So THAT's what a good, long, start-of-a-campaign session feels like.
It's good to be back.
(It's doubly good to realize your setting is a bit light on NPCs, and to set the players up with a conversation scene where they create enough of a cast for your game by implication and throw-away details to populate your game for the next season.)
File this under "the secret language of character sheets".
Make a spreadsheet.
Give each character their own column, starting with the second one.
In the first column, list all of the skills in your implementation.
Under each character's name, put the ratings they have next to their skills.
Now analyze:
Highlight their Superb and Great skills, use a color that says "yes, use me!". These are what they're best at and where most of their shticks live. You'll want to lob them multiple opportunities to show off how cool they are at this sort of thing.
Highlight any skill that only one character took, that no one else did. Even if these aren't the character's Great or Superb skills, they have a leg up on everyone else, and thus are people of distinction in that field relative to the rest of the assembled. These can be good skills to let someone shine and be useful to everyone else. For example, in the game I'm running tomorrow, only one character took Investigation -- at Fair. That's a hook. (Also look for sub-Great skills that folks still took a stunt for -- that's another flag to give them a chance to shine.)
If there's a skill that everybody took, highlight that skill with a color that says "yes, use me!". Your adventures should probably give folks challenges of this sort that everyone will have a chance to try their hand at. Did everyone take stealth? Time for some sneaky-sneak! (You may also want to look for some odd-man-out ones, where everyone but one guy took the skill, but what you do with that info is up for discussion.)
If there's a skill that nobody took, highlight that skill in a different color than the rest, something that says "avoid" to your eyes. These are skills you may want to avoid testing -- nobody was interested in them.
Note that this may ultimately tell you that you should hit all the skills on the skill list at some point. That's fine. In my case, I know to avoid Might, Performance, and Survival for sure, and definitely to hit another 10 skills with some regularity (leaving 8 which can come up, but don't need to as often). Pretty useful for encounter design, and a good way to get to know the PCs that will be coming to the table.
So I've finished listening to the 3 hours of setting creation material I recorded for Faith, Faces, & Fingerprints, the upcoming fantasy game I'm running for a few friends, of which the first hour has been released on
That's How We Roll. While listening to it, I've been taking notes to put together a setting glossary to hand out to my players.
This is that glossary.
Faith, Faces, and Fingerprints: A Glossary
Alchemy: Much like chemistry and other physical sciences, but with the trappings of ritual and strange fantasy substances. For the purposes of our setting, "alchemy" is interchangeable with "science".
The Artist University (Name Pending): One of the greatest universities of Donnerdam; it's the Juliard of the setting. The source of incredible inspiration and artistic talent.
Astrologers: Members of the merchant class, actuaries of the soul, they oversee the interpretation charts and tables that determine one's soul-debt, which Prayers were originally intended as a hedge against. They are incredibly well-paid. It's rare that any two Astrological Guilds will find themselves in agreement with one another.
Banqmère: One of the high noble houses of Donnerdam, headed by Duke Marko van Banqmère. His daughter, Brynna, currently attends the Black College.
The Biggest University (Name Pending): Incredibly big and sagging a bit under its own weight. But everyone goes there.
The Black College: A small university that is staggeringly well-funded thanks to the tuition paid by families looking for a way to rid themselves of their black sheep. Students either return to their families in a much more obedient state of mind, or graduate, losing the advantages of their (usually noble) class and entering into the scholarly caste.
Black-Thumb Contracts: Lawyers are referred to as "Black-Thumbs" because they verify their contracts with a thumb-print.
Blessings and Curses: When these occur, they are more the product of certain strong kinds of faith, than of folk magic or other rituals.
Blindness: Sin is a stain that can be seen, according to the Word of Gnod. Some have taken this to mean that if they commit an act that they cannot see, it cannot be a sin. Thus we have the truism: Never trust a blind man.
Blasphemy: Burning scripture is blasphemy according to the Church.
