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The Story Now Discussion
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8250293" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>I'm not sure you've actually grasped the concept. The idea isn't to imagine what the villain is doing, but to put a indicator out that the villain is doing "something." This should be big, and high concept, but you're not going to elaborate on it at all unless and until that clock ticks, and then you're going to create an immediate situation that challenges something the PCs care about. If I put out Dr. Bob's clock of "Destroy Metro City" then that's going to be sitting there, doing not much, until it comes time to tick it. If I'm doing a good job, then that clock alone will speak directly to things the PCs care about, and they'll be telling me what they're doing about it -- and whatever they tell me they do, that's going to be important to Dr. Bob's plans. The idea of the clock, or front, isn't to prep the plan, so to speak, but to put a red cape up and dare the players to charge it. It's the looming threat that needs to be taken care of, or bad things happen. Now, if the PCs ignore it, or it comes time to tick it, or they bungle an attempted thwarting, then you create some new fiction that speaks to the looming bad. Say the PCs decide to ignore Dr. Bob's threat and instead deal with Bobblob for a session. At the end of that session, when you're checking your clocks/fronts, and Dr. Bob's clock/front ticks over, then you introduce a bad thing that's happened, or you increase the threat level of Dr. Bob, or you do something like this. You don't advance a plan, you introduce a new threat. What that threat is/should be can be prepped, but it absolutely must speak to the current situation and PCs. It's hard to prep well in a Story Now game, because things go sideways often (and good thing, too!).</p><p></p><p>As for mysteries, they absolutely work. Recall, though, that everyone's playing to find out, so even the GM doesn't know the answer to the mystery when it starts, or even halfway through. Instead, the mystery will unfold in play. This is why I say that Story Now play is very dependent on the system -- a system that does it well will generate complications and the mystery will unfold in an organic and interesting way. A system that doesn't support this play, or fights it, will cause this to falter and feel forced.</p><p></p><p>An example from my Blades in the Dark game of a mystery went like this: the PCs were looking for a job (they were spies), and got one to recover some stolen alchemical notes that were causing alchemists to become very ill and die. This is actually from one of the jobs tables in Blades, and the group was looking to introduce some new ideas early in the game's run (where things weren't very complicated, yet). We did some free play, and established that there was an alchemist that had recently died worth investigating, and also a minor noble who was connected through a PC's contact to the underground alchemy scene. The party split up to investigate both, and I ran a split score -- two PCs investigated the alchemist's house, and two more the nobles. In the course of play, the alchemist's house was being ransacked by a rival gang (a few failures to sneak in meant there were people in the flat, and I introduced rival gang members) and devolved into a fight where gangers were killed (death in Blades is a "bad thing"), and they only got a fragment of some notes about the formula -- clearly it was disseminated more widely, and people were experimenting with it, but what it was or did remained unknown. This score was a failure, and so actually blossomed the mystery and made it deeper. The other score went even more awry. Failures there led to the introduction of an alchemist suffering the formula trying to kill/capture/scare? the nobleman, and the description was zombielike. The PCs there engaged the zombish alchemist, and more fails occurred, leading to the description the the "zombie" was heavily imbued with the ghost field, and could even stutter step through space (when your crack shot misses the zombie five feet away, you need a reason other than "you missed"). So, at the end of this, the PCs had some tantalizing clues, but had not recovered the formula or even had a grasp on what it did. Meanwhile, the between score entanglements roll indicated demonic interest, so a demon got involved, demanding the PCs recover this formula and destroy it or it would come of them (demons are like elementals in Blades, this one was a fire elemental). This one rolled job had now blossomed into a mystery, one that would take a few sessions, and lead to engaging allies for assistance, ghosts being kidnapped (it's a thing), haunted houses, secret cults, and more demons. None of this was planned, prepped, and most of it surprised the hell out of me. </p><p></p><p>If you mean Story Now doesn't do planned mysteries well, then, yes, because planned play is the opposite of the intent. If you're asking if Story Now can do mysteries, it 100% absolutely can, but you really can't plan what or how that mystery