The Die Is Cast: Interchangeable Scenes (RPG All)

James Bond, SPECTRE

There are moments in any RPG narrative where the heroes have has A Moment, whatever that moment may have been, and now need to transition from the Moment to wherever else in the narrative they need to be right now. Maybe they just overheard the bad guys explaining their plan and now need to get the hell out of there, as happens in SPECTRE. Maybe they need to get from their current location to a more useful location, say because somebody in the party died and they need to get to the temple for a resurrection or raise dead.

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe the other thing, but the point is they were Here, and now they need to be There. Right Now. 

Often this involves a chase scene, a dramatic interpersonal showdown, or something that, as Director, you may not have planned for - hence this post.

Many RPG campaigns, no matter the setting, explicitly plan for this moment. Horror on the Orient Express is designed so the ending scenario of the campaign is a race to [LOCATION HIDDEN] to prevent horrible things from happening to the world. Nights Black Agents has Extended Heat chases for exactly the same reason, always linking the agents to the ongoing threat whether they happen to be in Lisbon or Bern this week. 

However, you can't always plan for these moments. Players are unpredictable. They may invent the most peculiar moments and make them the Moment, for no better reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then you, as Master of Ceremonies or whatever shiny hat you're wearing this week, have to pull a scene out of your capacious crevice. 

Or it may be that the players haven't invented a Moment at all, but instead they're stuck in a holding pattern waiting for a Moment that may never come. 

 Waiting for Godot, Harold Pinter (Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellen)

What to do in moments like this? Or even Moments like this?

Cheat.

The great thing about many RPG systems, and I'm going to use Dungeons and Dragons as an example, is that the crunchier they are, the easier it is to cheat, since most of the narrative depends on die rolls. It's not exactly scripted, but it's easy to manipulate a situation so that it appears scripted because everything ultimately depends on whether or not a particular die roll hits a particular difficulty.

That means you can create interchangeable scenes. You take a prewritten sequence, slot it into the narrative, and boom! Instant plot, that looks as if it was made from scratch.

So in any given chase scene, for instance, it almost doesn't matter who's doing the chasing or where the action is taking place. What matters are the DCs scattered along the path, because the DCs determine whether a particular moment goes one way or the other. 

This is more difficult to pull off in player-facing systems where the emphasis isn't so much on hitting a particular number as it is leveraging a particular situation. In those circumstances the GM really does need to know what is going on in that specific scene, rather that rely on a set of generics to help them out of an awkward situation.

However, even then it can be done. Consider Night's Black Agents, with its various Thrilling scenes - chase scenes, infiltration, digital intrusion, and so on. These scenes ultimately depend on the agent hitting a particular sequence of difficulty numbers in more or less the right order. That means it doesn't matter who's the active party and who the subject, or where the scene is taking place. What matters is the sequence of difficulty numbers that the agents have to cope with.

Let's say this is Dungeons and Dragons, Ravenloft, using the Mordent setting.

Mordent is a ghost-ridden coastal community, vaguely Georgian in terms of technology and social mores. There are no cities; the biggest community is about the size of Whitby, Yorkshire. There's vast stretches of lonely moorland, isolated hamlets, spooky mansions on the hill, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are chewing chunks out of the scenery, that sort of thing.

So how shall we cheat?

To begin with, on that description we already know that most if not all scenes will take place in a moderately civilized but not urban area. This isn't Tolkein's Middle Earth; you won't find ancient dragons sitting on vast hoards of stolen dwarvish gold down some mountain hole or other. Nor is this Jack the Ripper's fog-shrouded London town, with sinister threats lurking down every dark alley - and there are more dark alleys than there are hot dinners. 

On the other hand, a coach racing down a lonely road trying to outrun a half-dozen highwaymen sounds perfectly in keeping with the aesthetic. Or a skiff out at sea trying to beat the storm and get back to harbor before being driven up on the rocks. 

So any DM wanting to organize a transition chase scene could assume that the available chase options are:

• Small village (one-horse town).
• Large community (more than one street and horse, but not a metropolis).
• Open civilized countryside (ie. something with a road in it, but houses/inns are few and far between).
• Open countryside (no road, probably a few treacherous bogs or a Hound of the Bonkervilles lurking down an abandoned tin mine shaft).
• Coastline, shallow water.

You could get more complicated than that if you wanted to, but that should cover most options. 

