I thought I gave some examles upthread that answer the last question (maybe in some othe recent thread?). But anyway, here are four
First example, from
my first BW session:
[sblock]
The rogue wizard, Jobe, had a relationship with his brother and rival. The ranger-assassin, Halika, had a relationship, also hostile with her mentor, and the player decided that was because it turned out she was being prepared by him to be sacrificed to a demon. It seemed to make sense that the two rival, evil mages should be one and the same, and each player wrote a belief around defeating him: in Jobe's case, preventing his transformation into a Balrog . . . I had pulled out my old Greyhawk material and told them they were starting in the town of Hardby, half-way between the forest (where the assassin had fled from) and the desert hills (where Jobe had been travelling), and so [the player] came up with a belief around that:
I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother. . . .
I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)
My memory of the precise sequence of events is hazy, but in the context the peddler was able to insist on proceeding with the sale, demanding 3 drachmas (Ob 1 resource check). As Jobe started haggling a strange woman (Halika) approached him and offered to help him if he would buy her lunch. Between the two of them, the haggling roll was still a failure, and also the subsequent Resources check: so Jobe got his feather but spent his last 3 drachmas, and was taxed down to Resources 0. They did get some more information about the feather from the peddler, however - he bought it from a wild-eyed man with dishevelled beard and hair, who said that it had come from one of the tombs in the Bright Desert.
Jobe, being unable to buy Halika any lunch, suggested he might be able to find some work for them instead.[/sblock]The basic structure in the episode above:
* the player says some things about his PC (I have a brother, he's my rivial, he's transforming into a Balorg, I want some magical items to stop that happening);
* the mechanics of the game tell us some more things about the PC (he's broke);
* I as GM then say some things about the situation the PC finds himself in (you're at the market, there's a peddler offering to sell you an angel feather);
* the player says some stuff (I study the angel feather with my Second Sight and Aura Reading, to find out its anti-Balrog potential);
* the mechanics of the game tell us something about the unfolding situation (the feather isn't everything the PC hoped it would be);
* I as GM say some more stuff (the feather is resistant against fire, but also cursed);
* etc.
At no point as a GM do I tell the player(s) that there's something that "needs doing". And at no point am I just imagining some stuff happening in the gameworld in a solitaire fashion.
Second example, from
my first session of 4e Dark Sun:
[sblock]The first half or more of the session was spent on PC building (despite my admonition to the players that they could only have 1 hour). With three players, we got 3 PCs: an eladrin bard with the virtue of cunning (with the Veiled Alliance theme); a mul battlemind gladiator (with the gladiator theme and wielding a battle axe); and a half-giant barbarian gladiator (with the wilder theme and wielding a glaive). . . .
As the final part of PC building, and trying to channel a bit of indie spirit, I asked the players to come up with "kickers" for their PCs.
From
The Forge, here is one person's definition of a kicker:
A Kicker is a term used in Sorcerer for the "event or realization that your character has experienced just before play begins."
For the player, the Kicker is what propels the character into the game, as well as the thing that hooks the player and makes him or her say, "Damn! I can't wait to play this character!"
It's also the thing that the player hopes to resolve at the end of the game. At the start of the next game with the same character, the resolution of the Kicker alters the character in some way, allowing the player to re-write the character to reflect changes.
In my case, I was mostly focused on the first of those things: an event or realisation that the character has experienced just before play begins, which thereby propels the character into the game. The main constraint I imposed was: your kicker somehow has to locate you within Tyr in the context of the Sorcerer-King having been overthrown. The reason for this constraint was (i) I want to be able to use the 4e campaign books, and (ii) D&D relies pretty heavily on group play, and so I didn't want the PCs to be too separated spatially or temporally.
The player of the barbarian came up with something first. Paraphrasing slightly, it went like this:
I was about to cut his head of in the arena, to the adulation of the crowd, when the announcement came that the Sorcerer-King was dead, and they all looked away.
So that answered the question that another player had asked, namely, how long since the Sorcerer-King's overthrow: it's just happened. . . .
Discussion of PC backgrounds and the like had already established that the eladrin was an envoy from The Lands Within The Wind, aiming to link up with the Veiled Alliance and thereby to take steps to save his homeland from the consequences of defiling. So his kicker was
My veiled alliance contact is killed in front of me as we are about to meet.
