Editing GM Theory - Ideas to help run RPGs

=MAKING MYSTERIES=
:  The biggest problem with these is that GMs too often figure out one thing about their mystery that is, indeed, clever, but not enough to run a whole mystery from (''"It LOOKS like the butler did it, but really it was the cute girl."'') This results in Game Masters who refuse to give out any information because if they tip their hand at all, you'll solve the mystery and solve it all at once. And then you get a bad case of the head scratches as the GM constantly drops deliberately obtuse and cryptic hints, the players have no idea what to do with it, and then the GM starts complaining that the players aren't "figuring it out" even though he really can't give them anything to go with.

::*  Create layers. Several layers. 
::*  In each layer, have several related mysteries:
:::*  Each mystery has several components, so you flesh out those components, and give them some sub components. 
::*  Approach the creation of layers in reverse: 
:::*  Start with the big reveal
:::*  then work your way back to the smaller mysteries.

::  Using our one liner above as an example, (''"It LOOKS like the butler did it, but really it was the cute girl."'') two things stand out. 
::  First, why would we assume the butler did it? Perhaps he WANTED us to assume he did it. Why? Perhaps he believed his son did it, and wants to protect him. There's a sub mystery right there. But how can we further develop that? Why would he assume his son would do it, and how can we make this less obvious to the players? Perhaps his son doesn't KNOW who his father is. Perhaps he believes the murder victim is. And perhaps the murder victim was going to screw the son over and when the Butler discovered things, he tried to cover it up, and when that didn't work, is trying to frame himself to protect his son (who didn't even do it. Won't he be relieved?)

::  What else? Well, why would the girl kill the old man? Maybe she was in love with the son and he spurned her. Perhaps she's much more spoiled than she let on, and so she was trying to talk the murder victim into writing the son out of the will (which explains why the Butler was afraid his son would flip out), and when that didn't work, got pissed and killed him, and then tried to frame the son (which further concerned the butler).

::  This gives us a slew of material to work with, mysteries within the mystery that lead us to greater revelations. First, we try to figure out who killed him: We can afford to give them plenty of clues, several of which will point them to the Butler. But further investigation will suggest the butler is covering up for the young man, and then it turns out that the young man is, in fact, the butler's illegitimate son. Revelations! It was all this adopted heir! And he killed him because he was being written out of the will! Except certain parts of the story don't add up, so before the heroes can wrap it all up, they realize the prim and cute girl was the one trying to persuade the victim to change his will, and that she'd tried to have a relationship with the boy, only to be spurned, and then bam, the final pieces fall into place, and we have a heckuva memorable mystery.

::  The same premise can apply to anything: What's the secret of the ancient manuscript? Where does the tomb of the final templar lie? Who is really behind the cattle mutilitations of New Mexico?


=Role-Playing Non-Combat=
:  Social roleplaying is a little more complicated. Generally, romance, drama and intrigue come down to hard choices. Whom do you betray? Whom do you commit to? How far are you willing to go? In alot of ways, I think this is the meat of a good RPG in any case, because choice is what RPGs are all about. If you're just fighting an endless stream of monsters, you're not doing anything you couldn't do better on a computer.

:  The core of drama is to make these choices as equally appealing (or unappealing) as you can. The rule of thumb is "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." There should be no "Right" answer (which isn't to say every answer is HORRIBLY wrong, unless you're playing a horror game, but those can be depressing). Every benefit should have a trade off, and if your players stop and see everything spreading before them and really can't decide, agonizing over each choice, you've really done your job well.

::  My favorite example of this is a spy scenario I dreamed up once: Imagine a soviety spy who has infiltrated an American base. While there, her life is saved a couple of times by an American captain, who falls for her and her for him. She finds herself growing content in her new life, but it cannot remain so forever: one the one hand, the CIA is begining to suspect that there's a spy in their midst, turning up the heat on her. The KGB begins to suspect she's gone to the other side, and sends an agent to "check up" on her. Making matters worse, the American captain is ordered to engage an attack on a soviet special interest, putting her into the final bind: she must decide where her loyalties lie. If she tells the KGB of the attack, her lover will surely die. If she does not, this special interest will fall and she'll be cut off from her country forever. If it seems to obvious, like the player would certainly choose the lover, we ramp up the consequences of that, perhaps putting some of her family in the line of fire if the attack goes off.

:  What matters is that we have a choice, it's a tough choice, and that this choice has consequences that will reveberate through the game.

:  The other half of social play is convincing and interesting NPCs. They need to have a good look, an interesting personality, and be simple enough that the PCs can sum them up pretty quickly if necessary. But they also need their own agendas and a reason to be in the game. All too often I see GMs who introduce love interests whose sole purpose in life is to be loved by the hero, or a rival whose sole purpose in life is to antagonize the hero. These seldom hold attention for long, and tend to feel railroady ("Look, it's a princess. You love her, right?"). So I ensure that all NPCs have a secondary role that ensures that, should a player dismiss them as a love interest or rival, I can shrug and keep them in the game for a completely different reason, clearly signaling that they do, in fact, have a choice in the matter. It also tends to ensure they're multi-dimensional. Perhaps the princess seeks to save her kingdom and has hired the heroes to help her do so. Whether or not the hero falls in love with her after that is immaterial (but interesting). Perhaps the rival seeks an alliance to the kingdom and the princess's hand and, completely paranoid, believes that the hero seeks to steal her away (the fact that she's crushing on the prince doesn't help anything).

:  Tough choices, interesting NPCs who exist for a variety of reasons and have their own desires, and consequences to your actions tend to form the basis, in my opinion, of any social roleplaying situation.

:  It needs a fairly different approach to games I've run in the past. Players need big, up-front goals for their characters that they don't keep secret. We also use a specific scene structure, and hash through the agenda of each scene before I begin narration. That keeps scenes busy if they need to be, relaxed if they need to develop character rather than plot. We also spent the first session developing the background and story arc of the first season, so everyone was on board with the point of it all.


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=SOAP OPERA=
==Introduction==
One of the more difficult things to sustain is a long-term game wherein the characters are able to develop meaningfully as people. The ongoing presentation of challenge after challenge familiarizes the players with only a handful of non-player characters that are necessary only to overcome the obstacles at hand. While it is not uncommon practice for Storytellers to utilize recurring characters to fill these roles, this in its own way only serves to further limit the types of interaction available to the players or to give a simple answer to the problem. In the following paragraphs I will describe a methodology that runs contrary to these techniques and has resulted in multiple lasting games. This methodology may be applied to any game, but seems to work best for the World of Darkness due to its psychodramatic themes.

===The Soap Opera===
The key to the methodology is the continuous introduction of new characters and story elements. This is similar to daytime television dramas, some of which have been running continuously since the seventies. I would not expect anyone to play the same role-playing game for thirty years, but it does seem to be a model worth emulating if one wishes to have a long-lasting chronicle. 

Each season of a soap opera, a name referring to the original sponsors of daytime dramas, introduces new characters and complications at regular intervals, some of which remain unresolved for years. By emulating this, a role-playing game can be made engaging and challenging indefinitely. Perhaps the most important aspect of this style is that there is never a point at which everything is resolved. By always leaving loose ends, and important loose ends at that, the players' interest is maintained.

==The Cast==
None of this is possible without a large cast of characters. Again referring to daytime television, the main characters are often related by blood, as in ''All My Children'', or by employment, like ''General Hospital'', they have enormous ancillary casts of characters. Over it's 37 year run, ''All My Children'' has had [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_All_My_Children_characters 199 lead characters]. The challenge here is to strike a balance between introducing new characters, each of whom must be at least somewhat unique and offer a new opportunity for stories, and building upon existing characters.

===Lead Characters===
Fortunately the World of Darkness is structured in a way that encourages the creation of this cast. Each game features a social structure that cannot possibly be filled out exclusively by player characters. Ask yourself, what factions are present in the setting? Who is in power? Who opposes them? Just by naming these characters you'll have generated a significant part of the cast and probably a couple story ideas. 

===Supporting Characters===
Filling in the lead characters is easy and no mystery. It's very common for these characters to be named even in a beginning Storyteller's chronicle. Supporting characters are another story. The supporting characters are folks like body guards, accountants, and nannies. Anyone who is close to a lead character can have, but doesn't necessarily need, a name. It's not uncommon for players to name those related to their own characters in this manner, but few Storytellers take the time to name the servant of another named character. This is, in my opinion, a mistake. By naming these characters it gives the players another thing to latch onto. An unnamed goon is unlikely to be remembered, but Hammerfist Hadly, the loyal retainer of the Daeva primogen, might be directly approached. The character might even develop into an important contact. I strongly recommend naming at least two supporting characters for each lead character in a chronicle. 

===Relationships===
Building up the cast can be as simple as writing a list of names. Adding a single line description of that character's relationship to one or more of the other characters will generate a huge number of potential story lines though. Expanding that line to a paragraph can aid the Storyteller in building an impressively deep set of stories.

===Shaking Things Up===
Soap operas are so successful because they build rapport with the viewer by maintaining a consistent cast for years. However for sweeps week, a period when the Nielson ratings are tabulated for sponsors, it's very common to do something exceptionally dramatic or unexpected to draw in more viewers. Weddings, murders, and the introduction of new characters are common tactics. Since we have no real sponsors, though it could be argued that the players themselves are the sponsors, we have to work out for ourselves when the best time to do this is. 

I recommend hitting the players with a new character any time they venture into a new social milieu or when they have become comfortable with the status quo. That will add a degree of realism and keep them on their toes. 

