Storyboard: Cooking up a roleplaying event, part two

Today, I'm continuing on with my discussion of roleplaying events from two weeks ago, which seems fitting given the big event that I'm undertaking at the moment. (I'm running our Choose My Adventure column for the next few weeks -- you've missed a chance to decide on the game, but you can still make me dance like a puppet in other ways.) The first time around, we discussed three big mistakes that you can make when you're planning your event, making the same basic erroneous assumption that leads you to just throwing random ingredients into a bowl and calling the resultant mass a cake.

Really, just read the article; I think it came out rather well.

The funny part is, most of the stuff we discussed last week comes up during the planning stages of an event. We haven't even touched upon behavior during the event itself, which is the sort of thing that really makes the whole thing sing -- or as is sometimes the case, squawk awkwardly to the tune of MacArthur Park. So now that we've got the first part out of the way, let's talk a little more about making that sweet, sweet event cake come out nice and tasty.

Don't make attendance mandatory, and don't attend if you don't want to

Here's a pop quiz for you: Why is it that I work harder at Massively than I have at any other job I've ever held?

It's not just a love of gaming; it's the fact that my obligations take the form of accomplishments, not time spent. If I get my columns done in a timely fashion, write clean and error-free news posts, and generally contribute to the site in a productive fashion, it doesn't matter how much time I spend working. If everything I need to get done is finished within 10 minutes, that's great. If it takes eight hours, that's fine also. As a result, I buckle down and work hard because good work matters and time spent doesn't.

What does this have to do with roleplaying? Simple. If you want people at their best, don't force them to show up for events. And if you want to be at your best, don't show up for events unless you're genuinely interested in seeing what develops.

I'm not saying you should sit on the sidelines until an event caters to you, but there are certain things that make sense for a given character and certain things that don't. If you're playing an aggressive and dim-witted warrior in RIFT, you are not going to have much to do at an event dedicated to sharing theories about how to best influence and manage rift growth. Know your character's limitations and simply say that you won't be there if an event would leave you standing around with nothing to do.

You can argue this is the sort of thing that comes up in the planning stages, but I disagree -- this is one of the main reasons people wind up bored at events. The organizer either guilts people into attending or forces them to do so, and consequently, several characters are stuck in wallflower mode. We've already talked about what to do when you're just reacting, but if you know you're going to be in that situation from the get-go, just don't go. And do not put people in a situation in which they are going to be at a loss if they don't attend something that won't be fun.

Do give people something interesting to do the whole time

I once attended an event at which the crux of the entire evening was meant to be two characters arguing with one another. The rest of the attendees weren't meant to interact with the argument, they weren't meant to take sides, they weren't even needed there except for the fact that they would have missed the argument otherwise. It was an extraordinarily well-played scene by all accounts, but I still found myself losing interest because all of a sudden, my character could essentially be out to lunch for the evening's events.

Let me state for the record that there is absolutely nothing wrong with having an event based solely around two or three people. The thing is, you don't need to invite a half-dozen additional people just to see how awesome it's going to be. Let your scenes and events grow to encompass the number of people that they can actually support and no further, rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

Of course, sometimes you'll have players on hand who don't take part in the event, but that's a different event. What we're discussing right here is making sure that there is an opportunity for all of the people present to get involved in discussions and activities. If they subsequently fail to do so, that's something they need to work out.

Now, sometimes you'll have an event that winds up becoming an argument (or romance or whatever) between two characters just through force of personality. That's fine, but if you're one of the characters at the center, try to tone it down before you derail the entire evening. If a big event with several characters ends up centered around two people, have those two people stop talking, wander off, commiserate with others, etc. Or put more simply, if the two biggest sources of light in the event are just shining on one another the whole time, no one gets a chance to even reflect any of it.

Don't forget to have fun

Oddly, this seems like the most innocuous piece of advice here, and yet it's a little thing with a big impact on how real your events seem. So let's just put it out there: Your roleplaying events should not be dour affairs in which everyone is expected to treat everything as being a momentous change, with the entire group making pronouncements and acting as if this were a performance of Hamlet with a particularly stodgy audience. There should be jokes, there should be laughs, there should be even the occasional nudge on the fourth wall.

Some people do not seem to mesh with this philosophy, and they protest quite loudly that they are Telling A Story. The problem is that if you're going for any measure of verisimilitude, human beings do not act like that. We make jokes if we're nervous or uncomfortable. We laugh awkwardly, we get shy, we flirt with people, we get bored or angry or silly. The more people you have at a given event, the more likely it is that someone will get seized by a bout of ridiculousness. And that actually makes a big difference.

You know what events stick out in my mind? Events where everything felt normal up until some crucial statement or action threw everything off-kilter. Events at which everyone was laughing or politely debating some issue or another or even just spending time in an inn. It's the fact that the sudden change has a backdrop of normalcy, that these characters have actual lives and wants and needs rather than just being exposition for some revelation or another. Heck, I remember an interesting event in Star Trek Online that sticks out largely because for most of the event it was just two captains doing their job and escorting a prisoner.

I'm not saying that you can't do drama; I'm saying that there are moments of humor through most of human life, and it's unfair to try to force roleplaying events to be all dramatic reveals all the time. Leave space for people to relax and chuckle a bit or the whole thing will start going cross-eyed.

I'm sure there are points people will feel I've missed here, so feel free to let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments or mailing me at eliot@massively.com. Next week, I want to take a look at the breadth of roleplaying... because there's more to players than just roleplaying or not.

Every Friday, Eliot Lefebvre fills a column up with excellent advice on investing money, writing award-winning novels, and being elected to public office. Then he removes all of that, and you're left with Storyboard, which focuses on roleplaying in MMOs. It won't help you get elected, but it will help you pretend you did.