bobcatt
Apprentice Douchebag
Patron
An infinite number of monkeys can't be wrong...
Posts: 81
Preferred Game Systems: AD&D 1e, 2e, 5e, Top Secret/S.I., Classic Traveller
Currently Playing: nothing at all :-(
Currently Running: completely stalled doing 5e via Roll20
Favorite Species of Monkey: Barrel of
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Post by bobcatt on Sept 30, 2017 19:48:34 GMT -8
Hello,
After a 25 year hiatus, I GMed a game last autumn (Top Secret/S.I.) and a game last weekend (TS/S.I., Agent 13 rules supplement). Both scenarios were written by me for 4-hour, one-shot con games. In each case, I had a group of mature players who had stayed active in old & new RPGs while I've been away, and regularly run games of their own.
I can vividly recall the ease of putting together enough material for a decent session with virtually no notice "back in the day", but it was the opposite for these recent games. Despite 24+ hours of work on each, I felt woefully, shamefully, desperately under-prepped and, last autumn, was so stressed out that I couldn't even manage to eat a meal before my timeslot - spending suppertime reviewing my notes and the pre-gen sheets. I did not want to disappoint the players who had signed up for my game.
For a scenario, I always like to include enough "real" details to make it seem plausible. In the 80s and early 90s, I got that content from books, magazines, and old movies. Players were (mostly) happy that an effort had been made. Now, I can fling myself down the rabbit hole of the Internet, and so can any potential players. Back then, we were young adults with F-all life experience but now I'm dealing with doctors, engineers, authors, and linguists. For any given contemporary setting, there is now simply too much to know, and too much to get wrong (thus spoiling the immersion).
I don't want to be the only guy at the local con who doesn't run sessions. Now that I'm gaming again, I feel that I have some responsibility to contribute as well as consume. However, due to my overall approach & mindset, I may now be out of my depth. There's likely no way I'm ever going to be satisfied with my level of prep within a non-fantasy environment.
I love the TS/S.I. rules, maybe more so than AD&D 1st ed (that+Holmes = my gateway drug). I'd like to be able to run enjoyable & engaging one-shots that don't take a solid week of prep. Moving to a fantasy genre, while not without its charm, is well down my list of preferred actions. Lots of people at the con offer fantasy content already, plus a modicum of sci-fi, superhero, and military-themed material.
At this point, I'm not sure if I'm asking (or expecting) for advice or consolation. Just figuratively throwing my hands in the air...
Chris in Canada
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Post by mook on Sept 30, 2017 22:56:52 GMT -8
Congratulations on finding your way back, bobcatt . Welcome home! Is there any particular component of the prep that seems to take up most of your time? Or is the whole thing just a slog to get through? Two things I find that help me to remember (I tend to overprep like crazy, if given sufficient time): 1) The players want to have fun. They are there for no other reason than to have a good time, and (for the vast majority) are willing and able to roll with whatever game sprouts up at the table. It brings me great comfort to remember that not a single player has ever said "That game was a train wreck, you should be barred from ever touching dice." The worst of it is usually something like "Meh, wasn't really my cup of tea." This keeps me from stressing too much. 2) You may be prepping too much. I have no idea of your details yet, but this was an issue for me for a long time (and still is, really). Particularly for a one-shot, four-hour game, I try to laser focus what I prep and leave the rest up to improv, aka "pulling it outta my ass when the time comes." Only "named" NPCs need full stats, only the most critical areas need maps, the rest can be figured out as you go if you know the adventure and characters well. This is a great community for advice, I hope you find something that keeps you going in the inevitable avalanche of responses.
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Post by chronovore on Oct 1, 2017 17:06:56 GMT -8
(…) I don't want to be the only guy at the local con who doesn't run sessions. Now that I'm gaming again, I feel that I have some responsibility to contribute as well as consume. However, due to my overall approach & mindset, I may now be out of my depth. There's likely no way I'm ever going to be satisfied with my level of prep within a non-fantasy environment. (…) You do not have any such responsibility. You're setting yourself up to /not/ have fun. And remember: if you're having fun, you're doing it right! It would be a fallacy to state that if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong… but it's not far amiss. I feel you're really overthinking this, and as mook suggests, you may be overprepping to compensate. The players show up to have a good time, and you might consider the same attitude. If you want to improvise rules you don't have memorized, or even put it to the table to collaborate on a rule, so be it!
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bobcatt
Apprentice Douchebag
Patron
An infinite number of monkeys can't be wrong...
Posts: 81
Preferred Game Systems: AD&D 1e, 2e, 5e, Top Secret/S.I., Classic Traveller
Currently Playing: nothing at all :-(
Currently Running: completely stalled doing 5e via Roll20
Favorite Species of Monkey: Barrel of
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Post by bobcatt on Oct 2, 2017 19:01:40 GMT -8
(…) I don't want to be the only guy at the local con who doesn't run sessions. Now that I'm gaming again, I feel that I have some responsibility to contribute as well as consume. However, due to my overall approach & mindset, I may now be out of my depth. There's likely no way I'm ever going to be satisfied with my level of prep within a non-fantasy environment. (…) You do not have any such responsibility. You're setting yourself up to /not/ have fun. And remember: if you're having fun, you're doing it right! It would be a fallacy to state that if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong… but it's not far amiss. I feel you're really overthinking this, and as mook suggests, you may be overprepping to compensate. The players show up to have a good time, and you might consider the same attitude. If you want to improvise rules you don't have memorized, or even put it to the table to collaborate on a rule, so be it! Hello chronovore,
Thank you for your input. Yes, I may be sabotaging myself. I'm trying to weigh the cost(s) of this behavior, and hopefully prevent myself from continuing to do so. Most of the GMing I did from 1980-1994/5 was in broad, sandbox campaigns. I am finding it more challenging than anticipated to come up with an interesting, coherent, and fun scenario for a 4-hour session.
