8 responses to “[Tools] Warming up before a game”
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Interesting. We share a theatrical background. Whether it’s in front of a microphone or for an audience in an auditorium, voice exercises were very useful in my profession and continue to be so in my hobby. Playing with the shape of my mouth, twisting my tongue (manually and using articulation exercises like tongue twisters) and voice scales are important warm ups before sitting down at the table, especially with a group that role plays. The abdomen and back stretching exercises are the equivalent of tuning a pipe organ – especially when the voice performance originates from a seated position for hours on end but the NPCs are not seated and active.
If all the exercises are for a hack and slash dungeon party, however, the prep is pretty well wasted and unappreciated.
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I think these are even useful for Hack and Slash. It’s not just about getting yout voice right for the occasion, but I noticed that it’s also easier to think in game terms if one tried to do some warming up exercises before.
Also one has to remember that even in a hack and slash adventure the GM is still the one person most likely talking all the time. It helps having a voice that is tuned for that.LikeLike
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True enough for cardio. I usually have that rush while I prep the room (for 5 – 10 people). The better the cardio, the more the oxygen flow, the better the thinking. I tend to speak very little as a GM. (Maybe a throwback to 20/80 English conversation…) I get prodded for physical data and play NPCs but it’s usually the players themselves that move their characters forward in story, discuss their thoughts about clues I give, and carry on the game. If they wake from a bang on their door and rush to the door, down the stairs… they’re naked. I hit them heavy with this at the beginning and this lesson gets repeated to new players (by mindful players). So they go into exposition mode early because I do not cover their ommissions. When talk peters out between the players, they call me back into speaking mode. I highly encourage peer pressure at the table to stay on topic; focus on my description to create mood, and improvisation to pace.
Apart from that, I tend to react to players. For me, hack and slash is a dice game and can be very deadly for players. Being animated at the table, including vioce and cardio exercises, translates to player excitement and increased energy flow in my experience.
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Hmm… I guess I don’t really have the group to do it like that. I noticed a long time ago that the sweet spot of player group sizes is somewhere around 4 or 5 players in a game. Less and the DM has to fill in a lot of the other interactions to keep the flow of the game moving, more and the game slowly becomes too cumbersome to play.
This of course depends a bit on the ruleset as well. The biggest games I had so far were around 10 players in either Shadowrun or D&D 3rd, and in both cases the game was terrible for me. I think it might be easier with my current favorites, meaning my own D&D houserules or Traveller. But both these games are so rules light that it might be easier keeping all the rules in my head.
Anyway, my current group is 3 players. I would love to have one or two people more in there because I know that this would create more chances for roleplaying. It just seems that nobody really wants to play. At least not in English.LikeLike
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Poles seem to like the safety of crunch. When I tried to link RPGs to language conversation, Polish players were confused. I only ever had one player play with me that way. They seem not to understand. They ask how the crunch/system mechanic would improve their vocabulary. They’re very wargamish. Most of the interested were non-players. As now, with my group for expats, the non-players (meaning noobs) are the better match to my style. We are a rules light group similar to D&D With Porn Stars. I use AC, BAB and Saves because this is easier for all to grok and we forego the charts in AD&D 1e DMG but our game is retro-cloned House Rules. I do not think Polish gamers, who describe RPGs as Monopoly with attitude, would/could trust a game that was not entirely rules written.
I intend to use the blog to write the rules as we go.
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So far I did not experience that. One of my players is my girlfriend, and she knew Warhammer before, but she only learned to play with me. The other two are Warhammer players, so they are in the usual scene for Poland, but they don’t seem to have a problem with my GM fiat and a rules light game. On the other hand both are very open to new games and willing to try new things whenever I get into the mood to do so (and that is often…), so I don’t know if it isn’t just because my players are just like that.
I guess I need to play with a few more people outside of that group to get a blast of Polishness.
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It could be I was just lucky. The comments were made on local forums to my girlfriend where I/we advertised in Polish. I also did the convention circuit giving talks on RPGs in language practive. You can find stuff about me on Google – includiong a con pic. Two Forums I recall were: Gilda.pl and Paradox Cafe. I tried to sell the idea to language schools as a summer language activity. I was called a Satanist (one was a PhD scholar of education!) and had Director of Studies actually back away when I mentioned RPGs. As they say: your mileage may vary. It might be that this is only a Warsaw attitude. 😀 I have seen many unusual things in my 11 years here.
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I think I am sheltered in my environment here. All it’s failures aside Łódż is a very young city with a lot of modern people. And I think I said it before: in my job there are a lot of roleplayers (which I know is not usual). One of my colleagues and me once did a little survey in our team: of 24 people we have 11 who have played until recently or are still playing, including my manager.
I never actually tried selling it as language practice, although it might be a nice way to practice a language if done right. I think I did that to myself, not with playing though, but by reading rulebooks and supplements in English.
About that PhD of Education: in my experience people who stay in academia in an educational area (and I am talking only about people here who teach people who want to become teachers) are often a very… odd kind of person. Many of them just couldn’t bear the stress of being a school teacher and decided to go back to uni. At least that’s my experience with people like that in Germany.
