Showing posts with label rpg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rpg. Show all posts

Thursday, October 26, 2023

The Island and the Censor


Pohjal or in older texts Cinis Pohjal is a large island of volcanic origin within the Lake of Vermilion Mists. It is a desolate place of ash and pumice, dotted with hot springs and smoking holes, and attracting an inordinate number of noisome gas flies. In summary, there is little to recommend it, except that is also a place where scintilla may be gathered without diving and the attendant risk of angry urulu.

Scintilla cysts burst in the warmth of the hotsprings, and sifting the loose sand from their bottoms can yield imperfect--but perfectly spendable--scintilla of opaline and citrine colors with the rare sanguine. By some oversight of Panarchic edict, the ownership of scintilla gathered naturally above the lake's surface is an open question, allowing a legal opportunity for others to lay a claim so long as they can avoid disputation with the Eminent Compulsor or his agents. 

Besides the inconvenience of reaching the island and retrieving the scintilla there is another factor discouraging their acquisition. The island is the home of a baleful Visitant known as the Censor. This being is said to appear as a slender automaton with feminine form and four arms, two of which have dexterous hands and two large, scalpel-blades. The Censor lies dormant much of the time, but when she awakens, she seeks sophonts to improve upon in the direction of her moral sensibilities.  There are cases of individuals emerging her editing free of their previous vices and deficits of character to go on to lives of distinction, but they are rare.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Nine Years in Azurth

 


We didn't have a game this weekend, but the 20th (I believe) marked the 9th Anniversary of our Land of Azurth campaign.

The party started in Yanth Country and has now visited 3 of 4 regions of Azurth (and they passed beneath the 4th), as well as taking side trips to  other places like the Land of Under-Sea and Medieval France.

In all that time, we managed to hold on to all but 2 players. Eric dropped out due to life and dissatisfaction with the telegaming we had to adapt to in the pandemic versus in person. Jim passed away earlier this year after a nine year battle with colon cancer.

My imagination tends to wander pretty quickly. I would never have stayed with this world, this campaign, and this system this long without a group of players that it was fun to DM for. 

Thanks to Andrea, Gina, Bob, Tug, and our absent friends for the enjoyment they've given me over the years.

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Telesthetic Hound


The telesthetic hounds of Gnydrion are a domestic animal of obscure origins. As their name suggests, they are superficially similar to the canines brought from Earth in ancient times, but they possess a number of anatomic and physiologic differences, most obviously the extended and flexible snout ending in a star-shaped sensory organ. The protuberances radiating from the nose are sensitive to magic and allow the hound to track the aura of creatures and in some cases predict their future whereabouts.

The hounds are commonly bred within the Doar Obdurate where they are used not only to track criminals, but to predict dissident behavior via their sensitivity to human emotion. Scholars are divided on whether the hounds' capabilities actually allow this, but the Obdurs have never been zealous to let mere proof get in the way of legal certainty.

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Phaelorn Gap

Shreev Seg Molok (art by Jason Sholtis)

Phaelorn Gap is a town near the Lake of Vermilion Mists along the Panarch's roadway heading east away from the great cities and across the mountains. It is the center of the scintilla harvesting industry with the Lake. The wealth harvested from the Lake belongs by law to the Panarch and flows to his coffers save that which is paid in renumeration or lost to corruption. 

The divers, young, unmarried women by tradition, receive little in the way of wages for their efforts, but do receive a state pension upon retirement. Some former divers become matrons, responsible for wrangling and discipline of the divers and insuring they do not skim from harvest unduly. The matrons, of course, take their gratuity before the Panarch gets his.

Operations in Phaelorn Gap are overseen by the Eminent Compulsor. The current holder of that position is Briszm Wungar. Officially his only function is to ensure the scintilla are transported West and the Panarch receives his due. In practice, he is the overseer of the entire operation, enriched by his own peculation.

Wungar is not personally an opposing man, so he must rely on the dignity of his office and the strong arms of his local enforcers to assure his will is done. Chief among these enforcers is the Shreev, Seg Molok, and his subalterns. Molok is a veteran of minor conflicts in the region and is said to have survived (after sufficient brave resistance, certainly) the Whelming of Fort Olmovar by the Great M'Gog Horde. He is a man respected by the townsfolk of Phaelorn Gap for his pragmatism and evenhandedness. His sense of honor and appreciation of duty is such that the size of the inducement proffered sways him less than his reckoning of the ethical questions involved. 

