UA notes

[Ian Charvill]

OK, this is going to be in two parts.  These are the notes for a session, then tomorrow I'll do the nuts and bolts procedural, how I'd run this loose and how I'd keep it relevent to characters and avoid railroading.

(What follows are notes, and while they're more coherent than the notes I'd write for myself, they may be a bit stream of consciousness at times.  Feel free to ask questions.  If there are typing errors (if!?) I'm afraid it's a little after midnight...)

*   *   *

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

If you're not confident enough to wing the PCs meeting one another and hope that they gel, that means that they have to know one another already.  How?  Just aks them how they know each other (I think I'm kind of stealing that from somewhere - possibly Kill Puppies For Satan).  Also ask them what kind of car do they have.  Ask them if it's insured.  Dollars to donuts, that question will worry them a little.

Make notes of how the characters know one another, there should be stuff you can use here, but not now, later - next session, the session after, somewhere down the line.

Starting things with a bang

OK - something bad is about to happen to one of the players: which one?  I have a technique that I use in my Seventh Sea campaign to decide who gets hit by, say, sniper fire.  I tell them someone gets shot at and ask who wants it, somebody always volunteers.  You could do that, or you could pick one.  If you're picking one, make sure it's someone with insurance.  Tell them their car is parked somewhere and their heading back to it.  Ask them where they've been: work, gym, the mall, movies.  Ask them if they had a good day, if their workout sucked, whatever.  Ask them if any of the other PCs are tagging along.  Then tell them as they get about thirty yards away from their car they see someone jimmying the door to their car.  Let them respond, but don't let them do much yet.

Because a second or two later their car goes up in a big rolling orange fireball.

This should pretty much agitate the player(s) in question.  It's just a touching coup, cos they're insured, right?

How play goes at that point is pretty much down to the players.  You don't need to do anything else for as long as the players have energy.  That is to say for as long as the players are engaged with what's going on.  If players start to lose energy, then look at the how to run it post, in the section marked Lulls

Backstory

Listen to the players and see if they come up with interesting theories.  If they come up with anything more interesting, steal it, weave it in.  Otherwise basically what has happened in this:

A couple of weeks ago a drunk dipsomancer ran over a little girl.  She's in a coma.  She's an orphan.  The newspaper's human interest sections are all over it.  What they aren't telling you is that she's an orphan 'cos her parents were killed three years ago in a mob hit.  Her guardian is her godfather - both senses of the word - Mickey Kirsch.  Mickey ordered a hit on the hit-n-run driver.

Unfortunately, the best the police had was a make, model, year, colour and partial number plate.  You see where this is heading?

Players and Agendas

The Good Cops - are going to be wondering why someone would try to kill the characters.  Sooner or later they're going to spot the correlation between the hit-and-run and the blown up car.  They're going to be pushing pretty hard against the PCs for both.

The Corrupt Cops - are really going to kick in once the PCs are tied into (possibly) the hit and run.  If they can get the PCs put inside, Mickey's contacts can do the rest.

A couple of cops w/ names and everything.  They're both good at what they do.

Angelo Black - Hispanic, Jesuit educated, brighter than you and relentless.
Melissa Bauer - flame haired, hard working, experienced, good humoured, diplomatic and has been in the employ of Mickey Kirsch for two and a half years.

Mickey Kirsch - runs numbers rackets mainly, prostitution, union corruption stuff.  Won't touch drugs money (too many police with a hardon for big showy narcotics busts).  Tends to use muscle rather than guns.  Contracted out of town for the hit.  The police are long on suspiscions and short on evidence.  

Assorted Mickey Kirsch Goons - Jimmy Finch, Little Mickey, Hands Lombardo: you need more or better names?  IMDB a few gangster movies, pick a few lesser known characters.  Make a list.

Julia Sorenson - early thirties but could pass for early forties, part-time realtor, full-time alcaholic, dipsomancer, chain smoker.  She doesn't even remember hitting the little girl, ain't the first time she woke up in the back seat of her own car in a downtown parkinglot with a dent in the fender and no idea how it got there.

Bunker Mentality

The way this is set up is so that if the players chase things they should be able to find things out, without too much hassle.  The hit-and-run/girls death (little girl's name, I don't know, Mary Kirsch) is all over the newspapers.  Mickey has never been prosecuted successfully, but his name has been connected to investigations, and is her only family.  If the players sit tight, fearing further attacks on their lives...

