So, do you guys tend to have the characters introduce themselves to each other before the first session or do it in-game? I’m trying to figure out if they should know each other before the jump point. Or should I ask them, “So, how do you know each other?”
So, do you guys tend to have the characters introduce themselves to each other before the first session or do it…
So, do you guys tend to have the characters introduce themselves to each other before the first session or do it…
When they make their characters, look at who they take Debts with. Work with your players to figure out how the Factions might be at odds or where they might cooperate. Have the players talk about what their Debts represent (monetary debt, being a wanted fugitive, having been trained by them, etc), and start thinking about all the ways its weird or interesting or cool that Character A and Character B are travelling together when their Factions hate each other or love each other or whatever — all based on what they’ve told you and you’ve figured out together.
Then, just don’t worry about how they all know each other or why they’re together. Let your brain percolate with all of the above threads that everyone has contributed. Periodically, someone will say something about their character and you’ll think to yourself “oh hey, that’s interesting, because of idea XYZ that is in my head, based on the details they all gave me.” Then, you’ll voice that idea: “Oh! So you’re saying XYZ? Because XYZ sounds like Such-And-Such, when I think about your character and Player B’s character. Am I close? Off the mark?” And the players will look at each other and say yes or no or whatever, but you’ve now learned about them by playing with them.
I like to go with the assumption that they’re a crew and have some history. The Cramped Quarters move is great for filling in backstory (or creating it on the fly.)
Thanks Todd Zircher and Alfred Rudzki 🙂 The “problem” is this is a one-shot so we haven’t pre-established Factions and there isn’t really debt. I know one of the players has a secret identity, so that’ll play into it – if there’s a missed assessment or interface (hell, most likely even if there’s isn’t one ;)) Johnny Law will be showing up …
For a one shot, I would definitely push the Cramp Quarters roll and give everyone a chance to build friendships, relationships, and grudges. I think that would be a great icebreaker and set everyone up to contribute to the story even if it is background fluff. 🙂
Love it! Thanks Todd Zircher
As a general topic, it’s surprising how 2-3 broad-strokes factions, presented fait-accompli, really go a long way to establishing tone and motivation in a one-shot.
For example, if you’re given the following and told “distribute your Debts”
– Biotech Cabal
– Opiate Cult
– Merchant Military
That immediately tells you what kind of world you’re in and what kind of societal opposition/opportunities you’ll encounter.
Compare that to choosing between:
– Theocratic Administration
– Ancient Noble Houses
– Underground Resistance
Complete different ballgame
You’re right – really helps immediately set the tone. But isn’t it confusing how they might fit together?
100% what Sean said. Super true.
Not really, because you talk to your players about it. “Hey guys, so there’s this Theocratic Administration… what kind of things does their faith approve or disapprove of?” And then you poke at the gaps and sore spots. “Oh, so they’re big on the Divine Right to Rule, yeah? So the nobles looove them? The Resistance is probably all the impoverished space 99% then, right?” And so on. You fit the pieces together.
It’s worse than that, Alfred;
We are looking at a small cluster of low luminous fluff, focusing in on a binary K-M pairing, and an even darker trojan trailing within one parsec.
In more than several centuries and a few decades, this associated cluster of dim stars, on the back side of a bubble, isolated near a thick portion of the ISM Wall, has failed to appear on any common charts in the larger culture of the bubble.
Every quarter-to-half a quire of centuries or so, enough ISM seeps into this association, to charge up the resonance of the darker trojan; enough that, located between the three stars, acting as a focal lens directed toward the bubble core, a natural wild jump point opens to one of several positions in a larger, more dense, cluster of fluff.
This event has many ramifications, both ecologically to the balanced biomes of the natural realms, and to the socioeconomic biome of the ruling factions.
This hasn’t happened in nearly a half a dozenal centuries.
[camera pans back from the star field, and slowly spirals through a tall domed circular neo-gothic amphitheater]
Around the holographic sphere, a choir chants memetics from three balconies, and a host of three clergy dance on the open floor, while the congregation observes their divine rites of social affirmation and self rule.
You see;- the Theocratic Administration is being run by a CoRe AI.
Over the last few centuries, the focus of divine rights to self rule, has been so pressed onto the general populace, that for the last few hundred years, all of the Ancient Noble Houses were forced into an Underground Resistance, or completely off-world to the poorer outpost colonies, around the small dark dwarf, in an effort to protect their own House CoRe AIs… while the younger Biotech Cabal and Opiate Cult AIs play a game of Bad Ecstasy Cult/Worse Ecstasy Cult… and the Merchant Military operating under the label Autonomous Legion of Independent Culture Elites, explicitly favors no sides, yet retains offers of rewards and services to all sides.
Who do you trust? What do you provide? Why are you here?
Where are you, right now… and, what are you doing?
aaaaaaaaaaand… go!
Yeah, I’d play that game 😀