Monday 26 May 2014

Scenario concept: over time

OK, so I have been thinking about the idea of a scenario that reuses the same topography with a linked narrative over time. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, on a three-scenario model. I've decided that this is a miniatures game scenario, using one of my current favourite games, the Cthulhu skirmish system Strange Aeons.

For many and good reasons, my campaign is set in the UK, but it's just an example; and you could easily do something similar in another setting.

Scenario 1: It's the 890s AD, and a group of Vikings are raiding an English village, only to find out they've bitten off more than they can chew. The natives turn out to be allied with sinister fish-folk, and the Vikings have to fight their way out. (I have an appropriate collection of models for this scenario.)

Scenario 2: It's the 17th century, and a local witch is making a last stand against a witch-hunting mob. She summons up the skeletons of the dead Vikings to defend her witchity hovel.

Scenario 3: It's the 1920s, and a team of archaeologists are excavating the site of the village church (or the burial mound of the Vikings, or something; I haven't got this one sorted out yet). They awaken some kind of horrible evil, the usual.

The question is: how do you make each scenario affect the subsequent ones. Like, the witch might get more bennies if she has the skeletons of particularly tough Vikings to use -- that's a good one. But for the rest, I am unsure.

2 comments:

  1. The mob steal the witch talismans from the skellies they down and pass them on to their cultist descendants. The remainder are in the archaeologists' finds hut.

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  2. Do you want it to come down to player chance? Perhaps have a chance for the Vikings to do Viking-like things, or perhaps have one be tempted to flee or show cowardice - and if he does, his cursed ghost is somehow tainted by the Old Ones and is in turn nastier for the Witch's side.

    I think the church / burial mound location quandary could even be turned into an opportunity - perhaps if the witch wins, its the burial mound with an edge to the horrors, and if the mob wins, its in the church with a small home field advantage to the archaeologists?

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