Little Gray Lies Options

[DocTaotsu]

The Gimmick: I set the opening scene, we work backwards to figure out how we got there and where we’re going. The GM guides the process by shaping the path we take to get back to the opening scene. I’ve been inspired by a game called Polaris that shared GMing duties between all four players at the table. One player plays the antagonist, one the protagonist, one the rules guy, one the story guy. These positions rotate by scene and it’s a really intriguing setup. The key was that everyone was involved in making the world scene by scene. I’d like to bring an element of that to our game as it should allow us to get a great deal of interesting story told in a short amount of time. Imagine playing a summary of a regular game, instead of playing through all the parts second by second we decide what generally happened and move on.

The Format: The aim of all this is to build up the dramatic tension leading to the opening scene. We’ll have to calibrate just how much tension we want at the scene. Is this the big showdown? Is this a milk run?
I haven’t really settled on a format yet. This is going to be a developing process and I expect a number of rules to get spun up on the fly to keep things sane. Knowing my crowd I’d like to avoid arguments about arguments. To start let’s try to the following:

1. <Opening Scene> + <GM Questions>
2. Players pick a question or two they’d like to answer (either as a group or as an individual for the group).
3. GM modifies players responses, presents one more question, possibly adds some element (an outcome to an open ended statement)
4. GM sums up the situation (with some private conversations if skullduggery occurred, could have occurred) and looks to consensus.
5. Players agree that the GM did a good job or decry him for a fool, casting him down from his high place and setting up their own regime.
6. Vicious infighting divides the players into factions who quickly consolidate their power by bloody force.
7. The violence only ends after the players have acted out the worst parts of the French revolution with hand held guillotines.

Er... maybe just numbers 1-5.


The (Super Generic) Opening Scene:
Wet snow falls sporadically as the swift moving storm roils overhead. It’s been three days since you left civilization behind at <INSERT POINT HERE> but you all agreed to push on even after Hardt died.

Questions: Remember, many of these are intentionally vague. I’ve thrown in some suggestions in because I think they might lead to some interesting places. Answer however you like but try to keep it short and direct. We’re trying to sketch this out first so we can pile in the detail at our leisure.

• What are you doing in the forest, especially one that’s practically reverted back to its primeval state? Are you (Going somewhere, looking for something/someone, try to hide something/someone, hide from something/someone, out for a stroll, etc)?
• Who was Hardt? Important to anyone in particular? Mook? A guide? Prisoner?
• Are you prepared? Why/not?
• Who do you work for? Why? Someone (you owe, yourselves, a Johnson, you own, who owns you)?
• Who knows you’re out here? How much do they care? Why?
• Who wants you dead?
• Who wants you alive?
• Who's bright idea was this in the first place?

This post has been edited by DocTaotsu: Oct 3 2009, 07:24 AM