Colonies book is well advanced. I’ve got all the campaign setup advice done, along with a historicly inspired quickstart setting which has plenty of inbuilt tension and story potential. I have a series of leading questions to customise that a bit and crystalise a few threats. What I’m having trouble with is how to get from there to a campaign start.
The problem is that colony games (and cities and stations) have independent characters. So a group-focused Jump Point seems forced. How I’d do it in play is to look at the characters I’ve got and craft a situation with a few leading questions for each of them. But simply saying that seems like a bit of a let-down, like I’m not providing value to the reader.
Given the different play-style of a colony game, what would people want?
Maybe its more sandboxy. Provide faces and places in the colony, with friendships-grudges-debts-agendas, but no script. Place the PCs in the middle of the setting and see what they lean toward, knowing beforehand how these fronts relate to each other and their usual behavior.
Maybe, to avoid getting stuck, you could also provide a few possible turning points that destroy the equilibrium in the colony and force the PCs to act/take sides: Somebody dies, a plage, an invasion, a challenge to rulership… Those could act as jump points. You don’t need to use them, let the players get involved in the community first. But if your players are not proactive or the game comes to a stall, you have them at hand to ignite the plot foward.
Disasters are the bread and butter of turning Colony PCs into a party: someone goes missing and the colony organizes to find them; a terrible storm sweeps over the colony, destroying things; the colony’s only Class-2 ship crashes over the ridge and it’s time to search for survivors.
Any tiny setback can ruin a Colony, and any tragedy is magnified by the intimacy of the community.
Alpo _ I like the idea of Turning Points. Easy to handle with a suggesting of agendas and possible actions.
Alfred Rudzki I’ve tinkered with a few disaster ideas, but not really found the right one. I’ll have a bit more of a think to see if I can find one that’s appropriate.
Hmmm… given the historical inspiration, maybe I can do an earthquake?
Remember that colonies are first and foremost communities. The people are the most important: their needs, their joys, their sorrows, their interpersonal issues. Consider making a few “Jump Points” that are entirely personal/intimate.
Examples:
A Party to Remember: What’s the occasion. What’s the most important ceremony/tradition, and how did it start? Who’s missing, and why?
Memento Mori: Who is being buried this day? What gaps will that leave in the community? What did they leave unfinished?
Secondly, the “soul” of a colony is a combination of the terrain they are trying to dominate and the ethics/philosophy that founded them.
A mountainous mining colony founded by a meditative religious order is going to feel very different to an ocean-side colony founded by retired space pirates. They will each play to different tropes, and evoke different visuals.
Most importantly, they will engender different needs and crises. “A rival gang rolling into town in walker mechs” makes sense in the pirate colony, while “the miners are hearing whispers in the deeps” is more appropriate for the religious mining colony, etc.
One million thousand percent what Sean Gomes is saying. A colony cannot really support a ~traditional~ gaming starting scenario. It’s vital to lean into what makes a colony game unique.