Lots of good grist for the idea-mill in this Forge thread on “flagging” — making the game about what’s on your group’s character sheets. This is solid, essential theory for GMs. (Via Deep in the Game.)
Flagging: Using Character Sheets to Drive the Game
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In my own design, I’m trying for the reverse: adhoc placing onto character sheet of what the game is actually about. I know; that really isn’t so much the reverse as flip side of the same coin.
It is interesting to me how what Chris says at Deep in the Game is almost always flip side to my own goals and issues. I have a pretty good idea of what he is talking about, but the emphasis is different. If I ever find the time to finish my game design, makes me wonder what you and Chris would think about it. 🙂
Chris and I seem to be on the same page quite a bit, but not all the time. We definitely approach our blogs differently. 😉
That thread has really brought some things into focus for me. Paka’s been firing on all cylinders lately with that thread and the setting stakes thread. Both of those have really gotten me to think about how I do what I do when I GM, when I just play RPGs period.
Thanks, Kevin, I’m glad the thread worked for you.
Thanks for reading.
Judd: Kevin? I’m confused. 😉
Awesome thread, though — thanks for starting it.
Where did the name Kevin come from?
I have no idea.
I think it was holiday stress talking.
Wow, there isn’t even a Kevin in this thread; wasn’t even an honest mistake. I’m seein’ things.
Ha, thanks, Martin (and Steven, but not Kevin, whoever that is).
I wondered if perhaps you knew Crazy Jerome, and his real name was Kevin. I’d sort of figured it was Jerome, so… 😉
The post is a bit hard to follow for me, likely because I am unfamiliar with many of the systems mentioned. However, if I am reading it right, it seems the approach is to build some plot hooks into the characters before the game kicks off, and allow the players to chose which route to follow? If so, then it is pretty interesting. I do something similar where I (being D&D centric as I am) envision a plot/quest series for each character class and expanded them when the players chose the class.
This is not without limitations though. For example, what happens when 2 players take an identical class? Also, what to do if someone takes a non-core, 3rd party class? In that case, I usually take the closest core class and mold the ideas to fit.
Granted, this still leaves me the storyline dictator in some regards, but my style leans towards being a storyteller. Its a tough act, to balance freedom vs railroading for the plot’s sake. I’ve been at both extremes. The ultimate Railroad for me was the old Dragonlance modules, and I completely despised the game. On the other hand, I once played with a ‘total freedom’ DM and the party got swamped in a mire of confusion and indecision. The campaign ended with the party lost in the woods both literrally and figuratively, not knowing what to do next or where to go.
Currently, the approach which has worked well so far is to have an additional “fluff” sheet included with all the Meta data in each character’s binder. They can refer back to it when they wish to decide what to do/where to go next.
Hope I didn’t miss the point.
Martin, my real name is Steven. I’m not, however, the Steven that posted under that name. CJ is the name of a very absent-minded, planar traveling, magic salesman who happens to conveniently appear in many of my fantasy games. So the reality is even more confusing. 🙂
Judas, I’m no expert. However, as I understand it, part of the point is precisely that the flags are not fluff. Rather, they are things with such important mechanical meaning, one places them prominently on the character sheet. Or maybe I’m missing something, since I’m going for the “flip side”, as I said above.
Judas: It sounds to me like CJ nailed it with this: “…part of the point is precisely that the flags are not fluff. Rather, they are things with such important mechanical meaning, one places them prominently on the character sheet.”
Flags wouldn’t just be plot hooks, they’d be sources of real conflict, tipping points, core beliefs — whatever will get your character into the trenches.
I’ll have to look it over again. It might be a difference of terminology in that im using “plot hook” a bit too broadly.
Judas: It sounds like you’ve got the gist of it.
With D&D it can be difficult to suss out the flags, because there are very few. I think you have hit upon one of the big ones, class.
What do you find puzzling?
Judas, you said: I’ll have to look it over again. It might be a difference of terminology in that im using “plot hook†a bit too broadly.
And flags are plot hooks but they are plot hooks that players put on their own character sheets, telling the GM to put big, fat, dramatic worms on them for the players to bite after.
Does that make sense?
The idea of “flags” seems very interesting. I can see how alignment and class work like fairly coarse-grained flags for D&D; are there any others? I’m not even sure what systems the folks over on the Forge are actually talking about. 🙁 Can anyone point me to systems that have flags like this explicit in the rules? (Preferrably ones with free versions of the rules available!)
That does look like it qualifies, and TSoY was mentioned in that Forge thread. I might be able to get something like that worked into the game if I hand the players an interesting set of candidate keys/flags to pick from (I don’t expect they’ll want to propose any at first).
It’s been really difficult to get them to provide much about background or motivation for their characters, and this may be a way to get them to think about the aspects that really matter for the game. (I suspect that their youth has a lot to do with the difficulty; I know I wasn’t coming up with massive amounts of prose off the cuff at their age, and probably wouldn’t have known what to do with the request!)
Fred: To the best of my knowledge, when you want to drift a game — like adding Keys to D&D — it’s best to start small. Good luck! 🙂
“And flags are plot hooks but they are plot hooks that players put on their own character sheets, telling the GM to put big, fat, dramatic worms on them for the players to bite after.”
This explains it perfectly, thanks! The key difference being that it being a player driven idea vs a GM idea. I think that was the part that I missed.
The TSoY material on Keys is very interesting; perhaps the Spiritual Attributes mentioned on the Forge play a somewhat similar role whatever system those come from.
There’s a direct tie between Keys and character advancement that’s interesting: Keys not only act as a clue for the GM, but also as the route to experience. That relationship is likely pretty important for players coming from a gamist system like d20.
I’ve been thinking about integrating something like it into my d20 youth game, with the specific goal of getting a bit more player involvement in the story side. One thing that surprised me a bit has been how gamist young players can be; maybe it has to do with exposure to the various computer games they play.
I guess it’s time for me to formulate something for the new Q&A forum, as this is getting beyond a comment on the original post. 🙂
Fred: That sounds like a great topic for a post. 🙂