Balancing story continuity against player participation

[ffilz]

This thread on Monte Cook's EzBoard has got me thinking about how to balance continuity of story against player participation. Many of my experiences as a player (as opposed to GM) have resulted in my not getting to play, or not being relevant to play.

As a GM, I try to make sure that players don't have to sit out for long periods of time, but it's not always easy. I also try and make sure PCs don't become irrelevant. But doing this sometimes means bending the story. Replacement PCs (or PCs of new players, or people who missed the last session) suddenly appear. I usually don't have them arrive in the middle of a combat (though I think I have done that once or twice - and let them save the day).

In some games I will try and work them in. In others, they just appear. In my Fantasy Hero campaign, they would come tumbling through a magical portal, and the rest of the players would exclaim "Damn, that wizard gets around."

On the flip side, I think one reason I never was interested in Paranoia was the fact that it takes this idea to the extreme.

So clearly a balance needs to be sought. And how do you strike a balance when different players have different needs. One player might be happy to sit out for an extended period of time, while another might quit in disgust if they are left out for more than 5 minutes.

Frank

[TonyLB]

Quick question:  Are you looking for answers under the assumption that "the story" is the story the GM has created and wants to involve the spotlighted characters in, as opposed to whatever happens to the spotlighted characters?

[ffilz]

Hmm, I guess the "story" would be the one the GM had planned out. Story as "the events that happen to the spotlighted characters" would seem to have less continuity issues, though I guess there could still be an issue if a character was eliminated.

Frank

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hmm, I guess the "story" would be the one the GM had planned out. Story as "the events that happen to the spotlighted characters" would seem to have less continuity issues, though I guess there could still be an issue if a character was eliminated.

Absolutely. If you drop the idea that "the players are there to discover the GM's story," and instead go with the idea that the story is what happens when the GM sets out to test the characters' beliefs, this problem goes away. (I'm not trying to say that you can't have fun with the "follow the story" method. Just that there ARE other ways to do it).

So how do you do that? A lot of the games discussed here at The Forge set out to help you do just that. I'll stick to The Riddle of Steel, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer, because those are the ones I'm most familiar with.

The Riddle of Steel is really elegant about it. At character creation, each player assigns five Spiritual Attributes to his character. These range from the character's ambitions and ultimate destiny, to his loves, hates, loyalties, faith, etc. All of which have mechanical impact in play. But as a GM, these SAs are gems. If a player writes down Passion: Loves Mary on his character sheet, my first instinct is to say, "Oh really? Let's find out how true it is. What would you be willing to do in the name of that love? What wouldn't you do? Can it make you question or even break other beliefs?"

That's not very nice, but damn! It's story. The moment a player writes it down, it's my job to start figuring out how to test it. The player ALWAYS gets to decide how to answer those questions, but I get to frame them.

Burning Wheel does something similar with its Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. These are fantastic tools. It's like a dare. The player tells you what his character is all about, and you take that up and create a gauntlet. Are they just words, or do you really mean it?

Sorcerer is a little looser here. It starts off with a player-written Kicker: "I have no memory, and I suddenly find myself standing in a room with a gun in my hand. A man is at my feet slowly bleeding out from a gunshot wound. (for instance)" The player chose this! And now you have to run with it. You're probably going to need a little more than this, so you need to have good communication with the players to really get an idea of what their characters are all about, but the tools are there.

That's not to say that you can take a hands-off approach to character creation in any of these games. You need to be there through the whole process, and really challenge the players to make these characteristics powerful and emotionally-charged.

If you, as a GM, make it your goal to continually challenge the players with their characters' beliefs and emotions, you won't have to worry about continuity. Your players will be running out ahead of you, addressing play goals left and right, and you'll constantly be working to catch up to them.

[M. J. Young]

As long as we're using games as examples, let me suggest that Multiverser keeps the focus on each player character individually by making each the center of his own "story". The game is "about" who you are, what you do, and what you become, as strange things confront you.

A lot of the referee techniques are about moving from player to player to keep this going, but I think that once everyone realizes 1) that he is going to get his fair share of spotlight time and 2) that there are other stories happening here that are worth watching even if they don't involve him, the problems of involving everyone sort of slip away.

--M. J. Young

[ffilz]

Hmm, what I was looking for is not what systems allow the story to be changed, but how do you balance the story as imagined by the GM (and perhaps by the other players) and the desire to not exclude a player from play?

For example, in the referenced thread on Monte's board, the scenario has the PCs entering a pocket dimension and they can't get out until they solve a puzzle. Now a PC has died. The player of that PC has limited play potential until they get out.

