Presentations for your game

[Hjorimir]

This is really a great idea. It's a shame I'm not a DM, but I'll see if the DM could use this technique.

Well the response from my players has been outstanding. My niece caught a glimpse of the PowerPoint (I had eMailed it to my brother as he is one of my players) and thought she was watching a movie at first. She was so impressed she came by just to watch us play a session.

I think it is a good medium to introduce all kinds of new content (e.g. background material, story arcs, etc.). I made a small one (only 3 slides) for an adventure in my Dawnchaser Trilogy campaign (each of my campaigns are Trilogies...one for each tier of play).

 

[Hjorimir]

I too must know this! Great idea, wish I thought of it before. I'm sure all my campaigns will take advantge of this now. Thanks.

You're quite welcome!

 

[Thasmodious]

This is really neat. I've been working on something similar for an upcoming game. This game doesn't have much background to go through, and is episodic in nature, so I am planning to do an opening credits ppt, set to music, showing the PCs as the stars and featuring images of villains and side characters, which I can change now and again. Your presentation will definitely be an inspiration. Great stuff.

 

[Hjorimir]

Nice PowerPoint Hjorimir! I especially liked the music you chose.

Most players will barely absorb more than a few sentences about the game/world, and even good players can only digest about a page at a time. I think presentations like this, while a little formal, really grab the short attention span players can have and hit them with the important stuff (e.g. Vulcara, Traitor Prince of Blackgate, Autarch).

I've started using Windows Movie Maker, which I like because you can do voice-overs, audio, screen fades, and fancy title-image overlays. The files are big though...13 MB for my finished intro movie.

The hardest thing about the music is synchronizing it with the text (if you pay close attention, you may notice that particularlly dramatic words match up pretty close with movements in the music...at least that was the goal that kept me modifying things until I was satisfied).

Yeah, if I can get players to remember campaign buzzwords (e.g. Vulcara the Undoer) it is all worth it for me. It makes the game run smoother and the players seem to be more involved/interested in events as well.

I'm looking at MS-Photo Story 3 to slap together a revolving slide show of some choice images for my world to have running silently in the background (I've got a 42" widescreen in my game room so I feel compelled to find ways to use it.)

 

[Hjorimir]

This is really neat. I've been working on something similar for an upcoming game. This game doesn't have much background to go through, and is episodic in nature, so I am planning to do an opening credits ppt, set to music, showing the PCs as the stars and featuring images of villains and side characters, which I can change now and again. Your presentation will definitely be an inspiration. Great stuff.

I'm working on my Book 2 PPT for one of my games and I've been rolling around in my head how I want to go about it. What I think I'm going to do is have some text as if a historian is looking back at the exploits of the characters (through the lens of history, so the account won't be exact and may even be flat out wrong in certain ways, but I think the players will enjoy a brief glimpse of the legacy they are creating).

 

[King Nate]

The music came from Elizabeth: The Golden Age (not really a good movie, but it had some good music). As for art...sheesh...I have thousands of saved art and sound files from all over the place.

I'm something of a freak for bringing my game to life. I use PowerPoint, background music, sound effects, I make my own counters (no substiuting orcs for demons, character counters look like same picture on their sheet), and so on. I toil endlessly on the details. It's my hobby afterall.

Thanks, I'll look into that soundtrack. You don't happen to know of any other similar soundtracks do you? What kind of music do you use for your background?

 

[Hjorimir]

Thanks, I'll look into that soundtrack. You don't happen to know of any other similar soundtracks do you? What kind of music do you use for your background?

First, I recommend you stay away from the REALLY popular movie tracks as players will recognize the music and I think that reduces the effect...you want it to feel like the music is the character's music (so no Conan or Lord of the Rings, unfortunately).

Pretty much any adventure movie you can think of probably has some good music for this kind of thing (I find that when I watch movies these days I really pay attention to the soundtrack to see if it something I'd use in game, an example is the Plunkett and Madeane soundtrack). On iTunes I downloaded a bunch of tracks called "Position Music" by James Dooley, which are just the kind of things you might hear in an adventrue movie.

Most of my background sound is mixed for environment (drippy dungeons, windy tunnels, thunderstorms, etc.) and I have some effects ready to go with a press of a button (for things like dragon roars, giants stomping around, and so on).

I mix my sounds with a program called Audacity; a great program with a great price as it is free and pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it.