Running a successful FC storyline?

[chaoticsleepy]

Cross-posting this from my tumblr post, since I know there are quite a few people here who have or do currently run longterm plots for their FCs.

 

Gold & Glory is gearing up to get our first dedicated, longterm FC storyline going which will unfold over the course of multiple events spanning several weeks. And I’ll admit, while I've run a lot of our one-shot / short term events, I have no experience running larger, long-term storylines.

 

I’ve got the actual content of the plot more or less figured out, and I’m going to run this as largely free form (aka no extensive rolling or character sheets), but as for actually implementing and running it.. I’ve got some questions for people who have more experience!

 

1.) What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

 

2.) What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

3.) Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

4.) Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

Thank you guys so much for your help! I love my FC dearly and I really want to give them something fun and interesting like they deserve, so I’ll take all the help I can get to make that happen!

[Faye]

1. First, I think you need to find a good hook. Something that will really get people invested in the plot, IC and OOC, and want to play a role in it. Perhaps something semi-personal? I think it also helps to allow all sorts of characters to play a role. Something for the sneaky or scholarly types to investigate, something for the combat-oriented characters to fight, wounds for the healer characters to mend, people for the diplomatic characters to talk to, etc.

 

I'd also recommend each arc of the story run no more than six months, or people will likely begin to lose interest, get bored, start forgetting the details, etc. Less than three months, however, can make a story feel rushed and unimportant, so I'd say between 3-6 months is ideal. I also like to alternate between rolling and freeform for combat events, so everyone can have a shot at doing a combat event that suits their preference.

 

2. Try to avoid having the plot center around any certain group, particularly the officers, the FC leader's friends, etc. Try to avoid using tropes or enemies you see being used frequently around your FC (for example, I know Void corruption/possession was pretty rampant among HoD and the friends of our FC for a while, so it became a thing people got tired of role-playing). If you touch on some dark elements or other sensitive material in your plot, make sure everyone involved OOC is aware and unbothered by it.

 

Don't rest the plot upon the shoulders of someone who may be unreliable. Even someone who normally seems active, responsible, and reliable may flake out due to the stress or just have something RL pop up to take their time from the game. I've seen many a plot get stalled for weeks or even months because it was up to a person to set the next part in motion, and that person bailed and everyone had to figure out what to do without them. Lastly, don't have a storyline that's static and heavily scripted and pre-decided. Let your members have an impact on the story, let it flow naturally and logically, and let their choices have consequences.

 

3. Try to keep track of the current events of the plot somewhere your players can see, such as a thread on your forums (it can be an OOC thread, or perhaps an IC "here's what we know" document). Don't spoil anything or write out any clues or plot twists people are trying to work out, but give a recap of what happened and what is common knowledge.

 

4. Unless you find a way to pull it off perfectly (I surely haven't, but plots aren't my forte), it's inevitable that certain people are going to play more of a role than others. This isn't because of any sort of favoritism, but rather because those who put in more time and effort into the plot are going to be in more of the story and make more of an impact upon it. Those who are interested are going to be involved, and those who are uninterested aren't going to be included until you can figure out how to make them interested.

 

The best thing you can do is explain to your members that they will get out of the story what they put into it. Somehow it never seems to fail that if the same five people are the only people to sign/show up for every event, someone outside the group who's never tried to participate in the plot will complain about "favoritism." So... be prepared for that, I guess. >_>;

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Cross-posting this from my tumblr post, since I know there are quite a few people here who have or do currently run longterm plots for their FCs.

 

Gold & Glory is gearing up to get our first dedicated, longterm FC storyline going which will unfold over the course of multiple events spanning several weeks. And I’ll admit, while I've run a lot of our one-shot / short term events, I have no experience running larger, long-term storylines.

 

I’ve got the actual content of the plot more or less figured out, and I’m going to run this as largely free form (aka no extensive rolling or character sheets), but as for actually implementing and running it.. I’ve got some questions for people who have more experience!

