Conveying Information to Players...

[Cor Azer]

In a few sessions, the characters in my face-to-face game will be present at a big council of kings and ambassadors. A lot of information will be given out during this meeting, but the characters will likely have a minimal role within it (possibly answering a few questions directed at them about the strange humanoids they've discovered and been battling, but that's it).

Anyways, I wanted to try something a bit different. I was going to write up a script of sorts for the various attendees, and give each player one of those roles to play temporarily instead of their actual characters. This would let them participate in the meeting, instead of just listening to me drone on for a decent amount of time.

Has anyone ever tried anything like this? Comments or suggestions? Pitfalls to avoid? Any of my players who read these boards have comments?

 

[Ranes]

I've never done anything like this in a game but I salute your creativity. I'm replying, however, because I have done some scriptwriting and direction in my time. Perhaps, some of the things I've experienced in this regard may be of use to you.

One problem you may have, assuming you give the players the script on the evening of the game, would be that the read-through will be the performance, as it were. I am inclined to suspect that, for perfectly good gaming reasons, your players aren't going to see the script before they read from it in-game. The problem that can arise here is context. Your players will not have had the opportunity to get the sense of the lines you have written for their characters. This can have hilarious consequences, which may not be your intent but - given that you're doing this for everyone's enjoyment - this could be no bad thing. I just think you should be aware of what can happen. Let me illustrate, by way of an example from the days when radio plays were broadcast live and actors were often deprived of the opportunity for a prior read-through.

Character: "What's that in the road [turns over page of script] ahead?"

Well, it makes me chortle.

Moving on, if I may suggest, use this convention: If character B's next line is supposed to interrupt character A's last line, end character A's last line with a hyphen (or em dash "--"). Ask the players to try and keep up with the reading and be ready to interrupt as and when it's appropriate to do so. Otherwise you're going to have pregnant pauses that will do nothing but sap the drama out of the moment. Ask them to try to resist the urge to read too far ahead though. Keeping everyone together as you work through your script will preserve spontaneity and lessen the chance of someone missing his cue.

If possible, give the characters just a little backstory on the characters they'll be reading. I'm not talking about exhaustive biographies here, just a few words, enough to explain to the player what his character's relationship is to those around him, for the purposes of the encounter to be acted out. If any of the characters are going to spout lies, don't tell the player involved that this is so. It'll make the lie so much more convincing.

You may be inclined to incorporate some direction into the dialogue. The convention here is to use square brackets. For example:

Character: That is [pause] most unfortunate.

Again, this is only a suggestion but try to keep such direction to a minimum and encourage your players to otherwise interpret the lines as they see fit. If a character must exclaim something, indicate it in the dialogue by ending the line in an exclamation mark. Just one! Do not emphasise words in italics or capitals. If the line is a question, end it in a question mark. Do not end it in both a question mark and an exclamation mark. The meaning of the line will be clearer and your player will be freer to roleplay it. Look at it this way:

Character: Do not lie to me, fool!

On which word did you mentally place the emphasis when you read that? Now, read it again and place the emphasis somewhere else. And again. And again. See? It's all good. Give something to your players they can play with and the chances of them enjoying themselves increases... I was going to say, 'dramatically'.

I hope these ideas prove useful and I wish you and your friends a good evening's gaming.

 

[Cor Azer]

Thanks for the tips; you had a few I hadn't thought of.

 

[rijeagle]

I have done something like this before. It was about 8-9years ago, and the party was in a tavern when a brawl broke out(cliche, I know), and the tavern was burned down by a fireball(don't look at me, I was the DM). The party ran, but one was caught before he could climb out from the wreckage. He was dragged to prison, and charged with murder and desruction of property. (This was a lawful city, and on the verge of a modern republic) The character, a rogue(how he cast fireball, the prosecutor could not explain) was brought to court, and had a trial.

What I did was, I gave each player a write up on the each major player in the courtroom: the prosecutor, the defendor(defense attorney), boss juducator(jury forman). I played the Magistrate and several witnesses. The player of the rogue played himself.

I filled a page on each npc's idiosyncrosies, attitudes, biases, and how he went about his job. I added information about the case to each sheet according to each npc. I let it go freely after that. I took the objections, and either over-ruled or sustained, but otherwise stayed out of it. For over an hour the players argued the case back and forth, questioning the witnesses, the rogue, with the boss juducator asking questions from time to time.
Outside of two interferences from me over rules, it went great. The players had a blast playing other characters for a bit, trying to convince the jury and myself of innocence or guilt. a bit of x.p. went out that day for role-playing, but not for the fact of xp, but for the success it brought about.

Oh, yea, the rogue got off on a technicality. The witness who saw the rogue do it, was a mage, was seen in the tavern, and is a known pyro.
The wizard in the party blasted the place with the fireball, but the pyro mage caught the the blame, due to his history. I never did decide how long he stayed in prison with his fingers tied together. Of course, the party was asked to leave...just in case.

All in all, it was one of our best role-playing days. I did not have to play a roomful of people at once, and the players got involved in it. With some imagination and a simple character script for each player, it went better than I had hoped.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck!

 

[Cor Azer]

Excellent... I'm glad to hear something like this can work. Now to just hope my players can handle my eccentricities a bit further

 

[Drawmack]

Here's what I do. I invite friends to my house, bust out the old 4 track and record the parts of the play. Then I mix the voices down to a single track add in the voice overs on another track, putting breaks into the dialog track for them. Then I grab my collection of sound effects and instrumental music CDs and add background noise and a soundtrack. Then at the game I pop in the CD and turn the lights off.

My players seem to enjoy this and at the end I've got a radio play that can be archived for future use.

 

[Cor Azer]

Whoa... cool.

And thanks to my brother the musician, I may even have the software to try something like that, Drawmack. I likely won't, but it'd be a darned cool idea.

 

[andrew]

I much prefer rijeagle's approach. Scripting the whole thing is asking for a lot of trouble. Giving the players specific roles is a great idea, especially if you ahve the opportunity to act as some kind of mediator.

Just be very clear about what their NPCs motivations and goals are, as well as what any dealbreakers might be.

Plus, it's probably less work for you!

 

[Drawmack]

Whoa... cool.

And thanks to my brother the musician, I may even have the software to try something like that, Drawmack. I likely won't, but it'd be a darned cool idea.

I don't recommend producing this digitally unless he has a real digital studio setup - background noise is a killer in digital recording - one of the prices of clarity, tape hiss hides a lot.

 

[Drawmack]

I much prefer rijeagle's approach. Scripting the whole thing is asking for a lot of trouble. Giving the players specific roles is a great idea, especially if you ahve the opportunity to act as some kind of mediator.

Just be very clear about what their NPCs motivations and goals are, as well as what any dealbreakers might be.

Plus, it's probably less work for you!

The way that mine would work is the scripted part would not directly involve the PCs, it would be just walking around the party hearing different conversations. Quite possibly it would be the introduction with someone walking them around - where they litterally would be handheld anyway. However I wouldn't do it in a way that would rook the players - I also would allow the players to ask questions and things once the play was finished.