Anyway. There's been a bit of a dissonance for me between the ease of picking out pregenerated characters in TBZ and jumping into the game for people who haven't played before. But at the same time, the GM needs to come up with a set of Destinies for them on the fly, that would ensure motivated participation by everyone and turn into an exciting story. It is not particularly easy with the wide amount of character types available.
A good set of party Destinies don't just smush together like overboiled rice, but spiral around a common center of gravity like a DNA helix, finally merging for the common resolution in the grand finale. That is the most satisfying way for player character Destinies to unfold, but it takes a lot of practice to get right.
That's what we're here for! Practice, and inspiration.
We're going to need a random chart to pick out sets of characters from, and then try to assign them Destinies with minimum preparation. Ideally it's going to be easier and easier as time goes by. I'll be using the following chart with 12 entries on it - Oni and Ayakashi are not present, because they're somewhat more difficult to fit into a default adventure, and instead there's another pregenerated character type, the War Master for people who like more choice from the "human" characters.
- Annelidist
- Armour Hunter
- Armour Rider
- Kijin
- Kongohki
- Kugutsu
- Miko/Gyoshi
- Monk
- Onmyoji
- Samurai
- Shinobi
- War Master
- Ryu, Kijin
- Ken, War Master
- Sakura, Kugutsu
- Chun-Li, War Master
Note that this leaves Chun-Li undefined for now. In general, I don't like setting up closed loops of Destinies because they run the risk of splitting the party into isolated cliques. By all means give player A a Destiny related to player B but then move on with player B onto something else.
Ideally, we also want to group PCs by who knows whom from earlier, who are travelling together and so on (note this doesn't have to be romantic or sexual in nature, but it is going to involve some Fates). In this case, Chun-Li is protecting the Kugutsu, Sakura, that has been entrusted in her care, or simply chose her as the protector. Goal: Protect Sakura With Your Life works wonders.
Kijin are simple people, their lifes scarred by violence. If you want an Enemy type Destiny, and you probably do, it's a good fit here. Give him Enemy: Whoever Is Going To Be The Final Boss Or His/Her Dragon and be done with it.
Finally, for the Kugutsu... you have some room to fill in the blanks now. Personal freedom is a big staple here so you could go with Goal: Attain Freedom if you want it simple. If her creator is still alive and present in the adventure, you could have a positive or negative Emotion related to them. Or finally you could put the player up for some soul-searching with Goal: Understand What Is Human? or something similarily waffling and philosophical.
This is not to say that these things should be entirely GM decided and forced upon the player, which would be silly, just that you should have a firm idea of what to suggest to a player (and if they say "fuck no" then you can talk it out and negotiate). Note that this set of sample Destinies is going to be relevant right to the end of the adventure (parts of which they imply), keep PCs together and resolve at similar time, at the last Act of the game. These are, not to toot my own horn, reasonably good Destinies.
Next time, we'll see if we can do it again.
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