Archive Page 15
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 10/1/2006)
Our September 24th session got delayed until tomorrow night (October 2nd) so I’ve got some more time to prep and review what I’ve planned so far. Let’s review my open work items.
Review the advice from my article in the double-sized issue #100 of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine (now freely available).
“Seed” the PCs by giving players details on their character’s relevant areas of knowledge.
Earl Shiloh – Browncoat Underground
Jeremiah Jones – Terraforming/settlers, etc.
Develop a ship-oriented challenge that will let them use their ship stats.
Develop the Terraforming Consortium Facilities on Beaumonde.
Develop obstacles to reaching “Simon” and what Key Simon has.
Develop what happened on the “Dorado” job on Paquin. Give to Vinnie.
Okay, so let’s take a crack at these. First, let’s give Earl some details on the Browncoat underground. Not sure if this will tie in tomorrow night, but I want the player to know that his character has a role to play in things. I want the Browncoats to be more dangerous than they appear in the Firefly TV series, a real threat to reappear. Let’s say that Earl got tangled up with some of these characters in the past, so we’ll give him a recap of that.
To Earl: “About a year before Earl met Captain Riley, he was working on an orbital skyplex over Santo doing construction for a Blue Sun subsidiary. He’d made some friends among the other workers and they would end up at a no-name bar in the lower tiers of the Skyplex. One night he met a man named Joshua Brand, a grizzled Browncoat veteran. At first it was just some story-telling from the war days, but Earl soon realized that he was being felt out by his friends. Curious, he gave them his pledge to secrecy and they brought him into their group, the Phoenix Battalion.”
“The Phoenix Battalion was an Independence movement made up of browncoat veterans. They were convinced that the war wasn’t over. They were just waiting for the moment to ‘rise again’. Earl learned enough of them to decide that they were committed but also didn’t have a chance in hell against the Alliance. In Earl’s opinion, the Alliance had been making moves since the end of the war to ensure that a united resistance couldn’t rise again. Not everything they’d done worked, but it would be much harder to start a war.”
“Before Earl’s ticket was over on the skyplex job, he learned that Brand and the others were seeking to find one planet where they could hide and operate from without the Alliance watching over their shoulders. If they could find such a place, they would be able to collect recruits, train, and gather their resources, making them much more effective, and, possibly, a threat to the Alliance.”
That certainly brings the Browncoats in as a viable force related to Columbiana. Now, let’s give Dr. Jones some more information on settlements and terraforming.
To Jeremiah: “Jeremiah has worked countless times at the dirt-scraping settlements on the more recently terraformed planets. He’s seen weird things with crops and new variant diseases plaguing the hardy settlers. On some of the planets there were still Terraforming Consoritum facilities, so Jeremiah has seen them up close.”
“The TC maintain Monitoring Outposts on terraformed worlds until some obscure set of environmental criteria are met. They work through uplinks to a mesh of TC satellites observing the planet. The Outposts contain a tremendous amount of computing power and expensive sensor equipment, so they are well-secured by heavy permacrete structures and biometric scans for entrance through heavy steel doors. Thought they are well-equipped, the Outposts are notoriously undermanned, often with only a handful of facilities people (guards) and a set of 5-7 scientists.”
“Jeremiah has been inside an Outpost before, making a ‘house call’. He remembers that the guards had access to Sonic Rifles (stun people) and pistols as sidearms. They also had ballistic mesh vests as armor. They weren’t hard-core like Alliance troops, so they might get surprised or duped.”
Lastly, I need to provide Vinnie with background on what the Dorado job was on Paquin. Review of Paquin: A border world known for its theaters and cultural entertainment, as well as more pedestrian carnivals and sideshows. Some call it the Planet of Masks.
To Vinnie: “In the middle of your robbery spree with your brother Bruno, you set your sights on the Dorado Theater on Paquin. Of course, this was another bright idea of Bruno’s, figuring that the money raised at a big charity performance would make a nice haul, maybe 50,000C.”
“The key to the Dorado job was to sneak in as members of the Dorado staff (uniforms, identity cards) and bluff an electronic key from the staff of the Control Office. Once the key was obtained, the plan was to sneak out of the facility and do a public terminal transfer of the credits to grey account. You got in easily enough and were able to get the electronic key from Control Office clerk, but the Dorado had safeguards in place to prevent downloads of such large sums. All they netted was about 500C that Vinnie pocketed from the Control Office. For the Alliance authorities, the job doesn’t even show up as being credited to the Franco Brothers.”
Well, that’s a start. I’m hoping Vinnie will connect the dots and realize that Bruno planned to bluff his way into the Terraforming Consortium office to get an electronic key. What I haven’t connected yet for them is that they need an electronic key to unlock the real values of the Columbiana data module. The current data they see has a built-in skew that makes the data nonsense. I haven’t given them a hint of this yet, but I’ll have to make sure they learn this soon.
Okay, what’s next? How about the ship-oriented challenges. Let’s review the Serenity RPG book to see what the rules support…
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/18/2009)
Okay, this time I’m going to be better prepared for my next session of the Flying Pig mini-campaign. Let’s review. Two of six sessions down, they’ve gotten refueled, gotten a job to Verbena, and learned what value their surprise cargo (survey data on Columbiana) has.
But it’s never easy. The player whose character was the plot lynchpin for this mini-campaign is missing the second game in a row. I stalled one game but I can’t drop a third of the campaign waiting for one player. So, time for a refit.
I still want the Columbiana data to be the core of the plot. But I have to break open the Vinnie character so he’s willing to part with the data. Hmmm, that just doesn’t make sense for the character, even player-less. Now I set up some clues that Vinnie’s brother Bruno had some plan for that datacube. Vinnie would do a lot if he thought it was going to save his brother.
Time to bring in the brother.
This should be very Firefly-esque, introducing a quirky character with a scheme to catch the crew. Bruno had a scheme for that datacube but let’s say that he’s been captured or imprisoned some way so he can’t reach Vinnie or do the job. He has to convince his brother to pull the job to save his life. Cool. Let’s look at the clues that I put in Bruno Franco’s box.
Small, leather-bound bible given to him by Mama Franco
Clothes: Bruno’s regular Rim-world gear but also two uniforms for the Alliance Navy, both petty officers, one sized for Bruno, one sized for Vinnie
A leather roll with mundane but somewhat odd metal parts and tools in it.
Three partial decks of cards, scattered over the bottom of the crate.
Four Alliance Rations Bars (Vegetarian Version)
A stack of music data modules, almost all scribbled with Chinese characters for the artists, tied together with twine.
A large, thick copy of the Koran with a metal buckle lock.
Most of the crate’s bulk is filled with blankets and a cold-weather parka.
Small card from a nice Tong club on Persephone with a phoenix drawn on the back. The card is very worn and faded.
Seven claim stakes (3′ long stell shaft, computer at head protected from hammer damage) tied together with twine.
