Once a Month Sessions - HOW?

[Rechan]

I appreciate all the responses, but I need more help and advice than general info.

For instance, saying 'ONe session adventures" doesn't help me because, as I said in the OP, I simply have no clue how you would condense an adventure to a session.

Because players are going to:
BS and chat about things unrelated to the game.
Want to chat and RP amongst themselves and NPCs.
Having multiple Combats (regardless of system) is going to take up 2/3rds of the session.

I just can't see how you can fit an entire ADVENTURE into such a little time frame. You have to handwave so much and be so disciplined with time management it would be like watching a movie in fast forward. Not to mention it would be very on rails, just so you can get to everything in the time alotted.

What I need is a concrete how-to. Because unless I can conceivably see how I can do it, I'm with Mercurius: a monthly game looks like it'd not really satisfy me.

 

[Craith]

I would be glad if the schedules of me and my players would allow even a session per month, 2 groups of players (DM in one, PC in the other)

When we get to play it always gets late, and always later than expected. At the beginning of each session the DM recaps the last session, everyone should take notes during the session, and we try to end the session with an extended rest, so everybody is full next session.

It is a slow progress, but better a slow game than no game.

 

[wedgeski]

For instance, saying 'ONe session adventures" doesn't help me because, as I said in the OP, I simply have no clue how you would condense an adventure to a session.

Then what you need is advice on writing convention games, which are essentially under the same pressure, with the advantage that you know your group. Search will be your friend, but this is a post that I remember being particularly useful.

 

[Psikus]

I simply have no clue how you would condense an adventure to a session.
(...)
What I need is a concrete how-to.

Some have already mentioned it, but it's worth repeating: Dungeon Delve is a great product for that kind of games. You open the book, choose a level-appropiate adventure, and get just enough material for a 4-5 hour session. It will be pure hack and slash, unless you add some stuff of your own (let's say an extra hour or two of noncombat action). But you get to complete an adventure, small though it may be.

There is no connection whatsoever between one adventure and the next, so you may have a hard time making a coherent backstory for your campaign, if you really feel like you need one. On the other hand, changing party composition should be painless.

The worst drawback of that approach, to me, is the fact that there is only a single delve for each level, forcing you to level up after each session. Then again, this may be the only way that your group will ever reach the higher levels of play.

 

[xortam]

I currently run a game that meets once a month but sometimes more if we can make it. We start at midday and meet at the supermarket to get all the food and drink in for the whole session and start off with lunch so that gets all the chit-chat out of the way. We then play for a few hours and break again in the evening, sometimes going to a nearby food establishment or cooking something in the kitchen we play in. After dinner it's back to the game until around about midnight.

It seems like a long day but breaking it up with food keeps a lot of the social aspects to meal times. We get a big chunk of gaming done in between food and almost level up every session or so. In between sessions the players think about leveling up and the gap gives me a chance to prepare for next time. I also find that where we are playing for around 8-10 hours combat does become quite quick and fluid because everyone has got their game head on for the whole day.

The same group also meets weekly but we vary that session with other RPGs, CCGs and boardgames but will return to our monthly game if we have found it difficult to meet up one month.

I would say 90% of the time we can all commit to one day a month and sometimes we get a couple of games in.

 

[roguerouge]

I recommend allowing easy intelligence checks to anything the player's forgotten that the PC probably wouldn't have. I use DC 5 as my benchmark. The player feels respected and they understand that they need to try to retain stuff in the face of this minor risk of losing the piece of info.

I also recommend hand-waving all combats that are not vital to the plot. So, if you're infiltrating the castle to thwart the BBEG, you condense all the infiltration into a skill challenge that requires everyone to contribute in some manner. Cleric casts silence, rogue does her thing with skills, fighter intimidates a maid into silence, and the wizard uses his knowledge of architecture to guide them through the castle layout. Presto! 20 minutes of game for several days worth of adventure.

 

[Stoat]

How much time to you have for the monthly game?

I DM'd a group that met every six weeks or so for several years. When we met, we'd play for a whole weekend -- something like 12 hours or so.

IME, 3.X and 4E combats take about an hour to set up and play through, so you could start there. I'd want to leave an hour for goofing off/eating, and plenty of time for non-combat stuff. In a four-hour session, maybe two combats.

Specific tips:

Be ready to deviate from the experience charts. You might want to level the PC's faster than normal to keep things from bogging down.

Focus on big, splashy combats (assuming combat's your thing). Instead of an adventure where the PC's have five or six encounters before the BBEG, cut it to one or two encounters before the BBEG.

Concentrate on small, location-based adventures. Something the players can finish in one setting.

Use the internet. Use a mailing list, blog, messageboard or wiki to keep things going between games. Post recaps, in-character dialog, cut scenes etc.

 

[Klaus]

Back in 2003 I wrote an article on the subject. Here it is:

Fiery Dragon Productions - Ignite Your Imagination

In the case of a monthly game, I find that shorter adventures are better than slow dungeoncrawing. For instance, I removed all but four of the areas in the lower level of Keep on the Shadowfell (no statues, corridors of the cube or the final temple... I reworked the latter into the upper temple).

Dungeon Delve is a great product to help in this regard. Three combat encounters, plus some roleplaying and a skill challenge can fill out a single session in a very neat package. Don't hand out XP, but set level-ups arbitrarily at adventure's end, or at every two sessions.

 

[Gilladian]

When I was running 2.5 hour long sessions at the public library, for teens, I did two things; I made sure each scenario began and ended with a strongly memorable scene, and I made sure there was a theme or special feel for each adventure.

To keep sessions "in time", I made modular chunks of adventure that I could drop in or leave out.

Frex: the haunted house had 3 rooms that I really needed to run (the porch where they met the first ghost, the mother in the kitchen, and the child in the playroom). A few extra scenes were purely optional, and I only used one of them when the scenario played out (a menacing ghost dog in the back yard; a second child - an infant - crying mysteriously, and an illusionary trap in the attic). All I can say is that if you have a feel for how long each piece will take to run, you can guesstimate whether you have time to run a particular bit or not.

Another thing; address your concerns with the party. You may find that if they know they're playing only once a month, they're willing to be a bit more "knuckle down and get the game on" than with a weekly game.

 

[TerraDave]

Yes, there is a problem. Both 3E and 4E are good at chewing up time, and seemed to be based on a weekly play model.

At the same time, and I think this is important: players will remember some things between sessions. They don't suddenly become senile. You can have adventures go across a few sessions. Its ok.

I have handled infrequent play by:

-Keeping things simple. No elaborate plot weaving.

-Yes, there is combat, but not as much. Fewer fights to level.

-Online posting for downtime, summaries, and some PbP. The latter is also super slow, but keeps peoples heads in the game.

-Patience. The players will probably be fine, but you may have to scale back your ambitions.

Tips given here, like using the delve approach, are probably good. We haven't had to do that, though like I said there is some scaling back that is needed. I have also thought about doing a mix of play by online video and in person face to face. This I think could work well, if everything came together.