subplotkudzu | The Second Prospectus

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campaign prospectus

The Second Prospectus

I branched out a little in this one, producing some very off beat campaign ideas but obviously didn't do a good enough job explaining them, which combined with the players gravitation to GM directed games with questions of "it sounds...interesting, but what would we do?"

I also did some, er, campaigning. I explained to one player that the Trek game was really based on the SF game I had toyed with a few years back that she had been really enthused about, and this time she gave a very similar description a much higher rating, which ultimately put it over the top.

The Russia Campaign Book 2: Pilgrimage for D&D (A2, S3, K3, J4 = 12)
Maksyn's worst winter in a generation is finally ending. Clues that Reuvin pulled from discovered texts indicate answers to the old Boyar's madness might be found in Constantinople. How hard can it be to reach the center of Eastern Orthodoxy, evade the besieging Turks, find what you need in the city's literally Byzantine bureaucracy, avoid the war and return to solve the mysteries beneath this unassuming Russian village?

An option for the Russia Campaign, this one leads you headlong into the defining war of the 15th century. Constantinople is still a city of vast knowledge and impressive magic. Heading there might make the resolution of the Apocalypse Tapestry easier. All you have to do is survive. Obviously, part of our ongoing D&D campaign.

The Russia Campaign Book 2: Descent for D&D (A2, S4, K3, J3 = 12)
Maksyn's worst winter in a generation is finally ending. Months of practice and strange new companions make opening the door in the seashell tower a possibility. The Reptoids have fled below, into the depths that drove the old Boyar mad and inspired the images on the Apocalypse Tapestry. Dare you follow? Dare you not? What waits below is known only to God and the Kindly Old Woman of the Forest, and neither reveals much.

This is the second of the two Russia options, which has you plunge directly into the caverns below the mines below the church below the Mad Boyar's basement. There are serious threats below, but you have stout hearts, strong limbs, nimble fingers and unshakeable faith. What's the worst that could happen? Again, this is our ongoing D&D setting.

Star Trek: Old Life, Old Civilizations for ST:RPG (A2, S4, K3, J3 =12)
The USS Carter, a Miranda class science vessel, navigates the ancient stars of the Alpha Quadrant, seeking out survivors of Earth's centuries old slowboats, exploring the ruins of vanished races and contacting new cultures that live amongst these shadows out of time. Archaeologists & explorers, diplomats & defenders, the they learn the galaxy's history so that the newborn Federation need not be doomed to repeat it.

Very early Trek, concurrent with Captain Pike on the Enterprise, with 4 main crew, a small secondary cast and a lot of red-shirted extras dealing with archeology and diplomacy in space. Each session is a discreet story tying into a short season, and combines both SF and Space Opera elements using the ST:RPG. If this is a success, we may return to it.

He Sang Real for Over the Edge(A3, S1, K1, J4 = 9)
The Green Nights are a hard rocking bar band with members from across the country staying one step ahead of their personal pasts. Life can get strange on that road; stuff happens that button-down men can't understand. You do the best you can, making a lot of music, doing a little good and grabbing some fun along the way. So set up the instruments, down the complimentary beer and get ready to rock.

It's the Monkees meets the Fugitive, as conceived and written by Tim Powers. Sure, it's strange, but it's a Tim Powers novel. It's *supposed* to be strange. The game engine is Over the Edge (which is both dirt simple and wonderfully weird), and it's a complete story in one arc.

Sterling's Game for FUDGE (A1, S2, K1, J3 = 7)
In the year 2009 the full promise of electronic connectivity & virtual reality are coming true for the EU. Pressure is building for England to finally abandon its beloved pound and buy into the Euro. That leaves a very small window for cunning group of thieves and con men to make a fortune in transition. Four thieves, nine figures, one sterling opportunity. Don't believe them when they say it can't be done.