 

 

Thank you guys so much for your help! I love my FC dearly and I really want to give them something fun and interesting like they deserve, so I’ll take all the help I can get to make that happen!

 

1.)  What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

 

This will depend entirely on how many players are in your FC and how active those players are. Unfortunately, players who aren't active in their attendance are probably just going to feel left out, because as the plot progresses the only way they can keep "caught up on current events" is to do a bunch of log reading (more on that later). Arguably, if they have very limited time to play the game they probably also don't have time to read logs, and so you may simply not be able to please that group.

 

One approach to try with the low-activity members is to come up with some element of the plot which specifically involves their character's capabilities which it could be said (with their agreement) that the character is working on even when the character isn't around - this essentially lets you use the character in the background as an NPC during the plot. For example, let's say this low-activity member plays a character who is a plain and simple warrior type. It's plausible that as a part of the plot, that character could be asked to keep watch over the FC house and report on any unusual happenings. If the player agrees that this could be going on in the background even when the player isn't logged in, then as the GM of the plot, you now have the ability to later to use that as a plot hook. Perhaps you want to say as a part of the story that someone suspicious was skulking about, and got run off by your guard character. Yay, now they've participated! Sort of.

 

As for the active members, a rule-of-thumb used in tabletop games is that (depending on the GM's personal comfort) no more than 4-6 players (not including the GM) is ideal for keeping things moving in a given scene. Less than that and you may encounter significant gaps in the ability of the group to overcome problems; more than that and scenes may get bogged down. This may mean you'll need to run scenes that cycle in and out who is actually participating in a given scene, to avoid it always being the same group.

 

It's a good idea to consider using a "post order" for the plot scenes, so that everyone has an opportunity to chime in - otherwise your faster typers may end up bowling over the slower ones. This also makes it so your plot scene can be inclusive of players with social anxiety who may feel disinclined to just chime in randomly, but will be pleased to do so when they know it's their turn.

 

2.)  What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

This is personal opinion, but - if you've played tabletop, you're familiar with the concept of "Random Encounters", which is to say "battles with patrol enemies or wandering monsters while en route to deal with the actual issue at hand". Here's the problem with these even in tabletop - Most of the time, if the players are even remotely competent, they don't present any actual challenge or risk to the group. They exist primarily as a test of resource management - does the mage use up her allotment of magic spells on the way to the nasty boss enemy, or does she conserve them? Short of terrible luck, you almost never have a character become seriously injured or killed during a random encounter.

 

So my advice is, skip the attempt to create the illusion of false tension - it doesn't work anyway, and players often just end up feeling like they piddled the night away rolling dice against peasants. Let your heroic characters be heroic. If you encounter some mooks, don't bother breaking out your rolling system or doing some prolonged RP battle with back-and-forth, parry-and-thrust. Be heroic. Be Marvel. Just one shot those idiots. The warrior walks right up to that highwayman and gibs him in a single post.

 

This keeps the overall plot moving more quickly, while also lending an air of confidence to the group. Meanwhile, it also ramps up the gravity of the important encounters because suddenly, when they're fighting Squelror the Madmage, they aren't able to cleave him in twain with a single hefty blow. He deflects, he avoids, he endures and continues fighting, and suddenly the characters know - Squelror the Madmage is serious business. As he should seem, given that he's an important encounter.

 

3.)  Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

Delegate. If you have 15 active players to manage to keep involved in the plot, pick a couple of them that are your most active and reliable ones and get them involved as subordinate GMs. That means you'll have to divulge some aspects of the plot, but that's okay (as long as said players also have a proven IC/OOC boundary). 

 

Delegation means that you could more easily manage the multiple scenes that will be needed in order to keep everyone active. Instead of you personally GMing three scenes with three different groups of five players (or maybe groups of six, with a little player-overlap), instead, it could be you and your two sub-GMs each running a group simultaneously in different locations of the setting. 

 

This also means that if something happens with your RL and you need to step away from the game for a few days, you can leave the sub-GMs with a to-do list and the plot can keep going onward. You can also rely on them to help you generate between-the-scenes RP...

