Sandbox Between Stoplights 7: I Can Show You The World

Before I get started on today's episode, I want to give a shout out to my friends who encouraged me to start this podcast. They're the creative minds behind Astronomica, and here's a quick word from them: (Astronomica Teaser)

Sandbox Between Stoplights 7: I Can Show You The World

Hello, I'm Josh. In the last episode, I described the physiology of the Shrike and tied it to the themes of the campaign. I also talked about what their purpose was when they were created by the Shapers, and I talked about the mechanics of my session zero.

Today, I’m going to finish up the session zero topic, and explain some of my armchair psychology behind it. Then, I’m going to talk about a how I'll use a DMPC to guide, hopefully, without railroading.

After figuring out the primary and secondary locations,  I was mostly done with session zero. I was really excited to see the history, characters, and locations my future party would create. More over, I hoped this would give players a sense of ownership and connection since they built most of their home city.

Once the Shrike invasion got going, death would become a frequent companion. The characters are going to lose friends, family, and maybe even each other from time to time. Ariel will be another thing on that list. I hope that when the colony gets destroyed- they feel a genuine sense of loss.

We'd have more NPCs and places than we would ever get a chance to meaningfully interact with, but that's also by design for two reasons.

The first is that it gives a sense of life. Things are happening around Ariel regardless of the players. The colony has a full cast of NPCs, with their own motivations connections, and living their own lives.

All these people will be, at least vaguely, familiar to the players whenever, or if ever, their paths happen to cross. If I need Dave, the guy who works at the industrial park, to make an appearance I won’t have to introduce him for the first time *and* I’ll have an idea of what he’s been doing recently.

The second is that it offers a huge menu of options for the group to interact with. This is a sandbox, so the party can bail on the metaplot at any time.

While it'll keep developing without them, there needs to be other buttons to push and levers to pull. And There needs enough of them to keep the game rolling.

This might sound like a lot of work, but keep in mind: the players made the last 40% of the city, and they won't interact with all of it at the same time, so it's not anywhere near as difficult as it sounds.


I've had a few people tell me that some of this strays from world building into running a game. They're not wrong, I'd just contend that the difference doesn’t matter much. Knowing *how* I intend to present my setting is a key part of my world building.


To that end, I'm going to make a special provision for this campaign that I wouldn't do with a typical gaming group. As I mentioned previously, I'm going to find players for this specific game.

What I didn't mention is that I also intend to run the game online. Together, that means I'm going to be playing with a group of strangers. I might get to know them a *bit* before we play, but they probably won't know each other.

I don't think I explicitly said it before, but I've been imagining the party more like the crew from Firefly than Star Trek. This potentially poses a problem filling the “Captain” role.

Stars Without Number doesn't need someone to play captain to run the game. Though there are good, mechanical, reasons to have one for ship combat. However, for this setting, I like the idea of a captain who leads by consent. I hope to have a crew that follows orders as long as they believe in their captain, and I need to find a player mature enough to know they’re not really in charge even if their character might be. This is a lot to ask a group of strangers, so I’m not going to initially.

The group can’t reasonably pick who should be captain since none of them played together before. The best we get is someone who volunteers, and that only works out if I’m lucky. Instead, I'm going to create the party’s first captain and have someone else run them.

Fortunately, my wife loves gaming. When I asked her, she was very willing to step into those shoes for a few sessions. Together, we created Carla Chase, the woman who owned the cargo ship the crew would start on.

Now there is one thing about Carla. She has to die. More specifically, she just needs to get out of the way after a few sessions so the party can take over.

But once we collaborated on the character, both my wife and I felt that she probably only leave her ship feet first. I don't like limiting paths to one option. So, I wanted at least one other option. We created her husband, Rory. He’s a homebody who owns a bakery, and would really love it if his spouse stopped risking her life in crazy space adventures. Maybe something can happen to finally convince her to run the shipping company from home, letting the crew take over daily operations.

Regardless of how she exits, Carla is the first bridge into the game world for the players. I'm just going to outright ask them to accept her into their backgrounds. Maybe they've known her for years or just weeks, but liking her she has to be part of the buy in for the game.

Carla will be the source of a few different story hooks, she'll also arrange for the crew's first job, and having her around for 2-3 sessions means there's a chance the players could *actually* grow to like her. After she leaves, her connections can become the party's connections, revealing more paths for the players to explore.

NPCs in general are a great way to employ literary devices. For example, I intend for a different one to function as sort of Greek Chorus, and another who can be the Jiminy Cricket if the party needs one. A lot of who that is and how that develops will depend on the players and their characters, so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I'm just going to mark a few spots on my mental corkboard, then move on.

And that's where I'm going to leave it for today. I'm almost ready to run my Session Zero, and I have some footpaths into the universe for my players. Next time, I'm going come up with some lore for the ship the party starts with, the first mission, and  how I intend to advertise the game.