Time Between Game Sessions Help

[Baston Balmoral]

I'm looking for advice on tricks or techniques to help maintain continuity between gaming sessions. Due to family changes (Read BABY) I can now only play once per month. Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Crothian]

Do you all use e-mail? I've found that to be the best way.

 

[Buttercup]

When we play once a month, I sometimes send out email "updates" about what is going on in the locale. But usually, I think of the downtime as when the characters have trained, shopped, healed up and so forth.

 

[Gospog]

Memorable NPCs are key to continuity. Apart from injecting some life and character into your NPCs, there are three things you should keep in mind to make the NPCs memorable:

1. Repetition

2. Repetition

3. Repetition



Each time the NPC shows up, mention several of the same features and traits. If you want to see this done really well in a novel, I refer you to Simon Green's Hawk & Fischer books. (of course, with a new baby, you may not have a lot of time to read)

Good luck to you and congrats on the bundle of joy!

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Salutations,

I have trouble keeping continuity with weekly play (silly casual players)- the one thing I found that helped a lot was offering them bonus xp for writing adventure summaries from their character's perspective.

It seems them writing out what happened help them make connections in their mind/memory.

It also gave me a clue on how well they understood what was going on, and sometimes gave me better ideas then I had planned.

I tend to start each session with a short summary of what happened recently and what they were in the middle of doing.

Good luck!
SD

 

[drnuncheon]

Each time the NPC shows up, mention several of the same features and traits. If you want to see this done really well in a novel, I refer you to Simon Green's Hawk & Fischer books. (of course, with a new baby, you may not have a lot of time to read)

They're well worth it though - they inspired my Story Hour!

Speaking of Story Hours, I do find they help (if you're up to date, which I am not) because they let the players go back and read what happened before. Maybe you could bribe your players into writing one as someone else suggested.

I find that starting each session with a recap is also good. In my online game it's easy - I just cut & paste the last few poses. In a tabletop game you may want to talk it over with the players as they get settled, get the pre-game OOC stuff out of the way, etc. Start with "OK, where did we leave off?" and you'll be able to bring them back into thinking about the game. Especially if one player answers you and you say "Thanks, Bob, take 50 xp."

Another trick I've used is a mailing list (if all of your players have email). They can use that for discussion between sessions.

One last idea: if you're only playing once a month or so, structure the campaign around that. Play short scenarios that can be finished in a night instead of long-running adventures where you need to remember things from beginning to end. Have the PCs experience a lot of down-time between adventures, just as the players do.

Hope these help!

J

 

[Ruined]

I tend to provide a recent game summary at the beginning of the session to spark everyone's memory about the game. It's useful and I wish some of my DMs would do the same (I tend to have a lot go on in the span of a week).

It also can be quite fun if you want to display cool highlights or give some non-subtle foreshadowing. Watch the beginning of continuity-heavy shows like '24', 'the West Wing', or even 'Buffy, tVS'. I periodically opened sessions with flashbacks like these in my Planescape campaign and the players loved it. It reminds them they are the stars.

 

[fusangite]

When I cannot run a game at least twice a month, I move to a completely different strategy for maintaining continuity: extremely long games every 1-3 months. Such games I'll schedule on holiday weekens out of town so that we can invest a couple of hours in recapping and then really dive in. I find that if you must game infrequently, you must compensate by making your games as immersive as possible.

 

[barsoomcore]

I often send out a "Previously on Barsoom" email before a game, with cool/cinematic descriptions of what happened last game. I also have a website where I post snide comments on the PCs' stupidity after each session. It's fun for me because it lets me work out a few frustrations (I know how you hate people using gaming for that, fusangite, but hey, I'm from Vancouver ). And it's fun for them to see how I'm going to insult their characters THIS time.

A couple of my players write up summaries and while I encourage that I don't notice that those players know any more about what's actually going on. Writing something down can actually make it HARDER to remember...

 

[fusangite]

I often send out a "Previously on Barsoom" email before a game, with cool/cinematic descriptions of what happened last game. I also have a website where I post snide comments on the PCs' stupidity after each session. It's fun for me because it lets me work out a few frustrations (I know how you hate people using gaming for that, fusangite, but hey, I'm from Vancouver ). And it's fun for them to see how I'm going to insult their characters THIS time.

Hey -- I thought this would be as good a place as any, Barsoomcore to commend you on your season structure for your game. I recently switched to the TV series season narrative structure and I'm finding it's really improving my games. Although I'd independently developed it about three months before joining these boards, I wanted to express my appreciation for you developing this structure years before I did.