at the micro level there are as many different styles as there are storytellers, and for each group they run
going up macro a bit there are some more across the board styles:
local campaign - Sartarites/clans/forging a living in hostile and interesting countryside
gritty adventuring where a party of mostly (or all) human adventurers team together and face angst, danger, REAL adventure and the slim chance of reward (I've played this)
low-heroic adventuring where the party face all that
stuff and lots of interestin weirdness and generally tend to do
reasonably well, and probably have a few non-humans amongst them
(I've run this)
higher-heroic adventuring, where the party kicks ass across the whole of Glorantha (never played or run it, except as a campaign finale, but read about it on site write-ups)
fantasy-heroic adventuring, using as a backdrop the marvellously well
detailed world of Glorantha, however the characters themselves are an
extremely unusual bunch, flung together in some odd way, and seem to
keep stumbling upon unusual and fascinating happenings, as if they
were the TV equivalent of the characters in Dr Who or Timeslides.
(the fantasy literature equivalent being stuff like fafrhd and the
grey mouser, conan, etc) - I'm running this now, altho I do spend a
fair bit of time and energy illustrating for players the
(game-)realistic world in which this takes place. Its amazing how a
background that hangs together coherently can support a wacky game
without it seeming out of context.
All of these I'm sure can spawn a variety of interestin characters. My list of these would really a 'you had to be there' list as what makes them specially interesting is how they operate in play. For instance you can talk all you like about the morocanth stormbull who 'slashed' his way out of the sea demon's stomach by rolling a critical with his rune-enscorcelled fighting knife, but unless you were there and cheered him on, its not quite the same! :)
I look forward to reading anyone else's responses as I'm actually in the process of trying to devise more personalities for a game I'm writing
Actually I will mention one person:
Duke Raus from the Borderlands campaign pack. I've written him up a
bit more in the personality department (altho the factual background
in the pack is pretty damn good anyway). And I had a discussion about
him just the other day with players, as to the dodgy ethics of being
a Lunar landholder in Prax. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Bringing
civilisation, or destroying local culture? Its a very grey area and
I've made his personality very fair and honorable to grey it even
further! :) So PCs won't know how to take him. He even has good
arguments about bringing peace, since the local tribes are pretty
used to day to day skirmishes which are lessened as civilisation
gains momentum.
All contentious points are of course IMHO, and this whole thing written on the lam between doing various pieces of work (where I sit right now) :)
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