Allright, Boomtown it is! Welcome to the Wild West, people!
Time for phase one.
During the first phase, you'll define relationships between characters.
Every character has a relationship with the person before and after him - so Scapheap should have a relationship with GreatWyrmGold, GreatWyrmGold with Ghazkull, Ghazkull with Scelly9 and Scelly9 with Scapheap. And, of course, relationships are mutual.
Each relationship has a category (the big titles on the relationship table) and an exact description (one of the six options under the category).
For each relationship, there is an expansion: a need, object or location that is somehow tied to the relationship.
Firstly, I will roll 16 dice for you. Then, everyone gets a turn, in subscription order, until everyone has had 4 turns. During your turn, you choose a die from the pool. Then do one of these things:
a) Create a relationship: Select two players who should have a relationship but do not have one already. The number on your chosen die then shows what category of relationship you give them.
b) Refine a relationship: Select an existing, unrefined relationship. The number on your die corresponds to the exact relationship they have, within the subset of the relationship's category.
c) Expand a relationship: Select a refined relationship. Choose either the Needs, Objects or Locations table, and select the category based on the number on your die.
d) Refine the expansion: Select an existing, unrefined expansion. The number on your die corresponds to the exact relationship they have, within the subset of the relationship's category.
Notes:
- You can create/refine relationships between any two players, not just yourself and one of your neighbours.
- It is not important right now who is who in an asymetrical relationship. If, for instance, a relationship is refined as "Parent/Child", we'll decide who exactly is the parent and who's the child later.
- The last die is wild. Meaning the last person to pick a die - in this case Scelly9 during his fourth turn - can choose what it says.
- There should be 2 Needs, 1 Location and 1 Object in the end.
Example: Player A picks a 2 from the pool, and chooses to create a Work relationship between players B and C. Player B then takes a 4 to refine the relationship into "Tradesman/Customer".
Player C decides to give the new relationship some flesh, and picks a 6 for an 'object expansion'. The item is a Sentimental Object. Player D refines it, with a '5', in an "Engraved Silver Goblet".
Players B, C and D could also have created a new relationship instead.
1 Family
1 Parent / son- or daughter-in-law
2 Cousins
3 Siblings
4 Parent / child or stepchild
5 Uncle/nephew or aunt/niece
6 Unrelated, but close as blood
2 Work
1 Ranch hands
2 Miners
3 Supervisor / employee
4 Tradesman / customer (wheelwright, barber)
5 Salesman / customer (snake oil, mine gear, bibles)
6 Professional / client (pastor, doctor, lawyer, banker)
3 The Past
1 Criminal and detective
2 Grew up together back East
3 Reformed criminals
4 War adversaries
5 Both married to same spouse (sequential or tandem?)
6 Bad family blood
4 Romance
1 Former spouses
2 Current spouses
3 Unvarnished lust
4 One-time fling
5 Mail-order bride and her groom
6 Former lovers
5 Crime
1 Crime boss and toady
2 Gamblers
3 Thieves (yeggs, burglars, horse thieves)
4 Faith healer and patient
5 Outlaws (bad men, pistoleros, roughnecks)
6 Chinese opium seller / addict
6 Community
1 Elected officials (mayor, judge, register of deeds, assayer)
2 Society (temperance league, brass band, vigilantes)
3 Church volunteers (lay readers, sexton and gravedigger)
4 Company / citizen (railroad or mine and shareholder)
5 Government / citizen (Indian agent, tax assessor)
6 Sheriff and deputy
1 To get free
1 …of this town, before everyone finds out about you
2 …of a family obligation
3 …of a business commitment
4 …of a relationship with a lover
5 …of your lot in life
6 …of a crushing debt coming due
2 To get even
