Premade Campaigns

Catalyst is an open world. Unlimited storytelling potential exists within the demon-infested ruins of humanity. This gives the game a high amount of replay value. One game master’s campaign could be about a cross-country trek to cure the demon-brought plague, another’s about uniting squabbling human factions against a demon assault, and yet another’s spinning the lore to focus on humans turning into demons and an internal struggle against darkness.

All of these require a level of creativity and commitment from the game master. Role playing games, as a genre, are meant to have dynamic stories bounded by the game master’s keen grasp of the rules and story. This is certainly daunting to new game masters, particularly with a new game.

To help introduce people to Catalyst, we are selling premade campaigns. Our first, “Runaways”, is available now. Three more are on their way. These were all commissioned by Kickstarter backers and tell drastically different stories.

These campaigns serve as guides for game masters. They establish the specific lore for this instant of the Catalyst universe. In particular, the guides delineate what players know and what the game master knows. They help setup a player’s background and explain what happened to them before the campaign’s events.

The premade campaign then follows the story through the major pot events. It describes scenes game masters need to relay to their players. The players still have input; the guide establishes setting and gives advice on how to handle expected player reactions. It also lists common check goals players will need to succeed in various scenarios (e.g.: “players need an engineering check of 7 to fix the broken truck”).

Since combat is a big part of Catalyst, the guides break down a lot of the complexities of managing and designing a good fight. Battles are broken down like this:

Battle Notes – Sample Fight

• Opponents
  • Who or what the players are battling
• Terrain
  • The general setting of the fight and any notable features
• Setup
  • Where everyone starts the battle, particularly in relation to one another
• Tactics
  • How the enemies behave and what actions they favor
• Special
  • Any usual rules or conditions of the fight
• Resolution
  • What happens if the players win, lose, or run away

Beyond details about the fight, campaign guides also give enemy statistics. All the data a GM will need when players use spells or skills on a character are provided.

(Sample character from "Runaways")

Equipped with all this information, the game master can quickly react to whatever the players throw at them. They no longer have to focus on designing interesting encounters or avoiding repetitive scenes, but can instead absorb the story and better respond to players. Of course, these guides are open to interpretation and you are free to change as much as you want. Tweak the events to match your group. Make the fights harder if you to challenge your group or omit them if you want to focus on the narrative. You are still free to tell the story you and your players want. These guides help remove the uncertainty of doing so.

--Alex

Digital Orders

PDF copies of Catalyst are now available for purchase. Pre-ordering for the physical copy ends Monday, when regular sales begin.

Campaigns, which serve as guides for game masters through stories we designed, will start arriving later week. Our first one is "Runaways": set in a world where the demons dramatically overpowered humanity, the players must escape captivity and brave the harsh Colorado wilderness in order to survive. 

In Media Res

A couple sessions into a campaign, players have their characters fleshed out. The over-exaggerated caricatures give way to more three-dimensional, consistent, logical avatars. The game master also settles into a groove. They understand where their story is going, how the players react to challenges, and how to balance fights or other tests of character skill. Sadly, the needs of a game are outweighed by the dynamics of reality. People come and go from gaming groups and those left are forced to either abandon a campaign, or persevere with a changing roster.

CPG has two ongoing playtests for Catalyst at the moment that both lost people this week (one is on an extended vacation and the other left town). So, we’re going to merge to the two groups and carry forth with one of the campaigns. The challenge will be integrating the two new people into the existing tale. Since this comes up enough in long-form role playing games, I figured I’d share some tactics I have for easy transitions both players and GMs can utilize.

The simplest solution is to retcon the new player into the existing story. They were always there, remember? Saying they were silent or overruled on past decisions gives a consistent history to the campaign. This is the best course of action if you have the same people for a campaign’s duration, but you tend to be down a person each time (scheduling twenty-somethings to do anything is a pain.)

The key to pulling this off as a player is to be informed about the world and actions performed by your team without you. Ask them to give you a quick recap before play starts, but the emphasis should be on emotion and reasoning. “We let the demons escape because we had to save the priest from the burning building. We deduced he’s the only one who knows where the relic is, so as frustrating as letting the enemy go was, we needed to keep the guy alive.” The biggest restriction on the joining character is their mental state and ambitions can’t differ much from the rest of the party. You’ll miss out on the moment of conflict your story was attempting if the person in question steps out for a session.

If you are swapping one character for another (effectively stating the person leaving was never there, it was always the new player’s character), things get trickier. You’ll have to examine what impact the departing person had on the story: did their choices have drastic outcomes and would the new character have done the same? In my campaign, Narwhal chose to violently stop a mad scientist. Clearly, there are repercussions to his actions; it’s not exactly fair to force those consequences upon the new player. However, this person swap lends itself better to interweaving the world and the party.

A few campaigns back, I had a player leaving town a couple months after a long campaign began. Since I knew this upfront, I shared some secrets with him about one of the factions that opposed the players. He ended up being an undercover agent, demonstrating peculiar behavior at points, but the other players never figured it out until the big reveal on his last session. In game, this betrayal occurred during a large inner-city skirmish. Our new player joined the campaign next week, his character having been an observer of the players’ prowess and an ally of the faction opposing the betrayer's. Of course, he had an ulterior motive to help; he wanted to use the players’ talents to further his personal city-conquering agenda.

Here, we’ve managed to turn what could have been an awkward transition into a scene breathing life and authenticity into the story. The world should not exist statically next to the players as they meander forward; it needs to constantly be pushing and pulling the players as they struggle to gain traction against larger forces. Using personnel changes to challenge the power of players enhances the scope of the campaign and the dire consequences of their failure.

As a final note to players entering an ongoing campaign, remember your etiquette. As mentioned earlier, the interpersonal relations between characters, NPCs, game masters, and players will have been established. You should certainly integrate yourself into this mix, but be sure not to trample over other players to do so. Your character will be new to the others; gain their trust and respect. Make sure no one regrets inviting you over to join their game.

--Alex