jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (01/09/86)
[...] All this talk about multiple characters leads me to wonder a bit about role-playing styles out there in Netland. A lot of what people have been saying is very different from my experience in role-playing. Every campaign I have been in has been "Personal" in that scenarios arose from who the characters were. Example 1: In our most recent Champions session, the group was framed on a murder rap by an old enemy out for vengeance. The enemy made use of known habits of the characters. Example 2: Our most recent Justice Inc. session was aimed at covering our tracks after an industrial espionage attempt went bad. Example 3: Our most recent Fantasy Hero session saw my character trying to arrange the construction of a large number of crossbows in secret, preparing for a bid to become the power behind the local throne. These scenarios simply could not happen to people "off the steet". They grew out of the personalities of the characters and the things that have happened in the past. In the campaign I GM, I usually try to aim each session at the personality/life/problems of a single character so that the character has a chance to shine and develop. This doesn't mean that other characters are left out in the cold; it just means that the scenario is very personal to at least one member of the party. On the other hand, much of discussion about multiple characters seems to imply that many RPGs run on a more "generic" basis. The classic example is a published dungeon module: it describes a scenario that any party could walk through. The players may impress their personalities on the proceedings during the course of play, but the initial set-up is impersonal. I infer that people who like to play multiple characters all play in Generic campaigns. For example, they say things like, "What if one of your players dies?" In a personal campaign, player characters have a really hard time dying. The GM has _plans_ for your character; (s)he doesn't want to see the character die any more than you do. If my power-behind-the-throne Fantasy Hero character died, for example, everything that the GM has been building towards would go up in smoke. I may be captured by enemies, discredited, wounded, kidnapped, incapacitated, bewitched, transformed, and so on, but the Gods of Fate are not going to let me off with something as easy as death. If I jumped into an active volcano, I would be saved by a Duke of Chaos to be his personal slave and the rest of our group would have to mount a major quest to get me back, but I would not die. (I would likely create a new character to be part of the questing group until my original character was rescued.) As a GM, I have enough trouble coming up with personalized adventures for groups of only four player characters. Having people play more than one character just makes it that much harder to give everyone a fair shake. Furthermore, we can argue whether a particular player is able to give equal treatment to multiple characters, but it is impossible to conceive that both the player AND the GM will be able to give multiple characters equal consideration. The GM will find one character more interesting than the other and the discrepancy will show. This is true, even when every player has only one character. The GM will find some characters easier to use as starting points for adventure and will have to work hard to keep the others involved. So I suppose my question is, am I right? Are multiple character campaigns Generic to a large extent? Are most campaigns Generic? Which RPG systems tend towards Generic campaigns, and which encourage Personal ones? What style do people prefer? If people send answers to me, I can make a summary, but people may also prefer to discuss this on the open Net. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
shigeta@reed.UUCP (Ron Shigeta) (01/11/86)
Sender:Ron shigeta
I for one would like to say that I had many characters which were deeply
personal as opposed to genereic, but for me and my gaming group, there is
never enough time together to play a personality to a fleshy satisfaction.
(I think my freinds and I might be a little slow on the charcter development(
We have never been afraid to die - actually I will say - we have never been
afraid to KILL those too stubborn to live, or even those who merely happened
to be in the wrong place at the wrong time-that's the game to me.
Of course this leads to problems. The last time I played, the party was
looking out over an eighteen inch ledge into oblivion while around eighty
soldiers and three very mean looking guys with red robes thought about what they could drop on us through their sparking blue wall of weirdo energy. With me
was a dwarf (with eighteen henchmen). I ended up teleporting to the top of the
cliff, killing 20 men with some horrible magic, with one other fellow, a thief
who did as well as I. There were almost thrity peolple- including non-player
characters- in the party! They were all so scared of dying that they refused a
confrontation! After seeing all my effort go to waste (there was a troop of
500 outiside the tunnel) I went over to the other side with a couple of price-
less artifacts which could have unified the men and the elves of the western
world.
For all the chaotic screaming and shouting I would call that a typical
incident of occasional roleplayers taking out their stock personalities (not
too divergeant from their own) and doing what comes natural. This opposed to
taking a distinct and fleshed-out personality and playing it contrary to the
instincts of your OWN personality or even contrary to the instincts of survival. If I had it all to do over again, I would surely enjoy a less deadly
campaign where I could get some interesting characters with a history that I've
played out myself, not just imagined in my head. But, this is a lot more work,
and I doubt I'll ever have that much time again. This is, I feel the prime
motive for so much generic playing. It's so much easier when it's a game you
can tear down and set up like scrabble or something.
Anyway, I hope you PERSONAL role players have the experiances you work
for, they are the name of the role playing games. oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (01/11/86)
<>
Regarding the question of multiple PCs/RPer and generic scenarios, this is
how my experiences went:
DM #1) He was the kind of DM who wouldn't let you do things like roll your
own damage. The scenarios were all generic, but he made them up
on his own, with some being quite involved and interesting (the
tesseract (sp?- it's not in my dictionary) room comes to mind).
