>How many games are too much? Last year, I GMed 3 games and it went well but this year I have so many games I want to run that I'm having problems narrowing them down.
Games I am definately running:
The LARP: "Amberites and the Chaosians that Love Them."
"Love and Loss in the Dreaming City"
Games I am seriously considering running:
"Amber's Game"- Description (First Draft): The second war against Chaos was won but at a terrible cost. The Chaosian's use of magic and strange powers overwhelmed Amber. The city of Amber was left in ruins and most of Oberon's children fell in battle. When Amber's fate seemed sealed, one commander took the initiative and led his small platoon into a decisive battle that changed the winds of war and repelled the last of the invaders. A hundred years has passed. Amber hasn't heard from Chaos since their remaining forces fled back in to shadow, but they are out there. It's only a matter of time before they invade again and Amber must be prepared. To find the next general, Benedict has built a school in Arden to train the children of Oberon's bloodline. He hopes to find the next brilliant general to lead the forces of Amber against the coming invasion. These children are taken from their Amberite parents at a young age and train hard because if a great general is not found in time, then Amber is doomed. (Players take the roles of the Children of Amberites. This would be a new series game.)
"The Heist II: The Melnibone Job" (I'm thinking about running another Heist-style throne war and this time setting somewhere outside of Amber, in shadow. Melnibone comes to mind because it would be so well defended from thiefs and because players wouldn't need any experience with the source material but if they are familiar it won't hurt.)
Other ideas:
Nobilis (I have a plot idea that would tie in to the Amber setting)
Vampire- "All Roads Lead to Rome" (A Diceless Game of Vampire: Dark Ages about a group of Vampires on a pilgrimage to Rome and what they find when they get there.
Morpheus- (A sequel to "Morpheus Calling" for new and/or returning characters)
Robot Murders - (A mystery set in Asimov's Robot setting)
At Ambercon North I ran Morpheus Calling for a second time. It was succesful, but I had a tougher time getting into character for the major NPCs (mainly Morpheus himself) and I don't think the game went as smooth as it did the first time. A friend said that it may be because we spend so much time contemplating the game the first time we run it that we are better prepared but teh second time we run it, perhaps it isn't as much in our mind. I know that the first time I ran MC, I watched The Matrix multiple times and tried to get Morpheus's voice and mannerism and the last time I only watched it once, the weekend before ACN.
On the other hand, there is a mystery game that I have run a few times. Each time I have adapted it to a new setting and each time it seemed to run better than the previous time. I seemed to be better prepared for the things players would try and I had more backup plans to fall back on.
This weekend I'm running a game at UCon that I ran before at ACUS. I'm not sure how it will go and I am trying to really prepare, but it has me thinking: Do games usually go smoother for GMs when they have run the game before or does it seem more difficult? Does it depend on the type of scenario or NPCs? Some NPCs take more preperation than others. Does that effect how the GM performs?
I like to re-use mystery scenarios that I ran before because mysteries take a lot of work to plan. Not only do you need to come up with a villian, plot and motive but any good mystery needs a wealth of red herrings. It's a lot of work to come up with multiple suspects so if I can adapt them to a new setting with some changes, I do.
From Ginger: The typical party of PCs appears to be composed of equals. They may have Nodwickian henchlings or distant authority figures, but in most of the games I've played, the PCs are equal with respect to each other. Is this generalization true for you as well? What other group dynamics have shown up in campaigns you have played? What other group dynamics might be workable? What isn't workable, and why?
I used to think that it was very important that player characters be equals. They each have their spheres of influences, but in the end each character is equally effective. Then something changed. I realized that it doesn't always work that way in fiction and it certainly doesn't have to be that way in games.
The important thing is that each character is important and gets equal air time, not that they are equal. Since I realized that, I've played some rather incompetent characters because I've decided to trust the GM to allow my character to shine at some point.
In Champions, characters are point-based and all PCs are built on the same amount of points but that doesn't make them equal in power. I have one character (Chango) in the Champions game I'm in that the GM tried talking me out of how I was spending my character points. "You realize that you have almost no defenses or skills, don't you?" I had spent tons of points on a really cool attack power and left it at that. "Yeah, that's what I want. Someone with lots of power but he's still really incompetent." "Are you sure." "Yeah."
Playing Chango has been a blast and with experience points he has become an extremely effective character but when the game started he was knocked out every other adventure. He was really good at causing damage but half the time he would knock himself out with his own attacks.
He was the comedy character of the group. He was the Xander. He was (and is) a lot of fun.
Now, I'm GMing a game set in White Wolf's World of Darkness (or something close to it) that mixes several supernaturals. In today's adventure the PCs were a Were-raven, two Sidhe (Fae), three vampires, a mummy and a Demon Hunter. In WW's games the different supernaturals are anything but equal. However, each of the characters are equally important to the story. They each will have important things to do and mysteries to solve.
I guess that my answer to this question is that all PCs should be equally important. Sure, there will be times that certain characters will get the spotlight over other but they should all have their moment in the sun. This doesn't mean they have to be equal in powers or abilities. It can be interesting to see how characters of varying power levels can still interact and be involved in the plot. It may take some skillful manipulation on the part of the GM but it can be done. When it is done properly you can have far more interesting group dynamics than may have been possible if all of the characters met as equals.
Roleplaying is not about competition. Noone should be keeping score of who defeats the most bad guys. It should be about telling a good story together and if having a character in the group who is less capable than others makes a plot more interesting than the player that plays that "Zeppo" has been succesfull even if he/she wasn't able to defeat a single bad guy and other characters had to save him/her.