From: tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Point Allocation vs Random Generation
Date: 5 Nov 92 05:07:39 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu

Andrew Bell writes:
>I write:
>>>Someone asks: [I don't know who it is, so I don't want to make the 
                  mistake of saying that it's Nick Janow.]
>>>>do PA prefer the GM to form the campaign around the character concepts?  
>>I'd think that everyone would want that.
>I don't.  It's not a free form process.  If I create a Toon character,
>Fred creates a Traveller character, and George creates a Spawn of Fashan
>character, then the GM'll have a hell of a time figuring out a campaign
>to involve all of them, and it'll probably not be very satisfactory.  

Generally, I see the campaign creation process as follows:

1) GM gets inspired, be it from a book, movie, being hit by a brick on
   the way to work and seeing a vision, whatever.  Sometimes this is
   "force" when the rest of the players demand, "Yo, Josh!  You GM!"

2) The GM then communicates what s/he wants the players to preceive
   the world as to the players.  This is so worded in case the game 
   involves heavy secrets that the PCs will discover later.

3) The players then create the characters, hopefully with the full
   knowledge of the referee.  This step can be done independently of
   the previous two, but it works better IMPO if it is done after
   the referee has an idea what to run.

Thus, the referee, if running Toon, will veto Fred's character (or 
warn him that he will probably be the butt of many jokes and/or feel
generally not 'part of it') and welcome George's character.

Your statement that the "GM'll have a hell of a time figuring out a
campaign to all of them" pre-supposes that the GM is allowing said
characters into the game in the first place, something I would think
to be a fatal mistake.

>The point is that if the characters don't have some unifying motivation, 
>then either the players have to fudge their characters in order to stay 
>together, or the GM has to make the campaign force the characters together.  

I don't really see it as 'forcing' the characters together.  People
will find it mutually advantageous to band together to oppose a mutual
foe (incarnate in a single person or as a concept, such as "evil" in
a supers game) or to benefit from the specializations of said fellows
(as in most games with archetypes, such as CP2020) or any other reason.

As for having the players "fudge their characters" I have no problems
if the players are all amicible to this idea.  "We all start out as
astronauts, then get kiddnapped by aliens, then rescued by humans from
a tech-race."  That works.  I fail to see a problem with either option
provided the referee takes player input and does not truly 'force' the
issue.  

If 'force' is applied, then you are right, the GM needs some lessons in
finess.

>>If I went through all the effort to make a background, you can be certain 
>>that I'd appreciate seeing that the referee can/does make use of [it.] 
>But isn't it better to have the GM give you some guidelines on the sort
>of campaign he wants to run and thus certain delimiters on the type of
>characters created?  

True.  And the referee can make concessions to the world to accept a
character that the player really wants to play, but would not seem to
fit.  

F'instance, I'm starting a cross between Stephen King's "Dead Zone" 
and "Psi-force," the defunct Marvel: New Universe comic.  I have 
managed to allow for a Afghani freedom fighter concept to have reason
to stay state-side and be an integeral part of the campaign.  It took
some doing, and I'm still not sure if it'll work, but it looks alright
on first glance.  

It all comes down to the player trusting the referee and making con-
cessions while the referee doing the same.

-- 
I'm in Pittsburgh.  Why am I here?
		-- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate