Pursuit as a plot or plotting pursuits

I have been giving a lot of thought over to plots lately. As I am developing my sword and sorcery game it has quickly dawned upon me that the overriding plot of 'the game' is not going to suffice. Traditionally and for the most part, the game has quest plots and exciting adventure type plots. These are geared toward the acquisition of wealth, magic items and such even though the overriding goal may be to slay an enemy or some such. The gearing is for gold and loot. That is the grease for the engine. Those two elements keep the game running. That and the acquisition of experience.

 

Well, for my SS game, there is no leveling and no experience per se. The need for gold is minimized or muted and the neccessity for magic items is non-existant. Magic, gold and slaying are the material of the adventure, backdrop, afterthoughts.

 

Action is the key.Well, it seems to me then that a more varied pot of plots are going to be necessary to run the game I want. Action and brevity.

 

So I was thinking about plots. The pursuit plot is a fairly well tread plot. From movies to novels, one need only to randomly pick something up and there is a pursuit plot.So in pursuit of the pursuit, i started to put together a short list of ideas. I then decided I might expand for the next troll's tusk.

 

It is important to note, that in the pursuit plot, the characters can be the pursued or the pursuer and that one or the other is actually trying to actively avoid the other. Now, for the purposes of SS it should almost always be that the characters are the one's pursuing something or someone. The something or someone must also be aware of the pursuit and trying to avoid the characters.

 

This is my short list fodder base.

The active agent

human

animal

monster

 

Why

escaped from jail, zoo, menagerie etc.

 

on a mission for someone

wanted as in an outlaw

person such as a thief hiding in X area

 

So that would be the idea, then I need a bridging incident to involve the characters. something in addition to, "you are being paid to catch xxx"Davis