Roleplaying Tips Weekly E-Zine Issue #358
Know Your Players Part 2 - Building Your Session Checklist
Contents:
This Week's Tips Summarized
Know Your Players Part 2 - Building Your Session Checklist
- Build Your List Of Player Preferences
- Create Your Session Checklist
- Check Off Pre-Session Successes
- Check Off In-Game Successes As You Play
- Perform Post-Game Post Mortem
- Set-Up For Next Session
- Related Links
Readers' Tips Summarized
- Using Projectors In Game
- Digital Projector Comments
- Co-GMing, Organization, Digital Projector Use
Print & Laminate Your RPG Maps
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make outdoor encounters quick and easy.
For details, pics, pricing, and free quotes:
Gamer Printshop
Return to Contents
A Brief Word From Johnn
Lunch Game A Huge Success
It's been a few weeks running a D&D game at lunch, and the
experiment has been a great success. Though sessions are
just 45 minutes long, we do get through one or two
encounters each time. We play twice a week, and we're very
focused, so progress is on par with my bi-weekly 4 hour
Temple of Elemental Evil campaign sessions.
One player mentioned it was like speed chess - we play fast
and furious, and everyone is becoming quick with the rules
and their characters.
As GM, I've adapted by cutting back on description and GMing
with a fast and loose style. For example, if a rule comes
into question, we make a fast judgement call (I try to make
it in favour of the PCs, if possible) and get a final ruling
between sessions.
Also, things like searching and obvious character actions
are performed, resolved, and described automatically. This
does remove some interaction from the game, but it's the
repetitive stuff anyway, and the speed factor maintains
drama and excitement and the need for players to be quick on
their toes.
Immersion and storytelling take a hit due to the short
nature of sessions, fast gameplay style, and work
environment, but that is countered by good action and good
roleplaying by the players.
Hopefully we can keep the game going because, as always, the
bottom line is we're having fun.
Gamer Printshop An Awesome Service
As you see in the ad above, Gamer Printshop is all about
laminating, printing, and RPG tools. For folks like me who
have a gamer supply fetish, this is a long-overdue solution.
Ages ago in school I paid a bundle and got a batch of maps
laminated, and I learned this is _the_ way to protect your
maps and keep them healthy long-term even after heavy in-
game use.
Recently, I sent a batch of maps to Gamer Printshop from
various products I've purchased, including World's Largest
Dungeon, Ptolus, and Wilderlands.
I was worried about sending my maps through the mail, but it
turns out registering and insuring the package was cheap,
and the maps got to Michael over at Gamer Printshop intact
anyway.
Short story long, they had my maps laminated and out the
door the next day. They were packaged well in a tube (for
the large maps) and a flat box (for the smaller maps). I was
impressed with their service and prices, and I have no
reservations about advertising them in the e-zine.
Next up, I'll be buying their laminated Heavy Woods Endless
Terrain Battlemaps because drawing outdoor maps for
encounters has always been a pain for me. I'll let you know
how it goes when I buy them and try them in a game session.
Gamer Printshop
Get some gaming done this week.
Cheers,
Johnn Four,
johnn@roleplayingtips.com
Return to Contents
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Return to Contents
Know Your Players Part 2 - Building Your Session Checklist
In part one, we discussed how important it is to plan with
your players in mind, and to build a checklist of in-game
preferences and out-of-game habits per player so you have a
handy reference.
Read part one:
Roleplaying Tips Issue #352
This issue provides checklist building tips and processes.
The main point is to learn what your players like so you can
include more of it in your game. The checklist and other
tips are just tools to this end. Use whatever system works
for you, but be sure to think about your players as you
design and GM.
Return to Contents
1. Build Your List Of Player Preferences
Each player has a set of gaming preferences. If you can
cater to these, and serve them up with originality, style,
and enthusiasm, you will have an eager table of gamers.
The first step is to determine what preferences each player
has. Trying to remember what a player likes at any given
moment is tricky , especially while GMing. Solve this by
crafting a list you can reference anytime.
Following is a short recipe for creating a preferences list
for each player. The goal is to come up with 7-10 ideas,
options, and ways to make your games appeal even more to
each player.
For example, Jeremy wants lots of combat and action that
feels real, at least one roleplaying encounter per session,
not too many rules, weird monsters or unusual foes, mostly
fantasy but will try any genre, and potato chips. :)
Brainstorm Ideas
To start, get a scrap piece of paper or computer file for
each player and write out all the preferences you can think
of. Don't edit at this point, just get the ideas down.