Here's a con game inspired by The Sting, Oceans 11 and Entrapment. It's a complete story in one arc, starting with recruiting the team and ending with each getting either 30 million pounds or 30 to life. The game engine hasn't been built - FUDGE with cyber-tech, netrunning and Dramatic Editing included.

Voices in the Twilight for Godlike (A1, S2, K1, J3 = 7)
World War III wasn't so much a nuclear annihilation as it was a land slog in Eastern Europe with some radiation and bio-chem weapons. The reality is that you're cut off behind enemy lines in Poland and the USA has just decided to exit the war. The unreality is that something has happened to you...you can hear the future, see thoughts and taste the truth. For people who can move things without touch, is getting home really out of reach?

The "Twilight 2000/Psi-world crossover" idea I've played with for several years. While the setting might seem grim, I'll be using the slightly pulpier Godlike engine rather than T2K's bloody realism and the objectives are hopeful: can you get home, and how can your strange new gifts rebuild a shattered world? There is a potential sequel to this one.

This round of voting showed one of the weaknesses in my point system, in that three of the choices were tied with the same voting numbers. This means I got to pick my favorite of the three, but I still wish for a clearer mandate from the players. This might not be possible with such a small pool.

In any event, this one game a few new observations. The gratifying one is that Jason just likes every idea I put forward. The second is that by querying the players I can tailor ideas that didn't sell last time into ones that do sell, illustrated by the shift from 'the First generation' to 'Old Lives, Old Civilizations'. The third is that I can't trust that my players are going to share my pointless eccentric knowledge, as 3 of the 4 didn't catch the Arthurian Myth references in 'He Sang Real' - was trying to shroud it a little so there'd be some unfolding mystery in the setting, but in the pre Da Vinci Code days I was being a little too obscure.

The continuing observation is that the players again gravitated strongly to the GM-directed games: both of the D&Ds did well, and ST is very clearly GM directed, with either the problem planet of the week or orders from Starfleet. I broke in favor of ST and am very glad I did.

Trek was a shock for the players because while it was GM directed in what the problem was, it was entirely player directed in how to solve it. They had vast resources at their disposal, but no one to immediately turn to and no excuse to run away: out on the frontier, they were the Federation. The players really enjoyed the game, but ended each session feeling a wee bit wrung out.

Still, this experience left me thinking that if I were to give them a directed goal, I might be able to get them to take control of how to get there, freeing up some of the GM directed tendencies. And on to Prospectus 3.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You know, Bri, I'm not sure you really explained that you've been trying to get more "player-directed." Or did I just miss that?

You've missed it.

This last prospectus - the one with the Psi Men game on it - was all but one of the games operated under the assumptions that the players would take the ball and run with it where they wanted to go. At the time, I pointed out that these were all Building games and I was tying to give you more control. Even with that, the only reason we ended up with Psi men is because I broke a tie away from returning to Russia and the GM directed dungeon crawl.

For a variety of reasons the PCs reaction in Psi men was to turtle (i.e. build a bunker and hide against future threats), and to glom onto the first NPC who seemed to have a plan to give you a direction (happily murderous Roulette). I'm not saying it was all your fault (or that it's all you, Kris, doing it), or that there weren't other problems with the game, but it was something I noticed.

It's more than I'm pitching games that require or assume a high degree of player direction and you guys shy away from them in favor of more clearly defined GM-directed games. I suspect from comments you and the others have made it's because the pitch doesn't provide you with a clear goal of what the players are supposed to be doing and what the story is likely to be. There's nothing wrong with GM directed games: they're easy for me to plot, and they're fun for everyone involved. And these comments don't mean I want you to suddenly assume a play driven structure in D&D - the Arabian nights games are clear quest tales, as opposed to us focusing on Fasaad's merchant ventures, which would be more player directed.

