Tales from the Buzzin' Meeples, New for 2023!

Hi Everyone! Firstly, let me introduce myself - I'm Nathan, and I've joined the TftBM team as its second DM. A big thanks to everyone who came to the Character Creation and Learn to Play sessions with me over the Christmas break: they were everything a D&D session should be - loud, chaotic, and with plenty of silly moments! Now that we've had a trial run during the festive period, me and Adam have been discussing how we would like to coordinate TftBM in the future. From now on the plan is to set up two separate story lines. Here's how this is going to look.

1. The next session on THURSDAY 5th JANUARY will officially kick off a more general story arc we're calling SEASON 1. Season 1 will pick up and develop some of the themes and ideas that have already been floated in 2022 - especially the story of the Outpost and the effects of rediscovering the mysterious factory to the North. In addition, things are going to start taking on a more "Weird West" theme as we look at life in the frontier, things that were buried by the Abjuration, and things that were there, waiting, all along. At the same time, magitek is going to become more prominent as well, with trains, steamships, and arcane weaponry (including firearms) becoming steadily more commonplace.

2. To help draw a line between 2023 and the adventures of last year, we're now going to assume that all future adventures take place 6 MONTHS after the events of my last game on the 28th Dec 22.We're taking this period as essentially "Down-time" for both the settlement and all characters. For one thing, this now means that the Outpost is very nearly reputable, with a full list of amenities and supplies appropriate for any adventurer. Second, Outpost now has its own train station, which is connected to the local settlements all the way to the Capital (we're assuming that it is thanks to the railroad that Outpost has been able to develop so quickly). Third and finally, we're also assuming that everyone has levelled up - from now on you're all 5th Level. (Please see my post on levelling up to 5th Level for details)

3. Part of the problem with sharing DM responsibilities is that it's going to get difficult to present the same non-player characters consistently. We'll inevitably end up emphasising different parts of an NPC's personality, in which case they'll be noticeably different depending on whether they're being played by either me or Adam. To avoid this issue, we've agreed to run two parallel storylines dealing with different aspects of the world me and Adam are creating together. Adam will be developing the existing storyline concerning House Cannith. This will specifically involve the story of the Outpost as already documented by Sarah and Karl (as an aside - thank you so much for doing this! It was invaluable for bringing me personally up to speed with the plot so far).

As for me, I'm going to be looking at the story of the lands around Outpost - the Yolanda Valley Colony - specifically from the perspective of the Pointertown Detective Agency. Sandringham Meriwether Sandford has founded the Central Yolanda Railroad Company with just one aim in mind: to build a mighty transcontinental railroad that will bring "Civilisation" and "Prosperity" to the wilderness (and maybe make a buck or two in the process). The only problem is that certain creatures unaccountably fail to see the benefits of having a railroad run through their town/home/dungeon/lair and so Sandford has had to hire the Pointertowns (including you!) to help provide "Security" to his employees. The idea behind this storyline is to really push the Western elements of this setting. Featuring: Bandits, Cattle Rustling, Desperados, Dust Devils, Dynamite, Fights on Top of a Train, Gambling, Great Train Robberies, Gunslingers, Hucksters, Mysterious Masked Heroes, Moustache-Twirling Evil Doers (...and Colonel Sanders references)

4. Because we're working in a shared world, me and Adam are going to make references to what's going on in each other's games, and we're going to keep each other apprised of what's happening in each other's storylines. In any case, the overall formula will remain the same: each session will be a self-contained story, so you will be able to drop in on either of our sessions as you wish. We're not precious about what characters you play either - if you want to play as the same character in either of our sessions, that's fine by us. The same goes if you want to play as one character in my storyline, and a different one in Adam's. Me and Adam are also likely to guest-DM in each other's storylines at some point in the future, just to keep things interesting!

5. As a final note, if you've created a character with an elaborate backstory, and you want to explore parts of it, just get in touch with either me or Adam and we'll be more than happy to create an adventure based around it. As far as we're concerned, you're as much part of the story telling process as we are - in particular, we want you guys to feel as if you have an effect on the world we're creating, and one good way of doing that is by taking elements of the character's you've created and interweaving them with the world of Outpost. If you have any ideas about adventures based around your character's backstory (or you just have a cool idea for an adventure) we're more than happy to hear from you.

Our current plan is for Season 1 to least until Easter 2023 (so, early April). After that, we're going to take a quick hiatus while we run a couple of non D&D RPG games for a few weeks. (Suggestions Welcome) Thanks very Much! Nathan