I tried to GM Call of Cthulhu, without much success I might say, earlier this year. The issue I had problems with was, making the 1920's come alive. The Call of Cthulhu scenarios that I read were all very hand-out intensive, and I understand that this is true for most of the Cthulhu scenarios. This got me thinking about hand-outs and their effect on the game.
I have generally considered hand-outs to be beneficial for the game. For a player, it is exciting thing to receive them. In the past, I have used hand-outs where "blood" spots or missing parts of the parchment changed some of the meaning in the text, or made a text less certain and more open for speculation. This, I feel, is difficult to achieve without the handout, as it would be almost impossible to describe that some of the things are missing without emphasizing it too strongly.
In my Dragonlance campaign, the characters had obtained a piece of magical paper which contained information about some artifacts they where looking for. It was given to the players as a handout. The paper would change in accordance with what happened to the artifacts. So when the players destroyed one of the artifacts, the symbol for it disappeared from the paper. When the bad guy did some horrible sacrificial ritual with one of them, it would turn red and so on. After a while, the characters became obsessed with this piece of paper. It guided or maybe dictated many of their actions. I had intended the paper to be a motivator for finding the artifacts, but also a way for the players to know that there was a finite number of artifacts so that they would have a sense of approaching the goal. The hand-out did these things, but maybe it did it too well? Did it emphasize the plot line the GM had thought out too strongly, making the players feel they had no choice other than to search for the artifacts? Basically a fancy railroading-device?
One of the characters, or should I say players, got fed-up with the paper. He wanted to "liberate" himself from the obsession. So he took the paper, in game, and threw it into the camp fire. There, it burned for approximately 10 seconds, because the other characters used about two combat turns to get it out of the fire. I ruled that the magical item did in fact burn, against the objection of several of the players, and we threw the paper (the hand-out) into the fireplace. We left it there for 10 seconds, again against some objections, and took it out to look at what was left of it. I must say that, thinking back at this event, I remember that it was great fun.
After having attempted to GM Call of Cthulhu, I started thinking about hand-outs again. Because in the scenarios includes many hand-outs, that are essential to the story line.
I have started to wonder whether hand-outs are exclusively beneficial. For instance, in Call of Cthulhu, the players are rewarded for their research with a handout, when they are on the right track or at least on the track the scenario wants them to take. But when they are chasing the (wrong) red herring, I would not be able to summon any hand-outs for them, implicitly telling them that they are on a goose chase.
Does hand-outs make it abundantly clear that the GM has plans around some part of the story? I think this is an obvious yes. However, does it influence the players too strongly? Is giving out a hand-out a too strong indication that the GM wants the player to follow this particular lead, if yes is that bad?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Einherjar Saga, a few expiriments
I'm currently running a campaign in World of Darkness (The Old One).
Before we started this game, the players were given the following introduction:
Call it destiny; call it fate or the will of God. It chose to have a plan for these particular souls. Some would call them blessed as Odin's einherjar, some would call them cursed as Cain's children. Through the ages they will live, or at least exist. They will gaze on the gates of Jerusalem in 1099 just prior to a bloodbath that will be remembered for eternity. When Pope Innocence III calls the fourth crusade, they are destined to see a piece of the true cross on which Jesus himself died. In Paris, they will learn to fear the guillotine. In New Orleans they will meet Catharina, for they are Odin's blessed einherjarar. Let's start with the beginning, the place is Fossfjordgard on the west coast of Norway and the year is 754, and the five mortals are facing each other……
Furthermore each player was informed that he or she would roll a random destiny, which the world and its powers would conspire to make reality. Though they might, through their own actions, change the course of this destiny. Things included in the destiny were whether the character was to become a ghoul prior to embrace and, if so, when it would happen. What clan and at what time they would be embraced. Finally, for each chapter of the campaign, a special roll was made to see if the players would lose or gain any merits, flaws, backgrounds and so forth... The players did however not get to see the destiny, as it was to be a tool for the storyteller alone. The goal was to challenge myself to work the destiny into the story so that everybody had a good time and to spice up the campaign with choices or combination that I would never have chosen consciously.
