I'm running a game of Rapscallion (a Powered by the Apocalypse pirate-themed game), and I'm constantly surprised at how a small prompt can snowball into an entire evening's adventure.
For the first session I started the game in media res with the PCs creeping up on a monastery that was being plundered by an indigenous tribe of cannibals. The PCs' goal was to locate a cartographer hiding in the monastery so they could seize a chart that would lead them to a great treasure. Easy enough, right?
As the GM, I'm expecting them to think of a clever way to get past the cannibals, explore the burning monastery in search of the charts they're after, maybe rescue the cartographer, and then exit stage left pursued by angry cannibals. Then we can get to the real meat of the story - finding and excavating that legendary treasure.
It's several sessions later and the crew haven't even laid eyes on the treasure-bearing island, let alone found any gold. Is this bad? Hell no. The players have been too busy having fun.
The reason the PCs haven't found the treasure is because they (and the dice) keep adding to the story in unexpected ways; for me that's part of the charm of PbtA principle of "play to find out".
As an example, here are the points where the first session departed from what I expected (with the reasons in parentheses):
- The PCs were discovered, surrounded, and captured by the cannibals (bad dice rolls)
- As they couldn't rescue him, the cartographer was also captured by the cannibals (logical outcome)
- The cartographer had the charts on him - literally on him - in the form of tattoos (mixed success)
- The Mountebank made a long-term enemy out of the cannibal's leader (gained a Weakness*)
- Amidst the monastery rubble, the Chronicler found an intriguing book that details methods of making weapons out of leviathan bones (Weakness trigger)
- A pirate-hunter from the Matelot's background appeared on the horizon and began chasing the PCs' ship (GM move)
- The cartographer demanded to be made part of the crew and a share of the treasure in return for helping the PCs find the islands tattooed on his back (roleplaying / mixed success)
- The chart tattoos are incomplete, they only show the island where the treasure is, not where the islands are (mixed success)
So for the second session the PCs needed to find someone who could provide them with the a map featuring the islands on the cartographer's tattoos. But instead of finding charts they got mixed up with an assassination contract, rumours of a weather-witch abroad on the sea, rival pirates kidnapping their new cartographer, the hunt for leviathan bones, and deciphering a madman's ramblings to actually find out who has the maps the PCs are after.
The third session should have been a short heist to steal the maps, but instead the cannibal tribe showed up and started a fight with another ship's crew; the Mountebank failed several checks in a row and ended up hopping from one spectacular disaster to another; the Chronicler was almost buried in a falling clock tower and narrowly avoided releasing a powerful (and angry) djinni from one of her books; and the Matelot was left to fight the remaining cannibals and try to convince the target of their heist not to shoot him (or anyone else). The party ended up agreeing to deliver a smuggling contract in return for the maps, which means they have yet another detour to complete before they get back onto finding the treasure they're after.
So, the most recent session was dealing with all the complications of smuggling heretical religious artefacts into a noblewoman's colonial estate, right? Not even close!
First there was a storm, then there was a half-cocked mutiny, then there was a fat merchant vessel that had to be raided and looted, the Matelot was discovered being treacherous to a crewmate, the Mountebank almost drowned, a passenger nun aboard the merchant ship revealed that she had two flintlock pistols and was quite capable of looking after herself, and (even though the merchant ship had surrendered) the Matelot only stopped butchering crewmembers of the merchant ship when the Chronicler managed to calm him down...
All the while, the PCs' new rival Captain "No-Knees" Reeves is hounding them across the sea, hoping to claim the treasure for himself. Oh, didn't I mention that part?
The vast majority of these complications and distractions are dice-driven, either because the players rolled poorly or because something prompted a GM move. I've run a few PbtA games now so they aren't unfamiliar to me, but this campaign has been a wild ride so far. I absolutely love it. This treasure hunt, something I introduced as a simple kick-off point for the first session, may take all year to resolve; and before that resolution there will be dozens of smaller adventures and distractions at sea, each one more exciting and engaging than the last.
I fully expect a huge spiderweb of unresolved plot threads to pluck at if I ever need another story hook, and the best part is that I won't have to shoe-horn any of those threads into the game, they emerged organically and will sit perfectly alongside the rest of the game.
* A Weakness in Rapscallion is a long-term complication for a PC;
something like being poisoned, bloodthirsty, exhausted, cursed, pursued
by bounty hunters, etc.
