Let me start off our discussion of doing game session post-mortems with some definitions:

Retrospective: contemplative of past situations (dictionary.com)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Albert Einstein)

Kaizen: a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life (wikipedia.org)

The goal of many Campaign Mastery readers is to level-up their game. That means one part ongoing GMing improvements, one part helping players be better, and one part tweaking the group itself.

Post mortems involve reflecting on past game sessions to spot ways to improve your game, and are an awesome tool in your GM toolbox. Just the act of thinking about how a game session played out, and documenting observations, is guaranteed to help, assuming you take follow-up action.

Rather than letting coincidence lead to improvement, such as an impromptu discussion about the game with a player you bump into at the grocery store, post mortems are reliable, purposeful, and predictable tools. You initiate them as you see fit, and the situation of improvement-by-chance is overtaken by improvement-on-purpose, which is faster, easier, and more effective in the long run.

A good post mortem involves asking insightful questions, taking an objective look at the past, and recording your observations. At the same time, you can also note ideas for how to improve things.

Alternatively, you can make all your observations first then go into a problem-solving second stage, whatever works best for you.

Here are a few tips for running successful game post mortems. At the end are a few questions to help you do a game session self-post mortem.

Focus on what you can change – yourself

Of the three people-oriented dynamics in a game – the game master, the players, and the group – the only one you can be sure of changing is yourself.

The number one help request email I receive at RoleplayingTips.com is about dealing with problem players. How can I make a player roleplay better? How can I make players behave better? How can I make the group enjoy my style of GMing?

Please realize you can only control your GMing and yourself. You can influence players and the group dynamic in many ways, but you can’t force the change. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, especially if it was in that Clint Eastwood movie where the bad guys had poisoned the pond. Err, I think that’s how that saying goes.

So, tip number one is to set an expectation with post mortems that you can use them to change yourself, and if you can make a positive change in players or the group, that’s a great bonus, but not essential.

Lead by example

The biggest influence you can have on players taking an interest in self-improvement and levelling up gameplay is to lead by example. Demonstrate improvement in your own game mastering. Perform post mortems on yourself. Document. Ask for feedback. Make efforts to become a better game master. As GMing is a set of skills (a large set) you are guaranteed to achieve Kaizen if you put effort into it.

Once players see how you are improving, how post mortems are helping, they might be inspired to follow suit. Once the group sees how you treat game mastering as a craft, something to master over time and with practice, your players might reflect upon the skills of being super players, for that is a craft to master as well. Then, if one or two players decide to take an interest in improving their game, they might inspire others at your table.

Rather than beating your group with a stick, harsh words, or sharp dice, focus on improving yourself, and lead by example. Be patient. Take great satisfaction in your own progress, and hope that others become inspired and motivated to level-up as well.

Method 1: Do a post mortem on yourself

It’s tempting when looking back at game sessions to find things wrong with the players, the adventure, the rules, the game environment, and so on. This might be true. We are critical thinkers. We can find room for improvement in everything. However, based on time invested versus reward, you will become a better GM faster by focusing on yourself.

For example:

What did you do to prepare for last session? How did that pay off, or did it?

How did you react to various behaviours, situations, events and developments last session?

How were you as Master of Ceremonies?

How were you at rules refereeing?

How were your descriptions?

How well were you organized?

Method 2: Try a group post mortem after the game

If you think your group is up for it, do post mortems with them for a few minutes after game sessions. Have a short list of questions ready, if you want to target specific issues, or just launch with an open-ended question, such as “How do you feel the session went tonight?” and see what conversation ensues.

Take notes. Try to objectively, and dispassionately, record group comments. Often you’ll superimpose your own language or slant on comments as you transcribe. It’s better to record exact feedback, then do interpretation afterwards. Don’t hesitate to follow-up with anyone if your notes are unclear or you want more detail on a comment made.

This method can be bumpy. You must be gracious and non-judgemental about accepting feedback. Communication, the core of this method, is always tricky, especially for folks who might not be the best communicators. Be aware that words and tone might not come out as intended. Just smile, record, and look for the spirit of the feedback.

A benefit of group post mortems is that the idea of improvement becomes a group awareness thing. While participation is optional, it’s a great way to get players to reflect on their own gaming skills, should they choose.

Method 3: Do post mortems with players between sessions

Some people, myself included, do better providing feedback one-on-one. If you are wanting to get player feedback about your GMing as part of your post mortem process, then consider doing one-on-ones with some or all players between sessions.

In-person, perhaps over coffee, is the best method. Voice chat is the next best option. A distant third is text chat – there are too many ambiguities and communication issues with email, IM, and other text-based communication for it to be highly effective, but it can complement in-person or voice, or it can be a last resort when needed.

As with group post mortems, have some specific questions prepared, or just start with an open-ended question. Record objectively.

To do list: make a single list of issues, update progress

Once you’ve got observations recorded, make a list of all your interpretations and ideas for fixes or tweaks. Best case is to number each observation you want to address, then use the same number for your to do list. Use letters to identify specific ideas or actions if there is more than one per observation.

Right now, with your post mortem notes, what you’ve got is observations. Any ideas for solutions, changes, or improvements are just theories based on your interpretations of observations.

You can get lost in the details of improvement, and the first principle of self-improvement is to always go back to your source, to test assumptions, to make sure you’re on the right vector before even starting to play with solutions. By tracking your theories to their source observations with a number code, you can reflect back after trying an improvement.