It's just me musing - at some point I'd like to run a Mage game where you guys build PCs and I ask "How are you gonna overthrow the technocracy" and springboard from your plans rather than "you're on the run from the technocracy" or "the leaders of your chantry have given you this task to defeat the technocracy." Or on a smaller level "How are is your family going to succeed in this martian desert town" rather than "your father sent you to scout out lines for his martian railroad." Right now, you guys pick the latter options over the former when given the choice.

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The LJ spell check knew technocracy, but not mage. Huh.

Hmm. Speaking of trying to maintain focus in a once-a-month game.

Yeah, the Psi Men game was not our best collective effort. Retrospectively, I feel like I personally had some fairly clear ideas of what I wanted to do (including coping with the moral quandary represented by Roulette), but no idea of what the other characters wanted to do. Nor, frankly, did I do much to try to find out or to get us on the same page. Why didn't I? I don't know. It's not like I didn't have all their e-mail addresses. But I'm not used to having to work at keeping the characters on course - or on the other hand, to being in a campaign where that's not necessarily an important goal.

I'm inclined to think that communicating with the other players outside of game time, or even talking to them more during and after game time, might have helped. Or maybe not. But it's something to keep in mind in future, I think.

I'm perplexed at this idea that maintaining focus in a monthly game is difficult. I've been running monthly games for over a decade; I've never seen my players have much trouble with this aspect. I review my notes on the last session in the morning before the game, and start the session with a quick capsule summary, taking less than five minutes; that seems to get everyone in focus. It's harder if we miss a month or two, of course (one of my three current campaigns has had only four sessions in 2006!).

Of course, I also probably don't worry so much about keeping players on course. I consider six months to be a mini-campaign; my modal campaign length is 24 months. If we end up spending a couple of sessions with PCs wandering about attending to personal business, I count that as an investment in characterization and don't worry about the time. The short campaigns Brian runs don't seem to give the same luxury of long digressions.

Do you guys sit down at a pre-session and talk about character concepts and goals? I've found that this is indispensible for good character construction. If I've provided a mission statement, the players can talk about how they approach the mission; if I haven't, they can come up with a mission statement, or with some other reason for all their characters to be together, ranging from "you're all in a particular place in Devonshire on Midsummer's Eve" to "you're all victims of a common catastrophe in your mining colony in the Trailing Trojans."

The problem with things has not been in the pre-campaign set up (except perhaps with Psi Men). I've done either strong mission statements or group character creation and things have run fine. In the more GM directed games prior to psi-men a 5-10 minute summary of where we were (and a recap of the rules) has always been sufficient, but those were GM directed games with fewer balls in the air. In the current game I just have to remind them that the heroes are Arabian traders who have made their way into the hidden city at the Elephant's Graveyard in the wilds south of Ethiopia and we're good to go.

The Psi men characters, as one would expect from that clustrf*** of a game, were made independently by the players, and only 2 of the PCs knew one another at the start of the first session. the first session was a successful knitting together of the PCs with an unsuccessful display of the opposition - the players assumed that the enemy was much more powerful and entrenched than they were, and were unshakable in that belief in play. A one point I theorized that the archangel Gabriel could descend and inform them that they were not so outmatched and the response would be "Oh bloody hell, the government conspiracy has Gabriel on their side! Game over, dude!" Add to that the GM relying on the players for the game direction rather than the former model and it was all too easy for turtling to occur.

In any event, skipping the communal PC creation session for a new game will not be happening in the future. I'm curious as to what the players think on this, however.

As to campaign length, I suspect in the whole my campaigns run 24 sessions, but the 1001 NYN game is set up for four arcs of 6 sessions; Old Lives, Old Civilizations for 3 seasons of 8 sessions (followed possibly by a 4th season of 4 2 session games to b the Star Trek movies) and so on. We don't seem to manage two years of a single game in one go, but that does tighten things to fit each arc into the shorter timeframe.

The Psi men characters, as one would expect from that clustrf*** of a game, were made independently by the players, and only 2 of the PCs knew one another at the start of the first session.

