Hey, I need to run a score tonight and want to introduce some elements that I have not really played with before.

5 thoughts on “Hey, I need to run a score tonight and want to introduce some elements that I have not really played with before.”

1. Was thinking there would be clockwork traps in the house, a bit of a rube goldberg thing, and some automatons. What do you communicate to players to make these feel like something they can interact with?

2. Haven’t personally run anything with clockworks, but if it helps, I think there’s a couple of things I would do.

   One good thing to remember is that if a player witnesses some action having a clear consequence, then they are likely to feel like they can start to play with the object, rather than it just being window dressing.

   For example (maybe not a great one, but off the top of my head), maybe a bird flutters through a window, lands on a gear, and its weight causes the gear to turn a notch, which causes the whole mechanism to shift and suggest that the mechanism is related to whatever objective you have in mind. Maybe some electrodes spark up briefly, indicating a trap, or a bird in a cuckoo clock coos once, as part of an elaborate clockwork diorama. You get the idea. Something happens but does not complete, and requires further interaction.

   A little more straight-forward is to simply tell the player with the highest tinker rating that they recognize some component of the clockwork, and how that component is used. By implying that these objects are things that have a purpose and you can figure out how to use them, it should hopefully nudge them to explore the mechanisms further.

   Basically, any time I want to show the players something without hand-holding, I just try to find a way to make the world ‘move’ enough that the players can do the rest of the work. Show them how things interact without the players’ interference, or how things might change. Most of the time, this will trigger them to start thinking about other related ways in which they could interact with the object.

   (In learning theory, this is called ‘priming.’)

   If you do it well, they’ll even think it was their idea all along!

3. Lots of switches and valves, which have noticeable effects when interacted with. Steel ball bearings rolling along wire tracks, dropping into funnels and setting off other devices along the way. Bonus points if you can work in something pumping a bellows.

   You can really ratchet up the tension by describing all of the various components of the mechanism clacking along and setting each other off, and then have everything go silent for a couple of seconds…

   …Just before the trap door opens beneath them.

4. I encourage reflection on a “spectrum of usefulness” where the grinding poor have little use for things that aren’t immediately practical, and the wealthy consume conspicuously, proving they’re so rich they can waste anything and not care.

   So the basic point of clockworks is to move energy from one place to another.

   For the very rich, that’s things like wind-up tennis matches between ceramic kittens on a shoebox-size board, or intricate watchworks that turn a twisted knob’s stored energy into regulated clicks. They have works of art based on the pleasing combination of rich materials, motion, and precision. Some are functional.

   For the very poor, they have portals that need to be sturdy but weigh too much to easily move without gears to multiply the force. Canal sluiceworks. Gates in the inner wall. They have tasks too big for muscle that require gears to manage them, like crushing grain using a waterwheel to shift the stones, or dragging ships up out of the water.

   Most of the city is somewhere in between. A door much like the walls, that a pedal raises so it can spin on a pivot. A pulley system operating a dumbwaiter between floors, so you can keep that old servant you’re fond of for a few more years before uselessness is complete. A leg brace so that cripple can earn something like a wage for a few more years. A bellows system to introduce and remove air from the killing chamber where we test the gas.

   To sum up, here’s a couple questions that might help.

   * Why does this machine move energy from one place to another?

   * How useful does the owner need it to be?

   So if you’ve got a narrow alley where those with money are slowly leaving a slum in the wake of their once-nice neighborhood, you can fancy clockworks left behind, and new clockworks. The nicer equipment is breaking down, but used to be almost whimsical; a statue of a saint that raised a trumpet to its lips as the clock struck the hour, but it hasn’t worked in five years (and the clock hasn’t worked in ten). Meanwhile the new machine is built into what used to be the guard room of the gate. Once upon a time, guards twirled the windlass to raise and lower the gate. Now there’s one guard, and he’s got a button to raise and lower the gate as the electroplasm cell fuels the grinding gears.

   In this setting you get bonus points if the results are dehumanizing, if the machines break down often, and if they underscore the wealth gap like a streak of blue flame.

5. There is a trap they triggered but didn’t see? Tell the players there is a trap they didnt see, and harm/complication is a-comin. Resist or no? And which part?

   They suspect there is a trap and there is? Tell them there is one and that the risk here is they look, but sadly miss it, thus springing it.

   And a trap they located should be something they can take an action to disarm. Risk is again that it springs, dealing it ill effects. Once i threatened to destroy the protected item (a valuable statuette of a forgotten god), but that was probably harsh of me (tone pretty gritty in my games).

   Re: description. Talk about it’s gears and the ticking within, its mechanisms being poised to deliver it’s harm or complication. Poison dripping from a nasty barb inside a hidden hole. But don’t over think it: the Tinker action does the rest when they start taking things apart.

Comments are closed.