agree, dont suppose theres any chance you live in auckland, new zealand is there manyasone :P
Afraid not, my friend! California, born and raised.
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ManyAsOne, you are an awesome GM. Thanks for those stories. I would love to play at your table. Thanks! I like human stories. Not necessarily in the literal 'they're all Race: Human' sense, but I like to make sure that the characters I present to the players are mentally and emotionally viable. Thought I don't see any reason that the Flaming Swords of Awesomeness and Artifacts of Immense Power, and Superhero Characters of Supreme Epicness can't have their moment in the sun. I can set a serious tone, but its also a game and sometimes it -is- just plain fun to kick in a door, kill the orcs, save the girl, get the money, buy the new bad-assly sword and move on. And, yes, my players are - for the most part - absolutely awesome. We do have our occasional quarrels (the same as every table), but they're definitely my favorite people to play with and I get equal - if not more - enjoyment from the game because for all the heart I invest into the game, they give it back in spades. :D
That's a fine idea, Squack, and depending on the story itself, having an ally turn villain can be heart-wrenching. In this case, however, I wanted the players to have someone they could just hate, hate, hate. My rules for evoking emotion are pretty direct. 1. If you want emotional response, you have to be emotional. Give your NPCs some additional kick. Don't be afraid to bang your fist on the table and if the NPC is enraged, or wail and bemoan if he's been harmed or slighted. 2. The more human the situation and the characters in it, the better. Emotional reaction comes from relatability. The same applies for writing characters in novels. If the character is inhuman, without motivation other than to 'be evil', or paper thin, they're harder to love or hate. 3. If you want them to respond to a villain, its a good idea to make sure he's villainous. Not just on a grand scale, but in a personal, direct way. Maybe he's a warlord that has butchered a settlement nearby without cause, but what has he done to the PCs specifically? Give them plenty of cause to detest you villain (but be careful that you don't overdo it; no player likes abuse). 4. If you want them to love an NPC, again - give them cause. Let them come across the NPC frequently. Spend more time on interactions with the NPC. Routine and familiarity are quick building blocks to establish an emotional connection. 5. These are all useless of course if you haven't fleshed out your NPC. Every NPC I've ever made I've had a motivation made for them. Sometimes its as simple as a single sentence: 'this man is a merchant seeking profit'. But I always keep it in the back of my mind. For major NPCs, I'll often draft up multiple pages about who they are and what they want. This'll give me the ability to answer unusual questions on the fly. But be sure you keep your motivations flexible. They can change at the drop of hat for some people. The merchant above suddenly goes out of business because the local economic balance is tipped when the PCs spend all their massive amounts of wealth at another shop. New motivation: revenge? 6. Story, story, story, story, story. Make sure the players understand your story and give them the freedom and ability to affect its outcome. The more you show them that your grand tale is - in part - the sum of their own actions and that their deeds can have affect on the world around them, the more engrossed and invested they'll be. Never stifle player creativity, especially when it can advance the story in a way that can give them that boost of tabletop pride. The more invested they are, the more easily you can evoke emotion. 7. Pull the rug out from under them from time to time. Nothing is black and white. Real feelings stem from conflict. If the PCs truly like an NPC, stir it up from time to time with minor disagreements that become a little heated. A perfect, always agreeable NPC runs the risk of being paper-thin. Just make sure you make wounds you can soothe over if you intend on continuing the NPC as the party's friend. Likewise, for villains, its not a bad idea to temper their actions once in a great while by letting them display some manner of kindness to the party. Nothing puts a party on edge more than a smiling villain. It becomes a matter of paranoia as they all wonder 'okay, what the hell is this bad guy planning now? He's never been nice to us'. 8. Feedback. After each session I run, I have a 'pros and cons' breakdown with my players. Here I look for the stuff they really enjoyed and the stuff that they hated and I try to make sure my game can, as much as is reasonable, alter to better suit their individual tastes. If you run a 'pros and cons' you need to be ready to accept criticism. If you run it for self-adulation, your players will know and you'll come off as a jerk. Give them the chance to 'pros' one another as well. A good solid team mentality can help players get emotionally invested in one-another's characters. These rules aren't universal and are simply tools to help me draw my players in. When in doubt, look to your favorite novels, television shows, movies, etc, etc. The Walking Dead is a good example. If you followed season 2 from the first episode of the season to episode 7, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The build up and the ultimate reveal at the end was emotionally jarring. Anyhow, I'll stop now because I could continue - at length - and no one wants that. :P
Communication and strong character backgrounds -- the character has to be more than just a toon... he has to have reason for everything that happens. People are not naturally evil (I'm not saying they are natural good by the way) -- in order for them to go with evil it has to be not only the path of least resistance but have something that leads there too. Word.
After looking through some of the books (namely UM and UC), it has occurred to my group that PF has pretty much given up on being a fantasy game and just gone "screw it, let's go Steampunk". Especially after UC. I mean, just look at the picture of the Spellslinger Wizard... Not that this is a bad thing, just an observation and a thread to see if anyone else has noticed this and what people's thoughts are on it. Personally, I quite like it. My reply to this would be that the game is as much or as little fantasy as you want it to be. Those books you mentioned are 'supplemental' and, as in all of the books, you're given license to use as much or as little of them as you'd like for your own campaign. The books cover a whole array of genres from what I've seen. From classic high fantasy, to dark and gritty swords and sorcery, to feudal Japanese-esque lords and weapons, to - yes - some steampunky designs and ideas. Is there anything wrong with variety? Particularly when they actually state you can use as much or as little as you like? I like the variety. It gives me plenty of room to pick and choose the bits and pieces that work for my own campaign and the freedom to throw the rest out if I don't like it.
