Here’s the Front I’m using tonight for the Chaos Sea boom harbor of Greatlune. Thanks to Jonathan Walton for asking the questions that got it settled in my head. I’m gonna fork at least four jobs out of this guy.
FRONT: Tension between townies and transient fortune hunters.
DANGERS:
Townie religious temperance leagues make everyone sober and orderly
* kill the distillery demons and spirits; no more demon rum or spirits.
* poison the drink
* smash taverns, kill tavernowners, destroy the industry.
* erect an arcane wall that will protect Greatlune from demons and the spirits.
Fortune hunter riots get drunk and become marauders
* loot
* kill
* vandalize
The Outfitter’s Lodge absolutely eliminate anything that interferes with the greater business of Greatlune
* withdraw financing
* sabotage equipment
* disappear people into the Chaos
The Thieves’ Guild do what the Outfitter’s Lodge tells it to do
* run scams vs. approved targets — mostly new arrivals below a certain level of wealth / power / connectedness
Githzerai Monk-Marauders of the Chaos Sea drive off the stupid noisy fortune hunters who are interfering with their taming of the Chaos Sea
* destroy random fortune hunter Chaos Ships
* lightning raid vs. Greatlune
* divert massive earthmote / chaosteroid to collide with the Diamond Pier.
PORTENTS:
O Temperance leagues run wild
O Angry sober fortune hunters riot, sack parts of the townie quarter.
O Outfitters lose control of the thieves’ guild.
O Crackdown! Outfitters buy “reliable” half of the town and use it to kill the unreliable half.
O Outfitter anti-Githzerai patrols are radically cut down. Fortune hunters who are still working face emboldened Githzerai attacks.
O Risks too high, money stops flowing, investors flee for safety.
O Githzerai pirates damage the irreplaceable Diamond Pier.
O Fundamental supply chains broken, widespread hunger, food riots, severe depopulation.
ENDGAME:
Greatlune is torn apart. The current boom ends immediately and will not restart until some enterprising sorcerers rebuild the Diamond Pier.
I still struggle with Fronts. Can you tell me how you would use these in play? (I know this is in the book, but these examples would be really useful.)
Nice work.
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No offense Mark, it seems clear to me from John’s post. What of his could you not use
? ( <-- not sarcastic, looking to use the example to identify your concern)
Robert Slaughter – It’s more basic than “How to use what’s here.” I really struggle, with AW and AW-hacks in general, to put Fronts into play. I write them up, but then at the game, I’m not able to put them into play smoothly.
This is totally some brain-freeze on my part that’s keeping me from seeing how they are supposed to work. I was hoping John Zo would be able to help me see past my own blinders by providing some more examples of how these would look at the table.
Mark Diaz Truman We have a job-driven Planarch campaign, so I’m going to use this front to make jobs.
Some of those jobs will tick portents, some of them will prevent portents from being ticked. Others will be driven by the moves of the dangers and will be of lesser consequence.
I’ll post the specific jobs I create later tonight to demonstrate the linkage.
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Okay, here are the jobs for Greatlune:
1) join up on a temperance league raid on a distillery. TWIST: success means releasing the demon that the distillers use to make the demon rum into the town. Pay is okay; the temperance league is flush but cheap.
2) Protect a distillery from a temperance league raid. Pay is very good — the distillers are flush. Alternatively, infiltrate the temperance league on behalf of the distillers. Probably not an option for our paladin.
3) join up on an anti-Githzerai raid in the Chaos Sea. TWIST: Githzerai monasteries are sublimely beautiful, Githzerai might be vaguely sympathetic as a result. Pay is excellent — Githzerai=Gith-scary.
4) Thieves Guild scamsters lures naive and sweet pilgrims to Greatlune, promising an amazing excursion to a holy site in the Chaos Sea. Nice pilgrims are now penniless and starving in the shantytown that surrounds Greatlune. Pilgrims need their money and stuff back. TWIST: The Thieves Guild is just an arm of the Outfitters’ Lodge and the OL is totally fine with this, so the party will be basically pissing off the entire establishment if they do this. Pay is whatever the party gets its hands on.
Mark Diaz Truman do you have any other questions about this? I’m happy to answer!
John Zo – I’ve read over everything again in the DW book and I’m starting to get a better sense of things. In the DW book, they list grim portents for each Danger, but you’ve listed them all in one place here? Are those moves listed with each Danger?
Yeah, I’m not doing it like the book does it. It feels more natural to me to just have a single list of grim portents leading to a single doom. Much less work and I can write them like an outline to a story.
The bullet points for each Danger are indeed moves.
John Zo – Yes, I think one list of Grim Portents makes more sense for me as well. Looking at the DW book again, I think that splitting up the Grim Portents is partly what confused me! This has been very helpful.