Campaign Notes

Some notes of how my campaign turned out, possibly useful in planning other campaigns.
Postmortem Analysis

Overall, I am very happy with how my campaign developed. I normally plan campaigns in terms of setting up a detailed world, intersecting forces and some central theme or problem, but no clear end point. This often produces a somewhat weak ending. This time I had a deliberate story arc, leading up to the day when the novas had to save humanity from themselves at any cost. The result was a far better paced campaign than I expected, even if the arc came to a close somewhat quicker than I had planned.

Overall, most direct planning went into NPCs and their motivation, as well as writing up communiqués, essays and other information to hand out. Since we were using the very near future in the real world all other information could be borrowed from the net.

One of the best things with active players is that they help flesh out the world. During the first half of the campaign I had empty character sheets lying about and players with nothing else to do invented NPCs. In many cases these other novas were excellent ideas (like Kid Cadre and Radjindra Brahmarendra) that contributed much to the setting; this way we managed to fill up many of the rest of the novas in the world.

A team of novas can usually cream just about any opponent, especially single novas, no matter how strong they are (with the possible exception of full-blown stareaters, but even there the ordinary novas could at least interfere with them). If the players form a nova team, make sure they either go up against other nova teams, situations requiring more thinking or social interaction the direct power or have tricky political ramifications. The nations that learn to use nova teams first are going to have a huge advantage compared to others; even the somewhat random Pan African Nova Congress may prove tremendously useful.

The main problem with this campaign is of course how to present the revelation that novas are actually tools for “evil”. Many gaming groups are going to have a great deal of trouble with it. I found that slowly slipping in the themes of lack of control (both self-control and occasional external control), having the PCs themselves trigger a few disasters or witness others do it and slowly increase the hints and grimness levels made them more accepting of the idea. But even then many refused to believe it. Quite rationally, several argued that the information from the spiders they had gained on the true nova nature might not be entirely true. It actually was, but sometimes the truth is so unpalatable that it is not considered fully. Even Johan, who thanks to his secondary eruption was consciously aware that he was turning into a star-eater, was doing his best to ignore it. Hence the novas in my campaign had been warned but still did not act fully, a wonderful set-up for tragedy.

I found that starting out planning with the intention of wrecking the world was a wonderful freedom. Rather than fearing that my exquisitely planned NPCs and settings would not show up or impress my players I took delight in seeing how places and people were ruined (or at least changed beyond recognition). The Nikodem plot had been growing for half the campaign, but when confronted he did not have time to react even to say ‘wait!’ before a mega-fist sprayed his brains across the wall. Much more plausible than a long villainous speech. I randomly rolled each session for what NPCs were in danger this time, and took particular delight in making Dr. Operov (who was to a large extent to ‘voice of the GM’ and had some elements of an idealized self-portrait) die in an unexpected and dramatic fashion. Having several PCs die or go insane also helped set up a mood where survival was uncertain. It was almost as if the novas were cursed, or themselves a curse.

One of the main gaming problems was that I had a far too large gaming group (16 people). The amount of communication needed was too great in many sessions, making them confusing for everybody. The forum (see below) benefited from the somewhat larger group and helped organise things, but for normal sessions it was bad when too many could play at the same time. On the other hand, the number of players allowed far more exploration of group dynamics than having a tightly knit five-member team. Now the personality clashes and plots of individual novas were really social and not just solo gaming.

The Forum

One of the most useful novelties in this campaign compared to previous campaigns was the use of a player forum. I installed a forum where the players could discuss in character as well as upload texts about their characters and the world. The result went far beyond expectation: now the game went on all the time, between game sessions, often in the middle of the night. Often the game on the forum led naturally to the game in the game sessions. I eventually gave players experience points for good forum behaviour.

Posting as different NPCs and news agencies is very useful to give information, setting and disinformation. Having a forum also allows players elsewhere to participate. I have still not met Ben in real life, but he played an interesting role as quasi-PC in the campaign using the forum. There are so many fun things one can do using virtual identities.

Using a forum like this takes a bit of maintenance. As a GM it is important to monitor the discussion continuously. At least on one occasion I discovered that a discussion had left how I planned the campaign – one post had been misinterpreted by the other players, who began to react strongly and take action against what they thought was a threat against them and their families, actions than in turn were derailing the plot and setting. Just countering the derailed threads turned out to be hard, since people were posting faster than I could respond. In the end I moved the “infected” threads to an alternate section of the forum clearly labelled as “never happened”.

Ending

The ending was a bit unusual compared to traditional superhero games. There the story has to end with a triumph. But here the end was mixed. Half of the PCs had become star-eaters, gleefully destroying worlds (in some cases while transparently rationalising it). The Earth was destroyed. Most of the human NPCs, including families and friends, had not been saved. On the other hand humanity had reached the stars, at least some novas redeemed themselves or achieved their life goals.

When we finished the mood was somewhat subdued. It was clear that not everybody was happy. But on the other hand they were not unhappy either. I think the ending was a kind of cathartic shock: “This is how it ends, this is the logical conclusion to what your characters have been doing”. Every action and inaction of the characters came back to them. Not to everybody’s taste, but perhaps what roleplayers need to learn. Far too often characters can do whatever they want because the world they are wrecking is not real, and besides it says on the character sheet that the character is a sociopath, so the wrecking is good roleplaying. So there. But in real life people who are incautious with their powers tend to either end in a sticky way or have their lives ruined. Which is actually quite interesting to roleplay.

After the end people continued to play the forum. Clearly, many characters were too fun to play to let go and the end had come too fast for them. It is not entirely unlikely that my players might want a sequel, maybe as baselines on Aqua.

Philip K. Dick was right:

It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe -- and I am dead serious when I say this -- do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.

- Philip K. Dick, How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

Thanks

I would like to thank all my players for contributing so much to this campaign. They braved the stifling heat and freezing cold of my apartment, peanuts and bizarre Turkish junk food in order to participate as their characters flared.

Erik Zalitis (Col. Janis Ivalds)

Tommy Sääf (Gustave)

Mikael Johansson (Matt Doyle, Seraph)

Daniel Roupé (Booster)

Håkan Andersson (Dr. Oliver Struck, Rajiv Vas)

Ben Higginbottom (Verifex)

Staffan Johansson (Despairing Venus, Mihai Fejer, Vicomte)

Johan Roos (TalAyeh)

Miguel (Gerhart, Johan)

Henrik Öhrström (the Russian Bear)

Stefan (Pratelli)

Henrik Alpsten (Dr Noah)

Reidar Magnusson (Mr F)

Andreas Svedin (Dr Klein)

Martin Eliasson (the Saviour)