I've set up a new blog, called The Journal of Laxmi Guptra Dahl, at http://yoonsuin.tumblr.com.
The conceit of this blog is that a traveller called Laxmi Guptra Dahl wrote an account of his journeys through Yoon-Suin, and his journal washed up on a distant shore some time after his death. Now, scholars in that faraway land have salvaged what they could from his account, and put it together into an edited volume. The blog is a representation of their handiwork.
It stems from my desire to present the bulk of the Yoon-Suin setting in the form of a travelogue, or an item of "in-world" realia, rather than a boring campaign world source-book.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Shadows of the Iron Sorcery
Being a bit of a contrarian, I'm starting to think about what's become the red-headed stepchild of D&D in recent years (at least, as far as I'm concerned): 3rd edition. It's been left behind by the OSR, by Wizards of the Coast, and by most of the remaining fanbase (who all now seem to play Pathfinder), and it now feels like a somewhat forlorn and desperate figure at the fringes of the D&D pantheon. We won't talk about 2nd edition, which is even worse off, but at least that has the saving grace of partially coming under the OSR umbrella - if only due to compatibility issues.
I didn't like 3rd edition when I came across it, which was years after it came out (there was probably a 10 year period in my life where I didn't play RPGs at all), and d20 always struck me as a bland and quite irksome way of running a game. D&D never had a really sensible or coherent set of rules, let alone an elegant one, and shorn of D&D there was just no point in using the system whatsoever when so many others were available. I played in a d20 Modern campaign fairly recently and loathed that particualr iteration in particular.("You get hit by a 7.62mm round. Lose 12 hit points!")
But I have a vague hankering to run a more Sword & Sorcery, Shadows of the Colossus-tinged affair, in which the PCs go around taking on mighty mythical beings, horrible ancient demons, and gargantuan Things That Should Not Be (something I've written on in the past) in a Fantastical Post-Apocalyptic World Populated With All Sorts of MenacesTM, and I've got something of an idea that Iron Heroes is the way to go with that.
The more I read about Iron Heroes, indeed, the more I start to like the thought. Listen, I love tactical combat in a wargame setting, so why not in an RPG? I like the notion of taking magic out of the hands of the players. Something about starting off the PCs as relative "bad-asses" also appeals to me, since almost all my games start off with the opposite approach. And above all, there's something almost perverse about playing Iron Heroes in this day and age, given that it's sort-of proto-4e-while-retaining-elements-of-the-worst-edition-ever, which is what I really like about the idea.
I didn't like 3rd edition when I came across it, which was years after it came out (there was probably a 10 year period in my life where I didn't play RPGs at all), and d20 always struck me as a bland and quite irksome way of running a game. D&D never had a really sensible or coherent set of rules, let alone an elegant one, and shorn of D&D there was just no point in using the system whatsoever when so many others were available. I played in a d20 Modern campaign fairly recently and loathed that particualr iteration in particular.("You get hit by a 7.62mm round. Lose 12 hit points!")
But I have a vague hankering to run a more Sword & Sorcery, Shadows of the Colossus-tinged affair, in which the PCs go around taking on mighty mythical beings, horrible ancient demons, and gargantuan Things That Should Not Be (something I've written on in the past) in a Fantastical Post-Apocalyptic World Populated With All Sorts of MenacesTM, and I've got something of an idea that Iron Heroes is the way to go with that.
The more I read about Iron Heroes, indeed, the more I start to like the thought. Listen, I love tactical combat in a wargame setting, so why not in an RPG? I like the notion of taking magic out of the hands of the players. Something about starting off the PCs as relative "bad-asses" also appeals to me, since almost all my games start off with the opposite approach. And above all, there's something almost perverse about playing Iron Heroes in this day and age, given that it's sort-of proto-4e-while-retaining-elements-of-the-worst-edition-ever, which is what I really like about the idea.
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Sentient Doors
"NEEDS YOU," intoned the door abruptly, in a precise, hollow voice: "NEEDS YOU, BAA, BAA, BAA. OURUBUNDOS — "
The gathered Northmen dropped their spades. Many of them made religious signs with their fingers. Eyes round, they clutched their weapons, breathing through their open mouths.
"DOG MOON, DOG YEARS," moaned the door: "BAA, BAA, BAA."
And to each ritualistic syllable, Tomb made a suitable reply. Their dialogue lasted for some minutes before silence descended and he began again the process of moving his hands across the ancient script.
"GOLEBOG!" screamed the door.
A brief, intense flare of white light obscured the Dwarf. He staggered out of it, beating at his clothes. He chuckled. His hair reeked, his leggings smouldered. He blew on his fingers. "The door mechanism has become insane over the years," he said. "It — " Here, he said a word that no one knew " — me, but I misled it. Look."
...As Cromis entered the bunker, the door whispered malevolently to him, but it left him alone...
- M. John Harrison, The Pastel City.
Sentient doors in ancient dungeons often go mad, having long ago forgotten their original purpose, or failed to perform it for so long that they have become confused. Each time a group of PCs comes across a sentient door, randomly generate how it reacts by rolling a d12 and consulting the following table:
1. The door whispers vague threats about what lies ahead. This has a 10% chance of being accurate.
2. The door hisses "I'm behind you" after being passed through.
3. The door shuts itself 10 seconds after being opened, regardless of who or what is standing in its way. It causes d4 damage.
4. The door shouts incoherent gibberish if disturbed (i.e. touched).
5. The door announces that it is offended by the presence of intruders, and has to be begged and cajoled to open.
6. The door makes a very human weeping sound as the PCs approach, and begs them not to open it. There are no consequences if they do so.
7. The door is apparently friendly and offers information about who has opened it recently. 10% of the time the information given is accurate.
8. As above, but there is a 90% chance of the information being accurate. However, the door will also tell the next set of passers-by about the PCs.
9. The door makes a loud, horrible wailing sound when opened, and doesn't shut up.
10. The door can be opened, but the next time the PCs come this way, it will refuse to do so.
11. The door sucks magical energy. There is a 50% chance that each passing magic-user will forget a randomly-determined spell.
12. The door offers in a loud voice to answer three questions about the dungeon. Its answers are absolutely truthful about the state of play as the door understands it, i.e. 3000 years ago.
Sunday, 8 January 2012
He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
-C has been putting up a series of posts deconstructing skills in D&D. The most recent is about knowledge skills, and the problems attending them:
The answer to this question, for me at least, is a qualified "yes". There is one knowledge skill I can think of for which there is a justification, and one area in which it is concievable that the game can be improved by it. That's "Local Knowledge", or similar.
This much we know: there is a dilemma facing all DMs, especially the ones who create their own settings. On the one hand, you think your setting is interesting, and you think the players enjoy finding out about it. You also think it would really enrich the game if the players knew things that were going on, knew where things were, and knew who various NPCs were. But on the other hand, you know that your players' patience for reading or listening to infodumps about the setting are essentially nil.
This is where Knowledge skills come in: they allow you to give information to players, about the setting, that they want, at a time of their choosing. So we might imagine the following scenarios:
Hey presto! Local Knowledge makes the game better. It expands the players' knowledge of the setting in an organic way (because the information they glean is always something they actively want to know), and expands their options.
Now, of course, there's an obvious comeback that goes something like this: implicit in the above argument is the notion that for players to do or know anything, they have to roll to find out. But as -C says, it is hard to imagine how making players roll for this sort of thing really makes the game better. If the players fail their rolls, they don't get the knowledge, and the game suffers as a result, because the setting doesn't get fleshed out and the players' options don't get expanded. So why bother rolling? Why not just tell the players what they know if they ask? Or just have them ask an NPC?
There are a few reasons:
a) Having them just ask NPCs about stuff is time-consuming and quite boring. In the first scenario I included above, for instance, it would involve the players asking other NPCs they know if they know anybody who knows anything about gauntlets. Snore. Easier to roll and just say "yes" or "no", and if "no", then they can do the boring ask-other-people-if-they-know-anybody thing.
b) Having players ask the DM "What do I know about this?" or "Do I know somebody who does [x]?" or whatever puts a lot of narrative control in the DMs hands, and might prove an irresistable temptation to try to guide the "story" unless that DM is a paragon of objectivity. It might lead to scenarios in which the DM thinks to himself, "I'll tell the players this titbit of information/withold it because it'll make the story more interesting." That way madness lies. Having players roll for things like that keeps the DM honest.
c) Sometimes mystery is fun, and can make the game enjoyable in its own right. When you don't know what a monster can do, it makes it scarier. When you are carrying around some weird artefact that you don't know anything about, it makes it intriguing. When you don't know what lives in the hole in the mountain, you scout it out. Not everything ought to be mysterious, but there's nothing wrong with it in small doses.
