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This is relating to my Freak Jersey chronicle, set in the new World of Darkness game.

Ordinarily when I plan out sessions I write up what I expect to happen as a bulleted list, and diverge from it as I need to do.  This time I wanted to try to use some of the tips and tricks to be found hereabouts, mixed with some of the "story design" stuff from the back of the WoD book.  Here are my notes so far for the first session and the first story.  A note on some of the jargon, a "chapter" is a game session, and a "story" is an arc for one or more chapters.  This is sort of a mishmash of my notes for the first story and the first session.  Commentary is welcome, and input so far from others on this board and others is greatly appreciated.

Story's Theme: Knowledge can be deadly.

Story's Mood: Unreasoning horror.   (that is, terrifying things that are in part that way because they defy sane thought or logic)

Story's act break-down:

Act One: Characters are introduced to the supernatural in an undeniable way.

Act Two: Characters process this, possibly trying to get a story published.  Whatever their reaction is, it will hopefully involve interacting with the world of the supernatural.  Consider Bangs to involve them more if they seem disinterested.

Act Three: Characters discover that the World of Darkness, when pushed, pushes back.

Notes for the 1st Session:

Kicker call:  Give me something that happens to your character that is potentially supernatural, to which he must react.

Kicker Response

Harris: Crap. It's after three. Getting a little old for these pub crawls. My eyes feel astringent. Wish smoking would get banned in bars here like in the City. At least I can sleep in. Gotta have some water, or I'll feel like royal hell tomorrow, er today. Funny. I always lock my door....Holy shit! Look at the mess! I've been robbed!...Wait, TV's here, DVD player, computer...what is my computer doing? it looks like it's downloading something...those characters look like cuneiform; what the fuck!?

Rob's thoughts: Perhaps he's finally eBayed smoething real, and the loser of the bid is a being of supernatural might.  It has ransacked his home looking for the artifact and not found it.

Ricky: Ricky is hanging out at an all ages club.  He is feeling a little tired so he goes to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face.  He is alone in the bathroom.  He wets his face and looks in the mirror.  Behind him in the reflection he sees a teenage boy staring at him with a knife stuck in his stomach and stab wounds surrounding the blade.  Blood comes out of his mouth.  Ricky spins around to help the boy only no one is there.  Ricky looks back in the mirror and sees the boy is still there.

Rob's thoughts: Maybe Ricky's teenage boy is the same creature whose plans Harris has foiled.  He may have been following the PCs for long enough to know some of their secrets, and after failing to find Harris, has gone looking for Ricky.

--

Bangs:

Someone (the editors, Manny's cousins, the radio) mentions La Joven Sagrada del Jardin (the Sacred Girl of the Garden), a peri-teen "saint" from the Latin ghetto that supposedly heals people.

Obviously I need more than this.

Setting notes to touch on:

Detail the work environment.  Try to let all the coworkers get "seen".

Try to involve Ricky's grandma and Manny's mom, as they are their touchstones on the supernatural.

Ooh, your characters have some juicy bits.  Here's a bang for you.

Ricky ends up going to a club or going to the house of one of those teenagers he likes to sleep with.  She's kinda developed a liking for him.  Thing is she started turning tricks recently and this guy just beat the crap outta her...and of course she tells him who it is.

Talk about something to cause some fallout. Sweet.

Your bang above doesn't seem like a bang.  You see a bang is more than a bit of info leading somewhere.  Its an event that forces an interesting decision no matter how the players react to it.  You don't have to worry where it goes, you just throw it at them and see what they do about it.  The situation I put up above gives Ricky a serious choice.  And his character is revealed no matter what he chooses to do about it.  Even if he ignores it, it says something significant.

And with both those guys putting this stuff in their characters, they are begging for it to be involved.

best,

Trevis

Well, it's my first attempt at a Bang.  That's not defensive, mind, just informative :).  What role would story leads have in this way of session design?  Occasionally in the reality of the world, the Editors would say, "Please go check this out," right?  I can probably personalize it more.  How about this:

Manny's hanging out with one of his cousins, and there's a drive-by.  The cousin takes a hot one to the head and is bleeding to death, and the cousin's girlfriend, through a veil of tears, insists he take them in the Freak Jersey van to La Sagrada Joven del Jardin (the Sacred Girl of the Garden), a peri-teen "saint" from the Latin ghetto that supposedly heals people.

