[Twilight Time] Bulletins for Players

[Heather Grove]

July 25, 2003 - Bulletins for Players
Volume 4, Issue 7

This is the Twilight Time zine, the free zine of the Burning Void: 
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Copyright 2003 by Burning Void Publishing and Heather Grove, except 
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Good morning!

It's horridly humid here, but at least the nigh-constant rain has been 
great for the garden. The squash plants are monsters! Now if it would 
just stop raining enough that I could weed them...

At any rate, I'm finally sending out the zine issue, believe it or 
not. Also, my husband and I are getting rid of a whole bunch of books 
and stuff, so take a look at the announcements section after the 
article to see if you're interested in any of it.

Have a great day!
Heather



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Players' Bulletins

We've all been there before. A player creates her character, the game 
starts, and she finds that her character doesn't fit the game or the 
party at all. Or she's trying to work on a plot, but she has no idea 
where around town she can go or who she can talk to. One solution to 
this is a Players' Bulletin. In brief, a game master (GM) looks at the 
material on the location the game takes place in (or starts out in) 
and writes up a set of "crib notes" for players. These notes might 
include information on a few noteworthy locations everyone knows 
about, or a couple of groups or people everyone's heard of.

This can be useful in the character creation process; it allows 
players to integrate their characters into the game-world. A player 
might make the proprietress of the Blue Snake Bar one of her 
character's friends, or a part of her network of contacts. If a player 
fashions his character as a member of a street-gang, then the bulletin 
might give a brief summary of the three gangs active in the area, 
allowing him the chance to choose one that suits him best. As a caveat 
to this, if non-player characters (NPCs) appear in the bulletin but 
are not available for use as network contacts or as friends, this 
should be specified.

If nothing else, the bulletin can give players a feel for the 
atmosphere of the region they're playing in. This is a more tenuous 
thing, but it can be invaluable. That way you don't have one player 
creating a character appropriate to a high-society murder mystery, 
while someone else designs something more appropriate for a gritty 
police drama. A bulletin might well start off with a brief paragraph 
that explains what kind of game this is expected to be. Is it going to 
be dangerous, with high character turnover? Is it going to be 
high-epic, with the characters hob-nobbing with all sorts of important 
people? Is it going to be a dark, urban street-oriented game? Some of 
this is specified simply by the choice of game to be played, but that 
can still leave a wide range of possibilities up in the air. If you 
have a chance to meet with your players before character creation then 
you might not have to work this information into a bulletin--you can 
talk to them directly about it. It might not hurt to have the set of 
notes anyway, though, just as a reminder.


Learning Styles

Keep in mind that different people learn in different ways. For 
instance, some people learn better by hearing things, while others 
learn better by seeing things. It's a matter of how our brains are 
wired. Handing out a bulletin to someone who learns primarily by 
hearing things, or explaining everything verbally to someone who 
learns visually, isn't going to work all that well. Try to figure out 
the learning styles of your players and give them what they need 
rather than force-fitting them into your preferred style. If possible, 
provide the information in multiple ways--such as through verbal 
explanations, written material, and in-game experience--so that 
players with different learning styles all get what they need.

Keep in mind that while reading reams of material may be fun for you, 
it won't necessarily be fun for your players. Some people simply have 
trouble with it, and disorders such as ADD (attention deficit 
disorder) or learning disorders can physically interfere with 
someone's ability to sit and absorb large amounts of written 
information. So again, talk to your players and figure out what will 
work best for them. At the end of this article you'll also find some 
additional suggestions for working with players who don't want to read 
a lot of background.


What to Specify?

If your players go into a game with a clear idea of what it's going to 
be like, they're less likely to be dissatisfied with it. After all, 
when people who expect a movie to be a drama discover it's really a 
comedy, they tend to be disappointed even when it's a *good* comedy. 
Some of the things you could specify ahead of time are:

Epic level: should the players expect to save the world, Seattle, or 
the grocery store where they worked every summer during high school? 
This helps to shape players' expectations of how powerful their 
characters should be, which can strongly affect their character concepts.

Dangerousness level (expected death rate): will you do everything you 
can to keep the characters alive; should players have a couple of 
back-up characters ready; or do you expect to walk a line between 
these extremes? This helps your players to know how attached to their 
characters they should get, and how thoroughly they should detail 
their characters' backgrounds.

Ratio of personal plot to party plot: should the players come in with 
personal back-plots for you to play with, or are party plots the focus 
of the game? Again, this helps your players to know how much detail to 
put into their characters, and of what type.

Level of society the party may expect to deal with: can they expect 
homeless people and street gangs, university students and professors, 
spies and criminals, high society parties, or some mix of the above? 
This has a strong effect on character concept and skill choice.

Mood: is this a dark and angstful game, a game of wonder and 
redemption, or a comedy? If you don't want to give away your themes, 
you can simply specify "serious" or "light-hearted" or some similar 
vague adjective. This helps to prevent those situations where some 
characters are acting as though they're in a comedy while others are 
trying to engage in serious character development--this is often a 
recipe for dissatisfaction on both sides.

Geographic area: it makes a big difference whether the game is taking 
place in the Florida Everglades, the snows of Alaska, or Indonesia. It 
affects character background, concept, and skills.

