In the following, I will outline why I came up with such a tool and for what purposes it can be useful. It has a lot to do with how keeping a sustainable enjoyable atmosphere around for a long time, considering health, group dynamics and dramaturgy. I will then describe the tool in a little more detail. I close with some observations I have made while using the tool.
Why and when doing time scheduling?
My longstanding RPG group lives or used to live all over
Europe so we could only see each other every few months. We then coordinate our
schedules that we have at least one additional game day of gaming. Usually,
people arrive Thursday night and leave Monday morning the latest. So Friday,
Saturday and Sunday are gaming days. In the past, we played excessively at the
beginning and then energy was
dwindling rapidly towards the end of the weekend to the point where people
dropped out, the mood changed negatively due to sleep deprivation or not eating / drinking healthy etc.
We thought a lot about it and how we could keep the level of
excitement which makes us forget stopping to play late at night at the
beginning of the weekend but bring each day and possibly each session to a
satisfying end.
This group is playing a famous module from the Germany’s TheDark Eye RPG, the Borbarad campaign,
which is a pretty linear adventure from the 90s with more than a 1,000 pages.
It’s epic and in a traditional campaign style has a minor dramatic climax every
5 to 10 hours of play and a big finale every 30 to 40 hours with a total play
time of expected 300 hours of play. Taking into account the long breaks between
sessions (between 3 and 4 months) it would be nice to end on a finale but that
doesn’t always work out.
The campaign has very distinct settings, genres and
atmospheres it crosses from archaeological inquiries, diplomatic missions,
dungeon crawls, the horror of war, fairy tales to mystical inner journeys, so
overlapping to another session is often enough not possible at all. Then we
prefer to skip some parts in mutual agreement or extend them to make up another
full session.
 |
| Time table from actual gaming session, Borbarad campaign |
So eating healthy, getting enough sleep and taking into
account the dramaturgic arc are the first elements for planning the weekend.
Another dimension highly relevant for me is group dynamics.
People are friends privately and hadn’t seen each other for months when we come
together. Taking into account for the relevant need of simple chat time is
important for us for having a satisfying weekend. Moreover, gaming for such
long sessions hardly ever comes without some tension, misunderstandings
accumulating to real problems and missed expectations.
We therefor start every day with an expectation management session. Before we end a single game session
we do a short debriefing. We use various techniques here since I believe that
changing the format freshens up everybody’s energy for doing proper debriefing. Depending on the topic of
the upcoming sessions we also like to do workshops
or warm-ups to prepare for what
is coming. This can be on how to play horror, how to use safety techniques, how
to reflect inner turmoil characters might have had after life changing events
etc. What I learned from Nordic Larp and
story games comes in handy very often for that. My latest musing is a lot about
ritualising our play.
But there is also space to nerdily discuss rules clarifications and mechanics.
Pretty often, we try to bring in new mechanics from new games we have heard
about or played in. Originally, the group used The Dark Eye 4 (DSA4.1) with
plenty of house rules, we then moved to an adaptation of Fate Core for several
years before returning to DSA5. Since last year we play with the Powered by
Aventurien set, a bastard system between DSA5 and PbtA. But introducing new
mechanics also only for specific situations will be a constant driver for us
exploring the possibilities of roleplay.
InGame, it’s
important to us to leave space for discussing what happened last time since
often enough several months have passed. We have a campaign wiki which we
update between sessions and people bring in what they remembered and what they
consider worthy to remember and to celebrate from the previous weekend.
Sometimes, the nature of the campaign we play demands to take time to put
together everything we have learnt so far or to better understand the
opposition and their motivation. InGame we explicitly state when we want to
have time for such group based information gathering and analysis and keep it
separate from actual play. That means giving such discussions a beginning and
an end point helped us a lot to keep energy high and avoid confusion about what
is going on.
The last part of activities we have an eye on is the one on
developing the group and the characters. For a long campaign with deep levels
of character immersion we consider it to be important to dedicate sufficient
time to discuss and review where the
group of characters is going, how
every single character has developed and how we would like to see that
reflected in play. Traditionally, we could call this “level up”-time but by now
there is much more behind this for us. Techniques and mechanics from indie
games and Nordic Larp bring in additional tools on how to approach character
and group development for us.
Finally, we wouldn’t be able to play all weekend long
without proper logistics. Obviously,
this means dedicating time slots for re-arranging furniture, dressing up the
game table and room, cleaning up etc.
How the time table works
The following table is summarising all the activities
described above which we distinguish when laying out the weekend’s time table.
