Methods to encourage group cohesion

[M. J. Young]

Even in traditional fantasy games, no one's dumb enough to say "Hey, I'm going to go explore the dungeon by myself!"

I actually had a player do this once. He took off to go into the dungeon without a map and on his own. He actually got where he wanted to go, but then made a wrong turn trying to get out, bluff and blustered his way out of a dangerous encounter, made a couple of lucky guesses and a couple of lucky rolls, and emerged unscathed. He never did it again.

But while he was doing it, every other player was on the edge of his seat.

I talk a lot about what I call multiple staging, the idea that player characters are involved in different activities in different places at the same time. I wrote a Game Ideas Unlimited article (on Gaming Outpost) looking at it (if you are not a Gaming Outpost subscriber, it is one of several which will soon be reprinted in the forthcoming RoleplayingTips.com CD); it is integral to Multiverser play. I was afraid of the idea when I first encountered it; I'd been in the situation of trying to run games when the party got separated, and the idea terrified me. But I came to realize:

1) It is not actually that hard to do; it is a lot easier if you play fast and loose with time in your games generally, because you can bounce around between characters at intervals which you can easily pretend are balanced. Consider the timelines in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Luke leaves his friends and finds Dagobah; there he finds Yoda, and begins training. His training lasts how long? Days? Weeks? Months? We're given a rather vague impression that he spends a long time working with the Jedi Master, and learns a great deal. Meanwhile, his friends play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with Empire pursuers, which cannot have lasted more than a few hours. They then limp to a nearby planet, spend less than a day there, and are captured by the Empire. But Empire forces have only just arrived; and this suggests that very little time has elapsed between the evasion in the asteroid field and the arrival at the planet. Yet barely have they been taken into custody when Luke, fresh from months of training with Yoda, arrives to rescue them. Now, I have intentionally exaggerated the time difference between the two stories; but it's clear that there must be a time difference of significant proportion there. The storyteller in this case has blurred that, so we fail to see the time discrepancy. You can do this in play, if you give it some thought.

2) Everyone is, or should be, interested in everyone else's story. That's one of the critical aspects to making it work. If I've got six players doing different things in different places at the same time, I want them all to be eager to find out what's going to happen to his character next--but I also want them to be eager to find out what's going to happen to at least three other player characters next. In fact, if what you're doing right now isn't particularly interesting to anyone else, it's going to be downplayed significantly. Are you shopping? Why do we have to play this? Maybe we do; maybe there's some reason for it. But nine times out of ten, I'll probably hand you a piece of paper, tell you to write down what you're buying, what you think it costs, and where you're going to put it once it's yours. I'll go deal with players who have interesting stories. Now, if in the course of your shopping you suddenly say, "What I'd like to find is a really nice crossbow with a grappling hook," that might be something we need to play out--but in the main, the things that surface as being important in those situations are also usually interesting. A crossbow-fired grappling hook is a neat idea; and if you can find one, the other players may start thinking about things they could get for their characters when they have the opportunity. Usually whatever the character is doing is going to be interesting; if it's not interesting, usually it can be either compressed into a lot less time or diverted to off-screen usually by jotting it on paper.

3) Even if you're not playing Multiverser, you will often find that multiple staging is an extremely valuable tool in creating adventures. I realized it when I read Dune; and at that moment I saw how it had already been used in The Lord of the Rings. I have since seen it in all of the Star Wars films (especially the combats), That Hideous Strength, and just about every epic tale that I remember. I made use of it in writing Verse Three, Chapter One, and continue to use it in the sequels. You see, if you divide the story up by sending the characters to different places at the same time, you gain a tremendous amount of story tension. In Return of the Jedi, Lando is attacking the Death Star, Han, Leia, Chewie, and the droids are fighting at the shield generating station, and Luke is engaged in a battle of nerve, wits, and skill with Vader and the Emperor. In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf vanishes and fails to return on time, and we worry about where he is even when we get glimpses after the fact; then when the fellowship divides, the story flashes between Merry and Pippin on the one hand and Aragorn, Legalos, and Gimli (and the reappearance of Gandalf) on the other, and we are wondering for perhaps ten chapters what has happened to Frodo and Samwise; then when we return to them, as glad as we are to know their story, we now push on to discover what is happening with the others, with Gondor, with Faramir--more and more places, more and more fragments of the story, more and more stages on which action is happening, to which we eagerly want to return. It drives the story. Referees should encourage it.

I think the example you give of the shopping trip is an unfortunate situation in which the referee handled it badly; that's not to say that I haven't handled shopping trips badly in the past. Hopefully he learned from the mistake and will handle it differently in the future.

