Maybe you are one of the players, or maybe you are the ST watching these people. What do you do to make things interesting? Part II will be for players, this will be for STs.
This is a problem I've seen come up repeatedly. It's not only when people go off into meetings, sometimes the whole game has a sort of ennui, doesn't catch on to plot, and doesn't seem to be interacting.
If you are a ST, there are several things you can do. Lets talk first about one the things I've seen STs do(or done myself), and why they may not work.
Ghosts and Goblins and Werewolves Oh My!
One of the things I see STs do a lot, is as soon as the officers leave the room, they bring in some sort of weird beasty. A spirit that messes with people, a ghost, a mischevious fairy, even an enraged werewolf. Generally it takes only a minute or two before all the officers trump back in, the tremere show up, and the PCs who went to them for help get pushed to the side. A similar situation is the one of the PCs who is bored gets a vision, or a phone call from influences, or whatever, about some problem. The effect is mostly the same.
I don't think having some sort of supernatural creature waiting in the wings, or some problem that crops up as soon as an officer's meeting starts, makes anybody happy. I don't think it leads to good plot.
What does lead to good plot? Well I'm not a big fan of NPC theatre, but a few well drawn NPCs that visit regularly can serve the Storyteller well.
It's important to establish these PCs before you use them. They should have hospitality, occasionally drop in for gatherings, etc. They can be present when the meetings start, or at the beginning of the night. Then you use them as a catalyst. This also helps when dealing with gathering sites that are "secured" by the PCs. When some NPC shows up, having established that they have ways to find out where the site is, and permission to be present is a good thing.
If you've read my earlier post on plots for new players, you'll have some idea of the sorts of things NPCs can do with newer players or players on the outs that don't bring in the more powerful characters. But when everybody is bored, you don't need to have a plot. Sometimes you just need some questions, or an interesting item, or for the NPC to tell a story that sets the tone and gets players thinking, or brings up some of the history of the game.
A question the NPC could ask is, "so what happened to (previous prince's name?) they used to be Prince here, right?" If nobody knows, they might tell a story about the Prince, with or without exaggeration. This need not be the prince immediately before the current one. Go back a few years, and there is probably a juicy story of tyrant removed, or a good prince brought low by treachery.
NPC questions can also work to circulate information on already existing plots for new players that may have stagnated. Ask about the original rumor to get people talking, or even offer up a new tidbit, or an old one that wasn't spread widely enough.
NPCs could even take advantage of a bored group of Kindred to lecture or teach, and then encourage comments.
Another thing to do is to bring in NPCs that the new PCs outrank or can easily handle. Unacknowledged childer, Caitiff who has hospitality but wants to know more about being a vampire, ghouls who are messangers or observers for their domitors, even a drunk mortal who passes out, or drug addict looking to sell jewelry or stolen items. Avoid problems that might bring in the officers... reporters and cops are probably not a great idea, unless one of the remaining PCs have some influence in those areas and has demonstrated they know how to use it in the past.
You can also have NPCs that show up only when the officers are out of the way. The Anarch recruiter (sent to me by Dan an OWBN player from Buffalo). The Setite fence. They may lecture, or pull people off to the side for conversations, or sell dubious goods. The last can be a way to introduce interesting items like the music box I mentioned below.
This is Dan, from OWBN Buffalo that he mentioned.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I was asked to elaborate on the Anarch Recruiter idea so that others could think about it. In our chronicle, there is at least one experienced RPer who portrays a mischievous Anarch PC who tries to recruit the newer players, aka those who are often left sitting in Elysium unattended. I find it an interesting ploy to encourage the elites to interact and include them because the newer players know less about a game and are more prone to switching sides than an elite who has better fleshed out their character and his anti-Anarch stance.
In addition, it puts the very real pressure on the Camarilla to respond to his coercion by including the newer players. The alternative is to just whack the Anarch, which is likely to happen, but that's a pretty dull gameplay tactic and aren't we just giving the victory to the Anarch that way anyway? Regardless, the elites are pressured to play with the newer players and focus some attention that they would otherwise neglect to give by including them in plots or giving them menial chores to make them feel helpful and to keep them away from the Anarch. Eitehr way, it gets what we want: a new player helping out and not being bored and an elite having to come down and help keep the gameplay flowing, rather than seclude himself in a meeting.