Running a Fantasy Walk-In Centre

I started by running Dungeons & Dragons at Scenario Bar in Dalston at the behest of one of the staff who had bought a set for the bar. 5th edition had not been long released and it looked the sort of game that anyone could pick up and play. Of course I would like to set up some games.

After several failed attempts to organise players on Twitter I set up a Meetup group. Over the following months I would host games for randoms. I experienced the full range of human reliability - turning me from idealism to pragmatism. I've gone from trying to gather as many people as possible to play D&D, to simply hosting My Game that I let strangers turn up and add to. My relationship with the bar staff in this matter has shifted fully from events volunteer, to that guy with the hobby. Whilst not as grand, I assure you that the latter is way more fun.

I've been doing open-table games (a game where you are the Games Master and total strangers will turn up to be your players) for over a year now and I've reached a point where I feel the friction in the setup is at its minimum. So it's time to share what I've learned. My current weapon of choice is Dungeon World because of its fantastic low maintenance:

• Barring props, I only need to prepare some vague threats.
• It doesn't feel underwhelming with fewer players. (Though I stick with 2-5 players as one is a bit intense for a casual game and six is basically cat-herding.)
• It takes no time to introduce the rules.
• Diet D&D speaks a language most visitors to my table understand.
• It has no miniatures rules (so I don't have to use proper ones).
• A level 9 player can fight alongside a level 2 player. The hit points don't scale so newbies can play along with alumni and everyone is almost as likely to die.

Sandbox++

My campaign uses an ever-growing map that new players add to or continue to flesh out. The pilot episode started on an island looking for treasure. It was a little underwhelming and silly and so it doesn't surprise me that I saw none of those players ever again. The second session started off with two new players escorting the mute characters from last week off the island before the ship was attacked by a kraken. Our surviving new players then set off to discover the rest of the map. It was a bit like the second episode of Babylon 5 where you wonder where half the cast buggered off to from the pilot, but you kinda feel it was for the best.

With each new visitor that would check out the game, the map evolved. Never having to plan ahead meant people could take time off from the game, allowing new players to drop in to add content. You sort of feel betrayed when people don't turn up to a formal RPG campaign - but with this more casual framework I actually prefer seeing new faces and small games because it keeps pumping new life into the story.

That island the first game happened on and its rather silly lore was never mentioned again. If a character leaves the game they take their arc with them and I don't touch it. If they walk off with the macguffin, let them. That was their story, it can still continue right where it left off because I won't have to give them an errata for their character sheet when they come back. As well as letting people come and add to the game, that first game taught me that it's also okay to forget a few things if they're not going to work out. Otherwise, we'll happily stick around in a city a long lost player invented if it looks like a good one or defeat that Big Bad that's been a nuisance to everyone.

Homebrew

With people appearing and disappearing you'll get some odd twists to the story. Hence I came up with a Move to use in Dungeon World that deals with players missing one or more sessions. It offers them an opportunity to catch up with the group and bring new advantages or complications.

I'm Back

When you explain your absence from the last session, say what happened and roll. If you..

• fought a monster or escaped imprisonment, roll+STR

• did something secret, stole something, or evaded something, roll+DEX

• trained under a mentor or acquired help or resources, roll+CON

• learned ancient knowledge or invented something, roll+INT

• discovered a secret or had a divine encounter, roll+WIS

• made an ally or learned about a culture, roll+CHA

On a 10+ you had a prosperous leave and take +1 forward on what you learned. On 7-9 you attracted trouble during your absence and the consequences may catch up with you.

The Dungeon World rulebook assumes the world will be built from session one and Bonds will be decided at that moment. Bonds are how the game describes the character's histories with one another. We choose Bonds every session - erasing ones for anyone not present and writing new ones for whoever is there. And then we discuss them. This can mean new histories occur - this is cool. The story grows not just branches but roots as well.

I had trouble thinking of magic items on the fly so I started printing out ready-mades. It cut short the mystery so I added another a new mechanic of having them marked Unidentified - with instructions on how to open them and reveal what effects the items actually had. I'm not below inventing magic items on the spot, but it's nice to have some inspiration on hand and cards-for-items help people keep track of loot. Cards for any mechanic are generally well received, if I had enough love for Dixit to own a copy I'd happily include an improv-based Deck of Many Things.

