It's all about the story

Reynard

Emperor Mongoose
It seems every Traveller topic on this forum is dedicated to the mechanics of the game from system and ship creation to how far a certain gun can shoot. Desparately missing is discussions about how to create, run and play campaigns and scenarios.

Traveller has the mechanics for general sci fi stories as well as a pre-made universe with lots of background information. Even so many people, especially GMs, are overwhelmed by all the details and not sure where to take a campaign. This thread is for GMs and players to relate what their games stories are like and how they make them successful.

For my start on this, don't micromanage a game! There's a lot of stuff in Traveller that's super detailed but that should be GMs' sandbox designing outside the game. It's all background and backdrop to a story. The players' characters should be oblivious to all but what's in their face.

Watch sci fi movies and break them down into encounters and segues (the transitions between action scenes). Notice what's important in the scenes as part of the action, the background and the props. They're normally not worried about the design of the entire planet just the environment affecting them at the moment. The guts of the spaceship isn't important at the moment as it's just getting from point A to point B though there could be something concerning the ship that focuses the action. And every detail about the opposition isn't important unless the GM brings it up as part of the encounter.

Think of your latest story as a movie. Start with a general concept for the story and create a summary. Break it up into important scenes (encounters) that move it to an end. Don't try to drag players from one scene to the next like old time dungeon crawls that actually have players walk every corridor and decide whether to go left or right evey ten feet. Use segues to describe important imformation that may flavor the story or the upcoming scene. Building each encounter helps me decide how the story will grow and progress giving me ideas for later scenes.

The only time the whole planet is important is on approach or leaving otherwise focus on that patch of real estate the character will occupy. Unless you plan on using it as a regular anchorpoint DO NOT build an entire starport or city or anything that won't see more than a few background shots. Think what the players will see and what will be useful during the encounter. Same with props. More room for storytime.

I'll stop here for now but let's hear others on how they make a story and what they've created.
 
Reynard said:
The players' characters should be oblivious to all but what's in their face.

Watch sci fi movies and break them down into encounters and segues (the transitions between action scenes). Notice what's important in the scenes as part of the action, the background and the props. They're normally not worried about the design of the entire planet just the environment affecting them at the moment. The guts of the spaceship isn't important at the moment as it's just getting from point A to point B though there could be something concerning the ship that focuses the action. And every detail about the opposition isn't important unless the GM brings it up as part of the encounter.

You have a different breed of players than I.
 
Funny you should bring up how to run adventures (thank you for doing so).

I've always had a GM's diary of what events are happening in my campaigns, both affecting the sector overall and what could be affecting systems near the players' location. Helps me make my adventures a bit more immersive while providing me fodder for adhoc adventures.

And speaking of Traveller adventures...

Just spotted more near-future goodies from Mongoose in an online store.
http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=76832
 
I have a good horror story playing in the latest chapter of my Pbp, Star's End, atm - its a cross between ALIEN and Event Horizon.

Star's End is the story of a crew of nine (including some NPCs) from their base orbiting Satrurn to an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt for a mission, a journey that spans five and a half months.

Chapter 4: In essense, a micrometeorite was thought to hit and damage the ship. After repairs, the crew noticed the meteorite was actually the shattered pod of an alien, which is now onboard. The alien proceeds to attack the ship's astrogator, an NPC and take them into the vents. Captain and head marine go into the vents to kill the alien whilst the science team investigate the alien pod and slime and try to figure out what it is.
Then the seperated crew members start seeing dead crewmates and panic ensues :twisted: Its become my favourite chapter of the story so far :)

I'm also looking for new players for Chapter Five :mrgreen:
 
Reynard said:
I'll stop here for now but let's hear others on how they make a story and what they've created.
Well, I have a very much different approach. First of all, there is no
story, only a very detailed setting with a history, current events, lo-
cations, personalities and all that. What the story of the characters
in this setting will be like depends entirely on the characters' activi-
ties, they alone decide where to go and what to do. Everything else
develops from the interaction between the character's activities and
the setting's internal logic.

With such a "sandbox" approach it is impossible to predict which ele-
ments of the setting will become important for the developing story
in the near future, so the entire setting has to be planned and descri-
bed in detail. And without a pregenerated plot the characters need as
many different options for their decisions and activities as possible,
and options mean informations - without such informations about the
setting and how all important things from politics to technology work
there the characters cannot plan and decide.

My settings and campaigns also focus on a single planet. The charac-
ters are not carefree planet hoppers, they stay on one planet most of
the time, which is why they should know that planet well, and they al-
so are part of a network of social relations and responsibilities, and so
whatever they do tends to have consequences in the future, for them-
selves as well as for their family, their friends and their fellow citizens.

All in all, I do not provide the characters with a railroad and a planned
voyage along it, I only provide the landscape and leave it to the charac-
ters to decide where to build the railroad through it and what to use it
for.
 
