A tension in RM's Campaign Law

[pemerton]

When I first learned to play Rolemasters, the two GMs that introduced me, were the one's that taught me about having a setting, having the PCs create characters fit within the confines of that setting, but creating adventures around the players backgrounds and goals.

So you think there's no tension? Or at least less than I do?

 

[Greg K]

So you think there's no tension? Or at least less than I do?

No. I, personally, have never found a tension. The first adventure of my campaigns always takes into account backgrounds and/or goals- especially to bring them together. Then the campaign riffs of those backgrounds and goals, prior actions, and decisions at the time while keeping in the confines of the established setting.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

My interest in this isn't purely theoretical. I GMed RM for 19 years straight. In that time it was my go-to game. So I had to try and reconcile these tensions myself. I think I did a passing job of it in my first campaign, and a good job in my second. But part of what helped me in my second campaign was reading more widely about RPGing techniques, including relationships between backstory/setting, characters, and scenarios/situation. In the end I realised that, for me, the stuff about "starting the players with a rich background" was good and the stuff about "designing a campaign setting" was less helpful.

I fail to see a tension. Players asked from scratch will only be able to express very general goals and one size fit all backgrounds. It's useful to know those general goals for adventure design, but in my experience, the more the players are knowledgeable of the world, the easier they can come up with something interesting (or realize that if you're creating a grim and bleak setting and they want to be a knight in shining armor, they might want to skip this one out before the start rather than dropping out at session 8...).

I find it more difficult to design adventures taking into account player's input if it is expressed in very general terms (we want deep moral dilemmas and face difficult choices! Ok.. but that doesn't help me as a gm) and prompting rich players input by presenting them with a vivid background helps stimulate their creativity. Have a border settlement at the edge of primal chaos and a refined slightly decadent capital and see where they tie their background: it will express what you need to narrow down their first adventure and the rest of the campaign will go from there, very differently if they all tied themselves to the savage frontier than if they had chosen the capital rife with political intrigue.

I think player task will be easier at session 0 if they have a knowledge of the world. It also helps to hammer out details of a character: if they know the gods and their quirks, how the afterlife works and so on, their religious character will be more detailed than if they just have a very general view on the gods. I came to realize that by playing in published settings and homebrew and comparing the session zeroes. It is just an experience, but I never saw a tension.

 

[pemerton]

Players asked from scratch will only be able to express very general goals and one size fit all backgrounds.

This isn't really my experience.

For instance, in my first RM campaign a player wanted to play a mystic whose childhood was spent herding sheep (or maybe goats?), and whose mentor lived in a large hollow tree and was in hiding, a refugee from some sort of mages' power struggle.

In my first 4e D&D campaign, one of the players came up with a very intricate background for his dwarf PC, and another player a very intricate background for his refugee human PC, both of which established significant aspects of the setting.

In my first Burning Wheel campaign, one of the players established as his PC's overarching goal the freeing of his brother form possession by a balrog. There was also enough character backstory to explain the basics of how this possession came about.

I think that when players have these sorts of ideas/aspirations for their PCs, there is the possibility of a clash with the sort of detailed setting design advised in the RM books mentioned in the OP.

 

[Campbell]

I think big part of the underlying does not come from having a well defined setting, but rather from having a well defined setting you are trying to keep a mystery from players. It's really hard to negotiate a character who fits the setting or where you have a good idea of the contextual pieces if the GM is being coy. I have found this tension is not really a thing in say Vampire, Legend of the 5 Rings, Exalted, Greyhawk, or Ebberon if the players are well versed in the setting. It's a big part of why I would seek out games with official settings and lore before I found Burning Wheel.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's really hard to negotiate a character who fits the setting or where you have a good idea of the contextual pieces if the GM is being coy.

I’m currently reading the Heart RPG, and one of the bits of advice the book offers to GMs is to not be coy. Part of play is for each player to select two Beats, which are like goals for what they want/expect to happen and which will earn them an advance if achieved; the GM should be working in opportunities for these Beats during play. The players select their beats at the end of each session so the GM is able to consider them during any prep he may do in between (which in Heart is pretty minimal).