I expect some people to disagree with this.
I am confused by the purpose of this skill [he writes]... I just fail to understand how [it] is supposed to be used in play. Here are the situations I can imagine.
There is a piece of information. It is either trivial and of no importance, or it is interesting providing some depth and background to the game and not vital, or it is a crucial piece of information.
In any possible conceivable case is the game improved by withholding any of the above information?
The answer to this question, for me at least, is a qualified "yes". There is one knowledge skill I can think of for which there is a justification, and one area in which it is concievable that the game can be improved by it. That's "Local Knowledge", or similar.
This much we know: there is a dilemma facing all DMs, especially the ones who create their own settings. On the one hand, you think your setting is interesting, and you think the players enjoy finding out about it. You also think it would really enrich the game if the players knew things that were going on, knew where things were, and knew who various NPCs were. But on the other hand, you know that your players' patience for reading or listening to infodumps about the setting are essentially nil.
This is where Knowledge skills come in: they allow you to give information to players, about the setting, that they want, at a time of their choosing. So we might imagine the following scenarios:
Bob has discovered an iron gauntlet of strange design in the dungeon. He doesn't know what it is. He rolls his "Local Knowledge" skill and the DM tells him he knows an armourer in a nearby town who could know more about it. The players go there and find out.
Gwendaline sees a strange monster she's never encountered before. After wisely fleeing, she rolls her "Local Knowledge" skill and the DM tells her of a sage who might know more. The players go to meet the sage and in exchange for performing some non-trivial task, get the information.
The party need to find an alternative route to such-and-such town because the regular road is blocked off by their enemies. Successful local knowledge rolls allow them to determine that there is a hunting trail through the forest. They go that way instead.
Hey presto! Local Knowledge makes the game better. It expands the players' knowledge of the setting in an organic way (because the information they glean is always something they actively want to know), and expands their options.
Now, of course, there's an obvious comeback that goes something like this: implicit in the above argument is the notion that for players to do or know anything, they have to roll to find out. But as -C says, it is hard to imagine how making players roll for this sort of thing really makes the game better. If the players fail their rolls, they don't get the knowledge, and the game suffers as a result, because the setting doesn't get fleshed out and the players' options don't get expanded. So why bother rolling? Why not just tell the players what they know if they ask? Or just have them ask an NPC?
There are a few reasons:
a) Having them just ask NPCs about stuff is time-consuming and quite boring. In the first scenario I included above, for instance, it would involve the players asking other NPCs they know if they know anybody who knows anything about gauntlets. Snore. Easier to roll and just say "yes" or "no", and if "no", then they can do the boring ask-other-people-if-they-know-anybody thing.
b) Having players ask the DM "What do I know about this?" or "Do I know somebody who does [x]?" or whatever puts a lot of narrative control in the DMs hands, and might prove an irresistable temptation to try to guide the "story" unless that DM is a paragon of objectivity. It might lead to scenarios in which the DM thinks to himself, "I'll tell the players this titbit of information/withold it because it'll make the story more interesting." That way madness lies. Having players roll for things like that keeps the DM honest.
c) Sometimes mystery is fun, and can make the game enjoyable in its own right. When you don't know what a monster can do, it makes it scarier. When you are carrying around some weird artefact that you don't know anything about, it makes it intriguing. When you don't know what lives in the hole in the mountain, you scout it out. Not everything ought to be mysterious, but there's nothing wrong with it in small doses.
I expect some people to disagree with this.
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Sage/Archmage/Wizard's Book Case
Your players find a book case. They root through its contents and you need to make up some titles on the fly that may or may not come in useful. Here's a random table to generate author, subject, and format.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Oh Dear
I was watching some video on youtube, and before it came on, I saw this crappy movie trailer. I watched it thinking, "Oh dear, another naff and cliche-ridden SF blockbuster that will probably just give me a headache", and wondered what daft title it might have.
Then something slowly dawned on me: this is the John Carter of Mars film.
