Shattered Heroes - Running Games and Telling Stories

Running Games and Telling Stories 

"After a walk down a service tunnel, you come to a vault door. Its slightly open."

A lone security guard and a push-button access panel... that was pretty easy. What do we see now?

Pretty easy! Why would you say that??!! Now you've cursed us!!

"It's a laboratory with atmospheric low lighting, mostly in dull blues and greens. The majority of the light comes from a row of large glass cabinets filled with a glowing green liquid. omething seems to stir within a few of them.  

At the far end of the laboratory, a dark cloaked figure, turns to face the group.

""I'm glad you could join us, I hope you don't mind if I put this on."

He pulls a clear mask out of his cloak, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since you've seen his face now. 

"What do you mean?"

"...and that's when you notice the hissing sound coming from the air vents...and the door close behind you.

Oh..that can't be good...

Coming up with the ideas necessary to keep a session running can be an exhausting task. That'sthe roleof the narrator in Shattered Heroes, but there are a bunch of tricks and tools to help make things a bit easier for them. This first supplement for the game is a combination of Narrator guidebook, as well as an assortment of hints and tricks to help things run smoothly, and a few random tables to inject some unknown variables to spice up the game in upredictable ways.

Some games require hours of preparation and reading through source material before the first session begins, Shattered Heroes assumes none of this, and works with the idea that players will want to get into their stories as quickly as possibly, and show off their skills and powers as they confront enemiesthat the mundane world simply cannot accept.

However. a Narrator often needs some support. 

Yes, you could watch a few different series of podcasts about a specifc game that sells more copies than pretty uch every other roleplaying system combined, but a lot of those podcasts are carefully scripted events, using professional voice actors, and they don't necessarily reflect the kind of stories that might unfold during your regular sessions with your friends.

(Then again, you might be reading this page months, or even years after this text was written, and you might be familiar with the podcast that we're actually planning to release as an accompaniment to this game... who knows). 

The aim of this book is to be a quck reference guide that available when it's needed. A page opening (2 pages side by side) describes everything a narrator needs for a certain part of the session they are running. The next pages provide a few more details if things start getting messy, and provide a whole heap of examples to show a narator how they can use the basic rules presented to replicate almost any situation they can imagine. Once the examples are all provided, the book moves on to the next page opening with the next set of overall rules.

Generally this book follows through the process that a general session would take, working through each of the phases of the game in a step by step manner:

• Introduction - Being a Narrator
• Short Games - Some tips for games under and hour or so 
• Long Games - Some tipsfor games over 2 hours or so
• Step 1: Dice Drop - Establishing the problems for characters to confront
• Step 2: Introduction (and Investigation) - Establishing the story and context of the world
• Step 3: Complication - Making tings difficult for the characters
• Step 4: Climax - Bringing the problems to a head
• Step 5: Aftermath - Dealing with the fallout
• Step 6: Upgrade - Changing the characters and the world
• Cheat Sheet - Quick one page summary to help guide the storytelling experience

    

Throughout the book, rules and ideas are presented with an extensive range of play examples and images to keep things interesting. 

All text in this core book written by Michael Wenman, with the text in remaining Shattered Heroes books written by Michael Wenman and the members of the Peel High School Gaming Club.

All layout work and illustrations produced by Michael Wenman and Erin Gumiho, inspired by characters and events found in the sessions run by the gaming club. 

Shattered Heroes is released under a creative commons license.