Hook, Line and Sinker

Behind the Screen

Fishing can be scary sometimes...

Every games referee has those moments when they just hit a wall. A brick wall composed of fatigue, brain drain, apathy or any number of reasons that all boil down to this: They've got a game to run tomorrow and they don't have a mission to throw at their players.
Luckily, Ol' Bean here has an answer.
Or rather I've liberated an answer from Palladium games whole sale (aka I straight up jacked the idea and have been running with it for ages).



You see, once, long ago, Palladium games started to release a monthly magazine/book/dealie that included a series of adventure seeds called Hook, Line and Sinker. The objective of these HLS's was to provide a referee with a concept for an adventure, the reason for the adventure to bring the players into it, and the rewards/twist on the adventure to keep the players guessing. It's a relatively brilliant idea really, and thus, I stole it, and have been using it for years. And more importantly, I've been steadily compiling more and more of these HLS's into my gaming notebooks for later dates. A Database of adventure seeds if you will.

So how do they work you ask?
It's simple really.

You take a basic concept, stolen from anything (I'm a fan of movies) and round them up into an adventure idea. The key concept is to keep the write-up short and sweet. Long enough to remind you of your thought process when you wrote them, but short enough you can elaborate any idea when you revisit the adventure seed later to flesh it out. The brevity also helps as you can quickly jot down ideas as they come to you whenever inspiration strikes. Allow me to give you a couple examples from the Cyberpunk 2020 game I'm working on at the moment:


*Note: for those who know the Hook, Line and Sinker style of write ups, I know this is not the same style. My style is more open to interpretation. Also I love shitty puns...

Nomad Left Behind:
A semi-local Nomad tribe is looking for some extra muscle out on the road.
Reward: Family influence, Cash money
Types: Hired Muscle, Caravan Protection, Convoy, Calling in favours

For Love of the Game:
Random shenanigans and player centric background development
Reward: Background dev, Cash money. Reputation
Types: Assassination, Hijackings, Robbery, Thuggin', Body Guard


Let my break this down for you.
The words in bold are my titles. They give me a quick idea of what the situation is about, usually via a witticism.
The following text is a short writeup of the situation at hand, the who, the what and the where.
The italicized text is the reward players will receive for participating. For the Nomad Left Behind series, the players will receive a special class only skill that allows them to call on the nomad tribe for help in tough situations, kind of like a cop can call in backup. Also money/equipment. For the For Love of the Game, the players will gain the sense of a job well done (this series of adventures are based around each players life path and background, showing them that their efforts for background development is worthwhile and their stories matter), continuation of their backgrounds, money/equipment/etc, AND a bonus to their reputation, depending on the outcomes of their roleplaying.
Lastly, the underlined text contains the various types of missions that are most likely/possible under the circumstances of each mission path. They are all quick concepts that stir the memory banks and get you thinking...the whole point of this exercise!

So really this system isn't designed to flesh out any ideas fully at all, but to allow a referee to get their ideas out quickly and efficiently so that they can compile a huge list of maybes and what if's to throw at their players depending on the actions of the players themselves. It's not a system designed for a story-centric game per say, but a more sandbox style game (like Cyberpunk 2020 is designed for).

So that's my system. Simple... but efficient and useful (Like me, arguably!). So what do you all think? Am I completely mad?

Or is this system actually useful?
Let me know in the comments.

Bean out~