What’s a thing you wished you’d done more of in your first sessions?
For context: I’ve got a first-ever session for everyone involved coming up. I’d like it to turn into a longer-term game. Two of my players are my 20-year regulars who’ve played lots of D&D, White Wolf, GURPS… the other two are relatively newer to RP and have only played d20.
I’m one of those “he’s always the DM” people with lots of experience in lots of systems, but PbtA is a very exciting twist on making a good story and I’m stoked! I don’t know if any of the previous storyteller-ish systems I’ve run have ever focused so tightly on crafting a story experience.
I always wish I asked more interesting questions, especially about relationships between the PC’s.
I always wish I took better notes on my NPCs, especially the ones my players helped create.
What Andrew Medeiros said. Also establishing more triangle relationships: PC-NPC-PC especially.
YES, TRIANGLES!!! More of those!
Thanks for the responses!
I don’t want to push the players but I’m hoping to get a good spread of Factions. With four in a group I’m hoping it’ll happen organically, less of a “Us Mortals vs. Big Bad Vampires” or whatever.
I only just had my second session, and my only regret so far is that I made up more “throwaway” NPCs than I want. It’s fine by me if a player introduces a new character, but there will be so many random NPCs running around by the end of session 2 that if you can answer any question with, “Yeah, the person you go to for X is the same person we mentioned before, who comes to you for Y,” do it! 🙂
I actually tried too hard to create NPCs/threats in session 1. US generates a lot of fiction with the start of session moves in every session so you’ll have plenty to work with. Also compared to AW the death rate of my NPCs was slower so my relationship map got very cluttered very fast.
Oh, also, don’t be afraid to make some NPCs total asses. We got through 2 sessions before I realized the threats were so shadowy and political that the PCS didn’t feel threatened by anybody at all! So I threw an angry troll at them before we wrapped up for the evening.