Individual vs Collective

When running campaigns, there is often a tension between individual character spotlight time, and the needs of a group to work together and accomplish the broader strokes of the plot. In the simple terms of a traditional game this tension often reflects the difficulty between one player dominating the focus of the GM while others sit idle, and all the players interacting and being involved (to a greater or lesser extent).

As a player I’m not a fan of sitting idle – I do enjoy watching others play, but if the periods of inactivity are too pronounced, then I’ll start thinking of things I’d rather be doing. As a consequence I try and avoid too much downtime for people who play in my games, while trying to balance this against the need to maintain an element of realism for individual characters.

In the two campaigns I’m currently running, I recently noted two, fairly extreme, completely divergent examples.

Rogue Trader
In this game the system actually proscribes the formation of the group. There is one character - a Rogue Trader - who is commander of the spaceship, and who holds a warrant to trade, plunder and profit. The other characters are the executive officers, specialists who each have unique functions to support these aims. The published adventures for Rogue Trader are an interesting mix of challenges which allow each of these characters to shine, while maintaining the overall structure – with the specified aim of all characters seeking to increase the Rogue Trader’s Profit (which they can use to obtain goods and services). It’s an odd mix of capitalism in space, crossed with Pirates of the Caribbean.

The game has gone very well so far – although it’s still early days (4 sessions including an intro adventure with pre-generated characters). The players seem to have embraced their unique roles and advocate, in character, for their individual preferences, effectively accepting the construct of the setup. They must manage their crew and ship, and mutiny remains an ever-present challenge (as the crew number 20,000 NPC’s, the executive officers are perceived as the collective authority – regardless of their individual differences). The play, thus far, may have been influenced by the very colourful nature of the setting (while a little clichéd the pre-written material has been a lot of fun) and their previous player relationships, having spent several months together playing my pulp version of Masks of Nyarlathotep, but it seems that there is a sustainable basis for a solid campaign arc with this arrangement.

Reverie
This is my own superhero campaign which has run for around 12 sessions. After having experienced setbacks I discussed previously in this genre, with divergent character play detracting from collective play in Canberra Mayhem, I had tried to structure a background which bonded the characters together through their superpowers, with the proviso that as the characters had limited recollection of the previous arrangements, they were effectively ‘different people’ now and thus free to take whatever action they wished. I also foreshadowed this, and allowed a degree of influence over the shape of this historical background through using active ‘flashback’ scenes for individuals.

While this game has been fun, it has highlighted the fact that few of the players were willing to sacrifice their individual autonomy to any significant extent in exchange for a collective arrangement. The characters sometimes united to fight common enemies, but this was often not an easy arrangement, and as soon as the danger has passed they return to their own individual concerns. This was most evident in the last session, where the players had agreed out-of-character before the game that they would spend some time in-character discussing their future arrangements. Accordingly, I made sure that there were no major threats to detract from this dicusssion, and no urgent matters which would require the group to split up.

However, what eventuated was a series of unfortunate events which led one character to kill another, and two others to travel overseas. While dramatic, and perhaps appropriate to the style of the game, it seems likey that further play will be fragmentary and continue to involve a significant degree of player downtime.

Conclusions
Obviously two instances do not make a rule – but what I conclude from these examples, is that the balance between individual and group play should ideally be established early, and transparently, as attempting to introduce it later is likely to cause friction between the players perception of the character as an individual, and their willingness to sacrifice a degree of autonomy for the collective.

Equally, it's possible that some players simply prefer a specific style of interaction with a game, and you must carefully consider this when forming a group, or when having having initial discussions about the shape and arranagments of a campaign.

The Evolution of Superheroes

I’ve been a little quiet here of late, mostly due to venting my thoughts about gaming on Australian roleplaying boards in the great “system vs systemless ‘con game debate” that I seem to become enmeshed in annually. I’m not sure there’s much point in posting here about it, as I doubt folks reading this blog will care overly much about the issue.

Instead, I thought I’d document my process of setting up Reverie, a Superhero game I’ve now run a few sessions of, as an example of my current thinking about campaigns.

By way of introduction, I’ve been running superhero games on and off for a while now, but usually as short run games. My Council of Champions ‘con outings have been a lot of fun over the years – I designed a cast of powerful, famous, established superheroes with fairly complex relationships, and then let each group tackle the villanous challenge in their own ways, in as much of a sandbox style as possible. At the time these games represented what I thought were the best element of ‘con gaming. The ability to play complex characters, each with sufficient drama (incorporating both comedy and tragedy) to provide a satisfying interactions with the other PC’s and goals to drive them, as well as a powerful array of superpowers and the opportunity to devise unique and individual solutions to each challenge the game threw up.

Nowadays I see this style of character establishment as overly detailed and prescriptive – too brittle to be fit for purpose in a ‘con environment where I want to achieve 100% player activation. There is a danger the players feel they are being dictated to, and don’t ‘buy in’ sufficiently into the game space, or feel overwhelmed or confused by the complexity of the back-story. But, it was a useful exploration, and probably rates as the most consistently successful series of ‘con games I’ve run.

Next I ran ‘Potential’ a 3 part mini-series featuring a group of troubled youths who are experimented on whilst in juvenile detention, and develop superpowers. There were a lot of elements I was fairly proud of in this game, but it reinforced to me that a good origins story, which reveals meaning and purpose to seemingly random things like the development of superpowers, can really add to the depth of a game. I also borrowed an idea from Morgue, surveying the players about the kind of powers they wanted their characters to develop – without being specific – so I could reveal the powers during game-play. Ultimately, however, the anchors holding the group together were probably not sufficient to hold together the diverse and socially troubled kids the players developed meaning the 3 session limit was probably necessary without overly contriving the setup.