Then you go through each line item, assign half a dozen obstacles or chase moments (is that a fallen tree trunk blocking the road ahead? What's the Jump DC?) and you're more than halfway there. 

So if the players manage to antagonize, say, a bunch of hellhounds and have to run for their lives, you already have most of the work prepped ahead of time. Or if they're at sea and need to beat that storm back to shore, bingo! One coastline shallow water chase coming up.

Exactly the same works for systems like Night's Black Agents. In fact it's easier, because the players announce ahead of time that they want, say, Thrilling Digital Intrusion scenes by giving their agents 8 pool points or more in Digital Intrusion. Knowing this, you can set aside a couple of Digital Intrusion sequences knowing full well it won't matter whether this sequence is meant for the casino in Monaco or the military base in Germany. Then, when the player announces they want to make a Digital Intrusion, you can slip one of your pre-prepared sequences in  and it will look as though the player's improvised moment is part of the narrative.

Systems like Dungeons and Dragons, which rely heavily on crunch, are particularly easy to manipulate this way because everything those systems do rely on one Difficulty Number or another. Social Interaction is a set of Difficulty Numbers, Stealth is a set of Difficulty Numbers, everything can be reduced to a set of DCs - and it doesn't matter who's making the roll or why, because what matters is someone will have to make a roll eventually.  

This, in a nutshell, is the difference between a player-facing system and a more traditional RPG. A player-facing RPG relies more on the player than it does the game mechanics; a traditional RPG relies on the mechanics rather than the player. Point being, if the game relies on mechanics then as DM you can manipulate the mechanics to make your life easier. Sometimes this can involve outright bullshit, like fudging die rolls behind a screen to produce one result or another, and that kind of thing is always a bad idea. 

But sometimes it can involve using the existing mechanics to your advantage, to save yourself work.

Let's say the players suddenly take it into their heads to interrogate the Master of the Guild of Bakers. God alone knows why. Maybe they want to know how he makes those delicious scones. Doesn't matter. What matters is whether the Master (or whoever the heroes have to talk to before they can get to the Master) is Friendly, Indifferent or Hostile, because that will determine their initial reaction to the heroes. 

Then that NPC will have character traits - ideals, bonds, flaws - which can be manipulated (through die rolls) to change their original rating of, say, Hostile, to Indifferent. At which point, having played the NPC like a Stradivarius, the PC then makes ... you guessed it ... a die roll to determine the outcome.

What this means is, it doesn't matter whether the Master is some critical path character who the heroes have to talk to in order to unravel the plot, or just some random nutbar who the PCs happened to take an interest in this week. Centaur or Goblin, doesn't matter. Alignment doesn't matter. Stats don't matter. 

You could just work up half a dozen profiles with Ideals, Bonds, Flaws and starting Interpersonal rating - Friendly, Indifferent, Hostile - and it will not matter whether you use a particular profile on the sinister vampire lord Strahd Von Whosavitch or Bingo the Wonder Dog. 

But it will look as though you planned it all along. 

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

From Zero to Hero (Many Mansions)

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

Session zero, in any RPG ruleset, is about setting expectations. You need to be clear about what you hope to accomplish, and you want to encourage the players to be open about what they hope to achieve. Even in a mystery-solving setting like GUMSHOE, it helps to be as open as possible about the campaign and setting.

How open, I hear you ask?

Well, using Many Mansions as a guide and bearing in mind what's been said so far:

You need to tell the players about the world and its main features. That means you need to be up-front that this is Purist, set in Kingsport, with Cthulhu as the main Mythos threat. You can even quote that bit about Cthulhu being an infra-dimensional entity; it helps define expectations. You probably also want to talk about Mislow's Antiques, the Downtown Library and other important locations within your version of Kingsport. 

This will give the players some idea of what to expect, and where they might go when looking for clues. It also allows you to drop reminders about those locations if it seems, during play, that the investigators may have forgotten about Tredwell and his peculiar knowledge base. Those reminders can be useful 0-point clues in any session.

More importantly, it whets the appetite. The players know it's all about Cthulhu, and that's fine. You want them to anticipate that awful moment when they're face-to-face with the unspeakable. It also gives the players a clear route forward, which is always useful. Most of the GUMSHOE products explicitly say that the players are responsible for providing some of the thrills; they can't do that if they don't have at least some idea of where they're going.

