How to get your players more involved

Falchen
Falchen
edited March 2010 in General Discussion
In my current campaign I wanted a certain level of player involvement on OP to grow the story and make the world more dynamic. At the end of every secession (we play every other Saturday) I give out an option, the first week it was to get each character up on OP, this past time I told them to each make a total of 2 wiki pages or NPCs from their background. Anyone who partakes in these assignments gets a bonus that they can use in game, so far I have given them a reroll on any dice, an additional 1d4 that they can roll with any dice roll (it went to hit points, I should have seen that coming). They also write the adventure log from their point of view, which I give them one DM reroll the next game. I am looking for other little boons I can offer and wondering if anyone else has ever used a system like this for anything. I plan on giving them a coin toss this next game, where any one roll becomes 50/50 for success on any 1d20 roll instead of whatever the previous odds were.
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Comments

  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    I have a standing offer of 500xp for any write-up relating to our campaign. So far, only two of my seven players have taken advantage of that offer. One of them actually DMs the other campaign our group plays on alternate weeks, so he is naturally disposed towards world building. He wrote an expansive "history of the elves":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-westerlands/wikis/elves, which I haven't even finished converting to wiki pages! The other, was the woman who plays the party cleric who wrote up a journal-style account of "one of our sessions":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-westerlands/adventure-log/session-23 .

    Unfortunately, I do not have an easy answer for you. I find that my group is very motivated by xp, but while several others have expressed ideas for things that they would like to write up, the most common response I get is a self-deprecating cop-out about their writing skill.

    Perhaps you would have better luck providing specific prompts. Instead of, Write 2 wiki pages, try asking them to write 2 paragraphs about their character's home town, or their family as a way of giving them the taste... Post those paragraphs as brief pages to the wiki.

    I have had unintentional success in this fashion when dealing with housekeeping stuff over email between sessions. My characters recently got arrested and I created an interrogation questionnaire for each of them to answer. The responses I got were surprisingly detailed and in character. I did a couple rounds of this, catering my responses to each person's response and the established order in which they were interrogated. When everything was finished, it was fairly simple to convert the emails to a sort of dialogue transcript and "post them to the wiki":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-westerlands/adventure-log/session-34 (I still haven't finished uploading them... should probably get on that.)
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    Onsilius has come up with a great system his Minrothad campaign called "karma":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/minrothad/wikis/karma which essentially allots players a certain amount of points for their contribution to the site. They can then use these points for a whole variety of ways within the campaign. I have just incorporated a similar point system in my campaign called "prestige points" and have found it to be quite effective in encouraging player participation. I have written up an explanation of just what prestige points are and how to use them in the "house rules":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/wikis/rules section of my campaign. Have a look.

    Cheers,

    -Arsheesh
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423 edited March 2010
    Arsheesh,

    I really like the idea of prestige points! I started thinking about something similar after I picked up a used copy of the Eberron Campaign book. Your prestige points seem very similar to Eberron's Action points variant, without the automatic refills every time a character levels.

    Unfortunately, as my girlfriend told me, gaining a point to re-roll a die does not have the appeal of gaining 500xp for a wiki page, but obviously 500xp has not been enough incentive to really get my players writing either... with the two exceptions mentioned above.

    The up-side is that action-points will allow me to continue to reward creativity on the part of my players with less chance of horribly skewing the power-balance within my party. Perhaps I will allow anyone who is not leading in xp to choose between 500xp and (x) action points for a reasonable contribution, thus allowing those who fall behind to catch up. The xp leader can still contribute, but his/her only option is to gain action points, not xp.

    This may jive well with another house rule I have that states as long as more than 1/2 the players can make it to a session, we will play. Guests, players or myself roll characters in the absence of their usual player with the only rules being that your character gets 1/2xp for the session and no bonus for role-playing in absentia, and that they cannot die if you are not present. You may wake-up naked in the middle of the arctic with a party of dead team-mates that you have to figure out how to resurrect... but you'll be alive. The 1/2xp thing causes everyone's totals to bounce around a bit depending on how busy certain players are in their real lives. The action point or xp option could potentially help narrow those gaps.