Oh dear. I wasn't expecting much, but all the same. Oh dear.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Potential Dungeon Hazards
Here is a list of various hazards I'd like to include for D&D dungeoneering:
- Magical wall paintings. These would be akin to those found in the Chauvet Cave and other neolithic subterranean labyrinths, but rather than merely being paintings they would come alive as intruders walked by.
- Some system for, basically, randomly discovering whether the party become the target of dungeon muggers. If an adventuring party went away somewhere, came back with lots of treasures, then went off somewhere again and came back with lots of treasure again... Wouldn't opportunists begin to notice this? And, like, follow them, and lie in ambush waiting for them to emerge from the dungeon and then rob them of all their gains? I want to think up a system for determining the likelihood of this, the type of muggers encountered, and so on. Likewise, I think any DM worth his salt has used the "somebody notices that suddenly those impoverished adventurers have lots of cash" motif to annoy his players, but I'd like to think up a system for determining how frequently this occurs, who notices, etc.
- Build-ups of hazardous gases from mining operations of dwarves, orcs, and the like. Hydrogen sulphide, carbon monoxide, you name it. PCs would have to be able to smell the gas, of course, before it just killed them randomly, but whether they knew what the smell meant would be based on their own research (or lack of it).
- A quasi-runic magic system, like you get in many roguelike games, like Angband, allowing magic-using monsters (and PCs) to learn how to scrawl runes on the floor or wall of the dungeon to ward off good or evil, explode, cause a collapse, summon a monster when stepped on, etc.
- Subterranean lakes... of acid!!!
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The Table is Creative
P., my Apocalypse World MC and regular in my CP:2020 game, came up with a great idea on his blog: take the "Isle of the Unknown" hexmap, write down a list of all the hex numbers, use the list randomiser at random.org to scramble them, then past the random list back into the original. Suddenly all the hexes are randomly "paired" and connected:
The only problem, according to P., is that:
But one of my other players, N., had a solution. Put all the hex numbers into 7x7 tables. Roll 3d8: the first d8 gives you the table, the second gives you the row, the third gives you the column (re-roll 8s). Hey presto! The hex you are in is connected to the numbered hex you just generated.
Instant-random-hex-connection-generator: sorted.
This forms a list of connections between every hex in the map. For instance, in my first attempt I found the B-Located cleric in hex 0114 is connected to the crystal statue in 1709. Maybe that's where he got his bi location power? The statue used to be a person whose soul was taken by the poisonous giant woodpecker in hex 2410. The woodpecker is connected to the weird island in 2415. Is that where it lost it's original soul? Is it still waiting for it to re-appear?
The only problem, according to P., is that:
[T]his pretty locks down the whole island from the beginning. I prefer it when things are generated randomly at the table. It provokes a more interesting state of mind. But to do that I need a dice method that can randomise 343 hexes.
But one of my other players, N., had a solution. Put all the hex numbers into 7x7 tables. Roll 3d8: the first d8 gives you the table, the second gives you the row, the third gives you the column (re-roll 8s). Hey presto! The hex you are in is connected to the numbered hex you just generated.
Instant-random-hex-connection-generator: sorted.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
"Doing" Vance
I came across a link to this Forge thread while on my ramblings through Google reader this morning. Long story short, it's a a game designer who I respect (Vincent Baker) saying a lot of weird things, and then a whole load of very very pretentious people literally talking gobbledegook. But! It contains an interesting line (to me, anyway):
And it got me thinking about games that set out to "do" Jack Vance. It turns out, from a little bit of Googling, that not only is there already a Dying Earth RPG, it was written by no less than Robin D. Laws and John Snead, two of the least Cugel-like people in the entire world. Curiouser and curiouser!
I'm just perusing the quick start rules on my lunch break. No time for an in-depth analysis now, but suffice to say there's stuff in here that's likeable (spell titles like "The Astonishing Oral Projection"). I'm a bit more dubious about this:
It might just be my nautral prejudices, but when I read stuff like that it sets alarm bells ringing: there's nothing less entertaining than people trying too hard to be entertaining. If I was designing a Dying Earth RPG my main focus would be on getting the players to be interested in self-advancement and self-aggrandization, rather than on being entertaining - which, it strikes me, is more of a by-product.
But we'll see. I might be tempted to make a purchase all the same.
Then I remembered how much I love Vance, of course, and how much I'd enjoy trying to channel him, and just how much fun his ironic, cynical relativism is. So now it's great.
