In the face-to-face days we just used emails for our game scheduling and reminders. In the mid to late 90's we only played a couples times a month at best (though we played far longer sessions then. An entire day into the evening usually), but also saw and talked to each other since we were mostly friends outside the games. But going into the 2000's and running for groups who were just "gaming friends" emails and/or Yahoo groups or whatever helped.
But with the advent of my Roll20 online gaming several years ago, and my use of Discord for voice and text, I got the advantage of actual dedicated calendar reminders to remind the humanoids that we had a game.
Needed? I dunno. Since going online with my campaigns the schedule is pretty set. This year since around February have done DnD every week on Saturday nights, And for a few months now have run my "Haven" campaign with Marvel Multiverse on Friday night. Dedicated regulars. So they know full well we have weekly sessions.
But the things is, I found out early in my Discord usage that I could be kind of creative with the calendar invites/reminders.
I mean, it's kind of what it's all about, right? Making a little magic. So any creative element you can stick in there is important to me. And for years now in campaigns, I have done what I can with the invites.
Besides indicating which voice channel you are using and the day, time and date, you can add an image and a title for the session. That alone stirred my imagination. Originally I was digging that players could "like" the calendar invite, as it would indicate to me who was planning to attend. Not always reliable though. In the latest campaigns you can count on 3 or 4 players to like it, but not everybody always does.
But I loved that I could use an image and a title to maybe sort of foreshadow the session. Not give it all away, but maybe sort of rile up some interest in what was going to happen. Sometimes mysterious or sometimes not.
Some things from my generation may inspire me on this. I remember on old TV shows you would get an establishing shot, and "on tonight's episode of Mannix - lonely is the hunter" or something like that.
I have sometimes made them as simple as an image of a country road and a title like "the road goes ever every on" for DnD travel. And sometimes I made them more meaningful. To me, anyway. Sometimes a private joke.
Since Discord does not archive past invites, here are the couple for this week's games. In my DnD campaign, I am once again using the old Pawnshop adventure from Apple Lane for Runequest. This week we are heading into part two of the Pawnshop attack. This invite was pretty easy. Just put an image of one of the foes the party is now facing in the shop, and a "part 2" indicator.
Nothing super creative, but it gives the players a little something to maybe pique their interest in the next session. An image of the monsters they have seen but not gotten into full steam battle with yet. They know it starts right from the jump next session.
For the Marvel rpg sessions, things are getting a little harder to figure what will happen next. I have 5 steady players, but since it's the weekend and there are not quite as many players in the pool as my DnD, a player or two might have to miss a session. I have been sort of planning out two session arcs, but honestly, we only play for two hours or so on Friday. And the players might sandbox a bit. "Can I go patrol for a few minutes?" And I have been giving players 20 minutes or so here and there to do their own thing from time to time (against my general better judgment. I mean, we are not doing very long sessions). And as of last week I am deciding kind of last minute what might be best depending on what players we have for the night. If I plan a little couple of session encounter arc, somebody I need for it might not be able to make it that night. Or maybe last session is going to bleed into the next a bit, and I might want to wait a week or two to start that for whatever reason.
Like last week, I decided a half hour before the session that I just wanted to have a little low-combat encounter. I dreamed up a couple of floors of an office building being set ablaze by a professional arsonist. In that half hour I found a couple of office building floors to use as maps, and went into Demiplane to whip up an arsonist dude. Found an image that worked for it. And decided this would be an architectural firm being targeted by a rival.
I will maybe briefly touch on that in the next post, but for the following session how will I start things off? Since we had to wrap it up right after the victims were rescued and the fire put out, I figured this might be the first real interaction with the characters and emergency response, and maybe reporters as well. "hmm.." I thought. Maybe I could expand on that. What if a character took the time to answer a reporter's questions? Or maybe I could have an "on the scene" start-up streamer crew looking for cred and popularity actually ask a character if they could be their "dedicated news team" (an idea I got from a card in the King of Tokyo card game). Promise them positive coverage if they give them tips on things that might go down they can report on. Since all this was on my mind, and at the very least the first few minutes of the next session being them at least being approached by reporters and later seeing a news report on the encounter, it was enough to include it in the invite for the next session. Easy peasy.
Just a generic reporter image (who I am going to use for an NPC) and a title "More New at 11" (just happens to be one of my favorite Public Enemy songs)
