MAR 15, 2024

Game Mastering, TTRPG

<aside> 📒 Prep for the talk with players before the Somnabularex campaign starts

</aside>

Setting expectations

• I like the idea that Dreamlands is something new, wondrous, and a bit alien.
  • I’d like for the party to go into them fresh and wide-eyed. “First day at Hogwarts”
  • The PCs are kinda in the dark, learning new things – but we, the table, can plan our hands open
• The world is seeded with adventure hooks, and I’d be constantly offering you rumors and plot threads. It’s up to you to decide where to go next session and how that advances your story.
• If this would’ve been a TV show or a book, we’d open with the party’s first descent by the 70 Steps of Light Slumber, encounter with the guardians of this realm, and stride through the Enchanted Wood. At the end of their journey, they meet the output of the Earth Dreamers Society
  • First quest is to get a dream anchor, that would allow the party to stay longer in this place and film normal 4 hours and a respawn to about 16 hours and leaving of the dream body at the place
• Rollable rumors – and players adding something to the pot
• Both martial and social encounters
  • wounds and healing

Safety tools

• Behind a veil: exaggerated violence, gore, torture,
  • including cases when PCs attempt “advanced interrogations”
  • slavery is a part of setting, by being present in the sources. I think it adds to the aesthetic (barbaric and uncivilized realm) – but I’m not interested in exploring the topic in depth.
• Fade-out and “high-level outline”
• Post-game check-in
  • debriefing: issues and enjoyment

Procedural

• We’re playing for five hours, so it makes sense to have a break in-between. I’m fine with people eating when they’re not in a scene – but I would need a break at some point.

Questions

• How did your character find out about the Dreamlands?
  • Brady: a squad mate, Casey McRowley, brought it up – and later, after the injury, the character tried to find the entrance
  • Clover: Stumbled upon it in induced slumber, under an experimental drug.
    • at least in the background, doctors question and debrief his adventures (hallucinations)
  • Nita: one patient was talking about these fantastic dreams and wanted to experience that.
    • fed up with everything and want to check out this new experience
    • the player wants to focus on the magical adventures
    • Growing: find confidence, do not look for validation, stop being the people’s pleaser
• What’s your motivation for adventuring?
  • Brady: getting control, stopping feeling powerless, being able to contribute, inflicting change
    • not sure if he’s bitter about the hero complex shattering
    • open to explore something with family in the waking world
    • doesn’t yet believe he’s in control. He doesn’t see himself as a big guy
  • Clover: the journey of discovering who they are, they do not know themselves.
    • Probe confidence
    • parents are not important
    • Voices: constant conversation, always demanding, nudging. But he can say them to shut up and that works
      • M not opposed to seeing them externalized at times
  • Nita: get validation, please the people, sacrifice more
• What’s the progress for you? Or, if you’re not as achievement-oriented as I am, what makes a fulfilling session?
  • Clover
    • It’s about finding themselves
    • My note: likes to progress his character arc (after a few sessions, the arc will form)
  • Brady
    • roleplaying, embodying the character, having conversations with other PCs
    • My note: liked the weird semi-sentient magic items from Curse of Strahd
  • Nita:
    • Action-focused, being in the spotlight and affecting the setting
    • rolling-forward with consequences
    • a bit of bonding