Comments on: Troy’s Crock Pot: A world in motion, Part 1

By: BryanB

BryanB — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:10:00 +0000

There is an amazing amount of information that can be disbursed by a bunch of people having drinks at a bar. Alcohol tends to loosen up a few words that are better left unsaid in an open room.

Getting a few drinks into a fellow “smuggler” is likely to lead to hearing him complain about the stuck up senatorial that he had to babysit on a passenger charter. Given a few drinks and a cheerful drinking companion, a PC might be able to get a few “hidden between the lines” kinds of information that will impart enough of a motive to lead to something more important later on.

Sometimes one can just hang out in a tavern, bar, gambling den, or other entertainment venue and just soak it all in. Conversations can be overheard, especially when the PC is being carefull and non-intrusive acting. Acting drunk is a good way to get information sometimes and it can often lead to a hillarious roleplaying opportunity.

By: Troy E. Taylor

Troy E. Taylor — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:07:04 +0000

The Stray7: Thanks for the link to the oddball newssite.

By: Troy E. Taylor

Troy E. Taylor — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:05:49 +0000

SMallbluegod: Glad to hear you made use of a published setting's background information. It's great when things like that work out. And I like it you turned something that others might consider sours their game into a positive, making lemonade out of lemons, as it were. In the main, though, I think background works best when the DM "controls" the background -- if anything -- to keep it straight and so the players themselves don't have access to it through other sources.

By: SmallBlueGod

SmallBlueGod — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:07:14 +0000

White-wolf's Old World of Darkness had a much dreaded 'meta-plot' that permeated all the books. Since I like the adlib challenge I didn't mind it so much and tried to use it without limiting what my players could do. Since my group had our own storyline anyway (& none of the players owned any of the books) I would let the meta-plot paint the background by dropping in passing (usually news, but not always) references to the various bits going on in the meta-plot. I took what many oWoD gamers felt was an annoyance and made it work for the setting instead of detracting from it. Using the meta-plot as background usually led to plenty of cool player interaction as they sought to "Find the Truth" x-files style on more than one occasion. Entire games happened organically all due to a few sentences of background here and there. Very useful tip for adding flavor.

By: The Stray7

The Stray7 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:59:53 +0000

Superhero settings are great for this. Not only have I used newspapers for these events, I've also had local TV reporters and radio news clippings to distribute. Of course, trying to do this too often makes me focus more on the bits of unrelated news in the world than the players exploits. But if you want to generate oddball stories, Fark.com is a good resource.

By: rauthik

rauthik — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:17:22 +0000

In a D&D 3.5 campaign I had a kind of broadsheet thing going on. There was a local gnome who invented a magical printing press and would publish the "Misty Bay Gazzette" This one page publication would be posted all over town and even delivered to the PCs house outside of town. I created the things in publisher and would write up a blurb about the PCs latest exploits as percieved by the gnome and community at large, as well as tidbits of local news and gossip. These news items then gave the players ideas of what they wanted their characters to do. Basically, as I came up with adventure ideas I would write up something to hook the players' and put it in the next gazzette that I would give them every couple of game sessions. Going to have to pick up on doing this again for my 4e campaigns

By: Scott Martin

Scott Martin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:06:40 +0000

I’ve had success with quickly mentioning top headlines in modern day games; the players often surprised me with the conspiracies revealed by the articles. Often I had no such conspiracy in mind when I present the article, but I know how to borrow good ideas when I hear them.

By: Kurt "Telas" Schneider

Kurt "Telas" Schneider — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:25:34 +0000

A little spice goes a long way, so don't kill yourself adding some depth to the campaign. On the other hand, a stew without spice is just wet meat and vegetables...

By: Troy E. Taylor

Troy E. Taylor — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:12:09 +0000

RSS feed for updated news in Shadowrun. Very cool.

By: John Arcadian

John Arcadian — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:09:47 +0000

I love the idea of the broadsheets, or newspapers in general. It is one of the big things I love about modern settings. I used to start every session of a Vampire chronicle with a newspaper clipping about something that might be related to the current storyline.For a shadowrun game I had an RSS feed off of a website that constantly updated during down time in game.

By: ben robbins

ben robbins — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:11:32 +0000

Here's a related article about using backdrop plots to breathe life into the foreground plot: Backdrop Plots: May You Live In Interesting Times