Player characters with a premise are easier to play as distinct and deeper personas, with a story to tell in the game you are playing.
A premise is a prior set of statements from which a plot develops and has meaning. The creation of a premise for each character helps to focus their action in the stories you will tell together in the game you are playing. A premise need only be very short. A three page backstory can simply lose you in the weeds and never get your character’s narrative drivers expressed in actual play. At the end of the day, the play’s the thing. Having these motivations and internal dialogues out and in play, or simmering just beneath the surface, elevates the game you are playing to something more impactful and personal to the characters who are living through it.
Influences
Many roleplaying games have provided frameworks in which to construct premise, so this is nothing new. The simple method below was inspired by a couple of excellent blog posts by Ian O’Rourke of Fandomlife (https://www.fandomlife.net), who in turn took inspiration from Ron Edwards’ influential Sorcerer RPG, How To Write A Damned Good Novel by James L Frey, and Donald Miller’s Marketing book on ‘Building a Story Brand’. An eclectic and insightful concoction.
Here is a simple way to quickly construct a character premise. It can be applied to any roleplaying game, with the option of you adding mechanical game rewards for playing out the premise as befits the particular game you apply it to. Of course, the real reward is some more character story brought out in play.
I wanted to explore a method for the Cepheus Deluxe science fiction roleplaying game, building out ‘Stage 5: Finalize The Character’. As such the text below will briefly reference some game context, but the method is clear and shines through.
Create Your Character Premise
Character Premise is defined through three dimensions:
External: What is the player character’s core goal? What are they trying to achieve?
Internal: Why is this important to the character, what internal uncertainty might this surface?
Philosophical: What question does this premise ask of the character, the setting and the game story?
Expressing all of them gives you a 3D premise and a more powerful story to tell. Look through the Career and Life Events collected during their career service, and check in with the Refree on the setting backdrop and the overall thrust of where the game is going. A ‘Session Zero’ is a great time to establish character premise collaboratively with your group.
Each character premise is created to be shared around the table. All players will know the characters’ premise and will be able to encourage bringing them out in play. Increasingly, as player characters become entwined in the shared narrative of the game, various levels of premise, most obviously ‘the External’, will be known between the player characters, providing in-character opportunities to bring them to the fore in play.
An Example
Traven Harp is a recently retired Scout, who had been providing vital courier services out in the trailing sectors of Hinterspace, an area that is now under threat from the incursions of the reptilian Ssurask aggressors. Trevan gained Survey Duty (what lost alien secrets did he find?), Exemplary Service (what secret mission did he undertake?), and Cybersurgery (what tech is now housed in his body?) events during his three term career.
Trevan’s premise:
External: Use my skills to aid the polities of Eventide that I call home
Internal: I always give to others, but why do I hide from myself?
Philosophical: Can our worlds be preserved when others have fallen long ago?
At the end of a play session, each player that wishes may highlight an example of how they have played to their character’s premise. Strong playing to the character premise adds a second XP reward. This could be checked at the end of every session, or at a cadence agreed by the group.
If you are enjoying long form play then all dimensions of Premise can change over time. What new questions challenge and infuse characters as they move through their story experiences, what new fiction bubbles up?
I may return to this post from time to time as thoughts strike me as I apply this and through feedback from others.