The Unscene
The Between introduces a gameplay concept that is completely original—no other TTRPG has anything like it. It’s called the Unscene. The idea is that the city of London is a living, breathing place, with a life all its own outside the dark work of Hargrave House. We explore London via the Unscene, which is a scene that runs in parallel to the hunter scenes during the Night phase. We bounce back and forth between the Unscene and the hunter scenes, possibly connecting them thematically, but always staying focused on painting a picture of London that is vivid and throbbing and real. The end result is a story that is highly cinematic—it’s truly like watching a really great episode of television. Here’s an example Unscene: ​

By using the Mask of the Past, the player of the American gets to tell their whole backstory, from childhood to the moment they gained their lycanthropy curse to the event that forced them to flee to London. The player could certainly tell us these things all at once during character creation, but it’s much more interesting and cinematic to have them revealed gradually, through play. ​

Playbooks
The Between has seven different playbooks—six that can be chosen at the start and one that enters play at a later time. The playbooks are a mix of character types drawn from the works that inspired the game. 

The Vessel
The Vessel is a magic user; they allow dark, supernatural entities to enter their body in order to fuel powerful rituals. Throughout the game, you learn about their history with these dark entities as well as their time with a coven of witches that tried to use their talents for evil ends. The Vessel can perform dark rites, use divination tools, conduct investigations by drawing supernatural entities to them, and more. Play the Vessel if you want to explore dark rituals and what it feels like to be in control of dangerous things.

The Explorer
The Explorer is a member of the upper class. They made their name and fortune mapping the unexplored parts of the world for the Crown. They are also the rival of the criminal mastermind Hargrave House will eventually have to face. Throughout the game, you’ll be exploring the story of a young man whose village was terrorized by the Explorer when the Explorer was camped there during an expedition. Play the Explorer if you want to move in elite social circles, use money and other resources to solve problems, and be a rival to the game’s main antagonist.

The American
The American is a gun-slinger from America’s Wild West. They grew up with great privilege but abandoned it for frontier life. Along the way, they picked up a curse that sometimes changes them into a feral beast. Throughout the game you’ll be exploring how they came to leave their privileged life and why they eventually fled to London. The American is an excellent shot, a terrific storyteller, a master of disguise, and more. Play the American if you want to solve problems with violence or if you’re interested in being an outsider. 

The Mother
The Mother is a highly-talented doctor and scientist. They lost someone they love and are using that heartbreak to fuel their creation: a person crafted from the body parts of other people, given life by experimental, alchemical processes. Throughout the game, you will be exploring their past with the person they lost, and why they were driven to create a new form of life. Play the Mother if you want to use science and medicine to solve problems, or if you want to delight in blood and guts. 

The Undeniable
The Undeniable is an immortal being of incomparable physical beauty. They have been worshipped as a god for much of their lives and a cult dedicated to them is active in London. Throughout the game, you’ll be learning about the artistic masterwork that bears the scars of the Undeniable’s wickedness, as well as their history with the artist who created it.  Play the Undeniable if you want to be extremely powerful, occasionally villainous, and focused on sensory experiences. 

The Factotum
The Factotum is a servant of one of the other hunters. They are a highly skilled operator—resourceful and practical. When the other hunters are mired in darkness, the Factotum is busy getting the job done. Throughout the game, you’ll explore their professional past and how they came to be a servant. Play the Factotum if you want to be highly effective or if you want to explore what it’s like to have your personal goals and dignity subsumed by another’s. 

The Orphan (Playbook)
The Orphan is a special playbook that isn’t immediately available to us; it is unlocked after certain conditions on The Mother playbook are met. ​

Threats
Monster hunters need monsters to hunt, and that’s where the Threats come in. The game comes with ten Threats: six standard Threats and four special Threats associated with specific playbooks.

The St. James’s Street Ghost
The Beales of 18 St. James’s Street are in a terrible predicament: their townhouse is being terrorized by a malignant spirit. The ghost has already taken the life of their maid, and it seems no one in the house is safe so long as the haunting continues. Hargrave House investigates in order to learn how to quiet the ghost so it can pass into the next world. They may also learn how to make contact with ghosts, a feat that may prove helpful in future investigations.

The Limehouse Lurker
Bodies are turning up in Limehouse, completely drained of blood. Hargrave House knows it’s a vampire, but something about the initial report indicates the undead monster has the physical body of a child. An old vampire must be dealt with in a very different way from a young vampire, and so Hargrave House must initially determine if the vampire is truly adolescent or if it’s actually an ancient being in a small body. 

Sally No-Face
A killer is stalking the streets of London. Their calling card? The victim’s faces have been removed with surgical precision. Panic sets in across the city, with some believing the killer is Sally No-Face, an urban legend reborn. Scotland Yard has had no luck capturing the perpetrator, and so Hargrave House steps in. But which approach to take? Finding the killer’s lair? Drawing the killer to them? Learning what makes the killer tick in order to bring them in peacefully? 

The Whateley Camera
A young actress went missing after being photographed by the Society Obscura, a secretive club for photography enthusiasts. Hargrave House cares less about missing actresses than something in the Society’s possession: the Whateley Camera, a known object of power said to contain the consciousness of a powerful extra dimensional being. Recovering the Whateley Camera and discovering how it acts as a portal to another world is a matter of the utmost urgency.

The Creature of Cremorne Gardens
A number of people report being terrorized by a “fish-like man” in and around the Cremorne pleasure gardens. Rumors suggest the creature can even lure people to a watery doom with the use of a hypnotic song. Hargrave House investigates to determine if the fish man is actually real, or simply a hoax perpetrated by someone with a financial incentive to see Cremorne Gardens fail. 
 
Figg’s Piggs
Pie maker Titus Figg is arrested after it’s revealed his famous Figg’s Pigg pie contains human meat. Titus’s three family members—wife La Hortencia, eldest son Obert the Blade, and youngest son Patrick—managed to escape capture, and Scotland Yard has asked Hargrave House to help track them down. The loose Figgs are extremely dangerous, and pursuing them will force Hargrave House to face a level of darkness and depravity they have only imagined before, to say nothing of the pagan swine god, Moc’h. 

The Coven
The Coven is a special Threat that only enters play after certain conditions are met on The Vessel playbook.

The Cursed
The Cursed is a special Threat that only enters play after certain conditions are met on The American playbook.

The Pinkerton
The Pinkerton is a special Threat that only enters play after certain conditions are met on The American playbook.

The Orphan (Threat)
The Orphan is a special Threat that only enters play after certain conditions are met on The Mother playbook.​

The Mastermind
A criminal mastermind is pulling the strings behind the scenes, possibly manipulating the various Threats in order to enact a grand plan to bring down the monarchy and the entire British empire. Hargrave House will eventually have to reckon with them. 

The Mastermind is The Between’s campaign framework. The hunters become increasingly aware of the Mastermind’s machinations as they resolve Threats. This growing awareness will eventually lead to a confrontation with the Mastermind, which represents the final, grand Threat to overcome. 

The Mastermind sheet gives the Keeper everything they need to organize this campaign aspect of the game: relevant details for the Mastermind, including their backstory and servants; a place for the Keeper to take notes about the campaign; a five-layer campaign progression, with the threshold for each layer unlocking new aspects of the Mastermind whenever crossed; and a list of Mastermind Clues. The game comes with one Mastermind: the ruthless mercantilist and former pirate queen, Theodora Brathwaite. ​

FIND PART ONE HERE​
Building Meaningful Places Together
The thing to remember when you are asking questions is that you only need to build ‘just enough’ and to focus on the things that matter when the story is in focus.

In a recent game of Quest I and my players built a fantasy world using the wonderful Azgaar fantasy world generator  https://azgaar.github.io/ we cycled through options for the world until we had a really clear idea of what the world was like. 

