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[Lizbeth]

I recently started my first Anima game. The party is participating in the first Lady flight. First character is Dark Paladin Abelense High Noblewoman who is flying out of simple fact that this is the first Zeppelin fight in history of Gaia, some kind of status event. Second character is Technician Togarenese Noble who is here just out of curiosity. And third character is Warlock Togarenese merchant whose family have some ties with the Black Sun.

The problem is, it's a first tie I use "you spontaneously met each other" method of composing the party, my previous 12 years of DnD were spent with "you originate from the same organisation/share the same goal" method. So while they are on ship there is no trouble, but after they deal with current module they have no reason to stay with each other any longer.

And there are some complications:
I don't know what the noblewoman think about Elisabetta but she is definitely won't participate in any anti-Abel activities, as she won't participate in anything that can threaten her noble status. As far as I can understand her goal is fame and to have some stories to impress high society of Abel. Her aim is impressive deeds, not good or evil deeds.

Togarenese Nobleman is totally Azur patriot and support any Gaul ideas and activities. He is the most evil party member who is perfectly fine with watching "Kyler and the innocents" dance, or even participating in some bloodshed himself. I suppose his global goal is to become an Arbiter.

Togarenese merchant is less interested in politics (and least dependent of it). His family is affiliated with Delacroix, so I suppose he is not kind type of guy. He intend to have some place in Black Sun, something like CEO or even membership in the Board of Directors.


I can imagine how this guys can be united at high level ("OMG Ophiel have intentions to release the Filisnogos you guys are our last hope plz stop him right NAO"), but for low-level I'm completely out of ideas (except for outraging railroad of course).

[Dynaes]

I faced a similar conundrum when I ran it.  We have just restarted the campaign in the aftermath.  I basically had to railroad them a little bit, but I structured it as "you're all forced into the same situation, you may like it, you may not, but that's what you have to do for now"  They will have opportunities to break themselves out of it, but for now they have found that working together is the most useful, as they all try to determine if they really want to be a part of it.  And by that, I mean become Processed and work for the Crows.  Basically, I had Lucanor invite them to meet with him so he could discuss the disappearance of the Lady and offer hospitality in reparation for any ills they may have suffered because of him.  Long story short, he poisoned them, and the only true "cure" is to become Processed.  For now, they have to perform tasks to earn vials of "antidotes" that push off the effects of the poison.  Once they are deemed strong enough, they will be able to become Processed.  Obviously, that replaces their reliance on the antidote with their reliance on the Black Liquid, but I think the party will still have opportunities for escape before and after, so I'm hoping the slight initial railroading opens up.

So, I guess what I'm offering as an idea is have something happen that gives them strong incentive to work together to overcome it.  Maybe they are arrested/interrogated because their survival is suspect.  Maybe they are kidnapped, etc.  I've always found this to work pretty well as an organic way to build a party from people who didn't know each other and don't have strong reason to work together.  As their characters and relationships develop through that arc, you hopefully will see the best way to keep them wanting to work together in the future.  Hope some of that helps!

[alphawhelp]

Good ol' Lucanor Giovanni.  He had my PCs burn down a village while pretending to be from the Heaven Order to lure out the Empress.  Great old upstanding gentleman he is.

[Sharpandpointies]

Sadly this doesn't help you NOW, but the best way to avoid this is to sit down before character generation and discuss things with your players.  As the GM, one has the right to say 'okay, I'm planning on reffing a game where at the start, all the characters have to at least be neutral toward the Empire/Azur Alliance/Whomever, so make your characters and their background accordingly'.

The problem with your group is not tthat you have three people with wildly different goals (which can be managed), but rather three people with goals that honestly run nigh-directly counter to one another.  

'Won't work with anyone who might do something bad against the Empire and wants to do impressive deeds' versus 'Rabid supporter of Mr. JackassMatthew Gaul and somewhat of a monster' versus 'Wants to work with Black Sun and possibly be on their Board of Directors, which will likely involve going against Gaul and the Empress both (even if only behind the scenes) and possibly doing some pretty horrid things as well'.

While it does make for interesting politics and stories, it might not be so great for party unity.  :(  If you don't want to railroad, something has to give, here.  

