A Diary of Campaign Creation - Page 2 - OG Myth-Weavers

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A Diary of Campaign Creation

   
I'm interested, but there is a huge amount to read here, so I want to get through it before I comment.

I find your approach really interesting, mostly because it's almost the exact opposite of my own. I start with an interesting idea, then I ask myself, how could this be exploited or how could it affect my world. From there I essentially determine how my campaign will end, then slowly fill in the gaps.

I think you have one major pitfall here that I hopefully didn't misinterpret. You seem to want to create a story that gets "back to basics," so to speak, but you've clearly put a lot of thought into this, and it seems to be a rather daunting accumulation of ideas and expectations.

I think the idea of player-centered development is great, and Fate is a good system for that. I also noticed in your early posts that you liked to get inspiration from music. If you ever need music to get amped up for the final confrontation go to Youtube and look up GRV Music, Audiomachine, Globus or X-Ray Dog.

My thought processes when it comes to games aren't really as linear as I'm making them out to be. In the very earliest phases I go with what I can think about, whether it's characters, ideas, settings, systems or even mechanical ideas. Heck, I have ideas for an entire campaign based off the Metal Gear Rising soundtrack (which isn't really difficult at all, given that most notable songs are about one character or the other). For this particular game, it mostly started from the setting. I read the book, took a liking to how refreshing it was compared to the endless gritty and dark fantasy that's popular these days, and had the idea to run something from there. So that's where the idea for this game began, really.

However, this doesn't mean that I don't go through all these phases. As a famous poet (Wordsworth for the literature geeks out there) once said, "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." The same, I feel, applies to tabletop games. Inspiration strikes me, I mull it over (often for extremely long times) and only then figure out if it's something I want to do and how I want to do it, and all that stuff I talked about. From there I begin to look into it in more detail. In the case of this game, I might have started with the Blue Rose setting book, but I never felt like I should confine myself to it - indeed, the ideas that formed the campaign can easily be transported into other suitable settings. As it may however, Aldea looked to be the best option.

As for the story, there's pretty much one thing that encapsulates my idea here: "simplicity does not equate lack of depth". I could do some hugely complex epic with in-depth histories that are all entwined with what's happening. In fact, I've done that before, to great success (said game had around 9 months of plot-refining before I even looked at mechanics). But it wasn't a game that featured PC choice much, if at all. For this game I want to emphasize on the players and their stories, instead of the overarching plot. Due to that though, it's hard to make any concrete decisions and plans without individual PCs to look at and figure out. But the idea is still there: make the game focus on the players and their actions, with a simple but engaging overarching plot to back it up. Sure, "dethrone the tyrant" isn't a terribly original plot to start with, but it's more about the journey than the destination. Plus, I do love me some good deconstructions, and applying that to roleplaying games has been a goal for me for a long time. But beyond deconstructions and surprising twists, there's a lot to go through before the tyrant can be deposed, and a firm focus on how these events affect the PCs is what I'm aiming at, directly or indirectly. Pacing is likely to be far slower than in normal games, with time and attention devoted to both action and emotions. There are also a few other things that I'll be talking about when it comes to players and the story later, like ideas on how to integrate their characters into the emerging narrative when the game is being played.

Good things require thought put into them, and I'd wager to say there's no such thing as a simple or easy story. And yes, there are quite a few ideas flying around here and there. I still need to figure out which I want to place major focus on and which I want to scrap entirely. Dividing the game into acts helps this quite a bit though, since I don't have to put everything on at once, and pace out the themes better. From experience my games have always been a bit of a mess on that side, as I try to put too much into too little, attempting to rush through a narrative that feels it'd be better off spread out a bit. This is one thing that I'm definitely putting major focus on with my own GMing abilities when the game actually starts, and the theorizing and planning before the game helps me get my thoughts straight on the matter.

I'm curious, why do you put narrative base after the mechanical base? I tend to do the inverse, myself.
Other than that, there are more than a few similarities.

An excellent question. There are two answers to it:

Short answer: Because I just wanted to write about it first. It was a bit easier of a topic and I had most of it done already. The two "bases" work fairly side by side, so it came down to what I wanted to write first.