Notably Missing: Bruno’s guns: a pair of Sidewinder pistols he cherishes.
Now I’m pretty proud of that list. So far, I don’t know what Bruno’s plan was exactly, but I gave myself a lot of fun things to play around with when plot-weaving. Let’s see what I want to do with them…
The bible shows Vinnie that Bruno did NOT leave his stuff willingly.
The uniforms are going to be a good thing to use, having to sneak into an Alliance facility.
Tools in leather, not sure what I want to do with them yet.
The cards are just typical for Bruno, for picking up easy money and passing time.
Ration bars are how this box got pulled out of the ruined convoy in the first place. Bruno probably won them gambling.
The music modules hid the data cube. The fact that they were Chinese music tipped Vinnie that something wasn’t right.
The Koran… again, not Bruno’s religion, but locked. It hid something… dang, I can’t remember what I said was inside it…
Blankets and cold-weather parka… perhaps the break-in site is in a cold region (mountainous perhaps since that feels more Old West than ice cap)
Tong Club card… that is actually a fake. There is no Phoenix Tong. It is a cover for a Browncoat group interested in “rising again” (aka the Phoenix). I’ve already established that the PC, Earl, is well-known in Browncoat circles and a sympathizer.
Claim stakes… this relates to Columbiana. If someone could get planetside before the Alliance opened the planet, place claim stakes at the right spots based on the planetary survey, they would be rich when the planet opened up. Of course, the stakes would have to be “cooked” to not record the timestamp of placement earlier than the official planet opening. These stakes are cooked.
Took a few minutes to consult with the player who will be missing and getting his reactions to what I’m proposing. I’m lucky that my players are mature and I can bring them behind the scenes in a situation like this. He explained that he would do what he had to to save his brother, even knowing the dangers. But he let me know that Vinnie would confide in the captain (Riley) rather than the whole crew if he could manage it. He still wants to hide his past.
So what was Bruno up to? I’d say that he was hired to steal the datacube but then didn’t deliver it. He tried to sneak out to the Rim on the Settler convoy from Bernadette to Persephone but it got attacked by Reavers on its way to Persephone. Luckily a transport, the Scarlet Kite, came by and rescued the survivors, taking them to Verbena. Before Bruno could get healed up and escape, his boss finds him again.
Bruno is now being held by a crimelord, let’s go with Adelei Niska until I have a better idea. So that means that Bruno is being held at Niska’s skyplex orbital over Ezra on the Rim. So why don’t they just hand over the cube for Bruno? I’m glad you asked! There must have been more to it than the cube… [thinking]… okay, what if the paranoid Alliance inserted an offset code into the Terraforming Consortium data so that it would be useless without the offset code. So they have to snag the code.
Now I need to craft Bruno’s communication. It’ll be relayed across the ‘Verse as low-priority traffic to keep the Alliance from sniffing it, so it will be a message not a conversation. I want to establish a few things.
Bruno is alive.
Bruno is in danger.
Bruno needs Vinnie.
There is a job to do
Bruno’s Message: (Bruno Falco appears, face caked with blood and swollen, appears to be missing a couple teeth and one eye is near swollen shut. Very little of his location is visible, just ubiquitous grey metal walls of a space ship or space station wall.) “Piccolo fratello…” begins Bruno softly, but a smile cracking through the pain. “Little something went wrong I guess… no surprise. Need you, Vin. Heard you ended up with my stuff. Need you to bring my crate to me. Well, the crate and one other little thing… (cough, spit blood)… Remember how we did the Dorado on Paquin? Time to do it again. This time its the TC center on Beaumonde. Looking for a fellow named Lloyd Simon, he’s got the key. Once you have the key, bring my crate to dock 64 planetside on Ezra. Do that, brother, and I walk away alive. I’m counting on you.”
So, how does that look? I’ve got to feed Vinnie background info on what the Dorado job was like so he knows what the crew needs to do now. I’ll leave the definition of the “key” undefined so far. They know they have to get to one guy and that’s good enough for now.
Well, its getting late. I’ll need to think about what the Terraforming Consortium facilities on Beaumonde look like, how hard it will be to get in and find this Simon character, what the Dorado job was like, etc. And I’m sure I’ll see some wrinkles when I look at this again in a day or two.
Oh, as a last note, I wrote up the Flying Pig stats last time so I want to give them some ship-oriented challenges. Need to brush up on the rules. Also, I want to review my own advice, presented in my article in the double-sized issue #100 of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine.
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/11/2006)
I could say that I did it as an object lesson for my column but its just reality. I’d gotten only so far in my prep (see the column from 9/4/06), ran out of time and just ran the session. We had fun, but I didn’t have the focus I would have if I’d planned it out. The session ran short as several players hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before so perhaps it was just as well.
Session Summary: We ran through the crisis of hauling Beckie back to the ship and having Dr. Jones save her. They then fled the city to hide the ship on the outskirts and avoid the counter attack from the Jaguar Tong. Letting Beckie recover, they mulled over their options. Unfortunately, the player for Vinnie Franco was absent making it difficult to advance the plot without him.
Since the data module squealed twice before they shut it off, the Alliance makes an appearance. An Alliance Patrol Boat comes into orbit and drops both of its ASREVs to hunt for a firefly-class ship. They don’t make a big show of it or put out an official warrant. They don’t want the data getting out of their hands again.
If I recall correctly, they haven’t made it off planet yet (I don’t remember having them escape the Alliance) so we’ll have to pick up there next time.
Back to Planning: So where does that leave us. We’re down to four or five sessions to wrap up this ‘short season’. Knowing my adlibbing style, I could easily run them through all four sessions and not really get anywhere, not reach any cool climax scene, or resolve any plot arc. So planning is required!
Let’s deal with the major plot first, then go back and fill in minor plots based on character history and traits. Recall that the A Plot involves the discovery of secret Alliance data (full planetary survey) on a planet in the system, Columbiana, which hasn’t finished terraforming. The data indicates that the terraforming is done, Columbiana will likely be opened to colonization soon, and with the survey data, someone could get very rich claiming the right land. (My inspiration for this plot was the Oklahoma Land Rush).
So our heroes have possession of the data module and have some idea of how valuable it is. The Alliance is hot on their trail to get the data back. They have to find some way to get rid of the module without getting killed and hopefully by making some decent money off of it. Yet, the module belongs to Vinnie, or Vinnie’s brother, and he may not want to just sell it off.
Where From Here?: I’d like the campaign to end up in orbit around Columbiana, racing against the Alliance blockade to get to the surface of the planet. There should be hundreds of ships flooding the sky trying to get to the surface and stake their claims. There should also be somebody after our heroes and willing to shoot at them, just to liven things up.
To make this happen, they have to let the news leak out (by choice or luck). They have to find a patron willing to pay them a lot to reach the surface and a handful of key sites first. They also have to piss of someone enough to come gunning for them. The first and third parts almost write themselves with my players :). So what do we need to determine.
