Coriolis Posted June 2, 2001 Share Posted June 2, 2001 How many of you guys still running into the problem of getting a group of disparate PCs who would have no reason to speak to each other let alone work as a team, to meet up and gel as a group? I spent two months prior to running my first game of Aberrant looking for a way around this. the best I could come up with at the time was for them all to be at a Rashoud clinic for testing when the place was firebombed by fundamentalists, leaving them as the only survivors. Having searched the body of a dead terrorist they discovered their names on a deathlist, prompting them to hang out together in order to discover who wanted them dead. By the time they found that out they were operating as a team. I was lucky with that one.------------------Bast protect us all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stheno Posted June 2, 2001 Share Posted June 2, 2001 Well, the old "put them through hell" and they'll stick together schtick usually works, though it's a bit tired.I've been trying lately to get players to try to do up characters who actually had reasons to want to exist on the same planet as each other...with mixed results.Ask the Bagman. I'm sure he can give you all the gory details of the Aberrant Campaign I ran up here...then ask the Ranger, and he'll give you some of the details the Bagman didn't.Then ask me, and I'll give you a really long rant...I estimate the whole thing was about half my fault...I'm going to be running a short aberrant game while I'm in Italy for the next 2 weeks. Currently, I'm starting off by letting all the players know in advance that they're in the teragen and stuff like that (already agreed that with most of them anyway).Funny thing is, with this group of players (I've run games for them once or twice before), it's rarely a problem to get them to act together.With my fellow players and STs here, I've noticed that it is... I'm still trying to work out why that is.I think it has as much to do with the way we go about setting up games and creating characters as with how we start the first game session: think about it, it's much easier to get PCs to act as a team if A)players are willing to act as a group and B)They create their characters with that in mind from the beginning.Part of our problem seems to be that everyone has settled into his own little niche of what they like playing in terms of characters, and that gets in the way of everything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coriolis Posted June 2, 2001 Author Share Posted June 2, 2001 Interesting. But you STing was always a tad warped in my opinion. ------------------Bast protect us all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidious Posted June 2, 2001 Share Posted June 2, 2001 I've found that if you put them in a situation where they have to stick together or they'll get killed that usually works.In my current game which has expanded to 8 players (yeah me!) I've freed 4 of the people from mind control and were working on the other 4. Out of the 8 players and now 4 npc allis, i fully expect 2 hack and slashers to want to stay with the Kreeghor and try to hunt us down. the rest will want to get away (trust me, My st plays hard ball with the emotionally hurtful stuff). I asked about the possiblity of Traitors among the group and that if we could "remove" (kill) them if the situation a rose, sadistic bastard just smiled and and told us it was our game. So much for warnings. And then theres internal personality conflicts between players that we have to get over. let's just say that half the players really don't like the other half. Virtual Incharacter blows have been thrown.but the whole Party unity thing has been a shambles before. guess this will be no different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 2, 2001 Share Posted June 2, 2001 Actually, I haven't had much of a problem with that because what I've done in my hero based games is put them together in a team (try the x-men style or something similar). And even with the complications that may arise because of them not getting alone it make help make your storytelling go easier it may stray from the plot for a bit, but in the long run they will realize exactly how important it is to work together. Consider that the antagonist isn't gonna just sit back and wait for them to finish arguing. And coming up with the storyplots may become alot easier as the players create them for you.Sol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ranger Posted June 6, 2001 Share Posted June 6, 2001 Rangers pet hate: When players sulk. Doesn't happen very often but when it does it ruins the game for everyone. I think every player, including myself does it from time to time.Nuff said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coriolis Posted June 6, 2001 Author Share Posted June 6, 2001 There are far bigger sulkers than you Ranger. ------------------Bast protect us all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ranger Posted June 7, 2001 Share Posted June 7, 2001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeon Posted June 27, 2001 Share Posted June 27, 2001 To make a group gel together you need a common purpose. The easiest ways to achieve this are through money (a common employer) or being of the same organisation.Other common ideals can also be met, and the more varied a group that can hang together the better an ST you have yourself. The put them through hell is a bit overdone. I had a game lately where I had the players each individually infiltrating an organisation. I played individual seesions for a couple of games and they thought the others were NPCs. Boy did that annoy the players when I blew it open!Aeon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 I've never understood why game masters have had such problems with getting a varied group of players together for an Aberrant game; this is if you give some thought to it, in fact a little easier than other games if you have at the very outset a defined idea of what will happen in the game. If you do a little work beforehand and tell the characters 'okay, you're all members of Team Tommorrow's Omega Strike Force' (or something), and maybe give them a list or package of some recommended Backgrounds, some abilities as a part of the basic training package (if that applies), maybe some information about the sort of group they are in. It's been my experience that players won't be resistant to anything a Storyteller puts in front of them. If a player is antisocial enough to play Terragen or something in a game that you've already sketched out the characters begin play as members of one given