Would this work in AW
What do you think about playing the people in the “antagonist” Hardhold for one session? They where mentioned a few times but no one has a real idea about what these guys are about. Giving us each a view into the life at this hardhold would be interesting as players. The characters would know at least a bit of the stuff going on there and the threat would be clearer in the next session.
Does this defeat one of the principles or is this totally okay?
I, as a player, wouldn’t interested in being entertained in this way by the mc. I’d just like to play my crazy char ;)
I like this idea! Good for when someone can’t make it and you need a different approach for the session.
Ask the players if they’d be down for it: this kind of thing appeals to some and doesn’t to others. But you can still cleave to the principles. Make everyone human, and make the world seem realistic especially, but throw in some rumors about the PCs being discussed behind their back by “npcs” and you’re being a fan, too. Use the opportunity to foreshadow some future badness in store for the ‘protagonists’, too, maybe they’re working on some project or the hardholder is preparing for a massive attack, etc.
I would never do this without the players consens.
It’s bad enough that they have to roll their own dice, now you want them to create their own opposition too. 🙂 Seriously though, I’d be a bit leery of reincorporating their alt characters at a later time, by being characters, they are by nature the movers and shakers of the hardhold.
For me this is vignette: you are throwing some light on a part of the world that will not be visible through normal play. Naturally you need consent and I would make it short and sweet. You could set it up with loveletters or some other device to drop them into an existing situation. Of course the PCs are now NPCs and therefore in the crosshairs: make sure that the players know that when obtaining their consent.
I would almost think this would be a good opportunity NOT to play movers and shakers, just to highlight the coolness of the original characters by contrast. Maybe just give them a list of GM moves for brutes or something, instead of playbooks?
Maybe adapt World of Dungeons so that you have a mechanical juxtaposition as well as a fictional one.
Get your player’s buy-in and go for a “slice-of-life” approach rather than a “here’s where they attack the actual Hardhold!”
If you’re looking for a straight-up kill-’em-all game of AW, I’d avoid it, because it will humanize your NPCs big-time. Which is kinda excellent, really.
I’ve done this with other games (Ars Magica back in the day with Vincent Baker and Emily Care Boss) and it can be seriously good stuff. Fleshes out the world really nicely, makes your opponents more complex and interesting, generally a cool experiment that adds to the campaign. Here’s how we did it:
PCs stayed home doing whatever, and we spent the first 30 mins or so of the session checking in on their projects. In the fiction, it was winter and not much traveling could happen, so why not spend the time working on stuff?
We spent the rest of the session doing slice-of-life at a different Covenant or other important place – I think the duke’s palace and the local faerie hall figured in.
After five sessions of this, we had “visited” all the major Covenants in our region and had a much better feel for who was doing what and etc.
Then we returned to our home Covenant and picked up again in the early spring, with lots of info to build on for the next dozen sessions of the PCs adventures.
“Get your player’s buy-in and go for a “slice-of-life” approach rather than a “here’s where they attack the actual Hardhold!””
this was what i was thinking yes.