Experience and SAs - New GM's Concerns

[Jake Norwood]

I might also add, where the "prologue" is concerned, a pre-TROS session of Universalis, where the goal is to build the game world and major players both PCs and NPCs, can really start a game off with a very concentrated amount of stuff for the GM and players to run with. I know that Seth Ben-Ezra's Legends of Alyria (is that out yet?) has something very similar built in to the character creation phase of play. Really brilliant stuff.

Jake

[Valamir]

Funny you should mention that since we were just discussing that very thing down in the Uni forum.  Were you peeking?

[Callan S.]

Being a veteran GM and a fan of AEG's 7th Sea, I'm a big fan of rewarding players for having their character's follow their destiny.  In fact, the "Background" system in 7th Sea is similar to the experience awarded through Spiritual Attributes in TRoS, which I just acquired a week ago.  I love everything about this system, but I'm confused and hesitant on one issue.

The book mentions that a player should earn 3-5 SA points per session (or, rather, that that range is "pretty good").  I have no idea how they're going to earn that many points.  That's a lot of involvement for every single character to have in the main storyline.

For one thing, I work with good roleplayers, but even they have off days.  For a PC to earn 3 to 5 SA points per session, multiple aspects of his Spirituality would have to be involved - he'd have to defend his Faith, live up to his Drive, pursue his Passion, etc. - all in one session.  Sure, if he gets in a good "laugh line" or something else I find dramatically appropriate, he gets a Luck point.  That's not much.
*snip*

Wha? Unless I missed somthing, players can earn more than one point in each SA per session. So if he keeps persuing his lady love through several dangers, points can keep stacking on to that one passion. You can just focus on one SA if you want.

[Dan Sellars]

One concept that seems to keep re-occurring in this thread is relationship maps or story maps.  

When your talking about creating these do you mean drawing out a brainstorming session actually linking people, groups, places together?  and doing this with the whole group of palyers?  If so is this where you then choose who is going to play what?  Then the GM waeves a plot out of this map?

Do you know where I could find out more about what you mean?

Hope I'm not barking up the wrong tree,

Dan.

[Lance D. Allen]

Dan,

for my TRoS game in progress, that's exactly what I did. I started with the name of the city (Niahl, in this case) and we started from there. I wrote the name in a circle on a piece of paper, and lines were drawn to people and groups which were related. Governor, Sheriff, Local Hero, Highwayman... It all started branching out from there.

However, it doesn't have to be a city that's the centerpoint of your web. It can be a person, a situation, or an object. Imagine the sorts of stories you could weave around centerpoints like Helen of Helena (heh), "The King is Dead!" or the relics of Xanar.

[Dan Sellars]

Thanks,

So it's a bit like doing a "mind map" of the focal point?

This seems like an interesting way of running a game.

Sorry more questions...

Did you each take it in turns or all pitch in? (does it matter?)  Did you have a particular idea in mind as a premise or did you just say "right chaps, we're in Niahl whos there?"

When it comes to running the first adventure do you go away and think right this is my starting point what oppotinities am I going to present? Or do you just let it run?

Do you add things that the players arn't aware of i.e alter the map slightly add some twists and secrets to bring into the game?

Thanks,
Dan.

[Brian Leybourne]

We do ours exactly the same way. It was a pretty cooperative effort, everyone simply threw in extra NPC's/Potential PC's/Events/Whatever into the mix and we fashioned links between new things and as many existing ones as made sense. A couple of times the group as a whole veto'ed suggestions that the majority didn't like, but mostly, it was just "free for all" because we all had the common goal of making an interesting setting and characters.

I actually used Visio to create the finished relationship map pre-game. It was quite complicated :-)

To answer your other question, we used that as a starting point, and people picked characters from the map to be their starting PC's (mostly ones they had themselves introduced because they knew that was who they wanted their PC's to be, but a couple ended up picking different characters as their PC's because they seemed more interesting). And of course, once the game had started, as Seneschal I created extra stuff on the map that the players didn't know about, extra people, unknown links (such-and-such is actually so-and-so's evil brother, or whatever).

Jake's suggestion above is a fantastic one, by the way - Universalis provides a way to do what I mentioned above but with more structure as to who can introduce what and when.

Brian.

[Dan Sellars]

I keep meaning to get hold of a copy of Univeralis from what I have seen of it, I think it looks pretty cool.

