Genre Police: The Cameo

Ever have that friend who wants to play but doesn’t have the best schedule? Or someone you think could bring a new feeling to a game for a short amount of time in order to make an arc feel different to the ones that went before?

You might be tempted to bring that player in to do a ‘guest slot’ in a game for a few sessions. Well, I think that’s a great idea! However, I’ve been both a GM and a player when this has and hasn’t worked as well as intended. So I thought I’d explore the idea of bringing in guest stars and some things I’ve observed.

The Guest Slot

A player joining a game for a short time can add a number of things to a campaign that can be really fun, including a change of attitude for a while, a fresh perspective or skillset a team needs.

It can also give a game a weird feeling of legitimacy because once you have guest stars, the game starts to feel a bit like a TV show or streaming game without having to go through the headache of all that. It can also create a natural segue should a player drop out of your group, and the guest will now be more available. Rather than having to write a new character in, it simply becomes ‘that character we met before briefly returns and stays’.

So keeping those options open is always good practice. Adding the occasional guest can really mix things up and make the continued run of your game a more robust possibility. As long as it goes well.

Reasons For Being

A guest player is a thing to be handled carefully.

Firstly, you have to give them something to do. There’s nothing worse than getting excited about guest starring in a game and then finding out you are irrelevant to the plot and contribute nothing. If the game would have run pretty much the same without you, why are you here? There are a number of ways you can make this work.

One way that seems simple is to tie part of the guest’s story to a player’s backstory. It is more difficult idea than you imagine, though. You have to make sure the incoming guest understands the backstory in the way the existing player does. If the original player is constantly reminding the guest of names, places and details of their backstory whenever the guest references stuff in game, it is going to break immersion. Or if the guest invents a load of stuff that totally changes the feeling and direction of that backstory, this can also be jarring. So make sure that if you try this, you have a guest committed to getting that right.

An easier thing to do would be to tie the guest’s story into the ongoing plot – they hold some important piece of information they might give the players if they earn the trust of the guest, or they are on a mission that ties into a resource the players need, or maybe they are the guardian of something. This element tends to give a guest character not just an in that makes them feel like a naturally occurring part of the world, but also gives their player something to do and think about regarding where the game is going. They have an objective and therefore a mini arc.

The most memorable cameo I’ve seen from the player side is when it turned out our guest star was setting us up, and we had to kill him before he closed his trap. As the player was already a friend, it really added an element of an arc being completed and story being told when we killed him.

Another way to do this is if the players need a skill set or organisation to help, giving that resource to a player can be fun. Maybe a group of Cyberpunks need a Media specialist for one mission, or a D&Dgroup are trying to get help from a thieves guild – making the guest the specialist for hire or regional thieves guild head can be a fun extra.

Remember the Whole Field

You should pitch some of the game directly at the guest. Make sure that they get to have a scene or two with characters they particularly bond with/rub up the wrong way.

But you should also remember that if you are pitching at them and they are hitting the ball, the rest of the players should be required to be there, to catch anything that lands. Make it about the guest star but make sure that you don’t spend ages on why this mysterious new person is joining up – once you’ve established it will be only for a while, you can get on. It should become about how this changes the team dynamic for a while, which involves looking at the whole team.

And Watch For The Outside Perspective

I’ve had a few games where the feeling of a cameo or crossover can really have long lasting implications. Often observed from the outside, the actions of a gaming groups PCs can look insane and unjustified. And that outsider questioning by a guest can sometimes cause a group to question the way it operates or functions.

In some cases this is a wonderful roleplaying experience. It promotes character introspection and growth. But sometimes it can shatter players who want to suddenly either justify their actions or feel like they are being attacked. So if this shows up, it’s always worth taking a moment to check in with players post session.

Remember that changing a social dynamic even for a little while can be felt for years afterwards.

Disengage!

The group might be hitting it off with this player something rotten. It might feel like a natural element to add them to the group then and there. But remember, a few sessions worth of storyline are not the same as the long haul.

Try to honour the original guest moment if that’s what you pitched to everyone. The players should leave again. If a few sessions down the road, the group now feels like it is missing something, maybe then it is time to think about inviting that player back full time. But extending it indefinitely  without a lot of discussion is a breach of social contract with your group.

Unless people are all actively calling out for it, you need to have that discussion separate from the guest moment.

It sound really gatekeepery but it’s about what you can manage long term and if the new tone and dynamics are to everyone’s liking. Give time for the dust to settle with players able to see themselves post-guest and thenmake the decision.

I hope that’s been instructive and helpful. I might revist this to talk about whole group crossovers at some point but next time I’m going to move on to something more focused on the players at your table. See you then!

Creative Commons credits: Theodemar Neridiri (Kingdom)  by Nerd0And0Proud, Tiyra Ealoeth by Limboplus and Mafia Transaction by skian-winterfyre.