Resuming a Campaign
A long time member of my gaming group is set to return from AIT in the middle of the month, allowing us to continue a campaign that after nearly three years, approaches its conclusion. While this is very exciting, it can also be daunting, as it has been several months since any of us has played that game, that world, or even that system.
In honor of this upcoming event, here are some tips for resuming a campaign that has been on hiatus.
Group Memory Jog. Get as many members of the group together sometime before the game, and simply discuss the game. Good topics that will help jog the memory include character biographies, stories over how items came to be with the party, and goals that characters had. All of this will help get rid of some of the cobwebs and get peoples’ mind going about the game.
Role-play Before the Game. Set up a basic premise which will cause the players to role-play their characters, both with each other and a small cast of NPCs. This can either be part of the game or a separate exercise to help people get started. This gives people an additional chance to get used to their characters skin.
Hang-out Without Gaming. If the group has been apart for long in addition to the game being on hold, not only does everyone has a lot of catching up to do, but they may need some time to get reacquainted and used to each other again. Make sure everyone is comfortable around everyone else again before you try resuming the game.
Pre-pare a “Best of…” By preparing a best of list for each of the characters, you’re reminding everyone not only of the things that made the characters great and their greatest accomplishments, but also of what the characters were like and what had been important to the storyline and the game. Make sure to prepare a good selection which both demonstrates the past experience of the game, and prepares everyone for the experience ahead.
Field Questions. Before the game starts, open up the floor to questions for everyone. These questions can go in any direction - player to player, player to narrator or narrator to player. These last minute clarifications can prove invaluable.
Start Off Slow. No matter how much preparation you put into it, things are likely going to start off a little slow. If this is the case, you simply need to allow for some time for the game to once again pick up momentum. Sometimes this can take one or two sessions, but usually by the middle of the first session the game seems to be in full swing again.
What do you do to resume a game that’s been on hold?
A Different Kind of Artifact
In traditional Dungeons and Dragons-esque games, Artifacts are items of immense magical power, usually with a terrible price attached to their use, such as a curse, or something else. In fact, the rules are written to encourage this type of item.
For some artifacts this proves a good model, especially if the item is already in the control of an enemy. But so artifacts to spawn creativity and story ideas, and to be able to be a continuing source of them, I think a different set of creation criteria is needed.
The best artifact I can remember encountering came from the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in the form of the scepter which allowed the turtles to travel through time. What are the elements that made this item so perfect?
Re-usability. The scepter has no reason to be destroyed, which means that it can easily be re-used at any point, whether because of a return to the past, or someone else stealing the item. There are many different stories to be told with this one item.
No Strings Attached. The scepter never forced anyone into a story line or line of action, in fact all it does is create opportunities for new and different things to happen.
Plot Driver. The scepter drives the plot in new directions naturally, just by having players explore the consequences of the items abilities.
Zero Repulsion. There are many artifacts which players and characters alike will do their best to distance themselves from. This item not being one of them means that it encourages players to embrace the story, instead of making the story about escaping the story itself.
Infinite Possibilities. Perhaps the best part of the scepter is that it can allow time travel between any points where the scepter exists, so long as equal mass is displaced. This means that in addition to returning to ancient Japan, travel is possible to other points in the past as well as the future.
How do you like to design artifacts in your game? What kind of artifacts would you like to see more of?
Flashbacks
One of the more difficult things to pull off when running a game is the flashback scene, especially if that scene proves vital to the story.
Why introduce a flashback into your game? They provide a great way to give players information when it is relevant - especially useful when establishing world and character backgrounds. More importantly, they allow players to get this information through self-discovery, making them more likely to be able to remember the vital details later.
Flash backs also allow for a consistent non-linear story-telling mode whereby you’re able to temporarily by-pass scenes which are boring and irrelevant initially, but might become very important hours or even sessions later. Applied in the short-term, this method can be used as a framework within sessions to preserve pacing, mood, and progress for the night.
A key thing to avoid in flashbacks is unnecessary tension. Building tension in a flashback scene is almost entirely impossible - the players most likely know what is going to happen ahead of time, who will be alive, and who won’t. Resolving tensions, or using pre-existing ones can work, so long as the tensions are not the primary focus. Tensions self-contained entirely within a flashback almost always fail.
The second key thing to avoid in flashbacks are burdens, things which are relegated to flashbacks and must be resolved, explained, and meet up with a pre-determined point in continuity. While some burdens are almost always required in flashbacks, it is important too many can stop the flashback from flowing properly.
