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Quote from: Mike Holmes

Quote from: StalkingBlue

Quote from: Mike Holmes
What's key about this is that, not only do the players have more information to work on, but you can make the NPC demands interesting. Basically they should set up do or don't dillemas that say something about the character.  

Examples would be much appreciated.  :)

That's a whole 'nother post as well. Check out "Bangs" under Sorcerer. Or start the thread, and I'll get to it when my typing fingers have recuperated.

Mike

I'll also be checking out Bangs - that's a reference to a thread in the Sorcerer forum, yes?

Actually, it's a technique first introduced in the Sorcerer RPG.

A Bang is when a scene is introduced which requires a choice from one or more of the players. Often, this means that the character's response to a Bang will provide one possible answer to the unasked question posed by the situation (and perhaps a personal answer to the "question" that lies behind the whole campaign).

"You're a holy knight, and you just met a pack of gnolls looking for a fight" is not a Bang.

"You're a holy knight, and the pack of gnolls you're chasing splits up, one group carrying away your church's holiest reliquary, the other group leading a chain of slaves that includes your sister..."  That's a Bang.

Yep, Bangs are an important idea. Basically, in every sort of play, there has to be some punchy moment for the player in terms of decision-making. Simply "playing the character" in terms of making up it's dialog really isn't enough to play out a game. Depending on what the player wants from a game, there are different ways to deliver these moments of choice to them.

Gamism: the player has some choice or choices that affect how well their character does. So the character's success is the player's success.
Simulationism: the player has some choice that makes the world seem more "real." That might be chosing which path to take, and discovering A and not discovering B.
Narrativism: the player has some choice to make that either alters their character, or at least the player's understanding of the character, and which takes the story in a new direction therefore.

Bangs are designed to deliver those moments that support Narrativism. Note that the character is not actually forced to change, just the player understanding of the character. For example, if we have a character who is known to be brave, and his bravery is called into question, and he remains brave, then that's not a bang. That's just playing the character correctly, which is always required by plausibility. If, however, the character has to choose between bravery and family, as in Doyce's example, then after the decision is made, we know which is more important to the character at that point.

It also means that the character can change, however. So if the character is loyal, and is given a choice between loyalty and greed, and he is disloyal to go for the greed option, that's cool, too. An important thing to avoid is players feeling that they have to stick with pre-defined character ideas of what the character is like. This is for two reasons. First, it's not realistic or dramatic for people not to change. Rather, it's both realistic and dramatic for people to change. Happens all the time that people betray their own principles. Secondly, this is the stuff of great stories. Boromir is a noble fellow, but then he tries to steal the ring from it's bearer, uncharacteristically. Sure we can blame the ring to some extent. But it's the fact that he's going against what we know of him that's interesting.

HQ allows character change, because nowhere in the rules does it say anything like, "If the character acts against their Psych Lims, the GM can veto that action." Or worse, "The GM should dock the player EXP if they act out of their alignment."

The only "punishment" in HQ for acting against a character's type is that they don't get the augments that they otherwise would get. But, since we know that augments are simply a display of the character, this is merely another just as interesting display of the character. He's acting against what makes him himself normally, so he's not as powerful, so this makes the statement all the more interesting and meaningful.

And given that they might be getting augments from the other side of their own house, well, this is just the character choosing his priorities. All fun stuff for the player to get to do (asssuming they're into narrativism, which is pretty safe; that's not the same as saying that they're not into other modes).

So, yes, Bangs, Bangs, Bangs.


But how do you find Bangs? Well, that's the real subject of this thread. One very consistent way to find Bangs is to create very human situations. To do this requires humans, or good surrogates. Yes, even the baby kobolds count, as long as they're not worth any EXP dead.

The point is that in setting up situation, the best tool you have are NPCs who have certain qualities. First, they have to have strong motives, something that they're willing to act to get. Second, and more importantly, they have to need the PCs to get these things. Thirdly, and most difficultly, the things that they need the PCs to do to get what they want, have to have Bang potential.

Remember, and this is key - the NPCs do not exist to tell a story of their own, but to create situation wherin the PCs are the story. Hamlet is the center of the story, not his stepfather. The king character exists to give Hamlet something to "be indecisive" about, and nothing more. The Queen, his mother, exists to make the situation all the more greusome and pitfall laden. Polonius exists to be killed by Hamlet, so that Ophelia will kill herself, which is all to make Hamlet's life more complicated.

The PCs are Hamlet, and the NPCs are everyone else. Yeah, they're interesting characters, but they don't have a story, they're simply there to be discarded as need be by the needs of the PC to be the center of an interesting set of dilemmas. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" is the best example I can think of. No die roll by Shakespeare there to see if they survive. No caring that the story of these characters has been cut short without any sort of closure. Just GM Fiat to build the PCs drama.

Often the best way to create these NPCs is to work backwards from the PCs. The process works like this:
1. Find a PC issue.
2. Find a situation that would be good to make a Bang out of the issue.
3. Find a motive that would create that situation.
4. Create an NPC who would have that motive.

