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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Chrono on August 11, 2012, 06:08:20 PM

Title: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Chrono on August 11, 2012, 06:08:20 PM: Our group is playing their first adventure next week. We already went through city creation and character creation (yes, I know those are part of the story as well). Now I am planning a mystery to have the 6 characters solve, and I realize I have a small problem: they have no reason to work together!!

When we did the character creation, I also made a character in case we trade GM's later in the campaign, so I was a guest star in 2 stories and had 2 guest stars in mine. That means there are 2 characters that I only know through other characters (friends of a friend). This isn't a big deal for my character since I am the GM and all, but I did not realize at the time just how distant that would make some of the group. None of the characters are fast friends, but nobody really hates each other either. They all established various degrees of respect, but not appreciation.

So what is the best way to get them to work together? Start them off working individually and have the adventure steer them together? Get a City-wide threat that forces them to join forces? Put them all in a tavern and have someone ask for a group of adventurers?
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: JDK002 on August 11, 2012, 06:29:21 PM: Coming up with a common ground for the players to team up is important for the narrative. The game can drag if you try and set up each characters starting point individually. Come up with a catch all reason they would all be in the same place at the same time.

My characters were originally all hired on for a job by a guy who "obtains" supernatural items of interest and sells them off at a profit. They all had personal reasons or a history to take the job. But it gavee an easy answer to how they all know eachother even if they don't really like eachother.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: THE_ANGRY_GAMER on August 11, 2012, 06:37:50 PM: Have them all at a party where the crime is committed (or similr situation). They're all at the crime scene, thay have a reason to work together, progress from there. Plus, they will know each other in any future adventures.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: admiralducksauce on August 11, 2012, 07:47:17 PM: Start them off in a warehouse standing over a corpse and a bag of money, pistols pointed at each other.

Then flashback to your actual adventure. :)
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: InFerrumVeritas on August 11, 2012, 08:11:03 PM: Your city has a bar, right? Can't they just all meet there?

Seriously though, I think the best way to handle this is to ask your players why they'd seek each other out.

Or compel the hell out of them. If it's their first time playing, extra fate points won't hurt.

"You need a wizard. Your friend *Other Player* knows someone. Go ask them for help." Bam, three characters in one place. Someone happens to be visiting *Other Player* or *Wizard Friend* when they get there. They decide to join forces for better odds. That's 4. *Player 5* is working the case as well, hired by a different individual and they run into him on the way. *The Last Guy* is tailing them and bails them out of trouble.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Silverblaze on August 11, 2012, 08:29:03 PM: Very noir...

It all starts with a girl.

The girls are suspicious of her or are jealous of her.

The guys all want her or have history with her/ hate her.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Haru on August 11, 2012, 08:59:13 PM: A great thing about the DFRPG is, that you can get your players to do part of that work for you. Create the mystery and present it to them as a 3rd person pre-story. You know, the kind of stories that some novels start with, from the perspective of the first victim of a crime or something similar. That way, you can get your players interested and give a bit of the story away, and then they can come up with a way to get pulled into the story. This is kind of part of the city creation part, too. Let them have a fate point for what they come up with, so they tie their aspects into the story.

Another way to go is to give each of them an individual reason for being somewhere, and then drop something on them, that they have to work together, if they want to get out alive, and this will draw them into the adventure. A bit on the nose, but it gets the job done.

Instead of a threat, you can have a common friend invite them, which is a pretty common way to go as well, but with far less action, of course. You already kind of did this, maybe you can build on that. Maybe one of the items from the last game were cursed or something, and something happened to the collector or will happen to the characters if they don't take care of this second problem.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: UmbraLux on August 12, 2012, 01:36:39 AM: Do they have any similar aspect you can use to bring them together? If not, an easy method is to have them start as the suspects. They've got to solve the murder or <some authority figure mundane or supernatural> is going to pin it on them. Perhaps the simplest method of all is to start in media res - have them jumped while together...and use the opportunity to drop your first three clues. :)
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Ghsdkgb on August 12, 2012, 04:55:01 AM: This is the kind of thing I always let my players handle. They're the ones piloting their characters, so they would know best how to justify things like that. Besides, they all WANT to play, otherwise they wouldn't be there around your table. So I just let them guide themselves in that regard.

Oftimes this ends up with us spending half the session at each other's throats, but that's half the fun of playing, anyway.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: KOFFEYKID on August 12, 2012, 01:59:24 PM: I actually think the best way to get them together would be to have a murder involving somebody they all know and respect.

Create an NPC who's only job is to be the thing that they all have in common. This figure would be somewhat of a rallying point for supernatural creatures in the area (depending on how supernatural your group is).

I mean, think about it like this.

Harry dies, everybody who has ever been helped by Harry would have an interest in solving his murder.

You need to create a Harry for your group and then off him in such a way that the supernatural public is shocked and mystified by.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Praxidicae on August 12, 2012, 06:45:40 PM: Quote from: UmbraLux on August 12, 2012, 01:36:39 AM
an easy method is to have them start as the suspects.

