A More Realistic Middle Earth

Listening to the History of the Germans podcast in episodes about the struggle for power between the Papacy and the Hofenstaufen Holy Roman Emperors, when reading a bit of a MERP supplement started me thinking about righting a post about a grittier, more realistic Middle Earth. Then I discovered I already sort of had written a post like that, back in 2020...

If we take The Silmarillion as Elvish mythology (which it is) promoting a slanted point of view, then most of the doings in Middle Earth are a proxy conflict between two super-powers: Sauron and his minions and the Valar and the Elves. We needn't assume either side is particularly good, In fact, we know the Valar unleashed a devastating weapon of mass destruction against their former allies in Numenor just for getting too cozy with Sauron.

In the modern era, Sauron's forces have been engaged in a protracted occupation of  Eriador. Through the action of the Mordor proxy Angmar, the Western kingdoms of Man were shattered, much of the population fled south, but fanatical bands, the Rangers, structured around the heir to throne of Arnor and Gondor, and supported by the Elves, continued to fight an insurgency against Mordor's Orcish forces and her allies.

Sauron has been a distant and not terribly effective leader for some time. He has been unable to consolidate Angmar's victory over Arnor (a victory that saw Angmar destroyed in the process) and unable to wipe out the remaining Elvish enclaves and human insurgents.

You get the idea. Shorn of much of its epic fantasy trappings, Middle Earth becomes a grittier place, where Men, Orcs, and local Elves, are all dealing with the aftermath of a terrible war wrought by super-powers that they perhaps only have the smallest of stakes in but yet are forced to take most of the risk.

Seems like an interesting place to adventure. It's certainly place where you can get a more interesting mix of adventurers and adventures, perhaps.

Weird Revisited: Middle-Earth in Blacklight

I've been thinking about this sort of material again, recently. The original version of this post appeared in 2021...

It's well known that hippies were into Tolkien's work. Some of its themes appealed to them, certainly, but like with Lee and Ditko's Dr. Strange comics, there was also the idea that the works might somehow be drug-influenced. The author, it was assumed, might be taking the same trip as them. This was, of course, a false belief, but it was one that existed.

I this appreciation of Tolkien filtered through 60s countercultural and mixed with the prevalent cultural representations of fairytale fantasy led to a subgenre or aesthetic movement within fantasy, most prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s, before D&D derived fantasy came to ascendancy. While this subgenre likely finds expression in literature and even music to a degree, I think it is most recognizable and definable in visual media. It's evident in works like Bakshi's film Wizards and the Marvel comic Weirdworld (both in 1977), and in the Wizard World sequences (starting in 1979) of Mike Grell's Warlord. Elfquest (1978) shows the influence to a degree. Bodē's Cheech Wizard (1966) and Wally Wood's Wizard King (introduced 1968 but significantly presented in 1978) are either the oldest examples or its direct progenitors.

Essentially, the subgenre eschews the serious world-building of LotR for a more drug-influenced riff on The Hobbit, often with greater use of anachronism, camp, and sexiness, and often with a degree of psychedelia. Beyond the Tolkien influence, these works tend to share a number of common features:  a "traditional" visualization of elves and dwarfs as "little people," arising in folklore and classic illustration, but coming more directly from Disney animation and the fairytale comics of Walt Kelly; the influence of Denslow's Oz illustrations or the design aesthetic of The Wizard of Oz (1939); absurdism and humor borrowed from underground comics and Warner Brothers cartoons; unreal landscapes and visually alien settings informed by Sword & Sorcery and science fiction comics rather than historical or mythic sources of Tolkien.

Given they were contemporaries, D&D shows some in influence from these sources, primarily in its early art and occasionally humorous tone. But as a game that arose from wargaming there was always a thread of verisimilitude or equipment fixation that runs counter to this freewheeling psychedelic adventure vibe. Also, the violent, heroic narratives tended to have less room for the silly or less competent characters of psychedelic fantasy works.

The Other "Good Lore"

There has been some discussion in various places over the last couple of weeks regarding "lore," which isn't a great term, maybe, but one we all understand to mean background, mostly nonmechanical elements of a setting in all their myriad forms. A lot of time is spent separating good lore from bad. Ben Laurence wrote this great post last week. I wrestled with the issue in regard to history, one of the most vexing parts of lore, here.

Anyway, I think what Ben says about "good" lore and its creation and use is smart, but there seems to me a missing category, which was the impetus for this post. One type of actionable lore that Ben neglects to mention is the sort of detail that aids the GM in conveying the world to the players at the table. This isn't "actionable intelligence" for the players particularly, but rather things that help set the scene and convey the subtle textures that might differentiate one world from another. Things that should appear in (or at least inform) the GM's description of the world, not facts to be memorized in anyway.

A good way to do this is sensory-impressionistic descriptions. Jack Shear of Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque presented a brief style of locale description that included as one of it's headings "A Taste, A Sound, an Image." I've borrowed this presentation myself, as has Miranda Elkins of In Places Deep. These sorts of details help set the mood both for the players and for the GM who must great more details and could use the imaginative springboard.

Note that these can be diegetic and nondiegetic, though going nondiegetic runs the risk of the reader not getting the "vibe" because they don't know the work referenced or took something else from it.

