I started my campaign earlier this year but I have to say that things haven't been going smoothly. I'm trouble-shooting it as I go on and hope that eventually things will work out before my players (or I) get fed up and dump the campaign. While there is a lot I'd like to ask about there is one thing in particular I'd like some feedback and suggestions on.

I wanted my campaign to put emphasis on brotherhood and what it means for Space Marines. I wanted that brothers-in-arms feel, inspired by the HBO series Bands of Brothers. I have not been successful in doing this because I don't really know where to start, how to do it. I'm stumped.

Thoughts?

You've managed to pick one of the toughest things to roleplay aside from romance. It usually takes either people that have had that type of bond in their personal lives, or advanced actors/roleplayers, to pull that off. I've also found it tends to develop better in a game when it's not forced, allowed to evolve over time as the players develop their PCs. Trying to create virtual bonds is a big challenge.

That being said, some things you might consider trying are:

• Define, for yourself, what the end goal is that you want to create- is it that the players feel attachment to someone elses' character? What is the emotion you're going for? What's the sense you're trying to recreate?
• Make sure your players are interested in this theme- in order to play it out your players have to be totally on board. It's work on your part but it's just as much their responsibility, and will require a lot of work on ther end.
• Understand some of the things that help to forge these bonds and explore them. If you talk to someone that has forged a bond like that, when you ask them about it, they often say 'we've been through a lot together.' What does 'a lot' mean? Well it could be a bunch of little things, simple shared experience and the closeness of working together regularly. Some of it could be surviving significant adversity together, and suddenly that person you shared the experience with is one of the only people on earth that understands you because they went through it too. And other times it is that you have evidence that you can trust that person quite literally with your life. Or a combination. You might try to re-create these things in the game through epic missions and the like, setting things up in such a way that the PCs help each other and accomplish very difficult objectives by working together as a unit. Players talk forever about epic encounters and missions, and sometimes that excitement of overcoming adversity spills into the way they play out their characters.
• Help the players fully flesh out their characters- help them to answer the cliche'd question "What's my motivation?" Space Marines are complicated, and tough to roleplay, so having a firm background is helpful. Also when writing out the background, don't be afraid to go against the grain of what a 'classic' Space Marine is written as.
• Give the players time to just be their characters- put them in non-combat environments and see how they work together. Again, it's Space Marines so they don't exactly go hang out at the bar and play pool, but coming up with things that they do when not busy shooting the enemy, encourage them to have their characters interact. Let them engage in religous debates, let them question the politics of the region or the commanders capabilities. Give them a bunch of non-combat encoutners to have to deal with. Give them combat related encounters that test their characters personalities. What happens when their mission complication is a result of incompetent chapter serfs, or the Naval pilots they were being flown in by made critical errors or had a real lapse of judgment? What happens when they meet traitor guard that are only traitors because they wanted to live rather than die somewhere so they signed up for the other team? How do they feel about being worshipped or hated? Even if you play those things out as the 'template' space marine, you're at least having them exercise their characters, which will be crucial in getting them to view their characters as part of a real brotherhood.

Hope this helps in some way.

A little background into play style and why this *hasn't* happened and some examples would be cool.

The Chorus said:

Had the same problem on the first two sessions for Oblivion's Edge. For the third session (assault on the Hiveship) I had created several epic-style scenes, the most memorable was one of the Stormtroopers being mortally wounded. One of my players (they had been playing rather lacklustre in the firts two sessions) recognized the situation and bent over him. The mortally wounded reached out to him and the Marine took off his helmet and led his hand to the Marine's face.

You can set with such dramatic scenes the atmosphere. Then you throw the Marines against overwhelming odds where they have to work hard as a team to survive. Should produce the desired results.

It takes some work though. Before the 3rd session I have been thinking for a few weeks on and off about how to stage the game/mission properly.

