4 thoughts on “Hi guys.”

  1. Front: Imix Rises!

    Danger: Imix, Prince of Elemental Fire (elemental lord, instinct: to burn reality to ashes)

    Grim Portents:

     – Signs & omens (increased appearance of fire elementals, arson is on the rise, unnaturally warm winters)

     – The Heir of Imix is revealed (as foretold by the Prophecy!)

     – The Heir bathes in the fires of Mt Pyre, opening the Way!  (Mundane fires are now conduits to the Plane of Fire)

     – Imix’s forces pour forth from Mt Pyre; the Great Wood burns

     – Imix pours forth through the portal, tearing the barrier between realities apart.

    DOOM:  destruction. The world is reduced to ash.

  3. A Front just a Campaign, like you’d play in D&D. The difference is: you plan what the baddies/other guys are doing, and that’s it. No scenes, no acts, no rails, no outcomes. You set it up as, really, a series of questions that you’re emotionally invested in learning the answers to (by playing). And if the players snub it? That’s fine. Their choice (its a Front, not a real campaign), but make REAL the fallout that comes from their characters ignoring it.

    So, there’s a fire plane, I guess? And its overlapping the material plane? Cool. Your Front (the big story you’re going to find out about) needs some threats. Maybe there is a Fire Elemental God? Ask about it or find ways to ask leading questions about it in play. Maybe there’s a fire cult? Ask about it, or just make the judgment call. (Maybe an NPC who survive game 1 makes sense as a cultist! Ask yourself if this could be true and answer honestly!)

    Write these things down. If you feel like youre missing an important detail, and don’t know the answer write it as a question to remind you that you or your players/their PCs need to fill that gap in (fire elemental? Its name? What its about? The fire plane? Cultists? What they’re doing? To whom? When?)

    Threats are the movers and shakers who make a Front dangerous. These are he cults and fire elementals. These guys get close ups and lots of screen time in movies, these guys are cool and deadly and exciting. Make them unignorable (because they need things, but let your players ignore them if they choose to — then let them make their moves off screen).

    All the moves, names, and instincts for Threats in the book are supposed to be convenient shorthand for figuring out what they do moment to moment when you just have no idea what they’d do next.

    Your countdowns are where you honestly bulletpoint your NPCs Big Evil Plan. Maybe it’s:

    Cut collects Lens of Embers; Cult collects Lens of Ashes; Cult takes over the College of Arcana; Cult kidnaps gnomes to assemble Planar Telescope; Cult channels the Eclipse with Lenses in Telescope to begin the Planar Equinox; Baron Flameon the elemental enters the World.

    Or whatever!

    The idea is, your countdown is you honestly keeping notes on what your NPCs want to do. Occasionally warn the characters about how something will happen soon (via soft moves and signs or rumors or portents or build up or fallout); if they stop the bad thing, good for them, revise your notes honestly (maybe the cult gives up… be honest!) If they ignore it? Good for them. Thats okay. thats their prerogative!

    Other times, check one off and broadcast that it is in motion (via hard moves, similarly to above).

    Often you’ll use these countdowns to fuel making your Adventures (which are just the same as this but smaller). Maybe you’ll make an adventure about trying to keep cultists from buying the Ash Lens at an auction at goblin market or whatever!

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