As a sexy gaming genius, I don’t like to admit that I struggle with s$&%. But I do. I am human. I’m a better human than most, but I am still a human. And, in a totally human way, I struggle to run games online. Even after a couple of years of doing it, I still can’t seem to get the pacing, narration, and engagement where I want them.

Part of it’s down to the fact that — being an old dog — I just f$&%ing refuse to adjust my style to the medium. Part of it’s down to the fact that my online games have really inconsistent schedules that prevent me from building up any kind of momentum at all. Part of it’s that I’m still trying to find tools I like and ways to use them which don’t distract from running games. Part of it’s just all the sorts of distractions and problems that electronic s$&% brings. Part of it’s…

Look, there are lots of parts. But, honestly, I’m sick of it. I’ve got a couple of online games running right now and I’m this close to enjoying myself for the first time in years. And if I could just get to a point where I felt like I was running my best game, I might actually be happy. And then I’d die of shock. Probably.

The thing is, I’m not a keep trying the same thing until I get it right kind of guy. Which is both good and bad. It’s good because s$&% that isn’t working doesn’t get better if you don’t change something. But it’s bad because s$&% takes time to work sometimes so you’ve got to be willing to stay the course. But this ain’t life advice. It’s a blog about pretend elf games.

Last week, I finally hit my breaking point with my pretend elf games. So, last week, I locked myself away in my office with an empty notebook and a big pot of coffee and I shut down my computer and turned off my phone and I resolved to, once and for all, figure this s%$& out.

And figure this s$&% out I maybe did. Because I have pages of notes and a list of action things to try. This article’s about one of those things. Well, one thing and maybe one bonus thing. One thing I implemented immediately and which is pretty close to something I was already doing so I’m confident it’s a good tool. And it’s good for all games, not just online games.

As I keep implementing other changes to how I pace and narrate my games and engage my players and find out what works and what doesn’t, I’ll keep you in the loop. Anyway, on with the show.

Too Much for One Article

This is a late-breaking edit. Because this article got too damned long very near the end of the draft. And that’s after I published my recently revised content schedule. Originally, I was going to include a bonus topic about how to describe characters. A script within a script you could hand your players to help them introduce their characters and that you could also use to describe NPCs. Which I personally think is super useful. But it made this article too damned long. So, expect an article very soon about the Description Script. And expect it to bump one of the articles I promised yesterday I’d write.

Sorry. But also not sorry.

Starting is the Hardest Part

Do you struggle to start your D&D sessions? Do you sit there and shuffle papers while your players yammer through their pre-session socialization trying to figure out what to say first?

S$&% like that never happens to me. I’m a sexy gaming genius. And my narration, pacing, and engagement skills are top-shelf. I don’t care what you read in the Long, Rambling Introduction™; I do not have any pacing or flow problems. S$&% like that happens to people like you. People who aren’t sexy gaming geniuses.

And even if it doesn’t happen to you — even if you’ve got no problem saying, “okay, shut up, let’s start… here’s the deal” — you might still be screwing up your game. Because how you start your session is really important. Not just to you, but to your players too. Start right — and drag your players along — and you’ll establish the inertia that’ll carry you and your players through hours of gaming goodness.

Not only that, but if you start right, you’ll find your players are more engaged and involved. And they’re better able to narrate their characters’ actions. In short, start right, and you’ll draw them deep into the game.

It’s all about transitions.

Shifting Brain Gears

Here’s the part where I mention a bunch of scientific studies and assert my status as a deeply interested layperson to prove I’m not about to talk out of my a$&. And you’d respond with “citation needed” and I’d counter with “I’m just trying to help you run better pretend elf games and you’re here because you know you need help and you know I’ve got it, so either trust what I say or go bother Justin Alexander. It ain’t worth it for me to prove my assertions” and then you’ll say, “well, then I don’t believe what you’re saying” and then you’ll leave and keep running sucky games and I’ll keep running amazing games and never struggle with anything ever.

I’mma skip that part today.

