Little Help Getting Started...

[The Dragon Master]

I have a couple of campaigns I want to get my gaming group started with and am looking for a little help with getting the basic details nailed down.

• Number of players in your game.
3

• How long you've been playing this particular game.
Just getting started

• How long you've been playing with these players.
About a year.

• Whether you socialize with these players outside the game.
Yes, we get together to play WoW, Frag, Zombies, and catch movies, go to Ren Fest, etc.

• Did you do a group campaign creation session or is this a standard "GM comes up with the plot" game?
Two of them are your standard GM comes up with the plot, while for the third I want to do a group campaign creation session.

• Did you do a character burning session?
We haven't created the characters yet, I'll get into more detail later in the post.

•*What do you identify as the main problem you're having in your game?
As mentioned before (I think) this isn't so much a problem in game, as a problem with getting set up. I know that BW relies to a great extent on the characters as created filling in detail about the world you're playing in, but how much of an extent is it? Simply put, I am asking how much detail does the environment need before the character burning starts.

For example, in Burning Tides the story is about a crew of Elvish Sailors who turn to the Path of Spite and Hate in their quest for vengeance on the Pirate ship that destroyed their home port. With that one, I fleshed out a rough sketch of a world where after numerous borderwars most of the elves who didn't die in the fighting have already given in to Grief. Do I need more than that?

On the other hand, Burning Greed is about a team of Dwarven Adventurers seeking to route the Dragon who has taken over the old Hall of the High King of the Dwarves. Each one having a claim on the throne (perhaps one is a direct line descendant of the last Dwarven High King, one is the heir to the throne of the Low King of the Dwarves, etc. ... it all depends on the characters burned up). Is that too much detail?

And then there is Burning Brass. The idea there is that they will be running around the Middle East of H. P. Lovecrafts imagining circa 750 AD Running into the author of the Necronomicon, The Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred (before he went mad of course). I also plan for them to have run-ins with Jinn, and Demons, and basically have an adventure right out of Arabian Nights. Bur that is all that I've come up with. Is that a good spot to stop till I see where the group wants to take the tale?

[ChrisG]

I think you're in good shape. Two of your ideas for campaigns are pretty much Situations, which is what really makes a game, more than setting. What the players decide to do about the Situation is where the game is. I think it's useful to pare down the Situation to it's minimum to discuss it (and to sell it to the players). The setting details are very, very useful and important, especially for the GM, but the bare Situation is the game.

Burning Tides: You're Elves hell bent on revenge against the pirate who sacked your city.

Deciding that they turn to Spite seems premature--the game could be about whether they'll give in to Spite, or how far they'll go to get revenge. Alternately, you could all decide together "hell yeah, we're Dark Elves" and go nuts.

Burning Greed: Another epic Situation. Kill the Dragon and regain the throne.

Let the players figure out their claim and spend your time burning up the Dragon. You might want to check out a thread by Paka called "Hip Deep in the Dragon's Lair" that's linked around here somewhere. I'd love to play in this game, FWIW.

Burning Brass doesn't have a situation yet. You'll have to collaborate on one, but beware the sketchy situation.

My first BW game we hammered out this great setting but forgot to have a really grabby situation, and the game floundered a lot. When you're learning the rules, the last thing you want is a flabby game. You'll want to have some concrete, Arabian Nights+Cthulhu themed Situation, like "Al-hazred is dead, his tower unguarded! Your chance to retrieve the Book has come!"

I'd pick the one that interests you the most and go for it. If I were in your shoes, I'd go for Tides or Greed. They've got easy to grasp Situations.

[Z-Dog]

I'd second what Chris said. Those sound like GREAT ideas for games.

I think that as long as everyone in the group is saying, "Hell yeah!" to the situation, you've got enough to play.

All those details and color are a lot more fun when they come out during play, when you see them as serving a purpose for the group.

Kelly's Heroes: WWII Army guys decide to rob a Nazi occupied town's bank before their own forces arrive. OK, who wants to play? Eh?

Everything else just flows from that: who the char are, what rules you'll need to brush up on, what color you'll need to introduce.

