This is initially directed at Tim Collinson, but anyone who's had any
experience playing or running such a game please pitch in.
By "High/Low", I mean such a setup where you have two distinct groups of
PCs - the high-level bunch handling things at the zoomed-out level (in
Shadowrun terms, the intercorporate silly buggers) and the low-level
bunch handling things up close at the scale of "conventional"
roleplaying (in Shadowrun terms, the expendable murder hoboes who go out
and do the violence/carbomb the orphanage/drop the bridge/frame the
politician/etc). Effects can (and usually do) go both ways.
I should just note that technically Generation X/Rendezvous with Karma wasn't High/Low in the way that you describe. All the PCs at the crucial second half were fairly 'ordinary' although you could argue that there was a high tech side (RwK) and a low tech side (GenX) but I don't think that's what you mean.
I suppose the first half of GenX sort of involved more 'dynasty' level operations, but in fact, as I'd given the players leader 'characters' to help them get into their dynasties, they tended to play those.
Tim mentioned in one of his Confessions of a Newbie Referee (#15 - Jeff
Z, your site search seems to be busted on Chrome 83 on Fedora 31 as I
manually had to dig it out) that he ran a MGT Dynasty(-inspired?) game -
how did that work out, what went well, and what mistakes did you make
Tim? (That way, I can avoid Tim's mistakes and go make a whole new bunch
of my own).
There's a bit more detail here (and even a photo):
(scroll down to paragraph beginning 'You may have spotted...')
OK, I won't repeat all that but very briefly:
- this was one of the most stressful games I've ever run in terms of preparation (and fear it wouldn't 'work'), HOWEVER:
- it was probably (the most?) rewarding game I've ever run in terms of player engagement in the final segment and their playing 'in character' pretty much non-stop
- it included one of my all time favourite gaming moments when 'my' players - really into their leaders' meeting - realized Steve's players from the next door table weren't just poking their nose in to see what was happening in a break but were in fact a bunch of explorers suddenly arrived in their 'universe'.
Things that went well:
- getting Steve Ellis to run the other side of the game - he's brilliant!
- the concept. Both 'sides' seemed to attract players to the games and were of interest. On both occasions we ran it.
- three lengthy phone calls with Steve prior to TravCon to thrash out exactly what I wanted on his side; but where he, as an experienced GM, also warned me of and helped me plan around some potential pitfalls
- planning a rough schedule of where we'd be in each game at certain points and matching breaks with each other so we could swap notes and check it was going well.
- making sure all the players after the 'join' had referee time. As there were 12 on both occasions and only two refs in something of a scrum across two rooms, it might have been easy to focus on more vociferous players
- getting the GenX players to make early decisions about their ship that had Ramifications later on
- making sure both sides, after the join, knew their strengths (e.g. Imperials with their tech, but regressed crew leaders with their follower numbers)
- the use of language from Chris Beckett's wonderful _Dark Eden_ to bind the regressed crew together and make them seem really alien to the Imperials when they arrived. Very simple (e.g. repeating a word for emphasis - 'cold cold' instead of 'frigid') and way more effective than I would have guessed. Watching the standard Imperial players 'process' the words/phrases and twig what they meant was a joy. 'Waking' for a 'day'; 'wombtime' for a 'year' (strictly nine months which meant some maths at one point!)
- seizing the day despite the fear!
Things that didn't go so well (or were my mistakes)
- the Dynasty aspect would have worked better with more time (in a campaign say) but to go through three generations in the time available was probably a little hasty. If I was running it again I would consider jumping straight to the regressed crew and only playing that but in more detail before RwK arrives, but then it would lose something of the gen ship trope (and see Ramifications above which would be a shame to lose). Hard to judge. I would probably at least arrange for the 'join' to be much sooner as the players seemed to really love this on both occasions. Our four hour slots overran to more like 5 both times IIRC because players were so into it.
- related to the dynasty generation switches, two players in one game felt that I'd taken away their agency in some respects (despite some features to ameliorate this) and weren't as engaged as I might have hoped. I've felt guilty about this ever since as they trusted me with their four hours.
- I failed to help one player understand just what options he had and I found him floundering at one point (after the join), but after we had a brief discussion pointing out various things I think he got back into it with alacrity (IIRC)
- I forgot to hand out the regressed leaders special items till a bit late. Not a game breaker, but earlier (as my notes told me) would have been better.
Very happy to answer more specific questions if you have them. But must sleep now. Thank you for the interest.
PS I've been noticing FT's search failing for the last few days on Firefox (I assumed it was a temporary glitch) and now Edge and let Jeff know just before opening this email, so at least it's not just me going mad or using the wrong browser or something. But if it's any consolation it shows how often I look something up in there!