Introducing newcomers, kudos to Jose
Trent Smith and Paolo Guccione have it about right on the
relative value of the obscure and the practical in my view.
Introducing new players can be done by existing referees
but they need to tailor their writing to the task. Isolated
societies are good for this - preferably ones with relatively
simple religious systems. I have used the Balazarings of
Griffin Mountain fame and an isolated Malkioni community
in eastern Ralios with some success for this purpose.
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If entirely new blood is to be introduced, including new
referees, what is needed is playable scenario packs which
include all of the detail a referee needs to run a culture
and just enough background on surrounding cultures to
provide the foreign flavour of the opposition.
_
An ideal structure to such a scenario pack might be:
40% background on a particular clan of Pentan nomads,
50% on the plot - deal with the Lunars at Redhair Place,
and 10% on the Lunars they are likely to meet. This would
be entirely oriented to the plot. Thus it might include
details about a Danfive Xaron unit and an Etyries trader
but nothing on the Red Goddess of the metaphysics of the
Blue Moon Cult.
_
Such scenarios would be marketed as ready to run -
only the rules would be needed.
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Of course I don't expect anything like this to see the light
of day....
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In the meantime the Digest is a useful source of inspiration.
Actually it's a little like blue-sky scientific research; you
can never tell which bits of obscure writing are going to
be useful to someone. However, the more real game
applications you can suggest for your Digest creativity
the better I reckon.
_
Richard Crawley
richardc_at_sypte.co.uk
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