Post by reiphil on May 5, 2014 10:09:34 GMT -8
Current Core group:
Phil
JP
Stephen
Mike
Micah
David
With David leaving in June, our numbers are going to drop into just acceptable group running. Without a place like AGR to call home and with players moving about, it is hard to pick up new members/sustain the group. However, I would still like to game with everyone.
Before we start deciding the next game or if there will even be a next game, we should try and see if we can set up a core standard of how we as a group want to play and proceed.
Time: We should set up a better time to accommodate everyone to play. I think Sundays are ok, but perhaps we should shift the time to be 2-7, instead of 1-7. What has been happening is that people end up a little late, or pick up food and want to eat pre game, which means they show up at 1 with food, and are eating which makes it hard for everyone else to concentrate or for that player to get into the game. What I propose is that if we are to continue, perhaps, we should start at 2 pm, but allow people to start showing up at 1. This allows for time to discuss character changes, or resolve anything that happened the adventure before, and eat or talk and chill.
Fresh Attitude: I think we need to bring back the game to its roots. Regardless of who is DMing and for what system, we need to put away the feeling of wanting to do the highest numbers in the game, and go back to the roleplaying roots. That means we need to stop the power gaming, stop the focus on only following rules, stop the focus of just trading hits until something dies. With the articles that Joseph posted, I think everyone needs to flow back into RPing. I tried to do this with BladeRaiders, but unfortunately, mostly everyone seemed to just devolve back into combat roles, and instead, what I wanted was a lush RP environment in which people tried to do anything they wanted. The group as a whole needs to stop running into every encounter with their swords and spells raised and try to see if there are better environment variables to work with. As a DM, I don't want to railroad anyone into NOT fighting, but encourage the fact that fighting isn't always the most beneficial way of completing an encounter, and I want to see that in the group.
Learning systems: With whatever system we run next, I think everyone needs to learn the system fully. It makes turns go by faster and allows us all to concentrate on the next action quickly. Too often, in every game, we have the "I do this... no wait, I forgot i had this, so I do that, no wait... I can't do that so I do this... Oh wait, that does this? I don't wanna do that." It interrupts the flow of action in the game, understandably we want to follow the core rules of a game, but people need to be flexible, run with what they have, and plan out their motions so everything can go faster. No more 5 minute turns, etc.
Place: With David leaving, I don't mind running any game at my house (it actually encourages me to participate more, as it is my house), and I also don't mind playing at other people's houses. However, with the last session we did, perhaps we may want to look at a web-based solution as well. Using something like Google Hangouts we can all communicate via webcam or just mic to interact with the game. The con of this though, is that we'd need to get Mike into an acclimated environment to be able to use google hangouts and we also lose the attentiveness of the group. It's too easy for me to be browsing Reddit (which I already do on my phone during some games as i'm waiting for my turn). However, this allows us to essentially meet the times as we don't have to worry about driving to everyone's houses, and it also allows us to play cross country, meaning we could keep David in the loop or, if time allows, even have Kyle or Joseph jump back in too!
---
Honestly, with David leaving, I kind of feel inclined to say we all go our separate ways due to the aforementioned "issues". But I also feel encouraged to keep the gaming group going as we've all had some excellent and fun adventures. Those gaming experiences and experiencing it with the group are what makes everything worth it for me, and I think if we can distill ourselves back to basics, we can bring the gaming group back alive.
But yeah, JP, Stephen, Micah, David, post your thoughts.
I'll also bring this up with Mike next session.
Phil
JP
Stephen
Mike
Micah
David
With David leaving in June, our numbers are going to drop into just acceptable group running. Without a place like AGR to call home and with players moving about, it is hard to pick up new members/sustain the group. However, I would still like to game with everyone.
Before we start deciding the next game or if there will even be a next game, we should try and see if we can set up a core standard of how we as a group want to play and proceed.
Time: We should set up a better time to accommodate everyone to play. I think Sundays are ok, but perhaps we should shift the time to be 2-7, instead of 1-7. What has been happening is that people end up a little late, or pick up food and want to eat pre game, which means they show up at 1 with food, and are eating which makes it hard for everyone else to concentrate or for that player to get into the game. What I propose is that if we are to continue, perhaps, we should start at 2 pm, but allow people to start showing up at 1. This allows for time to discuss character changes, or resolve anything that happened the adventure before, and eat or talk and chill.
Fresh Attitude: I think we need to bring back the game to its roots. Regardless of who is DMing and for what system, we need to put away the feeling of wanting to do the highest numbers in the game, and go back to the roleplaying roots. That means we need to stop the power gaming, stop the focus on only following rules, stop the focus of just trading hits until something dies. With the articles that Joseph posted, I think everyone needs to flow back into RPing. I tried to do this with BladeRaiders, but unfortunately, mostly everyone seemed to just devolve back into combat roles, and instead, what I wanted was a lush RP environment in which people tried to do anything they wanted. The group as a whole needs to stop running into every encounter with their swords and spells raised and try to see if there are better environment variables to work with. As a DM, I don't want to railroad anyone into NOT fighting, but encourage the fact that fighting isn't always the most beneficial way of completing an encounter, and I want to see that in the group.
Learning systems: With whatever system we run next, I think everyone needs to learn the system fully. It makes turns go by faster and allows us all to concentrate on the next action quickly. Too often, in every game, we have the "I do this... no wait, I forgot i had this, so I do that, no wait... I can't do that so I do this... Oh wait, that does this? I don't wanna do that." It interrupts the flow of action in the game, understandably we want to follow the core rules of a game, but people need to be flexible, run with what they have, and plan out their motions so everything can go faster. No more 5 minute turns, etc.
Place: With David leaving, I don't mind running any game at my house (it actually encourages me to participate more, as it is my house), and I also don't mind playing at other people's houses. However, with the last session we did, perhaps we may want to look at a web-based solution as well. Using something like Google Hangouts we can all communicate via webcam or just mic to interact with the game. The con of this though, is that we'd need to get Mike into an acclimated environment to be able to use google hangouts and we also lose the attentiveness of the group. It's too easy for me to be browsing Reddit (which I already do on my phone during some games as i'm waiting for my turn). However, this allows us to essentially meet the times as we don't have to worry about driving to everyone's houses, and it also allows us to play cross country, meaning we could keep David in the loop or, if time allows, even have Kyle or Joseph jump back in too!
---
Honestly, with David leaving, I kind of feel inclined to say we all go our separate ways due to the aforementioned "issues". But I also feel encouraged to keep the gaming group going as we've all had some excellent and fun adventures. Those gaming experiences and experiencing it with the group are what makes everything worth it for me, and I think if we can distill ourselves back to basics, we can bring the gaming group back alive.
But yeah, JP, Stephen, Micah, David, post your thoughts.
I'll also bring this up with Mike next session.