Side Session
The Handbook can fight me. I don’t care, bro. Strange interludes are friggin’ awesome! And in order to explain why, I’ll need to dip into the works of noted games scholar Jesper Juul.
I don’t usually mix business with pleasure, but today’s comic springs directly from a class I teach during my day job. While introducing my eager young game designers to the ludology vs. narratology debate, I like to use this video to highlight key concepts. If you hit that hyperlink, it cuts straight to Juul’s idea of games taking place in an “eternal present.” While the point is (obviously) debatable, it does reflect a very real tendency in TRPGs. In most cases, we view our storylines through our PCs. We only have access to the game world through their linear experiences and fixed perspectives. But that isn’t necessarily so.
The plot device pictured in today’s comic is all about mixing it up. Rather than playing Fighter-Wizard-Cleric-Thief, our heroes are taking on temporary fiendish personae. These demon alter egos represent a session’s worth of carnage, with some “let’s kill those other demons” encounters likely followed by a “let’s backstab each other” climax. If I was running this business in a real campaign, I might well have the main party encounter the aftermath of that battle. They’d probably fight the victor of the one shot grand melee. You want that moment of recognition: Holy crap! The stuff we did in that other session is showing up in the main storyline!
This gimmick is related to the film technique of crosscutting, where we cut between different scenes to show simultaneous action. In this case, the villainous Bad Cat threatens to sacrifice Antipaladin while our demon-Heroes gather about the soon-to-opened hell portal, waiting to leap through into the Prime Material. We witness the horrors of the Abyss first hand, gaining insight into the stakes that we could never witness from the fixed perspective of our usual PCs. It’s not a common device, but I do think that it’s a stellar way to break up a stagnant campaign or depict a sprawling storyline.
So for today’s discussion, why don’t we swap our best techniques for playing with perspective? When have you cut away to show the villains’ plans? Perhaps you’ve done a “let’s play the familiars” session? Maybe it was a last stand, where the main party would come upon the ruins of their one-shot selves? Or maybe it’s something as simple as a Fiasco scenario, hopping in to portray minor NPCs on demand? Whatever your style, tell us all about those unconventional “crosscutting” sessions down in the comments!
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During the largest campaign I ever ran (I used to talk about it a lot in these comments sections) we had one session where the players played sacrifices who were going to be used as hosts for aspects of a god (the main antagonist). They were all higher-level than most of the PCs at the time, and yet they all died bar two, who escaped and went on a mini-campaign of their own before their possessor caught up and finished them off.
Was it just a way to showcase the BBEG’s power, or did it tie back into the main storyline somehow? Did the party ever come across the remains of the sacrifices?
Which ones goy killed by which aspect determined how that aspect would manifest, and the escapees delayed a part of the bbeg’s plan, but it was mostly a showcase of power.
Ooooo! That’s a technique I’ve done only once before, but I thought it turned out real well. The party was exploring an ancient ruin looking for a long lost treasure that was sealed inside a vault. When they found the vault, they discovered that a massive battle had occurred before its doors, which were sealed tight with no visible way to open it. As they investigated, it disturbed the spirits of the 100+ people who died there, who rose up and plunged the whole place into the final moments of their last stand.
The players played as the last defenders guarding the vault, hopelessly outmatched but trying to survive long enough to see what the was going on. This fight revealed both the nature of the enemy that created these ruins (werewolves) and that the vault could only be opened with a song. As soon as the flashback ended, the party had to fight their own version of that final battle in the present against the now-undead lycanthropic defenders, while trying to recreate the song to unlock the vault. It was a real good time.
I like the immediacy of this version. The flashback session ties directly to the problem facing the party at the moment, making it an important source of tactical information rather than a neat narrative aside.
I’m between campaigns currently, and I’ve been mulling over the idea of making one shots before the next one whose outcome would actually influence the campaign proper. For example, I’ve been thinking of one where the players would be on a ship transporting a very important (and very vague) cargo, where the crew is on the brink of mutiny. If the players managed to get the ship to its destination in the one shot, then in the campaign they would eventually come upon a very well developped coastal city which prospered thanks to the mysterious cargo, but if they failed (or decided otherwise, e.g took part in the mutiny), then the city would be much less prosperous, if it still existed at all ; and of course there would be little tidbits in descriptions and/or dialogue that would call back to that one shot so the players could realise that yes, that’s where it comes from. It would be a way to both kill time before the next campaign AND improve the worldbuilding.
Oh, lit! I like the idea of using this for worldbuilding purposes. Could be cool to shape a setting as historical figures before the group visits that setting in the following session. That way they’d have that fun, “Oh, this makes so much sense!” moment of causation as they realize why XYZ people became the ruling class or who that broken statue was meant to represent.
I do this, but kind of in reverse. For my very long Exalted 2E game, I would occasionally run one shots that would influence future plot lines (like why a city was in ruins), or news of a yeddim blowing up at the gates of Whitewall would reach the the main PCs (Sidereal alternate PCs trying to keep Roseblack from leaving the city before she needed to, IIRC).
I have a long list of ideas of using other games for one shots to flesh out my Exalted world (like “Dialect” to create an ancient village the PCs would find or “Our Last Best Hope” to play out the Scarlet Empress gaining access to the Imperial Manse)
I have not tried one but I have been thinking on how to incorporate a artifact I read in a short story. It keeps the dead alive and makes every group the main characters appear as the target they chase. later when one character realises what’s happening and sdestroys the artifact only he and the bodies of innocent travelers remain on the field.
