I had the great, inestimable, magnificent luxury of being able to take a sabbatical from work for four months at the end of last year. No emails, no meetings, no classes - just reading and writing. I accomplished a lot, but the thing I am most pleased about of all was that I was able to do a heck of a lot of just sitting and thinking about things carefully. It's easy to forget how unproductive you become if you are exposed to the constant drip-drip-drip of distractions that is the modern workplace. Doing anything really creatively good needs not just time but a certain type of time: your brain needs to get itself into a state that combines both relaxation with hard work.
You can hear a fascinating recent interview with David Gelemter on this topic if you are interested. The long and short of it is that our minds tend to switch between two modes of thinking - the rational, alert, analytical type ("up" thinking), and the mellow, sleepy, dreamy, intuitive type ("down" thinking). The reason why creating things is so difficult is that you need to combine both. You need to be able to let your mind wander in an uncontrolled free associative sort of way - that is, "down" thinking - because that's where inspiration comes from. "Up" thinking polices creativity too much through overanalysis. But at the same time you need to exert a certain rationality and analysis over the process to make things concrete and to judge what are the good ideas and the bad ones - and also to discipline yourself to producing the things that you are imagining. So to be productive - particularly productively creative - your brain needs to balance (or oscillate) between "up" and "down" modes.
You can't do this without extended periods of time so that you can find that balance/oscillation. Distractions break it.
I refer you back to my earlier post about the friendliness of boredom. If you want to create things, you need to get into a zone of stillness so you can think in a very special and careful way. As soon as you check your emails, your phone, or whatever, you get yanked out of that zone (it is almost a physical sensation) and you have to wait for a long time to get it back. Give in to distractions too often, and you never get into the zone at all.
One of the greatest challenges facing mankind today is distraction, and how it prevents proper thought.
Thursday, 2 February 2017
Wednesday, 1 February 2017
Though so stupid were they that they could hardly pronounce the word
Headless Sopater and the Euoplocephalus
Sopater of Apamea was known as a man of extraordinary brilliance who went to the court of Constantine to convert the emperor to the study of philosophy. For a time Constantine held him in the highest regard and even asked if Sopater could purify him after he murdered his son. But jealousy on the part of those "so stupid that they could hardly pronounce his name" was soon Sopater's downfall and he was beheaded after being falsely accused of controlling the weather.
A mythago of Sopater now serves Abu Yaqub Al-Sijistani and he can be found roaming far and wide on errands from his master. Headless, he relies for vision and all other senses on two primitive ancestral bats, clinging to his arms or back, who use their echolocation to sense their surroundings, and dig their teeth and claws into his dead flesh to guide him. He cannot speak but gestures for communication with his hands and fingers. He rides on the back of the undead skeleton of a euoplocephalus - a six-metre long ankylosaur covered all over in armoured slabs of bone and huge tusk-spikes.
Sopater of Apamea
7th level cleric
28 hp, AC 12, AB -, Move 90
Sopater is blind and the guidance from his bats is not quick enough to allow him to function effectively in combat. Without the bats he can see nothing at all. They have 1hp each and are adept at hiding themselves from attacks (their AC is 14 but only a hit on a natural 20 will actually hit a bat if it is attached to Sopater's body; otherwise the blow hits Sopater).
He is undead and immune to normal attacks, cold-based attacks, sleep, charm, etc.
The Skeleton Euoplocephalus
HD 8, AC 20, AB +8, ATT Trample 1d6+2, Tail 2d6+2, Move 90
*AC 14 against bludgeoning weapons
*Tail attack can only strike backwards; trample attack can only strike forwards
*Can charge, in which case trample attack hits everything in its path automatically
*Always loses initiative
The skeleton euoplocephalus is unthinkingly and fanatically loyal to Al-Sijistani and hence Sopater. They give its existence meaning amidst the chaos of the catastrophe that befell it and the rest of its kind.
