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Post by Brave Sir Robin on Sept 23, 2015 7:41:19 GMT
I agree that can be an excellent thing to do, if you can produce a wonderful story moment it's well worth it. But I think you have to be careful to manage it and create a feelgood moment instead of a feel bad moment.
I think one way it can often feel bad is that it can be quite a selfish way to play. Why is one character more important than the others? If you have three characters all using all their abilities as best they can to help the party, then you find out the fourth person wasn't it's not a great feeling. Made even worse if you're in some way absorbing a lot more attention and effort from the GM than the rest of the party too.
Basically, I want to be part of a group where everyone is playing to make sure everyone enjoys the game. I am not saying that is incompatible with hidden information, but in a lot of the examples I've seen or heard of it really hasn't been the aim.
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Post by Alex Newall on Sept 23, 2015 23:30:10 GMT
All units trouser, trouser, trouser!
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Post by Oneiros on Sept 24, 2015 7:03:49 GMT
I think there's a difference between 'secrets that will create a good roleplay moment' and 'secrets that will wreck the party'. The former can work well, the latter are awful. The rogue-as-paladin falls into the latter. Admittedly it comes down to a group's play style, but having been in campaigns where one character's backstory secrets ends up taking much of the focus and effectively splitting the party, I don't find it a fun way to play. Definitely agree with Brave Sir Robin on the potentially selfish aspect. This is where group communication plays a big part - I'm a big advocate now of shared character creation so players can avoid big points of character friction. If you want secrets, fine, but talk to the GM and - hopefully - they're good enough to recognise when something isn't going to be fun for everyone (alas, this isn't always the case). That's not to say you should avoid all in-party disagreements, a certain level of lowish-level differences of opinion can make for great roleplaying (see Zolf and Hamid over Poseidon's tenets, for example), but generally the party should be focussed on fighting the game's antagonists and not worrying about whether they can trust each other. If you ever do a metacast on GMing and/or player dynamics, I think I've got several stories I can share
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Jonny
Member of the Order of the Quill
Host of The Magnus Archives
Turns out I was a ghost all along.
Posts: 114
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Post by Jonny on Sept 24, 2015 7:39:32 GMT
Very much disagree - I always want there to be a few revelations and inter-character flashpoints over the course of a campaign. I party that joins up and happily works together to fight a villain until the evil is defeated bores me to tears. I want to see them struggling to reconcile the fact that the warrior they've been fighting at the side of for six months used to be a criminal working for the very people who murdered their father. I want to see them betrayed, to see characters go beyond the pale and get challenged for it.
I always find they key is to make sure the party has worked together and saved each other for some time before any of this comes out - you're quite right that if there's no impetus to stay then it just destroys the party. I want betrayal to fight loyalty in the hearts of the characters. If the party does split, then as long as there's no actual violence I have no problem running a few sessions of the separated parties, before seeing if they can be written back together. And if the betrayal is truly unforgivable, then there's always a heroic sacrifice, or even the old friend being taken by the GM to become a new antagonist. Best example of this was a mad scientist character from one of my campaigns that got gradually more and more unhinged, until he had taken the zombie power, which was considered pretty damn evil by the rest of the party. There was a helluva lot of in-character conflict, which culminated in the final battle with the scientist, dying from his wounds, taking his own zombie potion in order to push through to deal the final blow. It was one of the best RPG moments I've ever GM'd, and you just don't get that sort of thing if you're afraid of in-character conflict.
My backstory creation is almost the exact opposite of yours - I'll talk through with each player what backstory they want, in as much detail as they care for, but with as few specific names and locations as possible. Then I'll go away and link them together, write them up and hand them back ("Hm, so Jeff reckons his thief was captured and tortured by an infantry unit during the war? What regiment did the warrior say they were from again..."). I always find the best way to prevent "selfish secrets" to to make sure everyone gets their fair share, or have non-secret backstory elements that you give just as much focus. You're the GM, how much focus stuff gets is up to you, and a story without drama isn't worth telling, as far as I'm concerned.