The cops are going to be after them with an attitude of need.  Bauer and Black both trying to work out who planted the bomb.  As soon as the department of motor vehicles database throws back the link between the two cars, Bauer and Black are going to be suspiscious as all hell.  Mickey finds out and wants to push things along.  How long is he going to be patient with Bauer?  What happens if the players start asking around about his daughter.  You have the players in the middle of a bunch of people who all want things from them.

Hmmm: stuff that will happen even if the players sit around and do nothing

* Bomb blast
* Bauer & Black interview one or more of the PC's
* The coma girl dies, Mickey Kirsch gets mentioned in bullitins
* The cops connect the two cars
* The players get "interviewed" about the cars
* Mickey Kirsch loses his patience with Bauer
* A couple of Mickey Kirsch goons show up wanting to 'persuade' the pc to confess to the police
* The PCs end up in the news, first, cos of the bomb
* The PCs end up in the news, connected to the girl that died because now Bauer wants them inside.
* Julia Sorenson puts two and two together, gets involved somehow?

A couple of things that spring to mind: if the players are interviewed about the hit-and-run and haven't found out about it themselves in advance you would ask them for the alibi under the guise of investigating the bomb.  If they don't have a good one (and they may not realise they need one in the circumstances) then hit them with the allegations.  They'll love the cops for that one.

Also, Sorenson's car is listed by the police in their investigations.  The owner has never been questioned though (dipsomancer mojo).

Loose Ends

Who planted the bomb?  Out of town muscle.  Charlie Gibson.  Australian vietnam vet.  Mad as a snake.  Guns, bombs, tae-kwon-do.  Hanging around to try and make things right for Mickey, but Mickey's called him off, but he took a contract right and if a man's not good to his word?  Currently self-medicating his confusion with percocet and some of Mickey Kirsch's girls.

Who was breaking into the car: Leo Brown.  Car theif and dime-bag crack addict, jonesing and after some quick cash.

*   *   *

OK - that's pretty much all I'd write as an outline.  I'll try and find time to write the how-I'd-run-this bit tomorrow.  I hope this isn't entirely incoherent.

[clehrich]

Ian,

That was great!  I'm really looking forward to the "how would I run this?" follow-up.

One minor contribution:

If you're not confident enough to wing the PCs meeting one another and hope that they gel, that means that they have to know one another already. How? Just aks them how they know each other (I think I'm kind of stealing that from somewhere - possibly Kill Puppies For Satan). Also ask them what kind of car do they have. Ask them if it's insured. Dollars to donuts, that question will worry them a little.

Make notes of how the characters know one another, there should be stuff you can use here, but not now, later - next session, the session after, somewhere down the line.

The "how do you know each other?" bit does indeed come from kill puppies for satan.  I think it could be expanded a bit, given that the notion here is that you may have players who aren't comfortable with what could all too easily look like winging it.

Start with a social event of some kind, something that the characters might be likely to attend, for whatever reasons.  Their reasons can all be quite different, but they should have them.  That's the first thing they need to make up: "Why would I go to this party?"  

So for example, you have a bibliomancer who runs a rare occult bookshop where a lot of Underground types hang.  Everyone in the Street Level game wants to be in the Underground, so right there you've got a reason to be at the party.  Okay, so why did you get invited?  Or did you just crash?  Or are you with someone?  Who?

Now spend a little time having the party.  Encourage the use of food and drink as props to get into the thing.  Have some busybody jackass at the party, somebody who knows everybody but is nobody (although does everyone know this? good question), keep introducing people.  "Have you met David?  David is very interesting, he plays bass.  You do play bass, don't you David?"  It really doesn't matter whether David does or doesn't.  He can say, "Um, yeah.  I've got this little band," which is an interesting fact about David.  He can say, "Uh, no, I think you're confusing me with someone else."  "Oh, so which David are you?"  "I'm a law student," which introduces everyone to another fact about David.  Keep introducing people, pushing them together, and occasionally break in on things.

Once this starts rolling, and really only if necessary, tell everyone that they need to meet everyone else at least once.  Do this along the lines of, "Um, I'll lose track here, so if you haven't met each and every other PC, do that, okay?"  Keep track of the various little connections people are making, and occasionally have an NPC (the jackass or someone else) jump in and underline that connection.  "So you two both went to Yale?  Isn't that interesting!  See, I just knew you had a lot in common, didn't I tell you that?"

