Player vs. Party

Like it or not, the party of adventurers/soldiers/whatever that you control
in a scenario is a character in that story. Now, there are good characters
and bad characters, shallow characters and deep ones. I'm not necessarily
saying that you need to make the party have a complex past and internal
struggles - generally, that's a pretty bad idea - but decide what kind of
character the party in your scenario is going to be and know why you made
that decision.

One very typical example is the "Faceless Party". Words are never put into
the party's mouth, and the party is never faced with any real choices. The
party just does what anyone would do, so can be anyone.

Designers use this when they want the player to feel like he is actually in
the scenario. They kill off anything that might make the player realise that
he isn't actually the one saving the day. If the party says something the
player didn't decide to say, or does something the player didn't decide to
do, the bond between player and party is broken.

At the Gallows does this a fair bit, to it's detriment. All through the
scenario you've controlled a faceless party. Then the Bad Guy shows you his
point of view - a fairly compelling one - and asks you to join him. At that
point your party speaks up and refuses, carefully stating their reasons why
not (oddly enough, not including the fact that he's a soul-devouring Lich).
Suddenly having 'yourself' say something when you didn't choose to say it is
disorientating and pulls the player out of the scenario. There's a lot of
things that At the Gallows does well - but this isn't one of them.

If you can keep the association between player and party strong, the
faceless party is often a good way to go. But this is far from being your
only option.

Another (fairly) common example is where you allow the player to choose what
kind of character his party is going to be. This can work very well. You can
allow the party to make real choices and do things that you couldn't force
the player into with a faceless party. They are free to walk the straight
and narrow or explore their darker side.

The big drawback here is the amount of work this involves. If you're going
to give them choices, you have to let them play out the consequences of
those choices. This means you're doing twice, three times, maybe six times
as much work as you would otherwise. And sure, they might replay it to see
what would happen if they acted differently, but if you're going to give
them real scope, you have to accept that most people won't walk down every
path you write.

A great example is Of Good and Evil. You are given one key, vital choice
that splits the scenario in two - and a host of smaller choices. Perhaps
you're a loyal soldier who simply follows orders. Perhaps you followed
orders, but because you thought it was the right thing to do, not because
they were your orders. Perhaps you disobeyed orders - and are prepared to do
it again. I think there's about six endings to this scenario, and all depend
on the kind of character you play.

Compare this to Spears. There's a similar major choice - but no minor ones
after that. You can choose to follow orders and help the Undine, or disobey
and help the Sliths - but you don't get to decide why your party did it.
Perhaps you think the Undine are monsters and just want to kill them
(understandable)? Too bad. You're going to find yourself fighting to supress
the rebel sliths who don't want a peace treaty. If you're going to let them
disobey one order, why not another and let them help the rebels? Again, It's
a scenario that does some things well - but not this.

And then, there's a trend that's becoming fairly pronounced in recent BoE
works. You're given a character that you control - but no attempt is made to
pretend that he is you. He's usually given a name and he makes his own
decisions. You're more an observer than anything. This can work very, very
well.

Look at Emulations. Your character becomes possessed by a mad Demon-thing
and you go on a killing spree, absorbing strength from your helpless
victims. You couldn't do that with a faceless party - sure, there's always a
few who love to kill anything and everything, but for the most part they'd
feel very guilty. As is, it's way cool and very fun.

The key here is to do everything you can to divorce player from party. Don't
use phrases like "you say" or "you feel". Let the character suprise and
intrigue us, but don't pretend he is us.

Quintessence is in some ways a warning against this. We don't watch poor
Jonah fall in love - we get told that we are in love, and our immediate
reaction is "Huh? No I'm not.". We start thinking "How can I be in love with
her? I've seen her for maybe ten minutes." Sure, we can buy that someone
else might experience love at first sight, but don't try to tell us that
we're feeling it ourselves.

I'd really like to see this sort of thing taken to greater extremes. In The
Last Express (not a Blades scenario!) you play a young man named Robert
Cath. He finds his friend murdered and instead of alerting the authorities,
he throws the body out the window and takes on the dead man's identity. We
don't understand why. Then we find out that he's being pursued by the
police. It's not until late in the game that you discover whether or not
he's actually guilty - and you're controlling him the whole time! I'd love
to see something like this done for Blades.

And still, there's another choice. You can try to combine player and party,
you can try to keep them separate - or you can bring them into active
conflict.

The only existing example I can think of is Johnny Favourite, a scenario I
hated. Not that it's necessarily a bad scenario - other people love it, and
for the exact same reason that I don't. But leaving arguments about quality
aside, let's focus on technique. Spoilers here.

In Johnny Favourite, people are being butchered horribly in your hometown.
You try to find the killer. When nearly everyone is dead you realise who it
is - yourself. You kill yourself, the scenario ends.

As I said, not my favourite scenario, despite the title. But imagine playing
a cowardly Dr Jekyll-type character - trying to find a way to destroy the
Hyde in you without killing yourself, all the while avoiding getting caught
by the guards. In the hands of a good designer, this could be an awesome
scenario.

Ultimately, the decision belongs to the designer. Go the traditional way if
you like that best, or perhaps try to be cutting edge. Whatever your choice,
be sure it's the right one for your story and be sure that you do it the
whole way.

- The Creator