- Select a patron, flexible enough to be inserted in several situations depending on where the PCs get themselves to.
- We need some complications and opportunities to fill in the time until the last two sessions (climax).
But about Vinnie’s brother? Will Beckie’s clan come into play? Or will it be a colleague of Sir Alan? We’ll dig into these in the next posting.
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/4/2006)
So my mini-Serenity campaign has begun. After getting set up with the Ohio Game, we’ve begun the gaming table sessions. The first table session was August 14th. The Ohio Game was like a major motion picture and now I’m doing a mini-series continuation of it. If my players enjoy it enough, they may “pick me up” for more episodes.
Campaign Dynamics: Now there are some things I need to keep in mind as I plan out this campaign. My group meets for about 4 hours once every three weeks, not the most desireable schedule for a campaign but we work with what we can get. So each session needs to be well prepared and fast-paced. Most sessions should have a major crisis point, whether it be a gunfight or some sort of showdown.
Also, we usually have one person out of six players miss any single session. So I can’t tie everything to one character as they’ll undoubtedly drop out of the session where they get the spotlight. Murphy’s Laws suck, but we all gotta obey ’em.
Since I’ve only been scheduled to run this campaign until the end of the year, I need to keep an eye on how many sessions that actually is. Starting 8/14, 9/4,… 6 or 7 total ending up on December 18th. One’s already down, so I’ve got five episodes to consider. Sure I could come up with five episodes of Firefly-esque stuff to just have fun with, but Firefly also had longer arcs in it so I want to identify one or two good six episode arcs and see which one the players naturally gravitate toward.
Start By Drawing on the Characters: I set up some stuff in the Ohio Game between PCs and in their backgrounds. Some of those were played out in the Ohio Game and aren’t relevant here, so I want to review what I have to work with. First, I’ll review the characters and their traits.
| Character
| Trait
| Comments
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| Captain Riley McAllister – owner of the Pig and leader of the crew
| Alcoholism (mc)
| Riley has had trouble with drinkin’ in the past (notably her tryst with Vinnie). She tries to stay away from the bottle but isn’t always successful.
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| Amorous (MC)
| There’s nothing like knockin’ boots to work out a little stress. And no, she doesn’t want to hear you talkin’.
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| Greedy (mc)
| Her entire life Riley has wanted money, the good life, the finer things.
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| Stingy (mc)
| When she gets ahold of money, she tends to not want to let go.
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| Stir Crazy (mc)
| Riley grew up on the move and gets antsy if they have to be stuck somewhere too long.
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| Born Behind the Wheel (MA)
| Piloting was one of Riley’s first loves and nothing feels more natural than a spaceship’s yoke in her hand.
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| Leadership (ma)
| You know that something that gets you to follow someone? She’s got it.
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| Mean Left Hook (MA)
| Riley has dealt with problems one way and prefers to leave problems unconscious and bleeding as she walks away.
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| Tough As Nails (ma)
| Survivin’ the Rim makes you tougher.
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| Vinnie Franco – crew member with most seniority, one night stand for Riley, gun-bunny
| Branded (mc)
| Vinnie was a bad man in the past. In some places, the Alliance might still want him.
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| Crude (mc)
| His brother Bruno was always the smooth one, so Vinnie never bothered much with bein’ polite.
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| Chip on Shoulder (mc)
| Vinnie doesn’t take insults well, even ones only he perceives.
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| Lady Luck Hates You (MC)
| There’s gotta be a reason he’s schlepping around the Rim in a beat-up freighter instead of basking on some Sinhon beach with his own Companion by his side…
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| Lazy (mc)
| Never pays to over-exert yourself.
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| Crack Shot (MA)
| Vinnie’s talents have always involved guns and takin’ care of business.
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| Grace in Gear (ma)
| He’s lived in a bulet proof vest so long he forgets he has it on.
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| Lightning Reflexes (ma)
| Bein’ a deadshot ain’t helpful if your gun’s in the holster.
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| Earl “Zero” Shiloh – Zero-G Specialist, quiet
| Ego Signature (mc)
| In honor of his Browncoat heritage, Earl leaves a note of Independent scrip at the scene of the crime.
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| Straight Shooter (mc)
| Don’t ask for his opinion ’cause he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks.
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| Friends in Low Places (ma)
| Browncoats can be found everywhere, usually in low places, and Earl knows a lot of them by name.
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| Good Name (ma)
| In the War, Earl earned a reputation as a loyal and professional soldier. That rep still earns him drinks in the right bars.
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| Beckie Tull – Engineer, first-timer in space
| Hyper-focused (mc)
| When she gets workin’ on a problem, takes a lot to get her attention.
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| Overconfident (mc)
| She’s ready to claim expertise whether she has it or not. How else could she get hired to engineer a firefly when she ain’t never been off dirt before?
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| Superstitious (mc)
| Everyone knows green’s unlucky on Saturdays! Give me the red wrench.
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| Allure (ma)
| While she isn’t the randy kitty that Riley is, Beckie fills out an engineer’s jumpsuit just fine, thank you very much.
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| Friends in Low Places (ma)
| Beckie’s family is a sort of extended clan of thieves. She’s got plenty of ties in the black market.
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| Mechanical Empathy (ma)
| She’s always been good with machines, building racers for the salt flats north of Eavesdown.
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| Dr. Jeremiah Jones – Doctor and drug merchant
| Creaky (mc)
| Jones ain’t young and he’s feelin’ the aches more and more.
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| Distractable (mc)
| Tends to talk off on tangents and tell stories, even if you’ve heard them before.
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| Greedy (mc)
| Money can mean your life and the Doc prefers livin.
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| Sadistic (mc)
| Life’s rough and he’s not here to coddle you. If holding back pain meds might make a prisoner talk, he’s got no qualms with that.
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| Duct Tape Medicine (MA)
| Things are scarce on the Rim and you make do with what you have. Doc’s done more of that than most.
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| Friends in Low Places (ma)
| He’s spent more time dealing medicine and drugs on the black market than practicing medicine of late.
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| Steady Calm (ma)
| When he’s doctorin’, his hands don’t show their age.
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| Uncommon Knowledge (ma)
| Dr. Jones has spent enough time on the Rim that he’s picked up things about settlers, colonists, and terraforming.
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| Sir Alan Tibley – paid passenger, scientist
| Guild Standing (Ma)
| Sir Alan has contacts in the Society of Natural Philosophers, an apolitical, independent scientific association.
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| Uncommon Knowledge (ma)
| He knows a lot about the Earth-That-Was, maybe half of which is true.
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| Uncommon Knowledge (ma)
| He know a great deal about the flora and fauna of the ‘Verse and takes a great pleasure in discovering the minutest variations in species and genum.
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| Distractable (mc)
| Due to his interest in flora/fauna, he can easily be distracted from his assigned task or place.
