Hello! I’ve just been pressganged into running a campaign and I’d love to have some help with it. The trouble is that it’s a West marches-esque campaign as everyone’s got pretty busy schedules and there’s no chance we could get the same people every month let alone week.
Plus since everyone wanted a feel of already being a somewhat powerful gang I started them off at Tier 1, against my better instincts. (looking back at it it would have been better to start with more crew upgrades methinks)
Fictionally this is justified by the crew being part of a leviathan hunter captain who went to the dagger isles and was thought dead, instead coming back with a load of money and pirates.He wants to get a piece of the underworld, but since he’s a bit clueless the PCs handle all of that stuff, swapping in and out between active crew and “shore leave” (scores). Kinda inspired by a cross between Jack Sparrow and Euron Greyjoy
Anyway, the only crew I could get our first two PCs to agree on was smugglers, so 6hs of play later they had done 3 scores and we’ve got a nice story with a pre-cataclysmic entity in the bay and Strangford hunting them down for stealing his ex-cousin’s-roomate’s maps.
How do I get the next group, possibly with no-one in it from the first group, on board with the story and the idea of playing smugglers if that’s not what they want? Multiple crews which the PC’s can choose from? Just pick an XP trigger at the beginning of each session? I’ve created a gazette offering an overview of the last session and new possibilities, but I don’t think it’ll do. Ideas appreciated!
Uh, so I don’t want to be doom and gloom here, but you kinda blew it – the time to get buy in from everyone was before you started. At this point, you pretty much need to say “this is the crew your characters are part of, plan accordingly.”
If you can’t get the same people together every week, just say “this is a smuggler’s game” and there you go. West Marches shit only works because everyone’s a damn adventurer.