What we do

Overview

These are short articles written by crew members about what they do during, or between, events. Originally written for Facebook, they maintain the same sort of informal tone found in the more game-design oriented essays you can find here.

Six Step Process

• Post Autumn Equinox 2018, a discussion of how David Sheridan handles the prep and running of plots at Empire.

Dave and Ian have set a good tone here. I'm going to talk about the process of writing plot between events, because that's where the REAL magic happens.

(The set design team are going to thrash me with DMX cables for that, but it's worth it).

Step 1 is to debrief the event that just happened. After we've all had a week to calm down, tidy up and get back to civilisation, I Skype Management and we talk about what went down. Stuff like "the Marchers loved that CSI tent encounter we gave them," or "the Urizeni didn't really engage with the NPC going to challenge them to an egg-and-spoon race," or "the skirmish where they talked the Druj onto their side against the Thule was a bit of a turn-up."

We work out what's coming next as a result of player action, and trust me, this shit gets WILD. I am paraphrasing when I say that easily two debriefs an event go something like: "The NPC didn't meet the people she was meant to meet, but did bump into their rivals/made a public announcement/sold the item to someone else, and long story short, I think that's just derailed one of the Conclave Orders/drawn an Eternal's attention/altered the course of a war-front/got [x] blamed for [y]."

We also bat around ideas for next steps for ongoing stuff. If you've met the same NPC three events running and built a working relationship with them, then chances are you're going to get something next event which builds on that storyline. Maybe they're in trouble and ask you to help; maybe they have an opportunity for you; maybe they want you to commit to them over a rival you're also friends with.

And we have the sad duty of packing off those plots nobody wants to play with. They get sent to a nice farm upstate, where there's lots of space to run around.

At the end of that meeting, I actually take pins and stick them into an actual four-foot-wide map of the Empire hanging on my dining-room wall. Yes, I'm that sad. Worse: the pins are colour-coded to show how developed the plot is. These ones start out blue for "Approved in Principle", and by the event they'd damn well better be green.

Step 2 is "have ideas". As any writer can tell you, this is the easy part.

Seriously, though, I read all the Senate Motions, Synod Judgements, Conclave Declarations, Winged Messengers, Plenipotentiaries, and the updates to ongoing WoFs that people make in the week after the event. And I jot down anything that strikes me as curious. Why DID the Senate agree to fund a trip to the Moon? Why did someone put a motion saying "Rabbits are Good" before Conclave, and why did they vote it down? Why did someone put forward a Statement of Principle saying that "Rabbits are Bad" before [x] National Assembly, and even though it got voted down, why was it so close?

(And why is everyone so obsessed with rabbits, anyway? Who's running all the Rabbit Plot? And if nobody else is, can I? I like Rabbit.)

I also try to come up with some stuff out of whole cloth, taking ideas from sinecure and ministry descriptions, fluff-text off the wiki, and by less creative methods like saying, "Nobody's put Dawn and the Freeborn in conflict recently; what do they each value that we can make them fight over?"

As these ideas are coming, collaboration is key. We have a number of backstage Facebook groups where I might post "Is anyone running anything with the Faraden/the Hercynia Vallorn/the Shattered Tower?" or "Hey makey-people, how would you make an NPC crew-member into a gryphon?" People reply with ideas and budgets, and I adjust my ideas and expecations accordingly. Usually upwards: I'm constantly being surprised by the talent and open-handedness of our makey-people.

In addition to ongoing plots, I try to come up with ten suggestions for either entirely new plotlines or engaging the levers that PCs have pulled. I've found this leads to about 14-15 things to run in an event, which, along with other duties I have at events, is about the right amount for my blood pressure.

These get white drawing-pins, for "Not Approved Yet".

A digression: my plots often aren't the big things you'll have heard of from the WoF. I'm known as a "bijou" plot-writer: my stuff is usually meant to only directly influence a small number of people, but in such a way as that influence can ripple out into the world. I love reifying the fantastic elements of the setting, making them more relatable by portraying human reactions to the inhuman: ghosts and curses, immortal sorceror-dragons and cruel Sovereigns, Eternals and Sydanjaa.

The upside to this is that these plots can be great game. If they touch the right character, they can change the course of a nation, or become the next accepted truth about a historical matter. The downside is that they aren't DESIGNED to do this, and in a game that's centred around various kinds of macro-scale politics, this can mean their signal gets lost in noise.

