Opening The Table

A couple of weeks ago I outlined a plan to save the regular(ish) gaming group that I’ve been running at my home for some 20 years. The New Calderon Campaign began with the realisation that you need to run the game you can rather than the game you want. This was spurred by an article from The Angry GM during a discussion on the structure of the game:

“The biggest mistake most GMs make when starting campaigns is that they try to run the game they want to run instead of the game they can run. That is, the game they can manage to keep together and the game the players can keep up with.” (from ‘How to Start Starting a Campaign‘)

In short, I decided to switch to an “adventure of the week” approach for a few months and see where that leads me. All fine and dandy.

Then I read an old article on The Alexandrian and a number of things clicked into place: I’ve decided to create an Open Table.

What’s an ‘Open Table’?

In his “Open Table Manifesto“, Justin Alexander outlines the reasons for and how to create an Open Table:

“An open table campaign is structured so that you can pick it up and play it with little or no prep… You can spontaneously play it as a spur of the moment social activity. It also allows you to open your gaming table: Instead of having a regular set of players for each session, the GM can send an open invite to everyone participating (or interested) in the campaign. The same structures that make the game instantly playable also allow you to run it seamlessly for whichever set of players show up for a particular session.

This is awesome.”

One of the things that Justin discovered in running an Open Table back in 2011 is that he could get more gaming sessions. Another thing he discovered is that it made his life as a GM easier rather than harder:

“It’s awesome for you because you never have to worry about wrangling schedules. Feel like playing on Thursday? Send out an e-mail saying, “We’re playing on Thursday. Who wants to come?” and you’re good to go. Just hanging out with some friends and you’re trying to figure out what to do? Normally you’d never suggest an RPG because of the prep time involved; but with an open table you can always just pick it up and start playing.”

Honestly, if you’re a GM, go and read his articles on the Open Gaming Manifesto. If nothing else, they’ll make you think about how you currently run your games.

Opening My Tables

I’ve already taken the biggest step towards having an Open Table by deciding to change the structure of my gaming sessions. Rather than trying to run an ongoing and detailed campaign which requires a dedicated group of players whom I can wrangle to the table all at once, I aim to set up the game so that it doesn’t matter who comes to the table at any given games session. I’m already aiming to do that with the New Calderon Campaign.

The reality is, however, that I don’t have just one table that I can potentially GM for. Because I run the school’s roleplaying club, I’ve found that I am often expected to run a game there too. In the past, to make life easier, I have run some pretty cool one-offs or tried (unsuccessfully) to run traditional adventures over many sessions. The first option, while entertaining in the moment, gets repetitive for me and for some returning players; the latter falls apart after about two sessions due to the fickle nature of teenage gamers.

Thus, the experiment I want to conduct is to discover whether I can open up two tables: one for adults at home and the other for students at school. That’ll mean more games for me. It’ll also test out the claims of The Alexandrian about prep and the consistency of play.

Structures for an Open Table

I’m going to keep things as simple as I can within the premise of each campaign. While I plan to write in more detail about the set-up and execution of each campaign throughout the course of the experiment, the basic structures I want to play with are going to follow the advice from The Alexandrian.

“In order to be successful, I believe an open table requires (or will greatly benefit from):

1. Quick Character Creation
2. Easy Access Systems
3. Open Group Formation
4. Default Goal
5. Default Action
6. Regenerative / Extensible Content”

(from, “Open Table Manifesto – Part 2: What an Open Table Needs“)

For the school campaign, I am going to return to the most basic roleplaying campaign offering: the mega-dungeon. This has been something that I have wanted to try for many months now but I’ve not really understood how it works. For some thoughts on why this is a good idea and how to get started, I’ll direct you to The Alexandrian‘s original article: Opening Your Gaming Table.

For the New Calderon Campaign, I’m going to try out a variant on another tried and tested structure: the hex-crawl. Because I have already taken the time to create the actual high-scale hex map, I am going to focus on how best to present a series of “adventure of the week” offerings. All that’s changed is that I have greater clarity on what I need to do to succeed.

Finally, I have a longer-term goal to create a fantasy game offering aimed at adults and utilising my favoured game engine – the D100 system. I have some initial ideas already but I want to work on this over time to take advantage of both the learning to come from running the school club’s open table and the adult-focused New Calderon Campaign. Oh, and what I mean by providing for “adults” is that I intend to play with themes and adventures that are both darker than those I can offer to teenagers and also more challenging.

With that outline in hand, I’m off to start planning the campaigns.

Game on!