And now a taste of things to come....

[BiggusGeekus]

My group meets infrequently.

What I've done for a long time is give a summary of the last game before the current game starts. That way everyone can remember things like the clues that were given out, etc. In my last game I gave a "preview" of an area that was a little hard to describe visually. It worked great. All the questions were handled before the game started and when the encounter arose I could get straight to the buisness of killing the PCs running the encounter.

Anyone else try this?

 

[Piratecat]

That's really clever.

I do something a little similar. I start each game announcement off with three or four quotes from people in the game world. It might be random people on the street, important NPCs, ancient prophecies or the villain. Each one has some relevance to the upcoming game, though, although it isn't necessarily obvious.

For instance, recent ones were things like:
[sblock]"My Dread and Glorious Queen, may Your very existence conquer the farthest stars, I have some urgent news to report."
~ An very unfortunate githyanki messenger bearing very bad news

"Forever there is darkness, eternal, held back only briefly by the will of the righteous. Be strong, and let your faith be a beacon in the night!"
~ Aeosian prayer

"I'd be a lot more comfortable with these whores if there was more seducing and less betraying."
~ drunken patron in the Shrine of Trea, a holy brothel in Eversink

"It's not just lizards, you know. Attend me! The scorpion! Staked to a lizard, guarding the dead, chained to lies, dancing in the tomb. She sees me in the darkness and I . . I can't sleep, carapace, I dream of her in the jungle of stone! So long, so long. He is gone so long, no one remembers but the memories themselves. A fish, a bug, the sky itself. Why me? I have a tail of pudding, and I don't hide the breath. Fish on a stick, fish on a stick! Should I rattle forever, crawling in the eternal parade? More ale, barkeep, for I have an endless thirst!"
~ Oggan the Mad (deceased), neighborhood madman in Corsai [/sblock]
That sort of thing. Neat idea on explaining the difficult location; so long as doing so doesn't ruin any surprises, that's a good use of time.

 

[jinx crossbow]

Anyone else try this?

The group i GM meats every two weeks. Sometimes someone misses.....
I regularly give a short review abaout the last thing which happen.
I usualy takes me 2-5 minutes and if they are nice and listen to
my words i sometimes give them XPs for the last session.

I am playing in a 7th sea group once a month where the GM
doesnt want to make such flashback but often is in rant when
we forget what happened. I do not make it my problem because
my charakter has an anmesia.

Jinx

 

[Waite]

These are some great ideas to start a session. Pcat, do you just mention the quote or do you also mention the names of the NPC or adversary? Taking your example how did those quotes align with the events of the session?

Typically, I ask a player to briefly summarize the previous session to the group and I fill in the details especially specific clues the speaker missed as it relates to the plots. I randomly select the player to summarize and I find the exercise helps me understand how the player thinks and remembers as well as what events the player remembers. It really helps me understand what each player likes.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I like both of those a lot. I've been doing the recap for as long as I can remember, in full-on Cheesy Announcer Guy mode.

"When we last left our intrepid heroes...
Kalil, Darien, and Aidan journeyed across the Mountains of Barr in pursuit of a mad warlock, and barely managed to fight through three of his summoned creatures as the villain led them on a chase throughout the unexplored mountains. We now join our heroes on the last peak on the western side, with the setting sun casting the last of its light on the weary travellers..."

I'd toyed with a preview, or a teaser of sorts, but hadn't settled on a concrete idea. I may have to try that out.

 

[Maldin]

Our groups sometimes go months between sessions, so continuity (i.e. memory) is always a problem. I encourage one person from each group to keep a detailed journal of their adventures. One group uses a 3-ring binder, another uses a spiral-bound notebook. Within each journal are kept all the maps we generate during play, a commentary on the events that transpire, notable actions, and all the information (i.e. clues, rumors, factoids) that they gather (including who said what), so at any time players can look back. This works great, especially since I have so many tangled plot threads that span many adventures and many years (both real and game years). The players can look up anything that their PCs have learned in the past.

This also resolves the problem of missing maps or loose background materials that get spread out over many binders or folders, tables, bookshelves, under the fridge, in the recycle bin, or the garbage can.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
=============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Animus]

That's really clever.

I do something a little similar. I start each game announcement off with three or four quotes from people in the game world. It might be random people on the street, important NPCs, ancient prophecies or the villain. Each one has some relevance to the upcoming game, though, although it isn't necessarily obvious.

For instance, recent ones were things like:
[sblock]"My Dread and Glorious Queen, may Your very existence conquer the farthest stars, I have some urgent news to report."
~ An very unfortunate githyanki messenger bearing very bad news

"Forever there is darkness, eternal, held back only briefly by the will of the righteous. Be strong, and let your faith be a beacon in the night!"
~ Aeosian prayer

"I'd be a lot more comfortable with these whores if there was more seducing and less betraying."
~ drunken patron in the Shrine of Trea, a holy brothel in Eversink

"It's not just lizards, you know. Attend me! The scorpion! Staked to a lizard, guarding the dead, chained to lies, dancing in the tomb. She sees me in the darkness and I . . I can't sleep, carapace, I dream of her in the jungle of stone! So long, so long. He is gone so long, no one remembers but the memories themselves. A fish, a bug, the sky itself. Why me? I have a tail of pudding, and I don't hide the breath. Fish on a stick, fish on a stick! Should I rattle forever, crawling in the eternal parade? More ale, barkeep, for I have an endless thirst!"
~ Oggan the Mad (deceased), neighborhood madman in Corsai [/sblock]
That sort of thing. Neat idea on explaining the difficult location; so long as doing so doesn't ruin any surprises, that's a good use of time.

What you do is a lot like "cut scenes" from various movies. I always liked that idea.

I also find that at least a summary of the last session is useful, for even those games where you play once a week and you have players who don't take notes because it's too much work and that's the last thing they want to do on Friday night (work that is) .

 

[Baroness]

My DM has a way of making a summary at the beginning of the game which I like quite a bit. We have a historian bard following us, writing everything we've done. At the beginning of the session, he'll ask us "how does this sound?" and read what he wrote about last session's actions. Sometimes, he also writes about things we missed and then we look at each other and wonder how we managed to miss the magic ring(which the bard is now wearing of course) when we went through some dungeon.

While he doesn't really give us previews, he's been known to wander around a bit when we're sleeping and tell us all about his findings when we wake up. Not all of this information is useful and he's very talkative, but it's worth listening to him. "Did you know the owner of the Arcane Tankard is cheating on his wife? Oh and Knut, there's a sale at the Royal Wardrobe, you should go check it out, you look like a hobo. Did anyone notice that the mayor is getting fat? Oh, by the way, there's a hidden cave about halfway up Mount Karnak."

 

[bento]

A few days prior to meeting (scheduled every other Friday night) I e-mail a brief summary along with any necessary info.

At the start of the evening I have one of the more attentive players give his interpretation of what went on during the prior session. This gives me a couple of minutes to prepare myself mentally.

I like the idea of quotes and will probably use it now that they are back in the city.

As for previews - I try to stay vague about matters.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

In theory.

It usually ends up with me emailing the group with some set up and, if possible, asking them what they want to buy (both XP and money-wise) before the session starts. If it's possible I try to run a small amount of the game itself (we game online via OpenRPG, so any gaming we can get done beyond that is a blessing...).

Then I sit back and wait for the responses. Which never come. So we end up spending half the session shopping and answering questions anyway.