Murdering a well known character, especially one which the players have come to rely on, can have unexpected consequences. Players will hopefully be shocked, but the Storyteller must also be prepared for them to be angry. It may be perceived as an arbitrary maneuver to weaken their characters. New groups and groups that have had problems with trust especially may react in this manner. If you still want to attempt this tactic with such groups I recommend providing some opportunity to rescue the ally.

Weddings are a mainstay in soap opera because it puts a nice cap on what has typically been a multi-season love affair. Utilizing this device in a role-playing game can be difficult though because with few exceptions the players will mostly be male. Weddings however can be an excellent backdrop for conspiracies, murders, and other such events.

==Layering==
A large cast of characters, described in such a fashion that they have conflicting goals, can easily generate enough story lines to sustain a very long campaign even if they are addressed one at a time. However, by dealing with these conflicts as individual problems the game will hit points where everything of importance seems to be resolved. Essentially, the game will find a natural end. Instead, consider layering these conflicts so there are always two or more pressing problems that demand the player characters' attentions. 

===The Order of Disorder===
Throwing out all of the plot hooks at once will most likely result in the players attempting to connect too many disparate elements or worse a complete failure to act. Instead it is advisable to dole out the plots at fairly regular intervals. Every session or two offer up another clue regarding one of the story lines via non-player character interaction. This can take the form of a rumor, an offer to join one conspiracy or another, an unexpected attack, etc.

Ultimately this should result in a situation where the players must seek and gain allies while making hard decisions regarding the allocation of their resources. If the lead characters have been structured as I describe above gaining allies also results in gaining enemies, which may in turn result in more story lines that can be pointed at the player characters.

The real point of layering things is to avoid ever having a lull in the action. Try not to completely overwhelm the players with too many story lines, but keep things coming at least as quickly as the stories are resolved. The diagram below is a visual representation of this idea.

{| border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="75%" align="center"
|-
| colspan="3" bgcolor="red" | Story A || || || ||
|-
| || || colspan="3" bgcolor="blue" | Story B || ||
|-
| || || || || colspan="3" bgcolor="yellow" | Story C
|}

===NPC vs. NPC===
As I mention above the non-player characters are in conflict with each other. These conflicts are at the center of the stories that the player characters will find themselves at the beginning of the chronicle. Later, as the player characters have been more thoroughly integrated into the setting, their own conflicts will provide more than enough story lines to keep them occupied. At first though it must be expected that they will become embroiled in the conflicts of others. 

In conventional games these conflicts will not progress, change, or be resolved except by the intervention of the player character protagonists. This is typically done to simplify the Storyteller's job and to make the player characters the center of the story. However, I consider this to be a mistake. Regardless of whether the players choose to involve themselves in the interaction of the non-player characters these story lines should progress for two reasons; verisimilitude and to escalate the conflict.

Even though this is a game, it makes the pretense of being set in a version of the real world. This makes it important that things progress in a natural fashion and that just like in the real world things go on whether anyone is looking or not. Characters or groups that have a stated animosity towards each other should engage in activities designed to harm their enemy even if the players have chosen to distance themselves from the conflict. Characters that have constructive goals and the power to pursue them should do so, even if the players have chosen not to aid or hinder them. Verisimilitude is not however an excuse for the Storyteller to engage in arbitrary action on the behalf of non-player characters. Everything that occurs must be rational and teleological or the Storyteller risks violating the players' trust.

By following this strategy, many plot hooks that do not initially attract the attention of the players can be recycled and offered to them again. For example: The players are made aware of a feud between two non-player characters before the game commences as part of the setting brief. They choose to pursue other story lines or perhaps to actively avoid the feud. Regardless of this decision the two characters should continue their private war. This can be brought to the players' attentions by circulating rumors regarding the acts of the two feuding non-player characters and/or by having one of them approach one or more of the players asking for aid. Even if the players refuse to become involved the conflict continues. Other persons are dragged into the fight and the stakes are raised until the players do choose to become involved or it is logical that one of the parties should fail. The failure of one of the parties may in fact be more desirable because it may produce a power vacuum, introducing more characters that the players must then deal with.

==Conclusion==
By following the strategy I have outlined above a Storyteller rapidly establishes a highly interactive cast of characters that grow and evolve over time. While this represents a significant investment of time before the game begins, each of at least a dozen characters must be defined at this time, this is the most preparation that will need to be performed at any point throughout the run of the game. And this preparation need not be too detailed. As little as a name and a statement of the character's goals is enough to get started. Simply accounting for the characters' actions as they work towards their goals will generate further conflict and from that further story. Additionally, once this work is completed, the cast of characters is easily recycled for other games.

===Where do the Players Fit?===
While this methodology creates a self sustaining environment it can be difficult to get the players involved without contrivance. All of the non-player characters are bound together by a variety of alliances and animosities, and unless the players are made aware of all of them they might find it difficult to write their characters into the story. 

To preserve the mystery and surprise it may not be desirable to expose everything to the players. I strongly recommend preparing a story brief, a short summary of everything known about the other characters in the story, to overcome this. It should include known feuds, power struggles, and pet projects for all of the non-player characters that will be featured in the game. The players can then be encouraged to take sides and write their place in those conflicts into their characters. 

Another means of getting the players immediately involved can be borrowed from ''Exalted''. Have each player select a motivation for his or her character. This is a simple, single sentence, statement of the character's long-term goals. The character's motivation gives the player something to work towards in every session and the Storyteller a better idea of whether the player characters will work well together.

Even with a motivation defined it is possible that the characters will drift around for several sessions until the players find their place in the story. This tendency can be frustrating for both the players and the Storyteller. To circumvent it, I recommend having the players each define three to five short term goals for themselves. These may or may not tie into the characters' motivations, but I recommend that all of them require the players to interact with one or more non-player characters.

==Example==
The following mind map illustrates the lead vampire characters for ''[[Of Blood and Dust]]''.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/king_kaboom/Game%20Stuff/OfBloodDust.png

The map describes both the covenant and clan/bloodline affiliations of this cast of 20 characters. 

===Conflict===
The characters are arrayed against each other in such a way that builds conflict. At a macro level there exists the standing animosity between the covenents, the simple distaste that the clans have for each other, and the distrust that parent clans have for their bloodlines. There is also the "us against them" mentality of the Bruja in operation at this level. If one reviews the background of the characters numerous personal conflicts are described as well. To summarize them: 
*Esperanza is angry at Noble for frenzying on her
*Noble has taken the conflict between the Carthians and the Bruja to a personal level
*Ronnie wants to get back at Consuelo
*Mikos is attempting to keep Consuelo under control, and failing
*Consuelo is angry at the world and looking for any fight she can get
*Rutger is plotting to destroy all of the Kindred in Reno
*Talon Blackwood wants to have sole control of the Circle of the Crone
*Michaela is trying to maintain control over her brood while eying Mikos and the other elders hungrily
*Arnie Welsch wants out of the gang
*Edna wants Donald to love her
*Olga wants to kill Michaela and take over
*Donald wants to get back at Consuelo
*Cosimo is trying to manipulate a spirit court without coming into conflict with the Uratha
*Monica is trying to steal Rutger's secrets
*Paul wants to escape his servitude
*Mother wants to kill Tongue and destroy the Bruja
*Tongue wants to control the city from the shadows
*Markus is controlling the city from the shadows and wants to keep it that way
*Herve wants to understand the messages from God he sees and to destroy those who would harm him (''everyone'')
*Juanita is trying to be normal

Note that not all of these conflicts are necessarily physical and not all of them are even between two characters. Some are between the character and themselves, some between the character and his or her nature. Any one of these conflicts would make a suitable adventure unto itself and by exploring them one at a time a pretty long running chronicle could be sustained, especially after integrating the player characters and their conflicts into the mix. However, going about it like that would emphasize the resolution of each conflict without necessarily requiring the characters to grow in the process or spawning additional conflicts.

===Divided Loyalties===
Also notice how, except where there is a childe/sire bond exists, it is very common for members of the same clan to possess antagonistic political agendas. This creates questions of loyalty and whether the characters will go as far to destroy their opponents when they are, after a fashion, family. The Filhos des Bruja are something of an exception to this made specifically for this chronicle. The Bruja are intended to be the default antagonists. They represent a destructive status quo that may be united against. For the sake of verisimilitude a couple weaknesses have been written into the characters that may be exploited by players, but divided loyalties are not among them.

Divided loyalties are, in my opinion, crucial to include. They help give characters dimension and offer opportunities for dramatic betrayals. This is different from the common bait and switch tactic of having an ally betray the player characters without warning because it allows for foreshadowing and gives a logical reason for the duplicitous action. More importantly, because everyone has divided loyalties, the players will typically not see it coming anyway.

===Foreground and Background===
By accepting that all of these conflicts exist in the story from the very beginning and introducing them to the players as they encounter the NPCs, being careful not to reveal more than would naturally come out in the course of conversation, it lends all of the scenes a greater sense of realism. It also offers the players more and more things to identify with, exploiting the players' innate sympathy. The job then becomes following up with the ideas that were most interesting for the players; offering them opportunities to become involved if they do not involve themselves. 

Keeping the remainder of the conflicts running in the background can be challenging. However, it is worth it to spend a few minutes between sessions to write a single sentence about what has happened regarding each specific conflict. How has it changed? Who has gained the upper hand? Who else has become involved and how? All of this maintains the sense of realism and builds depth into the game. It also keeps the non-player character interaction fresh. Every time a player encounters the non-player character he or she has new information to give, new problems to talk about, and new events that have transpired.




=MOOD & THEME=

'''Mood''' and '''theme''' are vital elements of any story, and therefore an important addition to any role playing game.  The mood of a game is the feeling the game as a whole is supposed to engender in the player, be it one of fear, paranoia or lighthearted humor.  Theme, by contrast, amounts to the moral of the story being told.