This thread is showcasing the internal "debate" in my group right now. When we were young (middle and high school), we tended towards the type of game rust described. It seemed easy to go with the flow and we had some very satisfying campaigns.

When the group broke up after high school, I started a new group, where the sandbox game wasn't used. Instead, several GMs fancied themselves storytellers, so we had long plot-based campaigns. When that group came apart after college and the old group reformed (more or less, but without one of the most self-motivated players), we did plot-based gaming and found it very fulfilling. I was trying to create a pen & paper version of excellent story games like KOTOR and Mass Effect.

We then got a new member who likes to GM and his style is more sandboxy. He has kind of reminded us how to do that game and we are slowly moving back towards that model. The problem to overcome is the "sit and stare" issue. I feel you need something to kickstart the game.

Anyway, I'm curious to see how many Trav GMs are sandboxers vs storytellers. We need a poll!
 
apoc527 said:
Anyway, I'm curious to see how many Trav GMs are sandboxers vs storytellers. We need a poll!


Sandbox with hooks. No one I play with games to hear stories told. They prefer to make stories by playing PC's.
 
apoc527 said:
I feel you need something to kickstart the game.
Yes, indeed. I often provide something like a short introductory
adventure to "insert" the characters into the setting, to highlight
what is special about this specific setting, and to give the charac-
ters an opportunity to "learn the ropes" of any special rules used
for the setting. This is usually just one evening or even a little
less and without a planned sequel, the characters then "go from
there" as they please.

My current idea for such an introduction into my new water world
setting is the colony's governor asking the characters to accompa-
ny the transport of the colony's newly purchased trained dolphins
from Earth to Thalassa. This will enable the characters to meet all
the important personalities of the colony, from the governor and
the senior scientist down to the shuttle pilot, and to get an idea of
the colony's situation in the wider background universe.
 
Reynard said:
It seems every Traveller topic on this forum is dedicated to the mechanics of the game from system and ship creation to how far a certain gun can shoot. Desparately missing is discussions about how to create, run and play campaigns and scenarios.

<snip!>

I'll stop here for now but let's hear others on how they make a story and what they've created.

OK. In the past I ran AD&D campaigns (World of Greyhawk with a sprinkling of Ravenloft)

Been running Mongoose Traveller games since December 2008. Had to stop running games for various reasons. When I was running them, it was reasonably fast paced with a fair amount of ad libbing and handwavium. Am using the downtime to 1) read books about writing stories 2) re-read the Core Rule book 3) re-read the setting books for games I intend to run in the future.

When the MgT Campaign Guide comes out, I'm going to scour it intensely and then get around to running games shortly afterwards
 
In my Science Fiction setting called Futura, it was player/character based more than a dedicated, well defined setting.

The character generation rules were set and hard, but after that, (shrug).

I made if very clear that the player characters were in some way above and beyond the standard, average, everday type of their race. Many times they (the players) did not know exactly what made them different but through the course of play it would normally be found.

I encouraged players to talk to me between sessions about what they wanted to do with their characters or even what the player wanted to do in a Science Fiction setting.

I kept a large number of graphic magazines like EPIC, Heavy Metal, What If, and several short story magazines like Analog.

As an example of player lead sandbox play, one character wanted to spend their money for a pet. They wanted a very unusal and not typical creature for a pet. They looked through many of the graphic novels until they found an image that they wanted.
Two sessions later, they (the character) got a tip on the possible location for the 'creature'. This took over 8 sessions later before they finally got to the location to attempt to gain the 'pet'

Why so many sessions? Because of the other player characters that was part of the group had their own little desires and needs. Sometimes they got side tracked and some times, they ran into dead ends.

Like real life, if you want something, you can obtain it, but how badly, how quickly and how much money you have will determine how quickly you actually accomplish the desire. Plus if it takes more than you to complete the goal, then you have other individual's dreams and desires to work around too.

Dave Chase
 
Many years ago, I gamed in a group where nearly all of us had referreed one rpg or another and we decided to take turns at running a CT game - we limited to a maximum of 3 sessions per GM and handed our notes over to the next GM in turn once we'd run our game. It was actually pretty good - by the end of it, we'd got a whole folder of game notes, recurring baddies and design ideas - more of a shared world than a single vision of a game. The most challenging part about it was coming up with reasons why your character wasn't there when you were running the game (oh - that was another rule - your pc couldn't become an npc for the session).
 
DFW said:
apoc527 said:
Anyway, I'm curious to see how many Trav GMs are sandboxers vs storytellers. We need a poll!


Sandbox with hooks. No one I play with games to hear stories told. They prefer to make stories by playing PC's.

