Player hand-outs?

[haiiro]

I'm in a Banewarrens game right now where the DM uses his website to dispense information. He's got background material for his homebrew world, Falconmoor, as well as adventure write-ups for our sessions, in character journals that we email him, character creation guidelines, etc.

We play once every 2-3 weeks, so everyone has time to look at the stuff that's online if they want to. I don't think everyone does, but at least half of the players do. It's nice to be able to look at it at your own pace on your own time, rather than being handed something at the start of a session.

My next game will probably include a similar online element, as I think it's a really good idea.

 

[arwink]

My pre-game player handouts tend to average about 14 pages or so. Most of the time, they aren't read immediately, but people print them and keep them handy during game so when they ask a question and I get that glazed "Haven't I already answered this" look, they just ask which part to look in.

There are a small percentage of the group (and someone who isn't playing) who do like having background and world knowledge, and who do read through this stuff the moment it's available, so they're the reason I have it done so early.

After that, I use a website and (recently) a messageboard to keep players up to date and answer any questions they have.

 

[ced1106]

One random thought is to browse through a Call of Cthulhu adventure. They're chock-heavy with handouts, although not setting info. Some thoughts:
* Short pieces of information, a few paragraphs long.
* Information contains information necessary for the adventure.
* Information handed out as the adventure progresses.

The result is that players have stuff they can browse through during the game, but it's not so long they get impatient. I'd also give contradictory and false information, just because.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Paradoxish]

and 17,700 words (sketchy background material for my Flat Black SF campaign setting).

And I thought I was being excessive with my ~7500 word background packet. I don't feel so bad about it now.

 

[Larry Fitz]

That's not a handout, it's the beginning of a Campaign setting book, see handouts are little things of modest value. What you have there sounds like a serious undertaking with lots of care and thought put into it. Though I know the regulars here on Enworld are exceptional, your players should cherish that you've giventhe game world that much thought and effort. Haven you creatted a world map? Does it include places and cultures the players will likely never see? Why not put it up here in House Rules, might be a good thing for aspiring Homebrew DM's to see, no?

 

[Fenes 2]

For my campaign that is set in a heavily modified Mulhorand/Unther I wrote a source file detailing the history, society, customs, beliefs and influential groups etc. of Mulhorand and Unther since they differ a lot from the official FRCS. That I sent via e-mail to any player, since most of it would be known to their PC. A file detailing the PCs' villa (Images, floormap, description, NPCs with sketches and stats) was added to that.

In my weekly Shadowrun campaign I wrote/collected a sourcebook for Miami, the town the campaign is centered on, with detailed descriptions and a lot of locations, and a NPC-file and a set of house rules for melee.

 

[diaglo]

The last time I had players who were willing to actually read anything I gave them beyond a cursory glance, Reagan had just taken office for his first term. It'd be great to have players like that again, but hey, I can make do...

ditto but substitute carter for reagan.

 

[Enceladus]

My players have their character sheets kept in 3 ring binders along with write-ups on all of their armor, magic weapons, character notes, reference sheets etc...
Any handouts I give them are in their binders. These can get pretty thick as levels increase. But its a really nice way to keep track of stuff and it operates as a sort of inventory keeper as well.

 

[francisca]

2 weeks before we started play, I e-mailed out a rough map of the area they were from and a four page write up about the general history and disposition of the regional kingdoms and city-states, including the following info:

1) type of government
2) trade goods
3) type of military
4) any notable cultural things

None of the above topics got more than 2 sentences each.

1 week before we met to play, we got together and rolled up characters. Then they decided where they were from, and via e-mail, we hashed out a rough character background, and I made up some information about the area immediatley surrounding there home, which they then have shared when appropriate as play has progressed.

it has worked out well.

 

[barsoomcore]

It was to solve this very problem that I created the Barsoom website.

The problems with handouts are:

1) Players feel compelled to read them even if they don't want to.

2) Even if you space it out, it's hard to avoid giving a pretty intimidating packet of pages. In fact, if you space it out, it looks even worse.

3) Players lose their handouts, or lose individual sheets from their handouts, or don't bring their handouts to the game session and then have nothing to refer to.

4) Handouts cannot be easily updated. You just have to create more handouts.

5) Players that don't show up for a session don't get the handout that was provided at that session.

And so on.

A website solves all these problems and is remarkably easy to put together. The Barsoom site (link in sig) I put together without any prior knowledge of HTML or web hosting or anything. I did get a very simple HTML primer and then spent a couple of evenings putting it all together.

A website is less intimidating (if designed correctly -- design is the biggest problem for creating effective websites, not technology), can't be lost, is easy to update, and can contain far more information than you'd ever want to print off and cart around. It's always accessible and allows you to control how much information your players can know about the game, while allowing your players to decide how much they care to know.

Whenever we play there's always a computer in the room that has the site loaded, so that when players are trying to recall something, or if somebody wants to do a little research, they can just go and check it out.

Of course, one of my players printed of every single page in the whole site and carts it around with him. Sigh.

Email is also a powerful tool.

But yeah, do a website. It's one of the best things I ever did for my campaign.