Brainer Love Letter (redone)

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Brainer Love Letter (redone)
« on: November 10, 2014, 03:35:38 PM »
Looking for feedback.  I'm trying to flesh out the world a little, and create some characters the players have some relation to.

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Smith, you're an interesting guy, and you've led an interesting life.  You've been out and about this world, meeting new and interesting people, and putting your creepy Brainer charm on them.
Choose one or two (your choice) Prominent People in the world. (there's a list) You automatically get 3 hold on them, as if you've rolled In-Brain Puppet-Strings.  Tell me what the command was, and why they will not or have not shaken the holds.
In addition, roll +Weird.  On a 7-9 Pick one different option for each person you selected.  On a Fail, do the same thing, but add one more option.
?   You have an old wound from this person that you've been hiding, take 1 harm.
?   The person, and their people, are hostile to you.
?   They have something you want, and they know it.
?   You'll take -1 to every roll when acting against their interests.
?   There's tons of Maelstrom interference.  Take -1 Weird for the rest of this session.
?   Nothing's feels real, except that creepy Brainer part of you.  Take -1 to all your stats (except Weird) this session.


Prominent People
?   Captain Rothschild - Leader of Poundtown.  He's the guy trying to get that boat going, and get the fuck outta here.
?   Deputy Amp - Chief of the Police in Poundtown.  He wants to loot and enslave the area, and add it to Poundtown's influence.
?   Dawson - Rich sonaofbitch.  Husband to your Sarah-chick who tried killing you. He's throwing money around, trying to get more of the area under his thumb.
?   The Shepherd - Leader of the Luddites.  He wants to kill or disable all the tech in the region.
?   King Xander - Leader of the chopper-gang The Avalanches.  Up in the mountains. They've got a tank.  They want to carve themselves an empire.
?   Dr. Blue - A military scientist in some fancy place of science.  Researching the Bubbles.  She wants to bring them down, or find out what happened.
?   Rattle - One of the cut-throat kids in Playboy's gang. He'll have ambition.
*none of these people have come up yet - I'll be sure to do it this game or next.

*

As If

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Re: Brainer Love Letter (redone)
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2014, 08:06:19 PM »
I think the idea of the NPC list is a brilliant way to get a player involved in an existing campaign.  Some encapsulated history doesn't hurt either.  I think the history options are good, but I might add one or two which are less entirely negative: "You simply find them interesting and enjoy tailing them" for instance, or "You're pretty sure they have a major secret, but you don't know what it is."  If you're worried about those options being always chosen, you could drop the number of holds to 1 or 2 for those.

Re: Brainer Love Letter (redone)
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2014, 10:34:19 AM »
Had my game a few days ago.  The player loved the LL.  He needed some time to figure out what the In Brain Puppet Strings command was to two of the Prominent People (Dr. Blue, and King Bert respectively), to which I said that was alright - we haven't met them, or know their deal.  Take all the time you need.

The Brainer player then came up with something fiendish for Dr. Blue (deciding he commanded Dr Blue to not research the Bubbles anymore, because he liked the status quo, and didn't want the post-apocalypse to change).  He hadn't decided on anything for King Bert in the session. 

And because the Brainer specifically chose those two people, I hit the players really hard from both Fronts the Prominent People represented.  Looks like a game is taking shape!

Re: Brainer Love Letter (redone)
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2014, 12:48:05 PM »
As If---

Yeah, I could have had a more "low-key" kind of person.  The Brainer player really likes playing around with other characters like that.