For example, we have Doyce's example above:
1. We see that the character could have a conflict over family vs order loyalty.
2. A good situation would be to have something important to the order stolen, along with the PCs sister.
3. A motive that would get the PC into this situation would be for somebody in the order to command him to go after the relic.
4. So we create the leader of the order who informs the character of the theft, and who can command him to go after it.

So we have our NPC and Bang. Master Negarias comes to the PC and says get that relic, or you'll be out of the order! We know that the character is dedicated to the order and will do anything to protect it. The character is formed from the requirements of the PC.

Now, the problem at this point is that we can do this all day, but it's difficult, because you have to always be finding a new issue or whatever. This is where NPC mapping becomes important. That is, once you have one or two ideas for NPCs, a good idea is to find some ways in which they all interact.

Ron's "Relationship Map" is an example of this, and one which points out specifically that amongs other ways, a very effective tool for linking NPCs is via them being related either by blood or by sexual relations. Family, basically. You'll note that if the character kidnapped in the example above is just some man from the village, then there's instantly much less pressure to go after him. If you even make the NPC a female, a potential mate, that suddenly she's more important to save. And if she's family, well, then it becomes critical.

There are other ways to make characters important to each other, of course. So just make sure that the map has strong connections between the characters involved.

Now this doesn't mean that all of the characters have to be related this way, or even related to the PCs. You can, in fact, create entire NPC maps that the PCs don't even know before play starts, or use more than one isolated map. The key is to have each PC have some connection to the map in terms of that strong NPC motivation we mentioned before. Either the PC is strongly related, or the NPC has to have a real need for the PC in some way that brings him "onto the map."

Once hooked, what happens is that all the GM has to do is put stress on the connections between the NPC to alter things to create new motives and thus new ways to tap into NPC issues. For example, if the PC is a friend of a married man on the map, and this man's wife turns out to be cheating on him, the NPC in question might come to the PC and ask him to get rid of the other man. By putting pressure on the NPCs relationship, you create a new motive. Put into action, that motive can become a bang. The PC having a relationship with the NPC has a reason to help him, but we'll assume for the example that he's moral and doesn't want to kill somebody. So he has a choice.

A good NPC map can keep play going for a long time this way. Once many of the NPC issues are resolved (often because they're dead, interestingly), then it's time to introduce a new map.

Questions? I've been brief (yeah, this could have been a lot longer), so I hope I didn't make anything unclear.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesQuestions? I've been brief (yeah, this could have been a lot longer), so I hope I didn't make anything unclear.

Actually, Mike ... for the first time now, I think I really get it. Thanks for keeping it brief and simple.

Fantastic post, Mike.  I feel compelled to illustrate your point with an example from the game you ran last night, because I'm still thinking about it.  It was one of those defining moments -- the first time I'd experienced a good Bang as a *player* rather than a GM:

QuoteBangs are designed to deliver those moments that support Narrativism. Note that the character is not actually forced to change, just the player understanding of the character.

As I said, this happened with me last night.  To explain briefly, I'm playing a thief who is a member of a tribal sort of people (think of them as... sort of Grazers, but with a real psychotic problem with liars).  Until recently, he'd lived in the only real city that these people had (until it got overrun by undead), and he's currently at ... well, what amounts to a refugee camp, consisting of the campground of one tribes, and a trading outpost from another country.

Anyway: someone comes up and says "Hey, you can come and go as you like in the tribe's camp, and they have this great silver idol in their shrine, and I'd like you to steal it and I'll sell it and we'll both make quite a bit of money."

That's a Bang.  Mike may not have realized it, but it was a pretty BIG bang for me, as the PLAYER, because, as he said above, it changed how I saw the character.

On the one hand, my character:
* Is trying to get in touch with these non-citified kin -- he's homeless, and he comes from a tribal people, and it turns out that he misses his 'tribe' a bit.

I agonized over this quite a bit during play, trying to figure out what to do.   I could do it anyway... the money was nice, but I didn't know if it was worth it, nor were angry tribesman... maybe they'd be cursed by the idol's theft... whatever.

Then I realized that my character:
* Doesn't even worship the traditional tribal gods or spirits -- AND he's gotten quite 'into' his personal religion, so he wouldn't really care about the whole religion angle... honestly, it's a way for him to assert the superiority of his own Diety over that of the tribes.
* Is Reckless... almost heroic levels of reckless :)

Seen from that point of view, it was a simple decision, and I certainly made it quickly, once I realized that.  The thing is, *I* didn't realize it quickly.  It took thought and introspection on my part, but I came away with a much clearer image of my character -- the Bang brought things more into focus for me.  It doesn't even matter if he actually steals the idol, now, because the important thing is that now I understand that he *would*.

QuoteOften the best way to create these NPCs is to work backwards from the PCs. The process works like this:
1. Find a PC issue.
2. Find a situation that would be good to make a Bang out of the issue.
3. Find a motive that would create that situation.
4. Create an NPC who would have that motive.

