Included page "clone:beer-with-teeth" does not exist (create it now)
blurt: (n) When your Truth Rune is over 80, and you tell your High Sword he's wrong. Because he is.
Metal Bestseller Badges - 26 Feb 2021 10:38
https://amazing-tales.net/2019/01/27/drivethru-rpg-metal-tiers/ is a good page, but a couple of years out of date - it has explanations of how things used to be. I'm very grateful that it existed back in the day, but this is updated information.
OK, Hit It!
As that amazing tales page says, bestseller badges are a mark of how many of a product has sold. The product needs to go for at least $0.20, so most price promotions will count, but giveaways don't. A non-zero number of publications lost badges when that price limit was introduced. It's an anti-abuse number, to make it less worthwhile to inflate your own prices.
The numbers, taken from https://onebookshelfpublisherservice.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022135314-Bestseller-metals-and-how-to-earn-badges.
Copper: 51-100 units sold
Silver: 101-250
Electrum: 251-500
Gold: 501-1000
Platinum: 1,001-2500
Mithral: 2,501-5000
Adamantine: 5,001+
Or, in a nice graph format that shows the difficulties but compresses the lower numbers:
Each number is harder to reach than the last, because not only does the number required double or more than double with each step, but selling the 100th copy of a product is harder than selling the 1st. This means it is comparatively easy to get to the first badge, and then often sales will slowly drift upwards to the second and third. We can tell how badges go from a trawl of drivethrurpg's website.
Thanks once more to Amazing Tales, we have a reference to https://www.drivethrurpg.com/metal.php - a list of the numbers of title that have each badge, and a scrollable list of the Adamantine and Mithral titles, in top-down1 order.
The drivethrurpg page gives these numbers:
Copper: 14083
Silver: 15105
Electrum: 7241
Gold: 3548
Platinum: 1390
Mithral: 257
Adamantine: 96
And in graph format:
In addition, the page says that Copper is 14% of titles, so the corpus is about 100,000 titles. The thing that is interesting here is that where copper used to be the most common badge, now it is silver. This is likely to be a combination of two things: OneBookStore used to keep tabs separately over different sites, and products age gracefully.
Unless there is a re-adjustment of numbers sold to deal with abuse issues, a product that remains on sale will not lose sales, but will either be static or gradually accumulate them. It looks like most items plateau at the 100-250 mark, either staying under the silver limit, or getting into it and staying a while. Electrum is harder to get to; 7.25% of products hit electrum sales.
And the Jonstown Compendium?
For those of us who write for the Jonstown Compendium, the numbers look good. We're a small but very loyal community of buyers, and the Jonstown Community is our outlet for creativity. One of us, Nick Brooke, started putting together an index of what is for sale, and includes what awards they all have, and he has now been keeping track for over a year. The last issue of his spreadsheet says that 70 items out of 99 are copper or better. (4 are free, 103 total, at last count. A few of those have been withdrawn from sale, but there is still data available.) Of those with medals, only 18 are copper, and 32 are silver. Those things that have not hit copper are generally new, niche, or outside of the run of 'sourcebooks and scenarios' which seem to work best. Electrum and gold are over-represented compared to the general corpus2.
This means that our graph skews right, insofar as it can. Compared to the behemoths, RuneQuest is a smaller system, and ultimately our market share is going to be smaller, but the level of quality on the Jonstown Compendium is high, and sales are generally good per item. I attribute this to a few things; the lack of a race to the bottom, the relatively small number of player-gms (who publish) compared to super-fans (who buy) and the support of Chaosium itself. We have an active community that is relatively well joined up, and often actively wants to buy from the Jonstown Compendium.
Hooray!
Yep.
Chaosium Interview - 02 Oct 2020 17:09
In which the smaller GM says some stuff about…
Being part of Pegasus Plateau!
Title
The Pegasus Plateau is now out in hardback, and Dom and Diana helped to make it. We wrote Crimson Petals, which is one of the several adventures there.
https://www.chaosium.com/blogcasting-a-wide-net-new-runequest-creators-and-their-work-for-the-pegasus-plateau/ - Chaosium interviewed the people who were new to working with them, including us.
Crimson Petals - 12 May 2020 16:34
In which the smaller knifey stabby GM says some stuff about actually writing for Chaosium.
Caution: (marked) spoilers below.