I'm not surprised that independent creation caused more problems. I've run a number of campaigns where the PCs didn't all know each other at the start—in fact, I've run one where they didn't meet till the final two sessions! But if you're going to have separate tracks for different PCs, or even just PCs with different goals and motives, it becomes MORE important to have the players work on creating characters who have some interconnections.

I do have some problems with PCs who are too passive. My usual fix is to create situations that will go on developing if they remain passive, and hit them with the new developments in the situations.

I don't think that the independant character creation had anything to do wtih the game going FUBAR. I do think that player inexperience with the genre, coupled with a bad reference point, played a major role, at least for two of us.

ashacat and I had not (and have not) read any of the X-Men comics. This left only the movies for reference, with the one that had come out just then featuring a massive goverment attack on the X-Men -- black helecopters and all.

So, Asha and I were primed for an "us vs. the government" game, and when the first interactions with the local opposition had government entanglements (even if it was just the Illinios department of child welfare), that just confirmed the expectation. With that loaded in mind, all of the other items (a prison camp, tech with out serial numbers, mystery drugs) just fell right in to the pattern we walked through the door with.

We (Asha and I) also shared a strong sense of being herded along much too fast. Our characters were nowhere near thinking that the next logical thing was to form a supers team and build a secret base. We were much more in line to be street-level supers for a while. This led to a situation where what we the players had our PCs doing was aligned with what we knew the GM expected us to do, and what the game system expected us not to do, rather than what we thought the PCs would actually do. Honestly, both of us thought that Roulette was the only person on the stage who had a clue as to what was going on, and we would have followed him had it not been abundantly clear that he was supposed to be THE VILLIAN.

I don't think that the independant character creation had anything to do wtih the game going FUBAR. I do think that player inexperience with the genre, coupled with a bad reference point, played a major role, at least for two of us. ashacat and I had not (and have not) read any of the X-Men comics. This left only the movies for reference, with the one that had come out just then featuring a massive goverment attack on the X-Men -- black helecopters and all.

Now that problem I understand. I once set out to run a campaign set in E. R. Eddison's Renaissance high fantasy world of Zimiamvia. One of the five players read the books and loved them; one was vaguely aware of them that had not read them; two tried to read them and couldn't get through the first one (they're written in very dense, archaic prose); one didn't even try. So what I got was a mix of swashbuckling adventure with Shakespearean comedy, ranging roughly from As You Like It to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fun in its own way, but nothing like what I had planned on, and there was a fair bit of thrashing along the way.

And if I had committed to running the game for 2 years as you do, or decided to keep it going for the remaining 4 months, we probably would have done something similar -- thrashed out something that ultimately did not resemble any source material. I only recently realized that one main problem was that I was running a supers game but that two of the PCs were walking in with SF attitudes. Psis lean towards SF, the big government conspiracy is a staple of SF, and in SF technology and guns are useful. Not quite so true in Supers, but the two are close enough that early on you can miss the signs.

Independent character creation didn't help, and likely did hinder, if only because it prevented a focus of vision. All of you walked into this with different impressions of what these characters were supposed to do, and give them different backgrounds and skill sets from that. What could have been considerable overlap was turned into some helpful commonality, but a huge chunk of the first session was 'how the heck can we get these people together?' and even then it was a stretch. We stitched it up well -- the one good thought experiment from the game -- but it burned a lot of time and energy and diluted the focus.

As for the Massive Government attack and such, guilty as charged. I really should have loaned you a swath of X-Men comics to counterbalance things. I played into your other expectations in play, and the villains were as heinous as they were, because of a sheer lack of prep work on my part. I don't deny I'm bearing a lot of the brunt from this. lots of comic book stuff (the not killing, the fact that guns are sucky weapons, etc.) didn't translate, but are built right innto the mechanics. I have commented in A&E that one of the problems with the game was that I was setting up a supers game and at least 2 of the players were playing an SF one.

