Age of Ravens

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Pam Alexander, DFAE, and Gauntlet Hangouts Fate August

PAM ALEXANDER

This week I interviewed Pam Alexander for The Gauntlet. Pam served as Lead Author for Dresden Files Accelerated. She worked with an amazing team of designers and authors including Morgan Ellis, Ed Turner, Leonard Balsera, Richard Bellingham, Clark Valentine and Brian Engard. I’ve already posted about how much I dig this new version of Fate Accelerated, despite not being a Dresdenverse aficionado. Other the other hand, Pam is an expert in all things Dresden, as you can hear in the podcast.

You can listen to the podcast here (or find it on iTunes). We’ve also been putting out parallel shows on YouTube, for those who use that as their listening service of choice. These are audio only, but they work for folks like me who listen to episodes via their PS4 on their TV.

DFAE IN THE WILD

I ran three sessions of Dresden Files Accelerated online for The Gauntlet. I’m also just starting a separate mini-campaign for the summer (shifting from Detroit to San Francisco). We posted the videos and got a good reaction, so I’m putting up those links. It’s a good way to see how DFAE operates, how I run Fate, and my mystery-building process.

SESSION ONE VIDEO

Session Two Video, Session Three Video

A couple of people asked me about my mysteries. How did I go about planning and managing the story in the three sessions? I’ve scanned my notes and put them in a single pdf. You can check that out here. Some notes on those notes:

Pages 1 & 2: These are all about establishing the structure and threats. I quickly wrote these after the first session. I’d ended on a cliffhanger that came to me in mid-game, so now I needed to figure out what that meant. I took the factions we’d established in character creation and fleshed them out just a little. I also added names to anchor the actors. I spent, at most, an hour on this right after the session.

Pages 3 & 4: The meat of the ideas. I did this prep just before session #2, and again tried to spend no more than an hour. I think about these things all week, but when I sit down to prep I keep myself to a maximum time. Usually it takes less.

I knew we had a Hell missing. I started by figuring out Hardesty Cho, the manager, and why there was a Hell there. I wracked my brain to remember every goofy detail about these things from readings of the Inspector Chen Series, The Girl with the Ghost Eyes, and the Dark Kingdom of Jade supplements from Wraith the Oblivion. I recalled the Hell Money I’d gotten as a kid from Archie McPhee. I connected that with the real world fact that a major casino sat where Detroit's old Chinatown had been.

I fleshed that out with incidents and actors. I don’t give much detail, but I do make possible connections. I figure the players look into these people/places, leading them to the end point (which I figured would likely be the Casino, but could be Hell or somewhere else). You can see some of the specific leads on those pages and even some stuff we never got to (like who counterfeited the Hell Money).

Pages 5: I wrote this between sessions 2&3. I had the luxury of knowing exactly where they’d start, with the questioning of Koemi August. So I fleshed out her story and connections. Then I drew lines and added details to what I’d already built. Again, despite the sparsity, you can see concepts I never used.

Anyway, that’s usually how I build mysteries. Sometimes I stat things out as well, but usually I do that on the fly at the table (unless we’re playing a crunchier game like 13th Age or Mutants & Masterminds).

AUGUST IS THE MOST FATE-FUL MONTH

I’m running three different online Fate games in August for The Gauntlet. They’re up. Two are filled right now, but I have a seat in the third. We have Waitlists if you’re interested, so consider trying it. The sign-up system emails people when their status changes, so that’s cool.

GAUNTLET TGIT: HELLBOY BPRD

Two sessions of Hellboy using Atomic Robo

It’s a rebuilding year for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Accrued vacation time, maternity leave, and a brush with the apocalypse have left the team understaffed. That where you come in, a new team dedicated to stopping supernatural threats, beating some sense into the otherworldly, and generally keeping people from knowing too much. We’ll build characters based on submitted concepts. This game will use Atomic Robo, with the supernatural and tech as equally valid options.

S1 (8/3): http://bit.ly/2rJ1CV0

S2 (8/10): http://bit.ly/2rovfIs

GAUNTLET TGIT: BASE RAIDERS: SUPERPOWERED DUNGEON-CRAWLING

Two sessions of Base Raiders using Fate Core/FAE on the calendar for August

The world’s rich, multi-decade history of superheroics has ended. All of the potent and powerful vanished in the mysterious Ragnarok Incident. When those heroes, villains, and other weird beings vanished, they left behind bases- in some cases dozens of them. These marvels contain secrets, materials to scavenge, hi-tech toys, and the possibility of new powers. You play leftover supers- forgotten sidekicks, thrill seekers with .jury-rigged equipment, and minor-league mutants.

