Comments on: Afterschool Tropes Special: The Campaign as a British TV Series

By: User links about "checkmate" on iLinkShare

User links about "checkmate" on iLinkShare — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:03:20 +0000

[...] | user-saved public links | iLinkShare 3 votesComment on Afterschool Tropes Special: The Campaign as a British …>> saved by waffleiron 1 days ago1 votesDCU Preview: Amazons & Cyclopes>> saved by stuartandpetra 3 [...]

By: Dr. Checkmate

Dr. Checkmate — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:19:02 +0000

Color me late to the party…

I think it depends a lot on session length and frequency, too. I’m currently playing a group that gets about 3 or 4 weekly 4 to 5 hour sessions in every month. I don’t know what the DM’s long term plans are, but as an alternate game I’m running a Savage Worlds mini-campaign (Zombie Run) that is structured very much like a TV mini-series. So far, this is working really well. However, I won’t be continuing the experiment. Once the “Run” is over, we’ll be moving on to something else.

Dr. Checkmates last blog post..Lately it occurs to me

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:09:10 +0000

I like this idea, especially ’cause my group thought of it long ago. But we didn’t do anything about it.
What we wanted to do was get away from campaigns that lasted years in real time, and get more DM rotation.
What did we do? Well, I ran for 3 years, while my wife ran for 3 years-plus. Our Buffy game ran for 4 years, my wife is in year 4 of Shackled City, and so on. I’ve run a 1-year game that had a definite endpoint (someone suggested a 13-episode season), and an 8-session game that both felt satisfying. I think I will work harder at paring down my dreams in the future.

By: Dean

Dean — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:04:54 +0000

I like the concept. I immediately thought about “24.” A very specific, though often convoluted, plot centered and taking place in one day. Each season is its own storyline, but draws in elements from previous storylines, and has recurring elements and characters.

This serves both the short term goals of being focused, while allowing you the long term elements of the myth arc, should you choose to invoke them.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:33:06 +0000

@MAK: Yup same here. So I guess that if I do use the short campaign model, that will make us Northen RPG brothers.

By: Gnome Rodeo: Pardon Me, But Do You Have Any GMing Links? - Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:20:32 +0000

[...] Musings of the Chatty DM: Chatty proposes building your campaign on the British TV series model, which pretty is wild in places but an all-around cool idea. Today’s the last day to enter [...]

By: MAK

MAK — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:09:37 +0000

We’ve tried most shades of gray in the sandbox vs railroad axis from “so, what do you want to do now” to playing spectator to deus-ex-machina NPC’s - as may be guessed, neither extreme has worked very well.

What has worked OK is (not surprisingly) a DM-generated rough direction that the players play along with, but can provide their own twists and turns that the DM then in turn incorporates in the storyline. If you are familiar with agile software engineering, it’s not that far off… Game sessions are like sprints of development and the direction is re-checked between each session.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:42:50 +0000

I really think that Sandbox gaming is a campaign structure and improv is a Gming technique.

While both go well together they are not the same. A sandbox game can be exceedingly prepped if the GM needs a “ready for everything” toolbox to run it.

But what do I know, I suck at improv and the idea of running a sandbox game scares the $hi7 out of me!!

By: Yan

Yan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:38:24 +0000

Well I did little to no prep at each session, since everything you mentioned was all part of my initial world creation preparation.

Plot hook’s, with some organizations their goals, typical henchman leader and I would improvise for the rest base on the player action.

That being said I did some prep before each session but it was mostly a though process to be mentally prepared and have the most probable material at hand.

Every one as is own approach and mine does not mean that every GM that uses the sandbox approach rely as heavily as I do on their own improvisation skills.

By: Captain Cursor

Captain Cursor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:26:13 +0000

I disagree that “sandbox” means no prep. Sometimes it means way more prep. You often have to anticipate where the players may be going with it. Now you may not prep out every single path they could go down, but you do have to make up lots of shallow but wide adventure snippets, or at least familiarize yourself with gameplay that they want to engage in.

If they are prone to committing crimes, then you prep some heists up to have on hand. If they are wont to rescue princess you have some damsels in distress to drop in.

Stupid gravatars won’t update.
Captain Cursors last blog post..I Need a Horse!