Bad Example: A show once had an episode which was comprised primarily of flashbacks, going nearly a year back in the story. Two characters spent five minutes arguing over which one would die in a suicide mission; while normally this might be entertaining, the audience already knew for a certainty who lived and who died, by virtue of who was alive in later episodes. This is an example of failed tension in flashbacks.
Good Example: The Highlander TV series featured at least one new flashback in almost every episode, and they did a very good job of it. Each of these flashbacks added to the overall character development, provided background on new characters being introduced, and did not intrude on the story or feel burdened.
Honorable Mention: Arrested Development had an interesting and relatively unique method of handling flashbacks and similar events. The show’s narration makes this compatible with a visually oriented Narrator.
How do you handle flashbacks in your game?
Plot Opportunities
Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the movie Battlestar Galactica: Razor*. As a fan of both the re-imagining and the original series, I went in with high expectations that were fueled by the slew of previews shown during Flash Gordon. And indeed, the movie did have an excellent concept and over-all plot, but it ran into serious problems due to some tricky aspects of story-telling.
*Note: This is not a review. This does not contain spoilers. You may read-on without without fear of either, and need no familiarity with the show.
The way I look at plot development, there are two ways to lay it out: Plot Devices, and Plot Opportunity.
Plot devices are characters, objects, or events which are introduced into a story to send the plot in a particular direction. Most often, plot devices are encountered at the beginning a story in order to “get the ball rolling.”
Plot opportunities are characters, objects, or events which are introduced into a story to provide potential directions for the story to expand in.
I universally prefer plot opportunities to plot devices, which are overly linear and I am convinced must run on railroad tracks. The worst example of a plot device is a MacGuffin, a plot device which is completely irrelevant to the story - these feel particularly linear and contrived.
How do you create plot opportunities? By placing the characters near a lot of action, however that is defined in the story. By placing them close enough to the action to interact with it, there is a great deal of potential for the characters to explore, and like ripples in a bond, whatever direction the characters proceed in, they will encounter more action.
Placing plot opportunities in a story is a good way to let it grow organically, by creating potential and letting it develop in a process that is more natural and less contrived than one directed and processed by plot devices.
Splitting Up The Party
Eventually, it happens in almost every game: the party is forced to split up for one reason or another. Here are some tips to keep in mind when splitting up the party:
Keep the scenes short. When the party is split up, it’s ideal to keep the scenes as short as possible, and switch back and forth between the sub-groups as often as possible. The longer people are waiting the play, the more bored they will become, and the more likely fatigue is to set in. As a rule, I try not to keep anyone waiting more than fifteen or twenty minutes to play again.
Next Session Finish. If the group is being split into two, and the session is either nearing its close or the party will be split up for some time, it may be a good idea to send half the group home for the night, and intend to do their scenes at the start of the next session, perhaps before the others arrive.
Party Division Means Talent Division. When splitting up the party, keep in mind that you are also splitting up the party’s talents and abilities - meaning that they should be able to accomplish their respective goals even without the other party members.
Fill Out The Groups With NPCs. This can be especially useful is the party splitting up was not by choice, i.e. if several PCs were captured and must now be rescued. By adding in NPCs, you provide players with the talents that they might be missing due to the party being split up, and you also create an opportunity for the players of the missing PCs to still participate in the game by temporarily assuming control of the NPCs.
Beware Telepathy and Teleports. If the party split up voluntarily, there is a high likelihood that they will be able to communicate, especially if they have access to magic, psionics, or advanced technology. It is also quite possible that they will have access to instant, near-instant, or extremely fast transportation, which can allow the party to reunite quickly. If you have proceeded further with one sub-group than another, it is possible that one will call in the other for reinforcements - this can negate actions which the group has previously role-played out and completed.
Division of Rewards. Be sure that the rewards are divided evenly among the group, if one set gains a lot more experience than the other, this can create an unbalance in the party. Additionally, there can be problems if equipment is not divided evenly or fairly among the group.
Make Sure It Fits. Splitting up the party should ideally be somewhat rare, and something that only happens when it fits the story, simply because it can cause a large number of potential problems which likely would never come up if the party did not split up.
How do you handle splitting up the party?
Evaluating Your Game: Part Two
This is part two in an ongoing series, designed to help you evaluate your game from the ground up.