Sopater of Apamea was known as a man of extraordinary brilliance who went to the court of Constantine to convert the emperor to the study of philosophy. For a time Constantine held him in the highest regard and even asked if Sopater could purify him after he murdered his son. But jealousy on the part of those "so stupid that they could hardly pronounce his name" was soon Sopater's downfall and he was beheaded after being falsely accused of controlling the weather.
A mythago of Sopater now serves Abu Yaqub Al-Sijistani and he can be found roaming far and wide on errands from his master. Headless, he relies for vision and all other senses on two primitive ancestral bats, clinging to his arms or back, who use their echolocation to sense their surroundings, and dig their teeth and claws into his dead flesh to guide him. He cannot speak but gestures for communication with his hands and fingers. He rides on the back of the undead skeleton of a euoplocephalus - a six-metre long ankylosaur covered all over in armoured slabs of bone and huge tusk-spikes.
Sopater of Apamea
7th level cleric
28 hp, AC 12, AB -, Move 90
Sopater is blind and the guidance from his bats is not quick enough to allow him to function effectively in combat. Without the bats he can see nothing at all. They have 1hp each and are adept at hiding themselves from attacks (their AC is 14 but only a hit on a natural 20 will actually hit a bat if it is attached to Sopater's body; otherwise the blow hits Sopater).
He is undead and immune to normal attacks, cold-based attacks, sleep, charm, etc.
The Skeleton Euoplocephalus
HD 8, AC 20, AB +8, ATT Trample 1d6+2, Tail 2d6+2, Move 90
*AC 14 against bludgeoning weapons
*Tail attack can only strike backwards; trample attack can only strike forwards
*Can charge, in which case trample attack hits everything in its path automatically
*Always loses initiative
The skeleton euoplocephalus is unthinkingly and fanatically loyal to Al-Sijistani and hence Sopater. They give its existence meaning amidst the chaos of the catastrophe that befell it and the rest of its kind.
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Sese-Mahuru-Bau's Singing Dogs
One day in his youth Sese-Mahuru-Bau heard haunting, whooping cries from high in the hill forests, where the rain clouds hung low in the sky. He asked a brother what those cries were, and the brother told him they were the howls of singing dogs. "If you are close enough to truly hear their song," the brother continued. "They will cast their spells on you."
As he grew up Sese-Mahuru-Bau learned that his brother was teasing and that the songs of the wild dogs were harmless. They could even be tamed and live alongside people. But the memories remained of those high soft melancholy calls echoing in rain swept jungle peaks. Sometimes he dreamed of them. In the mythago world of the crocodile, he conjured them from those memories of dreams to act as his hunting companions. They move around his forests like elemental ghost hounds composed of sound and shadow and cloud.
Sese-Mahuru-Bau's Singing Dogs
Packs of 2d6+6 hounds made of mist and shade. They come at dusk, or when it is raining, moving through the undergrowth like smoke on a breeze. They often come to accompany human hunters - especially their master, Sese-Mahuru-Bau. Their songs have strange and magical effects.
HD 1+1 AC 14 AB +3 ATT 1d6+1 (freezing bite)
*Ethereal - can only be harmed by magical weapons
*Their song acts as a spell. At a distance greater than 100 yards it has no effect. At closer than 100 yards, it has two effects.
Bonding Song
The singing dogs call to bind themselves together in loyalty and love. A human hearing this song at close range becomes strongly focused on his comrades. A group of PCs gain the ability to "donate" AB points or hit points to each other when under its spell. But each round they must successfully save vs magic or attack/hinder a comrade on suspicion he is somehow undermining or betraying the "pack".
Sense Heightening Song
The singing dogs call to heighten their senses. A human hearing this song at close range finds his senses of hearing and smell greatly improved. He cannot be surprised, senses magic and anything concealed or secret, and is not reliant on sight (treat as having infravision in darkness). However, each round he must successfully save vs magic or be paralysed by indecision because his senses are flooded and overwhelmed, and unable to act that round.
