Continuing from this post.
Character Creation
Character creation is the most important part of the play process.
“No, play itself, interacting with the environment, that’s the meat of the game.” I agree. But character creation and its procedures establish, to some degree, the philosophy of play that will be followed. There are many games that are very lethal and employ complex character creation, but there’s also a reason why many of them use the threat of dismemberment before death and codified social skills so the player couldn’t forget every time they looked down at their sheets (regardless of one’s opinions on social skills, that does signify something).
Old D&D and its spawn are perfect for pick-and-play because their chargen serves to immediately get someone into the adventure few minutes after they sat down at a table (with the bonus of random creation feeling like play itself). Such utility serves another effect of normalizing death (one can pick another character in seconds) as a part of play, since the avatars are not as important as interacting with the simulation a.s.a.p. Like a silent film character, they may be nameless beyond their class or profession until later levels. Perfect fictional automata. I don’t mean any of this with irony or critique, I genuinely find this stark method amazingly effective game technology to get the expectations of play across, and only making a player roll their character and immediately start play shows how potent chargen can be to divest them from previous assumptions.
Contrast with chargen where creating a play avatar is in itself a creative project before play. Something deeply cultural, after all many rulesets with intricate character creation give the player information only regarding the same fields of action they would perform in old D&D, if more codified. But the extra effort put behind it and the greater level of detail creates a mood and possible prompts the player doesn’t necessarily have in pick-and-play. The character gets enough time in the sun before the dice are cast that they are no longer a shadow, while an old D&D character becomes material and casts an enormous shadow of their achievements during play itself.
We can easily get that effect by asking players to think about their character(s), rolling them before the session. The issue here is highly detailed backgrounds in such a game. Asking is not enough, we need an informal procedure to set expectations of play while keeping chargen simplicity and avoid over detailed past histories that set the player for greater Nihilistic Voids. Enter the word limit (or bullet points if that’s your preference), just like those in Olde House Rules’ games or Heroquest. A character’s backstory, relations and drives have a description limit, with perhaps selected random tables for surprise. The method is enough to reach a mid-point, although each table may get more specific down to a list of short questions with short answers, playbook style. Nobody needs to go the full Beyond the Wall treatment (although it’s amazing). Setting that limit to the players, and explaining why such a specific request, suffices. I figure three or four sentences/bullet points will be enough.
This also helps with multiple character creation. While troupe play is underrated in general, I believe asking the players to make more than one character, perhaps four, before the session is important here. The opportunity of quickly generating many characters to use in different expeditions, and considering why one would be interested in an adventure but not the other, is great for our purposes, and the sentence limit procedures makes the creation of figures with defined personalities possible with little hassle while keeping affection for each present but not overwhelming. It’s also good for mid-session replacements in case of death without missing a beat in play and already having established roleplay cues to follow.
Also, remember the following: players who develop affection for characters have all the more reason to play smart. Protect that emotional investment.
Hooks
On a related topic, how do we ground characters to the world in the context of a campaign? Saying this may recall an attitude of treating the world as a stage for the character’s personal arcs, in a neotrad style, or at least a drama-first approach. I don’t think it’s necessary to alter standard OSR GMing to get characters with displayed hooks. Instead of creating or changing the world to accommodate PC’s personalities and objectives (but more on that soon), the GM pre-rolls the most likely rumors the party will get on the first sessions, or just includes them directly in a player-facing setting document and asks them to set objectives related to the world. It barely takes much effort and allows fleshed PCs to arrive with very personal stakes. If the setting has hidden portals to Mars, why not include on an objective table “to discover the stars”?
Hooks due to their nature within the world remain relevant even if the PC dies, because the group better understands the context of those objectives among people in the setting. A new PC with the same hook won’t feel like a replacement because the objectives make sense in the time and place instead of a character’s personal drama. Not that it’s impossible to take from character traits provided by the players some possible features to put inside dungeon rooms or hexes, in such a manner that is engaging if found, mournful if discovered after the PC’s death, and all around useful as treasure or atmospheric weirdness. To create something inspired by a PC doesn’t demand it to be a part of their specific story.
NPCs
Outside handling hooks to create characters around or (re-)stocking dungeons and hexes procedurally with ideas PCs gave you, there are other elements that can be tied to personalities. When pre-rolling a stable of hirelings in a settlement for recruitment, PCs reputations, personalities or even physical traits are inspiration fodder, crafting hirelings as foils or otherwise reacting very personally to something about the PCs. It’s a strong tool for emergent story that utilizes PCs’ specificities in a manner that doesn’t go against usual GMing styles in the OSR, and shows how defined personalities can make the referee’s function creatively easier.
How do you run rival adventuring parties? They are a good choice for direct foils that can, through contrast, sharpen roleplaying cues, and fortunately they are easy to implement. Include them in the random encounter tables of dungeons instead of an extra inhabitant. They also serve as explanation or source of problems during downtime, stealing from the base of operations, spreading rumors (are false rumors in your setting something the rival party is putting out there to fuck with the players, and there’s clues to find out that’s the case?), attract retainers and hirelings away, so forth.
Patrons. Are you using patrons, both to be searched by the party and to search it? You should. Easy to tailor jobs based on the party’s reputation and specific interests. Make the patron related to a PC if necessary, and let the party solve the issue of the patron losing interest if a PC dies and how to keep them supporting the group.
Player Stances
Not meaning to establish theory for roleplaying as a whole, but I think for this discussion we can elaborate three player stances regarding characters inside the OSR. I will not be using Forge stance theories specifically, because I want this to be self-sufficient in this post and I’m just thinking from a practical OSR perspective.
“What would I do” is the standard OSR player stance, where the avatar is a medium between them and the game world for creative problem-solving. You, the player, has this positioning and tools to apply logic. Distinction between you and the avatar are nonexistent but not in a bleed sense.
“What would X do” is about the character as separate entity that you can intentionally describe as acting sub-optimally (instead of being because you erred in judgement) or pursuing objectives that you wouldn’t in the same world. This category encompasses, from a possible OSR perspective, every stance going from identifying with the character to taking actions that cohere with storytelling expectations. Those myriad stances are not the same at all, but in this context might as well.
“What would I do as X” is the stance that most likely emerges from deliberate characterization in OSR. You keep the focus on applying logical thought to challenges, but there’s the necessary filter where those decisions are contextualized from the character’s perspective. What do they feel about it? In better/worse circumstances, would they do different? Why?
I wrote stances as questions above because I mean them as a practical suggestion of how players can organize their thoughts by saying it to themselves, like a mental trick. If you are looking to play with deliberate characterization, or run a game where it’s expected, framing “what would I do as X?” and related questions as something to ask yourself/your players repeatedly until it becomes natural may indeed set play expectations as much as chargen.
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Well, for now that’s it. I’m prepping a post with questions for each class the players can roll to fill as backstory, probably will be released later this week.
Roll to Doubt 