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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 249052" data-attributes="member: 5328">Hear! Hear!One of the best things you can do is discuss the campaign with prospective players before you run it, even before you finish planning it. You get an idea of what the players expect and enjoy that will help you with [final] design. You give the players an idea of what sort of characters will suit and flourish in the campaign.We're drifting a little off the topic here, but one of the things that has always bugged me is when players go of separately and design detailed characters without consulting one another, and end up making characters that don't work together. At the crudest level, this might mean designing a D&D party with no divine spellcaster or no rogue, or in another context an A-Team consisting of four copies of Mr T. Unfortunately I've never had the success I've hoped for by getting the players together and getting them to design their party and their character concepts before I let them stat out their characters.Getting back on track: one of my pre-game communications tools is the "campaign prospectus", a written document that helps (a) attract only those players who are inclined to enjoy the kind of campaign I plan to run this time, and (b) guide players to conceiving of/generating suitable characters. I will append a couple of examples, in case anyone is interested.- - - - - - - - -Brave Music     “How sweet is mortal sovranty!”– think some,     Others– “How blessed the paradise to come!”.     Ah, take the cash and let the credit go:     How brave the music of a distant drum!‘Brave Music’ will be a HindSight: Jehannum campaign set in the Decadent Period, initially in the remote mountain city of Charn in the province of Mela. It will follow the adventures and careers of a clique of young warriors of great ambitions but uncertain means. My aim in this campaign will be to reproduce the strange blend of cynicism and quixotry that marks Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.Characters should be generated on five of the optional enhanced background factors, with “normal” wealth and a bonus 20 merit points in Social Standing, to reflect the fact that they are of Good Families, but younger sons or in reduced circumstances. They must be citizens of Charn, aged twenty (or at least eighteen) to twenty-five years, and active in the militia in the heavy-armed category. They should have little experience of circumstances outside Charn (perhaps a few trips to Bethan and Elmis, or two years of ephebe training in one of those cities), and if any has active military experience, it must be outside Charn.The five player characters will make up a half-file of the militia, led by the highest-ranked warrior among them, who should work out to rank 2 or 3 (file leader or file closer). Close friends and dear comrades (perhaps some of them close relatives, or mentor and protegé), they should be such as will stick together in thick and thin: a band of inseparables noted for their mutual loyalty, flamboyance, and verve.Within the group, each character should have his own modus operandi and personal style: grim or gallant, foppish or austere. I will need at least two characters susceptible to romantic hooks, of whom one at least should be subject to sincere but fleeting passions. One character should be an inquiring bent (or just inquisitive), one should have a passion for justice, and at least three should have some tendency to involve themselves in others’ affairs. None of the party can afford too many scruples, but if most are to be good-hearted rogues, the party will need at least one sin-eater. Vanity, quarrelsomeness, or philosophical affectations would be suitable for one character each if not hammed up.- - - - - - - - -Regards,Agback</blockquote>

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