How we wrote this game
The very early concepts and ideas of Crimson Petals, which at that point had a different name, are back a year and more of scroll in Discord. As far as I, Diana, recall, Dom Twist suggested learning to GM and write a game by doing it with him, but with much more generous wording. We bashed through the main ideas, and then I created a text file and wrote things up so that he could read the text file and run it, and I co-GMed the game, meaning that when there was a main plot that didn't have everyone in, I'd go around the electronic table, making sure everyone else had something to do. Then I did the writing again - writing comes easily to me - and hacked it until we had something we could send in to Chaosium. It was at that point mostly as it is in the book.
Why we wrote this game
Well, we both love Glorantha. I'm a very experienced GM who had until now preferred rules-light systems, but I'm a complete convert to Runequest: Glorantha. However, at that point I had been playing for a few months and knew I didn't have the knowledge to build a scenario that was thematic and would work well with the ruleset. However, Dom had been RPGing in Runequest since he was a small GM and his knowledge of the underlying concepts is strong. He manages this without ever pushing that knowledge in front of other people, but he is a fantastic support when you want to know if a set of social mores is appropriate, or if a Priestess might know a thing.
Why we wrote this game as it is
This is the bit with spoilers in.
We wanted to highlight the fact that Glorantha is all about community. When you have a sin that is covered, it breaks apart that community. Rastip is absolutely and completely guilty of secret murder and kinslaying, and even people who suspect this do not speak out. The community is rotten from within, even though on the surface it seems to be holding together. Morally, the Red Blotches may be a punishment, although they are brought by a very present nemesis. They are a tool of her revenge that is pulling the village apart, and to a great degree the village has already destroyed itself. It's only a matter of time, and it's all because of the honourless sins and the cover-up.
We also wanted to provide the adventurers with the opportunity for resolution that was not based on combat, if they wanted to go that way. This can be solved entirely without risk to the party, if the village can be persuaded to turn against Rastip, and the witch can be placated. Orate rolls would be important in that path. It can also be solved by killing the ghosts of Yeresta and Demel, but this 'solution' only allows the community to make their own decisions free from the addiction to the red flowers. Digging out the underlying problem requires a confrontation of some sort in the physical world as well.
Finally, we did not go with a path-to-resolution because we wanted as many adventurers as possible to be able to contribute. Healers and shamans are important in one sense, warriors and law-speakers in another. This is a terrible, horrendous situation and there is no 'correct' way of dealing with something like this. There are only outcomes that are better or worse. Ideally, by the end Rastip has paid for his crimes, the villagers who are guilty are penitent or punished, Ernalda is propitiated, and the ghosts are freed. The number of variables within any particular group means we wanted multiple ways of getting to each of these states. Dealing with any of these problems makes the situation better.
In the original playtest, Rastip was captured as he screamed that the child had never been his, mostly by the interventions of a Merchant and a Eurmalite. The village was not dissolved, but it had to return all the raided cattle and the village centre itself was moved to the Witch Cave, which is now the centre of Ernaldan worship. The next two Sacred Time rolls determined its fate completely. Omens were, frankly, terrible, but the Child Ring held their ground and demanded to be made adults of this village, and not any other, and held the place together, including helping to persuade the clans around them to give food and aid. The chief was replaced with his cousin.
The Pegasus Plateau is available from https://www.chaosium.com/the-pegasus-plateau-other-stories-pdf/ and at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/312986/The-Pegasus-Plateau--Other-Stories?affiliate_id=205935 . If you want the hard copy as well as a PDF, then Chaosium will take the price of the PDF off the printed version when it is printed.
Pegasus Plateau - 09 May 2020 11:22
In which the smaller but still sharp GM says some stuff about a Chaosium Product
The Pegasus Plateau
It is out.
WELL?
I'm so excited I didn't notice capslock was on. I had to go back and edit.
The Pegasus Plateau is seven complete and ready-to-play adventures with full art, stats, maps, &c. It is available from DrivethruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/312986/The-Pegasus-Plateau--Other-Stories?affiliate_id=205935 and Chaosium at https://www.chaosium.com/the-pegasus-plateau-other-stories-pdf/ .
Crimson Petals, the part that was written by two members of Beer With Teeth, is about passions, deception, and the worst of all possible crimes. We're very, very pleased to see it printed.
Stone And Bone - 16 Mar 2020 17:32
In which the smaller/larger GM says some stuff about our newest title…
Title?
Yes, Stone and Bone. It's about stones. And bones. No, really.
… Go on?
A curse on a shaman means taking him to a place where he can eat a sacred stone. There's no real secret to it.
We meant about where to get it!
Oh. Yes. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/304768/Stone-and-Bone?affiliate_id=205935 - Drivethru RPG. Thanks!
