Introducing New Characters Part Two
Yesterday, I talked about a recent game where I had to introduce two new characters into an existing party, and why one character melded beautifully with the group, and the other one didn’t.
There are a number of other problems that can come up with introducing a new character to the party, one of the biggest ones being referred to as the union card - the near instant inclusion of a player’s character, despite whatever circumstances they meet under.
Trust, specifically, is an issue when introducing a new character to the party. Many groups will undoubtedly have secrets, and quite possibly enemies. The worry that someone might betray them upon discovering this, or even that they were sent by their enemies, is quite realistic. This worry is even more important if the group is involved in something greater than itself, perhaps a noble quest. If this is the case, any group would be extremely leery of letting any newcomer simply join their ranks.
Clearly, these issues of trust are best dealt with if you want the best role-playing and story-telling opportunities possible. What can be done about it?
In a DnD game my wizard character would announce to the party that he was going to give them all some sort of “mental buff,” and then proceed to pretend to cast it on everyone in the party but the newcomer, who would be saved for last. He would then have Hypnotism cast on him, and since they would fore-go the saving throw the spell automatically succeeded, followed by a demand for a statement of the character’s intentions. This quickly established at least a basic level of trust.
In situations where the magical or technical means of ensuring an honest answer aren’t available, the best situation is often to have the characters sit down and talk for awhile. This can be a great opportunity for some role-playing, or you can simply skip over the conversation and come to a general consensus of what was discussed and what the results were.
Unfortunately, many times this is simply not an option due to time constraints or some other obstacle. If this is the case, the new character should have something immediate to offer the party that would gain at least their temporary trust - until they have time to further establish it. Some examples of things for the newcomer to offer:
- Money
- Information
- A contact
- Transportation
- Medical Aid/Healing
- Hiding place
- Aid in combat
It is possible to by-pass most of these concerns if the new character some former connection with the PCs, either they had met previously or share a mutual friend. It is easy to say that the characters had become friendly with someone in their neighborhood who played a minor role that never came into the spotlight - until now. The other option is for the newcomer to have a referral of sorts from someone who is trusted by the group.
The other concern characters might feel when a newcomer joins the party is that they could wind up being a liability, either because of previous enemies they’ve made, or mistakes they might make in the future - mistakes that could result in the party being killed. It is not uncommon for many veteran fighters to refuse to fight alongside someone who is unknown to them, or to rely on their preparations for a fight. Anyone with common sense would be cautious when placing their lives in someone else’s hands, which is exactly what happens when you enter combat with them.
To get over this, it’s best to simply let the newcomer demonstrate their worth. Put them in a fight that the characters can observe, either against an outside enemy or against a member of the party in order “to prove his worth.”
Remember, when you introduce a new character you are setting the stage for everything else that character will do in the game - a bad introduction can create plot holes or inter-party problems.
What other problems have you run into when introducing new characters? What do you do to ensure the process goes smoothly?
Introducing New Characters
General Site Update: Following last weeks Wordpress update, I apparently made a mistake which resulted in my last few posts not being saved or published on the site - a fact I only discovered this afternoon. It looks like the problem has been fixed, and updates should be coming once again.
Introducing new characters into an existing campaign can be very tricky. There are a number of issues that can complicate things further such as the realism of someone being in the immediate area or the existing PCs having any reason to trust the newcomers with their money and secrets, much less their lives.
Last week I ran a session of my Star Wars game, which takes place sometime after the Sith War, about 4,000 years before the movie. The existing party was made up of two young Jedi who each left the Order and were going through trials to be initiated by Sith Spirits. The requirement for their initiation was that they hunt down and kill at least one Jedi for each of them.
We explained all this to the two new players before the game. Brian chose to play a Force Adept with a strong inclination to the Dark Side, who was found by one of the Sith hopefuls and recruited. All in all, a good concept and a good match with the party.
Nevin’s character was a stark contrast. He built a Rodian Fringer, a mechanic with piloting abilities. He was Force Sensitive, but had no force abilities and no real combat ability. I had reservations in the beginning, and I voiced my concerns, but said that he “should play what [he] wanted,” as I don’t, as a rule, tell players what they should and shouldn’t play.
