Workshop my Front with me?

I have a difficult time writing Fronts, both in AW and DW. I think this is because I am often missing that "sweet spot" where Dooms, Portents, and Stakes need to be, and I'm left with a series of events that don't hang together.

Here's where the first session left us: the characters come to a bustling town just on the other side of the mountains from a vast empire. The valley below is littered with dungeons from Ancient Times(TM). There is a violent priesthood wiping out a pacifist sect. There's too many people in town, come to seek their fortunes by plundering the dungeons. There's an ancient evil that's going to enslave the world in one of those dungeons. And before the characters can dispose of it, they need a lantern and a key.

So, here's what I have.

Front: The Compact of Dul'zeem

Description: Long ago, the demon tyrant Dul'zeem made a covenant with Humans, and it is soon drawing to its end. When Dul'zeem returns, the world will be plunged into a hellish tyranny. The demon tyrant is unwittingly worshipped as Bellagis the Gore Lord by a militant sect. Meanwhile, Dul'zeem's two servitors, Hexpus and Hamilthar, prepare the way for their overlord's return.

Cast
Hexpus, the Fear Worm (disguised as Emin, a timid locksmith)
Hamilthar, the Shadow Vizier, torn to pieces and being reassembled by goblins
Morgus, Sainted Agonist of the Gore Lord
Bishop Xanthar, a gluttonous official of the Imperial Cult
Screable, goblin orkaster and thrall of Hamilthar
Krumx, Stab-Bringer of the goblins of the valley

Grim Portents
- Goblin Spikers get more aggressive
- Sun Monks are hunted down
- Panic spreads through town
- Screable is possessed
- Goblin slavers raid the town
- The Eye is Found (optional: Hamilthar is remade & The Valley becomes a Shadowland)
- Hexpus receives the Eye
- Father Calin is captured
- Hexpus crafts the Key of Fear
- Father Calin is delivered to the Gore Lord's Maw
- The Great Conjunction begins

Danger: The Priests of Bellagis (Religious Organization)
impulse: to establish & follow doctrine
Doom: The doctrine of bloodlust and war is unchecked and security lost (Impoverishment)

Stakes:
- Can any of the priests be reasoned with?
- Is Morgus all he appears to be? More? Less?

Grim Portents
- Sun Monks are hunted down
- Father Calin is captured
- Father Calin is delivered to the Gore Lord's Maw (i.e., Dul'zeem's prison)

Danger: Hamilthar's Cage (Abandoned Tower)
impulse: to draw in the weak-willed
Doom: Mists fill the valley, making it trebly dangerous. (Usurpation)

Stakes:
- Will Krumx turn against Screable?
- What happens to Hamilthar if he is not remade?

Grim Portents
- Goblin Spikers get more aggressive
- Screable is possessed
- Goblin slavers raid the town
- The Eye is found
- Hamilthar is remade
- The Valley becomes a Shadowland (create a new Front: The Valley of Hamilthar)

Danger: The Key of Fear (Demon Prince)
impulse: to open the gates of Hell (i.e., to free Dul'zeem)
Doom: Dul'zeem rises, the Compact ends, and the Empire is plunged into a thousand years of demonic rule. (Tyranny)

Stakes:
- What kinds of fear does Hexpus revel in?
- Will Hexpus be defeated or merely thwarted?

Grim Portents
- Panic spreads through town
- Hexpus receives the Eye
- Hexpus crafts the Key of Fear
- The Great Conjunction begins

* * * * *

Problems I think I'm having:

1. The overall order of Grim Portents doesn't flow from one to the next. Like, it's not necessary for there to be panic for Screable to get possessed.

2. I think some of those Portents should be rewritten, but I don't know to what. They feel off, but I don't know what that aforementioned "sweet spot" is, so I'm left with a vague sense that they're not working.

3. The Portents from each Danger aren't evenly distributed. I feel like this will make Dangers feel disconnected or obsolete when they should still be in your face.

4. The fact that the town is bursting at the seams and there are bunches of dungeons in the valley make me feel like I should write another Front about the Imperials' foolish treasure-hunting that would be really cool to run concurrently to the Compact of Dul'zeem. But I also like spinning plates. Is this ever advisable?

5. What are some "best practices" for writing Fronts, Dangers, Portents, Dooms etc. so that I can do this with less agony in the future?

Edited to put in Stakes Questions.