It might be fair to say, that's not really "lore," and I guess in the strictest since that's true, but I've got more! Ben mentions "banal facts about cuisine" as irrelevant lore, and I agree, but only in regard to the "banal" part. One of the things I did with my recent Gnydrion game was go out of my way to give a description of the meal being offered when the character's had a chance to eat. This isn't something I usually do, but Gnydrion is a very Vancian setting, so I wanted to lean into that. The players weren't expected to remember these meals; it was just a bit color, but I think it helped convey the feel of the setting. The players seemed to enjoy it in that spirit. All I had to do was make a list of like 10 dishes and I wasn't concerned if what I said in play was exactly what I wrote down.

I think these sorts of details like this can at least suggest actions. Knowing that bronze can be mined from the buried bones of dead Storm Gods could be something players do something with in Glorantha, but at the very least it sets Glorantha apart from say, the Forgotten Realms. 

At the end of the day, "good" lore is going to make your setting more memorable and interesting. This may be because the players can use that knowledge strategically, but it may also because it helps the world come alive for them.

An Adventure Path like a Dungeon

B1-9 flowchart

Recently I was reading the rpg Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo (1977). The usual take on this game is that it is less an rpg and more a boardgame. That's likely the way it will strike most people on first blush, but I think Christian Lindke makes a reasonable case that it is a roleplaying game of its era (and underwritten even for that) with a definite campaign path, almost like some story games of today.

I don't see any reason why a game couldn't have a definite campaign arc. I think that would work with a lot of licensed properties, and I think the "adventure path" style of modern published adventures is a way to do just that. Unfortunately, these sorts of adventures suffer conceptually, I think, from a couple of flaws. One is the desire to have the campaign arc come as a surprise to players or at least to appear to arise naturalistically from the earlier campaign events. This requires the GM to be deceptive. Two, if the players weren't getting railroaded to get them into the adventure, they certainly are once it starts because the path through the adventure tends to be fairly linear.

I think it can be done better. This is an idea akin to my previous one about running an adventure point-crawl--in fact, it's really just a slightly different approach to the same basic idea. 

Both involve a goal to achieve, a geography to cover in doing so, and certain events or scenes that might occur. These locations and their events/scenes form the "rooms" in a conceptual "dungeon," or more accurately the points in a conceptual pointcrawl. An adventure of this sort would have a conceptual/narrative map and a physical geography map, not unlike the actual Mongo mmap compared to the "Schematic Map" of Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo:

How would this differ from a standard, old adventure path? Well, in at least a couple of ways. As much is possible, nothing is supposed to happen. Certain events would make completing the task of the campaign easier, but only rarely would there be no other way to get it done.

Like in a pointcrawl, players are permit to just follow the physical geography. Nothing forces them to stay on the path, but the locations on the path have special features analogous (or perhaps literally, sometimes times) to secret doors, teleportation disks or what have you that allow quicker, easier travel between "points." "Solving" a "point" might unlock other advantages like allies or items that make completing the goal of the campaign easier. Just like finding certain items or meeting certain NPCs in a dungeon.

This break from linearity would mean the points would have to have less of a causal relationship than the events of adventure paths typically do. It would work best, I think, for certain sorts of campaign arcs. A rebellion (like Star Wars or Flash Gordon) would be one, but something like Pirates of Dark Water with episodic exploration in search of plot coupons would work well, too. Anything more like a broadcast era episodic TV series with a throughline and less like a feature film.

Superhero Teams in RPGs

As a follow-up to my post on pulp teams, I thought I would address the perhaps more common issue of teams in supers rpgs. As with superhero character concepts, I admit to some dissatisfaction at times with the sort of teams that get built by players in supers games. There's nothing wrong with the superhero formulation of Reints' old high concept pitch of D&D about Conan and Gandalf fighting Dracula, but just as most everybody's (or at least a lot of people's) D&D isn't so eclectic, I don't see any reason why every supers campaign needs to permit playing Golden Age Sandman (Vertigo version) and Witchblade versus the Beyonder. 

Having a team that really feels like it fits goes beyond just identifying what supers subgenre or style (Four Color, Golden Age mystery men, realistic, gritty, etc.) is going to the subject of play, though I think that's probably the first step. Before we considering other things, I want to talk about superhero teams as they occur in comics. I think there are three broad categories:

• The Band: A small group (3-6, maybe) of disparate members thrown together for some reason. Their dynamics are more based on tropes around specific personalities/story roles rather than anything else (see the tvtropes articles like Four Temperament Ensemble, Four Philosophy Ensemble, and Five Man Band, among others), though they sometimes have a theme (elements being common). Examples: The Fantastic Four, The Challengers of the Unknown, the original Teen Titans, the original X-Men.
• The Supergroup: Solo characters who come together as a team. Neither their powers or their personalities tend to be coordinated, but they bring individual histories and backstories with them. One or more Supergroup tends to be a big deal in most comic universes, but not all of them. The building up to the formation of one might be short campaign itself.  Examples: the Avengers, The Justice League, the Mighty Crusaders.
• The Ensemble: Purpose-built groups of new or mostly new characters. They are typically attempts to create something of a Supergroup (but without the characters being previously established) or a band (but with so many members they can't all get a distinct, stock personality). They tend to have power portfolios that are easily understandable in terms of combat/team roles (the Brick, the Blaster, etc.) and often sport really on the nose codenames. Examples: The Authority, Youngblood, the new X-Men, the Outsiders (original team), Squadron Supreme.