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| Dull Sense (mc)
| Maybe he’s stood near too many engines on takeoff, but Sir Alan doesn’t hear too well any more.
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| Lily-soft Hands (mc)
| Sir Alan will do anything to see a new species, but he’d much prefer someone else to the heavy lifting.
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| Non-fightin’ Type (mc)
| Can’t we work this out by talking? There is no need for fisticuffs!
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A lot of those traits aren’t that special. They’ll come into play from time to time, sometimes for flavor or to help with a skill test. Let’s look at the ones that count.
| Character
| Trait
| Comments
|
| Captain Riley McAllister – owner of the Pig and leader of the crew
| Greedy (mc)
| I can use this to tempt Riley and since she’s captain, that can draw the whole crew one way or another.
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| Leadership (ma)
| I’d love to factor this in some way. She’s got so many bad habits, it would be fun to bring out her honorable side.
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| Vinnie Franco – crew member with most seniority, one night stand for Riley, gun-bunny
| Branded (mc)
| This is one that I really want to explore. Vinnie used to be a bank robber with his brother and his brother will reach out to him.
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| Chip on Shoulder (mc)
| This might be useful. The player has already shown a tendency to pull a gun in most situations.
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| Lady Luck Hates You (MC)
| A major version of Things Don’t Go Smooth? No end of possibilities with this one.
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| Earl “Zero” Shiloh – Zero-G Specialist, quiet
| Ego Signature (mc) or Friends in Low Places (ma) or Good Name (ma)
| Playing with Earl’s Browncoat affiliations might make a nice secondary plot to play off.
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| Beckie Tull – Engineer, first-timer in space
| Friends in Low Places (ma)
| Beckie’s player likes to keep her characters simple but I might draw in her “clan”.
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| Dr. Jeremiah Jones – Doctor and drug merchant
| Friends in Low Places (ma)
| His connections in the drug-running community might be useful to tie into things.
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| Uncommon Knowledge (ma)
| Okay, this one is a plant with Columbiana being central to the plot.
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| Sir Alan Tibley – paid passenger, scientist
| Guild Standing (Ma)
| This provides an interesting source of information and contacts that aren’t thieves like the rest of the crew. Perhaps I can promote Sir Alan to be the civilized front character akin to Inara in the TV show.
|
A Plot: Okay, here’s the A Plot in a nutshell. The planet Columbiana has never been opened for colonization. Officially, it is a red-zone planet, interdicted by the Alliance while the Terraforming Consortium continues to work on it. It is one of the last planets in the system that has not been colonized, but after decades of waiting, its become a sort of El Dorado, a fabled place. If someone knew the Alliance was about to open it to settlement, they could get a jump on things and race to claim the best land (grazing, crops, mining, civilization). If they had survey data on the planet and a fast ship, they could become kings of Columbiana.
What Happened Before the Ohio Game: A few weeks ago, Bruno Franco executed a theft from a secure office of the Terraforming Consortium. He had a tip and was able to snag an Alliance Data Module containing a full planetary survey of Columbiana. He packed himself up as a settler and took a long, slow convoy to Persephone where he was hoping to find his brother, Vinnie.
The convoy didn’t make it to Persephone. It was said to have been attacked by Reavers. Captain Marcus Grimm of the Pied Piper did a salvage run on the wrecks and came away with several crates of Alliance ration bars and one with the personal effects of Bruno Falco. Unfortunately, the Reavers came back and mauled his ship heavily before he escaped. Without any engines, they were set to crash into Persephone until a salvage ship from the Julius Fleet rescued them, promptly taking the ship and its cargo as compensation.
What Happened During the Ohio Game: The Ohio Game involved recovering the Pied Piper. Grimm and Riley had once owned the Flying Pig together and they used her to get the cargo and ship back. Vinnie discovered his brother’s effects and took it with him at the end of that game.
What Happened During Session #1: So when the campaign starts, Vinnie discovers the Data Module in his brother’s box while the rest of the crew is just interested in finding a job that pays enough to fuel up the ship. Vinnie is naturally reticent about revealing anything about his past, but the crew does dig into the Data Module. First, they plug it into their ship’s computer. It seems to have some boring data on it, but that is just a cover while it downloads a virus on to the computer. The virus uses the ship’s comm system to send a coded message out to the ‘Verse, telling any Alliance receiver that a high security data module has been accessed without the proper passcodes. This happens twice before they shut down the comm system.
They reach Santo as they purge their computer of the virus. Now here is where I introduce a wrinkle for fun. I’ve decided that the upper layers of Santo’s atmosphere contains rare gases which play havoc with typical reaction drives of space ships. It takes careful skill (a complex skill test) of both the pilot and engineer to get a ship down to the surface or out to the black.
Dr. Jones makes contacts to get a job for the crew carrying “medicines” to Verbena. At the same, Beckie visits “family” and picks up a toolbox she’s being asked to take back to her uncle on Persephone. But as she walks through the streets of Santo toward the ship, she is followed. She stays in public places and calls for help. Riley, Vinnie, and Earl show up and try to discourage the tails, but end up in a gunfight. The tails are members of the Jaguar Tong and they end up dead in the street. Unfortunately, Beckie takes a shotgun blast to the belly and lies close to death in the dirt along with her enemies.
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally published on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 8/19/2009)
Let’s start out with the basics. If you’ve read this site at all, you know I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon’s Serenity universe and got to help make an RPG out of it last year. It took me a year after publication to start my own live campaign, but its finally rolling. It began with my annual “Ohio Game” where gaming friends from near and far gather for a day-long adventure. Don’t know if it was the draw of Serenity being the game at hand, but we had a record 15 players this year. Quite a lot to handle.
I’m going to start this diary discussing how I approached the Ohio Game and then where I went from there when we decided to continue their characters in a regular game. I organized the players into the crews of two ships: The Flying Pig, captained by Riley McAllister (female) and the Pied Piper, captained by Magnus Grimm (male). To start them off, the Pipers had lost their ship to unscrupulous salvageers and they had to go to the Pigs, hat in hand, to get their help recovering the Piper. Many people owed money and people came to collect on those debts. One person was fated to betray everyone else. Lots of people had history together within and between crews.
It began with a bar fight, lots of hard bargaining between the two captains, a gunfight as they tried to lift off Persephone, reaching the Salvageer outpost alive, and ended with them bluffing their way back on to their ship. All-in-all I was very pleased with how it came off, never having GM’d 15 players before. I don’t think anyone felt neglected for too long and I tried to have moments for everyone to shine.
Let’s break it down into how I prepared for the game.
Designing the Characters: A few of the players created their characters ahead of time, but most showed up eager to find out who they were. They meant that the majority of my prep time for the game was making their characters. Each one had to have the basics, certainly: attributes, skills, life points, appropriate equipment, name… The key part with Serenity is picking the Traits: those positive assets and negative complications which make a character interesting. Traits are often drawn on the character’s history and provide hooks for the player to role-play the character. When that role-playing gets them into trouble, they get a benefit in plot points. (ok, enough Serenity RPG 101).