My pleasure.
Rocks Fall - 12 Jan 2020 13:49
In which the small, socially eviscerating GM points out a scenario we have launched!
Tell us more!
Rocks Fall is a simple scenario for slotting into any campaign. It is available on DrivethruRPG as a PDF with printable minis and maps.
Show us!
Sure. If this doesn't show up on the main page, click through on the page title to see the locally attached file.
Image Credit Rob Darvall.
Where is it available?
Can I send you pictures too?
Sure! The best way to contact us is @dianaprobst on Twitter.
Initiates And Status - 21 Nov 2019 14:13
In which the small, socially vivisecting GM says some stuff about status and Initiation.
Background
I recently had a player ask what their status as a Pigwife meant at a feast. Laika is the woman to go to to talk about pigs in her home village, and possibly Clan, but she's not so good with cattle, which are a higher status matter. However, there are two things she has going for her. One is that she's an Initiate of Ernalda, and the other is that she is an Initiate of Ernalda.
Ernalda
Ernalda, the goddess to whom Orlanth is married, is married to him in all3 of his aspects. So, she's the wife of a farmer, the wife of a warrior, and the wife of a King. She herself has many different aspects, but most people talk about 'Ernalda' instead of Ernalda Weaver, or Ernalda the Fruitful, or Ernalda the Queen. As such, I see her as a sort of social equaliser. Although a noble is still a noble, and a farmer is still a farmer, as husbands they will be in different subcults but as wives they will be in the same cult, with different roles. An Ernaldan noble wife's duty is to see that her Clan is fed, like an Ernaldan farmer wife's duty is to see that her house is fed. Bringing harmony among them, finding another way that is not violence, and keeping the community as a community are big parts of her life, no matter what her social status is, whereas a warrior Orlanth Adventurous Initiate will have a very different set of roles to a farmer Orlanth Thunderous Initiate.
So, while Orlanth is always Orlanth, sometimes he has a variety of different attributes. Ernalda has more variety in dresses and where she might be found, and that means that a good Ernalda can be found at the lower or upper tables, and a noble's wife could easily perform the offices of cottage Ernalda. The choice to have Laika Pigwife down at the lower end of the hall is less about the social status of warrior vs farmer, and more the status of having to keep a lot of other nobles happy.
Initiate
Let's think of a cult as a company, for a bit. Worshipping their god and doing the work of their god is their mission statement.
The Core Rulebook says nearly every adult is initiated into a Cult, but it does the word a disservice there, using 'initiate' to mean a different thing to how we use it in play. This is a bit like joining a company as an intern. Everyone gets to join one of the monolith companies. Not everyone gets promoted. In Sartar, as I run it, most adults DO become Initiates of gods, and this is a big difference to elsewhere. Even if they stick at one Rune Point all their lives, they have it. In Sartar, therefore, I assume that 'Initiate' means to some degree you are favoured by the cult or goddess, but this is my Sartar, and yours (and the core game's) are probably different.
In my head, Initiates are the management level of cults and the powers that are given by the gods. Many, many people are members of cults, and Initiates understand enough of their inner workings that functionally, they can be trusted to oversee others. They don't get to make the big decisions, but they may hear about them first, and may understand why they are done, or they may not be privy to those deeper mysteries. This works whether Initiates are those who are obviously blessed by their gods (adventurers in my Sartar) or those who have taken the deeper step to understanding (anywhere outside Sartar, or potentially other games).
When a manager arrives at someone else's company, you treat them well. Depending on their level of management and whether your companies are rivals or not, you'll give them more or less help, but you don't tend to leave them at the door when they have an expectation of coming in, and socially you know when you're likely to have that expectation. An Ernaldan arriving at a stead can expect to be treated well if there is an Orlanthi or another of her husbands magically in charge of it.
I use the word 'magically' because socially this might be awkward when there is already a full home and the husband's ex appears asking for hospitality… But the role of the husband-protector or the male fertility god here is to put a roof over Ernalda. Similarly, if he were to arrive at a place that she owned, he would expect the same.
Laika can prove pretty easily that she is middle management. She has three Rune Points, which in game terms means a good connection to the goddess. Although this can't be worked out directly, it would, IMO, be easy to work out in the sort of way that when someone says they are the Vice-President of Marketing you know they have been with the company a while and you know how to treat them. There will be social cues for this, even if there are no direct ways of asking.