Monday, October 9, 2023

Rumble Beneath the Arena

 Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued back on last Sunday with a pretty much all combat session as the party thumbed their collective nose as the Looms' warning and entered the complex built with the junk wall behind the arena. They descended into subterranean rooms where they found a masked giant with a maul and a group of poisoned armed mooks.

These guys wore the group down. In fact, Waylon was have gone down if not for the timely healing of Dagmar. As some of the group had triumphed, Loom unleashed some sort of a sonic attack to soften them up for the attack of a large mechanical monster than was able to shoot fire out of its finger tips. Erekose and Waylon teamed up on it with their magic weapons while Shade and Dagmar hit him from a distance. When it was destroyed it exploded (or course), but the party managed to avoid major harm.

They were hurting after that and downed some good berries and took a short rest before moving on.

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Thono Inn


The Thono Inn and Baths are a famed, but aging attraction near the Lake of Vermilion Mists, which offer "gas baths" of the peculiar substance of the Lake itself in addition to more traditional bathing. Yrming is the eleventh generation of Thonos to run the baths, though in truth she leaves the day-to-day management to her husband, Gris Samber, while she manages the special activities for the inn's extensive festival schedule that borrows holidays liberally from diverse civic and religious calendars. So large are the baths that Thono Village has arisen nearby to support it. 

The pumps which support the unique bath offerings require the work of an expert engineer to maintain. Ormaz Halx is the current individual charged with this task. He is given to reminding anyone that questions his decisions that he once studied at the hwaopt library (true in the strictest sense). He is also given to intemperance regarding the local distilled spirit. When deep in inebriation, he has been known to speak of a mysterious cave containing crystalline columns which somehow fulfill desires. He will angrily deny every having said anything of the sort when sober.

The Thono family and their loyal employees have a historic antipathy with the Cult of the Hierodule who bring their celebratory revels to the vicinity annually. This ill-feeling is primarily financial, owing to the grubby, vagabond nature of the cult leaders and their followers, and the promiscuous ways of the cult's youthful celebrants who provide for free erotic services for which the inn's contracted, professional staff would charge.

Gris Samber takes a broad view of who one day might be a paying customer and so does not urge his staff to violence against their transients, with the probable exception of Bardo Clart, the cult's current wild-eyed and hirsute leader.  

Monday, October 2, 2023

A More Civilized Age

Art by Donato Giancola

I'm all for "lived-in futures" and dusty, grubby space Westerns, but I feel like there are some science fiction aesthetics that don't get their due. And I'm not talking gleaming, featureless rocket hulls and silver lamé outfits. I mean the more refined, swashbuckling, adventure film derived style.

Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon was probably the biggest feature in promoting this style, but it shows up in other places like Cody Starbuck by Howard Chaykin:

And in Milady 3000 and i Briganti by Magnus (Roberto Raviola):


It's not really absent from the Star Wars saga. It just shows up more in the prequels than in the original films. I think there's a hint of it in Lynch's Dune and the SyFy mini-series version--though it is sorely lacking from the drear Villeneuve version.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

The Adventure-Point Crawl Campaign


My kid has been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, which means I have been rewatching it, and that gave me a roleplaying game related idea, not so much in regard to its content, but really its structure. 

The creation of the fantasy epic, such a staple of fantasy media, has always been hard in games because historically, attempts to do so have led to drastically limited options for player agency. At best, the Adventure Path that is the modern descendant of the Dragonlance modules tends to be really linear. At worst, it's an outright railroad.

I don't think it has to be that way, though, but it would require some discussion and buy-in from players and a good session zero. Here's how I think it could work:

1. The GM tells the players the campaign setting and situation and suggests (but not mandates) a Quest, perhaps. Or perhaps, the players and the GM sort of make that up together? The "Quest" is the desired outcome: defeat the Firelord in the case of The Last Airbender or defeat Sauron in Lord of the Rings.

2. The player's make up characters, finalize the Quest, and plan the steps they think they will need to achieve it. The Quest needn't be etched in stone. It's possible the campaign as it unfolds might lead to a different goal, e.g.: Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But in the year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory. It's even conceivable PCs might switch sides. Anyway, there should also be more character specific goals woven in, not just big campaign ones.

