Hope I'm not intruding...

[Robert Leal]

I hope I'm not intruding in this and if Ron feels this should be spun off into another thread, please do.

First, I should introduce myself.  I've been lurking on the Forge for some time, imbibing the general gaming wisdom.  I've posted once or twice, but generally abstained.  Still, I've been intrigued by much that I've read here, and I want to thank you all for it.

Now, after a hiatus of about 5 years, I finally have a chance for some Actual Play of my own.  Through the good graces of my fiancee (tolerant of my youthful hobbies, God bless her), I've connected to three people who want to game.

Taking a page from Ron's recommendations in Sorcerer, we met on Sunday with no game in mind, just to talk about our experiences, and desires, and get the ball rolling.

The players are as follows:

D -- A friend of mine; has played GURPS in an assortment of settings for about a year while trying to date the guy who was running in.  The experience had more of an impact in the long run than the guy.  But still very new to gaming.  Smart and creative, finishing up a PhD in English Lit.

M -- Played Rolemaster for a few years in high school & college.  Played  D&D3E last year for a week on a lark while visiting a friend.  Very canny, very smart, teaches English at a local college.

K -- College senior.  Has played a lot of 3E, dabbled in Vampire.  Very litteral.  Most of her gaming has been gamist to the extreme.

We chatted a while and talked about games, systems, and stories we liked.  Finally, D confessed that she always wanted to play a "straight fantasy" (by which she meant Lord of the Rings/Dragonlance/classic D&D hihg fantasy setting) where she played a half-elf ranger whose husband and son were killed by elves, so she didn't trust them.

That led, after a little discussion, to a consensus from the players to start with D&D3E, play out a story arc, and then evaluate if we wanted to continue or try a different game.  All saw it as a gateway--something familiar and yet new.

I then talked a bit about how I would like to see things go, which was heavily informed by what had been successful for me in the past (I have a pretty extensive history of GMing, with varying degrees of success) and by what I have read on the Forge.  I tried to avoid jargon, but stressed the idea of protagonism--that they were equal participants in the creation of the world, that anything not defined was up for grabs.

You can see why I was drawn--when I checked in on Monday--to Raven's post and even more interested as I read it.  It showed that what I wanted to do could work with 3E.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, in character creation, K came up with the idea of playing an elven Sorceress who was exiled because of her sorcery.  Those familiar with 3E will know that the rules suggest that sorcerers have dragon blood in their pasts.  This got bounced around a bit, and I suddenly found, through no effort of my own, that elves had taken a prominent role in the game.  Not the woodsy friendly types, elves in this world are Nazi's, racial purists of the worst sort, and highly concerned with law, order, and purity.

M opted for a human, a rogue/fighter who had a past as a thief but was running away from it.  She was concerned with advancing her reputation in town as a warrior and wasn't averse to doing some backstabbing to do so--i.e. for her right and wrong depended only on whether or not she got caught.

I told them I envisioned the starting location as a frontier town, somewhere on the edge of a human-dominated empire, near the wilderness, at which point it was getting late, so I told them I'd e-mail them some more thoughts on setting and situation so they could connect their characters to it.  I actually used Ron's example from &Sword (from Rogues in the House) to give them a sense of what I wanted to do, without actually using the term Kicker (I don't want to overwhelm them with jargon too quickly).

The way I see it, several themes emerged:

1) Race and the elven obsession with racial purity
2) Family -- D's character is from the frontier town; she lived outside town with her husband and when he died, she moved into town to live with her father and run her father's shop (at this point her language suggested her father was dead, but it was unclear); her mother (the elf part of the equation) disappeared when she was 12.  K's character has obvious issues with her family, as she was sent away in shame.
3) Gender -- All three players, and all three characters, are female.  There's definitely some female empowerment issues being worked out.

Now, to the point of this post.  First, again, to thank you all for leading the way.

Second, what now?  I find myself with no real hook for M.  I have a little more setting detail, but nothing specific.  My first instinct is to say, "A party of elves ride into town."  I established the town as small enough that word would spread quickly.  I could then either:

a) tell D & K how they are connected (it is your mother, it is a rival clan of elves)
b) ask them to come up with ways to be connected

I guess I'm asking a question that you probably can't answer--what's the best approach with my group?  How hard can I push their role as authors?  I don't want to make them uncomfortable, and all three have fairly old-fashioned views of gaming (though M seemed the one most interested in the little bits of theoretical language I used).

So I guess I'm looking for some encouragement and maybe some brainstorming.  Raven showed that protaganism could develop, but my question is then, how did you start?  What was the first domino?  Was the adventure with the sorcerer and the Dragon Goddess's heart the first one or was their more campaign time put in before the players reached the point where they were comfortable joining in the world building?