==Mood==
Mood helps set the emotional stage not only for a [[Chronicle|chronicle]] as a whole, but for each story that makes up that chronicle.  Although it can vary from story to story, overall the emotional tone should remain largely consistent throughout.  The appropriate mood is set by the [[Storyteller]] of the chronicle and can be easily manipulated using such simple things are background lighting and music. 

===Examples of Mood===
A chronicle in which the predominant mood is ''fear'' typically includes scenes steeped in darkness, with frequent horrors visited upon those in the characters proximity -- or aimed at the character -- to keep players from ever feeling quite comfortable.  The Storyteller of such a chronicle might keep lighting dim and have little music save to highlight the unknown.

''Paranoia'' is a common theme in Storyteller games and encourages the players (and their characters) to be afraid of everything and everyone they encounter.  Trust is never an option, and every new piece of information should be suspect.  Storytellers encouraging a mood of paranoia might want to give seeming importance to unimportant characters at times, while underrating their villains -- but only sometimes.  Better that players never be quite sure whether that well-described Man in the Cloak is their arch-villain or some random street person; likewise, random events should take place that keep the characters in constant fear for their lives.  Dark is an excellent setting for this mood, an soft instrumental pieces might ad a nice touch as well.

Although found only rarely in [[White Wolf]] games, sometimes a Storyteller wants a ''light-hearted'' mood as a way to break the predominant mood of a chronicle.  Bright lights and pleasant music tend to be the order of the day, while characters should smile and laugh frequently and obvious sources of danger should be virtually non-existent.  Usually a light-hearted mood is best used to break the constant stress of the darker moods more prevelant in Storyteller games.

==Theme==
The theme of a story should be determined by a Storyteller before a chronicle begins and rarely changes from one story to the next.  In many ways the theme of a story is its moral, the idea the Storyteller hopes to teach to the players through the medium of role playing.

===Examples of Theme===

''Loss'' is quite possibly the most-used theme in both the [[Old World of Darkness]] and the [[World of Darkness|new World of Darkness]].  From the slow, inexorable loss of sanity in [[Vampire: The Requiem]] to the rapid loss of ignorance -- and innocence -- in [[Hunter: The Reckoning]], loss is an all-encompassing theme that a Storyteller can use to highlight the hardships of the World of Darkness.  Storytellers can highlight the theme of loss using reminders both subtle and otherwise.  When the characters encounter a child searching for a lost toy it highlights the theme of loss just as well as when a close friend suffers at the hands of an enemy.

Another theme common to the World of Darkness games is ''pointless violence.''  Whether the characters are [[Uratha]] defending their families and homes against the ceaseless aggression of [[Blood Talons|Blood Talon]] warriors in [[Werewolf: The Forsaken]] or holy men hunted by the Holy Office for the simple crime of being pagan, mindless violence is everywhere in the world.  By revealing the pointlessness of conflicts -- a thief murdering a man for a paltry three dollars, for example -- the Storyteller can emphasize this theme without much effort.

''Loyalty''.  It is difficult to maintain neutrality in the World of Darkness, where factions conflict constantly.  Clan versus clan; tribe against tribe; Hierarchy and Renegade: how are the characters able to navigate this dangerous world?  Will they know when to be loyal to their allies and when to remain neutral?  Enemies will try to coerce, and allies will connive, and the difficulty in determining what the best course of action may be can be an important theme in any game.  One way to reinforce this theme is through treachery; if a character's allies cannot be trusted, who can?  And what about the enemy who suddenly offers an alliance of convenience -- how long will such an alliance last?

''The End is Nigh!'' and  ''inevitability'' are particularly useful themes, particularly in the old World of Darkness.  Hunter: The Reckoning, as a game, is based on this very concept, but each of the supernatural entities must face inevitable extinction be it through [[Gehenna (Event)|Gehenna]], [[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'s [[Endless Winter]] or the [[Apocalypse]] of [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]] fame.  This theme can be emphasized by increasing random encounters with other supernatural creatures, dire warnings about the end of the world and even prophetic advice from normally pragmatic individuals.  All other themes can easily be tied into this particular theme because the End is all about loss, meaninglessness and ever-changing loyalties as factions seek to stave off the inevitable.


=UNFORGETABLE GAMES=
Most of us know how to run a good game, but what makes a game '''unforgettable'''? Here's a list of storytelling elements that will give your players chills.

*Put discreet elements of something weird going on for the players to discover themselves. Like small pieces of puzzles you give away slowly until they have enough to make sense of the big picture. For example, the location players visit has strange (spy) rats everywhere. Include the presence of rats subtly in every description of the place, until the players discover it on their own. Perhaps there is also an NPC with rat-like features (he sniffs a lot, his body type resembles it too, he smells cheese) but these features are given sparingly. When the players discover the rat presence, they will suddenly worry about this NPC.

*Use tridimensional characters. Avoid stereotypes and clarify their motivations and drives.

*Use elaborate descriptions. Read a random descriptive paragraph from a Tolkien book. The attention to details is key and the use of poetic language can turn a boring room into a place full of mysteries. Also, if your players are used to large descriptions, it will be easier to add some key elements of the place in your description that requires their attention, without making it too obvious.

