Last night I met with a new group of players that have expressed interest in doing some role-playing to plan a new game.  I have only met these guys a few times previously to play boardgames.  I thought I'd share the full game prep process and get some input on what procedures folks thought were useful or not.

The group consists of myself and three others:

John (me), 42, lots of rpg experience, forge reader for a few years and fan of minimalist mechanics.
Zach, mid-30's (?), engineer, a good bit of experience, mostly with D&D, Gurps, Hero, etc. as far as I can tell.
Joseph, early-30's (?), computer guy, some gaming experience, hasn't played in a while, expresses interest in theory stuff.
John Marc, 35, television reporter, RPG experience limited to a couple D&D games, hasn't played in a while.

I've been following the Character Prompt Sheet thread, so I decided to use some of the questions from it in the prep sessions.  I'll get to how that worked in a bit.

I set out with the goal of implementing a little game prep document I wrote up a while ago that broke prep into 5 steps:

Setting
Situation
Character
System
Story

(I realize that I'm not using correct Forge definitions for some of those terms).

We started out by going through my game collection to pull out settings that anyone had any interest in.  Each setting that at least two folks expressed an interest in went into a pile.  We ended up with about 20 options.  We culled these down to 5 (Jorune, Tekumel, Talislanta, Fading Suns, and Planescape) by going around and having people nix one game that they were least interested in each time around the circle, allowing a veto if someone else was really in favor of the nixed game (the veto was never used).  We then ranked our top three of the remaining 5 options and tallied votes.  Fading Suns (a science-fantasy setting) won by a sizeable margin, and was ranked in the top three of three of the players.  The fourth player said he would be happy playing any of the 5 finalists before the voting, and confirmed that he was cool with playing FS even though he hadn't ranked it in his top three.

I then wanted to steer the conversation towards a specific situation.  I talked about how wide-open the setting was and the variety of types of stories that could be told in it.  People threw out a few ideas and the one that stuck was a story of exploration and archaeology, lost ancient artifacts with political and religious implications.  So far, so good.  We had a good basic situation that everyone was interested in.  After more discussion, we zeroed in on the following.  They were part of an exploratory expedition funded by one of the noble houses seeking artifacts.  Worked for me.

We moved on to character concepts, and I tried to stress keeping the situation in mind.  They all started out by talking about past characters that they had played, the types of characters they liked, and past game experiences that they had enjoyed.  When we got down to specifics for this game, Zach wanted to play a star pilot character, citing an old character he had played in Traveller many years ago.  John Marc wanted to play a scholar/archaeologist type, and expert on ancient civilizations.  Joseph wanted to play an agent of a noble house, sort of a fixer type character (a little vague at first, but the concept came together during the discussion).  At this point I used the question from the Character Prompt Sheet, "What is cool to you, the player, about the idea of playing this character?".  I think they were a bit confused by the question at first, and started giving me rundowns of their skills, abilities, etc.  I tried to re-direct them onto their own, real-person desires for the character (and thus the game), and Zach said his character was a thrill-seeker and risk-taker, and that was what he liked about him.  Joseph said he wanted this character to be a problem-solver.  I had to prompt John Marc by asking, "Tell me about a potential scene in the game that you would like to see this guy in".  He described his character holding an ancient artifact covered in alien glyphs, having a eureka moment in which he told his companions the ramifications of their find.

Eventually, all three players produced media references for their characters (Zach's pilot is a Han Solo type mercenary with a heart of gold, Joseph's noble agent is a McGiver (sp?) type problem solver, and John Marc's archaeologist is like Nick Cage's character in National Treasure, a bookish guy who gets all physical when the serious adventuring starts.

I thought that it was a pretty effective (if indirect) attempt to get Flags out of these guys, who were not at all used to talking about gaming from their own perspective as players (vs. the in game fiction).  The characters are all tied into the situation (the pilot flies them around, the scholar does the research, and the noble agent handles the finances, gets them out of jams, and looks out for their patron's interests).