I tried to have every character either have history with a few others or good reason to interact with them during the game. The best example were the two captains. I decided that the heart of the game would be that they used to be partners and had unadmitted love interest with each other. Riley ended up sleeping with another crew member and Magnus left the ship. That was two years ago and their relationship has been rocky to non-existent. This sets them both up for the moment when Grimm has to ask Riley to help him get his new ship back. (Credit due: I gave Riley and Magnus’ players the broad concept and they ran with it and created their own characters). Other interconnections were people in the same profession, people at odds with their views on the Alliance vs. the Independents, various mixtures of loyalty and greed, and everyone had at least one secret they weren’t eager for others to know about. The best one of those secrets became the seed for the on-going campaign.
So they had professions (stuff they are good at), traits (talents and foibles), and secrets. It made for a fairly good mix at the table with these issues coming up here and there around the metagaming level of problem solving. Really, with that done, I could have run the thing off-the-cuff, which I have done in the past, but I did a bit more prep after the characters were squared away.
The Tabletop: I put a lot of value in a few properly chosen props, well-painted figurines, and diagrams or maps that allow the players to visualize the situation. First, I made sure I had a copy of the Firefly deck plans sized for miniatures scale (from the Serenity RPG GM’s Screen). Then, I made sure I had a reasonable, painted figurine for each player character as well as some painted terrain for mood (All the PCs and couple samples of terrain). I found some excellent tokens to use for Plot Points (Qing Dynasty coin replicas). I dug out the costume I wore at GenCon 2005 while GMing Serenity’s debut con adventure (My gunbelt). And I had a few other props here and there (a plot-crucial missing engine part).
Running the Game: Even after spending almost a year helping playtest and write the Serenity RPG, I’d really run it “for real” few times. So there was a bit of rust to shake off while adapting to 15 players. Some of the techniques that worked for me were:
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Group characters under the same initiative turn and have them work together to plan their moves so when I get to them, we resolve their actions quickly. This also helped when my attention was elsewhere, they could continue to plot and role-play.
Give key players extra ‘powers’ to keep things moving when I’m focused on the other table. For each team, I’d prepared an “event” that could happen to their ship and the Captain of the ship could run the event. I’d written up the flavor text and what rolls I would ask for at each step. For example, the Piper had a booby-trap on it courtesy of the Salvageers. The Event was detecting the problems (engines cut off), finding the issue, finding the trap, and disarming the trap. Either the clock was running because there were explosives attached or the Salvageers were coming fast and would recapture the ship if they didn’t get the trap disarmed. This didn’t come up in the game, but I was prepped for it to keep things moving at both tables.
Encourage sidebar Role-playing Interactions. When you’ve already laid the groundwork for character relationships, secrets, conflicts, and other events, all it takes is a quick sidebar to get good roleplayers off and running. I would then just stop back and ask how it was resolved. (Or they would get me again if it dissolved into a gunfight.
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June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally published on www.dragonlairdgaming.com)
Please accept these musings on cities in a fantasy campaign, inspired The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.
I have always been fascinated by fantasy cities. Lankhmar, Haven, variations on Venice, Sanctuary, and many more. I was given The Lies of Locke Lamora by a friend and was introduced to another great city for adventuring, Camorr. Why is it so good? Gather ’round and let me tell you.
First, it is based on the familiar. There are canals and bridges, the nobility have a Venetian flavor, and most any fantasy adventure could fit here. There is a plague called the Black Whisper that returns from time to time. Glittering nobility with power over life and death walks alongside grinding, Dickensian poverty and social neglect. I love the flavor of Venice for fantasy cities with intrigue, thievery, chases along the canals, and much more. (One of my longest running campaign worlds is centered on my own version, a city called Ramal, which I may need to write up for DLG someday.)
Second, it also contains elements of the fantastic. Throughout the city are huge constructions of “Elderglass”, made by an ancient people long lost. Many of the bridges are Elderglass as well as several massive towers and other wonders around the city. After sundown the Elderglass glows for a few hours, providing a period of “false light” before real darkness. The glass appears in different colors and translucencies. Different pieces have other interesting properties. A city built around the ruins of something greater, something real, tangible and used every day, but whose secrets of construction are lost to time, is intriguing.
The author also introduces a pantheon of gods and goddesses that seem more like courtiers than divine beings. Each has their own order of priests executing prayers and blessings for their patron, notable in distinctive clothing and vows. Twelve are recognized openly, including Aza Guilla, The Lady of Long Silence, Dama Elliza, Mother of Rains and Reaping, and the Nameless Thirteenth, The Crooked Warden, patron of thieves.
Thieves fall in line to a mafia-style hierarchy, not the cliche “guild” system. Gangs run their small bits of the city, pay tribute to the boss who in turn keeps the authorities at bay.
There is a lot more flavor in the book that I won’t try to catalog here. Let’s just say that I hope the series takes off and I get to work on the RPG :). But flavor can be quickly lost as details. How do cities shape and effect game-play?
01. A city is a mass of people in a crowded place, giving the GM the ultimate flexibility of mixing all sorts of characters together and introducing just about anything. A diverse, fantasy city could even have humanoids walk freely, at least until they get into a brawl. Rich, poor, stupid, and wise are all there. The opportunity for gaining riches is high for those with the guts to take the chance.
02. There should be a lot of stimuli for the players. Even if they do nothing but float along, there should be festivals and gossip, crimes and punishments, thousands of stories going on without their intervention. Eventually, the city will hook the players with its claws, dragging them into adventures and intrigues. How you ask? Here are some examples:
- The inn where the characters are staying is a friendly place. The PCs make some friends and then get asked by those friends to ‘help them out’. It could be a straight ‘gunslingers save innocent town’ type or these friendly innkeepers might be getting them embroiled into something much shadier.
- The characters see how a local gang is taking over the neighborhood where they are staying. They can either resist the gang, avoid it, or join it. All three choices lead to interesting conclusions.
- Wherever they spend money, earn money, or spend their time is the opportunity to make connections with people: friends, enemies, rivals, patrons, followers, even fans.
- An event in the city applies to all of a certain race or class, selected to include at least one PC. The events could be internment on suspicion of espionage, a festival celebrating them, the arrival of a leader of their race/group, etc.
03. Be careful of the natural tendency for characters to want to split up in a city. By logic, splitting into two groups means getting twice as much done, but running them into threats which test them seriously should give them the idea that splitting the party isn’t always healthy. The degree of danger that simply walking the streets presents will also help them attune themselves. If you happen to be running a Play-by-Email game, you can handle character separation, but it compounds your work, so I’d use the same techniques to keep them together most of the time.
04. Every city should have a distinct personality. The last thing you want are cities that blur together and become a generic background for the player characters. Think of each city as its own personality, perhaps with mental problems. The character of the city will reflect the general population and its attitudes, view on life, etc. Here are a few examples.
