My character wouldn't do that!

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Marco, did you see this as a lesson at the time? I experienced a number of similar situations through the early and middle 1980s, and I changed how we all (in the groups I played with) prepped together after I finally got a clue about it. So I'm interested in how folks put together the same or similar ideas more-or-less in parallel.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Hiya,

Marco, did you see this as a lesson at the time? I experienced a number of similar situations through the early and middle 1980s, and I changed how we all (in the groups I played with) prepped together after I finally got a clue about it. So I'm interested in how folks put together the same or similar ideas more-or-less in parallel.

Best,
Ron

Yes--we saw it as a lesson at the time (even then the GM said "well, that could've been better ... I didn't know." and I said "yeah, how could you know ... hmmm ... what if we made the characters first ..."). But it wasn't as *refined* a lesson as I would have it now (there's an essay on the JAGS site about Player Directed Gaming that sort of congeals my thoughts). Basically we didn't realize what a benefit doing things the other way would be to all our games (that is, the players and GM talk first about characters and general themes/action, then make characters, then make scenario).

We realized it would solve what we thought were "rare" problems (how often is someone a *paladin*!?) but didn't globally apply it.

Our original experience with the games AD&D/Gama World, a little Traveler, and Champions had, mostly, given us a world and a sense of who we were right from the start. Danger International, however, changed that: a "standard game" could be cops, mercs, or "just about anyone."

When we did "just about anyone" (I played a street person--another guy played a professional assassin) the games were disjointed or bizarre (we're all kidnapped by aliens) and we'd group into formally structured "mini-scenarios" where the characters would do things in their "native capacity."

It took us long to iron out the idea that a GM could start with a vague idea to pitch the players (or vice versa) and then get the characters, and then refine it.

Interestingly, the Internet has made things easier. Being able to use email, post PDF's and documents about the game and such has really been useful in coordinating groups. Yes, we all used to meet in school--but our games tended to start on the weekends or Friday night and we wanted to play right away. This didn't bode well for the refinement process we now use.

-Marco

[greyorm]

Hrm...more or less the same thing led me into disatisfaction with traditional GM-created story as a player. The group I played with for four years after college (to be clear, my first bout with it seven years ago, not this time around) was the turning point for me.

I had created a variant paladin whose focus was in illusion spells, disguise, and truth-seeking. Some good way into the game, I began wondering what the heck my character was even doing...he had no solid, personal investment in the events occuring, no reason to be involved or to continue involvement.

That just wasn't for me (nor would it have been for him: as imagined and described, he was a knight in service to the crown, serving the crown on important undercover missions was his thing -- not wandering and chasing adventure where it led him), but I wasn't certain why or what to do about it yet.

I could see the plot-strings being pulled during the game, and feel the "come enjoy the GM's story, experience 'the plot' and see what happens" idea manifesting itself every session. I was definitely not enjoying myself, and mainly because it didn't matter to the character I had created (or rather, since character and scenario didn't match up anywhere, it didn't matter to me).

Shortly after that, I had another experience I believe I've mentioned here -- with the barbian character whose background was meaningless in play, and who had no reason to be involved in the "world-shaking events surrounding him that were the adventure and thus that I should get involved with" -- and further soured me to the whole GM-led play idea. I was really starting to grok various subjects that had been discussed on the Forge at this point, however, so I knew what was wrong in that situation and why it wasn't what I was looking for, nor as much fun as it should have been.

These are both "My Guy Wouldn't..." situations, in that both characters as conceived had no place or reason in the events surrounding them, and the only reason they remained actively involved was because I, as the player, was forcing them to "run in place" with respect to the group.

I think both situations line right up with what you're talking about, Marco -- how the play group needs to come together first and hash out what is going to jazz everyone, even if that's done just by submitting characters to one another (ie: "Yeah, so I made this barbarian dude who..." etc.), before the idea of "a game" or "an adventure" can even begin to happen. In both cases above, the situation (scenario/campaign) was plotted out before the characters were ever introduced into it -- which would not be a problem if everyone had been in on that plotting and designed characters to mesh.

As it was, it was no better than taking a random group of characters into a randomly chosen situation.

[Marco]

Marco, what did the GM tell you when he went over your character with you? Did he make it clear how he handled big disads?

I didn't want you to think I was ignoring ya. He was okay with them--I mean, I don't remember exactly but he got that it was a paladin thing--that I wasn't fighting crime all the time (more like evil), that I had some serious reservations on treasure (I couldn't loot it).

We talked about that. He took them to heart--and that wasn't a problem in the game.

But Marco raises an interesting point. What should a GM do when he allows character design independant of his campaign plans? What are his obligations when he was planning story X and the players design to story Y? Now ideally the GM has communicated his desires up front, and all the players buy into story X, and design characters that will be fun for them to play in story X (even if the character might appear better suited to story Y).

I recently made such a mistake when I was having a few players create characters for RuneQuest. I just handed the players the books of cults, so one player chose a Lunar cult, which I actually didn't want to have PCs in. I should have been up front and said "Choose from this list of cults, talk to me if you really want something different."

Frank

A weakness of designing the situation and then asking generically for characters is that they may be a poor fit. I mean, I think that's a weakness that's built into the system.

There are other systems (tell the Players more about what you want, let the players make characters and then tailor the situation, etc.) but that system has problems.

They don't come out in a lot during many traditional games since with the exception of the Paladin, your average group of adventures wouldn't have a problem taking a mildly shady job from a patron who seemed decent.

I do want to say that psychotic characters were never a problem for us. There was some "disad scamming" where people took things for points and then didn't play them or arranged the defect to be of low harm ("Always keeps honestly given word"--and an extorted promise doesn't count).

Mostly it wasn't a big deal for us. We innately saw defects as adding interest (someone noted early on that if you took a Hunted the GM hated the GM wouldn't have them show up because it was boring. That led to discussion that games could be driven by a lot of defects and that the player had better, for example, pick a DNPC he was interested in having around).

-Marco

-Marco