What was it that I said in Pt 3 about procrastinating? Yeah … I totally did that.
Luckily, I have been getting some stuff done, though. Been adjusting my overall season plan – which is more fluid than I would like, to be honest – plus prepping for Saturday’s game and doing a lot of image manipulations. I’m pretty satisfied with my plans for the “Establishing Shots” format:
Originally, I was going to make the image square and use a Polaroid outline instead of the iPhone like I did above, but it occurred to me: nobody uses Polaroids anymore! So iPhone it was.
We’re going to be down one player – Finlay’s – for the first two sessions due to work; I believe he said that he was going on a work trip. That’s ultimately fine, I think, because I was really struggling with figuring out a way to incorporate him in the opening battle considering his role. We’ve also got what basically amounts to a red shirt PC in Victor Lopez – the player and I chatted regarding his originally intended PC and when I mentioned (offhand!) a concern that the group might be slightly too law enforcement heavy, said player thought about it for all of a minute before deciding to radically change his character to an actual doctor who was bitten by the Black Court vamp … which in retrospect means he’s basically playing Morbius.
At any rate, as with Finlay, it was going to be very difficult to incorporate the doctor character into the opening combat, so I offered the chance for him to play a red shirt (specifically, the doctor’s younger brother!) and he accepted. Unlike the other PCs, this character will only be 150 points and I’m going to go out of my way to kill him off.
The session itself is going to be little more than an opening combat. I’m planning on beginning in media res with the PCs already engaged in a fight versus monsters (ghouls, actually). My intent is to run one round of combat, hit the PAUSE button and then introduce the campaign & setting, let (or force as the case may be) the players to introduce their characters, and then finally go back to the fight. This being GURPS, I expect the fight will either be over way too soon or start to drag out.
But hey, progress is made!