A Palette-able Campaign

Originally published September 10, 2014

How broad can a pitch for a campaign be and still be useful? How many different theme variations can you provide before any excitement inherit in the idea gets diluted away?

For the past few months I have been wrestling with a pitch for a monster hunting game. The major difficulty is that I want to give my players the option of making more radical choices as to the content of the game and the adversaries they will face.

Normally when I begin a new campaign with a group, I start by presenting them several mostly fleshed out choices, usually only 2 or 3. Sometimes the choice will be between game systems: Changeling: the Lost verses Diaspora. Other times I have decided the system beforehand but throw the choice of themes or general plot line to the players.

In the past this has worked well, but I keep wondering if perhaps I am missing some exciting choices or ideas my players have or would have if presented the right set of options. My question boils down can one create a set of options, a palette to choose from, and thereby improve the collaborative nature of game design?

For example, I feel Apocalypse World does this and does this well. The genre of post apocalyptic fiction is a fairly broad one but the playbooks the game provides cover most of the iconic concepts. The interesting thing is that not all playbooks necessarily exist in any given world. The Marmot might not be a viable playbook in some (or most) games of Apocalypse World. The concept of a talking rodent might be just a bit too weird.

However, by allowing the PCs to choose the playbooks or options that exist in the game, you then open up the design of the world in potentially exciting ways.

If someone takes the Hardholder playbook, they then establish the initial setting through their control of the hardhold. If there is a Space Marine Mammal (i.e. hyper-intelligent dolphin in a mecha) then that implies a lot about the world at large. But even minor seeming choices like the Gunlugger affect the flavor of the world. In that specific case, it reinforces the idea that violence is a possible option for any situation.

In any game, you can see every choice the players make as a vote for what they want in the game: what skills they max out, what classes/playbooks/clan they take, the moves & powers they choose, and so forth. Good gamemasters mine this data and incorporate it into their adventures.

What I want to do is open the list of choices wider. I want to know if my players want to face cyborg ninja or ritually animated crocodile mummies. I want to know if they want to play vampires who can walk in the daylight or one which ritually infect themselves with fungi. I want to provide my players larger and more far-ranging options, ways to define the game in broad strokes, beyond just a single character.

So the question is how to do this?

I still think the prospectus method is best for establishing the main parts of the game: the system, genre and theme. It is also important to establish the key assumptions of the game: how realistic the combat will be, what fields of endeavor (social, physical, mental) are worth pursuing and whether those will rely on character stats or player roleplaying. Once you have that down, that then suggests a palette of options to include in the game.

But once that is settled, how best to release the players' (and your own) creativity?

This is where I start to think the playbook analogy becomes insufficient. Any finite set of options is inherently limited. It is still a way to go but perhaps we can do better.

Tremulus uses a questionnaire to establish the initial setting (their Ebon Eaves sample location). Though I find that particular implementation limited (with its set number of variations), the idea of using a set of questions as a jumping off point certainly has merit. I've been surprised at some of the answers my players have given me to the open-ended questions I pose in my regular Apocalypse World game.

Perhaps the best solution is to combine several decision options. After establishing a game system and rough outline of theme via a prospectus choice, you then query the players for any specific ideas they want to see (or not see) in the game. These should be broad and open to lots of different interpretations. In this way it follows the pattern of Microscope's palette creation. You then give that an Apocalypse World spin by taking a break and turning that palette into a series of idea provoking questions. Then you use the answers to build a shared world.

That's the theory anyway. I'll let you know how well it turns out once I put it into practice.