Can a once a month game work?

[Thunderfoot]

Another Yea vote. My group plays on average of once a month with sessions lasting from 6 - 10 hours. Don't forget to schedule brain breaks and lunch time in addition to the normal nosh periods and snacks. The best thing is for a different person to coordinate each time and follow-up with each person to ensure everything is coming in appropriate quantities.

 

[Fenes]

One of my campaigns is roughly every 3 weeks. I do a campaign chronicle, so notes/recaps are not a problem.

 

[Ginnel]

I don't really understand this do a recap thingie for a monthly session we did ours even for fortnightly and weekly, this is because the people I first gamed with did a recap at the begining of every session, asking one of the players to do it giving them a tiny bit of xp (I'd probably go for an extra action point in this version). For a monthly game I'd recommend a group recap everyone chips in.

I went a tiny bit further in my planescape game and asked a player to do an incharacter recap, as if he was watching the last session, brilliant way to get players into character, it also give a little more insight to the other players of that characters opinions and personality.

Anywho I've played in a monthly/2monthly game before, and as other posters have stated I feel the best way to go is an episodic style game, by all means you can have an overarching plot but try and fit either an adventure of part of an adventure into each session, also I'd recommend trying to keep the pace up, players will probably have less patience for a whole session of talking or a whole session of combat than a group who plays once a week.

If you finish a bit early allow a bit of downtime if possible for the characters to describe what they want to do with their time off.
Its also quite importent for the DM to keep a tight track on things, both the exact progress of the plot and also the players powers/hits, if your playing 4th ed take the dailies and encounters they have used off them and make a clear record of their hits.

 

[Jhaelen]

Does anyone play once a month? Does it work? How can I make it work and keep campaign continuity and some kind of overarching plot? Or should I not bother and just run short adventures that could be wrapped up in six or seven hours? Anything to keep in mind, advice, etc?

I do. It works reasonably well. I'd prefer it if we could play more often (like every other week) since progress is very slow, but it's just impossible because of our tight schedules. We've been playing for 3 1/2 years now, and the average character level is 10-11.

We meet every 3-6 weeks on a Saturday for a long session (8+ hours). There's a total of 8 players, but the normal average for a given session is 5-6 players. It's incredibly rare that all 8 have time.

We're playing a mix of long and short adventures and there's an overarching plot. It's absolutely decisive to have a good chronicler. For the overarching plot it's also important to regularly remind the players of past events and their current goals by having them meet recurring npcs.

Since the number of players is always in flux and the participating characters often change in mid-adventure it's also very important to handwave this* and use encounters that are easily adjusted. I mostly try to use large, mixed groups of enemies for that reason. Encountering 'solo' monsters is rare, since I have to prep them at several levels which I hate to do.

*: Characters that were present in a previous session simply fade into the background if their players aren't present and don't participate in any way. Likewise characters of players that weren't present before simply appear out of nowhere and everyone acts as if they'd been along all the time.

 

[kensanata]

I like keeping notes on my campaign wikis. In our Shackled City game the DM started handing out skill points for write-ups. In my own games such as my Burning Wheel game I keep all the notes and do a little recap at the beginning, asking all the players to chip in and tell us what happened and what they did.

Another thing I believe to be important is scheduling issues. Real life will always intefere.

In order to prepare for that:

• I try and find at least five players per campaign so that we can still play if several are missing
• I run and play in several low intensity campaigns that meet once every three to six (!) weeks
• I plan ahead for a month or two
• I use tools like Doodle to figure out when to play
• I have Google calendars for all the campaigns so that players can sign up and import them into their calendar tools
• and I don't complain if games don't happen because I know I'm playing in three or four other low intensity campaigns! Yay!!

 

[tankschmidt]

I also run a once-a-month game. It's OD&D, however, so it might be a little easier for me. If you have a six hour session in d20, a handful of combats will take up most of that time, while we could have 15 combats in the same amount of time if we really wanted to.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

It might just be a form of AADD but I lose interest in characters if I don't get to play them (the very little I get to play in the first place). For me, once a month is a no-go I'd personally rather not play.
But thats just me.

Making the adventures have a significant Start and End point in an adventure like this is definately a plus though.

 

[Ayrk]

My group has done it for four years now and it works great. We are in similar life experiences as you (in our 30s with kids) so having a set date each month works well for us.

We actually take it a step further and gain a level after each session. By doing that, we've been able to do a complete 3.5 campaign, a Savage Worlds Necessary Evil campaign, half of a d20 Post Apoc campaign, and are in the middle of second 3.5 campaign.

I realize it is not for everyone, but this accelerated XP schedule really helps us to enjoy what little gaming we get to do.

 

[rkwoodard]

I am looking for a once a month game

As a full time professional, husband and father of a 2 year old. Once a month would be perfect for me. But it is hard to find others of like mind.

But, it can work.

RK

 

[hagor]

(I never realized what a pain it could be to get six 30-somethings with families in one place at the same time until I tried it), and it definitely works for us.

What has already been said here certainly applies -- extra recap before sessions, good notes, and so forth. I have also found that at the beginning of our games, one needs to build some "hey, how ya been" time into the session -- our group has very strong out-of-game connections and friendships, and our game time is the only significant time our group has a chance to spend with each other; if we didn't allow about an hour of catch-up time before the game starts, we would be doing it during the game, slowing it down.

QFT.

I try to schedule one session (of 4-5 h) every two months (with moderate success): a once-a-month game is somewhat a luxury for me.

But I think it can be done. I agree with most of the points raised so far.

What do I (as the DM) do?

- I make an adventure log, including a list of the major NPCs, places, etc. I also keep track of treasure given. (I guess this part of the job can be given to one of the players)
- Even with the log, I start every session with a summary of the previous session (sometimes even clearly stating the different options/goals available after the last session).
- I try to make every session as much as possible a single “episode” (but we all know how players affect the dm’s plans…).
- Some of my more casual players are not that familiar with the (3.x) rules, so I have a more “loose” playing style (which I prefer, actually).

Hagor