will go or even <em>start</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8250293, member: 16814"] I'm not sure you've actually grasped the concept. The idea isn't to imagine what the villain is doing, but to put a indicator out that the villain is doing "something." This should be big, and high concept, but you're not going to elaborate on it at all unless and until that clock ticks, and then you're going to create an immediate situation that challenges something the PCs care about. If I put out Dr. Bob's clock of "Destroy Metro City" then that's going to be sitting there, doing not much, until it comes time to tick it. If I'm doing a good job, then that clock alone will speak directly to things the PCs care about, and they'll be telling me what they're doing about it -- and whatever they tell me they do, that's going to be important to Dr. Bob's plans. The idea of the clock, or front, isn't to prep the plan, so to speak, but to put a red cape up and dare the players to charge it. It's the looming threat that needs to be taken care of, or bad things happen. Now, if the PCs ignore it, or it comes time to tick it, or they bungle an attempted thwarting, then you create some new fiction that speaks to the looming bad. Say the PCs decide to ignore Dr. Bob's threat and instead deal with Bobblob for a session. At the end of that session, when you're checking your clocks/fronts, and Dr. Bob's clock/front ticks over, then you introduce a bad thing that's happened, or you increase the threat level of Dr. Bob, or you do something like this. You don't advance a plan, you introduce a new threat. What that threat is/should be can be prepped, but it absolutely must speak to the current situation and PCs. It's hard to prep well in a Story Now game, because things go sideways often (and good thing, too!). As for mysteries, they absolutely work. Recall, though, that everyone's playing to find out, so even the GM doesn't know the answer to the mystery when it starts, or even halfway through. Instead, the mystery will unfold in play. This is why I say that Story Now play is very dependent on the system -- a system that does it well will generate complications and the mystery will unfold in an organic and interesting way. A system that doesn't support this play, or fights it, will cause this to falter and feel forced. An example from my Blades in the Dark game of a mystery went like this: the PCs were looking for a job (they were spies), and got one to recover some stolen alchemical notes that were causing alchemists to become very ill and die. This is actually from one of the jobs tables in Blades, and the group was looking to introduce some new ideas early in the game's run (where things weren't very complicated, yet). We did some free play, and established that there was an alchemist that had recently died worth investigating, and also a minor noble who was connected through a PC's contact to the underground alchemy scene. The party split up to investigate both, and I ran a split score -- two PCs investigated the alchemist's house, and two more the nobles. In the course of play, the alchemist's house was being ransacked by a rival gang (a few failures to sneak in meant there were people in the flat, and I introduced rival gang members) and devolved into a fight where gangers were killed (death in Blades is a "bad thing"), and they only got a fragment of some notes about the formula -- clearly it was disseminated more widely, and people were experimenting with it, but what it was or did remained unknown. This score was a failure, and so actually blossomed the mystery and made it deeper. The other score went even more awry. Failures there led to the introduction of an alchemist suffering the formula trying to kill/capture/scare? the nobleman, and the description was zombielike. The PCs there engaged the zombish alchemist, and more fails occurred, leading to the description the the "zombie" was heavily imbued with the ghost field, and could even stutter step through space (when your crack shot misses the zombie five feet away, you need a reason other than "you missed"). So, at the end of this, the PCs had some tantalizing clues, but had not recovered the formula or even had a grasp on what it did. Meanwhile, the between score entanglements roll indicated demonic interest, so a demon got involved, demanding the PCs recover this formula and destroy it or it would come of them (demons are like elementals in Blades, this one was a fire elemental). This one rolled job had now blossomed into a mystery, one that would take a few sessions, and lead to engaging allies for assistance, ghosts being kidnapped (it's a thing), haunted houses, secret cults, and more demons. None of this was planned, prepped, and most of it surprised the hell out of me. If you mean Story Now doesn't do planned mysteries well, then, yes, because planned play is the opposite of the intent. If you're asking if Story Now can do mysteries, it 100% absolutely can, but you really can't plan what or how that mystery will go or even [I]start[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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