That's a good point, and a pretty cool idea. I suppose when it comes to polling players for what they "want," I need to go a little deeper. WHAT IS IT that you like about a particular setting, a particular game, etc.? Is it the aesthetic? Is it a particular type of character (hacker, street samurai, rocker, etc.) that you want to play?
Although -- I've been trying to do that with the group, to get a sense of what they'd be interested in, but it hasn't really gotten anywhere for the most part. Unfortunately, it probably boils down to where I need to put something together as a "presentation" and then find out ... okay, does this interest you? If not, can you please articulate WHY NOT?
I need to put together a "brochure" for the post-apoc campaign, for instance, to "sell" the setting with a few ideas -- some ideas of what might be in the location, what sort of characters might be found there, what sort of archetypes the PCs *might* be (even if ultimately the choices are far more open-ended), and so forth. If someone already has a concept in his head he really wants to go for, then great. If he sees something and thinks, "That's cool -- I want to try that," then great. But if nothing appeals either way, then I've got a problem.
Digital_Rampage has voiced that he thinks that everyone should have a joint concept, rather than everyone coming up with their own characters. However, beyond that, we don't have any specifics to go with. I've tried doing that in the past, and even when I got player buy-in it ended up being a mess: for my last cyberpunk campaign (Interface Zero) I floated the idea that everyone is a member of a corporate merc force -- kind of like the "Colonial Marines" from Aliens 2 -- going to an asteroid base. The baseline would of course be that everyone would have basic military skills, but beyond that it'd be up to them what their specialties might be (explosives, hacking/security-systems, piloting, people skills, stealth...).
I've often gotten complaints about situations that have cropped up where some particular skill would have been useful, but nobody had it, and certain players might respond to such situations by, at the next level-up or Advance, investing in that skill that may or may not ever actually come up again, and by the end of the campaign ends up having a ton of entry-level novice skills and not really specializing in anything, and being upset about it. The thing I've been unsuccessful in conveying is that the "need" for those skills is entirely illusory: When I'm writing a campaign, I have certain skillsets in mind that would be especially useful, but baseline if you've got some sort of fighting skill, and SOMEONE in the group has some people skills, and SOMEONE has some stealth/sneaky skills, you usually have the bases covered.
If it's some situation where the PCs are supposed to be "normal people" who are suddenly thrown into the world of the occult, then the guy who has "Knowledge (Occult)" understandably has a certain edge, but likely the PCs would have come across that story-setting knowledge eventually through the course of investigation and research. If an adventure is written where a widget is needed to progress the story along, then it's pretty rare (and generally a sign of bad adventure design) to depend on someone having started the game with a widget in his or her inventory during character creation. I feel like it's an unnecessary holdover from D&D if one has the idea that an adventuring party MUST contain one thief, one warrior, one cleric and one wizard or else it's broken. That mindset gets especially problematic in a setting that doesn't have such clearly defined classes: the closest I can imagine would be sneaky scavenger, hardened soldier, doctor/scientist, and ... mechanic?
no subject
Although -- I've been trying to do that with the group, to get a sense of what they'd be interested in, but it hasn't really gotten anywhere for the most part. Unfortunately, it probably boils down to where I need to put something together as a "presentation" and then find out ... okay, does this interest you? If not, can you please articulate WHY NOT?
I need to put together a "brochure" for the post-apoc campaign, for instance, to "sell" the setting with a few ideas -- some ideas of what might be in the location, what sort of characters might be found there, what sort of archetypes the PCs *might* be (even if ultimately the choices are far more open-ended), and so forth. If someone already has a concept in his head he really wants to go for, then great. If he sees something and thinks, "That's cool -- I want to try that," then great. But if nothing appeals either way, then I've got a problem.
Digital_Rampage has voiced that he thinks that everyone should have a joint concept, rather than everyone coming up with their own characters. However, beyond that, we don't have any specifics to go with. I've tried doing that in the past, and even when I got player buy-in it ended up being a mess: for my last cyberpunk campaign (Interface Zero) I floated the idea that everyone is a member of a corporate merc force -- kind of like the "Colonial Marines" from Aliens 2 -- going to an asteroid base. The baseline would of course be that everyone would have basic military skills, but beyond that it'd be up to them what their specialties might be (explosives, hacking/security-systems, piloting, people skills, stealth...).
I've often gotten complaints about situations that have cropped up where some particular skill would have been useful, but nobody had it, and certain players might respond to such situations by, at the next level-up or Advance, investing in that skill that may or may not ever actually come up again, and by the end of the campaign ends up having a ton of entry-level novice skills and not really specializing in anything, and being upset about it. The thing I've been unsuccessful in conveying is that the "need" for those skills is entirely illusory: When I'm writing a campaign, I have certain skillsets in mind that would be especially useful, but baseline if you've got some sort of fighting skill, and SOMEONE in the group has some people skills, and SOMEONE has some stealth/sneaky skills, you usually have the bases covered.
If it's some situation where the PCs are supposed to be "normal people" who are suddenly thrown into the world of the occult, then the guy who has "Knowledge (Occult)" understandably has a certain edge, but likely the PCs would have come across that story-setting knowledge eventually through the course of investigation and research. If an adventure is written where a widget is needed to progress the story along, then it's pretty rare (and generally a sign of bad adventure design) to depend on someone having started the game with a widget in his or her inventory during character creation. I feel like it's an unnecessary holdover from D&D if one has the idea that an adventuring party MUST contain one thief, one warrior, one cleric and one wizard or else it's broken. That mindset gets especially problematic in a setting that doesn't have such clearly defined classes: the closest I can imagine would be sneaky scavenger, hardened soldier, doctor/scientist, and ... mechanic?