One of the big differences is the Hotel. Does have echoes or a conscious that's looking for a power up?
To a certain degree, yes... I'm thinking of something similar to the island of Demonreach before Harry before Harry performs his Sanctum Invocation. Mainly, though, I also want to use the idea of the Hotel's
impossible layout, as -- purposefully or inadvertently -- exhibited in the movie.
It looks awesome. One question, though. Have you done character creation yet? Do you have time to do so collaboratively? Character creation would be a good time to potentially weave the PCs into the scenario's background. Maybe one or more of the PCs knows some of the lost agents. Maybe they have bonds with the town, or some of its residents. Maybe one of the PCs will actually start as a town resident, recruited into the party by necessity because of expertise/information they have that is vital to the mission's success.
I'm not saying that any of that is necessary, but it might help establish the stakes and lend some depth to the adventure, before you even start your first play session. I've had great experience with such strategies so far.
He's right.
Rescuing "generic girl that needs rescuing" in one thing.
Rescuing "My second cousin (from my background) who dated another character in his Rising Conflict and is in another character's first story while being mentioned in a third character's guest star bit" - that's another thing. Letting the PCs help define the girl who needs rescuing means that they will have an investment in saving her.
Is this intended to be a one-shot, or the beginning of a campaign? Do you expect the campaign to continue in this city, or will it move from city to city? Either way, the results will be a bit different from the 'standard' DFRPG in that the characters won't be integrated into "The City" as they normally would, but that's ok. I really like what you've got so far.
I agree with the comments above in trying to at least tie the characters into the scene via relationship with the missing group. If even one or two of the players have some connection (a friend or more than a friend), then you have some extra story potential to work with. You might consider looking at one or two of the one-shot adventures that Evil Hat has put out -- in particular the section on questions to ask the players in order to tie them into the one-shot -- and adapt the idea to your adventure.
To address these all at once:
Yes, we have done character creation (sort of... they're in the middle of via email, have finished the 5 Phases, but are still fine-tuning the wording of some of their Aspects), but no, I'm not yet looking to tie the PCs directly into this scenario. The campaign is meant to be a globe-trotting campaign, and we're using the alternate
"plot maps" method for our "city" creation.
The adventure is meant to be a one-shot adventure that acts as an introductory prelude into the rest fo the campaign. It's meant to give us all a chance to get used to the rules, before we start the game, proper. At the end of the adventure, and before we start the regular campaign, the players will have a chance to make adjustments to the their characters (even swapping them out for a completely new character)... i don't want them stuck playing a character thay're notinterested in, just because unfamiliarity with the rules allowed them to make a poor choice during PC creation.
All that to say, I'm not worried about linking them to the Agents that need to be saved... They work for the same organization as the victims, and they've been ordered to go find them and extract them. At this point, it's simply their job and we'll take it from there. I'm hoping that fallout from this first adventure turns into Aspects for the characters or for the campaign's Plot Map.
That said, that doesn't mean we can't play on the players' existing aspects (I'll find the list of them), if we can, or rig the NPCs' aspects to help string the PCs along.
In my experience Dresden really favors improvisations GMing over a more structured approach. Having a solid outline of what you want to happen, and an understanding of the capabilities of your players, is important but if you have too clear an idea of what should happen you're setting yourself up for some challenges. Improv GMing can be intimidating but Dresden really lightens the load by giving the players a level of narrative control, but if you want that to work you have to make sure you don't step on that control.
Before things start doing character creating is very important, since writing an adventure without knowing the aspects of the PCs is pretty futile. If this is the kick off to a campaign I would choose 3 or 4 of your characters and pick one aspect off their sheets that you want to have a scene to highlight. Make sure it's an aspect they came up with (some aspects on the sheet, if you work as a group, will likely be decided by committee whether that's your intention or not) and one that they seemed excited about. If you ask them for 3 uses for the aspect (something I recommend) you should be able to get an idea as to what they want to see. Be ready to roll with the punches and look into your players eyes when they say they are invoking an aspect for something other than a +2 or a re-roll, if their eyes light up, do your best not to say no.
If this is a one shot it gets more complicated, try to find a way to highly at least one of each character's aspects and if you can try to hit no more than 2 in a given scene. Specifically try to call out the aspects of the quieter players in the group, don't force them into more involvement than they are comfortable with, but show an interest in their characters awesome (which of course what their aspects are) will help them to find their best level of engagement.
So far as the specifics of your story, I'm not familiar with I6 but I would recommend as a rule to plan for at least 3 different solutions to every problem, Combat, Avoidance, or Social. Most likely whatever you come up with still won't happen, but it'll give you a good jumping off point for whatever solution they do come up with, if you know you're players well you can make these guesses more accurate, but they'll always throw your a curve ball.
Yep, that sort of stuff is all olf hat for me, but thanks for the reminder. I like having a basic outline of what's going on, maybe a breif timeline of what will happen ifthe Pcs do nothing, and then just go with the flow and react accordingly to whatever hare-brained scheme the players come up with.
In this instance, I'm trying to keep the bad guy's goal fairly simple: BCV is setting up shop in a haunted ski resort. He's trying to kidnap an Archer Foundation agent who resembles his first true love. PCs sent only to retrieve the missing agents, but may introduce other goals of their own.
My GM recently did a game that was like this in terms of its small town setting. One thing he did that I found cool was to get a map of a ski tourism town in Colorado and pictures from the actual towns' chamber of commerce online then alter/add what was needed for the story. It took the game play to a much higher level and since it was a mountain mining town, we actually ended up using more aspects of the setting and terrain. (don't ever give a wizard a mountainside of loose boulders)
That is a fantastic idea. Thanks.
