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Dalin · 06-13-2022, 10:11 AM

After a week of intense gaming, my family fled to our cabin to rejuvenate over the weekend. Now I'm back, ready to revise plans for our second session of RPG camp, starting next week.

But first, how did things go on Thursday and Friday last week?

Our final two days were dedicated to playing the game. Everybody had a chance to run their group through an original encounter. Some encounters were quick. Others ran quite long—more like mini-adventures. (Next week we hope to tighten this up.) After each person had a shot at GMing, we left it up to the tables to decide how to proceed.

At this point, our three tables had merged into two. One group wrapped up their encounters sooner, so one student ran a shortened version of The Crypt of Krysuvik. Then they played through about 70% of I Smell a Rat. The other table chose a GM to run I Smell a Rat.

Both days were successful, with lots of laughter and fun. It felt like the players understood the game's basic rules better than our first campers last summer. (It helped that we had some veterans, of course.) Both groups also plan on continuing their games, which is something we didn't hear about last year. It helps that we're sending them home with everything they need to play.

We wrapped up on Friday by collecting feedback. Kids were very positive about the camp as a whole. They had a great time and were thrilled with the pile of loot that they got to take home. The older students (entering 9th grade next year) argued that we should offer a second camp for older students. We're considering that.

On the critical front, the kids said that we talked too much during the first two days. Between all of the explanations of the rules and how to make characters and Doug's excellent talk, we wore through their patience. This matches my sense, too. More dice, less talk. A surprise, though, was that they also wanted to have more breaks from role-playing with team-building or other large-group activities.

I have some ideas for how to make the opening two days more dynamic. Hard at work on that this week.

06-13-2022, 10:11 AM	#10
Dalin Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Saint Paul, MN	Re: DFRPG Camp After a week of intense gaming, my family fled to our cabin to rejuvenate over the weekend. Now I'm back, ready to revise plans for our second session of RPG camp, starting next week. But first, how did things go on Thursday and Friday last week? Our final two days were dedicated to playing the game. Everybody had a chance to run their group through an original encounter. Some encounters were quick. Others ran quite long—more like mini-adventures. (Next week we hope to tighten this up.) After each person had a shot at GMing, we left it up to the tables to decide how to proceed. At this point, our three tables had merged into two. One group wrapped up their encounters sooner, so one student ran a shortened version of *The Crypt of Krysuvik. Then they played through about 70% of I Smell a Rat. The other table chose a GM to run I Smell a Rat*. Both days were successful, with lots of laughter and fun. It felt like the players understood the game's basic rules better than our first campers last summer. (It helped that we had some veterans, of course.) Both groups also plan on continuing their games, which is something we didn't hear about last year. It helps that we're sending them home with everything they need to play. We wrapped up on Friday by collecting feedback. Kids were very positive about the camp as a whole. They had a great time and were thrilled with the pile of loot that they got to take home. The older students (entering 9th grade next year) argued that we should offer a second camp for older students. We're considering that. On the critical front, the kids said that we talked too much during the first two days. Between all of the explanations of the rules and how to make characters and Doug's excellent talk, we wore through their patience. This matches my sense, too. More dice, less talk. A surprise, though, was that they also wanted to have more breaks from role-playing with team-building or other large-group activities. I have some ideas for how to make the opening two days more dynamic. Hard at work on that this week.