Looking back, this was a mistake. I should have vetoed the character and either helped Nevin’s rework the character into something viable or helped him build a new character from scratch. As it was, Nevin’s character barely fit in with the party and was barely engaged in combat when the rest of the party entered it. In fact, there were barely any opportunities for his character to shine - and the character build was only half the problem.
Mentally, the character was incongruous with the group. Everyone else had something that drew them to the Dark Side in some way or another, an anger or hatred or fear that they had. Nevin’s character did not. In addition to this, the rest of the party were, in the words of Zorg, “killers - dyed-in-the-wool killers. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough.” Nevin’s character, however, was not.
All of these differences were highlighted and made more clear when their initiation began, and they were presented with a series of Force Illusions which tested their reactions to different circumstances, and were generally designed to push each character further down the path of the dark side and down the path of power. Nevin’s character went temporarily insane almost immediately.
The lesson from all of this is simple, when introducing new characters, it’s important to be willing to veto the ones that just won’t work out, and then help the person correct the problem or build an entirely new character.
Getting Back Into Gaming
There are a number of things that can stop you from gaming, from schedule conflicts to lack or energy or problems with the gaming group. The worst, without a doubt, is when any of these are combined with burnout. The worst part of burnout is that it becomes a cycle that feeds on itself: You need to take a break from gaming, and when doing so you lose any “gaming mojo” that you had built up. When you come back, you might be suffering from some residual burnout, or atleast be prone to burning out again. And the longer you go without gaming, the harder it seems to be to get back into it.
So what do you when you’re ready to come back to gaming after an extended break?
Switch roles. If you’re usually the game master, may-be it’s time to just sit back and let someone else weave the story while you get to be a hero. This takes a lot less creative energy than preparing and running a session and juggling NPCs, storylines, facts about the world and game mechanics.
On the other hand, if you’ve mostly been a player, may-be it’s time to sit down behind the screen and tell a story. There is something very gratifying about taking control and responsibility for a story for the first time, and getting to weave different elements of a story together can be a great way to recharge your batteries if you’re used to navigating the maze of a story instead of designing it.
Do something different. For me, this was finally playing an evil character in an evil party - a Cult of Vecna to be exact. As I’ve wanted to play an evil character for sometime, finally getting to do so with the approval and cooperation of the group was very gratifying. Moreover, it completely changed the roles our characters had to play, and even the way we went about playing the game. It easily inspires roleplaying situations, and gives us a lot of opportunity to interact with people while trying to keep a secret agenda.
Play a game that works differently. I often find that feelings of burnout or futility are tied into over familiarity with a game system. After awhile, seeing the same basic list of feats in different d20 games makes the games, and the characters in them, feel much more repetitive than they should. Another solution could be playing a different edition of a game you’re already playing. The differences between the Dungeons and Dragons editions are remarkable, even if you don’t count the 3/3.5 editions - previous editions use very similar mechanics, but the abilities and structure of classes and races are laid out differently in each edition.
Keep the sessions short. Before I took a break from gaming, twelve hour sessions seemed like nothing to me. Coming back into gaming, I notice my attention starts to wander after five hours or so. It’s not that I’m not longer having fun, it’s simply that I’ve had enough. Continuing past this point, especially on a regular or repeated basis, will quickly lead you back down the path to burnout. It’s better to cut the session short and be eager to start again next time than get overly drained and burnt out again.
Go at your own pace. It can be tempting to start gaming a lot without much time in between, especially if that’s what the rest of the group wants and is pressuring you to do. Your duty is to remain firm: Anymore than you’re comfortable with and you’ll just wind up burnt out and not gaming again. Arrange for a second game to be played when you’re not there, or for your character to pop in and out of gameplay as your schedule permits.
Ask “Why do I want to game?” Whatever your reason for gaming, you need to be clear with yourself about it so that you can pursue it instead of hoping that you get it. If you game to relieve frustration, talk to friends, or tell stories but you don’t wind up doing enough of these things then you are going to burn out again.
Find a new group. In some cases, it may simply be that you were not compatible with the whole or part of your gaming group. Perhaps you had different reasons for playing, different style of play, different preferred games or just an unsolvable personality conflict. Whatever the reason, a fresh group could fix the problem. Consider this carefully before acting on it, and be sure not to burn any bridges - you, or they, might come around some day.
