01-08-2017, 06:38 PM
2 Cents and a Quarter:
Honestly, I find specific locations tailored by players to be somewhat problematic. Similar to NPCs, it can feel a bit jarring to have others impact/interact with various locations and spots that have been designed to be interacted with in particular ways or methods (see every half-way house/boarding house/collective property IC for most WoD games over the last number of years). The idea of a history is grand and building location and areas around that history would be wonderful but to really get the best buck and allow folks to explore the history and dynamic of a setting, I believe requires Events:
A circumstance or multiple circumstances in which things happened to the location and it's peoples that had a reaching but varied effect. Characters are free to respond and interact with those events on personal, public or even communal level with varying layers of conflict, interaction and cooperation coming to the forefront. Events allow a storyteller to react as well, pushing antagonists to look at the Event(s) in question and form their own responses to them.
- A powerful spirit cocoons itself in the middle of downtown, resilient and resistant to Weaver calcifying attempts while causing disruptive interactions with Technology throughout a broad swathe of the area and on both sides of the Gauntlet.
- A set of ancient wonders have activated after a century long dormancy, having weird calender specific effects trigger inside the city all while counting down toward something.
- An anarchistic group of orphans operating off the grid stage time-delay 'wake the sleeper' flash demonstrations throughout the city at any given moment.
It's important to note: Events are something to be stopped or adjusted without major effort and consequence. They are situation that Characters get a chance to react to and interact with the Fallout from those Events, seeing how it adjusts and pushes at their lives and alters the way things progress inside the game.
An explosion is the same principle. Someone decides to attempt to produce a mass teleportation device somewhere in the city that goes horribly wrong, causing a huge explosion that levels a section and has untold consequences to the gauntlet, quint pools, Character Avatars, Wild Talents etc. etc.
The options for how to interact are endless, but the Events themselves are incapable of change unless through collective, powerful alteration by the community. The River overflows, you don't try to divert the River without the resources to do it. You adjust your life to compensate.
Honestly, I find specific locations tailored by players to be somewhat problematic. Similar to NPCs, it can feel a bit jarring to have others impact/interact with various locations and spots that have been designed to be interacted with in particular ways or methods (see every half-way house/boarding house/collective property IC for most WoD games over the last number of years). The idea of a history is grand and building location and areas around that history would be wonderful but to really get the best buck and allow folks to explore the history and dynamic of a setting, I believe requires Events:
A circumstance or multiple circumstances in which things happened to the location and it's peoples that had a reaching but varied effect. Characters are free to respond and interact with those events on personal, public or even communal level with varying layers of conflict, interaction and cooperation coming to the forefront. Events allow a storyteller to react as well, pushing antagonists to look at the Event(s) in question and form their own responses to them.
- A powerful spirit cocoons itself in the middle of downtown, resilient and resistant to Weaver calcifying attempts while causing disruptive interactions with Technology throughout a broad swathe of the area and on both sides of the Gauntlet.
- A set of ancient wonders have activated after a century long dormancy, having weird calender specific effects trigger inside the city all while counting down toward something.
- An anarchistic group of orphans operating off the grid stage time-delay 'wake the sleeper' flash demonstrations throughout the city at any given moment.
It's important to note: Events are something to be stopped or adjusted without major effort and consequence. They are situation that Characters get a chance to react to and interact with the Fallout from those Events, seeing how it adjusts and pushes at their lives and alters the way things progress inside the game.
An explosion is the same principle. Someone decides to attempt to produce a mass teleportation device somewhere in the city that goes horribly wrong, causing a huge explosion that levels a section and has untold consequences to the gauntlet, quint pools, Character Avatars, Wild Talents etc. etc.
The options for how to interact are endless, but the Events themselves are incapable of change unless through collective, powerful alteration by the community. The River overflows, you don't try to divert the River without the resources to do it. You adjust your life to compensate.