[Pitfighter] SBP: the GM's role in resolution
Anders Gabrielsson:
Options in the quest log don't need to be available forever... or the situation when the players decide to go after them doesn't need to be the same.
"Right, so you travel to Idyllic Village to help with the bandits you heard about a month ago. When you get there the village is burned to the ground." (Removes 'Save Idyllic Village' from the quest log and adds 'Investigate the burning of Idyllic Village'.)
Callan S.:
Quote from: Anders Gabrielsson on January 12, 2012, 11:00:02 PM
Options in the quest log don't need to be available forever... or the situation when the players decide to go after them doesn't need to be the same.
"Right, so you travel to Idyllic Village to help with the bandits you heard about a month ago. When you get there the village is burned to the ground." (Removes 'Save Idyllic Village' from the quest log and adds 'Investigate the burning of Idyllic Village'.)
Sounds good! Though put a date on the quest when recorded, so the GM has some idea of how much game world time has passed once/if the players take it up again.
Anders Gabrielsson:
Quote from: Callan S. on January 12, 2012, 11:56:43 PM
Sounds good! Though put a date on the quest when recorded, so the GM has some idea of how much game world time has passed once/if the players take it up again.
Yes, I'd assume the GM would keep track of these things to have them mesh with whatever he's got going on behind the scenes.
DWeird:
There's one other technique - I'm playing in a game online right now where it's used succesfully.
Play we're talking about is a bit of the fill in the blanks variety, so why not extend that same thought to chargen?
The GM "owns" all of the characters, and "lends" some of them to the players as appropriate. The GM-created PC is basically an outline of a character that nevertheless has a motivation that points to the GM's plot (This is a fair and just general, he wants to win this war, but his forces are besieged and heavily outnumbered. Sam, what is this guy's name and what does he do?). Since the GM made the important bit of the character - the reason why he does things - he can then just railroad the character to the point where he want him and then "unload the passengers" into a free-play zone. What do the players do? Well, the characters so created are sketchy at start, and then get 'filled in' by players as time goes by.
This probably wouldn't be that fun in a party game, where after such a process a player would get *less* than one full character to play with, but it can totally rock when playing a wider faction, which we're doing now. The GM can "take away" characters he lent and zoom in to other ones (okay, so that was the general's plan! Lets see how things are going on the ground! Marksman, three troopers and a wounded sergeant, you're trying to hold your position when you hear the sound of enemy aircraft too near for comfort. What? Yes, you *do* have a Stinger-equivalent!), giving different viewpoints on the plot he crafted. This is significantly easier than making sure the same group of actual people is always where the most interesting stuff is happening, too.
David Berg:
I don't think any old Quest Log would help, but some of the specific stuff Gareth mentioned sounds excellent here. Activating and revealing what's on the GM's to-do list for you sounds very promising.
Letting list items pass you by because you didn't get to them in time sounds like a good result, but I worry that the process of supporting that will be tough on the GM. If you come up with something you really want the players to do, letting them do something else instead ruins the point of Story Before. I guess I could see a Trail of Cthulhu deal, where there are mandatory core scenes and optional supplemental scenes, and it's the optional scenes that must be weighed against each other, with some not being pursued.
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