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[bryant]

I'm gonna count Orlando Trash as a successful campaign at this point, which means I've run two successful campaigns. Maybe three if we count the Iowa City Vampire campaign; it's vanished in the mists of time for me, but I think we didn't go more than five or so sessions. Regardless, everyone's enjoying Orlando Trash and I still get compliments on Huey Long's Men of Action, so definitely successes.

Okay. Two is not enough for a trend analysis if I was being a scientist, but I'm being a GM.

I get into running games with larger than life PCs. I like running for PCs who can affect the world; I tend to want them to be close to very important NPCs, without a lot of layers of bureaucracy between them and the authorities.

In both games, the PCs have wound up as operatives of the ruling powers, while still maintaining a strong degree of independence. I'm not sure if this is an inherent tendency or if it's just a convenient frame. That's something I'd like to play around with in my next game. Hm; if I'd ever done Whitey Bulger's Men of Action, it would have fit that formula. Of course, Men of Action games kinda fit that by definition, don't they?

I tend to mix action and talk. I'll happily run a session that's almost purely action, but I won't run two of them in a row.

I like dumping problems on PCs. I do it for the emotional rush that I believe the players get when they resolve the problems. My goal -- this is pretty much stolen from Carl Rigney -- is to ratchet up the pressure on the PCs to the maximum possible before they shatter into a million pieces.

Sometimes those problems come in the form of mysteries or puzzles or conspiracies. My players seem to enjoy getting to the bottom of those. Discovery is a big emotional payoff, in my experience.

I like strong, broad archetypes. I don't reuse 'em over and over again; Prince Sabado is pretty much completely unlike Huey Long. There was no Sheriff Steel equivalent in Men of Action.

Some of my players read this. What else do I do a lot?

Once I chew on all this some more I'll talk about my next game, which'll be fantasy, and which is preliminarily named Tarnished Brass. I think.

Comments

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

I have only been in one of your games, which is Orlando Trash, so I cannot comment on stylistic consistencies. But I think I am enjoying Orlando Trash as much as I am — and I count it as one of my favorite games ever, up there with Unknown USA — because you are just a very talented and intelligent guy.

It sounds like a vacant compliment, but it's not. You really approach things from interesting angles. There hasn't been a session of Orlando Trash so far that I haven't said to myself, "Huh, why didn't I think of that?" Even your campaign prospectii is great: all the ones I've read do an excellent job of conveying the mood, theme and atmosphere your going for, and I think that reflects in the PCs that the player's create. The Orlando Trash PCs are really one of the most thematically-consistent groups of PCs I've ever seen, and I think it's because you gave us such a great understanding of what type of game you're going for.

[bryant]

Thank you!

[head58.livejournal.com]

So, one of the things that you do (having played in Orlando Trash and a couple of sessions of the supers game thing) is you really make the NPCs come to LIFE. By their style of speaking and they way they present themselves, you really make each and every one count. Which is something I don't feel like I do a great job with, so I'm in awe of it. Like, back in the supers game, when we were fighting that bunch of mercenary villains, and the shrinking flying woman was talking to us through the whole combat (Hummingbird?), and by the end my character both had a crush on her and wanted to kill her? A throw-away supervillain doesn't need that kind of personality, but you put it there.

Between those two games, I also see similarities in starting the players off at the bottom of the ladder and having absolutely no clue what is really going on. Which is both frustrating and satisfying as we start to piece things together. And also it works because our characters aren't supposed to have all this background knowledge that some of us as players might not have.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

(Grr, finger slipped, have to rewrite comment)

It's maybe not helpful to just repeat what Chris says, but this is what comes to mind for me: the NPCs in Orlando Trash are remarkable. Here you've got a stable of distinct, three-dimensional-seeming characters sketched in with what's really very little actual face time per character. The casting may be a big part of this: Christopher Walken's creepy mysterious inhuman-acting vampire is totally unlike Crispin Glover's creepy mysterious inhuman-acting vampire.

But really, the NPCs are projected with a force and confidence that is unusual.


Force and confidence are also projected in campaign prospecti. So yeah, I'm going to go with Force and Confidence.

[bryant]

Thank you as well. Yeah, the NPC voice thing is another element I picked up from Carl Rigney. I think it's way important.

stylistic reminisces

[dcltdw]

This reminds of two rules an awesome GM of mine had.

1. Every character has a voice. This is very related to the LARP rule of "every character has a visible piece of clothing that is distinctly theirs". The brown fedora. The huge shield. The yellow tabard. The fur cloak. The runic tattoos on the face. Etc...

Although Mark didn't give every NPC a voice timbre. That'd be hard. But he tried other voice stuff -- even the random street punk in Thessalonica would sound different from the shopowners. Lots of time, it wasn't a different accent, but rather, the motivation. We weren't Greek, so clearly, the shopowner gave us short shrift.

2. Every scene opens with the weather.

Usually very grey and raining and dismal, because Mark loves grey, dismal openings to his stories. ;) But he'd spend a good 5 minutes just describing the weather. That's a really long time to talk about how it's just been raining for weeks, the paths have just turned into the occassional muddy island, how there's mud everywhere, how people are just huddled up only venturing outside to fetch more firewood, how this has been going on for weeks and probably will for another few weeks, and despite being well-provisioned and whatnot, all that we really have to look forward to figuring out how not to tramp so much mud indoors, and so there you are, members of the guard, and you've screwed up recently, so you've been pulling extra watches, where the only thing to do is figure out how not to let yet more water inside your oiled cloak -- forget about your boots, because your feet don't remember what "dry" means -- and so there you are, and you hear a horse's clip-clop sound through the mists, but you may or may not notice, because there is still rainwater dripping off your hat and onto your nose...

yeah. :)

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Once I chew on all this some more I'll talk about my next game, which'll be fantasy, and which is preliminarily named Tarnished Brass. I think.

In my experience, when you start chewing on your next game, you're ready to wind down your current one. Is Orlando Trash moving into its third act?

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

But . . . but we've only had seven sessions! And Bobby is still decades away from being made Prince of the Orlando Metropolitan Area Rest Homes! There's so much left unaccomplished!

[head58.livejournal.com]

I know! My goal is to make Jake be perceived as competent at something! that may take me another full year of play!

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

The MOUSE, man! We've got to CHANNEL the ENERGY of the MOUSE to destroy our ENEMIES!

[bryant]

Nah. Second act, probably. I'm keeping in mind your desire for shorter campaigns, and I have some nice potential events in mind. Most of which will need substantial rethinking once you ally with the Doctor to take over WDW with an army of senior citizen ghouls.

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

Oh, also:

What else do I do a lot?

Cancel sessions because of work. I KID! I KID BECAUSE I LOVE! I just had to say it! It was just right there, practically begging to be said!

[bryant]

I read the words, but all I see is "Nate needs more relatives." Odd.