- What do they like?
- What don't they like?
- Why do you think they like gaming, in general?
- Why do you think they game with your group?
- What do they like about your GMing?
- What do they dislike about the game, group, or GMing?
Don't panic if you draw blanks. If you are struggling to
figure out a player's preferences, that actually represents
a great opportunity. If the player has been showing up to
your games thus far without you knowing why, then surely
getting some reasons and serving them will entertain that
player even more in future sessions!
Feel free to use player surveys or casual conversation to
get missing answers. You can also use observation during
games over time to flesh out player profiles.
Sort The Ideas
On final sheets or files, sort out the ideas into three
groups:
- Must Have
- Would Like To Have
- Uncertain
Must Have should contain all the preferences - requirements
- needed to keep the player showing up to each game session.
Some players are flexible and laid back, and won't have many
items on this list - possibly none. Other players will
definitely have a few deal breakers that you need to serve,
such as game timing and location, game system, adventure
elements, and encounter types.
The Must Have category becomes your mandatory checklist for
each session. Hopefully it's short.
Would Like To Have is where most of the preferences will
fall. This becomes an inspiring, planning, and GMing list of
ideas you can use to spice up game sessions for maximum
entertainment value.
The Uncertain group represents preferences you're guessing
at, or don't think apply once you've had a chance to edit
and think after your brainstorming. Put ideas here instead
of throwing them away because often your gut was correct.
Also, this section becomes a list of things you need to chat
with your player about to verify, or a list of theoretical
items to observe in future.
Trim The Ideas
If you end up with huge lists for each player,
congratulations, you know your players well. However, the
goal is to produce final lists of just 7-10 items for each
gamer in your group. Long lists are unwieldy, will stress
you out, and put a wrench in the process. You don't want to
feel straight-jacketed yourself, either, by having to marry
a whole bunch of competing preferences each session.
Also, you won't be including all 10 items for every player
each session. For a group of 4, that would be 40 preferences
to serve! As you'll see, you will pick a couple items from
the list for each player each session, and use the remaining
items as ideas for opportunistic GMing for bonus fulfilment.
Here are some suggestions for trimming your lists:
- As you sort the ideas into the three groups, be efficient.
Combine similar items, toss out redundant items, re-write
for brevity.
- Be as general as possible without losing any important
specifics. If you drill down into too much detail, your
lists will become too long and difficult to use. For
example, last session you noticed Jeremy quite enjoyed the
bandit attack encounter. You could write that Bob likes
bandit encounters, but more generally - and just as useful -
you note that Bob likes combat and action.
- Separate out character-based preferences. If anything on
your lists pertain to a player's PC, remove that and add it
to your character preferences checklist.
For example, a player might want a +5 sword, but he actually
wants that for his fighter character. If the player plays a
wizard next time, will he still want a +5 sword? Thinking
about a player playing different characters is a good way to
cull out player vs. character prefs.
We'll cover character preferences in a future article. Right
now, you want to focus on what the player likes. If you
can't separate player from character, then fine, add the
idea to the player's preferences list, but look for ways to
pare this down in the future.
Create Core Group Preference List
Another great way to trim lists is to take out preferences
your players have in common and put them in a shared
preferences list, which I call your Core Group Preferences.
Assuming this list is short, try to serve up these
preferences every session. Don't worry if you can't, or if
you realize after a session you missed an item or three.
These lists are meant to reduce stress - they're tools and
guidelines, not commandments. They're to provide a roadmap
to help you design and GM with your players in mind.
If after you've categorized, culled, grouped, generalized,
and edited your lists and they are still long, then
prioritize them so that the top 10 ideas are grouped at the
top for each player. Your biggest lists will be in the Like
To Have sections, and having the most important items near
the top keeps you focused and organized and not lost in a
sea of possibilities.
Return to Contents
2. Create Your Session Checklist
Armed with lists of ideas for player preferences, create a
session checklist to help you plan so each session is as
appealing and entertaining as possible.
Best case scenario is you make a copy of your original
player preferences lists and put them in a spreadsheet. You
make columns for six sessions or so, and then check off
things as they get served up in each session. Over the
course of half a dozen sessions, you can see if there are
any gaps to fill, such as an important preference not being
served recently, or one player has few checkmarks while
another player has many.
There is a difference between planning and GMing. What you
plan to happen is not guaranteed once play starts. So, it's
best to track what is actually served up during sessions,
not just what you plan to serve.
