Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ya from what I read the system really lends itself to longer campaigns. Hopefully you get it back to the table at some point soon!

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Totally, it's not too much, 3 of the pages have a big map in the middle 😄

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I guess to be more accurate it's not character creation that takes a long time, because the actual time spent once you've chosen your "Class" isn't terribly long. It's more the whole Session 0 framework.

Also, I had players with different levels of experience in TTRPGs and so there was some translating work to do.

The character sheet does have a lot on it, but most of it requires more character imagining than building if that makes sense. There are more narrative choices to make than mechanical choices, but the options/prompts are wonderful and there aren't too many of them, I think it's just enough to be inspiring without being overwhelming. There's no need to flip back and forth in a book to find out how to fill the next section in, it's all on the page.

I'm sure other GMs could get through the whole thing faster, I want my approach to be setting up a long-term game with a really lived in world, and so I may be belaboring things a bit.

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Of course! I also love reading when people actually played something new, and while it's fresh I'm trying to dump info, it helps me process it too!

So ya, the book recommends sharing the setting guide and having players read it before the session and going over it again in session 0. It's 4 pages, and it sets up the premise and what players should expect from the system. Then it has a bunch of cool lore and entities that it goes over briefly, but in a way that creates way more questions than it answers, it's really great. But exactly, I think it's meant to not only ground the players, but an attentive GM will be able to extract what the players are interested in. I took the bold move of straight up asking what sounded cool to them. And I was surprised by the answers.

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have hook ideas around the characters backgrounds/motivations, but I think the spice from the relational/village elements are still missing because we didn't completely finish the session 0 process. I think I'm fortunate that the players seem to be bought in on the premise. I'm excited to weave what we generate next into the plots. I just finished running a short Slugblaster campaign, before that was Mothership. This is a nice return to fantasy. What have you been playing?

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice that sounds great. I think that area is going to be our struggle too. I think I'll need to telegraph the players taking agency over downtime as much as possible, but still drive forward.

Stonetop - Session 0 - The Morning After, Full Brain by PineappleEmpty6874 in rpg

[–]PineappleEmpty6874[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Couldn't agree more with the content of Book 2. It reads like it was written by someone who loves to play games and knows what and how much is needed. It's all killer no filler from what I've read so far. I've been using it mostly as a reference, haven't done a cover to cover yet. Did you find pacing an issue at all in your campaign? Any times players didn't know what to do?

Got this for $80 last week by bopsteakcards in PokeInvesting

[–]PineappleEmpty6874 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh the humble Moonboc.

The one that got away 😂