[TROS]Sea of Fallen Gods: coming up with bangs.

[sirogit]

It's been about two weeks since my last TROS game, due to Spring Break, and when it restarts this wednesday, I want this session to go with a BANG

So, to recap the background:
Twins, Julian and Revald, are the last sons of the dead emperor of Xanaria, and first in line as canidates for the throne. For several reasons, Revald is the more popular in the eyes of the church, as he gives the church open lip service while Julian is noticably silent to it, and Julian has met scorn from the public and some reproof from the Church for his insistance that the controversial company the Winds of Xanar be punished for their actions, as bandits, rather than excused for their status as new-folk-heroes.

Revald is the target of numerous rumours about his sadistic, deviant activities, but the church is quick to discount them as the commoners overly active and perverted imaginations. They would be more inclined to believe him if they knew that the Xanarth's own neice is kidnapped and in the possession of one of Revald's torture cells, without Revald even knowing it.

Alithena, a friend of the Xanarth's niece, is one of the few people privy to the fact, she has sought an ally with Julian in that he may help her free her friend, and punish the man who did something so horrible to her.  

The March is approaching, and a cardinal of the three becomes one church is assigned to announce which of the two twins, Revald or Julian, he sponsors for the throne of Xanaria. This is a cruciel point of the campaign, very possibly the deciding factor.

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Here's what happened last session:
Alithena and Julian pace in his mansion, working out the details of their plot to sway the cardinal in their favor on the cardinal's approaching endorsement. They decide to visit the hermit-saint Dante, who is beloved by the people, in the hopes that they could aquire him as a proponent of their side, to gain the cardinal's favor. They decide that Alithena shadow Dante for abit, learning where his habits before inviting him to a discussion on the matter.

Dante that day, had started on a pilgrimage to bring food to the masses before the fasting of The March begins, borrowing grain from farms and distribuiting it to the slums. He was accosted by priests asking him to come to their church and share his wisdom instead of spending his time in such a menial and meager task, but Dante asserted that this was the important work, and his place.  

By the time Dante's task was complete, Alithena stepped out of her obscurity to talk to Dante in a bar, she told him who she was and what her propisistion was, that Dante help Julian attain the throne versus Revald. Dante stated that he will not be involved in politics, but he will spea with Julian and her at his hermitage if they wish, and they may pray with him.

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Anyway, as last session had a rather relaxed, slower pace which I don't consider a bad thing in and of itself, I'd like this next session to have abit more action and direction. Inserting actual physical action would be nice.

Another thing I'd like to do is present the players with some very hard questions about their character by giving them tough descsions to make. I'm pretty much requesting Ron Edward's Bangs. I happen to be somewaht drained imaginately at the moment, perhaps I could field some suggestions? I'd paticularly liked anything that'd kickstart physcial conflict, straight-up combat's nice but other creative examples would be good too.

Other suggestions I would like are bangs that use the characters SAs, or subtle ways to insert the supernatural into the game, as I plan the game to slowly slide into more mystical activities.

I plan to put abit more detailed character descriptions, for now, here's a list of the character's SAs:

Julian:
Drive: To Live Free
Passion: Hatred of Revald
Conscience
Faith: Pagan
Destiny: To Cause a War

Alithena:
Drive: To free the Xanarth's niece
Conscience
Luck
Faith: Atheism
Destiny: To Meet God

Dante:
Passion: Love of God
Passion: Love of the common people
Conscinece
Faith: 3 Becomes one
Destiny: Become the Xanarth

[ZenDog]

I've been meaning to find out what bangs and kickers are and how they work, I'll go look, have a read, then get back to you with some bangs.

[ZenDog]

Ok My searching is rubbish I couldn't find much detail on bangs (lots on kickers).

I'm confused over this...

Revald is the target of numerous rumours about his sadistic, deviant activities, but the church is quick to discount them as the commoners overly active and perverted imaginations. They would be more inclined to believe him if they knew that the Xanarth's own neice is kidnapped and in the possession of one of Revald's torture cells, without Revald even knowing it.

