attacks of opportunity

I'm currently reading a great book about writing, Stein on Writing, and I've run across a LOT of material that's relevant for gaming, especially in the area of characterization.

Stein's view is that what makes great stories is great characters, and his book is full of practical advice to writers on how to create better characters. One passage in particular that caught my eye is this one.

There are many ways in which characterization can go wrong in the hands of a less experienced writer, but two stand out because they are so common in rejected fiction. There is the protagonist with a weak will, and the villain who is merely badly behaved.

Stein goes on to propose this exercise for the writer whose character is wimpy, shy, or without clearly defined wants and needs:

I ask the writer to imagine that he is in his study with the door closed. A person outside wants to come in. The writer orders the intruder to stay out. I ask the writer to imaging a second person outside his door who says to the first, "Get out of my way," then comes into the writer's study without asking. The writer starts to object and this second intruder says, "You shut up and listen for a change" That second person is the writer's replacement for the wimp. That's his new protagonist.

I've been trying this exercise mentally with some of the weaker characters I've played, and I think it's very useful to creating characters with more fire. What do you think? Have you ever played a wimpy PC? Do you think this exercise would work for that character?

Labels: clinic

Posted by Unknown at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments

I was recently listening to episode 16 of the Durham 3 and they briefly mentioned that when they play they know that they can really go for throat and there are no hard feelings. From experience I know that this is not always the case.

The Social Contract (in Forge Parlance) is defined as - "All interactions and relationships among the role-playing group, including emotional connections, logistic arrangements, and expectations. All role-playing is a subset of the Social Contract."

In regular life most people know what is acceptable behavior and what is not in a particular setting. You know what is expected at work and what is expected at home. In many cases, common sense and social morays can be used to guide you if you are not sure.

When playing an RPG, it is not that simple, especially if you are playing with people who are not close friends. This all comes up because we are just starting a Burning Empires game and we have burned the world. The process has like 11 steps and breaks out each aspect of the world into High Level topics and then generally between 2 and 4 choices. We are about to start the game and while I have stated that everything is fair game, is it really?

My thought is that it might be useful to come up with a Social Contract Burner (tips hat to Luke) that allows a group to lay down on the table what is generally expected and acceptable. I would like to hear if people like this idea, and if so, what sorts of High Level Topics should be included. Some quick examples would include:

Character Death (Choices are: Yes. Yes - Dramatically Appropriate. No - except with player's permission. No.)
PC Cooperation
Offensive Language ("Swear" Words, In Character - Bigotry, In Character Direct Threats spoken in the first person - "I will kill you."

I don't want to go overboard, but I think it could be useful.

Labels: clinic

Posted by JudaicDiablo at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments