This Feature is part of my ongoing True Campaign Managery Course. And it’s best to take the course in the proper order. So if you ain’t been following it — or you don’t know what the hell True Campaign Managery even is — maybe head over to The True Campaign Managery Course Index and start at the start.

If you are a True Campaign Managery student, you’ll probably notice this lesson’s a bit different from the others. It’s definitely got a more rapid-fire, Umpteen Many Tips and Tricks to Make You a Master Meeting Host kind of style to it. All I can say is that that’s just the best way to present this shit.

That said, I have too much self-respect to use that clickbaity bullshit as the actual title of this Feature.

True Meeting Hostery

Today, I’m gonna teach you something every Game Master should know but which no Game Mastering Guide has ever taught anyone. And that’s because, this ain’t a gaming thing, it’s just a thing. Or, really, it’s kind of a professional thing. It’s something you get taught — or should get taught — when you earn a business-type degree. And I’m willing to bet that more than a few True Campaign Managers have picked this shit up from professional communication courses. But, whether that’s true or not, what matters is that every True Campaign Manager has somehow picked this shit up. Because it’s one of those essential things that separate the True Campaign Manager gold from the Mere Campaign Supervisor slag.

Today, I’m gonna teach you how to host a meeting.

Every Game’s a Meeting First

It ain’t an accident that I’m shoving this lesson right between that long-ass crap about Session Zero and the upcoming crap about Character Creation Sessions. But that doesn’t mean today’s lesson applies only to non-gameplay sessions. Every game session you run is, effectively, a meeting. They’re gatherings of people who work together toward a specific goal with the guidance of a manager or curator.

The point is, this shit’s not just to help you with your meet-and-greets and your vision-planning colabs and your character-crafting nights. This shit will help you run every game session more effectively. And True Campaign Managers follow these best practices every game session. Every damned one.

And I expect you to do the same. Get me?

Setting Your Meeting Up for Success

Whether you’re getting ready to host Session Zero over dinner or just running the umpteenth session of your interminable campaign, success starts before your meeting. And so does failure. So make sure you start off right.

Write. It. Down.

Every meeting needs a plan. And I ain’t talking about game prep here. If you want to shit out your entire campaign as one long exercise in off-the-cuff improv, that’s fine. That’s your choice. I’d rather run an actual, good game, but that’s just me. What I’m talking about here is the actual game sessions. The meetings in which you and your players sit down to play your crap game. Those get planned. And they get wrote down.

When I say something like, “Know the Goal” or “Set an Agenda,” — which I’m about to — I ain’t saying, “… and just tuck that shit away in your cute little brain.” I mean, “Write down or type out your goal and agenda.” And I mean, “Bring it to the session.”

You don’t have to write much. Outlines are fine. Bullet points are fine. Even vague notes like, “And then I drop my pants and crap out a game for three hours,” are fine. It’s the act of writing — and following — the plan that’s important.

Know Your Goal

Never, ever gather your players without an express, explicit, deliberate goal. One you’ve written or typed right at the top of your agenda.

If you’re hosting Session Zero, note why you’re wasting your time with Session Zero. Write it down. If there are three reasons — three goals — write them all down.

If you’re hosting Session CG, note precisely what you want to accomplish. Is it to go home with five completely filled-out character sheets or is it just to do the mechanical basics so the players can fill out their sheets and buy equipment on their own time. Whatever you’re planning to accomplish at the meeting, write that down.

And if you’re running a game, write that down. Seriously. You need not write any more than, “Gameplay Session Umpteen”. That counts as a goal. It’s fine. Does it seem silly to write that down? I don’t care. If you could tell a dumb idea from a good one you wouldn’t be taking this course, would you? And you sure as hell wouldn’t dress like you do.

Do remember, though, that there’s a difference between writing a goal and spelling out every step in a process. When it comes to partial character generation, for example, a concise statement like, “Get the players through the major mechanical steps of character creation so they can finish up and fill out their sheets on their own damned time,” is fine.

