It’s late. We both took today off and we had great scones, we brought my hiking shoes for new soles, we walked through Zürich, we watched the last episode of Andor, I made some bread and it’s the best! 😍
I am writing about Knives again, of course. I think I’m slowly approaching the end. Not sure whether I really want to write something about romance and family building but I feel like I should. The PDF has 29 pages now.
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After a two or three sessions, Adalric and Brunhilde have defeated some nightlings, they have made new friends, they have been of service to people of power, what now? Time to find out what their long term goals are. Claudia could ask the two players, Alex and Berta. Often people don’t actually know what they want when asked directly. It’s therefore often better to offer options within the game and see how players react.
Do they want to improve the infrastructure? A non-player character sighs and complains about there being no alchemist. If the players ask how one would find an alchemist, Claudia tells them they should ask Ulrike or Trudeberg and she quickly sketches out a solution in her notebook: travel to some place, find an alchemist, talk to them about their apprentice, solve some sort of problem, come back, secure a place, organise the town folks to build that house, contact three different fay creatures and the devil to get the first four weird ingredients. If players actually go and do the first step, Claudia prepares the next two steps for upcoming sessions. If the players pursue the goal using a different strategy, no problem, Claudia adapts her sketch. She tries to stay ahead of the game and her sketch has some adventure bones ready to improvise for half a session if necessary, that’s it.
Do the players solve problems by talking? A local complains about the bandits again. If the players ask about the origin of the bandits or their leader, Claudia tells them to speak to Krimhild or Waltrud and she quickly sketches out a solution in her notebook: travel to a village nearby where relatives of bandits live and talk to them, meet bandits and talk to them, return and talk to a person of authority, broker a deal. Maybe she looks at this and thinks it needs a complication. Lord Obersaxo wants to recruit the bandits, too. This leads to looting and the authorities look the other way. Maybe a third party can be convinced to intervene.
As you can see, the sketch of the solution to a long term goal is a sequence of tasks that the players may or may not pursue. It’s OK for players not to pursue or abandon these goals. No harm done, Claudia didn’t prepare too far ahead. If goals are abandoned, Claudia is free to narrate an ending she likes. If the players didn’t organise an alchemist, perhaps the complaints reach the ears of Lord Obersaxo and an alchemist settles in the castle of Brugg downriver, outside the player character’s current sphere of influence. Complications can arise!
If players do not want to abandon a goal, Claudia makes sure there are always non-player characters around to give advice and point at the next task (or offer an interesting choice). The interesting choices arise when there are multiple goals that need completion, or when trouble has to be left brewing elsewhere in order to get closer to the goal. This is frustrating for players but also important for them to prove to themselves how important their goals are. How far are they willing to go for what they believe in?
Some ideas: stop an ongoing war, prevent a war from breaking out, get rich during the war (yikes!); build a wall, a castle, a bridge, a mill, a dam; fight against cruel lords and ladies and overthrow the government, end serfdom, run a revolution; fight evil wizards and witches, hunt monsters like shapeshifters and devils, kill a nightmare demigod; explore the underworld and reach a plane of spiders and mushrooms, or of fire devils and ancient nobility, or of an endless prisons full of confused wardens and victims.
#RPG #Knives
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Sounds more like character goals 💁🏻♀️
– Sandra 2023-02-09 09:42 UTC
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Haarspalter!
I’ll change that subtitle in the PDF to “long term goals”.
– Alex 2023-02-09 09:48 UTC