Experimental play: non-party structure [Archive] - Wizards Community

Experimental play: non-party structure [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
SurfMonkey
08-24-04, 12:19 PM I'm looking at starting an Eberron game with my group soon. We're about to indoctrinate two newbies, so I'm gonna have a 6-person group. And I was thinking, this would be a good time to try an experiment. I've been watching a lot of TV on DVD lately -- mostly Buffy, Stargate, and 24. This is something I've observed. Buffy and Stargate are designed in the traditional gaming mold, where the group (or party, if you will) spends most of the time together and occasionally heads off on their own. 24, however, almost never has more than half (at most) of the group together at a time. Yet the characters still obviously live in the same place and react to the same events. It's much more of an ensemble piece than a party tale. I think this is what I want to try. However, I'm iffy on the hows and whether or not it will really work. Especially since I want to run Forgotten Forge and Shadows of the Last War. I was thinking that I could branch them out and expand on them some, allowing for multiple paths to the same end goal. And then, once that point is reached, the characters will have met each other and we can see how things go from there. How does all of this sound? Does it make sense? Am I crazy? Will it work?
MarkB
08-24-04, 12:46 PM I'd be very wary of this, as it will almost certainly break up the ensemble nature of the game - you'll be concentrating on one storyline at a time, and some of the time you may need to physically separate group members in order to impart information that one player knows and others don't. Even if you try your very best to be even-handed with the storylines, players are going to feel left-out.

Bear in mind that 24 uses a lot of modern technology to let it work the way it does - characters are usually only a phone-call away, making the effectively in constant communication, can monitor each others' actions via satellite, etc. Even given Eberron's magical devices, you can't replicate all of this.

Finally, a game that's intended to introduce new players is not the place to start experimenting. This sort of major change to gameplay is something you should only consider attempting with an experienced group who are all enthusiastic about it - it's no environment for new players.
Argonel
08-24-04, 12:51 PM It's a wonderful idea, and I hope it works for you. How well it wroks for you will really depend on your preparation and your players.

The biggest pitfall that I see is that this stye of play will probably end up focusing on single players for long periods of time, thius may bore your other players. You may also want to have your players physically separated for these periods to reduce the amount of out of character knowledge each player has.

The other potential trap to watch out for is that encounters are typically designed to play off the teamwork of a group of players. even an easy encounter could be devestating for a single player f they have a little bad luck.

On the other hand this has some really good points, like making it easy to insure that everyone gets a turn in the spotlight and gets to take advantage of their preferred style of play. If you have the time available you could run the first part of the adventure over the course of a week, taking each person to the meeting point individually, then getting the entire group together on the weekend to finish out the story.

Let us know how it works, especially anything you found to work very well, or very poorly.
Korhal IV
08-31-04, 01:48 AM In order to do this best, you might want to plan out when people will leave the group, and ask them to arrive early or leave late so you can play that part.

On a broader note, most people play D&D as a social thing. Sure, the storyline might be cool, but if a player doesn't get to spend some quality time with his favorite fellow nerds, he might get antsy about it anyway. For that reason I suggest having PCs leave only briefly, so that you can cover those episodes some other time and rejoin with the main group when everyone's there and ready to play.
eRaz0r
08-31-04, 03:13 PM The best way to do something like this is in extremely brief snapshots that you can run simultaneously.

For example, in a Feng Shui game I ran recently, the party split up to enjoy some "down time", which I interrupted with an unexpected Zombie attack! I ran too combats at the same time, switching between the two scenes interchangeably, as if they were the same combat (although the two sets of combatants were separated by several city blocks).

It worked very well and the players loved it.

I'd advise against any kind of game where you've got diverging plot lines, or action which occurs on two different time frames (so that you have entire groups of people who have to wait around while you resolve the combat for one group - that's bad).