We discuss the time table by assigning an amount of time to each of the
activities. For example, for five days 40 hours is a reasonable amount of time
for sleep. In the end, some people always have a more difficult time in finding
an end to the day than others and alone for that it’s good to have a deadline
which allows at least for 7 hours of real sleep.
Arrival time and travel home vary vastly obviously and can
be seen as placeholders for the general time people haven’t arrived yet.
Category
|
Activity
|
Description
|
Logistics
|
Arrival
|
Traveling to location
|
Travel home
|
Traveling home
|
|
Social
|
Welcome
|
Time while people arrive
|
Organisational
|
Shopping, planning organisational stuff
|
|
Clean-up
|
Move furniture, clean space before and after
|
|
Recreation
|
Idle time, offtopic chat
|
|
Food
|
Eat, prepare, order food
|
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
keeping the energy level high by sufficient sleep
|
Meta
|
Expectation mgmt
|
Exchange on what to expect from the rest of the
day
|
Retro
|
Positive feedback and debriefing on the last
session
|
|
Warm Up
|
Introduction games, unrelated to the main game
for warm up
|
|
Rules discussion
|
Rules clarifications, discussion of mechanics
|
|
Development
|
Character review
|
Reviewing individual characters
|
Character development
|
Further developing characters (leveling up,
refining concepts)
|
|
Group review
|
Reviewing group dynamics, group set-up
|
|
Group development
|
Further developing group concept
|
|
Play
|
InGame Wrapup
|
What happened last session
|
InGame Workshop
|
out of character discussions on what is going on
InGame (tactics etc.)
|
|
Play
|
InGame action and adventure
|
The categories are not set in stone and we revise them
frequently. However, keeping them more or less the same allows for comparison
between weekends to see how if we use our time differently. That helps us to
reflect about if our experience differs from what we see in the comparison. We
also like to compare what we had planned for and what the actual time spent
was.
Activity
|
Total
|
Planned
|
Diff
|
|
Arrival
|
9
|
11
|
-2.0
|
|
Travel home
|
11
|
13
|
-2.0
|
|
Welcome
|
1.5
|
1.5
|
0.0
|
|
Organisational
|
2
|
1
|
1.0
|
|
Clean-up
|
2.5
|
2
|
0.5
|
|
Recreation
|
8
|
7
|
1.0
|
|
Food
|
5
|
5.5
|
-0.5
|
|
Sleep
|
42
|
40
|
2.0
|
|
Expectation mgmt
|
0.5
|
2
|
-1.5
|
|
Retro
|
4
|
2
|
2.0
|
|
Warm Up
|
1
|
0.5
|
0.5
|
|
Rules discussion
|
0.5
|
0.5
|
0.0
|
|
Character review
|
1.5
|
1
|
0.5
|
|
Character development
|
0.5
|
1
|
-0.5
|
|
Group review
|
0
|
0
|
0.0
|
|
Group development
|
0
|
0
|
0.0
|
|
InGame Wrapup
|
0
|
0.5
|
-0.5
|
|
InGame Workshop
|
1
|
0.5
|
0.5
|
|
Play
|
30
|
31
|
-1.0
|
|
TOTAL
|
120
|
120
|
||
Main categories
|
Total
|
Planned
|
%
|
|
Play
|
31
|
32
|
-3%
|
|
Development
|
2
|
2
|
+0%
|
|
Meta
|
6
|
5
|
+20%
|
|
Social
|
19
|
17
|
+12%
|
|
TOTAL
|
58
|
56
|
+4%
|
When the time table is finished we print it several times
and put it on relevant places like the kitchen, the smoking area etc. Since I
use my laptop relatively often in play to look up notes, push handouts and
pictures of NPCs and locations on a second screen, I update the time table
while we play on my computer.
The following table shows how our last weekend looked in
real, i.e. how we actually used our time. We played a bit longer into the night
than what we planned to. We decided to start the actual play only on Friday and
used the short time slot to play on Thursday to play Jason Morningstar’s “LastStand” with our campaign characters but in an alternative reality.
