I played Fiasco for the first time in ages a few days ago and it got me thinking about world building. I realized that you could blend the methods used in Fiasco with the Discern Realities questions, so I created a 6d6 DR World Building table with that in mind.
I was told yesterday that someone had already beaten me to the punch (Dirk Detweiler Leichty) and he did something I hadn’t considered: He had you roll 8d6 and use the two left over dice to determine what was going on in the opening scene. It added a new layer of choice because you might try to save the higher values to get a better opening position! I liked that a lot, so I modified it a little and added it in.
Here’s the table I came up with, and I’ll work on more in the future. It’s a really quick collaborative world building that you can customize to your own tastes!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1386zTBEhFCOgM4SAG2SNWqWRsTXq8k4tK8-oPW2pxH8/edit?usp=sharing
Yeah, I love this format.
I think it’d be fun to do one with lists that were really tightly thematically honed. Like, where the questions all pointed at a seafaring adventure, or a city under siege, or small village plagued by wicked fae…
Yes, exactly. I’ll work on some more tightly themed entries n the future. I like it as a way to set the tone but still allow the players to fill in all the blanks!
I realized something else while I was looking over it just a few minutes ago. This would be super useful for building an adventure front:
What happened here recently? is the central conflict, or Adventure Front.
What is about to happen? is Impending Doom-ish
What should be on the lookout for?, Who’s really in control?, and What here is not what it appears to be? are all Dangers.
Obviously not exactly, but I think if you worded the table and your extrapolation questions correctly the front could write itself.
Holy McMoly, this might be my new format for session prep.
I’m going to use this table as written with my group this weekend and see what they do with it. I can see all kinds of possibilities with this table and my players are just as creative as I am, if not more so. Even if we don’t get to play it will be a fun world building exercise! I’ll type up and link what we come up with.
🙂
Very nice lists!
Thanks Dirk Detweiler Leichty! As were yours! I got really excited about it and showed it to a friend who said “You know someone’s already done that, right?”, and then they showed me yours (which was better because of the extra 2d6… brilliant).
I was disappointed that I didn’t “invent” it, but there’s still lots of room for customization!
I don’t know Dirk Detweiler Leichty’s version. Does it live online somewhere?
I was all set to use Dirk Detweiler Leichty’s DR starter in my upcoming campaign, but now I’ve decided to make my own, based on some of my ideas for what the game might be about. I’ll share it when it’s done.
I will be combining the starter with the Perilous Wilds rules/procedure for making the map together. Any thoughts about when we should create the map and roll the DR starters? Before picking classes? After? Create the initial situation, then create the map?
Oh, and Deep Six Delver, Dirks starter is online here: drive.google.com – Discern Realities.pdf – Google Disk
Asbjørn H Flø, I let my players roll the dice and take a look at the possibilities before deciding on a class.
When one of my friends saw “A giant seeking protection” for What here is useful or valuable to me?, he jumped on it and declared he wanted to be a fighter. His Signature Weapon was a club made from an arm bone of a Giant, handed down through his family, which have all been giant hunters. He’s looking forward to playing a character whose instinct is to kill the giant on sight, but knows there’s more important things at stake!