- The Stalwart Guardian: Set on the edge of the frontier, the city is serious business. Soldiers get respect and life can be a little harsh. Walls are well maintained and the garrison drills daily. There is little time for confections and frivolity, although hard drinking can be found. Not many visitors come to this city and those that do come are viewed with suspicion. Adventurers and opportunists abound so near the frontier
- The Greedy Merchant: A trade city sitting on a fat trade route, everything here is about money. With coin, all things are possible. Its likely ruled by the commercial interests. The markets and bazaars are large and fascinating with goods from all ends of the trade routes. Military control of the city should always be in question, the threat of invasion real. There won’t be much kindness here, lots of thieves and people willing to swindle the wide-eyed new-comer.
- The Dying Beggar: Many years ago, this place was a thriving city. Now it is shadows and emptiness, bordering on becoming a ruin… a beggar in the tattered coat of his once proud past. Perhaps the trade route moved or it became known for plague. Either way, there is little money here. The few people who are here are desperate. Humanoids might have moved in with no one strong enough to stop them.
- The Happy Guildsman: A city growing on the crafts and exports of its artisans, perhaps beginning to be renown for its glasswork, weapons, magic, or other creations. Law and order are expected and while it is quiet, it just means that the darker things are behind closed shutters. Good place to learn a trade or hide.
- The Devout Priest: This place is ruled by the gods, or at least by their hands on earth, the priests. Devotion and obedience are required through many laws and prohibitions. The sick and dying might come here seeking divine intervention. Others might flee desperate to escape the quiet human sacrifices.
05. Don’t make things too neat and tidy. Explain to the PCs how things are in the city when they get there, but keep the pace of change moving. The PCs shouldn’t feel like the only people making things happen in the city. But remember, the PCs are the heroes in their own tales so don’t overshadow them in the heart of their adventure.
Conclusion
Try running a city adventure sometime soon and see if you can get your players hooked on the ‘urban’ life.
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally published on www.dragonlairdgaming.com)
Time to visit the workshop again. This time I wanted to present an interesting environment to run a melee in, one to give the players some different challenges and opportunities. The environment was inspired by a grand book, Sharpe’s Escape by Bernard Cromwell.
Combat can all too often devolve into toe-to-toe battery, as exciting as accounting. A great way to mix things up is to present interesting “terrain”, i.e. environmental variables. The following description could be used in a fantasy campaign, Napoleonic, modern, future, or others.
The premise is that a warehouse exists filled with valuable goods (food, supplies, weapons, ammunition, or whatever will serve as ‘goods of interest’… likely contraband). Our heroes discover this warehouse and its contents where they don’t expect it. A good example is a warehouse of rations and supplies in the middle of a supposedly stripped town in the middle of a war zone.
Physical Description: The exterior of the warehouse is non-descript with two large doors for access and shuttered/blacked-out windows. Within, the light is dim (a few dirty skylights far above) so details take some time to emerge. It is cavernous, say 40′ in height and is filled with carefully stacked goods. Each stack measures 20′ square at the base and piles up anywhere from ten to thirty feet depending on what is being piled there. The stacks are arranged neatly with a wide access path cutting the warehouse in two leading from the doors, and narrower aisles between each stack. The air is musty and dusty, having been shuttered for weeks which makes the overall light dimmer.
The Threat: The warehouse is owned by someone and they won’t like people poking around in it or threatening to expose them (illegal goods, etc.). Soon after the PCs enter the warehouse to explore it or find what they are looking for, the owner and his thugs will fill the doorway. There should be enough thugs that straight-up battle will be a losing proposition for our heroes. The thugs have ranged weapons (bows, guns) that should drive the PCs into the stacks. They will also close the outer doors quickly to keep things private. The light will get far dimmer at this point, providing shadows and making combat more difficult.
Opportunities: The PCs can climb the stacks to get cover & the high ground. Darkness and dust can cover movement and make the enemy difficult to see. The condition of the floor could keep movement quiet or make it easy to tell when someone else moves. The goods in the warehouse might be useful themselves. Flammables could change the situation, as well as goo, slick stuff, choking dust, distractions and combat advantages (Finding a better gun).
Options: Is there another way out of the warehouse? Do the PCs have to get out the front door? Can the owners be bargained with or will they try to kill the PCs? Will the thugs sweep the place to find them or just trap them and wait for hunger/need drive the PCs to them? If the PCs show themselves to be dangerous, the thugs could bolt up the doors and come back with reinforcements. If there is another room, an office, a cellar, a utility closet, what happens if the PCs retreat there and get locked in? Are the PCs a well-oiled combat team, knowing how to attack the terrain or more of a rabble, with some freaking out and others trying to keep everyone alive?
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally published on www.dragonlairdgaming.com)
It’s been awhile since I opened the door to the Creative Gamemaster’s Workshop, so I thought I’d take care of some suggestions I’ve gotten since last year. The most popular question I’ve received asks about how to create campaign plots and multi-adventure arcs to bring another layer of interest to a campaign.
There are certainly challenges in creating a compelling gaming session for your players. More challenges exist to weave multiple sessions together into an adventure. But the Everest of Gamemaster challenges is pulling off a campaign that your players will love and not want to end. While I suppose this can happen accidentally, it usually requires a Campaign Plan to avoid wandering aimlessly until the players get tired of it or the characters reach the pinnacles of power simply through longevity.
Defining Your Campaign Theme
Start with an overall genre, then create a Campaign Theme. For me, this is often the twist or inspiration that made me want to start the campaign in the first place. For my multi-year Atalban campaign, it was the concept that the players would be among the last survivors of Man, raised in an isolated village with little memory of ‘the time before’, and face reclaiming their conquered kingdom. For my Serenity campaign, beyond embracing the fun theme of going job to job when things don’t go smooth, there was the model of the Oklahome Land Run of 1889, an event that evokes the ‘Western, post-Civil War’ flavor and involves a new planet.
Here are a couple examples.
Atalban
Living peacefully between deep jungle and booming seas is the settlement of Freehold, the only living humans. Life has gone on for ten generations since the exodus, the fall of the Old Kingdom of Atalban under the conquering Selani armies. While the old times are remembered in stories and songs, life has adapted to the fishing and hunting realities of life in a semi-tropical cliff-side colony.
But all that is about to change. The colony will be discovered by the Selani by accident. A set of young men and women (our player characters) have been chosen to hold the fate of Freehold in their hands. Two characters are siblings and are heirs to the throne.
The challenge is overwhelming, a handful against an empire, but the need to avenge the defeat of the Old Kingdom and raise it again upon the ashes of the Selani drives our heroes.