You've got some good ideas in there, so don't sweat it too much. I definitely saw this list, though, and it kinda seemed like you're pre-writing things:

Grim Portents
- Goblin Spikers get more aggressive
- Sun Monks are hunted down
- Panic spreads through town
- Screable is possessed
- Goblin slavers raid the town
- The Eye is Found (optional: Hamilthar is remade & The Valley becomes a Shadowland)
- Hexpus receives the Eye
- Father Calin is captured
- Hexpus crafts the Key of Fear
- Father Calin is delivered to the Gore Lord's Maw
- The Great Conjunction begins

 Plus some of the entries, like "Hexpus receives the Eye" aren't so much Portents, they're just the natural extension of what's going down. The idea is that these Grim Portents hint at the dark future to come, while giving the PCs clues on how to stop it. They're not just a list of planned events.

How about something like this: the situation as it already stands is that the Goblin Spikers are getting more aggressive. Panic begins to spread; that's a natural result. No need to list those. If Screable is gonna be possessed and the characters have no way of knowing or stopping this, then just have that begin the whole thing. Does his possession cause him to lead the goblins against the town? If so, then you start hinting at what's coming.

- The local goblins begin worshipping a strange new god, after Screable is possessed.
- Screable's goblins step up their raiding in the surrounding areas, growing bolder
- Goblin slavers raid the town in force, ruining everything in their path
- The Eye is Found (how do we know this? what changes? tell us what the PCs will see)
- An important local npc is captured and delivered to Gore Lord's Maw
- The Great Conjunction begins

This is just a rough idea, without knowing too much about the events and kinda off the top of my head. The main thing to remember is that each Portent should hint at the next one, and give the PCs a chance to change things. Don't pre-plan a storyline, remember?

Instead of "Father Calin" is captured, I suggest leaving it open: The goblins need a sacrifice. Who will it be? Then it becomes a Stakes question and can be much more interesting- make the sacrifice whoever the PCs care about most. Now that's exciting!

That's my two cents, hope it help.

Travatar! First of all, you have a bevy of marvellous ideas. Second, this process should be Fun! (not agonising).

My advice would be to pare back a little. Don't plan so much. Leave blanks and allow the players to push the story in the direction they want. Agressively frame a scene and develop your front and dangers  around that.

I think your portents are fine! Just as Scrape suggests, find the kernel of inevitable doom that will happen if the players do nothing and portend that. Its that simple.

Your dangers are very evocative! Though I would start with one or two and keep the others 'up your sleeve' to introduce later as the players immerse themselves in this rather enticing frontier dungeon world.

They have recently arrived in town yeah? Put them in a spot where the priests are enslaving NPCs known to the players, what do they do? Answers to stakes are answered at locations suggested by your dangers. Be transparent with the players about this. Give them a difficult choice with consequences about where they will adventure next, and thus allow the portents of the neglected front to come to fruition.

Let us know how it goes!

Thanks! This is great stuff! And I'm glad you enjoyed my ideas!

You both helped me see how my Portents are not player-facing. I've been writing them from an omniscient perspective, because that's how I imagined the instructions to think of how events would unfold if the characters weren't involved. I mean, if the PCs aren't involved, why write, "There is an unholy thundering from the valley as Hamilthar is remade"? (That's rhetorical - I get it's because the GM needs to announce this badness and the PCs being uninvolved is just a conceit. Still, it thew me.)

I'm still having trouble seeing where I'm pre-planning. I can feel the difference between what I've done and what you're suggesting instead. I'm having trouble reconciling how to get from the events of the first session to "and now goblins are getting more aggressive," since there were no goblins introduced yet.

So, let's take the Eye of Hamilthar. If the Eye is found and placed back in Hamilthar's body, he'll arise and the whole valley will become a Shadowland. That's an Impending Doom, right? Leading up to that, the goblins get more aggressive, because Krumx isn't happy with Screable's leadership and also because they need slaves to dig for the Eye. If they find it, Screable will reassemble Hamilthar, and the valley will become a Shadowland (Doom!).

Either way, the rediscovery of the Eye activates Hexpus, who needs it to make the Key. And all the while the Priests of Bellagis are hunting down the Sun Monks, because the former are evil murdering jerks.

The pressure as we left it at the end of session is that the PCs need to find the Contract before the Great Conjunction in a week's time. So, what would you do?

I guess I'm wondering "how will thePCs know that the Eye is discovered?" Is this something they can find out about and stop from happening? I always use Fronts as signals for the PCs to do something, and the Portents are signs that they failed to stop something preventable.

Maybe the goblins start poking around, looking for the Eye? This gives the players a chance to figure out what they're looking for and discover it first.

The"prewriting" comment was mostly me looking at "the Father is kidnapped" and wondering if shouldn't be so set in stone. Someone has to kidnapped, but I thought it was a better Stakes question to make it more personal.

