Splatbook*

Establish key details

What details need to be established before you start play? What needs to be true for your hook to make sense? What obvious questions arise as you think about those things? Ask leading questions that establish those things, but at the same time give the players some creative control.

Why do this? Why not just tell the players the things that need to be true?

Mostly: because it's more interactive. If you ask someone to think about a question and create an answer, they process the details of the question more deeply. That's true even if the question is about something rather mundane and inconsequential. Answering helps them engage with the world that you're creating together, and it gives them a little more ownership of that world.

But also: your players will come up with details that you never would. And even when they don't come up with anything unexpected, the fact that they came up with it instead of you gives the whole thing a more authentic texture. The world feels more real, less like something that one person is just making up.

My hook assumes that spring broke warm and early and that the trappers are out in the Wood catching game. That gives me these questions:

  • When was the last time spring came this early and was this warm?
  • What type of game are the trappers busy trapping?

The crinwin have been actively raiding lately, so I feel like there must be something that lets the trappers feel at least a little safe. That gives me this question:

How do trappers ward off crinwin? Do you think it really works?

Finally, my central threat is the swyn, and the crinwin are collecting children for it. We know Wynfor (Caradoc's nephew) went missing during the last crinwin raid, but "collecting" implies more of a pattern than that. I think there must be a previous child who went missing, and the village gave up on searching for her. To establish those details, I'll ask:

  • Who was the youth who went missing in the Wood a few weeks before that nighttime raid by the crinwin?
  • Why did you all give up searching for her?