Time
|
Thursday
|
Friday
|
Saturday
|
Sunday
|
Monday
|
08:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
08:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
09:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Clean-up
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
09:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Recreation
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Food
|
10:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Organisational
|
Food
|
Sleep
|
Recreation
|
10:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Organisational
|
Recreation
|
Recreation
|
Clean-up
|
11:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Food
|
Character devel.
|
Food
|
Clean-up
|
11:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Food
|
Retro
|
Retro
|
Clean-up
|
12:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Retro
|
Expectation mgmt
|
Recreation
|
12:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
13:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
13:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
14:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
14:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Food
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
15:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
Travel home
|
15:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
16:00:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
16:30:00
|
Arrival
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
17:00:00
|
Welcome
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
17:30:00
|
Welcome
|
Food
|
Play
|
Food
|
Travel home
|
18:00:00
|
Organisational
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
18:30:00
|
Welcome
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
19:00:00
|
Clean-up
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
Recreation
|
Travel home
|
19:30:00
|
Organisational
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
20:00:00
|
Food
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
20:30:00
|
Character review
|
Play
|
Play
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
21:00:00
|
Character review
|
Play
|
Food
|
Play
|
Travel home
|
21:30:00
|
Character review
|
Recreation
|
Play
|
Retro
|
Travel home
|
22:00:00
|
Warm Up
|
Play
|
Play
|
Rules discussion
|
Travel home
|
22:30:00
|
Warm Up
|
Play
|
Play
|
Retro
|
Travel home
|
23:00:00
|
InGame Workshop
|
Play
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
Travel home
|
23:30:00
|
InGame Workshop
|
Play
|
Play
|
Retro
|
Travel home
|
00:00:00
|
Recreation
|
Play
|
Play
|
Recreation
|
Sleep
|
00:30:00
|
Sleep
|
Play
|
Play
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
01:00:00
|
Sleep
|
Retro
|
Retro
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
01:30:00
|
Sleep
|
Recreation
|
Recreation
|
Sleep
|
Sleep
|
Chapter and scene planning
Though the players and I as the GM collaboratively fill the
time table, I also plan for how the chapters and scenes of the upcoming
adventure might unfold on the time table. For what simply displays as “Play” in
the time table above, is filled with names of the chapters and scenes planned
by me. This way I can see when we might reach which part of the story and I
have better control over questions like if I should skip a scene or can extend
on something the players got more excited about.
This obviously is something which only applies to that
degree to a traditional module as the one we are currently playing. Still, for
people who strictly play “to find out” (which we still do within the campaign’s
framework as much as possible) or do something less linear or sit in a sandbox
this is less useful on the planning dimension but could still be interesting to
track to see what has taken how much time etc.
For doing so, I divide the upcoming part of the module into
chapters and subordinated scenes. For each scene I estimate how much time we
might spent with it. The tool calculates the total time of all scenes and I can
compare that with the actual time to play we have. The following table shows
the scenes we played in our last weekend with actual play time. Comparing with
planned scenes and times is more difficult here, since often scenes are added
in play and others might be skipped entirely. [SPOILERS for the 4th part of the Borbarad campaign coming
in! Simply skip the next three pictures / tables]
Chapter
|
Scene
|
Length
|
Total
|
Setting the scene
|
On the run
|
0.5
|
0.5
|
Four harpys
|
0.5
|
1
|
|
What happened here recently
|
0.5
|
1.5
|
|
Ssel'Althach
|
Das kühne Tier mit dem
Krötensinn
|
1
|
2.5
|
Cabale in Tuzak
|
Situation at the capital
|
1
|
3.5
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
3
|
6.5
|
|
Preparing for battle
|
1.5
|
8
|
|
Attacking the palace
|
3
|
11
|
|
The Lord of Demons
|
2
|
13
|
|
Getting your breath back
|
0.5
|
13.5
|
|
A ward of ancient times
|
Dragon egg academy
|
1
|
14.5
|
Preparing for a journey
|
1
|
15.5
|
|
Bugs from out of time
|
1
|
16.5
|
|
Attack in Anchopal
|
2
|
18.5
|
|
Bravaldi's expedition
|
1
|
19.5
|
|
With the Zahori
|
0.5
|
20
|
|
The Qabalya
|
0.5
|
20.5
|
|
The grave robber duchess
|
3
|
23.5
|
|
The Mage's grave
|
4
|
27.5
|
|
The son of the Duke
|
1
|
28.5
|
|
Hasrabal of Goria
|
0.5
|
29
|
|
Intrigues in Rashdul
|
2
|
31
|
The Excel tool now automatically fills the time table slots
dedicated for “Play” with the scenes. Two views are available: chapter view
which shows the name of the respective chapter the scene belongs to and scene
view showing the single scenes as in the table below. There are also different
options on how to colour the scenes. They either simply alternate between
scenes so the beginning of new scenes is easier to detect. Or they represent
the colour of the scene’s dominating play style (learn more about that in the
next chapter).
