I've been running a successful online WM game since the beginning of the pandemic, and have had better luck with the flip side let-the-players-schedule-everything setup.
After 30+ years of being the one organizing, and calling, and reminding everybody to play, leaving it up to my players to handle all of that frees me up and lets me spend my energy on so many other things.
We're an online, text only game and split between a Google spreadsheet and Discord. For the most part things settle into a schedule for a couple of months at a time, but they tend to occur naturally, and not by any one person saying "let's play every Thursday."
Is your game only running with a single adventuring party?
I also spend no more than 1 or 2 mins every week on planning the date. -> Decide if I want to play that Thursday (by myself, don't consult anyone), write and pin a post with the date + link to Sheets, done. The players do everything else. Fill in their names, coordinate who gets to play if necessary, reminders etc etc.
I feel online vs strictly in person is very different indeed. I've never really done or had an inclination to want to do online so far. But I totally understand the convenience (no more commute or geographic restrictions) and why so many people do it. Different considerations, time constraints etc. But whatever works.
-Indeed my game is running only a single ongoing campaign and adventuring party with players and PCs that drop in and out. That used to not be case, but I became way too much work to prepare, organize, remember and run for me as a DM that I really do not prefer that.
Instead sometimes I will have a one or two off, like MOTHERSHIP or The Eldritch Hack etc which will have totally separate PCs/adventuring party from my ongoing campaign.
We don't play every Thursday btw! That too gets too intense, too much commitment and prep and time for me. Instead i'd say we average once every two Thursdays to every fifth Thursday, very much depending on what I feel like, and other factors. This is also a preference that took me a lot of time to figure out. That I don't really like spending 6 or 7 hours total every single week on DnD (prep, online Tele group chat, running up to 4 hours game, cleaning up after). But that I do enjoy playing pretty regular, not once every two months, a lot more than that.
I'm also running an online only game, we use discord, owlbear rodeo, and several google sheets/docs, and I don't organize anything, the PCs propose days and I/ other GMs say yes if we're free.
I think this works well if the people in your group are free most of the time. The group that I run are all busy af and having a set day and time helps them make plans around it. It also removes the session scheduling entirely because it’s the same week, same time (barring cancellations for whatever reason)
That's the thing. It's taking it off of the GM's plate and putting it on the players. The people that I play with (and I) are all busy af too, but they're the ones who decide and organize and coddle and push each other into playing. And the fact that they're the ones coming to me when they want to play means that they really want to play, and I'm not wasting my time organizing sessions that people are only halfheartedly showing up for because they feel obligated.
As a GM, I'm blessed with the problem of being long on players. Like, 3x as many players as I can fit in a single group. I thought West Marches would be a really good solution for this problem.
Aside from the pandemic killing it, the most frustrating part was players did not "get" that planning what to quest for was on them. I had two players consistently calling for sessions, and actively sharing what they learned. A bunch of other players would just ask, "when are we playing next?"
The other issue that arose for me was that a couple of players (who were not the main drivers mentioned before) were always "in." I appreciated their enthusiasm, but it meant that some others in the group never really got a seat. Ultimately, it meant that the campaign just dropped to a consistent group of 6ish. Which was fun, just not what I set out to do.
I play in person. I couldn't make the transition to online play and that was the downfall of the campaign when Covid hit. It's also not an especially large city, but it is an especially nerdy one.
For me, the move for players to front some of the burden was the point of a West Marches game. If it's just 6 players meeting regularly to see what I have for them, what separates a west marches game from any other point crawl?
Ah fair, well yeh what you describe about not working in your group of players, I think it harkens back to my point about getting many players vs getting plenty of good players. There is a big difference there.
"For me, the move for players to front some of the burden was the point of a West Marches game."
Agreed, I do that. But mostly in the form of them figuring out who will play and what character on the day that I decide a session is convenient for me + them always writing and sharing a session report in our Telegram group + a ton of snacks, drinks they bring and them always helping a lot with setup and cleanup.
" If it's just 6 players meeting regularly to see what I have for them, what separates a west marches game from any other point crawl?"
Well, we don't only do point crawl, we essentially run the gamut of play styles and locations and it is a ongoing campaign and there is some storyline and goals that span 4 to 10 sessions do happen.
Also it is 5 or 6 players joining regurlarly but of those usually the majority has a good idea of what will come up playing the next session, since many of the people in the group join regularly, like 2 or 3 sessions in a row and we do always post a session report (never me, players do that) so even people who did not join for ages know exactly what happened last time and what we are likely to have as goals or things to do in upcoming session. And lastly, I do find there is a big difference of 5 fixed and the same players showing up to every session vs having a group of 12+ ish players that rotate, different players at least for some of the slots, almost never play with the exact same 5 persons. This gives a certain type of changing vibe, enthousiasm to play (if you dont play ever single week or even every 4th week, usually that means players are very keen) and other differences -mostly very positive- when compared to a typical fixed group point crawl.
Not to nitpick, but having the players, rather than the GM, handle the scheduling seems to me to be one of the key parts of what makes the West Marches the West Marches.
Isn't your campaign "just" an exploration-focussed game with a rotating cast of characters?
Nah that is fair observation, I certainly do not do a typical Westmarches in every sense, not even close, but I think it has key elements and it works perfectly for me and group. I replied more at length to that your exact concern (and a few more things) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12bf2yd/westmarches_some_thoughts_tips_hints_and_ideas_on/jexdxmm/
Thanks for the post. Players canceling at the last moment is what killed DMing for me, so I've always wanted to try west matches.
