1/21/09 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place
There was some stuff I intended to do in the very first scenario, in terms of involving the PCs more heavily in their environment. It wound up being hard to do this in a way I liked, for the same reason I didn't do it pre-play: the
players don't care yet, so making the
characters care is pure metagaming. Fine in other games, but not here.
What's needed is opportunity, opportunity, and more opportunity. I've known that all along, but I haven't been focusing on it. In this session, I finally focused on opportunity for setting investment, and it paid off big time.
"Life Goal, Path, Destination" -> "Life Goal, Mission, Next Step"During character creation, 17 sessions and 11 months ago, I had the players define Life Goals and Paths, with Destinations intended to follow once play created some context. The Life Goals and Paths were meant to provide the GM with some info about what kinds of fictional developments the players would find rewarding. They came up with:
John - Life Goal: protect men from evil - Path of Power
Dan - Life Goal: achieve political power - Path of Power
Merlin - Life Goal: become a feared chieftain - Path of Renown
I thought about these when formulating my pyramid of Secrets, but didn't refer to them much between sessions, and never when constructing scenarios. "Get more powerful" just kinda comes with the territory of earning points to boost your skills, earning money to buy armor, and acquiring magical secrets; and "get famous" comes with saving towns and reporting it to the empire.
One thing I noticed, though, over the course of play, was that the players had trouble remembering what they'd accomplished. Some of the "rewards" hadn't been that rewarding, and other rewards provided opportunities that the players had missed because they didn't have their "eyes on the prize".
So, at the beginning of this session, we discussed long-term, setting-based rewards. I guided it with an eye toward (a) getting info I could use for prep and (b) forming a list of reminders I could wave at the players whenever they had "what do we do next?" conferences. This took a while. Dan started out with a goal of "being that guy who's instantly feared when he walks into a room", and we had to flesh that out a bit so I could figure out how that might come to be. John wanted to be a vizier, so we had to make sure he'd still be an adventurer at the same time. Eventually we came up with:
John - Life Goal: Become trusted expert adviser to powerful ruler, who values his unique (magic-related) skills and supports him in bettering them
Dan - Life Goal: Become very famous, with a reputation as both badass and dangerous -- feared by evildoers and looked up to by others
Merlin - Life Goal: Lead a popular uprising to replace some part of the existing power structure
It was interesting to see how much these had changed since play began. I'll need to remind myself to check for updates at some point... The next step was to ask the players about their current missions. How are you working toward being connected, famous, and revolt-fomenting?
John - Mission: Meet barons
Dan - Mission: Spread tales of brave deeds
Merlin - Mission: Forge connections with the downtrodden
Finally, I had them announce their next steps, given the PCs' circumstances at the current moment of play.
John - Next Step: Meet local lord
Dan - Next Step: Do next brave thing
Merlin - Next Step: Meet the families of the girls we rescued
This was more or less what we'd been doing all along, but the fact that the players clarified why and which parts they cared about produced tangible results in the following session (see below).
At the end of the session, I had them update their Next Steps. Dan's "do next brave thing" was unchanged, John's "get in good w/ Seacrest" was a logical follow-up to having met local noble Lord Seacrest, but Merlin totally floundered. He talked about still being in the phase of just meeting folks and making a name for himself, getting me worried about how much initiative he's going to throw at his goals. Fortunately, John had plenty of ideas, and Merlin latched onto a few, which I wrote down: "find Earl Duyker's enemies, uncover local power structure including unofficial village leaders."
Contextual RewardsI think this is the "Positioning" Character Component according to Forge theory, but I'm not sure. Anyway:
As we began playing, I asked everyone whether they wanted to play through their interactions in the town they'd just come to, or simply list off what bases they'd cover and jump ahead to their departure two days later. John announced that he'd rather jump into "the missions", and went on to say that in general he's "not into the roleplaying and interactions part". So I started summarizing their reception in town, and how it turned out one of the girls they'd rescued was the daughter of a local noble, and suddenly John launched right into cordial speech to the lady. We then proceeded to have a number of fun, immersive scenes in the village, as the players forged the beginnings of various friendships an enmities with some locals.
I blame the preceding conversation about Goals. It reminded me what facets of the situation to play up, and it reminded them to integrate my leads with their goals.
Rewards for Color ContributionsMany of these were actually the players roleplaying their characters' personal goals, specifically telling tales of their deeds to enhance their reputations. The class disparity was a huge source of color: the PCs couldn't enter the manor house until they bathed, and once they did, I described their modest meal and beds... which John and Merlin realized were the best of their lives!
"Connections to Form" ListBack at the beginning of the game, I made a list of relationships I'd like to get the PCs into. If you'd asked me, I would have said that forging these would set the stage for more satisfying play, so the sooner the better. Unfortunately, I've actually wound up not pursuing these very hard. Some of the opportunities I've laid out haven't been picked up, and others have been picked up but then set aside (having an enemy in Delsiford is irrelevant when you're done with Delsiford). The list:
Enemy, Older Sibling, Authority, Employer, Followers, Resource spot, Competitor, Pet project
In this session, I had already planned to introduce them to a noble, but it worked out so well when I did that I feel stupid for not having done it sooner. Perhaps the Life Goals and Missions will remind me in the future.
I think the "Interest" niche in my scenario-creation process is a good slot for these connection opportunities. I also think tying them together in a relationship map might help keep certain dynamics relevant even as PCs travel a bit.
This session's connections:I handed them a low-ranking noble to like (Seacrest), and a high-ranking noble to hate (Duyker), and established that the nice guy holds some sway with the hated guy. This got the wheels turning in their heads quickly!
This session was also the perfect time for Elericus (whose life had been in the PCs' hands for a while recently) to invite the PCs into the brotherhood.
As I thought that through, and remembered that Elericus had sicced Delsiford's mafia on the PCs, I decided it would make sense for Elericus to help eliminate the mafia to hide his involvement. So, he's offered to use his connections to start bringing them down.
Finally, as I was playing Elericus's trauma over the recent monster-fighting, John interpreted his insomnia as the same thing that I'd afflicted the PCs with back when I was trying to get them to chew roots. So, Roderick gave Elericus roots, and Elericus had a vision that revealed just how nasty the grell really is.
Reminders: card readings, root visions, perception powersI need a better way of reminding the players that these are always on the table. Perhaps the character sheet...