Last time, I explored the versatility of the 5 Core Element approach to Locations for your game. This article marks the final part of the introduction to the 5 Core Element framework. I will take these core elements and transform them into how it affects the game. It’s the last step in bringing the Location to life for the players and their characters.
Drawing on one of the previous examples, I will use the bar I outlined for the Near-Future Cyberpunk theme:
- Time – Near- Future (The year is wisely left ambiguous as to how far/near this is)
- Place – Abundant Harvest Wine Bar, Vineland, La Costa District, New Angeles, Ecuador
- Mood – Desperation, Technology Everywhere, Paranoia
- Context – The PCs are here to collect the genome of an authentic Italian wine grape root that hasn’t been genetically modified.
- Cast of Characters –
- Mr. Branson – The characters’ contact that has stolen the genome and is trying to complete the deal that will allow him to leave his wage-slave position at the VinoTech agricorp that he is stuck at.
- Bioroid Bouncer – This artificial being stands at the entrance to the bar. It is nicely dressed to reflect the clientele’s tastes. It watches and scans for trouble.
- Bioroid Servers – Like the bouncers, these artificial beings move about the bar bringing guests their orders. Their identical faces make it disconcerting when they move fluidly about the establishment.
- Businesspeople – The Abundant Harvest is clearly a haven for deals and business meetings. The omnipresent cameras and security make it ideal for conducting business securely but without corp oversight.
Taking the 5 Core Elements as the framework, the next step will add the outer shell. To do this, I will add notes about game effects. These will be the game mechanics supporting the narrative details that I built. I will make the mechanics system-neutral here, but in practice, I would make them game-specific. I’m also going to add a bit more detail than I likely would in my own notes for the reader’s clarity. As with all note-taking methods, use the amount of detail you need for recall and not a word more. I use a single word representing a trait that the Location has and effects the game.
Effects
- Private – The Abundant Harvest (AH) is a very private establishment and surveillance is at minimum for the clients’ benefit.
- Difficulty increased to “blend” in without some effort, e.g. Runners are going to stand out without disguises.
- Exception – Difficulty decreased for Bioroid characters to blend in as staff at the Bar
- Difficulty increased to eavesdrop on conversations, e.g. you’re likely to be noticed if you try to listen in on another tables’ conversation.
- Difficulty decreased to remove digital tracks, e.g. thanks to the limited surveillance, it’s easy to erase the record of your presence.
- Difficulty increased to “blend” in without some effort, e.g. Runners are going to stand out without disguises.
- Less Crowded – The AH is in the La Costa district, the least crowded district in the city.
- Difficulty increased to be followed, e.g. someone tailing you will stand out as there’s less crowd to blend into.
- Difficulty decreased to piloting hovercars, e.g. there are not many vehicles crowding the skies here so maneuvering is a bit easier.
Now, the Location has some mechanical basis in game terms. At glance, I can see what modifiers should apply to checks. The players will feel the Location’s impact on their character’s actions, as these modifiers affect their rolls.
There is one last tool for making a Location come to life. The best way to bring it to life is by having it change over time. Each time that the characters return to the Location, it is somehow different. But here’s the key, the changes must be subtle and make sense unless there is a narrative reason. Let me reiterate that: The Location should not change in a big way unless it serves a purpose in terms of the story.
Let me outline how to handle the side plot/B-story changes as I am fairly sure anyone reading this understands how to change the Location to serve the plot. I mean, you change what you want, how you want, to make the story work. Right? Back to the side plot changes, what changes, and how does it change?
Start by looking at the 5 Core Elements. Time and Place are immutable unless you’re Theme is Time-Space travel like “Sliders” or “Doctor Who.” Next would be Mood. Mood can change over time and situation. It should be a subtle shift if it’s not a plot-driven change. But how do we make it feel like a natural evolution? Or how do I come up with this on the fly as I didn’t expect to ever come back to this location in the game?
There’s a tool I use called the Mythic GM Emulator. It can be found here and it is great for these sorts of decisions. The short version: decide how likely something is, decide how possible it is for the unexpected to happen, then roll percentile dice. Compare the result to a handy chart, and you have the outcome randomly generated but still story-driven. It’s elegant and simple and I use it when a player asks me something I didn’t expect.
