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Welcome back folks to another exciting column. This
week we're going to talk about the how to start a
campaign and how to finish one (assuming your game
runs long enough to meet a conclusion).
Okay,stop me if you're heard this one: a fighter, a
mage, a paladin and a thief walk into a bar. They sit
down, get a drink and maybe order some food. They
mind their own business when a bunch of angry kobalds
walk in and start threatening an old man. All of a
sudden this diverse band of adventurers band together
to defeat the kobalds for no real reason other than
the fact that they are all player characters. They
defeat the little SOBs and find the old man is dying.
First level wizards don't have healing--- so the old
guy is pretty much screwed. With his dying breath he
turns to the Paladin and says: "As a holy
warrior, please guard my amulet. Don't let it fall
into the wrong hangs." Or maybe he just says,
"Don't let Cairo get the Falcon." It's been years
since I've played D and D. My memory is a little
fuzzy. That little scene is part of the reason why
I don't play anymore. It is played out as either the
first scene or the party gathering point in almost
every Dungeons and Dragons game I've been in. (If
you combined the fighter and the Paladin into one
character and did the same to the mage and the thief
you'd have "Ill Met In Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber.)
Though it's not like super hero games (and comics)
don't have their share of similar openings. Here are
some ones to avoid if possible.
A seemingly ordinary person notices a super hero (or
group of super heroes) acting a little off. He finds
some way of connecting extremely powerful supers.
They band together to stop the menace and decide they
like working together. Then they make the informal
alliance permanent. In actual comics, this sums up
both "The Avengers vol 1. #1" and the origin story for
"The Teen Titans." In Avengers it was Rick Jones
thinking the Hulk was acting strange. In the Titans
origin it was a letter from an as yet unrevealed teen
in Happy Harbor. Though Batman and Nightwing both
have reason to suspect Snapper Carr sent it.
A mystical or alien force is splintered into several
pieces and piece happen to land in areas where the
heroes are. The force grows to a level where it is
too powerful for any one hero to beat alone. Thus
the heroes come together. That's at least one
Justice League lineup's origin and The Defenders
origin.
An alien invasion is an old stand-by for super hero
team origins. They've played a part in the origins of
two incarnations of the Justice League, one
incarnation of The Teen Titans, Power Pack and even
one volume of The Crusaders.
Now, I'm not saying not to use these plots during
your campaign. They are part of the super hero
genre. I'm just saying there are other ways to get
your team together. Here are some of my favorite ways
to do so:
Connect them by a theme or common thread: these are
good for teams where character interaction is key.
The one problem is that it requires more work on the
part of the GM. He has to decide what the connecting
element should be. Let's just say the GM wants to
tell a story about the difference between revenge and
justice. He might want all the players to be to play
a character who either are fugitives or believed to be
criminals. He might also want characters with a
range of feelings on the matter. One need look no
further than Green Arrow and Hawkman to see that there
is room for difference on super teams. Even short
term alliances have had such difference. One side
of that issue, you have people like Punisher who don't
really see what they are doing as revenge when it
clearly is and whose tactics are very Machiavellian.
On the other side, you have Spider-Man who really
believes in the legal system or at least its intent.
He may catch the crooks but he doesn't decide their
fates. Then you have Daredevil somewhere in the
middle. These characters have a long history of
having team-ups even as a trio.
Another thing I like to do is run each player
through a solo adventure or two before the group
meets. As the GM, I set up major connections between
the solo plots. That way each story has a point
where once they player puts all the clues together and
accomplish their tasks they are more than likely in
place to meet one or more of the other player
characters.
The third way to start is En medias res. You don't
have to give them an origin. Just start a few months
after the party has met. Have the players work the
origin out when they write their backgrounds. This
puts a lot of burden on the players, but it also gives
them an excuse to work out how their characters
interact and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The final way to choose a super team, while it has
been done before in comics, is for one of the heroes
(preferably the leader or the one with the cash) to
start a team without members and have tryouts with or
without the other characters knowledge. (Much like
Night Thrasher in New Warriors or Hard Drive in Young
Heroes in Love.) In this sort of set up all the
players (aside from the one character) make several
characters. If the first one doesn't pass the
audition they move on to the next one. A good GM
will bring back those rejects either as potential
villains, wild cards or even reserve members when
things hit the fan. (And if one of the players
characters dies, that existing character may take
their spot.)
Now, let's talk about endings. There are three styles
of campaign. Episodic, Saga and Epi-Saga. Episodic
campaigns are much like most super hero comics of the
1940s and 50s. They are pretty self-contained.
They'll have reoccurring characters and some
continuity but not much.
The one advantage to an episodic campaign is that you
don't really have to worry about the ending. You can
run a bunch of episodes and when you get bored of it,
you can stop. There is no need to make the last
episode all that special.