3. The GM plots those steps both geographically on a pointcrawl map and node-wise for a campaign structure map and makes clocks of antagonist/rival actions and other events. It's important to note here that the steps which will become nodes aren't plotted scenes. They aren't linked to each other in a linearly (or strictly linear) fashion for the most part, and they aren't supposed to go any certain way. Nothing is "supposed" to happen. In Avatar, Aang has to master the 4 elements. That goal could have played out in a lot of different ways. In fact, it takes two potential teachers before he ultimately gets to learn firebending. Localizing potential places where the goals can be achieved is important, because fantasy epics tends to cover a lot of geography. They aren't just dramas or soap operas to be played out in a limited location.

4. The players choose where to go and have other adventures and encounters along the way due to those choices. This may call for a bit of separation of player and character knowledge, but even without that, I feel like it works if the players just know the likely location of achieving one of their goals. Circumstances may mean it doesn't work out. The world doesn't stay static. But any unsuccessful attempt to achieve a goal at a point should always yield clues to a goal--either another one or the one they failed to achieve. In this sense, it's like running a mystery; clues to the next goal location shouldn't be hard to find.

5. Players can alter goals in response to events or their desires.  New point crawl "maps" may need to be generated in response. When new goal nodes come online, new hooks and areas of interest need to be populated around them. It's the "story" goals embedded in sandboxy locations that makes this much less linear than an adventure path.

6. Repeat until the PCs achieve the goal or the clocks expire and a new status quo (and possibly campaign) is established. What if the hobbits fail to destroy the ring before Sauron's victory? Well, the story needn't be over.

This approach doesn't feature the degree of session to session freedom of the completely sandbox game, it's true. However, the player collaboration in the planning phase ensures it's not a GM enforced story. Indeed, both players and GM will be surprised by the final shape of the emergent story. 

While this may be a bit of a novel approach (at least I haven't seen anyone ever talk about it) ideas about "node-based scenario design" and "mission-based adventures" have existed for a long time. What this does to enhance those is get player input prior to the missions and link the nodes in a grander campaign.

Monday, September 25, 2023

Arena Assault


I completely forgot to write up our last session (two Sundays ago) in our Land of Azurth campaign. The party was still trying to figure out a way to free Bellona, War Lady of Sang, from the control of Loom. Their attempt at subterfuge hadn't played out the way they thought, so they shifted tactics and cased the place for an assault under cover of night.

The were pretty sure Bellona was being housed in the building behind the arena, but the means of spying (using Waylon's owl familiar) were insufficient to get a real sense of the inside of the place. Still, they are confident in their abilities.

The sneaking across the deserted arena is easy, but they must have tripped some alarm, because an image of a being called itself Loom appears before them when they reach the door and demands they bow down in reverence. Most of the part goes along, but Dagmar views it as sacrilege and won't do it. Loom allows his lackeys to attack first: Helmarg the troll woman and her ogre bruisers move in to attack--but Loom says this match won't be to the death.

These guys are tougher than the party anticipated, but after a battle that saw Waylon fall twice only to be revived by Dagmar healing magics, they finally prevail.

When they still won't bow to Loom he unleashes some sort of poison cloud on them. They still isn't enough to take them out, thanks to good saving throws all around. After looting their unconscious foes, they prepare to move into the complex. 

Thursday, September 21, 2023

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.

Monday, September 18, 2023

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.

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Witchmire Rumors


 A few rumors regarding the Witchmire on Gnydrion:

  • “Does the Witchmire seem forlorn in aspect? Well, so it is. But it is also locale of historic importance as the site of the Landfall, which is to say, the place of humankin’s advent on Gnydrion.” 
  • “I take you for experienced travelers, inured to the variegated configurations human appetite and proclivity may take, so I will speak with candor unadorned by circumlocution: The prominent families of Gamory are perverse. Their cult seeks congress of a carnal nature with ieldra.”
  • “The witch Heth has come to live on an island surrounded by treacherous quag. She wears the semblance of a crone, but in her true form she is youthful and very beautiful. She holds a treasure of jewels and fine trinkets lavished upon her by wealthy suitors in her homeland.”
  • “Last winter, a mushroom-hunter of Draum made it known he had happened by a Black Obelisk with an aperture where before there had been scatheless stone. Word perhaps traveled as far south as Ascolanth, for scant months ago a party led by a trio of sorcerers arrived. They hired a guide and undertook to find the Obelisk. None of that expedition returned.”
  • “Are you familiar with the ditty? It speaks of the disappearance and looked-for triumphant return of  Prince Wanaxandor. He found it expedient to flee more civilized regions after his ill-planned efforts to overthrow the rule of his uncle, the Panarch. He is popularly supposed by rustics and simpletons to be in hiding, gathering a force armed with dire alien armaments, plundered from the Black Obelisks for a repeated attempt.”
  • “Wollusk is no more in the grip of rogues meager of scruple than most habitations similarly situated far from civilization, but Zeniba and her Devils have a zeal in the application of violence that borders on obsessive. My admonition: watch yourselves and do not attract undue notice!”
  • “A famed medium from the South has recently arrived. She offers intercession for the folk of the region with the wrathful presences of the Mire. She asks no compensation at present for her services. Popular opinion is divided between those that regard her as a fool and those that judge her insane. I am broader of imagination than most and accord both concepts a measure of validity. Be that as it may, I suppose she will need escorts in her endeavors.”