Remember - things that take seconds or minutes to resolve in a TV show can take HOURS of playing time. Making others sit around (or go home) during that time can put a hole in your game you can't easily fix.
Prosperohawk
09-01-04, 02:54 AM I once ran a D&D game set in Middle Earth. I had three different parties running simultaneously in the same story and timeline. Not all parties included the same players and the parties (for the most part) had no idea of eachothers existence until they all met at the end of the campaign. I arranged to play with different groups on alternating weeks. For instance I would play with group A on week one, group B on week two, group C on week three and then group A again on week four and so on. Only one of my players had a character in each group. The others were spread over the groups with all eight of them playing in group A, 4 in group B and only 2 in group C. The players not in group A didn't know about the characters in group B and those not in group B didn't know about group C. This takes some heavy organization on the part of the DM an lots of co-operation on the part of the players but it can make for some really interesting stuff when one group comes across the aftermath of what another group has done and chalks it up to NPC's when it was really another PC group. Hard to do, but well worth it. Make sure that your players are capable of handling more than one character though, or it can be too much for them. Also, this style really relies on role-playing not "roll-playing". You need experienced players to pull this off IMHO.
Lara Flynn
09-01-04, 09:19 AM Yeah, Prosperohawk is right (great idea by the way), you really need experienced players.
Thus I agree with MarkB, it's not the easiest thing to do and a lot of preparation is required and it's definitively not the kind of campaign you do for beginners.

