It’s in the name, it should be in the game…
Lately, I’ve been running one-off or short-run games on alternate Fridays as filler while I consider what system to run next. I’ve got two Pathfinder adventure paths running at the moment, and while I’ve been enjoying them, and the writing in the adventure paths is pretty outstanding, the game is unabashedly only a step away from D&D 3.5 with all ( Read more... )
Um, I'm rambling at this point, and getting very 10,000 foot level, rather than the 10 foot level. To the point at hand: I think with the Serenity game, we got lucky that most of the players seemed to find a pregen character that resonated with them. The players fit the characters well, and that fact, combined with the ability to have a common world view to draw upon(the TV show/movie) gave more of a unified vision. This unified vision will help draw players into the game more, and allow them to have a more symmetrical outlook on what to expect from their surroundings, NPCs, and other PCs. The same cannot be said for more generic systems like D&D, because each player comes with their own view of what that world means to them. To some, it is the world of Diablo or Skyrim. Others come from a LARP background, and see it as a story. Others see it as the gaming environment shown in The Gamers movies. Yet others see it as a spreadsheet or casino game, with odds and loopholes to be broken. With Serenity, everyone seemed to come in knowing what to expect from the world, because of the shared history.
The other thing that made Serenity different, at least in the very very short time we've had with it so far, is that there has been almost zero focus on items and item management. I know that this is part and parcel of the one-shot, people will rarely care about their character's possessions if they know those possessions are going to be gone in a week or two, but the characters in that game(along with the shared world perception) are strong enough that a gun is just a gun, it's not "my +1 gun of gut-busting". With less focus on such totems, a player is almost forced inward to find something else to adhere to, be it a character flaw, a background tidbit, or something else that they find interesting about the character.
One thing I did notice in the Serenity session was that people were so into their characters, they were saying "Out of character question..." I don't think I've seen that in our gaming groups before, but I am very much a newcomer to the group, and my main experience was the 4e game that isn't conducive to role playing, and Ars Magica, which had a group dynamic that was not conducive to role playing for the most part.
That's my 2 very long-winded cents. Take it for what you will, your mileage may vary, caveat emptor, do not operate heavy machinery while reading, etc, etc.
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