Mournful Song
The singing dogs call to grieve for a lost companion or simply through melancholy contemplation. A human hearing this song at close range is given a sensation of transcendant understanding of his own place in the universe; he automatically makes all saving throws successfully. However, it might also make him lethargic or morose. The player should roll a d6 alongside any other dice roll made. On a roll of 1-4 on this dice, the other dice roll fails automatically.
Monday, 30 January 2017
Dimetrodon Broods
Ebu Gogo has had many broods sired by dimetrodons. These hybrid offspring are a combination of hominid and synapsid features mixed together in manners unusual, unfortunate, unique. Like all their mother's offspring they have inherited something of her forest magicks.
Groups of half-dimetrodons or specific individuals should be generated through the following stages.
Basic Body Type
1 - Hominid (walks on two legs at a rate of 120, 2 HD)
2 - Dimetrodon (walks on all fours at a rate of 180, 4 HD)
3 - Amalgam (walks awkwardly after extended periods either way, so switches; moves at 90, 3 HD)
Head
1 - Hominid (no advantages)
2 - Dimetrodon (poor eyesight means they are surprised on a 1-4; can bite for 1d6 damage)
3 - Amalgam (can bite for 1d3 danage)
Hands
1 - Hominid (can wield weapons and manipulate objects; if the basic body type is dimetrodon only one-handed melee weapons can be used, at -2 to hit)
2 - Dimetrodon (can scratch for 1d4 damage; if the basic body type is dimetrodon the creature can rear up to scratch)
Tail
1 - Balancing only
2 - Whip tail (can attack for 1d4 damage)
Spine Sail
1 - Small sail (no benefit)
2 - Medium sail (1 in 3 chance that melee or missile attacks hit the sail for only 1 hp damage)
3 - Large sail (1 in 2 chance that melee or missile attacks hit the sail for only 1 hp damage)
Skin Colour
1 - Green (can pass without trace 1/day)
2 - Yellow (can cast confusion 1/day)
3 - Brown (can summon insects 1/day)
4 - Orange (can cast slow 1/day)
5 - Red (can produce fire 1/day)
6 - Unusual (purple, blue, black, white - randomly select or choose a 4th-level druid or magic-user spell)
Sail Colour
The pattern is solid, spotted, swirls, or stripes (roll a d4); this decoration is a paler or darker iteration of the skin colour.
Dimetrodon hybrids have AC 14. They can use their sail movements to communicate simple concepts at a distance. They resist all heat attacks.
Sunday, 29 January 2017
Wednesday, 25 January 2017
The Convex Game Designer
Nassim Taleb somewhere in his writings (I forget where exactly) discusses a concept he called "convexity". Convexity is a situation in which there is an inconsequential downside but a potentially huge upside. A situation in which bad luck will have very little effect but good luck will play huge dividends.
Once you grasp the concept, you can apply it quite easily in your daily life. Going to parties and any kind of social event gives you convexity - nothing really bad is going to happen to you, but you might end up meeting the love of your life or meet a potential business associate who transforms your career, etc. You don't really lose anything except an evening's time, but there are all kinds of potential lucky benefits.
He also uses the concept, naturally enough, to discuss financial investments - if you keep 90% of your portfolio in cash or gilts and then put the remaining 10% on hugely risky investments the worst thing that will happen to you is you'll lose 10%, but there is no upper limit to your potential gains.
What interests me most are his ideas about convexity and creativity. He cites the example of Einstein as somebody who had a convex career. He was a patent clerk - the most boring, dependable, steady job you could imagine. It gave him sufficient financial security with very little risk. But then in his spare time he wrote insanely ambitious academic physics papers and sent them to leading journals. He was very secure against bad luck (steady job with very little chance of losing it) but had the potential to benefit massively from good luck (if his papers got published).
This may be the ideal: no real exposure to bad luck; huge exposure to good luck.