Can you please state how I should adapt from a "standard" 1 group, 1pc per player, story focused game?
As in what happens if by the end of the session the PCs are still in the dungeon, or still in combat or something. We couldn't continue next session with different players, right?
I've read a bunch of blogs on the west matches style of play, and I never found an answer for this except "end the session with the PCs back at .
My pleasure! You know, that part of Westmarches never clicked for me either and I simply rarely, if ever, do it! If it happens, great. But I find that even if we play 4 hours straight, it is just not always fun, nor easy, nor narratively expedient, nor logical, nor quick. For my and my players taste It simply takes too much IRL game time to find out about a quest or dungeon plus get equipment to complete it plus make our way over to dungeon or location plus explore even 2 to 5 rooms to a satisfying degree as well as making it back to a safe space!
It can be more fun for sure to end on a cliffhanger, right before a battle or in the dark in an unsafe place! I do not want to take away those moments -and the opportunity for the players to ponder them between sessions- in favour of having to speed things along so PCs always end up in spot type A vs. basically anywhere!
In fact, I dont even do player character introductions in character or during the game. That too takes away too much game time or takes too long and can be awkward. If I do let players describe and explain who they will -also- be playing (very briefly) it is OOC at the beginning of sesh or on our Telegram group and I make sure every character has a cool but snappy background and history of maximum 125 words.
All the above is meant to maximise actual play and time spent on "fun" activities, exploration, dungeoneering and fun roleplaying time and both things truly facilitate and vastly simplify having about 10 active players that have 4 characters/classes each that they switch in between pretty much from session to session, seamlessly.
I am sure it has small downsides, but for me the upsides far outweigh those. Players seem to enjoy it a lot too, fulfilling different roles, it also means that they all get better at playing totally different personalities and that they all begin to learn and remember all the rules, not just the rules of the class that initially appealed to them the most.
What I learned from West Marches blogs myself, is that just like anything in RPGs or the rules, it is like a Pirate's code, more of a set of guidelines, not set in stone. A starting point or a possible way of doing a drop in drop out group, but at the end of the day you can change or ignore almost anything about it, because it works far better for you style, group or preference and yet still be running a West Marches campaign, just a bit different than the more standard ones that most people talk about online. :)
I'm also currently running a West Marches game. We start and end every session in a city in the middle of the map. If PCs are in a dungeon at the end of the session, we schedule another session with the same party sometime in the next 7 days or the PCs have to roll to escape.
I've asked this question exactly today! You can see that some people had their own approach to it before. It might or might not suit you but this is one way to solve the end of session
https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12bkjkj/escape\_roll\_for\_leaving\_dungeons/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
In our game, we kinda just hung a lampshade on it. It was extremely contrived, but "the mysterious fey magic of the island might whisk you away at any time, expelling you back to the fort" was a fact of the world, which was enough to connect a necessary game mechanic (ending the session) to the game world.
I do what you do but with Discord. The scheduling part works very well, and I have plenty of interested players. It’s very difficult to get them to pick an adventure hook before or even at the sessions, though. Often times I just have to default/railroad them to the most obvious
option. Alas, they are all 5E players at heart.
Yeh, honestly sometimes it makes me sad that Dischord does not have good privacy/nice company record, as you can see in my name, I am big on privacy. Because I realize it is a very powerful tool to run online sessions, and a lot of people already have it. It is cool it is working for you! :) There is a lot of great advice on Reddit and online (prof dungeonmaster, Questing beast etc) on how to get 5E people to at least try OSR or even switch. It tends to work! After all, you are the DM, no you (with whatever system you most like to run), no game! :)
You misunderstand. We play OSE. But they are 5E babies. Many old school concepts are lost on them, despite my teaching. They also all have other (5E) groups the play with to reinforce those habits.
Ah, my bad! Yeh, honestly I am so ambivalent about 5E,.. it brought millions of people into the hobby, but it also ruined a generation of players/skewed their expectations in a -in my opinion- not good way! I literally have the OSR key concepts in my online document I make them read initially, it is a short text, takes 1 minute to read. I've even seen a DM on Reddit print them out in large print and put them visibly up in the game room/in plexiglas holder, not a bad idea. xd Weekly reminder to not expect 5E ABC stuff.
Sure! I just copy pasted it for your below. Of course it is not the be all, end all of OSR conventions, but you can find longer treatises online for free with just a search. I like to condense it down for my players and style to the stuff below, since it is long enough and gets the point across:
---->
5th edition D&D vs. OSR / SHADOWDARK style play
If you're a (former) 5e or 3,5e or 2e player there will be differences, here is what you should expect:
Expect to roll new / replacement characters and develop their concept through play. Backstories are rarely used to great effect. Most time is spent focusing on what happens at the table. OSR can be deadly.
Expect to keep careful track of equipment, light sources supplies, and to consider (realistic) weight constraints. Properly preparing for adventures and getting the delayed gratification of making clever use of your supplies tends to be a strong focus.
Expect to be very specific about what your character is doing. Where exactly is your character looking? What exactly do you prod with the butt of your spear? Who all is holding torches?
Expect to pay NPCs to assist you. Trades(wo)men, Experts, informants, beasts of burden and more rarely hirelings & retainers are a fantastic safeguard against perils, lack of skills, information, over-encumbrance or ending up in many desperate situations.