    I know I'm digressing all over this post, but I just want to say I am so happy I made my rule for rolling in absentia when I started this campaign. It has allowed us to play consistently every week for over a year... with the exception of when we started up the alternate campaign GM'd by one of my players... which has also played consistently for the same reasons.
    Post edited by gnunn on
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    I might have to steal that rule for rolling "in absentia" from you, one of the campaigns I'm DM'ing is running into just those sorts of issues.

    Regarding prestige point's vs XP awards, one of the advantages to using prestige (or action, or karma etc) points is their versatility/optionality. For instance, if you take a look at Onsilius' table, or at "my own":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/wikis/prestige-points, you'll find that they can be put to a whole variety of uses, with variable degrees of impact. For instance, using a single action point might only grant you a +2 to a single combat, whereas burning 8 of them will grant you an additional feat.

    This brings up another point which I haven't explicitly clarified in the House Rules section yet. Following Onsilius, I have distinguished between "using" prestige points, and "burning" them. Prestige points can be "used" every game session to give the players certain (relatively small) advantages in combat or skill encounters. However, points used in this fashion are not permanently lost, but rather are restored at the beginning of each new game session. Hence, while these bonuses may seem menial, they end up paying residual dividends in the long run. On the other hand, prestige points can also be "burned," that is, _permanently_ depleted, in order to purchase more grandiose rewards (e.g. additional skill ranks, feats, attribute points and the like). Of course these don't come cheap, but they give players a goal to shoot for. They also present players with options, "do I burn my hard earned 8 points on a feat, or do I keep them around for a while longer so that I can keep on adding +2 to my combat/skill rolls 8 times a session?"

    Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the matter, for whatever it's worth.

    Cheers,

    -Arsheesh
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    Just a quick follow-up. about 1/2 an hour after I emailed my players about implementing a points system like those mentioned above, another one of my players mentioned a desire to do a history of the dwarves in my campaign world. We'll see if he actually finds the time to do it, but I am encouraged by his interest.

    Oh, and I also decided to nudge people to write by providing a specific prompt. It's simple, but could provide a lot of inspirational fodder for a GM. Here's the prompt I gave:

    bq. Also, to help further encourage anyone who is interested, I will award 1 Action Point to anyone who responds to the following prompt:

    bq. Tell me a bit about your character's childhood or as far back as you remember (e.g. time in the Black Tear Society for Kit or at the Sun Spire for Eleanor.) What were your parent's names, or the names and relationships of the people who raised you? Did you have brothers or sisters? A best friend? a childhood enemy? What was the city/town/place like where you grew up? What did you aspire to be when you grew up? You don't need to include all of these things, I just want to help get the creative juices flowing.

    Most of my player's already have elements of the above things in their character bios, but I'm hoping some will chose to go a little more in-depth.
  • ketherian
    ketherian
    Posts: 203
    Hi.

    In my group, one player is unbelievably motivated (doing more work than I do on the site), while the rest either do the minimum or none. I don't give XP if the player misses a game. Instead they can "bank XP" by either partaking in an online exercise (the first was to answer a set of questions I posted for each character) or do a solo with me (the log of which goes on the site).

    Some players are willing to blue-book, others are not. If they're having fun then I don't push; but I'd love it if everyone was equally involved.
  • Falchen
    Falchen
    Posts: 20
    The reason I do not offer XP is because I want the party to level together, I find that my players prefer to stay on even footing, it also makes the math much easier.
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    Falchen, you make an excellent point. It is certainly much easier to calculate individual xp awards and to scale encounters for a group that is of the same level.

    As to their preferences, a good GM definitely listens to the vibe and preferences within their group. In my own group, players get a bit of friendly competition going over xp levels. Nothing serious, but they have definitely mentioned that they really like knowing who got bonus xp for role-playing each session and why.

    Tangential topic starting... now!

    I had a lot of difficulty early on scaling encounters if player levels became disparate. It became even more of a challenge whenever my group was traveling with NPCs and then when their core ranks swelled from 4 to 7 PCs.