I want to tell you about my experience so far with the destiny system. We have had 11 games sessions so far.
The Destiny
Knowing ahead of the first session who would be the characters' sire was a huge benefit. Over the first few sessions, I could introduce the various sires gradually. I think the players appreciated this too, since the NPC that would be their sire was not suddenly introduced just prior to the embrace, but had been present in the game from the beginning. This has given the game a sense of continuity.
At some point, one of the player got a indication through a wise woman (who presumably could tell the future) that she would live to be an old woman. The player reacted very strongly to this. I think the player realized (correctly) that what could otherwise have been taken as a off comment or a vague prediction that she would live long, was in fact a true premonition of what she had rolled for her destiny. At first the player strongly objected, she had no intention of playing an old gray-haired kindred. It took a bit of couching to get the player to try to change the destiny, or at least take her destiny into her own hands. This event played out to the benefit of the game because as a storyteller I was made aware that this event or chain of event was nothing that would fascinate this player.
Another aspect of the destiny is that it is highly unlikely that the players would be embraced or ghouled at the same time. This gave us an opportunity to have a mixed group for a while. The player that was first embraced wanted to keep it a secret from the rest of the players/characters. I had anticipated this, and already from the beginning of the campaign I had focused on events during the night. Since we started in Norway, having almost any event during the night was not a problem during the winter since the nights are so long. The kindred-player and I agreed on a few things we would do to avoid drawing attention to the change. For instance, when I asked if someone wanted their character to do something during the day she would often reply with some action she wanted her character to perform. This was a rouse for the other players, I would just ignore those actions. When in combat she faked the impact of her wounds so that her behaviour more resembled that of a mortal character. These things helped keep the cat in the box. We also did a few "mistakes" that let the other players onto the change. First of all we started exchanging more written (secret) notes during the game session. This had not been used a lot prior to the embrace so it was easily noticed. Second, as a kindred her social status changed, which also aroused the other players' suspicions.
All in all it worked nicely, a few players were suspicious that something had happened to the embraced character, but uncertain as to what. This was mostly caused by the notes and the change in social status.
At the moment I'm satisfied with the destiny experiment. However, I'm wondering if it would have been better not to inform the players of it in advance, and only used it as a tool for the Storyteller.
Predefined Chapters of the campaign
The players were informed that I intended them to experience a few different locations and events. I had decided upon some of them because I had recently bought a lot of oWOD books detailing them. So far this have not played any major part in the campaign, unfortunately. I had hoped to introduce characters from the prepared material as soon as possible. I thought how awesome would it not be to meet the prince of a city I know you are going to visit later when he is still a mortal? However I have found that many of the characters are not even born at the time I decided to start the campaign, and that it felt unnatural to introduce them while the players were stil in Norway.
I hope that I will be able to do this soon though, as it is one of the things I have high ambitions and expectations for.
System
I have made some changes to the system. Instead of the standard character creation system, I modified the existing XP system so that I could use this during character generation. I really do not like the fact that there is one freebie based system at character creation and another system (xp) for improvement during the game. It favours specialicing your character as early as possible, and my experience tells me that too many players come out of the normal character creation with skills or diciplines maxed out. It became a bit more cumbersome, but otherwise it worked as intended. None of the players have complained about it anyway (I wonder if I gave them too much starting XP?).
