How does your group handle post-session "cooldown?"

[DRD1812]

My question is a bit outside the normal scope of play. I'm interested in best practices for end-of-session. If any of you guys a theater kids, I’m talking about the concept of the "cooldown."

In a hobby like ours, where we like to talk about escaping into fantasy, entering another world, and becoming somebody else for a little while, the return to everyday life can bring out some peculiar emotions.

Therefore, I'm curious whether you guys have any special rituals to address the pent-up energy and feeling of emptiness that comes when moving from the game world to the real. What typically happens in your group when the game is over for the night? What signals that “the session is done” and “we’re back in the real world now?”

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

[DeathlessOne]

Oh, yikes. I've been gaming long enough that the ebb and flow between real life and the game world seems like a natural transition, as easy as breathing (I don't notice it until I actively pay attention to it). It is very similar to the feeling of finishing a very good book, or video game, and having to put it down.

I suppose the closest I come to a ritual or process is a general basking in the glow of a story well lived, admiring the struggles and achievements of the character/group, while I go about my more mundane tasks.

As far as signaling the end of the session... Well, that's the time of the night. As a GM, I pay fairly close attention to the clock and make sure that I'm winding down the events of the session in a way to make the break seem like its a natural transition in the story. Sometimes, we have to end of a cliff hanger and that can leave the group figuratively biting their nails and trying to come up with ways to get out of the situation. I enjoy watching them squirm at those moments. For me, I simply put the cliff hanger in its specially prepared 'box' in my mental space and don't touch it until prepping for the next session.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

At the end of the night I ask the players these questions:

1) What did you or your character learn this session?

2) What was your favorite action or cinematic moment of the session?

3) What was your favorite roleplaying moment or choice this session?

4) What would you like to see happen next session?

5) What made you laugh/filled you with horror/felt truly epic? (Depending on the genre of the game)

Allowing about 30-45 minutes for post-session wrap up helps to ease the transition to real life.

[HighLordNiteshade]

I am an early riser (04:30 am) so on game nights, which run 7:30 - 10:30 pm, I am way past my bed time at end of game. So my transition is to proceed directly to bed. :-)

[TxSam88]

yeah, sounds like you might be getting "Too" into your games. After our games, we clean up the game area, then go to bed. Not much need to "cool down".

[Kasoh]

I take it upon myself to be the clock watcher. Several of our players have obligations that occur near the end of our sessions, or thanks to time zone differences need to go to bed. So, I note the time and say, "Its about that time." and we pause whatever is going on to come back to next week.

Then the people who have to go to bed go to bed. The people who have to go to work go to work. Those who remain might chit chat about stuff that happened, speculate on further developments in game, discuss builds and quirks of the system we're playing, post memes and etc. I'll usually finish off entering in the values for the loot spreadsheet so I don't have to do it later, and post session is typically when we do the leveling up as the GM is still around to answer questions.

[DRD1812]

TxSam88 wrote:

yeah, sounds like you might be getting "Too" into your games. After our games, we clean up the game area, then go to bed. Not much need to "cool down".

It's normally more associated with LARP, but the concept of "bleed" is a very real thing!

https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Bleed

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

I'm in the same boat as DO. We pay attention to the time because we play weekdays and some of us have to get up in the morning and once it hits a specified time, usually 2200, we call it quits and leave pretty quickly. Then I usually head straight to bed because I often have to get up early (4.45).
As a GM I try to time things so if we are nearing the end of a session and there is a natural break in the game or long encounter I try end things a bit early rather than stop in the middle of something, though that has happened far too often to count.

When we play in person there is a bit of winding down while everyone packs up and gets ready to go but rarely much more than comments on 'x was fun' or 'next time let's do Y' or 'when shall we N meet again?'

[TxSam88]

DRD1812 wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

yeah, sounds like you might be getting "Too" into your games. After our games, we clean up the game area, then go to bed. Not much need to "cool down".

It's normally more associated with LARP, but the concept of "bleed" is a very real thing!

https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Bleed

Yeah, I've played my share of LARP, and again, it's only the people that are getting "too" into the game that this is a problem for. It's important to remember that these are games and are for fun. If you need a "cool down" time after a game, of any type, then perhaps you need to take a step back and re-evaluate your hobby.

[Neriathale]

Get in the car and fight our way through the horror that is the Oxford traffic system. That is far more of a challenge than any encounter in the game :)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Neriathale wrote:

Get in the car and fight our way through the horror that is the Oxford traffic system. That is far more of a challenge than any encounter in the game :)

I shudder at the thought. Lovely city but you could never convince me to drive a car there.