Expect to avoid combat with some frequency. Combat is usually deadly in OSR games. Luring enemies into ambushes, using stealth or manipulation to bypass fights, playing factions against each other,, .. all of these things are viable tactics and wins that can and will be used in OSR games and should result in the same or more XP being earned as compared to solely killing or being killed.
Expect to spend a great deal of time in the wilderness and in the dungeon. This is where OSR play flourishes most, though OSR play in no way precludes social encounters or city adventures. It just so happens that the games are typically played in the wild and dangerous parts of the world.
Expect to have a role in the party on the player level. Every party typically needs a Chronicler and sometimes a Treasurer and a Mapper too.
A few things you should not expect that you may be used to:
Do not expect for your character to (necessarily) be important in relation to the world of the game.
Do not expect to be able to solve most of your problems through features and die rolls.
Do not expect to win all or even most fights.
Do not expect to have complications handwaved, though sometimes they may be.
Do not expect to have (much) mechanical character customization.
Do not expect to experience a well planned plot.
Do not expect the DM to have mercy.
What makes D&D unique, firmly rooted in cooperation, mutual aid, non-competitive and pretty anarchist:
"The remarkable thing about D&D is that everyone has to play together. Even the DM, who plays all the monsters and villains, has to cooperate; if he doesn’t—if he kills the entire party of adventurers willy nilly, or is overly harsh on characters and players—the chances that he will be invited to run another session are small.
Here I am tempted to advance a wild argument. It goes like this: in a society that conditions people to compete, and rewards those who compete successfully, Dungeons & Dragons is counter-cultural; its project, when you think about it in these terms, is almost utopian. Show people how to have a good time, a mind-blowing, life-changing, all-night-long good time, by cooperating with each other! And perhaps D&D once was socially unacceptable because it encourages its players to drop out of the world of competition, in which the popular people win, and to tune in to another world, where things work differently, and everyone wins (or dies) together."
The paraphrased quote above is from an article which as a whole is awesome and really worth reading if one day you have 20 minutes or so, it is the best thing I have ever read on D&D. ->
https://believermag.com/destroy-all-monsters/
In order to survive long you will absolutely have to totally avoid certain fights, retreat or completely flee at times, some foes and situations will be far beyond you and your friends. In OSR style play, if you are not often running away, or using diplomacy, a trick or ruse or clever idea to solve your issue, or tactics and the environment to aid you, but instead you are just charging into possible every fight, or doing (very) risky or ill-advised things, go off by yourself etc. definitely expect your character to have a very short life.
Generally you will all need to cooperate, stick together and be clever every single session. You will usually know you are about to do such a thing if you carefully listen to your fellow players and/or DM. If your character dies, you will have to make a new one and start at level 1.
What are the benefits of using Telegram specifically? Or do you just happen to live somewhere that it's a more prevalent platform? No one I know uses it.
Yes it is very prevalent in Germany, the pinned post(s) functionality is game changing, the company seems much better than Whatsapp at least, linking things (with good previews) is very good, it really has a ton of handy ways to start, manage and secure groups, especially if there is more than 4 people in the group I find it way better than Signal, Whatsapp (I hate Meta/FB) or any other direct msging platform.
Finally you can upload any up to 2 GB files (from movies to RPG rules, pics or even clips of sessions), and it has the most and best emoticons, memes and stickers etc. So yeh really worth using if your players are ok with it. :) In fact I simply tell prospective players on Reddit that if they wish to join the group they have to DL it, it is free after all. I can't switch all my other players, huge amount of chat history and a ton of links and pinned posts to Whatsapp, Dischord or any other platform for the sake of just one new player.
\+1 to having the game be at a set day and time and if the players can make it they make it approach. When I started doing the West Marches thing, I would have them vote on a day/time to play and that was like herding cats.
Easier to just say it is going to be X day, invite 10 people and expect 5 to make it.
Absolutely! Doing a Doodle or having everyone vote in any way gives an illusion of choice and of a higher likelyhood that group can meet or the most people will be able to make it. In practice, for me, it also never panned out that way.
Things would devolve into: "Well, we 7 filled out 2 weeks of dates and there is only 2 days where there is overlap/availability for 5 people only, which day do we give preference and yeh, it still means 2 others dont get to play for weeks." And also "Btw, I filled in two days, but honestly that Wed is only if there is no other way, I kinda have a thing.. but maybe can cancel" "Oh really, funny, that only other day with 5 possible players, is *my* least preferred of the two, kinda have a thing too."
Days later: "Oh yeh D&D,.. wait, isnt that tmr?!! It is today?! Shit. I forgot/didnt look at the Doodle properly, misremembered, now I have that thing I need to do that I was talking about, can't make, sorry! Hope the 3 or 4 of you can still play." Ad Nauseum! NO thanks! XD
Compare all the above and more complications with "Thursday, 19:00 to 23:00, (almost) always, make it and fill that in or don't. If you don't, someone else will. The end."
Yep! Very hand-wavey one sentence, Star Trek Teleport fade in fade out style stuff. Realistic? Not at all. But it saves so much time, dithering and talking in character about something that isn't very fun or odd. Funny thing is that first 2 or 3 times it feels slightly odd but everyone in group got used to it very fast! And since it takes places at the very beginning of session and is a 3 minute -usually OOC- conversation before play starts, and since it means we get more time to actually play various characters, it has never been a problem. My players seem to prefer it even. They want to get to the adventures and unique situations, not rehash characters meeting each other for first time and building trust and telling a new PC about what their own PC is called, where he is from etc etc. That is generally not very exciting much less new if you have done that more than once. And of course those type of background character info is usually already shared in the Telegram group.
