Before you start actual gameplay, set aside time for a session zero, a first collaborate session where you start framing your game. It can be done both digitally or face to face, but be prepared the first few times, a session zero can take more time than expected. Download and a worldbook and print it, and start defining your gameplay setting, and fill out the worldbuilding section. Under the section Play Style below, you’ll more details how you do this depending on if you want to run a playset or a more collaborative and improvisational play-to-find-out style.
Setting details for Untethered are already defined, and we assume you will stick to those if you run our playsets and for the sake of our own writing, but nothing stops you from creating your own world using Untethered rules only.
Worldbuilding
Untethered narrows down to the history and events of the Low Princedoms, a region west of Phalia, the once great empire that now have crumbled after the long war. Through that lens, you will still have many decisions to make, how your own personal version of the Low Princedoms will take shape. In the Broken Kingdoms book, under each realm’s description, you will find more information about each of the following sections:
- Big Issues – The overarching problems in the world when the play begins. They change over time but should be felt more or less all the time. Use this to guide gameplay, but not force it. The players should be able to interact or get involved with the associated themes easily.
- Influential Powers – Irrefutable and influential individuals, organizations, entities, and forces that affect the characters and everyone living in the world. Use them to accelerate the story by throwing associated dangers or threats towards them, including people and beasts.
- Looming Threats – Direct and indirect threats players should know of when the game begins. If they don’t act in time, they may cause dire consequences. May be connected to the influential powers.
- Dire Consequences – Undesirable but obvious consequences from the issues, powers, and threats you have pinpointed so far.
- Individuals & Locations – Important and known people and places most people have dealings with or can feel the influence from. They could include anything from town and village names to officials, familiar faces in the market square, heroes, and villains.
Once you have defined the setting sections from the worldbuilding, players should create their characters. If they already have them created, ask them how their character arcs tie into the world. If needed, allow them to make any narrative amendments or explanations to their backgrounds to get their agenda aligned with the worldbuilding you just defined.
Serving a Master
An optional but good way of putting characters together is to give them a shared master. This is definitely recommended if the PCs become scattered thematically and you feel it becomes hard to make their backgrounds come together. If you want to use a master as the purpose of hunting or the source of income, define it as a shared collaborative task during session zero.
A master should have a relationship profile and a background story (both created by the GM) that provides some context for everyone. In addition, in the worldbook, you will find a master sheet you can use as a base to develop the character during play. Then, define the following sections of the master:
- Social Group – A group of professional individuals the master is acknowledged among.
- Demands – A thematic resource facet the master commands the PCs to collect. The GM describes one.
- Needs – A thematic resource facet the master must have to grow in power. The GM describes one.
- Resources – A number of equipment types available under a wealth state (spanning from comfortable – vast – immense, the GM decides).
- Facets – Use between 2 and 4 facets describing the master’s person, house, sphere of influence, and the like (described by the GM, optionally, ask for player input).
- Opponent – The more powerful a master is, the more powerful the enemies are.
A master should also be someone the character needs; for whatever reason, you, as a GM, can come up with power, influence, honor, protection, and so on. During the master creation, ask each player how they relate to the master and why they serve it. If they want to play the game as a devoted servant as a character, they can state it as a character arc, but that is optional.
The Haven
Sometimes, the PCs have some sort of shared space, a temporary stay, or a place in service of a patron. This haven can be used for resting and retreating after hunts, caring for wounds, or when preparing for the upcoming quest they have been tasked with. If there is one to start with, you can set its outlines with or without input from the players. A haven needs to be described by a short statement. If it has any attached advantages as facets, they should be defined as well.