Now cut to the opening scene.  The party is over.  The last thing a friendly NPC says (probably the host) is, "Thanks for coming, sorry about Phil, he's a real jerk.  I didn't even invite him, you know?  Listen, George [the guy you've picked for the car bomb], can you give everyone a ride?  I don't think David really ought to drive, okay?"

Of course this ends up with everyone there when the bomb goes off, which isn't necessary, but you can certainly let people leave early or stay extra late for a last drink with the bibliomancer (or go home with a pornomancer --- oops!).  The point is that when the bomb goes off, everyone present is now a Party.  The cops aren't stupid --- they're going to figure out who was there, and they're not going to be real impressed by, "Hey, man, I don't even know George, he was just at this party."  "Yeah?  How come he was giving you a ride if he doesn't know you?"

Just my take on putting together PCs like this.

[hyphz]

Hiya,

Thanks very much for that info - that was very interesting!

At the moment I'm gradually piecing together a few bits of backstory from the players.  I know that "Punisher guy" wants to fight crime, so the logical starting bang would be him doing that somewhere; plenty of potential bad stuff can happen during that (police showing up, unexpected powers, etc.).  Or, am I wrong to do that?  By inflicting that 'bad stuff' on him, am I indirectly penalising him for creating a proactive character?  

A nutty backstory idea came from one of the trigger events somebody gave me.  He was playing a car nut, and his trigger event (said jokily) was: "I went into my drive and tried to start my Mosaides, and it wouldn't start."  (Because obviously that would have to be a supernatural event.)  However, I remember what Ron said about the 'hatchet' kicker.. no, it won't start.  Yes, it is supernatural.  His neighbour's car won't start either.  The phones won't work.  In fact, no complex machine will work in that entire area.  Why?  Backwash from somebody going for the Urban version of The Savage.  I don't know much more than that yet, though, and I don't know what sort of plan I'd need to make to fit that in.

[Ian Charvill]

Hiya,

Thanks very much for that info - that was very interesting!

At the moment I'm gradually piecing together a few bits of backstory from the players.  I know that "Punisher guy" wants to fight crime, so the logical starting bang would be him doing that somewhere; plenty of potential bad stuff can happen during that (police showing up, unexpected powers, etc.).  Or, am I wrong to do that?  By inflicting that 'bad stuff' on him, am I indirectly penalising him for creating a proactive character?

The thing Ron wrote about the hatchet kicker - to effect that a kicker that can only have a narrow range of responses isn't a good kicker - is I think the same for bangs.  Someone is trying to kill me leads only to, I suppose, fight or evade.  If you put The Punisher in an alley with a couple of thugs mugging an old woman, what is he going to do?  Only one thing is my guess.  If the old woman turns out to be an epideromancer that turns up the weird-o-meter but it doesn't really add to the range of choices.

One of the things I was conscious of writing my notes is that The Punisher has a crime angle to glom onto.  Whether that means Mickey Kirsch - who is a criminal but with some sort of honour - or the drunk hit-and-run driver who killed a little girl is something The Punisher's player gets to decide in play.  He calls the agenda on that one.

A nutty backstory idea came from one of the trigger events somebody gave me.  He was playing a car nut, and his trigger event (said jokily) was: "I went into my drive and tried to start my Mosaides, and it wouldn't start."  (Because obviously that would have to be a supernatural event.)  However, I remember what Ron said about the 'hatchet' kicker.. no, it won't start.  Yes, it is supernatural.  His neighbour's car won't start either.  The phones won't work.  In fact, no complex machine will work in that entire area.  Why?  Backwash from somebody going for the Urban version of The Savage.  I don't know much more than that yet, though, and I don't know what sort of plan I'd need to make to fit that in.

Now in UA terms a bunch of electrical stuff all down a street not working is somewhere between a Significant and a Major Unnatrual phenomenon (depending on just how much stuff doesn't work).  This is fairly major mojo and could tie into an ascension, or an ascension attempt, or whatever.  But your first job as a GM is to work out why the player would care about such a thing.  Now if it's the Hacker who came up with this, you're golden.  He's sure as hell going to care about something that stops machines working: it's something that he wouldn't like to happen to him, it's something he might use against others.

But if it's the Punisher, you need a different angle.  What could cause that kind of thing that the Punisher (or rather the Punisher's player) is going to care about?  Maybe some smalltime crooks are planning a heist, they have something that stops machines - they're going to do the heist without alarms going off and if the cops show up, sure as anything the cops ain't chasing.