A lot of successful writers are like that. Stephen King had a safe and steady job as a teacher but in his spare time wrote stories; one day Carrie got bought for $200,000. Tolkien was a jobbing academic (as much as that can be true of an Oxford don) while he wrote what at the time were pretty unusual fantasy stories which suddenly one day became very successful. It's certainly not a pattern that the Truly Great Creatives follow (e.g. Van Gogh) but it's interesting how many creative people entirely unconsciously have a "convex" way of doing things.
Is there a lesson in that for people who write gaming materials? It's not as though you're going to ever be Stephen King. I think the way to be convex is basically to be as ambitious as you can possibly be - no half measures. If you are going to spend time writing something you ought to go hugely risky with it. Think of yourself like Nassim Taleb's investment portfolio. 90% of your time is more likely than not an ordinary job. That's safe. So in the 10% of your time you have for creative pursuits, don't play it safe. You want huge exposure to good luck - the potential that what you create will be absolutely bloody brilliant. If it's not you'll have lost almost nothing, and if it is you'll be much happier than if you just did something that was just goodish and solid.
Monday, 23 January 2017
Books Will Outlive You
My friend Patrick is very much against PDFs. He is right to be. I think the PDF of a book is best thought of as being a bit like a "Greatest Hits" album or one of those awful "Chilled Classics" compilations: a sort of thin, scraped-off surface film from the top of a stew that has none of the nutritious content of the meat and veg underneath. The content of a PDF may be the same as a book, but people only interact with it by skimming off that top layer. Scroll up, scroll down. Look at the pretty pictures. Read a paragraph here or there. Press Alt+Tab. Check what's going on on Facebook. Alt+Tab back to the PDF. Scroll up, scroll down. Look at the pretty pictures. Read a paragraph here or there. Press Alt+Tab. Check you email. Etc. This is not people's fault. It's the technology. The PDF is useful for easy distribution. It is bad, very bad, for actual sustained reading.
(At this point somebody will chime in in the comments about how they prefer to read books on their PDF and have no problem focusing while reading a book on screen. Good for you - really, I don't mean that at all facetiously. But you are unusual.)
There is another reason to be against PDFs. Imagine you had to predict whether it is more likely that books or PDFs will be defunct technologies in 100 years' time.
The answer is PDFs. Books have been around for an exceedingly long time. They've proved that they are robust to technological development and social change of great magnitude. PDFs have not. I make no predictions, but given that nobody has any idea what will happen over the course of the next 100 years, you have to back the humble book to last the course. And if you want to create or even merely possess things that will last, go paper.
The final reason to be against PDFs: things made from trees are beautiful. I sit here on a wooden floor with my laptop resting on an opium table made from mango wood. Next to me is a book made from paper that feels and smells gorgeous. Don't buy into the anti "dead tree" hype. Beauty matters.
(At this point somebody will chime in in the comments about how they prefer to read books on their PDF and have no problem focusing while reading a book on screen. Good for you - really, I don't mean that at all facetiously. But you are unusual.)
There is another reason to be against PDFs. Imagine you had to predict whether it is more likely that books or PDFs will be defunct technologies in 100 years' time.
The answer is PDFs. Books have been around for an exceedingly long time. They've proved that they are robust to technological development and social change of great magnitude. PDFs have not. I make no predictions, but given that nobody has any idea what will happen over the course of the next 100 years, you have to back the humble book to last the course. And if you want to create or even merely possess things that will last, go paper.
The final reason to be against PDFs: things made from trees are beautiful. I sit here on a wooden floor with my laptop resting on an opium table made from mango wood. Next to me is a book made from paper that feels and smells gorgeous. Don't buy into the anti "dead tree" hype. Beauty matters.
Sunday, 22 January 2017
Cheap Truth and Networking for Introverts/Misanthropes
In the early 80s Bruce Sterling edited a fanzine he called Cheap Truth. It was distributed on single sheets of paper you were supposed to photocopy and pass around yourself (Sterling was an early pioneer of the Creative Commons, essentially). You can read all of the issues of it online. Even were it not for the fact that the writing is great (read the obituary for Theodore Sturgeon by Brian Aldiss if you don't believe me), it's also worth it for the reviews. My "to read" shelf has expanded considerably since I discovered it.
