Campaign One Sheets
This is an outline that a GM can fill out to crystalize a setting for a Wushu game in their own mind, and also hand out to players to help communicate it to them. Leave out any you don't think apply.
The version immediately following is for easy cut-and-paste reuse. Notes and examples follow.
Setting Name:
Setting Description:
Inspiration:
License to Kick Ass:
Chi Is:
Sample Character Concepts:
Typical Tasks:
Suitable Traits:
Suitable Weaknesses:
Mooks:
Nemeses:
Example Descriptions:
How To Fill This Out
- Setting Name: Short, pithy, easy to remember.
- Setting Description: A couple of sentences about what the world is like.
- Inspiration: If there are movies, books, or games that have a tone like what you're trying to play, put them here. Writing a thousand words won't convey as much setting tone or information as a reference to a gorgeous, over-the-top kung fu epic movie that inspired you (assuming the players have seen it, too).
- License to Kick Ass: What makes the characters notable. Something they all have in common.
- Chi Is: is normally luck, vitality, energy, and so on. If it's something different or gains extra descriptors in this game, say so.
- Sample Character Concepts: List a couple, but this can neither be exhaustive nor exclusive, since players are creative. "Batman, Superman", "Indiana Jones, Doc Savage", "Barbarian Swordsman, Serpent-God Cultist", and "Rifleman, Squad Leader" all portray much different games, and help players get ideas of their own.
- Typical Tasks: You might list a couple of things you expect the protagonists to do. Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters fight vampires and demons and save the world. Modern-day ninjas duel, infiltrate places, and assassinate each other.
- Suitable : Activities protagonists might be good at, or tend to be involved in. This helps players create characters quickly that fit within the scope you envisioned.
- Suitable Weaknesses: Similarly, if there are flaws that would fit especially well in this game, list a couple. For a vampire game, sunlight, crosses, and so on would fit very well and could be suggested.
- : Sample opponents the players can expect to encounter and defeat stylishly.
- : Sample opponents that the characters would know to be serious opposition in the game.
- Example : This is the most important part. List a couple of detailed actions that would fit in this game, and it will help players do the same in play.
Examples
Setting Name: The Matrix
Setting Description: The Matrix, before the One is found (an advantage of using a media setting is that most people already know it)
Inspiration: The Matrix movies, wire-fu movies in general.
License to Kick Ass: You are a free mind, and can do wild things in the Matrix.
Chi Is: Willpower; the ability to keep fighting, enough freedom from the simulation to do "impossible" things since the Matrix isn't real.
Sample Character Concepts: Believer in the Oracle, Cyncial Free Mind, Newly Freed Hacker
Typical Tasks: Freeing people, spying on the machines, visiting rogue programs
Suitable Traits: Kung Fu, Gun Fu, Hacking, Driving
Mooks: Cops, security guards, minor AIs
Nemeses: Agents, powerful rogue programs
Example Descriptions: As I leap into the air, poised for a kick/ time stands still as the camera view spins around to show me and my target from all sides/ and restarts suddenly when I kick the cop/ back into one of his partners and into the wall (Trait:Kung Fu).
Setting Name: The Court of the Sun King
Setting Description: Nobles jockey for position and influence at Versailles, the court of Louis XIV of France.
Inspiration: Political maneuvering like the West Wing, plays of Oscar Wilde, the French Court portions of the Baroque Cycle (Neil Stephenson).
License to Kick Ass: You are a social mover at the fickle court of the king, and must scrap and intrigue to retain and gain influence.
Chi Is: Position and social standing; you lose it when you are embarrassed, defeated in social matters, and so on.
Sample Character Concepts: Courtier, government minister, clergyman, military officer, lady of the court.
Typical Tasks: Arrange financing for some venture, pay off your debts, gain the favor of the king, embarass a rival, throw a salon or party.
Suitable Traits: Royal Cousin, Clerical Privilege, Nouveau Riche, Old Money, Glorious Military Career
Suitable Weaknesses: Secretly in Debt, Suspected of Treason, Out of Favor, some other hidden past secrets.
Mooks: Musicians, servants, nobles far beneath your station.
Nemeses: Dukes, Duchesses, Counts, Marquises, Bishops, the King's favorite Mistress, Bankers, Ministers, Governors.
Example Descriptions: "I welcome you to our salon, cousin"/ as I pour him wine myself to quench his thirst,/ "You are so recently arrived from your travels and I must inquire/ are such outrageous collars what they are wearing in England this year?/ I have not seen such things at court for at least a season!"/ And the gathered courtiers titter at my wit. (Trait: Court Fashion and Style)
