RPGnet Columns
08-25-2005, 02:33 AM
Post originally by Jethrow at 2005-08-25 01:33:30
Converted from Phorums BB System
I love to see tension between players, for the dual reasons that it takes the workload off me as GM and also because it brings to the fore alot of what roleplaying is all about. Both of the games I have been running for years, and the game in which I have played for more than a decade, inter-player tension has been the mainstay. In the Gunmaster/Twilight 2000 game I run, the party runs its affairs in a military manner, with a strict heirarchy based on rank. This in itself creates tension, because no-one has yet been prepared to mutiny, and while the commanding officers over the years have all been prepared to hear debate from other characters, the final decisions rest with the CO and everyone else has to accept them. In the Harnmaster/Middle Earth campaign I run, the party is made up of seven player characters, and over the past five years or so has transformed from an egalitarian model of decision making to a virtual fascist dictatorship. In this case it was due to one of the two most powerful characters becoming (through ensorcelment) the slave of a powerful witch, and the other main character and his allies have been trying to save him and bring him back into the fold, without directly disobeying his rule. In the game in which I play, also Harnmaster, my character is a Sindarin, and the other main character is a human. The human started the game as a knight, while my character started the game as a (seeming) peasant hunter. For the first thre or four years of real time in that game, there was little inter-party conflict, because my character towed the feudal line, but once it became apparent that my character is immortal and very powerful in combat, a kind of racist tension developed. And I love it!
Converted from Phorums BB System
I love to see tension between players, for the dual reasons that it takes the workload off me as GM and also because it brings to the fore alot of what roleplaying is all about. Both of the games I have been running for years, and the game in which I have played for more than a decade, inter-player tension has been the mainstay. In the Gunmaster/Twilight 2000 game I run, the party runs its affairs in a military manner, with a strict heirarchy based on rank. This in itself creates tension, because no-one has yet been prepared to mutiny, and while the commanding officers over the years have all been prepared to hear debate from other characters, the final decisions rest with the CO and everyone else has to accept them. In the Harnmaster/Middle Earth campaign I run, the party is made up of seven player characters, and over the past five years or so has transformed from an egalitarian model of decision making to a virtual fascist dictatorship. In this case it was due to one of the two most powerful characters becoming (through ensorcelment) the slave of a powerful witch, and the other main character and his allies have been trying to save him and bring him back into the fold, without directly disobeying his rule. In the game in which I play, also Harnmaster, my character is a Sindarin, and the other main character is a human. The human started the game as a knight, while my character started the game as a (seeming) peasant hunter. For the first thre or four years of real time in that game, there was little inter-party conflict, because my character towed the feudal line, but once it became apparent that my character is immortal and very powerful in combat, a kind of racist tension developed. And I love it!