Stand Alone Complex Storytelling

Players easily get tired of 'too much epic syndrome' on the part of their Game Master. Epic stories are great because they keep the players interested, but they also exhaust the players. Starting the players off in full epic mode will only scare them off.

This is why we appeal to their greed with simple little adventures. To tie the little greed based stories to the epic stories, good Game Masters use hooks, and a system called Stand-Alone Complex, after the Ghost in the Shell Television series of the same name.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, interspersed an ongoing sweeping storyline with little stand-alone episodes. The Stand-Alone episodes generally contributed something to the main story- information about a key character, exploring an idea from the main plot in more detail, adding character development that was needed but would have slowed down on of the main story episodes.

By doing following this strategy, using apparently unrelated 'Stand-Alone' adventures to allow characters to stumble onto things that will make more sense later, information that they will need later, items or characters that they will use or return to later, the Game Master can weave a large story together in a seamless way that will keep the characters interested without scaring them with the scope of the story, by the time the full scope is obvious, the characters (and by association- the players) will have grown into their roles and will be ready for it.

Stand-Alone adventures can also be used to introduce character background and thus lay the ground work for added complications later. Stand-Alone adventures can also be used for an emotional break. The players are under siege in the headquarters of the key NPC and everything is on the line- the future looks grim and the players are emotionally exhausted after playing this intense storyline for the past three weekends in a row. The Game Master can introduce a sub-plot that has little to do with the ongoing epic storyline and is easily wrapped up in one gaming session, thus giving the players an enjoyable break without losing the story.

Perhaps a young girls has a talisman that allows her to summon her dead lover, but he is killing her new suitors without her knowing. Perhaps it is a disk with his AI and personality encoded on it, and he is sabotaging her suitors’ computers and trying to murder them through the automated systems. It must be dealt with- it isn't trivial, but it is easily dealt with and gives the players a sense of accomplishment and hope and a bit of a break from the mammoth task ahead of them.

Such Stand-Alone adventures can also be used to help players stumble onto plot points or clues that they have thus far missed without requiring the Game Master to point them out blatantly.

The tempo of Stand-Alone Complex How to build a Stand-Alone adventure that is still relevant to the campaign How to build the Complex adventures so that information is released in a timely manner How to bring in Stand-Alone adventures that use Character background 5. How to us Stand-Alone Adventures to fill in story gaps