So, to use Mike's example:

1. Gennadi is a burglar, but the only people to steal from at the moment are his own people, whom he also has to rely on somewhat for support right now.
2. Someone from the non-tribal camp (the traders), wants something the Tribe has, and Gennadi's right there, quite comfortable with the foreigners.
3. Stealing this thing would make a lot of money for the thief as well as the fence.
4. The sly, shifty quartermaster (who, granted, already existed) is drafted into service, and approaches Gennadi about doing the job.

It was great stuff -- really kind of amazing.  In the game, it took very little time and very little introspection, but for the player... OOooh, there was a lot of thinking going on.

Quote from: DoyceThat's a Bang.  Mike may not have realized it, but it was a pretty BIG bang for me, as the PLAYER, because, as he said above, it changed how I saw the character.

Dude, I think that was the first Bang I came up with. Been on my Bang sheet since before we started playing. :-)

Looking at his sheet, "Hmm, Rhiani, and a Burglar." I didn't even have to go past his keywords to get that one. In fact, I'm finding more and more that just working off of keywords as generalizations about the character is what works best. Hitting specific abilities is harder, and really can't be repeated often.

This is the genius of HQ, BTW. In making character enumeration about identity, as opposed to about ability, it makes this sort of play just too easy.

QuoteThe thing is, *I* didn't realize it quickly.  It took thought and introspection on my part, but I came away with a much clearer image of my character -- the Bang brought things more into focus for me.  It doesn't even matter if he actually steals the idol, now, because the important thing is that now I understand that he *would*.

Bingo. I often say that the resolution system is almost ancillary to the process. Because the choice to enter a contest is usually far more important than any decisions made during the contest (however, that's what extended contests are for).

Quote4. The sly, shifty quartermaster (who, granted, already existed) is drafted into service, and approaches Gennadi about doing the job.

This is, in fact, how Speckler was created. Very precisely. Think about it, what other Bangs has he created? What other relationship stressors has he been a part of? Yeah, once I made him, he became one of my favorite characters (BTW, in my head he looks and acts somewhat like a young Father Guido Sarducci), and I've used him for a few things. But I created him for the Bang in question.

See how this works now in terms of the map, however? Now that I've revealed that he's a crook, how does that affect his relationship as one of Isadora's most important colony members?

Think it's going to stay a secret long? :-)

By making him part of the map, and not just some wandering fence, his actions have reprecussions that make creating more Bangs easy. Just revealing his acts in this case will constitute a Bang that asks, "How will Isadora handle corruption in her organization when she really can't afford to lose anyone?" I mean, if Speckler goes, then the little smith at the Forge has to take over cooking duties. Think about it.

QuoteIt was great stuff -- really kind of amazing.  In the game, it took very little time and very little introspection, but for the player... OOooh, there was a lot of thinking going on.

Here I'll note that I've thrown a few Bangs at Gennadi so far (not many, really), and this is the only one that's worked as intended. This is the nature of Bangs, and why you have several of them prepared. In fact, the Bang in question I had shoved down to third on my list, because it didn't seem as good as the other ones. It's hard to predict what'll turn a player on.

Now that I know, however, that informs me as to how to make the next bang. Bwahahahahahaha!

What's really cool about all of this, however, is that half of the Bangs that happen in this game aren't from me. The players make them for each other. And they're good at it, too.

For example, last night, Fred had his character make a pass at Adrienne's. This is the simplest most direct, and most fecund, Bang there is. It always works. Because when it's done we know the answer to the question of "would she, or wouldn't she." Turns out that the complex answer she gave was, "Maybe (Probably?), but to find out, you'll have to go fight some goblins first." Which says bucketloads about her character right there.

Good move, Fred (now somebody needs to return the favor for him). I find that with this group, and given the medium (IRC) that I'm often struggling to get my bangs in, and instead just rely on throwing PCs together to cause bangs. It's like all I have to do is have them cross paths, like I'm throwing ingredients in a pot, and stirring gently, and story just happens. Basically, I exist in large part to just display the backdrop I've prepared as fast as I possibly can type.

Mike

First, my apologies for the delay in posting again to this thread.  I'm getting lots of useful advice here, so I'm grateful.  Work and looking for a new home has been interfering with my life a lot recently, so the time I can spend here is kinda limited.  

Quote from: Doyce"You're a holy knight, and the pack of gnolls you're chasing splits up, one group carrying away your church's holiest reliquary, the other group leading a chain of slaves that includes your sister..."  That's a Bang.

Thanks for the example.  I have a hazy grasp of what a Bang is in theory, but the more specific examples and concrete advice on creating them I can get the better.

Quote from: StalkingBlueThanks for the example.  I have a hazy grasp of what a Bang is in theory, but the more specific examples and concrete advice on creating them I can get the better.

Once upon a time on RPG.net there was a threat titled "you Kick, we Bang" in which people would give sample PCs in hypothetical situations, and the rest of the forum would come up with bangs for them.

Perhaps something like that would be useful?

