One of my players just came at me with a suggestion so cool, I felt the need to share it with you all!
Last session, I described the present situation (read: fronts) in character to the players via their patron. The players elected to travel far south to investigate why the vital trade caravans were not arriving, and chose to leave the disappearances at a Lumber Camp for now.
One of the players won’t be able to make it this week, and we really didn’t want to play without him in the main story.
So, a player suggested this:
“Can we not play the normal troops the patron will dispatch to investigate the other Front instead?”
It. is. perfect.
So next week, the players will be playing a squad of regular soldiers (who are not NEARLY as potent as Heroes) using a custom playbook for said generic soldiers.
They can pick the skills each soldier has (they will likely play 2 each) and Play to Find Out what happens when people who are NOT demi-god-like larger-than-life soldiers confront unspeakable evil.
So, instead of advancing the front, revealing the portents etc. They get to watch up close, from the eyes of people who are definitely not Heroes, what happens.
Also, likely half the soldiers will get maimed, exsanguinated, or otherwise released from their moral coil.
We will keep the survivors (if any), replenish the fallen, and have the newly named “Doom Patrol” on hand for future absences.
I like it. You can work the Doom Patrol in as hirelings too!
Nice idea. It sets the stage pretty well for the “main game”. Like in a movie when you see in a first scene how normal soldiers / people get smashed before the hero is introduced to establish how strong the enemy is.
Very cool. When you say “skills,” should I take that to mean you’re using World of Dungeons for this doom patrol, or am I reading game system jargon where there isn’t any? 😉
Benjamin Heidt also, this will provide me with plenty of guinea- I mean test-subjects for my insanity and mutation rules.
Normal folk are not as resistant to mind-blasting evil as murderhobo Heroes are!
Alfred Rudzki probably the latter.
I was just going to give them a big old list of moves, grouped by “skillset” to let them build the soldiers from.
One word: “Funnel world”.
Wynand Louw already purchased!
I tried something similar in a session – it was fun to watch the new characters most completely abandon self preservation in favor of making the game-world a better place for the survivors…. like the normal PCs.
That sounds funnel world for me 😀
Yessss! I’m super interested in this. Please let us know how it goes.
I’ve been thinking about something similar, building on the Followers rules from Perilous Wilds. Basically, you play as a “Follower” (with no PC leader), using the same stats/rules (Quality, tags, instinct, cost, Do Your Thing) but replacing Loyalty with Courage and Command Followers with Face Your Fears (meaning you don’t get to just leap into combat, there’s every chance you freeze up, get the shakes, etc.).
I think it’d be perfect for “home base” games like Stonetop, where sometimes the main characters are in the field between sessions but you want to play “meanwhile, back home…”
I wish I could give this +4.
I’ll let you guys know how it went, the game is planned for the 13th 😀