Introducing: The New Guys.

It’s been my experience that the party never stays stable—there always comes a time when someone has to drop out, or wants to change characters, or someone is added to the group.

To be fair, as a player I’m the guy who seems to want to change characters all the damn time.  But party/coterie/familia rosters tend to change even when I’m not playing, or even involved with the game at all.  So there, it’s not just me.

When it is me, it’s usually two things.  Either I overestimate how much/how long I’d be interested in playing a certain character concept, or something else catches my imagination so completely that I form a new concept and have that stuck in my head so fully that I just need to play it.  Sometimes I see that the party needs some role filled, and I think about changing to meet those needs—but one of the above reasons is usually behind the change, too.  Sometimes what I’m playing just doesn’t fit the group.  This isn’t often an actual problem, though—unless, again, I’m bored or I’ve latched onto another concept.

I suppose I rarely come up with concepts that can’t work with most parties.  In D&D terms, I tend towards lawful, if dark, characters.  Even if the character has had problems working with others in their backstory, I try to write incentives to join the other PCs, and have ideas for how I’ll interact with each.

Changing rosters seems to be pretty easy in D&D games.  You get back to town, and someone bows out to settle down, or moves on to another region.  Sometimes they die, either by planned out fiat, or purely by the die rolls.  You find someone else in the dungeon—the last survivor of a lost company of adventurers, or a lone traveller captured for nefarious purposes.  Someone comes to town because of the local problems, hoping to make a difference or a least a few gold pieces.

In World of Darkness games, the issue is similarly easy.  The current plot/baddie has attracted another Vampire/Werewolf/Frankenstein/Wizard who wants to do something about it.  Or perhaps the plot/baddie has a hostage.  You lose characters when something else in the World of Darkness calls to one of you—it’s something they have to do alone.  Or someone falls to the current baddie—proof that this world is darker, and that drama over their death would be pretty interesting to play out.

Other systems and settings aren’t much different.  Mo matter if you’re running or playing a game about super heroes, pulp adventure, or a gritty cyberpunk future, chances are one of the situations above will work for your group—but this is yet again one of those areas where Nobilis stands out.  Since the PC group is supposed to represent the aspects of creation owned by their boss (Imperator), whether that’s an angel, devil, dragon or god, certain character changes can strain the framework of the game.  Characters can die, even in Nobilis, so it’s possible to retire one Power of Lies, and come up with another concept that uses the same estate—a brand new Power of Lies that is different in key ways.  Actually, I think this is one of the more intriguing aspects of the game, that an Estate can be served/embodied by completely different people.

And while that sort of character change works out well for the game, others have to be handled carefully.  What if a player wants to drop their current Estate and play something new?  What if a new player joins the group, but noone’s leaving?  Bring in new Estates to an established game leaves the imaginary audience (maybe the players and GM, too) wondering “How does that work, exactly?”  It’s up to the GM and player to work out exactly what’s going on in the continuity that makes these changes possible.  Did the Imperator always have these facets of creation, and just didn’t have servants for them?  Did they gain them in some way?  If so, how?  Did another Imperator die, or forfeit them?  Does the Imperator actually have the new Estates, or do they still belong to something else, something that is working with it—or at least alongside it?

These are issues I had to resolve in my newer Nobilis game recently.  I loved the opportunity to add a certain player, and I like the new characters, but when this sort of thing happens in Nobilis, you need worry about a lot of details ahead of time.  You need to know what’s going on in your Creation.

Of course, a roster change in Nobilis can be lots of fun, if you do have those answers and the characters don’t.

Flashback - The Dark Tower: A Chronicle

Ah, the past. Isn't it so...cute?

The way this really worked out--for the short, short time it ran--is that the players made characters and we worked out individually who they seemed to "stand in for" in the original ka-tet. I wish I had those character sheets with me! It was a good group of three characters to start with, with no-one being the clear "Roland" type, so that fell to my NPC, Bango Skank, a rough brit-punk young woman who had been lost in Roland's world and Roland's shadow for years, trying to find what she was there for.

But, we lost one of the players when he moved away, and after awhile, we decided that 2 PCs and one NPC did not a party make, so we hiatus-ed. I think it more likely that the game would re-boot instead of pick up where left off if I ended up running it again.

What I do remember being very pleased with was that all the characters had strong ties to the Vietnam war--two fought in it as American soldiers, and one was the grandson of a woman who lived in a village visited by at least one of those. They were taken out of time, so discussion about timelines happened, or course--and tended to anchor around the Star Wars movies, an easy reference point. They had some introductory "What the CRAP is happening!?" action as murderous monsters tried to kill them in each of their times and lives--and they escaped through strange doors into Roland's world. There, they fought to survive their attackers, and the landscape, overcame injury, and fought a cybernetic shark that was the Guardian of one of the Beams--and in doing so became true gunslingers, adopted by the Dark Tower as additions to its story, and Roland's.

Becoming gunslingers unlocked their potential, and let me give them more character points to spend to become more badass, as well as let them begin developing a special, quasi-magical/psychic talent to use for the rest of the game. It was basically a template added to their original character stats that they didn't need to spend experience points on, they just got for being there.

The other cool thing about this chronicle was my "Ka" system--a dramatic system designed to let the PCs be badass when they really wanted to be, but that would bite them in the ass at inconvenient, dramatic times. We used a die-system that added more ten-sided dice the higher your skill. A certain number or higher shown on those dice counted as a success. The standard number was an 8 or higher. Under the Ka system, players could lower it one number for one roll only by taking one point of Ka, down to a minimum of 3 or higher for 5 points of Ka.

Too good to be true? Yes. Because as the storyteller, I could spend a point of Ka that any given player had accumulated by doing the same for any one dice-roll of an enemy, or by increasing the number needed for them to succeed, or by railroading the game in certain directions. So, gaining Ka meant losing freedom of action, or that when fate decided you had done something very important to your story, it might then try to end your story soon after--you'd have done your part, time to move on.

The players seemed to enjoy the system and the setting--the game overall, even--but there was little interest in the game, so after we lost one player, we basically stalled a short time later.

But...the story of the Dark Tower isn't over yet. With the upcoming movies/TV series, I may be inspired to dust off the old notes--and better yet, more people may be inspired to walk in the ka-tet's shoes...