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Hiromi Cota (They/She)
Hai tai! Greetings, gamers! I’m Hiromi Cota, lead developer for The Fifth Season RPG core book and guest writer of this very blog post. I know people have been waiting for this book to come out for a while, but it’s finally about to come out! Which leaves the question: What’s it all about?
The Fifth Season RPG focuses on groups of characters and their comms (community). The deck’s stacked against them; the setting is harsh, with countless dangers, including extinction-level events. You’ll create characters specializing in handling the various perils of the world and do your best to make your comm flourish—or at least scrape by. You might:
- Explore high-tech ruins and scavenge artifacts
- Lead & protect diplomatic missions to ensure vital trade flows
- Hunt down feral beasts who savaged your guards
- Convince bandits to leave your comm alone, by words or blood
- Take your comm on the road in search of a new home after disaster strikes
- Protect members of your comm who have dangerous, illegal, & magical secrets
- Venture to strange & dangerous places to secure resources no one else dares to
- Search for missing comm members and save them from dangers
- Investigate crop thefts and bloody murders
If those sound fun, most of them are ready for you to play, in the core book, the GM Kit, or the Quickstart.
And if you want to know even more, read on!
What’s a Session Zero like in The Fifth Season RPG?
Step 1: What Game Do You Want?
The first step (aside from hugs and greetings) is for everyone to talk about what kind of game they want to play. An action-adventure game where the player characters are constantly getting into the thick of things? One of diplomatic intrigue where the movers and shakers of the comm force the PCs to pick sides, curry favor, and solve disputes? A game where things start out idyllic but rapidly descend into apocalyptic chaos as the end of the world comes, forcing the PCs to take drastic action to save their people?
It’s all possible within the game. It’s up to you to decide what you want to play.
Step 2: How Do You Want To Play?
What subjects, concepts, and themes are off the table? Which are people excited about? Which are people OK with, as long as they’re downplayed? For example, some people are squicked out by boilbugs, a particularly nasty creature in the game. Those people might never want their PCs to encounter boilbugs or they might just not want to hear details. We use the “veils” and “lines” system in the core book, but you can substitute your own safety system if you have a preference.
Also, now is the time for anyone who wants to play an earth-magic-wielding orogene or a magically-powered guardian to step forward. The presence of either kind of character will deeply impact your game. For one thing, guardians and trained orogenes can’t be members of regular comms, so either one of those characters hanging around would be thematically weird. Besides that, orogenes and guardians are far more powerful than the rest of the character types, which could result in those characters doing all the heavy lifting, leaving little for everyone else.
Something that’s more workable is for one or two PCs to be unregistered orogenes, with the rest of the PCs working to keep their friends’ secret. This is a dynamic that you’ll want to talk about now, before you make characters, because protecting your orogene friends from the guardians is a pretty heavy theme, especially in our current political climate. I’m not saying that such a story couldn’t be fun or extremely cathartic. I’m just saying that you want to plan for that kind of game; suddenly finding yourself in the middle of it could be deeply uncomfortable.
Step 3: Making Your Comm
Next, you’ll create a comm together. This comm is where the players’ characters will live and hopefully thrive. It could be a tiny village just starting out or it could be a prosperous city. Either way, it’s what the characters are fighting to protect. Creating your comm is like creating a character, complete with stats that will influence your games, and a backstory. You’ll even collaboratively explain what happened over the past year, giving your PCs a jumping off point.
Step 4: Character Creation
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably made a character or two in your time. If not, welcome to the hobby! During character creation, you’ll be figuring out what kinds of PCs you want to play. Having a mix of use-castes in your group is valuable, as it gives you a variety of ways to approach situations. Members of the Breeder and Leader use-castes are skilled negotiators, allowing them to solve problems with their words. Innovators can apply their knowledge to apply an intellectual approach. And Resistants and Strongbacks can use their hardiness and muscle-power to get things done the hard way.
Step 4.5: Goals & Relationships
One of the last steps of character creation and for most Session Zeros is to figure out what each character wants out of life. These should be short-term and long-term goals. What’s something they want to do during the first session? What’s something that might take them a year in-game to accomplish?
Lastly, how do the PCs know each other and how do they get along? Moreover, who are the NPCs that the PCs know and hang out with? Or the NPCs that the PCs have beef with? Relationship bonds can give your PCs an edge to certain rolls, but you have to at least outline what those bonds are before you can take advantage of that.
~Hiromi Cota, Fifth Season lead developer
Fifth Season: Roleplaying in the Stillness is available to preorder now, with an option to pick up the PDF (and download it immediately) for just $5. Check it out in the Green Ronin Online Store, or on DrivethruRPG
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