*Add plots or side plots that involve the players personally. Perhaps the shipping company that was used to send the drugs is owned by a player's family member (his dad?). Maybe a player failed to help an NPC who ran away in a previous game. Now, on a completely unrelated note, the NPC finds himself tied to the main plot, because of the player's behavior.
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''''"Games are just like Life, with all the boring parts cut out. "'''''
-= Make a Ruling =
-''"Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling. It’s easy to understand that sentence, but it takes a flash of insight to really “get it.” The players can describe any action, without needing to look at a character sheet to see if they “can” do it. The referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if he thinks there’s some random element involved, and then the game moves on. This is why characters have so few numbers on the character sheet, and why they have so few specified abilities."''  (Retrieved 10/20/8 from http://www.lulu.com/content/3019374 )
-=YES  |  NO  |  YES-And...  |  YES-But...=
-::*  YES there is a window, AND there is an escalation.
-::*  YES there is a window, BUT there is a complication.
-::*  NO there is not a window, AND there is a complication.
-::*  NO there is not a window, BUT there is an escalation.
-=='Yes, And' vs. 'Yes, But'==
-:  As a GM I know that I can advance the plot by answering by acknowledging what the players want and either upping the stakes, or by placing something in their path to obstruct them.
-::  As an example:
-:::  Player: "I need to get into the building fast if I'm going to save the Senator. Can I see a window?"
-:::  A typical 'Yes, And' response might be something like:
-::::  "You head round the building looking, and yes there is one. More importantly there’s a rope hanging from it and you can see someone pulling themselves through. :::  They have a rifle."
-:::  A typical 'Yes, But' response might be something like:
-::::  "You head round the building looking, and yes there is one. Its open too, and looks an easy climb but there's a guard patrolling below it"
-:  Occasionally I'll give a 'No' response but I try to avoid it. Even if it involves changing the plot, or having things mysteriously appear (like windows where there are none on the map) I try to go with Yes Variants if it advances the plot.
-:  Obviously the 'Yes, And' response leads to afar faster game, with players ripping through plot very fast - but it can lead to tension. The 'Yes, But' response leads to a slower game,but it still moves the game forward, and it introduces challenges.
-:  'Yes,But' definitely works far better if it suggests courses of action. I've heard 'Yes, But' used as a substitute for 'No' far too often.
-:  The question is what experience have other GMs had with the two 'Yes' responses. I quite like string a few 'Yes, And' together to get some pace, each one either escalating the stakes or suggesting time constraints. It adds more impact to the inevitable 'Yes, But' when they feel things need to happen fast and there is a lot at stake.Suddenly they have a lot vested in overcoming the challenge. However the problem with too many 'Yes, And' answers seems to be a loss of challenge.
-:  The distinction, as I see it, between "and" and "but" is that "yes,but" is essentially saying "yes you could do that, but here are a few reasons why you shouldn't." Your "yes, and" example is a good one,since it adds complication, but it doesn't need to include the free dangling rope.
-:  I prefer to think of it as an escalation. i.e. Something which doesn't stop them doing what they hoped to do but raises the stakes. (the 'Yes,And')
-:  Whilst I view anything which slows them down, or temporarily stops them doing what they planned as a complication. (the 'Yes, But')
-:  And anything which stops them dead as a block. (the 'No')
-:  Of course all of these could be phrased differently so as not to use the 'Yes, And' Yes, But and 'No'. For that matter you could use 'No,But' to mean yes.
-::  e.g. 'No windows, but you do find an open door round the far side'
-:  There's also "no, and" answers: "No, you don't find a window, and furthermore some guards spot you, and start chasing after you!"Obviously, this is a way of escalating, but the interesting thing about this is that "no, and" answers are also a useful way of changing the nature of a conflict -- in this case, it changes from stealth to running. Used badly, they suck, because it's railroading.
-:  I wouldn't consider this railroading because the players still have a choice. They could fight the guards, they could run. In fact if you left it at "some guards spot you" they still have the chance to try to bluff the guards, bribe them or anything else. In fact its nice because it can be both a twist (changing the nature of play) and an escalation- and used intelligently it doesn't railroad.
-:  Used well, they are really cool, because they escalate, and at the same time allow shifting the conflict to terms that are more favorable for the characters. Skillful players will often set up questions that demand "No, and" answers, because they heighten the tension and bring the scene closer to resolution at the same time.
-:  Maybe one way to think of it is "yes, but" can lead to the reply "oh, never mind" which if done WILL cause a halt or at least a hiccup in the story, negating both the original player's idea AND your idea that followed the but. And for a sufficiently "unreasonable" condition after the but, you have what is in effect a No, and for a sufficiently unobjectionable condition after the but, you have an effective Yes,and. It's the in-between cases that make "yes, but" interesting. You might find the player's idea objectionable, and therefore want a concession from the player, or you have an idea that the player might find objectionable, and you want to propose the idea while giving the man out, or you want to probe how much your player is willing to pay to get what they wanted.
-:  "negation words". The reason they negate is because as soon as you hear them you hear "ignore everything I said until I said the negation word,because what I really meant was (second half of sentence)".
-:  You can still set limits with "Yes, and," and by acknowledging their idea even if you don't like it, you make them feel accepted instead of rejected.
-=Definition of Story=
-::  ''We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. "The king died and then the queen died" is a story. "The king died, and then the queen died of grief" is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it. [...] Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say "and then"? If it is in a plot we ask "why?"''  -- E. M. Forster, "Aspects of the Novel"
-::  how I learned to distinguish story from plot.
-::: Story is "and then this happened"
-::: Plot is "and that led to"
-=do lots of things badly or one thing well=
-: Greg Costikyan once said that a game can either do lots of things badly or one thing very well. At the time, he was writing games like Paranoia which is a perfect example of a game which does one type of game very well indeed.
-: Of course, the jury is still out on this one. One of the strengths of a game like Trinity is that it combined a whole host of sci-fi concepts, themes and approaches, so you can select the one with which you wish to run it, be it high-action superheroic space opera or dark and gritty conspiracy-busting SF. Other games, like Blue Planet, provide an almost completely neutral world, not free of action but free of any particular spin or plot mode; everything on Poseidon has a flavour of politics on the new frontier, but what type of stories you might run there are conspicuously (and deliberately) absent from the book.
-: Most of the big games on the market take this approach; we provide the tools – the imagery, the physics, the people and places, often these days even the tropes of the kind of genres being emulated – but you decide what they do. Exalted and Unknown Armies are two good examples that define feel far more than narrative structure. Others, like D&D, define the kind of things you will be doing, the challenges and structure of the plot, but leave the feel of the game and much of the setting up to the GM (or a sourcebook). Others, like Buffy or Feng Shui, work by encouraging the emulation of a particularly well-known narrative formula from other media, not just in setting but in plot structure also, to the extent of building narrative awareness into the character design and the rules of play.
-=GM Narration Styles=
-:  Other ways to do narration that's not the typical "GM describes stuff in the present tense, Players do the same." But that seems to really miss out on the potential. If you are running a game where there's a person called something like a GM with narrative authority, I think we are falling short if that authority is essentially just used to describe the world. Director's have their vision. And yet, like RPGs, they aren't the sole creators (usually), in fact most often they didn't even write the thing, much less act it out. So, if authors and directors can bring in a style and voice, why not GMs? To stick to one method would be like having every novelist write like Stephen King and every director work like Steven Speilburg.
-::  Some ideas for styles:
-::*  '''Arrested Narration''' - unreliable and contradictory to actions and dialog, turning dramatic irony up to 11.
-::*  '''How Fred Savage Met Your Mother''' - a character narrates from a point of view of experience, long after the events are over, with ample nostalgia, regret, and sentimentality.
-::*  '''Historical Professor''' (inspired by World War Z) - events are presented as interpretations of uncovered artifacts, documents, or other evidence (academic or theory based bias optional).
-::*  '''Epic Veda''' - inspired by John Wick talking about the primary sources for the ven in Houses of the Blooded. Homer, Beowolf, Middle English poetry, whatever your style of preference. Lofty language, repeated phrases, and if your good enough a particular cadence or even rhyming.
-::*  '''The Stan Lee Cameo''' - Describing scenes only as still panels, anything not visual is said as if it were written in a box on the panel.  or With Great Power... (and that's inspired partly from the use of thought bubbles and discussion of painting panels from the book). The rest seem pretty easy.
-::*  '''The Tarantino Method''' - Scenes and events structured to build to a climax, regardless of the chronology (this is sort of an ur-style that could be combined with another, I think).
-::*  '''Hard Boiled''' - That well known Chandler style of narration now required for every Private Investigator license. Although like any first person narrative, this would be tricky with a PC as the narrator, and might need to be an observing NPC (but who? That's the tricky part).
-::*  '''The Faulkner-Joyce Gambit''' - Stream of consciousness, poetic, but PCs speak and act concretely. Would this even work? I'd love to try.
-::*  '''Confessionals is a good one. Does it do it in a Reality TV show emulation? Something where the characters talk directly to the audience about what they are thinking is a great one.
 =MAKING MYSTERIES=
 :  The biggest problem with these is that GMs too often figure out one thing about their mystery that is, indeed, clever, but not enough to run a whole mystery from (''"It LOOKS like the butler did it, but really it was the cute girl."'') This results in Game Masters who refuse to give out any information because if they tip their hand at all, you'll solve the mystery and solve it all at once. And then you get a bad case of the head scratches as the GM constantly drops deliberately obtuse and cryptic hints, the players have no idea what to do with it, and then the GM starts complaining that the players aren't "figuring it out" even though he really can't give them anything to go with.
@@ Line 110: / Line 33: @@
 :  It needs a fairly different approach to games I've run in the past. Players need big, up-front goals for their characters that they don't keep secret. We also use a specific scene structure, and hash through the agenda of each scene before I begin narration. That keeps scenes busy if they need to be, relaxed if they need to develop character rather than plot. We also spent the first session developing the background and story arc of the first season, so everyone was on board with the point of it all.
+=??=
+=??=
 =SOAP OPERA=
-By [[User:Bill|Bill]]
 ==Introduction==
 One of the more difficult things to sustain is a long-term game wherein the characters are able to develop meaningfully as people. The ongoing presentation of challenge after challenge familiarizes the players with only a handful of non-player characters that are necessary only to overcome the obstacles at hand. While it is not uncommon practice for Storytellers to utilize recurring characters to fill these roles, this in its own way only serves to further limit the types of interaction available to the players or to give a simple answer to the problem. In the following paragraphs I will describe a methodology that runs contrary to these techniques and has resulted in multiple lasting games. This methodology may be applied to any game, but seems to work best for the World of Darkness due to its psychodramatic themes.
