Sunday, April 10, 2016

Preliminary guide for early games



So you're about to sit down and write the first pages of your campaign.  Excitement!  Possibility!  Writers Block (hopefully not)!  The origin of the campaign should be simple.  Players will probably have little to no backstory for you besides some vague orphan story mixed with strained tutelage under a bad ass in the arts of sword kicking (not actually a thing).  You may have to extrapolate much from little.  This is fine.  This puts you more in the drivers seat, which is important for the beginning of the game as Players will be looking at you for direction.
You're not even there yet, you're writing out your story.

Start simple- Your initial plot should be simple.  You're just starting to brew this shit in your head.  You should have some basics, names places, some surrounding star charts, city blocks or countryside.  Write down in bullet point format some twenty NPC's that the pc's might encounter, place them everywhere around their location, breadcrumb them there if need be.  The NPC's should have names, brief descriptions, brief idea of skill sets, motivations, and your own roleplay notes.  This will help organize your thoughts.  You may want to keep them on separate pages depending on whether they are antagonists, support, utility, etc.  Don't let the PC's know anything about these people unless they earn it (let them encounter them for real).  The biggest thing to emphasize is motivation.  It helps make NPC's real, and helps you act them out without steaming piles of BS (avoid most BS in game, if possible).
The first in game area should be relatively inconsequential, unless you're planning on destroying the town to set a tone of being hunted through war torn  Mad Max based Narnia where Mr. Tumnis has been turned into a hood ornament.  It should include the pc's meeting one another (tavern crawl turned drunken orcish stripper dance is always fun).  You're also meeting the players characters for the first time.  Think of it as a first date.  Write down things you notice about how the PC's act.  Write down alignments, moralities, paths, anything that is used to define who these people are.  Believe me, their morality will most often be tossed out by game three or four, but it will allow you to paint a picture in your mind as to who these people are.  The players can be drawn together over combat, a death in someone's family, a mysterious invitation, a quest (see prior entries on the dangers of affluent old men in bars).  Begin to think like a super villain badger mole hacker sith lord who wears underwear made from the skin of flayed virgins and you'll have plot informed by those first few games.
 
Sometimes pc's will be drawn together by events on the road.  This one is my favorite.  It allows you to string events and gives them an uncontrolled environment to react.  They witness a theft, or they see a whole host of military spilling out or into a city, they are on the same space route when a planet explodes.  Draw them together over an experience, that way, you forge a genuine friendship or conflict for their characters.  Remember, the PC's know that they should eventually act as a semi-cohesive group, they want to be together, so they can brag about their stats.  The initial stage will set the beginning tone of the game.  If they start at a festival and everything is light and fluffy,  their characters will explore this environment with light and fluffy in mind.  If your tone is dark, they will react accordingly.  Sometimes a mix of motivators will be needed.  A riot of dangerous soldiers needs to be put down because they are hurting the local populace (covering those who fight for righteous sun-kissed good *cough* * money*), and they will be paid for it (covering those who fight for money *cough* *money, gear, stats, barmaids, cure for space crabs*), and their leader is wearing the sigil of a long lost order of bad ass sword kickers (covering that player who is in it for personal plot even other players).  You should have a diversity of skill checks, roleplay moments, and combat.  Give little breaks between moments for the players to get to know one another, to talk about events, to make plans, develop backstory.  It also gives you time to mentally prepare the next ambushes in the game, to cue up the next ballad of the patron saint of paladins who are are lawful stupid, to work on that dirty limerick about the Wizard from Korthos Ravina (she had a really big...Vag...spell book).  Bread crumb them around to a series of possible outcomes, and let them choose.  Have benefits for some, tragedies for others.  Tempt the pc's with power and money, see who bites.  The best litmus test is to see how the players treat NPC children, nothing will catalyze your players more than a child in need, and if it doesn't, congratulations, you're running an evil campaign!

After the players have investigated a series of events in the order of their choice, have them uncover some big hook (The desecration of the tomb of a necromancer, the fact that someone stole the plans to a brand new interstellar drive, the lost relative of an ancient order of assassins).  Its important that the hook is more information than anything.  They should see something, read something, or uncover something big.  It can be molded to whatever you need it to be later (in that what it appears doesn't have to be the plot set in stone), its just a hook to get them to come back for more.

After your first session, run it over in your head.  What worked, what didn't?  How do you tweak future sessions?  What are the claws you can get into the pc's?  What are their weaknesses and strengths?  Make notes of which NPC's had good interactions, which had bad, which ones might hate the pcs already for hoarding the cure to space crabs?  When you've done all this, and you're ready to start your second game, take in these changes.  Also before you start, remember to follow these rules-

RULE #1- Put your ego aside- Yup, you're god, cosmic leader of the universe, Yoda, now put that ego in a meat grinder and hit 'frappe'.  Its not about you, its about them (pc's), and its not about your story, its about the story.   GM's that are rigid in the structure, execution and control of their game will have dissatisfied pc's by the fifth game.  This is rule #1 for a reason.  If they aren't having fun, you won't be having fun.

RULE #2- Be Flexible- Sometimes your players will be smart and work shit out early.  Its ok to change what your initial plan was to better serve the game.  Sometimes your players will get super lucky and off an important NPC before you intended that NPC to go.  That is great!  Its an opportunity!  They feel better about themselves, but they don't know that his brother is a vengeful prince in another city who has just hired a group of murderous rocket shitting ghouls to go out and kill every last one of them (yes, try to imagine ghouls that shit rockets, I dare you). 

RULE #3 Roleplay, Roleplay, Roleplay- Give the players every opportunity to roleplay.  If a player is good at talking, but their character is not, and they manage to come up with a convincing argument for that guard why they should be let into the kings chambers to collect his golden bedpan, I say give it to them.  My rule is as follows:  If the player convinces me, then I forego any dice rolls.  If the player comes up with a truly BS reason for needing that bedpan, yeah, they're rolling some dice, probably at a penalty.  The game should be comedic, and dramatic, and it won't be either unless the players get out of their shells and walk around in these character's skins for a while.

Rule #4- Learn the rules.  Its important that you are at least decently proficient with the rules.  That way you can help the players if they need to, or at the very least, help them find a rule if need be.

Rule #5- Don't punish your players for playing.  Don't plan things around what your pc's can't do, plan things more around what they can do.  You can find moments to put them in a difficult situation, but don't make that the central theme of your game.  They need to be able to accomplish things, or they won't have fun.  Find the moments that will emphasize drama or comedy for the players to be out of their depth, like the crab samurai who is forced into a social situation with the emperor's wife.  He might say something terrible and crass, we hope he will!

Rule #6- HAVE FUN!  I know this one is obvious.  I will sacrifice to the gods accordingly.  Or I'll write a moment in game where one player gets kicked in the sack by an angry goat who got into the rum.   

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