It is a Saturday night at Diversions Tabletop Cafe in Coralville, Iowa. I had only three hours to teach the rules and run a one-shot adventure highlighting all the cool aspects of Honorbound;
- Cultural worldbuilding
- Introducing personal Untold Stories
- The All For One! Climax
- [Buy it here! Marketing obligation done…]
Halfway through the En Media Res scene one of the players hit all of us with a “Woah, this is how this begins?!”
The Art of the Escapade
Scripting dynamic shortform one-shots takes a balance of a provocative situation, invoking thematic tropes with strong prompts, and buy-in on the part of the players. In Honorbound there are two types of adventures; your normal 2-3 session adventures and Escapades. During campaigns, Escapades are used to disrupt the regular flow for a burst of story changing conflict usually engineered by the big baddie in the story.
Escapade Differences
- Short, done in 3 hours or 2-3 total scenes
- Player agency is removed during the setup
- The action begins in the middle of the first scene
- Which requires the En Media Res Table
Provocative Situations
I am a firm believer in the axiom you can not start too big. We play games to do big things and feel deeply. We open so many of our games with low stake options. A good escapade skips this strait into characters making weighty decisions while their hair is on fire.
Straight Forward Simple Stakes
Players will respond to this a lot better if they know the stakes ahead of time. It has to begin with a simple mission goal. Do X so Y can or can not happen. The chaos will spiral soon enough!
Easy to Understand Mission Goals
- Steal the blueprints so a militia can’t build mechs
- Deliver a message to stay the execution/exile of a family member
- Escort food cargo to a starving planet
- Be the first to explore an unknown sector for the fame
- Prove yourself innocent from being framed of a crime
Dynamic Introduction
Now put the characters in the middle of a scene where inaction is not a choice. Either they must do something or they will most likely die, imprisoned, or exiled. The danger should be immediate and hopefully a shock to the system.
Examples
- The characters have set off an alarm and pinned down by mechs as they are calling for help
- Characters are running up the steps of the Imperial Courthouse to interrupt the trial
- Rot Weevils are attacking the cargo as the ship is crashing towards planetside
- Caught in a cat and mouse race between asteroid fields propelled by Essence
- The characters are caught red handed in the prince’s tower bedroom delivering a letter, guards are shooting first and asking questions later
Honorbound En Media Res
In order to accelerate into the ‘good stuff’ the story needs to be fleshed out and feel worn in. This is accomplished by providing strong prompts linked to the Media Res table. I did this to seed the meta pools and give the players the opportunity to take back some control of their fate.
Prompts by Trope
These are set up as assigned skill actions to tell the story of how the players got to where they are. To make a good prompt they need to be thematic, attached to a skill, and vague enough to allow the players to shape the ongoing narrative without going offscript.
Imagine the part in the movie that highlights each character as they do their part to fulfill the first part of a mission based on stakes and goal. Early escapades have prewritten prompts ready to go for the players. Over time, they will become unnecessary as players get used to the format and quickly make up their own prompts.
Example Prompts to get to the inner sanctum for a heist
Who gets past the front desk? Charm or Command
Who disables the alarm? Skullduggery or Crew
Who finds the secret entrance? Explore or Inquiry
Who bypasses the Essence field? Lore or Weave
Example Prompts to find themselves in the middle of a mask ball
Who recreates an invitation? Crew or Weave
Who misdirects the actual real invited people? Charm or Skullduggery
Who learns the local custom to signal for a dance? Inquiry or Lore
Who allows you to go around metal detectors? Command or Explore
The Honorbound En Media Res Table
After a prompt is taken the player chooses how risky their part of the mission has been so far. Narratively the players have already succeeded. This is just a measure of how well they did it and helps seed the meta point pools.
The scale ranges from the very risk averse at 7 to those with a thrilling lust for life at 17. If the player “fails” the roll they lose Vitality equal to the difference. A character cannot die but can be reduced to 1 Vitality, most likely setting them up for death when the scene finally begins…
Typically Honorbound players choose a prompt that falls in their wheelhouse with a large dice pool. It is worth reminding players they do not start with ANY Saga Points and the table only gives them Saga Points AFTER the roll. However, any Saga Points gained from the rule of 1 and 6 still apply.
| Target Number | Earned Saga Points | Tension Points Given |
| 7 | 0 | 5 |
| 9 | 1 | 4 |
| 11 | 2 | 3 |
| 13 | 3 | 2 |
| 15 | 4 | 1 |
| 17 | 5 | 0 |
Prepare What To Do With All That Tension
There will be a surplus of tension going into the very first scene. What I like to do is have a list of at least four complications that cost 5 Tension ready to be built into the scene. If you are feeling ambitious, write a list of six and put them in a randomized table and roll, spending 5 Tenses for each roll.
Example List for Mission 5 from above as the Prince gives you a message to be delivered to his Amor
- Add X guards, X=number of characters
- One of the characters has the Nude condition, -2 dice until clothed
- The moat below is infested with Giant Lamprey Eels (monster)
- The Prince demands to be taken by the characters
- Panache Peril 9 or become Smitten, Panache requests are doubled from the Prince
- The letter releases a Wits Peril 12 Hex in the area
Player Buy-In
The hardest part of an Honorbound Escapade is player buy-in. They gave up character agency and put them in mortal danger. The mission, stakes, and risk is a LOT to ask. Start with escapades that are completely above board with tropes everyone would want to do.
Like deliver aid to the disenfranchised or steal technology from a known evil guild. Save the morally ambiguous scenarios until later. And no one likes to be duped into doing bad deeds. Trust can only be earned over time.
Running Naked
WARNING: Improv is not for the faint of heart!
To guarantee player buy-in, allow the players to write the mission plot points at the beginning. Start with a simple idea like; steal a gem from a rival guild. Go around the table and have the players fill in the stakes, who is involved, and what they would like to experience. By the time the players also introduce their Untold Stories the adventure takes a life of its own.
The first scene is fairly easy. The hardest part is landing the final scene with a satisfactory climax. The end goal should become apparent pretty early. Take cues from the player created scene as they recover and do research. Working together it is possible to craft a finale with clear stakes, reasonable (or unreasonable) obstacles, with a satisfactory Honorbound climax as they shout, All for One!