Another tip is to check things off as you GM if you are able
to keep your checklists handy. Sometimes it's not possible
because you don't have a computer at the table, or you have
enough notes and books to keep organized. In this case,
update your records as soon as possible after the game.
The advantage of keeping player preferences lists around
while GMing is you can scan the lists for ideas as you GM.
In addition, if you are faced with a choice (and isn't good
GMing about making good choices?) why not pick a choice that
caters to what one or more players like?
For example, you need to stall for some time, so you drop in
an encounter. You could make the encounter combat or
roleplaying. You see lots of combat checkmarks on your
lists, so you opt for a roleplaying encounter - one that has
slight ties to a character's background as well, because one
player likes character backgrounds that come into play.
Check, check.
Another trick is to put all your player preferences on one
sheet, then align similar preferences on the same rows to
help you hit multiple preferences at the same time easier.
If two players like subtle plans, for example, match this up
on your spreadsheet.
Return to Contents
3. Check Off Pre-Session Successes
Though you never know in advance what's guaranteed to happen
during a game session, it's good to make plans and best-
guesses. While doing this, you can run through your player
preferences checklists and check off any items that have
been dealt with by your advanced planning.
The goal is to put as little pressure on yourself to come up
with ways to appease player preferences while GMing. Your
plans and designs will hopefully take care of making
sessions appeal in specific ways to your players before the
game starts so you can focus more on other things at the
game table. If plans go awry in a big way, then use the
checklists to guide your ad-libbing, ideas, and choices.
Otherwise, pre-session is the best time to tinker and change
things so they are more player-oriented.
In addition, hopefully several preferences have been
permanently checked off due to choice in game system, world,
and campaign. Further, adventures should take care of a few
needs for a few sessions at a time.
Best case is you appeal to many specific player needs before
you do any session or encounter planning. The other game
parts take care of a lot of the stylistic and general
gameplay preferences.
Figure out what you have left to plan for, or need to come
up with during games, by checking off pre-session successes.
Return to Contents
4. Check Off In-Game Successes As You Play
Armed with a fresh checklist of player preferences, check
off fulfilled items as you GM. Keep the lists handy not only
for checking things off, but for idea generation as well.
Some options are having two columns - one to check off
planned successes and one to check off when those successes
and others happen in-game. Alternatively, you can draw a
line for each intention, and then draw a line through it
when achieved while GMing.
You might also want to record the number of times a success
is achieved for each player, as some requests can be filled
multiple times.
Mid-way through the session, take a break and look over the
checklist. Make what adjustments you can in the second half
of the session.
Return to Contents
5. Perform Post-Game Post Mortem
After the game, hopefully you have a record of what
succeeded and what preferences were not met. You should also
have a tally of what players had the most preferences
fulfilled.
Take a few minutes to review the game session from a player
preferences checklist point of view, and consider adding to,
or making, a GMing log:
- Session #, Date
- What went right, and why
- What went wrong or needs improvement, and why
- For each player, did they have fun? Why? Do these match up
with your preferences report? In other words, do you have
the right preferences listed? You might need to do ask
players between sessions about specifics to clear things up.
I want to reinforce that your list of player preferences,
which becomes a sort of session request list, should be
fairly short (especially after the rules, world, campaign,
and adventure delivers fulfills several items). If it's not
short, then your goal should be to cater to just a few of
the preferences each session. If you fulfill more, great.
Efficient time use and good, interactive GMing means you
can't try to map out dozens of competing preferences,
though.
The purpose of performing a quick check after each game is
to assess feedback; to compare to your ideas, assumptions,
and plans; to improve your planning and GMing; and to learn
more about your players over time.
Return to Contents
6. Set-Up For Next Session
After one session ends, so the planning for the next session
begins. Hopefully, you can use your player preferences
checklist as inspiration for planning. Try to spawn
encounters from player prefs, and to improve encounter
designs with ideas inspired from your checklist.
Review your post-mortem notes so you don't make the same
mistakes twice.
Create a copy of your source checklist, or make a new column
for the upcoming session, and start checking off fulfilled
player preferences as you plan things out. These are not
guaranteed to play out, but it's good to plan with player
preferences in mind.
Feel free to keep appealing to preferences that make players
happy, and keep an eye on any preferences that haven't been
met recently. Also, try to expose players to new things in-
game so you can gauge their reactions and possibly discover
new preferences.
