Keeping parties together in nar

[matthijs]

Here we go again... another post that'll probably just prove that I don't really grok narrativism at all :)

Are there any techniques for encouraging traditional "party" play in nar - for example Sorcerer? If you have (as I do) a group of more than 3 players, letting everyone address their own premise in their own fashion tends to mean that usually at most two characters are in focus at the same time. Now, my group doesn't like that too much, and neither do I; I don't want people to sit and be well-behaved and wait their turn, I want them to be able to join the action.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Well, yeah. Which techniques will vary a lot; the simplest is probably just having someone outright say, at the beginning, "OK, we're a party, don't split up," and everyone agreeing enthusiastically. I can think of lots of Explorative foundations in which such a statement would be easily posed and easily accepted.

But specifying to Sorcerer, not because it's exemplary but because it's mine and I've written about this extensively, Sex & Sorcery offers a whole wealth of terminology and examples to help with this issue. (By "help," I mean arriving at an accord for how much the player-characters are in the same scenes, regardless of whether that's zero or 100%.) I put these terms in the Glossary: Weaving, Crossing, Openings, and Bobs.

Using these techniques provides maximum opportunity for players, in Author Stance, to provide their characters with decisions that lead to ... well, to any kind of connection among the player-characters at all. That might include physical presence in the same scenes and often does.

They work really well. The point is, there is absolutely nothing of merit, for Narrativist play, for asking "Gee. I'm the GM, how do I get the player-characters together, and how do I keep them together?" That's simply not an issue - the point is to discover whether the players share (in varying degrees perhaps) the desire for the characters to be together, and the techniques involved, some of which are player-heavy and some of which are GM-heavy, do very nicely for that point.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Hi,

Another issue that is directly tied into it is how fast you can or choose to switch between scenes.  I've seen many games where a traditional "scene"is about 10 to 30 minutes long!

Much of the techniques Ron is talking about are things which I developed on my own playing Feng Shui with a group of 6 players.  Instead of trying to keep everyone together, I just made sure that something was happening for each player, and I would make rapid shifts back and forth around the table.  Sometimes a player would be in the midst of a roll to resolve a conflict, and I would switch off before narrating the events.  This worked much like many action scenes in movies.

Second, with all of that going on, the players started engineering ways for their characters to cross paths, intersect during play, even if they weren't all part of the same "team".

When both of these are in operation, most of the concerns people have about party-less play evaporate.

Chris

[matthijs]

I can see how it's not really a problem when players use author stance, and nar is the only CA. However, I'm running a group where the players are sometimes nar, sometimes sim, and a few of them are really resistant towards author stance.

(So this isn't a "pure" nar question. I hope it's okay to post this here anyway; most groups tend to switch a bit between modes of play, and this is a fairly common mix, as far as I know.)

I'm using weaves extensively, and am getting to grips with the other techniques. In addition, I've noticed that when characters' kickers focus on the same NPC or event, those characters have a much stronger in-game motivation for acting together. And that seems to be what the players in this particular group are looking for; so techniques of that sort are what I'm after.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Given your circumstances, then, it seems to me that you are uniquely situated to tell us (anyone reading this) about techniques of this sort, rather than the other way 'round.

Best,
Ron

[matthijs]

Well, I can certainly tell you about things I've tried, and will be very happy to see anyone else's ideas. Most of this is terribly obvious in hindsight, some is not.

- In chargen, I made everyone describe their relationships with the other characters. This didn't really seem to have much effect; characters who were supposed to be on very intimate speaking terms hardly ever interacted, while others with more superficial relations interacted lots.

This, to me, indicates that relationships perhaps have to emerge in actual play.

- With kickers, what (accidentally?) happened was that two characters' kickers were tied to the same NPC. These two characters now have reason to act together.

So tying characters' kickers to the same "object" - NPC, project, mystical artifact or whatever - will naturally make characters interact. The combination of kickers can provide interesting dynamics for such interaction.

- What I didn't manage, was to settle a common CA to begin with. As a result, players brought their default expectations, which are a bit different. Some are almost exclusively nar, some are fairly strong sim, and some have a bit of a gamist preference (though this isn't very strong in this group). Those with similar preferences tend to make their characters hang out together.

So having a common CA probably makes for a more united group of characters as well as players.

- I tried getting players to write a form of campaign kicker - something that would affect all of them, and inspire them to get moving. I don't think anybody actually did that. However, they respond very well to threats to their lives, families & everything around them ;) - that unites the group.

So strong external forcing of circumstances unites. This is very old knowledge, though.