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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Wordmaker on April 03, 2013, 02:36:59 PM
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I've already mentioned my idea for my On The Run campaign, in which the PCs will be fleeing the Wardens and trying to clear their names.
I'm coming up with ideas for additional core elements of the campaign's plot and in particular, trying to give them a goal beyond simply staying a step ahead of the White Council.
In addition to trying to clear their names, the group is going to have the chance to get their hands on a map of America, only the map is enchanted. At the moment I'm thinking of it highlighting possible trouble spots or areas of magical power, essentially a narrative excuse to draw them to the next town. If that's all it is, then I don't think it needs any mechanics behind it, but I was wondering if I should do anything more with it? Should it have locations of hidden demonic prisons? Gateways into the Never Never? Should I factor in mechanics or a skill roll for its use?
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Might want to add mechanics to keep your players from messing with it. Give it a massive power level perhaps?
I wouldn't map out gateways to the nevernever, it wouldn't make sense. You can make a portal anywhere. I'd stick more to safe houses and shortcuts - places where a path to get from one place to the next starts, or else avoid the fuzz for a little bit of time. Theoretically, you could have it mark out interesting spots (McGuffins) as you go, but I could see a lot of stories coming up with this sort of tool without it mapping out anything too crazy - Other supernatural drifters trying to steal it, races to the next port of safe harbour, etc.
Interesting idea though, I really like it!
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Perhaps the map should involve ley lines and ley line wells. Perhaps the big bad that they are chasing framed them for poisoning a well somehow, and his Evil Plan involves somehow tainting all the ley lines in the country, manipulating them somehow for his nefarious plot.
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Thanks. I'm still mulling over specifics, but I do want there to be a reason why others would want to steal the map for themselves.
I could tie it to the PCs' Aspects? Maybe it shows people what they want/need to see, so a teenage runaway might be shown the location of a shelter or even the fastest route home, while someone with a serious injury might be shown the closest hospital?
Ley lines are always fun! And definitely a map of the country's ley lines would be very valuable.
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First, I really like the idea. I have this old cliché western opener in my head, where the map burns away from the inside to reveal the first scene. Maybe the map changes in a similar way, burning away parts to replace them with new ones, depending on what the characters want or need.
Second, I think it really depends on what you want to do with the map. At first glance, it sounds like a plot device, and if you don't want to restrict yourself too much, just leave it at that. You can declare things on it if you want to force the players somewhere, and the players can declare things on it to help them out of trouble.
On the other hand, you could make the map an item of power on a "group character". You make a virtual character that represents the whole group of characters. Everything they have as a group is represented in that character. The map would be an item of power with worldwalking, probably. Maybe some minor powers to do with divination and such as well.
You might want to think about who created the map, and why. Was it an attempt to make a map of entrances to the nevernever? A way to keep track of the biggest nasties, so the wardens in the new world were able to hunt them down? Was the map created to be one thing only or to be adaptable to the needs of whoever holds it? Maybe there are additional items that can unlock different functions of the map, like special lenses you have to look through, and the map gives clues to where to find or how to create those lenses. Or the map might alter their ways through the nevernever to draw them to one of those lenses, in order to give them access to a place they need to be. Maybe there is a bob-like spirit bound to it, only it can't communicate directly with the owner of the map.
Sorry for the disorder, once my mind goes into brainstorming mode, it is hard to keep track. ???
Hope there is something in there you can use.
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Thinking more on the ley line poisoning idea (if you choose to go that way): I could see it being an interesting focus for a campaign. While the "stop the ley line from being tainted/cleanse the ley line" might seem like a one trick pony that would get tired, I think not.
Ley lines all represent different flavors of energy. Perhaps tainting Ley Line A requires a different method than tainting Ley Line B. Ley Line A might be a pure vein of earth magic, and tainting it might involve toxic wastes of some sort, and Ley Line B might be a river of protective magic. Tainting Ley Line B might involve brutalizing something that's always been protected or that should be protected. Similarly cleansing these lines would require something "in flavor".
In this way the players might have a basic idea of what they need to do "preventative or damage control", but have to figure out how to do those things differently at each location.
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Oh, hell yes! I love the imagery of lines and words burning themselves into the map as it gives information. That's going in!
There could be more tools to go with the map! Special lenses, sure. But also a compass, maybe.
At first I was thinking this would be a modern-looking map with proper geo survey information on it, but the more I think about it, I think it should be older, maybe 18th century. Far more accurate than any normal map of the time, but still ancient.
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Heres another bit of idea - Why give them a whole map? Pieces of a map can be just as interesting if not more so. Maybe their quest involves "repairing the map". They may have to look for local genus loci and do favors in order for the entity to "fill in" the area of the map that it knows.
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And the pieces can appear from flame or attach to the rest of the map with fire burning along the edges? That could be cool.
Gives the campaign a sort of treasure-hunting feel. They'd need to find out how many pieces of the map are out there, who has them, and what they'd be willing to do to get more.
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Giving the map some history could be cool too, like maybe it's the original by Lewis and Clarke or some other famous explorer, or pirates or what have you.
