Written January 19, 2025 in 14 minutes as part of the Gentle Games Habit
Perhaps less a game at this point, more a structure for an RPG - as presented can be used with another system.
The game will be played with 2 sessions more than the number of players. The first and last session are two parts of an encounter with some sort of threat - could be a villain, the development of a technology, a political event, a monster. Between these sessions, each session is a flashback to the past, centering one of the characters.
Hold a "Session Zero" with your players. Do the following.
- Make characters using your game system. When making characters, give the characters a shared history together - could be family members, escaped prisoners, criminals, heroes, or anything else you choose. But they have history and reason to be together (this keeps characters involved in all flashback sessions).
- For each character, pose a binary question about the character. This question will get answered during this character's flashback session. Make the question about the character's values: Is Bingus the Gnome a family man or a loner? Does Bingus care more about money or people?
- As a group, collaboratively describe the main threat, and why each character is invested in it - this could be to thwart it, or possibly to support it.
- Come up with a binary question about the threat. It'll probably be: does the threat come to pass? But feel free to get clever.
First session (could be held immediately after Session Zero):
- Frame this first session to be in the action.
- End at the point when the question is clearly up for grabs.
For each character, hold a Flashback sessions:
- These sessions take place in the past (as compared to the first/last sessions).
- Frame the session such that it will put the character in a situation that answers the character's question.
- All characters can and should be involved in the story.
- End the session when the character has made a choice revealing their value.
Final session:
- Return to the initial conflict.
- Hold a scene where the character's can plan and discuss what they'd like to do.
- Play the story out so we can discover how the story ends.