 

4.)  Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

In as much as plot RP can be fun, it's also good to have downtime RP in between the plot scenes. Space out the advancement of the plot and give characters a chance to rest ICly and reflect on what's happened so far. This can be great for stirring up tavern type activity, since suddenly the characters all have something to talk about which can motivate them for that slice-of-life time. Friendships can form, debates can occur, and most importantly the characters may come up with ideas for how to resolve the problem without needing to be railroaded...

 

Don't railroad. That's huge. Players like to feel like their contribution and their characters' input mattered. Leave the bread crumbs out, but let the characters other than your own be the ones to discover the crumbs, and let them decide what kind of sandwich it was. This may mean that as the GM you will need to tweak your intended route for the plot to take, because they might decide the sandwich (to continue the metaphor) was on Rye bread, when you'd intended it to be on Sourdough. Oops! Hey, oh well. Shift gears as the GM and let them explore the rye bread possibility, and maybe throw in a way so that it could lead to the same overall course of plot anyway. It's okay to have it be a dead-end and they have to realize it was sourdough, too - but don't do that too much, because players become frustrated if they always feel like they're getting it wrong. Sometimes even if they do get it wrong, it's better to just adjust the course of the plot so that their wrong conclusion is actually now the correct one.

 

Lastly, keep logs of the plot scenes and post them on your FC's website so that members who want to keep up on the story can do so. It's also very helpful, as a preface to each log, to write up a quick summary - that way players who just want the meat of the story can read the summary, but those who want to read the entire scene can do so if they want to. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware there's no easy way to just click a button and have FF14 dump a log into a text file. Someone in the scene is going to have to be copying the posts to Notepad or something, all throughout the scene... tedious. But a necessary tedium if you want to avoid having half a dozen players constantly asking you "So what happened in the scene last night?!"

[Sylastair]

1.)  What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

If you intend to take part in the stories (as the leader) unfortunately, there is no easy answer. If I have one fear when it comes to our FC's plots, it's just this. My first recommendation is having 1-2 people who are in on the plot, know the whole story and who are comfortable calling out issues (and you) if things seem out of place or they begin to focus too much on certain players/groups. Next, think of your character as a driving force ICly and OOCly. Get a good IC 'chain of command' and use it any and every chance you get. 

 

When I have a plot or event planned, I think about Flynt initially as a driving force, he comes in, says "Oh snap ____ happened!" Then I shut up and see if that is enough to get people spinning. If someone is always quiet, I may use Flynt to 'drive' them into involvement. "Hey you, go check this for ____." I only really think about Flynt as someone who can interact with the plot once I know it's just him reacting to what everyone chose to do. "You guys did great!" or (and usually) "WHY IS EVERYTHING ON FIRE." 

 

As the DM/Lead /and/ a player, it is really easy for it to become centered around you, even if you try like hell not to. The best thing I can recommend is starting the fire, then backing away and just stoking it where you need to, send tells to officers with prompts or things they may know before hand, maybe that'll be enough to get things going and then bam! it's just rudder corrections. 

 

TL;DR - Get people around you who will keep you in check, set up a chain of command and use the hell out of it ICly and OOCly to push all your peeps in the general direction you want the plot to go and put the success of the story over your personal interactions with it.

 

2.)  What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

Communication in FC chat amongst the group goes a VERY long way. If everyone is relatively comfortable with one another, it may already exist which is great. For us, we have a lot of asshole rude angry PASSIONATE characters with very different ideas on how to skin the proverbial cat. Over the course of a longer plot, disagreements and fights early on can drastically affect RP at the end, and using FC chat as an OOC place for everyone to kind of joke around about said tensions and feel comfortable helps bring everyone together wanting to see the /Free Company/ plot succeed versus their personal plot/goal. 