The only personalized portions had to do with actions and events
*within* those scenarios. He only let us have a single PC, but the
more experienced players (2 of 'em) could also run one or two
henchpersons or NPCs. However, one obnoxious guy (the type who
insisted on getting all the magic items, and then made a big deal
about how great he was for letting you borrow them) ended up playing
his henchman as PCs. I quit this group when I found another.
DM #2) This was actually a single group a players (4), of which two people
traded off DMing periodically. We each ran two players, and the
scenarios would generally start off generically, but sooner or later
a character-related quest or sub-scenario would pop up. It was a
lot more fun than playing with the previous group, I thought. The
only problem with multiple characters was that occasionally, a
cleric would have to do some extra soul-searching when deciding who
to heal. It almost invariably was done without undue favoritism.
After all, the rest of the PCs would get angry with both the cleric
*and* her companion if that kind of stuff went on.
So in my experiences, it has been quite opposite of what you're theorizing.
I think it has more to do with the players, though, then the mode of playing.
- Joel ({allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster)purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) (01/12/86)
Well, I haven't played for years (not much at all in fact) and have never been a DM, but I've been around the game A LOT since coming to college (AD&D that is) and found this particular topic interesting. The campaign that I played in for awhile included 7 players, each with one character. All had pretty distinct personalities, although some were more interesting than others. We had a religious zealot cleric, a spastic bloodthirsty cleric, an egocentric obnoxious thief (who loved to cook) a basically pacifistic druid, a paranoid magician, a magician who was a sex-fiend, and a fighter, who actually never developed much personality at all. There were all kind of fun quirks, like the fact that the one cleric was so stupid that he had a spear that was more intelligent than he was, and so ugly that the fighter's dog had a higher charisma. And the campaigns were almost always molded around what the charaters were like and what they had done previously. Villians reoccured occasionally, gods that were offended continued to strike back, etc. Character weaknesses were played on sometimes, although I don't think that there was ever an adventure that was more directed towards one character than the others, except in the cases where one of the characters had offended some demon, god, or other villian (usually this was Flash the thief) and the rest of us got caught up in the fray. Having never really played a "generic" game, I can't compare. But I do know that I prefered the campaigns that especially played on the characters personalities rather than "hack and slay" or "Monty Hall". And as for having more than one character, we had one player who, for awhile, played both his Druid (Coer) and his character's wife (Denai). Coer had a lot more personality than Denai and eventually she remained in one city to start a religion, which we figured was better than killing her off. Ironically enough, our fighter's name was "Generic". ;-) Share and enjoy, elizabeth g. purtell (Lady Godiva)
dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Chet Dobro) (01/21/86)
> by: Jim Gardener one point at a time... > On the other hand, much of discussion about multiple characters > seems to imply that many RPGs run on a more "generic" basis. The > classic example is a published dungeon module: it describes a > scenario that any party could walk through. The players may > impress their personalities on the proceedings during the course > of play, but the initial set-up is impersonal. The world should not be taylored (by the GM) to fit the player(s). The players should take the world and make their mark in it. Give them (the players) something to weork with, but [except in specail cases] don't create a world to fit the players. That takes the fun away from them if they don't have to fight (figurativly speaking) to fit in. > > I infer that people who like to play multiple characters all play > in Generic campaigns. For example, they say things like, "What if > one of your players dies?" see the preceding umpteen postings. > In a personal campaign, player characters > have a really hard time dying. The GM has _plans_ for your character; > (s)he doesn't want to see the character die any more than you do. If > my power-behind-the-throne Fantasy Hero character died, for example, > everything that the GM has been building towards would go up in smoke. > I may be captured by enemies, discredited, wounded, kidnapped, > incapacitated, bewitched, transformed, and so on, but the Gods of > Fate are not going to let me off with something as easy as death. > If I jumped into an active volcano, I would be saved by a Duke of > Chaos to be his personal slave and the rest of our group would have > to mount a major quest to get me back, but I would not die. (I would > likely create a new character to be part of the questing group until > my original character was rescued.) To cross genres "How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?" The point is, characters are going to die. That is part of the fun of frp. The gods can't always intervene (and *shouldn't*). You must cherish you character(s), tyring to preserve their life. It is not up to the GM to keep your character alive [the singular will be used for convience only], it is up to you. That is the challenge. > As a GM, I have enough trouble coming up with personalized adventures > for groups of only four player characters. Having people play more > than one character just makes it that much harder to give everyone > a fair shake. Furthermore, we can argue whether a particular player > is able to give equal treatment to multiple characters, but it is > impossible to conceive that both the player AND the GM will be able > to give multiple characters equal consideration. The GM will find > one character more interesting than the other and the discrepancy > will show. This is true, even when every player has only one character. > The GM will find some characters easier to use as starting points for > adventure and will have to work hard to keep the others involved. Same point. The DM shouldn't make his/her world fit the characters [again, except for specific cases]. The player have the obligation to make their own nitches; to taylor the world to them, not have it taylored. > So I suppose my question is, am I right? Are multiple character > campaigns Generic to a large extent? Are most campaigns Generic? By generic, I assume you mean un-specific to characters. All should start out *mostly* independent of characters, and grow as the character breathes life and adventure into it. > Which RPG systems tend towards Generic campaigns, and which encourage > Personal ones? Any system has the potential to go into detail... Insert here general muck-raking about how bad points of AD&D... The choice (Personal/Generic) is not dependant upon the game system, *NOR* upon the DM, it is strictly the right/priviledge/obligation of the PC. What style do people prefer? This net is called fantasy ROLE PLAYING. The point of which is to play a role. If the characters go along as "random fighter" and "misc. cleric" in "unremarkable world", then this is not what they are doing. DM's - creat a world that exists in its own right! PC's - take said world and make it YOURS! Well, now that that is through with, are there any other crisis I can solve **[ :-) ]** Humbly, Gryphon.
jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (01/23/86)
[...] A while ago I brought up the question of generic vs. personal scenarios. It doesn't surprise me that some people prefer one style to another, and far be it from me to start a feud out of something that started just out of curiosity. Nevertheless, I want to reply to some of the things that Chet Dobro says below, because I think he misunderstood some of the things I said. In article <168@ulowell.UUCP> dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Chet Dobro) writes: >The world should not be taylored (by the GM) to fit the player(s). >The players should take the world and make their mark in it. >Give them (the players) something to weork with, but [except in specail >cases] don't create a world to fit the players. That takes the fun away from >them if they don't have to fight (figurativly speaking) to fit in. No one says the characters get the world on a platter. As a matter of fact, they get the reverse. They begin their adventures in a world that is indifferent to them, but everything they do has repercussions. Mistakes come back to haunt them, not just in terms of injuries or what not, but vendettas, broken friendships, lost opportunities, and so on. The GM keeps introducing new material, of course, but never loses sight of the old. >To cross genres "How we deal with death is at least as important as how we >deal with life, wouldn't you say?" >The point is, characters are going to die. That is part of the fun of frp. >The gods can't always intervene (and *shouldn't*). You must cherish you >character(s), tyring to preserve their life. It is not up to the GM to keep >your character alive [the singular will be used for convience only], >it is up to you. That is the challenge. Characters can still die in a personal campaign. In particular, NPC's can prove very fragile. Recently, we had a superhero lose his wife, after a year and a half playing time and a great deal of personal interaction. I think the experience was more traumatic for the group than losing a player character would have been. We've lost player characters before, and the next week the same player is back with someone new. When a long-time NPC dies, she is gone. She will never return and there will never be anyone like her again. And of course, if the players reach the point where they are depending on the GM to save their lives, something has gone seriously wrong with the game. The GM should take corrective action somehow (a warning shot at an NPC or serious injury). But as a GM, I have far worse fates in store for my characters than mere death. When a player character dies, the player gets someone new to play. When a player character gets into trouble, or is seriously injured, or suffers some other change in his/her status, the player must struggle against greater odds to win. THAT'S more interesting and more satisfying. Example: in a superhero campaign, the players screwed up and were beaten by the bad guys. The GM could have killed us all, but he didn't -- he just took away our powers, then advertised that we weren't super any more. Without any powers, we had to take on old foes who took advantage of the situation, we had to go into hiding, and eventually had to take on the bad guys to get our powers back. That gave us three months of great gaming, and it felt tremendous when we finally squeaked through. If we had just died, we'd be a bunch of new superheroes the next week and again able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I asked the question: >> Which RPG systems tend towards Generic campaigns, and which encourage >> Personal ones? Chet replied: >Any system has the potential to go into detail... >Insert here general muck-raking about how bad points of AD&D... >The choice (Personal/Generic) is not dependant upon the game system, >*NOR* upon the DM, it is strictly the right/priviledge/obligation of the PC. Yes, any system has the ability to do most things, but some encourage one style of play and some encourage the other. For example, in the Hero Game System, players create their characters with Disadvantages, personal or external influences that make life harder. One of the most important disadvantages for this discussion is being Hunted. A character is Hunted by a person or group of people, usually because of something that happened before the game started. In theory, the GM rolls dice before each gaming session and if the roll is below a certain number, the session should include an appearance of the Hunting Party. (This does not necessarily mean a full assault, but it does mean that the Hunters show up and get in the way, or do something nasty behind the scenes.) Clearly, this sets the game on a fairly personal basis. The system requires the GM to build in factors specific to a character. The GM is free to ignore this if (s)he wants, but game balance is destroyed is character disadvantages are not true disadvantages. Therefore, I would say that the Hero System leans towards the Personal style of campaigning. Because AD&D has such a wealth of Generic modules, I would suggest that most D&D campaigns lean towards the Generic, although this may not be true of many groups. And that's really what started the question when I asked it in the first place. How many GMs run Personal campaigns? How many GMs run Generic ones? How many GMs work at taking a middle road? What do people prefer? Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo