Stories and Stereotypes

Question: You guys clearly have a lot of experience running games, so I've got to ask, how do you guys deal with characters who refuse to develop over the course of play?

We've been very lucky that most of our players don't have this problem, but we've seen it and we know how much it sucks. Some players have trouble developing their characters; for some, it's just that character development and story writing don't come easily, while for others it's more of a disinterest in the idea or even a flat refusal to change a character from their original basic vision.

A lot of it comes down to players understanding the kind of game you're playing. Scion is very much a story-driven game; it's about creating legends and myths, fulfilling the archetypal roles of human storytelling and creating your own new tales and ideals. Any good story needs character development, but that's not always easy for a player, especially if they're used to a game that doesn't necessarily require it, like D&D; if they're used to running in, beating up the bad guys and collecting their loot and experience points, the idea of having to tell a compelling story that changes over time may be more than a little weird for them. The first and easiest way to deal with the issue is just to make sure that players know what they're going into at the beginning: explain that this is a game about stories and legends and that you'll be creating those as you play, and that as a result you hope their characters will change and grow like any heroic figure in a saga or epic does.

But just knowing that may not be enough for some players - either it's something they struggle with, or it's something they didn't want to be doing in the first place, two very different problems. For players that just don't easily come up with those kinds of ideas, we've found that just encouraging them to discuss their characters out of game helps a great deal; the more they figure out about who their character is and where they came from, the better chance they have of knowing how they might change and react to various things that happen in the game. Remind them of NPCs (or even other PCs) they've interacted with, and ask them how the character feels about those people or beings. Ask them to think about what their long-term goals are - are you trying to prevent Ragnarok? Save someone important from their prophesied doom? Restore a lost civilization to glory? If a player knows what's important to his character, he's already halfway to being ready to grow when things happen that can feed into (or clash with) that.

If, on the other hand, you have a player who doesn't like or want to do that kind of thing, you have a more fundamental problem. Players who have no interest in developing their characters may sometimes be nudged into it by encouraging them to do background work or trying to convince them to think through their character's point of view, but more often they won't, simply because that's not what they come to the gaming table to do. They may be more interested in rolling dice and hitting monsters with large numbers. Maybe it's the math of the game that appeals to them, or hanging out with friends without having to think about it too hard. Whatever it is, however, if they're resistant to working on a character - and sometimes they are, because it feels to them like a Storyteller dictating to them how they have to play and enjoy a game - then you have a problem for the game as a whole and for that specific player. From personal experience, I can tell you that it seldom works out for either; the rest of the game is annoyed whenever the one-dimensional character that tags along intrudes on the stories they're building without adding anything to them, and the player who isn't worried about building up his character is bored solid when he has to sit around and wait for the other players to do whatever they're up to as a result of having developed their own characters.

So what do you do with this non-developing character? There are a few options, but whether or not they work is really more up to the player than to the Storyteller.

We're big fans of making the character development easy; come up with something you think would lead to cool developments if you were playing the character (she finds out she's actually the daughter of a completely different god than she thought, for example, or she discovers that her actions at a previous date have significantly altered her hometown), and spring it on the problem PC as part of a story. Even the most lackadaisical players usually notice if you suddenly shake up their character's foundation, and sometimes it gives them something to work with that they wouldn't normally have done on their own. Be careful, though - players who are very proud of their character may be upset if they feel that you're making changes to it or its backstory without their input, so feel out the lay of the land before you try it.

Another option is to collude with the other players; see if one of them has a particular story or plot they're building that might be able to include the problem PC, and let them try to offer to have her participate rather than doing it as a Storyteller (which can feel draconian or stifling to some players). Some players are more comfortable playing with their fellows than trying to play off of a Storyteller.

If you want to stay entirely hands-off from the PC to avoid upsetting the player, making big changes in the things that his PC thinks of as "status quo" can often force him to react. Even if you have a Scion of Horus who just never seems to change from the directionless clown-with-a-sword he started as and a player driving him who doesn't seem to have any interest in doing anything but stabbing Titanspawn faces, you can probably safely bet that if there's a huge political meltdown at home and Set takes over as king, homeboy will probably have some kind of reaction (possibly just choosing more powerful faces to attempt to stab, but hey, he's got a goal!). Stagnant characters can easily stay stagnant if nothing important in their world ever changes - so make a big change and see if it galvanizes them a little bit.

But if none of these approaches are working and you're still finding yourself with one player who's frustratingly resistant to ever developing while the rest of the game sails on without him, it may be time to sit down and have an out of character discussion with him. Odds are he's frustrated, too, if he's feeling left out or like nobody is playing along with him. Explain that you feel like the character is stagnating and not progressing like the others, and talk about what you might be able to do to give the PC more interesting options to explore. Sometimes a player knows just the thing thanks to a very different perspective on his character, and once you put it into effect he can catch on with no trouble at all. If there's nothing either of you can come up with to give that PC opportunities to develop or grow along with everyone else, then you also have the option of letting the player create a new one that works better; once in a while, a player will start with someone that seems like a lot of fun and realize later that he's stuck with a one-note character that isn't as much fun as he used to be, so giving him an out to start over with someone fresh and more interesting might solve everyone's problems.

And the last option, of course, is just to offer to let him bow out (I suggest offering to let the character go out in a blaze of appropriate glory if the player's interested - the two of you might have a lot of fun figuring out how to get rid of him or her if that player's on the way out anyway). If the game's not doing what he wants it to, and he's not doing what the rest of the game's players and/or ST want him to, it may just not be a good game for him. Let him know that you'd love him to stay but there'll be no hard feelings if he decides to move on to find (or run) a game that suits him better, and let him make that decision.

This all sounds a bit like I'm advocating booting players who don't "measure up" to a certain standard of storytelling, and that's not my intention at all; on the contrary, I think that every option should be explored to make a game fun for all the players, no matter what their preferred playstyle might be. But sometimes a player just isn't compatible with a game (or vice versa), and being able to recognize that and talk about it can prevent a lot of drama, resentment and hurt feelings instead of waiting until someone gets upset about it enough to have a meltdown.

There's also a lot of generalizing in this post, particularly when it comes to styles of games (i.e., Scion as a story- and world-building narrative game, and D&D as a slash-and-hack dungeon-crawler), which should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. It's entirely possible to run a D&D game that is positively brimming with character development, profound subtext and emotional connection. It's also entirely possible to run Scion as a simple beat up Titans, get fancy prizes smash'em game (especially at Hero level, doing so is very easy, in fact). There's nothing wrong with preferring to play beat-em-up-for-rewards kinds of games, just as there's nothing wrong with wanting to play in-depth character exploration games or enjoying a little bit of both. But everybody in a given game needs to be on the same page; if they're not, what you really have is four people playing a game together and one other person playing a completely different game in the same room with them, and unfortunately that seldom works out to be satisfying for everyone involved.