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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8635590" data-attributes="member: 6790260">To build off some stuff [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] has said about Story Now, and hopefully in a way that can illustrate the difference from non-SN play, I offer my own game. It has Story Now pieces, but that is not the whole of the experience. I am improving on facilitating those pieces, but it is a process of learning. (This is, after all, my very first long-runner as DM.)First, the start of this game was not really Story Now at all. I had, previously, had a group which did some stuff to make an Arabian Nights inspired setting: the Tarrakhuna, and specifically its largest city, Al-Rakkah. With that group, various facts were established about the world because of the playbooks those players used. E.g., we had a Grim World Slayer; I said I as DM was uncomfortable with having a player character who was literally addicted to murder, so I asked how he got his violence fix, and he said he was a monster hunter, like a cross between Van Helsing and the slightly crazy versions of Batman. This established that there are monsters in the wastes between the settled places of the region. Other facts, I established myself: there is little influence from dragons, friends, or fae in this world, instead genies fill that role from their country of Jinnistan in its parallel elemental world; the main religion is the Safiqi priesthood, with the Kahina (druids + shamans) being the majority of the remainder; etc.Little to none of this is Story Now. It's just players and me agreeing on the backdrop as it were. My new group added further elements and expanded on the ones that already existed, e.g. the first group had had a Shaman, the current group had a Druid, so that altered that perspective. We have had no actual Safiqi characters (no Clerics or Paladins), but three characters have learned from them.Sometimes, I'm crafting plot hooks or adventure locations for them. My little "masquerade ball turned murder mystery," for example. Other times, I follow their lead, like when the Bard went looking for a more pure "adventure" with less strings attached because he'd been doing a lot of emotional stuff in the game recently and needed a break (IC and OOC). I will use such opportunities to insert useful things, e.g. when the party arrived at the formerly-hidden entrance to the lost city, they discovered their Druid friend, because the player had returned from hiatus and had (via solo play) finished his temporary-indefinite "Enoch was no more, for God took him" excursion. But, for example, once they got into the city, they did some fairly Story Now things, e.g. the Bard (who has both IC and OOC interest in archaeology) carefully examined the initial market square they came upon in hopes of finding evidence of its purpose or cultural artifacts that might have been abandoned during the ancient exodus from the city. Unfortunately, he got snake eyes...so he asked his one question (as is my policy for such rolls). Knowing that this character values freedom and independence (his Alignment move is "reveal corruption or oppose oppression"), I gave an Unwelcome Truth answer that would challenge his enthusiasm for the ancient secrets of this place, pitting his own values against one another: info they had already learned from just looking around casually (me extemporizing) finally became clear...because this wasn't just any marketplace, it was a slave market. This city had been one of the greater hubs of genies trading in mortal-race slaves before the mass departure of genies moving to Jinnistan. This proved a relatively minor note overall in their explorations of the place, but it definitely induced the character to have a much more critical, less wide-eyed perspective on the ruins: the people who had called this place home were not good people. Other concerns proved more salient as they investigated places in the city they thought important: the palace, some libraries, some places where bound spirits were hanging out (indeed, the bound spirits proved a much more relevant thing than the fact that the genies here were slavers, much to my surprise), etc. And when they finally reached the basement of the temple they wanted to get into, they were rewarded with more info about ancient history, given by an imperfect but relatively unbiased source: the World-Serpent, one of the greatest of the great spirits. The party Druid decided his mission required that he enter a covenant with it, and he had to decide whether he was willing to meet the spirit's terms--in the end, after wrestling with it a bit, he was, and thus the pact was made, though the World-Serpent made clear that this pact would not be the same as the ones it had made with the ancient genies, because those gifts had been abused; instead, the Druid would be the beginning of something new, and would be burdened by responsibilities as a result. This challenged this character by putting his thirst for discovery and exploration in conflict with his newfound commitment to the mission given to him by the One, via friendly proxies he had already met.Two adventures previously, the party (just Bard, Battlemaster, and Ranger at the time) was prompted (=I prompted them) to deal with a subversive cult in the city, very "Church of Happyology" stuff. Along the way, they dealt with both prompts purely arising from my own work, and also put their own interests on the line to make sure this cult was obliterated (they succeeded fantastically, saving pretty much or even absolutely everyone who could be saved). For example, the Ranger has established that he has an ambitious but positive relationship with his orcish paternal grandmother (matriarch of their formerly-nomad tribe and whose position he is very clearly one of the main candidates to fill when she abdicates or dies) and a very antagonistic relationship with his human maternal grandfather (a rich and powerful but often slimy merchant in the big city). However, the Ranger is also now a devotee of the Resolute Seeker, an aspect of the One that focuses on hunting down evil in the dark places where it hides (as opposed to the more stay-at-home guardian aspect, the Stalwart Soldier), and thus his faith compelled him to use whatever resources he could to prevent the cultists from hurting innocents....and he thus chose to call on his hated grandfather. I framed a scene designed to challenge the Ranger's commitment to his hatred: the grandfather had previously had his young (human) granddaughter, one of the Ranger's cousins, kidnapped by Very Bad People and begged the Ranger to save her (which he did do, despite kinda wishing to leave them to their fate). This deeply affected the grandfather: he had seen firsthand how the darkness of the city and the region could hurt people, even the powerful, and had realized how much the people in his life actually meant to him. He isn't quite a changed man yet, but this revelation has re-directed him. So grandfather was happy to commit his money and influence to keeping people away from the cult while the PCs dealt with it, and then he did something that REALLY messed with the Ranger. Not as payment, not as a prelude, just as a request, he asked if he could count on the Ranger's endorsement for his effort to be named the new Minister of Public Works—because the former had been feeble in his old age and had failed to build up the city, creating the kind of environment where little girls are kidnapped to extort people and the poor get used as tools to manipulate others. The Ranger was in shock; this was nothing at all like what he expected...and he agreed to give that endorsement! The player had to go on hiatus shortly after this, but the whole process ended up being a beautiful "what matters more to you? Feuding with your grandfather or getting a qualified and seemingly pro-social new Minister of Public Works?"My efforts remain far from perfect. The players can be frustratingly passive at times, and every prompt I give moves things away from proper Story Now. But I'm doing better, and with time, the players are taking a bit more initiative themselves to define what they want and why. I don't think I really want an absolute 100% Story Now, all day every day, kind of game, nor do I think that my players would want one, but having more of it is a good thing, at least for the moment.</blockquote>

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