Post by beryl on May 21, 2007 11:04:51 GMT -5
Nobodies talking about giving them no reason whatsoever. The point is that we were discussing players' reluctance to get together in the first place, and Im pointing out that if the reason given isn't good enough, its fair game to put it to players in a way players can understand... "without the plot, theres no game"
No, I was attempting to discuss the characters' reluctance, not the players'. Due to the themes of distrust and secrecy I plan on using, a problem is created in that the characters are going to be inclined to keep their abilities secret if they can. The players want to work together. The characters don't. The players will easily make their characters work together without my asking, and the game will go on, but I want to make it believable so that if in the future somebody looks back at it, they won't ever wonder why.
But, that's just my campaign.
More generally, I started this thread so that people like myself and like Dragon Master can come, read a few ideas on how other games/comics have handled the "what reason do these strangers have to work together" issue, and come up with an idea on how to handle it in their own campaign.
Player cooperation is a whole different can of worms that could use two or three topics to itself.
Now, back to my own campaign...
I've been thinking, and I'm starting to warm up to the "NPC is in charge" idea. I think that if I take an NPC with a lot of influence, and give him something that each of the characters want, things will come together quickly. Either they all get sweet-talked/forced to do the NPC's jobs, or they try to go after the NPC and team up... or, even better, if they do a few jobs and realize they're being suckered...
Throw in a long journey to find out who's got what they need in the first place, a couple of red herrings, and an even more powerful NPC who's really pulling the Boss' strings...
If that's the way I'm going to go, it's just a matter of semantics. What does the NPC have for Character A, Character B, etc.
But by all means, keep posting your ideas! I might see something I like better, and anything you can post will help anybody who finds this thread sometime in the future.
Oh, PS. some of these can be modified to suit the purposes of starting a campaign to begin with, too. Hope that helps!