Long answer: I suppose the title of the Narrative Base can be a bit misleading if it's not entirely clarified what the narrative means in this sense. Right from the start I've had a foundation I've worked on, in phases I and II. Both bases derive from those ideas. What I mean by the narrative is what happens in the story, the actual events and such. When it comes down to it I feel the what of the story is far less important than the why. What happens in the narrative is unimportant compared to the general idea and themes of the events, hence the narrative base comes at this point, relatively late into the fold.

As for why the mechanics came before the narrative, it ties into the idea that the general themes are more important than the details: because I have the themes done already, I can focus on how I want the mechanics to represent them. These mechanics then affect how the actual events unfold, since I strongly believe that the mechanics should complement the narrative.

In addition, I felt like I'd have an easier time developing a more tonally consistent narrative when I have both themes and mechanics done, as opposed to just the themes. Having set the relative power level and aspects in place, I could figure out what sort of adventures I want better. Both bases still draw more from the general themes than from each other, so I didn't feel restricted by having the mechanics already made. And even if there were some contradiction, switching ideas around is still entirely possible (and highly recommended if necessary) at this stage.

In the end there's not a particularly linear progression of how the planning goes, and both mechanics and narrative are developed at roughly the same time. I just decided to write the mechanics first, because it's easier and a bit of a break from all the narrative mumbo jumbo I had written already.

Ah, got your point. Well, it's just a terminology issue then, I call "general themes" a matter of narrative, exactly because they influence so much what is going to happen. And then mechanics need to follow and reinforce that, or we end up trying to play a mythic fantasy game with mechanics best suited for horror.
I guess I just added mentally "deciding on the general themes" to the list when reading the narrative basis, and assumed you mean the same.
On the other hand, it's probably an understandable mistake, since I don't make a list of things I want to happen. I just have a list of NPCs that want to achieve stuff, and what happens goes from there!

Oh hey. This thread was a thing. Should probably get back to it.

Phase VI - Major characters
Part 1: The Tyrant & Heir

Now that I'm taking a break on certain other projects (namely Crusader Kings 2 and Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, but I swear, some roleplaying stuff too!), I figured I could come back here to finish (or at the very least continue) what I started. Got a really interesting topic today, and that is characters. Not the player ones, but the ones besides them, the major NPCs of the game. Of course, given how I'm dividing the game into four acts and each one has their own major NPCs, I can't reasonably do a writeup of every single character in the game, but I can write something about the three most important ones. One clear villains, one clear ally and one who might skirt the line between the two depending on the circumstances.

Lets start off by setting down a few things onto the table. The characters you'll be seeing are some of the major players of the game, regardless of what actually happens. Their presence is almost mandatory to the story, namely because they're the three people driving the narrative when the players aren't around. Not all of them will be active at first and, in fact, none of them will at the beginning of the game. In addition, I'm not making any sort of statistics or hard definitions on the characters. This is an introduction and preliminary grounds for them. To see how everything comes together. Not everything has a definition as of yet, and might not until more details are needed by the plot. There also may be references to other NPCs in the world, but I'll also include a brief description of who they are and how they're relative to the position I'll be talking about. We'll focus the most on the Tyrant's character, seeing about the ally second and then the third character if I remain with time. If I don't, I'll write up a second post about the topic with two more characters, the third I was planning and an extra, more minor character from some act.


So, with that out of the way, I know I've been talking a lot about the Tyrant and how he's a central figure in the campaign. He sure is. But what do we know of him as of yet? Is it even a he? Is it even a single person?... Who am I kidding, of course it is. I wouldn't have called him that otherwise. Placeholder names are nice, but they still have their roots in the idea. A tyrant is a tyrant is a tyrant.

The central antagonist of a story, huh? A bold place to put a character; need to make sure he's up to snuff about his position both in the world and the narrative. In order to maximize the effectiveness of his character, I read up a bit on how to create a villain. Rich Burlew had an excellent article about it, which I shall be using as a base. I highly recommend reading the article, not only because I'll be going through the steps one by one, but also because I highly recommend reading gaming articles anyway. Even so, I'll summarize each step and go a bit into the Tyrant's character during each of them. Hopefully, the Tyrant will seem more of a character than a figure once we're done.