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Beetles & Birds


Beetle Milk Mead 

A beverage favored in the west of Gnydrion, beetle milk mead is made from the fermentation of a sugary liquid ("the milk") produced by a species of beetle native to the titanic trees of the coastal forests. These colonials insects have members of their community who function as living casks for their hive. They gorge themselves on food and store the liquid they produce in their abdomens so they distend to an incredible degree, having the appearance when full of plump fruit with a diameter as wide as the length of the first digit of a man's thumb. The milk is harvested from the engorged beetles and fermented. The resulting liquid is sometimes added to beer to sweeten it but can also be mixed with the local liquor to render that more enjoyable, as well.

The beetles are farmed by placing thick slices of the bark of their favored trees into beetlehouses. This practiced has allowed the production and enjoyment of beetle milk mead to spread to places where the trees do not grow.


Quaklu

Quaklus are the ubiquitous saddle birds of the Northwest region. It is assumed by most learned folk of the modern age, that the birds are a result of the puissant science of the ancients, though the pedants of the hwaopt have alleged that the quaklus are a distinct lineage from the creatures of humankin's homeworld and so must have been taken from some other world in the past.

Whatever their origins some quaklu, considered atavistic in the modern parlance, are more than just cunning animals and are capable of speech.  The accidental acquisition of such a gifted fowl is considered an unlucky turn due to their willingness to make their thoughts and wishes known--and unwelcome trait in a riding beast.

Monday, August 28, 2023

The Cleric and the Rituals of Faith


Over the weekend, I read this interesting blog series about how polytheism worked in the real world. Check it out. 

Anyway, it got me thinking about how D&D/rpg polytheism might be made more realistic without changing it much. Granted, it's a bit of an uphill battle since rpg polytheism of the D&D variety is very unrealistic in a lot of ways, but I'm going to focus here on one thing and that's Devereaux's central point in the early articles: religion is mainly about ritual not metaphysics.

This is actually pretty good for the D&D cleric, because they are largely soft on metaphysics and philosophy (short a lot of worldbuilding) but out-of-the-box do a lot of things like spells and special abilities that could be glossed (and roleplayed) as rituals. It's sort of transactional, even mechanistic from a modern lens, which is good for D&D because that's what clerical magic is. 

So, clerics are the most religious (in what Devereaux relates is the Roman sense) because they have the most effective deity-related rituals (spells) and they are the most diligent in their performance (it's their job). The use of the cleric to the adventuring party is this very religiousness: their ritual performances always get results. 

I think it would take relatively little roleplaying in this direction and reframing of these abilities in a more religious ritual context to make it feel a lot less merely mechanistic and a lot more flavorfully mechanistic.

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Into the Arena

 Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last Sunday with the party still trying to find the power core within the crashed spacecraft. It turns out there weren't any more major threats after the undead spacemen--just a will o' wisp and some poltergeist, so it's mostly down to doing a thorough search. The party finds the core, but they are (quite reasonably) afraid of some sort of malign energy or radiation off it, so they choose to handle it with mage hands. They carry it back to the Church of Clockwork without (apparent) incident. 

Viola thanks them for their help, but now she has another mission for them. She needs them to Bellona, the Battle Princess of Sang, out of the arena of Junk City. She's fallen under the control of the Loom--the mad and bad duplicate of the mind of Mirabilis Lum. She leaves it to the party to determine how they do it, but she assures them it's necessary.

The next day, the party disguises themselves and heads over to the arena to check things out. Waylon disguises himself as a theatrical gladiatorial combat promoter from Yanth Country and Erekose pretends to be a fighter. They talked to the trollish emcee of the arena, but things go badly when Dagmar gets insulted and snaps back at the caustic creature. 

They do get to check out the games, though, and they see the fierce, silver-masked, woman warrior, who they are sure is Bellona.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Sail the Microversal Seas!

