Short week but I wanted to get started! Today I have the first draft of the relationship map I’m using to design my People cards, and the first three of those cards. We’ll start with the former.
I took a pretty straightforward approach here: I made up 12 band members and associates and made sure they each had one clear point of relationship friction with another person. By keeping track on the map, I made sure there weren’t any tight closed loops. You don’t want to set something up where three people hate each other and none of them have any connections to anyone else in the band. I wound up with one grouping of four people who’re unconnected to the rest of the band anyhow.
So then I wrote up my first batch of three People cards, and added a couple of mentions on the fly to tie that grouping into the rest more strongly. The genre demands creative tension between the lead vocalist and the two siblings who founded the band, each with their own semi-valid reasons for thinking they’re the most important person around. I took Starchild, our horrendously pretentious lead vocalist, and set up some tension by making them believe the polite fiction that Rowan does all the meaningful songwriting. I’ll keep the relationship map updated (probably won’t post it every week) and I think that’ll tell me if I’ve made the tension and anger strong enough.
I also wanted to start thinking about what failure means in this game. In the original Desperation, failure is death. That’s certainly going to be a possibility here, whether by drug overdose or electrical accident, but I’m not writing a horror game here and I don’t want to kill off two thirds of these characters. I need attrition, not fatalities. I think attrition here is leaving the band, or in other words failing. And it needs to be inevitable. I signal this with Morgan, who is in a pinch and is trying not to let anyone find out. There’s gonna be at least one Event that plays into the money running out and someone deserting the tour as a result.
Oh, and I didn’t write up starting locations because I’m sort of still figuring Locations out. I know they’re going to be symbolic representations of where people can be found, but I am not sure enough of them to solidify them with People yet. Easy enough to go back and do that.
Anyhow, here’s what we have so far:
Starchild
I’m the Starchild, and I’m the star. Sure, Rowan and Robin founded the band and Rowan’s the one who can write songs, but everyone comes to the shows to see me singing. I’m the only one who had the guts to really abandon my past life. There is nothing for me beyond the band. There is nothing for the band without me. I know my spouse Morgan understands that.
Morgan
I’m Morgan, and I’ve made horrible mistakes. Nobody can know that this last tour is costing me the rest of the money I inherited from my family. I can’t let it end this way – one way or another, I need to figure out a way to stop spending money on this before the end of the tour. Even if it winds up meaning that people hate me, but it’d be better if my hands are clean.
Patty
I’m Patty, and I’m managing a bunch of children. The band would never have succeeded without me, and they’d still be succeeding if they just listened to me. Shows what too much money will do to you, doesn’t it? The immediate problem is the drugs, though. I like a good high as much as the next person, but that fucking roadie has basically opened a pharmacy backstage and it’s not doing anyone any good. Especially Starchild, that arrogant idiot.