Should You Expect the Players to Do Pre-and-Post Game Work?
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When I’m running a game, I usually spend the day before prepping.
If it’s a module (ala Keep on the Shadowfell), I’ll only spend about a half hour looking over the next half dozen encounters, knowing that my players will inevitably show up late and only get through about three of them.
If I’m running a game without modules, I’ll spend about two hours or so throughout the week looking over books and the internet, hoping to find something that sparks my interest that I’d like to have the heroes run into.
But beyond that, when I’m simply surfing the internet throughout the week, I’ll hunt down bits of information or maps that I think will be useful.
But every week, my players will show up, I’ll hand them their character sheets and figures, and they’ll pull out their dice and we’ll play. After the game, they’ll hand back over their character sheet and miniature, and we’ll go our separate ways until next week (or the next work day, in the case of some players… or a few minutes later when I climb into bed with one of my players… 
)
So should the heroes be expected to do some work during the week as well? Perhaps transcribe the previous adventure, or research a bit of Forgotten Realms lore?
A problem I see with this idea is that when the DM doesn’t do his work, there’s no game. If the players don’t do any work, they can just show up, say “oops!” and play on.
Perhaps an XP bonus for anyone willing to do a little work on the side?
What type of work could they be assigned?
P.S. If anyone is proficient in Campaign Cartographer 2, I would appreciate a little help. I just got it, and am having a little trouble with it. Thanks!
I don’t expect it, but it makes me happy when they do. The big exception is leveling up characters – I assume they can do that between sessions.
Last session, I asked if any of mine wanted to start keeping a campaign journal. That seems to be a popular task to give to players, and I thought it might be heplful. None of mine were enthusiastic, and we’re not playing with XP, so I suppose I’ll never know.
My players do enjoy anything directly related to their own characters. They’ll bug me during the week to talk about backstory, or a potential houserule that affects their powers. My suggestion is, if you want your players doing something between sessions, make it something that lets them ponder how incredibly awesome their character is, and they’ll be a lot more likely to do it.
I’ve found assigning players “homework” doesn’t work, and giving in game rewards for it just causes problems.
The players who will do work outside the game will do it regardless of a reward and the players who don’t want to do it will see it as a chore they have to do to keep up with the other players.
I think the best way to get people to actually put effort into a game beyond just showing up to play is to actually make their efforts meaningful in the game and driving home the fact that you get out of this hobby what you put into it. The players who put forth the effort seem to have more fun and be more involved than those who don’t.
As a player, I don’t like things that look like homework.
Then again, as a GM, I keep hoping that they write session reports or background info. As I keep a campaign wiki for every one of my games, players have the opportunity to contribute, but it is not mandatory (and in actual fact is happens rarely).
The key is making the players so excited and motivated that they can’t help but express themselves by keeping a campaign journal or a shared table map. If you can encourage this sort of input, it has a profound (and positive) effect on the players’ immersion in the game. The route to this level of participation often starts with simple tasks that reinforce how awesome the PCs are, as Swordgleam pointed out.
Yeah, homework sometimes sucks, but I’m happiest as a DM when I have players who are interested in the game outside of of the session. I definitely ask more of my players than you do, though–I’m rather amazed you hold onto their character sheets for them, for instance. :p
*shrugs* It’s a game-style preference; as a player I write character backgrounds and post-adventure synopses because it’s fun, and I spend hours on hours building homebrew material when I DM. It isn’t fair to expect other players to do as much as I do in either case, but it’s awesome when they do. And I always keep a campaign wiki like Alex, too, to encourage some kind of player interaction away from the table.
In most of the campaigns I’ve played in we’ve worked out modest in-game rewards for players who put in extra effort, enough to make it worthwhile, but no so much that the non-contributors feel they have to. The result is that we have a slightly deeper game, and it’s never caused any major problems.
It is always nice to see that players are interested in the campaign you have created. Using XP as a reward (keeping it in reasonable amounts) is a good thing.
I.e. our 4e campaign the world is “just a continent” with a name and in the map there is only few regions put in there (With some key regions etc). During gamimg sessions the map will grow cause before (or during) the session I may add something in there. So if a player character developes intense history for himself, villages, regions etc. it is a huge benefit to the game aswell. “The World” starts to live even without you controlling it all the time. In addition, if you use something that the player has created, it will surely be a nice experience for the him as well. It creates a feel of belonging etc. In addition that is a great way to insert subplots to the game.
I’ve always liked the image of players who are still getting into it outside of the session itself. It started with my college groups; there were a few games in which, after session, I’d meet with a couple of the other particularly enthusiastic players and we’d plot against our current GM–and after most of the group had left and it was just my alum friend and me, plot against my players. He had some sweet ideas. Certainly, I’m a perpetual motion machine in the games I play in. Give me a time-jump, I’ll write you a novella or pester you for sidechats so we both know what it was we “missed”. Hand me a cliffhanger, I’ll show up the next session–or the next day, if it was a sidechat–with contingency plans and crazy ideas.
I’ve also found that “homework” can help move the game along. I just set up a rather conflict-heavy subplot (unusual for me, and they know it); since I know everyone’s just raring to get to the action bit, and there were a couple of things I didn’t have ready when we ended last session, I set up the information they needed as a feature on my campaign wiki. Presumably they’ll have read through what they need and will be ready to go get themselves in trouble by week after next when I start up again. And this way, we don’t have to sit through another session of “What now?” “I don’t know, what do you think?”