[76 Dragonbones] Rane, Monster Hunter

[Eric Minton]

Enlisted into the war against the etin-folk at a young age, Rane has lost everyone and everything she ever cared about. So she might as well go along with these crazy city slickers in their campaign to bilk villagers out of their meager wealth. After all, she's got nothing better to do, and little to lose.

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Concept: Monster Hunter

Character Name: Rane

Lifepaths: Village Born, Village Guard, Footsoldier, Veteran

Age: 25

Stats: Wi: 3 Pe: 4 Po: 4 Fo: 4 Ag: 4 Sp: 4

Attributes: He: B3 Ste: B7 Re: B4 MW: B10 Hesitation: 7

Circles: B1 Resources: B0

PTGS: Su: B3 Li: B5 Mi: B7 Se: B8 Tr: B9 Mo: B10

Skills: Brawling B2, Firebuilding B2, Foraging B3, Intimidation B2, Monster-wise B2, Riding B1, Shield Training, Soldiering B1, Soldier-wise B2, Survival B1, Sword B5, Tracking B2, Village-wise B2

Gear: Clothing, Shoes, Chainmail (run-of-the-mill), Sword (superior quality), Riding Mount

Relationships: -

Traits: Alcoholic, A Little Crazy, Brave, Confident, Stubborn, Thug

Beliefs:
- The war against the monsters will never be over.
- I will avenge the destruction of my village.
- I only forget my burden when I’m drinking.

Instincts:
- When monster attacks are reported, I investigate.
- I always drink heavily after “defeating” imaginary monsters.
- I always polish my gear to avoid looking destitute.

[Kublai]

The superior quality sword seems like it would be a nice centerpiece for a Belief.

Also, make sure both the player and GM have the EXACT same understanding of that 1st Instinct. It's quite macro and opposite to what an Instinct should be - micro. Basically, an instinct should not be an adventure which this one sounds like.

[Eric Minton]

The sword is almost certainly dwarf-craft, taken as booty in the etin-wars.

Any suggestions for narrowing down or redirecting that first instinct? Perhaps something like, "Upon hearing mention of a monster attack, immediately demand more information from the speaker." Or "Upon finding traces of a monster attack, attempt to Track the monsters."

[Thor]

I would suggest: "If I overhear someone mention monsters, listen."

I also think the first and third beliefs are weak. What's she going to do about them?

"The war against the monsters will never be over." Great. What action will you take because of this?

"I only forget my burden when I’m drinking." Ok. So what do you do to people that try to keep you from drinking?

[Burnt]

I think it would be interesting if the monster slayer didn't even know she was facing imaginary monsters and the other two characters are duping her. They helped sober her up a little and get her confidence back. The accolades she's getting as a monster slayer is helping her rediscover her worth. This could work into a number of interesting situations when she has to fight "real" monsters. Just a thought.

[Eric Minton]

Thor: From what she's said about the character, the first Belief should be along the lines of, "The war against the monsters will never be over; I will throw myself into battle against them until I die." For the third... I think the intent was for this to cause trouble by dint of her being drunk at inopportune times, rather than getting her into fights over being denied alcohol. Any advice on phrasing?

Burnt: An interesting idea, but I'm pretty confident that the player's not interested in the delusional approach. :lol:

[Burnt]

Oh, it's just that her first belief made it sound like she thought she actually was facing monsters and not just illusions.

[Eric Minton]

Oh, it's just that her first belief made it sound like she thought she actually was facing monsters and not just illusions.
It's a pseudo-Norse setting with a lot of real monsters; her character went to war against giants and dark elves and the like. So she has real experience battling real monsters, even if her job with the "monster hunters" is to fight illusions.

[Burnt]

It seems like all of the characters need a belief tying them to what they are doing. Most likely they are all in this venture for differant reasons. A belief will help push the campaign along and tie the group together or make for future character conflictions.

[Kublai]

Ah! Excellent point, Burnt! How did I miss that!

