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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 5521623" data-attributes="member: 30022">Wow. Firstly, good choice of adventures. Those are some classic modules. Secondly, if Fire of Dis is a "smaller adventure" in your lexicon, I'd be fascinated to hear about some the longer ones. Even at a good clip, it took my group a solid month to get through Fires - and that's with regular weekly sessions, 6 hours to the session.But, yeah, I reckon smaller targets for the sessions could be a good way to go. My experience is that most people these days simply don't have time/patience for epics where the pay-off could be months away.Given that my own sessions are about 6 hours long, I need to consider what else my friends could be doing in that time...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Watch 2-3 "long" movies (2+ hours each), complete with rich storylines, engaging characters and impressive special effects</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Watch an entire "season" (6 episodes) of classic British television such as Blackadder or Fawlty Towers, back-to-back</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Read a 400 page novel</li> </ul>If those other "writers" can tell a story (or many stories) in 6 hours, it reminds me as a DM that I shouldn't need months of sessions to get through a straightforward plot like Ghost Tower of Inverness or Tomb of Horrors. A multi-session epic is good times every now and then, but I try to keep most sessions self-contained. They have an intro, they have some content, and they have a climax (hopefully, with a reward). If that session ties into my overall theme and leads to greater complexity or nuance further down the track, that's even better. But the usual goal is to have a neatly wrapped package which was worth the investment of 6 hours time for my players. This is even more important if you play less frequently than weekly, as players can naturally forget details if their last session was several weeks (or months) ago.Another possibility for handling new entrant players is to give them an unusual backstory that assumes no information about the current plot. Maybe they've been held prisoner for months and are "out of touch". Maybe they have memory loss, and are still trying to work out who they are. Maybe they've just stepped through a portal from another world (sounds like this could be a goodie if you're running a lot of Planescape). The player can design any PC they want, but their own lack of knowledge about the campaign reflects their PC's lack of knowledge about current circumstance. In other words, the PC and the player pick it up as they go along. That avoids bogging down the new player with a lot of backstory. However, I also strongly recommend a more episodic structure to the adventures, with a special emphasis on making sure the new player is rewarded quickly and frequently for attendance. Give them an opportunity to defeat their captor... or find out info about their missing past... or find out what they need to get back through the portal to their home world... before the end of the first session. That'll get them quickly invested into the campaign, and make them feel like they're making a real contribution from Day One.</blockquote>

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