Ian Writes: "There is one great piece of advice in some actual plays I have seen for it. Make all the players take a relationship to a narrator character in character generation. That way the players are hooked right in. (Actually I also suggest making players take a relationship to that rlationship from another player i.e. A has a relationship to npc B and player B in addition to his relationship to npc C takes a relationship to npc B too)."
This is certainly an effective technique. But... there are other techniques, too. The point being that this is almost too simple, and it runs the risk of players creating the relationships in a pro-forma fashion. Does the player really think that the relationship is interesting and compelling? Would he have put it there if he'd not been required to do so?
I always make this an explicit option - players can create relationships to any NPCs they wish. I might even incentivize it by making these relationships free (though as often I want the player to spend to get the relationship, to make the point that it's important to them). But I don't ever require it.
There are other ways to make a scenario "grab" the players. WoS already has several listed in the text, in the character write-ups, in the "adding pressure" section, and in the "bangs" section. The simplest is having Aimee fall in love with one of the PCs. The PC doesn't have to reciprocated, but that doesn't matter. As soon as it happens, all sorts of forces are in play that are going to bear on the PC and get him involved: Noella will ask the PC to be quiet about it so as not to disgrace her daughter, and/or perhaps ask that the PC do something to make Aimee fall out of love with him. Or Guilbert might get jealous of the PC, and challenge him. Any number of things could occur, depending on how the PC reacts to Aimee's love. All without the PC having had any previous relationships with any of the NPCs.
So... yeah, it's cool if the PCs are linked in this way. But I recommend making it optional, so that some of the PCs can be "outsiders" and bring in those perspectives and ways of getting involved.
Mike
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