Your brain struggles to change gears. To change mindsets. To switch from one task to another. This is why multitasking doesn’t exist and you’re not good at it. You just don’t want to put down your damned phone and give me your actual attention because you’re a screen junkie.

To run an RPG, you’ve got to be in the right brain space. And it’s the same for playing RPGs. RPGs require a lot of visualization and a lot of description. Even if you’re a player, you just can’t RPG if you can’t keep an imaginary world in your head and an imaginary character and describe how your character’s moving through that world.

But, visualization and narration and description are hard. Seriously hard. Our brains work on stimulus-response type s$&% most of the time. Something happens, the brain perceives it, a bunch of impulses ricochet around the skull, and then an action results. Playing an RPG is about interrupting that process. Translating language into sensory impressions in imaginespace, imagining what’s happening in imaginespace, figuring out what you want to happen in imaginespace and how to make that happen, and then translating that back into language and spewing it from your noisehole.

If that s$&% were easy, there’d be no crappy authors. Only great ones. And we all know the ratio of crap authors to good ones is bad. And it’s getting worse every year.

Point is, playing or running a roleplaying game requires a lot of mental yoga. You’re trying to bend your brain into a lot of unnatural positions. And like yoga, it’s a lot easier if you do some stretching exercises and then ease yourself into it rather than just jumping right into belligerent buffalo or bhairavasana or whatever.

Your job — as a GM — isn’t just to ease yourself into the mental yoga that is roleplaying games but also to ease your players into it. That’s why starting right is so important. And why your startup script affects a whole bunch of apparently unrelated aspects of your game. Like whether or not your players give you their marching order unprompted when they walk down a set of stairs and tell you what weapon they’re attacking with.

More Than a Recap

In past articles, I told you to start your sessions with a recap. I even gave you a simple script to follow. Today’s advice doesn’t replace that advice. It builds on it. Consider this an evolution of the recap. Because I’ve come to discover that starting properly is about more than just reminding the players where they are and what they’re doing.

So, I’m going to repeat a few things I’ve said before. But I’m going to say a few new things too. And I’m going to shuffle things around. And I’m going to emphasize some different parts of the process.

Basically, don’t shrug this off as something you’ve seen before.

Angry’s Simple and Simply Amazing Session Startup Script

Do you want to start your sessions right? Of course you do. I just got done telling you how f$&%ing important it is to start your sessions right. Don’t be a moron.

Anyway, if you want to start your sessions right, you’ve just got to follow Angry’s Simple and Simply Amazing Session Startup Script. And there’s three ways to follow it. You can use the Script to write out your entire opening monologue in advance. Or you can use the Script to write down a bunch of bullet points to hit at the start of the session. Or you can keep the Script handy when your session starts and follow it extemporaneously and by memory. Which is what I do. Because I play on hard mode.

Whatever works for you is fine, but I recommend not writing entire scripts to read aloud if you don’t have to. The more you have to think to speak, the better off you are. Reading aloud ain’t thinking.

Anyway…

Here’s Angry’s Simple and Simply Amazing Session Startup Script:

1. Call to Order
2. Table Business
3. Recap the Campaign
   1. Describe the Current Goal and Motivation
   2. Describe Subgoals and Motivations
   3. Recount Major Plot Points from Sessions Past
   4. Recap the Most Recent Previous Session
   5. Reiterate Important Information
4. Reintroduce the Party
   1. Have the Players Reintroduce their PCs
   2. Reintroduce any NPC Party Companions
5. Describe the Current Situation
   1. Recall the Current Plan of Action
   2. Describe the PCs’ Current Locations and Activities
6. Start the Game
   1. Visualize and Set the Scene
   2. Invite the Principle Character to Act

That’s it. A simple, six-point script to go from “shut up, I’m running a game,” to “what do you do?”

And now, I’m going to walk you through the script. Step by step. And use running examples from my two, ongoing games.

But note that, as useful as the Script is — and it’s hella useful — it’s incomplete. At least, it’s not as complete as it could be. There are two things I plan to expand upon very soon. Like, in the next two weeks. One’s about Character Reintroductions. The other is about Inviting Characters to Act and it explains the concept of Principle Character.