Then, in Australia I ran a year-long supers campaign ‘Mayhem’ using the M&M Paragons setup, with a lot of my own material. Again I surveyed for powers, but I also gave the players a second survey about the style of game they wanted to play, the level of system crunch, and a list of elements which they rated as either liking or disliking (robots, aliens, time-travel, realism etc.) This time I also designed a cohesive element to bind the players together more thoroughly, tied to the plot.

While this did prove more successful in providing a basis for the group to work together, the players (who did not really know each other before the game) designed characters whose individual plot interests often superseded the group action, meaning the characters frequently split, and gameplay suffered some pacing issues as I tried to juggle equal screen-time, and cater to individual stories. The crunch level of the system also proved challenging over a longer span game, as some players strongly engaged with the system, while others actively disliked it. I also tried casting a player as a supervillain – the idea was that the player wouldn’t go to most games but would be kept appraised of key plot elements remotely, send me what they wanted their character to do in response, and show up to key sessions for epic battles as appropriate. In practise however, the style of the game was a lot less over-the-top than I’d envisaged, and the supervillain player ended up playing most sessions, adding to the diversity of the game, but also adding to the load of individual scenes.

After Kapcon this year, and the enjoyable experience of running the 4th instalment of my Council of Champions game I thought I’d give it another shot. With Reverie I sent the two surveys I’d used previously (with some editing) and included a third to establish some basic character details which I’d use to include the initial plot.

As with Mayhem I wanted to create a sandbox experience, so the characters could choose almost any course of action, and be ready to plug an appropriate scene or encounter. But I also used the origins story to bring the group together in a way that would lead them to work together. Fortunately, this group was much more willing to embrace the group dynamic, probably due to their fairly extensive roleplaying experience. The group has also really engaged with making the characters their own – adding detail and even creating fictional Facebook accounts to interact outside the game space. I feel very privileged to have players willing to make that effort.

I've ditched M&M in favour of BASH Ultimate Edition - BASH does a good job of providing a simplified superhero system, but the math stemming from combat is still undersirable - it's probably on a par with the Difficult Check damage calculation in M&M, but I'd still like an even better fit...

In Reverie the origins story forms a major part of the plot, and I’ve tried to create something complex enough that the players will be interested to investigate and speculate about, but hopefully not so convoluted they give up (it’s a delicate balance). To do this I’ve used elements of the players own creation, balanced against a range of day-to-day concerns for the characters, and sufficient immediate danger to spur super-heroics. Because of the skill of the players, this is often more like conducting the game, than facilitating it – each instrument knows its part and adds to the overall harmony seamlessly.

What remains to be seen is how the game will evolve, because ultimately, once the detail of the origins story is laid bare, the players will need to take a more active ownership of the game. I only hope the second phase will be as enjoyable as the first phase has been.

State of Play

What have I been up to? Here's a quick update:

Running: Masks of Nyarlathotep – Pulp Edition (Call of Cthulhu/BRP)
This campaign just reached the half way stage after 8 sessions and it’s been a blast. The fate and fortune points system I introduced have really worked well. The fortune points (which allow skill re-rolls) allow the players to really make sure they have all the leads they need, and add a new and interesting tactical dimension to Cthulhu combat, while still not spoiling the simple and straightforward vibe that’s the hallmark of BRP rules. Fate points have let the characters tackle the campaign head-on and really embrace a pulp style of play, which I think is necessary for such an old-school campaign. So far I think I’ve claimed at least 6 fate points, which would otherwise be 6 dead characters. I’ve also found the BRP rules I’ve added to Cthulhu (rumoured to be part of the next edition) have further empowered the players, while also adding some neat narrative details. I’m looking forward to seeing how the next half of the campaign plays out!

Running: Reverie (BASH Ultimate Edition)
This supers mini-series is in its infancy, but the first episode was huge fun, and I’m confident in sustaining this level of enjoyment. I find running supers games both fun and rewarding, and I’ve honed my style of origins stories to a good level which makes adding a strong character focus an implicit element of the game. I’ve developed quite a lot of plot for the game, but have been careful to thread this right through character backgrounds and will work hard to keep the focus on character driven drama which the group seems to enjoy. The stakes for me are higher with this game because it features a lot more of my own ideas then the pre-generated scenarios I usually run, so I usually feel both more nervous beforehand, and feel a greater sense of reward if things go well.

Playing: Gotham High (PDQ)
This has been an interesting experience and I took it on to try something different. I’m not a huge fan of the setting or system, but developing the characters has been entertaining, and the other players have been great fun.

Not Mentioned: I’ve temporarily halted running Kingsport Tales to focus on running Masks in a streamlined way. I’d really like to get back to Kingsport Tales soon, but I’m also enjoying the change of pace in Masks, so I guess it’s a case of not having cake and being able to eat it too. I also have suspended my involvement in the long-running D&D 4e campaign I had been playing due to ‘creative differences’ with the GM.

Looking Ahead: I’d like to run games at both Confusion and Fright Night, although so far I’m not sure what I’ll choose to run. Rogue Trader is also on my list of games I’d like to try running.