While stuck in a boring meeting, I was doing a bit of game planning. (I like making sure that I have the overall plot points/beats of the campaign mapped out so I can foreshadow/drop clues appropriately). In so doing, I have a rough idea of how many sessions are left in the campaign.
Is this information worth sharing with the players? Is there any point to not sharing the information?
For reference we're about 17 sessions in, and I expect another 17 sessions to go (very roughly). We play about every other week for 4 hrs. My thinking is that this could let the players know a general end time (ie 34 weeks or so in real world time).
Thanks!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I generally don't worry about letting the players know, there's something about letting the story do the work for you. If you're pacing it well and the players are all in then they'll feel the climax coming, they'll feel that there's a major battle happening soon. I feel if you give them a countdown then it has a way of taking the anticipation and excitement out of it. When they finish that climactic battle, win or lose, there is the dropping of the curtain, the resolution of their journey. I'm a romantic in that nature, and I feel that it's integral to a well played journey, giving it the weight of the players knowing, through their actions alone, that they've brought an end to the story.
The only time it becomes a real thing that players might be interested in knowing is if the campaign is either coming to a close (so the last 3-5 sessions), or players need to schedule other events out and check p on their game time commitments.
I'm running a Star Wars game now, and before we started, two of my players were curious about how long I expected the game to last so that it didn't bump into anything else they were planning on doing that day of the week for a few months.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I wouldn't. I just don't see any benefit to it. You're 4mths in, the players are obviously committed to the campaign because they're still turning up. And like JCAUDM said, a lot can happen in 17 sessions and unless you like railroading players, that 17 could easily become 25. Who knows. So no, I wouldn't. I only start looking at how many pages a book has left if I'm not really enjoying the book.
I personally wouldn't worry about it. To much can and should happen in a large story to change the amount of games. I had a event where a dragon killed a player, the fight wasn't supose to happen but player a being players it did. Several game sessions got spent hunting down and killing that damn dragon, the dead characters in game best friend took it bad and began hunting other dragons. My game went very wide in a cool way from my original storyline, tell finaly it went back to it. Don't rob yourself as the dm of possible cool story archs by thinking of a game by the numbers.
Also it could cheapen a event. If the big bad guy shows up before the characters are ready for him because you want him to mess with the players, and they know you got 5 more games planed they know it's safe, if they got no clue what your planing they will feel the thrill of running for their lives, or throwing their lives down to try and save the rest of their friends, even if you got no plan to kill them at that time.
Lots of good feedback. Ya'll are right, ultimately the story will end up deciding things and there's little sense, particularly this far out, in setting an expectation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Good day all,
While stuck in a boring meeting, I was doing a bit of game planning. (I like making sure that I have the overall plot points/beats of the campaign mapped out so I can foreshadow/drop clues appropriately). In so doing, I have a rough idea of how many sessions are left in the campaign.
Is this information worth sharing with the players? Is there any point to not sharing the information?
For reference we're about 17 sessions in, and I expect another 17 sessions to go (very roughly). We play about every other week for 4 hrs. My thinking is that this could let the players know a general end time (ie 34 weeks or so in real world time).
Thanks!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
if it was something more like 3-4 sessions, I'd be in favour. 17 is a bit far out and a lot of stuff can happen in that time.
I generally don't worry about letting the players know, there's something about letting the story do the work for you. If you're pacing it well and the players are all in then they'll feel the climax coming, they'll feel that there's a major battle happening soon. I feel if you give them a countdown then it has a way of taking the anticipation and excitement out of it. When they finish that climactic battle, win or lose, there is the dropping of the curtain, the resolution of their journey. I'm a romantic in that nature, and I feel that it's integral to a well played journey, giving it the weight of the players knowing, through their actions alone, that they've brought an end to the story.
The only time it becomes a real thing that players might be interested in knowing is if the campaign is either coming to a close (so the last 3-5 sessions), or players need to schedule other events out and check p on their game time commitments.
I'm running a Star Wars game now, and before we started, two of my players were curious about how long I expected the game to last so that it didn't bump into anything else they were planning on doing that day of the week for a few months.
I wouldn't. I just don't see any benefit to it. You're 4mths in, the players are obviously committed to the campaign because they're still turning up. And like JCAUDM said, a lot can happen in 17 sessions and unless you like railroading players, that 17 could easily become 25. Who knows. So no, I wouldn't. I only start looking at how many pages a book has left if I'm not really enjoying the book.
I personally wouldn't worry about it. To much can and should happen in a large story to change the amount of games. I had a event where a dragon killed a player, the fight wasn't supose to happen but player a being players it did. Several game sessions got spent hunting down and killing that damn dragon, the dead characters in game best friend took it bad and began hunting other dragons. My game went very wide in a cool way from my original storyline, tell finaly it went back to it. Don't rob yourself as the dm of possible cool story archs by thinking of a game by the numbers.
Also it could cheapen a event. If the big bad guy shows up before the characters are ready for him because you want him to mess with the players, and they know you got 5 more games planed they know it's safe, if they got no clue what your planing they will feel the thrill of running for their lives, or throwing their lives down to try and save the rest of their friends, even if you got no plan to kill them at that time.
Thanks everyone!
Lots of good feedback. Ya'll are right, ultimately the story will end up deciding things and there's little sense, particularly this far out, in setting an expectation.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"