Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

I need some help from the DL Community. I have run a very successful DL game at our convention in LA. I now want to try a mini-campaign with some friends at home. I am lacking for ideas of why the posse is a posse. What are some of the fun group template ideas you guys have used in bring your characters together? I am considering offering the group template to my players BEFORE the create their characters to avoid the classic tavern scene. Thoughts?

robert4818 · Heroic Joined: 25 Jan 2009 Posts: 1045

GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

Thanks Robert, those are awesome! Anyone else have some more ideas? I may offer them several options then build the story around the on they choose.

Crossroads · Novice Joined: 30 Jan 2010 Posts: 32

Traveling Medicine Show.

Noshrok Grimskull · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:59 am Post subject:

Buffalo Hunters
Indian War Party
Travelling Circus / Freak Show
Trail Guides
Troubleshooters / Enforcers for one of the big rail companies
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VonDan · Legendary Joined: 08 Jul 2008 Posts: 3249

A Russian Nobel and his cosacks

A River Boat Crew
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robert4818 · Heroic Joined: 25 Jan 2009 Posts: 1045

GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

They know little to noothing of the weird west. I actually prefer a wierd-lite west feel initally. Id like to introduce the weird slowly.

otherdoc · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:07 pm Post subject:

When possible, I like to do something I borrowed from the FATE system.

After each player generates their characters' stats, I ask each to come up with an idea for a previous adventure or incident the character had. Sometimes I'll tie it to a place or organization - for example, in one of the Deadlands games I'm running now, I'm using the Flood, so I told them each PC's previous experience had to have happened in the Great Maze. Then, I'll ask each player to come up with a way that their PC would have been involved in one of the other characters' adventures - the two players then discuss it and figure out how their stories fit together. Ideally, by the end of that process, each character has background ties to at least two other posse members.

I like doing it this way because it gives the posse a reason to be together, it helps keep the players engaged and interested in the game by giving them each a personal buy-in with their characters, and it gives me as a Marshal hints about the kinds of things the players would like to see happening in the campaign.
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GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

I totally agree! Like most here, I've been a GM/DM for years and this is the crux of a truly epic game. Players must be invested not only in their own characters but each others charactors in order to evoke an emotional response from the pplayers about what happens to their characters. I won't run another game without getting this ironed out ahead of time. Group template is king.

thudthwacker · Novice Joined: 28 Sep 2012 Posts: 28

The coolest idea I've seen for this was something an old friend of mine did: he started the campaign with all the characters as kids, and ran us through a two-session minor adventure. For the session after the intro, he jumped us forward 8 or so years to young adulthood.

I think that sort of thing could work beautifully in a Weird West setting: there's something nasty in the woods, nobody believes the kids that it's there, and they have to deal with it on their own. (Maybe something that preys specifically on children -- a Deadlands Pennywise -- so even adults who *know* there are evil things afoot won't ever see it.)

Drnathanpanke · Novice Joined: 31 May 2012 Posts: 10

We are starting a campaign as a traveling circus.

We have a:

A tattooed man blessed

A bearded lady huckster

An Asian Kung fu acrobat

A contortionist thief

A cockney strong man

A shootist (hex slinger)

And a mad scientist fire breather

The troupe keeps us together

GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

Travelling Circus and starting as kids! wow, great ideas. That circus troupe sound hilarious and awesome at the same time!

MrDNA · Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 12:01 pm Post subject:

Nordicnomad · Seasoned Joined: 08 Jun 2012 Posts: 108

In our game we all started out as passengers on a train from Dodge City to Denver. All the boring people on the train died in an unfortunate incident involving the confederate army and a giant automaton. Very sad.

After bonding during the long walk to the nearest town, the surviving badasses discovered a plot of unspeakable evil. Once fully thwarted, the plan is to buy the currently abandoned Denver Seminary and reopen it as Denver Univeristy, an interdisciplinary college of evil fighting. With all the posse as Professors who go on the occasional "field trip".

GMSam · Novice Joined: 23 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

That's awesome. With my luck they would have ended up hating each other during the walk.

Drnathanpanke · Novice Joined: 31 May 2012 Posts: 10