Bringing the awesome?

OK, before I start to set out some of the details of the game we will be playing I thought I would talk a little bit about responsibility. Specifically who is responsible for what between the GM and Players. Its quite amazing just how much argument this issue seems to generate across various internet discussion boards. I dont want to rehash the tired old arguments about player empowerment, instead I will simply set out how I see this game actually being played.

First off an admission. I want my players to generate content for the game. I am very firmly on the "player empowerment" side of the fence. This hasn't always been true, a lot of games I have ran and played in have been very heavily GM controlled. Thats fine and I have played in (and I hope ran) some excellent games of that type. However, my tastes have changed for three reasons.

1. Time. I dont have the time to generate every detail of the world, even if I was inclined to, which I am not. Having other people create material saves me time for generating an excellent game using that material.

2. Buy In. Players who have written elements of the game material are more likely to be interested in the issues which we bring to the table.

3. Creativity. I have 5 (possibly 4 unfortunately) players who are all highly imaginative and creative people. Two have been long term GM's for the group. I want to draw on their creativity.

So, how have we actually gone about creating the game.

It happened in a rather unexpected way. Back in June last year Neil put up a post on our gaming message boards, The Great "Bored at Work" SotC Fantasy Throwdown Thread. It was a challenge, to create a pulp fantasy game in the style of Spirit of the Century. In the course of two days the bedrock for a game setting was established. It was then forgotten to lie dormant somewhere near the botton of the board.

When I was first thinking about running a 4e game this little experiment popped into my head. I knew I didnt want to run anything in the mould of Tolkein, Greyhawk, FR or Eberron, no cutesy elves, grumpy dwarves, chubby halflings etc. In fact, no-one under 4' period. Reading back over the thread we created in two bored summer days I decided it would serve our purposes very well. A dark, sinister setting, lots of dangerous groups, conflict and double cross in a pulp fantasy setting about as far from pseudo medieval fantasy as I could get and still be happy to play.

Much of the material for the game has been produced by the players, some even by people who aren't part of the game. I have written some elements and have more in mind that I wont post here so as not to spoil the surprise for my players. I anticipate as the game progresses that the players will generate additional content which is interesting to them. that they will create organisations or npc's, not just to help them but to fight with, scheme against and generally make the game a better, more entertaining experience.