Time
|
Friday
|
Saturday
|
Sunday
|
12:00:00
|
What
happened here
|
||
12:30:00
|
Das kühne Tier
|
Getting your breath back
|
The
Mage's grave
|
13:00:00
|
Das kühne Tier
|
Dragon
egg academy
|
The
Mage's grave
|
13:30:00
|
Situation at the capital
|
Dragon
egg academy
|
The
Mage's grave
|
14:00:00
|
Situation at the capital
|
The
Mage's grave
|
|
14:30:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
The
Mage's grave
|
|
15:00:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Preparing
for a journey
|
|
15:30:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Preparing
for a journey
|
The
Mage's grave
|
16:00:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Bugs
from out of time
|
The
Mage's grave
|
16:30:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Bugs
from out of time
|
The
Mage's grave
|
17:00:00
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Attack
in Anchopal
|
The
son of the Duke
|
17:30:00
|
Attack
in Anchopal
|
||
18:00:00
|
Preparing
for battle
|
Attack
in Anchopal
|
The
son of the Duke
|
18:30:00
|
Preparing
for battle
|
Attack
in Anchopal
|
Hasrabal
of Goria
|
19:00:00
|
Preparing
for battle
|
||
19:30:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
Bravaldi's
expedition
|
Intrigues
in Rashdul
|
20:00:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
Bravaldi's
expedition
|
Intrigues
in Rashdul
|
20:30:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
With
the Zahori
|
Intrigues
in Rashdul
|
21:00:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
Intrigues
in Rashdul
|
|
21:30:00
|
The
Qabalya
|
||
22:00:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
The grave robber duchess
|
|
22:30:00
|
Attacking
the palace
|
The grave robber duchess
|
|
23:00:00
|
The
Lord of Demons
|
The grave robber duchess
|
|
23:30:00
|
The
Lord of Demons
|
The grave robber duchess
|
|
00:00:00
|
The
Lord of Demons
|
The grave robber duchess
|
|
00:30:00
|
The
Lord of Demons
|
The grave robber duchess
|
While playing I continuously use breaks to update the tool
to see where things are going for the current session.
As can be seen we were successful in ending scenes towards
the end of each day. On Friday, we needed a break in the middle of the last
session since we ran out of energy. The last scene on Sunday had a strong
sandbox style and therefore could be perfectly interrupted without hassle when
we ran out of time. We ended early enough on Sunday to have sufficient time for
a retrospective and what we learnt from the new mechanics we used.
Analysing Playstyle in scenes
There is one more functionality in the Excel workbook which
can be used but also ignored if not relevant for the group. What I like to do
is identifying what playstyle was relevant in which scene and to which degree
it was present. My group has a rough idea of what they like in roleplaying and
the right mix of different playstyles adds a lot to a good experience. For my
group I distinguish the following four areas:
Roadmovie scenes
appear relatively often in a classic module. They contain a scripted story
which the players are supposed to follow. However, in contrast to their bad
reputation, a group conscious of moving along certain rails can use the freedom
they have along the road for character and NPC interaction and simple scenes
can turn into beautiful vignettes building up for the good of the overall
story. Roadmovie like scenes in previous sessions have been journeys through
adventurous landscapes or meetings with NPCs who offer plot hooks.
Sandbox scenes
are defined here as scenes where the set-up is fixed but approach and outcome
are highly flexible and open. Previous sandbox dominant scenes have been
investigations in a city, overcoming a group of dangerous bandits hiding in the
forest etc.
Deep and intense character
play is present in many scenes but can also be the dominant topic of a
scene. Especially scenes which are heavily intertwined with a character’s background
and emotions have a chance to shine with character play.
Conflict scenes
are meant to be scenes where mechanics on hit points and harm are pulled in.
This is usually physical conflict but can obviously also be any other kind of
challenge for the characters’ integrity.
The tool allows to distribute points per playstyle to any
scene to reflect which playstyle was present to which degree (e.g. 2 points on
Roadmovie, 3 points on Sandbox). Excel is then calculating the assigned points
into percentage values (40% Roadmovie, 60% Sandbox) and calculates on a total
level which playstyle has taking up how much time over the weekend.
