Relationship Map Techniques?

[sirogit]

Having a spot of difficulty in making relationship maps that involve the PCs strongly in the story(Even with group created R-maps.) I was wondering if anyone used paticurly effective techniques or if perhaps I'm just expierencing bad luck...

The game I would be thinking of running next would be riddle of steel. I'm considering as well using a metasystem ala univeralis focused more spceficly on making a sprinboard-background.

If any, what sort of rules do you apply to a relationship map's creation?

[Callan S.]

Having a spot of difficulty in making relationship maps that involve the PCs strongly in the story(Even with group created R-maps.) I was wondering if anyone used paticurly effective techniques or if perhaps I'm just expierencing bad luck...
*snip*

A good step is define the criteria for a 'strong' PC involvement in the story. Why does that involve, for you? It sometimes helps to solidify such criteria, as that tends to make them easier to achieve.

[hix]

I've only used the R-map in one session of the Buffy game I've recently started running - but I'm wondering if there's a relationship between the R-map and the character's Kicker. It seemed to me that things only came alive when the character's actions destablised the existing relationships between the NPCs.

On the other hand, if you're not using Kickers maybe John Kim's current thread in GNS: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8812 could be helpful.

Steve.

[Roy]

Having a spot of difficulty in making relationship maps that involve the PCs strongly in the story(Even with group created R-maps.) I was wondering if anyone used paticurly effective techniques or if perhaps I'm just expierencing bad luck...

A Relationship Map is great for establishing the connections between various characters (both player and non-player), but it doesn't dictate any action by itself.  

You'll have to turn to Kickers to involve the players (and their characters) strongly in the story.  A Kicker is a situation that requires a decision, but doesn't dictate what that decision should be.  It's written by the player and tells you (as the GM) what really interests that player.  If you want to know more about Kickers, you can do a search on these boards or go directly to the source (Ron Edwards' excellent Sorcerer rpg).

When I'm prepping for a game, it helps me to give each important non-player character at least one Motivation and at least one Goal.  

Motivation is fueled by human emotion and lets you know why the character acts the way he does.  The "Seven Deadly Sins" are great for inspiration.

A Goal is a specific concrete objective or plan that a character hopes to achieve or complete.  Goals will change and shift in response to the actual situations played out.  When a Goal is no longer valid, look to a character's Motivations to figure out a new Goal.

One other thing that really helps me is to remember that the non-player characters should be dysfunctional.  Unlike ordinary people, they will go to extremes to get what they want and they're not afraid to use the player characters to do it.  Murder, bribery, extortion ... the price is never too high for a dysfunctional character.

You might want to check out Chris Chinn's articles on Protagonist Play at RPG.net.  It's a great series of articles that really helped me.  

If you need one-on-one help, feel free to PM me.  Good luck with your game.

Roy

[Mike Holmes]

Some good points have been made here, but others I don't quite agree with.

A Relationship map, by itslef, is not enough to play. Not at all. And a Kicker only helps so much. In fact you can do without Kickers (they only ensure that play starts strongly in a direction that the player likes).

Short anecdote. I sent the manuscript of Sorcerer & Space to Ron, and his biggest critique he included in his edits, IMO, is that most of the R-Maps that I'd included weren't Grabby enough. And he was right, hence why I'm still editing. See, I'm just learning this properly, too.

That ought to be a techical term to go with R-Maps: Grabby. What it means is that the NPCs need the PCs. This is why Ron's standard example of the Detective novel R-Map works. If the PCs are the detective, effectively, then some character in the R-Map is coming to them for help in figuring out whodunit or something (or likely in classic style, just using the PI as a foil). So, you can't just have an R-Map, it has to be one in which some of the NPCs involved need the PCs for something.

This is often how you create your Bangs, which are the drivers in play. Bangs are often NPCs coming to PCs to get something from them. The decision that the PC has is whether or not to do the thing in question.

So, look at the motives that the PCs have. Figure out reasons that they can't do these things themselves, and why they'd go to the PCs to do it instead. In this way, you have the R-Map "grab" the PCs and get them into the action. Once involved, it's only a matter of seeing how everybody interacts in the end. When things slow down, have an NPC grab a PC to get things going.

Remember the rule of Bangs, however. It's OK to force the PC to have to make the decision, just not to decide what the result of that decision is before hand.

Mike

[sirogit]

Thanks for all of the replies, I found the articles by Chris Chinn very insightfull, that's about exactly what I was looking for. I read them all and I agreed very highly with most of everything in the articles. I also read a thread by Valamir on RPG.net,
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=f1e773072b9797c1a42c60506ca3358b&threadid=88152
I think it's very wise in it's depiction of frustrated protagonist play, if rather heated.  

So, when I run a game(Which may be either be very soon or a few months from now), I was thinking of breaking the first session into two parts, one for the preperation of the central conflict, and the next for the generation of characters, including as much of player input as possible. I think a lack of involving situation was a large part of why alot of things in my last game lacked "punch", caused partly because I didn't really know what sort of situation would intereast the players and partyly, I believe, out of the players traditionial roleplaying tactics, such the built the idea that caring about people = A liability assigned at character design to get disadvantage points.