Doomed Campaigns

[tesuji]

Blue said...

 

"What I figure will happen is this: I'll get them into a fight, they'll realize that their characters have definite problems, then either a)They'll revise said characters (with my blessing), b)They'll want to bring in new characters altogether, or c)They'll want to play something else because they aren't getting the hang of it."

 

IMO and IMG if i approve a character then i am telling that players its right for the campaign. once i do that, its my job in addition to his to make it work out. The campaign centers on and pivots around the characters, their attributes are essential to the story and the game works because of my efforts to make these a reality and NEVER "in spite of" the PCs.

 

If you really believe that after a session or two your players will be dissatisfied with the characters you allowed as to have these three possible reactions, then IMO that is you admitting you are at fault.

 

Why would a fight necessarily be this bad? Specifically, what is it written that tells you that the nature of enemies, the scenario setups and the encounter YOU choose has to be one thats going to show up the PCs this badly?

 

many many moons ago, i ran a very enjoyable summer campaign in DND. The five PCs were two monks, a rogue, a rogue-acrobat and a wizard. N definitive fighter. no definitive cleric. it was an incredibly fun little campaign where amazingly the plot dealt with intrigue and espionage and the "fights" were not stand up slugfests with grim damage totals but instead mobile and highly tactical location battles... in short the story and challenges and events were suited to and made emphasis of the heroes abilities. Their weaknesses when they occured were not scenario breakers but merely obstacles to be overcome.

 

In short, imagine how good a run of wolverine comics would be if 90% of his encounters were against aerial foes outside where he basically gets madder and madder. The writers just don't seem to script him that way, do they?

 

There is a reason.

 

Were i to have approaved those PCs, i would now be looking forward to the challenge and working over their characters and backgrounds to script a story and encounters to fit the ensemble you have been dealt.

 

The goal is to help them and you have fun, not to teach them a lesson for designing "bad" characters.

 

Is that a goal within your reach?

 

Thats up to you.

 

time will tell.

[bubba smith]

Re: Doomed Campaigns

 

Nice thinking killer

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Doomed Campaigns

 

Yes, but rarely HERO System. This is where being firm with character creation and means the GM remains engaged in the Campaign. When players present characters that do not fit the concept then friction happens, joy dies, and the game ends.

 

IMOHO

 

QM

[sinanju]

Re: Doomed Campaigns

 

Wow' date=' and here i thought the whole point of an RPG is to make new friends and get together to have fun, every one of us is a friend so we will just hang out too, out last get to gether were were at teh friends house for more that four hours then only played for aobut one and a half, the rest of the time we were hanging out chatting and eating, i just can't imagine role-playing with people that i don't like...[/quote']

 

That's the point of an RPG for you. To paraphrase the receptionist in hell from Beetlejuice, "No, that is what happens when I game, and that is what happens you game, and that is what happens when they game. It's all very personal."

 

My gaming tends toward the more social end. Lots of joking around and talking in addition to gaming. But there's nothing wrong with Killer Shrike's approach. His approach looks to me more like the way you put together a softball team or a bowling team. You want people who are there to play (and play well), not just anyone who wants to show up to drink beer and kibbitz. Playing the game is the point of the exercise; if that's not your goal, you're not gonna make the cut--and nothing personal.

 

As for the gadgeteers issue.... Speaking as a player who LOVES to play PCs with VPPs, I agree that you give them a brief window of opportunity to change their powers, then move on. I always make it a point when I'm the VPP character to have a bunch of pre-designed slots, and to do my number-crunching while other players are acting--I love building new powers on the fly (that's why I like VPPS in the first place) but I don't expect the GM to wait for me.

[Blue]

Re: Doomed Campaigns

 

Wow, this is so long ago I barely remember posting it. 2003? Man. Maybe I should give the overall result...

 

In retrospect, I think most failings of the campaing, if any, would be squarely hung on me, the GM. I think I did a fair amount of railroading, didn't leave enough space for roleplaying.

 

I'd consider the campaign a moderate success. If anything it would have done better if I'd spent less time on it and let it grow more organically rather than masterminding everything.

 

The characters did have a minor difference in power level. Ultimately when combined, the players found the right tone, right in the middle, and I couldn't be more pleased for that.

 

I ran seven 8 to 12 hour game sessions before resting it quite a while. Then I brought it back for another six like sessions. My turn in the que probably won't be for quite a while with at least 2 campaigns ahead of it.

 

One could say there was lots of worry for nothing, but then I'd played plenty of times with these guys and never seen them run in such opposite directions before a campaign, so my worry was justified at the time.

[Heckus]

Re: Doomed Campaigns

 

Part of the problem with running "large" champions groups is that everyone has a different view of comic books and super heroing. If you say you're going to play Fantasy everyone thinks LotR or Conan and they can all get on the same page relatively quickly. But, with Supers you have you golden-silver age mind sets, your gritty punisher-esk fans, character-specific fans and so on. OR you get the guy who wants to play a two-fisted street hero who gets by on his wits teamed up with Devil-Tron the Soulgrinder of K'Laarg whose recent actions were only mistaken for doo-goodery (and he can move mountains with his mind).

 

My worst case scenario with this was back in the 90's with a 8 player group in what was supposed to be a 4-color campaign (main purpose was to familiarize everyone with the rules for future campaigns). About half the team had come up with serious characters, although two of them had the exact same character (speedsters) with different dressing. The other 4 had ideas for cartoony or shtick characters (no personality, just one joke ponies with some super powers). Of the guys with real ideas, 3/4 were brooding loners who had no reason to want to team up for anything more than a one-off.

 

Oddly enough the game went pretty well. A few players eventually made minor changes to their existing characters once they got into the game or brought in new dudes once they got a feel for the campaign. I didn't make them change, I just ran it as-is and eventually the arrived on the same page.

 

One funny thing was: At the end of a major story arc there was a big debate over lethality between the CVK and the Casual Killer which led to the CVKer turning an unconscious Casual Killer over tho his hunted (secret government agency). This split my group into 2 smaller groups and a spin-off campiagn started with a player escaping from the evil shadow agency. The Spin-off campaign turned out to be way more fun and only had 4 players (waaay easier to manage in champions).

 

For my current campaign, we knew we wanted to play Hero system but all i had was a few half-formed ideas, so I jotted the basics of each idea down and let my players vote (prioritizing favorites 1-3). Once they picked the genre I did the same with a few game elements (tone, power level, group origin or not, etc..). This campaign has been going strong since April of '08. I think working with the players helped to make something that they were all interested in.