For the first TEP scenario, i am preparing a Conan-style setting. Put on the Conan theme as they enter the capital. As they enter have them notice two golden eagles at the city gate's, eagle of obvious imperial origin. This is more significant than the book suggests: these eagles symbolize the all encompassing reach of the Emperor. Even if he has personally never set foot on Aurum, the will of that one man reaches into every corner of the galaxy and noone is spared from his influence.

The Aurum leader should be a noble Barbarian king, Aurums practicing swordplay from early on (Astartes seeing kids fight with sticks leading to serious injuries without their parents even being bothered about it, etc.).

In the first TEP mission the players need to understand that they are especially the living embodiment of the Emperor's will. It is the Emperor's will that this planet returns to the fold and while the locals might be specially blessed people, the Astartes are the elite of the galaxy. They have to impose their Emperor's will, whether by diplomacy or by force.

If such staging doesn't work, scrap the game or find new players. Deathwatch works very well when played with hardcore 40K fans.

Alex

Charmander said:

I concur. I think one of the reasons it's so hard to develop this sort of "bond" in an RPG is because of the complete and utter lack of mortal danger for the players. For the players.

In real life, soldiers often develop this sort of relationship after having survived a harrowing, life-threatening experience together - often precisely because they were together, ie: they feel that without being able to trust one another and rely on one another's abilities, they never would have lived. In an RPG, the characters might see just as much, if not more, horrible and violent things during the course of a game, but it has less of an impact on the players because there's no real danger. "If this character dies, I'll just roll another. "

To role-play a bond like that basically involves the players consciously deciding to play up the fact that they rely on one another. It's not the sort of emotion you're likely to evoke in them subconsciously, no matter how well written your scenarios are.

One way to get this kind of vibe going would be to sit down and talk to your players before game. If they've seen Band of Brothers, remind them of the show and ask them if they'd like to work on a similar kinship between their characters. That's probably the most direct route.

You could also have an NPC marine that runs with the group for a few sessions, and make a point of role-playing him with that kind of attitude. Constantly mentioning how close he feels to the PCs or reminding them of past victories and how they got it together, stuff like that. Then, if you don't want to run a constant DMPC, or if he starts to grate the wrong way, you can kill this NPC off and go for a dramatic "sacrifice" scene (or a brutally quick "never saw it coming" scene, if you prefer.) You should be prepared for this NPC to end up being seen as something like Carmine (?) from Gears of War though. If the players are inclined to laugh at all his touchy-feely crap, it might be better to let them laugh.

Since combat in most RPGs is such a rote mechanical process, it might behoove you to focus on other forms of teamwork to get this kind of brotherhood vibe going. Try to create scenes where each player needs to use a specific skill he excells at, and their coordinated efforts are necessary for success. Intertwine the skill checks in the middle of a combat scenario if you want.

Instead of just fighting a bunch of xenos, the team needs to defend a position while one player hacks a door open, then another player begins setting explosives around a sensitive enemy position while the others hold off the enemy forces. Maybe one of the players creates a distraction at some point during this process and runs off, leading a number of enemies away with him. When all hope of success seems dim, a fourth player (or NPC) arrives with significant reinforcements to save the day and help them escape.

Return of the Jed-whatnow? No, I wasn't stealing that scene from anywhere in particular. =P

I'm not saying it's guaranteed to work, I'm just saying the kind of emotion and behaviour you're trying to get at here is firmly rooted in teamwork. Since combat alone doesn't really have an emotional impact in most RPGs, you need to find other ways to emphasize that the players NEED each other to get by in this crazy universe.

Steve-O said:

My experience is that they'll reply "Yes, sure, why not?" and then fail to create that bond during play. There's not so much use in appealing to reason. It's about getting them in the mood, kinda like a date.

What still works best is the right amount of enthusiasm (not too much because that's a turn off, coming across like fanboyism), it will naturally transfer to the players. I also don't think it needs experienced players in this context. The players essentially play super-paladins, it should be do-able. What might be strange for the players is that there isn't the usual mix of paladin&rogue&wizard&cleric. They are all paladins with a mix of something else and that means less of a niche.