Step 1: Naming two emotions, one that drives the villain and one that I hope the character inspires in the players when they encounter the villain.
This is the fundamental core of the character. While their precise background motivation might tell us more about their story, the Tyrant's ultimate role, I feel, is more guided by the emotion that motivation instill into him. For this villain, what I want is a sort of tragic villain - someone who has a sympathetic backstory but whose actions are definitely not worthy of anyone's sympathy. Thus, I propose the first emotion to be Loss, more importantly a combined sense of Loss and Love. Add in a fair bit of Revenge too and you can see how the mix can have some effect on a person.

The second emotion, the one I want the players to feel, is different, and honestly a tough one to name. However, given his stature in the world, a very public and despised position, I feel the need to build up a certain tension to him. I want the players to be immediately alarmed to his presence, he should be an imposing character, one the players fear. Not directly, for he's not the most immediate personal threat, but for his influence and presence. So, all in all, I believe the best emotion or effect I want is for him to be an Imposing presence. Not an emotion per se, but the effect is there anyway. A mixture of Respect and Fear.

Step 2: What events in the villain's past brought about this emotion?
Surprise surprise, we're here immediately, just as I said it isn't as important. Well, it's not. But it still is important, just not as important. We have two emotions for the Tyrant: Loss and Revenge. Both need some sort of motivation behind them. To keep the character a bit more three dimensional, I want to keep the two a bit separate but still together.

For Loss, the loss of a loved one comes to mind immediately. It's a terrible thing to be sure, one that can elicit such a strong emotional response that could lead a person down this dark path. Let's say that the Tyrant lost both his wife and only daughter. How did they die? I'm not sure yet. Could have been illness, or it could be something else. Maybe some knights of the realm made a decision that lead to their deaths; I like the sound of that. Even better, maybe the Tyrant thinks this was the reason, but has been wrong ever since they died. A song comes to mind, one that has served as the main source of inspiration for the villain. "She'll return to me / that I know, I've seen her in my dreams // The old gods / they spoke to me / slay them all / and we shall set her free // To light up my life / and keep me from harm". A haunting tune, one that I feel perfectly encapsulates how the Tyrant feels daily. He's a very dark character inside his psyche, but I want there to be a reason for why he is as he is. The loss of his family works quite well in that regard.

In addition, there's also the emotion of Revenge that needs to be addressed. Originally I felt there could have been another reason for why he did his coup, something along the lines of being the descendant of an older king who feels the crown belongs to them. However, the main ally character (who will be addressed below, albeit in less detail) is also in the same position, the heir to a king previous to the queen who was dethroned. If I were to run with this aspect, I would need to put more emphasis on the struggle of monarchy than I was originally planning to. I still might do this, but thankfully delving into the loss of his family, the Tyrant's Revenge comes clear: because he believes the knights of the realm were the cause for his loss, he has hated them ever since. A simple motivation, though I might, if I can think of something have some other aspect in it revealed when appropriate.

Step 3: What is the villain's scale?
Now that we have the motivations out of the way, the questions become a bit easier to answer. For this particular one, the answer is simple: the Tyrant is the monarch of the kingdom, so he mainly threatens the kingdom around him. Unintended consequences, however, make have larger reaching effects. But we might get to that later.

Step 4: What is the villain's goal?
The Tyrant's ultimate goal would be to use ancient magic in order to resurrect his wife and daughter. That's his main goal. Everything else he does is for this. Which brings us to...

Step 5: What does the villain need in order to be able to achieve this goal?
In order to resurrect his dead family, the Tyrant has formed an alliance with an ancient power that has influenced the world for quite a while: for now, we shall call her the Seer. In exchange for the murder of the Golden Hart (Aldis's divine protector), the Seer would grant his family life anew. However, there are a lot of smaller goals that need to be achieved afterwards, as well as complications that have occurred. The Tyrant also needs to gather enough magical power to achieve his goals (because magical power is always needed!), as well as establish enough control over the kingdom so that he can gather that power without being disrupted in his plans.

Step 6: What obstacles must the villain overcome?
Outside of the player characters, the Tyrant has quite a few problems to solve: the first and foremost being that the Hart never actually died, but merely dissipated for the time being. The Tyrant knows this, however, and is bent on finding and finishing the Hart for real once it can be captured again (which proved to be quite the ordeal the first time around). Nobody in the setting except for the Tyrant and his closest allies know this, however.

