On creating elements for a setting

When I saw this as the title for the April RPG Blog Carnival my mind started ticking over campaign and setting planning and how I want to go about it.

Image credit: cosmicgrooveart

It's easy to just start building things that will never get played and I think a solution is:

• to break prep into separate and reusable elements (I've talked about this before)
• to only plan what you need

So, leaping off from that into the void, what sort of elements and what does each need?

Places

TTRPG games generally involve some exploration, and even if they don't the scenes have to be set somewhere.  Places are everywhere from towns to rooms to dungeons to continents and planes!

In my opinion, Places are often containers but I think they need the following themselves:

• Flavour descriptions / scene setting (depending on scope and scale)
• Rumours / things to interact with

As well as being the basic things you need for a dungeon room, these settle nicely with the start of a "three act" story - Set the scene, call to action - so can often lead to setting up a sidequest nicely.  Can we run the full mile and prep some of the rest too?

• Rising action
• A climax
• How the place is left changed

Oh - there's a location based adventure!

Antagonists

TTRPGs are about conflict and resolution, and where would conflict be without antagonists to rub against our protagonists (the party) - these are the factions and moving parts!

Beef! A simple session zero tool

I'm starting a new campaign and always find starting to be the hardest part. It's all about inertia.

In the spirit of the previous post, I've come up with a quick tool/checklist to help me begin.

Image credit: Dopaprime on DeviantArt

Starting point:

• The GM presents a list of say half a dozen key NPCs from the setting, OR
• The GM and players each create one key NPC as part of session zero

(I'll be running Mothership, and I'll be using the existing NPCs from "A Pound of Flesh" for this.)

Hopefully, putting the PCs in one of four basic situations with some of the key NPCs can help provide easy inspiration, possible plot hooks and shapes, and get the campaign wheels turning:

They got beef with you. Something you did has upset them or made them angry! The idea is this helps provide an immediate antagonist or villain, even if only short term...

You got beef with them. The idea is this can provide an antagonist as above, and/or a plot point where the party might need someone's help and need to get over their beef...

They owe you a favour. The idea is to set up an ally, willing or reluctant, that might be able to help the party overcome a problem...

You owe them a favour. The idea is to provide a hook for, or add a complication to, immediate or later adventures...

The GM's role is to ask the questions / lead the conversation about the nature of the situation, the cause, and mine the answers for hooks for hooks and inspiration, e.g.

• Why?
• What happened?
• What things/people were involved?
• Where are any relevant things/people now?
• What's the current situation? 
• What do the various parties want?

For longer and/or character driven campaigns, each player:

1. Chooses (or rolls) one of the NPCs
2. Determines the situation their PC has with the NPC (could be roll a d4, or choose)
3. Answers questions from the GM to create some brief backstory which becomes part of the campaign canon

For shorter campaigns, for simplicity, etc. the group as a whole:

1. Chooses (or rolls) one NPC for each of the four situations, which applies to the whole party not an individual
2. Answers questions from the GM to create some brief backstory which becomes part of the campaign canon

As I'm planning on around 10 sessions, and Mothership PCs are fairly disposable, I'll be going for the second option.

Comments always welcome.

Six blog posts I should have told you about last year...

Some stuff you may have missed from the blogosphere - now I'm off to find out what I may have missed since last year!

Image (cc) Kevin Dooley

I've been pointed to some interesting starting material for OSR games at Paul's Gameblog - having started D&D at 4e and disliked 3e I never experienced "the old school" and wouldn't know where to start.  There is a lot of OSR sensibility that appeals to me...

For those wanting to add some flavour to NPCs, DIY and Dragons has this fantastic link list for backgrounds and occupations.

Thinking about both Cthulhu and Blades in the Dark, and now just in time for Hallowe'en, I was happy to stumble upon this ghostly generator at Archons March On.

Against the Wicked City imagined the Warhammer universe in the context of classic English literature - and it's absolutely beautiful!

More OSR goodness over at Slugs and Silver - a collection of all sorts of great random tables (and you know I love random generators)

I have to include this plug and play dungeon room from Sheep and Sorcery just because it's such a good idea, and well executed too.

Please support the blogosphere and let me know any great finds of your own in the comments.

RPG Blog Carnival - One Roll Fae NPCs

Since my last Carnival post I've been thinking about Faerie NPCs, what sort of things they might want and what interesting trades they might offer unwary PCs … grab a set of polyhedral dice or use the JavaScript roller below to find out!

The d6 - Type

1. Dryad or other female Fae
2. Satyr or other male Fae
3. Sprite or Leprechaun
4. Pixie or Faerie
5. Wild Elf or Gnome
6. man-beast of some kind: Faun, Centaur, Kitsune...

The d4 - It has an aspect of

1. spring - bright green shades, suggestions of flower buds
2. summer - vivid colours, suggestions of flowers in full bloom
3. autumn - red / brown shades, suggestions of fruits and seeds
4. winter - grey or white shades, suggestions of bark or twigs