1 …with this town, and its small-minded inhabitants
2 …with the local crime boss
3 …with the Sheriff
4 …with a family member
5 …with the Chinese
6 …with a rival
3 To get rich
1 …through robbing a stagecoach
2 …through robbing a business
3 …through fraud and trickery
4 …through buying various officials
5 …through violence
6 …through a misplaced trunk full of bullion
4 To get respect
1 …from this town, by bringing down the machine
2 …from this town, by showing everybody who’s boss
3 …from your lover, by proving yourself
4 …from the sheriff, by ratting out your friends
5 …from a family member, by rescuing them from ruin
6 …from yourself, by finally doing it once and for all
5 To get away
1 …from the baying hounds of the law
2 …with murder
3 …from hard-riding vengeance
4 …from an honest woman, ruined
5 …with your reinvention of yourself
6 …with a magnificent swindle
6 To get laid
1 …by anyone, anywhere, to dull the pain
2 …by your ticket out of this burg
3 …by an ambitious and beautiful saloon girl
4 …to prove them all wrong
5 …by your friend’s spouse, to further your agenda
6 …so you don’t die a virgin
1 Residences
1 A filthy buckboard wagon with a ragged awning and barrels for walls
2 A tidy Sears-bought house, crisply painted
3 A permanent room in the Belle-Union Boarding House
4 A gaudy mansion next to the dirt platted as a park
5 The opium den behind the White Star Laundry
6 A squalid apartment above the newspaper office
2 The Bradford Hotel
1 The storm cellar
2 The clerk’s room, safe, and freight office
3 The brothel billiard parlor
4 The saloon
5 A bar girl’s crib
6 The Governor’s Suite
3 The decent part of town
1 The Commercial Bank
2 Sinclair’s Dry Goods and Mercantile
3 The Territorial Sentinel newspaper office and print shop
4 First Church of Christ, Redeemer
5 The railroad depot and telegraph office
6 E.A. Lodge, Dentist
4 Across the tracks
1 The Fraternal Order of the Frontier Lodge Hall
2 White Star Chinese laundry
3 The Belle-Union Boarding House
4 Town jail
5 Eyck’s Tack, Harness, and Stable
6 Boot Hill
5 Up in the hills
1 The Chinese camp
2 The hanging tree
3 The wagon road
4 Gold Creek shanty town
5 The Circle S Ranch
6 The secret cave
6 Indian Country
1 The burnt-out log cabin
2 The bandit hideout
3 The Hunkpatila Sioux camp
4 The prospector’s hut
5 Pilot Rock
6 The Presbyterian mission at Broken Arrow
1 Untoward
1 A three dollar “all night” brothel token
2 A mortician’s black bag and a jug of phenolic acid
3 A vulcanized rubber “womb veil”
4 The skeleton of a Mescalero Apache
5 A Spiritualist’s bag of magician’s tricks
6 An abortionist’s tools
2 Transportation
1 A Kansas-Pacific railroad car
2 A four-horse mail coach
3 A safety bicycle
4 A railroad hand car
5 The guarded mine payroll mud coach
6 A St. Louis and San Francisco railroad boxcar
3 Weapon
1 A blacksmith’s tongs
2 A Sharps lever-action rifle
3 A matched set of Colt revolvers
4 A Sioux war club
5 A crate of old dynamite, weeping nitroglycerin
6 A 12-pound Mountain Howitzer
4 Information
1 An assay note on the minerals in Circle S Ranch soil
2 An overheard conversation about the Gold Creek strike
3 A freedman’s manumission papers
4 A lady’s diary
5 A faded wanted poster
6 A contract with the Pinkerton Detective Agency
5 Valuables
1 The deed to Sinclair’s Dry Goods and Mercantile
2 A promissory note for two thousand dollars
3 A wad of Federal postage stamps wrapped in a kerchief
4 A cage of Napaeozapus insignis, Woodland jumping mice
5 A heavy sack of gold dust
6 The cashbox from the Bradford Hotel brothel
6 Sentimental
1 A newborn baby
2 A pretty locket with a lock of hair inside
3 A tiny oil portrait of a handsome soldier
4 A tear-stained love letter
5 An engraved silver goblet
6 A dying man’s last words
Again, if anything is not clear, feel free to ask. Scapheap, your turn! Your dice are:
6 6 6 5 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1(Right now, you can only create a relationship. But you get to pick the players involved, and the category, so go wild.)