I actually like this idea a lot. While amnesia can be a cliche, what event could bring it on more than being violently thrust into the clutches of death, then violently ripped back out? I like it.
But I just realized that has nothing to do with the original post. Alignment isn't a warrant to kill in most average campaign settings. Depending on your own personal setting, however, this might not be so. If a player uses detect ___ on my NPCs, I'll tell them the truth of their alignments (provided they actually register and aren't either too low a level or somehow misdirecting divinations). But in the same breath I'll remind them that most societies are governed by law and order and in most cases being evil isn't illegal. Its -doing- evil that is.
While a village not be able to muster more than a few low level volunteers, the landed lord that taxes the villages in his or her fief certainly wouldn't want his income hurt by brigands and bandits who attack the very people he collects taxes from and in most cases could doubltlessly muster ten-to-twenty well armed men in a regiment to put the menace down.
Oh -- another example. Sorry for being so wordy...! Recalling past events. Its a big deal. When the players feel their actions, for good or bad, have effected the world around them, they can slowly get more and more immersed, making it easier to get an emotional response. In the same game I mentioned above, the players captured two drug-addled street thugs who had earlier ambushed a lone party member and robbed him blind. They were brothers and while one was obviously evil, the other was cowed, subdued, and largely just a lackey with no real force of will of his own. Just a tool for his cruel brother. When he constantly stated 'its not my fault', the players took note of it, but still sent him to be arrested with his foul brother. Monthly, the city hosts a 'hanging day' in which convicted criminals whose crimes were bad enough to get them executed are publicly hanged with all the pomp and pageantry the city can afford. Its both a warning and a spectacle to keep the public in-line. When the two brothers were brought up onto the gallows, the vile, evil one was stoically silent. His brother, however, was weeping, weak, and terrified, constantly calling out 'this be a mistake!' and 'I were jus' doin' as I was told!'. He was hanged. This little story line ended a few in-game weeks later when the party was taking shelter in the basement of an inn owned by a friend. They awoke in the middle of the night to a chill breeze. The staircase trapdoor leading up to the alleyway outside the inn was open and faint moonlight was cast down into the basement. The candle on the lone table was burned to nearly a nub and a shadowy figure stood silhouetted between the party and the light, making him hard to see. Before the players could react, I - using the same voice as the weak, sniveling brother mentioned above - shouted 'You KILLED ME!'. They all jumped in their seats, two of them went white, and before they could say anything, I grinned and told them all to roll a will save verses the REVENANT's Baleful Shriek. It was the brother returned to right his wrongful death. :D This was one of my proudest moments. They were all aghast and after the session I got more than a few remarks that, after describing the scene quietly and breaking that dull, quiet description with a sudden scream at them, they were actually quite shaken.
I agree with a lot of what was said here. Story, story, story, plus a deep connectivity to the NPCs and setting. I, like Squack, require a character backstory. Making them invest time and thought into their character's history, their family, their allies, and their enemies means that I have a laundry-list of things to exploit to evoke certain emotions. One tactic I used in my current game, was to introduce the ultimate villain they were destined to clash with on day 1. Fresh off the boat, they're nearly arrested by an overbearing, violently tempered, thoroughly corrupt watch-captain. By making sure this first encounter was as detestable and inconvenient to the party as possible, I planted a small seed of hatred that I helped to grow with future encounters with him. He harried them constantly, always standing behind his lawful rights to abuse his power and make life hard for the would-be heroes. To cement this, about halfway into the campaign, I made him actually lash out at them with a city-wide manhunt on trumped-up charges that forced the party to retreat into the city sewers for nearly a week. Their final retreat into the sewers actually involved a violent conflict as he tracked them down and they got a chance to fight him. Since then, he's harbored a deep hatred for them (increased by the fact that in the sewer-retreat combat he lost an eye to one of the party members). With that small victory over him and their successful escape, I gave a little giving them a bit of a chance to feel heroic, while taking from them at the same time, since a retreat into the sewers was ultimately the result of their efforts. The party eventually returned to the city surface after the watch-captain (the 'Sinister Cyclops', as they now know him after taking his eye) was publicly reprimanded by the lord mayor for using city resources to enact a personal vendetta. In any case, the game's close to over and the players are bristling for his blood. They've managed to oust him from his seat as the captain of the watch and have him on the run in the city. They now just have to track him down and kill him. So, in short, its a give and take. Make them react by planting the right seeds at the right time. Give them little victories. Every once and in a while (though don't overdo it), take the victories away. Make them love or hate whoever it is you're looking to be the source of the emotional evocations. By making memorable NPCs, giving them personal ties to the party members, and by exploiting those ties you can -- with a bit of practice -- really get a response.
I'm tentatively hopeful. Perhaps mistakes made in 4th edition and 3-3.5 won't be repeated. And, in the words of one of my favorite heroes: "...Yeah, and maybe I'm a Chinese jet pilot."
I got a case and I have to say I'm thrilled. I got at least one of every miniature and they were all awesome. A word of advice: do be a -little- cautious, I had two that came out of the case detached from their bases, but it was an easy fix and they look -amazing-!
Its awesome to see such a show of community from everybody here! I submitted for the first time this year and at the very least I'm satisfied at that. Good luck to everyone! |