As for the herding too fast, I can understand how you might think that, but I did list that as part of the game: if this is the X-men from the movies, they have a large, fairly bucolic base. They deal with the large threats of renegade mutants and attempts to wipe out human kind. The X-men aren't street level heroes, so I wasn't expecting that and didn't think you had signed up for that. And if we had had a group character creation system, some of these expectations would have been a lot clearer.

Roulette didn't have a clue what was going on - his clue was entitled "they're trying to kill us so we should kill all of them", and he managed to be in the right place at the right time because he's a precog, not because he has good data. Yes, he was sympathetic and helpful and charming to you, you're other Psis. You're his people. And one of the points of a player directed game is to not turn to the NPC who seems to have a clue what's going on and follow his lead. Once I had the revelation that forced Roulette off the stage you guys did have some thoughts on how to get your own accurate information, but at that point the stress fractures from the other disconnects were starting to show.

But all told, yes, there were huge group communication issues here, and getting back to my contention I think one reason for those is a group leaning towards GM directed games. We didn't naturally fall into a player directed one, and I suspect that had Karen not been present the voting wouldn't have produced one, even with that player-directed slate.

As for the herding too fast, I can understand how you might think that, but I did list that as part of the game: if this is the X-men from the movies, they have a large, fairly bucolic base. They deal with the large threats of renegade mutants and attempts to wipe out human kind. The X-men aren't street level heroes, so I wasn't expecting that and didn't think you had signed up for that. And if we had had a group character creation system, some of these expectations would have been a lot clearer.

I have two thoughts on how this might have been made to flow better.

First, is to run with the fact that we were starting with raw origins ... let the group rummage around for two or three sessions, and realize that they need to get organized. Then do a two to five year time-slip and pick up after the bucolic institution has been built...

Second, it may have flowed better to start in media res, with all of the infrastructure already in place. If we look at the Aquarius game (Brian's 'once in a while' aquatic supers game), all of the pieces were there already -- the sup, the labs, the corporation -- and it made a natural transition to being Super Eco Defenders when we got our powers.

2¢l

... let the group rummage around for two or three sessions, and realize that they need to get organized. Then do a two to five year time-slip and pick up after the bucolic institution has been built...

I did something vaguely related with my campaign set in Middle-Earth after Sauron caught Frodo and took the Ring back: The first two sessions were prologue, showing where each character was in Middle-Earth, how they experienced the impact of Sauron's victory (one of Elrond's sons regaining consciousness near Cirith Ungol with no memory of who he was; a Gondorian noblewoman taking her younger brother North for safety two days ahead of Sauron's hordes coming in; a hobbit escaping from slavery in the conquered Shire), and how they came to be together. I guaranteed the players that their character would live through the prologue and start play with unmodified character sheets. That meant that I could spend those sessions on graphic exposition, with a panorama of Sauron's Victory.

That sounds like quite the game. :-)

"First, is to run with the fact that we were starting with raw origins ... let the group rummage around for two or three sessions, and realize that they need to get organized. Then do a two to five year time-slip and pick up after the bucolic institution has been built..."

Well, given that we were at the end of session 2 I thought we might have done that, but I see your point. You had actually dealt the Firebrands a considerable blow at that point so there wasn't much else to do in Chicago, but giving you another session to figure that out might have helped -- but not without a discussion like the one we're having now.

"Second, it may have flowed better to start in media res, with all of the infrastructure already in place. If we look at the Aquarius game (Brian's 'once in a while' aquatic supers game), all of the pieces were there already -- the sup, the labs, the corporation -- and it made a natural transition to being Super Eco Defenders when we got our powers."

That would have been purpose defeating to my goal of having a player-driven game where you built something, however. The goal of the Aquarius Odyssey was for a high Wonder supers game that might introduce some of the genre rules (and you still outright nixed secret IDs and costumes!). The pre-existence of EMS Exploration was a vehicle for that sort of story; the building of the Micah Foundation was the stated goal for the Psi-Men game. (Or at least, I thought I had stated it; in retrospect, maybe not.)

