Shared Beliefs in Long-Term Play

[Fuseboy]

Somehow I've only just noticed that our party in Burning Ahimsa doesn't have a shared belief. Our first main arc was striking the enemy a blow in Dhanda Vale - we did this, burning the slave looms and destroying the giant dream-catcher that was keeping everyone there in submission.

Getting (and dealing with) the Sword of Ranesh was the next step, though this wasn't as focused - I'd been after it from the start, and Bowah and Jude sportingly wrote friction-causing beliefs relating to it. (So I guess it wasn't so much a common goal as a shared topic.)

Now that we have the sword, we're a little less focused still - we've travelled to Purdeen as part of a small quest to get more information (and as a lead-in to freeing Purdeen from my character Aditya's uncle). But the characters are split now, the result of following our beliefs, and although OOC we're all saying this is (of course) temporary, I'm now wondering if it's a symptom.

This has never been a problem before as all our games have been much shorter arcs, with a clear goal start to finish.

I'm proposing we regroup and write a shared belief - after deciding what it should be about, either OOC or IC (via DoW, if it's contentious).

I notice that Mouse Guard has an explicit mechanic (missions) that divides a long campaign into chapters, and each players' Goal is mission focused.

Does anyone do anything similar in BW? Not with the same formality, perhaps, but noticing that the main goal has been accomplished and it's time to be explicit about finding a new shared belief? Or does it happen organically for you? Someone takes the reins and the others opportunistically write beliefs to tie in to the prevailing new direction?

[sanjwise]

Michael,

I think the problem is that we haven't hit another BANG yet. Something heavy that wrenches all the characters out from their personal little goals and focuses them towards the next BIG THING.

This is obviously up to me to set up, but our last two session have been about travel, and feeling our way towards the next BIG THING. You were going to get the lay of the land, discover what needed to be tackled and bang off you go.

There's so much that I can do to pull you all together. Vinyaki, Purdeen, Naga Land, are in such a flux, there are a ton of cool things that I can do to bring it on.

It'll come.

Sanj

[technomonkey]

Beliefs about other characters may help. If you have a belief about helping me with my quest, and George has a belief about protecting you, then we all tend to stick together, even if we don't all have the same goal.

[Fuseboy]

Well, most of the campaign-specific stuff was preamble. What I'm really asking is whether other long campaigns (e.g. 20+ sessions) have anything explicit towards recreating the shared belief once the first one has been dealt with. Or do you just let it tumble naturally?

[luke]

We absolutely regroup and write new shared, goal-oriented Beliefs between arcs.

Our current shared Belief in THAC0 is to find the Master's phylactery.

[Fuseboy]

Very helpful, thanks.

[luke]

I should be explicit and say that we often have a few sessions between arcs in which we take care of individual goals -- and usually decide on what the next big push is going to be.