Assembling Your Avengers (or what have you)

Creating a Band or Ensemble is pretty easy, it just requires coordinating character creation. Once the general subgenre, style, and tone is agreed on, players can discuss concepts to either get personalities or powers/roles divvied up.

It might seem as if a rpg superhero team of newly minted characters could only ever be a Band or an Ensemble. That's true in the literal sense, but I think things can be done to sort of replicate the feel of a Supergroup, if that's what you want to do. It requires coming up with more about the characters than just their name and powers, however. 

Emergent worldbuilding is popular in some circles, and I think a supers campaign can certainly be done that way, but I think it's bound to be less satisfying if a Supergroup is what you're after. Most people, even very creative people, just don't always come up with their best stuff at the spur of the moment. Best is certainly not always required--in fact in a supers game meant to replicate the comics, you probably don't always want your best. But people also don't want to be saddled with ill-considered ideas as important character concepts.

I suggest people take a little time and come up with at least the stuff that would have happened in the first issue (or maybe, in these days of decompression, the first arc) of their character's comic: besides the basics on the character sheet, that would include supporting cast, home base, and at least one antagonist. I actually favor going a little farther and sketching the contents of an original DC Who's Who's/ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (not the Deluxe addition, I don't think. Too detailed!) style entry for the character. That still leaves a lot to discover (or backfill in play), but it allows a foundation to credibly kayfabe a character with a history.

The Elements of Generic D&D

Over the years since its creation, the standard mode of D&D has become a subgenre of fantasy unto itself, codified now in the other rpgs that followed on its coattails and the other media they've inspired. GURPS terms it "Dungeon Fantasy," though I don't think it required dungeons--though obviously they play a big part.

The essential element as I see it are:

• The primary characters are a loose group of companions.
• Well-defined character roles/types and capabilities, very often recognized within the fictional world.
• Characters engaged in quests or missions in dangerous locales, mostly commonly underground. 

Other elements that are common are:

• A setting with pre-modern technology.
• Adventurers as a recognized role in society.
• A large variety of monsters, categorized and taxonomized. 
• Hierarchies of capability within character types.
• The development of character abilities and capabilities over time through dangerous trials. Sometimes there are in-setting codified tiers or levels.

There are, of course, others but these are things I feel like are less common in fantasy works that aren't in the subgenre than those that are. There may even be some work that if you play loose enough with definitions that would fit all of the above that we wouldn't consider "D&D fantasy," but genre boundaries have never been impermeable and precise things.

Got to Catch Them All

Inspired by Vance mostly, people have considered spells as living entities. It was discussed in the Gplus days, and it shows up in Eric Diaz's Dark Fantasy Magic. Back in 2011, before I had really read a whole lot of Vance, the Vancian magic of D&D and the film Pontypool got me imagining spells as a neurolinguistic virus or memetic entity.

Anyway, all that as preamble to a related idea which I'm sure someone has had before but came to me seeing my daughter play Pokemon Go. If spells are living things in some fashion and wizards are forced to adventure to find them and master them, aren't they kind of like Pokemon? Eldritch viruses or self-assembling arcane subroutines. Free-living (at least currently) cheat codes to the universe. Things to be captured and tamed and bent to will of the mage.

I think this sort of framing could make the finding and learning of spells on scrolls more interesting (or at least more challenging), and I think it would definitely suggest interesting things that could be used to develop the background the campaign world.

On The Frontier

My recent readings in science fiction have had me thinking about Star Frontiers. The setting more than the game mechanics. I've done various riffs on the species and things before, but I don't think I've ever really thought about how I'd run it "straight"--at least not since I ran it in middle school. Here are some bullet points of things I've thought of:

Managed Tech

"We of the Institute receive an intensive historical inculcation; we know the men of the past, and we have projected dozens of possible future variations, which, without exception, are repulsive. Man, as he exists now, with all his faults and vices, a thousand gloriously irrational compromises between two thousand sterile absolutes – is optimal. Or so it seems to us who are men."

- Jack Vance, The Killing Machine

Technology marches on and Star Frontiers is very much retrotech, which I would mostly keep, I think, but rather than just pretend technology never advanced in some areas, I like I would lampshade it with the existence of something like the Institute in Vance's Demon Princes novels that limits the available technology. Perhaps they do so because of the excesses of the past? Maybe AI or transhumanism or both drove humanity to Frontier Space from their homeworld?

We're Pan-Galactic

The pervasive Pan-Galactic Corporation could drive things in a cyberpunkian direction, but I think I would want to wink at the dystopian potential of this rather than making it the primary theme. Corporate futures aren't uncommon in science fiction pre-cyberpunk (it shows up in the 70s comic Star Hunters, for instance) but I'd think I'd want to take a sort of American Flagg! or 2000AD satirical nod to it rather than make everything about fighting the system.

