Yeah, these are the sorts of things I was looking for. I've improvised a few at session 0's but was never fully satisfied with them.
I don't see a collection of Warriors of the World Ablaze, just playbooks released on the designers patreon. Dang.
How do you like to start a campaign
- Thread starter TheSword
- Start date
I don't see a collection of Warriors of the World Ablaze, just playbooks released on the designers patreon. Dang.
Yeah, definitely looking for some structure to make use of. Some folk benefit from instruction, some guardrails, they don't jive with open-ended stuff as well.
Oh yeah those were just a handful of examples.
Dungeon World’s SRD is online and you can look at the class bonds questions for inspiration, and Homebrew World (a hack of DW for quick play) is available online with a variety of example questions to ask each other.
When I’ve developed my own, I try and look to:
- premise, do I want to reinforce a theme of the campaign or world?
- class/playbook/etc, do I want the question to assert something about how that character’s relationship to their class works?
- whimsy, sometimes it’s fun to toss stuff out there that just adds a bit of flavor and character - things about music, cooking (“who dreads when it’s my time to cook?”), etc. they tell us something about the character by the player picking that one to ask, and to answer.
- provocative but also inside the character’s head. Shared secrets, wariness or distrust, etc.
dragoner
KosmicRPG.com
I use connections, with a sentence, or three of how you know each other, and take a skill point (max of two connection skill points).
hawkeyefan
Legend
So, a lot of them are game dependent.
Stonetop, for instance, has a series of questions that are asked about the town and the people in it. The group answers these together and comes up with NPCs to fill the major roles in the town (blacksmith, publican, midwife, etc.). Then each playbook has questions that are asked specifically for that player. For instance, the Judge acts as the Chronicler of Stonetop… and so he gets to determine how these records are kept, and gets to determine the features of the Judge’s Vault, which is where the records are kept. The Ranger is asked about a threat that they came across in the Great Wood that left them greatly worried… what is it? Why did it unnerve him so? That kind of thing.
In DIE, there are again questions asked of the group, and then questions asked of each player. Finally, there are a series of questions that the GM chooses to ask one specific player, and then each of these has a follow up. So the first may be "There was something you treasured as a teenager... a girlfriend, a car, a friend, a pet... what was it? What made you treasure it so?" and then the follow up may be "That thing you treasured? You lost it. How? Why was it your fault?"
In Spire, each of the classes have Bond questions, usually about three of them. One is to a PC... it asks a question that establishes a bond between this PC and one of the others. The other Bond questions establish relationships between the PC and some NPCs. For example, the Knight must take a Bond with his Squire... and he needs to decide if the Squire is a wide-eyed optimist, or a world weary pessimist.
At this point, I've run enough of these kinds of games that I feel like I have a good idea of how to apply this method in a game where it's not present. You just use what the players offer and build on it. Let them come up with NPCs and then use those in play. Let them come up with organizations or religions. Bring such creations into the setting, and use them to prompt questions to other players about their characters.
In Burning Wheel, connections between PCs are established mostly as Beliefs. For instance, when my friend and I built PCs for a game, my PC (Aedhros, an embittered Tolkienesque dark elf) had the Belief Only because Alicia [my friend's PC] seems poor and broken can I endure her company.
The rules of the game give me an incentive to either play into this Belief, or against it. Either way, that is going to involve my character interacting with Alicia, and her seeming poverty and broken-ness. Events in play led to me rewriting that Belief, first as Only because Alicia is not entirely without capability can I endure her company; and then, after Aedhros failed to heal the dying Alicia and so had to let her be taken into the company of the evil, blood-letting necromancer Thoth (my friend's new PC, to be played while Alicia undergoes the long recovery from her mortal wound), I changed the Belief again, to I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!
Thoth, meanwhile, has as one of his Beliefs Aedhros is a failure, so I will bind him to my will.
The dynamics between PCs (and thus players) that these Beliefs set up aren't necessarily intended to support indefinitely open-ended campaigns: they tend to produce a movement towards crisis and resolution. But they do achieve the goal of establishing connections that matter to play!
The rules of the game give me an incentive to either play into this Belief, or against it. Either way, that is going to involve my character interacting with Alicia, and her seeming poverty and broken-ness. Events in play led to me rewriting that Belief, first as Only because Alicia is not entirely without capability can I endure her company; and then, after Aedhros failed to heal the dying Alicia and so had to let her be taken into the company of the evil, blood-letting necromancer Thoth (my friend's new PC, to be played while Alicia undergoes the long recovery from her mortal wound), I changed the Belief again, to I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!
Thoth, meanwhile, has as one of his Beliefs Aedhros is a failure, so I will bind him to my will.
The dynamics between PCs (and thus players) that these Beliefs set up aren't necessarily intended to support indefinitely open-ended campaigns: they tend to produce a movement towards crisis and resolution. But they do achieve the goal of establishing connections that matter to play!
DrunkonDuty
he/him
You could use the Fiasco system. Plenty of scenario playbooks (that's not the game jargon for them) that can provide various connections as well as wants and hindrances. There's tonnes of them free online.
As a side note, your commitment to metric measurements is admirable!
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Wouldn't touch Imperial with a ten foot pole.
Similar Threads