I know it's a long ramble, but I'm very excited about the group I've got and the chance of got here.  They are all smart, literate, and sophisticated people who are still relative newbies and thus open, but the've got enough in the way of habits that I need to tread carefully.

Thoughts anyone?

Rob

[greyorm]

Heya Rob,

Welcome to the Forge!

Where did I start...well, honestly, it wasn't a conscious choice to start doing something differently and then just doing it. From the beginning of the campaign I wanted what I finally achieved in the last month or so, but it took me all that time to figure out how to do it.

It required me to shed quite a few old habits, and play 3E in a way completely non-traditional from a style-standpoint. I also didn't really discuss any of this with my players, particularly they world-building, which arose naturally as part of handing over protaganism and making the game about meaningful choices on the part of the players.

First thing: forget about this being "the party." If the characters have no previously established links or goals set between them, simple danger is not going to forge them into a group of friends, and trying to make it will cause it to feel forced. If the characters need to be drawn together, ask the players to do it, or see if you can immediately introduce a goal all the characters have a vested interest in and each player is interested in pursuing.

Thus I don't see why an elven raid on the town wouldn't be an excellent opportunity to draw the characters together. You have one elf-hater, one exile, and one warrior looking to make her name about town.

So, the elves are after the exile, the elf-hater needs no more reason than an attack to go elf-hunting and the star-eyed warrior can use it as an excuse to prove that she's hot. The exile is obviously personally involved, since the elves are after HER.

Establish some backstory for the raid: the who and why. And then STOP. Don't delve forward...don't plan out your moves, don't think up this epic story-arc that would be oh-so-cool to experience. No. Set up the backstory and then LEAVE IT ALONE.

Now: enter the players and watch things evolve as they discover and interact with the relationship web.

And check out the thread "Get to the Point."

Create events during the game with important moral choices in them, based on the relationships you established earlier, or on what is important to the player and her character.

Also, don't be stingy with information or events: if things slow down, throw something at the group that's relevant and exciting -- that is, don't wait for the action to happen.

Don't do the typical "If they miss this thing" or "If they don't talk to this guy" sort of stuff. Normally, adventures are written for sequence-of-events sorts of play: A-leads-to-B. A linear storyline is already established, with Point A as the start of the adventure and Point B as the result/intended goal (or Points B & C : success or failure).
Forget it.

That won't work here, since sometimes A leads to D instead, or the players decide A isn't even important. Traditionally, this "ruins" play or rather, it disrupts the DM's idea of how play should sequence and thus often causes lots of fudging and stumbling as the DM tries to rewrite future history.

Don't expect players to come up with things just out of the blue, plant seed ideas throughout the game, but don't obsess over them picking up these ideas. If they lie fallow, they lie fallow. Forget 'em. But feel free to create stuff and let the players decide if it is important to them personally or not. I also send out an e-mail every week that has a few colorful paragraphs of stuff about the gameworld or campaign in it.

This isn't stuff the players need to know or have, but it gives me a chance to keep the game fresh in-between sessions and show-off some of my own writing and create ideas about the world for the players to explore, ignore or be inspired by.

Finally: suggest and remind.

I'm always suggesting things to my players they can attempt, or making little reminders about things that have happened or they've discovered in past games.

Suggestion, in fact, is your best tool: if the players seem indecisive or unsure, make a few suggestions as to course of action, include probable consequences if you want, drop a few reminders about something relevant...or if you want to get gamist, and your players don't mind, have them roll Int checks or Knowlege checks for "hints."
Ask the players what they want to do, make suggestions; don't assume a course of necessary action for the players, do not demand.

Well, I hope all that helps, it's all just off the top of my head at the moment, and let us know how things work out.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rob!

This was an exciting post to read, as you might imagine. I decided to split it off because it really concerns a different group from Raven's, and thus it's a different issue, blah blah.

Folks, Rob initially posted to Raven's thread on Non-silly D&D, as the discussion there influenced his decisions about this game he's starting.

Rob, one thing I suggest is to have NPCs and situations "cross paths" from character to character. So you're playing Scene A with Character A, and then you cut to Scene B with Character B (who's dealing with some NPC, a really neat one), and then when you cut back to Scene A, have the NPC from Scene B walk through it.

This technique has a riveting effect on players, who then go into solid Author Stance (often without thinking about it) and engineer ways to shoehorn their characters into one another's conflicts without "trying to get the party together" in some sort of agonizingly clumsy way. Very wonderful, and it sounds as if your players are primed to do it.

Best,
Ron

[Robert Leal]

Thanks to both of you for your words of encouragement...

