This question may be explained in the rules, and if so, let me know, and I'll shut up and go buy the thing.

I've played two games of Trollbabe so far. Each one had a story that wrapped up perfectly in one sitting.

Is that built into the rules? It seems like an interesting topic for theory in general, but I'm wondering if Trollbabe covers the issue in text.

If not, I'd like some feedback from other players on whether my experience is typical or not, and what elements of the game facilitate that sort of play.

Matt,

Buy the thing.

Outside that, though - one-shot stories aren't really covered in the rules. (You played in one of my games, right?) The rules are actually oriented towards long-term play, but it's not hard to perfect your Trollbabe demo-fu:

- Don't prepare anything except a map of the area and a list of the people there with problems.
- Think of colorful, interesting backgrounds, especially geography.
- Make everyone pick a place on the map to start before they make characters.
- Stand back and watch.

Hi Matt,

Yeah, the rules cover the issue very carefully. Briefly, one does not have to see the story wrap up in one sitting, but such a wrap-up is part of the rules, called the Consequences, relative to something else called the Stakes. These are not abstractions or "guidelines" in Trollbabe, but rules.

H'm. To be clearer: yes to the conclusion, but no to the "one-sitting."

Best,
Ron

Ah, good stuff. Okay, dagnabit, I'll buy the thing. Been meaning to since ought-two.

Clintontatious: I didn't necessarily mean one-shots. I meant an ongoing story where each game session finishes with a nice tidy resolution, as opposed to something like "okay, let's rest here and heal some hit points, and we'll start up from this spot next week."

But Ron sayeth no. So I'll go talk about the concept in the theory forum.

Hi, folks. Let me piggy-back on this thread to ask a closely related question: I'm going to be running Trollbabe this weekend. It'll be my (& all the other players') first time playing the game. I'm at a loss as to how much prep to do for one session. I understand that the answer is: not much, and that whatever prep I do should not be detailed, and nothing should be fixed in stone. But I'm just not sure how complicated a situation or relationship map one generally cooks up for one session of Trollbabe play.

Clinton wrote: - Don't prepare anything except a map of the area and a list of the people there with problems.
- Think of colorful, interesting backgrounds, especially geography.
- Make everyone pick a place on the map to start before they make characters.
- Stand back and watch

Actually, I'm going to piggy back a question on to this as well because it's heavily related.

First, I want to say, that the rules sort of produce a 1 Adventure = 1 Session feel to them with the a very clear idea that 1 Saga = Many Adventures. However, the 1 Adventure = 1 Session thing is *NOT* stated anywhere in the rules. In fact, it's something I'm totally reading into it for this reason:

Imagine that you have four players, A, B, C and D. Now, imagine that they are all in very different parts of the world. This means that you are basically running four adventures with four different sets of Stakes and Consequences at the same table. Not really a big deal especially using some of the cross-cutting Setting and Color elements that Ron suggests in the rules.

Now supppose that Player A, finishes his adventure but clearly B, C and D still have some stuff to do in thier adventures and could go on for another session or more. What happens if Player A wants to raise the Stakes?

Now imagine this happens multiple times, such that the Stakes have been raised to say, the County Scale (I forget what this is called in the book) and player D has only just finished his first personal level adventure and player C maybe his small group adventure and so on. This situation is probably absurd and not really a concern but the first one seems rather reasonable.

It was for this reason that I initially mistakenly assumed that Stakes applied on the individual Trollbabe level and not on the group level like they actually do.

Jesse

For my own Trollbabe prep...

I made a list of about 20 each of Names for Human male, human female, Troll male, and Troll female. A few paste-able quirky personalities/professions that could jog some in-game ideas. And a list of 20-30 interesting geographic names to use.

This generator site is good for this kind of stuff

http://squid.org/tools/names/index.html

The situation I created concerned mostly two human kingdoms and a power vaccuum, with the heirs of one country as the Stakes. The Trolls were in between and could have gotten caught in the situation (but didn't).

I would create a minimum of 'people with problems' equal to the amount of characters, and feel comfortable with twice as many. This allows for victories to eliminate NPCs not leaving you empty.