Return to Contents
7. Related Links
Player Survey Tips
Roleplaying Tips Issue #342
Getting Player Feedback
Roleplaying Tips Issue #305
How To Awesome-Up Your Players
Roleplaying Tips Issue #338
* * *
Stay tuned for a future Roleplaying Tips issue that
discusses player preferences examples and tips for GMing
them.
Return to Contents
Dragon: Monster Ecologies
This special issue of Dragon magazine contains 128 pages of
the best ecology articles from the past three years. Drawing
from the "Monster Ecologies" series, this giant collection
features new rules, art, details, and encounters for some of
the most fearsome and fantastic monsters in the history of
Dungeons & Dragons.
As if a dozen and a half ecologies weren't enough, Gary
Gygax, China MiĊ½ville, and Rob Kuntz recollect their
favorite D&D monsters; we take retrospective looks at the
beholder, githyanki, mindflayer, and displacer beast; and
then we wrap it all up with a feature known as the "Monsters
of Suck." And did we mention an index of every ecology ever
printed?
Dragon: Monster Ecologies at RPG Shop
Readers' Tips Of The Week:
1. Using Projector In Game
From: Brian Gragg
Hi Johnn,
I use a projector in-game. You can check out some pics I put
together a while back at:
Graggster Game Area
I love it. I've just started using RPMapTool and it's really
nice. I have two versions running, one for me (GM) on my
screen, and one for the players that is full screen on the
projector.
http://www.rptools.net
Game Prep
I have a directory structure full of maps that looks like:
Maps:
- Buildings:
- City:
- Dungeon:
- Wilderness:
- Planar:
- Ships:
- etc.
So, if the PCs walk into a tavern, I just pull up a map from
the Buildings directory that seems to fit and off we go.
I've been saving maps for a while into this structure, so
there's a lot to choose from.
With MapTool, you can just zoom in/out until you get to the
right scale. I used to use my own scripts along with
FractalMapper, and it was okay. But you do need a way to get
the maps to 1" scale quickly.
Game prep only takes more time if I need to get a specific
map made, or remove the secret doors/hidden areas from a map
to make a player version.
We use the miniatures directly on the whiteboard the
projector displays on. The board is also wet/dry erasable
marker safe.
GamePlay
I think the projector speeds up gameplay since I don't have
to stop and draw what is seen. With my computer off to the
side, it really doesn't "put my head behind a computer." I
only use the computer when I am switching maps or moving the
map.
I also use it for handouts, which has worked great. It used
to be I handed out a message, map, or some such and the
players fought over who got to read it first. With the
projector, everyone can see it (although someone invariably
reads it upside-down).
I also put up pictures for players to see (i.e., creatures
the players aren't familiar with before a combat), then
switch back to the map.
I keep a directory for each game group and put links to the
images there beforehand. That way, I have all the creatures,
handouts, and maps I expect I'll need handy.
I have Irfanview (an image viewer) also running full screen
on the projector. To show an image, I minimize the map, then
drag and drop onto the Irfanview window. Couldn't be easier.
http://www.irfanview.com/
I can also drag images from a web browser straight to
Irfanview. Note that both Irfanview and maptool are free
programs.
I consider gameplay speed important and am happy with the
results I've been getting.
Pros
- Quick in-game maps.
- Nice-looking maps aren't just for the GM to see anymore.
- Show handouts and pictures to the players quickly.
- Quick distance measurements (I've used MapTool for only 2
games so far, but the players are asking for me to use it to
quickly show movement distance for their characters. You
just drag the mouse and it shows, in 5' squares, how far a
distance is.)
- Easily move between areas on a map for combat that is
spread out - no need to erase/redraw. In our last session,
the group had to retreat, and it was a simple drag of the
mouse and they were a couple hundred feet back down the map.
It would have required erase/redraw otherwise.
- Easily zoom back so the group can see the whole map.
- Doubles as a movie projector. (Checkout my setup with the
swiveling projector and the ceiling mounted mirror.)
- Less game table clutter. (I play in another group that
doesn't use the projector often and they use battle
maps/flip mats. Every time we need to change the battlemap,
everyone needs to get their dice, minis, books off and clear
the area for the next map. With a projector, the stuff ON
the table doesn't change. Books, drinks, snacks, minis, dice
are all fine. Only the image changes.)
- Faster gameplay (due to reasons above).
Cons
- Cost.
- Doesn't work well with weird maps (teleports and layered
dungeons). Hand-drawn mapping doesn't work well here either.
