4E Lunchtime Campaign

[jcayer]

Gang,
When 4E came out, I got a group of players together and we've had a ball for the past 6 months. Several of those players came from where I work. Since starting, we added one more from work and have had several more ask, but had to say no, the group would just be too big.

So the question is, how feasible is a 4E lunchtime campaign? Figure twice a week for an hour each session.

My concerns are primarily combat based. Our typical night session with 4E starts playing around 8 and finishes around 1 or 1:30 in the morning. Yes, that day is hell. But we only average 4, at most 5 encounters in that time frame. So that works out to be around encounter per lunchtime session. I'm concerned things will drag at that rate.

Does anyone have experience with 4E lunchtime campaigns? What did you find?

Thanks.
Josh

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I would find it hard to imagine, most groups I have ever played with take about half an hour to wind up. It would need a lot of focus from the players and pretty good organisation and player management skills from the DM.

May be if you set up record sheet for the players to record power, healing surges and hp lost and so forth. May be a player to track initiative so the the DM can focus on the monster round by round record and photo the battlemat at the end of a fight. That way could tidy up easily and set it all up again the next day.
I would be interested in how this would work out though.

 

[fba827]

The people I game with would have trouble doing it -- as said above, it takes a lot of focus. Plus, a combat encounter can take longer than that (and the more people you have, the longer it takes, and it sounds like you have a lot already)....

if you do end up having to stop midencounter, be ready to take lots of notes (how many action points and healing surges remain for each person, and which powers do they have left, and how much hp every foe and pc has left, and where on the map everyone is, etc). Though, it's much easier if you can stop at "short rest" spots rather than mid-battles since then you only have to track action points, surges, and dailies remaining.

 

[Ydars]

This reminds me of how I started roleplaying; in lunchtimes at school in the days of Tunnels and Trolls circa 1984. It was fun but we never got much done due to everyone starting off in the dungeon alone and usually we rarely met up (for this read rarely survived long enough to meet up).

If I were you, I would try it but not instead of your weekly game but only in addtion to it. Otherwise it will drag, no matter what game you play.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Totally possible. Just a few things:

* You want to make sure each session is still an "episode." Even if you have only one encounter, there should be an intro, a build, and a climax to every session.

* This may mean focusing less on combat. Combat in 4e can take some time, so having "other ways" of resolving conflict is good. Because 4e loves combat so hard, and because combat takes up so much time, you can do basically one of two things:

(a) Make the game ALL about combat. Maybe you add some atmosphere in between-session e-mails or something, but at the table, you get the attacks rolling and you roll them hard.

(b) Minimize combat. Maybe you have one big fight every 3-4 sessions. Other than that, avoid it. Use skills and whatnot. Unfortunately, because 4e loves combat so hard, this might make the players feel like they aren't getting a lot of use out of the powers they get. Personally, if you went this route, I'd use a different system (T20 is great for quick play!)

* No matter what path you go, be mercenary and brutal about time management. People show up, sit down, and play. Keep bringing attention back to the task at hand. If you're loose and casual about it, the game won't be very satisfying.

It has some unique demands, but you can do it. You just need to really pay attention to what you're doing.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I run a lunchtime Star Wars game at the office, but maybe my experiences can help you a bit.

I typically plan on the game having one encounter per session (we play for an hour and a half). If I do a skill challenge, sometimes I will also include a small combat in the session, but usually one with A) none of the equivalents of elites or solos, and B) one where the PCs outmatch the opponents.

Running the lunchtime game has taught me something that I have been taking away to my regular, weekly Forgotten Realms games (on Monday nights): don't hold anything back. If you have something you think is a cool idea, don't save it for "down the line." Find a way to use it right away. You never know when a lunchtime game like that is going to end, so don't save anything for later.

Story-wise, I find that a simpler, more straightforward story is better for a lunchtime game, because the players have less time to assimilate the story each week, and then if you take off a week it's sometimes easier for them to forget what happened. For example, my PCs in my Friday lunchtime Star Wars game are a bunch of smugglers, so thus far the sessions have revolved around them stealing, transporting, and selling goods. There's been action, betrayal, and some great chances for the PCs to shine, but the trick to the story is that I haven't left a lot of dangling mysteries.

Don't be afraid to end the session with a hint of things to come; for example, last week my players got ambushed by a Sith Lord and leaped onto a cargo skiff outside the window of where they were ambushed, so to end the session I told them that the next week we'd pick up with a chase sequence through the skyline of Nar Shaddaa. Letting them know what is coming the next week has made it easier to keep them interested, which is very important. Sometimes it's easy for players to lose interest in a short-session game.

Draw out your maps in advance! You should have a pretty good idea where the players are going from one session to the next. I try and put the major decision points late in each session, so that I know what the PCs are likely to face at the start of the next session.

Also, if you think the PCs are going to have a combat encounter in a session, you might also want to prep a skill challenge as well. The reason I say this is that, if the players zig when you expect them to zag and avoid the combat encounter, at least you can give them a skill challenge for some XP. Similarly, it doesn't hurt to prep a handful of "emergency encounters" that you can slot into an adventure, depending on how the heroes go. In such a short session, you actually need to be more prepared for the possible outcomes of a session, as you have less time to improvise.

I really can't emphasize the importance of prep work in a lunchtime game. It's much harder to "wing it" in a lunchtime game, I think, because you don't want any delays sucking up your game time. In a nighttime game I can usually throw together encounters on the fly, but it takes a couple of minutes; in a lunchtime game, I find every minute counts.

Hope this helps!