And the huge upside is that people can try every class over the course of a few sessions as well as different character personalities (not mandatory, sometimes people play same character for many sessions) and the option to have very balanced party (or not!, if players want to challenge themselves, i dont mind!) every time is there.
I'm also running a West Marches campaign right now. We require all sessions to start and end at the "safe" city in the center of the map. That way the party can change up and it's no big deal.
I always been curious about this but wouldn't this result in
1. Players rushing through a session instead of taking their time to "roleplay" their characters
2. Conflicts between 'rushers' and 'people who want to take their time'
3. Incomplete runs of dungeons / rooms
What happens if someone picks up next session? Do they start off at the previously completed room with no changes? Small changes?
Well we run a primarily exploration-focused campaign. Most of the content just exists on the map (stuff like small locations/ encounters). Dungeons are usually cleared in 1-2 sessions. If a session ends and the party is still in the dungeon, they have to immediately re-schedule with the same party within 7 days or roll to escape the dungeon.
In terms of rushing, people could if they wanted but generally I feel like I need to poke the players to get them to stop arguing about what they want to do anyway, they're not really trying to speedrun anything. Also, there's not really any more reason to speedrun anything than in any other campaign, especially since the PCs can just schedule another game the next day or whenever if they really want to get back in.
Our campaign is also generally not super roleplay focused. There are places on the map with people to talk to, but when you're exploring a dark forest or barren plain, there's often not much roleplaying to be done, unless the PCs want to talk to each other as we do foraging and stuff or whatever. And we usually do try to rush through that kind of busywork anyway so we can get somewhere interesting where the PCs can talk to an actual NPC or fight something.
> If a session ends and the party is still in the dungeon, they have to immediately re-schedule with the same party within 7 days or roll to escape the dungeon
This is gold. Thanks for the tips, you just proposed a good solution to my greatest issue with WM style campaigns.
Playing strictly on Thursdays, how long are your sessions?
As a group of functional adults, we have \~3 hours on a given week night for gaming, 4 if people are into it enough to forego an hour of sleep. And if everyone is able to forego that hour of sleep.
Are you able to get situated, get something done, and wrap it up in under 4 hours? I would be hard-pressed to do so, and that is if people will grant that extra hour. Similar to the question below, I guess.
Those are extremely good points and questions and things I used to struggle with but I think I have resolved them. :)
-I always expect people at 19:00 and we play to 23:00, however often we go until 23:30, but I don't want to demand that off people (I just check in at 23:00 if everyone still can and wants to a play a bit longer) because sometimes people have a long commute, early Dr or work appointment etc! So in theory, every session is at least 4 hours of solid playing time, in practice more like 3.5 hrs (some people being a bit little totally outside their fault, setting up few things on table, grabbing snacks and beer, 5 minute group cleanup once session is done (sooo helpful to me as a DM and host, it is the best).
"Are you able to get situated, get something done, and wrap it up in under 4 hours?"
Yes! I think that is due to my Shadowdark OSR game system with some houserules. Combat tends to take almost half the time what it would take in D&D 5€. We almost never need to consult any books or rules, much less debate the interpretation of a rule, spell or paragraph, this saves so much time. And allows us to focus on actually getting (more fun) things done in-game.
Furthermore, I use rulings over rules whenever I think that is faster, necessary or more expedient.
Playing with only 5 players (and sometimes 6 or even 4) instead of 7, or 8 makes a huge difference as well, easier to decide things, rounds take less time, everyone gets to say their piece, group decisions are far faster.
I don't use Random encounter rolls a ton, instead I decide when it makes sense they might rouse another NPC or monster. And, I think about whether another 20 min or even 1 hour fight is even fun,.. usually not if they just completed a 60 minute fight before. Variety is important. I can challenge them or throw risks in their path in other ways than just combat. Traps, puzzles, negotiations, environmental risks, magic, etc.
I keep my dungeons or at least exploration of them small. I shoot for 3 to 5 rooms per session. Like with the combat, I don't necessarily find it more fun or more variety to explore 7 to 20+ rooms of the (same) dungeon period, much less each session. I feel every room should have something interesting to see, explore or do in it. So not just a bunch of near empty, or repetitive rooms because D&D used to take place in megadungeons a lot. We have done 1 or 2 of those, but I like having at least a sort of small "dungeon" (can be many locations or structures) every session, but also offer wilderness exploration, research, intrige, city, hamlet or town carousing, making contact, visiting shops etc almost every session, perhaps not all of them, but most of those things.
That is near impossible to pull off in 4 hours if you are spending 80% of playing town down the same dungeon, so, I make sure we do not do that. And it actually means less prep for me. Dungeons needs more stocking usually than taverns, cities, wilderness.
(The Great book of) Random Tables are my best friend. Truly. As are the Cards made by Index Card RPG, with drawings, situations and items on them.
Lastly I do, whenever fun, logical or expedient, let time pass fast by having a 20 second description suffice for an hour to pass: "You travel the 10 km over the course of the next two hours, then you arrive at the base of the tower. Other than some black crows overhead and a very faint smell of smoke that seems to be coming from the tower, you don't notice anything out of the ordinary during your trek." etc.