Scene
|
Main play style
|
Roadmovie
|
Sandbox
|
Character play
|
Conflict
|
On the run
|
Character play
|
0%
|
0%
|
100%
|
0%
|
Four harpys
|
Roadmovie
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
What happened here recently
|
Roadmovie
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Das kühne Tier mit dem
Krötensinn
|
Character play
|
0%
|
0%
|
100%
|
0%
|
Situation at the capital
|
Sandbox
|
25%
|
50%
|
25%
|
0%
|
Being hunted by the KGIA
|
Sandbox
|
0%
|
67%
|
25%
|
8%
|
Preparing for battle
|
Roadmovie
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Attacking the palace
|
Conflict
|
0%
|
0%
|
9%
|
91%
|
The Lord of Demons
|
Conflict
|
0%
|
0%
|
14%
|
86%
|
Getting your breath back
|
Sandbox
|
0%
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Dragon egg academy
|
Roadmovie
|
83%
|
0%
|
17%
|
0%
|
Preparing for a journey
|
Sandbox
|
47%
|
53%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Bugs from out of time
|
Roadmovie
|
53%
|
0%
|
47%
|
0%
|
Attack in Anchopal
|
Conflict
|
17%
|
0%
|
17%
|
67%
|
Bravaldi's expedition
|
Character play
|
11%
|
11%
|
78%
|
0%
|
With the Zahori
|
Character play
|
17%
|
0%
|
83%
|
0%
|
The Qabalya
|
Roadmovie
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
The grave robber duchess
|
Sandbox
|
0%
|
55%
|
45%
|
0%
|
The Mage's grave
|
Conflict
|
20%
|
30%
|
10%
|
40%
|
The son of the Duke
|
Character play
|
17%
|
0%
|
83%
|
0%
|
Hasrabal of Goria
|
Roadmovie
|
83%
|
0%
|
17%
|
0%
|
Intrigues in Rashdul
|
Character play
|
8%
|
42%
|
50%
|
0%
|
I assign the points in planning of the scenes and hence get
an overview how much of our time we probably will spend on let’s say combat
versus city exploration. I can then arrange for scenes or changes in scenes if
I feel that the distribution does not fit the group’s expectations for the
weekend.
Retrospectively I re-evaluate my expectations and adjust the
scene length to actual play to get a better picture of what we were mainly
doing over the weekend.
Play style
|
Time
|
%
|
Colour
|
Description
|
Roadmovie
|
7.2
|
23%
|
green
|
Scene by scene in a (on a large scale) scripted
story
|
Sandbox
|
7.3
|
24%
|
yellow
|
Free play and interaction in a set environment
|
Character play
|
8.9
|
29%
|
blue
|
Intensive in-character play focused on the PCs
|
Conflict
|
7.6
|
25%
|
red
|
Conflicts heavily reflected in mechanics
|
Not assigned
|
0.0
|
0%
|
black
|
Scenes with a tie in any of the above styles
|
TOTAL
|
31.0
|
Observations and conclusion
I have been using this tool now for four weekends with the
largest chunk of refinements after the first weekend which means the last three
weekends are comparable. The result is better planning from my side, a higher
degree of collaboration within the group on what we want to focus on and what
is important for us. The post-analysis is great food for thought for us.
Our sleeping pattern has significantly improved. Having
dedicated time for non-game relevant personal exchange brought huge benefits to
play as tempting as it always was for all us to go “100% into gaming nonstop”.
Expectation management and retrospectives have brought to light potential
conflicts which otherwise could have undermined the experience for some or all
of us significantly.
What we as a group who doesn’t see each other often do as
well is having monthly online conversations where all kind of topics can be
brought up and be discussed. That is an additional layer of exchange which is
independent of the Excel tool but highly important for our experience. We
document these discussions online if necessary and use the time before the next
weekend to come to a conclusion about unresolved issues. For example, a
problematic scene which left us all unhappy after one weekend was brought up in
one of those online meetings. Everybody brought in what they had to say and in
the next meeting we had a plan how to overcome the challenge.
When telling people online about my analyses, I often hear that I
would “overengineer” or “taking the fun out of playing”. That might be true for
others if they would use such a tool. It definitely is not the case for me and
my group. Indeed, every statistical analysis, every attempt to bring a group
experience into the realm of two-dimensional tables needs to be taken with a
grain of salt. Still though, opening up for the sheer existence of a framework
around what we call play and taking it with the seriousness of any other
intellectual or emotional based group experience is worth having a look at.
In Nordic Larp theory it is often said that the game
consists of many surrounding layers around actual play. That is definitely true
as well for tabletop RPGs. The way one includes the surrounding bits is up to
every group to decide. Time tables and playstyle aggregates may look boring but
I’m sure some groups could profit from putting some thoughts on how they spend
their time.
