[TROS] Tipping Point of Group Chargen

[Bill Cook]

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MY PLAYERS -- SPOILER ALERT -- READ NO FURTHER
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I'll be running a TROS campaign in January, so I guess this is Actual Prep. I've been getting e-mail queries about what kind of game world there will be. (We're using a generic Western European setting in place of Weyrth.) I sent out a six-page document of broad strokes. Jason has some idea about who his character will be (a wizard with a twin separated at birth), but no strong offering as to what he'll be doing. He asked me how I thought his twin should be used (punt), and I said I don't know, you tell me (punt). He said he thought they should share a Sorcery Pool (SP). While not uninteresting, I was really more looking for story motivation. (BTW, we're using a homebrew magic subsystem that's a cross between Wizardology: The Book of the Secrets of Merlin and BW:C.) I thought, if I jump in with a strong idea, maybe that will prime him a bit. So I sent the following:

Your mage character can be the product of a moon ritual union of a dairy farmer's daughter and a wood spirit. When they were born, the father and his faerie host stole one son from the nursery while the other nursed in the mother's bedchamber. Only the mother and the midwife ever knew of the second child, and they never spoke of it.

Raised in the courts of faerie, your brother always felt a longing to venture into the cities of man. One day he strayed too long from the dreaming woods and was collected by a slaver and sold at port as a laborer on a merchant ship. One night, a fierce storm threatened to break the ship to pieces. While others cowered beneath the sails of cracking masts, the boy raced onto the deck and with a booming voice, settled the winds and waves.  His calling has since been weather mage, an office of equal rank to the navigator, second only to the captain's commander. In town, the ship line's owner celebrates the unusual man more like an adopted son than the slave he is.

Estate or castle staff. Sounds good. Let me know what you come up with.

To which he replied:

Being from a family of a dairy farmer - I'll go with Estate staff.
After birth - "Delgar" grew up on the dairy farm.  It was a modest farm but noteworthy.  My mother - having a child out of wedlock - didn't marry for many years.  They were loving but evasive about my true father and didn't talk about that time of life much.  My grandfather helped raise me as his own son & at the age of 5 I was working with him on the farm.

I enjoy animals & 'befriended' them easily.  I thought it was normal and didn't understand why others didn't have the connection with nature.  My grandfather often got a glint in his eye mixed with evasiveness when he saw me communicating with the animals.  I could tell he was pleased, but worried.  It wasn't long before I discovered that as I encouraged the cows to be more productive, they actually would.  The day after I tended the dairy cows there was always a 25-50% increase in milk production.  It then became one of my primary duties.

My grandfather was ailing one winter and I sat beside his bed.  My mother had kept me from him in fear that it was contagious, but as it worsened I snuck in to talk to him, sit by his side, and asked him some questions.  I held his hand and wished I could make him better.  At this moment I had a flash vision of the inside of his body and some THING inside him that was not supposed to be.  My mother & grandfather saw me jump up surprised, but I just told them I realized I had forgotten my chores & ran to the barn to sort it out in my mind.  That night I had a dream that I had entered his body with my mind and was fighting demons (germs) within his blood.  I woke in a startled sweat & ran it to see if he was ok.  His fever had subsided & the next day he was out of bed.   

My grandfather knew it was me & told me I had a gift but explained that others would never understand.  He secretly helped me explore that gift and taught me restraint as well.  My mother knew something was going on, but would not talk about it.  My grandfather lived to a ripe old age and his farm was always outproducing every other in the valley.

He expanded & became rather well-to-do until he finally passed of old age.  With me grown now - my mother sold the farm & gave me a healthy sum of money to make my way.  She had become involved with a much older Statesman and moved in with him.  As a favor to a friend (the Statesman), and a means to send me away, I was offered a position within the estate of a wealthy man in the next valley close to the coast.  My mother then became involved in her own life & seemed to have forgotten about me.  Although I have used limited magic to work my way up within the Estate, I am very guarded.

I was just offered a position in another town and am taking a few days from my duties to meet with the man and find out if it's a change I want to make.

So I've got a starting point for him. I can cross him with animals that have human problems. And humans with injury and disease. And humans with a problem with magic. And although I'm unsure how to do it, I can create intrigue over the prospect of this new job.

Cory said he had an interest in playing a pirate or a thief and wanted to know how much ships cost. I told him everything's free to a pirate. I think he started to get the idea that he would be hunted and opted for the thief. I asked him for SAs, but didn't really get anything back. But he did want to know if we're using TFOB archery and poison. And what were nationality bonuses in The Realm.