But, today, I’m just walking you through this Script.

Call to Order

First things first: you must clearly state that the game has officially begun. When it’s time to start the game — which is determined by the clock and not whenever you’re ready or whenever your players are ready — when it’s time to start the game, get everyone’s attention and establish that, from this point forward, it’s gameplay time.

How? That’s up to you. But it’s best to come up with a phrase or action you can use every session. One that gets everyone’s eyeballs on you. And after you use your phrase, if anyone’s eyeballs ain’t on you, you are legally allowed to yell at them.

All right, shup up y’all! It’s game time.

And if that doesn’t work…

What part of ‘shut up, it’s game time’ isn’t getting through to you, Alice?

Table Business

Once everyone’s listening, it’s time for Table Business. Scheduling discussions, rules clarifications, conflict resolutions, all that s$&%. All the game club administration and operation crap. Anything related to playing and running RPGs that isn’t actually playing and running RPGs.

If you don’t have any Table Business to discuss, invent some. Seriously. This part of the script transitions people’s brains from a hangout with friends to a gathering of a club. And that’s part of the gradual transition from yammering goobers in a basement — or Zoom Room — to mythical heroes in a world of dungeons and/or dragons.

First, remember that we’re off for the next two weeks. So our next session will be Friday, October 7th at the usual time. After that, we’re back to our every-other-Friday rotation. I also fixed all your encumbrance numbers. You all had them wrong so I wasted my entire weekend doing the third-grade math that’s apparently too much for y’all. You’re welcome.

And if I’ve got no actual Table Business, I might say something like…

Thanks for showing up on time. Our schedule’s getting more consistent and I’m really feeling that momentum. Let’s keep it up.

Basically, if you’ve got nothing official, come up with some generic bulls$&% that sounds like club business. Just come up with different generic bulls$&% every week so no one gets wise.

Recap the Campaign

Now that you’re all out of social mode and into game club mode, it’s time to start getting into actual game mode. And in this step, you’ll notice there’s a pattern to all this s$%&. One I call bigger to smaller. Or maybe generaller to specificer might be better. And it’s a narrative pattern you should get down. Because it’s a great way to describe or teach or explain anything ever.

It’s as simple as starting with the biggest, sweepingest, overarchingest stuff and then getting more detailed and more specific with every following sentence.

The point of recapping is to remind the players what they’re trying to accomplish, what’s happened so far, and what bits of useful information they have uncovered. And note my use of the word remind instead of regurgitate. You don’t want to go point-by-point and rehash absolutely every last f$&%ing thing that has happened since the players accepted their current quest. And you don’t even want to give the players every last detail they need to win.

To make sure you cover all the bases in the right order without going too far, I’ve broken this part of the Script down into a five-point subscript.

Describe the Current Goal and Motivation

First, remind the players what the adventure’s current major goal is. As far as the characters know. And, insofar as it makes sense, remind them why they’re doing it. What’s at stake? Who benefits? What do they hope to accomplish? You can’t always do that. It doesn’t always make sense. But do it when you can.

You’re escorting a woman named Ananda into Shadowpine Forest south of Frostwind to check in with an herbalist named Marna. Ananda works at the apothecary’s shop in Frostwind and hasn’t heard from Marna, the shop’s supplier, in weeks. By helping Ananda, you hope to establish a relationship between the League of the Blue Cloak and a useful healer and potion maker. And maybe get a discount on potions for yourselves.

Or…

Each of you is traveling to Mitrios in Old Zethinia for reasons of your own. Your goal is just to get there alive.

Describe Subgoals and Motivations

Does the current adventure have any special conditions for victory? Has the party taken on any side dodges or optional goals? Remind the players of those as well. And why they’re worth doing.

You’ve befriended the crew of the Aster, their captain, and a traveling scholar, all of whom are journeying with you to Mitrios. And you’ve become their defacto bodyguards. Try to keep them alive.

