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sgtcallistan · 07-20-2019, 07:48 AM

When modules stopped dictating how we played (quite a long time now), we've agreed upon a style of play for all of our games:

The game world will have people, places, events etc. which we can be involved in or not.

Not being involved = boredom, so players choose to interfere, or play along due to friendships, duties, personal reasons of their characters.

A shared cultural imperative or professional code of behaviour helps here.

An interesting trick we've tried for new or re-entering players was to have them play a minor villain or encounter character (trick is that they have useful knowledge or skills), so the player can learn the mood, style and then either modify or whole-cloth a character based on experience.

We had one who was met a number of times as a calm and careful pirate-captain who had impressed his opponents, but who naturally had several people who hated him.

Through deciding to undertake to rites of adulthood again, and facing trials of his moral worth and courage, he re-won ownership to his ship, his remaining stock of valuables, and a new name.

There may be challenges ahead, but the character is a fully-trusted member of the party.

All of this was not in the GM's original campaign, which went on un-interfered-with, resulting in a serious problem for us when we get back.

The other assumption agreed upon: the bad guys won't wait for us to interfere in their plans. ;)

07-20-2019, 07:48 AM	#10
sgtcallistan Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Chatham, Kent, England	Re: The "B" Campaign When modules stopped dictating how we played (quite a long time now), we've agreed upon a style of play for all of our games: The game world will have people, places, events etc. which we can be involved in or not. Not being involved = boredom, so players choose to interfere, or play along due to friendships, duties, personal reasons of their characters. A shared cultural imperative or professional code of behaviour helps here. An interesting trick we've tried for new or re-entering players was to have them play a minor villain or encounter character (trick is that they have useful knowledge or skills), so the player can learn the mood, style and then either modify or whole-cloth a character based on experience. We had one who was met a number of times as a calm and careful pirate-captain who had impressed his opponents, but who naturally had several people who hated him. Through deciding to undertake to rites of adulthood again, and facing trials of his moral worth and courage, he re-won ownership to his ship, his remaining stock of valuables, and a new name. There may be challenges ahead, but the character is a fully-trusted member of the party. All of this was not in the GM's original campaign, which went on un-interfered-with, resulting in a serious problem for us when we get back. The other assumption agreed upon: the bad guys won't wait for us to interfere in their plans. ;)