(A lot of death accompanying the revolution!)
With all that in place, we started the session proper. I started with the barbarian, describing him standing over his defeated foe in the arena as the cry comes through the crowd "The tyrant is dead!" - taking all attention away from his victory and the pending kill. . . .
The barbarian, meanwhile, followed through on his exultation in victory and killed his defeated enemy despite the lack of crowd attention. (No roll was required for this.) Members of the crowd objected, however, calling out "No more murder!" - and some jumped over the low wall down into the arena, to try and remonstrate with the gladiator. I rolled some dice and decided on 10 people. Either another roll or an arbitrary decision - I can't remember which - told me that two fell into hidden pits in the sand before they could close, but that still left the gladiator facing 8 angry people (mechanically 2nd level Human Goon minions from the MV). . . .
Up in the stands, meanwhile, the eladrin envoy - a student of the ancient tactics of the eladrin, and visiting the arena (i) to see how the people of this land fight, and (ii) to meet up with the Veiled Alliance - saw his contact approach, giving the secret signal of recognition that the eladrin had been told to expect. Then the contact feel down dead. The eladrin used his Sensing Eye to try to inspect the body and identify an assailant, but even with a +2 bonus (for clairvoyance) the Perception check failed, and so instead he attracted the attention of a Templar who noticed his psionic sensor. He succeeded in persuading the Templar that he didn't know the dead Veiled Alliance member, but not that his interest in the matter was innocent (there was a successful check in there somewhere - Diplomacy, I think, which is +4 CHA +5 training +5 Words of Friendship and so hard for him to fail - but also a failure, maybe on another Perception attempt). So when the Templar insisted that he come with him he teleported down into the arena itself, just as the events described above were unfolding. . . .[/sblock]The basic structure in this episode:
* The players establishes something about his PC's situation (as I'm about to kill my enemy in the arena, the revolution occurs and everyone turns away);
* The player then narrates his PC's response (I kill the defeated foe anyway);
* I, as GM, say something else that happens (members of the ground jump into the arena to stop the PC);
* The second player establishes something about his PC's situation (as I'm about to meet my contact, the contact drops dead);
* I, as GM, let the players know that that second situation is occurring right about now;
* The second player says what his PC does in response (I use my psionics to help find the killer);
* The mechanics of the game tell us that the PC doesn't achieve his goal;
* I, as GM, say what happens next (a Templar starts remonstrating with the second PC);
* etc.
Again, at no point as a GM do I tell the player(s) that there's something that "needs doing". And at no point am I just imagining some stuff happening in the gameworld in a solitaire fashion.
Third example, from
the opening session of a Cortex+ Fantasy campaign:
[sblock]I wrote up some PCs to run a Heroic Fantasy session. . . .
The PCs were deliberately conceived so as to be suitable either for a Japanese or a Viking setting; when we played yesterday the players all voted for vikings, and so that's the way it went. . . .
After people chose their characters, and we voted on vikings over Japan, the next step was to work out some background. The PCs already had Distinctions and Milestones (that I'd written up, picking, choosing and revising from the Guide and various MHRP datafiles) but we needed some overall logic: and the swordthane needed a quest (one of his milestones) and the troll a puzzle (one of his milestones). . . .
So it turned out like this: the Berserker (who has Religious Expert d8) had noticed an omen of trouble among the gods - strange patterns in the Northern Lights; and similar bad portents from the spirit world had led the normally solitary scout (Solitary Traveller distinction, and also Animal Spirit) to travel to the village to find companions; and the troll, a Dweller in the Mountain Roots, had also come to the surface to seek counsel and assistance in relation to the matter of the Dragon's Curse; and, realising a need for a mission, the village chieftain chose the noblest and most honourable swordthane of the village - the PC, naturally - to lead it.
And so the unlikely party of companions set out. . . .
[T]he group travelled to the north, gradually climbing through the foothills ever higher towards the snow-capped peaks. In spring and summer the more adventurous herders might be found here running their animals upon the pasture, but in the autumn there were no humans about.