What a strange world 1980 was when viewed backwards through the wrong end of binoculars. A lot's happened in 37 years. It's trite to point to the existence of the internet but it's worth considering that it really wasn't that long ago that somebody like me would not have had a creative outlet anything like this blog. I could have written for magazines and whatnot, of course, but if I had wanted creative control over what I was writing my only option would have been the Sterling route. Printing out fanzines (probably typewritten) and, I dunno, leaving them at the local bookshop, gaming shop and library?
But Cheap Truth probably succeeded because, let's face it, Bruce Sterling wasn't just printing it out and leaving it at his local bookshop. He was in "the scene", at conventions, hanging out with famous or soon-to-be-famous writers. I'm not sure, but I have always had the impression that the 'zine was a kind of in-joke; although Sterling edited it pseudonymously everybody who was anybody in SF and fantasy at the time knew it was him. They read it and distributed (plenty of them also probably also wrote for it) and gradually "real" magazines got to know about it too (it's said that Sterling stopped producing it once it got a mention in Rolling Stone, back when Rolling Stone was actually important).
At the same time, while Bruce Sterling isn't exactly Errol Flynn, he's clearly got the necessary charisma and get-up-and-go you need to be the locus of a "movement" of some kind. A mixture of ideologue, tub-thumper, leader and persuader. The kind of person who has the force of personality to bring others together and get them working.
In other words, it's worth pausing to consider what a boon the internet has been for people who don't live in New York or London and don't move in certain circles and/or who are introverted or for other reasons are terrible at face-to-face networking. For what it's worth I don't really classify myself as an introvert or an extrovert, but probably lean somewhat towards the extrovert side of the scale; it's something that depends a lot on my mood. I'm not sure what my internet persona is like but in real life I'm confident with other people and get energized by their company, but I am also perfectly happy when by myself. I'm not terrible at networking. At the same time, though, nor am I Bruce Sterling. I don't have either the time or the inclination or the opportunity to go to SF conventions and become known. If it wasn't for the internet nobody except my gaming group would know or give a fuck about Yoon-Suin.
What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. As time goes on I increasingly wonder whether the internet is really a Good Thing for all sorts of reasons, but it's worth being thankful that people who aren't like Bruce Sterling get the chance to actually do things too now.
What a strange world 1980 was when viewed backwards through the wrong end of binoculars. A lot's happened in 37 years. It's trite to point to the existence of the internet but it's worth considering that it really wasn't that long ago that somebody like me would not have had a creative outlet anything like this blog. I could have written for magazines and whatnot, of course, but if I had wanted creative control over what I was writing my only option would have been the Sterling route. Printing out fanzines (probably typewritten) and, I dunno, leaving them at the local bookshop, gaming shop and library?
But Cheap Truth probably succeeded because, let's face it, Bruce Sterling wasn't just printing it out and leaving it at his local bookshop. He was in "the scene", at conventions, hanging out with famous or soon-to-be-famous writers. I'm not sure, but I have always had the impression that the 'zine was a kind of in-joke; although Sterling edited it pseudonymously everybody who was anybody in SF and fantasy at the time knew it was him. They read it and distributed (plenty of them also probably also wrote for it) and gradually "real" magazines got to know about it too (it's said that Sterling stopped producing it once it got a mention in Rolling Stone, back when Rolling Stone was actually important).
At the same time, while Bruce Sterling isn't exactly Errol Flynn, he's clearly got the necessary charisma and get-up-and-go you need to be the locus of a "movement" of some kind. A mixture of ideologue, tub-thumper, leader and persuader. The kind of person who has the force of personality to bring others together and get them working.
