jerichothebard said:
Which brings to mind a question I have been meaning to ask...
Does anyone know how to pull that off as a DM? I mean, is it fair to leave the players in the dark when they are creating character concepts? My point is that as a player, I usually like some knowledge about what the campaign will entail so that I can plan where my character is going to go. In this case, I am very interested in creating a game in which the characters are 'normal' people (with heroic potential) but don't yet see beyond the shadows. How do I let them know that they can potentially plan to take Shadow Slayer or Alcolyte in a few levels, without giving away the whole deal?
Good question. I think it's possible to clue the players in enough to make effective choices during character gen, while keeping them in the dark about the overall nature of the campaign.
You could suggest which skills will be important --- combat or investigation or knowledge --- or what sort of party mix is needed. You can suggest some hooks linking the PCs together --- whether they are friends, coworkers, or strangers. And where appropriate, you can suggest that certain unusual abilities --- Speak Babylonian or Archaic Weapon Proficiency --- will come in handy.
So in almost any horror game, you might want an investigator type, a scholarly type, and a tough guy. Whether they end up fighting vampires or Cthuhlu or Chucky, those skills will be useful.
The prereqs for advanced classes are relatively easy, so that simplifies things. You can always look at the final character sheet and suggest, why don't you pick up a few ranks of Decipher Script?
I'm thinking about some possibilites for this UA/d20 game:
One is to suggest that everyone knows each other from high school and has gone on to become "protectors of the city" in one way or another. Cops, DAs, paramedics, teachers, etc. Then when they encounter the homeless man who claims to be the True King of Chicago, we have a group that's ready to step up to a strange urban knighthood.
Another idea, one that I've been nursing secretly for many years, is that the party is blues band that stumbles into the occult underground. An automatic reason for the party to stay together, plus a good reason to travel from town to town, and even a good range of character backgrounds [the R&B band I used to play with had a lawyer, a doctoral candidate, and guy who makes neon lights for a living, among others].
If any of the characters seem like good candidates, I might throw them a taste of low-level Avatar powers [the universe's way of rewarding anyone who conforms, consciously or unconsciously, to one of 333 specific archetypes like the Mother, the Fool, or the Masterless Man]. But only as the campaign wore on would the heroes come to understand that these abilities are occult in nature.