Now back to the mood of the Abundant Harvest. I look at the first mood of Desperation. I could see that this could change with time, and it’s likely to happen. I also look at this as the first detail that I am checking for change so the chance for the improbable is low for this one. Consulting the GM emulator chart, I have a 25% chance of this changing, 5% for a drastic change, and 15% of its remaining “locked”. Putting that into one roll, the result would be: 1-5 – drastic shift, 6-25 subtle shift, 26-85 no change, and finally 86-100 – this trait is locked until the story would change it. Using an online roller, I got “56” for no change. Moving on, I move the chance to a little more improbability. It gives me 7-35-88 for my bands. Technology Everywhere is a mood trait that I want to keep static to reinforce the setting, so I skip it for story reasons. Focusing on the Paranoia mood, I roll a “30”. So, this mood will shift from paranoia towards trust or distrust, but subtly. Now, does it make more sense for the paranoia to increase or decrease? It would make sense for the story perhaps to have the paranoia increase. I change the Mood from Paranoia to outright Suspicion. I also change the Bioroid bouncers by adding a detail about them scanning everyone as they come in the door more actively.
Here’s what the new framework, including the Effects section, for the location would look like (Items in Bold have changed):
- Time – Near- Future (The year is wisely left ambiguous as to how far/near this is)
- Place – Abundant Harvest Wine Bar, Vineland, La Costa District, New Angeles, Ecuador
- Mood – Desperation, Technology Everywhere, Suspicion
- Context – The PCs are here to collect the genome of an authentic Italian wine grape root that hasn’t been genetically modified.
- Cast of Characters –
- Mr. Branson – The characters’ contact that has stolen the genome and is trying to complete the deal that will allow him to leave his wage-slave position at the VinoTech agricorp that he is stuck at.
- Bioroid Bouncer – This artificial being stands at the entrance to the bar. It is nicely dressed to reflect the clientele’s tastes. As patrons enter, it scans them for weapons and listening/recording devices. It watches and scans for trouble when not scanning patrons actively.
- Bioroid Servers – Like the bouncers, these artificial beings move about the bar bringing guests their orders. Their identical faces make it disconcerting when they move fluidly about the establishment.
- Businesspeople – The Abundant Harvest is clearly a haven for deals and business meetings. The omnipresent cameras and security make it ideal for conducting business securely but without corp oversight.
- Effects
- Private – The Abundant Harvest (AH) is a very private establishment and surveillance is at minimum for the clients’ benefit.
- Difficulty increased to “blend” in without some effort, e.g. Runners are going to stand out without disguises.
- Exception – Difficulty decreased for Bioroid characters to blend in as staff at the Bar
- Difficulty increased to eavesdrop on conversations, e.g. you’re likely to be noticed if you try to listen in on another tables’ conversation.
- Difficulty decreased to remove digital tracks, e.g. thanks to the limited surveillance, it’s easy to erase the record of your presence.
- Difficulty increased to “blend” in without some effort, e.g. Runners are going to stand out without disguises.
- Less Crowded – The AH is located in the La Costa district, the least crowded district in New Angeles.
- Difficulty increased to be followed, e.g. someone tailing you will stand out as there are fewer crowds to blend into.
- Difficulty decreased to piloting hovercars, e.g. there are few vehicles crowding the skies here, so maneuvering is a bit easier.
- Private – The Abundant Harvest (AH) is a very private establishment and surveillance is at minimum for the clients’ benefit.
Tying this up into one neat package, the 5 core elements framework is complete. It can provide a quick but detailed Location that can be used to provide deeper immersion in the setting and story. Using the framework should allow for dynamic locations that keep players and their characters immersed in a minimum time period.
Looking forward, I will move onto creating some Locations, which I am going to call “Hot Spots.” These will be locations using this framework that you can use in your game sessions. I will move away from the generic into specifics regarding game mechanics. From here on out, I will be using the Genesys narrative dice system for each of these Hot Spots. Hopefully, these will be helpful and useful in your game.
One final note don’t overlook re-skinning a Location. If I produce a Location, say a spaceport for a Sci-Fi setting but you’re running a Fantasy setting, you can just apply the theme tropes to make it work. That spaceport can easily become a port on the Sword Coast, all you have to do is change the flavor of the Location.
Trevor Pope
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- Living Locations – Hot Spot #1 – Village of Rumbleford - September 15, 2020