As to your suggestion, it's fantastic.  It's really, really good.  However, the player has said he doesn't want to play the pedophilic thing as too central an aspect to the character.  How about this, instead, then:

Ricky meets a girl he used to know, Carmen.  She went to high school with Manny and was a popular girl who, unlike most, was nice to him and defended him when people gave him shit.  She's eighteen now, and turning tricks.  She's obviously been beaten badly, and recently.  She asks Ricky for a cup of coffee, and breaks down and tells him her whole terrible past, mentioning the guy who beat her.

I like that a lot.  My only worry is it brings things to a head fairly quickly.  I think it might be better to build things for a little while before using this one.  I feel like if I introduce this too soon before the players have had a chance to become friends with the other players' characters (and I am aware of the shifting stances there, I put it that way intentionally) that it might be too easy to hate Harris and reject him and not want to work with him.  That's somewhat less likely from Ricky, given his history with her, but Manny?  It might totally push him away before they've had a chance to develop an esprit de corps.

I am going to assign each of the PCs to a card of the Tarot.  These tarot images are going to be signators of the supernatural communicating to them.  So, they may hear about a party at a club called "The Tower" or when there might be a jester's cap on the seat of the van when they open it.

I am relying on the tarot descriptions as found at http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/ and since this is not my area, if you disagree with the read this site has, I'd like to know about it.  Right now, I am planning on having Harris, a 35-year-old journalist and Mulder wannabee with a broken marriage he hasn't yet gotten over and a secret penchant for beating hookers The Moon.  Ricky, a 27-year-old Chinese-American photographer, schmoozer, ex dotcom executive guy with a hidden interest in Lolitas will be The Tower.  Manny, a 19-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, socially maladjusted and extremely handy, will be The Fool.

Harris:  The moon is about hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods, which work well for him opening his eyes to the World of Darkness.  Also, his Kicker suggests he's pissed off someone powerful.  It's also the card of creativity and passion, and Harris is an excellent writer though he keeps his fiction secret.  The person who gets this card may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial, and he is both still living with his divorce long past when it's helpful, and with what he's about to have to deal with.  Abuse of drugs or alcohol will cause them terrible damage, so I plan on making his increasing drinking endanger him in some way (if he doesn't heed the warning).  However, such abuse can also lead to leaps of insight or creativity--and him coming home and encountering the WoD after being splitting drunk fits that to a T.  This piece fits Harris's situation and history and personality really scarily well: "This is the card of that scary, dreamy, secret otherworld where lies the most powerful and dark magics. Primal magics. It is the card that you'd get for Jackson Pollack types, switching between being wild, mean, crazy drunks and creative geniuses."

Ricky:  "When the Querent gets this card, they can expect to be shaken up, to be blinded by a shocking revelation."  Manny is arrogantly a-theistic (god that's hard for me as a person to write, given my personal feelings on the supernatural :)), and has actively rejected the teachings of his grandmother.  Ricky thinks he has the world figured out, and he's about to be broken down by it.  Both The Devil and the Knight of Wands fit him very well, and once he's past this transformative time, that might be a more appropriate symbol for him.

Manny: The Fool is overly optomistic or naive. He has a new start but if he's not cautious, it's going to be a serious problem for him. I'm dissatisfied with this, but it does fit him (especially re: his move to America and this new job), and I unfortunately don't have much more to go on him right now. I don't have his Kicker yet, which is killing me.

In reconsidering Ricky's kicker, again with Judd's help, I've come to the decision that it would be very lame to tie in Ricky's Kicker as part of Harris's story.  This needs to be about Ricky.

I am currently thinking that the young man Ricky sees might be a vampire who was Embraced by a guy who was his "lover" before turning him.  The kid was ghouled first and kept in a state of ever-childhood.  I think that the kid's mentor is gone now, but he hunts the same places Ricky frequents, and has noticed and liked his flair. He's considering fucking with the guy for fun, or maybe taking him in.

Quote from: RobNJIn reconsidering Ricky's kicker, again with Judd's help, I've come to the decision that it would be very lame to tie in Ricky's Kicker as part of Harris's story.  This needs to be about Ricky.

Hold it.

It is awesome when you can tie in kickers together but it can't be contrived.  The way you were looking to tie them together felt forced and I hate when kickers run together due to GM's muscle, rather than finesse.

What I meant was that my reaction to Ricky's Kicker was initially to make it a subset of Harris's story (i.e., this guy only cared about Ricky because he was Harris's friend).  I want to make this about Ricky, and have this happen to Ricky because he's who he is, and not who his friends are.

