Crisis, Quest, Mentor

So, you have decided what sort of game you want to run. You have the genre, you have the method of communication, you have the database. You have advertised and you have players, they have characters you approve of.

So, what is next? You have to get the band together.

Having the PCs meet can be simple or complex, but to insure the game gets off on the right foot it should at least be interesting. Some settings make this very easy. In this article I will explore some of the different game settings and the various way players may meet and begin their adventures.

Star Trek is probably the simplest of all. Everyone works for Starfleet or are in some way associated with them, or have some valid reason to be on a Federation vessel, it is just a matter of them meeting the captain, saying “hello!” and moving on with making introductions to the rest of the gang. While that is a nice, safe way to go, it probably mirrors how 99% of Star Trek games begin. How can you shake things up?

One way to do it is to suggest many of the crew already know one another. Talk to the players, see who wishes to know whom and how. Have some of the crew already serving on board. While some ‘Trek games assume the ship still has that brand new smell, odds are the vessel should already be in service and the PCs are coming on board as replacements.

And there is an awesome hook; replacements. Why have so many new officers been assigned this ship? Have the old officers been killed in action? Or were they arrested for mutiny? Will the crew trust the replacements? Perhaps the captain was the former XO and is in many ways as untried as the officers he now commands. An environment of distrust and uncertainty might be an interesting way to start things off.

When I ran my first Star Trek game, Lionheart, it was during the Dominion war. Lionheart was a beaten up Sabre class vessel, it’s crew a combination of shell shocked survivors as well as those being ferried back to Earth for reassignment. Lionheart was destined for scrap upon her arrival, her officers along mostly for the ride, to keep things together for that long.

And of course, things did not work according to plan. Lionheart got sucked into a future where the Dominion won the war, and Lionheart was somehow responsible. The crew’s mission was to discover what they had done wrong and to go back in time to fix it, and I consider myself very, very fortunate to have been blessed with a batch of players who made that first game rock. And it began in part because the adventure hook went beyond simply a bunch of new officers coming on board.
Another genre is fantasy. When I used to play Dungeons & Dragons the PCs first meeting in a tavern became a tired cliché that could cause many eyes to roll. It was boring. But why would such a gang of diverse characters be together? What would a fighter have in common with a mage? Why would a paladin sully his good name being seen in public with a suspected thief?

Again, this is where the crisis can come in. In one game I played the GM had this town attacked by an outside force. Everyone in tow-the PCs included-were charmed and chained. An opposing force broke the spell and in the battle the PCs-chained ankle to ankle, had to work together to escape. It fell apart when Herb decided his character wanted to strike off on his own, but I think he was just doing that to be a dick. Point was, the GM thought outside the box, decided to create a crisis to form a bond.

I used to game with a guy named Chuck, and Chuck was the sort of GM who did not plan very far ahead. Every game he started began with the group waking up in their underwear, often imprisoned, which really sucked for the players whose characters were dependent on big guns or the like. It got so no one wanted Chuck to run things any more. However, his method did have the benefit of getting the gang motivated.
When I ran a D & D game I used an attack on the caravan the players were part of to create the crisis. The survivors had to flee the orcs, had to reach a town some miles away. There was safety in numbers and along the way, if friendships were not made at least a respect for everyone’s respective talents.

Sometimes the crisis does not have to be so immediate. I ran another game much later, when 3rd Edition came out. In this the players were the apprentices and squires of powerful adventurers on a quest. They were the heroes of tomorrow learning from the heroes of today. While on the quest they were left behind to watch the horses and mind the camp as their mentors went off to inspect some castle ruins. A day went by and the heroes did not return. Then two. By the third, the young adventurers knew something had befallen their teachers.

Now they had to step up and not only complete the quest, but they also had to discover the mystery of their mentors’ disappearance. This was an excellent way to get the gang some starting magic gear:

“This is Eveningsong’s Elven cloak! Why would she hide it here in the hollow of this tree? Look, a note is pinned to it, a clue!”

