{"id":21794,"date":"2018-02-06T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=21794"},"modified":"2018-02-05T23:44:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:44:29","slug":"inevitability-extraordinary-ch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/inevitability-extraordinary-ch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inevitability of Extraordinary Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

This beautiful image is, officially, “knight-1996168” by Nick_H via pixabay.com. Photograph or painting? I can’t decide…<\/p><\/div>\n

Who among you watches “Who Do You Think You Are?” It might be that not everyone gets the opportunity, but for anyone who does, it is an excellent series that is well worth your time. By connecting actual people (celebrities, but actual people nevertheless) with history, it helps to bring history to life. In the process, you also get to know the celebrity a little better. But, for me, one of the greatest benefits of the series are the insights that you get into the ordinary and people of the past and how some of them become shaped by circumstance into extraordinary people.<\/p>\n

Australians are fortunate in that we get not only our own domestic series, but also both the US series and the original British series. Between them, they also convey insights into Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe, both east and west. The only thing we’re missing is that I think there’s a New Zealand series and selected episodes of that would also be of interest to Aussies.<\/p>\n

In any event, I was watching an episode last week, and at one point, a simplified family tree was presented. Instinctively, I thought about the parts of the family tree that weren’t being shown, and I quite suddenly found myself in possession of an insight into the inevitability of extraordinary ancestors that makes the entire series concept viable.<\/p>\n

Generations Past<\/h3>\n

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there’s a 5% chance that an ancestor was or did things that were extraordinary.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Two parents: 2 \u00d7 5 = 10%<\/li>\n
  2. Four Grandparents: 4 \u00d7 5 = 20%, + 10% = 30%<\/li>\n
  3. Eight Great-grandparents: 8 \u00d7 5 = 40% + 30% = 70%<\/li>\n
  4. Sixteen Great-great-grandparents: 16 \u00d7 5 = 80% + 70% = 150%<\/li>\n
  5. Thirty-two Great\u00d73-grandparents: 32 \u00d7 5 = 160% + 150% = 310%<\/li>\n
  6. Sixty-four Great\u00d74-grandparents: 64 \u00d7 5 = 320% + 310% = 630%<\/li>\n
  7. One hundred twenty-eight Great\u00d75-grandparents: 128 \u00d7 5 = 640% + 630% = 1270%<\/li>\n
  8. Two hundred fifty-six Great\u00d76-grandparents: 256 \u00d7 5 = 1280% + 1270% = 2550%.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The numbers on the left count the generations back into history. Right away, you can see the power of exponential numbers, and also that 5% is WAY too generous. But even if we knock it back to 1%, yielding 510% from the combined total of eight generations, it only makes a difference of scale, not of principle.<\/p>\n

    But it’s not just the direct ancestors who can be extraordinary. Each and every one of those individuals is part of a family – they not only have fathers and mothers (already counted for 7 of the generations) but they have brothers and sisters. The chance of significance, whatever it really is, shouldn’t be multiplied by 2, but by the average family size for that generation, plus the parents.<\/p>\n

    And then there are remarriages to consider – although not as common in the past as in modern times, they did<\/em> sometimes happen, and usually for dramatic reasons.<\/p>\n

    And, on top of that, we have indirect relationships. “My great-granddaddy \u00d75 stayed with Thomas Jefferson” or whatever.<\/p>\n

    Drama Vs Greatness<\/h5>\n

    I touched on a point a moment ago that is worth amplifying. To qualify as an extraordinary ancestor who makes a subject for great television, it’s not necessary for the individual to have been exceptional or Great in any respect; they need only have encountered a sufficiently dramatic situation within their lives and to have failed to crumble under the pressure.<\/p>\n

    Ordinary people being swept up within extraordinary times are often just as interesting, as can ordinary people trapped by dramatic circumstances. Quite often, you can see the impact that such times have caused on subsequent generations; the show gives you context, and that helps you to envisage how NPCs would react to the circumstances you impose on your campaign.<\/p>\n

    Because the term “greatness\/drama” is a little clumsy, I think that a better term for the qualities described would be Significance and it’s linguistic variants.<\/p>\n

