Settings
I’m a week behind on Game WISH, so let’s tackle two at once.
The last but one was a plaintive question about keeping the mood of the game constant, without the interruptions of puns and humor and geek talk. Myself, I don’t think that’s entirely possible, but I do think some strategies bear consideration:
- Ritual. Allow some time at the beginning of the session for chatter, and then have a signal to stop it—be it the GM putting up the GM screen (or putting on the GM hat), the music starting on the CD player, the summary of last time, or whatever. Likewise, develop rituals for breaks. They don’t have to be anything drawn-out or weird; just something that demarcates game time from non-game time.
- Music. Don’t just put on whatever’s handy. Make it fit what’s going on.
- Visual aids. It’s vastly easier to stay in character with some images to fit the character into. It’s not hard to find a pile of old National Geographics to cull pictures from.
What to do about persistent offenders? A gentle chide in-game sometimes does it. Last night our GM quashed us by making our cleric keel over from the heat. Worked. We needed him, so we shut up.
(Oh. Yes, in fact, the situation with my gaming group is slowly resolving itself, and it looks as if I will not have to leave, at least short-term. I’m not placing any bets on the long term, but not for lack of optimism. For future reference, though: it is a bad idea to try to blackmail one’s gaming group into a retcon by laying out a scenario in which your character sics assassins on the rest of the party. Poor form, don’t you know. Tends to irk other players, especially irascible ones—like, say, me—who get very fond of long-playing characters. GMs have a license to kill PCs. PCs don’t, at least not in a basically good-leaning campaign.)
This week’s question is about initial character development: how much do I do, and how do I do it?
Depends. For a one-off, I’ll play the numbers like any munchkin, or try some combination I’d not risk in a campaign. Background? Why bother? All you need is a gimmick. I don’t think that’s the scenario envisioned by the question, though, so let’s move on.
I notice a difference in the amount of detail I pour into a character’s background that I think depends on how well-established the campaign is and how much I know about the campaign and the other characters in it. If I know exactly how I’m slotting a character into a long-running campaign (for example, if I’m replacing a character who died), I will be quite concrete and specific about both personality and (at least recent) history.
The danger here, of course, is making a character too narrow to live with or too boxed-in to grow. The more situational the character’s motivation, the greater danger. A revenge motive that fits with a campaign’s immediate goal is fine, but it’s wise to leave the character a trap door in case revenge is out of reach—or attained.
For a brand-new campaign, I’m more willing to leave holes to be filled in later as inspiration (or whatever) strikes. I’m also more willing to play wet-behind-the-ears characters, with no background to speak of.
I’m just joining a long-running Al-Qadim PBeM, and the character creation process is somewhere in-between. I know the world well, but I know nothing about the campaign and very little about the other characters. So Farangis has a pretty well-sketched-out history, but I’ve left leeway. I know who her children are and what they’re doing, for example, but I don’t know anything about her siblings except that she has some. If it becomes important, I will improvise; otherwise, I’ll let the GM surprise me.
I’ve never used quizzes or questions to flesh out my characters; I’d rather see such development happen during play. I don’t have any positive objection to the notion; might even be useful. Again, though, I don’t want to have to box in a character before I’ve played him/her a while. Ideas do change.
Powered by FireStats