Jack Daniel
Legend
I was flipping through some back issues of Dragon a while ago, and I stumbled across an article (I can't remember by whom, but I think it was Tracy Hickman) that described a game where the party had fallen fast into a routine of cautious S.O.P.: creep down the hall, tap for traps with 10' pole, stop at door, listen for several minutes, check for traps, crack door, insert mirror, assess the situation, formulate plan... The author was starting to get bored with this, remembered that he was playing a wild & crazy barbarian, and started kicking down doors left and right; and the end result was one of the most entertaining sessions in memory.
This led to a discussion of character traits that promote role-playing between the players: what can be done to produce more in-character discussion at the table, as the player characters debate about what course of action to take next? This requires conflict: not violent confrontation per se, but conflicts of interest that pull the party in different directions in the short term without ever derailing the long term goals of the group.
At this point, I had a small epiphany, because this dynamic describes all of the best ensemble TV shows. Everybody shares a long term goal, that's why they're an adventuring party, but short term goals being different is what makes the story interesting along the way. That's why Stargate SG-1 is usually pretty vanilla sci-fi: the long term goal, "defeat the Goa'uld/Replicators/Ori," tends to overwhelm individual goals like "Dr. Jackson needs to find Shau'ri" or "Teal'c needs to free the Jaffa." On a show like Firefly or Farscape, though, there's complexity there that pushes these shows' plots to the level of greatness.
Farscape is a perfect example. This is a story of a party of adventurers: John Crichton (an astronaut from Earth, starts the story as a bit of a nebbish but soon becomes a fighter); Aeryn Sun (exiled Sebacean soldier who hates her emotions); Ka D'Argo (exiled Luxan warrior, has rage problems); Zotoh Zhaan (exiled Delvian priestess, battling her inner darkness); Dominar Rygel XVI (deposed ruler of the Hynerian Empire, the greediest little twerp in the galaxy); and Chiana (fugitive Nebarri thief-with-a-heart-of-gold). And that's just season one. In D&D terms, we've got a fighter/scientist, a fighter, a barbarian, a cleric, a rogue/noble, and a rogue.
Although the whole plot hinges on one overriding goal——escape from the evil Peacekeepers, and whatever insane military commander (Crais, Scorpius, Grayza) is chasing after them this season——each character has a set of wildly different and often conflicting goals. Aeryn and Chiana are on the run from their homes and want to avoid civilized space at all costs; D'Argo, Zhaan, and Rygel want to get back to their home planets, which are all found in different directions; and on top of that, D'Argo is searching for his lost son, Zhaan wants to free her planet from Peacekeeper rule, and Rygel wants to get home to kill the cousin who usurped his throne; and Crichton is trying to find a way back to Earth, but he's sixty thousand light-years off the beaten path, so he needs to find a wormhole or master the technology to create one, which continually leads to huge problems for everybody else.
The depth of show comes from the conflicting goals, and the conflicting personalities, of all the characters. Trying to capture something like this can be difficult in a role-playing game, but I'd like to give my players a bit of a nudge in this direction by including a few extra fields on the character sheet for such traits and details——something with no mechanical impact on the game, just a guideline to promote interesting and consistent roleplaying. At the moment, I'm looking at seven qualities that should help to flesh characters out (but if anyone can offer a way to make the list more concise, I'd welcome that as a boon——anything to shorten character creation and make things easier for newbies). The list is: description, background, personality, connections, triggers, desires, and secrets.
Description: A bare-minimum description of what the character looks like. Gender, age, height/weight/build, hair/eye/skin colors, typical attire.
Background: A single sentence that describes where the character has come from, plus one pivotal past detail (preferably the reason that the character is an adventurer). "A dwarf from a small village on the Rockhome-Soderfjord border, he worked as a miner until his father died in an underground gas explosion."
Personality: List up to three personality traits, little quirks, or behavioral ticks that other characters would be likely to notice and use when describing your character.
Connections: List one or two connections (family, friend, organization, institution) to which your character has some kind of close relationship, duty, or obligation.
Triggers: One or two things that your character will always fight for, and at least one thing that your character fears more than anything else.
Desires: Things your character wants; preferably one long-term goal of a personal nature that will take some time to achieve ("Avenge the death of my older brother at the hands of Villanus, Black Prince of Scarvania!") and one broad objective your character is clearly after right now ("Money!" ; "Power!" ; "Glory!" ; "Justice!")
