Preferably closer to 1.5 hours...

So I'd like to run some of this fine game in under two hours with noobs to the 40K universe. Any suggestions for a resource to help me with some scenarios that would have introduction, of sort, to resolution?

The time limit is because I suck and have limited time when everyone else is off work. During the week from 2-6 PLENTY of time but NOOOO... no one else is off work at that time.

Try searching Dark Reign for an idea. But remember to keep it really simple, if it is just going to be the one session, of course. If not, you can always split it up over several.

As far as the problem with getting people off work, why not try an online game? They can be lots of fun!

As stated above, Dark Reign can help you out, but I can almost guarantee that you will have to spread things out over several sessions. If you are set on the one session mission, a simple "go kill that" or errand run can work. However, if your group is anything like mine, it could take them 20 minutes to decide to turn left or right, so be careful. We recently had an unplanned game session and I gave them a simple "search and destroy" kind of mission and they didnt manage to finish after 4 hours. My best advice to you is try and keep the joking and fooling around to a minimum.

Good luck.

Yeah I think I need to abort RPGing completely, lol. Keeping joking and goofing to a minimum is IMPOSSBLE>>>

This is how my RPG sessions go...

Get together. Someone's late. Make characters. One book. Lots of time spent making characters. Someone argues about music. Someone spills some soda. Host gets mad. Someone gets hungry. Food is ordered. Spend lots of time ordering food. Order food, but talk is about food about to be received not character creation... finally characters done, food arrives. Eat food. Ready to play! Introduce characters. Bit of background set up chat. Jokes. Someone goes to the restroom and others go get a smoke. What do characters do? Chat... FINALLY some game play. Oh no, someone has to leave. We talk about what to do for 15... finally we decide to play a bit more, but then everyone decides it'd be best to pick it up again next week.

OR IS IT next week? SOmeone cancels.. ugh. We push it back a week. People are late. More introduction of what happened last time etc... repeat food ordering repeat joking before game, before food, right after food, etc...

10 hours of game play, only 2 hours of actually gaming done.

Its the journy that matters right? lol.

It would appear that you have no choice but to break up the adventure into several sessions which works quite well if you group meets regularly. the only thing that i can really offer is to organize the sessions ahead of time. if everyone get hungry at every meeting, perhaps food could be ordered ahead of time or snacks could be served whilst playing. part of the rpg experience is social interaction. you really can not keep the joking and horseplay out completely, but you could try to keep it minimal. print background material out or post it online and let the players prepare before sessions begin. the downside is that in an effort to streamline play you, as a gm, will have to invest more of you time between sessions to make the play productive. tis our lot, but throne bless you for you efforts good luck

Heheh. Thanks. Its an aweful lot, and an aweful lot to do as well. THOUGH it kind of does fit my time management. See, like, I was free earlier, free for a second a bit ago, and now I'm free until 1am... no good solid 5 hour blocks, though it will give me time to prepare sporadically...

Though maybe I'll just try this Online RPG someone mentioned? I mean I know MMORPGs but I'm kind of familiar with the idea of online RPGs, but have never seen a good example explaining it to me...

Though speaking of MMOs maybe I should check out WHFB RPG given that its of the material for my beloved Warhammer Online. WOO! lol. Same rules as DH they say, eh?

vermillian said:

i feel like a deja vu mate! My session of rpg is the same! a LOT of crap and discussion about silly thing like: an adeptus mechanicus does breakfast? and if he does, where he stucks the **** morning's toast? could he use his mechaendride arm to spreads the butter on the bread? and stuff like that.

For your session do something simple and direct: border line planet with some evil-lurking-babbling cult of miner, IMHO you should reduce the rpg part and focus on the dark, grim and full-action game that host the 40k background.

Keep flying amd keep gaming

Murray

vermillian said:

Basically, you use a virtual table/filesharing to send maps between you, and some chat aplication to speak, and you play the RPG like normal! If you really want, I can send you a copy of the log from our last game, (thats another good thing, you can keep a log, lol) and you can have a quick read through.

