Demi-Monde Running

As per Alexis' recommendations, I created several pre-generated characters with the same ability scores rearranged as per the character's skillsets.  My players all chose characters and we finished up the last step - each character has a connection with the demi-monde.  I decided to have each character's relationship with someone else be the impetus for their exposure to the demi-monde, and so I used my relationship generator from Prodigy:

Roll	Connection	Current Relationship
1	Parent or Guardian	Amity
2	Sibling	Hatred
3	Rival	Love
4	Childhood Friend	Fear
5	Mentor	Disgust
6	Bully	Respect
7	Old Flame	Neutrality
8	Spouse	It’s Complicated: roll twice

As you might expect (since this table is very vague), I then improvised a horrific episode to introduce each character to the demi-monde and link them to Tashkent, the geographic location for the setting.  For example, for a result of 1, 1, the character had a phenomenal childhood with loving parents, but then one night awoke to see some being made entirely out of flame setting his house on fire.  He blacked out and was promptly arrested for the murder of his parents (who were discovered tied to chairs and then stabbed 18 times each) and arson (firestarting equipment was found in his room).  He was acquitted on a mistrial and enlisted to get away from his home.  While doing research, he discovered similar reports happening in Tashkent, and hopped on the plane to investigate.

A brief synopsis of the running follows.

All of the characters arrived on the same flight from the U.S. and were grouped together by a taxi driver who provided necessary exposition on the specific district in which the first session would be held - Sergeli district, which contains the airport and the Usman Nasyr Recreation Park.

The party quickly found accommodations for a prolonged stay, near the Sergeli Bazaar, found the black market, and received a quest to investigate and "take care of" an arena fighter who seemed impervious to damage.

Then, after some reconnoitering, the party stalled out and split up as they investigated their own objectives - part of the group wanted to recruit some cats to ward off beings of the demi-monde, while the rest of the group headed into another district to investigate one of the character's connections to the city, Teriuk Publishing House.

In broad daylight, they broke in, found that the place had been, mostly, cleared out by some authority, and set off an interior alarm connected to the exec's office.  The police came quickly and arrested one of the characters, while another stole their car (in front of them) and raced away while the third snuck away scot-free.  The car chase ended with a ball of fire, several dead Uzbek police officers, and a dead character.

The survivors reconvened that evening and, as they considered exploring an old Orthodox church retrofitted into Stalin's Reform School with some creepy rumors floating around about it, I ended the running - it was getting late and some of us had exams that evening.



Reactions to the setting were mixed - the players spent most of the game trying to adjust to the world of Tashkent, having no experience with the city or that part of the world.  This meant that they were very focused upon the more mundane aspects and didn't really investigate the weirder stuff available to them.  The other major issue was that the players felt that their characters had little or no reason to be together, other than convenience and a shared American nationality - their links to the demi-monde were all very different, and (because of how they were generated) very intimate and shameful, so they felt very little impetus to open up and work with the other characters.

On the other hand, they all felt like there was a city to explore, and a whole dark universe to ponder - they were aware of three distinct areas of interest and wanted to pursue all of them.  They developed relationships with several different NPCs, and focused (most of them) on securing a base of operations to prepare for an extended foray into the city.

The first structural problem with the running were its status as a one-shot: players were inclined to rush to do things without preparation and also to make poor but thrilling decisions (like stealing the police car in front of the officers).  Some of my players really bought into their characters, while others kept their distance from them.  There is a great deal more impetus to buy into characters when it will be a longer campaign.

The second structural problem was the interrelation of the characters - in the absence of an external cohesive agent, several of my players chose not to act like part of a group.  For beginning a campaign, I think generating character relationships and creating an external cohesive relationship for the players will give them the impetus they need to open up and share.

The third structural issue, that didn't impact today's game particularly but absolutely would have if this was the beginning of a campaign, was in the players not really understanding what they would need to establish a long-term presence in a foreign country - principally housing and a source of income.  The fault there is mine - I didn't explain it until my players and I reflected on the running.

All in all, I've learned a lot from this running which will undoubtedly transfer over to the next three sessions.