You’ve joined together to raid these bases for many reasons- finding lost loved ones, shutting down a dangers, discovering cures, locating new magics, or even finding vast quantities of filthy loot. You’ll have to fight past traps, failed experiments, and sentient guardians of all shapes and sizes. But you’ll have to act quietly or risk the attention of authorities or competitors.

S1 (8/24): http://bit.ly/2si2SvB

S2 (8/31): http://bit.ly/2rtVG1w

GAUNTLET SUNDAY: REIGN OF CROWS

Four sessions of a throne-war game using Fate Core/FAE

The Queen has passed, the throne lies vacant and the circling has begun. Your family is not the largest, the strongest, the most battle-hardened, nor the wealthiest, but you will seize this day using every weapon, resource, and stratagem at your disposal.

Players will collaboratively create a family hell-bent on taking control—for justice, honor, power, or something in-between. You will craft a member of that family, select a role and choose your skills and assets. We will do world building (places, faction, etc) and let you loose on the land. Between sets of scenes, we’ll resolve seasonal actions and see the fallout of events. Can you fight off noble houses, guilds, and secret orders all wishing for control? Or can you forge an alliance to serve your interests? And can you do this in the face of darker threats to the kingdom itself?

It is a cooperative game, but of course only one person can really sit upon the throne at the end...

S1 (8/6) http://bit.ly/2rtKqCg

S2 (8/13) http://bit.ly/2rtVZZV

S3 (8/20) http://bit.ly/2roEoAG

S4 (8/27) http://bit.ly/2qFqQDG

Monday, June 12, 2017

Cybernetics and The Veil

I have hardware on my mind after spending a weekend deep in Cyberpunk 2020's "Chromebooks." Both The Veil and The Sprawl use tags to define cybernetic systems, though in different ways. I've been playing with The Veil since I've started a small campaign of it. While working on revised playbooks, I scribbled ideas for other tags. But my list only really kicked into overdrive when I crowdsourced responses on The Gauntlet Slack channel.

For the list below, I've combined examples given in The Veil and the Cascade Quickstart with new ones. I haven't fully defined these. Half the fun for me is seeing how these concepts get executed at the table.

I've also worked on some modified The Veil playbooks. They're an attempt to find middle-ground between the detailed choices of the base game and the set material of the pre-gens. I don't know if they do that quite yet. I think they're a little closer to the level of an Urban Shadows sheet. Essentially I want something a table of four can answer, resolve, and integrate in the first hour of a four-hour con session. I will have to test.

CYBERNETICS TAGS

(Examples from The Veil combined with some new ones. I’ve assigned these to segments, but I can imagine some of them going elsewhere.)

Universal: detachable, disguised, durable, integrated, remote, responsive, storage

Arm (1 tag) extending, grapple launcher, heavy lifter, kung-fu grip, magnetic, multitool, weapon holdout

Chest (1 tag) autocleaning, bioanalyzer, biometric jammer, brainbox, camouflage, charger, communication (ex. tattoos), efficient processor, expressive, iron stomach, shielded compartment, subdermal cosmetics, vapor filter

Ear (3 tags) analyzing, audio isolating, dampening, derma-linked, encrypted, encrypted, multitasker, parabolic, recording, white noise, wide-frequency

Eye (3 tags) broadcaster, disconcerting, derma-linked, flashproof, hardened, lazcutter, low-light, microscopic, modable, multi-spectrum, multitasker, recording, telescopic, thermo-graphic, weapon-linked

Interface (2 tags) communication (ex. narrow beam), concealed, dampening, encrypted, hardened, helper, HUD, implanted, intercepting, jamming, multi-task, recording, satellite relay

Leg (1 tag) dancer, double-jump, magnetized, padfoot, runner, shock-absorber, skates, weapon holdout

