Collaborative Chronicle Creation

[Ineti]

My apologies for the alliteration....

I'm in the middle of planning my first LOTR chronicle, and after reading the excellent core book, I'm going to attempt something I haven't tried yet. I'm going to talk to the players before the game and ask them what they want out of it, what they like, etc. in an effort to get their input on what the game should be.

All my experience prior to this has been me coming up with a story idea, and inviting players to play it, with little more input than what characters they'd be playing. The game would change and meld itself to the characters as it went on, but the initial idea would be mine alone.

What kind of experiences do y'all have in collaborative creation? Successes, failures, etc.

[Dan Stack]

In my experience, most players I have known know how much a GM puts into a game, which sometimes has the side-effect of them being overly flexible - "well, you're doing most of the work, I'm fine with whatever". Especially when you're open-ended.

What I find works best is collaboration on zeroing in on the type of game (i.e. what game and roughly what setting - like deciding on a LotR 4th Age game or a Star Trek: Pike era game)

Then the GM goes off and gets a rough outline for what he wants to do. After which it is presented to the players to get an idea what sort of characters they are interested in. Often comments the players make leads to some changes in the game.

For example our Star Wars game started with me and two players. We debated what era to set it in. The players all liked the Rebellion. One player liked the idea of a Han Solo-type character, the other liked the idea of being a Force-Senstive Imperial Senator. Some discussion led the two characters being half-sisters. Both are the children of a Senator of the Old Republic - one, the current Senator (just before the disbanding of the Senate) a legitimate one, the other - the smuggler, an illegitimate one. This relationship has led to tons of adventure ideas. More players have come and gone, but this is what got the game going.

[Greg Smith]

My ST: Dominion campaign has a lot of player input, since they are in charge of the resistance movement. And they enjoy the proactive nature of the campaign.

This means we have to have planning sessions, with them evaluating what to do next. Following their planning sessions, I go away and write episodes based on thier planned actions.

But there are still episodes where I dictate the plot. And I control the flow of the campaign.