In other things, there is of course the quintessential rebellion forming, and the Tyrant must squash all dissent before they can rise up in proper rebellion. While not yet a major threat, it's still a thorn in his side. To make matters worse, both neighboring nations of Kern and Jarzon might invade the weakened Aldis, so the Tyrant needs to shift his military attention between securing borders and fighting a fledgeling civil war.

Lots of potential for adventures for the PCs.

Step 7: What is the villain's primary means of projecting influence?
The Tyrant is first and foremost a leader. He wields his influence in his courtroom. He's no slouch with the sword, but his primary power is through commanding others. Subtlety might not be his strongest suite, but he is also perfectly capable of subterfuge when it's needed, although he might not be willing to use extremely dishonorable means.

Step 8: What are the villain's resources?
Being the monarch, he commands a sizable army, has many loyal followers, and considerable magical power at his disposal, as well as the boons the Seer has given him, including what I will believe will be a powerful artifact of some sort. He also has many talented retainers for many different situations: generals, bodyguards, the like. I was also thinking of him having a small force of elite golem knights, formed and sustained by magic. Generally, the sort of things that one could expect from fighting an evil king.

Step 9: If no heroes were to interfere, what would the villain's plan to achieve this goal be?
This is a bit tricky of a question due to certain aspects of the game, but it's a good question to ask regardless. Without any "heroes" in the world, what would happen is that the Tyrant would solidify his rule on the parts of the kingdom he already owns, eliminate dissenting voices and crush the rebellion, eventually establishing himself as the rightful ruler, and create a new kingdom in place of the old. During all that, he would find the remains of the Golden Hart and eliminate it as the Seer wants (using her methods to do so, given that the Hart isn't able to die in the traditional sense), thus gaining his family back. Once that is done, he can put all his focus on making his legacy. A lot of his life has been marred by conflict, and once that conflict ends I'm not entirely sure how he'd react, though chances are he's been down the dark path for too long at that point. Eventually he'd die but leave his kingdom to his heir, and through that he'd pass on the kingdom. How it would change then can't be known, but in the future I would personally foresee a strong and stable, if autocratic, kingdom emerging.

Step 10: What are the villain's boundaries?
In order to make the character a bit more three dimensional, I would like to add some positive aspects for the character. Even though he's a tyrant, I would imagine him being a fairly honorable person. If he gives his word, he will keep it even if he's at a loss. Neither does he like twisting his words into literal or convenient interpretations - he's a man of principle, and will abide by them even though he doesn't like it. In addition, he doesn't oppress the people needlessly. Dissidents are rooted out and rebellions stomped, but people who didn't have anything to do with them are spared, and those who help him are generously rewarded.

Step 11: What is the villain's personal threat level?
The Tyrant is an excellent swordsman. Not the greatest in the realm, but he is a good fighter by any standards. However, he is past his prime physically, and the years of uneasy rule have taken their toll. However, his strength lies in command and charisma. By the time a final confrontation will be at hand, he will be inferior to the PCs in martial power. I want that scene to be more than just a physical battle.

Step 12: How does the villain treat his minions? How do the minions feel about the villain?
The Tyrant treats his lackeys harsh, but fair. Those who do good are rewarded, those who fail are punished. He is a very pragmatic person when possible and is loathe to throw away talent, especially those loyal. However, he is quite quick to anger at those who displease him personally, and as such he limits his interaction to people whom he can trust, and delegates many other duties. His inner circle has high morale and the far outer circle is too far removed to care, but those who deal with the more unscrupulous direct delegates might have mixed loyalties.

Step 13: What are the villain's visual quirks?
I haven't given much thought about this, to be honest, even though I am a highly visual person in general. I mostly operate from pictures I find on the internet, so making my own visual quirks is slightly different. I might have his limp slightly, from an old wound or other ailment, but need to be careful not to tarnish his imposing figure too much. Overall, I feel he is a far more mental person than a physical one.

Step 13a: What would the villain's theme music sound like?
Oooh boy. I already linked it, but this song captures the tone of the character just too well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlaYDnbskj4

Step 14: What is the villain's escape plan?
Because I intend for there to be fairly few encounters with him during the early campaign, and none of which will involve direct confrontation, I do not feel as if an escape plan is strictly necessary at the time. He has guards who can cover his escape, as well as a highly skilled bodyguard to keep him safe.

