The Schism of Echoes
“When life gives you lemons, cut the lemon in half and say the other half is false and turn against it!” – Harland, on starting a schism.
Players: Karen Twelves, Adrienne Mueller, and Eric Fattig
http://www.seannittner.com/actual-play-the-schism-of-echoes-1042016/
http://www.seannittner.com/actual-play-the-schism-of-echoes-1042016/
Sean, you mention you fell down a bit with the score, and it seems like it was in an area I struggle with as well. Interpreting Duskvol’s setting so players can make choices with consistent info can be tough sometimes, so you saying the DSS not realizing their score on a leviathan hunter captain was a big deal struck a chord with me. Was that (the status of hunter-captains) something you invented because of a needed complication, was it something you had in mind before, did a player suggest it (I’d guess not this one if you were concerned about their grasp on the situation but in general terms players riffing on the setting can lead to dissonance sometimes)?
(This post brought to you by Sean’s stream of consciousness, sorry for the rambling)
Hi Adam Schwaninger, thanks for asking. The score started off as the result of a Entanglement (gang trouble) where the student patrol had defended the wrong people (Brogran and Andrel). From there I was trying to make up the original score that they had botched. What would some sailors want that some university students could get? What if a Leviathan Hunter captain was speaking at the university and they used that opportunity to steal his log book?
That sounded cool enough (and something to justify a large score) but after that the questions of what would happen next (in terms of the school’s reaction to catching them, where would the log book be, what would captain Strangford do once he noticed it was missing, and how to convey that this was a big deal) weren’t coming to me.
In retrospect I probably should have paused the game (or thought about this some between sessions) to contemplate those questions. My guess is that if I looked at the friends and enemies of the Leviathan Hunters, started a clock or two based on this missing log book (one based on the captain’s actions, and one based on what people would do with the book), and fleshed out a couple of the NPCs associated with it, I could have not only make this score come to life (something more than ransacking a professors home) but also conveyed it’s gravitas.
Current hypothesis: slow down, give myself a minute to think, ask more questions both of the players and of the setting and make sure that I’ve started a clock, written three descriptors for an NPC, or otherwise given myself a few notes to play off of before jumping back into the game. In fact, I think I’ll do that right now.