In my experience it helps if the GM contributes some ideas about
what he'd like to run. A completely blank slate may not get
the juices flowing, or may generate too many ideas to choose among.
I am personally very fond of having a strong link among the PCs:
I GMed a (multi-player) game where the PCs were the family members
of a gypsy caravan that worked really well. In the first session
they hashed out the family tree, picked out roles (the matriarch
with a dark secret, the drunken uncle, the two rival brothers),
and gave me two party NPCs to develop. The game clicked much
faster than usual because we had so much context.
However, some players turn out to loathe this, so I wouldn't
force them to do it.
Some useful non-technical questions are "What kind of situation will
give your character a big chance to ****ne? What kind will be
particularly tough for him? Here are some possible hooks for
early adventures: which would grab him the most?"
It seems to me that some of the players who hate cooperative
character generation hate it because they are afraid they'll be
strong-armed into filling some boring niche (healer, place-holder
fighter, that sort of thing). You might make it clear that the
cooperation is more about "Why are we together? What are our
plans?" and less about "Who has to play the boring roles?" Ideally
there should be no boring roles: if there is something the
group agrees it must have, but everyone hates to play it, look for
a creative solution. (In D&D the splatbooks can help here. I
mistrust them, but if you need novel ideas, they have ideas
aplenty.) Or you can offload that role onto an NPC, in a pinch.
Two of the gypsy-party characters were NPCs because they filled
niches we wanted (the cheeky kid, the conscientious administrator)
but didn't seem like good PC material.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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