Have an Agenda

Got your goal? Good. Now it’s time to figure out how to make it happen, cap’n. And that means setting an agenda.

An agenda is a basic meeting plan. It’s sort of a timeline, it’s sort of script, it’s sort of a list of bullet points, or it’s whatever else you need it to be. It’s basically a map that’ll help you lead your players from asses in chair through the goal and back out of your house again. Or from Connecting to Zoom Meeting through the goal and to The Host Has Ended the Meeting.

Depending on what you’re doing, the agenda’s gonna vary. A lot. If you’re planning Character Generation, well, that’s a step-by-step process you can just write down. But if it’s a Meet-and-Greet Session Zero, it’s not so rote. And every Game Session’s agenda has a big blob of run game here in the middle of it.

But remember, you’re starting from the players plonking themselves down at your table — or virtual space — and you’re ending with, “We’re done; go home.” So your agenda’s got to cover how you get from, “Welcome everyone,” to, “So, that’s the situation. What does your character do?” And, how to go from, “Let’s stop here,” to “Get out.”

Knowing that — and identifying a good goal — can also help you figure out how to take an active hand in some of the vaguer activities. Like how to get people talking about their race and class choices. Because that’s always a squirmy, awkward nightmare. And it’ll help you structure a good meet-and-greet. Maybe you’ll start with introductions around the table and then ask some follow-up questions of each player, then a few icebreaker questions to build some momentum for a conversation.

Good game sessions start with things like recaps and re-introductions and some scene setting. And, depending on how you do things, they might end with a recap of the night’s action as a framing device for Experience Point awards or some shit like that. Over time, you’ll probably develop a Standard Session Script. That’s good. But you still have to write it down every time.

Set a Firm Start Time

“Set a start time for your game, huh? No shit, Angry. What a stellar tip.”

Yeah, yeah, shut up. I know y’all tell your players when to show up, but that ain’t what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about is setting the time your game actually starts. The time on the clock when you say, “Shut your yaps, I’m starting.” That’s not the time your monkeys should be drifting through the door. Their asses should already be in their chairs or connected to Zoom or whatever.

And you need to make it utterly, transparently, crystal clear that if a participant ain’t actually ready to participate at that time, they’s late. And depending on your clubhouse rules, that might have repercussions.

Which is why you also…

Set a Firm Arrival Time

Make it clear as frigging crystal to your attendees that you expect them to get their asses through the door — or into the Zoom Room — 10 to 15 minutes before the Firm Start Time. Which means you gotta be ready to meet and greet your attendees. So, you gotta be home and the table’s got to be cleared and the chairs unfolded before that T-minus fifteen-minute mark. Or your hangout has to be open so folks can connect.

It’s okay if you’ve got some papers to shuffle or a map to draw on your big-ass mat, but anything that keeps you from saying, “Hello,” and having polite chit-chat should already be done. You go into host mode at Arrival Time.

If you’ve got a player who consistently shows up outside that ten-to-fifteen minute arrival window — if they frequently show up too late or too early — you’ve got a problem. This means it’s time to practice your conflict resolution chops.

Call Your Meeting to Order

No matter what your meeting’s for, the first thing on your agenda — below the goal, anyway — is the Call to Order. I ain’t saying you need to bang a gavel on the table and say, “Hear ye, hear ye! In my authority as Master of Games, I hearby declare this game session to be started. May the odds be never in your favor,” but you need to do something to make it clear to all and sundry — and ye self — that chatter time is over and focused gaming fun time has commenced.

This is for you as much as for your players. Lots of Game Masters struggle to get everyone’s attention and start talking. Having a standard Call to Order and writing it down really helps that transition. Even if it’s as simple as, “Okay, everyone, let’s start.” Me? I’m partial to, “Shut your holes, losers; I’m running a game here!”