NEGATIVE TAGS

Basics from Book: Damaging, Unreliable, Susceptible, Twitchy, Scarred, Addicting

Adware infested

Analog

Antagonistic

Archaic

Banned

Battery-Hog

Beta-Test

Bleeding-edge

Bulky

Cheap

Complex

Compromised

Draining

Experimental

Flashy

Flimsy

Foreign

Heavy

High Maintenance

Hybrid

Illegal

Incompatible

Infamous

Infected

Infinite Updates

Knock-Off

Leaky

Legacy Instructions

Malware

Malware Infested

Noisy

Non-Ergonomic

Non-Standard interface

Non-Waterproof

Obsolete

Off-Sized

Overheating

Patchwork

Power-Hungry

Proprietary

Region-locked

Rusted

Sparking

Specialist

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

World Pitches: New Campaign Picks

As I posted last week, several of my campaigns are at transition points. I discussed my love for these moments on The Gauntlet recently. With our 13th Age game on summer hiatus, we’re switched over to a short Dresden Files Accelerated campaign. I’ve also started a mini-campaign of The Veil for Sherri, Kali, and my nephew David while he’s home for the summer. We started that Sunday, getting through character creation and several scenes. I didn’t go much further since I’d run Mutant Year Zero in the morning and played Apocalypse World in the afternoon.

In the good (?) old days, I’d say “hey, I’m running X now.” Usually the group would go along; maybe we’d have some players switch out. But times have changed and our f2f player pool has tightened. What I run needs to appeal to everyone. I want collaboration and buy-in from those players. Once I figured that out, I tried putting together massive lists of pitches. Way too massive. I diluted the pool and common interests. The few times I did that we got a final result with shared light enthusiasm over something everyone dug. The Paradox of Plenty.

Now I limit myself to 3-4 pitches at most. That gives me a pool I can invest energy in, time to explain each one, the ability to hand around materials, and few enough games that they’ll recall each when they vote. I present the games with a caveat. If any of them are a “Hard No,” I’ll pull them from consideration and add something else. I don’t want a game on offer that someone would quit rather than play (or play under duress). I also tell them we’ll check in every six or so sessions to see where we are and if we need to wrap. After explanations and questions everyone votes secretly, even me. I break any ties. Last time Mutant: Year Zero won, but all three other contenders tied. I bring passed-over, but well-voted games for later consideration.

SUNDAY GAME

Our bi-weekly Middle Earth campaign wrapped after 27 sessions. It’s a good, four-person group. Generally we’ve aimed for more traditional games and action oriented campaigns. Both the player group and the time slot lend themselves to straight line plots. Deep mystery and angst aren’t on the table. A simple system’s preferred. I put forward four games to them:

That’s a diverse set. Originally I wanted Blades in the Dark in there, but since I didn’t have the hard copy yet, I subbed in Tianxia at the last minute. Godbound won by just two points. Then Coriolis & The Veil came in with a near tie, and finally Tianxia. That group generally prefers fantasy, so the final pick wasn’t a total surprise.

Godbound has both a premise and a setting. The former has the PCs gaining/ channeling/ receiving divine powers from dead gods. There’s been a centuries long conflict, leading to human sorcerers storming the gates of heaven with artificially constructed gods. That all blew up, leaving behind remnants and threats like The Night Roads. Godbound has an Exalted vibe. Players start with powers and can deal serious damage right out of the gate. They’re not gods per se, just potent.

Godbound’s setting takes up a good chunk of the book. Crawford’s built a striking world, echoing some of his earlier fantasy work. It has distinct nations, lightly defined with problems and relations. Many have a strong Earth-culture parallel. They’ve released a couple of sourcebooks for the setting. While they’re solid, I’d rather build some things ourselves.

Luckily Godbound supports that too. It has the designer’s trademark tables for generating plots and content. I expect I will combine that with a Microscope-like approach. I haven’t yet decided what level to begin at. I put together a blank fantasy map in Hexographer. I might have everyone add nations and name places. Alternately I might focus on building just a city. Then we could discover the rest of the world as we play, hex-crawl style.

WEDNESDAY

Our Wednesday group plays online. These five originally came together in the City of Heroes MMO. Several players I grew up with before they moved away. So far I’ve finished a 13th Age and a three part M&M 2e campaign with them, both fairly long. Our current Mutant & Masterminds 3rd edition campaign will probably wrap tonight with session 27. It’s a group that leans trad. Also there’s a lot of real world distractions during play. As a result I have to carefully consider multi-thread plots and mysteries. I’ve been running on this night for years, but I still haven’t developed the perfect style for them.

I choose three games, all of them PbtA. I wanted to try something new, with different approach. A couple of the players have tried these games, so it isn’t entirely alien. I offered three games, two with a highly built in structure which I think the group will dig.

The Sprawl won, but Blades in the Dark came a close second. Urban Shadows followed slightly behind. Each game had at least one first place pick and one last place pick in the voting. I’d regretted leaving out BitD after Sunday’s offer, despite not having the hardcover. I decided to offer it anyway, since I figured I’d have it soon (spoiler: still don’t have it as of this writing). Cyberpunk will be an interesting switch after fantasy and superhero.