Canals: Wider and more numerous than Donnerdam's alley-ways, the canals of the city act as its roads, and may be the safest of places, patrolled with some vigilance by the Gondoliers.
Children: Children are a social class of their own. To mark this distinction (and to protect against lice), they are shaved; hair, thus, is an adult privilege. To gain adulthood—and become a member of their birth-class—they must undergo the Trial of Adulthood, typically faced between the 15th and 21st year. Those who never pass their Trial become Eternal Children and occupy a number of odd roles, such as running the city's orphanages. Under the law, children have more protections but fewer rights. Children almost always have a patron; it's not quite a property relationship, but the responsibility for (and control of) the child is in the patron's job.
Chimaeras: The Plague of Faces extended into the animal kingdom (and possibly beyond), creating strange collisions of species called chimaeras. Most of these have been "one-offs", though a few creatures—such as the horstrich (see below)—have bred true and in the 150 years since the Plague have managed to root themselves reasonably well into the local ecology.
The Church (of Gnod): Gnodism is the dominant faith on the island and much of the continent as well. In Donnerdam, the relationship between the Gnodic Clergy, the Council, and the many Universities and Colleges has been… colorful.
Classes: Donnerdam has a variety of social classes: the Nobles, the Clergy, the Scholars, the Merchants (Trade Class), Muddles (Working Class), Children, and Foreigners. The only way to enter the Noble class is through marriage or birth; this is often, though less strictly, the case with the Merchant class. Entry into the Scholar class is easy—provided one can graduate.
Clergy: While they can't own property (the Church owns it all, but no individual within the church does), the Prayer trade has ensured that they have very fat pockets for ones supposedly living in divine poverty.
Coin: A material rarity, but this is the hard currency that has fallen out of vogue, in favor of hand-printed scripture (see Prayers).
Companions (of Note): Professional "best friends" who do the work of knowing the right, exciting people and the best places to seek entertainment. They have a guild and everything, and a fairly high standard for membership.
The Council of Seven: The Council of Seven is the ruling government of the city. It has two noble seats, two merchant seats, and two clergy seats. The final seat, held by a popularly elected representative called The Face of the City, is often the one to break ties. There are no seats for scholars; they are thought to be above city politics. Each seat corresponds to one of the six major astrological symbols; the Face is symbolized by the sun itself.
Couriers: Madmen and madwomen who think running messages and packages through the Sinking Heart is a good way to make money. They'd be shunned for this insanity if it wasn't, in fact, a great way to make money.
Divorce: A new notion! Annulment exists, but divorce—that's crazy talk. See also: "Trial of Union".
Donnerdam: The city where we set our scene, also called "The Sinking City" or simply "The Sink-Hole" (this latter moniker is one derived from the Sunken Heart district, which while far from the city's main feature, seems to be the one that foreigners are most fond of remarking upon). Donnerdam is London if it were planted in the Thames instead of on it, populated by Dutch and Norsemen, and then commanded by the God of Money to do a Venice impersonation. It is widely seen as the most modern city in the world, though its tendency to sink into the river delta and isolation on a fairly dangerous island has also led to its image as a place of little strategic value to the continent.
Duels: In Donnerdam, duels are fought "to the wet", which may be interpreted creatively depending on the participants. Duels to the death are illegal. Debates are common, and often last until one or the other breaks a sweat. Duels with blades fought to first blood are not unknown, either.
Elections: An almost random event, class-specific, held for the seats on the Council of Seven when the stars align in such a way to indicate Gnod's Will that another step up to fill the post. This is determined by strange astrological indicators appropriate to the seat in question. The Face, symbolized by the Sun, is up for election only on the event of a solar eclipse.
The Face (of the City): The Face is the seventh seat on the Council of Seven. It was originally established by a man they referred to as The Face because he was demonstrably immune to the Plague of Faces when it hit, thus providing the city some confidence in the continuity of government. These days the Face is an elected position (the Muddles' representative), retaining the name of the one who first filled it.
