Caller

[Falconer]

Every boat has a skipper. Every squad has a sergeant. All the adventuring parties in Tolkien always had a leader. It seems natural to me that an AD&D adventuring party would have a Caller. This thread is intended to answer any questions you may have about how AD&D works with a Caller.

The most basic use of a Caller is this:

DM: “You come to a crossroads. There are tunnels going east, south, and west.”

This sort of decision comes up in AD&D constantly. In my games, the Caller is also the mapper, or sitting next to the mapper and able to quickly consult with him. So, what do you do? Stop and discuss among the entire party and take a vote? Or does someone just “make the call”? In my games, one player is elected at the start of the session to just “make the call” in all questions like this. The Caller has been elected because the party ultimately trusts his decisions.

A lot of the time the game will stall for whatever reason—people drift off into Out-Of-Character discussion, or perhaps there is an intense In-Character strategy discussion among the players while I, as DM, “zone out”, studying my notes or the module or whatever instead of listening in. At any time, I can ask the Caller, “So what’s going on?” Usually, I don't even have to even ask. The Caller has been elected for his ability to direct the story in a clear fashion.

And, I think that’s important. We talk a lot about how in AD&D 1e it’s expected that the players will drive the story, not the DM. Without a Caller, or even without a Good Caller, that entire onus to keep the game going and make all those little decisions falls upon the DM. I don't know about you, but I as DM feel very uncomfortable narrating the players’ actions for them. I can't impartially arbitrate the PCs’ world AND direct the steps of the PCs. That leads to 2e-style gaming where the DM is the storyteller and the PCs are merely his puppets.

There is NO danger of the PCs becoming puppets of a Caller, however. He is, of course, only one PC himself, and his power is derived from the other PCs and can be overruled by any PC at any time. PCs declare their own actions in combat. PCs do tend to discuss and vote (or get a consensus) on all bigger decisions. PCs retain full power over their own character's actions. And the DM retains his infallibility.

Does that make sense? Regards.

[Irda Ranger]

Does that make sense?

It does to me; and thanks.

[cloak n' dagger]

I've toyed with the idea of a Caller, but not quite in the same manner. My idea for the Caller is to be the one single voice giving the party's combined decisions to the DM, more to eliminate 4+ different actions or a jumbled up mess of speaking all tossed at the DM at once. The party decides collectively what is going to happen, then the Caller tells the DM who then does his job.

When I mentioned it to the group, however, they didn't like the idea. They felt it restricted personal RP between each character and the DM, which I can see. In a dungeon crawl, I think a Caller would work very well, but a game with heavy RP not so much.

[Drohem]

I've toyed with the idea of a Caller, but not quite in the same manner. My idea for the Caller is to be the one single voice giving the party's combined decisions to the DM, more to eliminate 4+ different actions or a jumbled up mess of speaking all tossed at the DM at once. The party decides collectively what is going to happen, then the Caller tells the DM who then does his job.

I was the Caller for my group and this is exactly how we handled it. It worked well, especially for moving things along in the dungeon environment.