Is there anything that’s helped you ease back into gaming after a hiatus?
Building a Campaign World: Part Two Mapping
When it comes to building maps for a campaign world, you won’t find any better tools than those at ProFantasy. The price tag is hefty, but the tools there will help you build great looking maps that can be linked together. Of special note are the product bundles which offer some appreciable discounts.
If you want to take advantage of the map making power in the ProFantasy tools but don’t want to invest a lot money take a look at their map catalog. These can provide you the detailed map you want, and with a little clever photoshopping the names and descriptions can be adapted to display whatever you want, leaving the geographic maps in place.
Dundjinni is a great alternative to ProFantasy at only $39.95. Offering one software package, there is some great functionality in Dundjinni that’s lacking from ProFantasy - Dundjinni comes with built in creature stats from many different games, making adventure authoring much simpler. You can find a complete list of features for Dundjinni here.
AutoREALM is a free GNU program designed to map out castles, cities, dungeons and overland views. While AutoREALM lacks some of the features and powers of the more costly alternatives, its a great program to give you some power without spending any money.
Intense control and expert maps can be made with software like Photoshop and Corel Draw, but this is far from my field of expertise. If you are interested in making professional quality maps with this kind of software, I highly recommend this guide, which comes complete with pictures and examples.
RPG Map Share is an online community dedicated to sharing maps of different levels of detail, as other visual aids for games. This is a great place to check for pre-made maps, as well as to upload your own creations for other people to enjoy and use.
If you’re looking for more free options, check out iG-Tools map section. The first section will provide you with several hundred pre-made maps, while the following section provides some online interactive map makers which are labeled as experimental.
Games which take place in modern day Earth can take advantage of tools like Google Maps for not just the overland maps, but the map to be used on the fly during game play. During a d20 zombie game set in modern day New York, we once set up a laptop at the game table which allowed us to look at close ups of New York City and see exactly what our characters saw - buildings, streets, alleys - things which wouldn’t show up on normal topographical maps but are of extreme importance.
In another game I played in, the world bore a striking resemblance to Greyhawk in terms of geography. In fact, the game master had copied the Greyhawk map out of the book, re-labeled everything and adapted it all to his game, and proceeded to use it for a long-term campaign. This worked beautifully for him, issues of similarity between his world and Greyhawk never once cropping up.
Invisible walls are something that have been used in video game maps for years to great effect. The name comes from a literal invisible wall which would be placed in 3D video games to limit the playing field while still making it appear vast and open ended. Invisible walls can be subtle while remaining just as effective.
Grand Theft Auto 3, a game famous and popular for it’s open world nature, brilliantly employs the use of visible walls to limit the area the player moves around in at the beginning of the game. The bridge being out stops any player from advancing too far too quickly, while also relating itself to the game’s story. This is an invisible wall of practicality - a virtual wall that is formed by circumstances to achieve the same effect.
The same thing can be done in your own map making and world building. Long stretches of harsh terrain, beset by either temperature extremes or impassable nature, such as a near endless ocean or a high-altitude mountain range. Storms and other weather events can also be used as excellent invisibles walls.
Invisible walls can also be made out of living creatures. A classic example of this is the beast guarding the bridge, requiring tribute in the form of goods or information before anyone could pass. In Lord of the Rings, Moria was filled with invisible walls in the form of the trolls and orcs as well as the balrog.
Used carefully, invisible walls can limit the movement of players while you continue building the world and prepare the next stage for them.
One final and optional thing to consider when creating maps for your world, and especially when presenting them to players, is that since the maps are most likely being created entirely on a two dimensional surface, which means that there will be some distortion in terms of shape and size.
To gain an idea of how big an effect these distortions can have, they are the reason that on Mercator maps Greenland looks bigger than South America. For a quick overview on map distortions and examples of the different kinds, see this Map Projection Overview.
Do you know of any map tools, tutorials or techniques I didn’t mention here? Share them in the comments!
Building a Campaign World: Part One
The first step in building any campaign world is preparation and evaluation.
Key questions to ask yourself before beginning:
- How much time am I willing to invest?
- How much energy am I willing to invest?
- How much money am I willing to invest?
- What resources do I already have?
- Is there a deadline?
- Who will play in it, and what do they want out of it?
- What am I building the campaign world for?
