Magic, gods and you: Together again with gameplay notes

A “short” two-part post on character development. First up, my brief impression of the typical skyship sailor’s view of magic and things spiritual. Second, a couple of gameplay ideas I will be using for the upcoming game.

Magic and gods. This is a starting point – your character’s feelings on these subjects could be all over the spectrum. However, its safe to say that your character has 1) seen both technological devices and magic, and 2) knows both to be quite real. They may or may not understand how these things work, but that they work is a given. This is true of most people in the skies, but in fairness most people don’t venture off their little islands. The typical islander likely views both technology and magic with a degree of apprehension, particularly if there is an alternative that is more readily understandable. But in the Void, sailors rely on some combination of magic and technology for their survival. You are the adventuring caste – as such the potential danger of both are usually accepted and perhaps better understood. Think of this like a power tool. To the uninitiated, the tablesaw seems dangerous, whereas a handsaw is easy to control and understand even if it’s far inferior for most tasks. But once you’ve been around them awhile (and certainly if you’ve learned to use one) you gain a respect and understanding of its function (or at least its functionality).

Similarly, atheism is a bit of a nonissue in this world, particularly for those who travel the skies. On many major islands, the gods are too present to ignore. Your character may have even met with one personally, particularly if you are a member of a priestly order. But as often as not, the gods are seen as a means to an end. You can assume that most islanders also believe in the majority of the deities, although the local understanding of these entities and their actual reality might be quite different. This is true even in the priestly castes, were local practices of worship for a given deity may differ somewhat from island to island. Pilgrims are common sights, and these local practices might interfere with your other activities from time to time.

Gameplay. I’m going to make use of your email for gameplay purposes. This won’t be on a schedule, but used as appropriate to relate information to your character. This could include skill test results, background knowledge of a new NPC you just met, or the like. What you choose to let your cohorts know is of course up to you, but I see this as the equivalent of passing notes at the table. Feel free to pass them back my way if there are things that you want to (try to) do without informing the others.

In addition to these situational notes, I will also be using a system of downtime updates. Rather than play out the weeks of ship travel, or days of loading gear, I will announce that we are skipping ahead, and give a general timeframe. This will often coincide with allotment of advancement points. Each player should email or post any specific actions they want to take during this period, along with whatever seems like appropriate rolls. I will respond to each player with an email note, detailing some of the occurrences of the last few days. This will obviously be designed to resolve your actions, but will also include story hooks, sidequests, rumors or other flavortext to work into your roleplaying. Some of this information will be common between all the players, but some of it will not. What you choose to reveal is up to you, of course.

Last one for now is a brief mention of minigames. I won’t go into detail now, but suffice it to say I have some ideas for specialized actions that are probably best described as minigames. This might include things like gambling, tinkering on equipment, scrounging for new goods, hunting big game or translating documents. I hope these will give you a new way to use all those noncombat skills you’ve been purchasing.