Recount Major Plot Points from Sessions Past

If you’re like me — and you aren’t; I’m amazing — if you’re like me, you rarely get your adventures done in a session or two. That means you’ve usually got to recap the events from two, three, or more sessions at the start of each game. But you can’t let your recaps get longer and longer as the adventure drags on. Unless you’re running Dragonball Z the RPG and can get away with your “last time, on DBZ” eating up half your session time.

The point is, you want to quickly run through the major plot points that happened between the start of the adventure itself and the start of last week’s session. That is, all the big, important s$&% that happened in the sessions before the last one. And you want to do it in one paragraph and no more. Which means economizing.

Five days ago, as strangers, you boarded a coastal roundship called the Aster. You met your allies on the ship and also befriended a traveling religious scholar named Gratia who was also headed for Mitrios. Though she was friendly, she did not share any details about her religious order or her mission. The journey was pleasant and calm until the evening of Summerswax the 13th when a strange storm overtook the ship, apparently coming from the direction the ship was headed. Impossibly thick, black clouds blotted out the sky completely, the only light coming from the occasional flashes of crimson lightning. The storm included no wind or rain, just a light, snow-like fall of ash. When the ship was at anchor in a sheltered cover, riding out the storm, the mast was struck by lightning and the resulting damage caused the ship to take on water. You, the scholar, and the crew abandoned the ship and established a camp on the beach to wait for morning.

Yeah, that’s pretty detailed. But it covers three sessions of social interaction, encounters, and combats. Notice, however, I didn’t mention all that crap. Just the major plot points.

Recap the Most Recent Previous Session

Once you’ve recapped everything that came before the last session you played, you’ve obviously got to describe that one. Just run through the important s$&% that happened in the last game session. You want to be a little more detailed than you were with all the previous sessions, but not much more. Minor encounters? Shopping trips? Conversations with extras and side characters? Skip that crap. Recapping the previous session shouldn’t take any more time than recapping all the sessions before it did.

At dawn on Springsebb 8, you left Frostwind with Ananda. You paid your respects to the gods and the spirits at a roadside shrine and a primal fane, then traveled south along the old Imperial Road. At noon, you encountered a pair of farmers escorting a prisoner to Frostwind to face Baroness Redmayne’s judgment. They claimed the prisoner — Halvar — had robbed and burned a church. He protested his innocence and begged for help, but you ignored him. In mid-afternoon, you reached the thorp of Sigur’s Market. A small collection of farms surrounding a market square protected by a log palisade. At the local inn, ‘Neath the Pines, you secured meals and rooms. And you were approached by a disheveled, brooding warrior who claimed to be a bounty hunter and asked the party to help him apprehend a bandit. But you refused.

Or…

With your camp secure and the sailors scavenging supplies from the sinking Aster, you decided to patrol the perimeter. In the inky, total darkness under the impossibly thick storm clouds, you discovered a place where two dozen ancient swords and spearheads had been driven into the beach. A memorial, perhaps. As you examined the site, you became aware of an aura of necromantic magic suffusing the swords and spreading out to cover the beach as the red moon, Krisma, rose unseen behind the dark clouds. Skeletal swordsmen pulled themselves from the sand and attacked. You barely defeated them. When you returned to camp, you found it too under attack. You helped the sailors fight off the skeletons, but one sailor — Aeolus — was gravely injured and another — Eight Toes — was killed.

Reiterate Important Information

During their adventures, the players — and their characters — often learn important bits of information that might actually help them win. Clues, rumors, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, hints, and other s$&% like that. Often, the means by which they learned the information isn’t important. It isn’t worth recapping. But the information itself is worth remembering.

Once you’re done recounting the adventure’s plot, briefly remind the players of any major bits of relevant information that are important for their success.

In your travels, you learned that Shadowpine Forest has been strange and unwelcoming of late. The rumors are vague but speak of shadowy watchers stalking travelers and a sense of unwelcome that grows as one travels deeper into the forest. You also learned a young man named Olek left Sigur’s Market for Frostwind more than a week ago with a bundle of beaver pelts to sell on the thorp’s behalf and he hasn’t returned even though the trip should take no more than a day each way.