Cresting a ridge and looking down into the valley below, they can see - at the base of the rise on the opposite side - a large steading. Very large indeed, as they approach it, with 15' walls, doors 10' high and 8' wide, etc. And with a terrible smell. . . . After some discussion of whether or not giants are friends or foes, the swordthan decides to knock at the gates and seek permission to enter. Some dice rolls later and he has a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, and a giant . . . opens the gate and invites him in.
Meanwhile (I can't quite remember the action order) the scout has climbed up onto the top of the pallisade, gaining an Overview of the Steading asset, and the troll has remembered tales of Loge the giant chieftain, gaining a Knowledge of Loge asset. And the berserker - who has the Deeds, Not Words milestone which grants 1 XP when he acts on impulse - charged through the open gate at the giant, inflicting d12 physical stress.
But the swordthane - who was hoping to learn more about his quest - used his Defender SFX to take the physical stress onto himself (in the fiction, stepping between giant and berserker and grabbing hold of the latter's axe mid-chop). And the berserker - whose player was happily taking 3 XP for being rebuked by an ally for his violence - calmed down.
The next action cycle took place in the main hall of the steading, into which the PCs were led by the giant at the gate.[/sblock]This did involve a
need, but it was established by the players, filling in the details and motivations for their pre-gens. And once play started, the fiction was established in a similar back-and-forth way to the other two examples:
* I, as GM, tell the players something about the situation (as you crest the ridge, you see a giant steading);
* The players tell me what they want their PCs to do (one knocks on the gate; one climbs the pallisade; one remembers everything he can about giants);
* The mechanics tell us that these attempts succeed;
* Working together to establish the in-fiction results of those mechanical successes, we work out some more details of the situation (the giants invite the swordthane to enter; the scout on the pallisade has a fine overview of the steading; the troll recalls tales of the giant chieftain Loge);
* The player of the barbarian tells the rest of us that he's attacking the giant;
* The mechanics tell us that his attack inflicts a lot of hurt; but the player of the swordthane, relying on a mechanical feature on his PC sheet, tells us that he steps between the barbarian and the giant and takes the blow, while rebuking the barbarian for his violence;
* etc.
Fourth example, from
first session of Classic Traveller:
[sblock]Of the seven PCs generated, only one died during generation (necessitating generation of another PC for that player). That same player would have had a second PC die too, except that We were using a rule that if you fail your survival roll by 1 - which he did - you can muster out instead with a shortened (2 year) term and a -1 penalty to the roll for special duty. . . .
We ended up with the following PCs . . .
* Roland, who served 4 terms in the Interstellar Navy but never received a commission despite finishing a PhD (Educ D);
* Xander, a pirate who didn't even make it to Henchman status in 3 terms of service and ended up being denied "re-enlistment" - clearly this meant he'd been marooned by his piraticals shipmates!;
* Sir Glaxon, who started with Soc A and so "enlisted" as a noble, only to be denied re-enlistment after 1 term - the player tried for a roll of 6 on his one mustering out roll (to get a Yacht), but got TAS membership instead;
* Methwit, who had poor physical stats but good Edu and Soc and served as a diplomat - it quickly became clear (given his skill rolls) that his status as 3rd Secretary was a cover for some sort of espionage role, and after 3 terms the player decided there was no reason to hang around and risk aging rolls, so Methwit "retired" from the diplomatic corps to make himself available for a wider range of "irregular" operations;
* Tony, a 6 term Merchant who made it to 3rd officer, hung on in hope of further promotion but was not going anywhere (and hence had no hope of getting a ship in mustering out), and who spent his last 4 terms of skill rolls rolling to maintain his stats agaist the ravages of aging - his Str survived but his End still dropped, leading to the conclusion that he'd been dosing himself on some bad steroids;
* Vincenzo (Baron of Hallucida), the replacement for a belter who died in his first term (crushed between asteroids!), was rolled up last - with Soc B the player went noble to try for a yacht; this looked pretty unlikely when he failed his second term survival roll (by 1) and so had to muster out early with Gambling-2 and Bribery-1 his only skills, and just a single roll for mustering out benefits; but the die came up 6 and everyone cheered - now the group would have a ship.
Given that all the players had submitted to the randomness that is Traveller - and had got a pretty interesting set of characters out of it - I had to put myself through the same rigour as GM. So I rolled up a random starting world:
Class A Starport, 1000 mi D, near-vaccuum, with a pop in the 1000s, no government and law level 2 (ie everything allowed except carrying portable laser and energy weapons) - and TL 16, one of the highest possible!