… and Establish Your Meeting’s Goal

The other first thing on your agenda — I guess it’s the second thing — is to make sure everyone knows why you’ve gathered them. Even if everyone already knows the goal, you still gotta say it. Explicitly. Every time. If the goal’s to get to know each other, then discuss the schedule, then talk about your rules o’ the table, say so. If the goal’s to play the fourteenth session in your sixty-session campaign… well, you don’t have to spell out every frigging detail. You can say, “We’re playing session fourteen of our campaign,” or just, “Let’s start our game session.” That’s technically establishing the goal. You just want to remind everyone — and yourself — that there’s a purpose to the get-together. It’s a psychological thing.

My standard Call to Order — “Shut your cake holes; I’m running the game now!” — both calls my game to order and establishes my meeting goal. That’s why I like it.

Keeping the Meeting Engine Purring

As a terrifying witch who once collapsed the English banking system to unjustly punish a man for being a perfectly adequate father once said, “Well begun is half done.” If you prep and start your meeting as I’ve outlined above, you’re halfway to running a decent meeting. You’ll have a nice, smooth start and you’ll easily get to the, “For three hours, run game” portion of the agenda handily.

But nowhere in the world is 50% considered a passing grade. So half done is still basically shit. Once you get your meeting rolling, you’ve got to keep it going.

Now, you’re gonna notice some parallels between these next tips and a bunch of the shit I taught you about being a True Game Master. Especially the pacing stuff. You wanna guess why that is? Because it ain’t a coincidence.

Pay Attention!

The reason you ain’t a True Campaign Manager is that you’re not nearly as attentive as you think you are. I’ve never sat at your table, but I know you suck at paying attention. Because all humans do. And so all Game Masters especially do.

When someone’s speaking, you’re listening. That’s how it be. You ain’t shuffling papers or tinkering with miniatures or taking notes. Unless you’re an expert-level stenographer who can listen and take notes at the same time — and you ain’t — note-taking’s for after listening. Listen, then write.

The vast majority of people stop listening to the shit others are saying partway through and start planning their next response. If you really pay attention, you’ll catch yourself doing the same. And you can’t do that and run a meeting.

And even if no one’s talking to you — even if the players are talking amongst themselves — you’re still listening.

Pay Attention to Attention!

Think you got that attention thing down? Well, let me add another wrinkle. To run a good meeting — any meeting or any game or anything — you’ve got to pay attention to everyone all the time. If someone’s talking, you listen to them. And you make eye contact. Mostly. Because you also need to periodically check in with every other participant. With your eyes.

Every few minutes — when you’re talking or when anyone else is talking — you need to need to bounce your eye contact around a bit. Make eye contact with a couple of the other participants. Or at least, look at their eyes. See where their eyeballs are pointed. Most eyeballs will be pointed at you or at whoever’s speaking. Occasionally, they won’t be. Occasionally, they’ll snap to you when they realize your eyeballs are pointed at them.

Note, however, that I’m not telling you to do anything other than just bounce your eye contact around every few minutes. I ain’t asking you to think, note, catalog, or consciously consider anything. Just bounce your eyes around. You’re doing this to calibrate your personal, intuitive, unconscious, internal attentiveness radar. You’re getting yourself used to paying attention to people’s attention.

I could write a whole fucking thing about this. But I don’t want to. I’m just going to promise that if you do this, two things are gonna happen. Over time. Without you having to think about them. First, your players will feel like you’re more attentive and they will reciprocate. This ain’t a conscious thing, it’s just how humans are wired up socially. Attentiveness begets engagement. Second, your internal attentiveness radar will start to ping you with gut feelings that you’re losing someone. Or that you’re losing everyone. And if you get that feeling, you can act to bring them back. Again, that ain’t a conscious thing.