I am, incidentally, expecting I won't know Manny's Kicker until the day of the game, if the player even shows.  This is really disappointing, but I already emailed the guy twice so if I go any further I feel like I'll be an annoying jerkwad.  Oh well.

Rob,

Cool on your mod of the bang.  I question a bit that the player mentions his character hunting for sex with teenage girls yet doesn't want that played, but whatever works.  The decision he has to make is still preserved.

And I agree, I probably wouldn't pop that one right away.  Give it a session or so.  prepping for a session is all about coming up with a 'bandolier of bangs'  I usually come up with three or so per player.  In the first session I've found that the kicker for each player counts as one of them.  We play through the kicker scenes in my games, mostly for fun.  I frequently don't get to use all of them because of all the scenes that play out naturally based on one exploding.

That said, if you guys as players think Harris is a good protagonist character then i wouldn't worry too much about Ricky's player making Ricky hate Harris, esp if he seems to be a good guy.  He's just got probs.  That's the drama.  (there is a morality scale after all.)

The saint girl one isn't bad at all.  I would have the distant sound of ambulances.  Does he take this guy to the miracle girl or wait for real medical help or take him to medical help.  Yep, that's a good choice.  Excellent.

Hmmm...It's a pity Harris doens't have kids, that'd be a fun side issue to tweak with.  

Your game just has me going and thinking of stuff.

best,

Trevis.

Quote from: Trevis MartinCool on your mod of the bang.  I question a bit that the player mentions his character hunting for sex with teenage girls yet doesn't want that played, but whatever works.  The decision he has to make is still preserved.

Well, what he said was something like, "I don't want that to be a central aspect to this character."  That is he didn't want to be roleplaying it every session.  Also, I'm not very eager to role play a seduction between a teenage girl and a late-twenties guy with someone I've known since I was 12 :).

QuoteThat said, if you guys as players think Harris is a good protagonist character then i wouldn't worry too much about Ricky's player making Ricky hate Harris, esp if he seems to be a good guy.  He's just got probs.  That's the drama.  (there is a morality scale after all.)

Good point.

QuoteThe saint girl one isn't bad at all.  I would have the distant sound of ambulances.  Does he take this guy to the miracle girl or wait for real medical help or take him to medical help.  Yep, that's a good choice.  Excellent.

I could probably juice it a little by saying his cousin has some contraband on him.  Or he's illegal, and doesn't want to be in the system.  Or he's high and doesn't want to get snagged for that.

QuoteHmmm...It's a pity Harris doens't have kids, that'd be a fun side issue to tweak with.

What if he does?  >:)

QuoteYour game just has me going and thinking of stuff.

Wow, that's great!  That's really nice to hear.

Looking at a thread Judd showed me on RPG.net about bangs, I think I have a few bangs already without knowing it.  Not all of them are related to the specific characters but they can be massaged.  Some of them would have to be rephrased to fit as immediate incidents (e.g., the ex-wife one could be an event that makes this clear, such as he's out with a mutual friend and he sees his ex out with the boyfriend, dressed like a floozy and glassy-eyed)

Harris's ex-wife is dating a new guy and her behavior is changing radically.

A woman who's under investigation for murder says that something ate them. Shades of Susan Stewart.

Our hero finds warnings about some terrible threat recorded in his own voice that he doesn't remember making.

Recordings of conversations our heroes thought they were having privately start turning up.

PC finds a journal in his own handwriting detailing things that he doesn't remember happening.

One of the PCs are suddenly being treated like a leper.  People are avoiding contact with him, giving him strange looks, etc.

Suddenly, the faces of everyone around you transform into those of twisted, hideous beasts.

A long-term friend treats you (literally) like a stranger.

Hello,

Robin, I'm not sure if you're familiar with my frequent advice to people, especially when playing Sorcerer or Sorcerer-like games, to avoid "playing before you play."

This thread is great for purposes of musing about Kickers, but at the moment, it's starting to look just a little bit to me as if you are grading into that danger zone.

Perhaps the thing to do is merely to take what you all have, and actually play - then we can talk about how the Kickers work (and remember, they operate over many sessions, not just the first scene) in a stronger, real-people context.

Your call, but I do recommend this.

Best,
Ron

This is a step up for me, because usually I plot things out then divert.  It seems to work pretty well.  But I hear you.  I think I've basically given up, for example, on figuring out why they all get introduced to the other world at the same time.