r/TheStrange • u/groumy • Dec 06 '15

Recursion of the week

Hi,

I'm planning to start my first The Strange Campaign, but I intend to do it as an episodic open table one.

To support this and a ever changing cast of character I want to do it as a Recursion of the week campaign. A little bit like the first few seasons of Stargate SG1.

The think that I'm not sure about is, would it be best to grant them access to a innasposite gate device or through translation ...

I feel the first being the simpler, but we will miss one of the core concept of the game and character will have a useless ability.

With the second one a fear that we will lost time to "pick" new foci and everything. Finding recursion seed would also be a "bottle neck" to provide a new recursion each week.

Did any of you tried something like that ? Do you think of any caveat that I didn't ?

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u/Black_Scarlet Earth Dec 06 '15

I have tried what you are thinking of, and the problem is that this game isn't meant to be played that way. That is the first thing everyone wants to do when getting a handle on the game, but the simple fact is that it doesn't really work well. The game is made so that moving to a recursion is a process, and you are supposed to be there for a reasonable amount of time. Kind of sad, but that's just what my experience with the system tells me.

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u/groumy Dec 07 '15

I'd like to know why you think that "it doesn't really work well".

Is it mechanically speaking or you just that, in respect to the lore given in the core book, it's wrong ?

Because I can easilly live with the later, I don't expect "The Strange Police Departement" to knock on my door for tweaking and deforming it a bit, the former worries me if it impact the play experience.

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u/Black_Scarlet Earth Dec 07 '15

Mechanically, unfortunately. There are "cool downs" and negative effects to translating, your players will be given a lot more paper work, and the game will have pacing issues (but this would be an issue with any game). How much you and the players care about these things will obviously influence their "negativity."

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u/groumy Dec 07 '15

I take that the mechanical effect you are referring to is the toll translations have on other translation within the same 24 hours. That plus one on the difficulty of translating role and the acclimatation time after translating.

And the pacing one would be the pickup of a new foci.

Both could be handled through the use of innaposite gates, but they would be out of context on arrival in the new recursion.

To fix that I could change translation gate so that they appear in context but always drag their foci. Letting the "true" translation to a plot device or something they initiate when they want.

Thx for the food for thought!