I think I never was seen as a Satanist by anyone because of my roleplaying, I even was encouraged to do that by my priest when I was still working with teenagers. But that was another country… Poland can be difficult in these things.LikeLike
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Stuffed Crocodile 
Interesting. We share a theatrical background. Whether it’s in front of a microphone or for an audience in an auditorium, voice exercises were very useful in my profession and continue to be so in my hobby. Playing with the shape of my mouth, twisting my tongue (manually and using articulation exercises like tongue twisters) and voice scales are important warm ups before sitting down at the table, especially with a group that role plays. The abdomen and back stretching exercises are the equivalent of tuning a pipe organ – especially when the voice performance originates from a seated position for hours on end but the NPCs are not seated and active.
If all the exercises are for a hack and slash dungeon party, however, the prep is pretty well wasted and unappreciated.
LikeLike
I think these are even useful for Hack and Slash. It’s not just about getting yout voice right for the occasion, but I noticed that it’s also easier to think in game terms if one tried to do some warming up exercises before.
Also one has to remember that even in a hack and slash adventure the GM is still the one person most likely talking all the time. It helps having a voice that is tuned for that.
LikeLike
True enough for cardio. I usually have that rush while I prep the room (for 5 – 10 people). The better the cardio, the more the oxygen flow, the better the thinking. I tend to speak very little as a GM. (Maybe a throwback to 20/80 English conversation…) I get prodded for physical data and play NPCs but it’s usually the players themselves that move their characters forward in story, discuss their thoughts about clues I give, and carry on the game. If they wake from a bang on their door and rush to the door, down the stairs… they’re naked. I hit them heavy with this at the beginning and this lesson gets repeated to new players (by mindful players). So they go into exposition mode early because I do not cover their ommissions. When talk peters out between the players, they call me back into speaking mode. I highly encourage peer pressure at the table to stay on topic; focus on my description to create mood, and improvisation to pace.
Apart from that, I tend to react to players. For me, hack and slash is a dice game and can be very deadly for players. Being animated at the table, including vioce and cardio exercises, translates to player excitement and increased energy flow in my experience.
LikeLike
Hmm… I guess I don’t really have the group to do it like that. I noticed a long time ago that the sweet spot of player group sizes is somewhere around 4 or 5 players in a game. Less and the DM has to fill in a lot of the other interactions to keep the flow of the game moving, more and the game slowly becomes too cumbersome to play.
This of course depends a bit on the ruleset as well. The biggest games I had so far were around 10 players in either Shadowrun or D&D 3rd, and in both cases the game was terrible for me. I think it might be easier with my current favorites, meaning my own D&D houserules or Traveller. But both these games are so rules light that it might be easier keeping all the rules in my head.
Anyway, my current group is 3 players. I would love to have one or two people more in there because I know that this would create more chances for roleplaying. It just seems that nobody really wants to play. At least not in English.
LikeLike
Poles seem to like the safety of crunch. When I tried to link RPGs to language conversation, Polish players were confused. I only ever had one player play with me that way. They seem not to understand. They ask how the crunch/system mechanic would improve their vocabulary. They’re very wargamish. Most of the interested were non-players. As now, with my group for expats, the non-players (meaning noobs) are the better match to my style. We are a rules light group similar to D&D With Porn Stars. I use AC, BAB and Saves because this is easier for all to grok and we forego the charts in AD&D 1e DMG but our game is retro-cloned House Rules. I do not think Polish gamers, who describe RPGs as Monopoly with attitude, would/could trust a game that was not entirely rules written.
I intend to use the blog to write the rules as we go.
LikeLike
So far I did not experience that. One of my players is my girlfriend, and she knew Warhammer before, but she only learned to play with me. The other two are Warhammer players, so they are in the usual scene for Poland, but they don’t seem to have a problem with my GM fiat and a rules light game. On the other hand both are very open to new games and willing to try new things whenever I get into the mood to do so (and that is often…), so I don’t know if it isn’t just because my players are just like that.
I guess I need to play with a few more people outside of that group to get a blast of Polishness.
LikeLike
It could be I was just lucky. The comments were made on local forums to my girlfriend where I/we advertised in Polish. I also did the convention circuit giving talks on RPGs in language practive. You can find stuff about me on Google – includiong a con pic. Two Forums I recall were: Gilda.pl and Paradox Cafe. I tried to sell the idea to language schools as a summer language activity. I was called a Satanist (one was a PhD scholar of education!) and had Director of Studies actually back away when I mentioned RPGs. As they say: your mileage may vary. It might be that this is only a Warsaw attitude. 😀 I have seen many unusual things in my 11 years here.
LikeLike
I think I am sheltered in my environment here. All it’s failures aside Łódż is a very young city with a lot of modern people. And I think I said it before: in my job there are a lot of roleplayers (which I know is not usual). One of my colleagues and me once did a little survey in our team: of 24 people we have 11 who have played until recently or are still playing, including my manager.
I never actually tried selling it as language practice, although it might be a nice way to practice a language if done right. I think I did that to myself, not with playing though, but by reading rulebooks and supplements in English.
About that PhD of Education: in my experience people who stay in academia in an educational area (and I am talking only about people here who teach people who want to become teachers) are often a very… odd kind of person. Many of them just couldn’t bear the stress of being a school teacher and decided to go back to uni. At least that’s my experience with people like that in Germany.
I think I never was seen as a Satanist by anyone because of my roleplaying, I even was encouraged to do that by my priest when I was still working with teenagers. But that was another country… Poland can be difficult in these things.
LikeLike