Quote from: Mike HolmesIt also means that the character can change, however. ... An important thing to avoid is players feeling that they have to stick with pre-defined character ideas of what the character is like. This is for two reasons. First, it's not realistic or dramatic for people not to change. ... Secondly, this is the stuff of great stories.

HQ allows character change, because nowhere in the rules does it say anything like, "If the character acts against their Psych Lims, the GM can veto that action." Or worse, "The GM should dock the player EXP if they act out of their alignment."

LOL. We're not slagging off DnD again, are we...

Seriously, the point you make about allowing change is important for me to realise. I've always been in favour of change and I've been pretty flexible about letting people change characters, even in DnD (where by the system as written it's a no-no - again, talk about Drifting!).  

QuoteThe only "punishment" in HQ for acting against a character's type is that they don't get the augments that they otherwise would get. But, since we know that augments are simply a display of the character, this is merely another just as interesting display of the character. He's acting against what makes him himself normally, so he's not as powerful, so this makes the statement all the more interesting and meaningful.

And given that they might be getting augments from the other side of their own house, well, this is just the character choosing his priorities.

I like it.

QuoteAll fun stuff for the player to get to do (asssuming they're into narrativism, which is pretty safe; that's not the same as saying that they're not into other modes).

I think with my current players there's a chance of them being into Narrativism - to some extent, for some of them.  

QuoteOne very consistent way to find Bangs is to create very human situations. To do this requires humans, or good surrogates. Yes, even the baby kobolds count, as long as they're not worth any EXP dead.

Ok so far...

QuoteThe point is that in setting up situation, the best tool you have are NPCs who have certain qualities. First, they have to have strong motives, something that they're willing to act to get. Second, and more importantly, they have to need the PCs to get these things. Thirdly, and most difficultly, the things that they need the PCs to do to get what they want, have to have Bang potential.

Brilliant.  And intimidating.  :)

QuoteRemember, and this is key - the NPCs do not exist to tell a story of their own, but to create situation wherin the PCs are the story.

Yup, I get that.  (Thanks, as always, for illlustrating with an example.)

Weirdly enough the group has "inherited" some NPCs I had originally created with certain PCs in mind, who are now dead or retired. No wonder I'm dithering a bit trying to set up a proper R-map and all that: some of my NPCs are creatively dead weight for me.  I can change that of course, I just had to realise it first.  

QuoteOften the best way to create these NPCs is to work backwards from the PCs. The process works like this:
1. Find a PC issue.
2. Find a situation that would be good to make a Bang out of the issue.
3. Find a motive that would create that situation.
4. Create an NPC who would have that motive.

Oh cool! I was doing that all along, to some extent.  I wasn't so good at identifying PC issues, but that's partly because in DnD issues aren't on the char sheet, they are in the backstory, if any, in meaningful moments in past play, and in the player's comments.  I've usually created NPCs with specific PCs in mind.  Not necessarily expecting that this would actually come into play unless it happened to fit, more simply because it is the way I work a game around the players and the PCs.  

I'll really have to edit my sense of who my NPCs are in this game. Too many of them "died" creatively when "their" PC passed out of play and remained there as hollow shells, as "the camp's disillusioned, underestimated healer" or "the camp's grizzly, constantly overworked commander" and such.  Ok colour and and an ok consistent base for players to come back to, but no creative leverage for me.

Now how do I get better at identifying PC issues?  I suspect HQ will be a great help.  In HQ, reading the char sheet actually helps me in my work.

QuoteNow, the problem at this point is that we can do this all day, but it's difficult, because you have to always be finding a new issue or whatever. This is where NPC mapping becomes important. That is, once you have one or two ideas for NPCs, a good idea is to find some ways in which they all interact.

Ah yes, of course, that's why the R-map is so useful in keeping the game focussed!  It draws all the threads together in ways people can recognise intuitively.   I had used R-maps a few times in dreamtravel scenarios and always noticed that the game felt more "centred" than when I didn't.  It was as if the game moved around a focal point, almost like a complicated dance around a fire rather than wild uncertain hopping all over the place.

QuoteRon's "Relationship Map" is an example of this, and one which points out specifically that amongs other ways, a very effective tool for linking NPCs is via them being related either by blood or by sexual relations. Family, basically.

I understand why.  I've used the "blood or sex" limit on my first R-maps without knowing what it was there for, and found it gives everyone at the table a very quick grasp of the situation and evokes tons of cultural and personal dimensions and connotations.  No other ties have quite the same effect.

QuoteYou can, in fact, create entire NPC maps that the PCs don't even know before play starts, or use more than one isolated map.

Great.  I have isolated maps for various dream-place-times in the game, and I was worrying that with switching over to HQ those scenarios will become much less cool because the PCs aren't tied into the new cast of NPCs (although their NPC "hosts" are, it isn't the same thing).

QuoteThe key is to have each PC have some connection to the map in terms of that strong NPC motivation we mentioned before. Either the PC is strongly related, or the NPC has to have a real need for the PC in some way that brings him "onto the map."