Guest
The tie-breaker here is that Laika is a guest in the hall where she asked that question, and arrived as part of a noble's companion-band. This definitely gives her a step up towards being treated specially. Here, the hospitality would probably be that she would be high on one of the many tables in the lower hall, if she arrived on her own. She is an Ernaldan with obvious tattoos and marks of her trade. She smells comfortingly of pig leather and animal manure, and she is a hefty woman who will have strong children. As a farmer she is socially above a hunter or fisher. She may have her own land, although nobody would be so rude as to ask. She is several steps above a stick-picker, and even they are invited in to this party.
So, she will probably find herself at the table of honour, but given that she has arrived without her best clothes, and the Lord of the place is already married, she is not going to be sitting next to him. She'll probably be put next to someone who is good with animals or plants, and she might be offered a dress to wear, if anyone can find one in her size.
Welcome Aboard - 21 Nov 2019 13:20
More Beer, More Teeth!
Until this morning we were a tall big hairy GM and a short less hairy GM, and now there is an extra short less hairy GM as well. This makes it difficult to describe two of the GMs.
Short Polite GM and Short Non-Client-Facing GM is probably as good as we're getting. The one typing this is the one who plays with social expectations and should not be left alone with machine tools. The other one's polite.
So?
So, Beer With Teeth shares in work and profits according to who puts in what work, designing, GMing, and editing. This gives us more options, as well as more to keep track of. We're probably going to work in pairs more than we work in a group of three, allowing at least one of us to stay naive to any plot, for playtesting purposes.
And I care why?
Did I say I wanted you to? But if you don't look pleased, I'll adjust a few things on these machine tools, and you'll hear the chittering forever.
And more seriously, it'll allow us to put out more work, and do more things, more quickly. So, if those get published, you get the benefit.
Your Glorantha MUST Vary - 15 Nov 2019 09:52
In which the smaller GM says some stuff about the phrase 'your Glorantha will vary' and why her Amber always varies.
I am not a Glorantha GM
… But that's OK. I'm a GM, and I love this world. I don't identify with it enough to try to own it, though. I'll fight you if you try to, as well.
The first RPG I ever ran was Amber Diceless RPG. In its various forms and settings, I have run a game of some sort from when I was about 13, for about 20 years. A big thing I learned was that I'll have players coming back to new campaigns, and I need to keep it fresh. My first campaign was a long monster, and while arcs got finished, it eventually died creaking under the weight of history. I'd tried to keep things the same, and it was all a steady universe… and it was inaccessible. Most of it was useless, in the end, because it was not in the immediate scene being played.
Now, that's fine, because the players were used to it, but then I started a new campaign, and I found I had so much old thinking I had to get rid of. I made a conscious choice to make a change in every campaign and mix it up.
For those who do not know Amber, it is a game about a royal family, and their terrible inter-personal relationships, and their lack of communication. It's also ostensibly about massive multi-universe play, but a lot of it comes down to one castle on a mountain. I'd read a post on the Amber eMail list saying that a way to keep the game fresh was to randomly draw how these people were related to each other, and while I've never done that, I definitely would. So thanks to you, whoever that was. It's been too long to recall, but it changed how I GM.
My favourite games after this have all changed something. Some have changed the cosmology, some have changed the family. One memorable one had Prince Benedict, the ultimate general and swordsman, die as a baby, when his mother died giving birth. The knock-on result was that his brothers, Osric and Finndo, never rebelled against their father, and Creepy Osric and his Pet Morgue were born. That game also gave me the correct collective noun for dragons; a disaster.
The Oberon who ate his children's souls for power was also very good fun.
Which brings us to…
I'm not a Glorantha GM but I GM Glorantha
The new RQG is the only version of Runequest, Heroquest, or Glorantha I have ever played or GMd. This is a world, and a game, that has been in continuous development for 40 years, with literally thousands of people having ideas filtered in. It's impossible to nail it all down, and while there is a canon, it's big.
It's also a suggestion. From the very start, I've been told 'YGWV'. Your Glorantha Will Vary.
I get a bit salty4 when people say a thing must have happened, because it's been written down previously. Glorantha is a game where we are positively encouraged to make our own path and explore our own way. Being afraid of changing the setting because someone else will pull you up on it means you're missing out. But the good news is, they are wrong. This is YOUR game. YOUR Glorantha may, and will, and must, vary.