Getting away from classic (“boring”) fantasy of Forgotten Realms, the campaign will support different presentations of other races, different races. Orcs will be known as “tribals” and follow totem animals. The Crow Tribe was the original inspiration (orc spelled backward). Elves are the Selani and bring an “evil” to the world in the form of almost Nazi-like belief in their own racial superiority. Dwarves are generally reclusive and reluctant to get involved in wars (drawing some flavor from Jews).
or…
Reach for the Sky
The war is barely over in the ‘Verse. Thousands of Browncoat veterans are sent home and must find their way. Our players aspire to having their own transport ship so they can earn a living and live as free as they can.
Season One: Surviving the war and finding a ship
Season Two: Earning, Winning, or Stealing the ship and living to tell the tale
Season Three: To Be Determined.
The whole idea is to play the campaign from the earliest interesting moment, the dying days of the war, and cover the interesting story about how a particular group of people met, created a bond of loyalty, and got their ship. The title symbolizes the characters’ need to have the freedom of flying as well as playing on a cliche’ phrase from old Westerns, meaning “put your hands in the air where I can see them.”
“Reach for the Sky” is an under-development series of adventures for the Serenity RPG. The title and all concepts discussed on this website are copyright 2006, 2007 Dragonlaird Gaming. Use approved only for personal and not for commercial use.
Developing the Theme
The campaign theme is where you will return time and time again as the campaign develops to remind yourself of the big picture, the underlying plots that you might otherwise start to ignore as you focus on the short-term adventures at hand. But how do you decide on your theme? Inspiration isn’t bottled and I’m not sure where my ideas come from, but I think the following habits help:
Consider the genre itself. Are there iconic themes in the genre that you want to provide your own version of? Do you want to combine two typical themes to develop something different?
Read material generally related to the genre. You’re not there to steal ideas wholesale, but some combination of details might spark your own ideas.
Listen to music which puts you in the mood for the genre. Barbaric, warlike fantasy campaign? Slip in the Conan soundtracks. Serenity? The Firefly and Serenity soundtracks are available, as well as other suggestions.
Start a brainstorming notebook (paper, computer, format is up to you) and just jot down thoughts each day. Let your subconscious chew on it a few days and then try to find something new out of your ideas or a combination of them.
If the genre has some actual or metaphorical ties to the real world (like Serenity’s thematic ties to the post-Civil War United States of America), browse some of those real world facts, periods of history, people, settings, memorable flavors.
Watch a movie or TV show with a similar theme or genre to get your brain cooking at the right wavelength.
Keep an open, inquisitive mind. Something from the world around you or fiction of an unrelated genre might spark an idea for you.
Rules
Once you have the theme settled, consider what rules system best supports the genre and your theme. An intense future/modern ground combat theme might better served by a system that focuses on detailed combat than one which supports cinematic role-playing. Keep in mind if your gaming group are the kind who relish trying out a new system or are more dependent on rules they are familiar with. This may limit your options of game system.
Along with the basic game system, you’ll need to make some choices regarding house rules, supplemental rules, and campaign restrictions. Will you allow any d20 supplement into your fantasy campaign? Do you have rules your gaming group prefers for handling specific situations? Will the players have the opportunity to create any character they like (within the genre) or will there be some choices that are off limits?
Atalban Rules
The Atalban campaign will utilize Monte Cook’s Arcana Unearthed D20 fantasy variant system. Several factors play in its favor including: no alignment crutch, still fantasy but different classes, more flexible magic system, thematic use of ceremonies, no pantheon of gods. Since the source material is limited, any available rule supplements are fair game (with GM review). Monte Cook’s races will not be used, or at least will not appear in any real numbers in the campaign.
Starting characters will all be human. (Discovery of “now mythical” other races is a key element of the campaign theme and provides an opportunity to establish the races as more interesting than the classic stereotypes.) Some classes are not supported in the “Freehold” starting community but might be obtainable later in the campaign: Oathsworn, for example.
Story Summary
While the actions of the PCs will always dicate that exact course of a campaign, if you don’t have a story of the campaign in mind already, it will likely wander around and lose plot momentum. The Campaign Summary refines your vision and gives you a chance to think of major events, climactic scenes, and moments of interest which you think will be especially important to the campaign feel and success.
Atalban Summary
Life begins idyllically in Freehold. Characters get their first couple levels dealing with natural/local dangers/threats. Clues are uncovered.
A crow tribesman (orc) stumbles into Freehold, near exhaustion, shocked to find humans living there. Hot in pursuit is a mounted Selani, who is also as shocked as the Crow is. The PCs are the ones to witness this and react to it. Will they attack or befriend the Crow tribal? The Selani will wheel his horse around and charge back the way he came, desperate to tell the rest of his people that humans still live. Freehold leaders will send the PCs after him if the players don’t do it themselves.
Departure from Freehold is a big moment, drawing the PCs away from their home, to discover and survive dangers they didn’t know existed. The Selani leads them to a mountain pass and the location of an Old Kingdom outpost (more clues uncovered). A way to jump from the outpost back into the heart of the old kingdom is discovered (magic), drawing the characters square into the old lands.
Gaining strength (and levels) along the way, they discover more of the truth about the Old Kingdom and the current Selani rulers. A means to hurt or defeat the Selani will be sought and discovered as well as a means to bring back hundreds of thousands of ‘disappeared’ humans (repopulating the lands so the Selani can be driven out and the PCs will have a kingdom to rule.) Greater and greater obstacles will be in their way to reaching the means to defeat the Selani.
A final battle in Shanalar, the royal seat of the Old Kingdom, will be the climax of the campaign, hopefully followed by crowning a ruler and the joy and adulation of the saved human race/kingdom.
Here is a sample campaign plan document: Atalban Campaign Plan
Conclusion
Spending time working out a campaign plan in the beginning of a new campaign can reap you benefits down the line, especially when a lot of real-time has passed and you’re trying to remember what the point of the campaign was! 🙂
June 29th, 2009 by admin
(Originally published on www.dragonlairdgaming.com)
I love a good ship. My favorite stories, movies, and games involve a ship, most often beloved, at times despised. We can all think of the easy examples: Han Solo’s Millenium Falcon, Jack Aubrey’s HMS Surprise, or Humanity’s Battlestar Galactica. Sure there are lots of other beloved kinds of ships if we stray into X-wings and Vipers, but today I’m focusing on ships that promote community and can support more than one character at a time. The kind of ships a GM would be blessed to have their players grab hold of and fall in love with.
So what makes a ship a labor of love and not just a glorified Greyhound bus? Here are a few thoughts I present for your consideration…
Give it Character: While I had some hand in creating Serenity RPG, I will admit that I had no hand in the ship section but I still love how it turned out. Not only are the created using the same concept of strong and weak basic attributes, the same assets and complications concept that gives a player character such, well, character is also used for ships! The rules system supports different flavors for the ship like: “Gas Guzzler”, “Dull Sense”, “Everybody has One”, and “Ugly as Sin”. Of course, if your flavor is missing, it just takes a few minutes to determine the game consequences of your new Trait and away you go!
