Startup with Plotless Background

[clehrich]

As I prepare to run Shadows in the Fog, the Alpha-Test version (tm), for which incidentally please click the WWW button below or search for the thread on Indie Game Design, a basic procedural GM question has come up for me.  It overlaps a bit with several threads that have been running here and on RPG Theory, and I'm not quite sure which is the right one, but I'm thinking here.

So part of how this game works is that there is an insanely complicated background of characters, societies, factions, forces, geographies, history, and everything else.  Some of this I actually know a fair bit about, but most of it is just ideas, notions, entirely ready to swap around when it seems appropriate to me or the players.  The players have considerable Directorial and Authorial control, limited primarily by their ability to Fake It, i.e. sound like they know what they're talking about in certain venues.

Now once the game is up and running, I have a reasonable sense of how to keep it so.  As GM, I constantly defer The Answer when it seems like the players are simply looking for direction, throw Complications relevant to the present thread or problem or faction or whatever in the way of too-speedy resolution, and generally perpetuate an aura of mystery and secrecy and seize on hints and threads provided by the players.

But how do you start a thing like this?  That is, everything I can at the moment think of for "how to run" is predicated on the PCs already being wrapped up in the mess.  Currently, however, there is minimal mess, because the PCs haven't messed it yet.  I realize I need a nice big hook, or a door labeled "Don't Go Through This Door," but doesn't this suggest to the players that there is a railroad around here somewhere?

Having run variations of this thing a couple times before, the constant problem has been that the players have trouble jumping in.  They wander around for several sessions before really getting involved.  This leads to a slow, even tedious opening.

What do you all think?  Start with 1/3 of a strong scenario (hook, first major complication), and let loose from there?  Does the first session need a big action scene?

[Le Joueur]

But how do you start a thing like this?  That is, everything I can at the moment think of for "how to run" is predicated on the PCs already being wrapped up in the mess.  Currently, however, there is minimal mess, because the PCs haven't messed it yet.  I realize I need a nice big hook, or a door labeled "Don't Go Through This Door," but doesn't this suggest to the players that there is a railroad around here somewhere?

Having run variations of this thing a couple times before, the constant problem has been that the players have trouble jumping in.  They wander around for several sessions before really getting involved.  This leads to a slow, even tedious opening.

What do you all think?  Start with 1/3 of a strong scenario (hook, first major complication), and let loose from there?  Does the first session need a big action scene?

I'd suggest not.  Seeing as the players are invited to do so much already (both consciously and unconsciously), I'd suggest something like Ron's Kickers or my Precipitating Event (with strong Origins).  Get them to make these up in as much a vaccuum as possible and the sit down with the character histories, their Precipitating Events, and so on and create that 'mess' you want.  They'll hopefully have set up separate 'messes' that interest them as players, you just dump them into a blender and make 'one big mess' (although for me the smaller and tighter the 'one big mess' is, the better).  The idea behind Kickers is good here too; it must be something that both player and character simply can't avoid getting involved in (if I have that right).

Try that.  It creates a ready-made 'mess' you can elaborate on all you like.  It entrenches the players and all they're interested in right in the apparent middle of it.  Does that work?

Fang Langford

[clehrich]

-bonk-

Oh yeah.  You know, I actually posted a lengthy explanation of how to do this in Unknown Armies, a few months back, and somehow didn't think of it in the Shadows in the Fog context?  Clearly I need to drink more coffee.

[John Kim]

I'd suggest something like Ron's Kickers or my Precipitating Event (with strong Origins).  Get them to make these up in as much a vaccuum as possible and the sit down with the character histories, their Precipitating Events, and so on and create that 'mess' you want.  They'll hopefully have set up separate 'messes' that interest them as players, you just dump them into a blender and make 'one big mess' (although for me the smaller and tighter the 'one big mess' is, the better).  The idea behind Kickers is good here too; it must be something that both player and character simply can't avoid getting involved in (if I have that right).  

I'd solidly agree with this.  If you want the players to feel that they are in charge, you have to base the start closely on their characters.  

For example, I started out my current campaign based on the most unusual PC.  Thorgerd Thordsdottir had grown up in lonely exile after her parents were outlawed.  Her parents and her younger brother were killed in an Iroquois raid.  She returned to her clan's home disguised as her brother Thorfinn.  Disguised as a man, she could personally take vengeance on those who were responsible for her parents' exile.   The first five sessions of play all revolved around Thorfinn's push for vengeance and his attempt to clear his parents' name.