Steven Covey, Mr. Seven Habits, tells a story about a bunch of dudes chopping through trees. They get lost. One dude climbs a tree to look around. A dude from the ground asks, “Are we headed in the right direction?” The dude in the tree says, “We’re in the wrong forest!” Well, it goes something like that. :)

Before you aim at specific trees, re-check your post mortem notes to make sure you’re even in the right forest. Never fear to go back to the source of the observation and confirm the facts or reinterpret before getting to solutions.

Was your observation correct – did you record it verbatim or correctly? That’s the first thing I’d check before criticizing a solution that failed or fell flat.

Here’s another story. I know someone with high cholesterol. Their doctor gives them pills to help lower it. The pills cause side effects. My friend goes back to their doctor and gets another set of pills to deal with the side effects. Those pills help but cause new side effects. A third trip wins my friend a third set of pills. Apparently, the strategy is to brew the right chemical cocktail to balance everything out. I’m no expert, but I think my friend should find a doctor who talks about diet, exercise, and some natural remedies.

The point is, though, that GMs can get trapped into forever curing symptoms caused by efforts to cure previous symptoms. So, it’s always recommended to return periodically to the source – the observations and interpretations – before trying to fix multiple levels of solutions that might not be dealing with the main issue. Do this by numbering each observation and interpretation in your notes, and using that unique number for your to do list of actions, tweaks, and research.

As you build up your to do list, reflect on it between sessions. Avoid having multiple to do lists lying around. This will get confusing. Just maintain one list. Feel free to record your post mortems and ideas in various places, but keep your list, which is your ongoing action plan, in one place.

As you try things, do post mortems on those. Use your numbering system so you can trace observations > interpretations > to do list items > attempted improvements > follow-up observations > interpretations > revised to do list items.

This might sound like a lot of work, but it isn’t. Explaining out the steps just makes things seem complicated. What you’re doing is identifying an opportunity to improve and tracking how you are getting on with that.

For example, you recorded one player as saying combats are too long. Knee-jerk interpretation might be the game rules suck. So, you add in house rules. You might reduce hit points of foes by half, maybe. Then you play again. How did that go? Were combats still too long? There are a hundred reasons why combats might be too long.

Heck, even that’s an assumption. Could be the combat isn’t too long, it just feels like it’s long. What if you become 25% better at combat descriptions to engage and entertain players better each round and encourage them to roleplay better in combat as well. This might make hour-long combats feel like half-hour combats, even though the clock measures the same amount of time. Remember how long a minute is depending on whether you’re pacing outside the bathroom door dying to get in….

What worked well?

It’s easy being a critic. “Everyone’s a critic,” I believe, is a common criticism. Make a point to note the positive things of your games and your GMing. Looking through the lens of problems all the time will get you down. Tracking improvement is motivational. So is tracking the good things about your games. At the very least, you can make a list of successes you should try to repeat – create a recipe of success so you know what to keep on doing.

Next post mortem, slip in the question, What went well?” Record. Congratulate yourself. Keep doing that.

Look to change structure, not the end results themselves

This tip is a tricky one. A Roleplaying Tips reader, Aki, pointed me to a great book called the Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. It discusses Systems Thinking. For the purposes of this article, systems thinking is looking at how things actually work during game sessions and addressing the true causes of problems, and identifying improvements that will have a real impact.

If you look at the structure of something, you can understand it, whether it’s a bridge, a process, or a relationship. With this understanding, you can reveal the true causes of issues and address those, instead of just treating the symptoms, or fixing the wrong things altogether. Could be cholesterol is a result of a trans-fatty diet. Fix that and there’s no need for pills that fix pills that fix pills for the symptom of high cholesterol.

For example, one of your players might be a poor roleplayer. He always states his actions out of context, with nary a word of description, in-character personality, or flair.

One approach might be to think up a bunch of remedies. Maybe have a chat with him, or encourage him to roleplay, or send him a bunch of roleplaying tips and articles.

Or….you could look at the structure of things. What’s the actual chain of events that happens with this player? Perhaps the player sits next to you each session. On his turn he states his action. He usually goes first, because he’s on your left. Then everyone else takes their turn.

With this simple example, the structure reveals some interesting possibilities. Is the player scared of going first? Being first to declare actions carries a bit of responsibility and is sometimes risky. Perhaps the player is intimidated by going first all the time due to the unfortunate seating arrangement.

Perhaps the player is intimidated by sitting beside the GM? Due to bad seating the first session, and the human habit of sitting in the same place as last time, the player got stuck with a permanent seat beside you.

Could be the player is being bullied. So, he wants his turn over quick without much spotlight.

Could be the bully is you? Maybe you are always correcting the player? Maybe, in trying to help, you always offer corrections or hints the player should change his action. This has eroded the player’s confidence.

All this is hypothetical. And Fifth Discipline does a much better job than I am at showing how to see the structure of things so you can break negative feedback loops and get to the heart of matters.

Post mortem sample questions

Here are a few questions to get you going on your post mortems:

How did you feel last session went?

What were your favourite parts of last session?

What were your least favourite parts?

Were you ever tired or “out of it” last session? When?

Were you ever distracted, causing poor GMing? What were the circumstances?

When did the players seem most engaged?

When did the players seem least engaged? What did you observe to make you think players were not engaged?

Describe the session’s pacing. What was happening in the game and at the game table during high and low points?

How did you prepare for the session?

How well did the preparation serve you for the session?

How did the session end – or a low or high note? Why?

Light or thorough, both are good

How you want to handle post-session analysis is up to you. You can go through a formal post mortem process, using the tips above. You can also just quickly jot a few notes for improvement and see what works over time. You could blog out each session, or leave it all in your head.

Both approaches – light and thorough – have pros and cons. It just matters that you are thinking about how to improve your craft and are trying and learning new things all the time.