How to Prepare For a Gaming Session as a Player

I have seen a lot of articles that show game masters how to get ready for a gaming session, but very few on how players can get ready for a gaming session. And since players comprise the majority of any group, I think I will focus on that today. I tried to visualize times when I showed up at a gaming session ready to rock and roll, and other times when I just merely showed up. Here are some suggestions on how to prepare for a gaming session as a player.

- Make sure you have all of you gaming gear. This includes dice, books, writing utensils, your character, and anything else that you need to bring. This may seem like a no brainer, but forget your character to one session and you’ll see the importance of this.

- Get all of your food and drink needs set up prior to getting there. If you’re going to pick up something on the way there, give yourself some extra time to get it. If your friend is supposed to bring drinks, or a pizza to share with the group, call them and make sure they remembered to bring those items.

- Call your game master and see if they need you to bring anything. The game master probably has a lot of things going through their head to get ready for the adventure. They may need you to pick up something for them on the way, and this will help them out greatly.

- If your character leveled up the previous adventure finish that up. Maybe you need to choose another skill or feat for him. Or maybe you’ll now have access to some new gear. Try to get that done before you get there, so you don’t spend an hour trying to find the right new ability for your character.

- Think about what happened last adventure. Try to recall what happened last adventure in your head, where you left off, and what possibly needs to be done this coming adventure. If it was a good adventure, this should be easy to do. But sometimes it may have been a week or more since you last played, and can be more difficult.

- Show up on time. This should be the golden rule for player preparation. No one, player or game master, wants to wait for that last player who shows up an hour late.

- Once you finally get there, get all of your non-gaming related talk out of the way prior to getting started. If you play with friends that you don’t see very often, you may want to catch up about what has happened since the last gaming session. Try to get all of that out as soon as possible so everyone can start up with what you’re there for, to roleplay and have fun!

These are suggestions that I was able to think off of the top of my head. What suggestions do you have in order to prepare for a gaming session as a player?

This is a great point that I'd like to expand on from a GM's perspective. I always like to have my characters communicate with me prior to the game session about any new equipment they want to acquire or new skills they want to learn. This allows be to prepare some short character advancement scenes in order to accommodate the players. These sort of scenes really help a lot to foster character growth. For example the group's Rigger let me know he wanted to acquire some Mods for his Van as well as a few new drones, all illegally. So I set up a short scene where he worked his contacts and got an invitation to the Crime Mall in Puyallup. Another character let me know that he wanted to learn Ninjitsu. Now this is a rare and significant skill so I let him know he had to hang on to his Karma and that I was going to run the acquisition of the skill (by finding a teacher) as a whole solo adventure. Running those kind of scenes serves to make the world seem more alive and give the players some fonder memories rather than just "roll etiquette, pay for gear."

I think these could apply.

- Don't forget to hang up your Hat o' Dickery ™ at the door -

- Remember not to impede on other peoples fun -

Our GM implemented this one

- Keep your rules griping down to five minutes or less -

but I mean how do the ammo rounds even work in SR how can a pistol round be the same as an.... oh forget it.

I think the most important thing is to have your character information well organized and easily accessible, have xerox or .txt copies of the relevant rules you plan to use in case the GM isn't immediately familiar with them, and have a few back-up characters available to start playing right away if your current character unexpectedly bites it.

A hit form me I often keep a selection of dice for certain rolls handy shooting my gun those red ones, resisting drain green, ect may just different piles save time counting out dice. THis is harder to do in SR that some games (such as D20) in SR its easier to keep the the dice in groups of 3-5 to quickly pull out the right amount but still works a charm . This was bi ult as a gm trick for the DnD games I run but can easly be swapped out to any system. .

make sure you know what the GM likes in food and drink and have enough to share with 2 or 3 persons

as a GM, I would say that you need your character (flushed out, easily readable for GM), your tools (dice, pencils, paper, etc), snacks (your own food & drink). being on time and ready to play.

You know what makes you a super star player for IRC games? Having enough technical expertise to solve all the technical problems as they come up.

hi when i get ready for a game, aside from collecting your stuff and driving, mentally i think about the character I'm going to play to get into there mannerisms. lately i have been listening to music usually gritty techno like Pigface but that's the people I've been playing kinda puts me in the mood for driving through slums but any way there's some prep for being the dude your being as well


EDIT :fixed some grammer if you can belive it

I would like to say ty for this post, I have copied the first post, if that is okay, and will send it to my group. cuz I would really like them to do some of this stuff:D

As a GM I ask that the players give me a "heads-up list", listing skills/attributes they are planning on raising in the near future, equipment they will want to buy in the near future, any specific role play opportunities they would like to pop up, and any character based plots they would like to see happen along with any other notes they want to leave me.

This way I get a sense of how the characters are going to advance both karma and eq wise(so I can prepare good scenarios for training/initiation/shopping and so on) as well as giving me ideas for how to make adventures my players will enjoy. I do give out an extra point of karma if a run focuses on a characters backround and the player helped me come up with the plot.

You guys just added a bunch more for my list. Thank you.