    Opportunities For Greatness<\/h3>\n

    It can be said that the potential for greatness lies in many, if if not all, of us, lacking only the opportunity for it manifest. I am not so convinced of the first part of that statement – there are so many paths to obscurity and\/or ignominy and\/or failure and\/or timidity – but think that the broader statement might well be accurate.<\/p>\n

    So, let’s say – for the sake of the argument – that the potential for Significance is that original 5% – but that the opportunity for it to materialize is ALSO about the same.<\/p>\n

    In effect, that means that the chance of all the ducks lining up in a row will be 1\/20th of 5%, or 0.25%.<\/p>\n

    Let’s look at things another way – if the average size of the extended family (siblings, siblings-in-law, step-parents) in each generation is four, that more-or-less takes us (effectively) back up to the overall 1% chance.<\/p>\n

    Extraordinary Inheritances<\/h3>\n

    Significant people create Extraordinary Opportunities for their relatives and especially for the descendants. How many times have you heard about an old family friend giving a young man or girl their first opportunity because<\/em> of the bond with the Significant family member?<\/p>\n

    And, of course, if wealth or fame are a by-product of the Significance, that has a way of “rubbing off” on the next generation (however inconvenient that might be at times).<\/p>\n

    People involved in dramatic events, too, are frequently damaged in the process, and that damage can shape subsequent generations. It’s as though the Significance was “sticky”, possessing a residual impact that takes generations to dissipate.<\/p>\n<\/a> I tried to make this as clearly legible as possible but in order to view this diagram clearly you need to open a larger version in a new tab by clicking the above thumbnail.\n

    The diagram above describes two different models of inheritance of Significance in terms of the effects that are passed down through the generations (and yes, there’s a reason for showing both of them that will become clear). The 50% Model on the left shows each generation being affected half as much as the previous one, with only the individual receiving 100% of the impact – so 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, and 3.125% five generations later. 3.125% might not sound like much, but as you will shortly see, it’s enough to be barely noticeable. What is clearly going to be noticeable is the impact on parents and especially grandparents.<\/p>\n

    The 75\/25% Model on the right shows a stronger impact on the immediate family, but one that declines more rapidly – 100%, 75%, 16.25%, 4.06%, 1.01%, 0.25% (these make more sense when you realize that the “75” refers to the initial inheritance and that each generation removed reduces the inheritance to 1\/4 of whatever it was previously). The fourth generation after will barely notice the effects, but their parents would be directly influenced by them, even if they don’t realize it.<\/p>\n

    To get a better understanding of which model is more accurate, let’s look at a realistic case. Person Red-Dot, at the upper left of the family tree, is accused of Murder. He loses his position of trust, his source of income, and the respect of his neighbors as a result of the accusation, and struggles to recoup those losses even though he is found not guilty. He becomes bitter and reclusive.<\/p>\n

    Consider the impact on his young family. They are pariahs by association, the targets of rumor, slander, and innuendo within the community, and have effectively lost their breadwinner. Hard times follow, as the family relocates several times in an attempt to start over, only for these rumors and tales to follow them.<\/p>\n

    Each of the children react differently – resentment against the system, a hatred of injustice, respect for the process that eventually exonerated their father, and perhaps, an “upstanding citizen” attitude which demands that all those around them hold themselves to a higher standard and be seen to do so<\/em> – to be seen, in fact, as a Pillar of the Community.<\/p>\n

    Given the family history, it’s hard to see how child #4 could tolerate living in the same community as his or her disgraced father, and it’s quite possible that #s 1 and 2 would also strike out on their own. Certainly, there would be extreme hostility between siblings 1 and 4. It’s also likely that Sibling #1 would soon develop his own history with the law.<\/p>\n

    Any one of these, in the right circumstance, could be the right person at the right time to achieve something Significant or even Great – be it heading a revolution or reform process of some kind (#1), becoming a renowned advocate for individual rights (#2), a lawman of note (#3), or a staunch center around which the populace can rally in troubled times (#4).<\/p>\n

    The attitudes of these people would certainly also impact on their children and the upbringing those offspring receive, either positively or negatively, but generally speaking, to a lesser extent. They would then make choices in their own lives within the window of potential so created, based on the compound of their personalities and their upbringing, choices that would in turn have impacts upon the succeeding generation.<\/p>\n

