We are playing a No-Myth 4e Story Now game
At the end of character creation, we end up with a number of characters that each have a significant number of thematic seeds ripe for dramatic exploration. This as a natural byproduct of 4e systemic support that generates
these types of characters with
these types of issues (to varying degrees of effectiveness, as
@pemerton often points out, with the Ranger being a class with less of this “ripeness” of thematic content).
Importantly, characters may also define “Quests”, major and minor, which, out of all of these thematic signaling mechanisms, rely some the biggest clues for potential character proactivity.
At the end of character creation, we also have some kind of notion of a setting penciled-out. This may come as a natural extension of the kinds of characters that have been created, which themselves suggests the kinds of populations, geography and politics that surround them; as well as (potentially) conversations and choices that are made during character creation to ground the characters in a logical place and time (“we are all part of the same kingdom”, “we live in a desert”, “the gods are gone, and primal energies abound”).
Contrary to other Story Now games, we do not start the game with key NPCs in a relationship map of pre-defined motivations or conflicts (I’m thinking DitV’s towns here), nor do we have a predefined setting with timelines already at work (BitD’s Doskvol). If anything this kind of setup mostly resembles Apocalypse World in its initial setup.
________
Play Begins:
The penciled in-setting gets instantiated in a HERE and a NOW.
The Dome of Illumination has served for centuries as the imperial seat of accumulated knowledge and prophesy. The antechamber is open to the outdoors, accessed by an intricately cut archway. The central area is decorated with an elaborately tiled pool, a statue of an ancient Dragon-King in full flight looms overhead, held aloft by great chains. Priests are allowed free reign of the place so when the sculpted stone doors open to the dome itself, its no surprise when a member of the clergy with multiple clerks in tow files out. Spectral servants close the doors behind the regalia-clad Dragonborn Inquisitor.
Being familiar with the crest of Chanvati's mercantile family, the draconic holy-woman stops when she sees you. "Inform him" she sternly instructs her herald, serpentine eyes never leaving you. The young herald steps forward, clears her throat and makes significant effort not to gawk at the massive form of the Goliath slave next to the lowly merchant Chanvati; "The Dome of Illumination is inaccessible to those of neither royal blood nor divine sponsorship while an Inquisition stirs the Empire. I am afraid those of your station will have to seek council elsewhere." Two well-armed and armored members of The Inquisitors' Guard step forward next to the herald to back up her claim with force if necessary.
What do you guys do?
What I see from “Redeem the Past, Chase the Future” and “The Slave and her Sovereign”, is that when the GM frames a scene, there is really no indication as to WHAT the conflict of interest TRULY will be, only possibilities:
Being familiar with the crest of Chanvati's mercantile family, the draconic holy-woman stops when she sees you. "Inform him" she sternly instructs her herald, serpentine eyes never leaving you.
Seems like, thematically, our conflict of interest COULD be about Chanvati’s assertion of THEIR rights as member of a mercantile family within the Dome of Illumination. Like, that’s a legitimate move
@darkbard could have acted on, yes?
What YOU say my rights are vs what I say my rights are.
The young herald steps forward, clears her throat and makes significant effort not to gawk at the massive form of the Goliath slave next to the lowly merchant Chanvati. (…) Two well-armed and armored members of The Inquisitors' Guard step forward next to the herald to back up her claim with force if necessary.
Seems like, thematically, our conflict of interest COULD be about Chanvati and Pa’avu’s ability to push their way into the. Like, that’s a legitimate move either player could have acted on, yes?
How far YOU are able to go vs how far I am able to go?
A few questions at this point:
1.
I imagine that there might even be more possibilities that I have not addressed initially:
Like, “
Spectral Servants”, taken literally for this example, depending on the protagonist’s religious beliefs, one of them might say “
I did not expect you to also enslave undead souls at your house of knowledge.”
A conflict of morals.
“
The Inquisitors' Guard”, “Not so long ago you and I served in the same war…”
A conflict of loyalty.
Am I reading too far into this? Given a No-Myth style of game, are all of these pronouncements legal/fruitful/conducive to good play? Is my suggestive interpretation of the players role, one where they truly read the initial fiction and endow it with dramatic meaning, in line with what we are talking about here?
2.
When framing the initial circumstances, the GM is, not only, TRULY divesting themselves of how these will resolve, but also WHAT they are truly, and ACTUALLY, about. That
aboutness is hinted at, but only made real by the players pronouncement of these as
issues. Is this correct? This is very similar to “Trollbabes’” player-initiated conflict, no?
3.
Notably absent, is any form of stake establishment prior to player initiation. While “retrieving the ancient Scrolls of Xanthar” is one of the Minor Quests, the GM does not immediately assume that the achievement (or not achievement) of those stakes are on the line here.
4.
When you framed this scene,
@Manbearcat, did you have a threshold or rubric for deciding, if the scene had enough promise for conflict or are you more neutral?
________________
Ok, so moving on, the way
@darkbard and
@Nephis decide to play this, is that Chanvati decides to “outsmart” the herald and convince him that the circumstances deserve a reassessment of their entry, and Pa’avu both backs Chanvati but also buys into my teased-out conflict of "a tests of wills".
They both roll, unprompted by the GM, notably punctuating that conflict about "something” is in their purview to initiate. The GM’s response is to formalize their actions into SC and finally set stakes.
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I don’t want to extend past here in case there are some elements that I am getting wrong, mostly out of fear that I might end up going too far in the wrong direction. Is there anything in what I have said that rings wrong?
I haven’t truly gotten to my REAL QUESTION which eventually seeks to contrast this approach with the one
@pemerton teases out where he himself actually has some level of prep (I’m thinking of the Beholder rising up from the chasm) and how that works (or not) with @Manbearcat’s approach.
I am also a bit confused as to what happens now that we are within a SC when it comes to the GM moving us to the next "scene".