Reintroduce the Party

When I start a new campaign, I force the players to introduce their characters to the group. Usually the first time a given character appears on screen. The player gives their character’s name and describes their character’s physical appearance. “Hi! Here’s my character’s name! This is what your characters see when they look at mine.” That kind of crap.

A habit I’ve recently established is making the players do that every session. And it’s worked out really well. Especially when my gaming schedule’s gotten a little inconsistent and we’ve been going long stretches between sessions. It’s been so successful that it’s now officially a part of my standard modus operanding procedure and it should be part of yours.

Now, this s$&% ain’t a chance for each player to deliver a long monologue about their character’s personality and backstory. At my table, personality is a thing you build through play and backstory is a thing that’s boring and limited and not worth sharing. Because I run roleplaying games, not Fanfiction.net. So, mostly, the reintroduction’s about the player describing their character’s race, physical appearance, equipment, and apparent mannerisms. S$&% you’d see if you were watching a movie about the character.

I also ask each player to share one thing the party learned about their character recently. Preferably last session. In the early days of a campaign, such recent facts are mostly about the character’s class, skills, and combat abilities. But gradually, they’re replaced with backstory details and personality traits.

Yeah. I know what I said and I know what I’m saying. There’s a huge-a$& difference between sharing your character’s prewritten psych profile and recapping something that came out during play. And the difference is exactly that. See, this whole reintroduction thing’s really about getting the players to do little, tiny recaps of their own personal story.

The thing is that, while some players deliver their descriptions by rote — or just read them aloud — that little one thing you learned about me at the end keeps the whole thing from getting too rote. Too by the book. Even if the rest of the reintroduction is a prepared script, every player’s got one thing that has to change every session.

And this whole reintroduction thing is where Angry’s Amazing Startup Script helps transition the players to their visualization and narration brain spaces. This ain’t about reminding the players who their companions are. It’s about making each player picture their own character. Load it into active, imaginative memory. And then describe it. As such, it also helps each player remember details about their character that they often forget. As well as reminding the other players of them.

How often have players forgotten what kind of armor their characters are wearing? How often have players forgotten their companions are playing different races or genders or whatever? How often have you forgotten this s$&%? Too often. Too. F$&%ing. Often.

Some players are gonna find this s$&% tedious. I know. My players ain’t shy about telling me so. And some players are going to phone this s$&% in. And they’re going to complain every time. But they’re going to do it anyway. Because you won’t let them play until they do. And you won’t let them get away with doing less than a minimally good job. So, no matter how much they hate it, your players are gonna get good at it. And, consequently, they’ll get good at visualizing and describing in general. It might take weeks, it might take months, but it’ll happen.

There is a problem, though. And it’s that players tend to be really inconsistent with this descriptive crap. And that’s why I came up with Angry’s… uh… something something… Description Script. A point-by-point set of prompts to hand your players to ensure they write minimally good descriptions. To ensure they don’t leave anything out and also that they don’t go too damned far. And that script is also an excellent tool for describing NPCs. With some modifications, of course.

But Angry’s Superlative Description Script — and the helpful tips that accompany it — are coming soon! Because I don’t have the word count to cram it in today.

Meanwhile, once your players have reintroduced their characters, then it’s your turn to reintroduce any NPC companions who are effectively members of the party.

Ananda is a young, human woman of Zethinian descent. She’s short, slim, and mousy. Short brown hair and hazel eyes. She wears simple, functional traveling clothes, a thick, woolen hood, and carries a heavy, supply-laden pack. A sickle hangs at her belt, equally useful for gardening and self-defense. And she is accompanied by a terrier-sized fox with pale, white fur.

