Keeping player excitement high between sessions

[xnosipjpqmhd]

That's not uncommon i don't think, for players and readers to not participate in a story hour.

Truth be told, I (as DM) have plenty of stuff to do between sessions.

Maybe instead of a story hour, I'll start a discussion thread for the players to chat about the game, what the heck is going on, what to do next, etc. That way they'll have something to do between sessions, build their own excitement, and perhaps even come to the next session eager to implement their plans and ideas.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

If you want to start a wiki, then I can recommend Obsidian Portal - Campaign websites for Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop RPGs as a place to do it. It' worked very well for me.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

For a wiki/blog/file sharing/content/gadget dashboard combination, I highly recommend Google Sites.

It features all sort of pre-packaged page types, including a dashboard for Google Gadgets (insert a game schedule from a Google Calendar for example).

There are blog features, the ability to comment or attach files on any page, lists, and a sitemap.

Best of all, it features a decent WYSIWYG editor and allows you to switch to an HTML view, too.

 

[Umbran]

S
Anyone have any other ideas on how to keep players engaged/involved?

Step 1: determine if the players need or want to be engaged or involved between sessions. Be especially careful of making the events in game dependent on this involvement, as it then becomes a disincentive for the players who do not wish, or do not have time, to play your game every single day. If other people get bennies for being involved, and I have other commitments and cannot be involved, I might question playing your game at all.

 

[justanobody]

Text message....BBEG has used some sort of telepathy to give them an eerie feeling.

Just make sure you address the text message to the character.

Also if there is a bit of disconnect from sessino to session, take time to review the highlights and where you left of last session as you start the new one, to get the group back on track after 2 weeks.

Write a little story form of the last session and read it to them, and over the course of your games you end up writing a book about their adventures they can look back on and read once it is all over and done with as a side effect. This should get them back into the mood they last were when the last session ended and the right frame of mind for what was coming next.

 

[Ant]

These all sound like good ideas but one thing I've learnt after my years of DMing is never, ever, give the players homework. If you can keep them informed without them having to spend much effort then you're on to a winner.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Some I've heard / seen / done:
- campaign web site with session summaries, etc.
- campaign "newspapers" with rumors, etc.
- play-by-post with individual players, or even live/chat RP sessions 1-on-1
- long-running puzzles they can ponder that will take a while to solve
- long props/handouts that they can read, re-read, think about
- DM hype (this can get old fast)
- sending out short stories from NPCs point of view

Anyone have any other ideas on how to keep players engaged/involved? Ideally something they can do, so that the DM still has time to work on the rest of the game.... ;-)

We have a yahoo group that is pretty active - over 2,000 emails sent to the group in a little over a year with a group that has myself and 6 regular players. Some of it is related to character development, but other times it is discussing what to do next session, or recapping the previous session, etc.

We have one player that summarizes each session and she'll post the summary to the group after each session.

Since we normally go 2 weeks between sessions, I also post a list of open items/questions that the group has for both the coming sessions and the longer term - as over a year has passed in real life, but only about 2 months in game: so that werefox showdown in December of 2007 was only a month ago in game... I usually try to inject a bit of humor to the questions to see if they're paying attention as well: At the end of one session, they had gotten a scouting report on their advancing enemy from a friendly giant owl that indicated a score of orcs, some human soldiers, some wolf-riding goblins and a hill giant were part of the oncoming group of bad guys. But, I put a reminder to them that they may want to discuss combat strategy because of the incoming orcs, soldiers, goblin wolf-riders, plus the green dragon and the hill giant... or, I'll toss in things like lich, vampire, mind-flayer or beholder instead of green dragon.