So at least I know he wants to enjoy a terrific advantage killing people with poison arrows.

The only holdout is Nick, who wilts at the thought of input. Which, honestly, this has been more like GM-player conferences by e-mail than group chargen, as I think about it. In the past, when these guys creep into this habit, I've CCed everyone on my replies, but this time I didn't. I'm thinking I'd like to let their character concepts be revealled through play. That's what they really prefer, anyway. So I'm not meeting the test of player-to-player influence, but I am holding off on the back story until I get input from each player as to what play should be about.

It's crazy. You'd think with a system like TROS they'd just jump into their SAs, and I could just collect them and spin from there. Something like this, for example:

Faith: Fortune smiles upon the light-hearted.
Passion: Seek action.
Destiny: Roped into marriage by dalliance and threats.
Drive: To be the greatest fencer ever.

But they can't take a step past concept, for the most part. Cory said something telling:

The more I learn of the guild, and the local big-wigs,
the easier I can fit my SA's into all of it.

And my entire concern is not to paint one bigwig until I know he'd be play relevant! Has anyone else ever had this kind of tug-of-war over who goes first when trying to prepare a player-driven campaign?

[Judd]

Something stood out to me here.

I sent out a six-page document of broad strokes.

Broad strokes to me is a few paragraphs.  How broad are we talking here?

And my entire concern is not to paint one bigwig until I know he'd be play relevant! Has anyone else ever had this kind of tug-of-war over who goes first when trying to prepare a player-driven campaign?

I think you all need to sit down and make characters and write SA's together in order to end this who-goes-first contest.

I think you might be sending them mixed signals when you write a six page document (I am assuming you wrote it, sorry if I am wrong) and then tell them that they need to author SA's themselves so you can figure out what is important.

[Bill Cook]

Well, it's not specific. It's more like a patch bay, and you figure out where you connect. This is it:

The Realm

The Cult of Ecstasy
Members form small enclaves in rural villages. They congregate in ancient ceremonial woodland clearings, chew seeds and inhale mineral fumes. They dance and copulate. Occasionally, a member (usually a woman) is called to carry a gift of life, received from the group, and join the ancient spirits, casting herself into the fire. She shrieks and thrashes within the flames until she is consumed.

Surprising numbers of townsfolk attend intermittently, reaching a peak about the time of harvest before the Season of Long Nights and Bitter Cold. On the night of fullest moon, that dance is most intense, and many a love child can be traced back to this event. The energy and wild passions evoked have been known to carry over into the next few days, causing trance wanderings and extended emotional displays.

The Guardians of Sanctity
A martial order of notable local figures. There is a chapter for every region. They arrange to meet each moon cycle, for a hunting competition or a county fair. But after the day's festivities, meetings are called to order in the steward's hall, a noble's lodge or a church. They minister to the oppressed and the vilified, arranging missions to mete out the council's judgment, filling in the gaps where regular channels of appeal have failed.

While violent action is not unheard of, the Guardians typically achieve their aims through threats, intimidation and humiliating displays. They enjoy the support of the Priesthood, town stewards and certain landed gentry. When performing duties of office, members don sashes of linen, crossing their chests, bearing the symbol of a plated gauntlet, embodying the ideal of vindication by a righting force.

The Priesthood
An organized religion of charity and intercessional absolution for the depravity of man against the eternal judgment of a single, all-powerful Creator. A priest must be assigned to a community by the Creator's Prophet, who leads the Priesthood from within the halls of the Mother Church. It is there that hopeful families send promising students, approved by their town's priest, for study of sacred scripture and music.

Each priest is responsible for leading their community in worship, participating in the ceremonies of life, receiving their contributions, maintaining their church, caring for the sick, the poor and the elderly, counseling their community through private meetings (in which townsfolk admit their depravity), receiving councilors from the Mother Church and attending their annual gathering of worship.

The Blackcap Seadogs
Loosely associated bands of pirates that pillage and violate coastal towns and seaports. They wear black headscarves and trinkets of jewelry and openly brandish curvy blades. They are desperate and lustful criminals, unconcerned with risk, living short, brash lives. However, if the tides of fortune turn, they scurry away like bloody cowards. They care nothing for propriety or diligence, respecting only brutal commands and a payoff of gold, drink and women.

Captains will often raid prisons for conscripts. Maritime justice is swift and final: a trial by knife fight or a sentence to a watery grave .. unless you can offer a splendid bounty.