Most importantly, this avoids player frustration. Yes, this is a mystery game. That does imply a certain amount of, well, mystery. But it doesn't mean the players have to wander around in a fog.

Think of Session Zero the same way you might the opening moments of Columbo. The idea isn't to hide the mystery. The idea is to make the parameters of the main threat plain, so you can watch the investigators slowly make their way towards that threat.

This doesn't mean you have to reveal absolutely everything. Notice I mention Purist, but not Dreamworld. That underlying layer is for you alone. Let the players fumble towards that hideous, Sanity-destroying reveal - in order to 'win' they must destroy themselves, and Kingsport, so the dreamer they inhabit can awake.

Session Zero is also the moment for you and the players to talk about their characters, and the group. How did they meet? Why do they stay together? What triumphs have they had, what tragedies? Do they have a favorite hangout? Do they want to add something to your base description of, say, Mislows?

This last can be especially useful. You might never have thought that Mislow was connected with the Profaci mob family of New York, but if one of the players likes that idea, add it in. Maybe you planned for Tredwell to be a comedy character, but the players prefer a Terrible Old Man version of Tredwell. When in doubt, go for the option that promises the most fun.

Always remember that this is about fun. Never fall so in love with your plot that you can't face the idea of changing it; no plan survives contact with the players. You might have all sorts of ideas, but if you can't bear someone else playing with the toys then you should write a novel, not an RPG campaign.

As this is about fun you need to think about safety tools, and to discuss any special rules that your campaign might use. 

Safety tools have been discussed so often that I hope I don't need to discuss them here, again; either you see the need, and don't need the speech, or you don't see the need, in which case nothing I say will persuade you. 

I will say that safety tools are as important, and possibly more important, in horror games like Trail than in any other RPG setting. You're going to want to know if body horror, say, is a complete no-go. You're going to need to know if player X likes the idea of romance (tragic, doomed, but, y'know, romance) or if player Y is going through tough times and doesn't need your commentary about [whatever it may be] adding to their troubles. Again, this is all about having fun at the table, even if that fun is eldritch and coated with a thin layer of grue. No fun = no table.

Special rules, particularly in Trail, is an important conversation. Trail and games like it dwell as much on mental corruption as physical hurt. If this were D&D the players would ultimately only have to worry about how many hit points they can afford to lose. With Trail you can be as healthy as a horse, and still get pounded. If the players aren't familiar with that concept now's the time to set them straight. It's also a good time to talk about their Sources of Stability as well as anything unique to their character that might affect the narrative.

The last thing to discuss in any Session Zero is the opening session of the campaign. The very first session is like troubleshooting a new product; you take it out on the road and see how it handles. Then you fix the things that broke. This is helpful for the obvious reasons, and also because, if you haven't played with some or all of these people before, you need to know what they're like. Anyone can say they're thus-and-so before the session. Only by playing with them will you find out what they're really all about. 

The first game should be something light, influenced if not driven by the players' ideas or requests. Perhaps it introduces the characters to a major asset - say, their first visit to Mislows, or maybe Tredwell has some ideas for the characters to chase up. The opposition should be interesting but not so challenging that the investigators end up in the hospital, or, worse, the morgue. So, a ghoul, say, but not a pack of ghouls. A ghost, but not a whole haunted house stuffed full of ghosts. Open with action, sure - but they almost never open a James Bond film by killing James Bond. Except that one time. And the other time. It doesn't happen often. 

Now! Time rushes on, the scene is set, you've done all you can do ... now it's time to DESTROY SOME SANITY!!!!

That's it! Enjoy. Next week, something completely different ...

All The World's A Stage (Many Mansions)

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

Jude Lazaro performs Shakespeare's As You Like It

The Setting of any campaign is a delicate and tricky thing to get right. You want it to sing, but you don't know how it will change over the course of play. What if it doesn't work? Will you need to fix it? Is it broken forever? 

The thing you need to bear in mind - whether with this or any other RPG - is that you don't have complete control over the Setting, any more than you do the plot. Even if this were a stage play, carefully rehearsed for weeks and with every least action plotted out and calculated for maximum effect, every performance is its own animal. You just don't know what will happen when an actor moves to center stage and opens their mouth, any more than you know how or when the audience will react, laugh, gasp, or sit in enraptured silence.