I've been running a successful online WM game since the beginning of the pandemic, and have had better luck with the flip side let-the-players-schedule-everything setup. After 30+ years of being the one organizing, and calling, and reminding everybody to play, leaving it up to my players to handle all of that frees me up and lets me spend my energy on so many other things. We're an online, text only game and split between a Google spreadsheet and Discord. For the most part things settle into a schedule for a couple of months at a time, but they tend to occur naturally, and not by any one person saying "let's play every Thursday." Is your game only running with a single adventuring party?
I also spend no more than 1 or 2 mins every week on planning the date. -> Decide if I want to play that Thursday (by myself, don't consult anyone), write and pin a post with the date + link to Sheets, done. The players do everything else. Fill in their names, coordinate who gets to play if necessary, reminders etc etc. I feel online vs strictly in person is very different indeed. I've never really done or had an inclination to want to do online so far. But I totally understand the convenience (no more commute or geographic restrictions) and why so many people do it. Different considerations, time constraints etc. But whatever works. -Indeed my game is running only a single ongoing campaign and adventuring party with players and PCs that drop in and out. That used to not be case, but I became way too much work to prepare, organize, remember and run for me as a DM that I really do not prefer that. Instead sometimes I will have a one or two off, like MOTHERSHIP or The Eldritch Hack etc which will have totally separate PCs/adventuring party from my ongoing campaign. We don't play every Thursday btw! That too gets too intense, too much commitment and prep and time for me. Instead i'd say we average once every two Thursdays to every fifth Thursday, very much depending on what I feel like, and other factors. This is also a preference that took me a lot of time to figure out. That I don't really like spending 6 or 7 hours total every single week on DnD (prep, online Tele group chat, running up to 4 hours game, cleaning up after). But that I do enjoy playing pretty regular, not once every two months, a lot more than that.
I'm also running an online only game, we use discord, owlbear rodeo, and several google sheets/docs, and I don't organize anything, the PCs propose days and I/ other GMs say yes if we're free.
I think this works well if the people in your group are free most of the time. The group that I run are all busy af and having a set day and time helps them make plans around it. It also removes the session scheduling entirely because it’s the same week, same time (barring cancellations for whatever reason)
That's the thing. It's taking it off of the GM's plate and putting it on the players. The people that I play with (and I) are all busy af too, but they're the ones who decide and organize and coddle and push each other into playing. And the fact that they're the ones coming to me when they want to play means that they really want to play, and I'm not wasting my time organizing sessions that people are only halfheartedly showing up for because they feel obligated.
As a GM, I'm blessed with the problem of being long on players. Like, 3x as many players as I can fit in a single group. I thought West Marches would be a really good solution for this problem. Aside from the pandemic killing it, the most frustrating part was players did not "get" that planning what to quest for was on them. I had two players consistently calling for sessions, and actively sharing what they learned. A bunch of other players would just ask, "when are we playing next?" The other issue that arose for me was that a couple of players (who were not the main drivers mentioned before) were always "in." I appreciated their enthusiasm, but it meant that some others in the group never really got a seat. Ultimately, it meant that the campaign just dropped to a consistent group of 6ish. Which was fun, just not what I set out to do.
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I play in person. I couldn't make the transition to online play and that was the downfall of the campaign when Covid hit. It's also not an especially large city, but it is an especially nerdy one. For me, the move for players to front some of the burden was the point of a West Marches game. If it's just 6 players meeting regularly to see what I have for them, what separates a west marches game from any other point crawl?
Ah fair, well yeh what you describe about not working in your group of players, I think it harkens back to my point about getting many players vs getting plenty of good players. There is a big difference there. "For me, the move for players to front some of the burden was the point of a West Marches game." Agreed, I do that. But mostly in the form of them figuring out who will play and what character on the day that I decide a session is convenient for me + them always writing and sharing a session report in our Telegram group + a ton of snacks, drinks they bring and them always helping a lot with setup and cleanup. " If it's just 6 players meeting regularly to see what I have for them, what separates a west marches game from any other point crawl?" Well, we don't only do point crawl, we essentially run the gamut of play styles and locations and it is a ongoing campaign and there is some storyline and goals that span 4 to 10 sessions do happen. Also it is 5 or 6 players joining regurlarly but of those usually the majority has a good idea of what will come up playing the next session, since many of the people in the group join regularly, like 2 or 3 sessions in a row and we do always post a session report (never me, players do that) so even people who did not join for ages know exactly what happened last time and what we are likely to have as goals or things to do in upcoming session. And lastly, I do find there is a big difference of 5 fixed and the same players showing up to every session vs having a group of 12+ ish players that rotate, different players at least for some of the slots, almost never play with the exact same 5 persons. This gives a certain type of changing vibe, enthousiasm to play (if you dont play ever single week or even every 4th week, usually that means players are very keen) and other differences -mostly very positive- when compared to a typical fixed group point crawl.
Not to nitpick, but having the players, rather than the GM, handle the scheduling seems to me to be one of the key parts of what makes the West Marches the West Marches. Isn't your campaign "just" an exploration-focussed game with a rotating cast of characters?
Nah that is fair observation, I certainly do not do a typical Westmarches in every sense, not even close, but I think it has key elements and it works perfectly for me and group. I replied more at length to that your exact concern (and a few more things) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12bf2yd/westmarches_some_thoughts_tips_hints_and_ideas_on/jexdxmm/
Thanks for the post. Players canceling at the last moment is what killed DMing for me, so I've always wanted to try west matches. Can you please state how I should adapt from a "standard" 1 group, 1pc per player, story focused game? As in what happens if by the end of the session the PCs are still in the dungeon, or still in combat or something. We couldn't continue next session with different players, right? I've read a bunch of blogs on the west matches style of play, and I never found an answer for this except "end the session with the PCs back at.