The saga campaign is the total opposite. Everything
is important. Even the smallest detail is planned to
have lasting effects on the outcome of other future
events. A good example--- let's just say in the first
a character kicks a homeless guy and then gives him a
few coins to shut him up. At the very end of the
campaign it could turn out that coin was a valuable
collectible. He turns around and sells it. He uses
some of that money to buy some shares to keep the guy
who kicked him's enemies in business. Thus causing a
chain of events that leaves the character penniless.
In a saga campaign, you might start off fighting low
level street thugs but through the course of things
you might end up fighting beings from other galaxies
or evil gods. As the players grow so do their
threats. The GM always has this master scenario in
mind and the players may or may not be aware of what
is going on.
Epi-sagas are sort of a hybrid of the two campaign
styles. In some ways it is much like The X-Files.
Some episodes play into a much larger story. There
are master evils at work. Not every episode is about
that or incidents that lead to the big plot reveal.
A lot more time is spent exploring the characters as
people.
A good ending to a saga or epi-saga campaign has to
have these essential elements.
- A decisive battle between good and evil. A friend
of mine ran a campaign where the supposed heroes chose
not to enter such a battle because they believed
(rightfully or wrongfully) that they had no chance of
victory. So they did nothing and let the bad guys
win. It was still a decisive battle, only good
decided to forfeit. I also had a group quit two
episodes from the end because they refused to see
something rather obvious I had set up and kept going
doing things that were either tangential or wasted
time chasing red herrings.
- Good drama should have a ticking clock. Imagine
this scenario, Jonathan and Martha Kent are in a room
with a man with a gun at the same time Lois Lane is
running across a bridge. Superman is the only one who
knows it. Not really drama. For all we know it could
be the man is a neighbor who just came back from a
hunting trip with Jonathan and Lois was just taking a
walk. Now, imagine the same man pulling the trigger
and firing the gun at the Kents at the same time
Luthor's goon Otis shoves Lois off a bridge.
Superman only has so much time to catch Lois then fly
all the way to Smallville and catch the bullets before
it kills the Kents. A typical saga ending the stakes
are much higher than that.
- There should be more than one type of conflict.
Man vs. Man is a given. Endings should also have
elements of other conflicts. Man vs. Nature could
work. Or if the villain used to be a loved one of one
of the player characters Man Vs. Himself. I'm sure
Man vs. Society could be worked in. (Cough Civil War
Cough.)
- Tie up loose ends. All the little subplots and
big plots should come to a close. Does the Ghost
Detective find a way to come back to life? Or does he
ascend to the next stage of being a warder and guard
the gates to the after plains? Does the half demon
mage finally realize clues that were given to her
concern her demonic father and "The Light?"
And now for a special bonus feature:
What do you, the players, do when you want to
continue a campaign and the GM says: "That's it, I'm
done" or that he's out of ideas? (Yes, this can
happen. Not all games endings are the player's
fault.) A rather fun solution that I've found comes
from reading a lot of comics. The GM can let each of
the players pitch him a new direction for the campaign
to go in. They choose the one they'd most like to
play in and makes that person the chosen successor.
The GM takes either one of his NPCs and turns it into
a PC of equivalent experience to the other characters
or makes a new character and joins the game as a
player. He runs one more episode as a retirement for
the incoming GM's character. Sometimes he consults
with the new GM and sometimes he doesn't.
I've done this at least twice and had it done to
me several times. In the game where I played Rol'Jok
the Skrull (see last issue), I got elected GM in the
middle of a campaign involving the Guardians of the
Galaxy. I knew I had about 5-6 weeks to prepare for
my take over. The plan to write Rol'Jok out of the
game went something like this.
Jess: Replica is still on the other Guardians team, right?
GM: Yep.
Jess: She's still amongst the last of the Skrulls?
GM: Actually, as of the recent attacks, she is the last Skrull. Aside from Rol'Jok.
Jess: Good. Are we going to meet the other team during the mission?
GM: You might.
Jess: Well, two rebellious teenage genetically
altered Skrull seems natural. He may not like his
Skrull roots that much but-- neither does Replica.
He'd probably be smitten just off that. They could
build a new Skrull race without the hindrances of the
bigotry of the old. While the Skrulls are about as
civilized in treatment of each other as most sentient
races they are still reptilian. Under harsh
conditions they respond instinctively to pheromones.
And teenagers will be teenagers . . .
GM: So it's going to be like those stories where the
hero says they're going to stay for the pretty girl
that they met and change their mind at the last minute
and come back but winds up stranded?
Jess: No, I'm saying it is one of those stories
where the hero says he's going to stay for the pretty
girl and actually does.
GM: Did we just refer to a Skrull as a pretty girl?
Jess: By Skrull standards she's a super model.
GM: Maybe, but then again, she's one of two Skrulls
left in that timeline.
Stay tuned next time for our next exciting episode,
part one of a two part extra ready to run adventure
entitled "Where Walks the When Walker?"
P.S.: If you can name the two movies referenced in
this column-- you watch far too much TV.
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