The following prep took place over the course of approximately 1 week, give or take a few days. We never ended up using this planned run - these game sessions are more about the socials and we spent the time chatting, catching up and doing downtime, the results of which suggested a situation more in line with the fiction than this one - but ultimately I'm just glad to have arrived at a process of prepping that produces situations I at least find engaging. I'll prep a new one on the same model over the next couple weeks. Wonder what my players will think!
Investment
What gets me excited about playing TTRPGs is the moment where the shared imaginary space we all build becomes present in the room with me.
To do this conjuration, I need an image I can see and a problem that has meaning so that solving it is not just a technical resolution, but is also a statement by the characters.
Getting gameable
That’s what I need. But that’s not the only consideration. There’s also what is needed for the situation to be a game, and not a soliloquy.
First, the situation requires 2-3 problems, each with consequences for leaving the problem un-tackled, and distinct prizes for solving it.
Second, engagement with the problems should be voluntary. Which means ideally the problem being experienced is happening to a person who isn’t a PC, and no-one is directly demanding the PCs solve the problem. The PCs can always choose to walk away.
Third, the problems should be relevant to the PCs' own ambitions.
Combining the goals
I want to get to meanings first.
The worst approach to making actions meaningful is presenting a choice between a good action and an evil action. This looks like a choice, but it’s actually not, and that dissimulation is annoying and limiting.
An actual choice is when the players are presented with at least two, preferably three, paths, that are all either triumphant or tragic, and also mutually exclusive. Whatever path they take the players will end up in the same emotional space (assuming they don't fail the challenges in their path), and so the choice is about how they get there. I've played enough games to know those tend to be the most interesting choices.
(Of course if the players think their way out of the conundrum, obtaining triumph out of tragedy, or tragedy from triumph, that is fantastic. But that’s them breaking out of the puppygirl cage, which is only an achievement if the cage is locked.)
To have there be at least two triumphs or tragedies, I need characters within the shared imagination who (1) prioritise one definition of what is good, or bad, over another, and (2) have the power to enforce or reward that priority.
In other words, I need factions.
The factions
Slugblaster already gives us a type of faction designed to hold and prioritise certain definitions of the good: the Crowds. So I begin by finding two Crowds to put into conflict.
I am immediately attracted to The Heads and The Mavens. According to the Slugblaster rulebook, Heads most value skill and innovation, while Mavens most value community and standing for something. Slugblaster has a built-in tension around corporate sponsorship of the sport, and I can immediately see a situation where the Heads, focused on getting the resources to improve their skills, get corporate sponsorship to do ~something~ that the Mavens think in principle should be corpo-free.
To flesh that situation out, I need to create characters to enact these values: a Head who got sponsored, and a Maven who wants to block them for taking that sponsorship. I call the Head Jago Towns, the Maven Owl Smith.
Character descriptions, with thanks to Was It Likely
Jago: the most aerodynamic teen. He has a face like a knife, thin like an insect, hairless as a cue ball. Even his eyebrows are gone, banished for the crime of wind resistance. Black lycra snapped tight to his body, bearing the name of his sponsor Wilkie’s.
Owl: the most eerie teen. Her eyes are too big, irises ice blue. She only blinks when she wants to. Ragged hair cut short by her own scissors. Black dress that flows and billows, belted around her waist, and platform boots that take her up to 5’ 7”.
Get the PCs in
So, Owl and Jago are in conflict. But that’s not enough. The first rule of GM-ing: give your players something to do.
But, I don’t want to get my players into the conflict by direct, in-character invitation. I want to listen to them decide how to get involved.
It turns out this means I have to provide distinct routes into the conflict. I originally thought I’d have Jago and Owl both needing muscle, to defend against or enact the disruption of Jago’s ~activity~ but that doesn’t make sense unless the two sides were in frozen Detente balance, and if they were why would Owl be planning an attack? This cannot be a Yojimbo situation.
Instead, I think Owl needs backup to take down Jago. Owl’s activists are just not as good at slugblasting as Jago. They can be a nuisance, but to confirm the disruption, they want help.
Jago with the upper hand, doesn’t need the help. What he needs is a crew who can keep up with him to document his success, while his Townies deal with Owl.
The players will receive this information as adverts and rumours. Crucially, in line with my commitment to voluntary engagement, no direct appeal from either Jago or Owl will be made to the PCs. It will be up to the players to make an approach.
Image
I have now a conflict that means something. Two groups acting for the good of the hobby, as they see it. Whichever side the players join, their choice implies an alignment with one definition of the good, as indeed would a choice not to participate. But meaning was just one of the two features of a game that I need to get invested. The other is imagery. I need something to see.