Step 15: What is the villain's name?
This... Is a tricky one. I'm big on good names, and they don't come easily to me. You'll probably by now have noted that I've referred to the Tyrant by his title throughout the entire thread. That's because I've yet to come up with a good name for him. However, I do have ideas on what I want it to sound like: heavy, slightly threatening, but still clearly with a refined air to it. Either German or Norman as far as the etymology goes.


Well, that covers that then. Hoo boy, it took a while to write that all down. But I like what I've got for now for the character. I managed to get my thoughts down as well as develop some new ideas for him. Name still eludes me though, hah. But anyway, thought I was done? We still have that other character to take on. This time, we'll take a less formalized look at another major player in the campaign, but instead of a villain, we'll look at a more heroic character: the rightful heir to Aldis, Lord Sayvin Falish.


Former Lord Sayvin Falish, heir apparent to King Haylin the Fair but replaced by Queen Jaellin, the deposed queen of Aldis, isn't the person he once was. When the Tyrant rose up Sayvin was quick to resist, but ultimately unsuccessful as the others. He found himself fleeing the nation to the neighboring Jarzon, where he lives off what his meager wealth allows in a semi-permanent state of retirement. Still, he is practically royalty to Aldis, and the fractured rebellion needs a single banner to gather under, a legitimate heir to the kingdom to flock to. However, Sayvin Falish has had his spirit broken and cares little for the matters of Aldis any longer. He clutches the memories of his status as he slowly drifts away into an uncaring stupor, drowning his sorrows with whatever he has at hand.

However, back at Aldis the people whisper of a Prince to take the throne anew. The location of this Prince is unknown but to a few, and if he could be persuaded to return it could signify a turning point for the rebellion against the Tyrant. A strong central figure, one well versed in matters both martial and magical, he could rally the people against the Tyrant. However, Lord Sayvin's past might come to haunt him: before the fall of Aldis, he practiced the darker arts of magic, "for the good of the realm" of course. If he were to return, his considerable magical talent could be put to good use, and sorcery is extremely powerful in the right hands. Sayvin planned to become King before, and if he were to return his plans could likely succeed, but at what cost?

Compared to the Tyrant, Sayvin has a more ambiguous place in the story. He starts off as a fairly heroic character, if detached from the events happening. However, down the line he would likely give in to his ambitions, and if he were to replace the Tyrant, it's entirely likely he'd go down the same darker path - after all, the infrastructure is already in place, and naturally he'd be able to do a better job at being a just ruler. But anything can happen, and how he develops has a lot to do with how the players will treat him. One major scenario I'm hoping will play out is the players venturing to Jarzon to find and persuade him to join the rebellion, otherwise I'd need to have him return in some other way as he is a character who is almost essential to the larger rebellion story.

As it may be obvious, Lord Sayvin is a canon character, including the part about his use of magic. I want to use the characters given to me in the game as much as I can, but will shift their purposes here and there. The tone of this particular game is quite different than that of a regular Blue Rose game, so changes are quite necessary. For Sayvin I wanted a character who grows throughout the story, and has that direction highly influenced by the players. He'd be a major figure in the rebellion due to his heritage, but he'd owe it to the PCs, which creates a sort of inner conflict for him: his emerging ambition versus the people who raised him up. Or alternatively the PCs could relish the chance for power with his sorcery, which would be a surprising turn for the story.

Not that much for Sayvin at the moment, I'm already well past what is reasonable length for a post. In my next post I'll talk about the "Rival" character for the PCs, as well as another rebel, this time a less essential character who will still have a fair amount of focus on as far as NPCs go.

Okay screw more characters. Those aren't important. Or well, they are, but there are more important things to talk about than yet more characters. I'm going to have tons of characters in the game anyway and as long as I'm able to at least look at how a few are formed, I'm quite happy. Which, as you all can see above, has already happened. So now we can move to what I believe in the final step of the creation of a campaign. After this what remains is mainly putting it all down in a format that can be understood by potential players, as well as documenting the little details I need documented. But the planning is an endeavor that is nigh complete.

I'm rather happy about the campaign, even if I say so myself. But enough of that for now, let's see what the final phase holds.