    Then I found this AWESOME "Encounter Level Calculator!":http://www.rumblepurrlion.com/starwars/EXP_calculator.html It's specifically for 3.5 edition, but may work for other systems/editions as well. I find it super useful, because I love to throw mixed groups of monsters at my party, often with multiple CRs beyond the capacity allowed by the WOTC generator. It also helps me quickly adjust xp awards should I decide to add or remove participants from one side of a fight or the other on the fly in order to add to the excitement of the moment.

    /tangent
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    Thanks for the heads up Grunn. I've been using a scaled down version of an "encounter calculator":http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm for our campaigns, but the one you offered has more features to choose from. I'll have to take it for a test drive. Of course, aesthetically speaking, the one I've been using is a bit more pretty and parsimonious.



    Cheers,

    -Arsheesh
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    On the subject of awesome online resources, I have created a section in my wiki to feature free or super low-cost "resources and techniques":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-westerlands/wikis/gm-techniques for GMs.

    Right now it's mostly a list of things that can be found on the web, but I may also eventually add things like templates for making death pogs (markers my group uses to replace an opponent when they drop so characters can move through the space while still knowing if the enemy is dead, or just dying.) and maybe even links to some of the Excel templates I have created. I am particularly fond of my battle manager for the campaign I GM and my wizard's spell book for the campaign I play in.
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    Oh Grunn, you've just made my day! I feel like a fat kid in a candy shop...so many tasty options to choose from, and even though I know I don't have the time to indulge, I'm going to anyway!
  • Dethstryke
    Dethstryke
    Posts: 50
    I've done bonus XP, and I think that only works with some people in some situations. In my most recent group, the OCD power gamer who is inclined to do the extra work anyway (the kind of guy who maps every character to 20 for fun) ended up being almost 1/4 of a level above everyone else and was getting further and further out. Since the result I was looking for is to get others into it, it was a failed idea and I discontinued it. I found personal and universal die rerolls to be more effective as rewards for participation for balance reasons, but in the end the one guy was hording them all anyway.

    I'm at the point now that everyone in my game is in their late 20s or mid 30s. We're all busy professionals. One of them works 60 hour weeks when his projetcts ramp up, another has an active toddler. They just don't all have the time and energy to do the extra work, and that has to be okay. I came to the point where the flip side of rewarding some people for having the drive to do it was punishing the players who really wanted to, but legitimate real life gets in and it's hard to make those extra demands for their time.

    Frankly, these players show up on time every game, share home-made meal cooking duties for everyone every session, and really engage the story and game when at the table. They read what I post and tell me that the work that I do on the OP page is very helpful to them to remember what's going on between sessions (bi-weekly game) and that they enjoy the narratives. THAT is worth way more to me than someone writing up a page on a wiki while at home.

    In a perfect world, though, I would love for everyone to throw in, too. :)
  • DiceMasterNick
    DiceMasterNick
    Posts: 56
    Id like to add a shot anecdote to articulate another important lesson on how to keep your players interested.

    Not that long ago I started a campaign with friends who only newly discovered D&D. There are six of us in total and we met weekly at the same persons house each time to play. We all brought food and ect. So the atmosphere was sociable. One of the players new a bit about D&D that he had been learning on his own and was very proud of his first character. He was so excited about it that he wanted to use it in this new campaign of ours. I thought Id ride on his enthusiasm and allow it. This ment that starting level would be 8 (the level of his character) so the 4 other players needed to make level 8 characters aswell. This seamed to work out alright at first. We breezed threw the first couple of sessions and while players where still a little confused they didnt care much because everything was new. Slowly however the players became less and less interested; discouraged by the daunting task of learning all the abilities of their characters. Every session Id ask the question "did you prepare your spells yet? Do you remember your feats yet? ect" only to be responded to with a resounding and depressing "No".

    The moral of the story is: NEWBIES ALWAYS START AT LEVEL 1.
    You might be able to teach D&D to new people at any level, but in the long run its better to start them off as slow as possible.
    (Now im pretty sure Thursday nights are permanently x-box night... sigh. Back to online D&D for me)
  • Falchen
    Falchen
    Posts: 20
    Nick, I do not like to start my experienced players at any level above 1, and there is always a bit of gripping, but in the end it leads to much better character development. I do however use a trick I picked up from my house mate, and that is double first level HP, it keeps people into the game much more because a random 20 from a goblin arrow will not put someone out of the encounter through no fault of their own.

