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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8766809" data-attributes="member: 42582">[USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] , [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER], [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER]A question that is prompted by some of these interesting recent posts:To create a backstory/situation that would be good for a session or two of play - let's say 6+, but fewer than 10, hours of the players declaring actions for their PCs, receiving narration from the GM, making some decisions among themselves both in and out of character, etc - how many pages of prep do you think is required?And can we break this down a bit. Eg how many NPCs, how many "levers" per NPC, how many groups, how many places etc?It's a long time since I've tried to prep for the sort of RPGing we're talking about in this thread, and I probably wasn't doing a very good job. So I'll have a stab, but I don't promise that it'll be right!NPCs: I'm thinking double-digits is good, but fewer than 20. That's enough for half-a-dozen or so scenes (which seems like 2+ hours of play, depending how they go), allows for NPCs on their own or with friends, and allows for some NPCs who get mentioned or alluded to but don't actually turn up in play.Groups/factions: Building on my thoughts about number of NPCs, I'm going to say 3 to 5. Three creates the possibility of opposition plus one observer/exploiter if the opponents come into conflict. More than 5 seems like it might be too much for the GM and players to handle, and the interactions and consequences could get out of hand."Levers": It seems like some NPCs should have only one, that's easy to discover and exploit. These give players straightforward ways in. Some others maybe need more subtlety - say, a personal life lever (love, debt, shameful past, etc), an "internal" professional lever (wanting promotion, embezzling the firm, dissatisfied with current leadership, etc), an "external" professional leader (wants to take down a rival, used to be best friends with a rival, plays poker every Thursday night with a rival, etc),  immediate/contextual lever (broken down car, stuck in a hotel with credit cards lost, really need to get a message from A to B, etc), perhaps more, whether duplicates within a category or some further category of lever I haven't thought of.If that averages to two levers per NPC, we're talking maybe 20+ levers. How these should relate to the groups/factions seems pretty contextual. There can be direct relationships - eg leader of group A used to love deputy of group B but now hates him; or contextual - eg there's only one car and so group A can use it to carry their message or group B can use it for their getaway but they probably can't both use it (at least, not easily). But probably at least 3 or 4 such interconnections seems good, as that gives the players multiple pathways to interaction. If there are 20+ levers, maybe keep at least half of them more simple, than interactive between groups? So that the players have some ways in that don't immediately destabilise the situation in ways they mightn't be able to predict, especially early in the scenario.Places: Each NPC probably needs at least a typical place they can be found, and some will need multiple places (eg work, home). Some NPCs will overlap, but others won't. Some places may also be connected to levers but don't have relevant NPCs in them. I can see a real risk of this growing out of control if the system doesn't help the GM rein it in, particularly by putting a real limit on the amount of detail needed in order to frame scenes and resolve actions in a place.Pages: With double-digit NPCs, 20+ levers, 3+ groups and all those places, I'm seeing 10+ pages of notes to make this scenario work.Anyway, that's my first attempt at thinking this through. I was helped by having recently used the Torchbearer adventure design sequence to design a Torchbearer "dungeon": it makes the GM ask some very practical questions about the design. In the above I've tried to be similar in terms of thinking through the practicalities of setting up a scenario like this.</blockquote>

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