This is not a rule that I've added to the game but a method the rulebook does not describe: I always have four Fronts written up at a time. Fronts are basically lists of threats. (Thank you Vincent of Apocalypse World fame for dropping the silly name and just calling them Threats in AW2e). Large groups of players will chew over a threat slowly, and sometimes it's not needed as the party have already become a threat to themselves. I've had some fantastic games with only two players but they race through my ideas, coming to swift agreement between themselves on what to do. I still mostly improvise, but I fill out my printed Fronts sheet before a game to give me the action I need when the next story beat needs to land. There's space for four, and I feel pretty good about never going through the whole page by the end of the session. Keeping stuff in reserve lets me put it on the horizon, like they say in Apocalypse World, announce future badness.

Props

Good Lord I am well prepared with props. It's the art degree. Less prep, more props is my best advice. They overcome language barriers and cut down on table chatter.

I pack a folder containing a clipboard, folder-pockets, a full set of core playbooks, reference sheets, and blank paper. Plus all the notes the game generates. Players take their playbooks home; we can always make new ones quickly and I don't need the extra responsibility.

I also pack an iPad and a hefty pencil case holding a variety of stationery and the rest of my props:

Pens, pencils, eraser, sharpener, paperclips - always. I don't know why I RPGed so long without paperclips. Seriously people, spare paperclips for everyone, bind those wandering notes together. Sticky-notes are a must too. Good for rules reminders, henchmen stats, and temporary items. Blu-tack, putty, or whatever they call it in your country - where sticky notes fail I recommend some of this in reserve.

Cheap dice! Most players are well behaved, but give some of them your favourite designer dice and not only will they fondle them in a disturbing manner - they may also wander off with them. Not with cheap dice however. You won't be sad to lose them, and players won't be happy to steal them.

I'm not really for or against miniatures. Sometimes though, a player's character will have a feat that relies on where they are in the room. I like to just sketch that out, I have these little guys I can use to create a tiny scene. The advantage of mini-meeples is the ability to have maps that dwarf the micro-mazes of their larger, more detailed cousins. We don't have to count tiles in Dungeon World, we just jump to the part where see how the player with the thief tries their backstab.

Dungeon World asks you to track temporary +1 and -1 bonuses. I've settled on these nice coins which were designed for the RPG Fate. They're much nicer to pass around the table and are obvious enough to allow people to forget about them until the next dice roll.

Business cards for name-tents. This is a method for tracking initiative that I saw on a D&D stream. It also helps everyone remember each other's names (and gender). It's given me a stack of old name-tents that serve as a cast list for all of the heroes that passed through and defined the world.

Noteboard is great. I got referred to it by someone on an RPG Slack channel and one insta-buy later I have a whiteboard I can adjust to any table size. Diagrams ahoy. Blank paper is nice, but sometimes you just want to figure out what side of the house everyone is breaking into. Throw away notes like that are a pain in your long campaign. This thing is also better than those ubiquitous bulky green Pathfinder battle-mats (note the one I've linked to - it's never been in stock when I've looked for it, just the horrid dark green ones). And it's portable. It sacrifices some durability for that but so long as we try to play nice with it, it will serve very well.

A cast list is important. Writing down major NPCs as you create them gives you, "oh hey, it's that guy", moments that you can draw upon in the future. It ties the world together - there may be key figures important to certain areas, you don't want to forget their names!

For my iPad I've built a web-app that caches offline and serves as an SRD and random generator. I mostly use it for helping us name things. But it also helps to check out a player's weird selection of feats at the touch of a button. It keeps their playbooks on their side of the table. I've used similar apps for D&D like Lion's Den which can now be legally installed with the 5th edition SRD. This is a much better alternative to having books at the table.

I don't use a screen, I can easily cover my notes on the clipboard. Otherwise I'm unable to draw in front of the players or pass tokens and data around. It's also a bit more personal without a barrier there. The GM doesn't roll dice in Dungeon World so there's nothing else to hide.

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Should you wish to take on the odd hobby of telling stories with randoms, now you have a guide. As much as I would suggest applying this to other games, you do have to accept that the experience you're offering is fast food. You lose a little depth when you can sunder the world every week - it's a lot of fun! But that's the price you pay.

I certainly look forward to the next traditional campaign I'll get into. However, I hope to keep running my Dungeon World stall for a long as I can. It's a very entertaining diversion and one that's given me a hell of an education in Games Mastering.