TELLING THEIR TALES Ray muses on planning campaigns
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o you’ve had this idea for a game that’s been knocking about your head for ages. It’s going to be brilliant, but you never did send the blurb off to a con when you couldn’t quite pin down the particulars. It doesn’t fit into one session, no matter how hard you try to edit it down it just keeps growing. Now your musings are scattered across a few notebooks and text documents from all those eureka moments. After much deliberation, you decide that there’s only way to do your game justice, and that’s to make it a campaign. You have chosen wisely. Much like your growing campaign, this article won’t be big enough to cover all of my experiences with this method of storytelling. There’s so much I can say about doing the research for your setting, knowing the rules backwards, setting up NPCs, and so on and so forth. That preparation is vital, but there are different aspects of campaign storytelling that should never be overlooked. Here are some questions I want you to ask yourself. When you think back over the characters you’ve played yourself, which ones stand out most vividly in your mind? Which ones can you slip back into like an old pair of shoes? I’m willing to bet they’re from a campaign you really got a kick out of. That’s where most of my favourite stories come from, as both game master and a
player. The characters your players create will drive the narrative you originally envisioned. The way the players build their characters will, in many ways, define the game. So be aware that the group dynamic is really important to the feel of the game. There are a number of very easy groups to put together that are good RPG fare. If they’re a group of specialised government agents it’s natural that they’ll be formed into an investigative team. If they’re the command crew of a ship, this will be the tale of their voyages. You shouldn’t have to contrive reasons for the characters to interact, it should happen naturally. If you’re not going for a game with a rigid group structure, the players and storyteller should get together to hammer out how folks know each other and why they’ll stick together from one week to the next. Your players will have stories of their own in mind. Character development arcs, an archnemesis to slay, unfinished business to take care of … make sure you incorporate all of this great input they’re bringing to your game rather than fighting against it. You need this extra info from them so you can understand what drives them, what makes them tick, and what incentives to dangle in front of them. Within the first two or three sessions the players will settle THE GAZEBO 12 days of Christmas
Ray Ray lives in the abandoned insane asylum, at the top of a steep and distant hill. He emerges to advise would be adventurers of Azeroth on matters of accounts and tech wizardry. Otherwise he writes, runs, and plays in all manner of traditional games.
into the characters they created. Mostly it’ll be totally fine, but one or two might notice some areas where they just messed up on the stats. You can disagree with me if you like, but I tend to allow starting characters to be restated up to three sessions in. This shouldn’t be to support munchkins, but instead
used to rectify genuine mistakes. I allow this, as I believe players should be attached to the character that they’re playing. I prefer a slight rules fix to the “I’ll do my next character right” attitude.
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Your players should have the freedom to shape their adventures to your plot.”
Your players should have the freedom to shape their adventures to your plot. Though by freedom, I don’t mean a sandbox. Telling somebody they can do ‘anything’ often has the same result of giving no guidelines at all, at which point your game becomes pointless and boring. Sure, your plot can be loose, but it should always be clear that it’s going somewhere. That, and the players’ decisions should always be felt as a key factor in everything that happens. I tend to look at oneoff scenarios like movies. It’s one story, with a few characters that are basically already fully developed. A campaign is more like a television show. As such it’s okay to have seasons in your structure. If you’re nervous about a long-term game, build a small story arc. It’ll run longer than you intend anyway, but
make it finite. Not the kind of finite where the characters die at the end, but where they’ll accomplish a definitive goal. When you reach the end of your story arc, you’ll want to finish the current plot in a climactic and satisfying fashion. It’s the payoff that you’ve built to throughout your campaign, so get the full worth out of it. I don’t simply mean with your plot, but with the individual character goals that your players have been working towards. The archnemesis? The unfinished business? These are the conclusions your players want; so weave them into your finale.
The campaign is created by the game master, but is given life by its players. By the end they may have made leaps of logic that boggled you, chased red herrings you didn’t even mean to create, or murdered that friendly non-player character sporting the goatee. Did these things make the game less fun? I doubt it. The random chance caused by players is what makes a game truly interesting. The game as a whole should feel like it’s been a wonderful and in depth creation which has been contributed to by everyone who came to the table. In short, it’s not just your achievement, but also that of your players. Never take that for granted.
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When you reach the end of your story arc, you’ll want to finish the current plot in a climactic and satisfying fashion. It’s the payoff that you’ve built to throughout your campaign, so get the full worth out of it.”
At which point, you can give this a rest if you like. It doesn’t have to be the end forever, but you can come back later for season two. This is a good way of avoiding burnout on both your side and the players. You should only write a game if you’re feeling it. If the love isn’t there it’ll be obvious to the players, and they won’t thank you for it.
CREDITS EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Anita Murray & Noirin Curran DESIGN & LAYOUT
Stephanie Jackson PROOF-READER
Anita Murray