Facial Tattoos: More common among poorer peoples, facial tattoos have emerged as a practice for establishing individuality in the wake of certain common faces showing up in the population due to the Plague of Faces. Noble folk are far more likely to rely on their heraldic masks (see "Masks") for much the same purpose.
Fingerprinting: A relatively new science compared to the alchemical arts, established in the wake of the Plague of Faces. Fingerprints, it seems, were unaffected, and thus are seen as more genuine certifications of identity.
Folk Magic: A distant cousin (and precursor) to Alchemy (see above). These are the small rituals, the little spells that can produce, at best, very minor effects, sometimes obviating the need for tools or what-have-you. This is the only "shadow" of Sorcery (below) that still exists in the world.
Gambling: Gambling is not a sin. In fact, some even see it as a way of divining the favor of Gnod.
Glass Row (also "Glass Town"): A neighborhood well known for its many, many windows—and bars. Found to the east of the Sunken Heart.
Gondoliers: Others might pole their way down the canals of Donnerdam, but the Gondoliers—unique to that name—are the police force watching over the city, and the river-traffic beyond (their historical duty predating the city itself). They are believed by many to be incorruptible, though some whisper that's due to some creative assertions about what does or doesn't count as corruption—smuggling is common, for example, and tolerated by the Gondoliers so long as the "tariff" is paid (this is how they remain well funded without a dependence upon special interests). They are monks, dedicated to a small, separate faith: they worship the river-gods.
Guerilla Theater: One of the latest fads, a sort of "theatrical smart-mob" thing that takes place in the city streets. Rehearsals are not allowed! Knowledge of the great works vs. improvisational drama!
Gunpowder: Gunpowder exists as an application of alchemy, but is fantastically difficult to work with in small quantities. It's only really useful in large scale applications—such as cannon—and possibly the occasional one-shot hand-weapon.
Horstriches: Popular mounts in Donnerdam, horstriches are a kind of chimaera that has the hindbody of a horse, but the forebody of an ostrich. Nimble creatures that run around on two legs, they're well suited to navigating the alleyways of Donnerdam and even occasionally leap narrow canals. (Yes, Rob, this means you get your chocobos, though they look a lot different.)
Laws: There are some legal protections that exist, but not a strong sense of the Rights of Man (such as right to certain kinds of trial, search & seizure, freedom not to testify against yourself, etc) as far as the legal system is concerned—the legal system "trusts itself". There are different laws for each class; "high crimes"—killing someone, treason, etc, are prosecuted under Noble Law. Under Noble Law, a noble's word carries more weight. But there is Church Law and Courts, Trade Law, etc. This leads to a "by category" perspective on legal matters.
Masks: Masks are the devices of noble heraldry in Donnerdam, a practice that replaced shields and banners following the Plague of Faces. Some merchant houses have adopted the practice as well.
Medicine: Free medical care exists in Donnerdam—but it's provided by students who are still learning the how. If you want reliable medical care, you pay for it!
The Old Church College (Name Pending): When the universities and the Church were one entity, the Old Church College was the greatest of them; following the split, the Old Church College sort of declined in quality, but has remained a place to train upcoming clergymen and provided fairly cheap schooling to the public.
The Plague of Faces: One hundred and fifty years ago, somehow this ancient scourge was unleashed upon the island Donnerdam calls home. It cloned, erased, twisted, and swapped faces among the powerful and poor alike. Donnerdam, then ruled by a king, found itself with three people all wearing the king's face, each claiming a right to the throne. The civil war that followed left Donnerdam with no king at all, placing the city under the rule of the Council of Seven. Its effects are still seen today, in the form of chimaeras (see above), certain neighborhoods where some families all share a common face, and so on. This has lead to things such as masks being devices of heraldry, as well as the science of fingerprinting.
