Pre-session notes

[whswhs]

I've had the pre-session (or Session 0) for Shadowlands, one of the two campaigns I'll be starting in January. Its basic rules system is World of Darkness: Sorcerer, with core mechanics taken from Mage: The Ascension (2nd edition, not revised). However, it's not a World of Darkness campaign; I don't want all the baggage of awakened mages, werewolves, vampires, and so on.

As far as genre goes it's what I'm calling a slow apocalypse: Civilization is falling, month by month, as technology fails and organizations that rely on it have to adapt or die. In response, some people are turning to magical traditions and discovering that they work. The setting is Vulcan, a small city in the state of Winnemac, which Sinclair Lewis created as a setting for his novels and described as a midwestern state more typically American than any real state.

I had worked out a set of house rules (as I nearly always do), but discussion with the players identified some things that needed adjustment. For one thing, I had decided that characters would not start out with Paths for free, but would have to buy them with freebie points, leaving them the option of creating characters who had no magical abilities (though none of the players chose that). But the 21 freebie points that I took as standard seemed too limiting to the players. So I boosted that to 28 freebie points—possibly supplemented by taking negative backgrounds, one of my innovations (I find merits and flaws too messy, and I wanted something that had the same structure as backgrounds and other traits). I also came up with my own lists of abilities, and specifically I made Languages a background rather than an ability: 1 language for one dot, 3 for two dots, 6 for three dots, 10 for four dots, 15 for five dots.

My players also found the treatment of rituals confusing and arbitrary: Some paths depended on having rituals, others didn't, and there were also rituals that weren't linked to specific paths. I found the whole matter confusing, too, so I cut the Gordian knot by saying that I would keep the rituals that protected against magic in various ways (blocking a spell, unweaving an enchantment, or warding an area), but the others would just be subsumed under Paths.

We got through character concepts and the essentials of character design in four hours. Now I'm reviewing character sheets and making suggestions. But here's what we have in character concepts:

* A 17-year-old girl with Hellfire, focused in electrical effects, and with exceptional beauty and a dramatic personality

* A tech geek in a wheelchair, with a talent for making bizarre devices work (Artifice)

* A half-white, half-native American college instructor with a secondary career in politics (serving on the city council), who's inherited a gift for Shapeshifting, and benefits from the accompanying animal magnetism in his political career (the player pointed out that general Fascination gave exactly the same boosts to social rolls that were a fringe benefit of Shapeshifting and therefore was redundant)

* His full-blood half-brother, who identifies as two-spirited and has taken the Path of Enchantment and possibly of Ephemera, and who is also a college instructor in anthropology and archaeology

* A retired spook, born in North Korea but defected to South Korea and later became a CIA asset, after which he turned to industrial espionage, from which he has also retired—with skill in the Paths of Divination and Summoning (Daimonic)

There are natural ties between the third and fourth, and they can easily be linked to the first (who's gained early admission to college) and probably the second; the last will be tricky.

We also have a cat familiar for the first, named Jeffrey ("For by stroking of his fur I have found out electricity"), and a dog companion animal for the second, who may also be a Familiar, or an Ally or Dependent.

I'm pretty pleased with how readily things came together. The players particularly liked the idea that Vulcan had not only a community college but a small (well under 1000 students) denominational liberal arts college, which we decided was named Winnemac Wesleyan. The fourth player was concerned that her character might not be welcome there, but both the first player and I have seen the local Congregational, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches displaying pride flags . . .