Taking My Lumps: A Frydheld Sector Session Report
Last Friday I ran a session of Frydheld sector that was just kind of frustrating and didn't really match the expectations I have for myself. It's been some time since the session so I wanted to write a session report about it as I think there's a lot to learn from it. And I hope by putting it down to writing I will keep myself honest to what I need to improve on. A lot of these problems stem from issues I should have handled as the referee so I am taking this session as a moment to reflect and improve. I have talked to the players that I needed to already as the most important lesson to be learned from any poor session is: DISCUSS WHAT'S GOING WRONG WITH YOUR PLAYERS BEFORE THINGS GET BAD.
What Happened
The players hunted down leads on where the president of an important planet was kidnapped. They then staged a rescue mission and freed him successfully. There are of course greater details than that but the main focus is on what went wrong and how to fix it.
The Problems
Mic Discipline
This is a problem for all online games. Especially ones with playercounts over 4 or so players. Discord's audio codec shits out whenever more than one person talks at once. I use Teamspeak for my home table which avoids this issue by having 3D audio. But this session's Mic Discipline was the worst I've ever had online. Constant talking over one another which led to missed orders and unheard observations. It also made the processing of player requests really fucking taxing and by the end of the session my brain had turned to pudding and I could barely focus on making good adjudications.
Fixing this going forward I just have to be more strict with calling it out. Even more ideally than that I'd want to make the channel we play in require Push to Talk so that folks have to actually press a button to talk.
Lack of Coherence
Frydheld Sector is a campaign that has covered multiple groups across a bunch of different communities. Most of the tables have decided on an overarching goal and have chunked smaller goals to build towards it. The table from the Friday session has done this at times, but primarily has roamed from flashpoint to another looking to make out as best they can. This leads to a lack of coherence for what needs to be done. Idraluna's Classic Traveller campaign has the overarching goal of making a profit for the Krongu Company and that framing helped drive our decisions.
Going forward I will ask tables to define what their long term goal is and ask how they think they might achieve said goal. Sticky notes with goals on them akin to Shy Owl's OD&D campaign would also be a good idea.
Teleporting/Sloppy Play
I am too lenient and nice as a referee. During the session some players were moving between scenes and I gave them the benefit of the doubt due to outside circumstances that they did so out of confusion, but by not saying anything I did a disservice to the fiction and made things muddy for everyone.
I can't allow my personal sense of niceness and leniency to override fair play. If players are moving where they shouldn't or otherwise acting out of order with the session I need to step in, clarify, and bring the focus back.
Combat Confusion
This group has been playing for six months and still some of them are unsure of how combat works exactly in CT. Even with the new TN table I made I still need to babysit combat when I have other things to do during combat that also need my attention.
Going forward I am going to pick the player who I think groks combat the best and make them the combat commissar. They will log hits for the player side and help resolve their combat actions.
Sloppy Adjudications
I let players make some custom items in the middle of the game and ruled on some stuff with Grav Belts I was not very happy with. Part of it was that my brain was fried by all the other things going on so my judgement was impaired.
I should remind myself to tell players I need a minute or two to figure something out and not feel rushed to come up with something "perfect" off the cuff. I fall victim to trying to match the pace and mood of the game to my detriment at times.
Ignoring the Party
Some players were making choices without confering with the party and in some instances talking over them. This kind of anti-social play undermines a table's trust really quickly. And it's not that every decision needs a conference, but bigger ones that affect the whole group do. There is a difference between playing anti-socially and selfishly as your character.
When I spot that in the future I gotta be proactive in determining if I need to prompt a discussion. And of course if someone is a repeat offender talk to them one on one.
Conclusion
As with anything we do in life there will be bad sessions. I am hoping that I have committed to improving on what went wrong during this session and will be able to make sure future sessions are more consistent because of it. I want to thank all the players of Frydheld for all the great sessions we've had, but also for putting in the work to communicate and work with the table as a whole to try and resolve things. Here's to many more great sessions.