So what did all that mean, and what were the PCs doing there?
I christened the world Ardour-3, and we agreed that it was a moon orbiting a gas giant, with nothing but a starport (with a casino) and a series of hotels/hostels adjoining the starport (the housing for the 6,000 inhabitants). The high tech level meant that most routine tasks were performed by robots.
Roland, having left the service and now wandering the universe (paid for by his membership of the TAS), was working as a medic in the hospital, overseeing the medbots. Vincenzo was a patient there - the player explained that Vincenzo had won his yacht in the casino, and the (previous) owners had honoured the bet but had also beaten Vincenzo to within an inch of his life (hence the failed surival roll).
Xander, meanwhile, had been marooned in a vacc suit in open space - but Traveller vacc suits have limited self-propulsion, and so he'd been able to launch himself down to Ardour-3 (burning up his vacc suit in the process, but for some parts which he sold for 1,500 credits - his starting money). He was hanging out at the starport looking for a job and a way off the planet.
Tony was also at the starport, working as a rousabout/handyman (no technical skills, but Jack-o-T-3) - and it was decided that he was the one who had bought Xander's vacc suit gear and fitted it onto a vacc suit that he modelled himself (paid for out of his starting money).
Glaxon and Methwit, meanwhile, were at the casion - Glaxon getting drunk and Methwit keeping his ear to the ground, having been sent to Ardour-3 as his final posting.
With the background in place, I then rolled for a patron on the random patron table, and got a "marine officer" result. Given the PC backgrounds, it made sense that Lieutenant Li - as I dubbed her - would be making contact with Roland. The first thing I told the players was that a Scout ship had landed at the starport, although there it has no Scout base and there is no apparent need to do any survey work in the system; and that the principal passenger seemed to be an officer of the Imperial Marines. I then explained that, while doing the rounds at the hospital, Roland received a message from his old comrade Li inviting him to meet her at the casino, and to feel free to bring along any friends he might have in the place.
In preparation for the session I had generated a few worlds - one with a pop in the millions and a corrosive atmosphere; a high-pop but very low-tech world with a tainited atmosphere (which I had decided meant disease, given that the world lacked the technological capacity to generate pollution); and a pop 1 (ie population in the 10s) world with no government or law level with a high tech level - clearly some sort of waystation with a research outpost attached. . . .
Given that I had these worlds ready-to hand, and given that the players had a ship, I needed to come up with some situation from Lt Li that would put them into play: so when Roland and Vincenzo (just discharged from medical care) met up with her she told the following story - which Methwit couldn't help but overhear before joining them!
Lt Li wondered whether Vincenzo would be able to take 3 tons of cargo to Byron for her. (With his excellent education, Roland knew that Byron was a planet with a large (pop in the millions) city under a serious of domes, but without the technical capabilities to maintain the domes into the long term.) When the PCs arrived on Byron contact would be made by those expecting the goods. And payment would be 100,000 for the master of the ship, plus 10,000 for each other crew member.
Some quick maths confirmed that 100,000 would more than cover the fuel costs of the trip, and so Vincenzo (taking advice from Roland - he knows nothing about running a ship) agreed to the request.
Methwit thought all this sounded a bit odd - why would a high-class (Soc A) marine lieutenant be smuggling goods into a dead-end world like Byron - and so asked Li back to his hotel room to talk further. With his Liaison-1 and Carousing-1 and a good reaction roll she agreed, and with his Interrogation-1 he was able to obtain some additional information (although he did have to share some details about his own background to persuade her to share).
The real situation, she explained, was that Byron was itself just a stop-over point. The real action was on another world - Enlil - which is technologically backwards and has a disease-ridden atmosphere to which there is no resistance or immunity other than in Enlil's native population. So the goods to be shipped from Ardour-3 were high-tech medical gear for extracting and concentrating pathogens from the atmosphere on Enlil, to be shipped back to support a secret bio-weapons program. The reason a new team was needed for this mission was because Vincenzo had won the yacht from the original team - who were being dealt with "appropriately" for their incompetence in disrupting the operation.