Interestingly, for the first time in a long time I built some internal history for the game, and shared out in a whole three pages of the world. It set out the sandbox in a more traditional sense and I am now applying the techniques I outlined elsewhere in this article. This approach allows me to set the ‘internal rules’ of the world but then pass the details out to the characters. 

This hybrid technique gives the GM a good degree of control and sets up the consistent and structural parts of a game but invites the players into defining the world with you as they make their way across the fantasy setting. This way, you only need to create the ‘world bible’ for the game as the game encounters it. 

This leads back to my observation above that lore builds game by game, it matters that it is internally consistent for gaming groups - once it is established it is true. This way we take more of the ‘here be dragons’ aspects of the sandbox and give them detail when it is relevant to do so. 

You can use this approach in a more localised way as well - I ask questions in world building when I  want some signature locations for the characters - it's a technique I have used in Masks, Urban Shadows and Monsterhearts 2. 

This is an example of questions I asked at the start of a 20 session Masks game set in a Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman sort of setting - the five or so blocks the teen heroes defended needed to feel real so I asked them to give me somewhere that really mattered to them. 

Welcome to Union City and the lower West Side of Union City. Our story takes place in the increasingly gentrified village and the ethnic melting pot of the ‘Triangle’ - or as locals call it ‘Tri-Town’ - are you Village or Tri Town? What's your favourite place and thing to do

• The Arcade - on the riverfront, close to the docks. Dynamic hangs out here
• Books and Stuff, a local and hidden bookshop full to the rafters of new and second hand books
• The Boiler - a rough skate park, where small scale drug pushing goes down, not to far from the Village
• Illegal rave in the docks - Novak Shipping - run by 'Madam Percy'

You can watch the ‘writer’s room’ session zero of this Masks game here https://youtu.be/i0bOP8dL4UY?list=PLKaVqoVBo79gFK1PUnDZfCC94_M5xFRsr

And the full play of our Masks: Neighbourhood game here - every session has use of Stars and Wishes as a cool town tool. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKaVqoVBo79gFK1PUnDZfCC94_M5xFRsr

I can not tell you how many scenes were set in that skate park and without a doubt Books and Stuff was the MVP location of the game.  

‘Books and Stuff’ had awkward teen kisses, a mob hit and eventually it was torched by the mastermind villain. It had become so real it was almost a character in its own right. As a GM it was something I could put in peril, or bring people back to in the same way that a Buffy episode used the Library. 

Another tip here - you do not have to use everything, incorporate what works and what will be fun for you to explore. I didn't really want to run illegal rave stuff in my Masks game - so instead had a major super fight there instead and trashed it. 

Making NPC’s Real
You must have run a game where the minor background NPC becomes a huge center stage character whilst the big bad you put a huge amount of effort thinking about is a bit of a damp squib.

Let’s explore why that might be happening:
Recently I went a bit old school and ran the OG Star Wars RPG. In one scene it turns out the rebel operative they are dealing with is Cassian Andor. Awesome name-drop, the crowd goes wild! 

Or do they? 

Why does Cassian Andor matter to these characters? So I asked one of the players  “Do you think Cassian has forgiven you for what you did to him?”

All of a sudden the fiction turned from an excited player getting to play in some Star Wars lore to their player becoming excited that their character and the messy breakup they had with Andor.

That’s the responsibility you have with NPCs as a GM. If you are not making them relevant to your players stories then why are they there? To dump plot exposition on them? That can work but it will rarely make them care as much. Build back to those earlier questions and create characters with motivations that allow the PCs to shine. 

I have developed my own technique for building major NPCs that allows players to co-create  using the template below. You do not need to use all the questions at once - fill them in as you go along. 

Let me introduction you to The Blue Rose - an NPC in a Spelljammer inspired Quest game I am running. I started with a picture (pro tip: Pinterest boards as game mood boards are a great help), a brief description and questions which brought the NPC to life.