Before we begin, let’s make one thing perfectly clear. I could, if I wanted to, make all of these points just as easily and a little more colorfully if I used the Power Rangers as a mentor text. However. I am saving that for a different article.
Before we begin, let’s go over a quick history of The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, published in 1844 in France. Dumas was a playwright and novelist. His grandmother was a slave from Haiti whom his grandfather fell in love with, then purchased, freed, and brought back to France. Dumas participated in the revolution which installed France’s last king under a constitutional monarchy. Dumas lived in a time of constant political unrest, and his subtle support of the king is evident in his writing, as well his firm belief in the rights of the people. He was a student of history, an avid traveler, and a loyalist, but he was not really a traditionalist. American and English writers who met him described him as warm, generous, amusing, and egotistical. He saw the industrialization of France and he saw two revolutions, the second of which forced him to flee to Belgium. Despite the fact that he did not subscribe to the more popular political beliefs of the time, his plays and novels enjoyed an impressive popularity rate, several of them being translated into other languages soon after publication. He wrote the original three musketeers novel, basing the four main characters off of names in a real report that he uncovered while doing research for another project. That report outlined the basic premise of the four characters and how they met, though from that point Dumas added a great deal of his own details. While most writers of the time were preoccupied with discussing nature and exploring the internal self, Dumas was pioneering the formula for the classic adventure novel. And what was his key contribution? A diverse adventuring party that shared the role of protagonist.
The Three Musketeers is an adventure story that brings four main characters into the spotlight to accomplish a common goal. I would like to identify four specific components that facilitate this dynamic and contribute to the story’s overall success. In doing so, I want to give you some tips on integrating them into your game’s narrative. This article, from here out, is mostly for PCs, but Narrators should read it too and then email it to all of their PCs. The first component is a shared membership in a named group. The second is a shared skill set. The third is unique backgrounds. The fourth will be unique characterizations.
First things first, the shared membership. Many TTRPGs include some sort of mechanic to give the player characters preexisting associations that they can use when the game starts, such as “bonds.” This avoids the whole “You walk into a tavern…” nonsense that we have all tried to use. These mechanics are excellent, and I personally view them as a true innovation. However, do you need a game mechanic to make this happen? No. In the novel, the main characters belong to a special military unit in the French army. This shared membership immediately gives them a reason to be acquainted and go on adventures. It’s very simple and overtly logical. You can have the same logic in your game by doing about 20 minutes of lore research or world building together during session zero. As a Narrator, I enjoy including these details in a premise that I pitch to the PCs. If they like the pitch, we go from there. They can be family members, a SWAT team, a college research team in the same grad program, they can all work in the same office building, etc. I’ll write another article about pitching premises, but for now think of this as one detail you can set in stone before the game starts to make the first few sessions way easier to plan and give momentum.
Second things second, a common skill set. Whatever the main conflict of the story is, each player should be at least a little cross trained to deal with that conflict. If you’re playing a game about a group of friends running a cozy cafe, at least two people should have a cooking skill. If you’re playing a political intrigue game, at least two people should have a deception skill. If you’re playing a rom com gothic horror about exploring haunted woods with incorporeal ghosts that use illusions, at least two people should have a skill for seeing through illusions and everyone should be able to run while holding hands with their secret crush. Redundancies and cross-training are tactical and practical, and they require discussion before hand to determine priorities and assign responsibilities. For the musketeers, common skills are swords, guns, and horsemanship. When it’s time to roll initiative, each character can swing a sword, each character can shoot a gun, and each character can do so mounted on a horse. However, they are not all created equal or carbon copied. One musketeer was acknowledged to be the most proficient marksman, and each musketeer boasted a superior swordsmanship due to having a unique style.
In tandem with the common skill set is unique backgrounds. As we said a moment ago, redundancies do not equal an absence of differences. Each musketeer is given a unique backstory that directly informs their personality and individualized skill set. Athos is a nobleman, and knows about affairs of state. Aramis was a priest and knows about medicine and religion. Porthos was a pirate, and knows about pirate stuff. The last member of the party, d’Artagnan, doesn’t know anything, hence the need to go on an adventure with his three new best friends. The divide and conquer method of building a party is really baked into most RPGs, table top and otherwise. Tank, healer, support, DPS. Although, in the order of musketeers, I listed them support, healer, tank, DPS. Redundancies are useful, but it should not overshadow specialties. A lot of players like to write a crazy backstory and use it to get perks from the Narrator or GM. But it makes more sense and is a lot less work to accept an assignment from the group after discussing what everyone wants to play as, choosing skills and abilities that will help you fill your roll, and then writing a backstory that is logically consistent with what you as a player and what the group as a whole have decided.
This runs directly into the final point, unique characterizations. By following the recipe up to this point, you have a group of players that will start session one with a clear association, loyalty, and reason to act, a common skill set to address the challenges associated with their reason to act, and unique skills and abilities that create clear roles and assignments when those challenges appear. In conjunction with those unique traits, each character can have a distinct personal flair that increases the immersion. In Q.U.E.S.T.E., the easiest way to do this is with negative attributes. In other games, it’s simply a playstyle preference in how you role play. Athos has a drinking problem. Aramis is quiet and holds back. Porthos is loud, talkative, and confrontational. D’Artagnan is a rowdy, overconfident upstart. We can also say something here about side plots, and giving each PC their chance to be in the center of the spotlight, but that’s also a topic that can take up a whole article, so we’ll save it for later.
Session zero is important for a lot of reasons. A lot of us see it as a formality, when we should be seeing it as an opportunity to play the game and start telling the story. During session zero, discuss the plot’s premise. Discuss a logical association that can bring the PCs together. Discuss who wants to be tank, DPS, etc. Then, build your characters together, making decisions around contributing to a shared dynamic. This is a huge role playing opportunity, world building opportunity, and a huge tactical opportunity if you’re playing a game that uses an initiative system. It will be awkward the first couple of times, but even so it will improve the efficiency of a campaign’s initial liftoff. You can see this formula repeated in a lot of IPs, and you can use one that everyone at your table likes as a blueprint for your first time trying to implement it in your game.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried anything like this before. Let us know what went well and what went weird. Comment any premises you’ve wanted to play. Comment any IPs that you think show a good example of this. Thanks for reading!
Henry Standage