Often, the first and most important thing that your players will encounter in your game is the process of character creation. For purposes of this discussion, I will assume that the characters being created are done so using the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 rules, though I believe the process is universal enough that it may be translated into different rulesets without difficulty.
The first step in character creation is the assigning of attribute points. The different methods used to determine attributes all have different effects on the character creation process and how players approach the game.
Random attribute generation is perhaps the most classic, and my personal least favorite method of character generation because it takes a large level of control away from me in the process of character development. While it is true that you can play anything with any stats, it can be very hard to have sufficient attributes to make a character worth playing in the presence of other party members, who’s attributes are far better. Nothing deflates the enjoyment of the game for me like having all elevens and twelves while someone else in the party has all seventeens and eighteens.
Some people, however, prefer random generation. It has the benefit of being more realistic, and forcing players to make do with statistics which may not be quite ideal for them. It can also have the benefit of encouraging people to play different concepts or class types.
The pattern I have noticed with random character generation is that more high attributes tend towards fighter characters, while single high attributes tend towards caster characters.
The second method of attribute generation is the array method. The array method works through taking a set of pre-determined numbers, usually 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18, and allowing players to place them as desired. This method has the benefit of being balanced between party members and discouraging min-maxing.
The third method of attribute generation is the point-buy method. This method works by giving each player a number of points, which are then used to purchase attributes. The purchase cost can either be flat, usually one-for-one, or the cost may increase for higher attributes, so that each modifier increase costs more. This method has the benefit of providing players the most freedom, though it can lead to min-maxing, and the process can take longer with the point-buy method than any other of the others, due to the number of choices to be made. Though the point-buy method is theoretically balanced, the fact that it can lead to min-maxing means that it can result in some unbalanced characters.
The final method of character creation is a hybrid method, combining random generation with the point-buy system. In this method, players generate their attributes randomly as normal. They are then free to use the point-buy system to shuffle points around and customize their attribute distribution. This method can lead to unbalanced characters, as the random method can, though it is rarely as crippling as with pure random generation.
What method do you use to generate characters?
General House Rules
In a previous post, I discussed a new set of house rules I was going to introduce for the start of a new d20 Dark Matter campaign. Today, I’m going to share with you some of my longer standing house rules.
Critical Roleplaying. Any time a character makes an interaction-based skill check, and the player appropriately role-plays his character, a critical failure is treated simply as a one, and the player suffers no additional penalties.
Roleplaying Re-rolls. Any character who role-plays sufficiently to earn a bonus to any roll may instead choose to re-roll after seeing the results of the original roll. Regardless of the new result, the player is stuck with it.
Cell Phones Are Silenced. Once gaming actually begins, the most disruptive thing that can happen is an unexpected phone call, which the player either takes or doesn’t. Even the simple ringing of the phone can be enough to throw people off, especially if they were in the middle of role-playing. Scheduled calls or taking a break at an appropriate time to make a phone call is perfectly acceptable, however.
One Man, One Job. Everyone at the table has a job, and for the most part they may be swapped around freely so long as everything gets done. Examples of common jobs include:
- Party Leader
- Note Taking
- Initiative/Combat Tracking
- Referencer/Researcher
- Cleaning Up
Participate Even When You Can’t Help. If the party encounters a puzzle or similar situation in which not all the players are adept at dealing with the situation, do not walk away from the table or put your head down - your character almost certainly isn’t doing so; he’s learning HOW to deal with the situation, or at the least doing everything he can to assist those who are good at dealing with it.
Secrecy. Ninety-five percent of the time, I keep all my players at the table, including times when the party is separated. I trust my players to maintain the line between In-Character and Out-Of-Character knowledge; but those who are repeatedly unable or unwilling to respect this line will be sent away from the table. Additionally, any player may call for the group to be split up according to the division of characters for the purposes of secrecy, character development, or a dramatic element of the story.
What house rules do you generally employ at the gaming table?
Starting An Adventure: Part Three
In my last two articles, I discussed gathering the group and preparation time before an adventure. Today, I’ll conclude with getting the players involved.
One of the best games I’ve run, as far as role-playing encounters are concerned, was a game in which the party was returning to a town which happened to be the home town of one of the wizard. The wizard’s father, also a wizard, still lived in town, in a sizable house. Needing both a place to rest and eat as well as information, the party went to visit the wizard’s father, seeking both.
