| Casting Beforehand | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 17 2008, 04:09 PM (384 Views) | |
| kismetrose | Mar 17 2008, 04:09 PM Post #1 |
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Generally speaking, when I set up a game for the first time, I come up with a roster of characters. This list isn't usually huge but it is substantial enough so that when the players enter the scene, they have people to interact with. If I expect the characters to stay in the place for a length of time, or if the NPCs are going to be big parts of the plot, then I want to have personalities to work with. I don't know how many NPCs others come up with or if it's all off the cuff, but that's how I tend to roll. Since I've been working with an established setting for my upcoming White Wolf game, however, I've been doing things differently. When White Wolf puts out setting books, they tend to focus heavily on NPCs. Their Chicago setting, which I'm modifying, has tons of people, many of them related to each other at least by like or dislike. I've had to read and weed through two books of NPCs to decide which ones I'm going to use and which ones I can do without. I'm pretty much done with that part of the process now, but I've been learning about the NPCs I'm left with. I mean, these NPCs aren't mine yet and I'm having to make them mine. I'm having to familiarize myself with their histories, their personalities, and aspects that I want to emphasize or change. I'm also having to move things around and do a lot of fine-tuning. I've added some of my own NPCs but there are more that'll end up in the mix. For now, though, I feel like I want to get through the old before generating the new. I'm fairly certain that most of these NPCs will come into play, a number of them pretty quickly. I'm not sure if all of them will, though. I don't want to do tons of work on things that won't get seen but I don't think this'll be a waste. This is different for me, though, so I feel like I'm on shaky ground. |
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| Hexeter | Jun 8 2008, 09:14 PM Post #2 |
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It's always rough trying to make the works of others fit into your own campaign. White Wolf and it's love of the supporting cast makes things just that little extra bit harder by providing pretty decent depth to an NPCs history/habits etc. Changing just a detail here or there can sometimes turn them into an entirely different person. When I get into that situation I usually skim the background/history and then discard it and use it as a base to write my own. I find that helps me keep the intent and feel alive but gives me the chance to decide just what the character is going to be. |
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| kismetrose | Jun 8 2008, 09:53 PM Post #3 |
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I am coming to be more and more comfortable with the setting, the more that I remind myself that it's mine to do with as I please. I do like that they provide a LOT of background for most of the NPCs; even if I can't use it directly, I can often take inspiration from it. But since Valefor is so familiar with the Chicago setting (having read the books and thusly memorized them, damn him), I am faced with having to do more changes than I might if I were the only one to know the setting. But I think in the end that that will be a boon. Not only will it let me have more impact on the setting, it will also leave more room for the players to impact it. Valefor has told me that he once created a setting for a Vampire game. He detailed all of the NPCs himself and quite thoroughly. He knew their personalities as well as histories, and he knew how they all interacted with each other. He completed everything he needed to get a game underway when he realized that there was absolutely no room or need for the player characters. Everything was set just so that the setting really was complete, a closed circuit. I think he learned a lot of from that experience and it is something I have kept in mind since he first told me about it. I don't want to end up doing that. After a number of years, I feel that I've done a pretty good job leaving room for the PCs, and I want to continue the trend. |
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| Hexeter | Jun 8 2008, 10:09 PM Post #4 |
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Gnomish Space Marine
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I catch myself often making that mistake too, I'll be reading something and decide that it's going to be a problem and then I say to myself, 'But it's in the rules' and a moment later it occurs to me that it's MY game and the rules are subject to my decisions and not the other way around. I don't think I have ever managed to paint myself into a corner like Valefor did but I have done it on a small scale and realized I had no need for a PC to interact with a section of the game. |
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| kismetrose | Jun 11 2008, 02:29 PM Post #5 |
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One of the things I realized very recently is that I want to account for the passage of time. The characters that I am using from White Wolf's books are frozen in 1993. I will be starting my game in 2006, after a number of tumultuous events in the intervening years. While some vampires in extremely static, it seems to me that most change in at least some way. Those who can't change at all usually die. So I have gone about thinking not only about where they've been in the books but also where they've been between 1993 and 2006. This has been very helpful for me and has brought about a lot of ideas. I am nearly done updating those characters I've already decided on as cast members, and I have added three new and detailed characters that are solid. I also dispensed with a character from the books and felt that it was the right call. I hate to get rid of more people but once he was gone, things shuffled into place. |
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| blufrogz37 | Sep 17 2008, 10:18 PM Post #6 |
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In my experience, I tend to only use pre-existing characters that I'm comfortable with...In WoD Chicago terms...there wasn't anything interesting about Nicolai, but I did end up using Khalid, Inyanga, The Wolf Pack, and more than a few of the Toreador, Ventrue, and Brujah. ...I didn't use half of the characters, but that's because I did seemlessly input my own NPC's into the mix. If the book characters didn't move me storywise, they just didn't get introduced. Or they had bit parts and walk ons, not that the players sensed anything out of the ordinary. I've run Chicago and New Orleans as settings, and my players have enjoyed both. I'm not afraid to let characters change from story to story, or chronicle to chronicle. In New Orleans alone I went thru 3 princes, before I found one everyone was comfortable with...the N.O. game was played for 2 years with sessions that went from 4 hours to 12 hours each, on a weekly basis. Chicago has always been my favorite WoD setting, but thats because its SO BIG, with lots of potential, and it helps that I'm so close in proximity. Practically Local. |
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| kismetrose | Sep 18 2008, 10:45 PM Post #7 |
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God, with all that's changed, I don't know if I'll ever get to use all the work I did for Chicago.
I hope I do, because I already put some good effort in and it seemed like it could be a lot of fun. If I end up wanting to start a new game when I run again, I've got material to start from. I guess if worse comes to worse, I can post what I came up with on my web site, if only to give folks ideas. |
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