Raven--
Good advice and you pushed me in a direction I was tending towards but resisting.  Every time I thought of the elven raid, I thought, "Nah, I don't want to get the elves involved so soon" or I thought "the elves will just ride into town and we'll see how the characters react."  Both are traditional methods--not wanting to start the story and leaving things wide open.  You've given me the two rules I think I'll write inside my notebook to keep me focused--STORY NOW!  CONFLICT NOW!

(Aside: there should be some sort of "GM Screen" for narrativist play.  No charts and numbers, just short catch-phrases of advice--dare I call them "rules"--that can be found on the Forge and in the Sorcerer books.)

As you noted in your post, D&D is about fighting and leveling up for the next bigger fight, and all three of my players want to play characters who kick-ass and take names.  I just need to give them fights that matter.

Having an elf raid happen right away overcomes both issues.  Given the way I see the elves--as prompted by the character creation session--their society is highly political, very rigid, made up of Houses and ruled by the Emperor of a Thousand Years.  A rival house could be coming to take the exile back to gain political advantage.

The problem I have is, "What next?"  If that's all there is to the encounter, if the characters kill all the elves and thwart the raid, then their reason for being together ends there.   What if the warrior decides to stay out of it?

Do you keep some backup events around just in case the PCs don't follow a thread?

From your post, that seems to be how you operate--having two or three plotlines going at once and hoping that it doesn't irrevocably splinter the group.  You also have the advantage of a group that seems--unless I misread it--to have bonded as characters, remaining loyal to each other even when they disagree.

BTW--the rogue/fighter has promised me an e-mail with some of her thoughts on background and motivation, so that may solve my problems with trying to find some way to "hook" her in.

Ron--
Your post prompted another thought, having someone from the rogue/fighter's past show up and try to rope her back into that life for "one last job."  If I could thiink of a way to connect that "job" and NPC to the elf raiders, I could set up one character watching the elves; the old friend trying to rope the ex-rogue into the job; and then the have the character watching the elves see him pass information on to the elf party.

Scene 1: Elf-hating ranger sees group of elves sneaking up on town.
Scene 2: Old friend tries (successfully or not) to enlist ex-rogue in "job"
Scene 3: Ranger sees "old friend" reporting back to the elves.

And I rope in the exile, by making the events be about her.

It seems like the right back story and relationship map could make that work, but is that too much planning ahead...

Thoughts?

Rob

[greyorm]

Rob,

I realize I made a boo-boo when I posted about the elf-raid.
Basically, I forgot to reinforce my primary rule: don't plan ahead.

Thinking of the elf-raid as a jumping off point is a good start...buuut, you have to stop there. Don't build a story around it. Just let it be an event.
This isn't to say you can't build a relationship map, you can and should, but that doesn't mean it will end up in the game if the players grab a thread and run off elsewhere with it.

(though I've noticed that R-maps are very flexible in this regard, you can always stick new nodes of the map in their path and see how they treat them)

Let the players decide what the story is. Maybe the elf-raid isn't all that important...throw it at them and see how they react...see if they CARE, even. What DID they react to during the elf-raid...what did they want to do afterwards or during? Capitalize on that.

Remember, "Drama. Drama. Drama." Conflict NOW.
If you don't care what's happening RIGHT NOW in the game -- no matter what any particular result might "mean" in the nigh-mythical "later" -- the players definitely won't.

Think of a good movie, one you can watch over and over: what matters isn't the long-term effects, or that you know the outcome, but that the action has meaning and consequence that can be related to RIGHT NOW in non-abstract, very intense and personal terms.

Never assume the PCs have to follow a particular course of action, or that there are even particular courses of action. Let them decide what happens. Remember, there are ways to create interesting conflicts out of everything, if you're willing to bend or ignore the bane that is "future history."

Say the sorceress is captured and the other PCs won't go after her, even if you drop a reward from some mysterious group or individual in front of them: Escape scene for the sorceress (don't leave her caged!).
The mysterious group? Elves from a rival house...and if the other PCs won't help, maybe they become "unhappy" with the other PCs.

This is getting way ahead of ourselves though, all we want is to build a simple backstory all of these sorts of "what if" scenarios can arise from. What you want is a relationship map and a simple backstory that establishes the status quo prior to the characters' arrival on the scene.

With that in hand, you can play off it as you have a base to see what sort of shifts are occuring or might occur.

Frex, what if the son of the Emperor of a Thousand Years is on this raid and the characters end up slaying him...riff off it -- now you have an angry elven monarch. What if one of the characters suddenly wishes to atone for the action? How does the Emperor react? How does the woman who lost her own son react to learning she killed someone else's beloved son?

