Two line anecdote

I have a very short tale about Rob to tell. But it takes a ton of background.

The background

I’m excited about the current story I’ve devised for our Friday games. I’ve been playing with it for three weeks in my head. I finally got to share it with others Friday.

I had three goals.

The three goals

The stakes in my adventures haven’t been high enough. My first adventure had an entire city threatened. I wanted to up them. Lately I’ve done intrigue adventures where I move plots ahead a bit around another plot. This would have starts and ends. Clear ones I hope.

My encounters have been too tough. Too long. Too much running away. More easy encounters could result in the same overall impact. And if I had heightened the stakes properly winning or losing could still be at risk.

Dan did this thing where he took away the usual support system for the party for an adventure. I thought that was awesome and wanted to copy it.

So I devised an adventure.

The adventure.

Day 1 – a cataclysm of ice and fire. I stole from myself and put the city at risk again. 🙂 in fact the same two threats from that adventure. I also stole some other elements. Except, this time, I didn’t just threaten to blow up the city (fictionally) – I blew up quite a bit of it.

But the key to Dresden is relationships. Unlike the first time I did this there are lots of relationships now. If I’m good at this, I hope to be able to invoke them all.

The key relationship.

One of the key relationships the party has is with Poppy. Poppy is kinda the boss of the party. Not really. Certainly in her mind she is.

There is a love/hate relationship between her and the party too. The rely on one another and know they can, but it is always a last resort.

Poppy recently married Heinrich. The whole Poppy/Heinrich relationship was Dano’s idea. It is brilliant. My addition was more cliched – that the relationship included some tumultuous ups and downs. Both Heinrich and Poppy come with lots of hard edges.

I have a plan there too. 🙂 but we’d likely have to play Dresden for several more years for me work work through it all. But I put in a chunk of it in the adventure.

One last important detail

In the world of Dresden wizards, like Poppy, don’t get sick.

The anecdote.

At the start of the adventure, on a whim, I threw in an obscure piece of foreshadowing, I thought, for the final scene of the nights adventure by providing second hand information that Poppy had a cold.

Robin immediately said, correctly, she must be pregnant.

I really had to work to make that two sentences alone.

The denouement

I was a bit annoyed when Rob spoke. Now it would seem he had guided my final reveal. I brushed it aside and quickly moved on.

But really it was awesome. When the reveal did come at the end of the night, it meant more.

The other note is how uncannily Rob is able to think like me.

The quick wrap up

I’m really looking forward to next week.

Day 2 – Take a personal day