| Jewel Cluster Record: A Campaign |
| On Running a Jewel Knights Campaign
The core premise behind running a Jewel Knights campaign is simple, the players are there to learn teamwork and what it means to be a heroic character. They are basically superheros in training in a setting where the superheros work for the government, and the government is not a corrupt entity but a royal graceful Utopia in which the highest honor you can have is to serve the public good. Towards this effort, there are a few requirements to running this game: 1. The PCs should be of low and similar power level, and given identical equipment. Their "training suits" are based off the most elementary aspects of Jewel Knight armour, which is that they provide increased resistance to harm, flight, and an energy attack which can be tuned in it's effect by the user. 2. The PCs should be a group of 14 or 15 year old girls of high average ability from a variety of backgrounds, but still just 14 year old girls. The reason for this (and not guys), is that the players are supposed to not be typical warrior types, and we're trying to strip them of their usual PC gaming roles. They are not fighters, wizards, thieves, etc, they are 14 year old schoolgirls, and they are expected to act like they are as well. This campaign is supposed to break them of normal gaming thinking in an effort to give them a new perspective on how they play and view RPGs. 3. The PCs should have a coach, two actually. One of them should be their physical trainer, the other coach should be their mental trainer. Basically one is there to oversee the combats, while the other is there to ask them questions about why they do what they do, and get them to start thinking in the heroic mode. The mental coach will engage in questions of philosophy with them, and get them to try thinking as a team, and look at new approaches and new ideas. 4. The PCs should have a rival team, who they get to know as people. The simplest way is that each PC is roommates with one of their rivals, and has to interact with them in life outside the training, so they don't just become another faceless person the PC wants to beat up. The rivals should match the PCs pretty evenly. 5. The PCs will be told that in the end, members from both teams can be chosen, but the members of the winning team have a higher chance of being chosen. This is really just done to increase competitive spirit, and to see what the PCs do. If they actually try to sabotage their rivals, then they actually are screwing themselves. Everyone is under constant secret survielence, and the trainers know full well what is going on at any given time. This whole thing is as much a test of character as it is a training session and competition. 6. The PCs will go through a series of tests and drills, with the training session lasting as long as the GM wishes it to. Generally speaking, they have a daily routine just like any boot camp which will be played out for maybe the first day, but after that will be ignored as something which happens in the background while only the important classes and events get played out instead. The PCs will also be sent on controlled training missions and field trips, as well as getting leave at some points for R&R. (and to get themselves into trouble, and have breaks from the normal campaign. I even ran them through a haunted house horror adventure as one of their breaks, just for something very different. Of course they can't take their training suits on R&R no matter how much they want. They are just normal kids.) |
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