Appropriate atmosphere March 17, 2008
Posted by chorenn in Game Mastering.trackback
I’ve been working lately on two articles: one about the first adventure and one about the politics of the realm. As I prepared for my game this week, I realized how far I have yet to go to describe the world that my player characters live in. There’s so much going on behind the scenes, and the PCs see so very little of it… at least so far.
I’m writing today, though, because of something that my PCs seem to not see at all, and I wonder if it’s because I simply haven’t painted the picture well enough for them to feel it. Or maybe they’re just not paying attention.
The scene: Three of the PCs, Sparrow, Falco, and Mahdi (the wizard that replaced Zoriya) are returning to Silverleaf. Mahdi hasn’t been in the party long enough to either know about any dangers or to be linked in others’ eyes with Sparrow and Falco, but Sparrow and Falco have made a name for themselves in Silverleaf. They helped save the city from an incursion of demons, and have also spent the last winter here.
However, the last time they were in town, the Obsidian Guard (also referred to as “kingsmen”) attempted to arrest Sparrow, Vryn, and Zoriya for actions they took in another town. Falco had attempted to prevent the incident by talking to the kingsmen a few days beforehand, telling them that Sparrow and Zoriya had important information about the missing Crown Prince and that he had been tasked with getting them to divulge it; he told the kingsmen that his mission was more important than theirs. However, the kingsman responsible for bringing the three PCs to justice had no proof that what Falco said was true and decided to go ahead with his own orders. During the ensuing melee, Falco defended his friends, thus turning on his kingsmen employers for the first time. The group managed to drive off the guard, but decided the best course of action would be to leave as soon as possible.
They’ve been gone from the town for at least three months, during which time the Obsidian Guard did their own research and put two and two together, suspecting that Sparrow was indeed the missing prince. The kingsmen’s orders, across the board, are to find the prince and kill him (for the reason why, stay tuned to later episodes in this blog). Falco is completely aware of these orders. And lastly, of course, in this area, the kingsmen are also tasked with finding Falco, the one who turned on them in the last fight.
So now, while traveling through the region, two of the party have gone to a different city for their own reasons. Mahdi is headed to Silverleaf because he has set up a magic shop there and wants to check in on it, and Sparrow and Falco decided to head there to wait with Mahdi for the other party members to join back up.
Therein lies the rub. Neither Nathan nor Kyle have shown any concern that there might be kingsmen lying in wait for them. The kingsmen’s tactics are very typical of their kind: Find their prey, wait for him to be alone, then surround and kidnap. In the case of Falco, he’ll be knocked out and transported secretly to Nemeril (the capital) for punishment (or, more likely, torture and death). In the case Sparrow, he’ll be taken out of town and killed, and the body burned.
What this leads to, then, is a session in which the two players go somewhere, waiting nicely for the other party members, and get summarily eliminated. In the case of Sparrow, it’s likely that the party will scrape until they have enough to case a true resurrection on the Crown Prince (and thus the party ends up paying for Nathan’s oversight), but it’s not likely they’d do the same for Falco.
I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, I feel that if the players cannot get it through their heads that yes, they are wanted and yes, this town is now very dangerous for them, then they deserve what they get for not being careful. On the other hand, if there’s even the possibility that their lack of taking the danger seriously is due to the GM not presenting the danger well, then their fate is hardly deserved, and certainly not fun.
My worry might be all for nothing — Nathan and Kyle might be very careful when they enter Silverleaf, donning disguises and keeping out of sight as much as possible — but I won’t know until the session on Wednesday, and I need to prepare for the possibility now. Right now, my plan is to see how they enter the city, and give them a Wisdom check if they don’t take any precautions. If they still don’t, and Sparrow gets caught, I have a deus ex machina in mind: One of Vryn’s people lives in the town and I’ll have him save Sparrow, though not his equipment. I’m not quite sure what to do about Falco, but it might turn into a separate adventure, “Save the Scout!” He will likely also lose all his equipment, and certainly won’t get any experience the party gets for saving him.
Well, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll let you know on Thursday.
I’d just flat out tell the players that it perhaps might be a bit dangerous to enter the city. Alternatively, have them meet some traveller who tells about the guards being pretty careful at checking everyone who enters, as if they were looking for someone. There are subtler methods, but players are likely to miss them unless explicitly looking for such.
An alternative: proceed with the killings. Then stop the game and discuss with the player to check whether they think you weren’t clear enough, if they weren’t paying enough attention or if they simply didn’t expect you not to remind them of such an important thing. So you’ll know what to do next time. Then choose with them either to “go back in time” or to proceed (res and all).
Thanks for the suggestions! It turns out that only Sparrow is going to be entering the city (not Falco). I think I will proceed with the kidnapping/killing, then deus ex him so he doesn’t die but does lose his stuff, then discuss it like Ajax suggested (with the possiblity of retconn).
