Fostering Familiarity

"So, now that we all completely trust one another with our lives..."

Party dynamics is always a factor in any of these games we play.  It's important for the sustained suspension of disbelief that the player characters are as comfortable with each other as the players' depict around the table.  Yet, often the subject of a given character backstory is glossed over when creating a party at the outset of a new game.  Even worse is "don't mind the orc" syndrome created when a very different party member joins during a game in progress - either it's the player's replacement for a dead character or it's a new player joining the game.

When starting a new game, it's fun to have everyone roleplay their meetings and come to know each other's character exclusively through gaming.  Sure one or two characters might be familiar with one another, but it's a standard trope to start a game with "You begin in the tavern..."  I encourage new groups to use this method, since players might not necessarily know each other well in real life.  New characters can be introduced in the same way...sort of a "cold intro".  Hello, I'm Seamus the Half Orc and I use an axe.  Here's my dungeon cart, where's the lair of evil at?

When your group meets a lot and you play many campaigns, this sort of intro can get old.  Instead of being interested in roleplaying this sort of party formation, veteran players gloss it over a lot.  In my own games, the core PC group tends to be the same ones every time, plus or minus an equal number of potential players depending on the weather and the season and the rest of life's crazy conditions.

I prefer to foster a familiarity among the player characters as part of the creation of the party and prior to the group's first adventure.

Sometimes, the "meet in a tavern" this is cool, but for me it dredges up all sorts of questions as to the nature of such a group.  It's not really credible that a bunch of Neutrals meet in a liquor bar and decide to go fight evil or whatever, and then fight to the death protecting one another.  Not only is that out of alignment (for the most part) but it's also incredulous if you think "hey, these people don't know each other that well."

For me, I have a new standing rule that's been sorta unspoken for a couple of years.  This rule is the Party Familiarity principle, and it has two parts.

1. All player characters in a given campaign must have serious connections to other members of the party to represent their decision to risk their lives together. (e.g. they are family;  members of the same community;  sent on a magical quest by the warlock Charlie Sheen, etc...)
2. New characters created and joining during the course of the campaign must likewise have a familiarity and relation to the party except under special circumstances.  (The story permits the entrance of an unfamiliar character.)

It's not as unfair as it seems.  It exists solely to keep the him-hawing to a minimum when creating backstories and making sure everyone fits together in what we see as the "party unit".  Obviously, I'm not precluding any character types and for sure, if you want to play a "loner outcast" that's fine - we're going to talk about it though, since to my mind loner outcasts don't hang out with other people in a paramilitary squad / militia.

For us at the Wargate, this will save a lot of time.  Already our new campaign in Greyhawk has used this to mostly good effect - though we did let a half orc join the party for no apparent reason.  It's that kind of hinky stuff that can throw off the track of an otherwise cohesive story.  Next time you're rolling a character at the Wargate, think about how he fits in with the rest of the group, even if he's radically different in background and ability.  Surely, someone else in the party lived near the tower of the Warlock Charlie Sheen, where you grew up and learned magic spells.

No Text / No Game

Howdy folks!

In recent months,  I've been involved in some serious discussions over at the RPGsite and other forums around the web centering on what became a philosophic debate on intent.  More specifically, I am of the view that preparation affects RPG gaming in a positive way.  I was very surprised at how many gamers do not share this view, but I thought I would address how this debate has affected the Wargate specifically.

Over the last year, we've had several GM's run games for us.  Most of those games went fantastic throughout their 10+ week run, and as a result we've even extended the main run for most RPG's to 16+ weeks since the addition of the schedule 2 games.

However, not every game went so well.  During a few games club morale dipped pretty low, and some players were rather put out and resolved not to play in certain games.  It was felt that a lot of what was happening in the game was being made up on the spot, and was easily recognizable as being drawn out of thin air.  While I believe that being able to ad-lib is one of the best talents a GM can possess, the biggest source of this was the fact that GM's were simply not writing their scenarios.

Each session became an ad-hoc group talk session with a random combat thrown in, and as time wore on this got worse.  This led to some pretty weird places, and made group members uncomfortable in more than one situation.  Random events - for no reason - that were made up on the spot - often for a silly reason.  A random chain of events with very little rhyme or reason does not a campaign make.

Before anyone attacks me with "you can't tell me what to do" or "I can run an ad-lib game by the seat of my pants that will knock your socks off" - let me tell you that you are invariably wrong.  You will have made some notes at one point and you will have brought notes to the game for that session.  Even the vilest turds on the RPGsite agree to that.

We've had a lot of experience with gaming here at the ol' Wargate - I'm not even going to go into it.  Lets just say - you have a passel of wargamers who double as rules lawyers here, not your run of the mill FLGS club.  You'd better be well versed in the rules (because there's more than one of those floating around, guaranteed) and you'd better be well planned in terms of scenario - if you intend on running a game for these hounds of hell.

So, in an effort to curb the ad-lib and encourage thought out campaigns and adventures, the Wargate enacted a rule last month.

No Text / No Game

• In order to run a game during Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 game nights as GM for an RPG, the GM must have prepared notes for that session/campaign.

Pretty simple, eh?  Well, it has been a sensitive subject, and I feel that the counterpoint is without merit.

Now, I want to be clear that this isn't a final haranguing by the Bone to those Wargate GM's who feel this applies(d) to them.  We've went through that already.  As soon as this rule was enacted, this problem absolutely stopped at the Wargate.  Everyone's game immediately picked up, and we've been having a blast since.

No longer did players feel as if they were being circumvented or aided by the fickle whim of the GM alone.  This is an important thing for us here at the Wargate, where we are gamists - not dramatists.  It makes everything feel more authentic if the encounter / scenario has great pacing and we don't have to look up systems for every thing about the adventure that isn't standard.

So, the rule about the notes.  However, it's not as if we check every time.

The Word Police want to see your papers.

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for putting in the time to prepare, it's really had a noticeable effect and made the games a lot more enjoyable for everyone here at the Wargate.

So I'll sign off with this - make your notes, people.  Don't show up saying it's all in your head, because that way lie madness (or at least some anger and resentment over you not taking the time to prepare for the evening).  Even sandboxes need notes - it's sort of a commitment to the game at hand.