What you do know is that the audience - the players - are a vital part of the experience. A good play can die on its feet if the audience aren't engaged. A middling play can seem brilliant beyond compare, if the audience laughs.

If you don't believe me, check out this Broadway thread about the best night to go to the theatre. I tend to agree with the folks who say Thursday is the best night to go. Friday, the audience is too frazzled.  Saturday, they're not paying attention. 

Incidentally, this is also why, in any stage production, that the director hands control over to the stage manager before the opening night's performance. The director has done all they can. If they stuck around, they'd be tempted to fiddle with the performance and that would never do. The stage manager is best placed to look after the show, and won't be tempted to stick their thumb in the soup.

All you can do is write a certain amount, rehearse a certain amount, and leave the rest to chance. Exactly what that certain amount is, is up to you. You need to be comfortable, so you can raise the curtain without having a panic attack. It takes time to work out how comfortable you need to be. 

Personally I've always liked sketching out the bare bones of the narrative and leaving the rest to the performance on the day, but then I've acted on stage since I was 15, done plenty of improv, and am comfortable performing. Your milage will vary.

So what do we know so far?

We know about the Antagonists. 

We know this is Purist Dreamworld. 

We know this is Kingsport, which means we have a certain amount of pre-written material we can slot in about Terrible Old Men and their peculiar ghosts, and houses up on high. 

We know that the ultimate big bad is Cthulhu, attempting to create a critical mass of believers so it can break free. 

We also know that the underlying plot point that pins all this together is dream logic. As described in the first post:

Let's say that this whole campaign takes place in the mind of someone who's going slowly insane. That the characters are aspects of this person's personality, fighting back against the horrors which are eating this person's soul. If they win, then the person wakes up - which means the characters die, fading away like dreams.

Of course, if they lose, then the person never wakes up. 

That sounds pretty Purist to me. Further, it allows an extra little fillip: should a player character fall, then even if that character is replaced a section of the game world crumbles and becomes either less reliable than before, or downright dangerous. The loss of that portion of the personality = danger for the rest. 

So this isn't real world Kingsport (assuming there is such a place). This is a dream version of that quaint little New England township. That means it doesn't have to conform to the version found in the written RPG guides, or Lovecraft's fiction. It can be just as odd as I like, and I like odd. 

Remember, a CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit. Everything about the Setting needs to reflect Purist Dreamworld, and now's the time to think about what that looks like. 

I find it helpful to divide the setting into Thematic and Quest elements. 

Quest elements aren't automatically adventure locations; they can also be places the investigators need to go to find out more about the adventure locations. Libraries, forgotten chambers in long-abandoned chapels, that kind of thing. Places where they might find grimoires, sinister artwork or something else that will help them in the narrative. Those things will probably cost them Stability/Sanity too, but probably not a lot. No more than 3 points potential loss per Quest object, and ideally no more than 8-10 points overall spread between the group. You want them to feel tested, like they had to go to some trouble to get this stuff, but not so utterly trashed that they can't go on.

This may seem slightly high. After all, assuming a four person group with an average of 6 Stability each, 10 points Stability lost is close to 50% of their total. Remember, this is Purist. If it were Pulp, I might dial it down a bit. Purist is a rocky road; the investigators ought to pay a little extra for every potential benefit. 

Also, don't forget you don't have to call for a Stability test if you don't want to. Or, if you feel you must, you don't have to ding the investigators more than a point if they fail. The players never get to see how the sausage is made.

I put it in terms of Stability and Sanity because, in Trail, those are the equivalent of Hit Points in any other RPG. Using a different ruleset I'd probably stick to the same ratio; that is, slightly less than 50% of the [Hit Point] total spent in Quest locations. Not that they have to lose that much, just that they ought to risk losing that much. 

Thematic is exactly what it sounds like. Whatever this setting element may be, it fits the theme and so reinforces the theme. It doesn't have to lead to anything useful. It might, of course, but it doesn't have to. These are the in-game equivalent of the crazy person waving a sign that reads The End Is Nigh. At first you might dismiss that person; later, after one or two brushes with the uncanny, you may think they have a point. Later still, perhaps after you've lost a point of Sanity (remember, you don't get those back), you might realize that the sign doesn't read The End Is Nigh at all - and then you wonder what it really does say.

They Live (1988)

With all that in mind, and using the Rule of Four, what kind of Thematic and Quest Setting elements are there in Many Mansions?

