Welcome to the fifteenth instalment of the column Winging It, a column discussing the promises and pitfalls of a more improvisational approach to GM’ing.
So, one of your characters, someone with connections to otherworldly beings that occasionally act as voices in her head, is in a coma. You, as GM, have elements of a metaplot you may want to introduce a bit early, to see how the characters react to them. This is an opportune time for the fabled ‘dream sequence’.
In my Hunter: the Reckoning Campaign, I had earlier introduced the idea that the city of Las Vegas had been effectively taken over by Hunters, at least as far as the supernatural influence was concerned. It was an idea that the players had really taken to, and I had been wanting to explore it more.
In addition, there was an element from the book Time of Judgement that I had been thinking about introducing. Something that would take away the supernatural component from various monsters (turning Vampires into humans, sending Ghosts and Wraiths out of our existance, that sort of thing). The key to it is that it is something that the Hunters would control, to determine what beings would be deemed "worthy" of this transformation.
Third, there is something about one of the players having to provide the exposition to the other players (rather than the GM doing it all the time) that, I find, really adds something to the game. Giving one player information (in this case, in the form of a solo dream sequence) that might be necessary to the rest of the party, and letting that player determine what the other players will actually learn puts an interesting dynamic on what could otherwise be the "boring library scenes".
Keeping these things in mind, I had Daniella (the character in the aforementioned coma) wake up on a bench in a gaudily-lit street scene. Eventually, of course, she learns that she is in Las Vegas, and finds herself in front of a particular casino. Curiously enough, while the casino does display Hunter symbols (marking it as a haven of sorts), she finds that she cannot read the name of the casino itself.
Inside, she is surrounded by other Hunters (identifiable by the Hunter symbols sewn onto their clothing) and other supernaturals. Oddly enough, while she can recognize that they are supernatural (and that they are interacting freely with the Hunters), she cannot specifically identify what they are, or even use her Edges to gain any sort of information as to what they are or can do.
Confused, she ends up talking to another Hunter, someone here from Texas. He tells her about how this casino is the central stronghold in Vegas for the Hunter community, about how far the influence of the Hunter community stretches in the city (into the police department and beyond), and how this is seen as both a haven and a staging area for Hunter missions. A passing waitress even gives Daniella ten thousand dollars in casino chips, something that all Hunters are given when they first come to town. Eventually, she is shown to a rather expensive suite to let her rest and recover, to take in all that she has seen.
For me, one big reason to introduce Vegas (and the Hunter community therein) in this fashion is so that I could later correct any mistakes I might make. For instance, while the waitress giving Daniella ten thousand dollars was fun and a cool story point, afterward I decided that, when the players actually do get to Vegas, I doubt anything that over-the-top will actually happen. A dream sequence allows you to really be able to play around with ideas, to go for strange (and outright goofy) concepts and events, and then later get to take them back.
However, no matter how much material you "take back", the first time the characters will later enter the "real" Las Vegas, there should still be some haunting similarities (the casino should be there, Daniella will probably meet the Hunter from Texas, though he will have no memory of her, that sort of thing).
Back to the story at hand. After attempting to determine whether she was actually awake (attempting to call friends, for example), the Fallen/Demon character of Johnny shows up, wanting to show her something.
Responding to the dream logic of the scenario, Daniella follows Johnny into the basement of the casino, to a back room behind the underground parkade. There, she discovers a safe with a statue inside.
She picks up the statue, and it begins to radiate a glowing energy, something that seems to wash over Johnny. Daniella watches as the "supernatural" aspects of Johnny are torn away, revealing a scared boy. Once the influence has gone completely, closed-over wounds tear open from his wrists, and he quickly bleeds to death. Before he hits the ground, she notices that the glowing energy in the statue seems to have lessened somewhat.
At this point, Daniella wakes from her coma.
The player determined on her own that, due to some comments made from the character of Freeman in previous sessions, that Johnny had very likely attempted suicide before he was "possessed" by the Fallen, and that supernatural influence was the only thing keeping him alive.
In following sessions, the player will determine which information (if any) that Daniella will pass along to the other party members.
The improvisational aspects of this game were mostly about the presentation, rather than the subject matter (for a change). This was one of the few times that I wanted to introduce very specific ideas and events, rather than letting the player(s) and the tone of the game determine the events for me. Breaking things up in this manner once in a while can be a nice change of pace, especially when wanting to create a general foundation for the rest of the game to be built upon.