I debated creating several sets of Stakes, one for each character (and did so) but I later decided to concentrate the play on the one important set of Stakes...the Heirs...since everyone the Players were interacting with was related to the plan for their life or death.

Things to watch for from the Players...

Watch for suggestions from the Players for Scenes, run with them if possible, its a signal of what will protagonize the characters from the Players perspective.
(I did this in TB-Demigods when Nathan says "So do the Thugs jump us as we [Rathamentos and some Cultists] leave?"--he wanted to show off his cool Fighting Prowess)

If they start to steer things in a Social roll, add a cool detail in a ReRoll, or a Failed Series narration...weave it into the situation as many ways as you can... these things will send the game to places you may not ever think of yourself.
(Chris did this in my TB game- using a Social Roll to cast the Regent-to-Be and Family into a role as a possible powergrabbing assassin---this led to a nephew of the Regent-to-be that was planning a major Coup as well)

Watch their Relationships, and make sure to remind them that they control those people that they have Relationships with as far as what they do. I figure Players take Relationships so that they can spotlight how their characters deals with those people... encourage them to make things complicated for the Character and the Relationship.

Setting scenes... I'm not so great at it yet, but getting better.
Lately I've been trying to really focus on having scenes that allow the Players to show off their Character...either their abilities or their attitudes. Perhaps I haven't charged my 'people with problems' situation highly enough yet.

Setting a situation that can go either way helps a lot. Either way it goes will be interesting. You have details, but you're not committed to one way for things to go, or even, who is the cause, or the victim.

Relax though, it really does play better with unstructured prep.

At worst you've created more stuff than gets used (which eases your mind for continuing)... or ...you run out of prepared stuff, can't keep up with the pace, and have to call a break until you can think through the charged situation that the Players have propelled themselves toward (which means they've grabbed onto something you thought was 'minor' and want it to be a Major something...letting you know what they want in the game)

[edited in: If I had it to do over again, I would make sure to tie the Trolls into the two kingdom situation much deeper. I did feel we lost some of the 'between worlds' play because of the relative absence of Troll influence. Have both worlds tied into the situation even if its just one representative.]

Have fun!

jburneko wrote:
...

Imagine that you have four players, A, B, C and D. Now, imagine that they are all in very different parts of the world. This means that you are basically running four adventures with four different sets of Stakes and Consequences at the same table. Not really a big deal especially using some of the cross-cutting Setting and Color elements that Ron suggests in the rules.

Now supppose that Player A, finishes his adventure but clearly B, C and D still have some stuff to do in thier adventures and could go on for another session or more. What happens if Player A wants to raise the Stakes?

Now imagine this happens multiple times, such that the Stakes have been raised to say, the County Scale (I forget what this is called in the book) and player D has only just finished his first personal level adventure and player C maybe his small group adventure and so on. This situation is probably absurd and not really a concern but the first one seems rather reasonable.

It was for this reason that I initially mistakenly assumed that Stakes applied on the individual Trollbabe level and not on the group level like they actually do.

Jesse

Actually, as I recall the rules were pretty clear on the idea that stakes escalated if any one player wanted them to...without needing consultation or agreement from the other players.

Taking that literally, it seems to me that if A escalates the stakes...then the stakes just got escalated. Players B, C and D now find that the small personal vendetta they had against a single enemy has now flared into a feud embroiling the whole village.

If it happens again than the kings troops come in to stop the feud and the local squabble turns into an uprising that threatens to drown the kingdom in civil war.

Meaning...I see absolutely nothing wrong with unresolved stakes quickly spiraling out of control as a result of someone elses choice to increase them. In fact, that sounds to me like half the fun of increasing them.

The other thing about adventures is that the Players don't necessarily know what the Stakes are...thus they really don't know when the 'adventure' is over. The adventure being over is determined by Consequences to the Stakes.