As far as I can see the 'canon' as written is this:
This is an old D&D werewolf. I couldn't find the REALLY pixelated black and white werewolf against the moon I have on paper. It's too old for the internet, apparently. I was given it by my first GM, back when I was 12. And…
It's … not good. It was the best available at the time, and kudos to the artist, but objectively, compared to what we can print now, and the artists available, it's not good. It's got value to me because of what it means, but it's a really limited bit of art, and if I stuck to that era, I'd be limited too. Games grow, and art gets better, and our setting also gets better, and we change and things are awesome that way. Ideas for history in RPGs also change. Thank heavens Uleria is being given her dues.
I like to think of different issues of RPGs as having different version numbers. You might WANT your software to work without updates, but it's going to collapse as operating systems move on. A major change means you can't rely on the whole thing working the same any more. A major change usually means that the software is better.5 Sometimes you need to break compatability to introduce a good thing, and that is fine. Rather than thinking about the now, and trying to defend it, think about the ten-years-from-now and how awesome it could be.
It could be this:
I can't say it makes me angry that people love the game so much they love older versions of it; I'm far too lazy for that. However, I do want everyone to be able to play with a full-colour creative commons version of the game, and I don't want them to have to fight their way past the black and white version to prove themselves. I can, if I like, choose to accept that there are multiple people called Argrath. I like that idea. But I don't have to. It's easier to fight my first werewolf if this is not the case, and then afterwards I can pick up that idea and laugh over it and go 'that is so Glorantha'. But there IS no one Glorantha, so it's OK if I also don't do that. What there are is multiple possibilities, and every time everyone runs a campaign, perforce it will be different.
So… screw the notion of a canonical spine. Or don't if you don't want to. Your game, your rules. But if someone is telling you that you need to cling to their interpretation of the setting, and they are not GMing, they are wrong. Dictating what one game is like based on another game is weird, when you think about it.
You're allowed to go along with it, but you're also allowed to give them a flat stare, invite them to consider Genesis 9:76, or get them to roll on their Lore to find out if what they are saying is correct, and maybe even change it if they hit their roll.
But what you should probably do is make sure they know beforehand that this is YOUR Glorantha, and if they know things that are canonical, those might be wrong, and then invite them to explore the new place, together. The same Amberite family has given me 20 years of new, fresh RP, because I've mixed it up. That's one family. One Clan, or one Kingdom, could give you just the same, and any things you think you learned along the way can be rumour, or hope, or an interesting story. If you let history dictate to you, then your games are sad, black and white werewolves in the snow. Be a coloured werewolf of glory. It's a feature, not a bug, that Glorantha changes. It's a feature, not a bug, that history is different in each game.
Perforce, your Glorantha will vary. Whether you're a black and white werewolf afficionado, or currently building a 3D model of a werewolf, when it is your Glorantha, you get to be in charge, and when it is not, be generous about watching people with their colouring pencils. They are not taking away your game, they are adding to the world.
Kicking The Dog - 03 Oct 2019 20:30
In which the Smaller GM from Beer With Teeth talks about emotional payload and kicking puppies.
For the purposes of this blog, please assume that a puppy is a small alynx.
This blog was triggered by a comic, about those naturally evolving mistakes when the town ends up burned down, and by a comment from a friend about common situations we find ourselves in:
How about the character that decides to face their enemy (loose definition) then discovers that said enemy has just bared their soul publicly, made a “woe is me” appeal and got lots of sympathy so that facing up could now be seen as kicking an injured dog when if the dog is injured (debatable) it’s a self inflicted or imaginary injury?
I've also been the person who really wanted to kick that dog. It got me thinking about golf professionals and kicking puppies. That is, emotional payload.
Mandatory Gaming Anecdote: The Golf Professional
First, a little scene-setting. A group of characters, all hardened trouble-shooters who have exemplary pattern recognition skills have a little downtime. They decide that a perfectly ordinary weather event, a ring around the moon, is strange. So fine, I play along. They may even be right. But then they decide that the night-time golf events that go on at the hotel they are staying in are in fact a part of a terrible magical conspiracy, and that the golf pro (who looks a bit like a guy they know) is the centre of it. Their pattern-recognition and trouble-spotting skills have led them down this path and they keep walking it, and it all makes sense to them.
I keep a straight face and let them make plans.
These magical glow-in-the-dark balls are horrific magic, they decide, having never seen such technology. So, they pull in some extra help, because their understanding is they need it. It all ends with a shoot-out in which the entirely innocent golf professional is killed, and the brother of their own king is shot. (By the golf professional. Innocent does not mean stupid.)
They pile out from a hotel bathroom they are pinned down in, by magical means, and survive to put in their report.
And…
And they get away with it.
