasure, make any policy/sand box related decisions, get their XP and you can list a brief after action report of the last session and link to online notes about clues found and NPCs met.
This is extra work, but has the side benefit of forcing the DM to keep on top of the campaign. That said, it all hinges on the players and if they love having an aspect of the campaign they can connect with that allows for forward momentum whenever they want in their free time.
I'm definitely thinking of going this way if I ever get my next local campaign off the ground.
ProBoards is your friend.....
Our group is similar int hat we are older, have families, jobs, etc.... Although we do play every -other week so a bit more frequesnt.
We always use a message board for game recaps, player "journals" and private conversations between the GMs and players. This has really helped people develop more depth for their character.
This is especially true on the character journals. Players write their journal entries from their character's view of the last session. They run everything from very funny to tear jerking. Really is a good tool.
The reason I think it would help you is it gives a place for your group to "get together" even if you are not playing. We have even started a "play by post" deal for some of our followers/henchmen.
It's a great way to "keep the game moving" without actually playing.
Thanks for the advice, everyone.
I've tried email and message boards but, yeah, as was indicated by some here, they require a fair bit of focus by the players on the game outside the game sessions. I suspect two would be able to maintain interest, but they are also the 'core' gamers with whom I do other gaming. The others are far more busy (one does 60-70 hour work weeks, another has two kids and a job and is getting his doctorate).
I kind of wish we used hero points because stuff like the journals would be great but I'm honest enough to know I'd have to bribe them to do it, heh. I'll keep it in mind for the next game we do.
I had a original campaign in 4th with much the same group but it suffered much the same problems. I think the next step is to actually get the players involved in the generation of things. Another system I've read suggests you have players submit NPCs and places and things to the game. They don't decide necessarily how they work or what part they play (and the GM can change anything he wants, of course), but getting players involved in the worldbuilding will greatly increase their interest.
Of course, (most of) my players don't even remember the names of their characters, so maybe I'm hoping too much in getting them involved with the story and caring about the events. We'll kick through book 6, which is just a dungeon crawl, and maybe we'll try something more episodic next time around.
I've tried email and message boards but, yeah, as was indicated by some here, they require a fair bit of focus by the players on the game outside the game sessions. I suspect two would be able to maintain interest, but they are also the 'core' gamers with whom I do other gaming. The others are far more busy (one does 60-70 hour work weeks, another has two kids and a job and is getting his doctorate).
I kind of wish we used hero points because stuff like the journals would be great but I'm honest enough to know I'd have to bribe them to do it, heh. I'll keep it in mind for the next game we do.
Yeah, it's a format I love, but there needs to be a fair amount of desire for a deeper connection to the campaign for most players to invest. If you're lucky you might get buy-in from a player here or there if you've snagged their attention due to an otherwise active group of players for the campaign, but generally, per my above recommendation, you really need a group who want "more" out of the game.
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Oh my, a session every 3 weeks? A month ?6 weeks? Twice a year! I love this hobbyso much that those figures cause me a queasy despairing feeling!2 weeks betweensessions is rough for me in an ongoing campaign.
In college, we'd game probably 3 out of every 4 weeks. But now, with five players and a GM and families and jobs and such, it is basically impossible to bring schedules together often enough and with enough players to work. I set a rule awhile ago, primarily because of the time between games, to require at least 4 players at a session. This has definitely lead to the occasional 2 months between games problem.
It isn't ideal, but you have to do what you have to do when everyone starts getting older and having responsibilities. In a perfect world, I'd push for 4-5 hour sessions every other weekend, but that just isn't possible for some of the players.
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This is where you've got to start your evil plan: corrupting your friends families into liking TRPGs.
-Good for couples because it can bring them closer together (I've actually seen this)
-Good for kids: confidence building, "safe" source of fantasy, it's a social activity...
Eventually, they will ALL be gaming! And then you'll have even less time to game with them...
MP, I feel your pain. My group are all older, with kids, and are alo geographically spread over hundreds of miles to boot! If we are lucky, we can meet every 6-8 weeks, and often in the winter/spring we have to miss one of those sessions because we just can't coordinate schedules. We have me plus 5-6 players, and getting everyone around the table is hard. When we do meet, we play for 8-12 hours (with meal breaks etc), so we do get a lot done, and we do have a dedicated adventure chronicler. Can't get people to coordinate via email anything but play dates, so we spend too much time updating characters/crafting/dividing loot, which all could be done via email. We use HeroLab, so the paperwork itself is fast and easy, but still.