In fantasy role-playing, players focus on their race-classes niche added with some personality. In DW you need to focus on epic heroism added with some personality. The focus isn't being a wisened spell-caster with a unique personality twist. The focus is being an epic hero with a unique personality twist.

Again, there's no use if you just explain it to the GM. They don't just need to know it, they need to feel it.

Alex

Steve-O said:

There's a camaraderie there before the first shot is fired. It's deliberately instilled. Soldiers don't die or take risks for their country, their family, a bit of tin, or glory. They do it because they don't want to let their mates down.

As a GM you don't have the luxury of 6 months of neural programming to achieve that, but that's ok... because this is the Deathwatch. The major theme of the game isn't supposed to be killing bigger things, but more the actual building of that bond and co-operation inbetween disparate people, from different backgrounds and sometimes only passingly similar military traditions. The bond deserves to evolve over the course of the game and to be a major part of it. In fact, it's best if the first few missions ARE spent arguing and NOT working well together, so as to see that change evolve. The problem comes if - five missions in - players are still refusing to co-operate and playing a bunch of individual glory-hounds.

ak-73 said:

I would be inclined to agree. That doesn't mean talking about it is useless, though. If nothing else, it can help the OP to diffuse his frustration about the fact that the players aren't doing this thing (the OP mentioned wanting to fix things before he got fed up and quit the game, which tells me he, at least, is getting frustrated by how things are unfolding - or failing to unfold.) Instead of sitting there fuming and trying to figure out by himself why they aren't "getting it," he can talk to them about it. Maybe they'll agree to try, and maybe that won't do crap, but at least then the ice has been broken.

I'm absolutely not denying the idea that this sort of bond is one of the hardest things to role-play besides romance. I agree completely with that statement. Unless the group is composed of veteran role-players who are all dedicated to this purpose (or actual professional actors who know what to look for when telling a compelling dramatic story) then it probably won't be "the best," no matter what he does. But at least if he talks about it with the others, he can get them thinking along the same lines. You never know until you ask.

Or, you know, maybe they'll shoot down the idea and say "nah, we just wanna plug xenos." At least everybody's on the same page now. Communication is never a waste of time.

Thanks to your input and some thinking on my own I’ve decided to give it more time. Relationships aren’t built over-night. Last time I tried something similar it took about four months of play before the characters got over the whole “being annoyed and irritated by one another”-phase.

Come to think of it, establishing this close bond is one of the goals on the “dramatic agenda.” From a meta perspective, it shouldn’t start coming together until the middle/second half of the campaign.

And if they don’t succeed in accepting and respecting one another they will probably die as a consequence of it. Because that too says something about the importance of trust and brotherhood.

Steve-O said:

Yeah, you are right. And come to think of it, I did talk to me players before that 3rd session (the one that finally worked) briefly too. But again it's probably the emotional level one primarily needs to address: telling the players to think epic, act epic, reassuring them of a benevolent GM unless they go totally crazy. Encouraging players to act as role models for mortals in their own right (ordering the slaughter of a whole Guard regiment which might have been exposed to taint of the warp is part of that unique set of ethics).

"They are more than mortal; they are steel and they are doom."

Heck, sometimes putting on the right background music can make a difference. Immediate Music's Lacrimosa comes highly recommended. Develop some enthusiasm for this epic level of gaming, for being Mankind's finest. Unless you go overboard with the enthusiasm, it's bound to infect the others.

Alex

To be honest it is also how they view your their character. I have run various campaigns and it takes some time before the players can identify with the characters. When they do it is also that they identify with the other characters and a brotherhood is created.

Also in a game of Deathwatch you have marines that have seen a lot, but are now on strange territory. They have been training and working decades with their mates and now suddenly they are surrounded by strangers. Even strangers with strange ideas. They have to reforge a bond and that takes time.