Prayers: The selling of prayers and indulgences by the Church has had a curious effect: more and more, prayers—scribed by a special class of clergymen in an unusual purple ink, impossible to duplicate—have taken over as the primary currency of the city, despite an occasionally volatile exchange rate between prayers and hard coin currency (this is in part due to the fact that the purchase of prayers is not taxed, but the conversion of prayers to coin is).
Rights: The defining right for adults is the Right to Learn, and a Right to Speak. There is a universal Right to Property (not everyone has it, but everyone could potentially own it). See "Laws" as well. Children have fewer rights, but more protections.
Salvaged Tatters: Because prayers are scripture, and burning scripture is blasphemy, the Church must bury prayer-notes which have become so heavily used that they are close to becoming unrecognizable tatters. The Church exchanges such tattered prayers for freshly-scribed ones when needed, and sinks the used-up currency in urns dropped into the depths of the harbor or entombs the urns with the dead in their crypts. Certain enterprising "blind divers" and other grave-robbing sorts have taken to "salvaging" these tattered prayers and bringing them back into the economy—a far easier way to making illicit, easy money than counterfeiting.
Scholars: Philosophers and inventors, the scholar class—seen almost as its own separate culture outside of the pecking-order of the other social classes—could be said to be the real power behind the city, popularizing causes, triggering new schools of thought, and inventing fantastic devices that keep Donnerdam's technological edge. They could run the city, but they keep themselves in check because they have a horrible track record at agreeing one another—and in general have no real head for politics, having excused themselves from having any representation on the Council of Seven.
Sins: Murder is a sin. Forgery and libel are sins due to the oft-sacred nature of the written word. Destruction of holy objects is a sin. Lying is not, so long as it is not written! Gluttony, envy, wrath aren't—they're passions. Sloth is a grey area; willful ignorance ("turning away from the opportunity of knowledge") is a sin! Theft, vandalism, etc may be taken as sins as well. Harming something of value is a sin; taking something of value from someone who does not have the capacity to give is harm; therefore rape and other sexual crimes are seen as sins. Dodging your taxes is a sin.
Slaves: There are none! This is due to the Right to Property. The closest you get is the legal status of Children.
The Slide: A downhill neighborhood that terminates in the Sunken Heart, largely composed of three long mostly-parallel roads and the broke-down houses and shops along them. The lives of those who live there tend to follow this trajectory, though some manage to head the other way and climb their way out of the gutter. It's found branching out to the northwest from the Sinkhole.
Smugglers: There are two kinds of smugglers: the ones avoiding the city taxes (but paying the Gondoliers' "River Tithe"), and the ones avoiding the River Tithe. The latter set usually gets crushed by the Gondoliers, though they still exist. The former are something of a thorn in the Council's side but they're a big part of the Gondoliers getting their funding.
Sorcery: An ancient, forgotten art of High Magic, of which there are many relics left (but none who can master them).
The Sunken Heart aka The Sink-Hole: The Sunken Heart is a district at the center of the city, smack in the middle of everything, the oldest part of the city, its architecture overgrown and growing together like the thick tangle of a jungle, its canals blocked with debris. It is a fantastically dangerous place to travel through alone. It is on the way from point A to point B if one travels most directly, however, and brave couriers have made a mint carrying messages and packages through the Sunken Heart: no one else in the city is able to travel so quickly and efficiently as they do.
Taxes: Taxes are paid according to the zodiac! Different classes pay different rates depending on where their stars are at in the sky that year. Folks who dodge their taxes get censured by the Church and put to work doing public works for the city. The current hot issue is whether or not to tax the conversion of coin into prayer (right now only prayer into currency is taxed); backed by the nobles.
Trial of Adulthood: Children must undergo a formal Trial, appropriate to the standards of the social class they were born to, in order to claim their full class and adulthood rights. Adults may grow hair. See "Children" for more.
