It’s true. RPG players are like kids. Hear me out.
You never know what they’re going to do next. You want them to have fun just as much as they do, but they’ll do everything they can to belie that. The best way to do this is to control them, without them knowing they’re being controlled. When they get frustrated, distract them with something to hold their attention. And? They’re both smarter than you can imagine, and dumber than you can believe.
This is really just me copying another article on Campaign Mastery, with some of my own thoughts. Rewriting I’ve found is the best way to remember things, so that next time I’m running a face-to-face game I can implement some of this. Also, perhaps my D&D 3.5e DM and other players will read this – it’s not really the DM’s fault, but that game can shudder to a halt due to out-of-game distractions.
This is mostly geared towards speeding up combat, specifically in tactical-style games such as D&D 3.5e and 4e – but a lot of it is applicable to any play style. There’s what looks to be a much more comprehensive guide to faster combat behind a paywall, but I think their chapter headings are a decent enough guide to start with.
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As we watch the Centennial Sparrow ease herself into a holding pattern outside Docking Bay 4, we experience the use of “manual-zoom-shaky-cam” and can just make out Siet and BB talking on the hangar deck. Cut to just behind the two talking about correcting the datapad on board. Just barely in-frame, we see Erska smoothly situate herself behind one of Sybil’s Silence’s landing struts, and then Shalo leaning against the slot partition, lightsaber drawn but not ignited.
The circle wipe opens up on an empty corridor in the massive Star Destroyer. Distant sounds of the bazaar can still be heard, but more prominent are the hum of the air circulation, engines, and compensators. New music replaces the last as the droid and miraluka from the previous scene move towards the camera.
The camera pans down from the fading yellow text to reveal a bright red Imperial Star Destroyer. It appears to be orbiting a large, uninhabited asteroid or moon. Buzzing around it like a swarm of insects are snub fighters, light freighters, and corvettes of practically every make and model.
Went out for Mother’s Day today. Took Little Dude and the Wife and the MIL. We went to Mehri’s Bakery & Deli over on SE 52nd Ave. I chose it because the Yelp reviews were so glowing! Mistake of the month.
Evidently it’s “Star Wars Day”, as determined by the Intarwebs at large. It’s fairly logical – “May the Fourth” sounds far too much like “May the Force…” to ignore. So, as a bit of a celebration of such, I’m going to run a Star Wars play-by-post RPG. Right here on this blog.
Testing Twitter integration and comment system.
I’ve started listening to the Haste podcast, and in one of the first episodes, they talked about how the D&D bloggers should distill the experiences of their readers. And to help focus the discussion towards positive change, they should figure out for themselves what makes a good game and what makes a bad game.
Now, I don’t consider myself a “D&D blogger”. Or, really, a blogger at all, since I have, what, five posts since I started again? (btw, don’t look at my LJ – omg the angst)