If Sparrow shows at least some awareness that he’s re-entering the lion’s den, I will reinforce that with Tommi’s suggestion of the traveller who informs him about the guards. That should be adequate to inspire him to be more careful.
I’m having a fuzzy memory about answering to this post (that is, I remember I did or wanted to, but I don’t think I have).
Just as a quick though about this. The fact that the player doesn’t remember something does not mean that the character doesn’t remember it. The same way that, if playing a politically important character, it should be obvious that he knows his way around protocol and wouldn’t just randomly commit some faux pas (those things would constitute things that the character knows very well but I as a player maybe not … character != player), but he *could* commit it if the player wanted to.
I know that at this point you have already played the game and all, but what seems most sensible and coherent to me is this: first, think about how reasonable is for Sparrow (the character) to remember that he’s a wanted man and specially searched for in that town. Second, if the answer is “yeah, of course he’d remember it” (and depending on your playing style you might … I don’t know … make a skill check or something) then you need to remind the player about it. If he wouldn’t (or didn’t pass the check or something like that) … well then he doesn’t. Which doesn’t rule out informing the player either .. since I’m assuming your group can handle player knowledge versus character knowledge and will play accordingly; but you might want to refrain from telling him to create a surprise.
Third case is that the game that you’re playing is more about the meta game than the narrative level, so it’s mostly about winning and thus if the player didn’t remember then the character get’s screwed? … This is more common than one would think. And the only feasible reason for that old “common sense” thing in the old World of Darkness books.
Take care, and by the way, I’m loving your blog, hope you come back to writing soon ^_^
Thanks very much!
I’m trying to make more time to write, but this is particularly busy time right now. I need to sit myself down and make myself write. 
If I remember correctly, I ended up giving Sparrow many chances to remember the state of his reputation, and then did a general talk to the entire group about the fact that past events do count. Nathan said he was going to start writing journal notes to himself, but I’m not sure if he really has (he is one of the remote players, so I can’t see if he’s doing so).
I think you’re right, though, in that I need to keep in mind that the character also should remember things even if the player doesn’t. I think that there is a part of me that really wishes that the players felt more kinship to their characters than they really do. Though, as I think about it, my husband (Robert – Vryn), Asia (the cleric, Osiris), and Mac (the new mage, Mahdi) obviously think about the game in their off time (Robert and I talk about the game a lot, Asia and Mac are always emailing me about things, and Mac comes to the game with a lot of prepared material, not to mention his own notes).
The general feeling of lack of involvement comes from Kyle (Falco) and Nathan (Sparrow), as well as the players who have left (Bret [Steplan] and Melissa [Zoriya]). Nathan was much more involved when he still lived in town.
A distant player and a character in key role can have (at least) two results: Good play and the player turns involved or lackluster play and the player stays distant or even stops playing.
Trying to force distant (or casual, or uninvolved) players to be more active is a gamble.
In my experience, trying to get casual players to be more active is almost doomed to fail. In one particular case, in my husband’s campaign, he attempted to get the one casual player more involved by putting in plot elements that specifically involved that player’s character. This resulted in either the player completely ignoring the plot element, or, it turns out, the player getting angry at my husband for “forcing him (the player) to play the way he (my husband) wanted.” It turned into a huge bad scene (for other reasons in addition to this).
In this particular case, I think that Nathan’s uninvolvement stems directly from the remote playing. Since we’re at the moment where Sparrow needs to make his bid for the throne, he’s had to step up a bit, but hasn’t quite made it there yet — he’s not yet feeling that he has the power to make everyone do anything he wants. But he is paying a lot more attention.
Oh… I just noted the “still lived in town bit”. I must say that I don’t know the whole story (I haven’t read all your posts regarding this issue) but it would really depend on the things he wants from roleplaying. As a quick example, I’ve recently had much better experiences playing with people that I hardly know over the internet, than with old friends who I meet every weekend.
Regardless of this, I agree with the fact that pushing a casual player into a non-casual role can be very problematic. The fact is that a lot of people *like* being casual players (in the term of a limited involvement in the game) and forcefully encouraging them to be more involved can actually result in chancing the way they enjoy playing. Taking the example about your husband’s campaign into consideration, I think that a better way to address this would be to talk with the player and ask him if he would be interested in adding several plot elements that could make his character more involved or something along those lines.
I do think that having players that are involved with their leads (their characters) is a very good thing indeed, but as I mentioned before I think it’s not wise to mix them together. Even players who think about the game and are genuinely enthusiastic about it will maybe make blunders that make no sense for their characters to make.
In any case, I’m glad the game is picking up for you and your friends. I’m also sorry for not checking for your comment before, I had a rough patch myself and I just forgot. Be sure I’ll be checking the blog more frequently now.
Take care,
the_blunderbuss