@@ Line 184: / Line 111: @@
 ==Example==
-The following mind map illustrates the lead vampire characters for ''[http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Of_Blood_and_Dust Of Blood and Dust]''.
+The following mind map illustrates the lead vampire characters for ''[[Of Blood and Dust]]''.
 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/king_kaboom/Game%20Stuff/OfBloodDust.png
@@ Line 224: / Line 151: @@
 Keeping the remainder of the conflicts running in the background can be challenging. However, it is worth it to spend a few minutes between sessions to write a single sentence about what has happened regarding each specific conflict. How has it changed? Who has gained the upper hand? Who else has become involved and how? All of this maintains the sense of realism and builds depth into the game. It also keeps the non-player character interaction fresh. Every time a player encounters the non-player character he or she has new information to give, new problems to talk about, and new events that have transpired.
 =MOOD & THEME=
@@ Line 263: / Line 193: @@
 *Add plots or side plots that involve the players personally. Perhaps the shipping company that was used to send the drugs is owned by a player's family member (his dad?). Maybe a player failed to help an NPC who ran away in a previous game. Now, on a completely unrelated note, the NPC finds himself tied to the main plot, because of the player's behavior.
-=Bluebooking=
-:  The first real and still best solution was proposed back in 1988. "Bluebooking" was first described by Aaron Allston in the Champions supplement Strike Force. The 'blue book' in question is a standard (in the U.S.) note book used to answer essay questions during college exams. Instead of using it to figure out whether you passed or failed, the blue book was used for a variety of scenes (or even mini adventures) that occured in the downtime (or unplayed gaps) in the main campaign.
-:  This "blue booking" allows for roleplaying which is important to the character, but not for the troupe, or the main plot line. Character romance is a common use, because it tends to make people uncomfortable. However, it allows players to run "side adventures" in the "down time" between active runs. These could be personal investigations, interaction with the cast of characters around the character's secret ID (Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Perry White, and Clark's neighbors when dealing with Superman), research activities, or even just introspective roleplaying. All of these things would bogg down a game if the player did them durring a session (in most cases), so by doing them via a bluebook (or scene journal, which is another name for them), allows the player to explore these areas without bogging down the game.
-:  The process, in short, is the player writes out a play session of what their character does solo, or with the permission of another player, with other characters. (Sometimes a blue book is passed back and forth between the involved characters.) It should be written in story format, but does not have to be. The GM reads over what is done and either approves it, approves it conditionally (needs changes), or denys that it could happen. Approved blue book entries become part of the campaign's continuity. Most GM's will award experience, luck, or some kind of reward for blue book activities.
-:  What comes out is much like what you do in a freeform or play by post roleplay game. You post a scene (or three) up that explains what your character is doing.
-:  I have used this technique to good application. It does require a player with storytelling or actor orientations
-to be most useful. Story or Character oriented players can produce a huge amount of material to add to the campaign. Players with characters who have deep secrets will also have fertile fodder for scene journals. This allows for them to follow their secrets in safety of IC and OOC knowledge. The other player types will use it only to keep track of their downtime training, studying, and investigations.
-:  It can add a great deal to a group campaign, when the characters are supposed to opperate solo most of the time while "off camera". It also frees up the GM's time, as scene journals can be reviewed between game sessions.
-:  Some people do journal entries over email. The reason I like scene journals in books over email is that I have a tangible record that I can access at all times, rather than clogging up my email box and files. I have posted a number of scenes journal entries to my campaign notebook (indexed in back) so I can pull up those scenes and thrust appropriate elements into the main campaign line. This is not to say I am against emails. Many of my players have worked scenes out with each other via email, printed it out, and posted it in their scene journal. Others send me vauge outlines of scenes they want to do via email for tennitive approval. It is not the "End All" of game tools, but it is a useful one in your gaming arsenal.
-="How do you support and cultivate your local scene?"=
-:  I help run NerdNYC. We have around 40 die hard members, run bi-weekly events that attract 20-30 people, quarterly events that attract 80-100 people, and an overall active base of 150 people with many more inactive.
-:  If NerdNYC was a boardgame, when it works, it looks like this...
-:*  Appoint leaders
-:*  Distribute responsibilities (so no one is overwhelmed)
-:*  Create plan (or update)
-:*  Create brand (or update)
-:*  Create website (or update)
-:*  Raise resources (donations or sponsorships)
-:*  Buy promo materials (cards & shirts)
-:*  Find nerd events (cons, stores)
-:*  Promote brand (run booth, seminars, & games)
-:*  Identify new friendly nerds
-:*  Direct to website (cards)
-:*  Maintain new friendly nerds' interest and kill time between events (goof off on website)
-:*  Find event space
-:*  Find event organizers
-:*  Find sponsors
-:*  Announce events via website
-:*  Run game events (rpgs, boardgames: play games, make friends)
-:*  Run social events (picnics, paintball, movies: make friends, play games)
-:*  Build social network (new friendly nerds form their own sub groups)
-:*  Maintain social network
-:*  Debriefing (what can we improve or change)
-:*  Repeat cycle
-:  We've been in a bit of a lag and my life has been in utter turmoil the last 6-7 months. But we are running a 1 day event at the upcoming Big Apple Comic Con, are restructuring our leadership team, revamping the website and more in the coming 4 months.
-:  Our biggest problem is that it is easy to find space for 30 or 100 people. Finding space for 150 people becomes very, very hard in nyc. Keeping motivated leaders is a challenge. Running booths at cons becomes hellish after a while. We were IPR at cons for 1-2 years before IPR was formed. And it burned out the people involved. Yet that was one of the best ways to attract more people. Selling shirts was also great in building comradery. But tracking stock was a pain. There are better options now that need to be readdressed. It also becomes very difficult to host a movie night when you have grown past 30 people. Also, the more successful in some ways, the more people break off into their own sub groups. Some people are very excited to form a community when they want to make friends but once they make those friends people tend to settle down. Our age demographics range from 18-60 with the core between 28-36 and many leaders drawn from that core. Another problem is people running out of time having families at that age and working jobs that demand hours between 50-70 hours a week. Definitely a huge challenge. Lots of work for a non profit enterprise (especially in nyc when you can use as much money as possible). But when you see everyone gathered in a room together having fun... it's awesome!
-:  I'm hoping in the summer to run 1-shots in public stores for non nerdnyc members to recruit and help people form their own gaming groups. As well as running more seminars at cons such as women in gaming, mature themes in gaming, expanding gaming communities, and more.
-:  I just wish I wasn't as busy so I can do more. I work 60 hours a week easily, run several companies, and travel all over the world on a sometimes monthly basis. Plus we're couch surfing while our place is under serious construction. But I need more gaming! Hahahahaha. We have so many amazing people living in NY!
-=Background & 3x3=
-::  ''Every section you fill out will award your character 1 extra PP. This must be sent back to me as a file, not as paper, for you to get your points. Please do not write any more than one line.  Feel free to fill these out as we go along. A. Once the NPCs are "handed over" they're totally the GM's to develop B. These NPCs are not permanent in their "category", for example if you do something role-playing in-game that makes a Contact dislike you then they might fall OUT of the "contact" and become an enemy. C. These NPCs may or may not show up soon. I go with the note that these NPCs aren't "canon" in-game continuity until I introduce them in campaign. Meaning, I don't want players to say "I'll just go to xxx for help". I'm cool with players asking to go find xxx but not just assuming they'll be there waiting for them.''
-:::  3 x Friends	NPCs connected to your PC, someone who would help you because they care about you. From your father, to a loyal fan, to someone willing to die for you.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 x Enemies	NPCs connected to your PC, someone who dislikes, hates or has a grudge on your character. From a childhood bully, to someone who thought you cheated them in poker, to someone wanting you dead.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 x Locations	Placed created in/for the setting that is connected to the PC, someplace that is special good or bad to your character. From the place your parents were killed, to your childhood home, to a place you watch the sunrise.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 X Contacts	NPCs connected to your PC, someone who would help you because you pay or trade favor with them. From the neighborhood bartender, to a police commissioner, to an old friend.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 X Organizations	A group created for the setting that is connected to the PC, something for which the PC has worked for or against. From a police org, to a secret society, to a big corporate machine, a planet that you have visited and saved, or even an interesting place that you have been. Anything that represents more than one person.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 X Secrets	These could be mistakes that you have made in your past.  Knowledge of your past crimes, or even your families. Anything that you would prefer to not be known by others.
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 X Goals	What is the purpose continuing to do what you are doing, why have you not settled down with a family yet? What would you like to see accomplished by the end of the campaign?
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  3 X History	What are some of the most important aspects of your history?
-:::  •
-:::  •
-:::  •
-=Another 3x3 Breakdown=
-{| align="right" border="1" cellpadding="2" width="300" style="margin-left:2em;"
-|-
-|align="center" style="background:#efefef"| <big>  '''" PC NAME "'''  </big>
-|-
-!   [[Image:???.gif]]
-|-
-|
-{| align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="background:#efefef"
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>   '''NAME:'''  </small>
-| align="left" | <small>    ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>    '''1st APP:'''    </small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???     </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''QUOTE:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ''"...???..."''  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''BORN:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''HOMETOWN:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''EDUCATION/CAREER:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''RELATIVES/CONNECTIONS:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''US CITIZENSHIP STATUS:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ??? </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''GROUP AFFILIATIONS:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-! align="left" | <small>     '''KNOWN POWERS/ABILITIES:'''   :</small>
-| align="left" | <small>     ???  </small>
-|-
-|
-|}
-|}
-''CIVILIAN IDENTITY'':  ''' PC Name '''
-:   mini-concept bio... ???
