I’m thinking of doing another UW book, similar to “Wild Jumps”, on colony campaigns. So, advice on campaign setup, some story ideas from relevant fiction, and a quickstart. Would people be interested in this?
I’m thinking of doing another UW book, similar to “Wild Jumps”, on colony campaigns.
I’m thinking of doing another UW book, similar to “Wild Jumps”, on colony campaigns.
Very much so
Sounds good. My favorite campaign I played was a colony game.
Alfred Rudzki I’ve been looking at #ToProsperIsToFall as part of my research for this.
I hope it’s useful to you! I kind of fell off the wagon of providing updates, and eventually the campaign faded away too, but it was a blast.
When running it, I emphasized that the PCs were “influential voices,” the kind of people that folks in the community look to when there are problems or drama happening.
I also tried to emphasize cultural clashes, by way of the orthodox religious community and the non-practitioners; nothing huge (at the time of play) but the kind of very personal beliefs that could cause tension between neighbors in a small town — which is, after all, what a colony is. Similarly I emphasized political clashes, by finding out what NPC was in charge of the civilians, and what NPC answered to the colony’s faction sponsor.
I grilled my players to help make the colony world, with questions like (their answers in brackets):
What is the environment outside the window, what about it means no one else has tried to colonize the place? (Inhospitable desert world with electromagnetic storms)
What is so valuable here that a faction subsidized the colony? Which faction was it? (resources for Jump fuel; the Big Space Government)
What is the most difficult thing about living here, the vital something you’re lacking? (plants won’t take root, can’t terraform)
What’s a superstition about the area that the colonists have developed over the generations? (beasts in the hills)
What’s your main trade good, the thing that goes to outsiders rather than your faction sponsor? (computronic components)
What’s the main trade good the community needs? (space drugs for the religious faction)
When running the game, I always tried to emphasize a sense of “incompleteness” whenever describing things, to emphasize the colonial feeling. The airfield where starships set down isn’t an actual airfield, it’s just a beacon-encircled stretch of flat land. The supply cache for the colony is just a hole in a mountain with a vault door on it.
Those are just some thoughts on my game, the one’s that came to me off the top of my head. I’m sure I have others if I just sit down to think about it.
Alfred Rudzki The questioning style was exactly what I was thinking of (and very much in keeping with Uncharted Worlds’ philosophy of co-creation and players driving the story). A great chunk of my draft campaign setup section is basicly “these are the sorts of questions you need to ask and answer as a group”, with a few sidebars on interesting points.
I think the tricky bit is turning setting into story. For a starship campaign, you can just go episodic, with a new Jump Point every week and every adventure on a new world. But for a colony, you’re enmeshed in social relations, which are very character dependent. I think the quickstart section will have to provide microseeds with one or two questions each, with the GM mixing and matching.
Maybe something like: use the majority of the guide to provide thoughts on customizing your colony game from the ground up. Meanwhile, the quickstart will provide three answers to some major colony-making questions mentioned in the book, and a parenthetical about what crisis that makes in the quick start, plus a loaded question that lets the players create their own investment in the social dynamic. Then, some simple thoughts on combining those crises/answers to making a loaded social situation for colony PCs to deal with.
If you haven’t, I’d recommend checking out the show Defiance. It’s definitely a Colony game.
Alfred Rudzki I definitely want to have some leading questions in the quickstart, so that groups can make it their own. That seems to be a big part of the Uncharted Worlds way 🙂
I’ll check out Defiance. I have a list of fictional inspirations already: UW cites Outcasts (good) and Earth 2 (ick), and I threw in Fortitude and Terra Nova (neither of which are space colonies, but have the vibe), plus Coyote, Forty Thousand in Gehenna, and Dragonsdawn. There’s a definite division in the fiction between establishment / exploration stories (which tend to involve exploration and mystery) and stuff which just happens in a small town on another planet, and I think that’s a key story decision. I’m pointing the quickstart mostly at the latter, though with the possibility of the former if people want to go there.
I ran a city-based game when I ran UW and it was a blast. I would enjoy advice and resources related to that.
Judd Goswick Cities (and stations) are different, but related, styles. I don’t really feel confident covering them. So, someone else should totally publish something about them!
Larp Wellington, all a matter of scale. 😁
I gather by colony you mean recent planet-falls with exploring and building new infrastructure and communities. To which I say, “I’m still onboard!” 🚀
Judd Goswick Yes – small towns rather than big ones. I’m reasonable familiar with the fictional inspirations for those sorts of stories, whereas I’m less familiar with those for cities and stations (Didn’t watch DS9, and I hated Caprica). I have thought about stations, and I might do something about them in future, but not this time.
Defiance ep 1 looked OK, can definitely see why its a colony game. The frontier justice, the Big Men In Town, the sense of making do. I’m also thinking Hell On Wheels counts, even if its a western.
Deadwood too, of course. And — to a degree — Stargate Atlantis, come to think of it. That’s a colony game, insofar as they’re a small community on the frontier of space, but there’s not much of a community drama dynamic to speak of beyond the first season. That said, many of their “monster of the week” adventures early on come from not understanding the alien base they’re populating — which can map nicely to the harsh dangerous environments of a colony game.