To overcome this, I just use the projector along with a map
program and draw the map as they go through it showing what
they see at the time. This allows me to scroll back to areas
they had been in without the need to erase.)
- Potentially added prep time to make maps. Quick and dirty
maps take little prep time.
- Requires a computer at the game table (and the projector,
and a way to mount it so it projects onto the table).
I'm sure there are lots of more pros/cons to consider, but
those are the ones coming to mind at the moment.
Bottom Line
I love mine! I got it for projecting maps for gaming, but
the whole family has found they like it for watching movies
as well. It was a fairly cheap, on sale model, around $600
at the time. I found I didn't need any high-end features. I
got a large screen for less than $40 and mounted it to the
wall for movies. It's great.
Return to Contents
2. Digital Projector Comments
From: Keith Hays
Johnn,
We've been using one for about a year now. It adds a whole
new dimension to the game. We're playing the Age of Worms
campaign, and I've been able to copy all the maps out of
their web supplements, paste them into Paint or whatever,
and build room-by-room maps quickly and easily.
It wouldn't work for complex dungeons, but most of what
we've had have been linear in nature or contain a small
number of rooms, so it's worked out well. The one thing I've
missed is being able to gradually expose areas of the map.
I've tried a half-dozen different methods, and none of them
work worth a damn.
It doesn't keep my head behind a screen - once it's out
there, nothing else needs to be done until they exit the
room - and is certainly better than drawing the rooms out by
hand.
Return to Contents
3. Co-GMing, Organization, Digital Projector Use
From: SvenHoek
Hi there Johnn,
We have an experienced group where everyone has been role-
playing about 15 years (all of us being 30+). We run
different campaigns in different games, and right now we're
doing a 2 GM game where I, along with a friend, run the
show.
Since there are two GMs we realized that we had to change
our ways a bit. Using paper and pen wasn't possible (at
least if we wanted to maintain some sort of order), hence we
decided to use our notebooks along with some nifty software.
Our fellow gamers were a bit skeptical when we introduced
the idea, and I shared their concern. After all, we risked
killing some of the spirit by sitting behind our notebooks.
Long story short, we did it anyway, and put a lot of effort
in improving gameplay to prove them (and us) wrong.
We use software to synchronize story and timeline,
organizing all stats of NPCs, drawing maps and play lists
for music (categorized to fit the story). We even made
custom sounds for bars, jungle, sea, streets etc, looping
them as a background "noise" behind the actual gaming music.
We use software called MyInfo for the campaign and all
information related to it. We store stats about NPCs, rules,
and all information regarding world, towns, religion,
tribes, races, etc. We also have PDF files with the
character sheets and certain triggers they might have (for
instance if player X has extraordinary looks, or player Y
has a fear of heights).
Maps have been made in Fractal mapper until recently, but
now we use Campaign Cartographer 3.
As for music, I have built an MP3 archive with suitable
music and just play them in some random player (iTunes) and
then use another player for the custom-made background
sounds.
And, of course, we use a projector to display maps. The
advantage of this is beyond excellent. There are probably
easier ways, but we use Photoshop to add a black layer over
the actual map. When the PCs explore the area, we just erase
the black areas the PCs can see. On our screens we see the
actual map. The major pro here is the old "cover the map
with stuff so that the PC can't see what they shouldn't see"
problem has gone to meet its maker.
We have used this technique for a few years now. The pros
are numerous, especially when having two GMs. Our heads are
not behind the screen very much (though obviously it
happens). Since there's two of us we always make sure one GM
is involved with the group while the other works the
computer (when needed).
Map making does take extra time though, compared to writing
by hand. On the other hand, that's because we want the maps
to look cool. You can always do the map by hand and scan the
image, and still benefit.
All in all, this digital step improved gaming for the entire
group a lot. We perform better as GMs, and our players enjoy
the game much more. I strongly recommend it.
Return to Contents
Drow of the Underdark
The essential guide to drow characters and drow society. At
last, dark elves get their due! Drow of the Underdark is a
224-page Dungeons & Dragons supplement that provides the
definitive treatise on the drow, arguably the D&D game's
most evocative evil race. Everything you want to know about
drow and their subterranean homeland - as well as some
things you didn't know - can be found in this tome. This
supplement is intended for players who want to play drow
characters and Dungeon Masters who want to run D&D
adventures and campaigns featuring drow.
Drow of the Underdark at RPG Shop