#sepiadiegms

trying to get a savage worlds campaign started. set in a small, tight knit community ala rune factory. my intent is to have plenty of consistent npc work that, ideally, the players are slotted into as equals. to this end, i've also asked them to invent an npc they'd be interested in interacting with.

i do have a two or three session plot planned, but it's a mystery so i can't share plot details, just try and enforce setting and tone.

also, no one else plays rune factory, so there's been some struggle to communicate what tone that implies.

good news: i got two players to make time for character creation. (i'm trying to get at least one more player, but that's been tough going)

however: one player has decided on a precocious 12-year-old (which i can work with, but changes the tone), and the other wanted to both match that age while also holding a significant social and quasi-political position (i managed to talk him up to 14-years old, but he was clearly unhappy about it).

which, can we agree, fundamentally affects how the townspeople will treat the proposed party? they are going to need to struggle to be taken seriously.

(okay, so obviously i can just treat them as full members of the community, but that feels like it just ignores the choice)

now the 12-year old is an aspiring private investigator sort, which positions him to actively involve himself in whatever happens out of curiosity. pretty sure the player is thinking riz from dimension 20, and i have cecil from rune factory 5 to add variety. player made one bold choice, but we've done improv together and he's good at cooperating[1]. the npc he provided is a good-humored town guard the child likes to bother with questions.

meanwhile, the other player has given me a laundry list of plot hooks and nothing about his character's personality and motivations. he wants to be in charge of 'fire based rituals', his family are subtly wealthy land owners, and his npc is a habitual horse thief child he thought up when he was going to play an adult. plus, he wants to do something with an undead hand that seeks out treasure, which i know he's very excited about, but i literally don't have a place to implement it, nor do i know what media this 'hand of glory' is from.

the actual player character doesn't have a name[2], and i'm not sure he filled out a character sheet. which is pretty consistent for the player. he's always been more invested in vague concepts than his characters, but it makes it hard to plan.

anyways, needed to vent somewhere. now i need to put in the actual work.

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[1] specifically, he's internalized my hatred/struggle with complicated fantasy names and uses normal names in my games.