Shoot, the map could also have an agenda, not necessarily a bad one either.
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Uh, the map in pieces is an awesome idea as well. If you add to that my spirit being inside the map idea, it could be that the being itself was torn apart when the map was severed, and each part of the being holds a distinct part of its knowledge. So each part of the map would give you a bigger map where you can look things up and also new knowledge about the parts you already have.
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Freaking genius, you guys!
Is there anything in Dresdenverse canon about a person's actual soul being trapped in an item? Sure, their ghost could haunt an object or a spirit of some kind could reside in an item, but what about a person's fundamental essence?
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Indirectly, yes. The Denarians are after all Fallen Angels. We know from bob that Angels are made from nothing but soul, and since the Denarians are trapped in the coins, we know souls trapped in objects are possible.
Also, I would be very surprised if there wasn't at least one lich (which has lots of historical mythology around it) existing in the Dresdenverse.
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By careful making the content of the map too open-ended. I mean, if these guys are on the run but have a map that tells them exactly when their pursuers get close, it wont be that hard for them to stay a step ahead. The more powerful it is the more specific you will want to get with it's limitations.
Id consider defining precisely where the Map gets its info. If it is just showing Ley Lines and other generic metaphysical energies, it can probably tap directly into the world around it, but then it's basically a sensor, something that could be fooled. If on the other hand it is going to be interpreting the character's wants and needs and trying to show things that are more personally relevant, that says to me it would need an intelligence behind it, which could be anything from a less interactive form of Bob to angelic intervention to a direct link to the Norns or some equally loftly sponsor.
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Yeah, I want to keep the pressure on as regards needing to keep a step ahead of the Wardens. So far the group hasn't said they want to be charged with particularly awful violations of the Laws (an enchanted item of one PC used to commit a murder) so the initial Warden pursuit won't be too bad, but it'll get worse as time goes on. The Threat Aspect for the campaign is Predator And Prey, and I'll be compelling that to have Wardens show up regularly if I want to scare them into getting their act together.
If each piece of the map contains a piece of the creator's soul and knowledge, then the map's abilities could expand every time they find another one, as suggested. I'll need to decide ahead of time how many pieces there are and what each piece does, so that it can't be used to keep the players safe, but rather leads them to the next important thing they have to deal with.
And of course, magic like this is pretty powerful. The only thing we've directly seen in the books that involves a soul inside an object are the Denarian coins, so something big would be keeping an eye on the map.
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To add an air of uncertainty, I'd go with this instead of a map in many pieces: A large map with a few large holes in it.
This way its not a "we have a single scrap and there are fifteen others we need to find", and it doesn't give the players a "He must be heading to the next missing section!"
I'd find a few maps online, draw a bunch of ley lines and interesting notes on it, and then print out like ten copies.
Then start cutting them to bits. Look to create missing sections which could lead to uncertainty as to the next destination, where the players have two, three or four options on which way to go.
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Now that's a really nice idea. I do love props and bits in my games.
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Have you ever seen CutThroat Island? From the point of view of interesting and creative Treasure Maps its a great one. Also just a damn good pirate flick. But if you look at how that map was put together it might spark an idea or two
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I have, yes!
Hmm, a map made from human flesh, you say? That's nice and dark.
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If you want the prop to look nice try this:
Get some beige or brownish paper, something which looks weathered. Print out your map.
Then smash it into a paper ball. Flatten out it, smash it some more. Do this like 10 times, differently each time. Fold it over a few different ways, rubbing it against itself to wear it down even more, be prepared for the details you printed out to fade and scratch away. Then, and this is the "dangerous part", grab a bic lighter.
Now get something reasonably heavy and flat, like a skillet or pan or somesuch. Scorch the edges of the paper and then set the flat heavy thing on it to snuff out the flames. Repeat as desired, try some burns in the middle of the map too.
If you have an old fountainpen you can intentionally splatter some ink in an artful fashion, and you might consider dripping some metled candle wax artfully as well.
I've done this a few times for my homebrew fantasyland maps and it always turns out pretty nice.
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If I had better handwriting to mark in notes and such I'd totally do this.
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If handwriting is a concern, look for the "Dear Joe" font, which I like for a nice stylistic look. Open your image editor and start typing out "notes". You can flip them any which way you like.
http://fontm.com/dear-joe-four-font/
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If you are really going to make the map, the best results with brown paper I had was to take a regular sheet of printing paper, rumple it up and let it soak in cold coffee for a few hours. The coffee will get into the creases and darken them more, while the rest of the map becomes dark as well. Once you're done, carefully straighten it out again and let it dry, then, before it is completely dry, put it under a thin towel and carefully iron it to make it completely straight again. It looks really great afterwards, and you can print on it, if you did it right. Or draw with a fountain pen, of course. :)
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I have, yes!
Hmm, a map made from human flesh, you say? That's nice and dark.
Well, yes, indeed, but also that there were three parts that were all different (paper, wooden barrel plank, and a tattoo) and each of them had an X marked, and other hidden clues, but the real location was only visible when all three were brought together.
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If the map is made of human flesh and it contains fragments of some dude's soul it could easily be the phylactery of a lich.