Now I'm getting all nostalgic about it! I was all set to have my character be a reluctant and internally conflicted director of the whole thing ... maybe I can rework that notion for some other game, some time.

Yeah, because nothing makes sure the game moves forward smoothly like the director bing reluctant and conflicted! The more we has this out the more I think it might be possible to chainsaw off the end of the second session (or maybe even leave it) and come back to this with a better set of mechanics and mission statements. After all, we did leave the game at a point of partial resolution.

I have already engaged some of the A&E crew to see if I could make Hero suit the purpose, or if I can gt Jim to run something in GURPS so I can internalize the system it might serve. One thing that's clear is that the Marvel system's hard coded 4 color morality and neutered conventional weapons is not going to serve.

Yeah, because nothing makes sure the game moves forward smoothly like the director bing reluctant and conflicted!

Hey, it's not as bad as all that! Damara's only just, you know, had to rearrange her ENTIRE LIFE because of all this. Sure, in a way it's partly the same charitable stuff she was doing before, and she's got plenty to keep her busy, but still. And then there's the GUILT. Since she's just not a naturally violent person, any need for violence will always cause her trouble - and she'll avoid it if at all possible. Plenty of room for conflict within the group over that, I suspect ...

the building of the Micah Foundation was the stated goal for the Psi-Men game.

The problem wasn't so much the goal; we got lost in the getting there.

This has happened to games I've played in where the GM's vision just hasn't translated into the players actions or vice versa. Sometimes the situation allows the game to just move in a different direction but in situations where the disconnect is severe we have pulled the rug. I think the most important thing is to have a very clear shared vision from the outset but how often does that happen realistically?

Your post mortem is very healthy as it allows you all, players and GM, to air what went wrong from your own perspective and to try to learn from it and avoid it happening again.

I'm getting the impression that the game is salvageable as none of the players are screaming 'No, no never again!'in which case I hope you have fun.

This so went over my head. Since, this was my first jaunt into your gaming world, I will admit that I was to some extent following everybody elses lead.

player-directed vs. GM directed - I would have needed a big lesson on that. My previous experiences would not have begun to have let that notion enter in to my head.

I was on board with the "Conspiracy" theory also. I found it particularly had to wrap my brain around not killing people. Which sounds weird when typing it. My point is that role-playing for me is fantasy based and when you see the enemy you kill it.

Hmm, again. In general, we haven't done a lot of meta-game type talking or thinking. For values of "we" = me and anybody who agrees with me, anyway. ;-D

Now that I think about it, if gaming calls for a combination of inspiration and planning, I figure I myself use a good 90% inspiration, especially during the actual playing. My character ideas (when my characters are self-generated) are based maybe 30% on the stats and 60% on "this seems like a neat idea" and 10% "let's not screw things up for the other players by overlapping too much, eh?"

I rarely approach a gaming session with anything in particular planned for my character - I'll have a background developed, but I definitely expect Brian to draw on that background and whatever else is in the world he's developed to throw stuff at us. During the session itself, it's all seat-of-the-pants navigation for me: X happens, my character's reaction is Y, result is Z, on to next event.

This is a habit, combined with an uncertainty about how much of the game world I'm "allowed" to make up. I actually know that Bri is perfectly capable of handling nearly any complication a player can throw at him, but the habit of playing reactively is rather deeply ingrained. I've given him quite a lot of deep background on my characters at times, gleefully adding stuff to whatever he's already developed, but in the actual playing time I almost never do anything like that. I think it feels like trespassing, actually.

Until this discussion started up, though, I hadn't really given it any thought. It's interesting.

