Intro and Rewards Discussion

[Nathaniel]

OK, that gives us the setting. What are the characters like?

As I will be running this more than anyone else (I may never even release the PDF for download), I'm not entirely sure how to answer this question :)  When I create a character I try to get a real strong sense of the setting and make a character concept with clearly defined goals, personality, family etc.  I usually go through fleshing out processes that are used by authors (questionaires, etc).  I hate it when a given game gets in my way-- especially when mechanics of character creation get in the way.  So I wasn't really planning on doing anything other than doing my best to give a sense of the setting and what would fit and what would not and then letting the players come up with stuff and then talk about the characters.  I really don't know where to start when it comes to answering that question in any sort of objective manner.  However the players make them given that they need to be congruent with the setting?

What is the action centered on?

Generally, the campaign is about a difficult universe that needs heroes-- even reluctant ones.  For the first few seessions atleast, the action revolves around the characters' struggle between what they want to do and what needs to be done in order to help people in need.  So I guess characters need clearly defined goals so that the tension between pursuing those goals and those of heroism get's explored.

In terms of your actual play, and also in terms of how you intend to write up the game. That is, your PCs are examples; are they highly representative? Or do you intend greater breadth than what they represent?

I would say that from the two sessions I ran, some of the PCs were examples of what I want the characters to be like and a couple were compromises with players who had drastically different premises.  One player for example, makes the same character in every game he plays, no matter the setting or focus of the campaign.  That character may have different skills, a different name, be a different species and sex, but the character's personality and goals is always the same: survive by any means necessary, become more powerful, and care about nothing except yourself.  It actually would have turned out to be quite useful if we played another session.  The characters were trapped in their spaceship, the engine was damaged and it was questionable whether or not they were going to get it fixed in time.  The survuvalist character then starts talking about who's more useful and who's more useless and what order everyone should be eaten in should that become neccesary.  That was right as we ended though.  It would have been great to juxtapose that with the desire of other characters to get to their destination to save a native planetary population from being enslaved by a heartless strip mining company.

What I'm getting at is to ask "why is it important that the characters develop skills at all?"

At the core of it, it's not.  But a lot of players expect skill development.  Furthermore, the simulationist in me finds the idea of months and years of game time going by without characters improving on things and learning new skills distasteful.

Nathan