The group got away with killing some guy and wounding someone really important, because they had a good reason and the stakes were wrong for screwing them to the wall. It was a black mark on a couple of them, but they literally got away with murder, and they probably will again. And that leads us to the concept of emotional payload, when other consequences don't matter.
Find what they value. Use it as stakes.
In general, 'find what they value and use it as stakes' is simple plot hook advice. The character has a dear old mother/father/orphaned aunt? Quick, threaten them! But this goes rather deeper. I'm not talking about physical things that they value here. I'm talking about things they want to do, and the things that other people want to do around them.
If they want to kill a golf professional, or an innocent crafter, you're allowed to let them get away with it. But sometimes, the murder of an innocent person is… too easy. Sometimes, they have to kick a puppy in public. Sometimes, the 'innocent crafter' is really guilty, but looks sorry about it, and the characters will have to carry the emotional value of the entire crowd that watches the puppy being punted. That is, they'll make the crowd angry.
I like to give people this sort of decision, where nothing will be perfect afterwards, and none of the obvious outcomes please them. Not all the time, but… when you are in a position where the characters are likely to kick a puppy, or kill a golf professional, or accuse a brewer of selling bad beer, remember that you can up the stakes by making the puppy into a PR machine.
And Sartar? Runequest?
Well. Honour Scores. 'Find what they value' is generic advice, but it goes very well with opposed rolls on Passions or Runes. If you're looking to create tension in the emotional region, and kick them right in the feels, then you have a few possibilities: kick the puppy and get hurt, choose between puppies to kick, or set fire to the puppy.
Examples please?
What, you want free plot? Sure.
background plot hook tensioner de-tensioner emotional multiplier
Puppy 1
The characters roll into a civilised city to hear rumours about themselves. They track them down to a man who is very popular and has a crowd of fans to hear him sing and talk. Their reputations are trashed but the man appeals to his friends, saying he was deceived and is now sorry, and offering to make it up to them. The effects on their reputation are still there. If they punish him, his fans will turn on the group and if they survive that the city will punish them but if they don't they have to live with letting him badmouth them. If they do nothing, they will keep being reminded of the matter for weeks to come. Will personal vengeance and wounded honour win out, or will pragmatism help them swallow this bitter pill? Is there a way to kick the puppy? Can they find someone to help them trash this fellow in return? Are his enemies people they want to have as friends, or are they just your enemy's enemies7? Honour, Air, Darkness (both cruelty and patience), Harmony… All of these fight it out, and should be able to fight it out inside a character.
Puppy 2
A character has a traditional enemy they have a personal argument with. A representative of the enemy comes to their Clan and proposes a Heroquest that would heal rifts. The character has the chance to speak in the moot, and their Clan Chief tells them to come out in support while their mother begs them to remember the perfidy of the enemy and their various friends remind them of how badly it could go if they get things wrong. Will they kick the puppy and annoy the Clan Chief, or is their mother the puppy they are going to kick? There has been no threat to the things they value - but the stakes are there, and they have to decide for themselves.
Puppy 3
| Plot Point | What It Means |
|---|---|
| If your memory serves you well | Set up this enemy in advance, or take from a previous plot… |
| We were going to meet again and wait | …preferably an NPC who shook a fist at them as they parted |
| So I'm going to unpack all my things | They are definitely well prepared… |
| And sit before it gets too late | …and determined. |
| No man alive | Totally, throw ghosts at them |
| Will come to you | While isolating the characters |
| With another tale to tell | Sudden twist - the puppy has enemies who reveal a secret! |
| And you know that we shall meet again | Puppy is a vampire |
| If your memory serves you well | Exposing puppy will expose character's old sins |
OK, that was a stretch. But it becomes a valid plot, and the payload of kicking the puppy is satisfaction as you both burn at the stake. Again, Honour, but also Disorder, Darkness, Fire, Hate (Individual), Hate (Race), Hate (Chaos), Devotion (Humakt)… Passions and Runes are fun. Look over those your players have, and see what a plot looks like when you pull in several that conflict. Passions and Runes can help you generate the shape of the emotional conflict, even if you don't have the details yet.
Adding the details can be by NPC generation, by grabbing NPCs and situations you have used before, or by the time-honoured method of waiting to see what the players come up with as their worst fear, and generating enemies to suit that between sessions. Above all, it's important to look for decisions that the characters will find emotionally difficult. Don't jump up and down on them all the time, or it loses effectiveness, but find ways of making clashes happen.
Make the characters choose what they value most, and play it through.
