BigRedRod
26th of January, 2005, 02:59
As per usual when I have an idea, it has been buzzing around my head and I've decided I need to share.
Many good books and films don't start just by throwing the main characters in at the deep end. Those that do (e.g. cube) tend to have a fairly good reason for a group of people to interact and fill out a plotline.
Yet in games, most seem to start in quite contrived circumstances with both player and DM pushing the task of why the characters are a party back and forth until someone forgets and the issue is dropped.
Kicking off a game is important, as is a functioning party. A party which has personality, characters that interact with one another and which don't just stand still arguing. On the other hand a party which has no intra-group dialogue, and just tends to move on whichever path the DM baits with cheese or the first player to post after a DM post mentions.
Most groups don't want to be led by the nose, neither do they want to be thrown out on the moors with no clue as what to do next.
I know, I'm rambling a little here and commenting on a few different points. But my general focus is trying to be kicking a game off. In my opinion you need a spark, if you can put it in the first post then super it sets things going and the characters can interact while the plot line advances (periods of plot silence in which the players could interact are rarely filled by anything whatsoever until the DM cracks and does something). Many games start with a fizzle, the players are just having a sit in a tavern and in those first few posts the DM tries to eck out a bit of "getting to know the characters".
So, Point 1
Start a new game with a firework display of action and excitement
Of course, this is hard. You have four or five individuals who most likely have nothing joining them together except the will of the DM. You need to throw the players in the deep end, give them an instant goal and let them worry about who is who later. This is similar to the cardinal rule of literature and film, "if you can make it start with an explosion then it is twice as good as otherwise, so it make it start with something blowng up".
Remember! Before a game starts, the ball is still in play
If we say that t=0 is when the DM makes that first post of the game then we should have a look at the time prior to that. What was going on in that negative time?
In general, the players were coming up ith character concepts and creating sheets. This is a critical moment. I'm not going to state the obvious and rant about crap players killing even the best games run by the best DMs, I just want to talk about characters. Even if you start at level 1, the DM and player need to cooperate in order to make an interesting character who can really add to the game.
Looking back at books, most decent books are about characters. The characters that move through the book are not just mindless pawns, they are tied to the plot and it distorts as they move. In general replacing the cast of a book with an entirely different set of characters would have a fundamental impact on the story itself. The same is true of film, and the same should be true of games. Every character should make his own ripples.
Don't feel tied down to convention
Some conventions exist for very good reasons. Keeping the OOC comments in the OOC thread is one of these, we don't need to talk about that here, we have another thread for that (http://www.online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=387).
However, sometimes a DM would do well to try and shake things up a bit. And here we come to the actual idea in my head, after all that other stuff which just came pouring forth from my hands in order to try and generate some more general discussion on a related subject.
Starting the players at different points. We've all seen the games that use locked sub forums as each player goes on their own adventures, I'm not talking about that. I mean a twist on the classic, one party, one thread system. Once again we can look at books and/or film (without specifics as I can't actually think of any blasted examples), it opens with one character, he picks up a friend, and another, and at a few key events another character joins the group.
This could well help the party fusion. This isn't the big brother house, late arrivals don't get voted out at the earliest opportunity. The game opens with X, one player, one DM. X quickly bumps in to Y. X and Y bumps in to Z. etc.
As the plot moves, extra characters can be added in a more natural manner. Some DMs already adopt this sytem for adding new life and subtracting dead wood from the game, the new character may spring the players from a jail cell. He may be a contact they meet who trades information for a place on the team. It is easy to come up with ideas that mesh in new and unusual members in a much better fashion than the initial clumping.
As we all know PBPs move very slowly, so it requires planning on the part of the DM to have the intial plotshaped in such a way that it allows new blood to be slowly dripped in.
So yeah, something for everybody to think about. Starting a game well is the key to success, and hopefully something I said in there makes sense to someone. If not, shout back and I'll fight back with my elephant gun and monocle.
Many good books and films don't start just by throwing the main characters in at the deep end. Those that do (e.g. cube) tend to have a fairly good reason for a group of people to interact and fill out a plotline.
Yet in games, most seem to start in quite contrived circumstances with both player and DM pushing the task of why the characters are a party back and forth until someone forgets and the issue is dropped.
Kicking off a game is important, as is a functioning party. A party which has personality, characters that interact with one another and which don't just stand still arguing. On the other hand a party which has no intra-group dialogue, and just tends to move on whichever path the DM baits with cheese or the first player to post after a DM post mentions.
Most groups don't want to be led by the nose, neither do they want to be thrown out on the moors with no clue as what to do next.
I know, I'm rambling a little here and commenting on a few different points. But my general focus is trying to be kicking a game off. In my opinion you need a spark, if you can put it in the first post then super it sets things going and the characters can interact while the plot line advances (periods of plot silence in which the players could interact are rarely filled by anything whatsoever until the DM cracks and does something). Many games start with a fizzle, the players are just having a sit in a tavern and in those first few posts the DM tries to eck out a bit of "getting to know the characters".
So, Point 1
Start a new game with a firework display of action and excitement
Of course, this is hard. You have four or five individuals who most likely have nothing joining them together except the will of the DM. You need to throw the players in the deep end, give them an instant goal and let them worry about who is who later. This is similar to the cardinal rule of literature and film, "if you can make it start with an explosion then it is twice as good as otherwise, so it make it start with something blowng up".
Remember! Before a game starts, the ball is still in play
If we say that t=0 is when the DM makes that first post of the game then we should have a look at the time prior to that. What was going on in that negative time?
In general, the players were coming up ith character concepts and creating sheets. This is a critical moment. I'm not going to state the obvious and rant about crap players killing even the best games run by the best DMs, I just want to talk about characters. Even if you start at level 1, the DM and player need to cooperate in order to make an interesting character who can really add to the game.
Looking back at books, most decent books are about characters. The characters that move through the book are not just mindless pawns, they are tied to the plot and it distorts as they move. In general replacing the cast of a book with an entirely different set of characters would have a fundamental impact on the story itself. The same is true of film, and the same should be true of games. Every character should make his own ripples.
Don't feel tied down to convention
Some conventions exist for very good reasons. Keeping the OOC comments in the OOC thread is one of these, we don't need to talk about that here, we have another thread for that (http://www.online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=387).
However, sometimes a DM would do well to try and shake things up a bit. And here we come to the actual idea in my head, after all that other stuff which just came pouring forth from my hands in order to try and generate some more general discussion on a related subject.
Starting the players at different points. We've all seen the games that use locked sub forums as each player goes on their own adventures, I'm not talking about that. I mean a twist on the classic, one party, one thread system. Once again we can look at books and/or film (without specifics as I can't actually think of any blasted examples), it opens with one character, he picks up a friend, and another, and at a few key events another character joins the group.
This could well help the party fusion. This isn't the big brother house, late arrivals don't get voted out at the earliest opportunity. The game opens with X, one player, one DM. X quickly bumps in to Y. X and Y bumps in to Z. etc.
As the plot moves, extra characters can be added in a more natural manner. Some DMs already adopt this sytem for adding new life and subtracting dead wood from the game, the new character may spring the players from a jail cell. He may be a contact they meet who trades information for a place on the team. It is easy to come up with ideas that mesh in new and unusual members in a much better fashion than the initial clumping.
As we all know PBPs move very slowly, so it requires planning on the part of the DM to have the intial plotshaped in such a way that it allows new blood to be slowly dripped in.
So yeah, something for everybody to think about. Starting a game well is the key to success, and hopefully something I said in there makes sense to someone. If not, shout back and I'll fight back with my elephant gun and monocle.