Fronts + Planarch Codex
Starting a Planarch Codex game, and I’d love some guidance here. I’m pretty sure the city of Dis itself is a campaign front, but how much else should I prepare? I’ve been thinking that just rolling on the job table might be better than coming up with adventure fronts. Should I be thinking of adventure fronts for parishes and planes? Factions in the city? Or maybe something else entirely?
I see Fronts as an organizational tool. They are the big NPC actors behind the scenes. So the question may be better asked, “Who do you want to be active?”
If you’re not sure. wait until you get your players and then ask, “Who would it be interesting for these players to be interacting with?”
And let those be your fronts.
For me, I really like only have the barest hint of prep-work and then letting the players fill in the details. In the hangouts game I did last week, I started only with the idea of a siege and let the players fill in all the details. Eventually it turned out that a magically inclined nobility was basically killing the land around them to fulfill a prophecy, which led to a magic-fueled up-rising which led to wyvern battles and the birth (and death) of a god.
Keep all the idea you’re having with you, and use them to build off what the players want to do. You’ll get more engagement and have a much stronger sense of the world.
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I wouldn’t make fronts until after the first session maybe second session really. Just have in your mind the action the players are doing and then the questions they should answer. Fronts basically come from those
I’d base the fronts around the npcs the players interact with, and direct each front towards a specific problem or d scarcity. But, primarily, figure it out after the first session.
Of course, you don’t want to start thinking about fronts before the first session. Ours was two weeks ago. Sunday will be our second session, but it sounds like you’re all agreed that I don’t need to worry too much going into this one without fronts, either.
For me at least, fronts emerge as a natural biproduct of the game plus thinking about the game. Then i figure things out. YMMV.
Yes and Fronts are not set in stone either…nor is there grim portents. You can basically change them depending on where the story actually goes