I don’t quite get it. Are the other PCs playing as the innocent travelers? Where is the change in perspective coming in?
Alright! Let’s grab some of those war machines from the Avernus module and go all Mad Max: Divine Fury Road up in here.
Headbands and war rigs for all my men!
My DM did this to show us a glimpse of the past so we’d understand what the stakes were and how it got to that point. So when a god gave the party a vision he told us all to make level 20 dwarves for the next season. A few weeks later we had to make level 10 evil dwarves as we saw first hand how the bbeg stole their power. We sometimes make fun of him now, asking if we need to make more dwarves. The moral of the story here is don’t over do it
One of my first 3.5 games after college was epic level “let’s be uberpowered gods” D&D. I dropped from that campaign because it was too much effort to pilot such a character. I wouldn’t want to do that for a one-shot.
It does make me wonder though: How would you have made that concept work in retrospect? It seems like a neat idea, even if the execution was lacking.
A smart demon would send cannon-fodder underlings through the hell-portal first. That way, they die to the inevitable traps, arrows and heroic defenders trying to keep the hordes at bay and provide distraction for your own entry.
No one ever accused Fighter of being a smart anything.
I think Fighter is the cannon fodder Zarhon was refer8ng to. 🙂
No one ever accused Claire of being a smart anything. 😛
So, what are we calling the members of this Demon Party? Thiefling, Clerimp, Diabolist and Fiendter?
I tried to write this joke the other night. Nothing seemed to work. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU?
…
Also Wizarilith.
Honestly, I think we’d all be for Demon Party joining the roster of adventurers in Handbook World (with those names because they are too good, and it would be such a waste of the designs to only appear once). They got a Star Trek Mirrorverse vibe that works, and the Hell setting could be useful if you have comic ideas based off elements of Dark Sun or Gamma World/Fallout or the like.
There’s a long list of parties that never quite made it into the main cast:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/restricted-races
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/warsinthestars
https://twitter.com/dndoggos/status/1167430230123995138?s=20&fbclid=IwAR3CZnWo52eMK3c-NtBUV51RhXj2TFSA4KarHj9Lc_rispdqB9TtCLJ9ihk
etc.
I see this handbook gets the butt-end of Cleric’s candid visage.
It’s a wonderful, comical side to our pal Cleric. I’m just saw we didn’t get to see his face. The “bearded devil” thing seems obvious.
Aw, i was expecting to hear they were playing either a Infernum or a Solium Infernum inspired campaign 🙁
By the way the nipple piercing looks great on Fighter, fits him and combines with the murderhobo hair 😀
This whole dissertation business is a PROBLEM. I’ve been having trouble keeping my own games going, much less trying anything new. Booth boo and hiss. :/
How’s the system in Infernum? Any neat mechanics, or is it mostly just a cool setting / theme?
D20 D&D 3.5E based 🙂
Not bad if you like to play as a demon 🙂
Our core group of PCs made a very sloppy job of a heist–teleported to the other side of the world, crossed a blazing lake of glass, delved a dungeon, and escaped with their objective, beating another party to the prize–but flooded the dungeon and released a nigh undefeatable undead.
Later additions to the team got to roleplay the adventure from the rival adventurers’ perspective: nearly a year of overland and water travel, ill-prepared journeys on the lake of glass, digging in Death Valley-heat, only to have their objective (actually a different item than the macguffin sought by the first team) made forever inaccessible by the actions of the original PCs. The storyline was that they then quit their own team in frustration and applied to join the group of successful heroes that had one-upped them.
A much-much later adventure led them all back to the scene of the crime(s) to witness the long-term environmental impact of all of their meddling during the original quests.
(That’s… a pretty interesting idea actually. Neat premise. True, I’m not one for battle royale, but… staking claim to the mortal realm, having to fight through other demons to get to it, pushing them to the side? It does have a certain appeal.)
It’s a fun excuse for a meat grinder + a way to introduce potential mini-bosses for the main party to fight. What’s not to love?
We’ve done it occasionally to handle disruption to a campaign due to an extended player absence… make up new characters and play them for a session or two somewhere else in the setting. Usually not somewhere where the main PCs are, but somewhere they’ve been or are likely to be in future, so that while the characters may not meet, one group will be dealing with the consequences of whatever the other group did (which may well be “got themselves killed”).
One example — a Dark Sun campaign, where our main characters were the big disruptive heroes being chased across the world by the servants of the Sorcerer Kings. And while someone was unavailable for a period, we were playing lower-level agents of the rebellion, couriers if I recall correctly, carrying stolen information which would eventually find its way into the hands of the main characters. If this sounds a bit Star Wars to you, that’s probably not a coincidence.
OK, I have to ask. What’s the meaning behind the alt text?
It’s from my early education in comedy writing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0YgSqgskfs
Out of interest, what’s the inspiration for the rollover text? It feels like something I should know.
See directly above. 🙂
In the discord servers for campaigns I run, I always have an ‘#elsewhere’ channel. That channel is used for non-directly relevant things that the pcs won’t know about. It’s generally used for npc-to-npc conversations that I feel the party will want to know about, or for foreshadowing. I don’t usually spell anything out outright in the channel, but foreshadowing is fun.