As a GM, it is your duty to enforce that every character have a Belief that ties them directly into the campaign goal!! And you better have a campaign goal, buddy... or else!

[Eric Minton]

As far as my players are concerned, the campaign goal is something along the lines of "wander from village to village, outwit country bumpkins, make money, and have picaresque adventures." Is this grist for group Beliefs? Or are you asking something different?

[Kublai]

It depends. Without the motivation of a campaign goal, your players may choose to ignore adventures that you've planned, especially since those adventures have no cohesive storyline. It happened to me the very first time I ran a BW campaign. The characters had no stakes in an adventure I wanted to play and so they literally ran away from it without any hesitation. I want you to avoid that same fate.

The only way to do this is to make sure that the characters have a stake in the adventure. And the only way to ensure they have a stake is for them to have a Belief that involves some part of that adventure.

I HIGHLY recommend that you take a pre-game session and talk with your players about the kind of conflicts they want to have happen, what sort of monsters they want to fight, and even a PURPOSE for them to be doing so besides "I have nothing better to do."

Having no motivation to stick together might work in the beginning, but eventually if there is no reason to do so, characters might begin developing seperate motivations which will lead to a party break-up and headaches for you. Even if the players keep the characters together despite any inter-party conflict of goals, it's going to break the belief in the game. At least it does for me and the people I've gamed with.

The campaign goal doesn't have to be some far-reaching idea. It can a short-term thing to start out with, something that would take only one adventure to complete. For example, for your first adventure, you want them to clear out a nest of pixies that've taken over a village. Make them all have a Belief tied to this: "I need to gather 20 pixie wings in order to make a love potion which will force beautiful Brumhilde to love me!"; "Pixies killed my family and I won't rest until they are exterminated from the face of this world!"; "If I can prove to the Baron that I am valiant by saving the villagers, he promised to make me a knight!"

See? Now everyone has a reason to save the village and clear out the pixies. You'll never have to worry about a player deciding he's not interested in what you planned. The best part is that the players also now have a way to earn Artha by playing out your adventure!

After the adventure is over, they can decide as a group what their next goal is and adjust their Belief accordingly. Hopefully, you've placed a couple of seeds in the current adventure which they will choose to investigate. Even better is that one of their current Beliefs fosters the next adventure!

Say the potion turned Brumhilde into a ravaging ogre by accident! There's the next goal! Do they try to save her or just cut her down before she can cause more harm? Or perhaps the Baron negates on his promise and instead mocks the adventurer? The next goal might be to get revenge on him.

The moral of the story: Beliefs foster cooperation and adventure!

[ChrisG]

Just wanted to pipe up here. I think this part of BW is one of the hardest (see my posts in Games, Campaigns and Stories for how it tripped me up).

A lot of players aren't used to collaborating on the Situation, and in fact some are dead set against it, because they like to be surprised and are afraid that's going to ruin it. And even more just aren't used to thinking about it.

Some concrete ways to approach this, how to start talking about it, etc, similar to the whole "setting stakes" dialogue, would be really helpful.

This has Paka written all over it, no? :)

[Burnt]

I would think the easiest way to establish this belief is to have each player decide "why" their characters are performing this scam. Obviously the monster slayer wants to kill monsters so why is she killing illusionary monsters? Maybe the bard is using this venture to spread his music talents? Maybe their in it just for the money. If they have a belief tied in with the premise of the campaign, it will move the campaign. They will want to move to the next town to satiate the belief.

It's one of the reasons I brought up the delusional approach. Her beliefs as is, pulls her away from wanting to fight illusionary monsters. If she doesn't know their illusions she is fulfilling her belief as they're written currently. Not to mention it really makes things interesting if she ever finds out they're illusions.

[ChrisG]

That sounds good, but I think it's just not enough for a newb like me.

So one player says, "I need money because they're going to break my legs if I don't pay my gambling debts".

Another one says, "I have to keep moving because the Duke has a price on my head for killing his son".

