I’ve been brainstorming tons of adventure seeds, threats, weird technological singularity apocalyptica to barf forth for my Big Bad Con game “Dr. Singularity or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Psychic Maelstrom”. http://www.bigbadcon.com/events/dr-singularity-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-psychic-maelstrom/
As it’s a con game, I need to be able to hit the ground running and keep it interesting but I also want to allow it to be a “play to see what happens sort of game”. It’s an interesting balancing act of creating enough different veins of content that I can just wing it with whatever the players throw my way, but at the same time having some overlap so that the different types of threats have possible directions that encourages a plot to develop.
I’m approaching the game intro with a set of questions for the players to answer which both help fill out the game world and set it up for the types of playbooks which are available for the players to choose from. I’ve seen this approach before with questions such as “Who holds on to power?” (Hardholder), etc. My questions are more world specific with multiple choice answers. For each answer I lay out a playbook or two that relates. There is overlap in playbooks available between questions but that’s by design and play is limited to only one of each playbook allowed in the game. The answers and playbooks allowed may still shift but you can see how some of it works below:
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A colony of surviving humans all live around The Stalk, which is the base of a Space Elevator, which remains upright yet is no longer operational.
Where is the The Stalk located?
1. On a floating sea platform away from the dangerous mainland [Maestro’D with a pleasure/gambling/whatever yacht]
2. On a mountain surrounded by a dense jungle of runaway biotech [Tribal]
3. In the middle of the Glitter Desert, a long stretch of dunes consisting of nothing but mostly inactive, or at least dormant nanomachines [A Boy and His Dog or Touchstone]
4. In the middle of a ruined megacity with once semi-sentiant self repairing buildings distorted by the nano-plague into fractal rats nest of intertwined skyscrapers. [Ruin Runner]
What does the colony of The Stalk have that everyone else wants?
1. Energy (nearly infinite power flows down the Stalk) [Savvyhead or Radio]
2. Fortified (the place is seriously fortified with an armory of leftover high tech weapons; not all of them work but hell) [Gunlugger or Battle Babe]
3. Maker Machines (The town has a couple mostly functioning Makers that help with creating tools, clothing, medicine, booze making, and if you can coax it to food and weaponry ) [Angel or Maestro D]
4. Labor (provided by robot servitors or uplifted animals with servitor implants) [Savvyhead or Brainer]
What is the biggest fear of the residents of The Stalk?
1. Roaming autonomous war bots and nano storms [Gunlugger]
2. Gangs and lawlessness [Chopper or Shieldbearer]
3. Starvation/dehydration [Feral Kid or Touchstone]
4. The AI Machines invading their dreams and coming down from space [Juggernaut with space suit or Hocus]
What do people of The Stalk do for fun?
1. They have pit battles between genemod beasts and or robots [Beast Master]
2. They have gladiator battles between people [Battle Babe or Faceless]
3. They catch a show and engage in vice (gambling/drugs/sex)[Maestro’D or Skinner]
4. They do danger run races into the ruins/wilds [Driver]
What makes the Kult of Kurzweil stand out from the other cults?
1. They have access to strange tech [Savvyhead]
2. They are all obviously mind melded together [Brainer or Radio]
3. They came out of no where instantly gained followers [Hocus]
4. They are otherwise normal and seem to just be looking for a good time [Skinner or Maestro D]
I’ve never seen somebody do pre gens in an AW game, even at cons. Character creation is fast enough that usually I just devote the first hour to world and character building when I run. It might seem like your loosing time doing that (it is a quarter of a 4 hour slot), but you easily make up that time in getting players engaged. As far as threats, I generally just take what was come up with from character creation and push it at the PC’s to see what happens. You don’t really need anything too formal in a first session, just find what will get them to react.
That isn’t to say your idea wouldn’t work, like I’ve said, I’ve never seen it done. But if you’re trying this because you’re worried about having enough play time, then I would try running the game straight cause it really does work, though it can help if you have a general setting in mind to sell the game (like on a space station, or the end of time, but not a planned ark).
nice set-ups!
Well I already have a setting — see here: http://www.bigbadcon.com/events/dr-singularity-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-psychic-maelstrom/
I’ve played in a con game of AW where the MC did something like what I have worked up. He asked questions and had us pick from a list what things we wanted to see in the world, and then he had us add our own. It was a great tool for getting the creativity flowing for the players. Also I’m borrowing from Dread which is really effective with asking leading questions that inspire creativity and character development. Which is what I’m doing here. Restrictions are good that way.
I’m certainly planning on giving the players room to create the world as we go. And I will be working off the players goals and motivations but I’ve found it’s always useful to have ideas in one’s back pocket.
My goal with the questions is for several reasons beyond just to get the game rolling fast. It’s also to build in a reason for everyone to be involved and part of the world before they even pick a character. I want people to be picking playbooks not just because their powers look cool but because they can envision how they look cool in the setting. What I also didn’t mention is that I also have NPCs that are interlocked with the choices the players make. Thus setting up the PC > NPC < PC triangles that really make a AW game.
Oh and for the record, in the con game I played, after adding elements to the world, the MC did just let use pick a playbook. Then we fleshed out who we were. It was generally fast but it took a bit to get natural reasons for us to begin dealing with each other. And that time lag did effect things as the ending felt forced and not as climactic as it could have been. That’s all stuff I’m trying to fix. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all works out.
Oh I should point out that these aren’t pre gen characters just setting slots that the playbooks fit into. Beyond that the characters are up to the players to describe.
And I’m not doing anything really novel since the Hatchet City setting that Vincent Baker created does a lot of this exact same stuff with pre written threats and love letters to the PCs which includes a setting and character interaction. If anything my setup is more loose.
Oh and that hour of character creation is far too long for my tastes, especially for con games. I’d rather get into the world as fast as possible, as that’s where the fun is and that’s where the real character personalities emerge.
Often, character creation is the best part of PbtA con games. I’ve spent up to two hours on it (as a player) and that didn’t feel too long. If the players are having fun making characters and setting, let it run.
Also, The Stalk setting options are so cool I would free them up from being tied to any particular playbooks. If the players want to have The Stalk be on a floating sea platform yet no-one is playing the Maestro D, that should be okay, right?
Joshua Randall how I’m going to handle it is ask all the questions and then lay out the playbooks connected. If no one likes one of the choices like if no one likes the Maestro D playbook (how can you not?), I’ll just toss out some Plan B options. I’m not going to be a hardass about it. However, each question/answer will have to have a playbook connected to it in some thematic way though. For example, my Plan B for the sea platform was the Chopper as it would be great to have a jetski gang. And if a player can dream up another thematic connection to a different playbook I’d be fine with that too. What I don’t want is just any playbook with no connections to the thematic components. The connections are key here and I fully believe restrictions are good for creativity.
Joshua Randall oh and no way am I allowing two hours for character gen. I mean sure if I had more than one session but I don’t. I want to give the story a time to breathe so that as we play to see what happens it has the chance to develop a real story arch maybe even with a couple acts in it. My focus as a MC is to have everyone walk out of the game going “my character was awesome because they did this and this and then this happened! And then they came back from near death and did this! (etc)”
Something still feels counter intuitive too me about your plan. I think it’s because I see the playbooks as a way for the players to tell the Mc what type of game their interested in. I can understand restrictions playbooks because of how they play in a one shot or for new players, but for plot generation just feels to me like it’s slipping down the wrong slope.
Well I’ll find out and let you know how it goes.