Campaign Notes 3: PrattleTech

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Last post we talked about framing. Narrative framing! Not, like, the framing of a picture of your first dog Chelsea when she was a puppy which sits next to a picture of your current dog Samwise not only because she was a good dog and you have fond memories of her but because youth is wasted on the youthful and in retrospect you suspect you could've been a better owner so you try to be that better owner with your current dog but mental health being what it is you still sometimes stay awake at night trying not to think of what Samwise will look like when he's old and whether he would forgive you and whether he's happy because you sure as shit aren't.

Not that kind of framing, the other kind.

"Ha ha yeah things are going great, ma, lots of people like my blog I'm doing really great"

Anyway, this post is going to winnow in on some nuts-and-bolts. I've established the framework I want, and found a region which supports that framing; now I need to craft the adventure scenario and all that entails.

Something I landed on pretty immediately was that a pure sandbox ( in the sense of "player-prompted, emergent narratives with a primarily reactive facilitator"*) was not desirable because BattleTech as a setting is big. Decades of history, real and fictional, piled into wargames, boardgames, RPGs, video games, and (memorably) a cartoon. I'm not asking them to grok it all; but sandbox play by and large requires some familiarity with the landscape. It otherwise, in my experience, degenerates into mother-may-I madlibs.

On top of this, the massive body of supporting fiction--the very thing that I think would work against a newbie faceplanting against 38 years of grognardia--could do some of the heavy lifting of my adventure scenarios. I had NPCs, timelines, a truly staggering stellar cartography; I had the turgid magnificence of Sarna dot fucking net. I am a lazy person. I once threw out a plate, knife, and fork because the trashcan was closer than the dishwasher. I only read five of the seven deadly sins.

No idea what number six is.

For my scenario, I'm going to organize my thoughts into four categories:

1. Starting Context: What the PCs know they have to do; additionally, the resources they know they have
2. Developing Context: What PCs don't know--but may learn--they have to do; resources they may come to discover
3. Antagonist Forces: Who is trying to stop them, inhibit them, be a nuisance
4. Relevance: Why it matters, why the players or characters are engaged to Do Stuff

This certainly isn't the only way to organize writing an adventure scenario, but it works for me in this instance. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine! You're just a shitty facilitator, a shitty person, and your bloodline will disappear from the world unloved and unmourned.

Starting Context

For this campaign, I'm keeping the starting context simple (which doesn't mean easy). Relatively uncomplicated, explicit, and anticipatable. I can't believe I nailed the spelling for that on the first try**. Very simply, the PCs will be members of a mercenary company of BattleMechs; that company, the Ninth Wave Free Company will take on contracts. Initially, they'll be secured and negotiated by NPCs but my ambition is that the more players feel comfortable in the setting the more active they'll be in these contracts.

For the first scenario, the Ninth Wave has been hired by the Magistracy of Canopus to run down remnants of the Aurigan Directorate. Helpfully--and in keeping with the theme of this region of space--this former regime was backed by the Taurian Concordat. The PCs will be in the Aurigan Coalition's turf, fighting their enemy, but employed by someone else. Delightful. And this is simple enough, especially as a starting point to the campaign-- players know they'll be scouting, finding the enemy, paddling their saucy hams, etc.

And to that end, they'll have the resources of a mercenary company behind them. Twelve BattleMechs, their pilots, their mechanics, the administrative staff. I have some names jotted down for many of these, but I only decided to flesh out three.

Captain Roland Calus, commanding officer and owner of the Ninth Wave Free Company. He's a jovial veteran, but has notably started to lose a step in the cockpit. He'll be there to mentor, be a reasonable-but-firm authority figure. Like all good mentors, he'll be someone who can eventually step out of the way for the PCs (either by death or retirement).

Dr. A.E. Antony, the doctor. He's a brilliant surgeon with excellent bona fides and a drinking problem. I'll use him to help flesh out the more civilian side of things; I don't want the campaign to be one-note, war and violence. This is the guy who will try and get the PCs to go to the opera with him.

