Presentations for your game

[Hjorimir]

Over the years, I’ve started many a campaign. Usually, I would type up some campaign background and distribute the document to my players and hope they’d read it, but found that in practice the information didn’t really penetrate into my players.

Frustrated with the results I went searching for a better medium to get a little campaign information out and really get the juices flowing with my players.

Enter PowerPoint.

PowerPoint is an amazing fun little program designed for – gasp – presentations (as I’m sure most of you know). With a little practice you and set up some decently spiffy introductions for campaigns or adventures (and it is far cheaper than having Cate Blanchett narrate for you…stupid millionaires).

Anyway, I thought I’d share one I did not too long ago. It has sound (just music), so be aware if you’re trying to view this at work.

If you don't have PowerPoint, you can download a free viewer from Microsoft here.

EDIT: See post 5 below for a better copy of the PPT.

 

[Oryan77]

That's not a bad idea.

I checked out your file but I think either text is missing or images are missing. Because most of the slides were nothing but little tiny arrow signs. I don't know much about how Powerpoint works, but it looked like images or text was missing from those slides when I played the file. I only saw 2 slides with text and about 4 slides with images.

 

[EricNoah]

Neat! Another program you could use is PhotoStory (I think it's free). Line up a bunch of pictures, record narration over each one if you want, type text on each one if you want, put a music track over the whole thing, export to .wmv video file. Upload to YouTube or Facebook and voila.

 

[Hjorimir]

That's not a bad idea.

I checked out your file but I think either text is missing or images are missing. Because most of the slides were nothing but little tiny arrow signs. I don't know much about how Powerpoint works, but it looked like images or text was missing from those slides when I played the file. I only saw 2 slides with text and about 4 slides with images.

That's really odd. When I sent it to other PCs it has all been there. Did you actually play the PowerPoint (hit F5)?

 

[Hjorimir]

Try this one instead (I think I pointed to an earlier copy that didn't have the proper embedded options selected).

 

[Oryan77]

That file seemed to work. Much better

 

[kitsune9]

Hjorimir,

This is really cool. I will probably do my next Campaign Intro this way.

For the last campaign intro I did, I wrote three letters that were from one NPC to another NPC that detailed some kind of major event going on. This was to give the players a feel from the NPC's perspectives.

However, your complaint about your players not really getting into it, kind of resonates with me. I will write up a Campaign Primer and stuff, outline rules, and I will immediately know who read it and who didn't.

This time around I wrote the Campaign Primer to detail very beneficial rules. If the players read it, they can take advantage of it and mark their character sheets appropriately, if they don't, their own ignorance is rewarded in that sense.

 

[Hjorimir]

That file seemed to work. Much better

Great!

 

[Hjorimir]

Hjorimir,

This is really cool. I will probably do my next Campaign Intro this way.

For the last campaign intro I did, I wrote three letters that were from one NPC to another NPC that detailed some kind of major event going on. This was to give the players a feel from the NPC's perspectives.

However, your complaint about your players not really getting into it, kind of resonates with me. I will write up a Campaign Primer and stuff, outline rules, and I will immediately know who read it and who didn't.

This time around I wrote the Campaign Primer to detail very beneficial rules. If the players read it, they can take advantage of it and mark their character sheets appropriately, if they don't, their own ignorance is rewarded in that sense.

I like the letters idea! Speaking in character through NPCs can bring a lot of flavor to a setting.

As for hidden beneficial rules, that's sneaky of you...I approve.

 

[El Mahdi]

Very nice. I may have to do the same thing for my next game (with Kitsune's ideas also). Once I have our enclosed patio set up, I'm going to be running my games in there. I'll have my stereo set up with a good sized LCD TV and a dedicated computer connected (for watching downloaded movies - legally downloaded movies, of course). Along with an intitial presentation slide show, I may also make a continuous looping slide show of art that illustrates the world and the campaign. I used to make slide shows for my last unit that we kept running in continual loops 24/7 - slide shows that would have unit news, award winners, motivational pictures and quotes, etc. It's been a little while though, so I'll have to blow the dust off of my Power Point skills.