All three have excellent Roll20 sheets, an added bonus The Sprawl has an especially nice one. Some users have figured out how to build striking interactive Countdown clocks. I need to work those out. The Sprawl also a tight mission structure, more episodic than other games. That may lend itself to our game, with weird schedules in the summertime. The group also loves doing world-building so that’s a plus.

The only downside I can see will be figuring out the netrunning rules. It’s the section I’m least comfortable with right now. We didn’t have a Hacker in the two Sprawl sessions I played. We’ll see. It may just take a little prep work.

FRIDAY

Our Friday f2f group just finished our Mutant: Year Zero campaign after 16 sessions. I loved it and the players clearly would have hung on for more sessions. But we’d gotten to a great point in the Ark’s arc. I wanted to stop while ahead. The awesome player epilogues made me certain about my choice and sad to see it end. Despite the session going a good hour later than usual, I made sure we picked the next game before we left.

Base Raiders (Using 13th Age)
Blades in the Dark
Coriolis
Urban Shadows

I’d had Urban Shadows when they last picked, so I brought that back. I’d also planned to present a collaborative world-building fantasy idea with anthropomorphic animals. But I couldn’t find the materials I’d assembled for that. Instead I subbed in Coriolis. The group had also discussed doing Mutant: GenLab Alpha, but I didn’t offer that. I’ll offer that next time; I didn’t want to do it right away after MYZ.

The group chose Blades in the Dark (25 points) despite not having a copy of the book to look at. I printed the character and crew playbooks to hand around instead. Then it was Coriolis (17 points), Urban Shadows (16 points), and finally Base Raiders (12 points). Opinion and votes went across the board. While Base Raiders came in last, it got a couple of #2 picks.

I’ve read through the Blades in the Dark pdf a couple of times now. It has a lot of moving pieces and some dense playbooks sheets. I hope playing it f2f will be easier than online. Five of the six players play Pathfinder, so I’m not too worried about complexity. I’m excited run this. I love the concept and can’t wait to see it at the table. I briefly considered using a Planescape skin I read about on G+. But given the number of players and our unfamiliarity with the game, I’m sticking with the default set up.

OTHER GAMES

I had other games I seriously considered for these offerings. I only skipped 7th Sea because I’m still not sure how to solve the duelist imbalance problem. Maybe I will in the future. I strongly considered Cryptomancer, but I’d need a small, mystery-focused group for that. I looked using Dungeon World for a version of the Iron Kingdoms setting. Finally Dragon Age and 13th Age rounded out my shortlist.

What do you have coming up? What are you considering for new campaigns?

Monday, June 5, 2017

Origins and Gauntlet Gaming

ORIGINS

Next week I’ll be running at Games on Demand: Origins. I’ve done that the last couple of years and loved it. Sherri will be with me again. Last time she played a bunch of games that made me jealous. I’ll be hosting first thing on Thursday morning, and then running Fri night, Sat morning and evening, as well as Sunday morning. If you see me, please say hi!!! I have two games on my menu: Magic, Inc and Tales from the Loop.

Magic, Inc

In the sorcerous corporation, Magic, Inc, your department lies at the bottom of the labyrinthine Org Chart. You like it that way. Your team has just managed to hang on- avoiding responsibility and blame. But doing so is hard work; you desperate transmute budgets, curse rival divisions, and make your faked resumes vanish. Can you avoid The Annual Review while getting your time-card signed? This game uses Action Cards, a card-based Fate hybrid.

Tales from the Loop

Welcome to Wayward, Ohio. You play teenagers in the late Eighties, solving Mysteries connected to the under-construction “Loop Project.” Everyday Life is full of nagging parents, never-ending homework and classmates bullying and being bullied. You will encounter the strange machines and weird creatures that have come to haunt the countryside as the Loop is being built. You can escape your everyday problems and be part of something meaningful and magical—but also dangerous.

Rich taught me to always bring a backup game or two, in case you get burnt out on one. I’ve been working on some convention-style character sheets for The Veil, a mid-point between the complexity of the playbooks and the pre-gens of the Cascade QS. I’ll probably bring that. Mutant Year Zero also might be a fun back-up since no one seems to be running it. However that takes up a lot of carrying space between core books, dice, and cards. I’m also considering Cryptomancer or Kuro.