(I had been planning to leave the real backstory to the mission pretty loose, to be fleshed out as needed - including the possibility that Li was actually going to betray the PCs in some fashion - but the move from Methwit's player forced my hand, and I had to come up with some more plausible backstory to explain the otherwise absurd situation I'd come up with. And it had to relate to the worlds I'd come up with in my prep.)
The PCs stocked up on some gear - combat and non-combat related - and we made some rolls for the content of the ship's locker. Methwit also made sure that they stocked up on a high-end medical kit with good pathogen analysis and vaccine-development capabilities - "just in case".
Then they headed off: Vincenzo was master of the vessel, Glaxon piloted it, Roland did double duty as engineer and medic while Tony served as engineer and steward (it is a noble's yacht after all). Xander was taken on as Vincenzo' bodyguard, and Methwit was clearly the mission leader, given his extra briefing from Li.
The distance-per-time chart showed that with 1G acceleration it would take them about a week to travel beyond 100 planetary diamters of the gas giant for a safe jump. An encounter check showed a scout ship - Lt Li's ship passing them with its 2G acceleration, and sending a brief "good luck" message - but nothing else happened en route to the jump point.
A jump-1 took them to Lyto-7, where Vincenzo decided to engage in some commercial speculation and paid 30k+ credits for 5 tons of ambergris-like substance (taken from the deep-sea creatures the researchers were investigating). (Because they were using refined fuel, and they had an engineer on board, the checks to avoid misjump and drive failure succeeded automatically.)
Another jump-1 took them to Byron, where Roland (with Admin-1) negotiated their entrace without having their papers or cargo checked too closely. Their ship not being streamlined, they needed to ferry their goods down to the planetary surface; but they wanted to use their own small craft (a yacht comes with a ship's boat) rather than a commercial service, so as to keep their cargo under wraps. Methwit (with Recruiting-1) was able to find a ship's boat pilot on the station orbiting above the on-world starport, but (the roll being pretty bad) she was taking her "day off". So Vincenzo used his Bribery-1, and an offer of Cr 700, to persuade here that she should revisit her timetable. And so they flew down to the surface of Byron, parking their boat and cargo while heading to town via the monorail to await contact. At about this point, Methwit briefed Roland on the true situation - that they were part of a bio-weapon development scheme. Thankfully for the mission, Roland seemed pretty relaxed about that.
Contact took six days. (A six on a roll of one die.) In the meantime, Roland found Vincenzo a broker to help sell his goods, and (even after broker's fees) Vincenzo made a tidy profit of about Cr 15k. Unfortuntely Vincenzo then went out to find a casino, only to learn the hard way that gambling is illegal on Byron - and he had to pay a Cr 120 bribe to the two police officers who informed him of this fact to get them to leave him alone.
The session ended at the point of contact[/sblock]Here, the
need was generated via rolling on the patron encounter table, making sense of that result in light of the backgrounds we establlished for the PCs, and then playing the game:
* I tell Roland's player about Lt Li's approach;
* Roland's player says that Roland agrees to meet her,;
* I describe the circumstances of that meeting;
* There is back-and-forth between me and the players as the events of the meeting unfold;
* Methwit's player tells us how Methwit invites Li back to his room for further conversation;
* The mechanics of the game tell us that this invitation is accepted;
* Methwit's player tells us that, back in his room, Methwit asks Li what the real deal is; and makes an Interrogation check;
* The mechanics tells us that the check is successful, but not superlatively so;
* With that in mind, I provide some answers from Lt Li, but also require Methwit to give up some information about himself in the course of the back-and-forth;
* The players equip their PCs;
* I narrate the travel to the jump point (with mechanics informing that narration - eg the encounter with Lt Li's ship);
* The player of Vincenzo tells us that, at Lyto-7, he tries to buy some ambergris for resale on Byron;
* etc
These are all living, breathing worlds. Things are happening in them. NPCs are going about their business, some of which involves the PCs. When the PCs return to old haunts, new stuff can be narrated (eg in the Cortex game, a few sessions later the PCs returned to the giant steading having failed, so far, in their mission, and got up to some new shenanigans).
But none of this requires the GM writing fiction solitaire. Writing fiction solitaire can be a pleasant passtime, but it doesn't seem very central to the social activity of RPGing.