 

3.)  Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

So we break up plots into "Seasons" that are eight weeks long and have Saturday "Episode" events. I have a write up over the direction the overall FC plot continues to drive in, but by chunking it out I think it makes it easier for the players to hop in and out of, and for the DMs to execute. Structuring things in chunks also makes people want to get involved from the get go, and gives them a guideline of what to expect roughly and something to ICly talk about if RL forces them to miss an episode. 

 

Also, we created our own combat system for events/boss fights/enemy interactions. It works great for us and our needs, so consider developing your own OR using one of the many others have already made. I have seen a ton of great combat systems that I love, and can easily be used for your FC. 

 

4.)  Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

 

Consistency, consistency, consistency. Set days/times for your RP sessions, put it on the FC boards, and then hold to those times the best you can, even if you can't make it pass it to others to run on their own. If you invest in your plot on a long enough timeline, others will too. My only warning is that when you do this well, you may walk away from some sessions realizing you didn't really RP at all. Having a few Co-DMs who can take care of the details and drive for you occasionally goes a long way in keeping from getting burnt out. 

 

 

Apologies for the long rant, this is honestly just a great series of questions I wish I had asked when I started doing our FC plots. If you have any other questions or just want to spitball stuff, feel free to hit me up any time, plotting and DMing can be the Lord's work sometimes :thumbsup:

[C'kayah Polaali]

1. This is a tricky one. The key thing to remember, in my opinion, is that everyone likes being the hero of their own story. It's not always easy to enable this to happen for everyone in an arc, but it's a good goal to have. Every RPer is different, but you can start looking at the general cohorts your players fall into: Do they like high fantasy or low? High power or low? Dark and gritty? Heroic adventure? If you advertize your arc, you'll naturally self-select people who want to play in the type of arc you're running. If you start out with a collection of players committed to playing in it before you've unveiled it, though, you'll want to spend some time making sure the arc suits the type of players you have.

 

2. The main pitfalls I'd warn about are heavily scripted stories (if you've ever played in one of these, you'll know what I mean. You feel like an actor who's been handed a script. That's great for actors, but not for RPers), and stories where a few players get to be the hero while the rest are there to support them. It's fun for the heroes, but seldom fun for everyone else.

 

One very specific pitfall to guard against, by the way, is the failed skill check. It's really common to set up skill checks where success is needed to progress the story: The players need to find the missing princesses' locket to know that she's in love with Prince Elderberry, and until they can succeed in that, the story is halted. This is bad because it turns the skill check into an unsatisfying time sink, especially if it's a skill check that's resolved with some sort of roll. At best, the players keep rolling until they succeed. At worst, they're frustrated because some branch of the story gets closed off to them because of the luck of the dice. Instead, try to structure the skill checks such that success brings them some advantage, while failure brings them some sort of disadvantage that still allows the story to progress. If they can find the secret door into Castle Black before the patrol returns, they don't have to fight them. If not, then they still find the door but the guards see them and they have to fight.

 

3. Have NPCs. It's fun to imagine that the entire arc will be entirely player driven, but that seldom happens. Having NPCs that are available to administer gentle nudges is a good thing. NPCs can make good foils for your players, or they could support them, or any number of things. Some people like playing NPCs, too, so don't be afraid to ask people to play throw-away NPCs during events.

 

4. Having some sort of tool that lets you keep track of all the elements in the story is a good one. I like Trello a lot, because it's basically a digital cork board with cards. I can keep track of the players in a story, what they're doing, all the elements in play, etc.

 

Do things to help your players feel that they're part of all this. OOC threads talking about the arc. IC threads for people to write the stories of their characters during the arc. Some sort of out-of-game forum or tool to let people communicate about things going on in the arc. An arc is an arc, and that's fun, but what you really want is to build a community around your arc.

[Delilah Scythewood]

Was thinking of working on my own response, but the others already took the words from my mouth! The only thing I can think to add is to try not to overstress yourself. It's okay to have a week or two with no storyline specific event if people are burned out/tired/busy.

[ExAtomos]

Oooh, glad you asked this! I started a FC plot a little while ago a bit spontaneously and I'm running into a lot of these issues.

