Where do we start with something like that? I read a lot of other message boards and gaming blogs on occasion, and often I hear a lot of the same questions, like "How do I get started" or "How much prep work do I need?"
Well, I may or may not address those questions. What I'll be doing here is providing a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff, because what I'm doing is highly experimental (as have most of my games lately).
The experiment this time around revolves around attempting something I've not done before: running a short game that is not only consistent and makes sense the entire time, but has a very clearly-defined goal from the start. The main premise of the story consists of, well, apocalyptic proportions. It's pretty much the end of the world as you know it, and the goal is pretty simple: survive. The things I knew going into this:
My players wanted a game in the same setting (Roguelife is the title), that was before the "Contact" period (or when things ended). They wanted it to be on a space station in orbit, and they may or may not have insinuated wanting zombies of some sort.
My players wanted a game in the same setting (Roguelife is the title), that was before the "Contact" period (or when things ended). They wanted it to be on a space station in orbit, and they may or may not have insinuated wanting zombies of some sort.
Given all the material I have for this setting (which contained all of those things, most in the very first session!), this was a pretty easy thing to set up. I had the major set pieces (space station, apocalypse, add zombies), all that was left was to figure out how events would play out.
This is where the next part of my experiment comes - trying to build something around the characters themselves. Given that this is a game about the apocalypse occurring, the characters and the people they know are *extremely* important! So before I can plan out anything about how the session will go, I need to know who the major players are - so that I can craft some kind of scenario around them. Which leads me into the final portion of the experiment: unbalanced party levels.
Characters range anywhere from 1-6th level. But the only guidelines I gave them was to give me a character concept - to describe who their character was, and what they had done so far in their lives. So far, there is a school teacher, a retired master mechanic, a sports-car driver (for lack of better term), and a sort-of-mobster. Not a bad spread, and individually going over creation guidelines was rather interesting. Some people were given more experience, and more choices of cybernetic options - after all, the school teacher likely isn't going to have a whole lot, but the racer might, because he is semi-rich and it would help make him a better driver.
So the process behind this was pretty simple: Find out what the players wanted (pre-apoc space station, maybe with zombies), and then generate an area for them to live in. In this case, a Space Station is pretty easy - you don't have to worry about them hopping from town to town. But on the other hand, it means you have to go to some great lengths to find out where they might go, so that you can plot out some rough escape routes, and understand what avenues are available to your characters - especially if they are unfamiliar with the area!
In this case, I went with something large but also small: a recreational station. There's the sports arena (the only one of its kind in the solar system!), an amusement park, casinos, and some general relaxation stuff. But of course there also has to be housing for the people who actually live there, so I spent some time listing out what kinds of places there would have to be there, and made that information available to the players, who then commented on things. Then, I sat back, and expanded on these options a bit, adding pieces of information to help ease them into the setting - for example, adding in 'space races' or what I like to call the "Star Driver" event. Yes, that was the whole premise behind it and I'm not ashamed to admit it's a joke I'm playing through to the end. It's best described as NASCAR mixed with Hot Wheels. In space. I figure, why the hell not, may as well go all the way with the joke and make it an actual sport. Therefore, our racer boy who is popular with the ladies was born.
Usually, I have a sort of game plan set out before sheets are submitted. This time, I wanted to wait until three sheets were submitted - that would give me some time to figure out just how exactly things were going to work, and what the characters would excel at - so that I could throw in opportunities for them to utilize those skills, and not being trapped because there was no possible option for them to survive. As a player, I hate the prospect of a no-win scenario - instead, I embrace the creativity of utilizing aspects of a character (skills, abilities, equipment, whatever is around me!) to create a 'winnable' solution - even if it wasn't exactly intended in the first place.
That's part of the reason I prefer the older d20 system - yes, it's got its flaws, and it can be somewhat broken from time to time, but it's flexible enough I can do whatever I like to it and it'll still turn out okay. There's a great deal of power granted to the players, so that even with a team of three or four people, you should have a well-enough rounded experience that they can at least have some sort of reaction to whatever you might throw at them.
At this stage of the game, I'm still in the prep phase. I have a number of things I'd like to do, but I don't want to go overboard - that will just compound the problem I already have, which is stretching things out too much. This is to be more contained and kept brief - my goal is to run 6-10 sessions at most. Less if the party dies, which is something that rarely happens, but in this game I'm upping the stakes purposefully - it's the end of the goddamn world after all, so of course you can die at any turn! And people will die - even if it isn't the PCs. NPCs are all on the chopping block, and will likely be sacrificed to show players "this is what happens if you go this way without paying attention."
Technically, I have three completed sheets in. I'm still waiting on one to be resubmitted, which would make for a total of four. I have two more players that may or may not be interested in the game - I gave some guidelines, but whether they make it to the game or not remains to be seen. All I need at this point is to sit down and do some actual prep. Here's the things I need to focus on:
- Chronology of events. The most important, I need to know when the major events will be happening, so that way I can spin things as the game moves on.
- List of NPCs. Probably the most important, I need to go through and figure out who all knows people, and what people are on board the station. Then I need to go through and create a supporting cast of *other* NPCs that the players might encounter - not a huge list, maybe six to eight is all. NPCs don't need to be very fleshed out for this, and will only have the important bits: Name, rough background (one or two sentences), maybe an HP value, and any important skills they might have, with any special items they may have on their person listed too. It could all easily fit on a single page (since most characters may only have one or two big skills associated with them).
After that, the rest is just details details, which I can generate on the fly as need-be. I have a listing of the major areas on the station listed on a wiki, which I'll be referring to quite a bit. Now I just need to figure out where viable 'escape' options are, and I'll be pretty done.
It's really fairly lightweight in terms of prep, but it served me well when I launched the last major campaign (Roguelife), and it's also done wonders for managing larger arcs (so that I know names and have a good idea of how play should progress).
That's all for tonight. This has gone on way longer than anticipated. I could probably write an entire book or two about everything I have to say about gaming and the settings I've created - I take that as a good thing. I'll try to touch on them more in future blog posts, but time is at a premium as always.
Going forward, if you've got any suggestions for things you'd like to see in the future, or questions you'd like answered, I'll try to answer them. If it's short, I'll just make a quick reply, otherwise I may just address it in my next blog post.
Until next time~
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