[Trollbabe] A Question of Scale, or The Last Boy

[dunlaing]

I am planning to start up a Trollbabe campaign and was thinking about using the following set of Stakes and Circumstances for the first adventure. Once I started thinking about it, though, I started wondering if the Scale was appropriate for a first adventure...

The Last Boy

Cullin's clan has been wiped out by Trolls. He is the only one left, and that is mainly because he was out exploring a cave when the Trolls attacked. He is the son of the clan's bard and as the last one left of his clan, he wants to go to the Cliffs of Fate and dash himself against the rocks below. (he is a teenager). The Trolls are still about though, and he has no hope of making it to the Cliffs of Fate without encountering the Trolls.

Consequences:
  Cullin could not make it to the Cliffs of Fate
  Cullin could make it past the Trolls to the Cliffs of Fate and kill himself
  Cullin could make it past the Trolls to the Cliffs of Fate where the Trollbabes convince him not to kill himself

Obviously, since this would be the first session, I intend the Scale to be "a person [Cullin]'s immediate well-being. Then it occured to me that it could also be looked at as Village since Cullin's fate is the fate of the clan.

Am I just overthinking this?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Yes, you're overthinking it. But you're also providing a useful context to make one thing clearer.

It's this: although the formal Stakes are limited in scale, that doesn't mean that other stuff, possibly bigger in scale, cannot happen. It's just not going to be directly affectable by the trollbabe's rolls and goals, and will be subject to more arbitrary GM decision-making and interpretations throughout play.

To pick an extreme example, I might run the first session of a Trollbabe game set during a widespread war. Villages, provinces, and maybe even whole countries are being conquered. But the scale for the Stakes is just "one person," so the direct consequences of the trollbabe's actions are limited to considering the one person's fate.

Now, let's say during play the trollbabe does something that might affect things at the larger scale, such as talking to one of the local war-leaders. Can this happen? Yes - but even if her goal is to "stop the war," and even if the player succeeds in the rolls, that doesn't mean it will happen. It only means the character successfully convinces that one guy, and the GM has total control over the implementation of whatever that will cause.

Whereas much later in play, if the formal scale has increased greatly, the trollbabe could indeed directly "stop the war" or fail to do so via a roll.

Let me know if that helps.

Best,
Ron

[dunlaing]

It helps quite a bit actually. That example is a good one.