In other words, it's worth pausing to consider what a boon the internet has been for people who don't live in New York or London and don't move in certain circles and/or who are introverted or for other reasons are terrible at face-to-face networking. For what it's worth I don't really classify myself as an introvert or an extrovert, but probably lean somewhat towards the extrovert side of the scale; it's something that depends a lot on my mood. I'm not sure what my internet persona is like but in real life I'm confident with other people and get energized by their company, but I am also perfectly happy when by myself. I'm not terrible at networking. At the same time, though, nor am I Bruce Sterling. I don't have either the time or the inclination or the opportunity to go to SF conventions and become known. If it wasn't for the internet nobody except my gaming group would know or give a fuck about Yoon-Suin.
What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. As time goes on I increasingly wonder whether the internet is really a Good Thing for all sorts of reasons, but it's worth being thankful that people who aren't like Bruce Sterling get the chance to actually do things too now.
Thursday, 19 January 2017
The Mythago Problem
I am a big fan of dream-worlds, faerie-lands, parallel universes, and so forth. The great struggle with all of that, though, is that - almost by necessity - it can feel as though events in the "non-real" otherworld can feel precisely that: non-real. They can lack weight and substance. It can feel as though nothing there has meaning, or can change, or can really be interacted with. On the other hand, if you start to introduce petty real-world concerns like money, land, and so forth into a faerie otherworld, you deprive it of its difference and make it seem like simply another part of the "normal" world.
I know of no better illustration of this than Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In those stories the otherworld doesn't play by our rules of economics, politics, geography and so on. It operates on a different logic and has different considerations. It doesn't even abide by our understanding of time or space. As a consequence it has a strangely permanent sort of a feel - there is always the sense that Alice is an alien in it and her presence there doesn't particularly affect anything. That is part of those stories' charm, of course, but it would be hard to make an actual game purely about the Alice books. (Though A Red and Pleasant Land did a great job of pastiching it while mixing it in with other influences.) What does Alice do except wander around as a stranger in a strange land and encounter weird things? Put in more prosaic D&D terms - what would a party of PCs do in Wonderland except wander around as strangers in a strange land and encounter weird things? Searching for treasure or conquering new realms or doing missions for the Queen of Hearts seems in a sense like a category error. Wonderland isn't about that.
This is why the Tim Burton film of Alice in Wonderland was so dreadful. Not satisfied with simply re-telling Alice in Wonderland, Burton felt compelled to make it an actual story about power, rulership, and so on. This made Wonderland into just another fantasy setting, full of political struggle, which is just diametrically opposite to what Lewis Carroll was driving at in every single sense I can think of. Burton made all of it - the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat - just a vaguely charming version of any given fantasy setting, with a by-the-numbers high fantasy plot.
I call this the Mythago problem, after Holdstock's Mythago Wood books. The Mythago Wood books are great, but they aren't gameable. That's because the eponymous wood - a faerie otherworld if ever there was one - isn't a world in which typical D&D concerns (wealth, war, politics, quests, etc.) matter. It's a world where emotional concerns like father-son relationships and the growth from adolescence to adulthood matter. It's about expressionism. It's not about gathering XP. Play a game of D&D in Mythago Wood and it's not Mythago Wood anymore. It's just a wood full of stuff to kill, rob, play politics with, etc.
I have been wrestling with this problem a lot writing Behind Gently Smiling Jaws. I think I've got there - though the proof will have to be in the pudding - but its viciousness shouldn't be underestimated. The moment you introduce human concerns into a dream-world, you can quite simply end its independent existence as a dream-world and render it mundane. Kadath isn't Kadath if all you're doing there is the normal D&D things...but if you're not doing the normal D&D things, what do you actually do there?
