D&D General Starting your session - how to announce that the game starts?

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I play on multiple tables. I'm curious how you all transition from pre-game to in-game.

On one table, the pre-game chit-chat is usually about the campaign. The game starts as soon as the DM has set up his things (we are always a few minutes early). We know the game has started once the DM joins in the conversation, and usually confirms or corrects some of our summaries on what happened previous session.

On another table, people really catch up on life in general. The pre-game chit-chat is never about D&D. And as the DM I really have to check in with people if they are ready to start, as I don't want to be rude and interrupt a conversation. It can be a little frustrating because my mind is on the game already. But the players are all busy people with busy jobs and they don't need more rules in their lives. Luckily, once we start, the game does not get interrupted a lot for off-topic chats, so I guess it's necessary to get the other topics out of the way.

How does it go at your table?

 

[Lyxen]

At our tables, there's always at least a bit of general life chit chat, after that it's either the DM or a player starting the session, but the amount of time chatting can sometimes last a fairly long time, sometimes due to a player being late anyway...

 

[loverdrive]

"OK, now stfu, everyone, let's start"

Works wonders, regardless of whether I'm playing or running

 

[Gimby]

I've had some success with asking one of the players to give a summary of the last session and then following that up with a "opening crawl" giving some scene setting to get people back in the mood.

 

[beancounter]

I say "when we last left our heros..." and then give a quick summary of where we left off.

 

[Lyxen]

That reminds me of my Wheel of Time campaign in which I played the theme song (Klendathu Drop ) and started by "The wheel of time turns..." following the wind to where the adventurers where as a recap of the situation. It worked great, I should do this more but I don't have cool openings like that in my current campaigns.

 

[fba827]

There’s some chit chat but we basically get in to ‘game mode’ when the DM gets to ‘alright, so a brief recap of last time…’. Or ‘so we left off in the middle of investigating the cavern….’

so, basically by DM stating a recap, however big or small that recap is.
( well, ok when another player is DMing he won’t do the recap but calls for a player to volunteer to give a recap, but same idea)

 

[aco175]

I tend to stand up or wave my hand over the middle of the table and say something like, "Previously, our band of valiant heroes"... I sometimes say something as a recap or let one of the players, but my group tends to want me to do it.

 

[Jer]

In my regular group we usually spend 20-30 minutes chatting and touching base with each other - we only get to play about once a month and while most of us used see each other a lot more often between games, that hasn't happened nearly as much the last few years.

Then I'll usually go with an "everyone ready to start" and we'll get about 10 more minutes of joking around and goofing off and we'll get into the game with a "when we last left our intrepid band of adventurers" montage of the last session from either my notes or one of my player's notes (depending on whose there and if they were at the last session) and then dive in from where we left off.

 

[Cadence]

"And so last time..."