The solutions presented basically came down to:

1. The player should just not play until the story is resolved.
2. The player could play some monsters or someone's familiar.
3. A replacement PC could be introduced as someone else who happened to be stuck in the pocket dimension also.
4. The GM could contrive to have the dead PC revived (either completely, temporarily, or in an alternate form).

For myself, I consider 1 and 2 non-solutions unless the time frame is very short (it's a given that if you play a system where PCs can be killed or knocked out that there will be some downtime until they can play again - well, ok Paranoia is the most popular exception to that rule - but even in Paranoia there must still be some down time [I've never played Paranoia]). Others in that thread were arguing that any solution other than 1 or 2 would ruin their fun.

So how does one balance these competing needs? Or can one balance them at all? Perhaps the two types of players shouldn't play together. In that case, how do you communicate this pretty important part of the social contract of the game? I've never had a GM tell me up front that in his game, should my PC be killed, I could have to miss a game session until the PCs could get back to town or whatever.

I also know that I have not always payed attention to the needs of my players in situations like this. How does one improve that response?

Frank

[Marco]

I'm not sure that there's a great impetus for all the players to play all the time (if the group splits into two sections does the GM switch back and forth every other sentence to ensure that no one waits?).

My standard solution is to give each group an alotment of time. If Joe dies he can make a character and start playing again as soon as he's ready--he's just somewhere else, doing his own thing.

Something like a kicker would seem a good idea here to get things moving with a new character.

The player of the recently deceased might, in fact, be separated for quite some time with the play switching back and forth, until the groups merged.

-Marco

[ffilz]

My standard solution is to give each group an alotment of time. If Joe dies he can make a character and start playing again as soon as he's ready--he's just somewhere else, doing his own thing.

But does he have to be somewhere else? Is there a problem with facilitating his joining the rest of the group fairly quickly?

As to groups splitting up: the issues with balancing play time of everyone is one reason most people avoid lengthy party splits.

Frank

[Marco]

My standard solution is to give each group an alotment of time. If Joe dies he can make a character and start playing again as soon as he's ready--he's just somewhere else, doing his own thing.

But does he have to be somewhere else? Is there a problem with facilitating his joining the rest of the group fairly quickly?

As to groups splitting up: the issues with balancing play time of everyone is one reason most people avoid lengthy party splits.

Frank

Well, if you're like us (placing value on story continuity) then: yeah. Somewhere else. I respect the non-party-splittin' ethic. I think people avoid that for some really good reasons.

But PC death is usually one of those exceptions. I mean, if you value continuity, I think that's as good as it'll get if the PC's are trapped in a pocket dimension with no in-game chance of running into another person in there.

-Marco

[ffilz]

I guess for me the question is how set in stone is it that there really could be no one else there? Or that there couldn't be a scroll of resurrection there (assuming such a thing is part of the game system)?

Perhaps part of it comes down to illusionism. How much does continuity with facts not know by the players other than the GM matter?

Does the story have to be so rigid?

Of course I think I would try to not introduce such a rigid story in the first place. I might give some thought to what to do if a PC dies (or what if a new player arrives).

To take this to an extreme, one could create a campaign setting which doesn't allow any PC replacement at all. What about all those settings where you play yourself - if your PC dies, what do you do then? Is there a value of such a story that could be so strong as to basically mean kicking a player out of the group (oops, you died in the first session, we're planning on playing this campaign for 5 years)?

What I'm trying to get at is how do you balance things like this? It might be perfectly acceptable for some people to be out of play for many sessions. Other people would quit a game where they were out of play for 5 minutes. Probably everyone in any given game group has a different tolerance level, so how do you communicate and balance this?

Here's some other things to think about:

What if the player who is out is the host of the game, or the transportation for one of the other players?

What if one of the players isn't able to make it for a session? How is that handled?

It seems to me that there's a constant potential for conflict between the story continuity and the real life needs of the players, so it seems like it's worth developing methods to resolve those conflicts other than abolutism of story.

Frank

[Marco]

It seems to me that there's a constant potential for conflict between the story continuity and the real life needs of the players, so it seems like it's worth developing methods to resolve those conflicts other than abolutism of story.

Frank

It's clearly one of those cases where different people will have different expectations and, of course, people are responsible for making their expectations known.

But man, it helps to talk about it.

I also think that "story coherency" may only be one aspect. Immersion is, IMO, more key here (although the two come together strongly on this point) so someone who doesn't care if the 'story sucks' might still object to there being a guy in the pocket dimension just so Phil doesn't quit the game.

I mean, having a discussion about expected death-rate and re-integration is probably a great idea. Maybe people could discuss how they feel about it (IME this is mostly thrown in the GM's lap and some people take responsibility for doing so--others don't ... it's just one of those things).