[C'kayah Polaali]

Was thinking of working on my own response, but the others already took the words from my mouth! The only thing I can think to add is to try not to overstress yourself. It's okay to have a week or two with no storyline specific event if people are burned out/tired/busy.

 

This! Very much this!

[lutroxical]

Lots of good advice here!  I may take a little to heart too. Having run an FC for a decent while now myself, I can say you mainly just have to keep your ear to the ground and try to gauge the pulse of what your members are feeling, both IC and OOC. 

 

It's great to have a plan, but if no one likes your plan, everyone's gonna have a bad time. Being flexible and open to change is I think the best mindset to have. If an event is running too long and people are losing focus, cut out a step and get to the 'boss' or plot point you need. Don't stick to the combat rules too closely--let your members free write it sometimes. Allow members to affect the plot as best you can. Let non-officers hold most of the spotlight after the initial scene setup. 

 

These are the things I have tried to adhere to over my time as a leader. Sometimes these can be hard--especially when you have a certain goal that you need to reach to proceed to the next step. But then it comes back to flexibility. Just balance as best you can, and cater to the types of personalities in your FC.

 

Even if the plot is super dark and serious, having fun as a group is really the ultimate goal here. As long as you try to have fun and keep a positive attitude, people usually follow suit.  I wish you all the luck!

[Aedan Marceaux]

As obvious as this may sound... include your FC.

 

Be open to suggestions, make alterations to whatever plan you have to be as inclusive as possible.

 

It sucks being on the outside of a story arch that is labeled "FC storyline". Make it a point to include every last person in your company. Unless, of course, there are people that have asked not to be included/opted out/whatever.

 

But yes, the biggest hiccup I see with these things is people claiming the "FC storyline" as their own and not being open to any sort of criticism. If you label it FC storyline... again, make it include the FC.

 

Sorry... captain redundancy out.

[Verad]

1.)  What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

 

2.)  What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

3.)  Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

4.)  Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

Thank you guys so much for your help! I love my FC dearly and I really want to give them something fun and interesting like they deserve, so I’ll take all the help I can get to make that happen!

 

 

1. Let the people who want to be involved, be involved. Do not force the people who aren't interested in being involved not be involved.

 

As others have said, the players who are invested in the plot are going to put more time and effort into it than the people who aren't. This is pretty much inevitable, and I can point to the last three storylines I've run as having an "arc" of player investment: First, when the plot was in its infancy, events would have a broad number of players as everybody signed up to test things out. As the storyline progressed, some players would sign up more frequently and take a greater IC and OOC investment in events, and others would drop out, until by the storyline's end it was the people who were most involved who saw things through to the end.

 

This is all pretty normal and expected. The important thing is to ensure that the players who don't participate are doing so because they choose not to do so, rather than because they feel like they are being excluded, intentionally or otherwise. Communicate with members who aren't involved or are only involved to limited degree to learn who you could incorporate.

 

2. To my dice-addled brain you've already fallen into one by going freeform. Grab sheets!

 

In all seriousness this will cause some difficulty because you will have a hard time convincing players of failure. Often players will have a pretty set-in-stone idea of their characters' chances of success at a given action, and having that contradicted without some sort of randomizer to determine success and failure can lead to arguments and frustration. Even if it's a simple /random check, it's useful.

 

Failing that, I think you can disregard some of the advice mentioned above like random encounters since they rely on tabletop conceits of having character sheets and measurable, expendable resources.

 

I would also suggest you be prepared to have your plot derailed. People will talk about this in terms of avoiding railroading, but really it means plotting out all reasonable possibilities in your plot and still being surprised when the characters defy them, then choosing to roll with the unexpected. You should be prepared to have your plot end in a very different direction than what you originally anticipated when players both succeed and fail in unexpected ways.