And it got me thinking about games that set out to "do" Jack Vance. It turns out, from a little bit of Googling, that not only is there already a Dying Earth RPG, it was written by no less than Robin D. Laws and John Snead, two of the least Cugel-like people in the entire world. Curiouser and curiouser!
I'm just perusing the quick start rules on my lunch break. No time for an in-depth analysis now, but suffice to say there's stuff in here that's likeable (spell titles like "The Astonishing Oral Projection"). I'm a bit more dubious about this:
In [this] game we're not always rooting unreservedly for the characters to succeed. They are often selfish, greedy or overconfident... What matters is not victory or defeat, but how well the story entertains us... We reward you, the player, for making the game entertaining.
It might just be my nautral prejudices, but when I read stuff like that it sets alarm bells ringing: there's nothing less entertaining than people trying too hard to be entertaining. If I was designing a Dying Earth RPG my main focus would be on getting the players to be interested in self-advancement and self-aggrandization, rather than on being entertaining - which, it strikes me, is more of a by-product.
But we'll see. I might be tempted to make a purchase all the same.
Monday, 2 January 2012
You Are The Problem
So somebody called Ryan Dancey, "former VP of RPGs at Wizards and marketing guru at White Wolf/CCP", reckons that
Where do they wheel these people out from? And doesn't it sound to you like the last bleatings of the CEO of Netscape, declaring that the web browser is dead, before the men in white coats coax him out to the back alley to put him out of his misery?
I'm sure you can read between the lines, just as I can: the big RPG companies like Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf are dying. They got fat and bloated and have been mostly engaged in the production of horse manure for the past 10 years. QED: tabletop RPGs are dying - the comfortable myth high-ups in those companies can tell themselves rather than face the ugly truth, which is that they're nothing like as innovative or interesting as they should be. Cognitive dissonance is a funny thing.
Tabletop RPGs are in fact in rude health again. They've undergone some lean times, but they've emerged from their long semi-hibernation bleary-eyed and pale but with a feriocious hunger. This is thanks in no small part to the internet and blogosphere. Gamers all over the world can now connect with each other instantly, create endless new material, publish entirely new game lines to sell to each other or even give away for free, innovate and create beyond anything in their wildest dreams 10 years ago, and they're doing it in huge numbers. If you're a "former VP of RPGs at Wizards and marketing guru at White Wolf/CCP" I'm sure you'd also take the view that this represented the death of tabletop RPGs, because none of it results in a single penny being forked over to either Wizards or White Wolf. But you're not. So I think you take the same view as I do - things are looking up.
"[T]he tabletop RPG market is enduring a kind of death. I think it is transforming into something that isn't a viable commercial business for more than a handful of people [like model trains]... Kids stopped playing with trains, and the businesses that remained dedicated to hobbyists who got more disposable income as they grew up, until the price of the hobby was out of reach of anyone except those older hobbyists. Eventually, it became a high-end hobby with very expensive products, sold to an ever-decreasing number of hobbyists. As those folks die, the hobby shrinks. That is what is happening to the tabletop RPG business."
Where do they wheel these people out from? And doesn't it sound to you like the last bleatings of the CEO of Netscape, declaring that the web browser is dead, before the men in white coats coax him out to the back alley to put him out of his misery?
I'm sure you can read between the lines, just as I can: the big RPG companies like Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf are dying. They got fat and bloated and have been mostly engaged in the production of horse manure for the past 10 years. QED: tabletop RPGs are dying - the comfortable myth high-ups in those companies can tell themselves rather than face the ugly truth, which is that they're nothing like as innovative or interesting as they should be. Cognitive dissonance is a funny thing.
Tabletop RPGs are in fact in rude health again. They've undergone some lean times, but they've emerged from their long semi-hibernation bleary-eyed and pale but with a feriocious hunger. This is thanks in no small part to the internet and blogosphere. Gamers all over the world can now connect with each other instantly, create endless new material, publish entirely new game lines to sell to each other or even give away for free, innovate and create beyond anything in their wildest dreams 10 years ago, and they're doing it in huge numbers. If you're a "former VP of RPGs at Wizards and marketing guru at White Wolf/CCP" I'm sure you'd also take the view that this represented the death of tabletop RPGs, because none of it results in a single penny being forked over to either Wizards or White Wolf. But you're not. So I think you take the same view as I do - things are looking up.
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