And this works even if you’ve got some players who are naturally eye-contact averse. That’s why I called it calibration. You’re training your awareness to know what your players look like when they’re paying attention and when they’re not. If you’ve got a player who always looks down at the table because she’s shy and doesn’t do the eye contact thing, that’s fine. But when her eyes start to drift to her sheet or her dice or whatever, that’s a deviation from the norm. She’s drifting. Your brain is wired to notice this shit. It really, truly is. You just have to let it get a baseline with disciplined eye contact.

If you’re running a game online with video chat, that means setting yourself up so you can see everyone’s camera, not just the speaker. So do that. And it’s also worth noting that people’s eyelines are really weird. You never know where someone’s camera is in relation to their screen. This is tricky because people who are used to speaking on camera tend to look into the camera whereas people who ain’t tend to look at who they’re talking to on screen.

There’s actually a neat trick you can do to see where people’s attentive eyelines go when they’re on camera. The next time you introduce a monster, hold a picture up to your camera. “Here… I’ve got a picture of the thoqqua.” While everyone’s looking at the picture, glance at each participant and see where their eyes are going. That’ll tell you where they see whoever’s speaking on their setup.

That ain’t strictly necessary though. It’s more just to satisfy curiosity. Just get in the habit of looking at everyone’s eyes.

If you’re running online without a camera, well, it sucks to be you. That’s the absolute worst. Managing a meeting by voice only is absolutely awful. I hate it. But if you at least make yourself an attentive listener, you will prime your brain to notice delayed responses and awkward pauses. That’s something, at least.

Address People by Name

Okay… that attention thing was the big one. The rest of this shit’s pretty small and simple by comparison.

It’s okay to rely on general questions to make sure it’s okay to proceed — “Everyone good on that? Great. Moving on…” — but you should make it a habit to speak directly to people whenever possible. By name. If you’re doing the online thing, that’s as vital a frigging skill as ever there was.

Even when you do use a general question — “Any questions,” — you should make it a habit of calling out one or two different people every time. Just pick a couple at random. “Any questions? Beth? Chris? Anyone? Moving on…”

That’s it. Easy tip, but it helps.

Call People to Action

When you actually need a response or an action — when you ain’t just giving people a chance to speak up if they want to take it — you can’t be a wishy-washy little pussy about it. Use your active voice and speak in imperatives. Don’t say, “So, uh, we should start generating ability scores. We’ll use four dice and we’ll…” No! Bad! “It’s time to generate ability scores. Adam, you start us off. Grab four six-siders. Roll them six times, drop the lowest die each time, and write the results in order. First Strength, then Dexterity, then so on down the line. Got it? Good. Start rolling and call out each result so we can laugh at your crappy character.”

The same’s true when you need an answer from someone. Or from anyone. Or just some ideas. Active voice and imperative sentences. “We’re brainstorming now. Blurt your ideas out, quick as you can, and I’ll write them down. I’ll stop you if I need to catch up. And… go!”

Check In With Drifters and Wallflowers

Remember how I told you to train your magical, internal, intuitive, unconscious attentiveness radar so you’d start getting gut-feeling pings when someone’s attention starts to drift? And I swore it would happen if you forced yourself to play the eye-contact game? And remember when I told you to get into the habit of addressing people by name even when you’re asking general questions? Just tack a random name or two on the end of every general question?

All that’s so you can handle drifters. People whose attention is fading.

When you feel like someone’s attention is drifting, you must recapture their attention. And if you’ve already established this pattern of saying shit like, “Does that make sense to all y’all? Adam, you get it? Danielle?” then it ain’t weird to say, “Is that clear? Chris, you good?” And that’s what you do when you’ve got a drifter. You’ve just got to say their name. And now you’ve got a way to do it that isn’t, “Hey, dumbass, pay attention.”

More generally, the point is to engage directly with people throughout the meeting. It’s a sort of verbal, social check-in. You do it actively when you see someone drifting, but you also do it whenever someone’s just not participating actively. If you’ve got some shyer, quieter players, check in with them the same way. Some people just struggle to speak up. Giving them an opportunity is all it takes.

