Over the weekend I was up in Belfast to continue a game with some old time players.  It was the perfect opportunity to try out a system for recounting rumours that had been explored here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28584.0

Prep
There were 4 of us (3 players and a GM).  Each player was given 5 beads and a cup.  I explained the rules.  This was going to be a way to re-create the 'rumour mill'.  A scene would be presented and each player, in turn, would be given the chance to narrate the NPCs within that scene, in order to describe the actions of the PCs during the last session.  As this was a rumour-mill, fact was not important.  At the end of each player's turn, the other players could reward interesting descriptions of their characters by placing beads into the cup of the narrator. N.B.  I'm going to call the PCs 'Heroes' to keep things clear.

Scene 1
I (the GM) described a stables at a castle where several comely wenches were gossiping.  A scamp was snooping at them through a hole in the door.  The first player began, in the guise of the maidens, by describing one of the Heroes as a 'worshipper of chaos'.  The second player didn't understand the concept of the rules yet, so asked to be skipped.  The third player continued the argument among the maidens, describing another Hero in bad light.  When it came back to me, the atmosphere was dead.  The players didn't understand the system at all and it seemed like this was going to fail.  I described how the scamp at the door ran to his master, who then climbed a high tower to meet with a hag in the darkness.  I foreshadowed 'that things were getting out of hand and something needed to be done.'  Then I changed scenes...

Scene 2
This time there was a tavern run by a gang of thieves.  It was a tavern the Heroes often frequented.  The players warmed to the idea.  I described several gangsters discussing recent events.  This time I changed the rules a little.  Any player could take a turn to talk, in any order, and each player adopted a fixed NPC.  The players began describing a plan to steal the treasures that the Heroes must possess.  As each player jumped into the conversation, the gossiping escalated among the gangsters, and the players started handing out their beads to each other.  In time, the gangsters told such terrible lies about each of the Heroes that eventually the gang were convinced they could never rob them easily and scrapped their heist prematurely.

Scene 3
I changed the rules again.  This time I asked the players for a scene location.  One player asked if we could have it on the walls of the city.  I described the scene, and introduced the conversation with a question, posing as one of the guards.  Now the fun really started, as each of the players began telling tall tales of each of the Heroes.  There were stories of carrying bulls on backs.  One great moment was when a watch guard described the Dwarf Hero as 'one of those giant Dwarves.  Bigger than me, he was.'  Also, one of the Heroes was given the handle 'the puppet master' from some wild tale about mind control.  The scene ended when all of the players' beads were spent.

Scene 4
I used this scene to foreshadow an ambush I had planned for the session.

In the end, I learned that it was important to let the players decide the scene locations, that it was also important to let anyone contribute at their own pace, not to force turns in order, and that every scene should be introduced with a question from the GM, posing as an NPC.  Next time I'll also give the GM some beads, so that I can reward particularly inventive character portrayal.

My experience is similar to yours, "contribute something now" requires the minimum accepted contribution to be within comfortable limits, otherwise people can tend to block.

I suspect if you start with letting people contribute their own starting situation and narrators, then they would be sufficiently grounded and have enough to say to follow the turn structure. But really there's no point having strict turns if there's space; you only need to cut people a chance to speak if everyone is wanting to say stuff at once (in this kind of game at least)!

As you've seen, the time for GM intervention is probably when it seems like stuff is winding down, and then you cut to another scene or foreshadowing. Don't be afraid to frame scenes you think would be interesting, as if the players don't go for it you can always move on!

The GM beads seems quite a good idea, I like the idea of rewarding those who engage with the current scene, which with the above seems quite a carroty way to go about it. I find it interesting that players carried on until there were no more chips, did you tell them this before hand or did they just expect that is what would happen?

After this session, did you find that people got into character fast? My expectation is that this kind of minigame would speed that up. Also do you think you learned anything about how the players saw their characters? Or was it all too rumourous for that?!