-:  ''Code Names, Press Given Names, Clever Nicknames'':  ???
-:  ''Marital Status'':  ???
-:  ''Known Relatives'': ???
-:  ''Height / Weight'':  ???
-:  ''Archenemy'':  ???
-:  ''Favorite Movie, radio show, fictional character, etc..'':  ???
-:  ''Catch Phrase'':  ???
-==BIO Brief==
-???
-==What is your Heroic Motivation?==
-???
-==Complications  or  Character Flags==
-''These complication or flags are things that tell the GM what the PLAYERS are interested in doing with their characters in the game. The advantage here is that the GM can look at these flags and tailor events in the game so folks are getting what they want for their characters. Any Complications on your character sheet are also flags to the GM of things you as a player want your character to confront in the game.''
-???
-==3x5==
-===Allies===
-Allies are people that care about your character enough to aid them without payment.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-===Contacts===
-Contacts are people that would aid your character but require some sort of payment or promise.
-*  ''''' Silence makes Victims ''''' [age 45]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-===Enemies===
-Enemies are people that dislike your character for any reason, minor as a slight grudge or anything greater.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-*  ''''' ??name?? ''''' [age ??]:
-::*  gender, race, rank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobriquet sobriquet], etc...
-::*  Brief character description and personality.
-::*  Short Background, why they know me.
-::*  Brief Skill/Abilities of note.
-::*  When/Where last scene by me.
-==='''Locations'''===
-''(list 3 locations in the game setting that are important to your character, important can be "good" or "bad"; list name, your relationship, the concept in 1-2 sentences, when last you were there.)''
-*  ???
-*  ???
-*  ???
-==='''Organizations'''===
-''(list 3 groups in the game setting that are important to your character, important can be "good" or "bad"; list name, your relationship, the concept in 1-2 sentences, what they may be up to now.)''
-*  ???
-*  ???
-*  ???
-----
-----
-==STAT BUILD==
-===''' ??? '''===
-'''ABILITIES''':
-'''SKILLS''':
-'''FEATS''':
-'''POWERS''':
-'''COMBAT''':
-'''SAVES''':
-'''DRAWBACKS''':
-'''COMPLICATIONS''':
-=PC Campaign Questions & RPG Book Ideas=
-::*  3 descriptors that a stranger would notice about a character after a minute of interacting with him (I think I stole this one from someone here but can't remember who it was). These can be physical traits, mannerisms, or props. For instance, one of my wife's characters was "tall, willowy, with a big ol' mole on her face."
-::*  I found background "questionnaires" not as good a tool as you might expect to provide character hooks, guidance and ideas.
-::*  Have the characters describe a dream sequence the morning before they awaken on the first day of the adventure.  Give them plenty of time to come up with it in written form and email it around to the group.  I'd say the only requirement might be that it have to do with the character's past.  It's a nice way to force them to come up with an emotionally pivotal moment in their past the means a lot to the PC.  Plus, telling the others will at least set the stage for their PCs to understand each other on an emotional level that comes with close company but that the players might be slower to pick up on... Of course, this does lend itself to players who are more of storytellers, and are more experienced, and you may have trouble really getting newbies hooked with it...
-::*  '''Burning Wheel'''   Beliefs from Burning Wheel are great -- just boil down the character to 2 or 3 essential beliefs.A Belief is something the character believes about the world, themselves, etc. By listing a character's Beliefs, you get a handle on what the character thinks and feels, how the character is likely to behave, and what he or she cares about. Instincts are things a character always does, something he or she always does. That way, you don't need to check at the beginning of each scene 'ok, who's armed? Who's checked under the bed for assassins, who's..." and so on. You just know what everyone's Instincts are. Instincts can get you into trouble, though, because they are something a character does unless the player specifies otherwise. "Always Armed," for example, can be a very dangerous Instinct in political games...
-::*  '''Cyberpunk 2020'''. The lifepath system in that game makes it easy to make a skeleton of a backstory, in such a way that it's easy to mine for plot ideas. When I play other games, the way I encourage character building is by making the players write little stories. In GURPS, I'd have a player write a little bit about why they have a certain advantage, or a certain disadvantage, or even a certain item... in some cases, it's a bit of flavor and I never use it, in other cases, it takes on a life of its own.
-::*  Aspect writing from '''Fate''' 3.0 is a great way to distill background.
-::*  '''Theatrix''' is the concept of the "Primary Descriptor" - what does the player see as the character's main role in the game? For example, in a detective game one player might have a Primary Descriptor of "Good Cop Gone Bad." Or in High Fantasy a wizard might be "Kindly Father Figure". In Space Opera, "Wisecracking Ace Pilot".
-::*  Going around the table, every player tells the group something brief and introductory about their character and who they are or what they do (or about something they've done recently): career choices, personal history and opinions/prejudices, etc...
-::*  Everyone tells us their character's connection to whatever you all just heard from the player sitting to your left. The connection doesn't have to be as straightforward as "I fought in that battle too!" (or even, "I was on the other side of that battle") -- in fact, the more tenuous/remote but nevertheless connected you get, the better. The longer version -- that inspired this -- comes from Spirit of the Century, SOTC's 5-phase background creation approach, since that gives a player a chance to explore their history and get some traction on the character story -- and thus arc -- front. Add to that that the last two phases are "guest star" opportunities for the PC where he shows up in two other PCs' stories, and you've got instant selection of the two PCs who are to be the positive and negative force on the character's arc. It's a nearly seamless join between the two methods.
-::*  Write the back-cover blurb for your 1920's adventurer's first pulp novel (and then co-star in two others) as part of character creation:
-:::*  http://zork.net/~nick/loyhargil/fate...#phase-3-novel
-:::*  http://www.evilhat.com/home/?page_id=103
-:::  SOTC randomises which novels you're involved with (shuffle and deal).
-::*  Arc Matrix -  Submit a two-pronged character arc. This consisted of two opposed possible outcomes for their characters as they develop through the course of the campaign. Examples provided were:
-:::*  Frodo Baggins: find the endurance to serve as the ringbearer, or give in to temptation and despair
-:::*  Andy Sipocwicz: achieve redemption as a good cop, or allow his demons to consume him
-:::  Once the two-way arcs were established, each player was then to select one PC for whom he served as a good influence, and another he pulled toward the negative outcome. In this latter case, the characters didn’t have to be consciously bringing ruin to their comrades. Rather, by pursuing their agendas, they could be unknowingly inching friends toward their dark destines. expand the arc a bit, and break those outcomes down into objective and outcome (or doom!) a bit more precisely, as in the first character's arc. Something that speaks a bit more to character motivation gives both player and GM a concept to grasp onto and pass back and forth. The other characters' arcs don't have that, I think. Theirs are a good starting point, but what is the objective behind the desired outcome? The resulting matrix looks like this:
-[[Image:Arc Matrix.png]]
-:::  When inserting plot to connect and unify the various killing-them-and-taking-their-stuff sequences, I’ll be looking for ways to hook into these triadic relationships between the characters.  Players know which character is an influence on which character. The role-playing will develop one way if the players are conscious of the charted relationships, and quite another if they aren't.
-::*  hit them with Bangs -- really interesting situations that force them to make decisions that matter to the characters and to the players. This means understanding character motivations. When we create the characters, I will get the players to write down some relationships they have to NPCs and PCs and the power structures of the world. These will probably be "people who matter" (to the fictional people in the setting), so everything the PCs do will cause ripples or even splashes in the pond of situation in the world.
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-  How To Use Props In Your Games - 8 Tips
-  By Johnn Four
-. Use Me-Props
-  Avoid the trap of using props that are all about you the
-  game master, and that have little to do with your players
-  and their characters. It's easy to get wrapped up in
-  handouts, charts, and pictures that show off your ideas and
-  game world.
-  While GM-focused props are interesting, and definitely
-  better than nothing, you have an opportunity to wow your
-  players by making your props all about them and their
-  characters.
-  Use props with consequences.
-  One technique for this is to use props that have
-  consequences and impact. For example, showing your group a
-  map of your world helps your players conceptualize their
-  characters' travels and the PCs' relative position within
-  the land. This provides a bit of structure many gamers
-  appreciate who would otherwise feel a bit lost when everyone
-  talks about places and destinations.
-  However, applying the me-props principle, how about making
-  your world map more about your group's interests:
-  * Place warnings. Add graphics of sea serpents and other
-    monsters that actually indicate lairs and threats.
-  * Issue challenges. Add text that dares the PCs to cross
-    these lands or wander near those caves.
-  * Useful reference. A map with a thousand dots and place
-    names is useful, but mostly to you unless you are GMing a
-    travel campaign. Instead, give your group a map dotted with
-    ally locations, trading posts, training locations,
-    information and contact points, secret routes and shortcuts,
-    and hints and clues.
-  * Exploration. What makes one place more interesting to
-    explore than other? Communicate this on your map. The cliche
-    map of just a few lines and an X works because it generates
-    a sense of wonder, mystery, and excitement. How could you
-    label and frame your map information to recreate mystery,
-    wonder, and desire to explore (especially the locations for
-    which you have adventures in mind).
-  * Create blank versions of your maps, sparsely labeled, so
-    players can log their travels or make notes important to
-    them.
-  Here's a test next time you plan a prop to see if it's a me-
-  prop for your players. Ask yourself this:
-    "Is this prop something each player is going to look at or
-    pick-up once, and then put it down and not touch it again
-    for the rest of the campaign?"
-. Use Visceral Props
-  Visceral: affecting emotions.
-  Use props that will get a reaction out of your players.
-  Perhaps you have a gargantuan dragon mini ready to scare
-  your group with when the PCs enter the massive cavern. One
-  option is to have it sitting by the table, ready for the
-  battle map. Another option is to hide it, and to think of a
-  cool entrance plan for maximum surprise and effect.
-  Perhaps it's hiding in an innocent looking box, and just
-  before you unleash the creature you call a break, clear the
-  room, and set things up so when the players sit down again
-  you punch away the box and play a loud thunder crack sound
-  effect.
-  Another technique is using memorabilia. Find something from
-  yesteryear, such as an old toy or game, and give it a place
-  in your adventure. Players will reminisce a bit, or have a
-  surge of great memories, or just get excited. Soon, the
-  real-life aspect of the prop will fade into the background
-  and gaming can come into focus again, but for the rest of
-  the campaign that prop will be treasured, and remembered.
-  Look for props that invoke emotion:
-  * Clothing and costumes. Not only to get into character
-    better, but to stir each other up, get imaginations
-    activated, and to feel different for awhile.
-  * Mock weapons. Nothing dangerous please. :) Imagine the
-    excitement generated after you or a player performs a
-    representation of their critical strike and a loud,
-    "hiiiiyah!"
-  * Clues left behind by the villain that contain truly funny
