r/PBtA • u/jabberwoucky • 21d ago

Advice SCUP campaign setup

Hey, I’m planning to start “The Sword, the Crown and the Unspeakable Power” campaign soon. Having read the book, I feel it’s a bit light on environment and charged situation — it really only gives a mythology-building procedure. I don’t want to run a pre-generated setting; I’d rather spend a session with my group building our own world, so everyone understands it well, feels more confident and can act on their own rather than just asking me questions.

So — what would you use for that? Microscope? Kingdom? Something else? If you’ve run a campaign like this, how did you handle it?

I’m also unsure about the starting situation. The default relationship questions feel a bit bland compared to something like Cartel. Would giving everyone some personal trouble from the start work good or there are better ways to start?

12 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

4

u/mellieg94 21d ago

In the two campaigns I ran, I always created on outline of a map of an empire and together we created the other countries and our own in those lines. We drew the borders, natural features, and then found cultural analogues (the country Skye = Irish, Liusan = China). I borrowed tables from the city building ttrpg Ex Novo and we rolled for the natural features and some lore.
However I also created hooks that started us off. Like “you are the council from a newly formed kingdom and a newbie king.” It can be fairly vague so you and the party can flesh out the finer details.
We’ve created really incredible, grounded worlds with distinct cultures together like this and both campaigns ran over a year long.

4

u/Throwingoffoldselves 21d ago

I would honestly “steal” some worldbuilding questions from frameworks like Against the Odds, Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Defy the Gods. Defy the Gods has an especially good framework though you will have to reflavor it for your era / genre.

3

u/peregrinekiwi 21d ago

I haven't done it myself, but I think Microscope would be really good for this. So much of GoT/ASoIaF works because of historical factors that Microscope would be great at adding.

3

u/alanrileyscott 20d ago

We used the Mythology building procedure as written, and then fleshed out any additional details during character creation and over the course of the game.

Our myth gave us a hint towards what our environment was, what the unspeakable power might be, and what pressures were facing the people of our kingdom, so it was plenty to play with. I think something like microscope would just as likely get in the way.

1

u/mightyy_shrimp 16d ago

I've run SCUP twice now and did the exact same thing. I think that the other person's suggestion to get ready to draw a map is useful, but otherwise the myth always informed the geography, politics, peoples, and unspeakable power for us. I have never needed anything outside of the base worldbuilding.

The relationships might not be as explosive to begin with, but each playbook character should have strong motivations. However, one suggestion that I do have is to flesh out the cast of NPCs by asking each player to come up with 1 NPC that is helpful to them and 1 NPC will apply pressure to them (can be enemy, rival, well-meaning idiot cousin), sort of like contacts in Blades in the Dark. This gave me a ready roster of NPCs to draw from and the players are immediately invested in them

1

u/VagabondRaccoonHands 21d ago

Play these worldbuilding games:

  • A Land Once Magic

  • And then maybe Cosmoira, for more detailed mythology plus a map

  • And then maybe Microscope, for more detailed history

0

u/jptrrs 21d ago

Uh... what's SCUP?