Culture: What country does the game take place in? What's the dominant 
religion, if any? What odd cultural quirks are prevalent? Obviously if 
you're playing close to home you can probably just say so and leave it 
at that. If the city you're playing in is close to reality, you might 
tell your players which one it is simply so they can pick up a tour 
guide or a map and get familiarized with the area. If you have a 
preference, you can also specify whether the characters should be 
natives of the area or visitors. [TIP: if you know your players hate 
doing background reading and research, have them create characters who 
are visitors to the game region. This way you can use the game itself 
to teach them about the region.]


Bulletins During Game

Bulletins can also be useful during game. People and locations are 
resources in games, and if the characters don't know they exist then 
they may get stymied. Simply having a list of interesting 
establishments with a sentence or two about their purpose and the 
people associated with them can convince your players to get out there 
and get involved. Not every location in town need go into the 
bulletin, of course. You'll probably want to keep a few secrets for 
characters to discover as the game progresses.

Bulletins are even useful as sources of rumor, hearsay, and 
misinformation. It's perfectly reasonable that a starting character 
would only know that the Blue Snake Bar is rumored to be a drug house; 
he doesn't have to know that this is a lie spread by the competition. 
You may choose to hand out updates as characters become familiar with 
new segments of society, or as time passes and things change. If you 
keep things up-to-date enough, then you might hide clues to plots 
within the bulletin.

All in all, players' bulletins are a useful way to help players, 
characters, and the world mesh well with each other. They take time to 
put together, but make up for that time in the frustration they save 
later on.


Players Who Don't Want to Read

The one problem with this, of course, is that some players don't like 
to read large packets of information. You should try to get some idea 
of their tolerances (ask them directly), and tailor the length of the 
packet accordingly.

For the people who really don't like to read large amounts of 
information, you might do a simple sheet explaining what the run will 
be like, and a quick, no-frills list of interesting people and 
locations. The material on the game in general can be done in a 
paragraph or two.

If you're sold on putting in the reference material but you know your 
players don't want to do a lot of pre-game reading, then do it 
reference-style. Give a good table of contents or index and some 
well-organized and well-differentiated material. That way people can 
look things up as they become relevant, and read only a paragraph or 
two at a time.

Of course, there's that earlier tip about starting your players out 
with characters that are visitors to the game location. Some people 
simply learn things better by experiencing them than by reading them.

And then there's also that earlier tip about giving information 
verbally or experientially (through their game experiences) to people 
who don't learn well visually.

It's important to realize that not everyone learns information in the 
same way, and that an unwillingness to read your background material 
doesn't mean your players are lazy. There are plenty of ways to adapt 
your material to your players' learning styles. Hand out bulletins to 
the people who like to read, and work information in verbally or 
experientially for others. Even if none of your players like to get 
information by reading, the bulletin can still be helpful in reminding 
you of the information you need to get across.


What's Your Opinion?:

Comments on this issue's topic? Suggestions? Tips? Special topic 
requests? Drop me a line at (heather at burningvoid.com). If I pass any 
of your suggestions on (either through the newsletter or the RPG 
resources page), I'll attribute them to you. Be sure to tell me if you 
don't want me to use your name and/or comments!

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SITE UPDATE:

Burning Void Roleplaying Resources:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/roleplaying/resources.html

We're updating some old zine articles and adding them to the resources 
page. First is the article on spiritual journeys:

http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/roleplaying/Essays/spiritjourney.html


Burning Void Writers' Resources:
http://www.burningvoid.com/users/heather/writing/resources.html


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ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(Some press releases may be edited for length; no guarantee is given 
as to the legitimacy of any offers presented here)

Hi! This is your editor here. My husband and I are doing a bit of 
summer cleaning and selling off a lot of stuff, roleplaying material 
included (woohoo! We're reclaiming space!). If you live in the US (or 
in the case of the half.com material, Canada or the US) and are 
looking for some of the following material, please take a look. 
Obviously the auctions are time-limited, and some of them are closing 
in just a few days:


Amazon auctions:

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/customer-open-auctions/A2XPGNJ8YUPHM0/102-5271287-2915330

We're selling items from the FASA Dr. Who game, HackMaster, Kalamar, 
Cyberpunk, Fairy Meat, Principia Malefex, and the Whispering Vault.


Amazon marketplace:

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/customer-open-marketplace-items/A2XPGNJ8YUPHM0/102-5271287-2915330

We're getting rid of items from Trinity, Hunter, Dark Ages, Star Trek 
TNG, Multiverser, Mage, Shadowrun, Troll Lord Games, Vampire, Exalted, 
Gatecrasher, Kalamar, Werewolf, Pendragon, World of Darkness.


Ebay:

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=owling1&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50

VHS videotape collections: Babylon 5 season 1, two-thirds of Babylon 5 
season 2, the Vision of Escaflowne (subtitled), Neon Genesis 
Evangelion (subtitled). Also a bunch of Sega Dreamcast games, which 
have been selling fast (I listed them yesterday and I'm sending out 3 
already).


Half.com: http://half.ebay.com/shops/shops.jsp?member_name=owling1

We're listing more than 300 books and videotapes, including a large 
number of White Wolf books from almost every game line including Mage, 
Vampire, Dark Ages, MET, Hunter, Exalted, Werewolf, Kindred of the 
East, Werewolf Wild West, Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade, Trinity, and World 
of Darkness. Also some d20 modules, another FASA Dr. Who module, some 
odd things like "Cadillacs & Dinosaurs," a "Whispering Vault" 
sourcebook (The Book of Hunts), Tenchi Muyo!, as well as a whole lot 
of fiction, technical books, and a bit of everything else as well.

Thank you for helping me to reclaim my office from the piles of books 
that have taken it over! :)


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