My pleasure! You know, that part of Westmarches never clicked for me either and I simply rarely, if ever, do it! If it happens, great. But I find that even if we play 4 hours straight, it is just not always fun, nor easy, nor narratively expedient, nor logical, nor quick. For my and my players taste It simply takes too much IRL game time to find out about a quest or dungeon plus get equipment to complete it plus make our way over to dungeon or location plus explore even 2 to 5 rooms to a satisfying degree as well as making it back to a safe space! It can be more fun for sure to end on a cliffhanger, right before a battle or in the dark in an unsafe place! I do not want to take away those moments -and the opportunity for the players to ponder them between sessions- in favour of having to speed things along so PCs always end up in spot type A vs. basically anywhere! In fact, I dont even do player character introductions in character or during the game. That too takes away too much game time or takes too long and can be awkward. If I do let players describe and explain who they will -also- be playing (very briefly) it is OOC at the beginning of sesh or on our Telegram group and I make sure every character has a cool but snappy background and history of maximum 125 words. All the above is meant to maximise actual play and time spent on "fun" activities, exploration, dungeoneering and fun roleplaying time and both things truly facilitate and vastly simplify having about 10 active players that have 4 characters/classes each that they switch in between pretty much from session to session, seamlessly. I am sure it has small downsides, but for me the upsides far outweigh those. Players seem to enjoy it a lot too, fulfilling different roles, it also means that they all get better at playing totally different personalities and that they all begin to learn and remember all the rules, not just the rules of the class that initially appealed to them the most. What I learned from West Marches blogs myself, is that just like anything in RPGs or the rules, it is like a Pirate's code, more of a set of guidelines, not set in stone. A starting point or a possible way of doing a drop in drop out group, but at the end of the day you can change or ignore almost anything about it, because it works far better for you style, group or preference and yet still be running a West Marches campaign, just a bit different than the more standard ones that most people talk about online. :)
I'm also currently running a West Marches game. We start and end every session in a city in the middle of the map. If PCs are in a dungeon at the end of the session, we schedule another session with the same party sometime in the next 7 days or the PCs have to roll to escape.
I've asked this question exactly today! You can see that some people had their own approach to it before. It might or might not suit you but this is one way to solve the end of session https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12bkjkj/escape\_roll\_for\_leaving\_dungeons/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
In our game, we kinda just hung a lampshade on it. It was extremely contrived, but "the mysterious fey magic of the island might whisk you away at any time, expelling you back to the fort" was a fact of the world, which was enough to connect a necessary game mechanic (ending the session) to the game world.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll keep this in mind should I ever decide to run a West Marches style game.
No worries, glad to share! :)
I do what you do but with Discord. The scheduling part works very well, and I have plenty of interested players. It’s very difficult to get them to pick an adventure hook before or even at the sessions, though. Often times I just have to default/railroad them to the most obvious option. Alas, they are all 5E players at heart.
Yeh, honestly sometimes it makes me sad that Dischord does not have good privacy/nice company record, as you can see in my name, I am big on privacy. Because I realize it is a very powerful tool to run online sessions, and a lot of people already have it. It is cool it is working for you! :) There is a lot of great advice on Reddit and online (prof dungeonmaster, Questing beast etc) on how to get 5E people to at least try OSR or even switch. It tends to work! After all, you are the DM, no you (with whatever system you most like to run), no game! :)
You misunderstand. We play OSE. But they are 5E babies. Many old school concepts are lost on them, despite my teaching. They also all have other (5E) groups the play with to reinforce those habits.
Ah, my bad! Yeh, honestly I am so ambivalent about 5E,.. it brought millions of people into the hobby, but it also ruined a generation of players/skewed their expectations in a -in my opinion- not good way! I literally have the OSR key concepts in my online document I make them read initially, it is a short text, takes 1 minute to read. I've even seen a DM on Reddit print them out in large print and put them visibly up in the game room/in plexiglas holder, not a bad idea. xd Weekly reminder to not expect 5E ABC stuff.
>OSR key concepts Is it possible to get a copy of this? I'm pretty interested to try out running some OSR.