group or association, obviously that sort of antisociality isn't the kind of player you want in your game...or in your house, for that matter. Just saying "okay, so all of you guys begin play as members of <fill in the blank>, and usually that's enough to get characters together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avenger Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 Since I've only played or ran three games thus far, I'll share how I got my players together.1--In the first game I played in, my character was supposed to join T2M of his own accord. I didn't. The other three players all volunteered shortly after their eruption to join up with the Project out of a sense of glasnost towards the campaign creator. I, on the other hand, being the prick I am, had to play my character true, and that meant turning down the Project. So instead, the GM got me in through a more ruthless and far less conventional method than baseless altruism; women.My character became the boyfriend of an NPC character who did make the choice to join the Project, and so, in turn, I was drawn in as well. I did a lot on my own and didn't receive the backing or funding of the characters who chose to join, but in the early days, the Project was glad to get help from any non-hostile nova, whether he was a member or not. The difference was that I didn't get any pay for what I did and wasn't afforded the same legal protection, but much like Mexico City's 'El Muerte', I never really did anything illegal, and the Project took care to make sure that I was afforded certain legal leeways so that they could continue to benefit from my free help.They've since destroyed all files and erased all hard knowledge of this quasi-legal help, as it would look really bad if word got around that a Terat serial killer was once under the Projects' protective aegis.And if any of you don't know who said girlfriend was, hoo boy, have I got a story for you...2--In the first campaign I ran, I started the game in early 2008. Al of the PC's were vying for a coveted position in the new Team Tomorrow Oceanis facility being opened to alleviate the strain being put on T2M Asia/Pacific which takes care of the largest and one of the most conflict-riddled continents on the planet. I had to make up around 15 NPC newly-erupted novas. For awhile, it was easy to keep them together, as they were all at the facility, trying out for a spot. Eventually, they all ended up leaving the Project after Landers was killed.And oh yeah, they were framed for it.Alongside Corbin, of course. They were tagged as 'Conspirators', though it was never made clear exactly what part they played by the world news media. Nonetheless, putting them all in a position where people were hunting them all over the world did a lot for group solidarity. They found it difficult to split up when numbers, after all, means safety.3--In my current game, all the PC's are unerupted novas engaged in Project Utopia's proactive 'Nova Latency Program'. Using the Triton Foundations' access to medical records, they scoured MRI, X-Ray, CAT Scan, and surgical records the world over looking for baselines who had nodes but had not erupted. Thus, my six players, along with five NPC's, are now having a grand time at T2M A-A undergoing physical, mental and emotional duress and training in an attempt to provoke eruption. Featured stimuli include XTreme Sports, grueling PT, spending the weekend with another nova, and other various...'surprises'.The only stipulation to character creation was that they make a character between 20 and 25 from an area of the world that was NOT the US, Canada, Mexico, or the UK, who had a history of head trauma of some kind (car accident, Concussion, Migraines, etc.) I insisted on the country restrictions because for starters it simply wouldn't make sense to recruit a bunch of people from N. America, and also I wanted to see my predominantly WhiteAnglo-SaxonProtestant group try out something more eclectic.Part of the NLP was signing a contract saying that you'd give up 2 years of service to the Project after your eruption with a minimum salary of $500K/year, sort of like a military term of service. While in training, I'll have no problem keeping them together. As for afterwards...?Well, when one of the NPC's erupts with a hate-on for life and a vengeful streak, blaming the PC's for his/her horrific state and swears vengeance, it's bound to keep them together. Especially when they don't even know that the person is still alive, but for some damnable reason, splitting up means one of them invariably dies...Anyone else got some good stories?--@venger------------------Don't try to run, you son of a bitch. You'll just die tired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ranger Posted July 9, 2001 Share Posted July 9, 2001 I like number three, it really should bring out the camraderie...particularly if you chuch in an arrogant NPC into the training program who erupts before they do and lords it over the PCs. I can see them ganging up to make him/her look silly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avenger Posted July 10, 2001 Share Posted July 10, 2001 Ranger, man, great minds think alike. Two steps ahead of you on that one, my good man. --@venger------------------Don't try to run, you son of a bitch. You'll just die tired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ranger Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 The one intro for a game I ran that I liked was the one where the PC climb out of their Cryo-pods after a hibernation sleep and couldn't remember who they were. They had to struggle to survive because everything they encountered was hostile and trying to eat/kill/sleep with them. Produced a pretty tight knit group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 25, 2001 Share Posted July 25, 2001 Well... In our games we usually concentrate on the characters, make them belivable and other stuff like that, and most importantly: why there together. Just because they have to face adversity together doesn't mean they have to stick together... Family is an old trick, it might seem overly used, but its fairly good excuse for a strange pack to stay together. (sorry for any misspelling, were having a party right now, but I just had to check up on you guys... ) Another is friends. Thats the best in my opinion... Basicly: make them focus on their background and when they start to get warm in their roles it usually isn't a problem to get new characters into the game... They need them!Well... Thats all for me right now. Back to my beer ------------------Love & KissesReaver Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.