For once I have something in common with how DFW rolls with traveller. :shock:
almost... 8)

I have a sandbox Traveller universe with several plot hooks. The only real difference is that I do have an over-arching major story going on in the background. The "big plot" is not apparent to any of the players for a while, but it will show up from time to time in certain plot hooks. If the players chose to take one of the important plot hooks, eventually they can find their selves wrapped up in the "main plot line". But they don't have do be. If the players chose not to engage in any of the plot hooks, as the GM I already know what is going to happen if my players do not intervene. I am a story-telling GM in the major plot, and on the other minor plot hooks, I'm a very engaging GM (roll-play). MTU has some elements of Babylon 5 and Firefly inserted into the "98%" cannon framework.

What I am not is a dry, rules Nazi, focused on the cold hard science as a lot of purest players choose to play. (I tend to wing it a lot on what I consider non-important stuff) I am a player-focused GM and not a process focused GM. I will bend and break (hypothetical rules and non-existent government laws) if it suites my story line. I will never let the sometimes cumbersome micro managing rules bog down my game or the fun. But I still keep in tact all the major game mechanics and structure.
Unfortunately, I have already been informed that one of my players will be bowing out of my game because he doesn't like all the paperwork / struggle involved in the day-to-day cost and maintenance of operating a Traveller star-ship. He is a pure D&D player. He simply wants to get to the adventure and not have to worry about the cost of fuel, life support, taxes, ship payments,etc... It's too bad because he is a very good player and GM (he helped to develop D&D 4.0) but he's decided he's a "D&D only person"... which is cool. Different strokes.

Anyway, while I do agree on some of your points for GMing, I choose to adopt enough of Traveller's simulated "realism" so that it doesn't seem as fake, plastic, and hand-wavium as playing Star Trek, or Star Wars. (Star wars ships don't have fuel tanks...hmmmm)
I do consider myself a Storytelling GM, but I just don't force my players to follow my background story.
 
Jak Nazryth said:
I do have an over-arching major story going on in the background. The "big plot" is not apparent to any of the players for a while, but it will show up from time to time in certain plot hooks. If the players chose to take one of the important plot hooks, eventually they can find their selves wrapped up in the "main plot line". But they don't have do be. If the players chose not to engage in any of the plot hooks, as the GM I already know what is going to happen if my players do not intervene.

I tend toward this mode when running Traveller as well, with a bit more Pulp assumption at times: "The Plot just came to you, guns a-blazin! Shoot out or get out are your choices". It makes the big plot more than just a random news item.

Current example: The PCs are on a backwater world next to one of the big players in the cluster. The "big plot" is that the cluster is just edging into a territorial general war. The *players* know they are free to do whatever, knowing I'll react accordingly. The PCs only know that the neighboring system decided to invade during their vacation stay...
 
As a referee I think I fall between the Plot and Sandbox versions noted above; a mixture of both. When possible, I have a completely detailed setting prepared. I also have a large campaign story arc ready. But, the players know and often do what they want. Often the players take the story into a much different path and I'm prepared for it. In fact I encourage it since it makes things more fun for me seeing where things actually go to. My multi-adventure campaign story's rarely end the way I thought they would.

Plot Campaign
Advantages: Enriching, pre-planned story.
Disadvantages: Players feel like they are just along for the ride - referee will get the players back on track no matter how good/bad they make decisions.

Sandbox Campaign
Advantages: Players are completely free to do what they want.
Disadvantages: Tougher for referee. Due to on-the-fly creation storylines are less dramatic and less detailed.
 
Rules ... well, I normally try to avoid rules, or more precisely to replace
game mechanics with the internal logic of the setting - but I am not sure
whether my English is good enough to explain that.

In real life we do not study "life rules", we learn how things work, from a
political process down to a car's engine, and use that knowledge instead
of any "rules" to make our decisions, expecting that our actions will have
what our experience tells us is the most plausible result.

In a similar way, in my campaigns I normally base my referee's decisions
about the results of the characters' activities not on game mechanics, but
on what I consider the most plausible outcome in the specific situation, and
game mechanics and dice are only used when the internal logic of the set-
ting does not provide an obvious answer.

As an example, I almost never use rules for the setting's technology. The
various devices, vehicles and whatever have their performance data, and
under all normal circumstances they perform according to those data. If I
want to decide whether a specific vehicle can perform a specific action, I
take a look at its data sheet, not at any rules.

Similar for nonplayer characters. I have detailed notes on their personal hi-
story, their motivations, their knowledge and resources. When a character
interacts with a nonplayer character, this nonplayer character reacts accor-
ding to his personality and his aims, not according to a rule and a dice roll.

This approach makes the details of the setting very important for my style
of roleplaying, and rules of almost negligible importance - in almost all ca-
ses I could just as well use a coin to decide between two equally plausible
outcomes. In my view the advantage of this rather free form of roleplaying
is that there can be not many contradictions between silly rules and the in-
ternal logic and consistency of the setting.

