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More SotC Schtick
It's occurred to me that there can be an issue with certain combinations of schticks in a group. A player can invest heavily into her character's schtick, through picking the appropriate skill as Superb, picking up two or three (or more!) stunts to support it, and having a handful of aspects supporting it as well. What happens when the schticks are fairly diverse?
For example, say you have a group with a player who's character's Superb skill is Pilot, another with Driving, and a third with Survival. In each case, they've selected stunts to support this Superb skill; the pilot has a Personal Aircraft, the driver has a Custom Ride, and the survivor, going for a bronco-busting cowboy theme, has a Hidalgo-esque Animal Companion. A fourth player has picked Fists as her character's Superb skill, with supporting stunts.
So, how do we give time to each character's schtick, the plane, the car and the horse, how do you give each character a chance to shine? The fourth character is easy; just try having a single session of a pulp game without fists flying! Giving time to that schtick is almost effortless. Making it interesting is another issue ...
Of course, the first answer is "talk with your group." I intend to, but beyond that, what ideas could the the GM bring to the discussion? Here's a couple different approaches.
A Big Ol' Shoehorn Made of Pulp
Pulp gives a lot of license to create contrived situations. Of course there's some situation in this adventure that really calls for someone with a plane. Of course there's an incident that just screams for someone with a fast horse. And, of course, there's a car chase.
I'll present this as a suggestion, and while it isn't my favoured approach, I'd be cool with it. The problem is that it could become a little too contrived, even for pulp:
There's a couple components to this. The general idea is to run adventures where the focus alternates such that those with specialized schticks each get a turn to shine. That is, the Pilot shines this week, next week the Driver, and the Survivor the week following. Perhaps not that formally, but that's the general idea. (For those keeping score at home, yes I have shamelessly stolen this idea from PTA's spotlight episode concept.) When it's that players turn, there's a strong but not exclusive focus on her character.
The other component is a reminder to the players that their characters are not entirely their schtick, that their characters have other aspects (no pun intended), such as the Great skills. Even though in tonight adventure there's a strong emphasis on the Pilot's piloting skills and stunts, there's opportunities for the Driver's character to shine through use of her Contacting or Gambling skills, or something of that nature.
Hmmm, as I type this out, I'm liking this idea in general, and not just in the case of tightly focussed characters. I'll have to chew on this some.
These two ideas are not mutually exclusive. There could be somewhere between round robin adventures room to put a shoe-horned adventure.
For example, say you have a group with a player who's character's Superb skill is Pilot, another with Driving, and a third with Survival. In each case, they've selected stunts to support this Superb skill; the pilot has a Personal Aircraft, the driver has a Custom Ride, and the survivor, going for a bronco-busting cowboy theme, has a Hidalgo-esque Animal Companion. A fourth player has picked Fists as her character's Superb skill, with supporting stunts.
So, how do we give time to each character's schtick, the plane, the car and the horse, how do you give each character a chance to shine? The fourth character is easy; just try having a single session of a pulp game without fists flying! Giving time to that schtick is almost effortless. Making it interesting is another issue ...
Of course, the first answer is "talk with your group." I intend to, but beyond that, what ideas could the the GM bring to the discussion? Here's a couple different approaches.
A Big Ol' Shoehorn Made of Pulp
Pulp gives a lot of license to create contrived situations. Of course there's some situation in this adventure that really calls for someone with a plane. Of course there's an incident that just screams for someone with a fast horse. And, of course, there's a car chase.
I'll present this as a suggestion, and while it isn't my favoured approach, I'd be cool with it. The problem is that it could become a little too contrived, even for pulp:
Announcer: We now return to "Knightboat: the Crime-Solving Boat".Round Robin
Michael: Faster, Knightboat! We gotta catch those starfish poachers.
Knightboat: You don't have to yell, Michael, I'm all around you.
Michael: Oh, no! They're headed for land. We'll never catch them now.
Knightboat: Incorrect. Look! A canal.
Homer: Go, Knightboat, go!
Bart: Oh, every week there's a canal.
Lisa: Or an inlet.
Bart: Or a fjord.
Homer: Quiet! I will not hear another word against the boat.
There's a couple components to this. The general idea is to run adventures where the focus alternates such that those with specialized schticks each get a turn to shine. That is, the Pilot shines this week, next week the Driver, and the Survivor the week following. Perhaps not that formally, but that's the general idea. (For those keeping score at home, yes I have shamelessly stolen this idea from PTA's spotlight episode concept.) When it's that players turn, there's a strong but not exclusive focus on her character.
The other component is a reminder to the players that their characters are not entirely their schtick, that their characters have other aspects (no pun intended), such as the Great skills. Even though in tonight adventure there's a strong emphasis on the Pilot's piloting skills and stunts, there's opportunities for the Driver's character to shine through use of her Contacting or Gambling skills, or something of that nature.
Hmmm, as I type this out, I'm liking this idea in general, and not just in the case of tightly focussed characters. I'll have to chew on this some.
These two ideas are not mutually exclusive. There could be somewhere between round robin adventures room to put a shoe-horned adventure.
Every adventure features a *chase*; but what goes "round robin" is what the chase is most ideally suited for. Ideally, each chase is
Frex, on the "horse turn", the chase occasionally goes places a car can't (like very narrow alleyways in an exotic city), and eliminates the air advantage of the plane dude (awnings, etc). Emphasize horse-maneuverability with scene aspects that the horse-riders can tag for bonuses, but which the GM whacks the car & airplane dudes with compellishly on occasion.
Next week, it's the "plane turn", and it's a chase that lasts a while on foot/wheels, but eventually goes off the end of a cliff. Cue the guy with the plane!
I'd say in general you'd want to make the game very globe-hopping; think of your sessions as split into three acts -- plane act (getting to or from the remote location by air), car act (must get to the X on time -- only the automobile can muster enough speed!), horse act (that ground's too rough for a roadster!), messing around with the order. SOTC plays fast enough that you can get all three on the screen without shoehorning -- intsead it's more sort of machine-gun rapidfire roundrobinning.
Finally, remember, anyone who does this sort of vehicle-focused concept is going to have a few aspects associated with their vehicle/mount, right? So deprive them of it, and be generous with the fate points that say "sorry about the car-unfriendly circumstances, mate". Ideally, this is someone who didn't put all five of their *stunts* into the vehicle, so they're just losing part, not all, of the shtick. In general I encourage characters to have a primary shtick (2-4 stunts) and a *backup* shtick (1-3 stunts). Look at Jet Black: He's a Jetpack Dude, who's also a Two-Gun Joe.
And your three-act idea has the wheels turning. Here's a quick variant: the group splits in three chasing or being chased by three different bad guys/objectives/what-have-you. It would take some aggressive scene cutting, but I think it would work well, especially if I manage to have all three scenes reach their climax at the same time.