Hi All
I was wandering if anyone had any suggestions on or examples of the prep work they have done ahead of running.
I recently run my first couple of games at Wyntercon (in East Bourne, UK) and had a blast with 2 very different games. I did a very minimal set up of simple asking the following
1. How did you come by the cargo in the back?
2. How did you get the shuttle your on and who is flying?
3. Why are you in such a hurry to leave?
4. How long have you known each other?
Do people do more than this?
The two games I run for complete newbies were so different but huge fun. every one having a blast. But as a ref I felt liek I maybe shold hvae had a bit more prep done.
Here’s what happened by the way for those interested..
The First saw 2 of the group actually having hired the other 3 to snatch a crate that had a droids head in it they then paid in fake diamonds but ended up having to kidnapp one of the 3 when they peaked at the cargo (something they had been told not to do and the first 2 panicked)
what proceeded was a huge run of clamities as no body could roll much better than 8, people were arrested by customs following the shortest, slowest star ship chase in history. Ships were impounded, a jail brake arranged and a plot to stage a coup was revealed and only just stopped at the cost of part of a star port.
The second time we some how ended up in a Star Wars adventure as a Star Destroyer came out of Hyperspace and proceeded to dismantle a Black Sun pirate ship in a bid to find a crate they had stolen that contained (as it turned out) the upper half of a protcol droid that had information about deeply placed spys in the rebel alliance (one of the players was ex-rebel, having gone Merc as it paid better.) The players had just stolen the crate from black Sun.
They then hot footed it to an old rebel base (the Star Destroyer in hot pursuit) only to find that while it had been largely abandoned a year earlier Ackbar and a small force had returtned and were pinned down by a second set of Imperial forces who had been hunting the famous Rebel. Luckily they managed to sneak on to the planet, free Ackbar and hand over the intellgence.
In similar games (not UW), I ask at least one question per player during setup. They tend to be leading questions, so “How did you come by the cargo in the back?” would be more like “Why did you need to pick up your current cargo on a deserted asteroid away from normal ship traffic?”. This gives us more of a lead into something adventurable.
For my colony game, I asked about life on the colony and found out about some of the hardships. Then, to really make their choices matter, I took those hardships — terrible desert storms — and made those the instigating incident. From there, I just went ahead and found out where they all were when this storm hit and rolled with the repercussions by pushing on people and things that were important to them. I’m not huge on prep, and it rolls pretty naturally from there.
For a first session I used similarly minimal prep. After establishing the basic setting, we jumped right in with something along the lines of “you’re all on the bridge, being held at gunpoint by a trio of masked men. Why did they just shoot the captain?”
For subsequent sessions, I’ve generally taken the time to prep:
– A colorful description or two to help kick things off
– Collate a list of unresolved mysteries, outstanding threats, and potential threats (that have already been established in previous sessions). Everything from “you’re running low on food” to “there’s probably a stowaway on board” to “who was shooting a rocket at them in the marketplace and why?” “rumors of the empire to the south beginning an invasion”. These inform the other prep and also provide ready ammo for GM moves.
– Write a few potential “jump points” that would require immediate action or choice.
– Write a half-dozen or so potential prompt questions, informed by the above two points.
If the previous session ended after a big action scene, I’ll usually start with “soft” stuff and let them get their feet, gather info and supplies, etc. If the previous session ended quietly, I’ll drop them into a hot mess as quickly as possible. My last session, for example, had something like this as a kickoff:
“It’s a week later. There’s only one more storm pass to go until you reach Franzington.. A trio of skiffs flying black flags appear from around a towering thunderhead, moving to intercept you before you reach the pass. , what do you do?”
I totally get the feeling that you “need” to prep. It’s really ingrained in GMing that we have to know what will happen, especially if we’re less than confident with our ability to ad-lib. That said, the most interesting games I’ve ever had the pleasure of GMing have had almost no prep, other than the initial situation (with lots of blanks). It’s been very entertaining to present a situation without knowing the punchline.
Enjoyed reading the game reports. The Star Wars game you described sounds especially awesome.
I’d like to add that one small prep I do when coming up with a Jump Point is to have a trump card in the event things go south. Basically, if I end up with a group that doesn’t quite know what to do, have a secondary Jump Point that can push things forward. It’s likely you won’t need it, but just in case.
Like, if my initial Jump Point is set on a space station, I usually keep a critical malfunction or explosive decompression in my back pocket, juuuust in case things seem to be lagging.
Thanks everyone some food for thought there 🙂
I’m going to Indiecon this weekend where I’ll be offering it up a couple of times. I’ll let you know all now how it goes there 🙂