Sol F suggested a type of con game in the comments here: a common shared backstory for con games.
His point is that grabbing a character you love and plugging them into a one shot tends to feel a bit 'empty'. It can be hard to engage the PC removed from the elements that created him/her.
Shared worlds have had some brilliant successes in print, but often seem to 'run down' after an initial success. You could argue that they lose energy because no author can really change the joint premise or make dramatic changes in the structure. Some TV shows die for the same reason; new writers not able to sustain a narrative bridged off the initial backstory.
In a one-shot con game, you just play out a story-seed or concept and see where it goes in four to six hours. Simple, direct, and leaning heavily on the chemistry of the moment.
Many one-shots ask Players to play 'shared world' by agreeing to ignore conflicts between the PC backstory. Or 'cross world' by bringing disparate PCs together in a cosmic fracture. Both of these techniques have worked for years, yet Sol's point above is that they carry a burden. To quote:
Speaking for myself, it is hard to have a great game that you only play once a year. You are either tortured by the possibilities you can't get into six hours, or you love the game but lose the energy in the course of a year.
I don't know who invented it (it may have been Sol in Blaze of Glory), but serial campaigns allow in-depth background, but presume that the roster of Players will change—or has to change because of the backstory. This has a number of nice features.
Players can return, but the premise doesn't weaken if they don't. There is a strong back story that binds the Players to their roles—unlike a normal shared world where Players ignore inconsistancies between PC concepts. And while scheduling the game is still an issue—folks realize that the game will be there next year for them, so they can try other games or run games if they want to.
A serial game can generate history and change the game world like a campaign, but keep the PCs in any one game to a managable number.
There are currently several campaigns running at various Ambercons, but there are also serial games that have had repeat success. Slowly, cons are moving away from having slots were the only games running are 'closed campaigns' (a situation that makes cons less accessible to new folks and ties veteran Players/GMs to limited choices.)
So what about a 'default Amber' that wasn't generic? Could JP's call for 'classic' Amber and Sol's idea of 'GM shared Amber' work together?
I suppose you could make the case that we already have 'default Amber' in what Zelazny gives us. The 'first series' line of reasoning is likely 'default Amber' in many people's minds. Something much like 'House of Cards' would be a splendid example.
Provide GMs casting pics of the Elders and a timeline taken from Zelazny and you can start. . . except we do that now. Or do we? Creative differences between GMs, and all that. Can we agree on a 'backbone' Amber that allows con gaming of repeated adventure? And then hand out the Elders for play again and again— throwing in a few youngers for spice?
Hmmm.
Scattered comments, because time is short:
I know I was one (if not the only) person who pushed to have "serial" or "episodic" game type added to the Ambercon game submission form, but the basic idea was in the air long before Blaze of Glory -- the Corwin's Birthday party games, the Babysitter games, etc. (When did Underworld start?) And Blaze of Glory was not planned as a serial, but everyone seemed to have a great time, so I kept it going.
My impression of shared world books -- Thieves World springs to mind -- is that they run down because the better authors lose interest, and then those who are left get into wilder and wilder changes to the universe, making it progressively less interesting. Obviously losing the better participants is a risk in a shared world game as well. Big changes are an easy dramatic route for a GM, so I worry more about out of control changes to the universe than boring lack of change.
I don't think there really is a ready-made playable shared Amber universe out there. First, because the worlds and assumptions of the first series and the second series are somewhat different, and then the rulebook is different than that. Think of all the different ways one sees Pattern walks and the teleports at the end -- and most of those ways are consistent with at least one of the "source" books.
Even if we could all easily agree on the way the universe works, that's only the start. To have a really effective shared universe, the PC's histories have to be a part of it. Perhaps not in the history from the books, mind you, for simplicity's sake, but a consistent history for PCs once play has started.
I think what I'm trying to sniff out here is a new niche in Amber campaign playing. Because characters are an afterthought in the standard shared world one-shot, the plots tend to be of earth-shattering proportions, gimmicky, or non-existent. (I'm not casting stones here, almost all of my con games fit into one of these categories.) What I'm proposing is building a game background that allows more character-focused games -- a sort of episodic, mutli-GM, "standard" Amber con campaign. (Though of course non-standard Ambers could be interesting as well!)
(Just in case it wasn't clear, I'm proposing different episodes would have different GMs...)
I was happy to be on board at ACUS when the 'serial' innovation hit its stride.
I first had the word from Simone Cooper, who may have had it from Joe Saul or John Davies. Or it may have just sprung from her forhead. Hard to remember.
Posted October 6, 2003 9:19 PMI agree that basing a shared world game on the "default Amber" isn't really enough, both because it's hard to get actual agreement on exactly what that means, and because, as Sol said, it still leaves the PCs without the web of personal relationships that make them real. A more developed Amber, which could serve as the basis for games by many GMs, sounds like a grand idea to me.
Posted October 6, 2003 10:00 PMOne vision that I really like with the multi-GM idea is the notion of long running subplots attached to characters... the GM version of the character sheet would come with a set of notes on where the subplots were and what might be done with them.
Posted October 6, 2003 10:04 PMBeing a GM who runs at least two serial campaigns and one campign, this is of interest to me.
but i do have to remind Sol that in his shared world games the characters are important-mostly because his shared world games are plotless and dependant upon the characters to provide plot. but they are lots of fun :-)
Posted October 6, 2003 10:57 PMKit means my shared world one-shots, of course, which makes me wonder if this new concept needs a better name than shared world serial.
And while the plotless games have been fun to run, and generally work quite well, there is something I find very dissatisfying about about setting up to run them. It invariably feels like I'm cheating, taking the lazy way out, and doing the same thing over and over again. (Even though each game is pretty unique in play, the prep for it is exactly the same.) You may have notice I've showed a lack of enthusiasm for running them lately.... this is why. I would like to be breaking new ground.
Of course, plotless would be a viable form in a shared world serial, too, and it would, with luck, be more fun because of the richer shared background.
Posted October 7, 2003 4:18 AMOne of the problems with the Blaze of Glory format is that it's very hard to be open to new players. The games feel crowded as is, and I don't feel like I can say sorry, you have a character, but there's no room for you to play this time around. So effectively it is a closed campaign.
I think a key component to this new thing I am thinking of is that there would never be an expectation that all available players would be in a slot. As soon as you take that away, it's easy to add new players. (Well, there is the problem of adding them to the history. I suspect a standard "grew up out in shadow, new to Amber" background would be the easiest way to add people quickly.)
Incidentally, I think the Wuj was working on many of these assumptions back in the early days of Ambercon. My impression is he kind of pictured a shared world for multiple games, but never made it explicit.... (as far as I know.)
Posted October 7, 2003 10:57 AMIn my When the Queen Says, "Go and Die..." serial game, I've found that each time I run it I get a fifty-fifty split of returning players and new players. This fits the concept nicely because ther are a lot of musketeers and the same groups of musketeers will not always be on missions together.
In the To Live and Die in Texorami game, it appears that I'm keeping almost all of the previous players (unless, like Arref) they don't come to ACUS, but I also seem to be gaining players. Bringing new characters into the game is easy given the setting. though some characters have more history with each other than others, but that is the way real life works as well. Now fitting the PLAYERS in can be trickier. If you sign up for my game, I always want to fit you in. At ACUS last, this was impossible. I think something like 25 people listed it as their first choice for that slot. Even I am not crazy enough for that many players. :-)
Still, I like the serial campaign format. The new ones I am working on operate under the premise that, like my musketeers, different characters will take part in different adventures.
Posted October 7, 2003 9:15 PM