Rockets

Star Frontiers doesn't mention any sort of gravity generating tech and Knight Hawks has ship decks aligned like floors in a skyscraper. I'd retain that hard(er) science fiction approach.

Oz and the Dying Earth

Driving over the Thanksgiving holiday my family listened to the audiobook of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, and I was struck by how similar Baum's Oz stories are and some of Vance's work, particularly the Dying Earth related material. Some of it, of course, would be resemblances shared with other works of fantasy, but I think there is much more homology of Baum with Vance than say Howard, Smith, or Martin.

I've mentioned before the list of the elements of Vance's Dying Earth stories as outlined in Pelgrane Press' Dying Earth rpg:

• Odd Customs
• Crafty Swindles
• Heated Protests and Presumptuous Claims
• Casual Cruelty
• Weird Magic
• Strange Vistas
• Ruined Wonders
• Exotic Food
• Foppish Apparel

Some of those I think are present in Baum's Oz books, but there are others that have analogs. These are the ones that I think are most prominent:

Odd Customs. In the Dying Earth this relegated to cultural practices. In Oz, the people themselves may be odd not unlike the mythological peoples seem in Medieval or ancient travel tales. Still, the central aspect of using a culture taken to the absurd as an object of satire is present.

Weird Magic. This is all over the place in Oz, with many of the protagonists being products of it. The powder of life made by the Crooked Magician or the "Square Meal Tablets" certainly count.

Strange Vistas. Exploration is as important part of Oz as the Dying Earth. The weird underground world of the vegetable Mangaboos lit by glowing glass orbs in the sky would count, as would the the Land of Naught where the wooden gargoyles dwell.

Ruined Wonders. Oz doesn't have many ruins, but they do have Hidden Wonders, like the city of the China Dolls or the radium decorated city of the subterranean Horners.

Foppish Apparel. It isn't emphasized as much in the text, but it goes through in the illustration...

The other elements are less present in Oz, but Heated Protests/Presumptuous Claims has its analog in humorous exchanges and bickering. Oz isn't as cruel a place as the Dying earth--it shows up in children's stories after all--but it isn't without cruelty. It's a cruelty of the fairytale sort really where axes enchanted by witches might chop off a woodsman's limbs and an evil queen might desire a little girl's head enough to have it cut off.

There are other similarities not really accounted for here. Outlandish, unnatural monsters haunt the wilderness in both (and in both they are often capable of speech). Habitations are separated by wilderness and isolated cultures seem to exist along well-travelled roads. For the most part the societies of both settings seem fairly static (Oz a bit less so than the Dying Earth), in contrast to epic fantasies where world-changing events are part of the narrative. Overall, I think these could be summed up is that both settings seem perhaps descended from fairy stories, Oz more directly, and the Dying Earth through the fantasies of Smith, Cabell, and (maybe) Dunsany.

Some Observations on Science Fiction Names

I think there is a lineage of science fiction name coining that whose progenitor is Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars stories but that passes through early to mid-20th Century pulpier sci-fi like the works of Edmond Hamilton and Jack Vance to the galaxy far, far away of the Star Wars Universe.

In his Mars stories Burroughs went for relatively short (mostly 1-2 syllable), two part, phonetically simple names. Though they don't mostly sound that way to modern ears, I suspect Burroughs was after what he thought of as an "Oriental" feel. They also wind up being very simple for English speaking readers to pronounce. Examples: Kantos Kan, Gan Had, Ras Thuvas, Sab Than, Sojat Yam.

Burroughs uses a not hugely different style in many of his Planetary Romances.

Edmond Hamilton was clearly influenced by Burroughs in a number of ways and the naming practices in several of his works are similar, though they are a bit more phoentically diverse and have more consonant blends. Here are some names from his Captain Future series:  Sus Urgal, Re Elam, Thuro Thuun, Rok Olor, Si Twih, Brai Balt

Typically, he doesn't always try to be so "exotic." Sometimes he seems to be trying to convey future developments of English names. This tact he shares with other writers of the 1940s-1960s, including the various creators of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes in DC Comics: Irma Ardeen, Rok Krinn, Garth Ranzz, Tinya Wazzo.

Jack Vance tends to take this latter approach in some of his science fiction, too, though his names are more often multisyllabic and have a first-name last name pattern with each name sometimes made up of more than one element. Still, they have a similar vibe I think to the Hamilton and Legion names. These are from the first two Demon Princes novels:  Miro Hetzel, Conwit Clent, Lens Larque, Sion Trumble, Kokor Hekkus, Kirth Gersen.

Star Wars names aren't the product of one individual, though later writers have obviously tried to fit the standards of the original trilogy. There are more straight up English names in Star Wars and of course some pseudo-Japanese ones, but a number could easily have been characters in Captain Future stories, like these: Ric Ole, Sio Bibble, Pondo Baba, Plo Kloon, Nien Nunb, Mace Windu, Sy Snootles.

A Taxonomy of Fantastic Lands

Thinking about the phylogenetic connection between the Lost Worlds of Victorian adventure fiction and the planetary romances of last century led me to an overall classification scheme for all sorts of unusual/fantastic lands or country within large settings (whether that larger setting be an approximation of the real world or a secondary, fantasy world). This was quickly done, so it might bear further though. 