Don’t Let People Interrupt… Except Sometimes You

That thing about wallflowers above is important because your goal when hosting a meeting is to create an environment that fosters participation. And I don’t mean that in a modern, safespacey horseshit kind of way. I’m talking basic frigging courtesy.

When someone’s speaking, don’t let anyone interrupt them. And don’t interrupt them yourself. Unless it’s okay for you to interrupt. Which it sometimes is. You’ll figure that out.

If someone does interrupt, politely but firmly interrupt them. “Let me hear what Adam’s saying, please, and then you can respond.”

Tabletop roleplaying games do have a unique Interruption Issue though. When dice get rolled and actions get resolved, that’s very final. So, often, players want to jump in before an action’s finalized. Maybe so their character can react or respond or provide a bonus or just stop a fellow character from causing a disaster. So, never, ever get angry or impatient about interruptions. Keep it firm but polite and make sure you always go back to the interrupter before you finalize everything.

True Campaign Managers actually create a little space — a pause — before anything’s firmly resolved so players don’t feel like they have to interrupt. They know there’s always a space before the final die roll. And True Campaign Managers also have no problem retconning whenever someone is robbed of the chance to interrupt before the resolution.

Curb Side Chatter

Side chatter’s bad for two reasons. First, because everyone at the table deserves everyone else’s attention. That’s how meetings work. And second, because they’re distracting. They make it hard to pay attention to the actual frigging meeting. Background chatter does not help me hear what’s happening at my table. And if you’re doing voice-over-internet meetings, side chatter makes all communication impossible.

Side chatter here means two things. First, it refers to two participants having their own little private conversation during the meeting. And you must quash that shit immediately. Even if the two participants are out of the action and even if they’re discussing something totally relevant and in character. Even if the two players’ characters were left behind at the inn and they’re planning their move. Don’t let that shit happen, but do let them talk on camera as soon as you can cut to them.

Second, side chatter refers to those moments when some participant’s quip or remark or reminiscence draws everyone into an unrelated conversation and away from the meeting’s intended purpose. You’ve got to curb that shit too. I ain’t saying to stomp on every single jokey remark. But when it goes from quip to joke contest or when it turns into a conversation or when all the little quips are getting in the way of your game’s mood and tone, you need to stop that. Politely but firmly.

For the two-person side chatter, it often takes little more than a glance their way and an admonishment like, “Guys?” But you can say something like, “Can you put that on hold until you’re on camera? I promise I’ll cut to you in a moment” to reassure the participants they’ll get a chance to play their scene.

For table distractions, laugh politely and then say, “Okay, let’s get back on track.”

Of course, self-discipline is super important here. Meeting hosts — and Game Masters — can be the absolute worst for distracting quips and asides. Trust me. Because I am definitely the worst culprit at my own table.

Show No Tolerance for Conflict

When you gather people, disagreements are gonna happen. It’s fine. It’s normal. And if you can’t handle that shit, you can’t do social things. That’s how it be. But, as a meeting host, your job is to keep disagreement from turning into actual, serious, outright conflict. Even when someone’s disagreeing with you. Especially when someone disagrees with you.

If someone voices contention — with you or anyone else — hear it out and make a call. And that’s not just for game rules shit. When you’re the host, you’re the arbiter of all disagreements. Once the point’s raised, heard, responded to, and called on, it’s over. The meeting ain’t the place for any further discussion. Ever. So if a participant thinks more discussion is needed, invite them to talk to you outside the meeting.

Even if you ain’t the person they were originally arguing with, it’s your conflict now. They can speak to you after the meeting.

If you can’t stop the conflict from escalating, stop the meeting. Pull the conflict-havers aside and make it clear this ain’t the time and place for the conflict. Give everyone — yourself included — five minutes to cool off and then restart the meeting. Do not try to resolve the conflict as a sidebar during this pause. This is meeting time. Conflict resolution happens after meeting time, not during it. You’re not pausing the meeting to solve the problem, you’re pausing the meeting so everyone can move past the problem. The end.

