The Bear’s Grove Episode 30: One-Shot Games and Urban Fantasy
Show Notes
I take you into one shot scenario design, showing you step by step how I designed the “To Dance Upon The Dawn” scenario for the Old World of Darkness Vampire: the Masquerade.
Also, I give some hints as to how you might work the Urban Fantasy genre into your roleplaying game.
Podcast Shout-Outs in this Episode
The Basics of the Game
Villain Talk
Gamer: the Podcasting
The Game Master Show
International Detective Dragons from Outer Space
The Rolemonkeys
Special Thanks to our Sponsor, Khepera Publishing, with their game Godsend Agenda
Posted by Sam Chupp |
Hey Sam! Loved the new Episodes especially the one shot game section. I know that me and Cobwebs will be doing a one shot at a local con so this was definitely helpful. Keep up the great work!
April 15th, 2007 | #
Hello, Sam. Good to see BG back after the short hiatus. I normally enjoy your shows just fine, but I really liked this one. You zeroed-in on two really good topics and presented excellent and authoritative information on both.
I’ve never played in a one-shot (RPGA aside) and I’ve never written one, though I’ve wanted to, so the way you unpacked your own example was very helpful in getting a workable idea of how to go about it. In many instances I found myself going, “well, yeah, that’s obvious,” but only in retrospect and after you had shown it, kinda like when you can see all the clues to a mystery once it’s been solved. With Gen Con approaching, I have thought of writing a one-shot to promote some of my Highmoon Media products, and I can tell you flat out that this episode will help me immensely.
Your coverage of Urban Fantasy I found to be too quick, but I believe it has more to do with me wanting a lot more than with any lack of sold intro information from you, which was your stated goal. Urban Fantasy is this funny genre in that it can take quite a few things you throw at it, and while I could think of instances where I’d use, say, a more over-the-top presentation of some magical effect, or (depending on the story) not be afraid to indeed drop a dragon in 5th Ave (hey, I dropped a hydra in Coconut Grove once, I can do it again!), your suggestions were also excellent to have as both rules to follow and to deviate a bit from here and there to account for personal style. I mean, at the risk of sounding like a fanboy here, when the writer of Changeling talks about Urban Fantasy, I shut up and listen.
I find it funny-interesting that you would have not liked the New WoD outright, though I guess upon reflection it is understandable, considering how steeped in the OWoD you were/are. I actually haven’t played it yet myself, though I will soon in a NWoD Victorian Age Vampire mashup I’ll be running for my wife. From reading, the system calls my attention, and annoying as it was to have “lost” all the rich setting that was the OWoD with the reset, I have come to realized it had a very fascinating side-effect: when I look at the NWoD, I can look at it as a tool-kit for running dark urban fantasy/horror games that can actually be 100% devoid of the canon setting if I so choose, something I was never able to do with the OWoD. I don’t have to have Ventrues or Nosferatu or Gangrel, but by the same token, if I have them, I can have them be whatever I want, unhindred by the setting. This is very powerful to me; I realize it was a self-impossed mental barrier, but those can be very powerful, and the reset allowed me to lift it and toss it to the side. I am very much looking forward to the new Changeling, not to replace the old Changeling (which I love and adore), but to see what new tools I am presented with and what I can do with them.
Thanks for a good episode, and we’ll talk later.
April 16th, 2007 | #
[…] then talk a bit about Episode 30: One-Shot Games and Urban Fantasy, of The Bear’s Grove. Mainly mentioning that he has a different take on making one-shots […]
June 9th, 2007 | #
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