"Gm is down! I repeat GM is down!"

i going to be starting my game this weekend (hopefully). and I have decided that i don't want to stick the the streotypical PP&D RPG. you know, you state the action, make a roll, and proceed based on the role. i'd rather conduct the game like they do on the RPF -- letting the PCs run the game, telling me what they're doing and then i fill in the gaps as necessary -- is that advisable?

im hoping that by doing so will give the players a better chance to roleplay, to actually interact with one another, instead of being lead around from point A to point B and so on. as well, i hope this will give the players a chance to divulge their bckgrounds, like in flashbacks and such. but i worry that all this may take away from game-play.

Any thoughts? Has anyone been in or ran a game like this?

 

Well... i'd only do that if the gamers were the best in the world, and really mature, as the temptation to take advantage can be too great to ignore. One thing you could do is get each person to take time to write a background about their character. How their relationship with their parents was, how they grew up, etc, and as a general rule of thumb, have one BIG event in their life. The death of a loved one is common because of Luke's loss of his foster parents, etc. But the more unique the better.

A gaming group i was involved with required a background, concise and of quality rather than quantity, and awarded bonuses based on the inventiveness, and how it all fit together with the kind of character they want to play.

This was a d6 group i did it with, and the award was an amount of bonus skill die of a number between 1 and 25, for d20, maybe a bonus feat, or a feat regardless of pre-reqs, skill bonuses, a misc modifier to attack/defense.

 

I agree with making the gamers come up with a history for their characters, as detailed as possible. I was playing in one campaign with one of the other characters in my party was my brother, but neither realized until after the 3rd or 4th major adventure. Other character was a hulking muscular brute while I was a weasley whiner. We concocted this plan at the beginning without telling the GM. When we finally sprang it on the group, there was a loud "WHAT!?!" followed by a reading of the overlapping parts of our character histories.
GM laughed & gave us lots of bonus points for Role-Playing.

I also recommend making the players draw their characters, even and especially if they have no drawing talent.

 

Yeah, I've ran into a lot of games where it's storytelling more then traditional pen and paper rpging. The games are really fun, but tend to run off course a bit. Just remember that you can still say no, and I would reccomend you keep around a very loose skill/stat syatem so that some actions normally requiring a roll (like firing a blaster) have a succeed/fail system. Remeber that if some one tries to abuse these games and their extremely loose rules, then they're probably not very good role-players to begin with.

 

Just a check-up. Ashton, have you started/completed the scenario with the cult? I'd like to hear how that played out...

 

I agree with making the gamers come up with a history for their characters, as detailed as possible.

I always insist on developing a history together with each player in a special one-on-one session. It's usually in a Q+A kind of format, where we agree on a starting point ("Joe Farwalker was born on Poopooine in 48 BBY.") and I ask him what his parents were like, etc etc.

We move up through the years and I throw unexpected complications at the player and ask how the characters react ("When Joe was 15, his father was elected Senator and he moved the family to Coruscant. How did Joe react? What was it like for him, to move from a crappy remote planet to a huge overcrowded city?") until we get to the present day.

Then I go back to my notes and work on integrating characters and events from each character's backstory into the campaign and into the other characters' backstories.

It's amazing how well this works to make characters seem more like real people, and how much better people play when they act like their characters are real people.