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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 2428453" data-attributes="member: 9391">I pretty much use the "how to create a campaign" advice from the Sorcerer supplements. So if you want to classify me, I guess I'm a dirty Narrativist. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I come up with an idea for a campaign I think is cool, figure out what kinds of themes it deals with, then run it by the players. We talk about it for a few weeks, flesh out some ideas, talk about possible characters. Then I start thinking about NPCs that would be interesting while the players are mulling over their PC ideas. We have a character creation session where we all talk through the characters as we go, bounce ideas off each other, and look for places the characters can be connected. (We don't go with a party structure, so the connections are as tight or as loose as we decide is appropriate.) They come up with a vague idea of some NPCs they might be involved with, and a Kicker that tells me what happens to them at the start of play. Armed with that information, I work on the relationship map of the NPCs in the campaign. I figure out where we can swap out my ideas with NPCs the player characters are connected to. I jot down notes about what the NPCs want from each other and what they might want from the PCs, and various ways they could make each others lives' difficult.Then before the first session of play, I make up a list of Bangs, things I can throw at the PCs that they'll have to deal with. We start play at the events of the player-written Kickers, cut back and forth between the different PCs' scenes, deal with the PC actions and consequences, etc. When things start to flag, I throw another Bang out there. Things spiral out of control enough after a few sessions that I don't need to keep adding much complexity at all.Ron Edwards calls this "Bass-playing" GMing, and that seems appropriate. You throw down the basic structure, and when the players start riffing, you just go with the changes. No map, no plot, just characters dealing with the crap life throws them and how that kicks up even more crap. It's pretty damn fun.</blockquote>

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