It’s the first session in a new game. You’ve got your character ready, and you’re excited to play. The stage is set, the lights are dimmed, and you start to play.
An hour later, everything has gone wrong. The dice were completely against you and your character is down and not getting back up. The question turns from “What would your character do?” to “What do you do?” There’s still several hours of gaming left and you don’t have a character. Do you bow out for the evening? Take on the role of an NPC? Or just hit the books and get started on a new character?
All of these are viable options, but become unnecessary with troupe play. In such a setup, you have a “main” character and several “secondary” characters that you can jump back and forth between over the course of a several sessions (or even a single one!). These secondary characters can serve any number of other functions in the game world, but most importantly can serve as fall back characters in case a player’s “main” character is ever killed.
Obviously this kind of play style works better with some kinds of games than it does others. In games where character death is more common and grittier themes are explored, this kind of play style makes a lot of sense. While it was by no means created by him, I was first introduced to the concept in Greg Stolze’s GODLIKE, which uses World War II as its backdrop. Character death is very common using the basic style of play, and can happen in a single dice roll. But it can also be a fantastic method of running a game with more complex plots or heavy emphasis on various subplots, even in a game focused more on individual heroics and cinematic action. The party can run concurrent investigations with several groups of characters or explore several areas at once without having to deal with additional travel time.
I’m going to hit you with a couple of ideas that could (and have) benefited from troupe play.
The Ship.
The characters are all crewmen/passengers aboard a single ship big enough to sustain them. I have seen it most often done in science fiction – Battlestar Galactica and Robotech are prime examples. But I can easily see it being done in a fantasy setting. Instead of a capital ship, the PCs are instead aboard a man o’war that is exploring a new landmass or attempting to return home after an extended military campaign. This kind of game allows the players to create any number of character types that could conceivably be aboard the ship, each of them with different strengths and specializations that might be of use on various missions. Perhaps their “main” characters are the more senior members of the crew/prominent passengers with their “secondary” characters plugging any sort of holes in the roster. And if you want proof that this kind of game can work, and work very well, you don’t need to look any further than Star Wars. DarkStryder was a campaign published in the mid 1990s by West End Games for their Star Wars Roleplaying Game that featured just this kind of play style – a large cast of characters and crewmen that could be selected from as the missions called for them. It proved to be very successful, and gamers to this day still talk about it.
The Organization.
In this kind of game, the PCs are all members of a larger group – a guild, or a business, or a government agency. Perhaps their “main” characters are senior members or even leaders in the organization while the “secondary” characters serve under them. This kind of game can work for nearly any setting or genre, from fantasy to science fiction and everything in between. I could even see it working well in a more classic four color superhero game ala Young Justice, where the secondary characters play the younger heroes and sidekicks to the more experienced heroes.
The War.
The PCs are on the front lines of a bitter war, their “main” characters serving as leaders and officers to their “secondary” characters. Not only can this give the PCs great roleplaying fodder as good men and women (who may be characters that they or their fellow players play at the table) may be sent to their deaths on their orders, but death is prevalent on the battlefield. It can strike quickly and without warning, so having those other characters can allow the GM to underscore that point, and give the players ready access to a backup character should their main be called upon to make that ultimate sacrifice.
Have you used troupe play before in any of the games you’ve run or played in? Can you think of other styles of game to make troupe play not only more viable, but shine? Sound off in the comments.
Ben Erickson