It is good fun, if you have trouble with finding f2f games, although progress does tend to be very slow, (8-9 3.5 hour sessions, and we are done edge of darkness! Seriously! The good news is its not really due to joking, lol)

Under two hours? Wow, we can't even start playing in under three hours.

I've always preferred to keep character generation as its own distinct event, spending the time to talk with the players, introduce the basic premise of the game, then go away and make any alterations to the story arc so that it is customised to the characters. Play then starts the next session after I"ve had a bit more time to prepare and tweak things.

That might be just me, though.

Online gaming is the only solution that is viable for me, and it can certainly produce some great games. I certainly prefer text-moderated games, though, since VOIP isn't something that I'm a fan of. Of course, the only problem there is that with Windoze Vi$ta, buggered if I can get OpenRPG to work properly, which only leaves the pay programs, which is a bit of a shame.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

[plug] I use IRC for my games, works out very well, although there is no way to share other images other than email, but we tend just to go for description anyway [/plug]

PM102 said:

Well, any form of group chat system would work, and you could even couple it with free downloadable versions of Screen Monkey , for example. Well, if it can still do that. It's been a while since I checked out that program.

Kage

To keep things moving smoothly and efficiently, I usually offer to be a GM Aid.

This means that I help keep track of Initiative, check rules on the spot (keeping the rulebook in my lap at all times) and try to help keep everyone in order.

If I'm GM-ing, I usually ask someone to by my assistant and do the same for me.

This helps a lot, I find.

Under 2 hours? I don't know how my group would ever be able to do that in any system. For us, if we can't get a 4 hour minimum block we usually figure it's not worth it to try to do any RPG gaming.

That being said, I have run one-off things in the past that have fit in a single short time block. The focus was on story and character interaction, with no combat and only a few key skill type challenges/die rolls. It was almost exclusively RP interaction between the characters and the npcs. I had the characters in a "timed event". The characters were on a ship that was due to dock in a couple hours. There was a theft of some of their important(and incriminating) things onboard, and if they wanted to catch the bad guy(s), they had to do so in the time allotted. I informed the players that the interaction would be played in real time...that is once the real clock hit a certain time, their time was up...the ship docked, the bad guys got away.

As far as the online gaming goes, that works ok but it is usually very slow if you're doing text chat instead of voice chat. I can type very fast so I usually have no problems running a chat game...but it's sometimes painful waiting for people to type out dialog and full responses. Because of that, I prefer voice chat with the only thing being done in text chat as die roll results from an autodieroller and private whisper messages between players.

Two hours seems more of a 'board game' kind of time constrait, for any RPG I've played we've never had a session less than around four hours (usually more like six) We seem to play 5-8 hour session about once a week or bi-weekly depending on schedule and rotate diffrent games depending on who is avalible to play, with difrent folks running and playing in them.

While incredably unlikely, if you want to really want to shoot for the 1.5 - 2 hour mark then you should be sure of the following:

• Everyone is familar with the system/rules and has characters already made
• You have a very clearly defined goal /mission / assaignment (Kill X, Retrieve Y, Go to Way points A, B, C ect.)
• You know the players well. Meaning you've gamed with them enough to keep them on track away from derailments, petty, bickering, long smoke / snack breaks ect.

It really boils down to being alot more structured then you would otherwise be for a RPG session, no pre / post game chats no waiting food (to be made or delivered) no in or out of character pontification ect. I thin it could be done but depending on your group might be a littlle difficult. I'd really recomend meeting on two occasions run something with a really good 'stopping point' eithier thematcally or mechanicaaly speaking (a cliff hanger is good if you want to bring them back round or even entice them to play longer) Player: So I finished bypassing the lock... I open the door. GM: Well this is a good place to stop... Player: Wha- , GM: Look at the time mate, we should stop...

Good luck. I do not envy your predicment.

I have managed to run an RPG in less than 2 hours (starting about 0400, ending at 0545 when the cleaners turned up and wondered why the gaming soc was still in the union canteen that shut at 2000 the previous night (we did have permission in advance)) including Character cre and photocopying of sheets. It was a different system (more akin to WFRP1st ed) and I fluffed costs and whatever, but with only 2 characters in the same career we got a quick, 3-part adventure run (at that stage it was coffee and donuts keeping me awake and the adventure came from three scenarios in an old White Dwarf I'd had in my bag because I'd been reading a Runequest article that morning as I rushed out the door after an argument in the pub the previous night.