The Strange Country: The Strange Country probably is an outgrowth of The Odyssey and Medieval travelogues. It is a place definitely situated in the wider world and generally not differing in its physical laws but possessed of its least one unusual feature whether than be a geographic anomaly, cultural eccentricity, or weird animal. Most of the various city-states of Barsoom, and the countries of Vance's Tschai or Raymond's Mongo fall into this category. The "Planet of Hats" TV trope is the Strange Country on a planetary scale. The Strange Country differs from the more mundane foreign land by the degree of exaggeration in its unique thing and by the fact that beyond that thing, it isn't usual that foreign in terms of culture, language, etc.

The Lost World: The Lost World is more remote and more divergent from the outside world that the Strange Country. Most often it's an isolated pocket of one or more elements of the world's past, but it could be completely alien. Perhaps its most defining feature is that it is typically a hidden place and is much harder to reach than the strange country. Maple White Land of Doyle's The Lost World is the prototypical example, but Tarzan encounters a lot of these "lost valleys" from Crusader to remnants to lost Atlantean cities. The dividing line between the weirder Strange Countries and Lost Worlds isn't entirely clear, but if the place is widely known to scholars just seldom visited, it's a Strange Country. If no one knew it existed or it was believed to be mythical, it's a Lost World.

Fairyland: The Fairyland is a region defined by its fantasticalness. Physical laws may be very different from the surrounding world. If it has contact with the wider world if is limited and geographical conscribed. Often though, it will be as remote as the Lost World--even more so, perhaps, because it may not strictly be placeable on a map, existing in an extradimensional space. Literal Fairy lands are generally Fairylands, but so is the demonic subworlds of a number of Michael Shea's fantasy novels, Hades in Greek Myth, or Wackyland in Warner Bros. cartoons featuring the Dodo.

What I Like

In this DIY rpg world, there are a lot of factions, cliques, theorists, declarations of movements, manifestos, categorizations. I'm not really adherent to any of these except in the loosest since of being an rpg enthusiast of a certain vintage, preferring games of a more traditional tabletop lineage (in which I would include most rpgs) rather than strictly story games, and being a member of the Hydra Co-op and enjoying the gaming material written and run by my fellow Hydra heads. I do have things that I like in games and try to produce in the games I run.

It should go without saying, but to make it clear, I don't necessarily think these things are better (though sometimes maybe I do!), they just happen to be my preference. Starting loosely with a list that gets quoted a lot in Old School and related circles that I believe was created by Scrap Princess allow, here's what I like:

1. Interact with the world. I want players to approach the world as if their characters are inhabiting it, not as a gloss over a rules set or just flavor. The world, however, isn't merely composed of (imaginary) physical objects and locations but of (imaginary) social relationships, and conventions of genre or setting.

2. There is nothing that is supposed to happen, but some outcomes are more likely given (1). The story is in the hands of the players, but the world is going to dictate some more likely outcomes of actions. To give absolute, unfettered agency is to violate the first principle, but there is always a high degree of variation within a broad outcome, and the player actions and preferences are going to determine how it all turns out.

3. The player is an actor but also a participant in a social activity. I don't mean actor in the arch sense of the stereotyped thespian behavior, but I mean that the player has the roll of portraying a character, but also in considering (in a somewhat metagame fashion) what makes sense for that character within the larger context of the "story" unfolding. (And by invoking "story" here, I don't mean in a preconceived way. I mean: given the inputs of character, setting, situation, and genre, what seems cool to the player to have happen?)   This differs from the stance of strictly playing the character, wherein the player gives no consideration to the big picture, which can lead (in my view) to a player becoming too involved in the character and viewing the character's losses or setbacks as a loss or setback for themselves. Also, "it's what my character would do" can lead to disruptive behavior at the table.

4. It's the player's job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for yourself and others. This follows logically, I think, from (3) and (1) and leads directly to (7) below. The GM is also a player in this regard.

5. The character sheet is the mediator between theory and result. Plans and actions should be conceived in line with (1) and a lesser extend (3), but the mechanics of the game should support the actions players are likely to engage in. The character sheet as the rules-based abstraction of the character's capabilities ought to have some role in that, otherwise why not just play pretend and dispense with it?

6. Player skill/talent is important. The way I see rpgs as "winnable" is not primarily in character survival or successfully achieving goals (though those things are far from insignificant) but rather in making the experience more fun or cooler. I like skills and related systems some old schoolers dislike, but I think good, clever roleplay and tactics--defined as ideas that are not merely sensible or logical in the abstract but are also entertaining, spur/inspire players, and show clear consideration and interaction with the sustained, consistent, imaginary world we are involved with--are crucial.

7. Sometimes your character will die, but it's seldom interesting to die pointlessly. Death can be an important possible outcome in rpgs and I don't generally favor removing it as an option (though perhaps some games make a case for this), but I don't find pointless death as a result of computer game style "gotchas" or super-swingy rolls fulfilling. It's more gamey perhaps than I typically want. Often, another sort of setback other than "start over" is a better option to me.