"This is a habit, combined with an uncertainty about how much of the game world I'm "allowed" to make up. I actually know that Bri is perfectly capable of handling nearly any complication a player can throw at him, but the habit of playing reactively is rather deeply ingrained. I've given him quite a lot of deep background on my characters at times, gleefully adding stuff to whatever he's already developed, but in the actual playing time I almost never do anything like that. I think it feels like trespassing, actually."

This has actually been a minor bug with the 1001NYN game. You and I have discussed how 'Large' Marge is the central hero of my Feng Shui setting (she's the only one who's been in every arc, and nearly every session), and I have always figured that she's be one who somehow brings down the 2056 regime: not a great stretch given that her stated character motivation is to put her technical skills to use against the Buro. So I keep putting things in the game that you could use as tools towards that goal, and your response is "Neat! What do you want me to do with it?"

This sometimes leaves me feeling that I'm running half your character by handling her strategies while you engage in tactics. In at least one of the teaser scenes I dropped you into the middle of one of Marge's strategic moves (infiltrating the Buro's contemporary base to install the wiretap) and at the end of the scene you admitted that it had never occurred to you that Marge could even attempt that.

I know that in Feng Shui at least you have a good grasp of the world since you own the core rulebook and have read some of the supplements, and I know that by this point you have a good idea of what Marge can accomplish so I have been wondering what her plans are. Your admission that you consider strategic planning to be tresspassing explains a lot about why you're waiting for me to tell you what Marge has figured out about how to take the Buro down so you can do it.

The question is whether you're happy with this GM driven arrangement or would like to try to do more planning on Marge's part?

I think I would like to do more planning, actually. If I were a more normally social person we'd probably talk more and could've worked this out before. *Sigh.* On reflection, this tendency we're talking about is probably related to my deep-seated shrink-wrapped-self-esteem issues. You've seen me flake out when I've put myself on the spot ... though I'm quite comfortable with this small group, I think we should talk or e-mail it out and not expect me to spontaneously start coming up with stuff in game time.

Though speaking of that campaign, if I recall correctly, when we last left it we were busy FUBARing our mission ... the only idea I have for *that* is to blow out the back wall of the place with a satchel charge, which should at least make it easier for our team to get out of the building. I'm not entirely sure where we left the larger plot threads, either. E-mail me about it?

I wouldn't object to a rewind on that scene. We blew in there with a lot less of a plan than we usually have -- due in part to the timing.

ashacat and I have talked about this -- we both kept expecting Brian to call a halt, so we both figured that there was reason he wanted us inside the building, so we hustled through the pre-plan for the raid ... and look at where we are now!

It's also clear that when Brian said "they're wheeling in light stanchions" we players thought one thing (portable stage lights on posts) while he meant something else (construction-site light towers with their own generators). Clarity on that one critical piece of information would have seen us develop a different plan entirely. Or, at least, I would not have put forward the plan that is currently exploding in our faces.

I have a theory that it could get interesting ... Brian was laying on some hints that suggested to me that our simian "friends" are already there. Unless I'm reading too much into what seemed like fairly broad hints!

Oh, that could get raucus! I wouldn't put it past him, given that he's put the fight in a building with all of those high girders to swing from.

If we do pick up right where we left off, I have a plan B. Plan B involves blowing for fortune dice and a lot of automatic gunfire to wipe out the four light stanchions. That would put us (kind of) back into Plan A: everyone panicking in the dark and us moving with night vision... OTOH, taking off a side of the building with explosives would certainly distract the guards from us! ;-)

Oh, there are agents of another faction there. It's just not the monkeys. heh heh heh.

Hrm... You guys had already blown any timetable I had for the session with the amount of time you spent getting the information from the biker gang, so I didn't think I was hustling you into the building. You guys had never hesitated to take forever on pre planning before (witness the amount of time you spent on setting up the surveillance on the Seven Tigers fights).