Is this shit hard? Yep. Welcome to Campaign Management. I promise I will teach you some conflict resolution skills before this course’s final exam.

Break Every Two Hours

Every two hours, stop for five to ten minutes.

Just do it.

Wrapping Up

Now you know how to plan a meeting and how to start it and how to keep it going. But do you know how to end it? Because the ending’s an extremely important part of every meeting. And it’s one most Mere Campaign Supervisors overlook. Which is why it’s something you should absolutely put on your agenda.

Don’t skip the ending.

Review and Thank You

Start the end of every meeting by thanking your participants for, you know, participating. Even if they didn’t. Even if they sucked at it. Partly, it’s polite, but partly it’s lubricant. Just like a standard Call to Order helps you start a meeting, a standard Thanks for Coming helps you transition from host mode to cleanup mode.

After your transition, provide a quick summary of what you accomplished. Remember that goal you set? List what you did to accomplish that goal. If you agreed on a schedule, review the schedule. If you set some Clubhouse Rules, run through them quick. If you made characters, say, “And now we have our party. Adam is Ardrick the fighter and Beth is Beryllia the wizard…” and so on. And if you ran a game session…

It’s good practice to end every game session with a mini-review of the session’s action. If you’re doing experience and advancement the smart way, you’ve got an excellent framework for your after-session mini-review.

The point here is to remind everyone at the end of every meeting what you actually accomplished.

The Call to Action

Finally, finish the end of every meeting with a Call to Action. What’s that? Basically, it’s you telling your participants what to do now. Or what to do next. Or what they’re responsible for. Firmly and unambiguously and precisely.

Every meeting you host — no matter the purpose — must end with a clear Call to Action.

Do the players have to complete their character sheets? Tell them so. And remind them how to submit them. And give them a due date.

Do the players have to watch their e-mail boxes for a campaign pitch? Tell them so. And tell them when to expect it.

Do the players have to send you a note about what their characters are doing in their downtime? Tell them so. And tell them how to send that note. And when it’s due.

Do the players just have to show up, on time, for the first game? Or the next game? Tell them when it is and when they’re to waddle through the door. And what they should bring with them.

Every. Damned. Time.

Thank You…

So that’s it. That’s Angry’s — let me quickly count this shit up; eighteen? Huh. — that’s Angry’s 18 Tips and Tricks to Host Meetings like a True Campaign Manager. That’s a lot of tips, so maybe a recap is in order.

Plan your meetings on paper. Write shit down. Set a goal for every meeting and build an agenda.

Establish firm start times and arrival times for your meetings and actually enforce them.

Call your meetings to order and immediately tell everyone why they’re there. Even when everyone already knows.

During the meeting, give everyone your undivided attention and make frequent eye contact with all participants. Address participants by name, even when asking general questions, and when you need responses or actions, use clear, imperative sentences and speak in an active voice.

Check in with inactive participants and folks whose attention seems to be waning by addressing them by name. Cover what you’re doing by asking for responses to general questions.

Don’t interrupt people. Don’t let people interrupt each other. Squash side chatter. Be polite, but be firm. Don’t get impatient.

Never allow a disagreement to turn into a conflict. If a conflict arises, put it aside and promise to resolve it later.

Give everyone a break every two hours.

Recap the meeting at the end and remind everyone what to do next with a firm Call to Action.

That’s a lot to implement all at once, though. So, while you’re watching this space for my next lesson, I want you to focus on three things. First, from now on, set an agenda for every meeting and game you run. Second, deliberately practice that eye contact thing. Get used to making eye contact with your participants throughout every meeting. Third, practice tacking names at the end of all your general questions.

And with that, I’m done. Get the hell out of my classroom.