The Great (Sky) Train Robbery - Planning a Wild Blue (Fate) One-off

Since reading the Wild Blue setting in Fate Worlds, Volume One: Worlds on Fire (written by Brian Engard, you can find my video review of the book here) i've been dying to run a one-off session using the ideas and rules from the setting; given that i've had a few questions via the blog and my Youtube channel about how I go about preparing for a campaign/session I thought that'd be a good idea to write up my thought processes during the planning stages of this session and post them to the blog.

What is Wild Blue?

Wild Blue is a very interesting mashup setting where the players are human members of a society descended from settlers on a magic-rich alien world; in a parallel to the colonisation of the Americas, when the settlers arrived they found the world occupied by strange fey-like people whom they took to calling the Folk. A huge conflict erupted between the settlers and the Folk and the indigenous people were driven northwards out of their homelands; over the next few years the settlers noticed that the high levels of ambient magic on the world had started to affect them and people were being born with strange powers. An organisation called the Queen's Wardens was set up, recruiting empowered people to police others with powers.

Basically Wild Blue is a mashup western, super-power, space opera style  setting where the players take on the roles of Queen's Wardens, each of them having their own unique super powers.

Planning for the Session

Since i'm only planning to run a one-off session at this stage (since i'm already running/playing in a number of campaigns and don't have time really to start any more) I decided to base the setting around an iconic element of the western genre (where a lot of Wild Blue's flavour comes from), that of the train robbery.

Now obviously it's more interesting to actually be the robbers, but the game setting does presume that the players are taking on the roles of the Wardens/Sheriffs and, whilst I could just ignore this, I quite like the idea of the players having the law on their side and all the associated paraphernalia that goes with it, so I decide to flip the concept around slightly. 

What is the main aim of the session?

Return control of a hi-jacked sky train to the appropriate authorities and protect the lives of those onboard.

Since this is a one-off that will be run during a weekday evening I want to have an aim that is achievable within a few hours; handily the fact that the players are playing Queen's Wardens with defined jurisdiction makes this very easy indeed to manage, I have decided to give them a limited amount of time before the hi-jacked sky train leaves their jurisdiction, if they haven't manage to bring it under control in the time allotted then their chance is lost.

What is the Sky Rail?

The sky rail is a floating train track built of the mystical skywood (from trees that get lighter as their age, eventually uprooting and floating into the air) that links the main settlements via a series of towers/stations each a couple of hundred feet tall.

What challenges will the players face in this session?

I always like to note down the main challenged of a game, especially in a condensed one-off session since it serves as a useful checklist during the game to make sure that all the main points are covered.

• Getting on to the sky train in mid-air.
• Entering the train unnoticed.
• Avoiding the criminals who are stationed throughout the train.
• Stopping the train before it leaves their jurisdiction.
• Ensuring that the civilians on board are not harmed.

Breaking down the challenges

At this stage I generally look at the list of challenges and try to break them down by jotting a couple of points for each of them:

• Getting on to the sky train in mid-air.
• Could be done if one or more of the players have flight based powers.
• If not they may have use a cart to travel down the tracks or attempt to jump on the train as it speeds through one of the towers (obviously given the height this is very dangerous).
• Entering the train unnoticed.
• Can be done using appropriate sneaking and burglary skills.
• Avoiding the criminals who are stationed throughout the train.
• If the sound of gunfire or a conflict is heard onboard then the person driving the train will throw open the throttle and put the train up to full speed, this will half the remaining time before they leave the player's jurisdiction and will create the Aspect "The Train's moving too damn fast!" making it more difficult to perform certain actions.
• Stopping the train before it leaves their jurisdiction.
• The players could get to the front of the train and take control of the engine room.
• They could attempt to de-couple the engine car from the rest of the carriages and the engine car continue on it's way.
• Ensuring that the civilians on board are not harmed.
• The players could de-couple the cars containing the passengers.
• They could attempt to remove the criminals threatening them.

Who are the opposition?

The train has been hi-jacked by a member of the Crimson Council (a group of Folk dedicated to taking back the lands stolen from them by the settlers using any means necessary).

Most of the Folk onboard will be fairly low level thugs/grunts with powers that are only minorly useful however there will be two antagonists who will pose slightly more of a problem.

• The Leader of the Group: A cunning Folk who has bought this band together with the aim of hi-jacking the train and talking into the Outlands (the wild area that the Folk were forced into).
• The Lieutenant: This Folk is the second-in-command and will be placed in charge of corralling the captives onboard, he is brutal and ruthless and will seek to initially quash any attempts at heroism by throwing a random passenger to their death out of the train.

What do the opposition want?

The Folk have hi-jacked the train because they have heard that Queen's government has managed to treat Skywood in an experimental way that boosts powers whilst the treated wood is held and that it is being smuggled onboard the Sky Rail (this is an extra bit of flavour I added to give an additional dimension to the game). They intend to take the Sky Rail train onto an abandoned bit of track that leads into the Outlands, once there they will take the treated wood and use their powers to escape whilst the train plunges to it's doom.

How long do they have?

As I said at the start of this blog entry I have a limited time window to run this one-off session in (although I may try to run character generation on a different day so that we can jump straight into the session when I run it) so I have decided that the players will have 3 hours (real-time) before the train reaches the 'end of the line' and plunges to it's doom. Half an hour from the end the train will scream past the last station on the line (this will also give the players a notification that their time is running out).

What's the setup?

Now i've considered most of my plot elements I like to jump back to the beginning and consider how the players are going to get involved with this; handily the Wild Blue setting contains an NPC called Amerille Quinn, Rail Captain, she is in-charge of the Sky Rail.

I intend to have the PCs be drafted in, the plan being that they will embark on the train at Cobalt and will be protected the train because it contains an unspecified package of importance to the Queen's government; however when the train reaches the station it's blatantly going to fast and doesn't stop. Amerille Quinn tells the player characters that they have to get onboard and retrieve the item, if it fell into the hands of the Folk it could topple society as they know it.

How will I lay out the train?

I plan to use the concept of zones from Fate, I will have one zone for each of the train cars and then another zone representing the outside space around the cars.

In conclusion

I've pretty much got everything that I need to run the one-off session here, i've not gone into the opposition's stats or the exact powers they have since some of my players read this blog; i'm very much looking forward to running the game and seeing how the players react to it.