We then talked a bit about system (in the purely game mechanics, small "s" sense).  Since I was most familiar with the setting, we agreed that I would GM, although Zach had expressed a willingness to potentially GM before a setting was chosen.  There are very few systems I'm comfortable with/enjoy running, so I suggested using the Everway mechanics.  I had run a short FS game a few years ago using Everway rules (which imploded due to too many players and no pre-game discussion of situation), and had a nice simple adaptation already done.  I also had a custom Fortune Deck (the tarot-like deck that Everway uses as a randomizer) based on the FS setting (I have made custom decks for some of my favorite published settings, including Jorune and Tribe 8).  Everybody liked the fortune deck tailored specifically for the setting, and they all seemed willing to give it a go.  Joseph expressed a preference for mechanically "light" games.  John Marc, whose only previous experience was with D&D, was willing but not very clear on what the game would be like.  I loaned Zach, who seems like more of a systems guy, an extra copy of the game to read up on.

So...we've got a good situation that everybody is in to, some decent Flagged characters (Zach = risk-taking, John Marc = scholarly finds, and Joseph = solving problems) that help me know what these guys want to see in the game, and a system I feel very comfortable running.  Everyone left the table very enthused about the game, planning to borrow or buy related books and read up before the next meeting at which we will actually detail the characters in Everway terms and start playing.  My next step is to come up with a relationship map, a conflict revolving around the artifact hunt, some potential antagonists and allies, an opening scene, and some Bangs.

John Marron

Sounds like things are going well - cool!

johnmarron wrote: "Tell me about a potential scene in the game that you would like to see this guy in".  He described his character holding an ancient artifact covered in alien glyphs, having a eureka moment in which he told his companions the ramifications of their find.

Hi John: Great story.

Since you've chosen Everway, you've also got the Virtue, Fault and Fate cards that the characters choose as Flags, right? If I could make one change to the Everway GM book, it would be telling GMs to take the happenstance out of the "meeting your fate" event. Everway says, IIRC, be ready in case this happens. For the kind of play you seem to be after it would better read "Make it so."

What I'm suggesting is that now that they've told you what they think is cool about the characters, make them embody that in their VFF choices and then build play from their Fortune.

Also, do you know Prime Time Adventures? You might explore the possibility of getting a social-contract-level agreement that, during the stretch when a given player is meeting his fate, the other two players should expect to be in supporting roles for a bit, only to be supported by the other two players in their own turn. We did something like this in the second phase of our MURPG campaign ("Tales of Two Cities") and it worked well.

Pacing of course depends upon how long you guys envision the campaign going. The nice thing about character Fortune in Everway is that once you meet your Fate you choose a new one, and the cycle can start anew for that character.

Best,

Jim

Heck, this is getting me excited about the idea of running Everway. Think of it:

In default Everway the spherewalkers travel from Realm to Realm putting things to rights, like multi-culti neopagan DITV characters. The cool thing the GM book does point out is that you can assign a (VFF) Fortune to Realms as well as NPCs. So considering the Player Fortunes as Flags, imagine building

A Realm whose Fault card is a PC's Virtue

A Realm whose Virtue, Fault and Fate are the Fates of  your three PCs

Or the Virtues of your three PCs

Or etc.

Basically, incorporate as many of the PCs fortune cards into Realm and NPC design as possible (for local values of "not overdoing it")

You can get the same sort of "What about now?" kinds of tests as Dogs town creation are supposed to elicit.

Best,

Jim

Hi there,

Jim, that is totally the way I've played Everway. In fact, the idea of playing it any other way just falls out of my mind and flattens, dead, on the pavement. Been that way since I first read it.

By which I mean, "yes." I think that's excellent advice for John's game. To drift Everway "my" way, Fate becomes the center of play.

John,

Jorune, Tekumel, Talislanta, Fading Suns, and Planescape

I'll shut up after this. You're using the system to run Fading Suns rather than default Everway, of course. Consider assigning Fortunes to:

* Each Noble house

* The Planets PCs visit

* Probably even significant individual "Realms" planetside (basically, any material "stage set")

* Maybe even important ships?

