Creating a Community
Paul Czege:
6 character deaths? In how many sessions? I'm not sure I could render appropriate significance to six individual PC deaths. (Are there even six deaths in The Godfather?)
Okay...one additional piece of advice. There is no magic bullet technique. Just rendering appropriate significance to character deaths isn't going to solve your play issues. The true solution is to change the way you're thinking about your responsibilities as a GM. (And rendering appropriate significance to player character deaths is just one part of that.) Don't ever think it's your job to manage the reality of the world, or "what the NPC would do," or the consequences that should logically come from a character's actions (however "sloppy" they are). Your job is operate at a much higher level than that. Your job is to operate at the social level of collaborative play around a theme. Think first about drama and theme, what should happen that treats the player character as significant and delivers great drama, and then secondarily you figure out how it makes sense (logically, or whatever) for that to happen. If you can get the social dynamic of your group to where everyone is thinking about drama, and everyone trusts that you, the GM, and the rules aren't going to betray dramatic choices by withholding significance from the outcomes, it'll be awesome.
Paul
Reithan:
Quote from: Paul Czege on January 24, 2008, 01:31:03 PM
6 character deaths? In how many sessions? I'm not sure I could render appropriate significance to six individual PC deaths. (Are there even six deaths in The Godfather?)
We've been playing for a bit over a year now. We took one small break in the middle and generally play about once every 2 weeks. I think we're somewhere around 36 sessions in? Not counting individualized 'side sessions' I've run with a few characters. If you don't count the "I just wanna swap characters" deaths, then it's only 4, not 6. And if you don't count the person who just came in and basically just TRIED to get killed cuz she wasn't into it, then it's only 3. 3 deaths in almost 40 sessions over the course of over a year of play isn't horrible, imo. Not to mention the plant was pretty much doomed to die from the beginning and was A-okay with that outcome. So, if you don't count that one...then 2. 2 character deaths.
Quote from: Paul Czege on January 24, 2008, 01:31:03 PM
Okay...one additional piece of advice. There is no magic bullet technique. Just rendering appropriate significance to character deaths isn't going to solve your play issues. The true solution is to change the way you're thinking about your responsibilities as a GM. (And rendering appropriate significance to player character deaths is just one part of that.) Don't ever think it's your job to manage the reality of the world, or "what the NPC would do," or the consequences that should logically come from a character's actions (however "sloppy" they are). Your job is operate at a much higher level than that. Your job is to operate at the social level of collaborative play around a theme. Think first about drama and theme, what should happen that treats the player character as significant and delivers great drama, and then secondarily you figure out how it makes sense (logically, or whatever) for that to happen. If you can get the social dynamic of your group to where everyone is thinking about drama, and everyone trusts that you, the GM, and the rules aren't going to betray dramatic choices by withholding significance from the outcomes, it'll be awesome.
I have been thinking more in that direction lately, which is where the stuff such as the recent duel and vendetta came in, as well as a couple other things I hadn't mentioned. Basically, I started looking for sources to draw inspiration from and my best source so far has been "The Dresden Files" which ran on Sci-Fi channel. There's also a book series that was based on I'd love to get my hands on.
I think, though, you'd cleared away a lot of the fog over this idea I've been poking at. Thank you muchly.
Paul Czege:
You're welcome. Good luck.
Paul
Reithan:
Quote from: Reithan on January 24, 2008, 09:50:28 AM
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on January 24, 2008, 09:31:45 AM
I understand your frustration and know it from first hand experience, but I think we can only do one of two things in this thread: Explain the Big Model, or talk about strategies to improve your play experience. Both at the same time simply will not work out.
Agreed, in that we can't do both at once, though, imo, we can still do both in this thread - just not simultaneously.
Well, as we seem to have drawn to a close on the first bit, what about discussing this bit of this now?
Unless there's more open to the first bit I overlooking here - we have seemed to cover a LOT of ground very quickly, so it's likely that I am overlooking something.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Yeah, better give this a little time to sink. Erm, also, what Paul said!
- Frank
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page