#81: Power of Prompts
I. Dear Reader,
Here’s a quick anecdote from our Legacy 2e game - but before I get into it, a content warning for mention of cannibalism.
One of the little mechanics in Legacy is “Roles” which identifies where you stand in terms of your faction. Are you a Leader, Agent, Rebel or Outsider? And you can move between roles when you hit a specific trigger. I was using the Scavenger playbook for my character and I started as an Outsider, someone who is sidelined in the faction. The trigger for switching to Leader was “when you’re put in charge of a group’s supplies and provisions”.
I was vaguely interested in making that switch - to see my character leave the fringes and step up to a leadership position. But I didn’t quite know what to do with that prompt. Why would I be put in charge of someone’s supplies?
And then something cool happened. A new faction was introduced into the game: a horde of cannibals under the sway of some eldritch gods. In my head, I imagined this horde like the slow, unstoppable army led by the white walkers in A Song of Ice and Fire - an existential thread that couldn’t be reasoned with. But looking at that prompt on my playbook, I started to ask myself if this was what could push my character into a leadership role. Maybe they could work towards unshackling this new faction from their eldritch masters and then rehabilitating them away from cannibalism. It felt noble - and potentially foolish - enough to lead us into some fun drama. I was interpreting “in charge of someone's supplies” in a generous way but hey, you know what they say about rules.
It was an exciting moment and it came from the kind of design maximalism that Legacy 2e revels in. Even as I talk about wanting simplified rules, it’s these rich narrative prompts littered across the whole game like wild roses that led to one of my favourite moments with the system. Just something for me to chew on.
Yours promptly,
Thomas
II. Listen of the Week
On the Gauntlet podcast, a great discussion about playtesting!
On the One Shot Network, there’s an actual play of Gunfucks, which is inspired by looter-shooter videogames and features lots of very funny, very gun-y hijinks.
III. Links of the Week
Reviews
Moon Elves, a science fantasy socialist utopia setting.
Orbital Blues, a sci-fi game of sad, space cowboys.
Long Haul 1983, a sad, solo game of a trucker trying to get somewhere
Articles
On the Gauntlet blog, a big list of macro-events to drop into your world to shake things up in the background.
On the mindstorm blog, how to create a secret society that shows up in all your games and all your worlds.
On Cannibal Halfling Gaming, what to do when your game blows up and you’re left to pick up the pieces.
In Wired magazine, on beauty and accessibility in RPG books.
On NintendoLife, a look at In Other Waters: Tidebreak, an underwater module for Mothership based on an indie videogame.
On Tor.com, what I learned from breaking up with D&D
News
One More Multiverse are partnering with Possum Creek Games to give their latest game a customised virtual tabletop experience
Roll20’s userbase hit 10 million people recently.
Comicsbeat spoke to Kickstarter’s COO to talk about their blockchain plans and Polygon reported that they were pumping the brakes for now.
On the subject of Kickstater, new stats show that all tabletop games together raise more than 270 million on that platform.
IV. Small Ads
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