8. It's fun to try new things. New settings, new mechanics--all worth a go. I don't think there is a particular formula of the type of game I want to spend all my time with. To me, it would be akin to eating the same thing every day for lunch. It gets old. Sometimes that even means sampling something you already know you aren't going to like most of the time to see if you enjoy partaking of it rarely.

Lord of the Rings and the Beginning of "Serious" Fantasy

Hear me out!

I'm aware, course, that there are many works that we would now call fantasy that predate Lord of the Rings, but the conception of fantasy as a specific genre post-dates those works. The conception of fantasy as a genre grew out of fairy stories, and so what I mean here is a work distinct from fairy tale that nevertheless contains the elements of fairy tales: elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. The works of Howard, Smith, and others would be been thought of as adventure stories, weird tales, and the like when first published.

Even still, there are older works that that meet that criteria: MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, some of Baum's works, and Dunsany's. But all the works I can think of that do they aren't obviously children's works have strong elements of whimsy, irony, and often outright humor. Even Tolkien's own The Hobbit could be so characterized. Lord of the Rings, while not humorless, is much more serious business, though perhaps not as much as Anderson's The Broken Sword, which closely follows it.

Did this seriousness play a role in it's centrality to the emerging genre? I think a bit, though it might be easy to overstate the importance of that one factor. I do think that with Howard and Tolkien sort of being the prevailing template for fantasy has served to influence the tone of a lot of works that followed and the games that inspired them.

Superhero Challenges

Something I've noticed about comic book superhero storytelling over the years: often the solution to the obstacles faced don't have their solution in the direct application of the hero's most powerful trait. Superman, for example, may use his strength or other powers in overcoming the central problem in one of his stories, but the powers alone are seldom sufficient. It's not accident Superman foes are often smart/clever guys like Luthor, the Toyman, or Mister Mxyzptlk because they facilitate these kinds of stories. Even in clashes with villains that have vast powers like his own like Phantom Zone criminals, the key to his victory brains not superhuman brawn. Sure there's his tussles with Doomsday and maybe Mongul where this maybe isn't true or is less true, but I think those are the exceptions.

I feel like the same thing is true of other heroes like Spider-Man and the Flash. Again, their solutions to problems will include use of their powers, but its less often the obvious, most direct use of their powers. Spider-Man, known for his agility, maybe have to bring his intelligence or just brute strength to the table.

There are exceptions. Interestingly, I think this is not true of nonpowered/low powered heroes--or at least less true. It seems like Batman and Hawkeye generally achieve victory by just...doing their thing. The Hulk, though hardly low powered, may be another outlier, but I would need to read more Hulk comics to judge.

Does this have application to superhero gaming? It could, but it's obviously much harder to implement there. The game becomes unfun when it's about "guess what the GM is thinking" to accomplish your goal. Still, I think GMs could be mindful of this when playing adventures, making sure to introduce obstacles that might suggest out-of-the-box thinking and reliance on less used traits.

Journal of Eternian Studies: The Search for Skeletor

Skeletor is the principle antagonist of the so-called Masters of the Universe myth and literary cycle. His inhuman physical appearance, magical power, and dedication to conquering Eternia through usurpation of the power of Castle Grayskull are consistent throughout the various stories, but other aspects of his character, including his origins and the seriousness of his menace, vary wildly.

It has long been the prevailing view among scholars that his depiction as blue skinned links him to the Gar people¹. The Gar civilization existed on the so-called Dark Hemisphere of Eternia, but came into conflict with groups on the Light Hemisphere in the islands of the Ocean of Gnarl and on the land bridge between the continents. By the time of the Randorian Renaissance, the Gar were a ethnic minority who suffered a good deal of prejudice owing to the belief that a Councilor of their ethnicity had betrayed and murdered the founding hero King Grayskull in the service of King Hiss of the Serpent Men².

Later stories explicitly make Skeletor King Randor's brother Keldor who was transformed by forbidden magic, in some versions specifically Hordak worship. While the identification is not without controversy, Keldor was depicted as Gar, or at least half-Gar. There are scholars that argue that Keldor himself is a fiction created for later anti-Gar polemics, but the more common view is the he was indeed Randor's half-brother, a perhaps the illegitimate offspring of Miro and a Gar woman. Keldor was, for a time, a serious rival to Randor's power owing in part to a strong powerbase among traditionalist Gar clans.

Skeletor, however, existed in myth and legend prior to his association with Keldor. He was depicted as an otherworldly or demonic entity who had arrived on Eternia through accident or intention, but now wished to re-open that portal to bring his people through to aid in his conquest.

What is likely the oldest known legend associating the two is curiously restrained regarding the specifics of their relationship. Keldor is shown as meddling in dangerous magic and disappearing after a mishap. Skeletor is depicted as attempting to thwart any investigation into Keldor's current whereabouts. The gaps n the narrative invite the audience to assume that Skeletor and Keldor one and the same, but do not make the link explicitly. It is argued that this structure is an indicator of the stories origins as Randorist propaganda either during the time when the throne was contested or shortly after Randor secured it. Further, the effectiveness of such propaganda would hinge on Skeletor as a character already known to the intended audience.