So what in UA terms might be harnessed in that way.  What do you have?  A bunch of small time skate-punk crooks on BMXs and boards holding a mechanomancer hostage while he works on a machine that robs the life from other machines.  It's an idea, and it speaks to the character in question.

You need to ask not only what is causing the weirdness, but why the players are going to care about it.

Ian

PS: I have a strong suspiscion my 'How I'd Run This' post is going to get delayed a little by an impending family visit.  It should be up by Wednesday, and I apologise for the delay.

[Rob MacDougall]

Hiya,
At the moment I'm gradually piecing together a few bits of backstory from the players.  I know that "Punisher guy" wants to fight crime, so the logical starting bang would be him doing that somewhere; plenty of potential bad stuff can happen during that (police showing up, unexpected powers, etc.).  Or, am I wrong to do that?  By inflicting that 'bad stuff' on him, am I indirectly penalising him for creating a proactive character?  

When you say "bad stuff" you mean "bad for the character" but that's not necessarily the same as penalizing the player.  There's "bad stuff" that's a drag for the player (anything that reduces the player's ability to have the kind of story they're looking for) and "bad stuff" that the player actually enjoys. You know, the kind of bad stuff that makes a player say "o man, I am getting hosed," but they're grinning from ear to ear.

Now how do you figure out which kind of bad stuff is which? That's part of what the kickers are supposed to do, I think. When you ask for kickers you're not just asking for something weird to happen, you're also asking in a roundabout way "what kind of story would you like to be a part of?" That's why the "hatchet" kicker and the car not starting are weak without elaboration - they demand the GM come up with a story but don't give many clues as to what sort of story would engage the player.

[Mike Holmes]

When you ask for kickers you're not just asking for something weird to happen, you're also asking in a roundabout way "what kind of story would you like to be a part of?"

Hell yeah. Actually, skip calling them Kickers, and just ask your players, "What sort of trouble is your character in?"

:-)

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Hell yeah. Actually, skip calling them Kickers, and just ask your players, "What sort of trouble is your character in?"

:-)

Mike

Now that sums it up!

I'm considering running a D&D game for a Sunday group that hasn't branched out much from the shelf fillers. I read Raven's posts and think incorporating kickers would help out a whole lot, especially in that they're focused heavily on "we should play this game a long time to make the investment pay off." Man, that's a thread right there, huh? Anyway, the kicker approach of "what kind of story do you want to be part of" is just where I was going, but having it require trouble is even better. It puts the start of the game slightly after the start of the story.

Think of these trouble kickers:

I have some droid with the Death Star plans in it, and stormtroopers are after me, and there's a princess that needs rescuing.

I'm trying to get the Ark of the Covenant, but nazis are all over the dig site, and guys with swords have been trying to gut me, and I think Marion is dead.

I was out collecting plant samples, and then humans showed up and my ship took off without me, so now I'm hiding in the shed behind some house. And I'm craving Reese's Pieces.

[Ian Charvill]

Starting the Session – take 2

OK, I already did this, and clehrich had a pretty good spin on it.  Here's another possible way to run it.  Keep the party (have it be a Underground party or just a party party depending on how you want to run it).  Who are the PCs, how do they know the host.  OK – the host lost her mother in a drink-driving thing and she's fairly anal about designated drivers – and if people don't know other people she buddies people up.  Guess who's buddied up?  Now who wants to be the designated driver?  You've got insurance, right? Nah, nah, I'm just kidding.  But you do have insurance, right?  OK, let's do the party, yadda, yadda, yadda.  During the party you can have the hostess apologise to the designated driver but you know what happened to my mom... and have you seen that story about that poor girl.  Hit and run driver.  Bet the driver was drunk.  You know what should happen to people like that.

OK, that's set up.  Now I let the party happen at it's own pace.  Let the players talk.  If players do stuff at the party I just play a game of consequences:  a spilled drink leads to a fight that's broken up after a punch or two; a seduction ends with the quarry running to the toilet after a glass of wine too many.  If the players don't bite it's just colour...

Lulls

If the players aren't biting I've just hit my first lull.  One of my main jobs during the session is to pay attention to how much attention the players are paying.  It's usually pretty obvious when to move things along.  I know this lull is going to end with a broiling orange fireball tumbling into the sky like so much exploding stuff and, you know thing.

