Now, I don't mean that we should have 'Coronation street' the LRP. Though the concepts I am talking about are not too far from it. I am talking about taking elements, ideas, concepts and even blatantly nicking plot from soap operas and transposing them into the context of your game world.

Now, I suppose I got this mad idea from Gall Saga. In that, the crew were all very well motivated and given well rounded NPCs who all had their own little back stories and plots. Many of these were ref generated but many of them were also generated by the crew themselves simply making stuff up on the fly. Some of them were relevant to what the players were dealing with, some of them were completely unrelated. Most of them were not what you would call 'big plot', i.e. that involving politics and enemies and evil things and so on. They were, in fact, more what came to be termed 'soap opera' plot. You know what I mean: Who is sleeping with who, who is who's secret love child, who stole the communion wine from the church, who let his dogs worry farmer Brown's sheep. At one event, despite having allegedly more important (to my character) plot to deal with, I spent a good portion of one evening of one event listening to the worries and woes of both halves of a married couple who were having 'difficulties'.

Now, I think this sort of thing is a good thing to have in a game. It adds a level of versimilitude which aids immersion. Your NPCs have lives beyond the times they just happen to need to be there to be brutally murdered by this events monster of the week. If your crew are good, they can keep a group of players occupied through hours of what is usually 'deadtime' (i.e. when no 'important plot' is happening) with nothing more significant than a debate over wether two very ordinary people should get divorced or not. And when the players get caught in it, even better  

I've seen it at a few events. Riftworld, of course, is becoming notorious for it among the players and some of the NPCs. Vikings had a wonderful level of 'family life plot', though mainly only among the female players - who really were running things behind the scenes in a way in which few of the men noticed IC and probably OOC. I have heard tales which suggest that there is a good level of it among at least some of the groups at Maelstrom but I can't claim personal experience of it. I imagine (given the way that Vikings went) that Victoriana would have had a lot of it - the setting is primed for it.

So, good thing or bad? Discuss...

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester

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  I (pedantically) disagree- I think human interest plot* CAN be a sign of strong writing, but possible even more important than the written human interest plot is the stuff which emerges organically or gets made up on the fly by players and NPCs.  This allows people to feel like they've stamped a real personal touch onto their character (especially important for NPCs, in some ways).

*nice phrase, by the way- I don't mind 'soap opera plot', but it's a term whose meaning needs to be explained (if I saw it without a definition then I'd assume it meant 'ridiculously over-the-top plot twists', rather than just 'plots involving personal emotional conflict')

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  If the background is more exotic but also vague ("this society is a bit like Revolutionary France and a bit like Battlestar Galactica, except with elves") then decent players can still get human interest plot going provided they're able to form a rough consensus on their moral values.  Admittedly this approach is shakier than having a well-written background to fall back on, and the results will probably be somewhat less consistent, but you're still likely to get a certain amount of decent human interest plot emerging from it.

  So, I agree that a well-written background is likely to lead to more and better human interest plot (provided you already have decent players), but I don't think that all decent human interest plot requires a well-written background in order to emerge.

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LT - Captain Iolanthe Swan

Riftworld - Jenna Neraid, Clan Sceptre

Brighton Below - Drizzle

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

Mark Twain