It could be that Skeletor's pre-existing Gar traits made this linkage with Keldor possible, but it is also possible that Skeletor's Gar coloration is a later addition. Certainly it is no accident that Skeletor's shade of blue has a long association with the supernatural in the Eternian mind. It has been suggested that both the Gar people and Skeletor are depicted as blue simply because of the rarity of the blue pigments in the Light Hemisphere used in art in the Gar ruins on Anwat Gar to depict rulers such as Shokoti and the persist association of the Gar with magic due to their status as diviners and purveyors of charms and curses.

Recently, archeological evidence of a skull faced god or demon that appears to have been the focus of ritual activity in the region around Castle Grayskull in the putative era of the first "He-man." Any correlation of this entity with Skeletor or the Gar is highly speculative.

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1. The Gar were typically depicted as blue-skinned. Whether they literally were, either naturally or as some form of body-adornment, or this depiction has symbolic significance is unknown.

2. If there is any truth to this allegation at all, it likely conveys persistent Serpos worship among the Gar during the period where Goddess worship was becoming dominant on the Light Hemisphere.

Toward a System for Four-Color Sword & Sorcery

I've been thinking about cobbling together a system for a Bronze Age of Comics Sword & Sorcery rpg, a rarefied genre, perhaps, but one I'm quite fond of. I figure it will be a Frankenstein's monster of ideas from Year Zero Engine games, Broken Compass, and a few things from 2d20, maybe. Like all of those games, I'm thinking its a d6 dice pool system. The base roll will be akin to the Attribute+Skill of those systems.

The attributes with the appropriate flavor came relatively easily:

• MIGHT: Force and physical power.
• DARING: quick motion and boldness of action.
• INTELLECT: Intelligence and reason.
• INSTINCT: Intuition and perception.
• CUNNING: Deception and manipulation.
• PRESENCE: Charisma and force of personality.

The skills though have been much harder. I was never able to get the list as comprehensive and right-sized as I wanted. Ultimately, I decided to go the direction of some of the 2d20 games and the Atomic Robo rpg (which uses a form of Fate) and go with something a bit broader than standard skills. I settled on calling them "Domains."

• SWORDS: The use of weapons and the general application and defense against violence. It also covers a practical knowledge of armor, weaponry, martial styles, tactics, and strategy. 
• DEEDS: Acting boldly and physically to alter or navigate the environment or withstand its rigors. It is used to climb or leap, push on despite exhaustion, or smash physical obstacles, but also to pass detected, hide, or hold one’s drink. 
• WILDS: Wisdom taught by the wilderness and living close to nature. It covers discerning the best way to move through difficult terrain, finding or building shelter, and tracking and reading sign, but also interacting with wild and domestic animals and knowledge of plants. 
• CITY: Knowledge born of the habitations of humans and their societies. It covers a character’s learning and ability to find and acquire new information, but also their sophistication in regard to social graces and etiquette. 
• WORDS: Relating to and communicating with others. It is used to influence, inspire or sway others through impassioned or reasoned arguments–or lies, or to discern the intent of others doing the same.
• SORCERY: Knowledge of the arcane or occult arts. It covers the reading of mystic tomes, the recalling of esoteric lore, the performance of spells or rituals, and sometimes resisting the effects of magic.

The astute reader will note they form pairs of sorts. I think 36 possible combinations of the Attributes and the Domains covers pretty well most relevant skill areas. Some are obvious like Might+Swords being used for melee attacks, but others are perhaps less so but hopefully make sense, like Intellect+Wilds being used to navigate by the stars or identify medicinal (or poisonous plants). Some combinations might seem equally plausible for some actions, but I see that as a feature not a bug.

Four-Color Swords & Sorcery: Monsters!

Earl Norem

Big monsters are a hallmark of Bronze Age Four-Color fantasy of the Swords & Sorcery mode. These creatures are often are the antagonist of the "big battle" of the issue, the full manifestation of the menace posed by the main villain--and occasionally the main villain themselves. Less formidable big monsters may be an obstacle to the final confrontation with the villain.

The monsters come in a variety of forms from merely giant to gargantuan natural animals to animate statues/automata of humanoids or animal shape. Tentacled, tendriled, or pseudopod-waving creatures seem to particularly common. I suspect so their threat is made clear in a way that doesn't immediately injure the heroes or result in a Comics Code Approval imperiling amount of blood.

So are multiple heads. Both of these have the added benefit particularly in games of allowing one creature to engage multiple heroic opponents more easily.

These creatures, at least the bigger ones, are seldom defeated by hacking them until they die. In game terms, the simplest to defeat require a "critical hit" or called shot of some sort, often an injury to their eye. Others are dispatched by a trick of some sort: using the environment or their own abilities or natural weaponry against them. Finally, some can only be killed using a special item or weapon, typically obtained earlier in the adventure.

What does this meaning for emulating the genre in gaming? These are my take aways:

• Unique, big monsters need to show up regularly. Maybe not every adventure, but most of them.
• The best way to defeat the creatures should seldom be the most obvious brute force method.
• This means the GM needs to reward creative thinking by the players to handle these encounters.
• If the ways of defeating the monster are particularly limited, the means must be telegraphed to the players and be available to them.