Artist Jeff Nelson has imagined Marvel's Microverse from the Micronauts comic as islands in a sea. Only tangentially related, but this reminds me how the Microverse would be a good Spelljammer setting.



Monday, August 14, 2023

Dead Spacemen and the Clockwork Princess


Last week, I forgot the session report on our last Land of Azurth 5e game, so here it is. The party was still in the labyrinthine, ramshackle of Junk City. The former Mayor of Rivertown, Gladhand, though ailing from a mysterious attack was able to lead them to where Viola, the Clockwork Princess of Yanth Country (who has been absent for quite some time) was hiding out. Turns out it's in a shabby temple to Clockwork--but that's really just a front for her operation to build--well, some sort of weapon, she didn't elaborate to fight the Wizard and his shadowy allies.

The party is a bit nervous about this as last time they saw her (in the future) she was crazy and on a rampage. They ask a lot of questions to probe for signs. She seems her same old self though, and she has a mission for them. She needs them to still a power source from a crashed spaceship to power her weapon.

The party agrees, but later maybe they wish they hadn't as the remnant of the ship's crew are undead. At least one of them a fairly powerful undead with the power to drain life. It's a close call for Erekose, but the group wears the creature down. 

They still haven't found the power core, though.

Friday, August 11, 2023

The Mixed Up Setting

 


Sometimes, always with an eye toward being able to use the published material for some well-supported game or another, I get (possibly mad) idea to take parts of one setting and combine with another so that the result wouldn't immediately be recognizable.

Ideas I've had in the past playing a wuxia game using the map of Middle-Earth (and MERP materials), The Known World replaced with Talislanta equivalents, or Creation from Exalted, but built as a D&D setting (using published 5e material).

I've never done any of these as at the end of the day the work required wouldn't be that much less than making up my own stuff in some instances, but it's still an idea that pops up from time to time.

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Swords Against Sorcery: Archetypes

 In the game I'm working on, all PCs are defined in part by two Archetypes. These represent types of characters found in comic book Sword & Sorcery. In game terms, they provide bonuses to Attributes and Domains and also special abilities. 

Each archetype has a primary and secondary Attribute and Domain. Should a player pick two Archetypes with the same primary Attributes/Domains they can use that one and their choice of the two Archetypes secondary Attributes/Domains. The character also gains the Expertises and Talents of each Archetype.

While the Archetypes remain a work in progress, below is a sampling of the ones I've come up with. At this point, the plan is not to give any description of them beyond the abilities they provide, letting players interpret them as they will.

ACOLYTE
Attributes: Presence (Intellect)
Domains: Words (Sorcery)
Expertise: Religion
Talent: Divine Favor. Make a successful roll to call upon the aid of your gods or guiding spirit. Any successes can be used like Momentum to aid you or another hero for one scene. It does not add to your Momentum pool. 

BARBARIAN
Attributes: Daring (Instinct)
Domains: Wilds (Deeds)
Expertise: Survival or Hunting
Talent: Like A Jungle Cat. Gain an additional die when detecting dangers in the wilderness or when trying to sneak up on a foe.

COURTIER
Attributes: Instinct (Presence)
Domains: City (Words)
Expertise: Persuasion
Talent: We Were Close Once. Once per session, succeed at a Persuasion Challenge to create an NPC and/or declare a recently introduced one a former intimate acquaintance. A failed roll means they now harbor some ill-will against you.

DABBLER
Attributes: Intellect (Instinct)
Domains: City (Sorcery)
Expertise: Occult Lore
Talent: Just What I was Looking For. Add an extra die to any roll related to quickly finding a particular magical formula, ritual, or piece of information in a tome or even library.

GALLANT
Attributes: Presence (Daring)
Domains: City (Swords)
Expertise: Persuasion
Talent: Flashy. Use Presence instead of Might as an attribute for melee fighting when you have an audience but deal one less Blow.  

REAVER
Attributes: Daring (Cunning)
Domains: Deeds (Swords)
Expertise: Seamanship
Talent: Bloody-Handed Buccaneer. Apply your Seamanship Expertise to shipboard combats and to attempts to intimidate foes or lead pirate crews on the high seas.

WARRIOR
Attributes: Might (Daring)
Domains: Swords (Wilds)
Expertise: choice of a weapon
Talent: Valor. Spend 1 Momentum to shake off any Fear condition in a combat situation.

Monday, August 7, 2023

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.