GAUNTLET OUTLOOK

In June for the Gauntlet Hangouts I’m running Grimm (2 sessions), Robert E. Howard’s Conan (2), and Mutant: Year Zero (4 sessions). July’s all hacks and reskins. I’m running Godbound with a Scion skin (2), Masks with elements from Rotted Capes (2), and Changeling the Lost PbtA (4). Last week I figured out my August schedule, which will be an all-Fate month. For that I’m doing Base Raiders shifted to Fate Core/FAE (2), a Hellboy game using Atomic Robo, and a Game of Thrones-inspired thronewar game using Fate and borrowing from things like Wrath of the Autarch. I’m also thinking that in October I’ll do another season of World Wide Wrestling since it has five Sundays. I like scheduling things this far out because it give me some deadlines for developing the material.

I record most of the games I run and post those on my YouTube channel. I've done many interesting and niche games Legacy, Cryptomancer, Kuro, The Veil, 7th Sea 2e, Feng Shui 2, and more. If you're curious about how they play, watch the videos.

This games are all part of the Gauntlet Hangouts. If you’re interested in online rpgs, check out The Gauntlet Patreon. We schedule 40-50+ online games per month, a couple months ahead of time. Patreon backers at the $7+ level get early sign up access to those; we open them up generally a week after posting. Our Patreon supports all of our podcasts: The Gauntlet Podcast, Discern Realities, +1 Forward, Pocket-Sized Play, and Comic Strip AP. Patreon supports also get Codex, a monthly themed zine with all kinds of cool stuff.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Streets of San Francisco: Our DFAE Set Up

On Tuesday we had our first f2f session of Dresden Files Accelerated. It’s a switch-over campaign for the summer; one of our 13th Age players has class that evening. We filled that spot with another player home for summer break. I’m glad to run this for a couple of reasons. DFAE felt solid when I ran it online. I want to see it in action more. It’s also a chance to run Fate f2f. I’ve done that before, but the dice did not go over well.

We’ve decided on San Francisco as our campaign city. I’ve run games set there before, but it’s literally been twenty years. Neither of those were modern (1930’s pulp and 1950’s gritty cop). So what immediately jumped to mind was just-- Chinese influence, Golden Gate Bridge, Harvey Milk, hills, The Streets of San Francisco TV show, earthquakes & fires, Emperor Norton, and a tradition of vigilantism. That’s about it.

When I set up shop in new cities, my go-to is checking available game-based resources. Most rpg sourcebooks turn out to be set in other time periods (Secrets of San Francisco for CoC and three different cyberpunk books). Old World of Darkness had three products set there: San Francisco by Night (for Kindred of the East), The Toybox (for Changeling the Dreaming), and Loom of Fate (for Mage the Ascension). The first two look the most useful, but they require reading past WoD mechanics and specifics. Plus they’re all at least twenty years old. That’s probably not a big deal since I’m going for verisimilitude over reality.

At the table we established some factions and facts. I want to pull those together and do some brainstorming. We have some cool threads already. I dig how details you create at the table have other implications once you examine them.

OUR CHARACTERS

Seth Gibson: Police Detective. Skeptic. Has seen some things and got drawn into high weirdness. Tied to group patron That person got Gibson’s wayward brother out and away from any Venetori after a deal went south. Gibson’s family is on the dark side; he’s the black sheep for being a cop.

Andrew Hollows: Focused Practitioner—plant magic. A florist by trade. Has some fae blood in him. Had a magical accident in college where he killed his boyfriend. That sent him into the NeverNever where he learned to control his magics. Time passed slowly for him there. Decades went by, but he returned not long after (months? years?). Has been involved with some magical deals.

Master Wu: Clued-In Mortal. Appears ageless. Not exactly supernatural, but something strange about him. Operates a dojo. Gets involved in settling disputes and threats among the weird. He and Sylvie witnessed a magical attack-- the incineration of a building-- they’re still not certain about.

Sylvia Kindle: Knight Proxy for the Winter Court. While the actual Winter Knight’s suffering punishment, Mab has a number of lesser agents who take his place. They’re enforcers and legalists. Sylvie’s in San Francisco to maintain the border between the Courts. She’s been involved in some “cleaning” up after Fae agents who used the city to settle debts.

OUR FACTIONS

Wild Fey: A large community of fae standing outside the two Courts. Community arose in the 1960s and somehow managed to survive and keep its independences. Has some pull with Hollows—connections and obligations.

