How to bring 6 disparate characters together?

[chiborg]

Hi,

I am a GM and have assembled a very big group of players (6) and they did not want to participate in city creation. They think their imagination does not suffice. Also, they all like "mystery/whodunnit" scenarios where the forces behind the events are completely unknown. We have the full stretch of character templates: 2 Wizards ("Male Wizard-In-Training of a Family Where All Males Turn Out to be Lawbreakers" and "Exiled Voodoo Priest"), one Werewolf ("Wolf-Born Son of

(click to show/hide)

Tera West

"), one Minor Talent ("Brilliant But Unstable Medical Student"), one Emissary of Power ("Custodian of the Sword of War") and one White-Court Virgin ("Trained to be the Lady Behind the Throne"). We are in stage 4 of char creation (the longest char creation I ever had with any RPG).

My questions are:
How can two characters help out in an adventure of another char? I can also imagine one character not directly appearing as "guest star" in an adventure but dealing with the consequences from the adventure. I can not imagine anyone being an antagonist/victim in one of the adventures as that would create animosities where we have enough trouble  bringing the disparate chars together.
What could unite these chars, both in the 4th and 5th phase and also in/before the first scenario? I don't know if a common threat would suffice, as each of them would likely turn to his/her own resources instead of contacting the others for help.

[MorkaisChosen]

Well, the Medical Student can drop in quite easily providing medical attention to people. Nothing else jumps out at me, but there'll be other ideas...

[Tsunami]

It really depends on the characters in question, and on the Stories they each have thought out for their First Story.
Without knowing at least the "First Story" part of each, it's basically impossible to tell.

Regarding the general question of
How can two characters help out in an adventure of another char?

Let me try to give a general example.
Protagonist is hunting for some supernatural baddies, while tracking them down he consults Guest Character A for information. He then proceeds to chase after them and confront them where he meets Guest Character B who helps in the conflict.


There are a lot of ways to modify this example:

Character B could just as easily be rescued by the Protagonist. Or maybe the Supernatural baddies have something worth taking and Character B represents a rival interest.

Character A could be the one sending the Protagonist after the Baddies in the First place.

This is just a small selection of what could happen. Since the Guest star Roles really don't need to be big ones there is plenty of room in the individual "First Stories" to accommodate them.

I don't know how to give more advice. Anything beyond these general pointers would require more detailed information on the characters.

[Haru]

You could create 5 Guest Star stories for each character, so everyone can have an appearance in the other characters lives. They might or might not all become aspects. You are going to end up with more aspects than usual, but that should work.

Another idea would be to create a sort of guest story chain. A's first adventure leads to character B's guest story with A appearing in it, which directly leads to character C's guest story with character A and B in it, which leads to character D's Story in which A, B and C appear, and so forth. I usually do something like this in game, so the characters meet one after another, but here you have the opportunity to make that happen before. Every one character could (or maybe even should) have a heroic appearance in those stories, them stepping in to save the other characters or something like that. A story like that is also bound to present some great hooks for further adventures.

The rest of the first stories and guest star slots can be filled as usual, only one character would have to "sacrifice" his first adventure slot, but seeing as it is the hook to bring the gang together, I don't think it is that much of a sacrifice.

[Shecky]

Heh. You've just defined every GM's first and biggest question ever.

[Team8Mum]

At convention games I find an excuse for them all to be in the same location at the same time and have some hook event happen there. That way there is no need for the pcs to know each other in advance, although they may discover they do know each other 'by reputation' as the game progresses.

For the con game yesterday I prepare the characters up to and including the 1st story. I then had 2 extra copies of each 1st story that the players handed to other players whose characters they thought they might have encountered in thier story; or in one case at complete random because the player thout that was funnier.
The players then decided how their character got involved, the aspect that came out of it and picked a couple of skills relevant to what they did to finish off the character sheet. That worked fairly well, gave them a taster of character generation and only took about fifteen minutes out of the 3 hour slot

[Richard_Chilton]

Part of the investment in character creation is each player finding links with (hopefully) two others.  If you want to stretch things you can link a bit during the first story - basically adding a walk on role there.
When you finish, everyone knows at least two other characters and is only one or two degrees from the rest of the group.

While off doing blah (something that the PC cares about) he runs into X (who is doing what X cares about).  Their goals are close enough that they can work together.

PC A sees PC B in a fight with something that he doesn't like and wades in - thinking that an enemy of my enemy is at least a distraction in this fight - and maybe a friend.

PC A needs something that PC B can provide.  Maybe it's contacts (which works well if PC A doesn't
have contacts and PC B does), or an ability (Does PC A need a tracking spell - something that PC B can cast) or anything like that.

PC A notices that PC B has a talent and wants to know that person better.  Remember that anyone with the sight can use their Lore in place of investigation when it comes to supernatural things - which makes it relatively easy to for them to stumble over other talents.

Someone in PC A's background knew (or knew of) PC B and makes an introduction or says "If you're ever in Blah you might want to look up ..."


You don't necessarily need all of them to be friends - PC A and PC B might be friends and PC B call in his friend (PC C).  And you chart things right then each PC has two guest stars and have guest starred in two other PCs' stories - so everyone is linked to four others.  That's one stranger in the group that he meets for the first time in play.  Have a walk on role during everyone's first story and everyone will have met everyone else in the creation process.


Charts can also help tracking relationships.  Something like:
Timmy - helps Justice Knight because he "Knows His Way Around The Streets", Petals (who needed something in that story) "I've Got What You Need"
Stevie - has to convince Petals "But I'm Not Evil", Timmy considers him "Weird But Popular"
Little Jar - Protects Timmy in a fight "No One Hurts My Friends", encounters the Billy side of Justice Knight and tells him "You Need  A Hug"
Petals - Helps Little Jar because "Of Course All Fairies Are Friendly", Justice Knight helps her out a jam and she tells him "I was Never here"
Justice Knight - runs into Stevie who labels him a "Superhero from the Short Bus", Helps Little Jar when she didn't need helping because it's always "Justice Knight for the Win"

Just remember you don't have to work out all the relationships at once - you do it one guest slot at a time.

Hope this helps.

Richard

[sinker]

I can not imagine anyone being an antagonist/victim in one of the adventures as that would create animosities where we have enough trouble  bringing the disparate chars together.

Of note, just because a guest character provides tension or difficulty does not mean that the two characters have to be unfriendly to each other. As an example one of my friends built a red court infected in an earlier game while my character was a young female neuromancer. I wound up guest staring in his story, where I wound up representing temptation (I.E. the young tasty morsel) that he had to overcome. Our characters were friendly and worked well together, but originally I created tension in his story.

In a more recent game the warden stumbled across me brutally killing someone, however he didn't see my face, and since there was nothing supernatural (that he noticed) he knocked me out and called the cops. Having recovery powers I came to quickly and booked. We knew each other through friends though and he has no reason to suspect me a murderer so we work together.

So like I said, one can create complications without ruining the group dynamic.