Café de Nuit

My tabletop roleplaying group only meets about once a month or so. I suppose that is the drawback to growing older and getting careers. Anyway, as the group's DM, I like to assignsmall homework assignments to my players between sessions. Usually, these assignments are tied to either the adventure that they just finished that night or are related to the general theme of the next adventure. For example, one assignment had each player provide a short paragraph of why their character would want to fight against a particular band of orcs. Nothing major, but it made it easier for them to get into character when the orcs began attack a nearby town and the townsfolk needed defenders.

In the past, most of my players were very happy to have the chance to develop their characters more. It gave them a chance to grow, and I had more material to use for each adventure. More recently, however, newer players don't seem to like this concept very much.

I am curious as to how many other dungeon masters use this type of technique. Plus, how many of you (as players) view this as a postive thing? I am merely looking at some outside feedback, since twenty minute worth of writing a month doesn't seem to be too unfair in my opinion. Then again, I might be biased since I am spending several hours a month working on things...

I as a player and a DM like homework. I think it does provide a further element to the game and allows players to expand their characters. I like setting puzzles for them to solve. The idea is each player gets an Identical copy of the puzzle, be it physical such as a rubix cube or mental such as translating a text. I also like to have my players experience everyday life and practice their crafts.

The only assignment I have handed to players in every group I have DM'd is to provide backgrounds for their characters and have them develop as times goes on. They start with a short paragraph summerising a brief history, they then start to devlop their characters and backgrounds through roleplay and this is built into their backgrounds as they go. Some charaters could have histories that were a couple dozen pages long, others may only have a few pages depending on how comprehensive the player felt the background had to be.

One thing I did do with one group though was to have them paint their character miniatures and buy a new mini each time they brought in a new character. It was fun to see their choices for some characters and how they painted them. What I did with another group was to have them build little pieces of scenery to decorate the settings the players would be in. Some players got together and built corridor and room sections for dungeons, another went with some wargaming friends of his and constructed a small village. Each player kept what they built and I believe some of the dungeon scenery became the bae of a Battle Scene entrant for Golden Demon some years back, it got a noteworthy mention but not prize.

It's a very original idea. I think that it can work to H.W campaign as well. Our characters are high level and despite the few details we have written for our background, we have never experience it. Writting some paragraphs will help us play better and flesh more our characters.

But, preparing the next session on table is a good idea too, but on the board, will be more difficult. The mystery is one of the elements I like and I want to have neither a hint of what will happen next. I prefer discover everything while playing.

VAN wrote:I think that it can work to H.W campaign as well. Our characters are high level and despite the few details we have written for our background, we have never experience it. Writting some paragraphs will help us play better and flesh more our characters.

I have considered doing something like this for the on-line players in the Halfling Walks series as well, but it just didn't seem like it would work as well as it does with my tabletop group. We already struggle just to get some of the HW players to even most on a regular basis. I am not very optimistic about trying to get everyone to do additional work when I cannot get the day-to-day stuff finished.

I've handed hw assignments to my players asking for some pivotal events, occurences that have stained the personalities, reasons that drive them into adventuring, into worshiping a god, entering a clergy...
You got my point...
Not just background - general things like I was born in ... I was raised by ... and the like, but more in depth analysis that makes them differ from the rest.
Moreover, I have also asked them to make some portraits of their characters in different moods, or describe/picture a special item they cary in detail.
All these things have greatly enhanced the gaming experience and my players seem to have fun continuing the session at home and having to present some progress till our next meeting.

Jander Sunstar

I used to draw portraits for my own characters all the time, then again I enjoy drawing (always make a profession out of a hobby, it gives you fun while you make money)

My old DM used to post quizzes online for us to take in between sessions. You got bonus XP based on how well you did on the quiz. Another bonus for writing journal entries. When he started doing that, we started paying attention to the plot. We started taking notes, writing journals. We got into it.

Now, some people (when I tell this to them) make sour faces at this, but we actually thought it was alot of fun. I loved to see how well I did on my quizzes each week.

My group don't do homework, even if i offer XP.

I usually have a pretty detailed backstory for my characters. But I've only ever ran one campaign, and I can't remember much about the book keeping.

Trebor Minntt wrote:My group don't do homework, even if i offer XP.

I always found that some extra experience points or some bonus treasure was usually enough incentive to get my players to do a bit of extra work between sessions. Most of them liked the idea of helping flesh things out for the next session (seeing their contributions being used), but there are those that would be swayed by a little extra something for their characters. Greedy bastards!

Ivana_Boritsi wrote:My old DM used to post quizzes online for us to take in between sessions. You got bonus XP based on how well you did on the quiz.

That's a pretty clever idea! If it didn't usually take so much time between sessions, then I would consider doing something like that myself.

Jason of the Fraternity wrote:That's a pretty clever idea! If it didn't usually take so much time between sessions, then I would consider doing something like that myself.

I know how much time organising quizes can take, I used to organise them for a few Yahoo groups I was once with.

Wow, interesting idea. I've never done anything like this personally - but I've never had once a month gaming sessions either. I think that might help keep the last session (as well as future sessions) fresh in the players minds after three to four week layoffs.

Cool idea, my man. I voted "yes".

MSd, when I set the modelmaking, mini painting and other things, I met wit hthe group anywhere from once a wekk to once a fortnight, you can get things done pretty quickly if you;re a player, but the DM tends to be stretched for setting up quizes.

MadStepDad wrote:I've never done anything like this personally - but I've never had once a month gaming sessions either. I think that might help keep the last session (as well as future sessions) fresh in the players minds after three to four week layoffs.

I always liked the idea of having my players do a little something between sessions anyways, but it is really helpful to have them to some sort of small assignment during those three to four week gaps. Like you said yourself, it helps keep the last session fresh in the players minds after the layoffs.

MadStepDad wrote:Cool idea, my man.

Thanks!

Wiccy of the Fraternity wrote:I met wit hthe group anywhere from once a wekk to once a fortnight, you can get things done pretty quickly if you're a player, but the DM tends to be stretched for setting up quizes.

Too true, Wiccy! I think that this is why I usually ask them to write a couple paragraphs (or something akin to that). It means that I needn't write and grade quizes as well as these assignments tend to take longer to think out and complete.

I still like the quiz idea, though! I might have to try that once or twice and see how well my players do... Bwah-ha-ha!!!