Thematic:

Lightning and the Colonel a popular comedy radio show that airs every week on Thursdays. It stars Lightning, a clever but lazy employee at Wingate Boatyard, his long-suffering and slightly dim employer, the Colonel, and their extended families. It's set in Kingsport, and the action mirrors the investigators' actions. So, if last week the investigators went out to Pilot Island to find out more about the mysterious mists, then this week Lightning and the Colonel find themselves adrift near Pilot Island. This seems peculiar at first; it gets stranger, as the investigators realize they're the only ones who hear this broadcast. Everyone else thinks it's a completely different show, set in Milwaukee.

 A horse-drawn Hearse, elaborately decorated is seen again and again around town. At first it's just background noise, something the investigators might notice while about their business. Still, it keeps showing up. The driver is sullen and uncommunicative, and under certain light the casket glows a peculiar green. How much business can one Hearse have? Why does it seem to be trailing the investigators?

Peculiar Whispers on the Telephone might just be a problem with the party line. These things happen. Yet why do these whispers seem somehow prophetic? When that woman says 'what a shame that poor woman died' why is it that the woman she talks about is named in the obituary column the very next day? What does it mean when that man repeats a phrase again and again? Who are these people, and why do they keep showing up on the party line no matter which telephone the investigators use?

Bellow's Cream Ale is locally brewed and very popular, particularly among fishermen. It's a little strong, and while hard-drinking watermen can down it in quantity and not collapse the average weedy investigator may find it rich for their blood. Investigators who get drunk have the most peculiar dreams, of a different time and place altogether. Very vivid dreams; almost as if they're living a different life. Oddly, it's always the same life, the same person. Even more oddly, though Bellow's is locally brewed, nobody seems to know where the brewery is.

Quest:

 Mislow's Antiques in the Hollow is a known hangout of book thieves and other ne'er-do-wells. Mislow, an outsider who moved to Kingsport from New York in the 1920s, boasts that if it's in print he can get a copy, no matter how rare or whose library it's in. Mislow's a surly character, but investigators willing to take the time and play a few chess games with him get Mislow to open up a bit.

Saint Andrew's Shrine down near Harbourside's wharves is a good place to go if you want to hear fishermen's gossip. They don't open up easily around strangers, but folks willing to show Saint Andrew some respect earn their trust. Plus, every so often someone leaves peculiar offerings at the Shrine, offerings which might repay study. Where did those peculiar trinkets come from?

The Downtown Public Library is a good place to go for general knowledge, local history and other tidbits, and the librarian, Tredwell, knows a great deal for someone as young as he seems to be. He sometimes sounds more like a child of the 16th century than the 20th. If you want to know who's buried at that grave site, or who used to own that crumbling mansion, Tredwell is the one to talk to.

The Hilltown Artist's Colony is a good place to relax among liberal-minded types. You can talk here and let your guard down; nobody's going to be gossiping about you or spilling your secrets, Plus, some of the art these bohemians create seems relevant to your current investigation, and you're not sure why that should be. How do they know about the Green Foulness in the Hollow, or have any idea what's in those crumbling Mansions in West Town?

That's enough for this week. Next week, the final episode: Session Zero.

 

The Rule of 4 (Many Mansions)

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91, Trail of Cthulhu]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

Last time I discussed the ground rules for Many Mansions. This week it's the OPFOR, and to discuss them I'm going to talk about the Rule of 4.

The Antagonists come in all shapes and sizes. Small and creepy, large and squamous, impossible to comprehend and so on. The chief thing to bear in mind whenever designing OPFOR, no matter what the setting, is that they have:

• Power, appropriate to their function within the narrative.
• Goals.
• Assets, to be used to achieve their goals.

Power, in context, doesn't necessarily mean POWER. It means they have some means, preferably a thematic means, to affect the course of the plot. Or, as everyone's favorite lich Xykon would say, 'Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think.' 

So what do we already know about the OPFOR? 

Well, they are operating within Kingsport, that dream-ridden coastal New England town. We already know a little about Kingsport, thanks to Lovecraft and various other RPG books that describe Kingsport. We're not going to take all that information as gospel; we're going to make this Kingsport our own. That said, it's useful and time-saving to borrow some of what we'll need from other sources.