    I have started many people playing D&D, I have only had a 50% conversion rate, about 1/2 of the people who started or tried ended up stopping, it sounds like with your group that you had one player that dominated it, and that made it less fun for the others, you might want to give it some time and try again, asking your party who would be interested in trying again, you might have a few of them interested, but not know it.
  • DiceMasterNick
    DiceMasterNick
    Posts: 56
    A valid point Falchen. I havent given up on them yet, we'll see how things turn out when i see them again tomorrow.
    And I know what your saying about character development. The characters that are the most memorable are the ones who have been around the longest and grown the most.
    However as a DM I have a problem with Level 1. My campaign settings are always a bit to epic for level 1. The story always suggests exciting battles between man and monster. At level 1 you cant throw down a T-rex or a displacer beast for an encounter. Players cant drop in to assale a castle on the back of hippogriffs. I guess Im intimidated by the confines of level 1, it just seams so mundane. I understand the intimacy of it... but even with creatures as creative as kobolds I still feel like "eh, thats been done" In order to really have a colorful campaign I like to take it upwards of level 5. Then the players start to see more magic equipment and spell casters begin to throw out a more powerful aray of spells. A party of level 1s on a "goblin hunt" just seams dull to me. So unless Im bringing in newbies I dont see the point.

    Any suggestions on how you can keep a DM interested?
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    I faced the starting level challenge in my current campaign, because when we began a little over a year ago, I hadn't GM'd a game since experimenting with 2nd edition in High School and the only one of my players who had ever played was my girlfriend, and she has no patience for leveling, or learning actual game mechanics. She just loves the hack and slash aspect... or setting things on fire.

    I started my players at level 3 so they would be a little more robust, with a couple neat character abilities, but without having things be overwhelming. It seemed to work pretty well. They are now Level 7 a little over a year later and my campaign has added three additional players (2 with previous experience) and we have added a second campaign GM'd by one of my players, so we run two weeks of mine, followed by two weeks of his.

    *WARNING: RANT BELOW*

    I definitely empathize with DiceMasterNick about players not remembering their spells, abilities, etc. One comfort I take is that the GM of the other campaign and I can back each other up if someone falters remembering a rule. Our technique is to have whoever is GMing keep going with the story if possible while the other looks up the rule.

    Of bigger concern to me is the detrimental effect of electronic devices at my game table. My girlfriend has developed a bad habit of grabbing my iPhone to play a simple puzzle game between her turns. I feel a bit stuck, because if she isn't occupied by the game, she starts to get sleepy while waiting for others and will often be curled up on the couch an hour before the session ends. Having the distraction keeps her awake, cheerful and into the game when her turn comes, but also can cause some extended deliberation if she missed what some of the other players did in a round.

    Then there is another player of mine who runs his character from his laptop. Well, I recently found out that he spends most of his time surfing the web. He has memory issues to begin with, but last week, while playing the other GM's campaign, he suddenly revealed that he didn't even realize one of the other PCs was a half-orc! Even though we had recently visited her home city, which is full of orcs and are traveling with her two sons as NPCs... who are also 1/2 orcs!

    Overall, I love my gaming group and am very proud at being able to maintain their interest over more than a year, but I am trying to figure out a way to address these issues without being a jerk about it...
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850 edited March 2010
    *Regarding Player Participation:*

    Boy I here you Grunn. I'm still trying to find ways to captivate the interest of my own players both at the table, and at our OP site. I had hoped that the "Prestige Points" system I discussed earlier in this thread would turn things arround, but after an enthusiastic beginning my players involvement at the site has slowed to a bare trickle. In fact, at this point I think our site recieves more visits (and certainly more comments) from those not involved in our campaign than it does from the players themselves! Ah well, I guess there's no such thing as a silver bullet when it comes to motivating one's players.