Another one says, "Me too, I'm a deserter from the army and an outlaw".

Another one says, "I hate peasants because a mob of 'em lynched my mum for being a witch".

From where I'm sitting, those are all great answers (and good Belief fodder). But they're not a Situation. How to get into that without blank stares and "I dunno, you're the GM" is something I need help with. Maybe the OP does too.

[Kublai]

Those four different ideas are why it's so important to decide as a group what the initial goal will be before you make characters. If you did this first, any ideas the players come up with would be a riff off of that goal. But now it's too late and the players are forcing you as the GM to pull off a miracle of story-telling. Screw that! You should make them work just as much as you!

Anyway, those four ideas are fine for individual beliefs but they have a total of three beliefs available. It's not too late to ask them to come up with a cohesive goal which would be reflected in another belief even if that means replacing one of the existent ones.

[ChrisG]

Good point. Sorry about hijacking the thread, btw.

[Eric Minton]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

The players have collectively determined that they want the situation to revolve around their traveling from village to village bilking people with their "monster hunter" swindle. As a result, I'm not worried too much about hooking their characters. Like they say over in Forge-land, "The characters do not exist." If the players themselves want to play out this scenario, their characters will follow suit.

As to the matter of group Beliefs, I'll give my players the opportunity to post here on that subject.

- Eric

[Kaare Berg]

Aha Eric, you've nailed it there. Yes the character's dosen't exist, but the beliefs are player priorities. Like it says in the CB.

I'll probably expand more on this in the Campaign forum, but here's what we did (since you asked):

Before chargen we established that the game was going to be a "kingmaker" game. So I said that everyone should have a belief tied into this.

Here are some:
Ragnarr - the killer
Our Jarl will be king, I will do what is nessecary.
The Jarl does not allways know what he wants, but I do.
Svartr - the predator
Our clan is destined to rule, we shall.
It is better to be a friend to a king than a jarl, it is even better to control that King.
The Wolf preys on the weak, so shall I.
Àn - the judge
Our clan will be feared for its strength and power, I will use the law to do this.
A mans worth is proven through his strength and courage, I will pass judgment on the unworthy.
Our jarl will the King, and I will be his Hand.
Rafn - the merchant
A trell is below notice, I will not heed them.
My son is a prisoner of the queen*, I will free him no matter the cost.
*The Clan, Ulfvardr, is under obligation to the queen through the post/mandate of Alverdr (Àn) and she is also a major obstacle on their path to make the Jarl king.

I can't remember all now. Some are off course better than others, but most of them are loaded with conflict. Three of the players pull in the same direction, while the fourth may pull in their direction - until his son is at stake. This is a concious choice by that player, and the others are aware that he may betray the clan for his son.
Or he may change his belief.

My point here is that we (read I) had the players pre-load the situation with the whole young jarl on the throne bit. Then I pushed them making beliefs that would make the characters act to achieve this.


The players have collectively determined that they want the situation to revolve around their traveling from village to village bilking people with their "monster hunter" swindle
Before you play make them have a belief tied into this. Beliefs as they stand now, in your group, are more the " these beliefs explain who my character is" instead of the "these are the belief that kicks my character into action".

Make sense?

[Eric Minton]

Before you play make them have a belief tied into this. Beliefs as they stand now, in your group, are more the " these beliefs explain who my character is" instead of the "these are the belief that kicks my character into action".

Make sense?
Makes sense, except that I don't think they want their characters to be kicked into action. :roll: We tried running Polaris before this, but ended after just one session because everyone felt it was "too intense." They all have busy lives, and especially after the busy holiday season they want a laid-back, casual game, for the moment anyway.

I know they do enjoy intense gaming at times, but right now they'll want to be eased into it. So I'll let them play casually for now, and wait until this sequence of events is over and they move onto a new "adventure." Then I can have them swap in a Belief that ties them directly into the new situation. By then, they should recognize that strong, dynamic Beliefs will earn more Artha.