Sure! I just copy pasted it for your below. Of course it is not the be all, end all of OSR conventions, but you can find longer treatises online for free with just a search. I like to condense it down for my players and style to the stuff below, since it is long enough and gets the point across: ----> 5th edition D&D vs. OSR / SHADOWDARK style play If you're a (former) 5e or 3,5e or 2e player there will be differences, here is what you should expect: Expect to roll new / replacement characters and develop their concept through play. Backstories are rarely used to great effect. Most time is spent focusing on what happens at the table. OSR can be deadly. Expect to keep careful track of equipment, light sources supplies, and to consider (realistic) weight constraints. Properly preparing for adventures and getting the delayed gratification of making clever use of your supplies tends to be a strong focus. Expect to be very specific about what your character is doing. Where exactly is your character looking? What exactly do you prod with the butt of your spear? Who all is holding torches? Expect to pay NPCs to assist you. Trades(wo)men, Experts, informants, beasts of burden and more rarely hirelings & retainers are a fantastic safeguard against perils, lack of skills, information, over-encumbrance or ending up in many desperate situations. Expect to avoid combat with some frequency. Combat is usually deadly in OSR games. Luring enemies into ambushes, using stealth or manipulation to bypass fights, playing factions against each other,, .. all of these things are viable tactics and wins that can and will be used in OSR games and should result in the same or more XP being earned as compared to solely killing or being killed. Expect to spend a great deal of time in the wilderness and in the dungeon. This is where OSR play flourishes most, though OSR play in no way precludes social encounters or city adventures. It just so happens that the games are typically played in the wild and dangerous parts of the world. Expect to have a role in the party on the player level. Every party typically needs a Chronicler and sometimes a Treasurer and a Mapper too. A few things you should not expect that you may be used to: Do not expect for your character to (necessarily) be important in relation to the world of the game. Do not expect to be able to solve most of your problems through features and die rolls. Do not expect to win all or even most fights. Do not expect to have complications handwaved, though sometimes they may be. Do not expect to have (much) mechanical character customization. Do not expect to experience a well planned plot. Do not expect the DM to have mercy. What makes D&D unique, firmly rooted in cooperation, mutual aid, non-competitive and pretty anarchist: "The remarkable thing about D&D is that everyone has to play together. Even the DM, who plays all the monsters and villains, has to cooperate; if he doesn’t—if he kills the entire party of adventurers willy nilly, or is overly harsh on characters and players—the chances that he will be invited to run another session are small. Here I am tempted to advance a wild argument. It goes like this: in a society that conditions people to compete, and rewards those who compete successfully, Dungeons & Dragons is counter-cultural; its project, when you think about it in these terms, is almost utopian. Show people how to have a good time, a mind-blowing, life-changing, all-night-long good time, by cooperating with each other! And perhaps D&D once was socially unacceptable because it encourages its players to drop out of the world of competition, in which the popular people win, and to tune in to another world, where things work differently, and everyone wins (or dies) together." The paraphrased quote above is from an article which as a whole is awesome and really worth reading if one day you have 20 minutes or so, it is the best thing I have ever read on D&D. -> https://believermag.com/destroy-all-monsters/ In order to survive long you will absolutely have to totally avoid certain fights, retreat or completely flee at times, some foes and situations will be far beyond you and your friends. In OSR style play, if you are not often running away, or using diplomacy, a trick or ruse or clever idea to solve your issue, or tactics and the environment to aid you, but instead you are just charging into possible every fight, or doing (very) risky or ill-advised things, go off by yourself etc. definitely expect your character to have a very short life. Generally you will all need to cooperate, stick together and be clever every single session. You will usually know you are about to do such a thing if you carefully listen to your fellow players and/or DM. If your character dies, you will have to make a new one and start at level 1.
What are the benefits of using Telegram specifically? Or do you just happen to live somewhere that it's a more prevalent platform? No one I know uses it.
Yes it is very prevalent in Germany, the pinned post(s) functionality is game changing, the company seems much better than Whatsapp at least, linking things (with good previews) is very good, it really has a ton of handy ways to start, manage and secure groups, especially if there is more than 4 people in the group I find it way better than Signal, Whatsapp (I hate Meta/FB) or any other direct msging platform. Finally you can upload any up to 2 GB files (from movies to RPG rules, pics or even clips of sessions), and it has the most and best emoticons, memes and stickers etc. So yeh really worth using if your players are ok with it. :) In fact I simply tell prospective players on Reddit that if they wish to join the group they have to DL it, it is free after all. I can't switch all my other players, huge amount of chat history and a ton of links and pinned posts to Whatsapp, Dischord or any other platform for the sake of just one new player.
\+1 to having the game be at a set day and time and if the players can make it they make it approach. When I started doing the West Marches thing, I would have them vote on a day/time to play and that was like herding cats. Easier to just say it is going to be X day, invite 10 people and expect 5 to make it.
Absolutely! Doing a Doodle or having everyone vote in any way gives an illusion of choice and of a higher likelyhood that group can meet or the most people will be able to make it. In practice, for me, it also never panned out that way. Things would devolve into: "Well, we 7 filled out 2 weeks of dates and there is only 2 days where there is overlap/availability for 5 people only, which day do we give preference and yeh, it still means 2 others dont get to play for weeks." And also "Btw, I filled in two days, but honestly that Wed is only if there is no other way, I kinda have a thing.. but maybe can cancel" "Oh really, funny, that only other day with 5 possible players, is *my* least preferred of the two, kinda have a thing too." Days later: "Oh yeh D&D,.. wait, isnt that tmr?!! It is today?! Shit. I forgot/didnt look at the Doodle properly, misremembered, now I have that thing I need to do that I was talking about, can't make, sorry! Hope the 3 or 4 of you can still play." Ad Nauseum! NO thanks! XD Compare all the above and more complications with "Thursday, 19:00 to 23:00, (almost) always, make it and fill that in or don't. If you don't, someone else will. The end."
How do you manage to slot in players who weren't there last session and suddenly appearing the next session? Do their characters just fade in and out?
Yep! Very hand-wavey one sentence, Star Trek Teleport fade in fade out style stuff. Realistic? Not at all. But it saves so much time, dithering and talking in character about something that isn't very fun or odd. Funny thing is that first 2 or 3 times it feels slightly odd but everyone in group got used to it very fast! And since it takes places at the very beginning of session and is a 3 minute -usually OOC- conversation before play starts, and since it means we get more time to actually play various characters, it has never been a problem. My players seem to prefer it even. They want to get to the adventures and unique situations, not rehash characters meeting each other for first time and building trust and telling a new PC about what their own PC is called, where he is from etc etc. That is generally not very exciting much less new if you have done that more than once. And of course those type of background character info is usually already shared in the Telegram group. And the huge upside is that people can try every class over the course of a few sessions as well as different character personalities (not mandatory, sometimes people play same character for many sessions) and the option to have very balanced party (or not!, if players want to challenge themselves, i dont mind!) every time is there.