Is the They in the second sentance, they the church or they the people, and when you say the niece is in Revalds torture cells but Revald doesn't know about it. If Revald didn't order it how can it damage him.

Ok a few ideas not sure if any will be helpful.

Possibilities for conflict.

Even with the church supporting Revald someone may want to make sure of the issue. You could have three sources for an assination attempt.

1) Revald himself
2) The church (after all Julian is a pagan it would be god's work)
3) Anyone else who would (or seeks to) gain from Revalds coronation or loose from Julian.

If all three assains turned up at once things could get very interesting indeed (depending on the deatils of their contracts they may be in competition rather than feeling co-operative).

Of course I'm sure he's not that popular with the comapny of the wind either.

Dante's action giving food to the poor, and scorning the priests offer, may have upset someone in the church heirachy, who feels that this hermit has uncoventional possibly herratical views. Someone unsavoury may visit Dante not to assinate him, but to warn him to forget his funny ideas, if Althena and Julian arrive to speak with the hermit as this unsubtle warning is being delivered, chances are they will react negativly to the bully.

Does anyone know that Alinthena know about the niece's imprisonment, if they do they may be keen for her to visit the neice for an very long visit indeed or more conviently dissapear.

Riots are fun and in the ancient world easy to start.

For instance if the people who love the hermit saint-Dante, here that he was threatend by the church they might take to the streets and protest aginst the church. Dante of course wouldn't wanty anyone rioting on his behalf, however a riot might be to someones political gain (especially if they wish to discredit Dante).

Ancient partisan politics often ended up in citywide rioting, normal all it would take is a Revald supporter to argue with a Julian suporter witch would escalte into a scuffle that becomes a fracas that becomes a brawl, and finnally a full blown riot as supportors from both side hear about the incident and are drawn into it or start new arguments/fights with other opponents.

As for the SA's

Praying with Dante might be a good time for Alithena the athesit to have her first subtle religous experience as God starts to rech out to in preperation for her ultimate destiny.

The rioting that breaks out could relate to Julians Destiny to start a war and given the circumstances the war could be a civil war, especially if the rioting causes the  cardinals decsion to be delayed indefinately. The Civil war could split people over politics and religion.

The church could be split over Dante's love of the common people, and a schisim could start a conflict between those in the church who enjoy wealth and status and politcal power and those who are passionate for a more heartfelt church, this could be the first step on dante's path to becoming the Xantharth.  


The Xanarth

It seems that Julians only real reason for wanting to be Xanarth (birthright aside) is to thwart Revald,as his drive is really to be free he might rather anyone else become Xanrth just as long as it isn't Revald. It could be that he might consider Dante a better candidate all round, the fact that dante doesn't want to be Xanarth yet it is his destiny should make for intersting roleplay.

What happens if Revald does become Xanarth what will that mean for the characters the church and the people. Will he go totally 'Caligula' ?

The niece

What if some mysterious person contacted Alithena, claiming to have a message from the niece? could she trust him? would her drive to free the niece make it to tempting not to meet him in secret?


Although Alithena is destined to meet God (a pretty good cure for atheism I would imagine) at the moment she is lacking in faith, Dante is devout, and Julian a Pagan you could introduce dilema's (via events or other people) that might force them into coners becasue of thir faith, or at least make for tense moments.


I hope some of the above is useful if I haven't explaind myself very well (it's been known) just ask away and I'll be happy to try and elaborate further.

Cheers Lee

[sirogit]

Excellant suggestions, though I should clear up a few misconceptions:

1. They is referring to the church. Revald regularly selects random prostituites for kidnapping, and his agents accidently picked the neice while she was running away from home and staying in a makeshift shelter. It would damage his reputation because the Xanarth is very likely to listen to his neice's own expiereinces, and so would believe all of the rumours circulating about Revald.

2. Revald and Julian are in competetion to become emperor, not Xanarth.

The riot sounds like an excellant idea. Dante's player has told me that he liked the idea of his character largely being protected by his reputation, that huge civil discourse would follow if he was being attacked by the state or the church.

