An idea for the published setting.
An idea for the published setting.
Would it be an idea to have a detailed starting location.
Fishing village with a few key npc's and surrounding location sites.
Neighbors, factions and political situation.
Nothing to detailed, just something to help those not used to the game style, start the fiction.
This maybe already planned as the book is not finished.
If I was to start a game co-op with minimal prep and I look around my shelves, I see HARN and its viking addon setting, but have to find a less urban location, to keep in the Ironsworn feel.
Another could be The Lonely Coast, by Raging Swan Press. We dont play D&D but I picked this up in a bundle a few years ago. Good wilderness fit.
Why I asked the first part is my unique gaming situation. My only player is a IT person with no fiction book reading. He has never read a fantasy novel. His only genre info comes from movies etc. Even after many years of gaming, he is not the quickest off the cuff, brainstormy type player. Normally he follows my story lines, but I want to see if we can push some gaming muscle to more improsational play. Dont get me wrong, he is a great guy, just not imbeded in the genre that most other gamers are. But this means what may seem stale or tropey to most gamers is still fertile material for me.
So I was thinking, if I was to pick this game up in my situation, it could be handy to have a starting situation/location. He would need at least a starting skeleton to help with the collaborative brainstorm.
Would it be an idea to have a detailed starting location.
Fishing village with a few key npc's and surrounding location sites.
Neighbors, factions and political situation.
Nothing to detailed, just something to help those not used to the game style, start the fiction.
This maybe already planned as the book is not finished.
If I was to start a game co-op with minimal prep and I look around my shelves, I see HARN and its viking addon setting, but have to find a less urban location, to keep in the Ironsworn feel.
Another could be The Lonely Coast, by Raging Swan Press. We dont play D&D but I picked this up in a bundle a few years ago. Good wilderness fit.
Why I asked the first part is my unique gaming situation. My only player is a IT person with no fiction book reading. He has never read a fantasy novel. His only genre info comes from movies etc. Even after many years of gaming, he is not the quickest off the cuff, brainstormy type player. Normally he follows my story lines, but I want to see if we can push some gaming muscle to more improsational play. Dont get me wrong, he is a great guy, just not imbeded in the genre that most other gamers are. But this means what may seem stale or tropey to most gamers is still fertile material for me.
So I was thinking, if I was to pick this game up in my situation, it could be handy to have a starting situation/location. He would need at least a starting skeleton to help with the collaborative brainstorm.
Thanks for the input Allan Prewett! I do have plans to do something similar to what you describe, though I am considering it as a separate download versus part of the core book. It would be an expanded quest starter with a bit of detail for an area, a starting situation, directive questions and creative prompts, NPC personalities, and custom oracles.
ReplyDeleteIn the meanwhile, I'd say the Dungeon World principle of "Ask questions, use the answers" can be really helpful as a way of drawing out players to engage with the situation and setting. Even if you are playing GM-less co-op, you can take a more active role in moderating the discussion and pitching questions to the more reticent player. Interpreting oracles can also help with firing up creative synapses.
Have an active discussion as you create characters, but don't sweat the details. Rough out some background and some motivations. Then, zoom into a setting or initial problem. Roll an oracle (or two, or three) and springboard off the prompts. Ask lots of questions. What very bad thing has happened or is about to happen? What would you have to do to stop it?
Write out a few bullet points. To solve this problem, we'll have to do this, then this, then this. Ironsworn requires you to overcome challenges to Fulfill a Vow, so you can sketch out a bit of a roadmap of that path, but then it'll purposefully put you off course. Go with it. Keep talking it through.
Another option: just jump into a scene. Look at the playthrough I posted the other day. I don't have any particular backstory for that character, and only the barest outline of a current vow (guide the homeless Ironlanders to safety), but the scene itself was fun and could easily lead to new adventures. What's the deal with that mother and daughter, for example? They weren't part of the group I was leading, so what are they doing out there? Were I to continue playing, I'd ask them, roll a oracle, and interpret the response. I suspect my interpretation would probably be one that would lead to new vows and new trouble.
My intent--and hope--has been that the moves and gameplay loops baked into Ironsworn provide structure to help drive GM-less play, while also encouraging creativity and narrative surprises.
One thing I've learned is that players will kick my ass when it comes to setting details and vows. Look at the playthroughs here! I could never come up with some of that awesomeness. Obviously it's coming from highly creative folks, but I've seen players less immersed in gaming and genre fiction come up with great stuff.
Long-winded response. Sorry! Short answer: Yes, good idea, and something I am considering. Long answer: I bet you can do better than I can at drawing creativity out of your player.
Shawn Tomkin
ReplyDeleteJust steal from what John Harper did in Blades in the Dark: Some key Locations, interesting NPCs with agendas (and likewise Factions).
It's enough not to leave a GM hanging while not having enough detail to discourage customization.
Idk how in depth you want to get, but something like the Village creation from Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures or City creation from Dresden Files might make for a neat prequel type session and give you a fairly detailed sandbox to run in
ReplyDeleteYes I have Beyond the wall. I worked up a starting campaign of Symbaroum with that in mind. We have not started it though, because as I was designing I read the first part of the published campaign. What a load of rubbish. Zero playtesting as far as I can tell, especially disappointing as I listened to a interview where the company was spouting design influence from Warhammer and the great Enemy Within Campaign.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the long and the short....
Another thing that might do the job well would be to roll a Court from Kevin Crawford's Godbound, skin the NPCs using the npc table in Ironsworn, then use the trouble that emerges from the court or roll on the settlement trouble table
ReplyDeleteNot familiar with that one.
ReplyDeleteIt's a free download on drive thru and is worth it for the random content generation on it's own
ReplyDelete#Stonetop by Jeremy Strandberg is really awesome. It's what I would aspire to in terms of a zoomed-in bit of setting and related settlement moves if I were smart and creative enough. The setting info and maps could be readily applied to Ironsworn.
ReplyDeletedrive.google.com - Stonetop Maps.pdf