[Brief aside: let's say this wasn't Kingsport. What then? Borrow from the real world and use that. I can't begin to tell you how useful having, say, the Times Atlas of Geography, the Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, or the replica 1930s A to Z Atlas and Guide to London are. Having texts like these in your library exposes you to aspects of the real world you may not have realized existed, and are an incredible source of inspiration. Can't buy? No problem! This is why sources like Gutenberg exist.]

We also know that the big bad is Cthulhu, which in turn means that the ultimate OPFOR is going to be directly serving Cthulhu's goals in some way. Whether they're human cultists or from the cold, unfeeling depths of space, time and nightmare, they work to achieve Cthulhu's goals.

Added to that - because this is always true, no matter the setting or ruleset - it's useful to have a ground-level set of OPFOR that aren't the ultimate badasses. These are the grunts, the also-appearing-in-this-narrative, the supporting cast. These guys aren't working on Cthulhu's behalf, nor do they really have any idea that Cthulhu exists or has goals. Their sole purpose in the narrative is to muddy the waters, and if in the process they give the characters a few easy victories, so much the better.

If this were Dungeons and Dragons, and the main objective of the scenario is to breach the walls of Castle Ravenloft and put an end to that wicked tyrant Strahd, then the ground-level OPFOR are the random encounters in the forest on the way to Castle Ravenloft. Or maybe some luckless bandits, fellow adventurers, Vistani or other folk the characters meet along the way.

So having established these basic principles, what next?

Next is the Rule of 4, which works like this:

Whenever designing OPFOR - or for that matter anything else, whether it's the town the adventurers start in, the organization they work for, or the theatre which they notice as a potential adventure location, design four highlight points and no more than four. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The average player's attention span is short, and yours is not any better. You could go deep in the weeds and design twenty different things about the OPFOR, but who apart from you will ever know it? Even you won't, not really; in the heat of play you'll forget half your notes and curse yourself later when you realize you could have used the Thing, dammit, the THING, and never did.

That's why you limit it to four. You can remember four things. So can the players. That means come next week, or the week after, when they encounter whatever-it-may-be, they'll remember, and you'll remember, that this encounter relates back to the information they gained in the first episode. If they learned twenty things in that first episode then your chances of them remembering any one thing is virtually zero. Four, on the other hand, is doable.

For every one of the four things you detail, you can then add four things that are their specific highlight points. Four begat four begat four, and before you know it there's a plague upon the land and everything's Marmite forever and ever, amen.

Don't think for a second your four are the only elements in the narrative. The players will also be adding theirs, consciously or unconsciously. If they think, say, that the Deep Ones are somehow behind the [whatever it may be] then presto! They are. Same goes for any other element of the narrative, whether it's a question like 'is there a back door to this place?' or 'I wonder if the cops are secretly working with the bad guys.' If the plot element fits, wear it.

How does this work? Let me show you.

Many Mansions Primary OPFOR (Kingsport)

Peculiar storms swirl out at sea, concentrating on Pilot Island. It's said the lighthouse keeper at North Point knows more than he's telling about those storms, but whether he does or doesn't folk are becoming concerned at the strange mists and unseasonable squalls out there.

Empty mansion houses once the home of Kingsport's merchants and traders cluster in the West Town. Year after year another family dies out or moves on, and the grand mansions and beautiful gardens they once enjoyed go to rot. Strange lights can be seen there after dark, though most dismiss this as idle talk of the superstitious.

The Antique Emporium on Hall Street is where the Circle of the Sun meet, after hours. They say they're a civic organization like the Odd Fellows, but you suspect there's more behind that bland façade than meets the eye.

The Hollow, that odd low area between three hills, cobbled and ancient, hides something foul. Three people have died in suspicious circumstances, and the last had time to babble something about the Green Foulness before she expired. What uncanny thing haunts the Hollow?

Four things. Four leads to chase up . At this point you don't need to know a great deal about any of the four beyond the details given above, since the whole point of the ground-level OPFOR is to delay the characters and give them something to think about before the characters encounter the primary movers-and-shakers. 

However with this information you can start salting the dig site, layering tempting nuggets of lore that lead to the primary OPFOR. The storms at sea make the news. Peculiar chanting is heard at the Emporium, or unfamiliar lights seen in those mansions. Depending on which of those nuggets the characters like the look of, you then start adding four things to the primary OPFOR the characters want to chase after.