The first five questions are designed to determine how big a task you are willing to tackle. The sixth question is to establish who you are building the world for, and what they want out the setting. It’s a terrible disappointment to find out that a player is only interested in a sword and sorcery setting or games that involve a lot of intrigue after spending weeks building a setting for a pulp action game.
The last question attempts to determine how big the task in front of you is. If you are a building a campaign world to host a single campaign, then you are able to create a smaller and more linear world for the game to take place in. If, however, you are creating a campaign world to host a number of campaigns, adventures, and characters over a longer time span, then you’re looking at a much more complex task.
When examining what resources you already have, pay particular attention to your existing game materials. Go through your old game supplies and look for software, charts, maps, organizations and NPCs. Make mental or physicals notes of where different materials exist for future reference. For example, if you happen to have the old TSR Core Rules CD for Second Edition DnD, you have two map makers: one that is proprietary and rather simple, as well as the more complex and intricate Campaign Cartographer 2.
Tomorrow, I will discuss building maps for the campaign world.
Drama Moments
Drama moments are an aspect of a house rule that you’ve probably used or witnessed at least once in your gaming career, though you may not have known it.
Drama moments are those moments in a game where all the rules are thrown out or bent for a moment so that, in a moment of GM Fiat, the right thing can happen. Drama moments are often employed to match excellent role-playing, to ensure that the story continues on the right path or that the story ends on the right note and in general to ensure that the over-all enjoyment isn’t compromised.
Some examples of drama moments include:
- A character casting a spell they do not know or do not have access to
- A character taking extra actions
- A character shrugs off damage
- A character automatically accomplishes something that normally requires dice to be rolled
- A character over-comes a powerful magical effect
But why include drama moments when GM Fiat is generally considered a bad thing? Drama moments are not random or in place solely to gratify one individual - they serve the story and the communal enjoyment of the game.
If you’re not sure if a given situation is appropriate for a drama moment, ask yourself the following questions:
- If the wrong thing happens, can the game still be fun?
- Does it affect the entire group?
- Can the game/story continue if the wrong thing happens?
- Can they try again?
- If the wrong thing happens, does that prevent the right thing from happening later?
- Is the wrong thing primarily left up to chance?
If the answer to most or all of these questions is yes, then you’ve most likely encountered a drama moment where GM Fiat is acceptable.
Some things to keep in mind with drama moments:
Try not to let the player’s know it’s happening. By keeping it hidden, the players enjoy it more because it feels natural to them. If the situation would normally call for dice to be rolled, roll them behind your screen so that players cannot see them.
Make the players feel responsible. If you’re ensuring that an unlikely turn of events plays out in the game, present the players with something they can do to “improve the odds.” By doing so and having the players do this, they will not only feel more responsible for the events, but they will be more accepting of the unlikely turn of events because they “made [the events] likely.”
Have a reason handy as to how and why things worked differently. If the player accessed an unusual level of magical abilities, a new source of magical power that was tapped and run dry during the drama moment is sufficient to explain what happened. Similarly, outside intervention, luck, favor of the gods, adrenaline are all acceptable excuses.
Remember, the worst thing that can happen from a drama moment is the players trying to futilely to re-create the circumstances or accomplish the same phenomenal task.
When A Player Doesn’t Like Their Character
From time to time, a player will be unsatisfied with the way their character is working out. Perhaps they made an error when building the character, or made a decision which is closing off possibilities now. May-be the character doesn’t fit in with the party, or the story-line for that matter. Perhaps the opportunities to contribute are too few and too far in between. Whatever the reason for it, the situation is always best dealt with directly. But how?
Kill the character.
Killing the character allows the player to immediately roll a new character and re-enter play with one that is more appropriate to the situation. Character deaths which preclude resurrection may often be the best, as many groups would try to revive their fallen comrade.
If the character is going to be killed off, it is best if the death means something - it allows the character to accomplish something in its time and not feel like a waste. The character sacrificing themselves so that the rest of the group can safely escape a situation is a classic example of how to accomplish this.
Write-Out the character.
Less drastic than killing off a character and just as effective, writing the character out of the story for a length of time allows the character to continue to exist, and perhaps be played again in the future. This option can be best if the character is not critically flawed so much as inappropriate to the current game for whatever reason.