Grattia Avenatti is a traveling scholar priestess. Her medium skin is tanned from travel and her thick, black hair is braided and wrapped into a tight bun. She is dressed in layered clothing, well-maintained and suitable for traveling the shore of the Circle Sea and central Zethinia. She uses an iron-shod quarterstaff as a walking staff. Two copper medallions hang around her neck. One identifies her as a devotee of the Twins. The other is inscribed with a locked book, its significance unknown to you.

Describe the Current Situation

Throughout this whole Session Startup Script thing, I’ve had you going from general to specific. But I’ve also had you moving from the past to the present. And with the characters reintroduced, you’ve pretty much caught up to the in-game current moment. Which means you’re almost ready to start the game.

Almost.

Before you can Set the Scene and Invite the Characters to Act — which is when gameplay actually starts — you’ve got to put the players into their character’s heads and into the present moment. And there are two parts to that.

Recall the Current Plan of Action

First, remind the players what it was they were planning to do next when the session ended. If you’ve been following my advice about properly planning your next sessions, you should know your players plans.

And if you don’t, well, that’s the price of not doing what I f$&%ing tell you to.

Of course, it’s entirely possible your players intended to sit down and come up with a plan at the start of the next session. In that case, coming up with a plan is the plan. So remind them of that.

Glamdrig intended to visit the blacksmith to see if they needed an extra hand for a few hours. Thogrinn and Rozen were about to head over to the furrier to see if he’d buy the wolf’s pelt the party confiscated from the wolf they killed last session. And Quintus wanted to visit the village’s priest and ask for details about the fire and the robbery.

Or…

The skeletons have been dispatched, but their attack raises a question about the safety of the beach campsite. The party will need to decide the next course of action with Captain Sirvan.

Describe the PCs’ Current Locations and Activities

Once you’ve put the players into their characters’ heads — by reminding them of their immediate intentions — now you’ve got to put the characters into the present moment by reminding the players where the characters are when the game starts up and what they’re doing. Note this isn’t setting the scene. Instead, it’s introducing the scene you’re about to set.

You’ve just finished your early dinner together in the common room of the ‘Neath of the Pines in Sigur’s Market.

Or…

With the skeletons defeated and the wounded tended, the party is on watch at the sailors’ camp on the beach and considering their next move.

Start the Game by Setting the Scene and Inviting the Principle Character to Act

That final bit of recap — the where-you-are-and-what-you’re-doing bit — provides an excellent segue into actually starting the game. All that’s left is to Set the Scene you just transitioned into and Invite the Principle Character to Act.

I assume you ain’t new to this GMing s$&% and therefore don’t need me to explain that or provide an example like:

The camp’s bonfire sends shadows dancing against the boulders that protect the makeshift camp. Overhead, the sky is blotted by impossibly thick clouds and the night is dark as pitch. Flecks of pale ash drift through the air like a snow flurry. Amongst the salvaged sacks and crates of supplies, the sailors eat, drink, and rest, glancing furtively at the edge of the camp. A few sailors have taken up watch along the perimeter, though no one can see beyond the firelight. Everyone is tense and quiet, still stunned by the sinking of the Aster, the mysterious darkness, the ashfall, and the sudden onslaught of undead. Away from the camp, you’re sitting with the portly, dark-skinned captain, tending to your own prodigious wounds. The captain is saying, “we need to consider our next course… do we hold this camp and risk another attack or do we seek a way off this cursed beach with whatever supplies we can carry?” He looks to Aquila. “What say you…”

Well, Bob, what says Aquila?

Except…

The thing is, when I sat down and analyzed my online game’s pacing and flow, I realized I’d gotten pretty damned clumsy and casual about inviting characters to act. And also about what sorts of action declarations I’d accept instead of red-penning. And those are actually really bad things to be clumsy-casual about. So, I came up with some solutions. And, at the time of writing, I’ve already started implementing them.

One of them’s wrapped up in the way I specifically said, “invite the principle character to act.”

The way I see it is that, if I — sexy gaming genius that I am — if I’m having a problem, I can be damned sure lots of other people are having it too. So it’s probably worth an article, wouldn’t you say?

Let’s add that one to the Coming Soon… pile as well.