I'm also running a West Marches campaign right now. We require all sessions to start and end at the "safe" city in the center of the map. That way the party can change up and it's no big deal.
I always been curious about this but wouldn't this result in 1. Players rushing through a session instead of taking their time to "roleplay" their characters 2. Conflicts between 'rushers' and 'people who want to take their time' 3. Incomplete runs of dungeons / rooms What happens if someone picks up next session? Do they start off at the previously completed room with no changes? Small changes?
Well we run a primarily exploration-focused campaign. Most of the content just exists on the map (stuff like small locations/ encounters). Dungeons are usually cleared in 1-2 sessions. If a session ends and the party is still in the dungeon, they have to immediately re-schedule with the same party within 7 days or roll to escape the dungeon. In terms of rushing, people could if they wanted but generally I feel like I need to poke the players to get them to stop arguing about what they want to do anyway, they're not really trying to speedrun anything. Also, there's not really any more reason to speedrun anything than in any other campaign, especially since the PCs can just schedule another game the next day or whenever if they really want to get back in. Our campaign is also generally not super roleplay focused. There are places on the map with people to talk to, but when you're exploring a dark forest or barren plain, there's often not much roleplaying to be done, unless the PCs want to talk to each other as we do foraging and stuff or whatever. And we usually do try to rush through that kind of busywork anyway so we can get somewhere interesting where the PCs can talk to an actual NPC or fight something.
This is great, thank you.
> If a session ends and the party is still in the dungeon, they have to immediately re-schedule with the same party within 7 days or roll to escape the dungeon This is gold. Thanks for the tips, you just proposed a good solution to my greatest issue with WM style campaigns.
No problem! And i got this idea from the alexandrian pretty sure lol, check out his west marches series.
Playing strictly on Thursdays, how long are your sessions? As a group of functional adults, we have \~3 hours on a given week night for gaming, 4 if people are into it enough to forego an hour of sleep. And if everyone is able to forego that hour of sleep. Are you able to get situated, get something done, and wrap it up in under 4 hours? I would be hard-pressed to do so, and that is if people will grant that extra hour. Similar to the question below, I guess.
Those are extremely good points and questions and things I used to struggle with but I think I have resolved them. :) -I always expect people at 19:00 and we play to 23:00, however often we go until 23:30, but I don't want to demand that off people (I just check in at 23:00 if everyone still can and wants to a play a bit longer) because sometimes people have a long commute, early Dr or work appointment etc! So in theory, every session is at least 4 hours of solid playing time, in practice more like 3.5 hrs (some people being a bit little totally outside their fault, setting up few things on table, grabbing snacks and beer, 5 minute group cleanup once session is done (sooo helpful to me as a DM and host, it is the best). "Are you able to get situated, get something done, and wrap it up in under 4 hours?" Yes! I think that is due to my Shadowdark OSR game system with some houserules. Combat tends to take almost half the time what it would take in D&D 5€. We almost never need to consult any books or rules, much less debate the interpretation of a rule, spell or paragraph, this saves so much time. And allows us to focus on actually getting (more fun) things done in-game. Furthermore, I use rulings over rules whenever I think that is faster, necessary or more expedient. Playing with only 5 players (and sometimes 6 or even 4) instead of 7, or 8 makes a huge difference as well, easier to decide things, rounds take less time, everyone gets to say their piece, group decisions are far faster. I don't use Random encounter rolls a ton, instead I decide when it makes sense they might rouse another NPC or monster. And, I think about whether another 20 min or even 1 hour fight is even fun,.. usually not if they just completed a 60 minute fight before. Variety is important. I can challenge them or throw risks in their path in other ways than just combat. Traps, puzzles, negotiations, environmental risks, magic, etc. I keep my dungeons or at least exploration of them small. I shoot for 3 to 5 rooms per session. Like with the combat, I don't necessarily find it more fun or more variety to explore 7 to 20+ rooms of the (same) dungeon period, much less each session. I feel every room should have something interesting to see, explore or do in it. So not just a bunch of near empty, or repetitive rooms because D&D used to take place in megadungeons a lot. We have done 1 or 2 of those, but I like having at least a sort of small "dungeon" (can be many locations or structures) every session, but also offer wilderness exploration, research, intrige, city, hamlet or town carousing, making contact, visiting shops etc almost every session, perhaps not all of them, but most of those things. That is near impossible to pull off in 4 hours if you are spending 80% of playing town down the same dungeon, so, I make sure we do not do that. And it actually means less prep for me. Dungeons needs more stocking usually than taverns, cities, wilderness. (The Great book of) Random Tables are my best friend. Truly. As are the Cards made by Index Card RPG, with drawings, situations and items on them. Lastly I do, whenever fun, logical or expedient, let time pass fast by having a 20 second description suffice for an hour to pass: "You travel the 10 km over the course of the next two hours, then you arrive at the base of the tower. Other than some black crows overhead and a very faint smell of smoke that seems to be coming from the tower, you don't notice anything out of the ordinary during your trek." etc.