Presenting Characters to the Players for Con Scenarios

[Judd]

When I have played with my regular group, I know the people.  I know that one player is a district attorney, so I give him the thief so he can break some laws at the table and I know that another player is a political demonstrator, so I gave him the Paladin sheriff.

But when you hit the cons; odds are, you don't know the people.

The idea for this post started last year, at the Burning Wheel release party at BWHQ.  Thor ran a game in which we got to play with Circles and see how some of the new rules worked.  It was a great game for me because I got to play alongside my buddy, Jason.  Since I am usually the GM, we almost never get to both be players.

Thor talked about how in his first run of this game, the Elf, who due to his Beliefs acts as the party's conscience, was played as an ass-kicker with no mercy.  It was obvious to me that the player just ignored his Beliefs, willing to not get Artha in order to play the caracter as a kick-ass Legolas-type.

I suggested that in future scenarios, Thor should offer up the characters not as "The Elf," "The Priest" and "The Dwarf" but as the conscience, the spiritual leader and the greedy bastard.  That way the players know what they are getting themselves into.

As I said that, a light went off in my head.  I had been struggling with running Sorcerer at cons.  I was sure I didn't have the time to make up characters and create kickers and write bangs based on said kickers in one 4 hour session.

So, I was writing the Dictionary of Mu and I sent it to Luke to take a look and he said, "You should stat these characters you mention."  And I did and on a lark, I wrote out kickers.  Now they aren't really kickers, because they aren't player-authored, but they are a good way to model the kind of kickers a player could be making in that setting.

So now when I have run the Dictionary of Mu at cons (GYGO-a-thon, Gen Con and Dexcon now with two more sessions this weekend at Dreamation), I have all of the statted out PC's mentioned in the book, complete with kickers.  And I don't tell them who each character is, I only read the kicker out loud.  When a player's eyes light up upon hearing the kicker, I know they are invested.  They aren't as invested as they would be if they created the character and wrote their own proper kicker but its as close as we are going to get in a down and dirty 4 hours.

And it has gone pretty well.  I introduce myself and tell the players that I have no idea where this scenario is going to go, no end-point in mind.  This is met with shock, uncomfortable shifting, nods of approval or "no-duh" glances.  I talk about the setting's influences for about five seconds, let everyone know that this is a setting on its way to being published.

I say that this adventure depends on players getting themselves in the same scenes if they want their characters to meet.  "Talk to each other, not as characters, as players to figure out how to get one another into the same scene."  Again, there is a palpable reaction, a kind of sigh. 

I read the kickers and watch their eyes, see if anyone is being polite, make sure no one is holding back because they don't want to step on anyone else's toes.  If someone wants it, I give it to 'em.  I haven't had a problem yet with two players wanting the same character that badly.

Once the characters are handed out I ask them to read 'em over, paying attention to the descriptors and the excerpts from the Dictionary of Mu that I have paper clipped to the back of each character sheet.  They ask questions.

I pick the player I know, a ringer if there is one, someone I know from online, or else just the person who had the strongest reaction to their kicker.

And we're off.

So, the point of this is:

When you are presenting characters to gamers you don't know at a con, take care what you say and how the PC's are presented.  You are wrestling with years of gamer preconceived notions and you don't want to be handing someone an Elf with a Heart when they think they are getting the pale incarnation of death-dealing Drizz'tt.

[Andy Kitkowski]

Very interesting.  I did a Sorcerer kung-fu game at a Con where I had the players create their characters, but for the kicker (for the sake of speed and my sanity) they chose one from a list of... I think it was 7-8 possible kickers (for 3 PCs). I told them up front about the kicker before chargen, but they didn't get around to picking them until afterward.

But honestly, I like your idea better to get them right into play as fast as possible.

[ubergeek2012]

So, I was writing the Dictionary of Mu and I sent it to Luke to take a look and he said, "You should stat these characters you mention."  And I did and on a lark, I wrote out kickers.  Now they aren't really kickers, because they aren't player-authored, but they are a good way to model the kind of kickers a player could be making in that setting.

So now when I have run the Dictionary of Mu at cons (GYGO-a-thon, Gen Con and Dexcon now with two more sessions this weekend at Dreamation), I have all of the statted out PC's mentioned in the book, complete with kickers.  And I don't tell them who each character is, I only read the kicker out loud.  When a player's eyes light up upon hearing the kicker, I know they are invested.  They aren't as invested as they would be if they created the character and wrote their own proper kicker but its as close as we are going to get in a down and dirty 4 hours.