I think I would like to try running a game this  way, the problem is I don't want to get in the way of our usual meeting (and someone else runs that) so I might try and do an occasional session to break the main campaign up and give the main Seneschal a break.

Is it difficult to actually Seneschal a game that works like this? are there any traps in this style of play i.e as a Seneschal can you get stuck.  Or do you just have to think of a few options of where the next session might go and then let the players and there SA's take it from there?

Dan.

[Brian Leybourne]

Dan,

On the contrary, I think it's far easier to run a game this way. As Seneschal/GM you don't have the overbearing onus that you have with many games to fully craft a plot beforehand and spoon-feed the entire thing to the players, hoping that you can interest them enough to actually bother taking part instead of taking their characters in another direction you have not planned. Rather, you get to sit back and let the players drive the story through their SA's (they'll puruse it since it's important to them) and you respond to that. Nice and easy, and the best bit is that at the end the players will be thinking "Wow! What an awesome campaign! I got to do everything I wanted to, Dan must be an amazing GM, I must give him money and women" while not really realising that they had as much of a role in it as you did.

OK, slightly flippant there, but you get my point :-)

Brian.

[Valamir]

The biggest issues are control and prep.

By control I mean that a GM REALLY has to understand what it means to open up play to player driven goals.  Players will easily come up with sessions and sessions of material in pursuit of their SAs without a whole lot of prompting required (unless you have a group that suffers from "wait and see turtle-itis).  If the GM is mostly just giving lip service to the concept while really coming up with his own plot and plans for how the session is going to play out...there's going to be friction.

By prep I mean that prep for this sort of game is every bit as labor and time intensive as a full bore illusionist GM plot driven session.  Its just about different stuff.

For an illusionist game you might prepare scads of X and just roughly touch on Y.  For this style of game the GM might be tempted to say..."well, I don't need X, and Y doesn't take much time, so I'll just do a little Y and be ready to go".  Then play happens and the GM is woefully unprepared, the session is flat, often the type of play gets blamed and the GM scrambles back to the safe way that he already knows how to do.

For this style of play what you need to prep are NPCs.  LOTS of NPCs.  By prep I don't mean stat out, but rather identify who they are, what they want, what their goals and ambitions are, how they feel about each other, who their enemies are, who works for them, who they work for, etc.

For instance.  A player may decide to pursue his Hatred of Count de Grasy SA by approaching some other noble for help.  The GM didn't prep this meeting.  There was no blurb in the scenario that said "the barkeep suggests the PCs approach Baron von Stubben for assistance".  You as a GM are completely totally 100% uninvolved (except to the extent that you've presented these NPCs and how you set them up and established them to the players during play) in the choice to go to Stubben for help.

Now what do you do?  Well if you have Stubben's goals and relationships well mapped out, the answer likely will write itself...what would Stubben do with a player request like this?  Well, according to your write up of Stubben there's a wealthy manor that Stubben has been disputing with a neighboring lord over for years.  Alls it would take is Count de Grasy's acknowledgement of the primacy of the Stubben claim and it would be his.  

So...the GM has Stubben accept the players proposal and then promptly betrays them to de Grasy, earning the Count's favor and undisputed ownership of the land.  Not because this was scripted as one of the possibilities of scene 13 in the adventure, but because the GM has a deeply intimate understanding of what Stubben really wants and what his key motivators are.

A much different style of prep than many traditional GMs are used to.

The most involved prep of this sort will include the goals and and desires of members of Stubben's and de Grasy's house hold, who the key peasant families are in the area and what their hot buttons are, which merchants are cheating on their taxes and all sorts of other things like this.  The more ideas and connections the better.

Why?  Because at this point, the GM can simply look at the cast of characters he's created, spot Ector, the noble and honorable valet in Stubben's who's actually related to the OTHER family claiming the land and say "aha...Ector has overheard Stubens plot, is horrified at the dishonorable betrayal, and besides doesn't want the Baron to get the land...maybe he'll warn the players".  Again, not because this was planned in advence.  In advance the GM had no idea the players would even go to Stubben.  But simply because of the relationships the GM has carefully mapped out ahead of time allows him to see who would do what and where and adjucate such things accordingly on the fly during play.

[Dan Sellars]

Thank you both for replying, you've given me alot to think about.

I was going to start asking more, but every time I wrote something I answered my own question ;-)  Although I's sure that I'll have more questions soon.

I think I see where this style of play leads.  It seems to be quite liberating.  I'm just looking forward to being able to run a game now.

Thanks again,
Dan.