I've been in a couple of other social groups where 80% of the members /expect/ to be catered to/entertained by the remaining 20%, with no intention of contributing anything of their own. In this small con's case, despite the extra work of GMing (say 1 session out of every 6 or 8) I'd prefer to share the load and be in the latter segment. Some of the participants are GMing 1 in 2 sessions (or more) rather than have too few GMs for a full game day. I don't think that's equitable.
Given the opportunity, I will overthink the crap out of a task. My goal here is to understand what I can and can't get away with in this tightly constrained scope of a con game, i.e. how much do I really need to worry about detail "X" or plot device "Y". In this last session, I did have to improvise, I did forget descriptive details, and I did make mistakes, but I also had /some/ fun. My impression is that the four players had a bit of fun, too, however I was pretty wrapped up in my own headspace and might have misread them.
Frankly, if it weren't for listening to Happy Jacks, I wouldn't have tried GMing again after all this time.
regards,
Chris in Canada
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Post by chronovore on Oct 2, 2017 20:22:13 GMT -8
You said a mouthful! HJRPG has been one of the central reasons I've gone back to GMing, and really enjoying it!
Overthinking is one of my bad habits as well; you're not alone!
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bobcatt
Apprentice Douchebag
Patron
An infinite number of monkeys can't be wrong...
Posts: 81
Preferred Game Systems: AD&D 1e, 2e, 5e, Top Secret/S.I., Classic Traveller
Currently Playing: nothing at all :-(
Currently Running: completely stalled doing 5e via Roll20
Favorite Species of Monkey: Barrel of
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Post by bobcatt on Oct 3, 2017 14:24:38 GMT -8
Congratulations on finding your way back, bobcatt . Welcome home! Is there any particular component of the prep that seems to take up most of your time? Or is the whole thing just a slog to get through? Two things I find that help me to remember (I tend to overprep like crazy, if given sufficient time): 1) The players want to have fun. They are there for no other reason than to have a good time, and (for the vast majority) are willing and able to roll with whatever game sprouts up at the table. It brings me great comfort to remember that not a single player has ever said "That game was a train wreck, you should be barred from ever touching dice." The worst of it is usually something like "Meh, wasn't really my cup of tea." This keeps me from stressing too much. 2) You may be prepping too much. I have no idea of your details yet, but this was an issue for me for a long time (and still is, really). Particularly for a one-shot, four-hour game, I try to laser focus what I prep and leave the rest up to improv, aka "pulling it outta my ass when the time comes." Only "named" NPCs need full stats, only the most critical areas need maps, the rest can be figured out as you go if you know the adventure and characters well. This is a great community for advice, I hope you find something that keeps you going in the inevitable avalanche of responses. Hello mook ,
Thanks for your questions & warm welcome. I didn't realise how much I missed RPGs until I started playing again in 2015.
At the moment, the whole process is a slog yet I doubt my methodology is markedly different than any other GM. I posit an idea for a scenario based on some real event(s), and start digging up info to feed the brain boiler. In the course of my research, I'll either refine the premise or discard it entirely and start over. I gather folders of pictures, maps, and text for mulling over during a pint or three. Then I'll write out a framework describing the background of the adventure (who, what, where, when, & why), the overall setting, primary NPCs, and various scenes (fights, chases, "puzzles", clues, fluff text). I'm careful not to dictate how things /should/ play out, but I'll sketch a timeline to remind me when the antagonists originally intended to execute various actions - which the players may scupper or allow as play progresses. Getting this far is the majority of my effort. For the two most recent games this phase took 16-20 hours each (over many days). Truly creative output is hard to come by, of late, so I have to force myself to plod on towards the big goal and hope for inspiration. Too much of my cognitive faculties are consumed at work.
Given that session times are so limited, I've been providing pre-gen characters tailored to the scenario. I'm finding it takes a little more than an hour per character (keeping in mind that I'm still rusty) to stat, choose ads/dis-ads, assign skills, and write a meaningful précis for each player to get a sense of how their character got to "now". I know I must keep this last bit of info short and to the point or the player's eyes glaze over. I'm trying to have at least one more character ready than the number of players booked to allow for a bit of choice at the table.
Since players may have never seen the system before, I also rehearse a short intro blurb describing the essential few items that may affect their decision making (i.e. it's a d%, roll-under mechanic, there are Luck Points to spend, your skill level(s) permit you to do "X", etc.) and provide a few handouts for their reference (weapon damage, skill/ability descriptions, unarmed combat details) during the session. Some of these handouts go missing at the end of the game, so portions of this task will get repeated each time.
My improvisation skills are weak under pressure. I fumble verbally; it's much better if I've thought about it and written something down ahead of time, even if it's just an outline.
I agree that the players want to enjoy themselves. It stands to reason that they (especially ones who also GM) will cut you a bit of slack during a con. There's an implied contract where they won't break your game and you won't railroad them too obviously. Thankfully, I have yet to suffer a player who is out to have their fun at the expense of others.
A non-zero number of good laughs were had in each of these two 'rejuvenation' sessions, by both the players and myself. No one has told me that either game sucked. I do recognise that I could be a harsher critic of my efforts than those around me. I'm interested in figuring out an achievable way to maximise my fun as a GM without ruining someone else's enjoyment. I think HJRPG is a worthwhile school to attend in that respect.
best regards,
Chris in Canada
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