The GM could extend an adventure by the Stakes being something not obviously the point of play. In my Trollbabe game, The young twin heirs were the Stakes, but the various play wasn't about the Heirs. It was about various folks involved in struggling for control of the country, the Trollbabes interacting with these folks determined which way things tipped as far as the heirs survival. It was only at the very end was there a scene with direct threat and Trollbabe involvement with the heirs survival.

It would have been quite possible for there never to be direct connection between the events and the stakes. This could include having a long series of adventure-like individual sessions that comprise a backdrop of pressures on one adventure's Stakes.

There is a bit of ambiguity over whether the Scale can be raised during a long multi-part adventure.

page 35 (on Scale) says "between sessions" - which implies the scale changing during the adventure of a multi-session

page 36 (on Adventures) say "Between adventures"..."GM must offer to raise Scale..." -thus not changing scale while an adventure is continuing.

[edit: I use the Adventures text for my games, especially the IRC stuff]

Another solution to avoiding separated characters adventure Scales changing prior to the end of their adventure (because a Player who finished theirs upped the Scale for their next adventure) would be to finish off existing adventures at their existing scale and require all Players to go up to the Higher current Scale for their next adventures.

It could be hard on the everyone to have a tight adventure heading to a neat Stakes resolution be scrapped a session before its end because another player 'ups' the Scale after their adventure ends. Increasing the scale of the Stakes can require radically changing who the Stakes are about.
In the books example, the easiest way to change the Scale of the first example is to have the 'Child lives or dies' Personal scale Stakes/Consequences into 'Chieftain Skel, cruel son Rothgar, and henchmen live or die' Small group Stakes/Consequences. This is a very different Stakes from the first.

Course this kind of change in the action could be lots of fun too, rather than a problem.

Hello,

Wow, this thread sort of boomed.

Rob wrote,

Clinton (or anyone else), what's the reasoning for having people pick their spot on the map before making their character?

This thread has a lot of great Trollbabe preparation advice. I've printed it and will use it when I get a chance to GM.

From a players perspective, I want to add two things.

First, I think it's important that the Troll-Human conflict always be represented in the stakes. This reinforces the main narrative premise of the game and gives the player something they can always play off of.

Second, Bob observed that players don't always know what the stakes are. It's important that the player learn something about the stakes early in the adventure - not necessarily by being told, but by experiencing the imaginary events. Knowing the stakes, a player can develop events themself.

[Edited for clarity before any reply was posted.]

Alright. So I think we've definitively established that one session need not always correspond to one adventure. And I've just had a hard object lesson in what happens when you try to force that fit.

That said, I still have some confusion regarding how this will affect prep. Typically at the end of one adventure, you ask the player where they want to be located at the start of their next adventure, and what they think they might be doing there. This then helps the GM rustle up a suitable set of stakes.

However, what if you are heading into a session where the player is in mid-adventure, but you are pretty sure it'll be wrapped up early in the session? The best I can think of is to try for some new stakes that seem likely to arise out the resolution of the previous adventure, but then the player loses their chance to influence "where I go next."

The alternative is a player that sits around for most of the session, or goes home early.

Thoughts?

Hello,

Wilhelm, it took me a couple of head-shakes even to understand the question. I always have a couple of Stakes-situations kicking around in my notebook and in my head. When I prep for Trollbabe, I produce a whole bunch of them, kind of like a little set of case studies.

That's the first part of the solution: set up a bunch of little situations. Prep them minimally! For me, this looks something like ...

troll orphan raised by local witch-woman human, starting to become aggressive; chief wants to turn the troll loose on neighboring clan

-1 mod Fighting for troll, -1 mod Magic for witch-women, -1 mod Social for anything related to feud between clans

troll orphan = Rundle, witch-woman = Hilde, chief = Oskel

human male names: Orm, Gunnar, Gram, Thorgrim
human female names: Sifal, Frea, Lissal
troll male names: Chahvuk, Gratch
troll female names: Oont, Nualk

Stakes = the pastureland between the clans (overseen by witch-woman's hut); Consequences = witch-woman lives or dies

[Little personal spin: the obvious Consequences would be about the troll orphan, but I decided to make them about the witch instead just to be different.]