    *Regarding starting levels:*

    I may be somewhat odd in that I actually prefer playing (and running campaigns for) lower to mid level characters, as opposed to high or epic level campaigns. Part of the reason for this is that while I certainly enjoy the "fantastical" elements intrinsic to fantasy, I prefer stories in which the dramatic elementss seem famailiar to real life, where the hopes, concerns, fears and ambitions of the protagonists are not all that different from the real world (Joss Whedon's Firefly, is a good example of science fiction balanced by real life concerns). I like realism pure in simple. I like characters that are vulnerable, not characters that are super-human. What I have noticed is that at low levles, characters tend to identify with the concerns and plight of the various communities in which they find themselves. They see and interact with villagers in their day to day lives, and get a real sense of the rhythems of life in the towns they are in. Hence, when a band of maurading orcs arives to plunder the town, the PC's care about the outcome. However, at higher levels, PC's tend to lose interest in the communities of their origin. They are invovled in larger, more epic schemes than those that concern common people. As a result, there tends to be somewhat of a disconect between High Level PC's and the world arround them. The 20th level PC is more akin to a demi-god than to say the local champion of a small village, ore even a moderate sized city. As a result, I find high level campaigns to be somewhat alienating and impersonal: the ambitions of PC's are just too out of touch with lives of everyday people to be all that much concerned about them. Of course, I realize that I speak only from my own experience, and thus my vantage point is limited. Perhaps others have foud ways of engaging their high level campaigns with the real world (e.g. not simply inter-planar exploration and frenzied demon hack/slash). Moreover I realize that my particular tastes for realism are not shared by all. Nevertheless I offer these experiences as food for thought for those who think low level campaigns a bore.

    Cheers,

    -Arsheesh
    Post edited by arsheesh on
  • bevinflannery
    bevinflannery
    Posts: 114
    *Motivating characters to participate on OP*

    I handle all the Adventure Log write-ups for my "campaign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/rubies (I'm a control freak that way). However, my players have fleshed out communities/cultures and given me text to put onto the Web site -- many of them find it easier to simply write it out, or email it whenever they can fit things into their schedule rather than logging onto the site and sitting at the computer to add things. They do keep their character's stats updated on the site, which I find handy; I can check their skills, feats, equipment, etc., when planning encounters so I can try to slot something in that will take advantage of (or thwart!) what is on the character sheet. I try not to give bonuses in any way for this, as some players can't devote significant amounts of time to developing the wiki, and one player is physically unable to do so.

    *Distractions at the table*

    I'm one of those folks who, as a player, needs something to occupy my hands while waiting for others to take their turns -- or sometimes even while role-playing my own PC. I stack dice and spin quarters. Another member of our group routinely reads D&D books. Neither of us, however, stops paying attention to what's going on around us. If we did, and it became an on-going problem, I would understand if the GM would start docking us somehow -- deducting XP, for example.

    *Starting levels* I started my PCs at 3rd level. As a player, I don't like starting at 1st level, and I like for characters to already have some meat on their bones history-wise rather than being the naif who is adventuring out into the wide wide world for the first time.
  • Falchen
    Falchen
    Posts: 20
    I find that mixing up the game helps keep players interested and minimizes the table distractions. for the last game I ran I built a giant donkey kong set including a dire ape at the top that tossed barrels down at the party as they climbed up. It was such a hit I have gotten 3 calls from friends and family asking about joining my game. My players are still raving about the fight, they call me and ask what I have planned next. If anyone is interested in seeing this I can try to get some pictures of the setup posted online.
  • DreadGazebo
    DreadGazebo
    Posts: 218
    I offered my players any 1 magical item their level range or below from the D&D Insider Compendium that would be provided to them via in game story tie in if they did the following on OP

    1. Changed their damn icon from the silouhette
    2. Friend me
    3. Write at least a 3 paragraph bio/backstory for their character

    This was a week ago and so far I've had 4 of 5 complete the task. The catch is they all have to do it before anyone gets anything. I think by next weeks play session I'll be dropping a chest o' loot somewhere in their vicinity.

    I never said that chest would be easy to get to.....
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    He he, I like your style hOts...etc. Falchen, yeah I'd be interested in seeing those pics.
  • DreadGazebo
    DreadGazebo
    Posts: 218
    Why thank you arsheesh, you also just reminded me how using l33tspeak for my online presence is very "8 years ago" of me and I opted to change my name to coincide with my twitter name.