[The Dread Polack]

My suggestion is to ask each of your players to come up with his or her own ideas why they are all going to work together. Don't fall into the old-school idea that you're responsible for hooking the party together. Everyone at the table is equally responsible, and benefits equally from a functional game.

The best way to do this, as Sharpandpointies pointed out, is to figure this out during character creation. Despite that, it's never too late to do this. How many TV shows or comic books have you read where a character seems to suddenly and unexpectedly become one of "team". How did they do this? The writers got together and brainstormed. Sometimes the ideas are contrived, and even a bit lame. Luckily, our standards for that sort of thing are pretty low, since the goal is simply to have fun, and our fun is rarely threatened by that kind of inconsistancy.

Having said all that, here are some ideas:

First off, your party sounds fairly neutral, tending toward evil. I would never GM a group like this. Groups like this are never motivated by the "do the right thing" mentality of good parties. They need to be motivated personally. That can be difficult when you have 4 different motivations. I suggest uniting them against a common threat that will last a long time, such as a villain that will hound them. If you want something simpler, go with the hook for the show Leverage, and just say that, for some reason, everyone in the group simply enjoyed working together, and at least the potential for gaining experience and wealth benefits everyone.

The Abelense Noblewoman: it will be very hard to work plots into the game where she will gain political power without boring the other PCs, or worse, provoking actual antagonism from them, especially the Azure citizen. Work with the player to find something more broad to motivate her. Anything she can quest for as a Dark Paladin?

The Azure Technician will have a similar problem. My suggestion for him is the same as for the Abelense PC. In fact, if you can immediately hook the two together, working toward a common goal, that will not only avoid annoying conflict, but make for some very interesting potential adventures.

Black Sun Merchant: probably the easiest to hook. He's most likely interested in acquiring wealth and artifacts, which can be gained any number of ways.

[Lizbeth]

Sadly this doesn't help you NOW, but the best way to avoid this is to sit down before character generation and discuss things with your players.

The problem is not "how to make situations like this never happen" but "how to make situations like this playable without obvious rail-roading or huge gaps in characters logic".

First off, your party sounds fairly neutral, tending toward evil. I would never GM a group like this. Groups like this are never motivated by the "do the right thing" mentality of good parties. They need to be motivated personally.

Yep. All parties I gm are from "mercenary grey" to "villainous". We tried to play heroic good guys several times, nothing good out of it. So we usually stick to "party is neutral with inclination to evil" while their opponents are some kind of psychos with no moral obligations who will shatter anything in their way to achieve their goal, and their goal is, well, not the one PC personally would like to join. So even Gaul for my players is not a villain but more like anti-hero who stands for justice and reason with his noble goal of creating the New World Order.

Dynaes, Sharpandpointies, The Dread Polack, thanks. You gave me some insight how to resolve (or at least die trying to resolve ) this situation. I'd like to write more but my players have a bad habit stalking this http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php?action=profile;u=54766;sa=showPosts

[Sharpandpointies]

The problem is not "how to make situations like this never happen" but "how to make situations like this playable without obvious rail-roading or huge gaps in characters logic".

Yeah...sorry about how my post didn't really help with this situation, but that was kind of my point.  I don't actioually see a way out of this without obvious railroading or huge gaps in characters' logic.  :(

Again, railroad or...one of these players (at the least) has to give and either change their character's outlook or ignore it.  :(

[The Dread Polack]

It's not railroading if you let the player decide. You just need to demand that a solution is found before you go forward.

Think about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as a campaign: Imagine two players showed up at the game with vampires (Angel and Spike) and the party, collectively said "How is Buffy the vampire slayer supposed to be on the same team with you guys?" Maybe the GM railroaded them, or maybe he turned to the players and asked "I don't know, how are you supposed to be on the same team?" One of the players said "I don't know... maybe I was cursed by a gypsy to have a soul, thus feeling regret for my evil actions?" and the other one was like "Oh, that's good. Hm... I can't think of anything." and another player said "How about the government put a chip in your head that prevents you from hurting humans?" and he said "Um, well, thats kinda lame, but I can make it work."

And thus, they had a dysfunctional but playable team.