RE: [BNW] New game for me

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

> >Yes, this is what is missing. I don't want all the answers (yes I do) but
> >what is out of the story. Aliens, devine powers. Why do all covent have the
> >same powers, whats up with the bargainers (what are the Hucksters?!) I 
> >don't
> >care if they are but what can and can not be. have the Genuuess come up 
> >with
> 
> *shrug* For what it's worth, that is the BNW (and to some degree the 
> Pinnacle) "style" of campaign setting.  White Wolf (kinda) did it, Shane 
> Hensley kinda brought it over from his Torg days (where Torg had a similar 
> concept), and currently it exists in the Deadlands trilogy.
> 
> Basically, it's a story, and you don't have all the details yet.  Stephen 
> King or Dean Koontz don't tell you everything that's going on and answer 
> every question in the first five chapters of their books.  Nor does Matt 
> with BNW...

Having run Deadlands for a few years now I can say that I like this style.
To me (as a Marshall er... Guide, for deadlands). It makes the game much
more interesting for me.
When I used to run games like AD&D and shadowrun, it got boring after
awhile because you already knew everything that was happening (and worse,
so did the players). You either had to kill yourself coming up with
completely new world histories and backgrounds, or deal with you (and the
players) getting bored with a system and world that doesn't change.

With the Deadlands/BNW system, as supplements come out it seems to spark
new interest not only in the players, but in the Guide too. And this helps
keep the guide interested in running the game as well as the players
interested in playing it.

There are occasional hiccups and barriers where something that the guide
planned didn't jibe with the official supplement that came out later. But
usually if you don't go too far afield you'll be close enough that you can
tweak it in (or you shouldn't worry about it as you have clearly developed
your own ideas and the supplement be-damned, you can probably still you
other stuff in it).

As far as my Deadlands campaign goes I have been amazingly lucky in that
most of the plots I developed worked with later supplements (or got
tweaked to work). In several cases I would develope two seperate plots and
the supplements that came out afterward would give me a way to link the
plots into an overall campaign. This made my players think I was a master
of intricate plots, in all honesty I was just lucky (and maybe a little
skilled in fact manipulation).

So bottom line is, I like the unfolding story method. Personal taste, I
guess.

-Theo McGuckin, operations
"We waste more electrons by 6am then most labs make all day. Be all you
can be!"