* Important NPCs of course

The House fortunes you probably get the best fit from the canon descriptions. The others are where you make maximum use of the Flag cards.

FWIW etc.

Aside re Ron's message: Mm. Book of the New Sun.

Best,

Jim

Wow.  Glad that thread helped even in a small way.

that is cool.

johnmarron wrote: I had to prompt John Marc by asking, "Tell me about a potential scene in the game that you would like to see this guy in".  He described his character holding an ancient artifact covered in alien glyphs, having a eureka moment in which he told his companions the ramifications of their find.

Thanks for all the responses.  I'll try to respond to everyone so far in one post.

From Warren and Marhault (real name?)'s comments, it seems like asking for an example scene might be a better approach to getting this info out of players that aren't used to or comfortable with talking about their own desires for the game.  Sort of stealth Flag gathering.

Jim,
    Your comments on the strength of Everway lying in the virtue, fault, fate selection are right on.  The players haven't chosen VFF cards yet, but they will definitely be more Flags once they are chosen.  One of the players just emailed me wondering how well he would be able to represent his concept using the Everway mechanics, and I told him that, for me, the choice of VFF cards is much more interesting/important than stats, powers, etc., because it helps me understand how they see the character as a person and what kind of story they want to see him in.  I also like the idea of assigning VFF cards to specific places, power groups, etc., although I think I'll only do this for groups that have entered or are about to enter actual play.   The game will definitely be built around their choices of Fate cards.  I'll post again once people have chosen their cards, and talk about how I use them in planning.

Ron,
     You know me too well (I wanted to include al-Qadim in the pile, but couldn't get a second person interested).  You are right about the Gene Wolfe influence as well, although I don't want to abandon the Dune elements since this is what drew a couple of the players to the setting (the other player has also read Wolfe, so he'll enjoy that aspect).  I would have certainly gone for an all priests game (the treatment of religion is one of the most interesting elements of the setting for me), but group concensus steered us towards the situation we're using, and I'm quite happy with it (I get to trot out a "realistic" xeno-archaeological dig, how could I not like that?).  I'll probably indulge myself on the religion front by inserting a priest NPC and see if he "sticks". 
    As for printed text usage, I haven't decided yet.  We'll be drawing basic setting info from the core book (probably 1st ed., although it doesnt change that much in 2nd).  The pilot's (Charioteer guildsman) player borrowed the guild book (Merchants of the Jumpweb) to read, and the scholar/archaeologist might be an alien (an Ur-Obun, the spiritual ones, or "Vulcan-like" as the player put it), so that player will probably read the stuff on that race.  The noble agent's player borrowed the planetary gazetteer book for the noble house they chose as their patron (Hawkwood, sort of the default "good guys" of the setting).  We'll see what other stuff I'll use, but I'll draw on scattered refs to the Ancients, and bring in another noble house and the anti-alien/anti-technology Inquisition as antagonists, so I'll be reading up on those elements.

Storn,
     The Character Prompt Sheet thread happened along at just the right time.  Even though I didn't use it as written, it gave me the idea of asking directly the "cool" question, which went a long way towards collecting the Flags.  So, thank you (and Neil).

John

This kind of front-loading is really good stuff. Let us know how it works out in practice.

-Marco

John,

Jorune, Tekumel, Talislanta, Fading Suns, and Planescape

If I were to walk into a room and see these books lying about on a table, you know what I'd say? "Look - John Marron was here!" Maybe I'd add al-Qadim to the mix just to nail it down for sure.

Whoa! First real Everway discussion I've seen on Forge. Well, yeah, it's not indie.

(Please split the next question off if it should be in another thread.)

I have been trying to take Dogs mechanics to run Everway with, but am having problems because I don't want to lose any of the (existing) character's Flags, including VFF. Any ideas how I could transfer them over? Just as traits? Relationships? D6 for Virtue, D4 for Fault, but what about Fate? Or take the approach discussed here - give every Realm and person VFF - and then what?

Must admit that John's Fading Suns/Everway combo sounds really cool, but no - must stay focused - must resist the temptation to subject the players to yet another transformation of rules and/or setting...

