A
few weeks ago, after over 3 straight years of gaming virtually, I came back to
the table and GM'd a game in person. It wasn't because I was being overly
cautious that it took so long to play in person, it was that I PERSONALLY had
not had to GM a game in person for that long. I was a little rusty, I had
way too much stuff, and I had to really rethink about the difference of GMing
in person vs virtually.
Prologue
I
started rpg’s in 1981. And Moldvay Basic was the culprit. I’ll touch on the
seminal event for me and those all-important rules at a later time, but suffice
it to say, rpg’s have been a part of my world for over 40 years. Fast forward. Prior
to the Pandemic, our current group had been roleplaying off and on for over a
decade. Most of our focus was on OSR and Retroclones and even a little 5e found
its way in as we explored the things we liked. I particularly still loved B/X
and the retroclones that patterned their work on it, and I was particularly
enamored with Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future.
And
as much as we enjoyed roleplaying, our much larger group, The Basement
Generals, was a miniature gaming group. Historicals, fantasy, sci fi, you name
it we gamed it. And while RPG’s were many of our groups original love, we were
all hardcore miniature gamers as well.
The
Pandemic changed that. When shutdown occurred in Mid-March of 2020, we were
simply unable to miniature game. Miniature gaming is in person and on a table
pushing figs and rolling dice. None of which was possible when the Pandemic hit
in full force. March 17th was the first day of Shutdown. We had no
way to miniature game, but we had been rpging occasionally, and had good
interest in the larger game group. After a couple of weeks of fear, plotting,
scheming, and needing an outlet from what was going on around us, we
established a core group and played our first virtual Session Zero on April 7th,
2020.
We
started a fantasy sandbox, four players and myself using Advanced Labyrinth
Lord, once a week. The group grew. We started playing the sandbox on Thursdays
and added Tuesdays as an alternate for all the hundreds of other games we
wanted to try. We played the fantasy sandbox for over three years. Our last game
was on March 9th. Almost three years to the date we started. There
were seven players with 7-9th level characters when we finished. It
was the best roleplay experience I ever had.
We
started gaming in person in 2021. Lots of miniatures, but some occasional RPG’s
as well. But since I was running the sandbox game virtually for convenience of
schedules, I never ran any in-person games since the pandemic started. I was
content to let others run any rpg’s they wanted. Fast forward to after March 9th
2023.
We
finished (or agreed to take a long pause) the sandbox, and other members of the
group wanted to explore different games. We have all leaned heavily into DCC
recently and began playing a couple of small, linked campaigns. An open slot
came up, and I volunteered to run a 2nd Edition Astonishing
Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea sandbox. I was going to be running a game
back at the table.
Game
Prep
Since
I had not run a game in-person in 3 years, I had to prep the sandbox, the closest
adventure sites, and prep for what would happen if they simply said I’m not
interested in your adventure hooks. And make sure most of it was analog. In
addition, I needed game books, GM screen, character sheets, mapping, dice, etc.
And I had to carry it over to where we game and set up.
The
mini sandbox, the adventure sites, and adventure design all go good. All the
game stuff got hauled and set up. A weird combination of paper and GM screen,
dice, ipad, laptop, players manuals, a custom GM manual. It sprawled like a
90’s subdivision across the end of a 6’ wide table. It was way too much stuff. Since
I had fully embraced digital tools as a part of how I GM, I had no solid
approach for combining digital tools at the table. And that lead to an important
thing I had evolved digitally and liked a lot. I now had a mapping problem.
The
adventure site we were going to explore was a winding cavern system. A
beautiful Dyson Logos map (as usual) that I populated. But how do I bring that
to the table? I care a lot about the maps and what they look like, evoke for
the players, and I believe in fog of war. The beauty of Dyson’s maps have
spoken to me for years now and in my mind’s eye are a part of what my sandbox
worlds look like. Using them as digital mapping was a snap in a virtual
session. I could add fog, have specific colors for PC’s and Monsters and use it
as a management tool for explorartion and engagements. Not so easy or fluid in
person. I want the evocative maps that I use. Its one of my favorite things. I
also want fog. I don’t want the players to see more than is reasonable. This
one I have to figure out. My expectations for mapping have changed. So I
grabbed a roll of trace paper, printed the map at double scale and prepared to
trace the map as the party went through the caves.
The Game
I
love Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (ASSoH), or Hyperborea
as the stellar 3rd Edition is known. A simply amazing looking and
feeling game. I have a fondness for 2nd Edition and so play it for
now. In the way that Dungeon Crawl Classics does, ASSoH just feels like a
better version of the game I love. I will do a review, but it feels like a fun
version of Howard’s Hyborean Age. Weird, pulpy, with horror and
otherworldliness.
We
were starting after the groups first adventure. They had all played a first
session and this was the following one. There were monsters that were defeated
and treasure won. Now what next? They could pull on several adventure threads,
or they could simply do whatever they wanted. They decided to follow the thread
I had prepped for the most and away we went.
The
adventure was fun. They cleverly found a back way in, disturbed the hornets
nest and found their objective. Now they will have to find their way out.
Lessons
Learned
While
I worried a lot about how to pull off virtual gaming without going to a VTT, once
the puzzle was solved, I quickly came to love it, or at least many parts of it.
But there are also things that playing at a table is just better. Here are the
things I learned in going back to the table:
- Don’t bring so much
stuff. Don’t worry about having all the answers then and there.
- Focus on player
experience. Make your decisions for how you will conduct the performance (the
game) based on does this make the game funner, better, more enjoyable for the
people playing.
- Its ok to have digital
tools. Figure out how to best bring them to the table to reduce clutter, but
not slow down play. Any screen is a barrier from your players. Remember that.
- Mapping in person is a
bitch. Without going to the lengths of embedding a huge monitor into the table
(which I have considered), plan ahead to balance the needs for cool mapping,
fog of war, readability and useability. Remember maps are to help define space,
but also evoke the setting and visceral nature of what surrounds the PC’s. At least to me.
- Be present. Don’t spend a
lot of time looking at screens and digging for rules. Settle it at the table quickly
and move on. Adjust for the rules and rules questions and rulings between
sessions.
- Improv is your friend. I
forgot that one of my favorite parts of being at the table is improv. Embrace
the chaos and uncertainty. If you didn’t plan for it or even think about it,
make it up. Right there. Make it fun, or weird, or intense, or startling, or
mundane. But make it up, on the fly and move on.
- The best thing about being
at a table is the free flow of language and conversation. That talking over one
another like a family. Seeing body language. Like one big brainstorm session. With
no one getting frustrated or repeating themselves endlessly, or waiting for
someone to speak, or any of the myriad things we have to do when we use a
digital tool for conversation. Human communication in all its faults and
limitations is simply better in person. Better understanding, better subtlety,
better humor, better intent. Just better.
So,
we’ve had several other sessions of different games since (DCC, Into the Odd),
and my turn is coming up and we will be back the Violet Nights Asstonishing
Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea soon. I am looking forward to it. I just
have to think tabletop not digital. Not so easy, but I am sure I will slide right
back into the groove soon enough.
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