I ran a one-shot a while ago and it went really well, so I’m gonna be starting my first DW campaign sometime soon. I came up with the following questions to get things rolling. I was thinking of asking them after creating characters but before doing bonds, because these will help give people some groundwork for bonds. Beyond these questions and a first battle, I’m not prepping anything else. Any thoughts?
1. The party is currently in possession of something of great power. What is it?
2. Which one of you is the bearer of this item? The previous owner is trying to retrieve it. Who is the previous owner and how did you acquire it from him?
3. Which one of you was intimately acquainted with the previous owner? What was your relationship and how has it changed?
4. Which one of you has already unlocked one of the item’s secret powers? What was the power, how did you unlock it, and what did it cost?
5. Which one of you is in possession of a map? What does it lead to and how did you acquire it?
6. Which one of you knows a secret about how to read the map? Write down the secret as well as an explanation of why you have not yet shared it with the party.
7. Two of you are close allies to each other, but until very recently, you were enemies to the rest of the party. Why were you enemies and what happened to change things?
Unless you know your players are totally capable of coming up with answers on the fly, you could maybe make the questions more “leading”.
1. The witch’s minions are on your tail, with the task of taking back something of great power you stole. What is it?
2. Why have the minions not been able to find you until now? Whose fault was it?
And so on. This could already create a scene, queuing for player actions and dice rolling, and you can continue asking questions as you play (to find out!).
You are doing it correctly! I love this set up and may steal it for future use.
Gabriel Aliaga Thanks for the tips. I’m pretty confident with my group, but I’ll keep that in mind if they are drawing blanks.
Instead of doing characters at the start, you can just do names, gender, race maybe with some vague bonds then have the players pick from that then give them a look & class. Rest of the questions are pretty good.
Yeah your setup is awesome. No worries there, man. As already mentioned, if they need it, you can make the questions more leading in nature, but that’s based on your group.
This is great stuff!
My own GMing style would be to make some of the questions just a bit less leading and then fall back to more leading / narrow questions if people are having trouble making stuff up. Something like:
1. The party is currently in possession of something of great power. What is it?
2. Who used to hold it, and how did you acquire it? (if silence) Were they your friend, your enemy? Did you steal it, or was it gifted to you?
But that’s just my style. I think you’re off to a great start!
All good so far!
If just have some inspiration handy to spark their imagination…
Some art books, d&d treasure/monster manuals, pathfinder item cards, that sort of thing. So if they are drawing blanks, say ‘hey (fighter), what mystical weapon have you been lusting after since you were old enough to swing a stick? Show us! (Let them sort through weapon cards)… Ok cool. So that sounds like you are spouting lore to me…’
Finally ran game 1 last night. It went pretty well. Some of the answers the players offered for these questions were great:
1. The Book of Cryptic Answers
2. Ovid the wizard was bearer of the book having purchased it from a shady book dealer. It rightfully belongs to Lord Farquat. We’re still playing to find out how the book dealer ended up with it.
3. Hector the ranger was previously Lord Farquat’s animal trainer. He was thrown in the stocks and sentenced to death after one if his trained dogs went rogue and killed one of Farquat’s guests.
4. Pendrell the elven bard has discovered that the book will answer any question asked of it, though usually very cryptically or at great cost. Since Pendrell discovered this power, he has been pursued by a mysterious shadow.
5. Mouse, the halfling thief, possesses an out of date map of the surrounding area that shows lesser known passages of the realm.
6. Mab the Druid knows that the map can only be read properly when two holes in it are lines up with the two moons. She has not revealed this yet because the map also shows the location of the secret Druid enclaves.
7. Ulric the paladin and Frytox the fighter were previously working for Lord Farquat in pursuit of the party to retrieve the Book. They had the chance to kill the party in the night, but just before they could, the book opened by itself and revealed Farquat’s evil intentions.
All in all it was a fun, low key game. We ended up with 8 players, which is way more than usual, but everyone noted that DW ran pretty smooth with so many compared to the usual RPGs. I’m gonna be managing the campaign on Obsidian Portal, so I’ll post a link to the first adventure log once it’s up.