And on top of this everyone wants more, not less APs. We have been playing RotRL for 4 years now, and are about 1/4 into book 5, but we have picked out the next AP for me to run, and one of the players has kicked off WotR as well. I've suggested we do more PFS or modules instead of APs, but nobody wants to do that. We've started to invest time and effort into VTT play, with yet another player running Thornkeep, and the idea that WotR is also to go mostly VTT, but our problem is the same: everyone wants to play, no one has time, and no one wants to exclude anyone (we are all friends for 20+ years). So we are right back to tryijng to fit square scheduling pegs into round calendar holes, no matter if we are talking online or in person.
Harald - what do you mean by a video diary? something like videoing yourself on your phone recapping the session as soon as it ends?
Yeah, actually just that. Taking 5-10 minutes to state on your phone or laptop, whatever was important to you in the session.
In this campaign we play a whole weekend, so that does leave time for it sunday, during cleaning up afterwards. Some of the players prefer to wait a day or two, to collect their thoughts.It is a new initiative in the group, but so far it has been quite great. Especially because we have players who spend a lot of time on the game between session, and some that don't. This way, we've gotten some of the more quiet players to give their inputs.
As far as loosing interest in the backstory, it is tough situation, and I don't have a single great solution to it. I've tried (and still do) playing and running campaigns/stories that I honestly don't care about, and wouldn't play if it wasn't a chance to get together with my friends. Especially in pre-written scenarios, if I get the feeling I can't change the flow of the story.
Writing this, I realize that I often simply accept this, all stiff upper lip like, without trying to change it, so my suggestions might not hold too much credit...
That said, I think you might benefit from a talk about what you want from the game. Maybe all of you, maybe just a couple of you over a beer (or of course return to the video-diary we started at:) ).
I don't expect it can give a heureka moment, but it might help you focus more on the elements of the game that you all enjoy, and weed out some of those you don't.
Before all this text, I meant to ask if you and the other guy is GMing the game? I didn't quite get that, and it might make a difference as far as motivation goes.
My suggestion would be to keep doing what you guys love (full campaigns), but have the GM break the ongoing story into relatively self-contained "episodes," each with a solid beginning, middle, and end. That way, each session will be more memorable, and since each session won't start right in the middle of a leg of the plot, it will be easier to get the players into the action.
Also... speed-mode loot processing and item requests, and grant levels at content-appropriate points instead of XP. Accounting just takes away from the fun.
In other words, don't do giant multi-session dungeon crawls. Do closely-knit episodic adventures instead.
-Matt
That's life for you.
One-shots and Limited runs are your best bet. Maybe you can get them interested in a session of Call of Cthulu. If your characters live and/or are still sane the GM is slacking. = ))
If you still want that ongoing campaign feel you could put the players in a situation that spans years between adventures. Just make sure when you get together your session is resolved at the end - no cliffhangers!
As far as maintaining player interest - when it's a month between sessions then it's on the players themselves to maintain interest.
I run a homebrew game, and I keep notes for what happened for every single day that occurs in game - even if it's just "had random encounter, killed a fire drake". This has really helped me keep things in focus since I can easily recap what happened the previous few sessions.
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My group is somewhat similar to the OP's, but with less time for each session. And we alternate between 2 APs, a Module and a L5R game.
We meet because the GM provides us with fun when we play. And we prefer APs because we like to see our PCs grow through story, adventures and levelling.
But to strengthen the story that goes through the AP, he REALLY needs to restate again and again its basic points and how it is all linked together.
What is lost in subtlety is gained in renewed interest through remembering the Big Picture.
One thing that works well is that, at the beginning of each session, the GM asks us to summarize what happened recently in game. It also helps for the players who missed a session or two.
Cliffhangers are good. Starting the game off with a sexy hook is good, too.
Banging on the table and bellowing that its the sheriff is a trick I started one of our recent sessions with. That got folks' attention mighty quick.
The advice of trying to roll things into one-shot adventures is probably sound, though. Trying to keep a multi-part adventure going with that much time in between sessions is really problematic.
i think that last question from harald was directed at the op and not me.
so, back to the video diaries. do people each do their own and then share them via email in between sessions? are they in character descriptions of what went on or just the basic details of what happened? i'm not really worried about my group as a whole, they all seem pretty content, but i would like a way that might get me to remember more of the backstory stuff and therefore enjoy it more, although the process i use to remember it needs to be enjoyable as well (at least on some level).
i'm kind of liking the idea of an in character one that gets shared. finding the time before i forget it all would be the issue. hmm, maybe thinking about it that way would help me take notes while it's happening though.
really my friends and i just need to all move in together and stop caring about our wives and children so much ;-)
Each do his own, and then share it through a facebook group. Emails works fine otherwise, but I like ability to easily go through older stuff as well as comment/discuss certain matters.