…So how do they maintain that balance? Sylvie’s player established that San Francisco is a neutral locale. Neither Court has sway here and neither can act unilaterally. That feels like something the Wild Fae managed to carve out. I’m assuming there’s an incident tied to that. Need to name that.
…Who are the Wild Fae? In play we established a few of the classic types (gnome, ogre, goblin) were present. However the connection to Chinese and other Asian mythologies suggests we might see some of that. I have to consider how The Night Parade plays in. A useful resource I need to go back to is the Asian sourcebook for Changeling the Dreaming: Land of Eight Million Dreams. I thought I’d bought the pdf of that, but discovered it was one of those I lost in the fire. IIRC it has good material on the topic. I want to make sure I make this group vivid.

Chinese Sorcerers: We called them “demon” sorcerers at the table, but I think that’s a bad translation. I like the idea that they traffic with spirits (ala The Girl with the Ghost Eyes). We didn’t establish much else about them. I suspect we’ll tie them to the long tradition of Chinese business, regional, and special interest communities in San Francisco. Big Trouble in Little China’s set in SF. I don’t want to echo that too closely, but it has some elements I can riff on. OOH it could be fun to really buy into that. Maybe that happened?

…What’s their relation to the White Council? I have to think about that. It gets into the deeper Dresden-verse canon. I don’t want to go down that hole too far. My gut feeling is that while they subscribe and abide by the Council, they handle matters themselves. In bits I’ve seen, the Council comes off as strongly Western. I imagine there’s something of a cultural disconnect. More importantly they would look to their own community here.
…What about the Thousand Hells? I want to keep the other two DFAE games I’ve run in this continuity. In our Detroit game, we had someone sub-contracted to maintain a Hell. We mentioned connections to China from the US. I suspect there’s a strong magical link between SF and China. The Sorcerers use that to pass back and forth, contact native spirits, and draw on different places of power. That gives us more fictional justification for Chinese Fae being here as well.

Werewolves: That’s about all we got on the table. The problem is that the Dresdenverse has many kinds of “werewolves.” In my previous game they were the rage-spirit bearing werewolves. I suspect those in SF will be the more classic skinchangers, like the friendly ones form the book. They’ll have their own agenda here. I want to think about that. I’m going to table those for the moment.

Venetori: We’re going to take this just as a group of human enforcers with power and knowledge. There’s more to them in the books. I need to check and figure out how much of that is in play. In our case, this cell is particularly isolated. They operate with their own agenda. That might put them at odds with the larger order. We established that they’re not above getting their hands dirty, like being mixed up with criminal organizations. We also established they’re heavily armed. They seem overall like a good choice for a faction in immediate conflict.

Criminal Artificers: An organized crime network with access to some kind of magical item creation. These might be one shot or slightly longer use. Perhaps they’ve made an effort to secure a few particular strong items they subvert to power others. We established that their enforcers may be armed with unusual devices.

…Who are they? We also connected them to the Hispanic community in San Francisco. They’re a higher level criminal organization. Like many groups that arise out of ethnic identity, they spend effort protecting their own first. So these characters should be a mix: the more heroic black market operative vs. the more driven and ambitious lieutenant who wants to get ahead. We already established in the fiction that some of the PCs have helped them out.

OTHER SETTING STUFF

What about Oakland? I like our focus on San Francisco. Conservative Oakland, for whatever reason, should be a no-go zone. Something’s happened there that freaks out those in the know. Alternately there’s an active magical barrier keeping those they want out.

What’s the set up? Rather than a formal detective agency, we established that the group shares a common patron. They make requests and pass on information. The patron has an agenda, likely secretive. The PCs have met and worked together, but they’re not a “team” for the moment. Master Wu has offered up his dojo as a meeting place.

We also established that there is a threat—something major that’s coming. Exactly what remains to be seen. The group will have to deal with that. I need to develop the patron and their connection to the threat.

Actual Play: We did a brief opening scene. The group established that they were chasing a perp of some kind. They caught him on the top floor of a rickety flop house, meeting with a gnome with a flying hat. As they arrived a goblin on a glider threw a bomb through the window, lighting the room on fire. The suspect revealed himself as a mini-Ogre in a human disguise. A fight ensued and the players managed to keep the building from burning down. They captured all three of them.

We’ll probably start next session with the fallout: what people saw, where the suspects got put. We’ll take as given they questioned and incarcerated them. Questions to answer: what was up with the ogre’s human suit? Why did the goblin firebomb the room? Why was the ogre so small? Why was he meeting with the gnome?