Phase VII - Players

You know what greatly benefits a tabletop game? A thing that it can very rarely be without? Players. Yeah, those people. The people who ruin the plans of every would be GM. Stupid little things. Wouldn't roleplaying games be a lot better if GMs could just apply their own stories without the need of players?
I'm sure a lot of GMs who like their stories have felt that way in the past. I know I have. But we're playing games here, not writing novels. If you want to create a story by yourself, go write a novel. What roleplaying games are about is the collaborative story created through the game and its actions.
I'm sure a lot of you are sensing a large "but..." approaching, and you'd be correct. Players are required, but each game benefits from the right kinds of players, as well as calibrating everyone's expectations correctly. Otherwise you get players who don't fit the game, and whose actions disrupt the game's intended themes. And unlike the narrative that is extremely malleable to the player's needs, I feel the themes of a game should stay relatively intact despite the influence of the players. Certain things will undoubtedly change, since the themes need to suit the characters as much as the characters suit the theme, but they're definitely more rigid and in place than the emerging narrative that comes from playing.

But enough of roleplaying theory, this is not what we're here for (despite being an incredibly fascinating area of discussion). What we're here for is adhering to the ever lovely rule of proper pacing: the rule of three. Everything works better in a trilogy, and this post is no different. For the sake of clarity and such, and just maybe because I have too much to write again and will spend the rest of the night getting my thoughts down. Yeah, definitely that.

Anyway, the three topics are Players, Characters and Storytelling, in that order. Without further introduction, let's get into the meat of the topic at hand.

Players

The two things I want to talk about players are what I'm looking for in players, and how I choose players. The latter of course assumes I have the luxury of choosing players - not something I too often encounter.

Ideally, there are only a few things I would very much enjoy from my players. The first thing I need from my players is a relative understanding of the genre in question. This game, as I mentioned somewhere in my earlier posts, belongs to the "romantic fantasy" genre, where the heroes are heroes and villains are villains. Truly gray characters have their place in the setting of course (on both sides), but the overall setup is very much a black vs white one. Understanding the kinds of ideas are behind the genre and what works in it is highly important. This is a fairly easy topic to teach the players, and would require only a short writeup of the basic tenets of romantic fantasy when recruiting players.
The next idea is a bit more difficult to find. In addition to understanding the genre, a basic comprehension of narrative ideas would be positively charming. Basic knowledge of how stories work is enough and helps tremendously. Even a person who casually browses TVTropes would fit here, as long as they can apply that knowledge in practice. As said, a bit more difficult to find in players, especially since there are no clear clarifications on what this means exactly. But it shouldn't be too hard.
Third, one thing that I always find lacking in players is the sense of initiative. From experience, very rarely do players take proper initiative. There can be many reasons for this, but it's always disappointing to see in a game that values freedom of action and approach. Maybe the players don't know enough of the setting, are afraid to come up with ideas or just don't want to come up with things themselves, but that's something I'd like to get rid of in this game. Thus, players who can take initiative for themselves and proactively pursue their goals would be very nice to have.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, everyone in the game would have to be on the same page together. Expectations can vary even with the guidelines I'd have, and as such a common consensus needs to be established. This page has a fairly decent tool for setting the tone of the outlying metagame for the campaign. It's not so much as a questionnaire, but something that everyone would agree on. Without a common ground for everyone, expectations become messy and in worst cases the players might feel they're all playing different styles of games.

As for how I choose players, I am averse to strict forms or rigorous interviews. Nor do I overly care about system knowledge, though it does naturally play a part when I have to decide between two people who are otherwise equally good. What I do care about is compatibility and good OOC interaction. A healthy environment out of game is paramount for a healthy campaign. A group should be friends first and foremost, and players second. As such, the players should have amicable relationships with each other and myself. Naturally, this is difficult to achieve before the group is formed, so I'll just have to rely on my own skills to judge people. And as it may be evident, this sort of approach can never really use the "first come, first served" approach, which is a method I find utterly bewildering.


Characters

This subtitle will also include two major topics: the kind of characters I would like, and a specific example on character building I would be requiring from each character that will drive their character growth and narrative forward.