Plotting Nobles and Backstabbing Assassins
The rich are consumed with one burning desire: to grow richer by absorbing the holdings of other landowners. Petulance and egotism are the colors of choice in this game of squabbles and feuds of honor. Lesser lords may answer the call to arms if only to see their liege weakened that they may take his widow as a ward (for income) or simply sack his estate while his sons argue over ascension. If the battle goes his way, he will vanquish the envied neighbor and take his land, receiving the pledges of taxation and duties of service from its inhabitants. And to his allies go the spoils: armor, weapons, horses and the gear of fallen knights and mercenaries. For those who have only a martial trade to ply and seek to amass power and wealth, war is good.

Murderous agents of rival courts allow a cunning noble to bypass the waste of life and resources that war implies. A courtier's charm may bring him within a lord's hall. A clever ruse may exploit a particular guard's vulnerability, leading to creeping access along shadowy walls. These are the ploys of the killers of the rich. By poisoned drink or a sudden thrust of a dagger, a house can also be toppled from within.

City Merchants and Roaming Bandits
Through the tremendous growth of trade, successful merchants have amassed the wealth of princes, purchasing domiciles and maintaining their families without the fealty of tenants. The employment they support makes the same transition possible for their workers, as well. Let the landed nobility have their endless bloodshed; the rise of trade and merchant industry offers opportunity far beyond a yardland or the protections of a lord. For merchants and workers alike, trade is good.

There is one fly in the ointment: roaming bandits. Rogues and even gentlemen robbers have picked up on this new flow of valuables to forcibly acquire, often by violence, where intimidation fails. The coining of trade route thefts has given rise to a black market in every city, and a closely related guild of thieves.

Slavery, Servitude and Military Service
One man may own another. It is an authority of ownership over his life and that of his family. This arrangement is the natural result of powerlessness and is the only thing of value such a man can offer to a landholder or city merchant. It is a matter of lineage and station that is recorded and upheld by village councils and city courts alike. A slave's master may grant freedom for a number of reasons: the slave has become enfeebled and can no longer work, the slave pays a required sum or the slave performs a tremendous act of heroism on behalf of his master.

Unlike slaves, servants have civil liberty and legal rights; but they do owe a debt of service, a quota of production or monetary taxation in exchange for use of land. The concept of servant is less related to the use of land within cities, though certainly there remain servants by name that receive other compensations from the merchant houses and municipalities they serve.

Fealty orders military service across the various communities of castles, manors and villages. When the castle lord gives a call to arms, those men who swore an oath are bound to report and fight. Other duties include: serving in the garrison, acting as a courier and sitting on a council to judge legal matters. Each town has a militia to fend off brigands and raiders. A city guard is similar though more organized and well managed. A Lord of State may send the citizens of his nation to war, patching together these various martial groups. Of course, the whole effort can hang on one contemptuous baron who refuses to answer the call. The army must then lay siege to the castle before adding the garrison to their measure. In fact, that baron could be the enemy the Lord of State was rallying against! In any case, depending on the severity of the threat, any able man from peasant to dock laborer may find himself standing on a foreign field in a line of men, much like himself, with a sword and shield in hand.

Parade of Fools and Ring of Woodland Spirits
In the city, every year, there is a street parade of citizens wearing provocative costumes and garish masks: hawk beaks and leering smiles. It is an opportunity to escape the doldrums of routine and revel in harmless absurdities. A lot of drinking and tom foolery goes on: men wrestling each other into fruit carts, showers of libations, nudity and horse-drawn carriages of pageantry. A particularly popular and rascally tradition is to jump out from the shadows on street corners and alleyways, startling passers and beating them with sticks.

In the towns, the people gather in the square and share a great banquet. They tell notable stories of the past year as well as old-time favorites. And they dance in a circle, acting out the imagined motions of woodland spirits from children's stories. At the end of the night, each family rounds the circle before leaving as they all sing a benediction. The lights of their candles can be seen, each going its separate way as they return home and the last strains of song are lost amid nighttime sounds.

Ceremony and Festivity
Marriages are occasion for weeping mothers and dalliance with bridesmaids. The real prize, of course, is the dowry. Funerals quickly turn to inheritance. Feasts of harvest are a seasonal feature of rural life. Appointments of station, from municipal office to apprentice, are cause for celebration in the cities.

