To elaborate on the railroading point. Players can surprise you. They can come up with things you never thought of, never dreamed anyone could do, even through normal (ie. non-Uberpower) means. No plot survives contact with the players intact, and adaptability is the key.
If they come up with that one-in-a-thousand plot-solver weeks before you're ready for them to do so, it's probably a bad thing just to say "it doesn't work." Give them something for working through it, throw them a bone for their ingenuity and the hopeful fun everyone has playing through. making them feel penalised for not sticking to your timetable is possibly a bad thing. Going "it's not going to work, don't bother trying" is worse. "It's not going to work, don't bother trying, I have the end in mind and you aren't it." is worst of all. We all tacitly understand there's a certain amount of railroading involved n running plots, and we accept it. However, we can deal with it as long as the railroading is neither blatent, or referred to directly. Maybe it's just a denial issue, suspension of disblief or something, I dunnow. I've had enough of plots only three people can solve in larp. Heck, I've run them, so I'm by no means innocent.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
One thing I's like to add:
Make the plot ignorable
In a freeform, open-to-the-public forum like CoH it's imperative that you make it possible for players to have their characters miss the plot. There's always going to be someone who don't want to get involved with any given plot -- maybe they've been running the gamut of plots for the last month and is all plotted out, maybe they're busy in RL and don't have the time for a big plot right now, or maybe they just don't appreciate your style of roleplay or the premise of your plot.
If people feel that the plot is practically impossible to avoid for their characters without losing all semblance of staying IC, there is going to be resentment and bad feelings, and the OOC problems will affect the IC going ons.
No means No.
Nothing to do with sexual harassment, honest. Basically, if things are getting a little out of hand/out of control, feel free to yell out ((Pause!)) or the like, to stop the ravaging hordes, I mean, players involved.
I once ran a smallish plot involving someone held by Crey, and a mission was arranged to go and rescue him. 12 people turned up for the mission, it was a level 40 one and the average team level was 36. I made the mistake of not going with gut instincts and saying stop, then working something alternate out. It lead to near teamwipes at every group and me having a bit of a panic about the situation, which caused me to log out. You're the GM. Your say is final.
This thread is intended as a brain dump of all the things I've seen go right and wrong with plots in CoX over the past two years. (Yes, it's being written because of the current peition plot, but that's just a trigger, the points made here should be universally valid and might help promote well constructed, community wide and smaller plots in the future.)
I'd rather keep discussion in this thread to actual advice to people trying to run plots and so I'll be creating a second thread for people to tell me why I'm a horrible person for picking on people (which I will be trying not to do).
Here goes:
Someone needs to be in charge
A plot should have an identified GM or Plotmaster, and there should be identified ways to contact them with queries about the plot. It does help to be very dictatiorial about this, not to say tyrannical. I've tried to run plots with two GMs, you can't communicate well enough and you end up with plot holes forming. You also need relatively tight control over people making things up on their own.
It is usually best if you do not run plots for your own characters.
This is an Open RP Environment
In a regular PnP game, there are fixed rules, a limited group of players, and the GM has complete control over their powers/skills/resources. If you are running a plot which will operate at GG, or Pocket D, or any other public location you have absolutely no certainty over how much control you have.
Even setting aside God Modders and the really uber, over-powered heroes, heroes with powers most people are comfortable with (and even those that exist in game) can blow a steaming great hole in your plot.
It's really difficult to develop suspense regarding someone getting mortally wounded when you have an Empath handy who can have that person back on their feet in seconds, or even bring them back from the dead.
The moral of the story is as follows: you need to be prepared for anything. (And that leads on to most people's response.)
Uber-villains are usually bad
It's lazy. Almost every end-game system in MMOs, just about all computer games, and a rather major number of published PnP scenarios do it. Writer 1: "Oh my gosh, these players are powerful and have amazing skills, how can we possibly have a challenge for them." Writer 2: "Oh, that's easy, we'll have them face a giant protoplasmic blob which they can't damage and they have no defense against."
There are several things wrong with this:
* Lower end characters are instantly written out of the plot, no matter how they might wish to be involved.
* Everyone feels impotent against the god character, which means no one actually wants to play, plus it tends to result in a lot of OOC animosity.
* The plot will almost certainly end up railroaded since someone has to find out how to get rid of the thing and being a good God Character GM, you have probably already decided exactly who that is.
* As FloatingFatMan has found out, you will take vast amounts of stick for the rest of your life regarding your god characters.