This sounds like you've got a lot of good threats going, this is good stuff.

Thanks! All these threats evolved from a Dungeon Starter I'm working on, and four very enthusiastic players! I'm really excited for the next session!

I meant to say that the insight about Father Calin is solid. There is already some investment in him (a PC paladin of a related order, they already protected Calin from the Priests, and he used some spectacular healing mojo on them). But that absolutely should not mean that he's the one that has to get sacrificed. I think I was leaping at the most obvious candidate, rather than letting the fiction decide. I'm going to rework that.

Your question about how the PCs will learn the Eye is discovered may be near the heart of my problem. So, they could decide not to go to the dungeon where Screable and the Eye are located and instead pursue something else. In that case, I'd just keep lobbing portents at them - reports of increased goblin aggression, raid on the town, some spooky event heralding the Eye's discovery. At that point, f they make aheadlong rush after the Eye, they'd arrive dramatically at the Remaking Ritual. But, they could have just as well chosen to follow the spikers back to the dungeon or gone off to seek after those who were kidnapped.

So, on the one hand, I'm like, "No, just point them at the dungeon straightaway, because that's where the drama is!" And on the other hand, I'm like, "If I give out a few goblin-related portents, the players can decide if this is the Danger they want to pursue." And so, I'm feeling kinda damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don't. Does that make sense?

This is where the agony arises. I obviously love coming up with setting ideas and the components of a Front. But I seem to misunderstand how to translate them into the AW/DW formula.

So, they could decide not to go to the dungeon where Screable and the Eye are located and instead pursue something else. In that case, I'd just keep lobbing portents at them - reports of increased goblin aggression, raid on the town, some spooky event heralding the Eye's discovery. At that point, f they make aheadlong rush after the Eye, they'd arrive dramatically at the Remaking Ritual. But, they could have just as well chosen to follow the spikers back to the dungeon or gone off to seek after those who were kidnapped.

That sounds perfect. You aren't telling them a preplanned story remember? So if they go off after the spikers or seek the kidnapped folks (hopefully those near and dear to them), when they return to town which is now a shadowland with a whole bevy of new and interesting adventures to be had!

If on the other hand they go after the eye and Screable, have the goblins take over the town, have the kidnapped folks never seen again and somehow blame the characters.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't :)

I like that, Noofy! So, are you suggesting that the goblins and the Eye should be separate Dangers? Or are you saying that the goblins might develop into a separate Danger, depending on what the party does?

So, I reworked some stuff, and here's the new list of Grim Portents:


- Goblin slavers attack the tent town, carrying off hostages to their lair
- Hexpus fans the flames of panic, growing stronger as the people wonder who will be taken next
- The Priests seize on the town’s confusion to hunt down the Sun Monks
- The Valley falls into an unnatural darkness as the Eye is found
- The Priests offer a sacrifice to the darkness: A Radiant Brother is found blood-eagled
- Preying on the growing hopelessness in Highstone, Hexpus crafts the Key of Despair
- Morgus captures [an Important NPC] in the name of Bellagis
- Screable remakes Hamilthar, which transforms the Valley into a Shadowland (create a new Front: The Valley of Hamilthar)
- Morgus delivers [an Important NPC] to the Gore Lord's Maw (i.e., Dul'zeem's prison)
- The Great Conjunction begins

Another thing I did was to disconnect the Hexpus Danger more by making it so he wasn't waiting around for the Hamilthar thing to play out. Now, he has his own agenda: to spread fear in the town so he can create the Key of Despair (oooOOOoooo - spooky!). Like noofy wisely said, this will mean the players have three different irons in the fire, and the Dangers they aren't pursuing will advance - towards Drama! (And Doom.)

It's not quite fun yet, this Front thing, but I am starting to see how it can be!

Another thing I did was to disconnect the Hexpus Danger more by making it so he wasn't waiting around for the Hamilthar thing to play out. Now, he has his own agenda: to spread fear in the town so he can create the Key of Despair

This is key! Think of your NPCs and Threats as individual entities. Sure they may have simple desires or instincts, but they pursue them, whether the players intervene is why you play to see what happens.

Also, Chatty DM was rather influential with his Blog Post back in 2010 on Fronts and Dungeons. Still worth a read and it may help get your head around dungeon prep using the front model.
http://critical-hits.com/2010/09/24/re-examining-the-dungeon-section-factions-and-fronts/

Travatar, that second list of Grim Portents seems a lot better. I tend to view Grim Portents not so much as the steps in the villain's plan, but as the obvious and visible consequences of those steps, the big warning sign that things are starting to go wrong, that give a hint to how things might get worse and how they might be prevented.