    Cheers!
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    *re: Distraction / game flow at the table*

    Okay, so last night was game-night for the campaign in which I am a player. After reading "this article":http://newbiedm.com/2009/08/24/imposing-a-30-time-limit-on-4th-ed-players/ on Newbie DM, I decided to run a little self-imposed timing experiment. I set a series of timers during the game to see if I wanted to implement similar restrictions during my campaign starting next week.

    Timer 1: A 30-second decision countdown. I gave my character a 30-second limit to decide what he would do when his turn came up each round. I would:
    # start the timer
    # tell the DM what I intended to do
    # stop the timer
    # resolve any rolls

    I also ran similar timers for the other players without actually telling them how long they took... just to see if 30-seconds was a reasonable limit. By and large, I found it was. I think there were only a couple places where people hesitated in their decisions beyond that limit throughout the night.

    Timer 2: This one counted up to measure how long it took to resolve a round of combat. Now, last night's session was wayyy complex when it came to the fight. There were 5 PCs with 1 animal companion, 1 familiar and 1 NPC travelling with the group. We faced multiple building waves of opponents from two different factions. This resulted in more NPCs showing up on the battlefield each round.
    As I ran this timer, I found the rounds averaged about 35-40 minutes and at least 1 went over an hour!

    My little experiment gave me a couple valuable insights that I hope to utilize in my own game, and which I wanted to share with you all.
    # A 30 second decision limit is perfectly reasonable, if not generous and can restrict meta-game thinking from the players who like to plan the perfect move each round.
    # The DM may want to apply similar restrictions to himself, as well as his players in order to keep the game moving... I intend to do this next week in my game.
    # If you have large groups of monsters/npcs in a combat encounter, work out a shorthand method for determining the flow of NPC on NPC combat. Perhaps set up a single percentage roll based on their chance to hit one another. when you determine how many hit, roll all damage die at once... or even just say "x # of NPCs drop on either side each round where x is a die roll."

    Anyway, I just wanted to share that experiment, because I found the results very enlightening.
  • Falchen
    Falchen
    Posts: 20
    Gnunn, that sounds rather long, In my last battle I had over 75 monsters on the board (they had to fight through a hobgoblin century, after donkey kong) and combat rounds were taking about 15 minutes at the beginning and much shorter as the mobs thinned out, as the DM my turns were taking bout 7 minutes with my 7 players taking a total of 8 minutes. I write quick stats for all my encounters in my dm notebook(8.5 by 11 graph paper), with space on the map in my notebook for hit points for each mob, I am not perfect, if I lose track of something I will just kill it off next attack, don't let the rules bog down the story in my opinion.
  • Morgus
    Morgus
    Posts: 19
    My combat rounds tend to run much like Falchen's. That sounds overly long, Gnunn. Does everyone have their attack bonuses and damage totals written out so they aren't re-adding everything from scratch each time? I found that forcing players to do that sped up my combats quite a bit. Forcing my players to declare intent within 10 seconds made a huge difference, too. A character acts out the entire round within 6 (we use 3.5 D&D), so requiring a player to state their intended action(s) within 10 seconds is pretty reasonable, especially since they have my round as GM, and all the other player's rounds to prepare and decide their actions. It forces players to pay attention in combat. I've only ever had a player miss one round in combat due to that implementation. They all paid attention and sped up after that, and it cut average combat times down from 60+ minutes to 10-15 once initiative rolls were completed and minis placed.
  • gnunn
    gnunn
    Posts: 423
    I totally agree that combat was taking way longer than it should, but like I said, I was a player that night, not the GM. Also, based on the timers I was running, much of the delay came as the GM moved minis and resolved NPC on NPC combat, or narrated the arrival of new opponents... or the cat knocking the leftovers off the counter in the kitchen... I didn't stop the timer for unexpected distractions.

    The same group that plays that campaign also plays in mine, so much of the behavior is the same... Everyone has their character sheets in front of them, which include their added to-hits and damage with their various weapons. The barbarian also has a separate stat block for her raging stats and the druid has separate stats for his favorite animal form.