But I'm probably way off topic here; you're looking for ways to pull player characters together, and I'm talking about the benefits of separating them.

We now return you to your originally scheduled thread.

--M. J. Young

[talysman]

I talk a lot about what I call multiple staging, the idea that player characters are involved in different activities in different places at the same time.

I remember first coming across this idea, expressed in strictly movie terms, in the Land of Mystery game suppliment. there, they solved the problems of possible character seperation by having players create secondary characters -- so every player was involved with every scene, but only one of each player's characters was a true protagonist with a story. the GM's job included "film director", cutting from scene to scene (and occasionally creating cliffhangers.)

Ars Magica sort of does the secondary character thing, too, with the grogs. everyone can do something in each scene, even if that scene isn't about their character. I like the idea of secondary characters being "group property" better, though. I had problems getting players interested in the Land of Mystery approach.

[Mike Holmes]

For the Rolemaster pirate game, Run out the Guns, they suggst an idea for combat they call cascading. In this style of combat, insteead of going in rounds, the characters each pair off with a badguy, and complete that encounter before going on to the next pair of opponents. The idea is that by allowing the participants of the combat to be more continuous (interrupted for less duration), that they will narrate better, and make for more a more enjoyable scene for all.

In other words, they noted how concentrating on fewer actors at one time actually made play all the more compelling for everyone watching. Play that always tries to include everyone is bound to be dull. Further, there is a notion that by officially placing a participant in the role of Audience, that they automatically just pay more attention. As a dormant actor in a scene, players tend to get much more bored.

Mike

[MK Snyder]

Even in traditional fantasy games, no one's dumb enough to say "Hey, I'm going to go explore the dungeon by myself!"  

Hmm, in our game, we have two characters who do this frequently; it is in-character. The GM rotates to their scenes in turn, just something we do. Thinking about it, it is probably because we have seen this in films, read it in books, plays, etc.

Part of the "boredom of downtime" is mitigated in our group in giving some players a game enhancing task. One of our players is a rules maven who maintains consistency and handles the initiative system. One of our players is an artist and sketches scenes and monsters. Some use "sidestage" time to quietly eat, write or read.

Making phone calls and playing computer games has proven to be too disruptive and has been explicitly banned.

[ks13]

Just to follow up on some things that were brought up.

Heck, I might use that for my game, modified a bit, since I like seeing players handing out XP awards to one another and "competing" in a good way to get them from each other.

Greyorm, I would be interested in hearing how you decide to implement this, and how well it works. I am still several months from any possible playtest, so the validation of my ideas will take a while.

M.J. Young wrote:

But I'm probably way off topic here; you're looking for ways to pull player characters together, and I'm talking about the benefits of separating them.

Not at all, the whole concept of "must have characters together" was something I needed to examine. Fragmented character-group play can be done, and can be very successful. My own preference is that player to player interaction, via their characters, is more engaging that constant character-npc play. Besides, anything that reduces the burden on the GM is a plus in my book. What I would see as being really cool, is two players that have separated characters, but choose to made decisions (while still remaining true to their character concepts!) that will bring the characters together, in a hopefully dramatic fashion (the just in time rescue, the case of mistaken identity, that sort of stuff). A lot of advice for making this happen is at the "GM advice" level. That means that I either need to incorporate this advice-to-GM in the game material, or support it through mechanics. So the question is, as a designer, what can I do to promote this type of play, and not really "as a GM, how can  I do this?".

In other words, they noted how concentrating on fewer actors at one time actually made play all the more compelling for everyone watching. Play that always tries to include everyone is bound to be dull. Further, there is a notion that by officially placing a participant in the role of Audience, that they automatically just pay more attention. As a dormant actor in a scene, players tend to get much more bored.

An excellent counterpoint to the "keep them always together" notion I had. This is can be just as problematic, most evident in combat. Combat is usually time intensive, and if your character's best tactic is to run away from danger, than this might lead to some seriously boring times. In the end it all comes down to maintaining player interests. As far a proportioning player time, I will need to try this out in actual play. Moving quickly player to player, or reaching some resolution point with one player before moving on. I'm suspecting that the later will be more effective, but timing will be critical.

Some use "sidestage" time to quietly eat, write or read.

Clearly a matter of preference. When I play a game, I want to play a game. Be it involved directly through the character, or as a spectator to something very interesting. I don't come to games to read or chill out on the sofa. I can do that at home.  Naturally, I'm pushing for a game design that will accommodate my tastes. That said, this thread has been very helpful and got me thinking and reevaluating some of my old assumptions. If someone else wants to add anything, please do (or send a PM), but otherwise I think that for the moment I got what I needed from this thread to put me back on track. Thanks.