[Great Minds] First draft

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First Great Minds hack:

Sacre Bleu!

You play French aristos fleeing the Jacobin regime, who have somehow managed to escape the Terror and arrived in England, where you have ended up in digs in some dingy part of London, or maybe a Suffolk village, or wherever, and now have to fend for yourselves without servants, on the little money you managed to take with you, and probably having to work. [Zut alors!]

Scene Zero:
You each narrate the story of your escape, embellishing (ok, making it up) where necessary, and revealing your personality and traits etc.

Final scene:
You have somehow wangled yourselves an invite to a big banquet at the Court of King George III, who has no love for republicans and is keen to help out these down-at-heel nobles, and, if rumour is to be believed, is willing to give one of them a job. Your success in the final dice roll dictates whether you are able to shine at this event and charm everyone at Court into welcoming you to their collective bosom (and maybe even one or two individual bosoms), or get completely plastered, insult your hosts and disgrace yourself utterly.

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Bear in mind that this is purely an initial treatment, but it's the sort of direction I'm heading. Let me know what y'all think.

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Second Great Minds hack:

The Write Stuff

You play a group of Shakespearean playwrights who have fallen out of favour with the Court, have got into one too many tavern brawls, owe money left right and centre, and between you have got about a dozen girls pregnant (whose fathers are distinctly unimpressed and have been heard declaring that If [they] get their hands on [you]… well, you get the picture. In other words, it’s time to high tail it out of raucous and bustling Tudor London, out of the taverns of Fleet Street and far away from the Stews of Southwark, and lie low somewhere- but where? No problem, one of you knows someone who knows someone whose cousin runs a pig farm in Norfolk. Well, it could be a lot worse: you might spend every day covered in muck, but at least you’ll keep your head on your shoulders, and your intestines safely tucked up in your stomach.

Scene Zero:
You each describe what tribulations and exigencies have prompted you to join your chums in fleeing the City. Outraged fathers, bilked inn-keepers, the City watch, various of Her Majesty’s intimes you’ve scandalously insulted in verse; go on, let everybody know what a ghastly pickle you’ve got yourself into.

Throughout the game you attempt to get accustomed to your new circumstances (The filth! The humiliation!), perform tasks related to your new surroundings, and get to know the local populace (while trying to avoid getting into fights, borrowing money and getting the female members of them pregnant - that’s how you got into this mess, remember!).

Final scene:
You have somehow managed to avoid making the same mistakes that you left London for in the first place, and enough time has elapsed that most of your enemies have more or less forgotten about you. So you return. And lo, soon afterwards, there is a dance at Court, to which you have somehow wangled an invite. You go to the dance, and… Ah, but let’s see how the dice fall, shall we? Good luck!

NOTE: Sorry, very male, this one. I'll try to come up with an all or mostly female cast next time .

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Somebody on another forum asked me for instructions for generating playsets and characters. Here's what I came up with:

Premise
The characters should have been forced to leave their previous environment for one reason or another. They could have been expelled by the local Lord, be fleeing a revolution, been sacked from their jobs, or have moved due to various unforeseen circumstances. Whatever the reason, they are now well out of their ‘comfort zone’, and having to try to get by in surroundings- and among people- that they don’t understand, lack empathy for, or are in some other sense way beyond their previous frame of reference.

Character generation
Character generation should be fairly pared down, with some characteristics relevant to the scenario type, for example the Great Minds of the title have education, career trajectory and notable successes (Nobel Prize etc.), whereas the French aristos of the Sacre Bleu playset have their previous position at court (such as Chancellor, Master of The Bedchamber etc.), jealousies and rivalries, what kind of estate and family they had in France and so on.

Scene Zero
Scene Zero places them in their new abode (whether poky flat, farmhouse, tenement building etc.), and again they will be the sort of people who would chafe at these new surroundings, with the claustrophobia perhaps engendering internal antipathies and flashpoints (over who should take out the rubbish or clean the oven, who’s always leaving their socks drying on the hearth, and Albert, must you smoke that filthy pipe in here?, and so on).

Tasks
The tasks should ideally challenge the characters by forcing them to do things that stretch their patience with their new surroundings (and each other) to breaking point, or simply- as in the case of the scientists- be so mundane as to open up a yawning chasm between their previous experience (for example working out how gravity operates) and their current exigencies (getting a cat out of a tree, or a gravy stain out of a pair of trousers). Also, there should be plenty of scope for encountering NPCs, who could comprise anybody from passers-by, neighbours and local shopkeepers (or inn-keepers in the case of the Elizabethan playwrights) to Police officers, street sweepers or officials of one kind of another.

However, right from the beginning the party should have explained to them the final goal, whether a party, or official engagement, or some other event, at which their performance will decide their ultimate fate, whether it be a high profile job in their new environment, or being able to return to their previous one, and for which their successes along the way will improve their chances (in the form of a gradually increasing dice pool).

Final scene
This the event at which the characters’ fates are sealed, whether for good or ill. After rolling the dice pool they have accumulated by that point, the resulting score will determine who will succeed, and by how much. The players then roleplay their success or failure.

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Have added all the hacks to the draft doc, along with the advice on creating playsets. Hope they prove useful.