Do you "tease" your players?

[barsoomcore]

woodelf: mine are "cut-scenes" that I (using my awesome DM powers) arbitrarily insert between the end of the previous session and the beginning of the next.

For example, the first one (Epsiode 95) I listed above was distributed after a massive battle with a lich-god during which two strange women had suddenly appeared and helped our heroes. I just wrapped up the session without explaining who they were, and then sent out the email before we got together for the next session, so that at the start of the session they already knew who these women were and why they had come.

The second one (Episode 101) likewise; they'd decided to try and get to Lost Pine Valley and we ended the previous session with "...and so you gather up your supplies and head up into the mountains." Rather than start the next session with a bunch of Survival checks or something, or with a "And you walk for three days," or trying to make up some encounter during the trip to make it "exciting", I just sent out the teaser which basically says, "You reach the valley and here's what happens when you arrive."

And the last one (Episode 102) follows an episode that ended with our heroes in a wizard's laboratory preparing to create a vampire-killing weapon (vampires on Barsoom are extraordinarily tough). So now the next session, instead of starting with just a recap or something, has an immediate kick-off -- a conversation with Nakayo (who sent them up here in the first place).

My players seem to really like them, and I have a lot of fun writing them, and it seems to help focus everyone on the game right from the start of the evening.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Desdichado]

In that case, I've done something like that, although a bit less formalized. I have an ezboard that I coopted to use for inter-session discussion. It hasn't been used recently, though, because not only are we between sessions, but we're also between modules, and there's not as much going on at the moment.

 

[Berandor]

woodelf: mine are "cut-scenes" that I (using my awesome DM powers) arbitrarily insert between the end of the previous session and the beginning of the next.

I also insert these cut scenes in my Story Hour, so the players get to know what happenes around them, even if the characters don't. I'll introduce NPCs they'll later meet that way, or enhance their loathing for the BBEG, for example.

But that's just a tangent to your question, so back to the topic at hand.