If they concentrate on the Hollow, then the Hollow is where you add those four new things. If the Mansions, then add four things there, and so on. Always give the characters something to chase, but you don't have to push them towards something they're not interested in. 

Which brings me to:

Many Mansions Ground-Level OPFOR (Kingsport)

The Rowdy Yates gang of loafers and bullies have a hate for [pick a character] and follow them around like wolves haunting sheep. What is their problem, and is there anything [character] can do about it?

The allegedly Haunted House on Harbor Street has been a local legend for forty years. It's said the vengeful spirit of the murderer's wife stalks those creaky corridors. Nobody's ever been able to prove anything one way or the other - sounds like a challenge!

Patrolman Donaghue of the local police is making things very difficult for [pick a character] and will roust them at any opportunity. If Donaghue shows up, things are about to get much more complicated.

Miskatonic University Students calling themselves The Magicians, after the Tarot card, are hot on the heels of some mystery or other and seem especially interested in Kingsport for some reason. No matter where the characters turn, there The Magicians are. What do they want, and what do they know?

These four aren't necessarily supernatural; in fact, only the Haunted House has any connection with the outré, and even then it might be a blind alley. However, they all give the characters something to think about, to strive against.

Moreover there's enough blank space for character growth and development, on the players' terms. Why does the Rowdy Yates gang have a hate for [character]? Do you, as Keeper, need to know why? No. Not at the outset, anyway. All you need to know is that they do have that hate, and will work to fulfill it. It's between you and the affected player what that hate means. If none of the players are interested in exploring the Rowdy Yates angle then the whole business can be quietly shelved after a brief appearance or two. If they are interested then the Rowdy Yates gang gets its own four new things to explore.

Unlike the primary OPFOR you need to know a little about the ground-level OPFOR. You need to stat these out, to a degree. You need to have a rough idea what's in the Haunted House. However, you don't need to kill yourself with work at the opening. There's only so much the players will accomplish in the first scenario. They aren't going to knock out all four elements in a couple hours at the table.

Say we were talking about the Haunted House. Yes, you need to know what haunts it. You need rough stats for it, a concept of its power set. You need a floorplan of some kind for the house itself. All those things will be necessary if the players decide to make the Haunted House their primary objective in the opening scenario.

If.

On the other hand, if they don't, then feel free to add other elements to the Haunted House in your spare time between scenarios. They can even be thematic elements; say, Patrolman Donaghue dies on the same street as the Haunted House and is added to that hideous domain's repertoire. Perhaps you expand the basement, or add a secret tunnel that leads to other locations, magical or otherwise. You have time. 

If the players decide not to go to the Haunted House at all, your work isn't wasted. Maybe the specter of Patrolman Donaghue switches locales, or that extra basement is added to a different OPFOR location. You can afford to be flexible. Your players never get to see how the sausage is made.  

I hope you see the developing pattern. Eight things total, four of which are ground level and four of which are primary OPFOR. Any one of those items can be further developed with four more characteristics, but only if the players show interest. Otherwise after a brief appearance any one of these things can be put to one side. Perhaps the Rowdy Yates gang all die in the Hollow, victims of the Green Foulness, whatever it may be. Perhaps Patrolman Donaghue is transferred out of Kingsport after that unfortunate brawl in the coffee shop. The Haunted House on Harbor Street might burn down. Any or all of these things might happen, to close out an unprofitable side plot and also to emphasize the importance of the main plot.

Now let's round this off by talking a little about power, goals and assets, and how they affect the rule of four.

Going back to the Rowdy Yates gang, and without adding four new characteristics for the moment (though we could, and it might be fun), what power, goals and assets do they have?

It's not reasonable to suppose a street gang made up primarily of loafers and lowlifes control the hidden secrets of the universe, or even the hidden secrets of the coffee machine down at Screamin' Beans Coffee House. However, they do affect narrative (in their limited way) which means they have power, goals and assets. So what are they?

• Power: there's a lot of them. They have buddies. Their buddies have buddies. If you put one or more of them out of commission then one of those buddies will try to avenge them.
• Goals: they want to push [character's] face in, humiliate them at every turn. Why? Decide that with the player's cooperation. This doesn't mean they always want to beat [character] up; slipping a mickey in their drink or marking up their car might be just as fulfilling.
• Assets: Not much (they're basically Credit Rating 0) but one of them has a car, another's uncle has a fishing boat, and a third has pals on the police force (Donaghue, maybe?) so in a pinch they're both mobile and capable of punching a little above their weight, occasionally.

