Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms

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Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« on: May 08, 2011, 03:19:13 AM »
It's not clear from the text.

Do all of the dangers in a front share the same set of grim portents and impending doom?

Re: Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2011, 06:01:05 PM »
And, maybe it's just me, but I have trouble understanding how a Danger relates to a Front mechanically.

A Front is related dangers, but related how?  Location works for dungeons, but less so for campaigns, I think.

To compare, a DW Front is like an AW Front, but without the "scarcity", "overall countdown" or "dark future".

Is "scarcity" (or some other theme) necessary?  I don't know, but it seems like it would help organize the Front.

And without the "overall countdown" and "dark future" equivelants, it feels like the front isn't really "unified" (dramatically, if not fictionally).

Just some thoughts as I'm trying to use the Front rules presented.

Thanks.

Re: Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2011, 11:59:31 AM »
And, maybe it's just me, but I have trouble understanding how a Danger relates to a Front mechanically.

A Front is related dangers, but related how?  Location works for dungeons, but less so for campaigns, I think.

A Front is, as per the opening text, "a place where you’ll build the adversarial foes, organizations and other bad fortunes that the PCs will come in conflict with." and focuses primarily on the "notebook" aspect of Fronts vs the thematic assembly aspect.  They're related in whatever way makes sense to you when you're creating them.  It's assumed that there's a reason all the dangers belong to the same Front.  As you say, it's easy for a dungeon but less so for a campaign.  It's meant to be that way, as the Campaign Front doesn't get created completely upfront.  It gathers all the unused or unresolved elements of the Dungeon Fronts.  It collects the things that lurk in the background.  They can be tightly knit, if you like (if all your Dungeon Fronts contain, say, connections to the same primary Danger from your Campaign Front) or the Campaign Front can just be a loose collection of leftovers.  It's intentionally left unstructured to allow flexibility.

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And without the "overall countdown" and "dark future" equivalents, it feels like the front isn't really "unified" (dramatically, if not fictionally).

Dark Future = Impending Doom.  It's the bad thing that will happen unless something gets in the way.  Dungeon and Campaign Fronts include Stakes questions, Impending Doom and Grim Portents to thematically assemble the Front based on the dangers that make it up.  All the Dangers in the Front contribute to and, ultimately, exist to make the Impending Doom come to pass.  The Doom wouldn't exist as a possibility in the world without the Dangers to act as the instrument of that Doom.

Re: Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2011, 12:48:42 PM »
Ok, that makes a difference.  The text makes it sound like each Danger gets its own Grim Portents and Impending Doom.

Re: Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2011, 01:52:33 PM »
I had a thought regarding "Impending Doom". I know it's supposed to be what happens if the dungeon is ignored, but sometimes I tend to treat it as how the Dungeon escalates it threat level, even as it's being explored, such as "the ritual begins", or "the volcano begins to erupt." I think of it as a holding place for things that might (or might not) happen depending if the dungeon is ignored or how it's approached.

Re: Fronts, Dangers, Portents and Dooms
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2011, 01:30:57 PM »
I had a thought regarding "Impending Doom". I know it's supposed to be what happens if the dungeon is ignored, but sometimes I tend to treat it as how the Dungeon escalates it threat level, even as it's being explored, such as "the ritual begins", or "the volcano begins to erupt." I think of it as a holding place for things that might (or might not) happen depending if the dungeon is ignored or how it's approached.

That's actually a really good point, Tony.  The Impending Doom, for me, was inspired primarily from that bit in Dogs in the Vineyard where Vx talks about "what would happen to the town in the Dogs never came?" and so I spun it out from there.

Really, though, the simplest way of looking at it is "What happens when things get worse because of this thing."  You can scale Impending Doom up or down based on your needs.