Session Zero is officially over. I’m actually trying to play this one by the book (recent chats with Paul Beakley have convinced me to be a little more RAW and less cavalier). So now I get to ask some questions about Storms.
We have a few cool pivot points going on via debts, but there’s not really enough there to make more than two solid threats. That doesn’t seem like enough to make a Storm. So would it be better to hold off one session or to throw a lot of my own Threats into the mix? I worry about authoring too much of the world up front.
Similarly, how long are Storms expected to take to resolve? Are they closer to a DW Campaign Front or Adventure Front?
And finally: should countdowns be public knowledge once they’re aware of a Threat? Should the whole storm ever be public knowledge?
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I am interested to see what Paul says about this. For me the US book is great on the player-facing bits but I found the MC section underwhelming on practical stuff like this.
I’d be worried about “throwing my own threats in” sounding like imposing story but this could be just phrasing forex it is IMO totally cool (expected even?) to blow up an existing NPC into a specific threat between sessions.
I never put clocks on the table in front of players, I use them GM-side to inform the fiction ie when a clock advances they know about it! (in the fiction)
Rob Brennan I’ve put clocks on the table in other games for issues that are known or projects the players are working on. I use them to indicate some number of steps toward a goal, closer to Headspace clocks maybe
What about custom moves for threats? When do you reveal those to the players, if ever?
In Dungeon/Uncharted Worlds, the custom moves tend to follow the typical one-line GM moves. Looks like US encourages fully formed moves with rolls (“When you attack Rico on his turf, roll with Heart instead of Blood” or similar). Revealing this the moment they attack seems like a GM gotcha. But revealing it too soon before might change their actions too much.
I don’t normally put those custom moves directly on the table but the players become aware of them over time. Such a move can be revealed in the fiction (announce future badness, tell consequences + ask) and if it changes the players actions then that’s playing to find out what happens, I think. I think my players have not felt “got” but I agree it could be a risk. Of course in AW they’re allowed rewind when they find out the mechanical implications so I suppose that is a safety valve?
I also look forward to Paul Beakley’s thoughts on this stuff! For my part:
1) I don’t think of Threats as authoring the world. Obviously, I’m adding things, but I’m hopefully setting up potential conflicts instead of hard and fast paths the players have to walk. If I’ve got two Threats to start, that’s probably good enough for Session 1; I’d do the Storm after that.
2) Storms in US take a while to resolve. I would imagine that it varies by GM, but I give it 4-6 sessions.
3) I almost never make countdowns public knowledge. I run custom moves the same way Rob Brennan does. I let the players know when it’s time to let them know.
I don’t really use threats, storms or clocks. I did doodle down threats as…organizing thematic principles, but they didn’t have clocks, just broad ideas about what is going on in the city.
Booo, hisss.
To be honest, I have problems using those sorts of GM tools myself. Even the idea of using codified impulses or drives is strange to me. I have a history of simply recording what an NPC’s plan or goal is first, and letting the “why” bubble up from that.
I’m going to force myself to use the US way as much as I can. I’m going to take some of these side NPCs and add full threats as Mark Diaz Truman suggested (the cop that the spectre works with stumble upon some nefarious things inside the department, for instance).
However, I do still like the idea of public clocks (Headspace made me see the utility of the idea), so I’m going to keep them private until the players uncover the threat, then plop a clock down with segments filled in.
Sorry , man. I’ve never been super solid on really sticking close to threats/fronts/clocks in any PbtA game other than The Sprawl, where they work a lot more like Blades in the Dark.
I know Andrew Medeiros has opinions about them as well, which he shared with me in person but I’ll leave it to him to decide how much of that he wants to discuss.