Which brings me to the other classic fantasy adventure hook: the Quest. The Quest is a fine idea, but if given a choice, I will take the crisis over The Quest every time. The crisis gives a more action packed start and also gives the players a more immediate, tangible motivation. If The Quest is used, then I think a twist needs to be added to it, like the one I mentioned above.

Which is not to say I would rule out The Quest entirely. An example of a good quest hook might be the various players each possess a piece of a map, and together they can use it to uncover a hidden treasure. Such a map could be pieces of paper, or the lines of a riddle, or as they did in a Star Trek episode, lines of DNA discovered on different planets. In Star Trek (or another sci-fi setting) the PCs receive haunting dreams and feel compelled to gather together. Starfleet assigns them to a single vessel (Does it even have to be a ship they are on? Why not have them act as passengers instead, a strike force ferried from place to place. (Alternate Star Trek adventure ideas will be discussed in a later article). Who is sending the dreams and why? Are they a warning, and if so, of what?

And this segues into another potential plot hook; the mentor.

In Shadowrun he was known as “Mister Smith”, the guy who provided the team their missions. Gandalf in Lord of The Rings might be considered such, to an extent. When I began my Vindicators game the team was assembled by Marion Bradley, executor of the Margaret Ashe Foundation, which was bank rolling the team. It is a quick and effective way of starting things off, although it can be a bit boring. But sometimes boring is okay if the players trust you and when I started The Vindicators many of the players already knew me well enough to roll with it. And boring might be the way to go if your players are as inexperienced as you are. Vanilla can be a tasty flavor as well.

The mentor might not be a benign force. What if the gang were brought together to participate in some sort of death match by the game’s main villain? What if it were some sort of contest of champions set up by cosmic forces? This idea can work in almost any setting, even Star Trek. In The Savage Curtain Kirk and Spock were forced to fight in order to see which was stronger, good or evil.

No doubt I have missed many examples, but I think I covered the general categories: crisis, quest, mentor. In each case I have illustrated some examples but like I said, it is far from an exhaustive list. Whatever you choose, just bear in mind the choice is may have an impact on the rest of your game. Remember; once you have seen someone else in their underwear, you never look at them the same way again…

PCs, NPCs, and GMPCs

When running a PBEM, or any role playing game for that matter, NPCs (non player characters) are critical story telling tools. Good use of NPCs can entertain the players, bad use of NPCs can make a group quit en masse. So the first thing you need to figure out is, what are the NPCs there to do for your game and your players?

First of all, an NPC should never overshadow the player characters, meaning you should not often throw NPCs into the game that make the characters look weak or ineffective (the exception are villains, but I will touch on that in a later post). For example, if you are playing a DC Comics game when the players are gritty, street level vigilantes, it would not be very much fun to have Batman showing up every few weeks to remind them how much more awesome Batman is than they are. Use of Batman sparingly might prove to be interesting; he may require their help, or the heroes manage to thwart a Batman villain and earn Batman's respect, or they rescue Batman. Maybe they rescue sixties Adam West Batman. The other versions? Not likely. The point is a more powerful, more skilled or otherwise more formidable NPC can put a damper on your campaign very quickly if used incorrectly.

This is my opinion and I understand if people disagree with me on this point, but I do not think PCs should play second banana to a more powerful NPC. For example, if you are playing an Indiana Jones game, who wants to play Short Round or Sallah while the GM role plays one of the greatest characters in cinema? Even after Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull? I once saw someone (repeatedly) advertise a game on the old PBEM.com web site, where he was going to run a powerful super heroine along the lines of Wonder Woman, and he wanted players to play her supporting cast. Considering the complete lack of takers I think it spoke volumes as to what players want in a game.

Second, an NPC should not make a Player Character redundant. Say you are running that super heroic game and you are playing the team brick, only the GM has introduced a hero who also has super strength. Suddenly your character seems just a little less awesome. Or necessary. If NPCs exist on a team they should fill a void, fulfill a need. For example, when I was running my first super hero game I noticed the team had no brick, so I created one. I also noted there was no doctor, so the brick was designed to be a geneticist and surgeon. When I began my second game both roles were filled by at least one other player, so I swapped out the NPC for one more useful; there were no technical specialists so the NPC introduced was handy with gadgets. And many of the team members could not travel quickly, so she had flight powers and could create force fields to carry them.

Now, you may think that a gap in the team roster might make for more interesting role playing and I will concede that is a valid point. How does a cyberpunk team accomplish the mission without a hacker? How does GI Joe take the bunker without Bazooka on the team? A skills gap amongst the PCs can be a challenge and it is up to the GM whether he wants to make the players work it out or provide them with a skills patch. But I think that the continued gap might prove to be a pain in the ass for the players if they keep going on missions/adventures that the GM insists needs personnel/skills they are lacking. The GM could run the risk of going the opposite way, running multiple adventures that make his pet character indispensable. NPCs should be useful, but not annoyingly so.

Third, NPCs should make the game run more smoothly. I am not saying they should make the game easy, only there are situations where NPC involvement could make for a more satisfying role playing experience for the players. In cyberpunk games, for example, the hacker may sometimes enter a virtual world and do battle with security systems. The cyberscape environment can be an exciting place as the hacker combats corporate hackers, killer AIs (Artificial Intelligences. I do not think my readers are stupid, I just do not like to assume everyone knows every little bit of sci-fi/fantasy jargon I do), hunter/seeker programs. It can be very cool. Problem is, what are the rest of the PCs doing while the hacker PC is having the time of his life shutting down security for the infiltration team? A fight like that could take days, if not weeks of time as player and GM exchange e-mails. Maybe having the hacker an NPC and fast forwarding through all that stuff would make things easier?

NPCs should never take up so much space that the players feel like they just belong to the GM's fan fiction message board or mailing list. GMs should avoid constantly having NPCs talk to one another without PC input. In my Vindicators game I do have instances where there are interludes, moments where the PCs are given glimpses into what NPCs are doing elsewhere. But those interludes serve to provide a set up for future encounters and are not an end in themselves.

There is also a type of NPC called the GMPC, and these are characters the GM are so fond of they are featured in the game as much as the PCs themselves and given far more depth. GMs are often frustrated gamers, and employing GMPCs is a way to scratch that player itch. GMPCs are fine, provided the earlier rules about NPCs are adhered to; GMPCs should not make PCs feel like they are the GMPC's sidekicks, nor should they make them feel useless. One exception to this rule would be Star Trek. In Star Trek games the captain is played by the GM, and quite often the captain is portrayed as being in some ways superior to the the PCs; he is captain, after all. He achieved his rank through bad-assery and derring-do (although a captain who earned his rank through sheer nepotism might be really interesting to see). This is done to maintain game stability. Sometimes players leave and the GM has to explain their absense (Or not. I have seen games where character absense is not addressed at all, as if they never existed), cover for the gap. In a Star Trek game if someone is playing the captain and they quit that means the ship gets a new captain. Suddenly. Out of the blue. So while a ship can survive constant engineering officer turnover, repeated captaincy turnover stretches the boundaries of the players' suspension of disbelief.

NPCs who appear often should be fully realized characters. Even Alfred Pennyworth has a back story, and sometimes that story gets the Caped Crusader involved in an adventure or two. NPCs that directly affect PCs should feel more like real people. Your players will appreciate if you give their loved ones or rivals a third dimension; I am not a big Harry Potter fan but when I saw The Deathly Hollows I felt Draco Malfoy suddenly became a tremendously more engaging character when he was given depth; no longer was he simply Potter's annoying school rival, but he was now an unwilling pawn compelled to do horrible things. He became a fully realized human being with motivations and fears all his own, and I thought in that instant if there was any character who could sustain his own series in the Potterverse it would be Draco. That is sharp writing, excellent direction, and damn good acting. Now imagine if your PCs had an enemy who gradually goes from being a two dimensional baddie to someone complex. Star Trek, Deep Space Nine's Gul Dukat was a fascinating character who started off as Sisko's annoying nemesis, but over time grew into a complex character...Of course, they completely screwed that up when Dukat took the train to crazy town, but at least he was still interesting.

I will address the roles of antagonists in a later post, Depths of Villainy. For now think about what I said about NPCs; they should be useful, interesting, and almost never overshadow the PCs.