Generally, if a GM is running a plot for their own toon, and that plot involves a god character, it's an ego thing. Basically: "my toon is better than yours because my toon has this totally uber arch-enemy." GMs need to check their ego at the door, and this is another good reason to avoid running your own plots.
Try to avoid running plots in major public locations
One reason Galaxy Girl was picked for roleplay is that it's quiet and no one much goes there. You could stage just about anything there and not worry about non-roleplayers butting in and making a hash of it. Pocket D is not going to be like that, and attempting to run anything significant there is going to be difficult.
Generally, if you want to run something plot related, it's usually a good idea to find some quiet location, on a rooftop perhaps, and pull aside the people involved.
Zortel can tell you the tale of a plot she ran with Wordmaker which culminated in a big scene on Friday night in the Paragon Dance Party. A lot of people learned a lot of things that night, but one of them is that it's real tough to run a complex scene while several dozen non-roleplayers are standing around filling the chat channel with rubbish.
By limiting your player base, you also gain greater control over what powers might happen along to ruin things.
Don't run your own plots
Okay, run them, but recognise that you're doing this for yourself and not for other people. Plots you run about your characters tend to be railroaded, and since the plot is about your character, and you are running all the NPCs, you would really be better of writing the whole thing down as a piece of fiction.
How to railroad a plot properly
Railroad plots are fine, says Ravenswing, as long as the players don't realise they are being railroaded. The more control you have over the plot, the easier this is.
Obviously, if you can run a plot which really is open to any little change the players might make, that's great, but unfortunately you will need to railroad any plots you run to some degree. To take the extreme example, if your plot involves a plan to blow up Paragon City, then it must fail. However, it would be nice if every character involved has a chance of figuring out how to stop the bomb, and I know of at least one major plot run recently in which the GM decided exactly who was going to do what at the start of the plot.
To pull off railroading well, you need to be flexible. You need to adapt your plot so that player actions appear to affect what is happening, but actually have no effect. It's the perception that counts.
Edit: WARNING! I don't like railroading, I recognise it as a necessity in some circumstances. 'Purer' roleplayers may well quit a plot if they recognise they are being railroaded. It is ALWAYS better to write plots so that they don't NEED to be railroaded.
Dealing with God Modders, Attention Seekers, and Plot Breakers
Some people like to think their character can do anything, some people want their character to be the centre of attention, some people have good intentions, but are going to break the plot if they keep going the way they are going.
There are two basic ways to deal with this, IC and OOC. Try IC first.
IC, stonewall them, present counters to their uber powers, mess them about. You are the GM and have access to a bigger fearsome arsenal of horrors than any player.
Example: I ran a detective plot about a theft at a hospital. One of the players had a character able to talk to spirits, who wanted to talk to the spirit of the hospital to find out what had happened. It was well intentioned, but it would have broken the plot and wrecked a lot of other people's fun, so instead of getting information, she got a headache and spent a day in a coma from trying to contact the cesspit that was the mind of King's Row hospital.
The OOC way of dealing with that would have been to tell her outright that she was being selfish and spoiling other people's fun. The usual answer to a request like that is "but my character wouldn't stand by and let this happen." Which is why it's usually better to use IC mechanisms. Roleplayers find it difficult to argue when you out roleplay them. (The player concerned 'got her own back' later and the plot died because no one wanted to play anymore.)
Be ready to paper over plot holes
You will make mistakes. The hospital plot had a gaping hole in its timeline, due to a communication problem, which had to be fixed up. If you can fix this IC, then fix it IC, but if the only way you'll resolve a problem with a plot which people are enjoying is to sit everyone down and retcon things a bit OOC, then don't be afraid to do it.
Keep people informed
Make sure everyone knows what they should know. I have actually enlisted the help of someone outside of the plot to give someone else information they needed. Do whatever you need to to keep those involved knowing what's required.
Communication is key.
Try to envolve everyone
You should limit who is involved in a plot, but if someone wants to be in there and you can think of any valid reason why they could help, make sure they get their spot in the sun. This has to be the most difficult thing for a GM to do. You will make mistakes and people will feel left out. Hopefully, those people will tell you and you can do something about it, but it's best if you can just review what people are doing and make sure they are getting the returns the deserve.
I'm sure there's more than this to write, but I think that's the really big pitfalls covered. GMing plots in an environment like City of X is hard work, but it can be very rewarding. Get out there and have fun, people!
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.