    By now, however, the connection to the original events would be waning, and relatively easily overcome by more immediate circumstances and events. You could say that the third generation were impacted in terms of personality but not circumstance. By the time of the fourth generation, all direct impact from the original event will have dissipated, a skeleton lurking unsuspected in the family closet to be rediscovered at some later date. What persists into this generation are the secondary effects and consequences and reactions to the original event, but in the next generation, even those will have largely faded into obscurity.<\/p>\n

    It doesn’t much matter what the original event is. “Found Guilty Of Murder”, “Was Murdered”, “Ran off to join the circus abandoning his wife and children”, “was killed in the war” – the same pattern of inheritance, of an immediate impact on the circumstances of the family, of reactions to that impact, of the indirect impact of those reactions on the shaping of personalities, and finally, indirect impact of reactions to those personalities in the fourth generation, would remain approximately accurate.<\/p>\n

    So the 75\/25 model is pretty close to correct.<\/p>\n

    The Difference between Significant and Dramatic<\/h3>\n

    This pattern changes if the individual achieved Significant deeds rather than merely dramatic ones, because those deeds are likely to open doors for their children that would otherwise remain closed to them.<\/p>\n

    Those doors represent new opportunities for greatness or for achieving new deeds of significance. It doesn’t much matter if the deeds are in the categories of business, or industry, or politics, or social movement, or entertainment, or war.<\/p>\n

    This clearly overrides one of the critical factors that seriously impacts the chance of a noteworthy ancestor. It takes a deed of equally-great infamy (or vice-versa) to shut down this chain of “inherited” opportunities, or the passing of considerable time.<\/p>\n

    Deeds of Significance are therefore more accurately reflected by the 50% model, and moreover, make it possible for the next generation to also achieve something either significant or dramatic, perpetuating and restarting the entire sequence.<\/p>\n

    The Immediacy Of Impact<\/h3>\n

    Most people know or knew their grandparents personally. Many will have known their great-grandparents as living people within their lifetime – I certainly did, or some of them anyway, even though most died when I was quite young.<\/p>\n

    That means that Significant Deeds five generations earlier, or Dramatic events three generations earlier, will have had noticeable impact on the life and personality of a relative who you know or knew personally, and who may well have played a role – perhaps a substantial one – in shaping your<\/em> personality.<\/p>\n

    Great Grandparents = three generations ago. Add five generations to that, and it can be seen that your life is (at least in part) the result of the cumulative influence of no less than 8 generations of forebears.<\/p>\n

    Your four-times-great-Grandparents helped shape your life to some degree! Perhaps only a little – there’s plenty of time and opportunity for reversals of fortune in those generations – but the influence, however indirect, will be there.<\/p>\n

    The Significance For RPGs<\/h3>\n

    PCs, by their very nature, are exceptional people with exceptional opportunities for Great Deeds. Except for sometimes being ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, depending on the campaign concept of the GM.<\/p>\n

    In fact, it’s not going too far to describe the GMs role as providing the opportunity for Greatness, and the Players’ as deciding when and how to respond to it. Will they take up the challenge and risk failure to achieve Significance? Or will they be cautious and timid and safe, cowering in the fear of being noticed by a predator passing by their small pond? This dilemma stands at the heart of almost all RPGs, regardless of genre. You can interpret everything from D&D to Toon, from Star Trek to Tunnels & Trolls, through this prism.<\/p>\n

    But – and here’s the important point – should the Player accept the GM’s challenge, the role of the latter changes. That acceptance effectively seals a contract between the two, in which the GM promises the Player the chance to steer the PC to Greatness. This should not come easily, and success should not be assured, but should the PC succeed, it becomes the GM’s obligation to pay out on the “wager”. No welshing, backhanders, caveats, or other tricks.<\/p>\n

    No PC scheme is ever completely hair-brained if it works, and the unlikely plan at least has the virtue of surprise.<\/p>\n

    But the outcome is not the only guarantee that the GM has unwittingly made; the method by which this outcome is to be achieved is just as important as the outcome, specifically the pathway to an outcome must be as entertaining to both the player and the GM as the GM can make it. This is the entire premise of Campaign Mastery!<\/p>\n