Sebastian wrote:
Over the weekend I was up in Belfast to continue a game with some old time players.  It was the perfect opportunity to try out a system for recounting rumours that had been explored here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28584.0

Prep
There were 4 of us (3 players and a GM).  Each player was given 5 beads and a cup.  I explained the rules.  This was going to be a way to re-create the 'rumour mill'.  A scene would be presented and each player, in turn, would be given the chance to narrate the NPCs within that scene, in order to describe the actions of the PCs during the last session.  As this was a rumour-mill, fact was not important.  At the end of each player's turn, the other players could reward interesting descriptions of their characters by placing beads into the cup of the narrator. N.B.  I'm going to call the PCs 'Heroes' to keep things clear.

Scene 1
I (the GM) described a stables at a castle where several comely wenches were gossiping.  A scamp was snooping at them through a hole in the door.  The first player began, in the guise of the maidens, by describing one of the Heroes as a 'worshipper of chaos'.  The second player didn't understand the concept of the rules yet, so asked to be skipped.  The third player continued the argument among the maidens, describing another Hero in bad light.  When it came back to me, the atmosphere was dead.  The players didn't understand the system at all and it seemed like this was going to fail.  I described how the scamp at the door ran to his master, who then climbed a high tower to meet with a hag in the darkness.  I foreshadowed 'that things were getting out of hand and something needed to be done.'  Then I changed scenes...

Scene 2
This time there was a tavern run by a gang of thieves.  It was a tavern the Heroes often frequented.  The players warmed to the idea.  I described several gangsters discussing recent events.  This time I changed the rules a little.  Any player could take a turn to talk, in any order, and each player adopted a fixed NPC.  The players began describing a plan to steal the treasures that the Heroes must possess.  As each player jumped into the conversation, the gossiping escalated among the gangsters, and the players started handing out their beads to each other.  In time, the gangsters told such terrible lies about each of the Heroes that eventually the gang were convinced they could never rob them easily and scrapped their heist prematurely.

Scene 3
I changed the rules again.  This time I asked the players for a scene location.  One player asked if we could have it on the walls of the city.  I described the scene, and introduced the conversation with a question, posing as one of the guards.  Now the fun really started, as each of the players began telling tall tales of each of the Heroes.  There were stories of carrying bulls on backs.  One great moment was when a watch guard described the Dwarf Hero as 'one of those giant Dwarves.  Bigger than me, he was.'  Also, one of the Heroes was given the handle 'the puppet master' from some wild tale about mind control.  The scene ended when all of the players' beads were spent.

Scene 4
I used this scene to foreshadow an ambush I had planned for the session.

In the end, I learned that it was important to let the players decide the scene locations, that it was also important to let anyone contribute at their own pace, not to force turns in order, and that every scene should be introduced with a question from the GM, posing as an NPC.  Next time I'll also give the GM some beads, so that I can reward particularly inventive character portrayal.

JoyWriter wrote:
My experience is similar to yours, "contribute something now" requires the minimum accepted contribution to be within comfortable limits, otherwise people can tend to block.

I suspect if you start with letting people contribute their own starting situation and narrators, then they would be sufficiently grounded and have enough to say to follow the turn structure. But really there's no point having strict turns if there's space; you only need to cut people a chance to speak if everyone is wanting to say stuff at once (in this kind of game at least)!

As you've seen, the time for GM intervention is probably when it seems like stuff is winding down, and then you cut to another scene or foreshadowing. Don't be afraid to frame scenes you think would be interesting, as if the players don't go for it you can always move on!

The GM beads seems quite a good idea, I like the idea of rewarding those who engage with the current scene, which with the above seems quite a carroty way to go about it. I find it interesting that players carried on until there were no more chips, did you tell them this before hand or did they just expect that is what would happen?

After this session, did you find that people got into character fast? My expectation is that this kind of minigame would speed that up. Also do you think you learned anything about how the players saw their characters? Or was it all too rumourous for that?!

I find it interesting that players carried on until there were no more chips, did you tell them this before hand or did they just expect that is what would happen?

After this session, did you find that people got into character fast?

Also do you think you learned anything about how the players saw their characters? Or was it all too rumourous for that?!

Was there anything specific in the first scene that you would say killed the mood or flow of things or was it a scene that few had invested interest in developing, or something else, as it seemed the later scenes carried on better?

