What elements are present in an ideal roleplaying game session? The answer will vary of course, depending on the particular game and (more importantly) the interests of those playing the game. Given that many groups have players with different interests, it’s important to understand different player motivations.

Based on this industry study of roleplayers, there are four main categories of players:

• Thinkers are players who enjoy games with a Strategic/Combat Focus. These players enjoy min-maxing a character and finding every conceivable advantage available in the system, even if the min-maxing is illogical. These players want to solve puzzles and track facts and clues.
• Power Gamers are players who enjoy games with a Tactical/Combat Focus. These players enjoy short, intense gaming experiences and don’t mind character death or care much about storyline implications of their character’s action.
• Character Actors are players who enjoy a Tactical/Story Focus. They like the act of theater (using voice, posture and props). They focus on character’s motivations, ethics, and knowledge.
• Storytellers are players enjoy a Strategic/Story Focus. They enjoy the logical progression of the story’s narrative looking for a beginning, a middle and end to the narrative.

There is a fifth type of player, a “basic roleplayer”, who enjoys strategy, tactics, combat and story in rough equilibrium.

It seems to me that a perfect RPG game, if you have players with each of these motivations, will cater to all these play styles to ensure player groups with mixed playstyles will allow each player to have an experience in each session doing what they like best.

So what does this mean?

In my opinion, it means that each adventure session will contain:

• Puzzles, facts and clues.
• Set-piece battles and other complex conflicts to allow strategy and tactics (may involve a battlemat or boss-fight)
• Intense gaming experiences with drama, rising tension, and excitement.
• Visuals, props, and handouts.
• Integrating character motivations, ethics, and knowledge into the drama.
• Move a meta-plot / campaign arc forward (even if only a little).
• Structure sessions or campaigns to have a story with beginning, a middle and end.
• Player-drive narrative control with sandbox-style roleplaying allowing players to go anywhere and do anything.

The design team at Wizards of the Coast speak about three pillars of the roleplaying experience they are focusing on for the next iteration of the world’s oldest RPG, namely:

• Combat
• Exploration
• Interaction

Mapping this to playstyle elements, you see these aspects at play:

• Combat (Set-piece battles )
• Exploration (Puzzles, Visuals, props, and handouts)
• Interaction (Story, character motivations, ethics, and knowledge; meta-plot / campaign arc, sandbox-style Player-drive narrative control)

Refactoring this into a design checklist for GM’s, target using some or all of the following to create game sessions with appeal to multiple player styles:

• Storyline (Scripting a story or backstory with beginning, middle and end)
• Mystery (Giving puzzles with clues)
• Props (Showing visuals and handouts)
• Character Tie-ins (Integrating character backstory, old enemies, or character edges, flaws or hindrances into the story)
• Meta-plot (Moving the campaign arc forward)
• Boss Fight (Providing set-piece battle with terrain elements and possibly multiple enemy combatants or groups)
• Sandbox (Allowing for player-drive narrative control)

In future posts I’ll have some concrete suggestions about using a structured design and elements such as a GM’s phase and Player’s phase to allow you to hit each of these game elements in each and every session.

I’ve used the virtual tabletop Fantasy Grounds as played with out VTTs (virtual tabletops) such as RPTools. I really like them, but the hurdle to get people to install software, open network ports, and deal with cross-platform limitations can really dampen VTT adoption.

Enter Tabletop Forge. It is in Beta, and will work as an add-on to Google+ Hangouts (which is a nifty video chat room that works really well — many tabletop gamers are using Google+ Hangouts already to host games, and Tabletop Forge will make that experience even better).

Here is a list of features, and here are some video tutorials that give you a feel for the power of the tool.

Google+ Hangout apps are still not released as a public product, so there are some hoops you have to jump through to get the tools running (see below), but still, if you’re an early adopter, I strongly encourage you to check it out and give feedback.

Now, on to my notes and to some feature wishes (I’ll also be posting this to the Google+ Tabletop Forge discussion which is the best place to track news on the development of this tool). Continue reading

This is the first of several articles I’m writing with tips (some proven, others soon to be play-tested) on running hassle-free tabletop RPG campaigns with rotating players.

Recently I started GM’ing for a group running Space 1889 in the Savage Worlds setting. I had some misses during my first game (my 4 hour adventure got started late, so we ended in the middle of the story), and by the time the next game came around, some of the first session players couldn’t make it, while new players were ready to join.

Having struggling with the woes of rotating players in the past, I gave some thought to managing sessions with rotating players. I also consulted with other GMs on the Savage Worlds forums and reviewed my notes from observing other GM’s techniques at convention games.

What follows is a collection of GM techniques to make four-hour episodic sessions which accommodate rotating players and cater to a variety of gamer play-styles. Continue reading

As a follow-up to GM Checklist for Pathfinder Convention Games, here are additional tips.

In your game announcements, consider these rules:

Tell players to show up 15 minutes before the game if they have new (non-pregen) characters so you can review the characters and check the math. If you show up just as the game begins, expect to play a pregen which the GM will provide.

Announce a break schedule before the game begins and in your game announcement — one 10 minute break around the midpoint of the game often works well. 4 hours is a long time to sit at a table, and players will often simply walk off to take a break if you don’t give them one and they don’t know one is coming up.

No cell phones allowed at the table during game play — restrict checking Facebook, texting, or taking calls to the breaks.

Other ideas include:

Initiative cards with blanks for Player name, character name, Character Faction, Init bonus (and 4 rolls), Perception bonus, Sense Motive bonus, and six d20 random rolls from the players. This can speed up play and helps you remember the player/character names.

Alternatively, have tent-style name plates with both character name and player name to pass out.

Create “feat sheets”. Take the feats you’re not familiar with and write them out interspersed throughout the scenario when needed so that I have the information at hand.

Use wet wipes for hand-drawn wet-erase map mats. Also include some paper towels. Alternatively, keep a small spray bottle containing water with you. The perfect one for this application is the small spray bottle for cleaning eye-glasses.

Bring a sheet of new Pathfinder Society player numbers to pass out to any new players.