Ah, I hope this makes at least a little sense ...
 
Ok, time for me to do what I do best.

First the term "sandbox". Fun recent term (like 5 years old?) as far as RPG's go. Well I don't limit anything as far as the setting goes. Every game I run, campaign, setting, genre is a "truly open universe". If in a "fantasy" game the players can find away to get off their planet, woot go for it. If they want to sail around the world fine, hope they have the money skills and crew but I won't stop them from trying I just process their "moves".

I prepare "adventures" or "related strings of encounters" and drop clues, hints. My players have always gone where they wanted. In my 3 year long HackMaster campaign we played four months of the party going back and forth to "B1-Quest For The Unknown". Failure to buy enough food, healing, etc. While I love running and we had great fun with their (mis)adventures there it did get old for me. It only ended with a TPK and me asking they NOT contrive some way that this party would be going back there.

My "Al's Guide To Roleplaying" that I hand out to every player in my campaign starts with:
"Life Is a House. No, wait. That's a Kevin Kline movie. Life Is the Adventure!
If I have 10 adventures and put out 500 different hooks to those adventures, and the players run off in a different direction I just go with it. There is no "oh you can't do that I have nothing for that direction"

And players don't have to have "talks" with me. I pay attention during the session make notes. I've found it to be way more organic when the players are expressing ideas and wants and somewhere down the road it happens/they find it.

I don't say my players are any "different" from any others except maybe their "stats" are above the average over all, and they aren't stuck home behind the blacksmith furnace, or cleaning out the skutters on some interplanetary cargo hauler. But they are the *Heros*. Not the bad guys, not 'evil', that at my table RPG's aren't an excuse to rape pillage burn kill whoever you want no repercussions. Their actions will have consequences, realistic ones. You don't just get to ride into town, rob everyone shoot a few people and ride out - without the law on your ass.

That's what I have: great games where the players aren't constrained to 'adventures' and the universe is the 'sandbox'
 
GamerDude said:
First the term "sandbox". Fun recent term (like 5 years old?) as far as RPG's go.
More like 25 years old, at least that was when I first encountered it
in connection with roleplaying games. I think the wargames people
introduced it into the hobby.
 
rust said:
GamerDude said:
First the term "sandbox". Fun recent term (like 5 years old?) as far as RPG's go.
More like 25 years old, at least that was when I first encountered it
in connection with roleplaying games. I think the wargames people
introduced it into the hobby.
Ok, WarGaming YES. It is part of *that* hobby I've played many historical miniatures games in a nice sand box, several sizes.

For RPGs? about last five years for me. Came up along with all this applying big fancy sociological models and terms to analyze Role Playing, RPers, and the community at large.

yeah taking something fun and having to box it up, package it, and be overly analytical thinking about it. :roll:
 
"I encouraged players to talk to me between sessions about what they wanted to do with their characters or even what the player wanted to do in a Science Fiction setting."

I totally agree with this. The game is about what the players want whether specifically or generally. When we get the notion to play a particular RPG we all know they will build characters first then ready for the game. With that in mind I then ask if they have something in mind. The answer can range from "Nope, bring it on!" which, for me is most often, to "We have such and such ablilties so we want a game that goes like this..". With that in mind I now have usually a week to create the first adventure and weekly adventures after that.

I've GMed many, many RPGs since the early 80s and have definately sandboxed. They can be fun but it can take a LOT of work to cover as many possible pathways as players may try. When I'm coming up with original material so frequently and in a short time I keep the decision paths 'reasonable'. I too hate the ultrarestrictive 'railroading' as much as I fear too much 'free ranging'.

As much as I presented my view of GMing, I'm reading everyone else's ideas with great interest. You give me more to think about. More game examples too! Let's hear more war stories we can take lessons from.
 
Our preparation for a campaign usually starts with a "brainstorming"
about the setting, where I present a very basic idea for a setting ("a
desert world on the frontier") and the players tell me their ideas for
such a setting ("the frontier of an evil empire", "we need sandworms",
"there should be ancient alien ruins", "but no psionics" ...).

I make notes of all the ideas, try to combine them and delete those
which would cause contradictions. Then I write a first draft of the ge-
neral framework of the setting and present it again to the players. If
it is accepted, usually after a couple of modifications ("no, the empire
should not be that evil", "the sandworms have to be bigger" ...), I be-
gin to work on the details of the setting.

The players, who now know what the setting is about and which opti-
ons it offers for characters ("tribesmen could be interesting, with a
strong Arab flavour"), begin to work on their characters. I am not in-
volved in this, mainly because I consider the characters as the play-
ers' responsibility only, and have enough work with the setting any-
way.

Well, and when I think that the setting is ready an can be opened for
business, I take a look at the characters designed by the players, and
write the short introductory adventure mentioned in a previous post,
and the campaign can begin.
 
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