Trial of Union: Those wishing to enter into marriage must also face a Trial. Whoever faces the Trial is the one entering into the house and social class of the other, so usually the Trial is faced by the less advantaged half of the pairing—though love has been known to alter that particular equation at times. The terms of the Trial are set by the "receiving" house and class, but satisfaction of the Trial is judged by the clergy. Some unions are known to involve three or more persons, but are relatively rare.
War: Something Donnerdam has been able to hold at arm's length due to a small technological advantage (gunpowder applications), and their small but highly professional naval and marine forces. The continent is not so lucky, with tensions occasionally running high and keeping it "internally occupied with itself".
Wigs: Wigs go hand in hand with masks; those who can't grow hair, but have passed the Trial of Adulthood, do wear them to signify their status.
So I'm just a few days away from getting my players together to do setting (and possibly character) creation for the currently untitled fantasy game I may have mentioned previously. I've been noodling around in Google Docs getting notes down on the page, most recently focusing on the loose procedure I want us to use. Here's what I've got:
Setting-Creation Procedure
Preamble: Seeds are offered and if blanks are present to be filled out, they are filled out through group discussion and consensus. Should any players wish to introduce other seeds of their own to the setting, now is the time. Once the seeds are ready, they are "planted", and the main sequence begins.
Main Sequence: The GM begins the main sequence by asking a question about one of the seeds. Anyone other than the GM may answer this question. When they do, they gain the privilege to ask a question of their own (about any seed or established answer to date), but may not answer their own question: that's the job of anyone else at the table.
Conclusion: This "tag" method of Q&A proceeds until everyone agrees that a sufficiently detailed world has been developed. Once this agreement is reached, each player at the table poses one final question about anything related to what has been established, but no one answers these questions. They are the open questions which we will bring to the play experience and answer through play (or, possibly, character creation, which follows this). Optionally, each significant element of the setting should have a "face" attached to it, a person (or organization or role) that is representative or otherwise tied to that setting element, but this may be best left until after character creation concludes.
Hopefully this will work reasonably well; due to the tag method, even a heavily-energized player can't monopolize the setting design (not that I'm really worried about that, but I like that it's true) -- the most any one player can contribute (beyond the initial layout of seeds) would be through answering half of the questions posed.
Speaking of seeds, here are the ones that I've got down. At the end of the day, it's these seeds that really pushed me to want to run this game -- my mental notepad has been collecting these snippets from the twilight-brain time when I'm waking up or going to sleep, but I haven't had anywhere to "put" them really, until now. As you'll see, some of these have intentional blanks in them for player input:
Setting Seeds
Seed 1
We set our scene in [City Name], also called [The City Of X/X City/Nickname], known throughout [Country/Continent/World] as the [Most X/X-est] city. Ruled over by [Governing Body], it could also be said that the real power lies with [Other Entity/Organization].
Seed 2
The Church of Gnod is the source of wealth, using scripture as paper money, backed by the wealth of the material world as well as the wealth of the world beyond. As it is blasphemy to burn scripture, old money, too tattered to serve its purpose, must be buried on holy ground. Alas, this has given rise to an underground trade in "salvaged tatters", by way of grave robbery.
Seed 3
Scripture teaches us that sin is a stain, as visible to the eye as the hands that commit the deeds. Popular schools of thought have taken this quite literally, believing that if one commits an act that one cannot see, it cannot be a sin. Many a blind man and woman have built their trade around this belief, committing acts that others dare not, free of sin. While this is a valuable service to the discerning customer, it has nevertheless lead to a truism: Never trust a blind man.
Seed 4
[X Years Ago], the Plague of Faces raced across the land and focused its wrath on [City Name]. Whether it was cooked up in a sorcerer's lab or cast out of hell by an angry god, none can say -- but the effects were profound as rich and poor men and women alike found their faces swapped, scrambled, duplicated, or simply erased. While the plague eventually ran its course, the impact it had on society is felt through to today.
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