Here’s a question about adding in new players to an existing campaign:
I’m already two sessions in with two players — a Fool and a Noble. We did a LOT of world building Q&A together and I threw them into a conflict that’s deeply rooted in the answers that they gave me. When we left our heroes last, they were both in the midst of resisting capture by an ambitious org created through our world building.
Now we’re adding in two more people who will be in the campaign for the long haul: a Druid and a Wizard (both new to RPGs). I’d like to give them time to contribute to the world building, and I’m not concerned about that: there are plenty of blanks to fill about magic, geography, and politics.
What concerns me is how to use their world building answers while throwing them into conflict with an ambitious org that was created before their contributions were in the mix. I’m concerned that it will feel like they’re guest stars in the Fool’s and Noble’s story; I want them to feel like they’re stars too and this is their story.
Any suggestions?
In case it helps, the quick and dirty on plot so far is that there’s an ambitious org doing the bidding of an evil deity. The party split up in the first session. The fool was being pursued by a possessed agent of the god and was most recently tooling up at home for a big stand off. The noble was hitchhiking and got kidnapped by the god’s servants. We’ll have to play to find out what happens, but the villains aspire to kidnap and bring them both back to HQ.
Sub*
Love Letters.
Write something to each of the new PCs that…
1) gives a little back story on the ambitious org, the god they serve, or other key elements that have already been established
2) prompts them to fill in some of the blanks in those setting elements
3) implies/establishes their reasons for working against the ambitious org (and thus, for working with the established PCs)
I think with four at the table now it’s going to be very challenging to manage two separate narratives (the two existing players) and weave the new players in at the same time.
I would probably first get the new and old players caught up on what’s established in the fiction/world and then confirm with everyone from that point forward the fiction and world is fair game to all player contributions.
Do character creation with the new players as normal and get a few world building details.
Next, i would probably have each of the existing players describe a montage or a trailer of how each of their scenarios (no matter how bad ass they were) ultimately resulted in them ending up in a jail cell at HQ.
I would then ask some leading questions of the new players about how they ended up in the jail cell as well, and what their escape plan is.
After hearing the plan, I would surprise them by saying something like well all that goes off without a hitch until… (insert interesting moment of their plan), make a GM move at the players, and ask “what do you do?”
And you’re off!
oooh or have the existing players do same as above but have them end with how they ended up caged in the back of a cart traveling in a caravan to HQ.
Ask the new players who hired them to ambush the HQ caravans and why. Have the new players “rescue” the existing. 🙂
This is great! Thank you! And I’m also realizing that I should apply Ask Questions Use Answers to this meta stuff as well — present this and a few other approaches to the players and see how theyd like to handle it.