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or a horcrux.... :P
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I think the first story arc will feature the players needing to steal the map from its owner so they can use it to stop some ritual or other from being completed.
They won't learn the true significance of the map until later in the campaign.
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Holy crap. I love it. lol.
The other cool consideration is that as the map gets more powerful, avoiding the wardens gets easier, and so the focus of the campaign shifts slowly from just avoiding the Wardens to actually fighting back and proving their innocence.
Prop wise, I'm actually kinda curious to see if you couldn't have something custom made out of light brown leather and print an old worldy version of America on it, and have symbols reform on it as the map (and the soul bound to it) is slowly restored through adventures.
EDIT: You've inspired me to try and come up with some props for my game. Gotta think now! lol
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The biggest drawback to producing a prop is the same as the in-game drawback to the map's own usefulness.
Size.
I don't really have access to printing anything larger than an A4 sheet (I think that's close to "legal" in American paper sizes?), which means the map would be quite small and not very detailed.
In-game, how big would a single map need to be to provide useful information on all parts of America?
Should the map be foldable, like a modern highway road map? Or if it's in pieces, should the complete map actually be very, very large?
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Just make the map with a zoom and scroll function?
Then you can have it portray as many details as you want really while still being quite small.
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Just make the map with a zoom and scroll function?
Then you can have it portray as many details as you want really while still being quite small.
Google maps.
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Magical zoom and scroll? Yeah, that could work.
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I'd personally say the zoom has something to do with folding it: You can unfold it to look at the whole thing, or fold it down to show a particular place of interest, which makes that place appear an ideal size, even though it's not that size when folded.
The other thing I'd say is avoid letting your players use google Maps for this. Say the map is detailed differently then a traditional road map and you can have it only show the details you find relevent. After all, the inteligence from the map would likely navigate the world differently 200+ years ago: new roads have been paved, new landmarks, etc. This gives you oppertunities to add challenges that wouldn't be there otherwise.
E.g. "We're supposed to turn left at the 50' rock!" - "Wait, what? There's no rocks here!"
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I'd personally say the zoom has something to do with folding it: You can unfold it to look at the whole thing, or fold it down to show a particular place of interest, which makes that place appear an ideal size, even though it's not that size when folded.
The other thing I'd say is avoid letting your players use google Maps for this. Say the map is detailed differently then a traditional road map and you can have it only show the details you find relevent. After all, the inteligence from the map would likely navigate the world differently 200+ years ago: new roads have been paved, new landmarks, etc. This gives you oppertunities to add challenges that wouldn't be there otherwise.
E.g. "We're supposed to turn left at the 50' rock!" - "Wait, what? There's no rocks here!"
But by definition this map has to be updating itself, so it can only be so out of date. More likely it would simply ignore most things that normally show on a map, for example show natural landmarks but nothing that is man-made. Or conversely it could ignore terrain but show the relational energies of a given site (ie the things that determine where a Way would connect to)
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For any places that aren't missing using Google maps could be a pretty cool solution actually. I like to use it for finding traffic circles and other "occult" architecture from overhead and the like in case I ever want to make declarations about the uses of possible locations.
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I like the idea of the map having inconsistencies. I'll have to work that in.
We've decided to start the game in 1999, in the lead-up to the turn of the millenium, and the first story arcs will focus on the massive metaphysical renewal, and re-set, of old magics. So the map could be trying to direct them to that,
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The agenda of the map is an interesting question, I personally think that going with an entity as opposed to a person means you can have a much wider agenda then some long dead guy who's main concerns are more likely to be either out of date or rather personal. And of course either way does the maps agenda go along with the players? and if not how deceptive is it?
There is also the point connected with the actual trust worthiness of the map, what if the players don't trust it anyway? what's this a magical map? clearly it is a demon infused abomination burn it before it tricks us. plot over.
For the zoom issue is it controllable or does it just display whatever it feels is relevant?
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I was thinking that the map will direct the group to things it wants them to take on, but within reason. It won't ask them to go to Alaska if they're in Florida. The zoom feature might be based on the group's actual location.
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I was thinking that the map will direct the group to things it wants them to take on, but within reason. It won't ask them to go to Alaska if they're in Florida. The zoom feature might be based on the group's actual location.
Could also be a way of manipulating the group as well. It zooms out and shows them the road when it wants them to travel. You could have a plot point at some point about how it directed them to go to some place, then as soon as the group gets there it's trying to get them to leave... perhaps to go to some new place, or simply the objective here is already lost.
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I was thinking that the map will direct the group to things it wants them to take on, but within reason. It won't ask them to go to Alaska if they're in Florida. The zoom feature might be based on the group's actual location.
What if the centre of the map was always the maps current location. Kind of like GPS. That way you might be able to control how much they can see around them depending on how far you let them zoom out.
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I'm not sure how easy it would be to do with any map, but I'm suddenly thinking of Folded Spaces, which perhaps the map details.
The idea being that us normal folk cant get into these folded spaces, which are much bigger inside the boundaries than outside, but the Player Characters can.
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I meant the in-game characters - not the actual players.