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Professor Raven · 07-05-2010, 12:33 PM

Re: what to give people as pre-gens. That depends on the scenario. I rarely run any RPG with more than six characters, and for IN I try to have each character be a different choir/band and serve a different Superior if possible. There are always exceptions depending on the particular scenario. I make sure there is at least one character (and often two) that is a combat-heavy character who doesn't need a lot of thought or knowledge of the background for players who don't know much about it and may not especially want to learn. I also sometimes include the opposite, a character that is very steeped in the setting for players likely to appreciate it, and will often explicitly describe that character as being for players with knowledge of the setting when they are choosing their characters. With IN, you tend to get mostly people who haven't played it or rarely play it, with the occasional expert, so I generate PCs to correspond to those proportions.

As in most RPGs, a mix of skills/abilities is important, including some redundancy for those essential to the resolution of the scenario, in case a character isn't chosen by any player or is being played by someone who doesn't think to use that skill/ability for one reason or another. I try to give each character some ace-in-the-hole, an ability the others might not expect them to have (and yet makes sense), for surprises as the story progresses.

Try to keep the characters simple, so the player isn't overwhelmed by possibilities. At the same time, try to keep ability scores from getting so high that they can't fail. You want them to have to spend Essence to succeed at times, unless you're going to limit the amount of Essence they have in the first place. Nine Essence is a lot to use in a four hour time slot!

I generally have the PCs not know each other prior to the scenario, or know each other only slightly, since few things work as badly as characters that are supposed to know each other forever while the players don't know a thing about the character they aren't playing. On rare occasions, I'll have two characters who know each other well, but no more than that.

All characters have the same overarcing goal, but I try to make sure each also has at least one sub-goal (often related to their Superior) that is likely to conflict with at least one other member of the character group. It lends spice to the scenario without generating too much internal group argument. It should be something the character wants to do, but something that they could plausibly give up to preserve group unity if necessary.

I could write a small book on the subject.

07-05-2010, 12:33 PM	#8
Professor Raven MIB Join Date: Jun 2008	Re: A strange question Re: what to give people as pre-gens. That depends on the scenario. I rarely run any RPG with more than six characters, and for IN I try to have each character be a different choir/band and serve a different Superior if possible. There are always exceptions depending on the particular scenario. I make sure there is at least one character (and often two) that is a combat-heavy character who doesn't need a lot of thought or knowledge of the background for players who don't know much about it and may not especially want to learn. I also sometimes include the opposite, a character that is very steeped in the setting for players likely to appreciate it, and will often explicitly describe that character as being for players with knowledge of the setting when they are choosing their characters. With IN, you tend to get mostly people who haven't played it or rarely play it, with the occasional expert, so I generate PCs to correspond to those proportions. As in most RPGs, a mix of skills/abilities is important, including some redundancy for those essential to the resolution of the scenario, in case a character isn't chosen by any player or is being played by someone who doesn't think to use that skill/ability for one reason or another. I try to give each character some ace-in-the-hole, an ability the others might not expect them to have (and yet makes sense), for surprises as the story progresses. Try to keep the characters simple, so the player isn't overwhelmed by possibilities. At the same time, try to keep ability scores from getting so high that they can't fail. You want them to have to spend Essence to succeed at times, unless you're going to limit the amount of Essence they have in the first place. Nine Essence is a lot to use in a four hour time slot! I generally have the PCs not know each other prior to the scenario, or know each other only slightly, since few things work as badly as characters that are supposed to know each other forever while the players don't know a thing about the character they aren't playing. On rare occasions, I'll have two characters who know each other well, but no more than that. All characters have the same overarcing goal, but I try to make sure each also has at least one sub-goal (often related to their Superior) that is likely to conflict with at least one other member of the character group. It lends spice to the scenario without generating too much internal group argument. It should be something the character wants to do, but something that they could plausibly give up to preserve group unity if necessary. I could write a small book on the subject.