So I always have about four or five of these kicking around in my notebook at any given moment. The initial stated adventures (1, 2, or 3 given three players) are therefore a sub-set of my current prep.

After all, say we're starting up some play, and someone decides to go to Foggy Bottom. And for whatever reason (I really can't explain how), one little plot scheme seems just wrong for that place name, and another seems just perfect. I've found that keeping the "case-file folder," so to speak, is the way to go.

So let's break it down ... you're running three trollbabes in three adventures, let's say. TB1 finishes her adventure 2/3 of the way through the first session. TB2 finishes her adventure bang on the end of the first session. TB3 looks like she'll need at least one more session to finish hers.

No problem! Simply ask TB1's player whether he or she wants to join one of the current adventures, or to start a new one. If the player chooses the latter, then ask where and grab a case-file that seems right for that name, but be clear that play will only get a scene or two into it this particular session.

Oh yeah, and to follow up on an earlier question from Jesse, all adventures start with their Stakes at a given Scale and remain there. If TB1's player, at the end of her adventure, hollers "Raise the Stakes!", then that will apply to everyone's next adventure, not the other two which are currently occurring.

Finally, how about considering turning to the Social Contract? Trollbabe is full of appeals to reasonable authority. Just as the player may request a scene and you can say yes or no as GM, you as GM may request that two or more players decide to be in the same place for the next adventure. "Come on, guys, have pity, be in the same adventure next time." They can say yes or no, of course, but nothing stops you from asking.

Best,
Ron

Ron, thanks for the very detailed response. Yes, I can see how this all would work. The prep example you gave is very much like the ones I have been using, except that mine are already "embedded" in some part of the world. I just need to stop doing that and be prepared to "grind to fit."

However, one aspect of your sample prep did leave me confused. You list both Stakes and Consquences. I had thought from my reading of the rules that Consquences were simply the outcome generated by bringing a Trollbabe into contact with the situation and the stakes. So if the stakes are the cropland, couldn't they be resolved in any number of ways? i.e one side or the other gets final posession of it, or it is destroyed, or a third party takes possesion of it, etc. The witch woman may or may not have anything to do with it.

It's almost like you've mentioned two different possible stakes here. The fate of the cropland would be the issue if play was currently at village scale, but if it was personal scale, the fate of the witch woman would be the stakes, and the feud would just be backdrop. And am I correct in thinking that if this situation was run at personal scale, the GM would not be able to use the listed modifiers?

Hi Wilhelm,

I just checked the rules to be sure, and yes, the Consequences are actually potentially not the same thing as the Stakes. The Stakes are what one or more people are striving for; the Consequences name what will or will not happen to someone or something.

Stakes = pot of buried treasure, including people who know about it or who are unfortunately living on it

Consequences = name any person involved, possibly even including someone who's not invested in the Stakes, and name at least two possible concrete outcomes for them (freedom/slavery, death/life, etc)

(as Scale goes up, substitute any applicable term for "person" above)

As for Modifiers, yeah, I was reachin' a little. I'm thinking of redoing the Modifier placement-rules for Adventures anyway.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I just checked the rules to be sure, and yes, the Consequences are actually potentially not the same thing as the Stakes. The Stakes are what one or more people are striving for; the Consequences name what will or will not happen to someone or something.

Hi Wilhelm,

You, a persnickety hair-splitter? Never! I wouldn't say so. Not me. Anyone think that Wilhelm's a ... Guys? Where'd you go, guys?

I was going by page 34, actually, in which Consequences are defined as "what happens" regarding someone(s) in the scenario. I agree that the Glossary is more specific, and now I'm thinking perhaps it's too specific. Clearly, prep and play are easiest when the Stakes are one thing and the Consequences concern the fate of that same thing. Feel free to stick with that in play and to be happy with it. I tend to play a little more subtle with the person(s) whose Fate is really up for grabs, more in line with my example above.

Oh, and one more thing about this - I see the Consequences as strictly a GM-tool. Playing Trollbabe as "Guess who the GM put up for grabs in this scenario" isn't what I had in mind for the game.

Best,
Ron