-Marco

[Bill Cook]

Referring back to ffilz's four solutions, I tend to use one and three when I play. I'll do one if I'm the player and three if I'm the GM. Four gets into whether something has been established as a way to bring back the dead.

With one, there's a stoic kind of purity. And I remain engaged for the remainder of the session, out of interest and courtesy. Then, by the next session, reverse pressure against the group, if nothing else, tends to draw three.

Something I did in a Story Engine campaign was to have each player create two characters. As the story unfolded, I started working in their secondaries, extemporaneously, as NPC's. My plan was, if anyone died, they'd take over for that NPC. No one did, but I was ready; and the added bonus was huge smiles as players recognized their NPC.

Still on topic, something a player in that same campaign did was rather interesting. I alloted every PC a special power that could be anything they wanted. This player said he wanted to return to the living world as a vengeful spirit if he were cut down in the quest for his revenge. (Delicious.) He didn't die, but it would have been cool.

This brings to mind another variant: the player who seeks his own death. Another expression of that is the GM who's trying to kill everybody. Now, I'm not talking about a spiteful control freak (GM) or a disturbed Cure fan (PC); I mean to describe willful intention.

As an example, I ran a campaign whose entire goal was to illustrate the monstrous lethality of dragons. I'd become digusted with faery dragons, lap dragon familiars,  metallic dragon steeds casting spells and pontificating wisdom. Ugh. I wanted, basically, a fire-breathing lizard that ate villagers. To impress this sparity, I told the group that I would use the dragon to kill all of them, and I wouldn't stop until they were smores. The focus of play was to die trying; but die they would. Holy living crap, that had to be one of the most intense campaigns I've ever run! It's like the difference between Alien and Alien III.

And you might think they'd go, ok, I'm dead. I guess I'll go play video games. But no. It was unthinkable to leave the table; you'd miss what happened next.

*************

Perhaps part of it comes down to illusionism. How much does continuity with facts not know by the players other than the GM matter?

Illusionism can be a very satisfying way to soften death to lesser states of impact loss. I started to suspect one of my group's GM's of doing this, so I withheld my hit point total from him. (Heh, heh.)

It seems to me that there's a constant potential for conflict between the story continuity and the real life needs of the players, so it seems like it's worth developing methods to resolve those conflicts other than abolutism of story.

I agree with your answer. Ultimately, contract serves the group; not the story or anything else. If you sign up for continuous cross-group connection, other factors take a backseat; likewise, if the group wants hard restrictions (to enforce continuity) coupled with risk that has teeth, where abdicating the right to have impact is accepted as a valid consequence, then it is desirable.

It sounds like, in your reference thread, the group found itself in small claims court.

[ffilz]

With one, there's a stoic kind of purity. And I remain engaged for the remainder of the session, out of interest and courtesy.

I may be a bit less stoic than some in this area. It really depends on the length of the session etc. I wouldn't want to hang out for the rest of a marathon session for example.

I like the idea of backup characters that are already woven into the SIS.

The vengeful spirit example is great. That's of course a ticket to use solution 4 (by returning in an alternate form).

A player seeking their own death at least is in control. Of course if their expectations didn't match the other players, they could be in for a surpise ("Ok, cool, you've killed yourself, you do realize you can't have a new character until we get back to town don't you...").

In the killer dragon campaign, was that a multi-session campaign? If so, were the players able to get replacement PCs fairly quickly?

Illusionism to keep a character from dying is probably misplaced (though I used to do so on a regular basis). Illusionism to change the not completely known background to allow for a replacement PC is a lot different, though advance planning is much better.

In the reference thread, the person who started the thread was a GM looking for solutions to the problem. The thread got out of hand in part because he happened to step on a land mine (there was another set of threads on fudging vs not fudging that had heated things up, and then here came an example where perhaps the result of not fudging was pretty serious). Because of how adamant one participant was, I was interested in a real discussion divorced from a specific incident. It surprised me that someone would favor continuity to the extent that they would expect a player to not play for a session (or more).

Frank

[M. J. Young]

Frank, one of the reasons you're getting examples of systems here is that there are a lot of potential answers to this, and the suggested systems provide illustrations of how they're used.

For example, in the referenced thread on Monte's board, the scenario has the PCs entering a pocket dimension and they can't get out until they solve a puzzle. Now a PC has died. The player of that PC has limited play potential until they get out.

So I cite Multiverser, because in Multiverser a PC dying is one way to get out of the pocket dimension--he's now somewhere else, on a new adventure.

