#RPGaDAY2020 18: MEET

#RPGaDAY2020

18: MEET

Meeting characters - and going to meetings.

A roleplaying game session is at least in part a meeting.

(This one took a while and included taking a photo.)

We have a group of people getting together to talk. The PCs often talk at length with NPCs, as dialogue is the main thing we have outside of system mechanics.

And some classics in the source genres include meeting scenes. The Round Table, the Council of Elrond, the briefing before the attack on the Death Star...

So inevitably we have meetings in-character.

Star Trek: TNG is a sci-fi show about people having meetings.

The most sci-fi thing about the show is that people accomplish things in these meetings.

Maya Shwayder

Introducing NPCs can be tricky. GMs can create impressions other than the intended, players can bounce off NPCs for unrelated reasons... There’s a very familiar GMing joke about the players being pointed at an important planned NPC and fixating on a background character. Because, as also noted, sometimes the blank shows what they want.

But we have one advantage over reality here - we can state that the first impression didn’t go well and redo it.

Introducing PCs can be tricky as well, with some wanting to skip it entirely and use the “PC Glow” with no in-character reason to trust the new arrival, and others actively opposing that to equally absurd extents leading to actively avoiding these strangers or interrogating them on their motives. Having a good in-character reason to meet up can help a lot. Easier done between sessions than in the depths of a dungeon... Delta Green started in part to address the need to bring in new PCs for a high-attrition Call Of Cthulhu game.

And running meetings can be tricky as well, especially big ones with multiple NPCs speaking - there are only so many ways you can turn your head and so many voices you can do.

Many freeform and non-boffer LARPs are based around meetings, parties and the like. This gives the characters a reason to be together and talk, often with conflicting agendas. The default for a live Vampire games is Elysium, where vampires gather every month or so to hold court and hang out on neutral ground.

GMing a big meeting at the tabletop makes visual markers for NPCs very helpful. It’s much easier to keep track of who’s here and who’s sitting with whom.

And this is a quiet night.

And it lets you set down another image for a dramatic entrance halfway through.