So far it has only been player-commentaries. Each player spends the 5-10 minutes to sum up what happended, describing the highlights of the session, and discussing events and developments that he thought was interesting, fun, or perhaps problematic. On top of this, there might be some comments on, a development he would like to see, for his own or one of the other characters. Mostly they tend to focus on a few important events, and share their thoughts on those.
I think an in-character video diary would be great as well. It might also be good to verbalize some of those inner thoughts and motivations of the character, that sometimes is difficult to put in play at the table.
It sounds like you should try it out the next time you play. It might simply be a fun way to remember what happened, but it might also be a boost of inspiration for the rest of the group :)
Finding 5 or 10 minutes should be doable, if you put your mind to trying it out once.
I'd love to hear how it goes.
I have been GMing for the same group of five players going on three years now. Unfortunately, since we're all adults with families and jobs and such, we can only game once every 4-6 weeks. On a game day we can put down 7-8 hour sessions, so we do progress through content at a reasonable rate (well, if ~25 sessions over ~2.33 years is reasonable to cover five Carrion Crown books).
I applaud you MP. I'm doing the same, but with a home game. I've had to re-start the campaign now 4 times over 9 years for a number of reasons, but chief among them has been losing my players around 5th - 6th level when the plot starts getting thick.
The problem I've been having is keeping the players interested in the game during the time they aren't sitting in my living room holding dice. It is very hard to run an adventure path when none of the players can remember what happened five weeks ago, let alone five months ago when the adventure began.
I know right? I took 3 months to get through an adventure I'd intended on being a "side quest!"
I've tried providing emails after the game to recap what happened, I've tried going over the details of the last game before starting, and I've tried asking them to keep notes. None of this really seems to work. Considering the difficulty I have in getting them to use email to discuss things like treasure allocation and item creation requests, perhaps it just cannot be done? Perhaps they just can't/won't/haven't the time to pay the story much time outside of the dedicated time of a game day.
I was wondering if anyone else has had problems with long sessions separated by weeks of downtime. How do you handle it? How do you maintain the player interest in the story? Are there tricks or suggestions that helped? Ways to keep them involved or make them care at all about the plot-related goings-on? Is there a good bribery option? Is it is a lost cause given the periodicity of the games and the complexity of an adventure path? Should I just go to smaller shorter disconnected modules and give up on overarching story lines?
Ok, so obviously I'm in the same boat w/you here Doxy. My reality hit me like a ton of bricks when I came to the realization that I'm friends w/my gaming buddies and want to game w/them, but I'm a railroad artist GM and they are sandbox lovers who dread slogging through plot. Couple that with our varying schedules, our OoC concerns and just life in general and that meant that delivering any meaningful story was an uber challenge.
As I mentioned; I re-started my game FOUR times. The first was a straight-up railroad - died a painful death. The second one was meant to be a gritty political sandbox, kind of like the old World of Greyhawk - I should've known when one of the four characters was a barbarian who didn't speak more than a few words per sentence it was doomed. The third, after a long hiatus was to be a sandbox with a dark fairy tale theme but with a legend that would serve as the epic backdrop for the whole...ZZZZ - snoozefest for my guys and that version died fastest.
Eventually I surrendered. My current game is literally nothing more than beer & pretzels gaming in a sandbox, and I mean that term with gusto this time. It's high-fantasy with a hex map, a local megadungeon and lots going on all around. They want to go to the dungeon? Great! No? Then gather some rumors in town and head out. I literally don't care what happens.
Weirdest thing is: my players are having a blast.
There's still that guy in me that wants epic plot though. My players are helping with that. They're picking things to be interested in, like the paladin wanting to know all the weaponsmiths' trademarks in town or the ranger with a hate on for kobolds. Well, surprise surprise; the kobolds have a magic anvil and have been stealing mithril! What for? I have no idea...yet.
Now you've got an AP going on, so I don't know how to help there; I just know what worked for me. But part of what worked is knowing my players. Talk to them, find out what they want, and if it IS the AP, then here's some thoughts:
1. hand out copies of the artwork from previous books to remind them what they've achieved
2. recap in lots of different ways: narrate in your own voice/3rd person; have a bawdy barmaid come on to one of the guys for what they did last game; break out your best opera/80's wrestler voice and be the bard singing their tales.
3. show them you're still interested - your enthusiasm is infectious!
4. use Sculpy to mold them some trophies
5. play "game trivia" with your players; first to answer gets a round at the bar or whatever
6. let one of the players sub as a GM
Hopefully all of this is at least a little helpful!