Hey Folks
I am about to run my first Saga of the Icelanders game in a couple of weeks and am struggling with the fronts and threats. I understand the concepts and their interactions, but can’t get my head around how the MC sheets practically work.
I’d be grateful if someone could share an example of how the sheets are laid out and actually used as I want to play this game as it is written.
Many thanks in advance, Matthew
I usually wait until after the first session in PBTA games to start those. Once you have characters made, the best fronts and threats will write themselves.
I don’t have any examples at hand, but this is how I’d approach it these days (haven’t played the game in ages honestly).
Some preliminary points:
1) think fiction first: think about what’s going on in your game, what makes sense should be there, what came up in the conversation, then go to the threats and see what fits best
2) more descriptive than prescriptive: the threat rules are there primarily to help you organize your stuff, if they aren’t helping, don’t worry about sticking to the book too much. Use them as inspiration and seed content.
So basically there’s two sheets. Let’s call the first one the prep sheet and the second one the relationship sheet.
The prep sheet, after your session, look at what has come up in your game. Is there a inlet where the locals fish? Put it in the Cast of the Land&Sea. Is there another farm across the valley? Put it in the Neighbours & Families. You can also add a countdown or two now, if you can think of any (I’d use BitD clocks these days) or make a custom move (rarely necessary). You can also add countdowns during the game of course. During the game, look at your prep sheet, look at your cast and countdowns to figure out how the world and the NPCs act.
The relationship sheet gives you your agenda, principles and MC moves in the left column, and names in the right column. They’re just there for reference. In the middle you’ve got a bit of space space (it’s tiny, that’s poor sheet design) for your relationship map. There are the names of the gods with related moves around the web. You can use them as actual gods, for purposes of Gođi bonds and think about them as NPCs if the PCs decide to get embroiled in religion stuff or if you turn up the supernatural dial and the gods in your game take an active role. The second use of these is to use the gods’ moves as inspiration and impulses for the NPCs that fall under their domain. So if you put a NPC called Sigrid in the relationship map in the middle, and she’s furthest up towards Odin’s side (this can be completely arbitrary, depending on how you draw your map), then maybe Sigrid’s impulse/instinct is to subvert gender roles, or she’s looking for secrets, she is very ambitious or all three.
Gregor Vuga thanks so much! I appreciate you taking the time to reply so thoroughly. I am relishing the opportunity to MC your game.
Tim Jensen thank you 🙂