Which amounts to an aside: at no point do I try to describe things well.  The players can do without my purple prose.  I'm trying to describe things effectively, and briefly.  I give them the information they need to act on and no more, I err on the side of too little.  If they want more information they can ask for it – and their asking for it is a pretty good indicator that they're interested in whatever it is.   This saves me from having to invent too much and it saves me from falling in love with the sound of my own voice.

Raymond Chandler always said that if he wasn't sure what happened next in one of his stories he'd have a guy walk in with a gun.  He'd work out why he was there later.   In game terms these are what Ron calls Bangs.  The list from the post above of stuff that happens if the players just bunker up are all Bangs.  I could also think up stuff relating to the character's trigger incidents.  Too, I could just make Bangs that go to one or more of the PC's Obsessions or Noble/Rage stimuli.

* The Punisher comes across a couple of goons ruffing up a drug dealer.  They are Mickey Kirsch's men, trying to keep his neighbourhood clean.
* The Hacker has to clean his system up after it gets infected with a mail virus that sends a 'Get Well' Prayer for Mary Kirsch to everyone on his address book.

Stuff happens.  If players follow it up it becomes more important to the story; if they don't it was just passing colour.  Random stuff like this also gives me a handle on the weird-o-meter.  If I want more weird, I can throw in weird Bangs; if I want to keep it more street and gritty, I throw in gritty, street Bangs.

Focus

This is the converse of a lull: the players are intent on what's happening I'm paying attention.  I'm making notes of any good ideas that they have.  I'm also chairing their discussion, but I'm remembering that's it's their discussion.  They decide where they want things to go.  Again, I'm just playing a game of consequences: there really isn't that much of an intense effort of creation here because I'm really just feeding their energy back to them.

And I always have my prep to fall back on.  I reckon if I just ran the If-the-PCs-bunker-up events one after another, with no player ingenuity whatsoever, we could make a session out of it.  It might not be that great – if a session ends without the players doing things they weren't supposed to, I get a little bored – but it would work.  Which brings me to...

But they weren't supposed to do that...

I can't plan for what you don't expect but I can cheat.  And here's a couples of hows:

You guys want to make a plan?

If they're doing something big, being gamers, they'll be happy talking it into the ground before they do anything.  Especially if you I encourage them.  This gives me time to plan what happens when they do their plan.  Too, the poor bastards are sitting right there, I can hear every word they say, and I can really focus my prep because of that.

Note that I am not going to use this information to make sure their plan fails.  I am not playing against them.  I am trying to think of cool and interesting stuff to happen.  But if I know they're going to parachute drop into the grounds next to the mansion, I don't need to worry about making up the guards that patrol the fence.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

The PC's are on their way to do whatever they sprang on me.  Bang: I throw something at them, let them deal with that.  By the time they've dealt with the Bang, the session's over and I have a whole week to prep for their big plan.  The trick here is deferral.  They phone a contact I didn't know about, he's out of town 'til Tuesday.  I just put it off 'til after then end of the session (note how this can be used in concert with 'You guys want to make a plan' – half the session is them planning, half is them dealing with my Bang and I give them what they want next week).

Honesty

Christ on a bike, you guys!  I really didn't think you had the balls to do something like that.  That's so cool.  Look, I need to prep that, can we call it a little early today and do that next week?

OK, so it's honesty meets flattery, but I can definitely get away with that, so long as I don't do it too often. My players will bask in the warm glow of their own brilliance rather than deriding my sad ass.  Actually, they'll do both, but as long as I don't pull it too often...

Practice

As closely as I can say without actually running the session, that's what I'd do.  The first time I ran like this, I was about fourteen and it was by accident.  I was running the Haunted House adventure from the Call of Cthulhu rulebook for the second time.  It has a list of weird ghostlike phenomena that can happen.  I just started throwing increasingly baroque stuff at the players, and getting off by how spooked they were by it.  We had a blast.  I've run loose since then and had it fall on it's ass, but that first time was fun so I never needed any convincing that it can work.

If you want to run like that, the only thing in the end is to run like that.  At a certain point, prep just becomes a way of delaying playing.  You just have to try it out and accept that you're going to do a certain amount of learning by your mistakes.

Hyphz – I'm hoping that in the next few weeks we're going to see an Actual Play thread about you trying this stuff out, so we can see how it goes.

You should come in, the water's fine.