I know of no better illustration of this than Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In those stories the otherworld doesn't play by our rules of economics, politics, geography and so on. It operates on a different logic and has different considerations. It doesn't even abide by our understanding of time or space. As a consequence it has a strangely permanent sort of a feel - there is always the sense that Alice is an alien in it and her presence there doesn't particularly affect anything. That is part of those stories' charm, of course, but it would be hard to make an actual game purely about the Alice books. (Though A Red and Pleasant Land did a great job of pastiching it while mixing it in with other influences.) What does Alice do except wander around as a stranger in a strange land and encounter weird things? Put in more prosaic D&D terms - what would a party of PCs do in Wonderland except wander around as strangers in a strange land and encounter weird things? Searching for treasure or conquering new realms or doing missions for the Queen of Hearts seems in a sense like a category error. Wonderland isn't about that.
This is why the Tim Burton film of Alice in Wonderland was so dreadful. Not satisfied with simply re-telling Alice in Wonderland, Burton felt compelled to make it an actual story about power, rulership, and so on. This made Wonderland into just another fantasy setting, full of political struggle, which is just diametrically opposite to what Lewis Carroll was driving at in every single sense I can think of. Burton made all of it - the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat - just a vaguely charming version of any given fantasy setting, with a by-the-numbers high fantasy plot.
I call this the Mythago problem, after Holdstock's Mythago Wood books. The Mythago Wood books are great, but they aren't gameable. That's because the eponymous wood - a faerie otherworld if ever there was one - isn't a world in which typical D&D concerns (wealth, war, politics, quests, etc.) matter. It's a world where emotional concerns like father-son relationships and the growth from adolescence to adulthood matter. It's about expressionism. It's not about gathering XP. Play a game of D&D in Mythago Wood and it's not Mythago Wood anymore. It's just a wood full of stuff to kill, rob, play politics with, etc.
I have been wrestling with this problem a lot writing Behind Gently Smiling Jaws. I think I've got there - though the proof will have to be in the pudding - but its viciousness shouldn't be underestimated. The moment you introduce human concerns into a dream-world, you can quite simply end its independent existence as a dream-world and render it mundane. Kadath isn't Kadath if all you're doing there is the normal D&D things...but if you're not doing the normal D&D things, what do you actually do there?
Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Thoughts on New Frontiers
Without wanting to sound too appallingly self-congratulatory or sweeping, we, "the OSR" (a term I hate but to which I have no alternative) have I think come up with a good number of innovations - the practice of D&D and RPGs in general has been advanced in quite a few directions in the last 10 years, and some considerable distance too. We have new and better ways of doing certain things, more efficient and well-thought out tools, and clever novel systems and rules. We have city kits (Vornheim), pointcrawls (Misty Isles of the Eld), novel and intuitive skill and language systems (Lamentations of the Flame Princess), cool new ways of doing magic (Wonder & Wickedness) and so forth.
What else needs to be done, though? What areas are left unexplored? Where are the new frontiers for this corner of the hobby? Well, in my view they are:
What else needs to be done, though? What areas are left unexplored? Where are the new frontiers for this corner of the hobby? Well, in my view they are:
- Innovations in overland travel. I think Veins of the Earth, when it eventually comes out, will do this for the underworld. And a lot has been written about dungeons. But it seems to me that "the PCs travel across the Dragon Mountains from point A to point B" is the kind of episode whose surface has barely been scratched. Making overland travel interesting is an area I want to see start to be really properly mined for ideas.
- Underwater adventures. The first person to make a really good underwater module, campaign setting, etc., wins a coconut.
- Exploration generally. There's a region of a campaign setting's map which is unexplored. The PCs set out to find out what's there. Currently what are the options apart from making it a hexcrawl with some random encounters and monster lairs thrown in?
- Usable systematic ways to make dungeons (or hexmaps or anything else) evolve over time with or without the influence of the PCs. I want to see ways to make a dungeon in particular change dynamically over time, so that the DM can roll a few dice in between visits by the PCs and find out what the inhabitants get up to in the interrim.
- Alchemy. Not just blowing stuff up.
- New real-world cultural inspiration from untapped mythologies and regions. Where's the Aztec-inspired campaign setting? The Maori-inspired one? The Ethiopian-inspired one? Etc.
That'll do for now. Get cracking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)