+ M

Yeah, John.  "Stealth Flag gathering" is exactly what I'm looking for.  I suppose I ought to throw together an AP post about that game anyway. . .

Can you tell us a little more about the customized fortune decks you put together?

David,
   The voting wasn't rigged, honest.  You've seen my shelves, we had plenty of choices that didn't make the final cut.  The setting I was actually pushing hardest for was Artesia, but it's hard to convey what's cool about that setting without having them read the comic.  Of course, I loaned out copies of the first GN to plant the seeds of a future Artesia game...
    I do think you're right about the difficulty of getting accross what exotic settings like Tekumel are about.  Back in the day, I was the only GM and I'd just unilaterally say "this is what we're playing", and the players would go along with it or not play, so I'd force exposure to my preferred settings.  I'm past that now, although not above some subtle pressure.
    VFF refers to Virtue, Fault, and Fate cards in Everway.  The player chooses cards from the Fortune deck (which is also the randomizer) to represent some strength or positive aspect of the character (Virtue), some weakness (Fault), and an issue that they are dealing with (Fate).  All three are decent Flags, but Fate is a lot like a PTA issue or Sorcerer kicker in that it tells me, "this is what I want this guy's story to be about, right now".  At least it does if I've communicated what the choice of Fate card means well enough to the player.
    As far as Zach getting too into the FS rules, I don't see it as a problem.  He and Joseph both went out and ordered copies of Everway online the next day, and Zach is planning ot buy some FS books, but I think I've made it pretty clear that we're using FS texts for setting only.

Marhault,
   For the custom Fortune decks, I start by making a list of iconic concepts from the setting (for FS, I have the five church sects, five guilds, various alien races, the Celestial Sun, The Emperor, The Jumpgate, The Annunaki, etc.)  I then assign positive and negative meanings to each card.  My early attempts at this (which the FS deck is one of) suffered because I wasn't clear on what made a decent Fate card.  Fortune cards act in two ways; as a randomizer and as "issue" indicators.  My choices of meanings reflected the role of the image in the setting, and generally worked as randomizers, but were weak as Fate cards.  I've since worked this out.
   As for producing the physical cards, I scan in artwork from the game books, make a powerpoint file with "frames" the size of CCG card faces, insert the images and text for the card's name and meanings, and print them out onto full sheet labels.  I then cut out the individual card faces and stick them on CCG cards with nice looking backs that I buy cheap.  It takes some time and effort, but only costs a couple bucks.

John

I wanted to split this off into another post, because an issue has come up that might be interesting to folks in terms of general game prep.

    Zach sent me a two page character backstory yesterday, and Joseph emailed that he had also written an extensive backstory but wasn't sure if he should reveal some secrets to the other players.  Two different issues, and I'll deal with the simplest first.

   I'm going to email Joseph and talk to him about the fact that the other players (rather than the other characters) having full knowledge of his character can only improve the game, since they will be able to direct some of their play towards his character's issues, and help him get what he wants for his character's story into actual play.  Does that sound about right?

   As for the lengthy background, alarm bells went off immediately when I read Zach's.  It's very well written, but includes his character piloting a ship through a dangerous asteroid field, a scene which he had mentioned in the game prep discussion as a cool thing his character might do.  I immediately thought or Ralph's RPGNet rant on the subject of character backgrounds, and am worried that it might be an indicator of abused player syndrome.  The idea is that lots of people are so used to never getting to see their characters protagonized, or getting the cool scenes that they want into actual play, that they feel compelled to put them into character background fiction as a way of guaranteeing that they will get the things they want out of the game.  I'll email all three of the players about this, making sure that I applaud their commitment and enthusiasm, but trying to let them know that I am actually listening to them when they say what they want their characters and the game to be about, and will do my best to focus on those things.  Do y'all think that approach is necessary, and will it work?

John

Found it! On making the same character over and over

Classic Czege insight.

Best,
Ron

Damn it. I am having a lot of trouble posting today.

Precede the above post with this:

Hi John,

That second point of yours makes me worry a little.