I never told them the encounter was going to be role-playing heavy, but from the moment they entered the house I only spoke as the father or the GM directed actions, describing environments, etc. When the players tried to jump ahead of the father’s questioning and being caught up, he would interrupt them firmly but nicely and continue along with what he wanted to talk about. This forced the players to role-play with him a bit.
This encounter wound up lasting nearly two hours, for the duration of it everyone being in character nearly a hundred percent of the time, simply focusing on dialogue and characterization. There was more character development in that session, and more fun role-playing all squeezed into those two hours than I could have possibly expected before the start of the session. (This encounter also had the added bonus of added impact when the father was later assassinated.)
The lesson I took from this session was that to get players involved, it must be made clear to them, either implicitly or explicitly, that it is in their interest to get involved and participate. As soon as players begin to respond and get involved, it is important to reward that behavior immediately, at least at first, to help cement that it is the proper thing to do and it will make the game more enjoyable for everyone.
Another simple way to get your group involved is to ask them directly what they and their characters want. If you are lucky enough to get usable responses, design the adventure/campaign with these responses in mind. If your players were honest and intelligible, you’ve probably built in an irresistable hook.
How do you get players involved?
Starting An Adventure: Part Two
Yesterday, in response to a question by Streetline in the StumbleUpon roleplaying forums I discussed gathering the group at the start of an adventure. Today, I’ll continue with preparation time.
Most of my campaigns are designed and run in a non-linear fashion so as to give PCs as much freedom as desired in directing the story. As a result, my preparation time is split into two categories: Campaign Preparation, and Adventure Preparation.
Campaign preparation is almost entirely comprised of becoming familiar with the rules, setting, and world that the campaign will be taking place in. Keeping things open-ended and providing the players with a lot of freedom means I need to be at least familiar with everything. While the rules and circumstances don’t need to be memorized, I need to understand them well enough that a quick scan will provide me with everything I need.
The rest of campaign preparation is spent talking to the players, and finding out what kind of campaign they want to play, and what kind of characters they’re likely to play, backgrounds they’re considering for them, and general goals/directions for the characters. This can all change later on, but it puts me on the same wavelength as my players, and helps me make better use of my prep time by focusing it on what will be relevant to the players.
Adventure preparation is what I do before every session. This is where I draw maps, roll up NPCs, prepare stats for creatures they are likely to encounter, and any other preparation that seems necessary for the upcoming session. I also make a point of reviewing any likely points that the players are likely to deviate from what I have prepared, and alternate paths that they are likely to take.
On average, I spend about one hour preparing for every four hours of gaming. This can change depending on how intense the session will be, how much is being recycled from the past, and how divergent the players have been.
I will conclude next time with getting players involved.
Starting An Adventure: Part One
Streetline from StumbleUpon recently posed a great question in the roleplaying forums: How do you start an adventure? How much prep time (if any) goes into your campaigns and plots? How do you get players involved and roleplaying?
I suggest everyone take a look at that thread, if just to read CastorQuinn’s response, which is thorough and thoughtful.
My personal favorite method of gathering PCs together in a group is the idea of a pre-existing relationship or friendship. The “He’s my brother” logic creates the kind of tight bond that is ideal for most adventuring games. Which brings me to the main issue of getting everything started.
In adventuring games, it is ideal to get the game started quickly, with a certain level of trust and cooperation in the group implied, simply for the purposes of getting things done, and making sure the group stays together for the most part, despite various forces driving them in different directions.
In some games, this kind of relationship is the exact opposite of what is desired. The Paranoia RPG, for instance, hopes to create a feeling of strain and distrust between the party members, who are encouraged to keep potentially deadly secrets from eachother, constantly expecting a betrayal.
In story driven games, a cohesive party often isn’t appropriate for the course of the game and the story. The players may not all be on one side, or they may be parts of competing sects/factions within a larger unifying force, such as many of White Wolf’s Vampire games.
One shot adventures are another story all-together. The group is only, supposedly, together for this one adventure or event, so fate or employment become much more acceptible motivations for working together.
Generally, my favored method of getting characters together at the start of a game is to let the players decide. In all but the most linear of games, or those following the patterns of Paranoia, I allow the players to discuss their concepts as much as desired prior to the game. I feed them information on the starting region and what kind of campaign they are going to participate in, and let them figure out how they belong together.
Generally, the players seem to come up with a good idea, which engages their characters quickly and provides background and/or plot hooks for me to use.
Tomorrow, I’ll discuss prep time and getting players involved.