Just do the thing. Don’t tease the thing. The players are offering you fodder. Use it.

It’s something I think I’ve begun to realize over the past couple of years. Seeing it stated so specifically in GMing advice just drives the idea home.

 

[prabe]

I think big part of the underlying does not come from having a well defined setting, but rather from having a well defined setting you are trying to keep a mystery from players. It's really hard to negotiate a character who fits the setting or where you have a good idea of the contextual pieces if the GM is being coy. I have found this tension is not really a thing in say Vampire, Legend of the 5 Rings, Exalted, Greyhawk, or Ebberon if the players are well versed in the setting. It's a big part of why I would seek out games with official settings and lore before I found Burning Wheel.

Sure, but sometimes the GM isn't telling you everything about the setting because the setting isn't complete, or at least the GM doesn't know whatever they aren't telling you. Dealing with that is--again--about dealing with people, not so much systems or settings, though.

 

[Campbell]

Sure, but sometimes the GM isn't telling you everything about the setting because the setting isn't complete, or at least the GM doesn't know whatever they aren't telling you. Dealing with that is--again--about dealing with people, not so much systems or settings, though.

Totally. In that case we can totally negotiate stuff out though because we both don't know what's happening so we can work on making stuff up. There might be compelling reasons to have defined stuff that players won't know about, but there's a danger that there might something in those know unknowns that changes their creative connection to the character they want to play or it can just be tough to navigate those waters of trying to make something fit when you do not know why it doesn't fit. Does that make any sense? Feels like a word salad.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

What is missing is how to reconcile these two sets of instructions. Hence the the tension I mention in the thread title. What if a player's idea for family background, or schooling, clashes with a GM's ideas about cultures and NPCs? What if a player's desire for his PC has a religious or cosmological aspect that contradicts the GM's ideas about the gods and the cosmos?

There's also the practical problem of how to connect all the goals and secrets and the like the GM is invited to elicit from the players, with the variety of adventure options the GM is instructed to construct.

The text is simply silent on all of this. A clear contrast can be drawn in this respect with, say, the Burning Wheel rulebook and even moreso the Adventure Burner supplement, reprinted in The Codex: they tackle this issue head-on, with lots of helpful advice for both players and GMs.

My interest in this isn't purely theoretical. I GMed RM for 19 years straight. In that time it was my go-to game. So I had to try and reconcile these tensions myself. I think I did a passing job of it in my first campaign, and a good job in my second. But part of what helped me in my second campaign was reading more widely about RPGing techniques, including relationships between backstory/setting, characters, and scenarios/situation. In the end I realised that, for me, the stuff about "starting the players with a rich background" was good and the stuff about "designing a campaign setting" was less helpful.

Because back in the early 80's any "tension" between differing desires was handled like any other social interaction; both parties talked about their perspective and they came to a mutual compromise. There was no need for any specific "ways to handle it" written in the rulebook. This social skill was something that everyone learned growing up and going to school.

I'm NOT going to make any more comments about it other than this: I find it increasingly perplexing and difficult to have a reasonable conversation with a lot of 'younger folk' nowadays due to...from my perspective...a complete lack of the ability to accept that someone might have a different thought, preference or idea about something. ... this is, I believe, why you see things written in rule books about how to "deal with different perspectives"; because too many people simply don't have a clue how to do it.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[prabe]

Totally. In that case we can totally negotiate stuff out though because we both don't know what's happening so we can work on making stuff up. There might be compelling reasons to have defined stuff that players won't know about, but there's a danger that there might something in those know unknowns that changes their creative connection to the character they want to play or it can just be tough to navigate those waters of trying to make something fit when you do not know why it doesn't fit. Does that make any sense? Feels like a word salad.

Makes sense to me. During chargen, there are things the GM knows about the world that the players don't, and there are things neither of them knows. If it's the latter, the people at the table can figure something out. There's a danger if the GM knows something that'd change a player's build, either to literally undermine it or to ... make some other choice better for that character.

That about right?