Officer Gerard Swing, intelligence officer. In the Napoleonic War, Wellington had "riding officers" and that's the archetype I'm looking to hit. I'm also cranking the spymaster knob up to eleven-- he's aloof, eccentric, extremely off-putting. But ultimately he's an incredibly savvy diviner of intelligence; if the PCs get dossiers, he made them. If they need information, he's got it. I'm also earmarking him for the Developing Context.

Developing Context

As I mentioned earlier, this is the category of material that participates in, precipitates, or is consequence of some change in the fictional circumstances. As players Do Stuff, they will learn things, acquire things, meet people, reevaluate relationships, etc.

For this adventure scenario, I already had an idea that I wanted to have a little bit of a wheels-within-wheels thing going on. For the start of a campaign, I wasn't going to pull any rugs-- friends would not become enemies, enemies would not become friends. My emphasis was going to be "look closer" more than "doubt everything". To that end;

The Mission Is Only Part Of The Mission - I decided that the Magistracy of Canopus wasn't only trying to prop up their buffer-state with the Taurians. They wanted something and that something was one of the Castles Brian. These are great MacGuffins*** in BattleTech, as there is not a single entity which could not benefit from finding one of these funboxes of death-technologies.

It's like one of these, except it vomits lasers and micro-missiles.

And here I can re-introduce Gerard Swing. He is the only one in the company who knows what the Magistracy knows, which means he's a resource they can lean on when it becomes clear Something More Is Going On. Plus it fits. This creepy skeletonman is useful, not nice or pleasant. He is absolutely on their side, whether the PCs like it or not. I put him here because I very much want there to be a Before and After for who Swing is. I want them to see him one way, initially, and another way later. Look closer, see the far the rabbit hole goes.

So that's where the scenario is going to develop; that the Magistracy isn't just interested in taking out the Directorate remnant, but also nipping up an undiscovered trove of lost war material from under the Aurigan Coalition's nose.

Antagonist Forces

So what is stopping the PCs, both in their starting and developing contexts? The first and obvious one is the Directorate remnant. To scale the scenario, I created a nice roster of Mechs, tanks, etc. that is on-planet. When the time comes, I can draw from this pool for fights. By pre-generating with some particularity, I also have a sense of how backed in a corner the Directorate is-- how close the Ninth Wave is from winning. I've also decided to earmark two NPCs.

Lieutenant Jurgen Oberfelt is a bastard. A real bastard. A sticky, tenacious piece of shit who commands some of the Directorate forces. I made this NPC to be a kind of moral floor; this is the worst this universe will create, and an emblematic hate-sink for why the players should want to change it. I'm hoping to keep this guy alive--and, given his cowardice and self-interest, that won't be too hard--so he can crop up again like a herpes flare.

Lieutenant Naomi Young is, by contrast, a perfectly pleasant person. She's professional, prompt, unflappable. She is also a member of the Magistracy's intelligence arm and deeply invested in making sure the Magistracy gets the MacGuffin over anyone else (including the grubby mercenary company).  If Swing is the unfriendly ally, Young is the friendly enemy. Pointedly, I want to introduce her as a non-violent antagonist. This should, I hope, emphasize that the point of a gun isn't the only way to do business. Diversify your leverage portfolio, you'll go far kid.

Relevance

There are campaign motifs which definitely fall here. I'm emphasizing the material fact of BattleMechs (their cost to arm, maintain, repair, move around) specifically as a function of who has power (e.g., those with the ability to arm, maintain, repair, move around these war machines); a Castle Brian is pure windfall, there.

Additionally, though, I'm hoping to dangle "scale" as a wriggly worm in front of my table of gulpers. More Mechs means a bigger Ninth Wave, a bigger Ninth Wave means larger contracts. It means moving--or being moved--towards the centers of power and influence.

This campaign is starting on the Periphery, the literal fringe. But that's not where it has to go.

We'll see how the players respond to all this, going forward.

*There are other senses of the word "sandbox". That assumes the word has a stable, coherent and widely accepted meaning. It often doesn't.

**I did not.

***Technically I'm using the term 'MacGuffin' wrong, as they are traditionally incidental rather than useful; items to be fought over because they must be fought over. Since a Castle Brian is incredibly useful specifically because of what it does, strictly speaking it's not a really a MacGuffin.