Unfortunately I am to learn that Dante's player will probably not make wednesday game, so I will either have to postpone this session or figure out some ideas more keeping with the other players.

[ZenDog]

Ahh I get it the Xanarth is a pope type figure yes not the emperor.

Ok that changes a few things (Julian wont consider Dante as Emperor material I guess) but I think most of the other stuff might fly.

If Dante's player isn't around you could have him either off comuning with nature while you run the Alinthna stranger and the niece scenario (as no-one political knows she is imprisoned perhaps the stranger is genuine a gaurd who's conscience and faith have overcome his duty may have reocgnised the xanrth niece but decide to tell Alinthena becasue he heard she was sniffing around asking question and thought that option would be safer for him).  and/or run the partisan politcal riot revolving around Julian.

Or you could run a mini one session game where Dante is kidnapped by the thug sent to warn him off. This may be on instructions from the church or he might have decided to ransom him back to the church to get more money than they offered for his original contract (after all the church only wanted to warn him off not risk angering the people by actually hurting him).

Alinthena and Julian could postpone their own agenda's to rescue the holyman (perhaps they arrive to late to stop the abduction but in time to spot that it has happend and follow the clues).

It's a bit mission based but the beauty of it is you don't need Dante to play it as it wouldn't be out of character for him to have spent all the time of his captivety praying for himself and his captor like the patient and gentle hollyman he is trusting entirely in god and his decisions.

re: Alithena's destiny perhaps (another time when the player is present) Dante might have insight to her destiny (it is after all his particular field of expertise).

[Malechi]

ZenDog: bangs are basically a scene framed in such a way as to ensure the characters have to make a choice.  This choice should drive the narrative in whichever direction the player wants, not necessarily the way the GM wants.  The GM thinks up the scene (bang) and the players, through play, determine where the action leads to. The only way the GM can drive the bang is to use the NPCs and their influence on the players.  Its largely a no-railroading kind of thing.  In many ways Bangs are like a Kicker designed by the GM.  

Another technique which you might be subconsciously doing already is the relationship map.  There's a lot of recent threads on this so check them out for more tips.  


Do a specific topic search for Bangs and you should get something..also check out Scene Framing http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6689&highlight=bang

Jason K.

[ZenDog]

Cheers Malechi,

that description works for me and I'll look at the threads. I think I caught some discusions on R-maps and Conan around here. I'm looking forward to putting some bangs and Kickers into my games.

I think I may have used bangs/scene framing in my game with out knowing it and the  choices made by the player at chargen have laid a  foundation for a R-Map.

Sorry for going off-topic on your thread Sirogit, feel free to drop into my AP thread and do likewise :D

Lee

[John Kim]

Here's my two cents.  In general, there is often a tendency to hold off on big events for later -- but I find that it is better to just push ahead to them.  Based on Julian's Destiny (and to some degree Dante's), I figure that there is a civil war coming.  It seems pretty clear that the church as it stands will side with Revald, but presumably there are many who will stand up for Julian.  Rather than having that be something way down the road, I would get to it as quickly as possible.  

So I'd say get on with it!  Supporters for Julian make themselves known to him; the church declare its support for Revald; Revald moves to claim the throne.  An interesting twist might be to have Revald find out about the niece, and then accuse *Julian* of kidnapping her for some pagan rite.  As long as he holds the niece, he knows that Julian can't disprove the charge.  To secure his position, he needs to villify and then eliminate Julian.  

The important thing is to make clear to Julian's player the power he has in the form of his supporters.  There are many people who dislike Revald and will stand by Julian, and await his word for what to do.  He can set them searching, mobilize, and much else.

[sirogit]

Excellant ideas Zendog. I will almost certainly will be incorperating a variant of them.

I think you bring up an intereasting issue, John. I strongly prefer it when the players are uncautious and risk-taking, and yet I seem to not be taking many risks with the story, worrying that if I point the game towards fuffillment of the immediate plot right now, it'd be both A)oversimplified and B)drained of relevant material for continuing the story.

I think I should really stop thinking about certain material as "On reserve.", and push the story along as fast as possible.