Only Game in Town

[torelin32]

Hi Everyone !

First off, I would like to wish everyone a happy...happy...New Year.

Secondly, I have opinion about game campgains and I would like to ask everyone's opinion on it ?

Would you say that in each of our campgain world that the PC are the main characters, but their are other things going on in the each of our specific worlds, that would overlap in the story that is being created by your player characters.

So in esscense you have the main story for the PC's, but for other characters you might have NPC's which have their main story and sometimes the stories can intermingle.

If so, I would like to hear about your campgains and stories, because I would like to add them to my story. I want my campgain world to be dynamic and interesting for the player characters in my campgain.

Thanks, for everything in advance.

[Greywind]

Only Game In Town ~ America

Spectators line the avenue
The players step out right on cue
And every night just seems the same
Nameless faces play their game

The midnight gamblers place their bets
The tight-rope walkers check their nets
Then comes the queen of broken hearts
This is the way it always starts

Finders find love for the evening
Keepers keep the love theyve found
Losers lose and wind up weeping
But its the only game in town

All hail the third string debutante
She tries to act so nonchalant
Chasin the prince of alibis
Into a smokescreen made of lies

Finders find love for the evening
Keepers keep the love theyve found
Losers lose and wind up weeping
But its the only game in town

My window looks down on the set
Each night the players strut and fret
So if youd like to join the rest
Just choose the part that suits you best

Finders find love for the evening
Keepers keep the love theyve found
Losers lose and wind up weeping
But its the only game in town

[torelin32]

Is that lyrics to a song or poem ?

[Blackberry]

In my campaigns, certainly I need to have the NPCs doing their own things; otherwise it doesn't feel real. It will seem like every scene is staged and pre-scripted with certain events and reactions, no matter what the PCs are doing, more like a video game from a few years ago.

I start with what the NPCs are doing and would do if the PCs never got involved in their plans. Then I make sure the PCs get involved in their plans.

[tesuji]

90% of my game is built/designed AFTER i have my PCs. So the NPCs that are doing things and the things they are doing are designed and chosen by me to intersect with the PCs, what they are doing and their past.

if three of my four pcs are magical origins, we will see a rise in mystical bad guy plot lines. if three of four were techoscientists, a whole different animal. if they focus more on investigation then they get more mysteries. if they focus on smashing things, more plots that make smashing things an appropriate answer.

etc...

as the game progresses tho, both the pcs and npcs do stuff, so if the pcs hem and haw the npcs move along in their plaots, which frequently intersect even the lollygagging pcs.

after all, die hard would have really sucked as a movie if bruce willis' character had spent the entire film in a movie theater six blocks away watching terminator. damn good for us that it just happened to happen while he was there.

:-)

[Checkmate]

It's always been about the little things for me. I make a notes during the game, if a PC says, I go to the nearest diner, and I say Joe's Diner is right down the street from your apartment. I make a note of that. Joe's Diner will ALWAYS be down the street from his apartment. As I ad lib the place talking about the owner and the waitress who's name tag reads Delilah, I make notes of all that. Delilah may become involved in a bank heist,

"Open the safe girl!"
"I can't open the safe, I'm just a waitress!"

Months later the PC may get a call from a mysterious woman, "Phone lines are compromised I'll meet you in a small diner on 74th called Joe's, you know where it is?"

I think little things like this make the game world feel alive. You don't want to over use it though, you don't want the players to think there is only ONE diner in the entire game world, but throwing those things in there and watching the players as they try to figure out where they know that name from is a good time.

[steamteck]

It's always been about the little things for me. I make a notes during the game, if a PC says, I go to the nearest diner, and I say Joe's Diner is right down the street from your apartment. I make a note of that. Joe's Diner will ALWAYS be down the street from his apartment. As I ad lib the place talking about the owner and the waitress who's name tag reads Delilah, I make notes of all that. Delilah may become involved in a bank heist,

"Open the safe girl!"
"I can't open the safe, I'm just a waitress!"

Months later the PC may get a call from a mysterious woman, "Phone lines are compromised I'll meet you in a small diner on 74th called Joe's, you know where it is?"

I think little things like this make the game world feel alive. You don't want to over use it though, you don't want the players to think there is only ONE diner in the entire game world, but throwing those things in there and watching the players as they try to figure out where they know that name from is a good time.

I use the same system and have for the 20 plus years in my three campaigns which makes for incredibly rich worlds after a while.

[pinecone]

One more trick is if the PC's just won't follow up a lead...I start each run with the days headlines, and I put in one with a known NPC team dealing with the thing they ignored, I try to make it sound interesting and filled with glory...that way the NPC's are on the player's minds...

[Supreme Serpent]

(This is more of a roleplaying/GM style question instead of a crunchy system question, so I'll be moving the thread to General RP.)

In my games yes, the PCs are the main characters. But of course there's plenty of other folks out there with their own agendas and plans - some of which help the heroes, some of which are at odds with them. I don't really see how it could be done otherwise.

The two main pitfalls to avoid are 1) letting the PCs stumble around too much in the dark, unable to affect the bad guys' plans and 2 ) letting the NPCs take care of things for the PCs too much. No one wants to play in the game where you sit around and watch the GM masterfully thwart his own villains. Give the PCs help when they need it, sure, but remember that they're the protagonists.

[Vulcan]

ON A RELATED NOTE:

If you want the superhero PC's to flee from Minutemen Mk.X (giant robots), present them in overwhelming numbers. If it's supposed to be an even fight, make it an even fight. Don't make the 5 Minuemen vastly more powerful than the 5 PC's bcause we won't know that until it's too late...

(This actually occured Monday night in my regular Champions game.)

[Greywind]

One more trick is if the PC's just won't follow up a lead...I start each run with the days headlines, and I put in one with a known NPC team dealing with the thing they ignored, I try to make it sound interesting and filled with glory...that way the NPC's are on the player's minds...

I don't do it that way. I usually have a headline where the villain got away with it...