From: cscott+@CS.CMU.EDU (Curtis Scott)
Subject: Re: Do U customize games 4 players?
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 16:20:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.134751.58135@cc.usu.edu>, sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six) writes:
|> Now, the campaign is set in TL6, where most of the characters are hired
|> mercenaries. To avoid being carbon copies of each other, the players have
|> tried to specialize in different skills, and some of the characters are 
|> super specialized. The question is, when I write up scenarios, do I write
|> different segments in which each character can exhibit his/her talents? Or
|> do I just write up plausible scenarios and wait for opportunities (for the
|> characters to use their specialties) to present themselves?

From my own experience, I find it almost impossible to generate an
adventure unless I have some idea who the players and characters are.
(As a semi-pro game designer, this has been a VERY limiting restriction,
so it's not like I'm not trying.) I use the characters, their motivations,
their skills, and their normal approaches as seeds from which to
generate the adventure.

Not only is this easier for me, I think it makes better adventures. Most
players are less concerned with an absolute standard of coherency than
they are with having interesting things to do. I've run some adventures
which, viewed as real-life events, would have easily shown up on A Current
Affair in the "strange but true" section, but the players loved it because
they got to do what they wanted to do, and what their characters were
good at.

|> Here are the arguments I've thought of for both sides. If I write ``custom''
|> scenarios, where each character has his moment in the limelight, each 
|> player will get to satifactoraly play out the character on a regular basis.
|> On the other hand, my players are pretty sharp, and they would know that 
|> I was customizing the scenarios. I dunno how they would react to this.

I don't contend that your goal should be to completely tailor each adventure.
You should try to make better plots. But all roleplaying (indeed, all
fiction) is based on the "suspension of disbelief." When you're reading
an adventure novel, and the hero is about to be eaten by a giant spider (say),
you know there is no risk. Either he dies or he doesn't: the book is
already written. But from your perspective, there is dramatic tension.

It's the same way with the quality and "plausibility" of plots. Players
want to be entertained (and often entertaining as well). If the players
had a good time, then it worked. Period. Now, the fact that your players
are analyzing your plots indicates to me that your plots are rather
close to the surface, with the plot twists carefully marked. Let the plots
happen more naturally, and the players will stop focusing on the mechanics
and focus on the experience.

If you read a novel, and during the novel you start to think about the
plot, the novelist has failed to entertain (because you're thinking about
the plot AS a plot, rather than as an experience). When the third commercial
ends on Murder, She Wrote, you KNOW Jessica is going to have an epiphany
(what a wonderful word, thanks Hook) that will reveal the true murderer. When
I notice this, the story has failed. When it happens and feels natural,
I'm carried by the suspension of disbelief into feeling that they weren't
wrestling with the format.

This can even be used by a careful plotter. In the film Psycho, Hitchcock
surprises everyone (at least until what he did became famous). Until the
shower scene, the film is about a bank robber. Anthony Perkins shows all
the signs of being a bit part. There is just the faintest hint that he's
really even a supporting character. The movie focuses on Jennifer Leigh
(I think that's her name). Thirty minutes into the film, the main character
is dead, and you're completely adrift.

Since your main characters are your players, I don't recommend bumping them
off. This has been done in modules, however; consider the recent Greyhawk
adventure where the players play one set of characters who get instantly
hosed, then have to figure out what the hell was going on as another set
of characters. The "getting hosed" experience is terrifying and upsetting,
but it gets your attention.

However, figure out what your characters suspect, then surprise them. This
is called a "plot twist," in that it is natural for our brains to look
forward to an expected ending, and if that doesn't happen we are pleasantly
surprised. Clue the film (with the multiple endings) was a failure, because
they had to be so ambiguous that you couldn't ever get a sense of where
the plot was going, so they couldn't surprise you.

|> So, if I write reasonable, realistic scenarios, the characters will not 
|> have as many opportunities to play out their specialties, but the plots 
|> will be more solid.

I don't agree with this characterization at all. Just because the plots
are tailored to the characters doesn't make the plots bad. Imagine the
logical result of Jessica Fletcher in a Rambo film, or Rambo on Murder,
She Wrote. If the story's not appropriate to the character, it will fail.
If it's appropriate, it doesn't have to be bad.

Curtis
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy