RE: Ideas needed... from Silburn, Luke on 2005-09-29 (HeroQuest RPG)

From: Silburn, Luke <luke.silburn_at_...>
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 17:57:09 +0100

Scooped by Mike. Damn work deadlines getting in the way of gassing about roleplaying on the internet...

Anyway, yeah what he said - with the added proviso that doing a little bit of 'trad' scenario prep (along the lines of statting up the various people/groups/entities on the R-map and in the bangs plus maybe some maps of the tula and a bit of clan/bloodline history) won't hurt. See "Last Days At Skullpoint" by Ron Edwards (author of the aforementioned 'Sorceror') in Gathering Thunder for an example of a scenario that was blocked out using R-maps and Bangs, but then written up in a more conventional fashion.

Regards
Luke

From: HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com on behalf of Mike Holmes Sent: Thu 29/09/2005 17:25
To: HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: Ideas needed...

>From: CJ <cj_at_...>
>
>Now comes my problem. I need to write a story for thwese characters.
>Noen of the published ones i have strike me as ideal - they only have
>one weapon skill between them, and no combat magiocs. There character
>choices clearly suggest to me they want to play a more domestic and
>faily orientated story.

What you desperately need is Relationship Map style play. This is an idea that people have used for a while, but got well codified in the game Sorcerer, specifically in the Sorcerer's Soul supplement. It entails doing the following steps in general:

Come up with a group of NPCs with some conflict. Often the easiest thing to do is to steal from novels or other media (I find that operas, for some reason, seem to work best). Take the characters, and write up a diagram with them showing how they're related to each other.
Make sure to substitute in the diagram, some of the characters' relationships. That means either replacing an NPC on the map with a PC, or with a character who is an NPC with whom the PC has a relationship. For example, if there's an NPC on the map who's a priest, make him the priest with whom PC A has a relationship.
Then figure out from the original map how the trouble gets started. Does somebody kill somebody else? Is there a theft? Are there factions that want different things? Start play with this event just having happened.
Make sure that the above event pulls on the lines on the map. If you're taking from a story, then this should be in place already. The dead man's wife will seek revenge, that sort of thing.
Neuter your NPCs. Meaning, make them incapable of taking action for any reason you can come up with. Make them need the PCs to do things. So the precipitating event causes the NPCs to act, asking the PCs to do things.
Just go with the flow. Once play starts, the players should now have all sorts of intertwined motives, depending on how they're attached to the map. Do not attatch them all at one point, give them all sorts of different points of entry. More than one for each, if possible. Yes, this means that they might end up at odds with each other. You're hoping this happens, in fact (though not forcing it. Then just let players figure out what they want to do.
Have "bangs" ready. These are more precipitating events. They should have the following qualities:
They should force the player to make a decision. Meaning even if the character walks away form the bang, it should say something strong.
It should not force any particular decision. In fact, if you think that you know what the player will have the character do, then rework it until you have no idea what they'll do. The idea is to give the player the ability to alter the plot at these points.

Throw bangs in whenever players don't seem to know what to do. But only when they're floundering, or it would be really cool. If they're already running on their own, don't make them go in a different direction.

8. Do not, I say again, do not prepare a "Story." Have no plot. Just what I have written above. Do not make players conform to what you think is cool, go with what they think is cool.

The Well of Souls adventure is an example of this sort of preparation: http://www.geocities.com/doctorpeace/well.html <https://ukgateway.logicacmg.com/doctorpeace/well.html>

But you don't even have to do that much. Note that what you'll get is actually superior to even Well of Souls, because it'll be tailored to the characters in question.

I think you'll be pleased with the results. If you want to actually work out an entire set up like this, I'd invite you to come by The Forge (the Heroquest forum, to be precise), where we work stuff like this out regularly: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?board=13.0 <https://ukgateway.logicacmg.com/forum/index.php,DanaInfo=www.indie-rpgs.com+?board=13.0>

Probably better to do it there than here as it's a lot of back and forth.

Mike

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