- Setting Connections
One angle I want to hit is having the characters already tied into the world, with parents and siblings and family names. To that end, I'm going to be putting together some tables for the players to roll on to determine their general background, which will point to a few more (depending on if they are Firstcome or Zenithian), and have their grand-parents & parents having been on different sides of several moments in the timeline. Nothing super detailed, just a rough outline that they can flesh out.
- Reputation
I'm going to keep track of the group's sum Reputation, and also throw together a small Faction table so I can keep track of how each feels about them as a group, and (if anything at all) as individuals. The latter will take the form of a +2 or -2 to appropriate Manipulation rolls, when dealing with a member of the Faction who might have heard of them. The Patron and Nemesis will also play into this.
- The Ship as Household
The ship's crew may or may not feel like family, but as a unit they are a House/Company/Gang all their own. A tiny faction. This ties in to the above, but basically I want the connections they forge and deals they make and lives they save/take to link them truly to the world. Bookkeeping shouldn't be overwhelming here, like when I ran Darkening of Mirkwood and one character had 7 siblings that I was keeping track of (like, does she get a letter from home saying there's a new niece or nephew, or does her aging father have to stop running the family farm?), but enough that as their skills & reputation & history grow they have a real sense of that weight.
- TV Season Structure
Each session will be an "episode," with A and B plots: one will be a job or hook or outside threat, the other will be personal to the PCs or tied into an ongoing concern. I picture each "Season" as being 8-10 episodes (each episode a session or two) with two 4-5 episode arcs (which tie together somehow, leading to a nice climax). My style is very much to plan out immediate possible motivations and goals, and an outline of how they fit together... but to let the player choices and reactions determine how it all gets filled in.
Hopefully, and I can be bad about updating things like this, I'll have more to add before long.