Here are some older threads which address the main issue pretty well.

Character generation going on and on and on
Backstory vs. strong character creation
Using character backstory to assist with coherent play
Character back story

I'm also hunting for a key thread of Paul's which was called "On making the same character over and over," but didn't find it quickly. If anyone can post that link, thanks.

John, all this goes back to one of my most ancient points, which is the dropping rich and meaty characters into a rich and meaty setting is not the strongest starting point for play. I also think the isolated quality of how your players are generating back-stories is troublesome.

This is actually a real flaw in Everway's design, as I see it - play as described in the text never seems to have anything to do with the fanfic-heavy characters as characters. Your players, by using that text as a guide, may be walking right into its cruellest inadequacy.

Best,
Ron

johnmarron wrote:
  I'm going to email Joseph and talk to him about the fact that the other players (rather than the other characters) having full knowledge of his character can only improve the game, since they will be able to direct some of their play towards his character's issues, and help him get what he wants for his character's story into actual play.  Does that sound about right?

  As for the lengthy background, alarm bells went off immediately when I read Zach's.  It's very well written, but includes his character piloting a ship through a dangerous asteroid field, a scene which he had mentioned in the game prep discussion as a cool thing his character might do.  I immediately thought or Ralph's RPGNet rant on the subject of character backgrounds, and am worried that it might be an indicator of abused player syndrome.  The idea is that lots of people are so used to never getting to see their characters protagonized, or getting the cool scenes that they want into actual play, that they feel compelled to put them into character background fiction as a way of guaranteeing that they will get the things they want out of the game.  I'll email all three of the players about this, making sure that I applaud their commitment and enthusiasm, but trying to let them know that I am actually listening to them when they say what they want their characters and the game to be about, and will do my best to focus on those things.  Do y'all think that approach is necessary, and will it work?

Hi, John.

I think Joseph knows he should let the other players in on the character secrets but isn't sure due to standard gaming social contracts. (I've never really understood the keeping secrets thing.)

As for Zach: I've read Ralph's rant, and I think you and I have discussed this before. In some cases I agree. Probably most cases. But in this particular case, I don't see a problem. It may be abused gamer syndrom, or it may just be excitement. (It may also be a way of defining his character, "See, he really can do this sort of thing.")

I think you should play off what he's written and escalate. Sure, that was a cool thing his character did flying through the asteroid belt before, but you can set up an in-game sequence that's cooler than that. More difficult, more dangerous, and rife with narrative meaning. I would think of the piloting episode in the character background as a Flag that you should address. Make him prove it. If you can, drop some bangs that somehow connect back to that incident.

If it is abused gamer syndrome, I still think that's the best way to handle it. Otherwise, you might freak him out by taking it away from him. He might start worrying that he's not going to get anything he wants in the game or in backstory.

Problematic backstory for me is not when it records cool incidents but when it solves sticky character issues. Open issues are more important than expected events. You can always repeat events in fresh ways.

Of course, it really all depends on how much he's written and what it all concerns. You might need to convince him to whiddle it down to the essentials.

You definitely need to get them to read each others backgrounds and discuss them. Isolated elaboration is ok in my experience as long as everyone was on the same page to begin. Of course, I mostly play with people I've known for a decade now so it's not that difficult for us to get in-synch.

Ron,
  Thanks for the links.  I've read most of them a while back, but a re-reading is certainly in order.  When you say "ancient points", are you referring ot your detailed character/sketchy setting vs. sketchy character/detailed setting ideas?  Your cautions are noted.  Given that I've never played with these guys before and don't know any of them well, I think I might be better off just doing a little more discussion during actual (mechanical) character generation next time we meet and seeing how things shape up in play.  I agree that the fact that they have gone off and done more character generation in isolation is troubling, but I hope we developed solid enough concepts in our group discussion that we end up with characters that will be fun to play and interesting enough to everyone that their stories will be engaging.
  This game wil be a nice learning experience for me in trying to introduce some of the techniques and ideas I've picked up here to some fairly traditional but semingly open-minded gamers.

John