Game Prep Lessons Learned

I just ran my roughest game in a long, long time. The issues in the game were things that could have been prevented or mitigated, but instead I had to do damage control and bring things to a halt.
Some of the lessons I learned (again):

• Safety tools need to be introduced.
• Use a session zero or pre-session to assess how a group works together..
• No game is better than bad game.
• If you want to use something during your game, prep it.

Safety tools need to be introduced

No one wants to cause a problem or halt a game. Everyone came to play, so players will put off a lot before they find themselves objecting to the direction of the game. As a gamemaster (GM) I outlined a series of safety tools and put them in the game prep area. I congratulated myself on doing that before I even put in character creation steps. Then I promptly left them alone until there was a problem.

When there was conflict between players, I could have handled it sooner. When I did handle it, the offended player said they had thought about X-carding the situation. I said that they should have (which sounds like a jerk move in retrospect) and brought the game to a halt to discuss the offensive situation.

How many times could I have missed a cue that would have been prevented by a safety tool? Could I have prevented the situation from happening at all? What part of the game is more important than player safety? None. My fault. My error. I want to do better next time.

Use a session zero or pre-session to assess how a group works together

When I prepped the first session of the game I was lucky enough to have a web conferencing test that brought the players together. That gave everyone a chance to get comfortable and talk together. I let it slide at that point and didn't do a joint character creation session. I got two character concepts in advance out of 6. The other 4 showed up at the game. I had 2 players with 'Evil' alignments; something I would generally want to talk about.

I proceeded to run the game like I normally would. This was a poor choice.

For a second session, I introduced a new player with no preamble. There was immediate conflict and confusion.

While none of that is the fault of the new player, I should treat the idea of a play group as important. If people have agreed to play together and put time into character creation together, adding a new player should be a meeting of minds and sharing of ideals for play. Things didn't go smoothly. I had ignored several entreaties by the new player - maybe they shouldn't join, maybe it wasn't worth playing just once - but it's someone I like to play with. I wanted to include them. They had a terrible time.

If I had stuck to the goal of introducing people and talking about the game in advance, it wouldn't have happened because a) the people in the session zero are the ones that get to play and b) because they might have decided they didn't want to play together before the game happened.

If your game has a game 'master', they are the advocate for the players

When you invite people to play a game with you, or agree to run a game for others, you take on one role above all others: you agree to advocate for them.

They don't have to win. They don't have to have their characters survive. But when those people are uncomfortable, you need to take action. The minimum should be addressing the behavior of the players and discussing where people are at. If anyone wants to stop, help them stop. If anyone is being silent, ask their opinion. Make sure everyone wants to continue.

Other roles are important, but the main role is to make sure people want to play.

No game is better than bad game

When things get bad, stop. When someone is unhappy, stop. When you're tired, stop.

It's better to end a game than let it get bad, or let it keep being bad.

If you want to use something during your game, prep it

Most of the things that happened during this game happened at times I was fiddling with Roll20 and OBS. I was switching scenes, adding tokens, etc. The token adding process in Roll20 was SLOW. I need to figure out what was wrong there, but I also need to pay attention to the players. If I had just been watching them and not prepping new scenes, I could have been faster to address offensive content.

I also could have totally eliminated Roll20 and OBS and run the game. That was my decision. If I want to use tools, I need to be prepared for them. At home, I have prepared tiles, minis, maps, etc after years of gaming. Online, I'm learning. I need to prep more for online games until I can handle my GM duties as above as well as my prep.

If you want to learn from it, try again

None of this is stopping me. In fact, I'm more determined than ever to run online games with diverse people. Next time, I'll be better prepared. Some of the tools I'm thinking about include:

• Player surveys to prepare for the game
• Inform players of time of play and frequency in advance
• Plan short arcs (2-3 sessions)
• Look for games that have the right tone
• Explain and show safety tools

I look forward to the follow-up to this article where I've successfully made an online game work well.