Know Her Inside and Out: It’s hard to love something that you don’t know anything about. It’s in the details where characters can feel like they know the ship well and know what she can do. Start with the basics of layout and capabilities (for speed of travel, defense, etc.) That’s good enough for when they first step on the boat, but if they’ve been on it awhile, they should be able to answer these questions without asking you. I’ll use the Firefly-class ship from Serenity RPG as my example.
What can the pilot control from the bridge? (ports, cargo door, communications, lighting, inner doors, life support, etc.)
What can the engineer control from the engine room? (same list)
The ship has an intercom system. Where are the intercoms located (one in every room?)? Can someone shut down the intercoms? Can you call from one room to another (doubtful) or is every transmission in effect a broadcast to all intercom speakers?
What’s on the outside of the ship? Are there cameras to watch for badguys/thieves? Are there floodlights to make a murky situation clearer? If yes to either, where are they and where are the ship’s blind spots? And again, where are these controlled from? Who can see the camera feeds?
Computerized or Old school controls? Much of Serenity appears to have an old-school mechanism behind them, much like a WWII submarine than a Star Trek cruiser. Inner doors don’t close without someone hauling on them. They can lock the door but its a mechanical solution (dropbar) not a “hackable” electronic lock. The cargo doors are opened by a hanging control box or by large buttons on the wall, which makes me suspect that the bridge doesn’t have remote control of them.
Make Her Pretty… Ugly: Remember when your parents let you paint your room for the first time (or at least help pick the color)? That might have been your first taste of really owning a space. People move out of apartments and buy houses to have the privilege of sweating their butts off in maintenance because they want to decide what color to paint things, metaphorically. How a ship looks isn’t just a matter of a paint job, but a coat or two can do wonders. It all depends on what you want people thinking when they see you. Do they want you appearing as a slovenly whaler or a right man of war? Do you want to excite no comment or gather everyone’s attention?
What’s in a Name?: Names are tough, I’ll tell you that right now. They are like nicknames. If they don’t capture the moment and everyone’s imagination, the best you can hope for is adequate. Mostly I try to avoid names that will divert players from the game at hand with obvious puns and humorous tangents (there is plenty of humor at my table, I don’t need another source breaking the mood all the time). This same problem affects player character names, but that’s another story. You can always start out giving the ship an existing name which they can either adopt or replace. You can leave it completely in the players’ hands what the new name should be. If they aren’t up to the challenge, facilitating a brainstorming session might be the best solution. Whatever name is picked, it will gather weight and personality from the adventures that follow.
Where’s she been?: Just as character becomes more interesting when you discover their history, ships can become more interesting too. Its rare that a group of characters will get a ship straight out of the naval yard with nothing to her name but an invoice. Was the ship captured from the enemy’s fleet? Did it have owners before you? What was she used for then? Is she one of thousands of that model flying or is she unique?
Know her Spirit: I had a chance to attend the touring Star Wars exhibition here in Columbus, Ohio this summer. (A must see for any Star Wars fan…) One of the many behind-the-scenes comments I heard there was that George Lucas imagined the Falcon as a sort of hot rod. Solo was the kind of guy who was always tinkering with it here and there, trying out new parts, new ideas. All in the name of going fast. Even the fairly pompous name of the Millenium Falcon fits neatly into the high octane, high ego racing set of southern california where Lucas grew up (building and racing his own fast cars…). Amateur hot rod racing gave the Falcon and Solo much of their personality. In Firefly, Serenity is much more of a classic tramp freighter. She’s nothing special for speed but she hangs together when it counts. She’s not clean or flashy, but then the strangers who come on board her for passage ‘elsewhere’ rarely are either. Find the spirit behind the ship: racer, experimental, family-friendly, grimy freighter, rich yacht, rag-tag combat fighter, exploratory/scientific vessel… and you’ll find a lot of her personality.
I hope you’ve gotten some ideas on how to include a ship in your current or next campaign. To read more on this, visit my Design Diary pages.
June 29th, 2009 by admin
In almost any fantasy campaign, the presence of magic is a given. Usually the heroes are slinging spells, finding magical weapons, loading up with enchanted camping gear, or finding ensorcelled puzzles. But how often does magic become mundane, a character’s possessions read more like a shopping list than a collection of wonders? Does every town have a Walmart of Magic where people can pick up a +1 Dagger and six pack of Diet Coke? Are clerics just well-dressed medics and wizards a walking toolbox? That’s not the campaign I like to run.
Let’s tackle these cases one at a time.
Making Spells Interesting: My favorite method of making spells interesting is to draw on where the spellcaster learned the spells. If the caster was raised and taught in the sweltering heat of equatorial jungles, the forms of her spells will be drastically different than a caster raised in the northern ice wastes. Note, I’m not suggesting changing the game effects of the spells, just how they are presented. Its an easy way to bring some flair and character to your spell-casters and keeps the magic from becoming boring.
Example, our jungle mage casts magic missile. Well, instead of jets of magical fire, hers appear as glowing snakes that spring to strike at their targets, the wounds feeling like bites instead of burns. The sleep spell might feel like drowsing due to sweltering heat. Even the mount spell might summon a creature more logical for the jungles than a horse.
Giving Weapons Some Zing: While you could take time and develop interesting histories for every magic weapon they find, from who forged it and everyone who has owned it before, that likely won’t enhance the game experience. Think of its appearance. Does it glow? Does it have an unusual sheen? Is the blade inscribed? Is the style of the weapon old-fashioned or from a time forgot?
And when the weapon is used, it should display its pedigree. Perhaps it flashes when it strikes another sword or shield. Or it sings as it flies through the air. The wielder may feel strength coming from its handle. The blade may slice through armor like it was cloth. These sort of descriptions can remind everyone that a magic weapon is in play.
What about the +2 Soup ladle?: As players get more experienced, more wealthy, and more ambitious, they’ll want to pick up lots of handy little items from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Most popular are your varities of Bags of Holding, followed closely by skill enhancers like a Hat of Disguise. Many of these items aren’t made to be flashy or reveal their nature to the uninformed. So how can you keep that hint of magic to otherwise utilitarian tools? Perhaps its less what others see but what the user feels? Maybe that soup ladle gives the user the feelings of home. The Hat of Disguise gives a heightened feeling of confidence. The Bag of Holding might impart some very strange sensations when you slip your hand inside.
Environmental Magic: Magic places should definitely impart palpable feelings to those who enter them. Sure, evil places offer foreboding, good places calm and warmth, but many places will be more ambiguous than that. Does their hair stand up on end? Does the temperature change? Is there a distinctive scent that is out of place? Do the colors around them seem different? Are the tones of things heard different, more musical? How has the magic affected other things like plants and animals in the area? Are there strange substances appearing in corners? Has it attracted unusual creatures?
I hope these have given you some new ideas for making magic as special as it deserves to be in your campaign.