I start with MC Escher's Relativity, thinking about whether it would be hard to grind down railings on stairs where the orientation of gravity keeps changing. But that does not actually seem like it would be difficult. Plus I don't like verticality. It would make it harder for Owl and her crew to intervene if Jago was far above/below them.
However in searching for Escher I come across this article and the Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore. I don't want the situation to take place in this space specifically, but the reflection of stairs in a mirrored ceiling sticks with me. I think, what if there is a time where, above the local skate park, a reflection of another universe, mirroring ours and upside down, shimmers into being. In that park another kid is doing the same tricks as in the PCs' one, and the thing everyone wants to see is an aerial in which Null-kid and Mirror-kid touch.
No, even better: where the two do a hi-five. The Parallel Five.
I already created in an earlier session a skate park with a bowl that changes depth at random when inside it, without noticeably changing in height when seen from the outside, in a TARDIS-esque 'it's deeper than it looks' kind of way. Add to that a rippling mirror-image of the skatepark appearing two storeys directly above it, and I have the core image. I supplement it with a big crowd of teens surrounding the park, eager to see Jago pull off the trick, or Owl take Jago down.
Revising the conflict
I had some time to think a bit about the core conflict while I was designing the image, and I spotted an issue that needs resolving.
Basically, if Jago isn't under threat by Owl and her activists, if the crew decides not to help Owl, then that whole part of the situation no longer affects play. Owl would just be defeated offscreen, while the crew snaps Jago's picture. That does not sound fun.
Also, while I like the Heads/Mavens conflict, my players did not pick either for the crowds they had a relationship with. They picked the Freaks and the Normies. Ideally, the situation would include at least one of those crowds.
Solving the first issue is easy. I reverse the strength of the two sides. Now Jago is the one under threat. I was originally going to give him a crew, but instead, what if he is on his own. A lone artist, so committed to the craft he's neglected his social life, and has no support. Owl on the other hand I decide has two committed activist friends on her side, Snowy and Screech. While they're nowhere near as good as Jago at Slugblasting, numbers will make up for their lack of skill.
Screech: the most punk teen. Short hair, dyed gunge green. Nose ring. Random tattoos all over chest and arms. Has not washed in a while. Wearing a black t-shirt-style dress for a band you've never heart of that she cut in half with scissors - right through the bands' faces - and turned into a crop top and skirt with an old belt she found in a bin.
Snowy: the most yeti teen. Literally a teen yeti: gorilla face, long arms, covered in white hair. Like all great apes, has the power to avoid detection. Wears black jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of bigfoot on it. Is the tallest kid in school, refuses to play rugby.
With this strength reversal, Owl's earlier request for aid must be dropped. So how do the players get involved on her side? Well Owl's value is keeping Slugblaster corpo-free. And there is another corpo I've been bringing into previous games: Panopticon, the mega-social media and drone company. Owl wants help keeping the Normies attending the event, and Panopticon's drones, from turning her activism into content, so she can focus on disrupting Jago's run.
And with this, I can also bring the Normies in. I'm short on time at this point (I'm writing this the hour before we meet), so I pick some names from the book: Ted and AJ. They are all about turning this event into "reach content" for their homefeeds. But, they're not going to risk getting too close for the great shots. So they want some help to get up close and get the good pictures.
Make it law
What I have written up until now is good, but not playable. However, I have been reading Realis and thinking a lot about the Sentence mechanic, and also about Ms Screwhead's Cottonmouth Laws, and what I get from both is the realisation that if I express my prep as laws, they become far more interactable.
So the final step is an act of codification:
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Every year there is a time-limited event (Track: MEETUP, 1 tick every 10-15 minutes) where a parallel universe appears two storeys above the local skatepark in Cobbleston-on-Green. Every year someone tries to do a big air and slap the fabled Parallel-5. This year that someone is Jago Towns.
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Jago Towns took funding and support from interdimensional food innovation brand Wilkies, to produce his Dimensional Sensor Helmet. He needs this gear to get the Five. If he has it, and is otherwise not obstructed, he will get the Parallel-5 (Track: PARALLEL5).
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Activist Owl hates all corpo interference in Slugblasting. If not interfered with, she and her activists will successfully obstruct Jago Towns. Videos of them will trend on British Panopticon, and earn the corp a ton of ad revenue.
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Ted and AJ are filming the event on their phones. If not assisted, their videos will receive likes only from their mum and dad. If helped, they will get such good videos that the online conversation will be all about them (Track: GETPICS).
Prize: +5 style bonus, plus +1 relationship with whichever Crowd is helped. Consequence: -1 relationship with the Crowds harmed.
And so a process is made. Let's see if it works twice.