Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

[JLV]

Oh, I wasn't critiquing your method -- in fact it looks like a pretty good one to me given the premise of your campaign (as you explained it just now); what I was basically saying is that in my games, information discovery often happens for both me and the players at the same time, based on their unsuspecting input in the form of their discussions and attempts to find patterns (that frequently don't really exist).

I realize that's probably way different than most people do it, but it's kind of the only way to handle a true "West Marches" style of sandbox campaign. So basically, I was just saying that I kind of let the players lead on what is known and unknown (and then build "secrets" off of their ideas), and then sit back and see where we go. I've literally had an innocent shoemaker wind up being a deep-dyed Moriarity-type villain because of the way the players interpreted a perfectly innocuous series of incidents. But hey, that was way fun! ;-)

[zot]

Originally Posted by JLV

Oh, I wasn't critiquing your method -- in fact it looks like a pretty good one to me given the premise of your campaign (as you explained it just now); what I was basically saying is that in my games, information discovery often happens for both me and the players at the same time, based on their unsuspecting input in the form of their discussions and attempts to find patterns (that frequently don't really exist).

I realize that's probably way different than most people do it, but it's kind of the only way to handle a true "West Marches" style of sandbox campaign. So basically, I was just saying that I kind of let the players lead on what is known and unknown (and then build "secrets" off of their ideas), and then sit back and see where we go. I've literally had an innocent shoemaker wind up being a deep-dyed Moriarity-type villain because of the way the players interpreted a perfectly innocuous series of incidents. But hey, that was way fun! ;-)

I made a simple system for divination, research, interviewing, interrogation, etc. that I'm using to build a story at the table pretty much like you describe. If a character succeeds at the discovery roll:

1. They get a short phrase that characterizes the discovery
2. The amount they succeeded by determines how many clarifying questions they can ask
3. Each clarifying question gets a 5-word answer (names, dates, etc. count as one word and articles don't count), where the answer will be helpful, worded as tightly as possible, and not cleverly worded to mislead

I use the questions they ask to guide me in creating the story at the table. The answers I come up with in response sometimes surprise me. I keep a log of the questions and answers.

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by zot

I made a simple system for divination, research, interviewing, interrogation, etc. that I'm using to build a story at the table pretty much like you describe. If a character succeeds at the discovery roll:

1. They get a short phrase that characterizes the discovery
2. The amount they succeeded by determines how many clarifying questions they can ask
3. Each clarifying question gets a 5-word answer (names, dates, etc. count as one word and articles don't count), where the answer will be helpful, worded as tightly as possible, and not cleverly worded to mislead

I use the questions they ask to guide me in creating the story at the table. The answers I come up with in response sometimes surprise me. I keep a log of the questions and answers.

Excellent for all the things the characters shouldn't be expected to know.

[Wayne]

By and large most people I've seen play (and that's not a huge sample) tend to take the classic actor approach.

How many personalities do we see John Wayne, Errol Flynn etc play? Only themselves, tweaked a little for the situation.

I see no problem with this approach, if you get a better actor (player) then they can stretch things a bit.

[JLV]

That's been my experience too. In my original group, back in the '80s, we had one really good "actor" type and a couple of purely "tank" types, and one good "curmudgeonly Wizard" type, plus one utility outfielder who, while not as good an actor as our actor was, still could drift between archetypes pretty easily. As a result, we had two soldiers who thought with their weapons, one grumpy Wizard type (sort of like Belgarath before there was a Belgarath), a guy who played a pretty good rogue, and the actor who could do any kind of character (elf, dwarf, nobleman, dragon, whatever) and really get into it.

They actually made a pretty good team for just about any contingency you could imagine!