(and this is where being stingy with information is not good...reveal those important, protagonizing bits of info to the players...if they kill the prince, have another elf call out that the prince has been slain or have one of the characters notice the royal seal on the elf's armor or an identifying signet ring, or just plain recognize the prince...whatever)

What if they save his son's life instead? What's a monarch to do? (well, anything he wants) How would the characters react if the monarch must suddenly do them honor for their act? What if he uses the opportunity to turn on the sorceress? What if he doesn't? What if one of the characters uses their meeting with the monarch to their own advantage and tries to assasinate the Emperor? What if they fail? What if they succeed? How does the son react? What if the Emperor doesn't respond to their saving his son's life at all and simply keeps hunting the characters? How does the son feel now about his father, about the characters?

What if the characters or the prince or the monarch learn or realize the half-elf is the half-sister of the prince? What if the characters realize this either before they save his life or after they've taken it?

And you might note there are no branching "IF...THEN" statements.
Relationship Map. Backstory.

Do you keep some backup events around just in case the PCs don't follow a thread?

From your post, that seems to be how you operate--having two or three plotlines going at once and hoping that it doesn't irrevocably splinter the group. You also have the advantage of a group that seems--unless I misread it--to have bonded as characters

So, no, I don't have a couple plotlines going, or have story threads or anything. I've got backstory and relationships and characters.

I don't know...this is probably the weirdest/most difficult part to understand until you see it/experience it in action...it's so much smoother than planning things out, even when it seems that it should be more work or harder to handle -- it just never is.

And thus who says the characters HAVE to be together, or MUST stay together?

In my current game, at least one character will be "retired" shortly, on an indefinite basis. The player wants her other character to drop back into the game, as the first character's goals no longer match those of the rest of the party, and no further incentive has been provided for her to stick around and follow along once the current task of surviving and escaping is complete -- not to mention the character has other goals that she has to get to instead!

There may be another character who leaves as well, though by tying his goals to that of the rest of the party I could always drop some emotional incentive into events that would allow for him to stay with the group if those events mattered to the character. Chances are his goals are more compatible with the character who is being dropped and he might go off with her instead...leaving the player to create a new character for upcoming games.

I don't know what they'll do yet, but I could see the other two dropping their characters for a time instead and using a couple new characters to help pursue the goals of the two mentioned above.

I might always be able to run both groups seperately, but I don't know if I could pull it off or would want to because, admitedly, it is frustrating as all heck to have a group be seperated when everyone wants to play...however, when the other players are so fascinated by their co-player's stories that they simply don't care if they're "in the audience" or not, then it isn't a problem.

This is probably easier to do if the two seperate groups have some goal in common, and what one does impacts the other in some visible, meaningful way -- this does not even have to be directly, nor notably to the characters who might and probably are utterly clueless as to what their companions are about -- so that the "audience" players can get involved and get excited/nervous/scared even when they aren't playing.

As an example of something that could occur in this vein: suppose the half-elf is creeping into the chambers of the Emperor intent on assasinating him in his sleep while the sorceress is busy forging a pact with certain noble factions that will protect her from further abuse.  Unfortunately, if the half-elf succeeds, the Empire will be thrown into civil unrest and the pact the other worked for so long and hard will be worthless.

Or perhaps the thief-turned-warrior is being trained in the art of elven swordplay, thanks to her heroics on the field that saved the prince's life -- this is a rare honor, and a human being trained in this way is so rare that it will earn her instant prestige, but the assasination of the Emperor wil result in backlash against her (as an outsider, she's suspect!) and/or lose her her earned and desired prestige as her chance to learn the style is torn out from under her.

(Of course, we're WAY ahead of ourselves now...the players might decide to go off in an entirely different direction than all this: fleeing the Empire to someplace they can't be found, hunting down the elven raiding party one-by-one, etc...the above is just an example for the sake of clarifying the method)

But what's even better is when they want to join in and write themselves or some element into a scene. And here's where the suggestion about, er, suggesting comes in, especially for gamers used to traditional "I speak, you react" play:

"Hey, it would be cool if your character just finished doing something in the nearest alley when they see K's character being swarmed by these elves. Want to do that?"

Two things have been established:
1> The character was doing SOMETHING in that alley -- was it important? (Let the player decide)
2> The player realizes they could be part of the scene by their own choice -- not yours

If they don't go with it, you aren't out anything more than a few words.

IMO, don't hesitate to suggest reactions or thoughts as well.
Frex, "The elves are slaughtering the villagers! It's just like that day ten years ago with your husband and son..!"

I know character "inner stuff" is supposed to be the unspoilt domain of the player, but I'm of a different school of thought on that issue. After all, when one of my players tells me that their latest death-blow has struck fear into the heart of the remaining opposition, or that the courtier they are pushing around for information is starting to look nervous, or the troll-priest they just dropped into a pit is roaring with fury, I go with it, sometimes/often with a little tweaking -- same thing here, in reverse.

Most of all, start off small...have fun...don't worry about being perfect. Play to have fun, and realize you're going to make mistakes. Learn from them later.