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Podcasts: Narrative Control - Episode 1 - Backstory

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  1. Administrator
     
    Hi, Welcome to Narrative Control. This episode is on Backstory, a quick technique for GMs to use at the start of games to connect character to each other and to the story

    Hosts: Sean Nittner and Justin Evans

    Link to the show: Narrative Control - Episode 1

    Download
  2. Member
    • CommentAuthorkothlar
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2008
     
    I enjoyed your discussion on back story in this podcast. I am in Justin's Cadwallon game and am designing a system (or compiling it as the case may be) and a campaign to run in the not so distant future and planning on using many of the fine techniques you both use in your games. I would like to use some sort of back story system in my game but the campaign has a few twists that make it a bit difficult and wanted to get your opinions on it.

    The game will be based on the themes of the TV show "Lost". So the game will have a bunch of players dealing with the mysteries and dangers of an unknown land, other castaways (as living "city" NPCs), and basic survival. The conflict of the game will arise out of experience Keys for each character that connect with their previous lives. So each game will have one or more pre-lost scenes that will drive the story as well as scenes on the island.

    But the issue I am having is that the characters will most likely have little to no connection to each other at the start of the game. Essentially they will wake up on the beach and have to learn who each other are and what they are doing there. I would like to have some sort of shared back story that gives people a shared interest in each others characters but it will not be building connections (with other player characters at least). I am not sure how this might be done and what sort of questions one might ask players to answer about other player's characters in this situation. Any ideas?
  3. Administrator
     
    Posted By: kothlarBut the issue I am having is that the characters will most likely have little to no connection to each other at the start of the game. Any ideas?

    Hiya, glad you liked the show. Funny that you were mentioning a game with a setting similar to Lost. We were just in a pitch session and the same idea came up. One of the questions I started asking was "what will we do in this game." There was some discussion of asserting dominance amongst the survivors, fighting the elements, discovering what else is on the island, etc. Most of these very external elements and had little to do with the group dynamic. Even the assertion of dominance was more about the "other" survivors than it was the player characters.

    Based on that (and that they won't know each other) I'd ask them questions about the island or about their predicament that become truth and affect the other players.

    1. Your mom always told you to be suspicious of people with X trait (where X is something about another character), why is that? Do you believe her?

    2. Last night when the plane was going down, who risk their own life to help the kid who was trapped in the bathroom?

    3. When alone amongst strangers, who is the first person you talk to? Why?

    4. When the lights when out, someone was saying a prayer. Who was it? How did that comfort you or make you feel alienated?

    Another avenue would be to use the "envy" mechanic form 1001 nights. Everyone is envious of something of the person to their left. After everyone announces their concept, you make something you're envious of. So on player says his character is a volunteer firefighter and the guy to his right is envious of how everyone looks to the firefighter for direction during the disaster. The player to the right has just invented this fact and given him an angle or a direction to go. This is not exactly backstory as we described it but achieves the game goal of creating some inner party relationships and tension before the game starts.

    Justin, if you're not to busy with your haiku-off, you have any thoughts?
  4. Member
     
    That's an interesting point. Backstory is usually used to make connections between people in order to:

    1. help create player buy-in with the story right away
    2. kick start the game

    We've also talked about how backstory can help define the environment, which again creates player buy-in.

    Sean, those are some great examples. I think the questions you were asking were definately addressing player buy-in and to some degree shaping how he characters could react to each other. It seems like there's still room for a mechanic that kicks the game off in high gear by creating immediate connections (as opposed to connections that may have happened in the past. Maybe questions like:

    1. Which character set your broken arm when you washed up on shore? What did he/she ask in return (if anything)?

    2. Which character found the sword your father gave you? Do they still have it?

    3. Which character's brother was found dead? Did he die before or after reaching shore? Who found the body?

    Also, unless you will be focusing on individual story lines (like in Lost) you may want to have something in Backstory address why all of the characters are working together. Otherwise, it may be more of a game about power struggles between characters...which could be fun too as long as we are all ready to manipulate and backstab each other.

    Josh, out of curiosity, why don't you want to start with connections between characters? Haven't all of the characters been traveling together for a long time (on ships)?
  5. Administrator
     
    Justin, I was thinking along those lines as well, but was concerned about assuming that the characters had woken up. I got the feeling that Josh wanted to kick start the game with the characters waking up from the crash. If we allow for a little time after the crash then I think all of those questions would work great. I especially like the first one, as it creates a very strong relationship right off the bat.
  6. Member
     
    By the way, Josh mentioned to me that this would be a fantasy campaign rather than a modern campaign. So the 'crash' in this case might be ships being torn apart in a storm...or something like that. He's not telling me too much since I'll actually be playing in it.
  7. Member
    • CommentAuthorkothlar
    • CommentTimeDec 17th 2008
     
    Thanks for the comments and sorry for the late response. Techno-weeny that I am, I thought this I would get an email when someone responded so I didn't check back. But here I am and there you were... so onwards.

    A couple points: I wanted the game to focus on interplayer character strife. The characters work together because they have to in order to survive but also are working towards their own goals. Also, my thought on the ships is that the journey is actually on an armada... so there are many ships that the characters could be on. It might be that this is not a necessary component and I could have the characters be on a ship together. In fact, the more I think about it the more I like that idea. It would allow for back story connections between characters and it would also allow for "flashback" scenes onboard the ship as well as in the "old world".

    I do want the game to start at the "waking from the crash" scene. I also really like the idea of having questions asked regarding what happened during the crash. This seems like it works well to create instant flashes of connection and possibly conflict. In an emergency lots of things can be seen and misrepresented. For example, the question Sean suggested of "Last night when the plane was going down, who risk their own life to help the kid who was trapped in the bathroom?". This could make a someone believe that this person is a "good guy" or hero. But perhaps the real reason was the kid had something with him that the character wanted. So really he is just self serving.

    Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.
  8. Administrator
     
    Sounds like a killer game Josh. The more you describe it, the more I think that simple mechanics like that from the Shab-Al-Hiri roach or 1001 Nights would work well. In each of those games the characters describe a reason why they are fond of the person on their left and dislike or mistrust the person on their right. The reasons don't have to be related at all and they allow the players some authorship over the other characters ("I admire the man on my left because I've heard stories of his bravery in the Malatesian wars." That just invented details about the person AND created a war in one snippet).

    The other benefit of this mechanic is that it ensures tension. The person you like, at least from the get go is guaranteed not to like you. Some people will stick with that throughout the whole game, others will change their feelings based on what happens in game.

    Also, as for the not receiving emails, it really should be doing that, but my email server was reconfigured to use a non-standard outbound port, so Vanilla is confused. I'm working on fixing that, but I've been pretty pokey about it.

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