Honestly, I don't mind that. Because half the time, what this means is that in two years' time, someone is able to say, with passionate conviction, "No. I went there, I dealt with the consequences of [x] myself, and I won't let it happen again!" - it's always, always more effective if it's coming from the mouth of someone who went out through the Sentinel Gate to do [x] rather than who simply took an option to roleplay about having done it in downtime. And what REALLY makes my game is when that's someone you'd never have expected to get involved: someone with no title, no former political prominence, no rich friends, who's become a crusader off the back of that short, intense experience. There's a reason we all go to a field rather than playing by email, and this is it.

Step 3 is to call up Management again and put these ideas to them. This is Plot Approval, and it's a collaborative process, where the results of that collaboration can be anything from a simple "Yeah, great idea, talk to [x]," through "Let's talk about the fine details for two hours." Other options include: "That's such a good idea that another writer did it two years ago," or "That goes against a recent Synod Judgement that just got a GM," or even, "No, that's dumb."

It takes 2-3 hours to go through maybe half of those plots, so it takes a couple of those meetings over a couple of nights.

After this point, anything given the go-ahead gets changed to blue, and the race is on.

Step 4 is to frantically write everything. The Plot Wiki is very forgiving: accessible from anywhere, and if you leave it logged in overnight, editing a page, it won't have forgotten your unfinished edits the next morning.

This involves a LOT of wiki-reading. I design characters to reference the game's Archetypes, because NPCs should reinforce setting in their very bearing. I try to make sure my NPCs never fail to have the answer to an important question, and that they don't have to improvise things like names or dates.

Checking who to target the plot hooks at often involves a database search: "Navarri Vates with Night Magic", or "Characters in Astolat with Military Units", that sort of thing. If a plot involves a crop-blight in Highguard, you can bet that Highborn Farm-Owners are getting an OOC pack-briefing to clue them in before angry farmer NPCs turn up at Anvil.

After the research, I usually take a couple of hours per plot getting everything down on paper, and then the fun bit begins.

(Each pin goes to yellow once the bulk of it is done).

Step 5 is all the admin needed to make the plot run. This is where I need to work with the silent-silent partner, the PeeDee PLOT MATRON. I will tell her what costume, make-up, SFX and set design, NPCs and ribbons I need; I will use her to book Conjunctions and set their size, duration, locations and Accessibility options; I will give her the NPCs' briefs to remember for me. I create new ribbons, curses and divination results, and briefs for egregores and magistrates where relevant. I shuffle things around so I'm not briefing three things at dinner-time. And finally, I talk to human beings again.

I put out juicy NPC briefs for pre-event casting in a dedicated NPC-crew FB group. I talk to Beth Charlton about who's attending and their skillsets, experience and enthusiasm, asking for recommendations. I talk to Plot Production to get stuff made. I talk to Tom Hancocks about running things with the Skirmish teams and, sometimes, about borrowing members of Skirmish Crew for field plot. I VERY rarely talk to ACTUAL PLAYERS (usually former crew-members, giving them the chance to take a new plot onto the field with a retired NPC, but also sometimes when I know someone on the field has a rare skill or talent that's impossible to improvise).

I also usually put some hours into making something for the event. I love making paper props and similarly-designed things - maps, illuminated manuscripts, artworks, cryptic encoded heresies, letters hinting at details of history or politics, journals, architectural plans, all sorts. Here, as at every stage, collaboration is useful.

I prepare, and prepare, and prepare. It takes far longer than I hope it will. But it's worth it to be prepared on the day.

(And the pins turn green!)

Step 6. On the day.

I'm prepared. I'm timetabled, I've got stuff pre-assigned to encounters and the heart-meltingly wonderful Blue Caps to put my ribbons, coin and resources in little named envelopes for me. I've got NPCs who know when they need to find me, or whether their timing is flexible. I've got my meal tickets. And PLOT MATRON can take very much of the weight all by herself.

By now, most of my work is done. All the thought, obsessively reading the wiki for details and checking names and dates, all the writing, most of the briefing: that shit's already happened. I need to stay on the ball for the weekend, but... most of my work is done. All I've got to do now, basically, is to explain my brilliant ideas to people and froth with them when they come back from the Anvil field.

By the time I hit the field, 95% of my job is done. And I love it that way.

What I do on my holidays

• Following Autumn Equinox 2018, Ian Horne talks about his role at events with particular emphasis on tent encounters

So my work starts about a week after the previous event. I dig myself out of the froth caves in which I was impersonating some kind of Russian troll, call up the editors (with a summoning circle) and provide elevator pitches for my next event’s stories along with at-this-stage vague ideas for the shape of the three encounter tents. They demolish my ideas and together we put the pieces back together stronger. My notes from this are full of CAPITAL LETTERS and CRYPTIC DRIVEL: over the next week I shovel these into google docs outlining what my plots will be.