Before we started this game, the players were given the following introduction:
Call it destiny; call it fate or the will of God. It chose to have a plan for these particular souls. Some would call them blessed as Odin's einherjar, some would call them cursed as Cain's children. Through the ages they will live, or at least exist. They will gaze on the gates of Jerusalem in 1099 just prior to a bloodbath that will be remembered for eternity. When Pope Innocence III calls the fourth crusade, they are destined to see a piece of the true cross on which Jesus himself died. In Paris, they will learn to fear the guillotine. In New Orleans they will meet Catharina, for they are Odin's blessed einherjarar. Let's start with the beginning, the place is Fossfjordgard on the west coast of Norway and the year is 754, and the five mortals are facing each other……
Furthermore each player was informed that he or she would roll a random destiny, which the world and its powers would conspire to make reality. Though they might, through their own actions, change the course of this destiny. Things included in the destiny were whether the character was to become a ghoul prior to embrace and, if so, when it would happen. What clan and at what time they would be embraced. Finally, for each chapter of the campaign, a special roll was made to see if the players would lose or gain any merits, flaws, backgrounds and so forth... The players did however not get to see the destiny, as it was to be a tool for the storyteller alone. The goal was to challenge myself to work the destiny into the story so that everybody had a good time and to spice up the campaign with choices or combination that I would never have chosen consciously.
I want to tell you about my experience so far with the destiny system. We have had 11 games sessions so far.
The Destiny
Knowing ahead of the first session who would be the characters' sire was a huge benefit. Over the first few sessions, I could introduce the various sires gradually. I think the players appreciated this too, since the NPC that would be their sire was not suddenly introduced just prior to the embrace, but had been present in the game from the beginning. This has given the game a sense of continuity.
At some point, one of the player got a indication through a wise woman (who presumably could tell the future) that she would live to be an old woman. The player reacted very strongly to this. I think the player realized (correctly) that what could otherwise have been taken as a off comment or a vague prediction that she would live long, was in fact a true premonition of what she had rolled for her destiny. At first the player strongly objected, she had no intention of playing an old gray-haired kindred. It took a bit of couching to get the player to try to change the destiny, or at least take her destiny into her own hands. This event played out to the benefit of the game because as a storyteller I was made aware that this event or chain of event was nothing that would fascinate this player.
Another aspect of the destiny is that it is highly unlikely that the players would be embraced or ghouled at the same time. This gave us an opportunity to have a mixed group for a while. The player that was first embraced wanted to keep it a secret from the rest of the players/characters. I had anticipated this, and already from the beginning of the campaign I had focused on events during the night. Since we started in Norway, having almost any event during the night was not a problem during the winter since the nights are so long. The kindred-player and I agreed on a few things we would do to avoid drawing attention to the change. For instance, when I asked if someone wanted their character to do something during the day she would often reply with some action she wanted her character to perform. This was a rouse for the other players, I would just ignore those actions. When in combat she faked the impact of her wounds so that her behaviour more resembled that of a mortal character. These things helped keep the cat in the box. We also did a few "mistakes" that let the other players onto the change. First of all we started exchanging more written (secret) notes during the game session. This had not been used a lot prior to the embrace so it was easily noticed. Second, as a kindred her social status changed, which also aroused the other players' suspicions.
All in all it worked nicely, a few players were suspicious that something had happened to the embraced character, but uncertain as to what. This was mostly caused by the notes and the change in social status.
At the moment I'm satisfied with the destiny experiment. However, I'm wondering if it would have been better not to inform the players of it in advance, and only used it as a tool for the Storyteller.
Predefined Chapters of the campaign
The players were informed that I intended them to experience a few different locations and events. I had decided upon some of them because I had recently bought a lot of oWOD books detailing them. So far this have not played any major part in the campaign, unfortunately. I had hoped to introduce characters from the prepared material as soon as possible. I thought how awesome would it not be to meet the prince of a city I know you are going to visit later when he is still a mortal? However I have found that many of the characters are not even born at the time I decided to start the campaign, and that it felt unnatural to introduce them while the players were stil in Norway.
I hope that I will be able to do this soon though, as it is one of the things I have high ambitions and expectations for.
System
I have made some changes to the system. Instead of the standard character creation system, I modified the existing XP system so that I could use this during character generation. I really do not like the fact that there is one freebie based system at character creation and another system (xp) for improvement during the game. It favours specialicing your character as early as possible, and my experience tells me that too many players come out of the normal character creation with skills or diciplines maxed out. It became a bit more cumbersome, but otherwise it worked as intended. None of the players have complained about it anyway (I wonder if I gave them too much starting XP?).
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