 

A useful way to construct a plot in this regard is not to think in terms of story arcs, but in terms of cause-and-effect. Give all parties goals and relative timetables, and figure out what happens if the cast doesn't interfere in some way. Use that to determine what happens if the players do alter things at a certain point, and change the goals of other characters accordingly.

 

3. Setoh already discussed the fail-forward philosophy, which I've used to great effect myself, so I won't repeat that here.

 

One thing you should think about is how characters handle consequences directly impacting them. The obvious example is character death, but really any significant harm to a character could be something a player didn't sign up for. Make sure that players are aware of the potential end results - so, for example, when one of my storyline events could easily result in character death, I would mark them as Lethal to ensure players knew the risks.*

 

4. Partition a specific amount of OOC time for yourself to handle questions and discussion from the players each week, or you will be getting them at all times during an ongoing storyline. Setting office hours like this was a huge boon to my sanity.

 

It's okay if there are lulls in the plot, especially if things proceed over a series of real-world months, and especially especially after a significant high point in the story. Just be sure to keep people aware of the storyline still-being ongoing and ready to go again once they've had time to recharge. 

 

*They haven't lost a character yet to these lethal events, but one of these days. Oh, one of these days . . .

[Mae]

1.) What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

 

First off, don't expect that you'll get everyone in the FC involved AND keep them the whole time. And don't make attendance mandatory -- you'll only risk getting resentful participants who will spend more time trying to find a way out.  Which could include them giving their character a case of temporarily dead/kidnapped/not permanently terminally ill, which could hijack your story.

 

Most people, when being presented with the idea of being involved in the plot in the beginning, will jump for it. That typically isn't a problem, so don't sweat that part. It's getting people involved again that fell by the wayside (they missed a day when something important happened, they lost interest for a bit and are now interested again) or didn't have interest in the beginning (the dreaded OOC argument of "But this isn't something my character would be involved with!") but developed interest further down the line that you should consider. Locate and hold aside plot threads that won't kill the plot progression if they're not discovered/explored by the main group for the purpose of bringing in/bringing back people later in the story progression.

 

If you notice the plot starting to revolve around a select portion of your active participants, don't wait and hope that one of the others will step forward. This division (in my experience) tends to happen when you have a divide in participant's... capacity. Slower typers, maybe they're not logic'ing their way through the plot as fast as the growing 'super team' is. Assign stuff to these people that you might've just left for the group to possibly discover at random, and make it more personal than just "someone finds a journal from the missing person". Opt for a "In the morning, X will find a letter addressed to them in their mail -- it seems someone mailed the missing person's journal to X". Give them a few solo moments to shine. If they re-engage in a reasonable way, then it's just a case of they're a bit slower with their RP and you might want to consider tweaking some things so that they don't get left behind.

 

If they don't re-engage, then you're possibly dealing with someone who is... just actively spectating. Not much you can really do with someone like this. I have someone like this in my RP group, and it doesn't matter what we serve him on a silver platter, he does not engage (or if he does, he engages 30 minutes after we moved on after waiting 5 minutes for a response and not getting one, and as if the past half-hour of RP hadn't occurred). It is frustrating, but if after several attempts to get them to re-engage doesn't work, then stop wasting time on them and just accept them as a lurker.

 

 

2.) What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

Pacing.

 

Holy crap, but pacing/timing is something that can so easily screw you up in a long-running, large-group RP. And unfortunately, the only way to avoid it is to know how to accurately read your group. There is a fine line between progressing too fast (and therefore making people feel rushed and unable to explore parts that they find interesting) and progressing too slowly (where people feel the plot is dragging and begin to look elsewhere).

 

Always have side-stuff prepared, in case people find a part that they want to stop and linger on, and (depending on the theme of your plot) don't be afraid to have these eventually become false leads/dead ends if following them doesn't suit your overall purpose. It is better to let the group deviate a bit from your itinerary and have fun and then rein them back in than it is to leave them thinking "Gee... that could've been interesting/fun/logical.".