As I already mentioned above, one of the key features of what kind of characters I want is that they fit to the genre. I'm not going to say what fits and what doesn't since there's no easy way to define what sort of character does fit and what doesn't, but as long as the genre is kept in mind when the concept is formed I'll be happy. Romantic fantasy is a lot about community and relationships with people, and this specific story is a lot about rebellion. The aspects presented in the mechanical phase do an adequate job at portraying this, so I won't dwell too much on that. Instead, I wish to touch upon another issue: party composition. Much like the group of players, the game's group of characters need to work with each other, both in concept and during the game. I once had a Star Wars game about a group of mercenaries, and in the first session I noticed that everyone had created their own personal brooding silent loner type. Needless to say, it didn't really work. There were no dynamics in the group and getting the group together was an exercise in cringeworthy storytelling. So what I really want, in essence, is something like the Five-Man Band. Though I'm loathe to reference TVTropes, it explains it far better than I can, and is almost instantly recognizable. Characters in the Five-Man Band have their own place in the group, their roles complement each other. It's not the be-all and end-all of the group, but it's a nice basic form to keep in mind.

The characters should also be compatible with each other in terms of personality too. Minor conflicts can happen but as long as they stay minor and non group threatening they can exist. Major conflicts are different and would require mutual acceptance from all parties to minimize OOC problems (as it's easy to take things personally). Given the roughly aligned goals of the characters and set tone of the campaign, I don't foresee group problems being too large, but it's something that still needs its fair share of awareness.

Beyond dynamics and genre, character growth is essential to a good story. To make this happen, each player will be required to come up with an idea for a personal character arc for their player. The arc needs to deal with one of their aspects, and once completed should change the aspect in some way, depending on the way the character has grown. The GM and player would go through the basics of the arc: when it starts in the story (which act, area, event, etc), who is involved, what it's about generally and some possibilities on how it might end. The exact details will of course be kept secret and revealed when appropriate, but creating the character arc is a highly collaborative effort between the GM and the player.


Storytelling

In this third and final category, we get to the basic tenets of storytelling I utilize in my game. It has two basic ideas: collaborative storytelling and organic storytelling.

In collaborative storytelling, each player has an equal influence in the evolving and emerging narrative, right from its conception. Of course, the GM has the most authority over it (as seen by the planning I've already done in this thread), but when it comes to the characters and their place in the world, the players are in control. The players can influence the world through their characters, their histories and actions. Things the players find interesting will have priority in the future, and NPCs the players take a liking to will feature later despite the GM having no plans for them. After all, it is my job as the GM to entertain my players, and that is most easily done when the players can decide what they like and what they don't.

There are a few things to consider in this approach though: as I have stated earlier in the thread, this campaign would have a "main character" of sorts. At first glance, it would seem that this choice would be at odds against the whole "every player is equal" approach. I do not believe this is true though. As a practical example, I'll pick a show that has had considerable inspiration in terms of its basis; Avatar: the Last Airbender. In the show, Aang is most definitely the "main" character. He is the titular Avatar after all, and the subtitular last airbender too. However, all of the characters in the group are important in episodes. Sure, some might not feature as heavily in certain episodes, but the show does a decent job at giving everyone screen time and plot arcs of their own. Just because there might be an overarching plot that has a particular focus on one PC doesn't mean the others will be forgotten about. I'm confident in my own abilities to handle this in a satisfactory manner.

One more thing that I feel is important to say about the nature of the narrative I'll be using before we move onto the concept which I call organic storytelling. Many times I've found the biggest problem with starting a campaign is getting the group together. How does one exactly place three to five independently created people with barely any ties to each other into the same situation without making it feel contrived? Let alone make them work together? Well, in this case I'm not even going to try. One of the more experimental features I'd like to try with this game is gradually introducing the characters into the game, through circumstances that make sense for everyone. Of course I'd do my best to speed it up, with players being involved in the decision too, but the gradual introduction of characters is something I would very much like to try. This does mean that some players wouldn't be able to start playing immediately, but I believe that by disclosing everything beforehand any problems that might arise can be minimized. Plus, it's easy to introduce characters organically, just as long as I don't have to introduce them all at the same time. But now, speaking of organic...