And of course one should not forget the social component anyway.
The only way to rule this out is the internet. I once had a group which met only via a board.
So I had the idea of telling each individuals story. That is to say that everyone recieved his own sub-board and posted what he did in there and I posted what everyone else did (including the other PCs of whom each PC didn't know that they were PCs). It was great for avoiding this PC vs. NPC feeling which sometimes occurs and one time the group ended up hunting one of their own PCs who had converted to the enemy.
That was cool because everyone could follow his character and there is no need for that kind of "okay, you are in a tavern, you meet the party stuff".
And one can seperate the group with ease. But it was loads of work for me as some PCs went completely rogue and were on the edge of destroying the story line. But then again, he can be stopped easier with ingame options than it would be if we played at home alltogether.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SurfMonkey 08-24-04, 12:19 PM	I'm looking at starting an Eberron game with my group soon. We're about to indoctrinate two newbies, so I'm gonna have a 6-person group. And I was thinking, this would be a good time to try an experiment. I've been watching a lot of TV on DVD lately -- mostly Buffy, Stargate, and 24. This is something I've observed. Buffy and Stargate are designed in the traditional gaming mold, where the group (or party, if you will) spends most of the time together and occasionally heads off on their own. 24, however, almost never has more than half (at most) of the group together at a time. Yet the characters still obviously live in the same place and react to the same events. It's much more of an ensemble piece than a party tale. I think this is what I want to try. However, I'm iffy on the hows and whether or not it will really work. Especially since I want to run Forgotten Forge and Shadows of the Last War. I was thinking that I could branch them out and expand on them some, allowing for multiple paths to the same end goal. And then, once that point is reached, the characters will have met each other and we can see how things go from there. How does all of this sound? Does it make sense? Am I crazy? Will it work?
MarkB 08-24-04, 12:46 PM	I'd be very wary of this, as it will almost certainly break up the ensemble nature of the game - you'll be concentrating on one storyline at a time, and some of the time you may need to physically separate group members in order to impart information that one player knows and others don't. Even if you try your very best to be even-handed with the storylines, players are going to feel left-out. Bear in mind that 24 uses a lot of modern technology to let it work the way it does - characters are usually only a phone-call away, making the effectively in constant communication, can monitor each others' actions via satellite, etc. Even given Eberron's magical devices, you can't replicate all of this. Finally, a game that's intended to introduce new players is not the place to start experimenting. This sort of major change to gameplay is something you should only consider attempting with an experienced group who are all enthusiastic about it - it's no environment for new players.
Argonel 08-24-04, 12:51 PM	It's a wonderful idea, and I hope it works for you. How well it wroks for you will really depend on your preparation and your players. The biggest pitfall that I see is that this stye of play will probably end up focusing on single players for long periods of time, thius may bore your other players. You may also want to have your players physically separated for these periods to reduce the amount of out of character knowledge each player has. The other potential trap to watch out for is that encounters are typically designed to play off the teamwork of a group of players. even an easy encounter could be devestating for a single player f they have a little bad luck. On the other hand this has some really good points, like making it easy to insure that everyone gets a turn in the spotlight and gets to take advantage of their preferred style of play. If you have the time available you could run the first part of the adventure over the course of a week, taking each person to the meeting point individually, then getting the entire group together on the weekend to finish out the story. Let us know how it works, especially anything you found to work very well, or very poorly.
Korhal IV 08-31-04, 01:48 AM	In order to do this best, you might want to plan out when people will leave the group, and ask them to arrive early or leave late so you can play that part. On a broader note, most people play D&D as a social thing. Sure, the storyline might be cool, but if a player doesn't get to spend some quality time with his favorite fellow nerds, he might get antsy about it anyway. For that reason I suggest having PCs leave only briefly, so that you can cover those episodes some other time and rejoin with the main group when everyone's there and ready to play.
eRaz0r 08-31-04, 03:13 PM	The best way to do something like this is in extremely brief snapshots that you can run simultaneously. For example, in a Feng Shui game I ran recently, the party split up to enjoy some "down time", which I interrupted with an unexpected Zombie attack! I ran too combats at the same time, switching between the two scenes interchangeably, as if they were the same combat (although the two sets of combatants were separated by several city blocks). It worked very well and the players loved it. I'd advise against any kind of game where you've got diverging plot lines, or action which occurs on two different time frames (so that you have entire groups of people who have to wait around while you resolve the combat for one group - that's bad). Remember - things that take seconds or minutes to resolve in a TV show can take HOURS of playing time. Making others sit around (or go home) during that time can put a hole in your game you can't easily fix.
Prosperohawk 09-01-04, 02:54 AM	I once ran a D&D game set in Middle Earth. I had three different parties running simultaneously in the same story and timeline. Not all parties included the same players and the parties (for the most part) had no idea of eachothers existence until they all met at the end of the campaign. I arranged to play with different groups on alternating weeks. For instance I would play with group A on week one, group B on week two, group C on week three and then group A again on week four and so on. Only one of my players had a character in each group. The others were spread over the groups with all eight of them playing in group A, 4 in group B and only 2 in group C. The players not in group A didn't know about the characters in group B and those not in group B didn't know about group C. This takes some heavy organization on the part of the DM an lots of co-operation on the part of the players but it can make for some really interesting stuff when one group comes across the aftermath of what another group has done and chalks it up to NPC's when it was really another PC group. Hard to do, but well worth it. Make sure that your players are capable of handling more than one character though, or it can be too much for them. Also, this style really relies on role-playing not "roll-playing". You need experienced players to pull this off IMHO.
Lara Flynn 09-01-04, 09:19 AM	Yeah, Prosperohawk is right (great idea by the way), you really need experienced players. Thus I agree with MarkB, it's not the easiest thing to do and a lot of preparation is required and it's definitively not the kind of campaign you do for beginners. And of course one should not forget the social component anyway. The only way to rule this out is the internet. I once had a group which met only via a board. So I had the idea of telling each individuals story. That is to say that everyone recieved his own sub-board and posted what he did in there and I posted what everyone else did (including the other PCs of whom each PC didn't know that they were PCs). It was great for avoiding this PC vs. NPC feeling which sometimes occurs and one time the group ended up hunting one of their own PCs who had converted to the enemy. That was cool because everyone could follow his character and there is no need for that kind of "okay, you are in a tavern, you meet the party stuff". And one can seperate the group with ease. But it was loads of work for me as some PCs went completely rogue and were on the edge of destroying the story line. But then again, he can be stopped easier with ingame options than it would be if we played at home alltogether.