-    jokes.
-. Find Props You Can Touch
-  Photos, art, projected/computer maps and pics, and items
-  from books and magazines make great props, but a prop that
-  each player can touch, play with, experiment with, our use
-  to accentuate their descriptions and roleplaying are
-  wonderful. Use props everyone can touch, pass around the
-  table, and pick up at any time.
-  For example, one reader writes: "I use things to help my
-  players feel what it is to be in a particular situation (one
-  that can not happen in the real world). For example, to make
-  them feel what it is to be in a purple worm belly, I use
-  those non-toxic slimes they sell in stores. Or I can make
-  them put their hands into a bowl full of baked macaroni to
-  make them feel what it is to fall face first in a pool full
-  of worms...YYEEEWWW! Disgusting."
-. Get Props That Make Players Think
-  The line between character knowledge and player knowledge is
-  based on your GMing style and the preferences of your
-  players, but if permitted, use props such as puzzles to
-  engage players' minds and imaginations that also have impact
-  on the PCs and the game.
-  For example, cra2 writes, "I have a book of knots and I'll
-  tie up some doozies of varying degrees of complexity. When a
-  player tries to use his rope use skill or escape artist
-  skill, I'll toss him a rope knot and say, 'undo it.'"
-  Here is a web site that shows you how to tie cra2's doozies:
-  http://www.animatedknots.com/
-  Over the years I've collected books on puzzles, logic
-  problems, and lateral thinking problems. Find ways to insert
-  these into your campaigns.
-  Another idea is word games. Not all players will enjoy word
-  puzzles, but for those who do, this type of prop is a huge
-  amount of fun. For example, you might make a crossword using
-  in-game clues, and the password to get by a magic gate is
-  one of the words from the crossword. A hint is that the word
-  does not have a clue in the numbered entries.
-  "Hey, there's no clue for word #13."
-  "Oh really? Weird. Maybe that's significant?"
-  Such props are a great way to keep idle players busy, or to
-  have a small part of your group who are working together on
-  the answers feel like they're still contributing to the
-  campaign during a split group situation.
-  I remember the fun I had with the code wheel from the old
-  Gold Box D&D computer games. On game start you'd be
-  presented with a code, and you'd need to use a cardboard
-  wheel to get the reciprocal code to activate the game for
-  play. The codes were all in Forgotten Realms languages, so
-  it was a neat prop.
-. Introduce Props At The Right Moment - They Are
-    Distracting
-  When you reveal your prop, gameplay will stop as the players
-  check it out. If it's something small that can be handled,
-  then expect a delay as players pass the prop around and take
-  a few moments to examine it, make comments or jokes, and
-  hand it on. If your prop has detail, expect several player
-  questions and players spending time examining things
-  closely. If the prop is a puzzle, your players will likely
-  stop everything and try to solve it. If your prop requires
-  assembly or set-up, expect more game delays.
-  Think ahead and imagine how your group will react to your
-  prop. If it's likely gameplay will come to a halt, then be
-  strategic about its reveal.
-  For example, if you have the option, introduce your prop
-  toward the end of the session when energy typically flags.
-  If it's a puzzle, wait until the very end of the game so
-  players can work on it between sessions (unless you want to
-  keep players busy with it in-game).
-  If the prop is noisy or smelly, be aware of the real world
-  timing. Late night noise doesn't go well with anyone trying
-  to sleep upstairs.
-  It might be appropriate to have a planned break just as the
-  prop is introduced so the players can explore it without
-  guilt or conflict. You want to avoid the situation of some
-  players wanting to keep playing while some want to
-  investigate the prop. An official, short break settles this
-  issue nicely.
-  If your prop is to generate a certain emotion, be aware of
-  potential clashes with game mood and atmosphere. For
-  example, if you hand out "magic" plastic clown masks to be
-  used as weapons against the villain, but you had intended
-  the villain battle to be dark and gritty, you are setting
-  your tactics up for failure.
-. Make Prop Copies To Allow Multiplayer Play
-  It's frustrating as a player to not have access to an
-  important prop. If possible, have copies of your prop handy
-  so players don't have to wait for access, or if one player
-  tends to hog things.
-  Photocopy - or print out - multiple copies of puzzles and
-  paper-based props. Try to find multiple versions for other
-  types of props.
-  Keep props in front of your GM screen so players don't lose
-  them or set them out of reach of the other players.
-  Consider putting props on display away from the game table
-  so anyone can get up and look without disturbing others or
-  finding the prop is inaccessible.
-  Beware of props that require just one brain or set of hands
-  to deal with. These become exclusionary. If you have the
-  option, employ these props to single, isolated, or split-off
-  PCs. While all players will want to check the prop out,
-  they'll acknowledge that just the one PC has in-game access
-  to the prop and they should leave the player alone with the
-  prop in peace to solve or deal with.
-  For example, you can use a dream or vision to strategically
-  introduce the prop to a single PC. If you can make the prop
-  setting neutral, then you can place it when the time is
-  right for just one PC to find. An NPC might take a PC aside
-  and give the prop just to them for safekeeping. And, fudging
-  skill checks let you open a secret area to give the prop to
-  a PC at your chosen moment.
-. Avoid Fragile Props
-  Props will be manhandled, dropped, dunked in pop and pizza,
-  and otherwise abused, especially if they recur in multiple
-  sessions. Is it ok if your prop gets damaged? If not, then
-  take action to protect it.
-  Warning your players to be careful with it is possible, but
-  not fair to them. If a real, unavoidable accident does
-  occur, then you end up with an upset player and a broken
-  prop.
-  Your best bet is to avoid fragile props. If that's not
-  possible, then it's your responsibility to protect the prop:
-  * Use a protective container
-  * Have a do not touch policy
-  * Only handle the prop yourself
-  * Do not make it interactive in-game (if the PCs aren't
-    supposed to touch it, then there's less pressure for the
-    players to handle it)
-  * Take a picture of it instead and bring the photo to the
-    game
-. 10 Props Ideas
-) A Rubik's cube and a solutions book. Several solutions
-  books give you patterns in addition to solutions to the
-  original goal of getting all colours the same on all faces.
-  You can use the alternate patterns as player challenges,
-  with the book providing solutions for stuck players.
-  Patterns might be used as keys to magical locks. The cube
-  could be a magic item and each pattern generates a different
-  effect. A pattern might be shown to a secret cult to gain
-  admittance.
-  You might also cut up the solutions book and have players
-  quest for individual pages / solutions.
-) Create potions with cheap, clear glass and plastic
-  containers. Baby food jars, dice holders, and containers
-  from all the stuff you buy. Go to dollar stores and yard
-  sales to find more containers.
-  With a small collection, you can get coloured, crystallized
-  juice (i.e. Tang or Cool-Aid) to fill the containers up to
-  craft nifty potions. You can also get coloured sand or
-  crystals from craft stores for this purpose.
-) Fake cigarettes. Wooden dowel is great for these. Cut the
-  dowel into cigarette lengths. Paint 3/4 of each length
-  white. Leave 1/4 brown. Roleplaying while holding one
-  between your lips or in your hands.
-) Hidden pictures. Find the childrens books where an
-  artist has hidden animals and other shapes into the art.
-  Give players a page and ask them to find what's hidden.
-  Perhaps turn the request into a riddle or puzzle to add
-  another fun element. Give them a page with the following
-  animal hidden on it, along with the riddle:
-    I have wings but I'm not a bird.
-    I am small and colourful.
-    I live in gardens and fields and forests.
-) Halloween soon approaches. Get all the plastic swords,
-  monster masks, pirate hats, and other props you can while
-  they're in season!
-) Candles, especially floating candles in tinted water, can
-  create a great mood for a nighttime setting, in dingy
-  castles or dungeons, or just a fantasy/medieval setting.
-  Just remember to have adequate ventilation, or you'll put
-  everyone to sleep as the oxygen levels drop, and the walls
-  will get stained with soot. Also, be wary of potential fire
-  hazards, such as curtains, posters, flammable pets and
-  clumsy players! (From: Gareth)
-) Headpieces. Hoods are a great way to convey mystery, or
-  at least a different personality. Other headpieces, such as
-  caps, crowns, scarves, (even tea towels for that middle
-  eastern feel) are easy to get hold of. They are easy to put
-  on and take off, and are immediately obvious to the group.
-  (Plus, they don't usually get in the way of your notes, GM
-  screen or dice rolling). An interesting option is to take a
-  necklace with a large setting on it and wear it across your
-  forehead...gives a real impression of something arcane and
-  different. (From: Gareth)
-) Bottles. Trying to impersonate a drunk, an apothecary, a
-  healer or a shadowy figure selling mysterious potions? Get a
-  bottle (preferably glass), remove the label with warm water,
-  and fill it with different coloured water, coffee (with or
-  without milk), or any other liquid you want.
-  With a bit of glue and paper, you can make your own labels,
-  and there are a stunning variety of shapes and colours of
-  bottles if you look hard enough. Antique shops and junk
-  shops often have old bottles.
-  You can even have PCs drink the contents when they quaff
-  that unknown potion, but make sure it's safe to do so...if
-  you use dishwashing liquid, make sure everyone knows! Also,
-  your thirsty player will not appreciate it if the bottle
-  they just drank had milk in it, and it was filled three
-  sessions ago. (The look on their face is priceless, but it's
-  not good for their health). (From: Gareth)
-) Need some treasure? Go through all those junk mail
-  catalogs and antique auction brochures. Cut out the
-  interesting pictures of "antique" items, jewelry, fancy
-  rugs, furniture, and art. Use them as treasure for your
-  party. When they rake in a big haul, or find something
-  unusual, you can show them this picture, or simply hand it
-  out and let them try to guess what the item is worth or what
-  it is. (From: Chris Tutty)
-) As I am going through old travel magazines or National
-  Geographic, I often see pictures of places and I try to
-  think where that would be in my campaign world. So why not
-  cut out those pictures and put them in a file for use when
-  the PCs are in that area? (From: Chris Tutty)
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-The Wire: Writing Into Your Arc
-Merlin Mann | Sep 25 2008
-Important
-While this article about The Wire deliberately contains as few actual spoilers about the show as possible, it does contain numerous links to pages with information that will tell you critical spoiler information about the stories and fates of the show’s characters. The article also contains language and links that are very much not safe for work. Please proceed with caution on all fronts.
-In the time since I gallantly announced what makes a good blog, I’ve had time to think more about the qualities of work that endures.
-Not thinking just of personal blogs here, or solely in terms of the ways that we can improve online publishing and social media —although clearly these are areas that could stand some improvement. I’m talking about the extent to which some of those qualities that I mentioned in that article relate to broader ideas around all creative work and the process behind how it gets made well and consistently by an auteur who’s only incidentally a merchant.
-And it’s especially got me thinking about how any thing we choose to make today can contribute to, for lack of a better phrase, an arc.
-So, naturally, I’ve been thinking a lot about The Wire.
-The Wire
-First, understand that I’m an unapologetic superfan of and evangelist for The Wire, which is David Simon’s epic, 5-season HBO drama about the life and work of a lot of very flawed characters in contemporary Baltimore. This is neither the first nor last time that I’ll quote Simon’s excellent description of the show’s theme, which is taken from his DVD commentary of the very first scene of s01e01:
