Let's show rather than tell (was Re: Preparing for play, how I do it)

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:04:30 -0000


Hi all,

We did character generation on Monday night. I've got a few posts about it (late here), and hopefully Benedict and Erik will post here about their experience of it.

After reviewing the 'What My Father Told Me', Homeland, and Magic Keywords with them I explained the set up to them as follows:

winter is Coming



Your clan went to sleep as normal in mid-winter but awoke to discover that you had slept for a hundred years - the Great Sleep. You were among the last of the Rathori to awake. Your winter guardians, the white bear warriors, were missing. You learned that they had been driven by mad by living through the Endless Winter. One of them, Harrek the Berserk, killed and skinned Rathor the White Bear, the grandfather of the people.

The shamans report that Rathor's demesne is overrun with hostile spirits. Evil stirs in Rathorela: the Kingdom of War presses against the forest's edge; a new sickness strikes people and animals at random; food is scarce; and winter is coming...

At the Salmon Run, the dens of the clan gather. The den's leaders gather. How will the clan survive without the white bear warriors to protect them while they sleep.


Normally, I'd have prepped some leaders of the community, at this stage one or two lines. In this case, because I had none, we actually generated them as part of character generation. But for those of you following along I'd certainly have some rough ideas usually like:

    The mad white bear warrior - driven mad by the endless winter he stalks the people he once protected.

    The elder grandmother
    The master hunter of the clan
    The lunar missionary - a worshipper of Moon Bear, he has myths that may provide a solution, but will the people accept the Lunar Way

In this case I probably would not want to know everything at this point, just some vague ideas I can shape as we talk.

Of course the other end of the spectrum is something like my Red Cow game, where the clan is pretty detailed up front, so we have a range of characters to chose from.

More tomorrow...  

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