Friday, December 17, 2010

Law & Order: RPG

 In the Roleplaying Game System, the game is played by two separate, yet equally important groups.  The GMs who set the stage, and the Players who decide the course of action.  These are their stories.

What does Law & Order have to do with gaming?  Pacing.  Pacing refers to the speed of plot, how fast actions unfold or take to resolve.  A fast paced game goes from scene to scene, while a slow paced game builds its action to an exciting climax.

The key to any good story is conflict.  One character wants something very badly, and another stands in their way.  Combat, even in the most hack and slash game, is a perfect example.  Your heroes are exploring a mysterious cave, and a band of foul orcs appears.  The orcs want the PCs to die.  The PCs want to not die.  This is a very basic conflict (and runs afoul of deciding a course of action for the PCs), but  it works.  Other conflicts are not so clear cut, but they drive story in the same way.  Maybe this is the orcs' traditional territory, and the PCs are invaders.  Maybe the orcs work for some other agent.  This opens up more possibilities, but the essence is the same.  These orcs present a problem, and one that we need to address.

And more than one conflict can go on at a time.  Maybe the Bard knows this tribe's history, and if an accord can be reached he's convinced they'll honor it.  But the Ranger's brother was killed by orcs and he's out for revenge.  Now we have a conflict between characters.  Or perhaps there's a couple of factions back at the human castle.  The Duke wants them killed off or driven out, but the Castellan says that if peace could be made his Lord would listen and they could be a powerful ally.  Maybe the orcs aren't raiding out of maliciousness, but a band of ogres has displaced them.  Maybe the PCs should go after the ogres.  But will the orcs return to their old territory?  You can get a lot of story by changing the focus from "can I kill the bad guys" to "What happens if I kill these guys" or "What if I don't kill these guys".

So what does all this have to do with Law & Order?  Good pacing allows you to focus on these conflicts.  In the TV show, they have the Doink Doink.  There's a crime scene, a prostitute was stabbed in an alley, a patrolman finding the body.  Doink Doink.  Benson and Stabler have arrived on the scene, questioning the other prostitutes.  One of them said there was a customer that was giving her a hard time last night, and they took down his license plate number.  Doink Doink.  The detectives are knocking on the guy's door, wanting to ask him some questions.

It doesn't show you Benson and Stabler getting the call, getting to their car, and driving across town.  The Doink Doink takes care of all that.  It cuts to the next interesting scene where some conflict plays out.  Too often games can get bogged down in minutia.  If what is going on doesn't introduce, explore, or resolve a conflict, you are wasting time.  Cut to the chase, get on with it.

That being said, that doesn't mean the pace should always be breakneck.  It might, if you're running a pulp adventure or action movie style game.  Other games benefit from a slower pace, but that doesn't mean the Doink Doink won't help.  In a horror game for instance, building up tension is very important.  It leads to other tools.  Investigation benefits greatly, after all the tool came from a criminal show!  Slowly give them pieces of the puzzle, and if they want to look into something else, cut right on over.

This style of game benefits greatly from running on the fly.  Like my friend muutus once said, you can have a great game even if the characters decide they aren't interested in the current goings-on and all want to go to a bar.  Fine by me.  Just introduce a conflict at the bar.  Maybe they run into one of the big bad's henchmen.  Or there's some other conflict you can play on.  If a character is shy and bumbling, having a girl hit on him can be great fun.  If a character is a tough guy, have some drunk get in his face.  See if he'll throw down in a bar, risking injury and arrest.  If they want to go to the bar, that's great - throw some conflict at them and have fun!

2 comments:

  1. I hadn't ever thought of RP'ing along the parallel of Law and Order. Interesting...

    Also, thanks for not capitalizing my name, so few people realize that I'm not important enough for a capital letter. ;)

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  2. One of these days I'll make one about the Buffy RPG. There's probably no game that influenced my thinking more than BtVS. I went from thinking in terms of sessions and encounters to episodes and scenes.

    And I'll respect the lower case so long as you remember the extra 'd'. :)

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