Hello.

11 thoughts on “Hello.”

1. The best arcs come out of your hunters’ backstories. For example, with my current group, who have never played RPGs before (with one exception), I started with a simple mystery. But after character creation I was able to develop an arc based on what they told me about their characters.

   The Wronged’s family was killed by wraiths that he is convinced were sent by someone. So there will definitely be a mystery about wraiths. Specifically about who might be able to control them. And I decided to make that person a member of the Agency our Professional belongs to.

   But it easily could also be someone from the occult organization our Expert and Chosen belonged to for a short time. So I’ll bring someone from that organization in at some point too.

   Three of our characters met during an event in our Crooked’s backstory, which was never resolved. Well there will be at least one mystery tied to that.

   You see how things can build out. You still want to “play to find out” what happens, but you can at least build the skeleton of an arc based almost exclusively on your hunters’ stories. I think that’s the most satisfying for the players. The game is designed to eventually kill off or retire your hunters (luck is very finite), so let them fill out and maybe even resolve their stories. Those are the stories they actually care about, because they made them.

2. The only larger arc adventure I know of is Michael’s “spore arc” in the rule book; but it would be easy to adapt something from another system! Call of Cthulhu tends towards huge, epic adventures (Masks of Nylarhotep, Two-Headed Serpent, Mountains of Madness, Unseen Masters, etc.) and might inspire.

3. I agree with Aaron Dalton – build arcs with the character backstories and connections. Also, think of the longer storyarc the same way you do the smaller arcs. Use to countdown clock to pace building the arc and know when it’s coming to it’s conclusion. Where at the beginning, it might be a curious detail, it grows to become a looming problem that the investigators simply can no longer avoid. That’s 11pm.

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4. Mark Tygart Where in the book is the “spore arc” you mentioned? That sounds interesting, but maybe I missed it.

5. Tim Regan My mistake. I was thinking of this: drive.google.com – Funder Mystery Collection.pdf

6. Mark Tygart Thank you! This is great.

7. I already have a story idea for the arc I’m working on. I just wanted to see examples of other arcs to see how they were formatted. But I guess that’s not so much of a thing. Thanks for the link, Mark. I’ll check it out. And when I’m finished writing mine, I’ll put up a link.

8. Mark Tygart I had never seen that before! Thanks for posting it.

9. I’m doing it slightly differently. I have a general arc – a conspiracy that the hunters have been sent by Scotland Yard to unearth – and a big bad who they have already met but don’t know it yet (last night was the first game in the campaign). I also have a general idea of which NPCs/monsters will be met in each individual campaign and the clues which will lead in wrong directions and right directions to move them toward the big bad in the end.

   In my story, nothing is what it seems, and the hunters are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. Allies look like enemies. Enemies look like allies or, at the very least, neutral bit players. They didn’t even blink when they interacted with the big bad last night. She totally has their number!

   But what happened last night had VERY LITTLE in common with the countdown I had created – the characters made the story EVEN BETTER than I could have imagined. I forced one to plant evidence that is going to lead Scotland Yard right to him, and I’m rewriting the next campaign to start with him being arrested! I’m still moving them along the arc I originally established, but I learned pretty early in the game last night that I am only creating broad strokes.

   I think this game mechanic is powerful enough to let you do this story arc thing however you want to do it. If you have an idea, work it! You’re going to have a blast.

10. Sa Sa That is the general method!

11. I tend to try to prepare much more than other people would prefer, merely because, while I’m good at improvising, my memory for details is horrible, and it’s too difficult for me to be creative and track all the new information at the same time. Having the details thought out and written down beforehand saves me a lot of stress as a game master. But I get that many other people would prefer to fill in the details on their own.

    So I will write a more simplified version of the story arc for public sharing first, and when I finally finish my detailed version, I will share that as well.

    Strangely enough, Sa Sa, my story arc sounds similar in spirit to yours in many ways. It’s a Cthulhu Mythos-inspired story set in a coastal town in Maine. The heroes are hired to deal with an incursion of strange otherworldly monsters being summoned by a secret cult. The hunters may believe they are fighting against this incursion of evil, but they are actually being used as pawns to further an apocalyptic plan. An important ally is actually a dangerous enemy. I wanted to make it so that the hunters could potentially use their moves to discover the underlying plot at any point, and then decide how they want to deal with it. They could come up with a number of ways as to how they might end it, but the one path that would deal with the catastrophic threat in a more permanent fashion will require that they play along until the end.

    Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions! I love how supportive the MOTW community is! I’ll let you know when I have something up to share.

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