 

Similarly, be prepared to cut/trim/condense/"It Happened" a plot point if it starts to bore people. Even if, in your mind, this plot point is SUPER IMPORTANT and you put a lot of time and effort into it. If your participants aren't having fun, you run the risk of them wandering off. Cut/condense/"It Happened" the material for now, consider it for reworking later.

 

 

3.) Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

Periodic debriefings. Both IC and OOC. IC ones allow characters to get on the same IC page, discuss/explain things that others may have missed, and allows people who disengaged to re-engage and get ICly 'caught up' without a dreaded "Hey guys, what's up?" cropping up just as everyone's plotting on how to storm the fortress, or whatever. If you're not taking logs of the rest of the RP, you should take logs of any IC debriefings and post those up. OOC debriefings, these you should use to gauge how your pacing is, and how engaged people feel. Was there a really dizzying jump in logic that no-one really gets? Think of it as a progress report.

 

Second, is prepare for people to not follow your exact script. When I write even just a short plot, I write multiple paths that might be logically taken, so that my players might -not- manage to outsmart me and go off in a direction that I didn't plan. It doesn't always work (one person I RP with regularly, I'll plan five different paths and 50% of the time he'll come up with a sixth and I have to scramble to contain him cause he'll just keep going like a runaway train) and if your players are just not getting the hint, DO NOT BE AFRAID of using some horrible cliche/trope/whatever to stop them. I haven't had to do it yet, but I am not afraid of dropping a massive, dangerous storm or other natural disaster onto a group in order to stop them from running wild.

 

Actually, in general, don't be afraid of cliche and trope. The reason why many things become cliche and trope is... because they work. If a logical progression/train of thought/plot twist/conclusion to any aspect of what your planning suddenly feels cliche/trope-y, don't feel like you have to scramble to get out of that and find something totally unique. Embrace it. Do it -well-. We make fun of cliche and trope because so many people use them poorly. When cliche and trope is done well, most people won't even realize that that's what they're dealing with -- they're more kicking themselves in the butt for not realizing the obvious. Which can be EXTREMELY satisfying.

 

 

4.) Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

Don't be afraid to call and/or allow a break if you notice that people's attentions are starting to wane. When this happens, it's typically one of two things; they're bored, or they're starting to feel mental fatigue, both ICly and OOCly. If it's the former, a break lets you re-evaluate what you're doing and figure out where the problem is. If it's the latter, it lets both characters and players recharge. If they're up to their eyebrows in super-serious RP, a day of relative lightheartedness is occasionally needed.

 

Never leave a coded clue behind that, if decoded, negates all your plans for the group to run around and do stuff. I saw it happen once -- DM had the villain leave a coded letter behind along with a clue as to where the villain went. Most of the group just went with the clue and began a merry chase, which is what the DM wanted. But one person stayed behind to work on the coded letter, and because it wasn't a very sophisticated code, he managed to crack it ICly in a very short amount of time (like.. by the time he figured out where all the E's, T's, H's, A's, and I's were, he saw that all the letters were just shifted by a value of 10 or something) and solved the whole thing because it turned out there wasn't actually a villain and someone was just leaving and the 'clue' was their good-bye note.

 

Plan back-up villains/mini-bosses. Especially if you have a villain/boss who isn't a fighter. Years ago, a friend was DMing a long-term campaign for our circle of friends. The intro scene for the day's RP, me and the friend I was teamed with utterly botched our willpower rolls, our characters went into a feeding frenzy (we were playing Vampire the Masquerade), then we both rolled damn near perfect 10's and attacked an NPC. The DM then botched the NPC's rolls. As soon as the NPC hit the floor dead, the DM sighed, looked at us, and said "... Well. We need to break for an hour, now... the priest you two just steamrolled was today's boss and I gotta come up with a new plot."

 

 

Also.

 

Do not expect perfection.