That said, I do have the luxury of players I can absolutely trust to handle this sort of thing. I've had a few over the years who have trouble separating character and player, or worse, whose first response to any sort of inter-character conflict is PvP, regardless of how unrealistic or boring that is. I've no inherent objection to PvP, but that stuff needs a significant build-up and properly dramatic confrontation.
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Post by Brave Sir Robin on Sept 24, 2015 9:11:30 GMT
I can't disagree with you about any of that (except maybe the vanilla style being so boring - I still enjoy that kind of thing). I think the stuff you are talking about does sound very cool And maybe I have expressed myself badly - I think the plot revelations that you're talking about can be amazing, and I fully encourage them. I am certainly hoping that some of that sort of thing ends up happening in our campaign. Unexpected connections and emotional revelations are amazing, setting up conflicts in backstory that tumble out later at dramatic moments . I feel that is different from one player individually planning ahead of time, to build a character who is hiding something significant from the entire rest of the party throughout the whole game. You talk about building party loyalty up gradually and then enjoying the moments where that is tested, and I agree with that completely. The kind of stuff I dislike is where that is never given the opportunity to develop in the first place - because one character has been doing something all along that prevents trust building up. I find your backstory process really interesting. I'd love to play in a game where it was handled like that. My best experiences have used shared storytelling to create backstory, giving a really rich shared history to characters, and letting the GM throw in enemies and situations that matter to everyone. I think the key thing, as you say, is sharing it around. If every character is getting the opportunity to enjoy the same things then it is much less of a concern. You are also entirely correct about having players that can handle it. Sadly I have played in too many games where one of the players is trying to "win" Which is where the problem really comes from. Though luckily I have never had to deal with people who can't separate IC conflict from OOC feelings. Also, I don't want to give the impression that I want games without conflict. I loved the conflict between Zolf and Hamid that came up recently in the podcast. Some of my absolute best roleplay experiences have been characters dealing with difficult situations and profoundly disagreeing about how to handle them. I agree that drama and conflict drive story, and you need them, but I think there's plenty of ways to generate them without one member of a party actively screwing over the others.
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Post by Alex Newall on Sept 24, 2015 22:48:55 GMT
Opinions noted. Bertie will betray everyone AND there will be no conflict whatsoever. Everybody wins.
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Post by Oneiros on Sept 25, 2015 6:08:18 GMT
To quote a certain stegosaurus: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
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Post by Alex Newall on Sept 25, 2015 22:55:34 GMT
MINE IS AN EVIL LAUGH!
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missnash
Officer of Many Letters
illustrating happy
Posts: 190
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Post by missnash on Sept 26, 2015 14:17:06 GMT
Now die!!!!
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Post by Alex Newall on Sept 27, 2015 4:37:39 GMT
You will do well here Nash.
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missnash
Officer of Many Letters
illustrating happy
Posts: 190
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Post by missnash on Sept 30, 2015 9:34:07 GMT
...is there anyone else sad that Serenity was released Ten years ago today...?
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Post by Brave Sir Robin on Sept 30, 2015 10:37:06 GMT
Yeah. But ConMan is premiering today as well, which should be exciting. I didn't have the funds to back it, but I am really looking forward to watching it. Anyone else back it / aware of it?
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missnash
Officer of Many Letters
illustrating happy
Posts: 190
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Post by missnash on Sept 30, 2015 21:50:56 GMT
I am on that cusp of being too excited about it. The trailers look excellent
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Post by Brave Sir Robin on Oct 1, 2015 8:38:28 GMT
Ended up watching a bunch of other stuff last night (Castle, Heroes Reborn, Brooklyn 99 and Agents of Shield), but now my schedule is clear and I will be injecting it straight into my eyeballs tonight!
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missnash
Officer of Many Letters
illustrating happy
Posts: 190
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Post by missnash on Oct 1, 2015 22:04:13 GMT
You have excellent taste! It's on my weekend list of viewing (as well as Castle, 30 Rock, Angle, Dead like me and Chuck) I know I'm going to fan-girl through it though :/
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