Meanwhile, two things happen: first, the SWIVEL EYED SYNOD JUDGEMENTS, which I produce as a resource to roll my own face in, and second the Past Life Visions (PLVs) are assigned.

I don’t write them: I underwrite them. It is not permissible for us to miss one, and I’ve volunteered to backstop that - it is my responsibility to make sure that SOMEONE writes, designs, casts and otherwise actuates your Vision. The worry that those someones will all be me in a succession of increasingly bad hats is a great motivating factor to get people writing.

Anyway, once I know what the visions are and if any Eternals are using tents, and in discussion with the tent leads and SFX designers, we set up what the encounter tents will look like. We ask for plot from the other writers too, because threeish visions and sixish Eternals do not fill three tents for an event. Typically I will also write mini adventures to go in some gaps if I spot them early enough, because I am disgustingly proud of our sets and want as many players to see them as possible.

You must understand I have the visual art sensibilities of a housebrick - I do not design what you see! But plot writers semi-regularly come to us with a lovingly detailed masterwork of drama, and excitedly I ask them where it happens, and they say ‘Um. A fairly spartan tent, near Anvil. It needs a chair in it. And a table, if you can stretch to that?’

And if I pass that straight to the tent leads, our encounter will be set in a featureless pitch black tent with a chair containing the bludgeoned and insensible form of a plot writer slumped on a lovingly detailed table. So, armed with someone else’s artistic faculty, I engage with the writer to try and locate a part of the world the encounter could reasonably be in. Ideally, of course, it is suspiciously like the one that is already scheduled for 11.30am that day, halfway between that and (say) the 3pm one - and we iterate on that until the mental image of the set is beautiful, and once that’s locked in I pass it to the excellent people who make sure we will have all the objects onsite with which to do the things.

It’s particularly bad with Visions. The conceit of uptime is that everything happens at Anvil - so visions of being a mover and shaker often get set at Anvil in their first draft. And frankly, that’s a waste. The tents are one way we bring the world to life… the players are already working hard bringing Anvil to life, and can throw more effort and resources at it than ever we can. Meanwhile we spend a lot of time and effort not being a tent and not being near Anvil. If all else fails, thanes have halls and stridings have taprooms and I have before resorted to a Highborn Travelodge…

Anyway, about three (ahahahahaha) weeks before the event I know what the tents will be and possibly even what’s happening in them. A week after that I start making increasingly insistent noises at people I’ve frothed with who don’t have plot for me yet. As the Winds of War and Fortune issue from Raff’s blazing keyboard I am metaphorically backstage creating an order for ducks to be arranged in. At some point the editors make time in their overstuffed schedules to do a quality control pass on my plot. I write up briefs, send them to NPCs, rummage through eBay’s sock drawer and the local garden centres for props. And then we go to site, and my work is largely done and now I can have fun.

Because it is fun. We’re volunteers, we’re on holiday too - I try to ensure that whatever else, my stuff is at least as much fun for players as crew. Most of my briefs will include the line ‘come back if you stop having fun’ or ‘milk it as long as it continues to be funny’ or words to that effect. Our NPCs are great at improvisation and tend to enjoy it, especially when we remember to let them know exactly how far to take it. One of the main areas where I think that experience helps with plot writing is in intuiting the difference between a brief that will give your NPCs a no good very bad time (“this encounter takes place in the aftermath of a battle, full of corpses”) and one that really sings (“wait, does that read corpses? I meant ‘Terminal’. You recall the Terminal rules? I want a wall of noise. Oh, and *you*, *you* and *you* are Imperial and the rest are barbarians.”).

The sets in our encounter tents are amazing, and I can say that because I am at best a stevedore for them. The tent leads and SFX crew are actual wizards. I say ‘it would be nice if there was some rubbish in this one’, and the next time I walk past I hear a discussion on what the mediaeval equivalent of a discarded rotting sofa is and can we fake one. I say ‘volcano forge’, and the next time I look the corner of the tent has what I can only call a geode with what looks decidedly like a river of quicksilver. We decided that one tent would be the inside of an organ and … you had to be there. Pictures don’t do it justice.

What am I doing while the team are doing this? Ideally, if it is all going perfectly, not much. I check in with the NPCs that they are on their way, with the plot writer that nothing is on fire (except for that which is supposed to be on fire) and with the tent leads and SFX people that we will have a set - then pitch in wherever someone needs something. And if the metaphorical wheels look like they are coming off, or going wobbly, I go find the duct tape as early as possible. I have been two people in some Visions - I’m getting quite good at quick changes, and I love chewing scenery.