 

Do not take it as a total disaster and think that you're an utter failure if you end up having to trash the plot after a couple weeks. There is a learning curve when it comes to these sorts of things. Keep it firmly in your mind while running this that you have never done this before. Keep it firmly in your FC's mind that this is your first time and that you are the first one to run one of these with this FC. There is no precedent for you to look back at that deals SOLELY with this group. You're breaking new ground for the FC, and no-one knows what is and isn't going to work for the FC until after your plot. Take it as a learning experience.

[Grott]

From the looks of it, you've already got a lot of sick tipz n' trix to make a successful FC storyline, but I figure I'll throw in my own brief comments.

 

Not going to answer all 4 questions because I don't have the time to write it and you probably won't want to read all of it anyway. I'll just relate my own experience.

 

So anyways, my FC is similarly beginning a potentially long storyline, and for the first time in recent memory it doesn't revolve around the game's main story. What we found, and this is pretty circumstantial, is that you can make it fun without revolving it around a single individual by giving everyone a big part to play. I'll use us as an example:

 

We all recently came back from a long hiatus, and we've basically begun what we call "Misericorde Phase 2" in which really none of the original members are around anymore. They've since been Fantasia'd and name changed to our current characters, but we keep them around with Skype RP and reference them with our current characters. Our big scenario right now is: The original members are missing, and where have they gone? Everyone gets to be equally involved because it's multiple characters (our characters) that are missing and we basically have a big, loose framework of how it's going to play out in the end, but we're doing pure improv up to that point. This way everyone is important and everyone has a voice. We seriously passed around a non-functioning linkpearl for two hours last night, building on each other's descriptions until it became way cooler than it started.

 

You just have to make sure your group is one that jives well together to begin with. If one person has a different world-view than everyone else (for instance, we're kind of the cosmic horror/gritty realism types, so a jpop catboy might want to take his story to a different direction) then the story might veer off to a place that upsets others, and begin to feel one-sided. 

 

Sorry, this is very anecdotal and super rambly. My point is A. Keep it loose, B. Know where you're going, C. Know your people, D. Improv can work out really well if you feel like you've put yourself in a corner, as long as A-C are accomplished. 

 

Hope that helped. Maybe it didn't. Idk, I'm not a mind-reader.

 

Side note: This is also coming from a very small FC, and we've known each other a while. It might not work for your dynamic, especially the idea of improv-ing your way out of corners. But give it a try if you want. It's just a game after all.

[John Spiegel]

1.) What’s the best way to get and keep everyone involved, so the plot doesn’t end up solely gravitating around one individual / group?

 

First of all, knowing what your group likes or might like to try would be key. And to keep people involved? Break up branches. Think FF6 where everyone splits up for awhile and makes new friends!

 

2.) What sort of pitfalls or common / easy mistakes would you guys warn against falling into?

 

Common pitfalls is thinking that everyone wants one thing. Communication is key.

 

3.) Conversely, what are the things that may not be obvious, but I should be doing anyway?

 

Communication to the point it might seem annoying to your folks. See what they want, see what they could add, pool their writing abilities OOCly.

 

4.) Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, warnings…?

 

Communicateeeeee!

 

Know your audience. If your group is pretty happy with short but consistent stuff, but you want to lay on some major mechanics change, you should bring it up with them.

 

Some groups are all about constant and big moving plots while other FCs are a tad looser or prefer closer-knit things. It's the nature of large and small RP circles.

 

It's inevitable every few months I get a sense of dread that my folks aren't happy since we really don't do massive overarching FC plots but rather all have our own things going on and weave in and out and also have some group things in the form of jobs or gatherings nearly weekly. Then again, most of my ilk have been spurned in the past of not making "REQUIRED GAME EVENTS" and such, which, again, might appease some folks especially those in college or on break. Adult life is a tad more difficult!

 

TL;DR -- Communicate until you become the next AT&T and then communicate more.

[Caspar]

I appreciate that you made this thread and everyone who contributed advice. Truthfully I've wanted to get a storyline going, but it fell by the wayside as people grew inactive and scattered to different groups, and I grew complacent. I will continue trying to make connections so I can truly give it a fair shot. A greay deal of advice about how to include others is useful to me here.