Mythic has a lot of blank spaces left open for
improvisation. In my experience, this works well enough, granting many
advantages too.
Improvise a castle town? Sure, I’m picturing it now. How
many people live here? Oh I dunno, why do you care? Raise an army? The book
says it can support a warband or two.
How does society work? Here are the roles most people fall
into. You know, it’s kinda like actual medieval society but we don’t need to
sweat the details.
What’s this forest we’re walking through? Let me paint you
an arboreal masterpiece, I walked through a forest two days ago.
You don’t get the same leeway with sci fi. Alien worlds are
unfamiliar, and technology doesn’t get to be as arcane as true magic.
I remember a Mothership actual play where the GM’s in
the moment decision about whether a ship had remote airlock control had a huge
impact on the course of the game, the GM expressing a little discomfort in that
afterwards.
I love it when improvised details become important, but I
don’t like it when big outcomes feel arbitrary.
So yeah, this means I’m swallowing the bitter pill that Intergalactic
requires a bit more foundational information than Mythic. Don’t think I
can pull off the “here’s all your setting information on one page” trick with
this one.
On the positive side of things, this is something I’ve
rarely been able to indulge in! It’s been fun to consider how the big six
factions actually work, their relationships to core elements of the setting,
and to each other, rather than leaving that down to the individual referee’s
prep.
Wallowing in naval minutia might leave the player characters
overwhelmed by jargon, but they’re newly recruited crewmembers! Lean into this
at the table, give your players the choice for how much they want to integrate
into this unfamiliar culture.
I suppose it all fits with the plan to have a fully detailed
library of star systems, rather than the petri dish feel of tossing myths into
your realm in Mythic. From the start I said that I didn’t want Intergalactic
to just be Mythic with Lasers but I feel like I’m drifting further away
with each iteration.
God help me, for a moment I even considered a timeline.
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