Advice on Portraying Famous Characters

[TheMonarchGamer]

So since my adventure is set in a rather remote portion of Gondor, I'm not currently having too much trouble with famous characters, but I'm planning to start adding in some famous personalities soon. Does anyone have advice on portraying famous characters from the books/movies such as, say, Elrond, Gandalf, Saruman, etc.? How does one convey an existing personality?
-TMG

[zedturtle]

I got a bit into Gandalf in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2762&start=10

[TheMonarchGamer]

I got a bit into Gandalf in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2762&start=10

Thanks, fascinating to read. I'm hesitantly thinking of starting a PBP game, any recommendations?

[Mytholder]

Treat them as really, really expensive guest stars. You can only afford to have them on-screen for a few minutes, so to get the most bang for your buck, you feature them in lots of promos, foreshadow their appearance, and make a big deal out of them while they're there. So, if you're going to bring, say, Thranduil "on-screen", then you should have other people talk about the King first, do as much plot setup as you can using minor NPCs, and only have Thranduil show up for the briefest possible time.

Why? Because you're going up against the killer combination of your player's own conceptions of the famous character and your own incompetence.

Roleplaying is an improvised, unscripted game. No matter how good a GM you are, you're going to mess up sooner or later. Gandalf's going to say something stupid. Darth Vader's going to roll a 1 - or a player's going to make a "Luke, I am your X" joke. Unlike a movie or book, you don't have control over the "audience's" experience. So, get your famous NPC in and out as quick as you can.

In a PBP game, you've got a little more leeway, as you can take your time over the text to get it right. I'd still recommend minimising "screen time" - never meet your heroes applies to NPCs too. When writing text for an NPC, go back to Tolkien and reread what he wrote. If you can, repurpose it - even quote directly from the book if it fits.

[zedturtle]

As is usual, Gareth is exactly right. Notice how in my sample from that thread that Gandalf is removing himself from the picture and putting the onus of action back onto them... that's essential because there are multiple failure states. Gareth's failure state of Gandalf doing or saying something that breaks character is a very real danger, but there's also the danger of "sit back and listen to the LM explain how the big NPC is going to solve your problems for you." That's not fun for players, and fortunately, it's not how most of the NPCs we see in Tolkien work. So it's character breaking in another way.

I tend to use intermediaries for all the big NPCs. The heroes spend a lot more time talking to Reiginar (my purpose-built NPC) that they do to Beorn. I also tend to have bigger roles for those that we see less of in the original source material... Radagast gets more screen-time because there's less chance of breaking character, etc. As Gareth said, make the NPC a big deal but keep it brief.

[zedturtle]

I got a bit into Gandalf in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2762&start=10

Thanks, fascinating to read. I'm hesitantly thinking of starting a PBP game, any recommendations?

I'm either one of the best, or one of the worse, people to ask, because I run PbP games in a very particular way, one that's a bit different from most people.

First off, have reasonable goals and expectations... most PbP games flounder because either the GM or the players have unrealistic ideas about what they're going to accomplish. When a new game starts, there tends to be a flurry of activity and then things settle down... it's how and what they settle down into that really determines the long term viability of a PbP game.

If you decide to run a game, try to make a very reasonable estimation of what you can commit to the game. I usually spend a couple of hours most nights on my games... less if there's a talky update that doesn't have a lot of mechanical weight, perhaps more if I have a tricky combat situation. But that works for me... I don't watch TV, and I don't play computer games. So spending a little bit of time each night thinking and writing is my relaxation time.

Be wary of changing schedules too... for example, in the summer the kids don't have homework. It's easy to get into a mode where you might be able to temporarily meet your goals, but then end up changing things later on. That's okay (just communicate to your players, most everyone is understanding), but throttling yourself down might be better.

As for my own style, I describe myself as a relentless GM(LM in this case). I try to stick to an update schedule (currently approximately 48 hours for each game) and I make an update regardless of whether or not everyone has posted. If you instead wait for everyone to post, you're always moving at the speed of the slowest player. I move at a fixed pace, more or less (I do tend to slow down or make less meaningful posts if it's clear that no one has made a decision yet).

I try to end every one of my posts with a decision that must be made. I try for it to be as specific and as immediate as possible... something that needs to be answered. GM posts that don't have at least an inherent question tend to cause stalling in games, as players try to figure out what to do.

I do roll all the dice in my games. I know this is probably the most controversial thing that I do, but it goes hand in hand with me being able to maintain a pace... If I'm waiting for you to roll, everyone is waiting for you to roll. Since TOR has some situations where one roll depends on another, things could slow down tremendously.

Of course, there's a lot more to be said on the subject, which might be best for a separate thread.

If you want to check out my currently running TOR PbPs, here they are:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?752 ... wood-Trees
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?752 ... g-Twilight
(the above are the beginning of The Darkening of Mirkwood, special Zed-Extended Edition. It was for a mostly already assembled group of heroes, which is why things seem to start In Media Res, in both the In-Character and Out-Of-Character threads)
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?738 ... f-the-Moon
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?738 ... f-the-Moon
(A somewhat more freeform TOR game, wherein various adventure ideas have been played with.)

[Angelalex242]

I don't think you need to be afraid of big names on the internet, at least. Big names are trickier in face to face, though, because the GM is only human and simply doesn't have the gravitas of Christopher Lee or Ian Mckellan.

In short, when a big name steps on stage, you are no longer a GM. You're an actor. So treat the character like Peter Jackson hired you instead of Ian Mackellan to play Gandalf in the next movie. You're as much an actor as you were in High School when you got the role of Othello (or Hamlet) in the high school Shakespeare play. Only you don't have any lines.

[Majestic]

Great advice already, especially Gareth's bit about keeping important NPCs as guest stars. I'd say that's more important for the characters we really "know" more based on their usage in movies or the like. So Gandalf and Elrond are ones to not be around for long, but a little more leeway could be given to Radagast and Glorfindel.

This topic reminds me of my old LotR campaign (using Decipher's CODA system). I ran most of the time (and more or less was the main GM), but would occasionally allow one of the players to run. Well, one time when a friend was GMing, he had our PCs running into many of the "main characters" from the books. There's an element of fun to that, sure, but it can lead to stuff that can really alter or change the tone of the game. In ours, it led to a long-running joke about how the Hobbit Rory Cotton "put the moves" on Galadriel. Funny for my gaming group, and one of my strongest memories from that campaign, but not really in the proper Tolkienesque tone I was going for.