 August 9, 2009 - 11:46am | I like the visions idea. You should write it up for the Star Frontiersman to make it easily searchable by all. Maybe give some guidance on how you come up with the visions and what information to include or exclude. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 August 9, 2009 - 9:52pm | Ya know I just wrote those cause I needed them but your request forces me to think about the mechanics of it. Hmmmmmm....... I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2009 - 5:58am | Just writing out loud here to formulate ideas around Ascent's request A. Purpose of a vision/dream is foreshadowing of events to come and/or to give a clue about an in game mystery. Foreshadowing is easier with printed modules (unless the players have read them). For a homebrew campaign its possible to foreshadow as long as you know the places the campaign is headed. So rule one: It must have a 'meaning' tied to something in the campaign, whether a location, an event, a NPC, the PC them-self or the major story arch for the campaign/adventure. Example: I was using the cybot with his human personality reimmerging but the Players had failled to question the odd behavior of the cybot named Bob. So Kurts vision involve seeing close up view of sgt. stripes then shifted a name patch then shifted to the patch for their expedition then the view shifted as the uniform fabric turned into metal and he saw that it was Bob. This gave out some back story clues concerning Bob. B. The vehicle for the vision: there should almost be a specific vehicle for visions/dreams if it is a total party experience. One character could just have a dream and that would be ok (Mike just had a weird dream but he is the guy with all the mental kind of abilities anyhow or he is that race that's in tune with mystical stuff- so that must be why) but if the whole party has dreams/vision then there should be an explanation for why it should be attributed to an event: everyone took a drug, participated in a ceremony, breathed cave gas, or were hypnotized by the weird aliens or the players will feel it's a hokey bit of GM fiat and they're being rail roaded a little. The vision is an effect so give it a cause. I don't recommend making the cause a red herring as that can bring in too much confusion for the players in something that is designed to not really be too specific of a clue and is by nature supposed to be cloudy and murky. The dream/vision is something unusual and its best if the players can assign a cause for it- so rule two: obey the law of Cause & Effect. C. Be creative and imaginative. so that the events of the visions could not really be literal events in the setting. This helps reinforce that this is a vision. Rule three: reinforce the vision/dream with mystical dream like description (and as a side effect the players cant hold it against you if the vision doesn't exactly follow game events latter on). D. Stick to events and locations you can guarantee as the GM. Its impossible to predict how players will resolve situations so only use stuff you can predict because it is the whole point of the campaign- their arrival at a battle site, finding a treasure (a little GM fiat and assure this one), a major NPC that is to play a roll in the future, a back story clue about a PC that he's unaware of. One way around the unknowable resolution of an encounter is to show both or many possible outcomes of that encounter in the vision. For Chris his character was in a long hallway with many doors and behind one door was a view of the city of Volkos rebuilt and Ul-mor travelling to it to learn but the opposite door held a view of legions of sathar over running Volkos. E It is possible to tailor the "experience" to player- It may be possible to tailor the vision to play to the player's individual tastes. Example Chris is into martial arts and is very open minded about religious and mystical ideas to I incorporated the Yin Yang concept into the vision for his character concerning the battle for light and dark without naming that concept. He was certain to recognize it and since it plays to his core beliefs it had more weight. For Tony he desparately wanted to fly a star ship (pilot PC) so his vision involved him sitting in a cockpit of a pirate shuttle and flying it into orbit to challenge the sathar fleet. F. Ending a vision. Since its suppose to be a clue and something unusual I like to end the vision with the PC being in jepordy of some kind and in an abrupt fassion. For Chris his vision of legions of sathar over-running the city of Volkos suddenly transitioned to 1000 sathar surrounding him with laser rifles leveled and then they all fired. That is the end of the vision. He's left to consider this future danger to his character but cant say what exactly it is and since it represents a danger to his character we can hope he will spend time pondering the dream/vision. G. reminding the PCs of the vision. this is easy you just tell them the first time they view the site of an event from their vision that they've seen this before... in the vision. A long running campaign can take months to play out so a little reminder will help prevent them from missing something you work so hard to foreshadow. It also puts them on guard a little. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2009 - 3:55pm | Excellent. C needs more detail and an example. I recommend naming it "Vague, Non-literal". With G, I think you could diversify the options for reminding. I think some vagueness in the reminder would work fine, perhaps indicating dejavu. You could also have them re-experience the dream with more detail that reveals that the first dream was about that place. That option would also give the GM opportunity to reveal that fact afterward, if the GM prefers or if the circumstances were too complicated at the time to reveal the fact at point. That also brings in another idea of breaking up one vision into multiple visions that are the same vision that slowly gains more detail with each dream as the adventure progresses. This does not preclude a peyote-like circumstance, as flashbacks, vivid dreams, and recurring hallucinations are common for psychotropic drugs. It can also be centered around a single apparition that appears to the character(s) while s/he is awake. Maybe even use it to lead the characters. Maybe the party thinks one character is nuts but are humoring him all the same. "Look! There she is! Let's go!" View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
August 10, 2009 - 9:22pm | That also brings in another idea of breaking up one vision into multiple visions that are the same vision that slowly gains more detail with each dream as the adventure progresses. This does not preclude a peyote-like circumstance, as flashbacks, vivid dreams, and recurring hallucinations are common for psychotropic drugs. It can also be centered around a single apparition that appears to the character(s) while s/he is awake. Maybe even use it to lead the characters. Maybe the party thinks one character is nuts but are humoring him all the same. "Look! There she is! Let's go!" I had thought of that toward the end of writing the bit below, its a great idea Ascent, but probably best done with only one PC. either as flashbacks that progressively reveal more or as a re-accuring dream. Which brings up another point I feel strongly about- every PC should get something special to enhance story share. This type of thing certainly qualifies. I'm suddenly considering giving a PC a vision of a certain NPC who says cryptic things to him and will even answer questions but only that player sees the note explaining the 'vision' has turned up he can ask questions and I will answer them or but I will not answer any questions by the other players on this topic and leave it to that player to explain what is going on sort of putting him in the position of the crazy guy trying to get others to believe him. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