Other than that? I play the odd NPC - he’s really quite odd - and brief the odd plot - and wasn’t it just - and then when the tent plot is all spring-loaded, the ducks are in obedient rows and the evening’s last sets are shipshape, I get onto the field as one of those characters you get in CRPGs who regurgitate basic setting info if you click on them. Because I love Anvil by night and I like to experience it if I can. (If you see an unfeasibly tall man in a stupid red hat, it’s me, and I love regurgitating basic setting info in an IC voice.)

Last event was uphill. Two of our three tent leads were out with OOC issues. But thanks to excellent work by excellent people we won through, and we had fun doing it. The mission statement could be, in a word, aspiration - year on year, we will outdo ourselves. That is our aim: that is our target. I look forward to giving it my best shot.

David Kibblewhite

Running Plot at Empire

• Writing after the Autumn Equinox event 2018, Dave Kibblewhite talks about what his event entails as a plot writer and egregore.

Got there on the Thursday, needing to replace shock cord in a tent pole before I could put it up. Nearly gave up and then realised that my tent does in fact contain two poles that are identical once assembled but made up of slightly different components. Very confusing. Once I had pitched the tent in order to make sure the award-winning Clare Evans had somewhere to comfortably sleep, my primary role at PD was out of the way and I could get on with other stuff.

We had some food from Obanzai and it was so amazing that I resolved to eat all my non-breakfast meals there for the weekend, which I did with no regrets. We did our new player social, which a few people showed up to. When it got chilly I went and put thermals on under my clothes. This made a big difference and I basically did that for the rest of the weekend. Definitely a top self-care tip. We hung out with the orcs a bit, I failed to locate Alexis Celnik and eventually gave up on the tavern because I wasn't really feeling it and went to bed.

On Friday I spent the morning checking in with makeup, costume, set dressing etc in an attempt to minimise the amount of surprises I'd drop on them later, then got my camping furniture over to the Varushka camp ready for the IC tent once it was up. We had the first new player meeting at 2 and I dished out some briefs to egregores. Sadly I had to dash off before the end as it started raining and I was conscious my stuff was in a pile in the Varushka camp. Consequently I missed chatting to new Varushka players at that point.

At that point the tent was up, so I stood staring at a pile of fabric while my brain switched off and played cartoons in my head for a while before getting Emmanuel Goldstein and Simon Manby to give me a hand set dressing it . Then I located a bag full of random pieces of wood and arranged someone to drill holes in them because that's what my life is like.

By that time I was into my window for getting my costume on and weapons checked before getting over to the hall of worlds for the intro to magic session I do with Martyn Sullivan and Emmanuel Goldstein. Attendance was not great so we obviously need better PR, but if the players who did show up go into time-in confident to jump into the magic game rather than standing on the sidelines then I still say it's worth it.

Then I got over to Varushka almost for time in, greeted the new people at the hearth, did a bit of chatting, then went to support the IC weapons training. By the time that was done it was basically time for me to get back and brief Taz Magpye's storyteller who had stepped in to replace an absent and crew member and hadn't therefore had time to absorb what was quite a complex brief. Left the IC stuff to the infinitely capable Si Childs.

It was then approaching time for my first tent quest of the weekend, so I checked in on the set build, made sure it was looking as I wanted, and I knew how to make my sounds play with Ian Horne Cattes and Jess (can't tag). Made sure my NPC was briefed, happy and looking good. Got players and chucked them in. Good atmospheric encounter with some imperial orcs where they tried to do some riddles and stuff while I freaked them out by occasionally blaring a DRAMATIC sounding Anna Alexandria Reid through the PA. They took the item they were meant to take, appeared very engaged with the story and I sent them away smiling, so that was great.

Came back to find the storyteller npc a bit panicky and needing clarification on some bits of the brief, which I think we resolved and got her happy and back out. Chilled out backstage for a bit, then went out IC for a while, where I didn't do much except be a wallflower at the empress/wise one pre-marital questioning. Went to bed at time out.

Saturday was my big plot day. First I got the ribbons for Taz Magpye's random bits of wood plot attached and distributed, mostly at the morning, pre time-in player support meeting. This plot was super successful at getting people engaged and required very little effort to run out from plot (although a bunch from field refs though I guess).

I had set the morning aside to battle, but I didn't trust my ankle if I had to run so instead I painted myself silver and went to play an Autumn realm jeweler for Wrenna Robson. Enjoyed doing some trades for very specific denominations of coinage. Did horribly disappoint one player through my first-come first-served policy, but being beaten to the deal is the nature of the Autumn realm I guess. Never quite got the silver paint all off all weekend.

