> But Ian is quite specifically
> suggesting that requiring every PC to have a link to a
> scenario is not only non-absurd, it's an improvement.
> And, somehow, he's doing it at char-gen, when to my
> mind you don't even know you're going to be running
> that scenario yet! So, I'd like to know how this
> works, since it seems that for him, it does, and if he
> can achieve what seems to me to be impossible, I'd
> rather learn from him than laugh at him.
Ian doesn't need me to fight his battles for him, so let me just say why I think this is a great idea and do sometimes use it. Not only does it provide all kinds of connections into the game, but it encourages the players either to look at a selection of NPCs in their setting (eg, if this is a classic Heortling game, then maybe you come up with a dozen other clan members) or even create them. So you hadn't thought of Elfrith the blind redsmith, but unless there is some reason why you ought to veto it then go with the flow and incorporate that into the setting and the game.
Perhaps the fundamental point, though, is your use of the expression 'you don't even know you're going to be running that scenario yet.' If running a game means collecting PCs and then placing them into a pre-planned scenario, then I can perhaps see the problem. I, like Ian, tend instead to have a general notion of conflicts, props and 'fun things that might happen' and throw the PCs into them, improvising along the way. Neither is a better or worse approach, but the latter does lend itself much more to being driven by a webwork of character relationships and can also adapt itself to the PCs' own inventions in that respect.
All the best
Mark
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