HI Estella, Once option could be to play with the idea of a dangerous botanical gardens adjacent to a even more threatening desert area that completely surrounds it. This way you can play around with several tropes: why are the players in there anyway? are they captive there? are the resources dangerous as they are diminishing thus forcing them out to explore beyond the desert area? what was feeding the botanical gardens the whole time? also, if they choose to cross the desert did they bring all the correct life sustaining crops to make it (ala through nature checks, alchemy, etc) One trope like reveal could be a exodus from a garden (of Eden) type end where the players come to realize that they were the avatars for another civilizations religion and now, having left, there are consequences.

Ill throw my hat in here as say; why not have some of the sessions (since you have a whopping 8 player line up) based around a single character. In that way you might even have 8 vignettes set up. But to spice it up a bit you can have players (since the 'star of the show is the player whose vignette is is) play active NPCs. Let them experiement with potential 'throw away' ideas that you can then later use as NPCs that you control based on characters that they set up. Its proactive and communal world building in addition to everyone getting to prop up the character whose story it is (if that is set up properly of course). Could be equally fun for them to take down that character if its a horror campaign.

Hey Scott, hope I can help I agree with what the others are saying. I would also like to add that if you are inclined to introduce players to a heavier more rules intensive system (even the lighter ones for that matter) consider a method of on boarding as part of the board-game (in this case TTRPG game) teach. Character sheets themselves can be intimidating game artifacts that may need a certain degree of parsing. One could make an argument for the 'Legacy' style board game mechanic. that being: introduce new sections of the character sheet by 'opening up boxes' (or covering) and only revealing certain areas of the game as it progresses. The way they open up could be based on player need or even story arch. and could potentially make on boarding an easier hill to cross. In my experience once you get passed the whole: 'this is what a conflict resolution mechanic is with regard to story telling' then you are off to the races (pardon all the mixed metaphor). adding modifiers, spell stats, level up mechanics etc is the easy and (arguably) less 'important' stuff early on.

I agree it was fun to have hear about peoples worlds and talk about them. (My apologies for my connecton issues) I did wish the session went on longer because we only really scratched the surface of each of the two main GMS world that I think longer (or perhaps more frequent) events would be super fun to set-up. (happy to do so!). Mark your world was fascinating and in depth and it would be so fun to jump into a session of yours but let me address some of the points you brought up. 1. I think the goals of players will be ever shifting. If you want group cohesion, having a group goal is the key thing. But this may be pedantic and you are probably refering to the group to which I would say dont hold back all your big reveals. If you need to kill the(X) or the destroy the (Y) just do it. What might happen organically is a new goal that follows from the reprocussion of what and how the previous goal resolved. As a player, I always found that GMs kept too many secrets close to the chest and due to the nature of people schedules a party would never get around to a big end 'goal' moment because life would get in the way. Goals (GM, player or otherwise) can be session specific if paced accordingly imho. 2. I have a little bit of a problem with 'leveling up' systems. They certainly are fun but really they are something of an illusion since all the baddies just get stronger too. So maybe I should just say away from this query and let someone else get in there. In the end: do you need levels? What are they doing for your story? Providing time-jumps? complexity? etc 3. Love the idea of making her a bad-ass. I also like the idea (as I eluded to on the stream) of just changing the threat week to week (ala Monster of the Week) these stories could come to mean something to a form a motivation for the big bad, or to take an alternate way in, you tie the magic child's capabilities innately with a player(s) character up to even including hit point sharing. Like if the magic girl is weakend maybe the magic users spells are too. Mechanical motivation ftw!

@Eric Person Agree with the length exposition bit, but who doesnt love a villian monologue? Especially when they can try to shoot an fireball/have the thief character sneak around back and give him a good 'what-have-you' while he is doing so and so near to the end as well/. :)

A potential 'fix' to re-rolls/hero-points that can make both parties happy could be the yes, but, no and hero point/re-roll.. I.e. yes..you CAN make a re-rolll BUT if you fail again the outcome is worse. OR. You can accept the failure now (rather than a cheeky get out of jail free card) AND as a reward you get something for free: xp, an item, whateva fits your story. This can even be gamified by giving players a set of cards of ranging (SUCCESS/FAIL) on a spectrum that they shuffle (or choose) to play on their turn instead of rolling and the outcomes are narrated. More mechanically strict games can have these cards labaled something like : brililant succes: +5 to next roll, -5 to next skill check. etc etc