NPC needs that bring PCs on the map?  You mean examples that first help tie the PC in?  Do you have examples?  That's one of the (not so few) things I'm lacking.  

QuoteQuestions? I've been brief (yeah, this could have been a lot longer), so I hope I didn't make anything unclear.

Mike

Brilliant, brilliant post, thank you very much. It has made things a lot clearer to me.

Quote from: DoyceAnyway: someone comes up and says "Hey, you can come and go as you like in the tribe's camp, and they have this great silver idol in their shrine, and I'd like you to steal it and I'll sell it and we'll both make quite a bit of money."

That's a Bang.  Mike may not have realized it, but it was a pretty BIG bang for me, as the PLAYER, because, as he said above, it changed how I saw the character.
...

Seen from that point of view, it was a simple decision, and I certainly made it quickly, once I realized that.  The thing is, *I* didn't realize it quickly.  It took thought and introspection on my part, but I came away with a much clearer image of my character -- the Bang brought things more into focus for me.  It doesn't even matter if he actually steals the idol, now, because the important thing is that now I understand that he *would*.

Oh, a fantastic example.  It shows me another angle on Bangs that I've felt insecure about without quite being aware of what it was:  half of whether something is or isn't a Bang is in the mind of the player.  

I've felt kind of an obligation to come up with ideas that would be "good enough" to count as Bangs, and have been secretly frustrated when they didn't seem to work as Bangs because the player in question "simply" decided and moved on, or conversely I've been mystified-and-delighted when something turned into a character-defining moment when I hadn't anticipated that it might.

So maybe I've been doing something right already, and I can just get to it and practice to become more confident.  

Why don't any roleplaying books tell you that?  

Not even Sorcerer does, or not in a language I can understand.  (And that's not to diminish the impact of Ron's thinking - I awoke to a whole different dimension of thinking about roleplaying games when I first riddled my way through the strange and inaccessible terminology in Sorcerer. I  think it's a work of genius. I wish it were written in a way that would allow more people to read and understand it though.  End of rant.)

QuoteIt was great stuff -- really kind of amazing.  In the game, it took very little time and very little introspection, but for the player... OOooh, there was a lot of thinking going on.

Sounds like a great moment in the game.

Quote from: Mike HolmesIn fact, I'm finding more and more that just working off of keywords as generalizations about the character is what works best. Hitting specific abilities is harder, and really can't be repeated often.

With my limited experience trying to use Bangs, I've mostly had a easier time playing off general player expectations and situations than with specifics players had created, say, as part of a character background.  "Bangs" have tended to fall flat when I was catering to a player's expectations, and worked (or created themselves, almost) at times when we suddenly found an issue that no one had ever looked at too closely before.  

Quote

Quote4. The sly, shifty quartermaster (who, granted, already existed) is drafted into service, and approaches Gennadi about doing the job.

This is, in fact, how Speckler was created. Very precisely. Think about it, what other Bangs has he created? What other relationship stressors has he been a part of?

Great for me to be able to see the little cogs and wheels of design here, and in what followed.

QuoteHere I'll note that I've thrown a few Bangs at Gennadi so far (not many, really), and this is the only one that's worked as intended. This is the nature of Bangs, and why you have several of them prepared. In fact, the Bang in question I had shoved down to third on my list, because it didn't seem as good as the other ones. It's hard to predict what'll turn a player on.

I hadn't realised that.  I've felt rather inadequate with my unpredictable Bang/not-a-Bang results - but it's actually normal!  Yay. How cool, I can simply go ahead and practice.

QuoteFor example, last night, Fred had his character make a pass at Adrienne's. This is the simplest most direct, and most fecund, Bang there is. It always works.

Heh, cool.  (Also cool that you don't have a group where players cringe at the first hint of romantic interaction.  Or maybe because it's online, cringing in front of a screen here and there doesn't show...)

QuoteIt's like all I have to do is have them cross paths, like I'm throwing ingredients in a pot, and stirring gently, and story just happens.

Oh.  I just realised I created a Bang for another player in the HQ I've been playing in for a few sessions.  I had my character go ask his PC whether she wanted to come along on a cattle raid to patch people up if needed.  She's an ex-healer but now married and pregnant for the first time (and is bearing a long-desired son, the outcome of a successful Heroquest), so I expected a No.  Instead, the player considered and dithered and in the end decided to go along, to everyone's surprise (almost I want to say not least his own, but I can't be sure of that).

Quote from: Brand_RobinsOnce upon a time on RPG.net there was a threat titled "you Kick, we Bang" in which people would give sample PCs in hypothetical situations, and the rest of the forum would come up with bangs for them.

Perhaps something like that would be useful?

Wonderful suggestion.  Not sure I dare split off yet another thread right now ... :)

Quote from: StalkingBlueI'll really have to edit my sense of who my NPCs are in this game. Too many of them "died" creatively when "their" PC passed out of play and remained there as hollow shells, as "the camp's disillusioned, underestimated healer" or "the camp's grizzly, constantly overworked commander" and such.  Ok colour and and an ok consistent base for players to come back to, but no creative leverage for me.