Moreover if the Rowdy Yates gang becomes more important in future episodes then they might worm their way into better power and assets, say by striking a bargain with the Circle of the Sun or encountering the Green Foulness and surviving, with strange new gifts granted them after their confrontation. 

Anything is possible.

That's it for the Antagonists. Next week: the Setting!

 

Many Mansions (Trail of Cthulhu)

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:2, KJB

As a change of pace, I thought I'd spend some time designing a Trail mini-campaign. When I say 'spend some time' I actually mean the month of May, so you have that to look forward to for the next few weeks.

Before I dive deep into the weeds, let's set some ground rules.

First, what kind of game will it be? 

Purist, I think. That tends to be more interesting, though I have noticed that a lot of games which start Purist end up Pulp. I don't think any game that started Pulp went Purist - though I'm open to being proved wrong.

Second, what's the main Mythos threat? 

Cthulhu, why not. He's rarely the star of the show any more; it'd be interesting to see what can be done with ol'squiddy.

Third, what's the campaign location?

Lovecraft Country, I think. Starting in Kingsport. We'll see where we end up after that.

Fourth, why that quote?

Because when I noodled around with this idea I re-read the Trail section on the greater Mythos entities, and was reminded of this bit:

Cthulhu is an infra-dimensional entity that has only a conceptual existence within the human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors. This is why he appears only in dreams, high-stress encounters (such as shipwrecks), and artistic impulses. He is attempting to create a critical mass of believers so that he may “emerge from R’lyeh” and open the eyes of all ... [p91]

Many mansions in this instance means many hidden places within the human psyche, in which hides the Great Old One. Or, as you'll soon discover, many hidden rooms within the crumbling houses the investigators will search, looking for clues and finding only pain.

Let's take that one step further.

Though it sails a little close to Only A Dream for my liking, there's a way to play this which could be really ... peculiar.

Let's say that this whole campaign takes place in the mind of someone who's going slowly insane. That the characters are aspects of this person's personality, fighting back against the horrors which are eating this person's soul. If they win, then the person wakes up - which means the characters die, fading away like dreams.

Of course, if they lose, then the person never wakes up. 

That sounds pretty Purist to me. Further, it allows an extra little fillip: should a player character fall, then even if that character is replaced a section of the game world crumbles and becomes either less reliable than before, or downright dangerous. The loss of that portion of the personality = danger for the rest. 

So why do this?

Well, it occurs to me that I've never really worked much with Trail of Cthulhu. Bookhounds, Night's Black Agents, pretty much every other Gumshoe line has had its time in the sunlight - but not Trail, and not for a while. I think the last time I wrote Trail, the Unspeakable Oath was still a physical magazine. 

Also, I haven't often worked in Lovecraft Country, and when I do it's nearly always for Call, not Trail. The two systems share a great deal but they're not identical by any means. It will be an interesting intellectual exercise.

Also, fun. Which is always important.

Next week I'll start thinking about the OPFOR, but as a conclusion let's discuss the Tree a little.

A CORE CONCEPT tree bears CORE CONCEPT fruit.

So what is the core concept? 

Purist Dreamworld. Not, I point out, Dreamlands - that's a whole different ball of wax. No, this campaign setting exists within the dreaming mind of so-and-so (we can discuss who that is later) and it does so because this is all taking place within that person's "human “R-complex,” the brain stem and limbic system left over from our primordial reptilian ancestors." Cthulhu is trying to take over that person's mind, to make them into a believer so as to create one more means - one more mansion, effectively - by which Cthulhu can emerge.

I don't think I need to discuss dream logic here; I'm sure you're familiar with that concept. As a reminder, Purist is defined as:

A game of philosophical horror, in which the act of uncovering the truth dooms both active seeker and unfortunate bystander alike. [main text p7]

So every event, every scenario needs to reinforce that core concept. The fruit of the Purist Dreamworld tree is Purist Dreamworld; it spreads more Purist Dreamworld events, situations, locations. The investigator's efforts run counter to the Tree; they are always trying to stop more Purist Dreamworld from propagating. 

That's enough for this week. Next week, the Antagonists. The week after that, the Setting.

The week after that? We'll see ...