What's your game/storytelling style?

[Non-Powered Adventurer]

Whether you're a gamemaster of player, what's you're favorite approach to superhero role-playing?

Here are some examples:

1. "super" opera: The world is full of problems, and things keep happening. Even at the end of a battle, nothing feels wrapped up, as there are always intertwining plot threads and more loose ends.

2. beginning, middle, end: Each new adventure starts with a mystery or unexpected crisis, builds to a major conflict, then gets resolved (for better or worse). Things may get messy, but there is downtime between story arcs.

3. one-shot stories: Life is full of unrelated adventures, some easy and some hard. There are no persistent plotlines and little forshadowing. The focus is on the present.

[I just added another option under post #5.]

[bishoplogan]

Whether you're a gamemaster of player, what's you're favorite approach to superhero role-playing?

Here are some example:

1. "super" opera: The world is full of problems, and things keep happening. Even at the end of a battle, nothing feels wrapped up, as there are always intertwining plot threads and more loose ends.

2. beginning, middle, end: Each new adventure starts with a mystery or unexpected crisis, builds to a major conflict, then gets resolved (for better or worse). Things may get messy, but there is downtime between story arcs.

3. one-shot stories: Life is full of unrelated adventures, some easy and some hard. There are no persistent plotlines and little forshadowing. The focus is on the present.

As a GM I go with #2, as a player I go with #1
:sacool:

[Justice]

I was known as a GM to run number two - I grew up on Avengers and Micronauts. I was never a fan of the Soap Opera "no thread is ever fully resolved" style.

However, in my Suicide Knights campaign (think Mission: Impossible movies with PCs having ONE superpower each), I was more willing to let 1 and 3 happen, because of so much international politics and intrigue, being sent with little foreknowledge into combat, etc. being part of their "Not Quite Black Ops" worldview/gameplay.

It was easy for me as a storyteller to drop a clue about something and have no idea what I meant and let the PCs spit out ideas of "what was really going on". I'd listen, pick one and they unwittingly gave me my outline for the next game or next four hours. I am quick creative so this was a lot of joy for me.

I appreciate a "This looks like this but it isn't and yeah, you were pwned!" style of gameplay when GMing THOSE campaigns. It is part and parcel of the genre.

I guess I'd say "Space Opera for big powerhouses and Soap Opera for next to nothing."

I hate unresolved storylines - like after 10 issues and such. I had no desire to read Chris Claremont's X-Men after Byrne left. I know some do and some one-shots were exceptional, I admit. One of my more flamboyant players loved this 'never resolving opera' - all flash and style and 'seeming' importance but it just kept going, leaving no concrete message nor having any truly functional narrative.

Forget that. If I wanted that, I'd go watch traffic for six hours.

;)

[AnotherSKip]

I go #1 my Players go #2.

[baldingfatman]

Well, I think I've usually tended towards #1 as a GM (although every major plotline was always intended to have a final resolution, just extremely far down the road--so far, in fact, that most of the campaigns I would run ended before those plotlines got resolved).

In my last few attempts at running a game (all via PBEM), I got a few complaints from some of the players about that style. They felt frustrated, like their characters could never get any decisive victories or resolve anything important, and that the game got tangled down in what one player called "subplot kudzu."

So, my next go 'round (the Second String PBEM I mentioned in another thread), I will be aiming more for #2.

[Non-Powered Adventurer]

Here's another option that I'll throw into the mix.

4. overarching narrative: The world of good faces a persistent threat. All troubles, large and small, point back to that conquering entity, evil overmind, or invading species. Heroic victories gradually chip away at the ultimate opponent.

[Imaginos]

As a GM, I've given a shot at #1, but typically use either #2 or #3, depending on what the players and campaign seemed to want. As a player, I'm a fan of #1 and #2. But #1 really needs to click to work right.

[Magnus Bergqvist]

I think a mix between 1 and 2. Haven't been GM'ing supers so not sure.

/Magnus

[AnotherSKip]

Definitely some #4 in there.

[BlueNinja]

I tend to go for a mix of #1 and #3. Plotlines may seem to vanish for a bit, but the really important ones always come back up later. If I drop a little foreshadowing, and then a half-dozen sessions down the line expand on it, it usually makes my players appriciate the game. Especially when I do it with details from character backgrounds. The episodes might never seem directly connected, but they are.