They sound like cool NPCs. So the players will probably really enjoy them coming back to life in this way. Consider this: in HQ, when a character dies, any characters who have relationships to that character still have those relationships. Just because somebody dies, doesn't mean that your relationship with them ceases to exist.

The typical example is that if somebody the character loves is killed, then they can employ their relationship in exacting revenge from the agency that caused the death.

The point is that these NPCs still have their feelings for the heroes in question. So they may still have related motives. If, for instance, there's an enemy out there running around that killed one of the PCs, then the NPC may want the current PCs to eliminate it for revenge's sake. And that's just the obvious stuff.

Want to do something really fun? Have one of these characters also be a bard or something like it. He's remembered all these dead, and has composed beautiful laments to their names that are deeply moving. Heroes who listen to the bard's stories can take relationships to the dead in question. So the players can link their new characters to any dead ones that they like. Thus giving more meaning to some of the deaths. They can become avengers of the fallen. Thus the dead lend strength to the living.

How cool is that?

QuoteNow how do I get better at identifying PC issues?  I suspect HQ will be a great help.  In HQ, reading the char sheet actually helps me in my work.

Yep.

Keep in mind that Issue is not quite the correct term. I use it too much as shorthand. Yes, if the character has some "kicker" hanging out there, these are obvious issues. For example, a character might have on their sheet. Needs to Avenge Ragnar 5W. Those are easy to pick out as sources for bangs.

What's less obvious, but just as fruitful ground, is that you as narrator can create issues from any value that the character has. And that's almost anything on the character sheet. For example, all relationships and personality traits are easy targets. Take two characters with whom the hero has relationships, and have them at odds with each other, and suddenly the character has an issue.

Players usually don't create their own issues unless asked, to do so - so you'll have to create them via situation.

More examples with personality traits. NPC relationship A wants character to do something dishonest, but the character has an honest personality trait. Character's drive to achieve some goal alienates Relationship B. More concretely, a character is given an opportunity to rise in rank which his Ambitious side likes (ambitious is so good at getting heroes in trouble, I'm starting to think that I should suggest it as a flaw), but to do it he has to really talk up a lot of people, which goes against his "taciturn" trait.

But you can go even farther. HQ abilities establish identity. So you can have a character who is a warrior by occupation, but who's people have surrendered, and are requiring him not to fight. Thus his occupation opposes his homeland interests. Even the most "valueless" of abilities have value in terms of identity. If the character has a very high "swordsman" ability, he might be offered a chance to expand his magic abilities if he sets aside his sword training. So the player has to decide who the character is in terms of what abilities he pursues more actively.

Try this little exercise. Take two random abilities from the character sheet, and see if you can't come up with some NPC motive (or motives, sometimes you need two or more NPCs to make it work) that would entangle the character in some way that puts the one ability up against the other ability. I think with practice you can probably do it with any two abilities, though some are probably hard to make really interesting.

Fortunately you don't have to do this, however; you can intelligently pick from the list. Given that each character has a ton of abilites, and that some pairings can be hit repeatedly from different angles, there's a vast source of potential issues that you can create doing this that'll have some really dramatic effects on play.

Then you just create or "adjust" NPCs to fit these issue creations, and you're off and running.

QuoteAh yes, of course, that's why the R-map is so useful in keeping the game focussed!  It draws all the threads together in ways people can recognise intuitively.   I had used R-maps a few times in dreamtravel scenarios and always noticed that the game felt more "centred" than when I didn't.  It was as if the game moved around a focal point, almost like a complicated dance around a fire rather than wild uncertain hopping all over the place.

Precisely. If the issues arrive from random NPCs that aren't entangled themselves, then you have the problem that the characters really can go off on their own without interacting at all with the other heroes. Which isn't undoable. But generally isn't sought. Player interaction in character is still ver fun, and the R-map allows you to do this.

There are lots of other centralizing methods, however, one of which you're already employing, which is the "team" concept. Different from the "party" concept (in which we may occasionally not be sure why the characters are hanging around with each other), the team concept simply says that there are some extant social forces that keep the team together.

If you want to have this continue in the game, then you should immediately give the players a free, and rather strong, "Member of Team" relationship right off the bat that pretty much functions whenever more than one team-member is around and helping in the slightest. What's really cool about this, is that then you can actually toy around with characters leaving the team, which is a classic issue with this sort of situation. Instead of in party play where you're struggling to keep everyone together because there are no real ties, with the relationship, they're all giving up that augment that they get constantly when they're with the team.

Call this the Power Rangers rule. OK, I have a four-year old son. But the theme rings true in everything up to buddy movies. When they go off alone, they do badly, but when the patch things up, everything goes their way.

There are other centralizing methods as well, but these are the two best known.

QuoteI understand why.  I've used the "blood or sex" limit on my first R-maps without knowing what it was there for, and found it gives everyone at the table a very quick grasp of the situation and evokes tons of cultural and personal dimensions and connotations.  No other ties have quite the same effect.