Festivities can be found in the market or at regularly held tournaments. Puppet shows and vaudeville stage plays offer a variety of delightful tales of daring do or cautionary morality. Also, jugglers, animal handlers and street corner musicians abound. Amid the sounds of shop-keeps hawking wares can be heard the clang of dueling swords and armor in the field arenas outside the jousting stands. And deeper in, knights ride destriers along a divider, leveling lances that shatter as one unseats the other. Away from the course, adjacent to the camping tents of the tournament competitors, a vast field holds the grand melee for the prize of ransoming captive gear.

Siege!
Some landed noble is always fighting with another. The forces appear outside the city gates. The townsfolk flee to the protection of the castle. The defender sends out calls for allied support. Besiegers ram the gates, stone the walls, fire arrows, throw javelins, wheel towers, secure troop bridges, climb ladders, sap walls, poison wells, burn the town, employ spies and starve them out. Defenders fire arrows, throw stones, pour boiling oil, trade blows across the crenelated walls, intercept mine shafts, shake their mailed fists as they starve, ride out to engage the enemy and join their allies as they take the field.

Castled cities and towns can't be ignored because they could issue a garrison of knights, the ultimate fighting unit, to harry an army's rearguard or disrupt their lines of supply and communication. Neither can they be taken lightly. To breach their walls stymies the progress of would be invaders, allowing time for allies to arrive and drive them off. Of course, the whole concept works against you if the Lord of State's brother is vying for power by conspiring with disenfranchised barons.

Plying Your Trade
Laborers work in the stone quarries and silver mines; in the forest, logging trees, and in the fields, tilling soil and harvesting crops. Beasts are herded and tended; their milk and eggs are collected, and at longer intervals, their bodies are slaughtered. Wild animals are hunted for sport and food. The most cunning and deadly of all is the boar. Every town has a miller and a smithy.

Servants staff the manors of lords. They maintain the grounds and prepare meals. The bailiff, often in cooperation with the lady of the house, manages the staff and grants access to the lord, arranging his schedule as well. The village reeve monitors production quotas and acts as liaison to the bailiff, who represents the manor to the castle seneschal, his counterpart to the baron.

Martial vocations are in demand due to the continuous hostilities that ripple across the land. When barons are not rallied to form the king's army and repel foreign invaders, they are allied in conspiracies to murder one another. Every castle and manor lord has men-at-arms and knights guarding their estate, housing and feeding within their walls. But that is the end of compensation for knights who are not landed. Income must be won from tournaments and through military exploits.

Merchants keep shops along the roads that lead to market. And there, the whole countryside comes together to sell their wares. Taverns house weary travelers. Traders caravan from city to city along sanctioned routes, creating a flow of goods from across the land. Sea traders sail from port to port, performing the same function.

As you can see, it's a backdrop.

I should do the first session as group chargen. With this much in place (i.e. correspondence so far), they'll probably be expecting to play, though. I would. At this point, I probably just need to throw out some ideas to Nick and see what grabs him. Then my brain will start percolating bangs and NPCs will invent themselves to fill needs. (e.g. A syphylitic slaver who tortures desert foreign girls to death as a surrogate to his unfilled needs tasks Jason's character to heal him in exchange for arranging a stay of execution brought down by witness of magical practice.)

The synergy leaked out is what it is. I should have told them to save those ideas for the first session. But the wait is so long. (6+ weeks.) I've tried to get them to go weekly or semi-monthly.

[Judd]

You can also phrase SA's like questions.

Passions:

What love is your character willing to die for?

What hate...etc.

Drive:

What goals is your character willing to die for?

Then ask them to pick the five answers that they found the most exciting, the ones they wanted at the foundation of the campaign.

Good luck.

[Callan S.]

The only holdout is Nick, who wilts at the thought of input. Which, honestly, this has been more like GM-player conferences by e-mail than group chargen, as I think about it. In the past, when these guys creep into this habit, I've CCed everyone on my replies, but this time I didn't.
*snip*
But they can't take a step past concept, for the most part. Cory said something telling:

The more I learn of the guild, and the local big-wigs,
the easier I can fit my SA's into all of it.

And my entire concern is not to paint one bigwig until I know he'd be play relevant! Has anyone else ever had this kind of tug-of-war over who goes first when trying to prepare a player-driven campaign?

My group and even myself wilt at giving input. I've diagnosed it as gamist, for us atleast. But I'll parralel it with nar, to highlight what I mean: Imagine before play, the GM coming up to you, notepad in hand, and asks "Hey, you know with your character, would he choose between his girl or his country?". Would you wilt at answering that outside of play, when you don't know all of the moral factors involved with the choice? Would you just like to leave answering it to when play happens? And especially, do you really want to answer it outside of play and then when it comes up in play, just repeat what you said?