    A couple areas where I think things could most easily speed up, besides the timer include:
    Having people roll all their attack rolls at once and then their total damage. Many of us, including myself, already do this, but one of our players does (attack, damage, next attack, damage, next attack... etc.) I have to admit this drives me a little crazy.

    I think the biggest challenge in relation to slow combat with my particular group comes from the fact that game night is also a very social night. We're all good friends and lots of joking/table-talk is expected. I can't control the game where I am a player, but for the game where I GM, I'm trying to figure out how to keep things moving without losing the casual fun feeling that has kept my players coming back for over a year.
  • kfrancesconi
    kfrancesconi
    Posts: 3
    I think Arsheesh hit the nail on the head when he said there's no magic bullet. In our campaign, the GM has tried hard to get everyone participating. You can tell from our Karma chart that some participate more than others. In the end, you're going to have folks that are strong participators, some that are weak, and some on the fence. The trick is to get the folks on the fence onto the participating side. As a former fence-sitter, here are some things I know worked to pull me over:

    1) Buy-In. Onsilius basically told me that when we post here on OP, we're helping him manage the tracking on NPCs, loot, goods, happening, etc., which allows him to focus on better content.
    2) Karma - A little incentive never hurts.
    3) Stronger RP - Writing a back story and the character's view of events helps them evolve. It also helps the GM hold player's accountable for RP decisions.
  • arsheesh
    arsheesh
    Posts: 850
    Great feedback krancesconi, I agree that using a variety of different methods seems a better choice then relying upon one way of motivating player participation.
  • amerigoV
    amerigoV
    Posts: 9
    On distractions at the table - I give people who tend to fidget extra stuff to do at the table -- track initiative, shuffle cards (if Savage Worlds), build the room using DwarvenForge, etc. It helps to a degree.

    Pace is another. My group recently moved to Savage Worlds. I try to give little reminders to players about actions, options, etc. Those little hints go a long way to keep things moving. Also, unless the ruling is absolutely critical (life/death of a PC), I avoid looking up rules at that table. Rule then move on. In most game systems, a simple +/-2 on something tends to spackle over most gray areas quite nicely.

    I try not to be heavy handed in the "participate between sessions." They are adults with busy lives - I just ask that (1) PCs are updated and (2) someone keep log. On the second, I offer a Bennie (action-point) for doing it. However, if I have to post it, I give the bennie to ME and I emphasize exactly when I am using it in the game. So you can do the log, get a bennie, and deny it to me. Or let me have it and use it at a key point in the adventure. We shall see if that helps. On the log itself, I am not looking for shakespeare, just some basics of who/what/where type stuff. Heck, bullet points are fine.

    If someone wants to do extra, I'll give 'em some Bennies. I like to keep people on track XP wise, but Bennies are a nice currency in Savage Worlds that gives a nice little kick without distorting the overall progress.

    If you do not do (1), well, don't whine if you die when you could have had a few extra things that might have saved you. Not my problem, and I am not slowing the session down while you update your PC. In this case it is Savage Worlds, it ain't hard...
  • wsocrates
    wsocrates
    Posts: 18
    Motivation is very hard. At least for this game I got a lot of great participation in writing up character history. What I did was that anything that contributed to the game the character got. for example I had a character that wanted to have contacts in the game so he wrote up who they were and there relationship to others and him. So I allowed them to be his contact. I had another player wanted to start off with a airship. He wrote up a nice 15 page history with enemies. I was so impressed (yes I will be posting it soon) I gave him a ship. Now it is 1 point away from falling apart and it has large holes in it but he has a air ship. So I guess my thing is any help they give, they get that item or legend or thing. This way there efforts become part of their character. Like if they wrote up a legend I would let their character know that legend. I told them that they would know the legend. Now the Legend may be true, one hundred percent false or some place in between that they would not know unless they went to find the legend. But as what is known about the legend it would be the the one they came up with.

    I also made it so that everyone of the players have a subplot for them. If they are not there I try to make it so that they are working on their subplot and I try to run that adventure separate. So that way there is a reason why the character is not there. I play once a month so I have time to work out the subplots.
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Wrath of the Highborn

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