Gaming Guides

Introduction to TINYPLOTS: Characters

HOMEPAGE

MAIL ORDER
Sam Siam Manuals

SAM ONLINE
Muck Wizarding
FurryMuck History

TINYGAMES
1. Introduction
2. Characters
3. Locations
4. Preparation

SCENARIOS
Scenario 1
Short Scenes

The cat whose photo I'm using for the "Sam Siam" logo is a purebred sealpoint Persian cat (current name unknown) who was at the Garland Municipal Animal Shelter in early 1999. This is one of the lucky cats who got a home before time ran out for her.

It can be very hard to find a home for an abandoned adult animal like this.

Once you've decided what the goal will be, the next consideration is who will be playing the game.

You and your partner(s) should create new characters for the game, otherwise you may run into some frustrating "No, my character can't be harmed/threatened by..." rules. Remember that UNLIKE a standard D&D dungeon crawl, you do not want characters to drop dead. You should save The 4 D’s (Death, Destruction, Doom & Defeat) for later games.

There are certain kinds of characters that do well in games and others that just don't play well in any scenario. In general, the following types of characters should be avoided: kids, pets, pregnant chatacters, powerful telepaths or mages, superheroes, cyborgs, demigods, and immortals.

PLAYING TIME:

Assume that between Internet lag and typing speeds you’ll only get 1/3 to 1/5th the playtime online that you would in a face-to-face encounter. This means that online games can’t be as complex in plot structure. I’ve run online campaigns that took 4 months of nightly 4 hour games to finish, but these can be difficult to handle between player obligations and computer, ISP, and Internet lag problems. For your first games you'll want something very simple. Every game proceeds at its own speed, and only experience will tell you how fast it can go.

THE GROUP:

How many people? The best number is actually a fairly small number of people. In fact, I suggest you run your first one with just one person. If you can find someone who wants to test out their skills, you can take turns running games. Ideally you'll run into a gaming partner who tosses in creative elements and does more than respond with a few words. Most often, other people will be just as confused as you are about how to run a game and you'll find that you have to run several games before you find people who are able to run games with you.

You could, of course, just point them to this little manual.

If you've got more than one person and the typing rates vary (say one is a very slow typist while another types at over 90 words/minute), you may need to force a 'round robin' order on the people in your party... letting each take a turn.

It's also handy if you can get two people talking to each other, then they can talk while you sort out things with the rest of the players.

SETTING UP A GAME

Before you can start collecting players, you have to have some of the basics determined. So we'll walk through setting up a simple scenario to game and then move on to some of the more complex things.

GOAL

-- the first thing you need to decide is what kind of an adventure it is -- quest, rescuing someone, retrieving something stolen, increase wealth (treasure hunt), escape from place (alien/hostile environment), destroy dangerous item, find pieces of magical item, repair something, help win a contest, repay a debt, break a curse, explore new territory, secret agent mission.  The goal of the game CAN NOT relate to your character's history or needs. You might want to play out a scenario to help you write your character's history for a web page -- but that's just going to lose you game partners. Nobody wants to be the patsy for someone else's history. If the other players' characters don't gain something (power,
weapon, object of enchantment, game win), then nobody will want to play.