At that point I checked in with the NPCs for my three Anvil based encounters (these people had already been sent their briefs before the event) to answer any questions. I collected and attached ribbons to the weapon physreps I'd brought as one of them was a peddler for the Varushkan market. Also found an orb physrep and a way to ribbon that (hot glue gun). Threw all this in a bag I got from the prop boxes along with something another plot writer added to the encounter and made sure the NPC knew where it was since I wouldn't be there when she went out. Lastly, made sure the 70 beautiful potion physreps Beck Hemsley made for my potion trader were available for that npc. These were new potion types that Matt and Andy were yet to sort lammies for although I'd been assured they would be ready in time. I poked my head into their office, noted a post-it in front of Andy's desk reading "Dave drugs" and declined to bother them further.

Checked in on the "inside of giant monster" set (thank you Mark Nichols, Heather M Clayton etc, then went to the orc camp where I had been asked to support what was already a very cool scene starring Steph Morris and Mike Kilburn. Matt Couldridge came with me to set off some smoke while the players threw a lot of expensive hallucinogens around, then I played the 3.5 minutes or so of audio I'd mixed. I think a lot of people were actually pretty blown away by Matt Notcutt's ominous intro, Emma Rowden's supervillain monologue and the minute or so of visceral stabbing sounds. Then I chased an orc around with a speaker shouting at him in Anna Alexandria Reid's voice some more and told them when their quest was.

Then I pegged it back to the encounter tents to make sure the set was ready to go, grabbed a surgical kit with actual sharp things, and got the players for my "autopsy from the inside" quest. Players proceeded to destroy the set and props, I told them some hopefully interesting stuff and sent them on their way. They got extremely sticky and the encounter involved a lot of "EEEWWWW THIS IS VILE!". Conjunction caused some confusion because I'd moved it to accommodate the aforementioned player-organised scene and not informed the refs in case they needed to rely on paper timetables, so that was my bad.

Went out with the skirmish crew then to do the imperial orc ancestor pilgrimage (whole nation encounter in the woods). Skirmish knocked it out of the park in the end, but I learned some important stuff about how to split up a complex brief for a large group. In addition I think the orcs might be able to take a bit more railroading and stage management than a lot of our players, and it was clear to everyone involved that the whole thing would have been better in the dark. That said, it all went pretty well.

Sat down for food then set to work getting the Varushkan "make evil bargain with creature whilst inside other creature" quest ready. Taz Magpye showed up to help and the whole thing went very smoothly. Got the players and brought them down. Sadly Sam Wainwright had some health issues just before getting to the encounter so we sat down for a while while I looked after her and cheered her up then walked her back to her friends. She should absolutely not feel bad about this, any more so than if her ankle had broken or a meteorite had landed on her. Got back to the end of the encounter to find they'd used some headology and bypassed a lot of dilemmas by simply hacking off the hostage's arm at the shoulder and dragging them back through the sentinel gate spraying arterial blood around, so I think we're proud of our players for that one.

Then spent a while getting ready for the past life vision I'd written. Never done one of these before so it was a lot of pressure, plus I'd opted to do it outside, have multiple scenes, and NPC it from the skirmish team plus the rogue element Matthew Pennington, none of which is normal for these encounters. I feel I may not have done the PLV team's heart rate any good, but everyone involved came together to make what I think was a really powerful scene that I hope the player will remember for a long time.

That done, I rushed off to the Wintermark camp with my NPCs and pyro person to do Kallavesi vision time, which on this occasion was two NPCs miming in a tent full of very thick smoke with me as an IC narrator. It was lovely to hear Harry Morris in her element encouraging the players to take it seriously, and I've realised I can now recognise the sound of forty potion lammies being ripped simultaneously (it sounds like player engagement).

Got back to monster, got some paperwork associated with the PLV sorted, then went to chill out IC and heard some lovely singing. Thought about going straight to bed but instead stayed up with the cool kids in monster. This was an incredibly good decision because not only did I have a good laugh, but I met someone who is going to provide tremendous technical help with Fairyland next year.

On Sunday I actually just played my egregore character, including accompanying Si Childs while we tried to by him a goat (thank you for playing, Felix's Watch). Then spotted an important plot point which had been missed, and resolved it by quickly getting a ribbon sorted and dressing the closest person, Erin Catherine Marsh, as a zombie. After time out the rest of the day/night was remarkable only because I actually spent time with Clare, and that a number of us spent quite some time being relentlessly cruel to David Henderson, who is utterly deserving of the treatment he got.

A busy event, but super rewarding. Really feel like I have learned a lot this year. Which is good, because Clare and I are running our first event next year and in many ways it is a bit ambitious.