Gamism is the same, but your declaring goals that with your skills and guts, you think you can complete. But until you get a certain amount of info on the game worlds resources, you just aren't informed enough to think you can meet such a goal. The amount of info required varies from player to player. I'm surprised that he wants just a bit more info on the big wigs before declaring his goal - that's gutsier than me! :) I'd want far more info.

[Bill Cook]

And I would to. There's a disconnect somewhere. Not between you and me, Callan. Between me and my players. If we were playing, I don't know. It can be fun to have to make a decision based on limited information, even if you get horribly screwed. But yeah, during play, of course I would seek to clarify, as a player, where it made sense.

But the question isn't really "would you choose your girl over your country;" it's "are you interested in exporing a theme of personal loyalty competing with patriotic duty." It's not an in-play choice yet. Once they commit to a track, it becomes my job to spin variations on that theme which are in-play decisions:

• News comes over the radio that a terrorist has just bombed a shopping mall. Your girlfriend bursts through the door with a detonator in her hand. "I need you to drive me to Mexico!"
• You never asked your wife much about her convenience store business before. In fact, you're proud of her entrepreneurial spirit. But you have noticed that she keeps two different books. The tax auditor needs information on your joint claim. When you ask her for records, she smiles and says, "Everybody cheats a little."
• You and your girlfriend have always worried about the approval process for citizenship falling through. She receives a letter giving her two weeks to report for deportation. She tells you she knows someone who can smooth things over but she'll need $10,000.

My only beef is I want to know they even care about this direction before I bust my ass coming up with the situations.

[Callan S.]

But the question isn't really "would you choose your girl over your country;" it's "are you interested in exporing a theme of personal loyalty competing with patriotic duty." It's not an in-play choice yet. Once they commit to a track, it becomes my job to spin variations on that theme which are in-play decisions:

No, no, I wasn't clear. I'm saying he thinks he's being asked for a gamist goal, not a narrativist theme.

And by saying that, I mean there currently isn't any evidence he's interested in a narrativist theme. Of course there also no evidence to say he couldn't become interested. How much have you explained the fun of narrativism to him so far?

[Bill Cook]

I think you're right. Cory has always sought advantage; not only in chargen but also during play.

I haven't really gotten into theory with these guys. Although, their preferences do reflect a wide variety of techniques. His experience of my group's play may constitute a bubble of G. I don't know. Even if there's an agenda clash, I still want him to follow instructions. I certainly have thrown myself into modes of play that don't match my preferences. (For example.) So I may need to clarify that the kind of input I'm looking for is direction for play. Sure, he's looking at doing a thief with guild ties. Does he want random murder jobs? A secret task to root out a spy? Lots of political maneuvering over how the guild conducts its affairs? An obsession with a lady's ruby necklace that drives him to posses it?

That's funny to think that his whole world could be challenge goals. Weird. Questioning his enjoyment concerns me. He's testified to having fun in the past. He was arguably the most wish fulfilled player in my Sorcerer campaign. His character was certainly the most horrific. And, as i think of it, he was clearly the most frustrated player in Luke's WoD Campaign. I think he does well even if he loses as long the setup doesn't shift and his options are impactful.

Being all philosophical for the moment, I'll bet that as long as he's challenged (buying into Callan's diagnosis), it will at most be a second level of concern as to what I throw at him. So what I consider a lost opportunity (for player input to campaign concept) will be largely imperceptible to him. Which is fine. Like any prep heavy GM, right after encouraging player invesment, I'm mainly trying to avoid waste.

[Callan S.]

I read his post in that sorcerer thread - he's gamist inclined all right (IMO)! He even shares a bunch of game design concerns I have! :)

Here's an idea I'm tossing around for myself right now to reduce gamist prep: Think of pratical problems people might meet in the game world, like villagers town being attacked by a giant. Now think of a lame ass plan the villagers would use to try and defend themselves, with the puny resources they have (the only real prep in this is to try and concretely imagine the resources involved - once you state the prob, introducing new resources is such bad form). Write some brief notes to help you recall the exact resources involved.

Then show that to him the resources and especially the weak ass plans, in play. My bet is that he'll move to eclipse them, as long as you don't expect/plan for him to do that (which stops him choosing which challenges he takes on - that's deprotagonisation).