-'''The Wire''' is really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how … whether you’re a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you’ve committed to.
-Much has been written about the dense, literary quality of the show (read Kottke for context and great links), so it may not surprise you to learn I’m one of the many people who consider The Wire to be the best series that’s ever appeared on television; my wife and I have watched the first (and, in my opinion, best) four seasons at least three times.
-Yeah, that’s a plug for you to give The Wire a chance, but it’s not exactly my point.
-Ok. So, why The Wire?
-My point is that one big reason why The Wire was so good is its endlessly satisfying story arc, which is composed of many smaller, complementary arcs inside the big arc. That’s where a good story becomes a much more engrossing narrative that’s ultimately about more than itself.
-Like any creative work that connects with the people who enjoy it, The Wire tells a story. And, to some extent, every story is about change.
-Something happened. Or something is going to happen. Or something that everybody expected to happen hasn’t happened. But, it’s a change, and it’s having an impact on the lives of people we care about. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s basically the bones and teeth of every story from Adam & Eve through Harold & Kumar. Something changed, and now people have to deal.
-How that dealing spins out over the life of a project, how the story is told, and what the story says about the world are the sorts of questions we’re only encouraged to ask about Big Important Things like very old books and Bergman films. Which, of course, is bullshit.
-There’s no reason you can’t look at the lifetime of any good piece of story-telling — and, yes, why not, let’s say that could include blogs, Twitter accounts, and Flickr streams — and be able to see what the change is.
-Yes: if it’s any good, I can look at one page or one photo or one 140-character post and enjoy it for its value as one independent thing in the world. But over time, all those potentially thousands of pieces can and do snap together, often without our even realizing it. The question is, what story is it that we’re telling? What is the arc?
-And, that’s where I look to an example of middlebrow culture that falls somewhere between Bergman’s Death playing chess with Man on a beach and Scoble’s latest shaky video of a guy who likes golf speaking in press releases. But, The Wire is a piece of popular culture that beautifully illustrates how satisfying all those seemingly unrelated pieces of an arc can be — and how much richer they each become when the audience is engaged, challenged, and rewarded by the effort of giving the work 100% of their attention. Of course, it also helps if the creator is talented, tries really hard, and doesn’t treat the audience like a bunch of bored imbeciles. But, I digress.
-Like any story, The Wire has characters, settings, and things that happen over time. Example? Let’s start with a single, one-minute scene from s01e05 — an episode called “The Pager,” that’s from right around the time when the series really started cooking. Which, not coincidentally, was also when the intersecting arcs started to reveal themselves.
-The Scene
-Meet Jimmy McNulty.
-Jimmy’s a talented, politically deaf, pain-in-the-ass homicide detective and drunk who’s estranged from the mother of the two children he adores. One night, in the shitty little apartment he’s recently moved into, Jimmy’s too wasted on cheap scotch to properly assemble the Ikea furniture that he bought for his kids’ imminent visit. Jimmy is a mess, because he’s dealing with change. In his own inimitable way.
-But, see, you don’t really even need to know all this to just enjoy the scene. (Please watch from 0:09-1:25)
-One small scene of a guy who’s drunk and a little careless. There’s loud music playing in the next apartment. He has to make a few trips to get all of the stuff he bought into one room (bet he’s in a walk-up apartment, right?). Jimmy’s useless tonight, clearly more focused on the bottle than on assembling the parts of his new SÜLI. Here’s a middle-aged man whose bedroom contains a green plastic lawn chair. Plus, the whole sorry scene is grimly lit by a single high-wattage desk lamp — reminiscent of the unforgiving light flooding the interrogation rooms that Jimmy and his partner, Bunk, work every day. Painful already, right?
-So, that’s just one very small bit of character, setting, and thing-that-happens. While it’s certainly not a story, in and of itself, it’s still an entertaining, well-made scene to watch. Not as famous as Jimmy and Bunk’s deservedly best-known scene from the previous episode (warning: very NSFW), but you get the idea. You can already tell a few things about this show.
-It’s well photographed, the set is painfully realistic, and the man dealing with change seems convincingly Baltimorean and drunk (although the actor portraying him is stunningly British and, to my knowledge, mostly sober).
-Even if you have no idea what else happens on the other dozens of hours of this series, past and future, you could watch this one-minute scene and think, “yeah, that’s pretty good.”
-The Episode
-But, if you were able to watch the whole episode — and it’s a good one — you’d see an atypically intense and complex police drama about cops in an understaffed bureaucracy trying to gather string about a case that seems impossible to crack. You’d see that some of the cops are brilliant (“Natural PO-lice”), some are dedicated, a couple are intoxicated by brutality, and a memorable pair with a Gaelic pun for a name are hilariously useless and corrupt. None is perfect, but none is without his or her interesting and redeeming qualities. End to end, it’s a very colorful bunch.
-Same goes for the dealers and drug kingpins, who are struggling with their own related set of problems around bureaucracy, trust, and continuity inside a crumbling system. Theirs is a mature but increasingly vulnerable criminal enterprise that’s being menaced and robbed at will by a dangerous and unforgettable outsider with surprising tastes, ethics, and style.
-Along the way you’d see a lot of beautifully shot scenes that show (without telling) why these people are so desperate. Plus you’d be introduced to secondary characters who are anything but stage dressing, such as a junkie informant who’s inked and filled-in with the complex texture of a Mercutio or a Fagin.
-So, basically, if you gave this episode from June of 2002 about an hour of your time, and it was the only thing you ever saw of The Wire, you’d probably walk away thinking, “Wow, I didn’t understand almost any of that, but it was really interesting and well made. This looks like a great show that you have to actually watch and think about.”
-But, here’s where it gets really good, and where we start to see a bigger arc that may not have been clear before.
-The Season
-Indeed, if you watched that whole first season of The Wire, you’d find yourself rewarded with a storyline — an arc — that I will not spoil for you.
-But, you’d start to see that almost every character you meet ends up having some effect on at least a handful of other characters — even if they never knew the others existed. The decisions that people make early in the season have resonance throughout the story that plays out in unexpected ways. And the change that describes the generic arc of that first season (Antihero cops try to take down an antihero Baltimore drug crew) ends up telling a much deeper story than any typical police procedural that I’m familiar with.
-Even in one season, we’re seeing a story that’s closer to Dickens or Zola than any styrofoam plate full of Law & Order. This is nothing short of a Greek Tragedy about broken people trying to stay alive in a broken system. Nobody’s perfect, and everybody is fucked in one way or another.
-In my opinion, it’s a breathtaking set of 13 episodes. And if those hour-long TV shows were all you ever watched: again, you’d have enjoyed a real treat.
-But there’s a lot more story, more change, and still more to the arc.
-The Series
-Finally, if you watched all five seasons of The Wire, you’d see a lot more going on than you imagined from one season, one episode — let alone one short scene of a drunk cop trying to build children’s furniture by lamp light.
-You’d see each successive season turning to a different broken and dying institution: unions, government, public education, and print media, respectively. You’d see the same themes, and characters, and mistakes, and hopes, and horrible consequences brought back to life in different ways. Stuff that happened before still means something; possibly even more than you’d first realized.
-This is a show that uses previous story arcs to deepen and expand on current stories. It uses things you’d never noticed from previous viewings as the centerpiece for a whole new story. It suggests grace notes that are barely audible unless you’ve been listening carefully for a very long time.
-In sum, The Wire pays back the attention you invest in it like few pieces of art created in my lifetime. It’s vicious about telling every letter of the story with muscular precision — even when it chooses to do so at pace many would consider pointlessly deliberate: “dull.”
-And, because the story rarely stops to explain what’s happening for the folks who just wandered in from the first segment of Family Feud, it demands that you bring the same care and thought to watching the show that its creators brought to making it. Thinking, on both ends of the art. That is engagement.
-Like great literature, yes, you can return and enjoy this series on many levels and based on whatever you have to bring to it at a given time. It’s not only smarter than anything else that I’ve seen on TV, it’s also smarter than I am. Which I love.
-Arcs Matter Because Writing Matters
-I doubt that I’ll ever make anything one-tenth as intelligent, thoughtful, and engaging as The Wire, and, in all likelihood, neither will you. But, again, that’s not the point.
-The inspiration you need to take away from this is the idea that every scene matters to some arc. Even the one minute with the drunk furniture assembly. Whether your given “scene” is in a screenplay, or an Excel spreadsheet, or the Tweet that you’re about to type about your flight delay: it matters. It all matters.
-Like I said in the talk where I first brought up this thought about The Wire (video and slides of which below), if you think what you write about or otherwise choose to make doesn’t matter, talk to Stephen King.
-He started writing a book I adore before he nearly died, then finished it in excruciating pain after it turned out he was still barely alive, let alone whole. The story he tells about what happened in-between may change your mind about whether this stuff is worth caring about. Just understand: it matters to the people who follow your arc and it really ought to matter to you — long before some idiot with a rottweiler hits you with his giant van.
-There’s already one arc that you began the minute you made something, called it “done,” then put it someplace where people could see it. How that very, very large story gets told may be too late for you to completely control. Sorry, but that — as Omar would say — is all in the game.
-But you very much do have the power to design the arcs you make, starting today. And even if you haven’t figured out how your final episode ends, consider how the pieces you want to lay down might fit together. And how the string that you gather might crack a case you hadn’t expected.
-Who do you want to delight? Who do you pray gets your references? Who will you flatly refuse to explain your backstory to? What’s the one goddamned thing that only you can make today — and what arc might it fit into downstream? Which “average reader” are you prepared to find the courage to tell: “Fuck you.”
-Above all: whose attention will you reward with the best thing you can possibly make today?
-Good. Now go, and reward the shit out of them.
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-=Game Ideas=
-==Henchmen==
-:  A humorous game centered around "evil" henchmen. The low guys on the totem pole. The rank and file goblins of an evil fantasy army, your basic COBRA soldier, the henchmen from the Venture Brothers, the Extacles from Frisky Dingo. (Yeah, yeah, the Extacles aren't technically evil, but you get my drift.)
-:  Centered around grumbling about bad pay, bad insurance, and bad training. Oh, yeah, and going on what are essentially suicide missions devised by inept leaders.
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-=Building a New RPG=
-Amber has a character sheet, but the player doesn't get to see it after the first game. If you want to know whether you've finally gotten enough sword training to fight Julian, there's only one way to find out.
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