    The Significance For PCs<\/h3>\n

    Of course, that’s a very high-level big-picture interpretation of the significance. For most GMs, a lower-level interpretation will be just as useful.<\/p>\n

    This is a technique by which the GM can directly connect the PCs to the game history and to the Villains, adding to the depth of the character by giving them some personal circumstances to react to from very early on in the campaign. Sometimes, persuading players to put some skin in the game can be the hardest trick of the lot; this solves that problem.<\/p>\n

    Imagine, for example, that rather than taking up the plot hooks that the GM has been dangling in front of them, the players want to do their own thing. Fine, the GM grudgingly concedes, as he must. But by involving the PCs family history in the situation that the PC is steadfastly ignoring, this act of player<\/em> rebellion gains a context as an act of PC<\/em> rebellion against a family legacy that he had no say in (just as the player had no say in what the GM is foisting upon him). And, by virtue of that context, the PC becomes connected to the main plot that the GM wants to run by virtue of their act of rebellion.<\/em><\/p>\n

    On the other hand, should the PC have taken the bait, such a connection to the character’s family history can then emerge to give the PC added investment in the cause or mission. It’s no longer a case of “well, that’s the adventure hook, I guess we should take it” – the decision matters to the PC and to the NPCs around him – his family and childhood friends.<\/p>\n

    Either way, the PC is suddenly a part of the game world and not a figurehead tacked on to the superstructure of the campaign.<\/p>\n

    Ancestors of Significance make the campaign Significant to the PC. That’s a powerful tool.<\/p>\n

    And, of course, it can be taken as read that it can also be used to link exceptional NPCs to the history of the campaign as well. The GM can always do that anyway; the chief benefit here lies in the provision of context and a mechanism of inheritance, and, in particular, getting the GM to consider the possibilities in a more structured and viable way. Being able to pluck ideas from thin air is always good, but such wild fancies are often incompletely viable (let’s be generous), a problem that this technique avoids to a large extent.<\/p>\n

    Beware Excess<\/h3>\n

    And, as I’ve said on other occasions about other tools that I’ve offered here at Campaign Mastery, the more powerful the tool, the greater the damage that it can do if misused. Don’t attempt to give every PC an ancestor of Significance; most will have only events of high Drama in their backgrounds. The PCs are not all the descendants of some Magnificent Seven of the past; one such is enough, and then have the others drawn into his resulting story. A descendant of the last survivor of such a group is more than powerful enough. Frodo only needed to come into possession of one<\/em> ring…<\/p>\n

    Used with flair and delicacy, this can be a very useful addition to your repertoire. But less is definitely more! Use it with restraint.<\/p>\n

    Related Resources & Discussion<\/h3>\n

    Of course, this isn’t the only genealogy-related tool that I’ve offered here at Campaign Mastery. Most notably, in Throw Me A Life-line<\/a>, I provided a free planning tool that permits the GM to map the ages of family members to critical events, permitting the impact of those events to be assessed.<\/p>\n

    You could even suggest that the life-line tool was designed to enable the accurate population of this<\/em> tool, it is so perfect for the purpose. You’d be wrong, but it would be an understandable error!<\/p>\n

    I would also be remiss if I didn’t point the reader to Should GMs design a PC’s Family?<\/a> in which some of the potential benefits – and problems – that could arise from using this tool are discussed. Everything in that article is pretty much relevant to this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Who among you watches “Who Do You Think You Are?” It might be that not everyone gets the opportunity, but for anyone who does, it is an excellent series that is well worth your time. By connecting actual people (celebrities, but actual people nevertheless) with history, it helps to bring history to life. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[67,70,74,89,12,13,94,95,97,96],"tags":[237,106,108,163,155,109,127,172,218,282,137,283,141,165,232],"series":[],"class_list":["post-21794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dnd","category-gm-ing","category-mike","category-npcs-etc","category-pcs","category-players","category-ideas-and-inspiration","category-tools","category-world-design","category-write","tag-adventure-creation","tag-campaign-background","tag-campaigns","tag-cultures-societies","tag-dd","tag-dm-advice","tag-inspiration","tag-npcs","tag-pathfinder","tag-pcs","tag-plausibility","tag-players","tag-races","tag-tools-techniques","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1toiD-5Fw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21798,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21794\/revisions\/21798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21794"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=21794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}