Organic storytelling is a term I coined (or, at least, I think I coined. Probably someone somewhere has used it before, but none as far as I can tell) for the type of roleplaying gaming that doesn't put its focus on the story, but instead puts its focus on the PCs' actions within that story. I've never been properly able to put this theory into practice though, much to my displeasure. But the theory is sound, if a bit vague at the moment.

The most important part of organic storytelling is the freedom to pursue what you want, and how you want. Players are encouraged to seek their own stories, and while there definitely are plot arcs put in place by the GM, the players can decide how they want to deal with them. In a relatively freeform system like Fate this is easy, as there are very few stat blocks that need to be generated or dungeons to be mapped. There would be more guidelines rather than railroads. Or to put the transportation method in other ways, the game would be more like a highway: it goes in a certain direction, but you're free to divert when you want and you'll find yourself in vastly different places. But with freedom of choice comes the responsibility of consequence. Choice and consequence are also of great importance, but those will always be supporting the story of the players, instead of mocking them for their choices. For the players there are no wrong choices, unlike for their characters who might feel incredibly bad for choosing one over the other. Choices should also be meaningful whenever possible, so that the players actually feel as if they have agency in the world. It's no use presenting the players with a choice and making it seem relevant when it truth it has absolutely no impact on anything.

Coping with failure is also a significant thing in organic storytelling, as I mentioned on the linked blog. Stories aren't always victories, and making failures meaningful is as important as making victories meaningful. The players might many times be outnumbered, overwhelmed or otherwise have poor chances of victory, but the aim would be that these situations are directly consequence of the choice of the players. But even if they have no chances of defeating an encounter (whatever that really means in practice: it could be anything from knocking out enemies to escaping), the defeat of the players isn't something that ends the game. Instead, it advances the narrative just as a victory would, but in a different direction. Not having any preconceptions on the outcome of an encounter is important for a truly organic narrative. Let the story go where it does, and adapt accordingly.



That's it then. I believe this is the final phase of my diary of campaign creation, and at this point I'd likely go into putting everything down in order to start recruiting. But we'll see where that goes. I work slowly, and sometimes stuff just doesn't get done in any sort of timely fashion. But that's okay, in the meantime I can keep refining what I already have.

There's still a fair bit to talk about, but that's more dialogue than anything. If anyone has any questions, comments, ideas or criticism, feel free to share them, I do love talking about stuff, even if I tend to be a bit more verbose than is required. I'm pretty sure I've got enough writing for a small novel at this point.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this, and if I may be so bold, I do hope I managed to give a few ideas to someone out there in terms of how things can be done.

I, too, cannot for the life of me understand why proactive players are not more common in games both here and elsewhere. I mean, many people complain about railroading and lack of player agency, but when it comes down to deciding to which direction the narrative should be pushed, the majority of players (in my limited experience) just freezes and stops posting…

Rant aside, I’ve found that having just one proactive player is enough to keep things moving. The cynic in me says you don’t really need more; too many proactive players pushing towards different directions can be a GM nightmare. The experimentalist in me would like to play in a game where more PCs are proactive, but it hasn’t happened yet.

As for the “Five-man band” example, I personally don’t see a great need for striving for this type of party composition. I guess the original idea of “balanced party” (if I can use a D&D reference) is to have the spotlight shift from PC to PC, giving them all similar air-time. But, I think spotlight is something to be achieved via role-playing, and character skills don’t matter too much. I definitely like the character story-arc idea though! Maybe I steal it…

In relation to your “organic storytelling” idea, in my younger and more idealistic days I run parallel threads for different PCs; the threads slowly converged as the party got together. It was all very neat and natural-feeling and rewarding, but A TON of work for the GM (me!). So don’t do that! Parallel threads --> GM burnout (I’ve experienced another example since then )

I guess I could say more, but these massive posts are difficult to go through! Very interesting; though, I’d definitely be keeping an eye on this.

Quote:
Rant aside, I’ve found that having just one proactive player is enough to keep things moving.
I agree 100% with your rant. My last game had two good proactive people and I felt said to let it die. they had their hands full and couldn't move at all. My only concern is not that I have proactive people but have one take the lead and that the others fallow. The only person to take the lead was ignored by the others who waited for the DM (me) to tell them what to do and what to roll. It was a vary sad depressing game by the end; the game was a team effort and while two of them tried to hold it up they couldn't succeed as they were doing it as they were expecting help from the others.




 

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