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I wasn't sure whether to put this in AP or 'craft, but as it's got broader implications than the game in question, it's going here.
Suppose that you slip up one day when starting up a game and you let the players make characters without reference to one another (assume a system that permits this). You then have a scattering of characters in the void, each with his own interests and problems.
It's easy enough to run a scene or two with these characters and small-scale concerns, but they don't link up and that's very boring to me. And, after a while, unlinked stories get unwieldy and the information load makes the game harder for everyone to engage with.
How can I take these characters and link them into a constellation, so that they can interact in play in an interesting and significant manner? I don't want to dump or revise the characters, generally.
(Exalted?)
I think you need to get the players to the table and just lay it out, like "Folks, we need to actually stitch these guys together, so let's brainstorm." There are other gimmicks to stick people together - they have a common cause or external enemy, a common resource (like our shared Sanctum in my Mage game), the GM figures out ways for their plot threads to cross each other - but I feel like player authorship is the better way.
That's a painfully vague answer though. Do you want to sketch out the characters here? Maybe we can come up with suggestions your players will dig.
To talk more generally about the craft part, here's my thinking: each character, as created, has a domain of stuff they will (1) actively pursue, (2) reactvely care about, and (3) reactively respond to. In fact, I was paying attention to these three things all the time in my recent game (DitV), and stitched situations together at the overlap.
You have a bunch of characters with individual desires and backstories that aren't connected to each other, and don't seem obviously connectable?
Turn it to your advantage,
For example, suppose character A wants vengeance on the man who killed her father, character B is looking for a secret to magical power.
OK, simple. The man who killed Character A's father has the secret.
That's not the best way to tie the characters together, but as you said, the best way is already gone, unless you rewrite character stories as suggested.
All right, by popular demand...
This is an Exalted game, which gives me one convenient connecting bar - all the characters are to one degree or another fugitive from the Dragonblooded government. It breaks down from there.
An-Lien is a doctor; she's Motivated to "save the world from itself," which indicates to me that she sees the world as set on a self-destructive path.
I don't have a good hook on Ivory Veil yet. She is something of a Wodehousian socialite, I think - moving through society and stealing things from people because she can and that's what she is.
Loram Nightstaff is an interesting case! He suffers from nightmares, and wants to drown the world's sleep in same.
Radiance-Walks-in-Shadow is an assassin and a great beauty. Conveniently she has already befriended Saadi, below. She wants to kill the Scarlet Empress, and no doubt she is a bit put out that said Empress is missing.
Saadi Draught-of-Reason is a failed sprout from a Dragonblooded family. He's another socialite, though his public disgrace has put him in hard times. His sister wants to kill him for being Anathema. He seeks to seduce the Four Beauties of Creation (evidently, the four most beautiful beings living). The Empress, Radiance, and the moon may be among them.
An-Lien: I think this is an interesting angle, but "saving the world form itself" is a bit vague. What is she willing to do? Is she seeking to reduce pain where she can find it, or does she seek remaking societies? Is her vision more like an anaesthesia, euthanasia or therapy?
Loram Nightstaff: He wants to drown the world in nightmares, you mean? There isn't a lot here, but you could pair him with An-Lien, who may have taken him in as something of a personal project; conversely, this may mean Loram is tempted to seek the very self-destructive ends that An-Lien is working against.
Ivory Veil: She seems mainly like a bundle of reactions / behaviors, rather than a clear drive. It could be easier to drag her into others' plots, but I'm curious how and why she's moving through society in this kleptomaniacal fashion.
Radiance-Walks-in-Shadow and Saadi Draught-of-Reason: These guys already seem great. They have mutual designs on the Empress and mutual rapport between each other. If you can peg a specific socialite goal to Ivory Veil, you can wrap them up as rivals and/or allies in a larger, evolving situation.
Ivory is only a blank because I don't have her sheet, really. I'm sure she is more interesting than that.
More later after I process. Thanks for all the ideas!
It's later!
It's occurred to me that, in talking in specifics about the game in question, I've lost sight of the larger point, which is, despite the lure of the situation-to-character technique, I'd like to have algorithms for the opposite.
Dev said something interesting about this:
To talk more generally about the craft part, here's my thinking: each character, as created, has a domain of stuff they will (1) actively pursue, (2) reactvely care about, and (3) reactively respond to...
Can I get you to talk some more about this, Dev? Maybe you can say something more about the "overlap" you referred to.
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