The Play's the Thing, Part VI

Originally published July 2, 2014

In my continuing series, I discuss The Play's the Thing, a player advice column by Robin D. Laws that ran in Dragon Magazine in the early years of D&D 3rd edition. The point of the column was to help players improve their games for their own enjoyment and that of their fellow players. In addition to reviewing that advice, I'll be providing my thoughts on how it works in actual play.

There and Back Again

Issue 294, April 2002

One way to improve the game for yourself and others is to keep a log. This might be a journal of your character's exploits, a simple list of events, or something more creative like a blog series as done by your character.

The virtues of keeping a log include exercising your inner writer, extend the joy of the game for yourself, providing a memory aid for the gamemaster (GM) and your fellow players (PC), and an opportunity to express your character's opinions of the player characters. If you write your log in character, it can also help you keep or improve your hold on your character's personality.

I've used this method several times in the past and it can be really helpful for digging deeper into your character, to find out what their hopes and dreams are as well as what they think of the other characters. From a practical standpoint, I would usually populate my notes (handwritten at the time) with maps of locations we explored, descriptions of dungeons, and tidbits on anything that might prove useful later. Thus I was better able than most to uncover mysteries and exploit existing resources (like the temple of healing on a map we were shown once).

So with that in mind, how should you best start? When I write a log (as a GM) for my games, I typically start with a bullet point style outline. This helps ensure you won't miss anything from the previous session. Try to list all of the vital moments: major foes defeated, clues discovered, mysteries unraveled, important NPCs met. Then highlight the memorable moments: the barbarian's critical hit that took out the lead monster in one strike, the hilarious moment when a character had to bluff a guard about why they were climbing a wall, that dreaded moment when the main warrior went down in round 2.

Also make sure to include an important action from each of the PCs. This will help invest them in your narrative and keep them focused should the GM ask you to recap the last session for the group. You can also include your character's opinions of the other characters but try to remain civil. Be clear that these are the character's opinions and not yours. It also can't hurt to flatter the healer or the warrior that guards your back. You might also use this opportunity to explain any odd actions that your character did in that session to forestall future conflicts within the group.

Once you have all of your details, you might stop there or you could wind them into a narrative, writing it up as you would a journal entry, blog, or other medium (I am now imagining a game session as a series of tweets).

You can also include allusions to plots and events you would like to pursue, perhaps by indicating how you will use the rewards gained to pursue your own goals and schemes. If your fellow players and GM are agreeable, you might even be able to add side details that occurred outside of the game session, things your character was up to during downtime.

This is a feature I loved to use in Amber: the Diceless Roleplaying Game where character could literally forge worlds between games. I've also found such downtime ideas handy in longer games with a certain amount of intrigue and political maneuvering.

Finally in the end when a game is done and your character's story has completed, a character journal leaves you with a nice reminder of good times gone past.