As for the other, I know I gave you guys clues that you decided not to follow up on (the lighting equipment that I hinted broadly about and Marge didn't approach, the fact that the thugs using the building were making sure they didn't turn up on the radar so they were limiting their power draw and so on). Sometimes even the heroes miss stuff and end up in tight spots.

Karen has already told me that the doc at your side is going to veto plan B, BTW. The goal is to get the girl out with the minimum possible risk. Pulling your pistol and firing off a dozen shots to black out the room when there are at least a dozen semi-trained hoods with uzis and a couple hundred drunk gang members makes the environment too uncontrolled for that to be a viable risk. She's well used to medical emergencies where the original operating plan is no longer viable due to an undiagnosed problem, and you have to change tactics to save the patient.

Personally, I think she's right - accept the fact that this plan has gone off the rails and don't try to force it back on. The end of session reveal of why the plan won't work is classic police show. Besides, Karen taking an active roll in pulling you back from a failed plan will give her more street cred in the setting and help cement the doc's position in the group. after that first session Karen could use some of that, since she felt a little sidelined by not being in on the mystery.

Ooo, abandoning an action already begun? Radical notion. It simply hadn't occurred to me. But if Karen's character speaks up, Marge will back her - my character has more experience with this stuff than I do. Maybe we can tail the girl & co. back to wherever they're staying and take her there.

BTW, maybe somebody should tell Karen to get on LJ ...

The thing about the lights illustrates a fundamental risk of RPGs: you described equipment with words "light stanchions" to players running PCs vs. a real flesh-and-blood team of of people watching equiment arriving with their own eyes. The layer of abstraction creates an opportunity for miscommunication, which we stepped right into.

Karen has already told me that the doc at your side is going to veto plan B, BTW. The goal is to get the girl out with the minimum possible risk. Pulling your pistol and firing off a dozen shots to black out the room when there are at least a dozen semi-trained hoods with uzis and a couple hundred drunk gang members makes the environment too uncontrolled for that to be a viable risk.

...Now there's an interesting point of reflection. We can see just how far Hoa's thinking has been altered by his experiences of the past couple years that "Plan B" seems rational to him. It probably wouldn't have back at the start of the game. Of course, at the start of the game he wasn't engaged in illegal interstate police work under the orders of a shadowy government group he knows will off people who cross them. If Feng Shui had SAN, Hoa's would probably be down in the 30s - 40s right now.

Well, there's nothing wrong with working it out now. Marge has a lot of tools at her disposal and a boatload of unspent experience points.

I also have no problem discussing things between games (or immediately after them - just before is rough from an immediate planning perspective) - that's usually when strategic planning occurs. Ideally the players will develop a strategic objective in game and in character, do the strategy in the long span between games and then handle the tactics in game and in character.

If there's more than one player angling for the objective, it's good that all the PCs involved give their buy in, and it can lead to a meaty role playing scene. The individual tactics are often the focus points of sessions. That leaves the strategies as things that can be pulled out, discussed, analyzed, tinkered with and so on in the month long lags between sessions. Plus, that sort of thing gives the GM time to develop scenarios based on the strategies.

As for flaking out, glad we didn't make you Captain of the Carter?

As for flaking out, glad we didn't make you Captain of the Carter?

*Shudder*

Nonetheless, I thought about where Marge's knowledge of the enemy's plans was at last night, and the Black Company's assets as far as I know them, and I can see her arguing strenuously that they *must* act to stop the Architects from building that thing through the Netherworld, preferably by hitting it at both ends if they can. I don't think she knows about critical shifts yet, so that would seem like a plan to her.

And it would include seeking allies in the Netherworld: she knows there's at least one whole society there, and the Architects aren't likely to leave them alone once they've controlled the whole span of time, are they? And if the access point they control isn't helpful, they can use the gate.

Of course, there's the whole getting the other characters involved problem, but I'm sure we can come up with something. As I see it, there's a lot that could be done with regard to planning and executing the action(s).

I evidently missed this as well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Second Prospectus

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