PS I'm stealing your ideas for games. :smile:

[The Dragon Master]

Thank you for the advice Chris. Especially on Burning Tides. I set up the Path of Spite bit knowing that my group tends to play darker characters, but it wouldn't do me any good to plan around that and find that they were more interested in exploring Grief.

As for the part about situations... It is much needed advice. I have a tendency to get details figured in as integral to the story, and then find that the story is going in a completely different direction (I once crafted a Dwarven Techno-Wizard in a Rifts campaign whose whole reason for being a techno-wizard was to defeat the dragon that had destroyed his village, only to find out after character creation that the story took place in a completely different galaxy). I will definitely keep that advice in mind.

For Burning Brass, I was actually hoping to present the setting to the players, and have them decide on a situation that interests them, is this a bad idea?

Does anyone else have some advice?

EDIT: Thanks for the confirmation Ken.

[Z-Dog]

It's a typical symptom of GMs: the pre-game prep. Most games really demand you do a lot, and woe to you if you don't. It's really refreshing to have games like BWR/BE that tap into the innate creativity of all the people at the table.

When you've got everyone totally dependent on your for color/NPC/resources/story/conflict/etc. than hell yes, you should prep.
I understand the desire/pressure to do it when the fun of your game seems to ride on you doing it.
I love how BWR/BE takes a lot of that pressure off of you.

What's cool about BWR/BE is all that stuff gets done at the table, with the people we a really gonna care about it present to bring it in.

And since your players have a lot of power to introduce stuff, you kinda gotta wait until gameday to see what happens. To see what those sneaky little Mofos are up to!:rolleyes:

PS And yeah, that's a good idea to intro the thing and see if they bite.

[ChrisG]

Just to clarify, I'm not so hippy as to chuck pre-game prep. :)

I think if you come to the table with your Burning Brass idea, it could go over great or it could turn flabby, like my game did. It really depends on your group, how comfortable they are at making those kinds of decisions, and how good they are at narrowing down a Situation.

In my case, we were a new group caught up in the fun of collaborating on a setting and BW mechanics, so we pretty much forgot about a Situation. I managed to cobble one together out of the BITRs, but it wasn't as good as an explicit choice would have been.

If you really want to do Burning Brass, come to them with two or three Situations for them to riff off of. Asking a group to come up with something from thin air is really tough, especially if they're used to the GM coming up with everything.

What I'd probably do is prep some good, general purpose NPCs. An enemy sorcerer, a bandit king, an officious vizier and a djinn. Then I'd throw out some situations for the players to kick around and see where it went.

Still, my advice is to figure out one kick-ass Situation for Burning Brass, give the players all three teasers and see which one they get PUMPED UP about.

[Z-Dog]

Just to clarify, I'm not so hippy as to chuck pre-game prep. :)

Good point!!!

And I should clarify that I was thinking about BE type pre-game prep: burning up some solid NPC opposition, elucidate w/ players what they expect to do (w/ some discussion of possible routes to do it), laying out some major cities/power points, have a major twist or two in mind, discuss what kind of access to resources they have, etc.

So I guess that is some prep work (at least a session to burning up characters, talk concept/situation) and I suppose I for forgetting how BE makes a lot of that easier for you buy laying out a lot of the major points.

So no, don't "wing it." But I suppose I was thinking of the kind of prep I'd do for CoC or Dnd: tons and tons of shit.

[ChrisG]

So no, don't "wing it." But I suppose I was thinking of the kind of prep I'd do for CoC or Dnd: tons and tons of shit.

I knew what you meant... just being cheeky.

Listen to Z-Dog, he is wise. All that obsessive old-skool pre-game planning is counter-productive to a kick ass BITR-driven session.

[The Dragon Master]

Once again, thank you both for all your help. Looks like it might be a while before I get to try any of these (the group is hesitant to try a new GM and a new System on the same night, so they are allowing me to run a MURPG game first). But then that just means more time to get some all purpose NPC's written up.

[ChrisG]

Good luck... be sure to let us know how it goes.