Yep, it's true. Ron made a keen observation when he noted this. When you make your map, throw the characters out there, and when you see one's floating a tad "loose" on their own, just find somebody for them to be related to. It's fascinating how often this works with very little adjustment. You can even do this mid-stream.

"She's your sister? I didn't know that!"
"Yeah, not something I like to admit. But we have the same father."

Quote

QuoteYou can, in fact, create entire NPC maps that the PCs don't even know before play starts, or use more than one isolated map.

Great.  I have isolated maps for various dream-place-times in the game, and I was worrying that with switching over to HQ those scenarios will become much less cool because the PCs aren't tied into the new cast of NPCs (although their NPC "hosts" are, it isn't the same thing).

Careful with this. If you have only on PC "contact" the new map, he might get sucked into it, and away from everyone else. Try to introduce the map only when you can hit several heroes with it at once. Not in an implausible way - don't have them appear out of the woodwork separately all looking for different PCs. Instead have them encounter a family at a get-together, where it's plausible to have the NPCs come at different heroes.

Quote

QuoteThe key is to have each PC have some connection to the map in terms of that strong NPC motivation we mentioned before. Either the PC is strongly related, or the NPC has to have a real need for the PC in some way that brings him "onto the map."

NPC needs that bring PCs on the map?  You mean examples that first help tie the PC in?  Do you have examples?  That's one of the (not so few) things I'm lacking.  

It's that "needing" the PC thing, again.

NPC A says that she needs PC B to kill NPC C. Well, right off, the PC is involved with two characters on the map. Meaning that it's easy to entangle him with more, because of the relationships. NPC D, father of NPC A overhears the plan, and begs PC B to forget what he's heard. NPC E, lover of NPC A, kills NPC D, and implicates PC B, because he wants PC B to do the murder, too, and also wants D out of the way so he can marry A and get her inheritance.

See how suddenly the PC is "grabbed" by the map. That's the phrasology that Ron and Paul Czege use for this stuff (amongst others), you want the map to be "grabby". As opposed to "hooky." That is, the player should feel compelled to give some sort of response to the characters on the map because it's interesting, not because the system tells him that his character "would" respond to the situation. That is, a "grab" grabs the player and says, "This is fun!" Wheras a "hook" hooks the player in and say, "You have to do this!"

Note that grabbing can be quite forceful, actually. In fact, it can look like railroading to a player who's not interested in the situation. It's only got to provide multiple avenues for the player in question.

Mike

Posting right after the above...

Quote from: StalkingBlueOh, a fantastic example.  It shows me another angle on Bangs that I've felt insecure about without quite being aware of what it was:  half of whether something is or isn't a Bang is in the mind of the player.  

Incorrect. Whether or not something is a Bang is 100% in the mind of the player. Only he is concerned with railroading and such concerns - the character is oblivious.

QuoteI've felt kind of an obligation to come up with ideas that would be "good enough" to count as Bangs, and have been secretly frustrated when they didn't seem to work as Bangs because the player in question "simply" decided and moved on,

Well, this sounds like a mode problem. For the "sim" player, it's no different a decision than any other - he only has to consider what his vision of the character says, and not what he himself thinks about the situation.

Quote...or conversely I've been mystified-and-delighted when something turned into a character-defining moment when I hadn't anticipated that it might.

And this will continue. But hopefully it'll be a tad more emphasized in that everyone will "get" that these are big, fun moments.

QuoteSo maybe I've been doing something right already, and I can just get to it and practice to become more confident.  

I believe that you are already doing things to promote narrativism. Just in an unfocused way, and using a system that's militated against your designs previously. So no surprise that it's hit and miss.

QuoteWhy don't any roleplaying books tell you that?  

Not even Sorcerer does, or not in a language I can understand.

Because even Ron didn't understand all of this when it was produced. I'm mostly reiterating his development on the ideas in Sorcerer over the past few years since it's publication. These ideas are cutting edge.

QuoteWith my limited experience trying to use Bangs, I've mostly had a easier time playing off general player expectations and situations than with specifics players had created, say, as part of a character background. "Bangs" have tended to fall flat when I was catering to a player's expectations, and worked (or created themselves, almost) at times when we suddenly found an issue that no one had ever looked at too closely before.

Hmm. This is as likely to be wrong as it is right, but that, combined with other things you've said before, sounds like "battered player syndrome." That is, some GM or GMs used lots of hooks to railroad the characters in previous games, and so they're cautious about their characters being "hookable." They bought into the campaign issues implicitly when they decided to play it, so they're not being hooked by those issues.

Again, in this case, a player responding in a "well of course he does X" manner is saying that they don't want to allow the GM the power to hook their character. They'll do whatever "My Guy" would do.

Another symptom is "turtling" where the player resists all attempts to involve the character in any meaninngful way. Got any of those players?

QuoteHeh, cool. (Also cool that you don't have a group where players cringe at the first hint of romantic interaction. Or maybe because it's online, cringing in front of a screen here and there doesn't show...)

