Exchange of Realities

My players are throwing a party today. It’s a wide-spanning thing, lots of guests—all in costume, which has made my life very interesting, particularly since I’m trying to make all the costumes make some sort of statement—and absolutely perfect for getting to play with crowd-noise.

So there they are, meeting up with a new party member as their guests begin to arrive. And what a guest list it is! Every few lines or so, I send another one past them, describing the costume in as much detail as I can, or have two of the present characters run into each other and something interesting happen. (Three cheers for chat games; you can actually sort of make this work.) So far we’re about a third to a half of the way through the party, and over their shoulders the group has seen one conversation in a language practically nobody speaks, one play-fight between two old friends, and… well, there would have been more, only people kept doing things that weren’t particularly conducive to introducing new characters.

I’m learning something about crowd-speak, though. It’s all very well when you first plan it, but it’s a lot harder when your group has fissioned into between three and five separate conversations. Doubly so when they’re all talking to characters you aren’t very good with, and you’re having to make up everything as you go along. Triply so when the only people they want to talk to are the ones you planned on introducing later because you still haven’t committed on their costumes and you want them to mean something.

Another note: Never put too much effort into any one thing. Just because you spent an entire summer coming up with nifty-thematic costume choices for most of your NPCs doesn’t mean anyone’s going to actually ask who they are, or even talk to most of them. Particularly if they have an Agenda, and that Agenda involves people you haven’t quite internalized yet.

And when your entire cast is in costume, expect difficulties. Fun ones, but difficulties.