I so want to build a 'Usual Suspects in the Dresdenverse' scenario now.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: BigMrE on August 12, 2012, 07:39:09 PM: Quote from: InFerrumVeritas on August 11, 2012, 08:11:03 PM
Your city has a bar, right? Can't they just all meet there?

Argh! You beat me to it!
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: LepRecon on August 13, 2012, 08:21:40 PM: Lots of ways can be used 2 of my fav ones for DFRPG have been:

1. Party start in a chase after the big bad, they are told he is getting away and you need to catch him. Follow him into a TV store. As they enter it explodes sending them back and out (minor stress). With that I took them 12 hours earlier and set up the whole game. 2 hours of gameplay later and they were back chasing down the street. Not a lot of Railroading required just a few motivators that suited the characters.

2. My favourite one. Party all know they need to be a certain location at a time but are unsure why. They just know its very important. On turning up they meet each other (who they know from their character gen). Then a woman walks up to them and say "so have you solved the problem?" Characters don't know her but she knows them. She then goes "oh no its got you." Explains she is cursed and people keep forgetting her. She doesnt know who cursed her but she hired the party to find out who, as she was advised they knew the supernatural. She then produced a DVD which she played to the party showing them each saying they had agreed to the task. At this time each person had to reveal a secret they would be happy for the others to know. Many funny ones came out. The best one was the Goth Girl Minor Takent who looked at the party and said "I secretly love ABBA!"
The party had to solve the problem as they already had said yes the day before. Including the price. Party liked it as well.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: amberpup on August 13, 2012, 08:46:03 PM: A bar, a girl, and two shot glasses filled. One or both may be posioned.... and both characters are about to drink.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Silverblaze on August 13, 2012, 09:18:30 PM: I started one game (Werewolf: the Apocalypse) off with all the characters waking up in free fall from a plane. They had no parachutes.

(click to show/hide)
(For those of you who don't know, it is very hard to kill a werewolf in that system, so long as you decie the damage from the fall isn't aggravated.)

When they collected themselves from various states of damage etc. They had a common goal.

Find out how they wound up in this position.

Maybe get revenge.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I were you:

I'd give your players parachutes and skip rolls to see if they can land near each other or successfully open the chutes for this intro. Just gloss over the details.

Drop them off in a hostile area or in the middle of nowhere.

Start your game from there.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: admiralducksauce on August 13, 2012, 09:32:33 PM: It worked for the movie Predators. :)
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Silverblaze on August 13, 2012, 09:36:50 PM: Glad somebody caught that.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: THE_ANGRY_GAMER on August 13, 2012, 10:45:56 PM: Damn, I really need to catch that movie. Maybe after i've finished watching The Hunger Games and Buffy (the series, not the movie).
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Chrono on August 13, 2012, 11:03:11 PM: Great suggestions! Thanks everyone. I can see a lot of good ideas for 2nd and 3rd adventures too!

As I look through my group, I realize that they are very much individuals by design. They don't really answer to anybody that cares (unless it is THEIR neck on the line). Plus our adventure is taking place during the Red Court War, meaning that all the Wardens have left to fight the war in other locations.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: THE_ANGRY_GAMER on August 13, 2012, 11:16:05 PM: Then give each one of them an individual stake in the adventure. Maybe have a Faerie queen or other plot-device-level character strongarm them collectively into a bargain. Gives them a reason to work together.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: admiralducksauce on August 14, 2012, 12:39:19 AM: Quote
As I look through my group, I realize that they are very much individuals by design.

It's like Wolverine. He's the "loner", but damn if he doesn't find some excuse to go out heroing with his X-Men buddies every now and then. As long as your players are on board with teaming up so it doesn't cause you trouble, it's all good.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Praxidicae on August 14, 2012, 08:55:43 AM: I had a group at one point where they pretty much all built loner characters. I decided rather than stretching the laws of credulity as to why all these independents suddenly wanted to work as a team I'd take a leaf out of the first episode of the TV show Leverage.

Have them contracted out individually on a job, something that runs on the grey side of the law, and when they come to collect payment, have their employer doublecross them, leaveing them for dead. The obvious mission then becomes to track down their previous employer and enact some form of payback, but because the employer is either high profile (in the mundane or supernatural world); backed by some greater threat; or just plain difficult to track down, the PC's will have to keep working together to do so.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: Jimmy on August 14, 2012, 11:31:15 PM: Quote from: admiralducksauce on August 11, 2012, 07:47:17 PM
Start them off in a warehouse standing over a corpse and a bag of money, pistols pointed at each other.

Then flashback to your actual adventure. :)

Oooo...love doing this in a game.
Title: Re: How to bring a group together...
Post by: burningcrow on August 15, 2012, 07:05:56 AM: Use the game mechanics. Compel them to be there.
Ask them why they think the compelled aspect would make them be there.
Let them do the work.

::)