Re-build the character.
If a character doesn’t fit in with the group or setting, it may be best to change the character so that it does fit better. Allowing the player to re-build the character, within limitations chosen by the game master, lets them continue using the character in the game but fix whatever the problem with the character is.
The PHB II spends an entire chapter discussing how to accomplish this and what can be used in game as an explanation for the change - usually a magical effect achieved at the end of a quest or from thorough training. I tend to choose the latter for minor changes - in my Dark Matter game, the players are allowed to rebuild their characters between missions; there is ample time and the Hoffman Institute provides the necessary instruction.
Change the Story.
When a character doesn’t fit in with the story or the group, it can be easy to focus in on the character as the problem and by extension as the solution. But sometimes the best solution can be to make changes to the story/campaign/game world. Look at the situation and see if there is something you can do to make the situation fit the character more neatly. Often minor changes can yield great results. A player is also likely to be more open to making the changes you want to their character if they see that you have already explored this option.
What do you do when a player doesn’t like their character?
New Campaign Website
In preparation for my new fantasy campaign, beginning in late April, I decided to build a new campaign website where I could post and load information for the players, as well as get responses from them.
I decided to try something new this time, and installed some basic forums. There are categories for possible campaigns, official game fluff, character creation, and general discussion. After I put up the forums, I typed up a list of 50 possible campaigns they could embark on, and began typing up descriptions for each of them.
So far, it’s working out quite well. The main content of any thread is found in my first post, with later posts being updates about what was edited or updated in the original post - this makes keeping everyone up-to-date very easy.
I’m finding that, so far, using the forums seems to be a lot easier for me and my players, while being equally effective.
Evaluating Your Game: Part Four
This is part four in an ongoing series, designed to help you evaluate and improve your game from the ground up. Previously, I discussed Genre, Setting, and Scope, followed by an analysis of Character Generation Methods and The Role of Randomness.
In most RPGs, you will eventually encounter something in character advancement that has a pre-requisite - something you must already have to be able to qualify for the advancement. These will typically apply to traits, classes, and occasionally skills.
Pre-requisites are good because they serve the function of providing a barrier between who may use something and who may not. This may be because of a concern with specialization, such as with d20’s prestige classes, or because the system does not implement a point-buy advancement and there is a desire to make somethings more costly, as with d20’s feat system.
The first concern with using pre-requisites is that it may make things too costly for a player to pursue - the Whirlwind Attack feat being an ideal example, it is highly desirable but almost never pursued because of the litany of pre-requisites.
The second concern with using pre-requisites is that they can go against a character concept. The Whirlwind Attack feat is another perfect example of this - among it’s pre-requisites are three defensive feats, one of them (Combat Expertise) will never see use if it was taken only because of the pre-requisites. Players will most likely try to avoid this wasted space on their character sheets.
There are one of two solutions to this problem:
First, you may offer alternate pre-requisites, a different path that can accommodate different concepts so that they may access the same thing.
Second, you may create an alternative to what the pre-requisites originally guarded - the alternative would represent the same skills if they were lacking whatever pre-requisites were not included and augmented by whatever they were replaced by. In the case of Whirlwind Attack, a version which did not include the defensive feats might provoke Attacks of Opportunity.
The use of pre-requisites is a balancing act - you must be sure that the requirements do not outweigh the perceived benefits, and that the requirements of a feature will appeal to everyone that would be interested in that feature.
Campaign Website
A few months ago, I posted an article about building a campaign website to keep track of your game’s story, characters, and other various elements.
One of the most difficult parts of building a website like this is finding hosting and getting the necessary software set up on the server - wikis are obviously the best but they are also difficult to deal with.
Micah from ObsidianPortal.com got in touch with me recently to let me know about the website - which provided a free automated hosting space for people to use as a campaign website.
Some of the basic features include an NPC, Item and DM wiki, making it easy to make changes on the website and keep track of events, characters and items. In addition to the campaign management features, the website makes it easy to publish your campaign or keep it private - you can even use the website to hunt out new players, based on geographic location or other search parameters.
If you’re looking for a simple solution to handle your campaign website, check out Obsidian Portal - if you don’t need anything other than the basics described above, it’ll certainly meet your needs.
Is there any other software or websites that make this process easier that you take advantage of?
