I’ve just completed the first session of my new campaign, and I don’t know where to start with fronts – there’s just too much going on.
It wasn’t what I expected but I appear to have a deep political intrigue, with an off screen necromancer, a scheming duke, his lecherous son (who appears to be working against him), the old befuddled imprisoned king (although its unclear who imprisoned him – he was thought dead) , elves who appear to want to protect the king but for whatever reason do not want him reinstated to power, an elvish hero outcast from him people but once betrothed to the Kings daughter (presumably the princess). Finally I appear to have an order of inquisitor monks, who appeared less than two years ago from nowhere, heavily funded by someone and built a number of monasteries across the country. The built a reputation with the people
As if this wasn’t enough we appear to have a magic hating theocracy to the south, an expansionist xenophobic (non-human hating) dictatorship to the north, shamanistic orcs in the mountains and the very real threat of the war on two or three fronts if these various nations see the kingdom weakened by strife.
Finally we have a magical disease, created by the off screen necromancer which appears to be spreading through the country
I’ve also got a host of minor characters – in the form of a blacksmith and his family, a young man who wanted to be a monk, and various members of the local city guard.
So many threads I don’t know where to start – and from that lot I need to find a Campaign Front and an Adventure Front.
I have a plan though. I’m going to sleep on it and see if things are clearer in the morning 🙂
Hopefully, you’ll forget some of it and things will be simpler.
Good luck!
Sounds awesome! What I did was go through the character’s backstory first, those tend to allow you room to fit things into the future, they are usually not as immediate as the fronts that arise in the sessions.
Then I went through my session notes and noted down the general fronts and dangers, then assigning dangers to the fronts I have at the time. Whatever was a floating vision that could come up was left for another time, the ones that could impact the game right there and then I fleshed out, this still gave me 3 fronts to develop at the player’s choices and more to explore, present in the background or drop on top of them should things slow down.
A nights sleep does wonders:
The Campaign Front has to be tied up with the Offscreen Necromancer, the magical disease he has created, and the order of inquisitor monks, who appeared from nowhere two years previously and are ruthlessly destroying the necromamncers minions but clearly have their own agenda and aren’t opposed to killing the innocent.
The main reason these three stand out as part of the Campaign front is that they are the three threads which are escalating and in flux. The Duke may be scheming, but he’s been a scheming duke for a decade, The king was imprisoned for years, The neighbouring nations have probably been there a very long time. Only the above three threads involve recent radical change. In addition the three threads appear to be closely tied.
The adventure front has to involve the party working with the outcast elven hero in order to get the old befuddled king to a place of safety – since this is what the players pretty much said they were going to do.
A second adventure front I really should think about quickly involves the Duke’s son, since he featured in both a player backgrounds, and a player bond !
All the rest of the stuff is interesting but can wait. Its material I can bring into sharp focus later.
=)
Did all of this stuff come from you asking questions in the game, or did you think a lot of it up before the session?
Most all of it came from asking questions? Some of it came from one pof the “The Escape” Dungeon Starters.
As an example, the grey cloaked monk amongst the refuges was from the Dungeon Starter.
The fact that the monks appeared almost overnight two years ago, had built up a reputation of trust with the people by helping and healing them, were associated with some strange disappearances by those in the know, interrogated people behind closed doors – most of the interrogated were never seen alive again, ruthlessly hunted the undead with no concern for the innocent, had some form of ulterior motive, weren’t to be trusted and were rich beyond belief all came from player suggestions or responses to questions.
The undead hordes came from the dungeon starter. The legends of the Necromancer from the north. The magical necromantic disease, the fact that the undead horde acted as some sort of hive mind guided y the master hand of the necromancer. That a single zombie was stupid, but a horde worked with motive – more zombies together becoming much more dangerous – all that came from the players.
All the bits about the regions came from the players – with four simple questions. What lies to the North? What lies to the East? etc.
I think my problem is that I just dont ask enough questions! I started one of the scenarios from Within the Devils Reach but as that has a lot of detail in it I have not asked many questions. Maybe I need to change that! Seems I still need to adjust more to this new way of thinking for Apocalypse World type games.
Conrad Murkitt Start a game without any kind of scenario at all, commit yourself to asking questions to create it on the table with the players, that is what I did and we have a strong game going.
Maybe one of my issues is that I am worried about my players as we have all been in the hobby for years. So to an extent we are all used to a game with more traditional roles and responsibilites. Maybe I just need to discuss it more with them, I might be worried over nothing and they will take to it like a duck to water.
I had the same kind of group, and what i did to ease it on everyone was to first make sure they understood it would be a short game, maybe 2 sessions, then we started with what they do together, they settled on pirates once I threw some ideas around, then we went to characters, they picked their classes and I went around the table asking how they learned what they did, how they got into piracy, how events they described fit into their personal story, before or after piracy, what they want out of what they do, and so on rinse and repeat. Each answer gives you more to build upon, I suggest to ask 2-3 questions to a player and then move to another one, as they go they will develop links between themselves and you can go back ask a few more questions and keep going.
Took us an hour and everyone was happy with doing it, enough to start the game when we would often be 1 hour from ending the session.
Thats great advice thanks. I had sold this to people as a short “playtest” as I was thinking of running this at a local games con. Kinda hoped though that they may get into it and want to play more.
Don’t be afraid to go back and get the players to expand on prior questions. Find out how they link to current events:
As an example two of the players had a bond about working together. It had already been established that the Ranger was a bounty hunter. When questioned about the bond the ranger described calling on the assistance of a more urban savy character to hunt a prey who ran to the city. They together decide they chased an aristocrat – someone ‘kind of noble foppish dandy, but a really skillful swordsman.’
Later when the Duke came up I in play I turned to the Rangers play and asked, this guy’s a noble. Is he related to the guy you chased down. The one who hid in the city?
He revealed that it was the Duke’s son that he chased down. So I followed up with some questions about the son. Why were you hunting him? Did the Duke get involved? How does the Duke feel about you?
Personal choice (not something stated anywhere in the rules) but I never ask questions which resolve part of the back story. I like to keep the possibilities open. I have no idea whether they actually caught the Dandy, and I don’t want to know, because actually knowing that would limit current game play possibilities. If the players answer it, then the answer becomes part of the game fiction and that’s fine, but I’m not going to prompt them for that bit of information.
Indeed! I made our clear to the players that anything not detailed was still unknown and could be developed or created later.
They weren’t used to that, usually the backstories were just that with no relevance to the game unless some effort was our into it, now they are not only relevant, they are the game.
Guys, this stuff is gold! I am beginning to think that trying to run a pre-prepared scenario might have been a mistake. I would have been better off just doing this improv.