As for player diversions, be very careful. I once ran a game where there was a sub-plot happenning at the planet's south pole that PCs were meant to find at the end of the campaign (about 20 sessions in). On the third session one of the characters (a space craft pilot) asked for directions and was told he wanted to head south, so the party hijacked a shuttle and went to the south pole finding the sub-plot... It took a year to drag them back from the "oh sh*t! leg it off planet!" sub plot that was meant to end the campaign... If you've only the one session, think about the characters and how they'd read any directions (and preferably the players too)...

2 hours is pretty limited for anything but a very simple and straightforward adventure. What you may want to do is break things down into small, mini-adventure chapters that will take 45mins to an hour each. Then you can combine them into an evening of gaming and have the whole story broken over several sessions.

To keep interest up, make sure to have each chapter have some action and keep the pace high.

I agree with Alpha, that is esentialy the only sure fire way to do it, also vermillian I'd be interested to hear about how things go and what did and did not work for you, isofar as what's been suggest here or what you've come up with yourself.

Murray said:

That was exactly my thought when I read this. You have to be a tricky telepath.

After 15 years of playing together we developed some compromises. Currently, we play on Fridays in a two week rhythm (mostly, reasons: see above). We meet at 6pm. Food is ordered at 6:30pm. Laughing, chatting, eating. We start playing around 7:30pm. Ironically, we are getting tired, cause we ate too much.

But this frame helps to keep the stories running. And if you want some disipline during your sessions, I lately tried to distribute bonus xp to the players during the gameplay. 30 xp for this idea, 10 xp for this, etc. ... You'll see, they will listen and pay attention. Powergamers are predictable .

Sorry, if some of this doesn't make sense to you. I'm not a native speaker.

vermillian said:

****... sounds...bad?

When we agree to play a session, I as a GM make sure that everyone know when and where to play. If someone cancels, I try to find someone else to fill his spot. And if that happens, I write that happening into that campaign. For some reason one acolyte have to go somewhere else and someone else appears. (Insert roleplayed conversation between players and they accept the newcomer in their rank).

And if someone is missing a session, he doesn't get any experience. And misses a good night.

Anyway, our typical session goes like this:

We start at 16:00 and stop at 21:00. (at weekdays)

Last one to arrive at scenery comes usually at 15:30. Talking, selecting music, eating (usually that's me ) and setting up papers and GM stuff. Everyone gets their characters and they discuss what has happened before and they want to see corebook for advantages. This leaves me plenty of time to set up the game. When I feel that the time is right, I open my Big Book (hand written adventures) I start to talk. If they don't listen, then their character is going to be absent minded and if it annoys me, something unpleasant might happen to him. If he objects, I'll just say "you wasn't looking where you were going.."

There are usually 3-5 pauses in the game (when I have to go to bathroom.. I know, it's a lot but I blame it on the beer =) ). There are no pauses if someone gets hungry in the middle of adventure. They just makes their sandwiches and eat while playing.

And my players know that I don't give much experience. They get 0 points for killing someone unless it is crucial for the story. I keep writing during the game the little things my players do and after the session I contribute experience for their actions. Usually its 200 points per session plus bonus points (doing something cool, staying in character, good roleplaying etc), because I link every adventure together, to make one big, long campaign. This way they get the feel of their characters progression.

Anyway... I don't know what I'm writing anymore because it's 02:40 here.. maybe I'll go to bed..

For the OP, game under 2 hours? That is not nessesary if you rythm your campaign well. That way you can give your players good, long campaign while you self can design and plan evil plans to mess with your players. Everybody wins =)

No more than two combats. Something like:

1. MIssion briefing (hand outs to speed this up)

2. Clue finding

3. Combat with small number funkies. Use a few good weapons to damage the players a bit, but keep the number of flunkies small to make the combat go faster and let the players gang up.

4. Boss fight

Or swap 2 & 3. I think that's about all you have time for.