I could point to Legends of Alyria. Why is the PC dead? He could only be dead if everyone, particularly the player playing him, agreed that this is the right moment for this PC to die; thus since it was the player's decision that his character's death makes the statement he wants to make, he's not unhappy about having died--he has contributed significantly to the story here. As to what he does, well, no one has absolute character ownership here (that's true in all games, but I think Alyria underscores it), so if there are any free characters floating around, he picks up one of them.

Even in D&D, I always keep one or two NPCs in every character party; they are tremendously useful for many reasons, but in a situation like this it provides a solution to the dead character problem: hand one of the NPCs to the disenfranchised player, and let him take that as his PC either permanently or for the remainder of the adventure.

See, your example makes so many assumptions that it's difficult to answer. Why should the referee even have a storyline that he "expects"? Sure, we all do it--but one of the basic instructions given in Multiverser regarding such designs is this: know where you expect the story to go, and know what you're going to do if the players don't want to go there. In The Dancing Princess, if the player character does not rescue the princess before the demon marries her, then the demon emerges as heir to the throne, kills the king, and consolidates his power. New problem now: how do you bring down the lawful king if he's a demon bent on conquering the entire world? So my players don't have to rescue the princess, but if they don't they will have to deal with the consequences.

Any scenario offerred to me in which I'm told what the player characters will do goes right into my kill file. I've been doing this long enough to know that I can try to hook my players, but I can't steer them, and what they do with what I present is their decision.

Still, I can imagine characters getting caught in such a dimension. What happens when a character dies, or even whether a character could die, is very much dependent on what game we're playing, because the game is going to dictate certain foundational assumptions about what's happening and how it is resolved.

As to groups splitting up: the issues with balancing play time of everyone is one reason most people avoid lengthy party splits.

This I take to be a very popular misconception.

People want parties to stay together because they want equal spotlight time, and they think they're not getting it if they're separated. The fact is, often they're not getting it if they're together. Two or three players are going to dominate the group, at the most, and in most situations they're the ones shining. The others either go along for the ride or emerge for their brief moments when their protected sphere comes into play (e.g., the thief who always gets to open the doors and otherwise stays in the back).

In Multiverser, we break the player characters up, usually into individual play. This has a lot of impact. It forces every player into the spotlight in his turn, makes him rely on himself, and lets him create the kind of stories around himself that he wants to play. Meanwhile, the players very quickly learn that theirs is not the only interesting story. People are excited about what they're doing, but they also get excited about what the others are doing. They discover that the characters don't have to be together to have a fun game.

Legends of Alyria and Sorcerer also recognize this. Players can play characters who are miles apart in different cities, who are sworn enemies or absolutely dedicated to opposing goals or factions, and have a better time creating a compelling story in which protagonism and antagonism keep shifting around than they ever did trudging along together like some fantasy football team trying to push through to the goal.

I hope this is helpful.

--M. J. Young

[Bill Cook]

In the killer dragon campaign, was that a multi-session campaign? If so, were the players able to get replacement PCs fairly quickly?

I think it was .. two or three sessions. No, no replacements were allowed; the whole point was to kill them. But I had to use the dragon to do it. That was the other point. So they went through some doings, following its trail from one ruined town to the next. Then, at the end of the last session, they confronted it in its lair.

After that, they would literally hide under the table if I hinted at a dragon. [Laughs evilly.]

Another thing: I used to play in a slingshot paintball league. Those were pretty short games, matching four against four; nothing you couldn't wait to see finish if you went out early. But, a ten-on-ten game at midnight took around 45 minutes. If you went out on that, it sucked, sitting out on the street; and you couldn't even entertain yourself by watching the action.

So we made a graveyard queue. When a third man on one side went out, he'd tag the first one in. Of course, then, we had to time the games, too.

In fact, [tugs mad scientist wig into place] you could probably do this with an RPG. Just make a two-player queue. When the second one dies, the first guy writes himself in. That way, death stings, but not unmercifully. You'd have to make two style changes to emphasize the mechanic: (1) don't just challenge the PC's, kill them, and (2) tightly define the event which ends play.

Illusionism to keep a character from dying is probably misplaced (though I used to do so on a regular basis). Illusionism to change the not completely known background to allow for a replacement PC is a lot different, though advance planning is much better.

IYO ;)

The fact is, often they're not getting [spotlight time] if they're together.

Preach!

**********

M.J:

Multiverser sounds like Quantum Leap or Sliders. If a PC dies, do you then thread the next world for him--concurrent with play for the remaining group--until they trigger passage?

Neil Gaman's Sandman graphic novels also come to mind. (I guess I'm getting OT.)