I was also wondering what you thought about having some of this pre-game play provide more potential meat for the game,

Sebastian wrote:

I find it interesting that players carried on until there were no more chips, did you tell them this before hand or did they just expect that is what would happen?

I explained to them that when all the chips were spent that we would start the 'real' game.  I thought that this would allow them to control the pace if they got bored.

    David: I like this. Chips/beads/Legend Points spent, the Tales of the Legends session ends and the Heroes/Legends begin, hopefully in the middle of action/conflict of something at stake, such as picking up from a cliffhanger or something poignant.

After this session, did you find that people got into character fast?

Having talked with the players, I found there was a kind of flexing of the imagination during the minigame, which helped the PCs imagine the setting (and probably their characters).  When the game started, everyone was ready to go.  In retrospect, the minigame took around the same length of time that it would normally take for my group to into character, except instead of the wandering nature of the usual gearing up, it all happened in a controlled environment, so to speak.

    David: This is great. A warmup act that brings everyone into the game atmosphere and gets the creative juices flowing.

Also do you think you learned anything about how the players saw their characters? Or was it all too rumourous for that?!

It was pretty 'rumourous'.  If anything was learned, it was something about the relationship of the characters as a unit, rather than the indivdual.  From descriptions through the eyes of NPCs, I came away thinking of the group to have stronger bonds than I'd perceived before.  A new camaraderie was there.  I imagine that if the characters were a bunch of traitorous cut-throats, a different perception could have been reached, like paranoia.  Who knows?

    David: I like that idea. The GM and Players learn actual or implied relationships in the game than realized during the prior sessions when maybe people were distracted by what happened at the time... rolling dice, escalating conflict, etc. I like the idea that different scenes can generate a variety of impressions, negative or positive about the Heroes/Legends.

Was there anything specific in the first scene that you would say killed the mood or flow of things or was it a scene that few had invested interest in developing, or something else, as it seemed the later scenes carried on better?

You hit the nail on the head.  There was little invested interest.  To improve, I'll make sure to get the players to engineer the scenes, and characters.  It occurs to me that it might be fun for the first player to create the scene, the second player to create the character for the first player to play, the third player to create the character for the second player to play, etc.  There would some more structure, and probably a few laughs.

    David: I can definitely see the GM framing the Tales of the Legends sessions initially to help lead by example for the Players and then as they get more comfortable taking the initiative and investment aspects that the GM can pull away until needed when momentum fades or to get things on track until the Tales session ends. Investment in the game, the setting, learning about the group dynamics, play history, character stats and perhaps more all from RPing through some scenes like the chorus or other conventions of plays and literature. I know when I've used a lax version of this for my ftf Dragonfly game that due to us playing once a month and no one but me usually taking notes that I have to prompt the Players to remind them of key things. However, I think that this more structured narrative format might help reinforce some of those elements better, though notes will still be needed regardless. I do have a method for prompting Players of things, but that is for discussion in the First Thoughts section.

I was also wondering what you thought about having some of this pre-game play provide more potential meat for the game,

So far, I've only thought about using this system as colour.  I don't want players to feel curbed by consequence during the rumour-mill.  I want them to be free to announce what they like, and leave it at that... (Having said that, during the example above, once the players identified one of the group as the 'puppet master', the term was used in play by some NPCs they encountered).  Although I don't want to complicate things with rules and consequence, I do like the idea of pervasive colour, where the ideas generated before play may leak into the session.  The in-joke scenario.  I haven't considered if this gossip-mongering would work with a darker tone.  I'll try for a sombre tone next time, just to see if it's plausible.

Sebastian wrote:
Although I don't want to complicate things with rules and consequence, I do like the idea of pervasive colour, where the ideas generated before play may leak into the session.  The in-joke scenario.  I haven't considered if this gossip-mongering would work with a darker tone.  I'll try for a sombre tone next time, just to see if it's plausible.

Sebastian wrote:
I explained to them that when all the chips were spent that we would start the 'real' game.  I thought that this would allow them to control the pace if they got bored.

Watch out for that old contribution-pressure reappearing, as you would be implementing another way to put people on the spot.