Heh, think that I could feel Adrienne cringing even through the computer screen - though only she can say for sure. But Fred was adult about it, and the scene ended very interestingly.

Again, narrativism is about player reactions - 100%. So the players are exposing themselves to each other in some ways. And that can be uncomfortable at times. But I'd say that handled well, that uncomfortableness is actually healthy for the game. So throw some romance at your players, and make em squirm a bit till they get used to it.

Excellent example bang, with the pregnant healer. Yep, that's classic. Consider that there's a hidden "Sex" Keyword on each character's sheet - we've been over this on the rules list. So all issues of maleness, or femaleness (including pregnancy) are automatically valid for all characters.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesWant to do something really fun? Have one of these characters also be a bard or something like it. He's remembered all these dead, and has composed beautiful laments to their names that are deeply moving. Heroes who listen to the bard's stories can take relationships to the dead in question. So the players can link their new characters to any dead ones that they like. Thus giving more meaning to some of the deaths. They can become avengers of the fallen. Thus the dead lend strength to the living.

Very nice.  Now the system will no longer force me to use the silly Bard class when I want an NPC to sing, it'll be much easier to do!  

QuoteWhat's less obvious, but just as fruitful ground, is that you as narrator can create issues from any value that the character has. And that's almost anything on the character sheet. For example, all relationships and personality traits are easy targets. Take two characters with whom the hero has relationships, and have them at odds with each other, and suddenly the character has an issue.

D'oh. This is so easy it shouldn't be allowed. :-) No wonder I had a hard time coming up with Bangs for DnD PCs.... (Not that I expect all my Bangs to work all of a sudden - but I'll have an idea how to go about creating them!)

And as always, thanks for the tons of examples.

QuoteHQ abilities establish identity. So you can have a character who is a warrior by occupation, but who's people have surrendered, and are requiring him not to fight.

Oh, fantastic. You may just have given me an idea for a HQ PC of my own. (In th eHeortling game I'm struggling with.)

QuoteIf you want to have this continue in the game, then you should immediately give the players a free, and rather strong, "Member of Team" relationship right off the bat that pretty much functions whenever more than one team-member is around and helping in the slightest.

Will do.  (Damn, I forgot about this one in the conversion session, but I'll definitely do it when we play again.) I think the players will love that.

QuoteThere are other centralizing methods as well, but these are the two best known.

Hm... Do I dare ask for more methods?  If you like to post more, I'm still avid. :-)

QuoteIf you have only on PC "contact" the new map, he might get sucked into it, and away from everyone else. Try to introduce the map only when you can hit several heroes with it at once. Not in an implausible way - don't have them appear out of the woodwork separately all looking for different PCs. Instead have them encounter a family at a get-together, where it's plausible to have the NPCs come at different heroes.

The maps I've used in time/dream scenarios were tiny - no more than half a dozen NPCs with a few simple ties, some obvious, others not so much.  We never played for long enough to fully exploit any map, but the players usually had a strong sense of what mission they wanted their PCs to be on and would treat the NPCs like supporting cast in, say, Star Trek shows: to be involved with for one episode, then to fade3 away again.

Unfortunately, one player was so attracted to the dream/time places that he insisted to have a new PC come from one of them.  He played the PC only for two sessions and had a lot of trouble finding his way into the Team the group has formed.  He gave up during our character conversion session on Thursday.

Perhaps I shouldn't have allowed the character. (I told him about my concerns, but when he insisted and seemed really enthusiastic, I let it go.)

QuoteSee how suddenly the PC is "grabbed" by the map. That's the phrasology that Ron and Paul Czege use for this stuff (amongst others), you want the map to be "grabby". As opposed to "hooky." That is, the player should feel compelled to give some sort of response to the characters on the map because it's interesting, not because the system tells him that his character "would" respond to the situation. That is, a "grab" grabs the player and says, "This is fun!" Wheras a "hook" hooks the player in and say, "You have to do this!"

Or simply states, "Follow Line at End of Hook to Find Interesting Adventure." With (if it gets really bad) an implied threat that if you refuse the hook, you'll sit around bored for the rest of the night.

QuoteNote that grabbing can be quite forceful, actually. In fact, it can look like railroading to a player who's not interested in the situation. It's only got to provide multiple avenues for the player in question.

Railroading?  But the player is free to have the PC walk away from all those crazy NPCs who want him to murder someone.  Of course that, too, will do two things: make a statement about the PC and affect the NPCs on the map. Some of whom might trail after him trying to kill him before he can tell about the murder plan...  Hm. Still, how is that railroading? I'm just throwing starting conditions at the player and having them deal with the consequences of their actions.  I've done that quite a bit in traditional linear games with no Bangs - sprung an ambush, sent spies or assassins after PCs, put PCs in the middle of a violent event without asking etc.  As long as I'm not taking away the players' freedom of choice after the kickoff event for a scenario, I'm not railroading. Or am I? Are we using the word with different meanings?