As I reading through the recent changes on TVtropes.org, I stumbled upon a Trope whose application to RPGs is as simple as it is brilliant:
The moment in a show when a character does something for which they will be remembered forever, winning for them the eternal loyalty of fans.
While I was going through the trope’s examples, it dawned on me that one of the things that make a Roleplaying campaign fly is when the PCs start having such moments.
For example, when Yan’s new character activated his Fire Snake Maneuver that burnt through a few Driders and ended in the square of Stef’s Fire Immune Half-Dragon, that pretty much clinched it for Yan’s PC.
Similarly, during a mook fight, Eric’s Crusader rolled a critical hit that dealt so much damage that I described how he managed to kill 2 mooks with one swing of his Bastard Sword. He basically spent the rest of the evening High Fiving every living thing with hands.
We’ve had such moments on several of our campaigns and I think this is one of the strongest thrills that a player seek in playing such games.
I think that you as a DM should strive to achieve such moments on a regular basis. This will give players a sense that they are truly heroes/bad asses in your game world and will help crystallize what each character is about.
So whenever a player goes out of his way to do something cool, ask yourself if you could spice up the description of what he does to truly make the action into an awesome moment. If it does, go wild and, as usual, put aside rules and logic and give the player the spotlight.
The DM can also have his/her Crowning Moment of Awesome too.
When you describe a scene or set up a confrontation filled to the rim with Rule of Cool elements, chances are one of your players will let out a very rewarding ‘this is so cool’ .
My best one was a few years ago, when I managed to give my players a truly epic problem to solve: “The God of food is dead, the whole world is starving because eating doesn’t nourish anymore. You have 48 hours or babies start dying”, one player told me ‘Man I feel like we’re in a David Eddings Novel’
It don’t get much better than this…
What about your players/character/DM crowning moments of awesome?
A first comment here, though I’ve been watching this blog for some time!
This is such a good point for writers of all kinds to keep in mind — be you a DM for a normal table top or the plot writer for games, TV shows, fiction or graphic novels. People respond to these moments… there’s just something in us that recognizes a character’s time to shine. So when we as a player or reader can walk away with a special-tailored memory, it becomes a plot or scenario that had meaning.
I also find that these moments don’t have to be anything hugely world shattering to be effective. And what becomes a meaningful victory sometimes depends on the individual and the personality of the character. Some characters define victory as overcoming a physical struggle… while others may find victory in solving complex puzzles or problems.
Oh, and kudos to David Eddings readers! ^^
Hey Aywren welcome to the blog.
It’s an original blog you got there… I’m adding it to my Google Readers list.
About the post, I was surprised on how simple and effective this trope was and I really think it should be a key component of a GM/Writer’s tool.
A lot of the cool Geek shows/books use this Trope profusely. I can’t count the number of times where I went ‘Yes!’ while watching William Adama be a Bad Ass on BSG or when the characters of Robert Jordan’s early books kicked major butt.
A personal high for me came at a Battle Interactive. 150 players fighting a horde of dragon lizards outside an embattled city. My psion pulled off a “mind switch.” I spent the rest of the battle as a mount for the dwarven cleric-tank. Everybody else was killing lizards, I actually got to become one. 😉
Trask
Tell you the truth, I’ve been reading through the trope blogs only, they are amazing. And I had to comment on this one, as David Eddings doesn’t get enough credit.
Keep on rocking the awesome writing. You’ll keep getting readers.
@Aphix: Hey, welcome to the blog. I’m always happy to meet new readers, especially tropers.
What I love with Eddings is how he creates great Inter-party relationships. I love reading members of a large adventuring party quipping and being snarky to one another while still managing to save the world a Gazzilion times over.
My first ever CMOA came in a Mutants and Masterminds game.
I was playing as Clocktower, a crossbow-using vigilante with no real superpowers. I took nothing superhuman, and even refused taking the feat Hero’s Luck, because Clocktower didn’t believe in luck, or in being a superhero. He just shot things with a crossbow. Granted, sometimes he did it really well, but that was all.
Well, this guy named the Heirophant decided he was going to take over Buckingham Palace and threaten to do the same to Vatican City if his demands weren’t met. So they sent us in to take care of things.
After pinning a few of his minions to the wall with a crossbow, while my partners punched and chopped their way through, we made our way to the part of the palace where the big bad was held up. Our big bruiser (super strength, super constitution) ran in for a fistfight, which accomplished nothing. In fact, since I had penetrating attack, I was the only one who could harm the BBEG at first. Using one of my Power Stunts, I fired some flaming crossbow bolts at him, eventually weakening him enough for the other characters to get some hits in. Once he was reduced to a smoldering corpse, we started to take stock of the situation, when the ceiling promptly exploded and collapsed. What followed was a near-TPK as Specops troopers dropped in on ziplines and opened up with automatic weapons. Everybody went down, either to debris or gunfire, and while a few people spent hero points to recover and try to fight back, they were shot down again. With the entire party dead, dying, or disabled, it came time for me to make my save against dying. I had no Con bonus, so I had to roll a 20. Or spend a Hero Point. Except I didn’t have any. I could take the feat Hero’s Luck to get more, but…. Clocktower didn’t believe in luck. Or heroes. So instead, I rolled…. And GOT THE 20!
Now stable, but injured, and lying in an almost natural bunker of debris, Clocktower found his hands were quicker than the eye as he began to Multishot the enemy troopers. Due to the smoke and debris, three were down before they even saw him, one fallen to the team’s robot sidekick and his minilaser, the other two pierced with flaming bolts, and the other three were distracted by hunting down the robot and reacted to Clocktower’s assault too late. Having taken down five enemy soldiers, I proceeded to run back to HQ for a medic. We managed to revive the team and move on with the campaign.
Nathan Abrahamss last blog post..*punk begins!
That is quite the CMOA as you put it.
M&M seems to be quite the Superhero game, I have read it but I haven’t played it.