Monthy Groups vs. Weekly

[BiggusGeekus]

My group plays about once a month. We have three campaigns going on. The players do role-play but they are the most daring and adventersome group I've ever played with. They're all highly enthusiastic and very driven and motivated.

A made-up example of what typically happens:

ME: You see a glowing alter. Do you touch it?
PLAYER1: Touch it? I lick it!
PLAYER2: I jump up and down on it. Does it do anything if I chant "Hastur! Hastur! Hastur!" ?
PLAYER3: I try to pry it open with a crowbar. My reflex save is pretty high so I doubt I'll need to check for traps.

Needless to say, party death is pretty regular. However, their enthusiasm is unshaking. I got to thinking, is this just my guys or is this a byproduct of playing infequently? Thoughts?

 

[Crothian]

It really could be either. I have had weekly groups like that, so I'm more inlcined to think its the people.

 

[Klaus]

I've seen that happen before, even in weekly games. Also common is the won't-do-anything-risky approach.

I wrote an article on infrequent gaming titled "How to Survive Real Life" here:
http://www.fierydragon.com/DB/DB_MAY14_2003.htm

 

[EricNoah]

Yeah, it could be their way of telling you what they want out of the game. They clearly want lots of action, and they don't want to "waste" their time by having to be careful. Being sneaky, doing recon, checking every door and floor for traps can really slow the game down. The question for you is -- can you/ should you reward them for their bravery/enthusiasm or should you reward them for their infrequent moments of pre-planning or caution?

 

[Greybar]

One thing I've been worried about going to a monthly schedule is lack of continuity in the ol' brain. They "what were we doing last time?" problem.

I would guess that giving up on that continuity could make people's attachment to characters and plots a lot lower as well...

john

 

[EricNoah]

Yeah, it could be their way of telling you what they want out of the game. They clearly want lots of action, and they don't want to "waste" their time by having to be careful. Being sneaky, doing recon, checking every door and floor for traps can really slow the game down. The question for you is -- can you/ should you reward them for their bravery/enthusiasm or should you reward them for their infrequent moments of pre-planning or caution?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Yeah, it could be their way of telling you what they want out of the game. They clearly want lots of action, and they don't want to "waste" their time by having to be careful. Being sneaky, doing recon, checking every door and floor for traps can really slow the game down. The question for you is -- can you/ should you reward them for their bravery/enthusiasm or should you reward them for their infrequent moments of pre-planning or caution?

I'm very sure it's not a ploy to get out of the game. Another guy DMs sometimes and he gets the same treatment. I do believe the enthusiasm is genuine.

But you're right. The question is how to reward the playstyle. I might just lower the ECLs of the beasties and traps. Maybe jigger it to have more encounters of lower difficulty. A cakewalk for a normal group, but that might be the more appropriate challenge here.

One thing I've been worried about going to a monthly schedule is lack of continuity in the ol' brain. They "what were we doing last time?" problem.

One guy even forgot that he had played the last time! Heh.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Somewhere with this group something went terribly wrong. I think you as the DM has made this game different than your others and it has continued that way. This is not a bad thing but they don't fear death nor do they have attachment to their characters, which can be a result of A) monthly gaming, B) too many different games and characters.

You just have to find a way to invest in their characters.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

One thing I've been worried about going to a monthly schedule is lack of continuity in the ol' brain. They "what were we doing last time?" problem.

I would guess that giving up on that continuity could make people's attachment to characters and plots a lot lower as well...

john

This is a real problem in our group. Our sessions are sporadic, sometimes only two weeks apart (rarely), others as much as 10 weeks, with about 6 weeks being the average. In the campaign I DM, the players had a lot of difficulty remembering important clues as to the identity of the traitor from session to session. As a DM I tried to fill in player knowledge gaps that should not be there because things happened to the characters only hours ago, but it as the unfortunate effect of pointing out to the players: "This is important" and seems to have made them less worried about remembering things.

To try and keep some consistency between sessions, one player writes up game notes and distributes them. Lately that has been me, and I try and send the notes out about a week before the next session to refresh everyone's memory, but the notes cannot capture every detail, and sometimes things that appeared to be insignificant are not included, when they turn out the rather important.

Oh, and with this less than monthly group, we have a tendecy to be overly cautious, because it sucks if your character dies early in a session and you have to wait weeks to get a new character introduced logically into the game.

 

[fenrat]

Monthly adventuring

Our group meets once a month except for December when we don't meet. In addition, we have one person who participates long distance and one person who participates only when in town (he's in the military) and we go out of our way to have sessions when eithger one is in town.

We'd like to meet more, but between wives, kids, work, travel and other social engagements its all we can muster. What we do is agree to a set of dates at the beginning of each year and try our best to stick to those dates. I use the excess down time to create props for the game like detailed treasures maps (torn to shreds and bloodied, burnt, or waterlogged), detailed maps for miniatures (aka Skeleton Key Games), letters, and other handouts. I also create detailed accounts of what happens during their training periods (NPS's met, good and bad events, hints of upcoming adventures, treasures found, rumors, etc.). The players love it.

The group is all in their thirties and have been playing a long time and I will tell you that their level of play varies. Sometimes they ae absolutely brilliant, finding a way out of a situation that I was sure would be their doom. Other times they act like the most idiotic group of newbies I have ever seen.

We have some problems remembering what we did at the last game, but I always start each session with a summary of the last game and they talk about things together between games via e-mail.