A Tale of Two Paradises

 

It is possible for the determined traveler who has been shown the hidden paths to walk from the Elysian Fields to another planar realm. The primaeval forests and unworked fields of wildflowers give way to pastures, farmland, and finally, quaint villages. There, they will be greeted by the local inhabitants and perhaps invited in for a meal. The traveler has come to the Twin Paradises.

The Paradises represent the rejection of the universal contentment of Elysium as unearned. Also, not for its souls is the selfless dedication required to scale the Heavenly Mountain. Those who come to stay in the Twin Paradises find contentment in industriousness and a life well-lived--or afterlife well lived. 

The denizens of the Paradise reachable from Elysium are small folk like gnomes. They live in villages governed by democratic councils and send representatives to the over-councils that govern the smaller the interactions of the smaller ones. All the citizens work for the common good, and all who contribute partake of the communities' supplies according to their need. The Paradises are not Elysium; the land, though pleasant, is not free from the caprice of nature. The people, though similar in outlook, are individuals and not immune to petty disagreements and misunderstandings. It is overcoming these obstacles that make the pleasantness of life in the Twin Paradises deserved.

At the far edge of the first Paradise, there is a great, mist-filled chasm. One sturdy bridge spans it. On the far side, the land begins to become more rugged and more thickly wooded, though it is still beautiful and bountiful. Here the habitations are more isolated, and the people place a greater value on self-sufficiency. They are more willing to teach a newcomer than to provide what they view as charity. The people still work together on tasks of common need, but they do so as individuals and of their own volition. 

The Holy Mountain is visible from this land on clear days. Even these hardworking folk occasionally take a moment to stare at it from time to time. They are perhaps comforted to know it exists, but they have little desire to see its heights.

Mythic Exalted: The Immaculate Order

The Immaculate Philosophy in Exalted is an engineered belief system, created by a faction of Sidereals looking to bolster the Dragon-Blooded and cement the coup against the Solars. Whether it was formed from whole cloth or based on existing beliefs we aren't told, at least not in the first book. We are told the Order is monastic (presumably solely), which is unusual for earthly religions, but could be. The description of the Immaculate Philosophy and practice suggest the writers were mostly thinking of Buddhism, perhaps with a bit of Hinduism, but I think some of the more interesting parallels and inspiration can be drawn from Confucianism. 

Immaculate Philosophy acknowledges the existence of the gods and spirits, but that's not it's focus. Proper ritual toward these spirits--which means these rites are respectful and discrete--is appropriate, but the focus is more on self-cultivation and living virtuously. I feel like, again not unlike Confucianism, Immaculate Philosophy would view "Heaven" (or Yushan) and being in harmony with it important, but they would largely disapprove of personalizing it as gods. Yu-Shan would be the sort hand for the proper process of the world.

In a sense, the Immaculate Philosophy is more secular than spiritual. In a world where essence is real and demonstrable, as are the hypostases of the belief, the Elemental Dragons, I feel like the focus on correct behavior, self-improvement, and social ritual, qualifies it as such.

It isn't discussed in the texts, but I feel it's more fun and more realistic if there are perhaps various schools of thought within the Immaculate tradition. We are told it's concerned with stamping out heresy, but that's an odd aspect of it and given the desires of the Sidereals who crafted it, I take that to mean mainly "too much god worship" or the "belief the Solars aren't Anathema." Within the confines of its view of the world, I suspect you have traditions that are more or less mystical or ascetic than others. The equivalents of Pure Land Buddhism or even Prosperity Gospel. Perhaps there's even "left hand path" Immaculate belief that seeks a dangerous shortcut to Dragon status?

Imagining the Hyborian Age

 The map of Conan's world by Katrin Dirim I shared the other day was interesting not just because her her artistic style (though that's great), but because of the way she chose to depict the Hyborian Age costume and material culture. The prevailing style, since the Frazetta covers have been a vague "barbaric fantasy," which each artist working their own variation on the theme.

Howard's stories, by contrast, tend to be much more "historical" in their depiction of these things--though they aren't really consistent in their historical era. Different locales in Conan's world seem to come from different points in history: there are High Medieval tales ("Hour of the Dragon", "A Witch Shall Be Born"), Golden Age of Piracy stories ("Black Stranger"), stories that seem to be set in the ancient world ("God in the Bowl"), and even stories that like ahistorical periods of a Medieval version of the 18th Century ("Beyond the Black River").

I think Dirm's idea to narrow this range a bit to make it make more sense is a good one. On Reddit, she says she capped the level of armor at roughly the early middle ages, and mixed in elements from as far back as the Bronze Age to keep the atmosphere.

I think this fits well with the more "ancient world" interpretation Mark Schultz does in volume 1 of the Wandering Star/Del Rey collection:

Some of the slight re-shifts of the names would be fairly simple. Iranistan becomes the Persian Empire (take you pick which one), and Turan instead of being a stand-in for the Ottoman Turks, are maybe the Parthians? Aquilonia and Nemedian could be recast as somewhat Carolingian Frank:

Though I have seen portrayals (and there is some support for it) that Aquilonia could be Roman!

The Age of Sail stuff in Zingara and the Barachan Isles would require the most change, but there have been pirates as long as there have been boats, so it's possible.