Holidays!
Posted by Dante at 4:27 PM
To all of our American readers - Happy Thanksgiving! To everyone else - Happy November 22!
Real World Holidays and Gaming Enthusiasm
I was reflecting on the holiday season and it got me to thinking about our gaming schedule around the holidays. Most times, as expected, there is a marked decline in the frequency of our gaming during the last months of the year.
The neat difference between frequent and infrequent gaming is the level of enthusiasm that comes from each gaming session. When we're gaming frequently, I see the level of enthusiasm drop generally week by week... some consider it a chore, some are just tired out from the pace of Real Life that the gaming session itself takes a toll. When we game infrequently, there is a level of built up passion for the game again and it seems to really pump up the entire group. We saw this last weekend in our own group: one of our members was so excited to game, she insisted on wrapping up our social contract discussion early just so we would have some time to really get into the game. That's a really great thing to behold when it occurs.
In Game Holidays - A good time for roleplay
I am always amazed when times of great character backstory tend to permeate into the normal game. Several of our players in this campaign are worshipers of Horus Re, a lesser sun god. I was very surprised when our fightery type was asking what time of year it was (summertime) and whether or not there were any scheduled holidays to Horus Re that they could celebrate.
This question took me aback a bit, but I arrived on a Midsummer Festival that presented a good opportunity to celebrate the light that Horus Re brings. Satisfied, we went along with that but they regularly would interject some questions about holidays, or even make up some of their own anniversaries and celebrations to mark on the calendar as the in-game years tick by.
I really appreciate it when my players take the trouble of actually internalizing their characters and think through the details in this way. Sometimes I feel that the off-the-cuff response that this usually generates is perhaps less satisfactory than it would be if I could've given the answer a little thought.
How do you handle the holidays (both in-game and out-of-game)? Do you integrate any real world holidays into your gameplay?
Real World Holidays and Gaming Enthusiasm
I was reflecting on the holiday season and it got me to thinking about our gaming schedule around the holidays. Most times, as expected, there is a marked decline in the frequency of our gaming during the last months of the year.
The neat difference between frequent and infrequent gaming is the level of enthusiasm that comes from each gaming session. When we're gaming frequently, I see the level of enthusiasm drop generally week by week... some consider it a chore, some are just tired out from the pace of Real Life that the gaming session itself takes a toll. When we game infrequently, there is a level of built up passion for the game again and it seems to really pump up the entire group. We saw this last weekend in our own group: one of our members was so excited to game, she insisted on wrapping up our social contract discussion early just so we would have some time to really get into the game. That's a really great thing to behold when it occurs.
In Game Holidays - A good time for roleplay
I am always amazed when times of great character backstory tend to permeate into the normal game. Several of our players in this campaign are worshipers of Horus Re, a lesser sun god. I was very surprised when our fightery type was asking what time of year it was (summertime) and whether or not there were any scheduled holidays to Horus Re that they could celebrate.
This question took me aback a bit, but I arrived on a Midsummer Festival that presented a good opportunity to celebrate the light that Horus Re brings. Satisfied, we went along with that but they regularly would interject some questions about holidays, or even make up some of their own anniversaries and celebrations to mark on the calendar as the in-game years tick by.
I really appreciate it when my players take the trouble of actually internalizing their characters and think through the details in this way. Sometimes I feel that the off-the-cuff response that this usually generates is perhaps less satisfactory than it would be if I could've given the answer a little thought.
How do you handle the holidays (both in-game and out-of-game)? Do you integrate any real world holidays into your gameplay?
Labels: character-building tips, Dante, gm tips, rpgbloggers, you tell us
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