Think about James Bond for a moment. He’s defined in part by recurring elements — character traits and actions, of course, but also something more interesting for our purposes as GMs: fast, sexy cars.
Bond always drives a sports car (tricked out with rocket launchers and so forth, of course). Think “James Bond,” and “Drives a really hot car” will be near the top of the list of things that come to mind for most people.
In an RPG, Bond’s player might simply have spent the points to always have a sports car available — that’s nothing new. But if Bond’s player didn’t spend those points, there’s no reason that Bond’s player and the GM can’t work together to introduce that recurring element into the game.
This isn’t about giving PCs stuff they didn’t pay for; it’s more meta than that. It’s about the fact that working in this recurring element brings fun stuff to the game:
- If there’s a fast car, there’ll probably be a car chase…
- The whole group will come to identify fast cars with Bond.
- Another layer is added to Bond’s character.
- All of this becomes part of the shared mytholgy of your campaign.
This isn’t limited to cars or super-spies, of course: You can use recurring elements like this in any genre. Sometimes a player will do something nifty the same way twice, and that will suggest one of these elements on the fly. Other times you can work together to introduce stuff like this — or bring something in on your own, and if your players enjoy it, keep bringing it back.
I tend to categorize things like this that aren’t necessarily system crunch things, but are part of the character as thematic elements. In a game I am playing in right now, someone is using a spanner (big wrench) but it is classified in all system ways as a light mace. The character is an artificer so it fits with the theme he has already established.
It really does add another layer to a game to have thematic stuff like this included. In the game system we usually play in, that kind of stuff is rampant. Magic casting has a theme so while one person might be a pyromancer and all their spells be tinged with fire, another person has Native American style magic, and their magic comes out with the spirits of the land. The two cast the same spells, but they seem different when each person does it.
To play Devil’s Advocate, Bond has that car because he has a Patron, MI-6, that provides him with kewl toyz (and the cost of the Patron was probably worked into his character sheet) 😉
A related problem is that, once you give a kewl toy to one player, the others will want a similar kewl toy (or some type of XP credit to make up the difference).
And finally, what GM was running a super-spy campaign and didn’t plan for recurring car chases?
LOL, okay, enough ribbing…
If I discovered a new element that would make the campaign more fun, I wouldn’t hesitate to incorporate it. If it was something that all of the players had access to (hey, instead of lone vigilantes, you all now work for the Big Agency!) then I wouldn’t worry about paying for it. If the new element puts the advantage primarily in one player’s control, then I would attach a cost to it (okay, Denise, your superhero gets to keep the invisibility belt she stole off of Evil Inviso-Dood). In most cases, I’d let the PC keep the item, but devote all of her upcoming XP to pay for it.
(Note: this is a lot easier to do in some games than others, depending on the mechanics. In a typical d20 campaign, I’d probably make Denise “pay” by giving the other PCs similar kewl toyz).
It’s funny, because this is actually something I *discourage* in my games. If you are always drawing from the same repetoire of tricks/gadgets/whatever for your character, I consider that I’m not doing my job as your GM.
I prefer characters that aren’t quite so one-dimensional and can adapt to any situation.
I could see doing the James Bond thing with more the idea that, no matter where he is, whenever a car (or a need to go fast) is involved he *somehow*, *mysteriously* manages to snag a really sweet set of wheels. THAT would be cool from a GM standpoint, because I’d get to come up with ridiculous justifications for why there’s (for instance) a Ferrari on board an Aircraft Carrier.
You could do something like that with all your PC’s. Maybe one always somehow manages to find a hot sinister babe that tries to seduce him to the other side. One always ends up with a huge pile of cash. One always finds a bunch of bumpin’ guns. One manages to locate some infernal gadget.
I can see some issues with powergamers who want to leverage their recurring elements, but if your players are on-board, I really like this entry.
So when the Barbarian breaks out of jail, of course he’ll find a battleaxe in the armory. Stallone and Schwarzenegger always find the biggest gun in the compound. Etc…
I had plans to do something like this in an old Fading Suns campaign I was putting together that never really materialized. The idea was to give the players a really cool, one of a kind starship. They would find it drifting and have to repair it to get it working again. It was going to be an advanced prototype starship, complete with working A.I. computer. The ship itself was going to be way more advanced than anything out there, with beautiful wood worked interiors and touch screen controls ala Star Trek The Next Generation; think Andromeda, only smaller like a corvette. Still, the ship would not be fully functional, things like weapons systems, and parts of the ship would need lots of work. Even the A.I. computer wouldn’t be full functional without major work. Too bad the game never got started.
Jason – sounds a lot like “Blake’s 7” and the discovery of their first ship, the Liberator. You should check it out, it should give some interesting inspiration (and unfortunately, not even a lot of geeks know about Blake’s 7).
Thread hijack- Blakes 7 was an excellent show. None of the characters were particularly likeable, the special effects awful and the main character disappearing after the second season, it worked well despite all of this. It lasted four seasons on the BBC.
Kier Avon was one of the best non-hero heroes on the small screen, in my opinion
I had trouble writing this post — it was tough to articulate, and I don’t think I pulled it off. At the risk of muddying things up further, I’ll take one more stab.
It’s not so much the things themselves that are important — and they don’t even have to be things. The idea isn’t to load the PCs up with cool toys, and I agree that if recurring elements that are also cool toys are used that way, it tends to cause problems.
The intent is to further anchor characters in the setting, and to provide hooks that the entire group associates positively with the game.
From that standpoint, maybe this would have been a better example: It seems like in nearly every episode of classic Trek, if there’s an alien babe involved, she and Kirk will get it on. That’s one of the things you associate with Kirk, and by extension with Trek (which is a stand-in for your campaign and group in this example).