Diaspora: Thinking about Cluster/Character Association
I’ve run two different Cluster-/Character-creation sessions for Diaspora now, one as a demo at Madison Games Day and the other for our regular Friday night group. In both instances, I’ve noticed that there is a tendency for the players to make characters who come from the system that they created in the cluster.
This is not a requirement of the rules. In fact, the rules say that a player character can come from any of the systems. So, why the tendency?
I suspect that it’s because folks become creatively invested in the system that they’ve created and, having less of an interest in what their fellow players have created, create a character using what they know best.
Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Honestly, I’m just wondering if this is the case with other groups that play Diaspora. I could go ask the question over on the RPGnet or Story-Games forum but, frankly, I’ve rarely gotten a satisfactory result from attempting to have a conversation at either place so it’s likely to remain a mystery.
Huh, I haven’t noticed that in the game that I played.
Interesting. Thanks for the data-point, Judd
I wonder if taking a longer time building the cluster and creating the shared history of the planets would lead to more players creating planets from different systems.
I personally had a hard time conceptualizing a character from another system because those systems didn’t seem as “real” to me. They were based on other people’s wonky concepts, after all—as opposed to my own perfectly cromulent system concept.
Also, I may or may not have been listening very closely when people read their descriptive paragraphs because I was absorbed in designing my own system and writing my own descriptions.
I know: bad, bad story gamer, no biscuit. But I had the same problem during character creation.
I think most of my desire to slow things down and take more time are really tied to this problem. I didn’t feel that I had time to design my own system and character AND listen carefully to everyone else.