Checking Out Instead of Checking In

This morning I was reading Killing Off Raise Dead by MythicParty (MP) from the blog Dungeon Mastering. In the article MP wrote:

“Ok guys, just bring me back when you’ve Teleported us to the capital city and found a high enough level caster.  I’ve got enough money in gems to cover the costs.  Sorry for that dumb move, I always forget about AoO.”  Darwidian’s unperturbed player then closes down his license of the group’s Hero Lab software, opens up a pinball game on his iPad, and proceeds to quietly occupy himself for the remainder of the evening while the rest of the group goes right on with the adventure.

So this more or less literally happened in my last gaming session.  Our party unluckily was fighting not 1, but 2 glabrezu thanks to their 20% summoning ability.  The Rogue tried to protect the Cleric & Wizard, but in the process of moving to engage the enemy, instead got sliced/diced.  He died pretty early in the night, then nonchalantly played a video game the rest of the time.  Why?  Well he knows his character is coming back, and, after a few thousand extra GP, with no worse the wear.  No reason to break a sweat, let alone be upset about it.  And a rather routine revival of characters is pretty much the case for every edition of D&D. (Killing Off Raise Dead)

At this point MP begins to lament the ease with which players can be brought back into the game and how doing so makes death meaningless. For MP the solution was to take the game into a 1 life and it's done situation which, the theory goes, would increase the tension and attentiveness of the players. Yet that doesn't address the central problem of the article: that once Darwidian was out of play that they checked out of the game. 

Keeping your players involved in the game, even when they're out of the action, is the hardest part of being a Dungeon Master. It's too easy to get wrapped up in Micheal's exploration of the ancient tomb while everyone else has to sit around twiddling their thumbs. For years I struggled with this problem testing out lots of solutions that I read online, heard from my friends, or was told at game shops by self-important clerks who were convinced that they knew everything that could happen or would ever happen in a role-playing game.

It was suggested that I eliminate certain spells, limit players to a single life, make the players pay more money, treat death like a joke, forget about people's spacial relationships, prevent players from exploring as they wish by manufacturing reason why they must stay together, and even make dying a timed thing where they players automatically come back after an hour or so of real time. In the end none of these worked for me as none of them actually address the problem: what do you do with the kid sitting there with nothing to do.

I've mentioned before (see It May Be Easy, But That Doesn't Mean I Can Do It Right for more) that I like to use my Arneson Rule for players out of the action and the more I've used it over the years the more I'm convinced that it's the best solution for keeping players out of the action involved. 

The Arneson Rule:

When combat occurs any player not involved in the encounter is given control of the monsters involved. If multiple players are not involved in the encounter than the monstrous group will be divided up among them as the Game Master decides.

One of the things that I really enjoy doing is allowing the players to push things in directions that I wouldn't normally take them by letting them play NPCs involved in the action. I can't tell you how much fun it is when one of them plays a guard and takes a notion to tell the King (played by me or another player) that the thief has been spotted doing what thieves do. Or when they play rival Guild Masters battling to hire a player character for their own nefarious ends.

The more I've used this rule since I first made it the more firmly I've become convinced that it's the best way to keep everyone engaged in the action and preventing anyone from checking out at the table. It's a fun, easy to implement change that pays off big dividends. Try it out for yourself!

It May Be Easy, But That Doesn't Mean I Can Do It Right

Time is easy. 

Just look down at the clock in the lower right of your screen and you'll see it marching on at a boring and steady pace. Yet if there is one problem in gaming that haunts my thoughts it's the problem of keeping time. Not the rhythm of how the players interact with the scenario I've laid out, or the way that I play off their momentum, but the actual tracking of time. I'm terrible at it. My notebooks are littered with inane numerical ephemera that look like I've been marking the measurements for impossible women. Then there are frantic scribblings that crowd near the numbers, as though in doing so their meaning might be found, that are no help at all. So I hand wave most of it and pretend that it isn't all that damned important after all. Only I know better. As a player and as a Game Master I know that there is a value in keeping track of how long a spell runs or the number of hours a torch has been lit. Such things have a meaning to the game that runs deeper than the little ticks I mark on the page. 

Why, then, do I have such trouble with keeping track of it all?

For a long time I would have told you that it's because things quickly become overly complicated when I'm running the game as I tend to run on a single page of notebook paper and drop the rest in off the top of my head - not the most advantageous way to run but it prevents me from wasting too much time in preparation. The truth though is that I lose track of time because it doesn't matter to me. As a player the only scales of time that really capture my attention tend to be on the larger side of things: nights, days, weeks, months, seasons, and years. This is because I favor combat classes. My history of characters is made up nearly exclusively of fighters, barbarians, and monks. With those classes I have a natural ability to visualize the terrible things I want to do my enemies. I am unapologetically brutal in combat and it is a lot of fun for me to put the Game Master on their heels by destroying every thing that's fool enough to stand against me. As a Game Master, though, that attitude changes; but my focus on time doesn't.

That's something that I've been working to overcome in recent years. Not the attitude change but rather my focus on time. I've been trying to figure out a way to better track things like torches and the passing of hours. One of my tricks that has been working really well of late is a series of boxes that I draw when some effect begins and I write above it what it's denoting. With torches and similar effects that are measured in hours it has really made things a lot easier for me to keep straight. For rounds though I have typically been so wrapped up in the million things going on that I've continued to have trouble - that is till I brought back in the Arneson Rule.

For those of you that weren't reading me back in 2013 I created the Arneson Rule based on things I had read Dave Arneson would do in his combats. I doubt that this rule is an exact emulation of what Dave did, but for my games it has worked beautifully regardless of the system, edition, or setting.

The Arneson Rule:

When combat occurs any player not involved in the encounter is given control of the monsters involved. If multiple players are not involved in the encounter than the monstrous group will be divided up among them as the Game Master decides. 

My players tend to split the party a lot so this rule comes to the fore far more than you'd ever imagine. The beauty for me is that by giving control of the monsters over to the missing players I'm freed up to keep track of everything that has always eluded me as a Game Master. Suddenly marking the number of rounds that a certain spell occurs or how long an effect lasts isn't such a chore. Now I still have issues when the players are all together but I'm getting better. 

So my question for you all is this: how do you manage to keep track of time in your games?