I did it a bit differently when starting my playtest. Instead of the kickers I used the descriptive entries from the Dictionary.  For the characters without personal entries, I used the general entries about their type.  For example, the entry on Primites to see if anyone was interested in them enough to play their prince.  I'm not sure I made it clear enough that those entries were linked to characters though, since everyone ended up taking the more iconic characters.  Still, it worked really well.  Everyone ended up with a character they were interested in based on thematics rather than stats.

We did use the kickers that you wrote in the Dictionary.  While they might not be true kickers, I agree that they do speed things up quite a bit at a con.  There is one more element in Sorcerer games that helps players build investment quickly though that probably shouldn't be skipped over.  Narrating the summoning/binding of their initial demon has seemed to be even more important than authoring their own kicker, both in your GYGO-a-thon game and in the one I'm running.

And don't worry Judd, that AP post is coming.

[Andrew Morris]

Rock on, Judd. Having played in your Dictionary of Mu session, reading the kickers was a great way to determine which character I wanted to play. So, a big thumbs up from me.

However...

If someone wants it, I give it to 'em. I haven't had a problem yet with two players wanting the same character that badly.

Bah! To that I say, "boy with a rock." At least three people wanted that character. I was one of 'em.

[John Kim]

I read the kickers and watch their eyes, see if anyone is being polite, make sure no one is holding back because they don't want to step on anyone else's toes.  If someone wants it, I give it to 'em.  I haven't had a problem yet with two players wanting the same character that badly.

Once the characters are handed out I ask them to read 'em over, paying attention to the descriptors and the excerpts from the Dictionary of Mu that I have paper clipped to the back of each character sheet.  They ask questions.

So, the point of this is:

When you are presenting characters to gamers you don't know at a con, take care what you say and how the PC's are presented.  You are wrestling with years of gamer preconceived notions and you don't want to be handing someone an Elf with a Heart when they think they are getting the pale incarnation of death-dealing Drizz'tt.

Question, Judd -- so the only information you give to the players about the characters is the kicker you read?  How much information do they actually know?  (i.e. How much about the character is included in the kicker?)  Do you have them posted somewhere?  In my experience, it is fairly common for con events which emphasize storytelling and/or role-playing for the GM to not give any game-mechanical information about the PCs.  Instead, they only describe the PC in generic terms, and only hand the player the actual character sheet after the player has chosen based on the general description.  

I sometimes find that annoying as a player -- that is, I want to see how the character is actually expressed in mechanics, which often isn't exactly the same as the flavorful description which the GM says.  As a game-master, I tend to put the sheets all out on the table for people to look at.  However, when I describe the characters, I always do it in terms of what is narratively important about the character.  

[Judd]

Question, Judd -- so the only information you give to the players about the characters is the kicker you read?  How much information do they actually know?  (i.e. How much about the character is included in the kicker?)  Do you have them posted somewhere?

The only information the players have when choosing the characters it he kicker.  Once they commit to the kicker, I hand them the character sheet.  Sorry if that wasn't clear, John.

Here are two example kickers from the Dictionary of Mu:

When you wake up in the patched tent under a bridge that you call home your skin of water has been stolen.  You can make out sandaled foot-prints in the sand, leading to the slave-auctions.

&

Your 13 High Warlocks are in Mu’s Bed to pay their homage.  They have brought their demons with them and your demon, History-Eater, hungers…

[Judd]

Bah! To that I say, "boy with a rock." At least three people wanted that character. I was one of 'em.

I didn't say it didn't happen, just that it hasn't been a problem.

I didn't think it was a hard issue at the table yet.

[Judd]

There is one more element in Sorcerer games that helps players build investment quickly though that probably shouldn't be skipped over.  Narrating the summoning/binding of their initial demon has seemed to be even more important than authoring their own kicker, both in your GYGO-a-thon game and in the one I'm running.

Narrating the summoning/binding is a step that I just entirely forgot.  My bad. 

It isn't as important as the Kicker but hells yes, it is the prelude, the moment when the players first get to say somemthing about the world.  I hear ya.  Its vital and it was silly of me to leave it out.

And don't worry Judd, that AP post is coming.

Yeah, Bob, get ON it!

Don't make me sic my Guardian Mummies on you...

[HenryT]

Along similar lines, the Parlor Larps have a scheme for describing the general "style" of a character according to three characteristics (light/dark, simple/complex, goal-oriented/emotion-oriented), so that people can pick characters without having to make too much information public.  After playing a couple, most people seem to pick out a favorite type and request it consistently.  (Fortunately, people seem to pick distinct favorite types, too, although there are always exceptions.)

Henry

[Andrew Morris]

I didn't say it didn't happen, just that it hasn't been a problem.

Yeah, I was just teasing.