Secrets: An optional category, this is something from your character's past that he wants kept from the other player characters (and the general public) for whatever reason. A character who does not choose a personal secret can instead elect to have the DM invent something about the character's past that is presently unknown to the player and the character.
This led to a discussion of character traits that promote role-playing between the players: what can be done to produce more in-character discussion at the table, as the player characters debate about what course of action to take next? This requires conflict: not violent confrontation per se, but conflicts of interest that pull the party in different directions in the short term without ever derailing the long term goals of the group.
At this point, I had a small epiphany, because this dynamic describes all of the best ensemble TV shows. Everybody shares a long term goal, that's why they're an adventuring party, but short term goals being different is what makes the story interesting along the way. That's why Stargate SG-1 is usually pretty vanilla sci-fi: the long term goal, "defeat the Goa'uld/Replicators/Ori," tends to overwhelm individual goals like "Dr. Jackson needs to find Shau'ri" or "Teal'c needs to free the Jaffa." On a show like Firefly or Farscape, though, there's complexity there that pushes these shows' plots to the level of greatness.
Farscape is a perfect example. This is a story of a party of adventurers: John Crichton (an astronaut from Earth, starts the story as a bit of a nebbish but soon becomes a fighter); Aeryn Sun (exiled Sebacean soldier who hates her emotions); Ka D'Argo (exiled Luxan warrior, has rage problems); Zotoh Zhaan (exiled Delvian priestess, battling her inner darkness); Dominar Rygel XVI (deposed ruler of the Hynerian Empire, the greediest little twerp in the galaxy); and Chiana (fugitive Nebarri thief-with-a-heart-of-gold). And that's just season one. In D&D terms, we've got a fighter/scientist, a fighter, a barbarian, a cleric, a rogue/noble, and a rogue.
Although the whole plot hinges on one overriding goal——escape from the evil Peacekeepers, and whatever insane military commander (Crais, Scorpius, Grayza) is chasing after them this season——each character has a set of wildly different and often conflicting goals. Aeryn and Chiana are on the run from their homes and want to avoid civilized space at all costs; D'Argo, Zhaan, and Rygel want to get back to their home planets, which are all found in different directions; and on top of that, D'Argo is searching for his lost son, Zhaan wants to free her planet from Peacekeeper rule, and Rygel wants to get home to kill the cousin who usurped his throne; and Crichton is trying to find a way back to Earth, but he's sixty thousand light-years off the beaten path, so he needs to find a wormhole or master the technology to create one, which continually leads to huge problems for everybody else.
The depth of show comes from the conflicting goals, and the conflicting personalities, of all the characters. Trying to capture something like this can be difficult in a role-playing game, but I'd like to give my players a bit of a nudge in this direction by including a few extra fields on the character sheet for such traits and details——something with no mechanical impact on the game, just a guideline to promote interesting and consistent roleplaying. At the moment, I'm looking at seven qualities that should help to flesh characters out (but if anyone can offer a way to make the list more concise, I'd welcome that as a boon——anything to shorten character creation and make things easier for newbies). The list is: description, background, personality, connections, triggers, desires, and secrets.
Description: A bare-minimum description of what the character looks like. Gender, age, height/weight/build, hair/eye/skin colors, typical attire.
Background: A single sentence that describes where the character has come from, plus one pivotal past detail (preferably the reason that the character is an adventurer). "A dwarf from a small village on the Rockhome-Soderfjord border, he worked as a miner until his father died in an underground gas explosion."
Personality: List up to three personality traits, little quirks, or behavioral ticks that other characters would be likely to notice and use when describing your character.
Connections: List one or two connections (family, friend, organization, institution) to which your character has some kind of close relationship, duty, or obligation.
Triggers: One or two things that your character will always fight for, and at least one thing that your character fears more than anything else.
Desires: Things your character wants; preferably one long-term goal of a personal nature that will take some time to achieve ("Avenge the death of my older brother at the hands of Villanus, Black Prince of Scarvania!") and one broad objective your character is clearly after right now ("Money!" ; "Power!" ; "Glory!" ; "Justice!")
Secrets: An optional category, this is something from your character's past that he wants kept from the other player characters (and the general public) for whatever reason. A character who does not choose a personal secret can instead elect to have the DM invent something about the character's past that is presently unknown to the player and the character.
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the XP system.
) and whether these have been discovered by anyone; that kind of thing. Admittedly, this could of course be assumed as one path leading from the last point on your list. So, perhaps not worth adding.
