Douglas E. Berry

More fiddling with Barsaive. We have a slight problem on the map.

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 21:28:20 GMT

As I pointed out in my last post, the Earthdawn Barsaive setting is a close match to modern Ukraine. The designers have made it clear this was their intent. I approve because it gives a huge area for exploration and sweeping grand campaigns.

But there is a major issue. On the campaign map, the Black Sea has been replaced by a gigantic volcanic caldera. It is explicitly stated that this Death Sea fills the Black Sea's basin. Which creates huge problems when doing worldbuilding. Look, I'm as ready as anyone to accept huge magical effects in this setting, but this is just too much!

The Black Sea has a surface area of 436,400 km² (168,500 sq mi) (not including the Sea of Azov.) Lava, the proper term for liquid magma that reaches the surface, has a temperature that runs from 800 to 1,200° C (1,470 to 2,190° F). Normally, lava quickly cools into various fun forms of igneous rock. But here we're told the liquid state is constant. This is going to have extraordinary effects on every land that borders the Death Sea.

For starters, there is going to be a dead zone extending many miles from the coast. The heat, poisonous gasses, and just the ground being baked into fired clay pottery will kill everything. But that's minor compared to the climatic nightmare this would cause. As we all know, hot air rises. The air over this huge area will become superheated and rise quickly, creating an ungodly low-pressure system over the entire area. A book on climatology I read described Earth's atmosphere as desperately seeking to achieve equal pressure across the globe, but being constantly foiled by uneven heating and terrain.

Imagine the massive, constant hurricane-force winds rushing to the Death Sea. The collision of this relatively cool air and the already-heated air over the lava we'll create endless storm fronts that spiral off spawning tornados and world-shattering dry thunderstorms. The near-vacuum at the center of the sea will be a fountain of superheated air that will spread out and fall as it cools, creating storms hundreds if not thousands of miles from the sea.

Seen from space, the Death Sea would be akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a never-ending cyclonic storm covering a huge area. Oh, did I mention that? Cloud cover that blots out the sun for years at a time. Given all this, most Kaers in Barsaive would open their gates, take three steps outside, and say "Well, this sucks" before resealing the gates and going back to work on 101 Ways To Spice Up Your Mushroom Stew.

Later retcons reduced the lava area to a few hundred miles around the Crimean Peninsula. But still, you have the same issues. Kīlauea showed an impact on the weather of the Big Island during its decades-long eruption. So we need a better fix.

I, of course, have one.

Let's put a Kaer on the Crimea right where Sevastopol exists. During the Time of Horrors, the Sorcerors maintaining the defenses also developed a doomsday device, a magical retribution strike that brought E=mc² into play. When a Horror did breach the defenses, the spell was triggered. Kaer, Horror, and a huge amount of territory vanished in an instant. What was left was a massive volcanic rift system that has grown to Mt. Doom proportions. The seabed cracked for hundreds of miles, releasing natural gases that ignite when they reach the surface.

So the Sea of Death becomes the Sea of Blue Fire. Life along the shoreline is still stunted and twisted, and the entire area stinks of rotten eggs and death. Sailing the affected areas is dangerous, not just because of the constant threat of fire (remember, these flames are still magical even if they come from a natural source) but because every so often a huge bubble of gas comes to the surface and explodes. Just being caught by the bubble can break your keel.

Closer to the site of the destroyed Kaer, the threat of volcanic activities rises. Plus, vengeful ghosts, Horror-touched monsters drawn to the inherent magical aura of the area, and a dragon. Because I need at least one Greater Wyrm in this place. What might be really fun is to drop clues that the Sorceror-Kings of that Kaer also built the magical equivalent of an aircraft's flight data box, holding their greatest secrets, including how to replicate the spell that destroyed the Kaer.

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A Return to Barsaive.

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 22:37:07 GMT

I've written about Earthdawn before, as one of the great examples of what I called FASA Syndrome - great settings, mediocre rules. But in this case, FASA also managed to fumble the setting in my opinion. It all goes back to how some worldbuilders can't stand an empty space on the map. They have this need to fill every space and detail everything.

This brings me back to my concept of The Edge in settings. Adventures can only take place on the Edge. The Edge is a setting where civilization is either absent, an active threat, or simply unaware of the campaign setting because civilizations impose order. With my eyes, I have seen the oldest fragment of a legal code we know of, The Code of Ur-Nammu. It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets in the Sumerian language c. 2100–2050 BCE. Civilizations also make safe areas and expand those safe areas. This includes wars and genocides, of course, but also destroying predatory animals, taming rivers, improving communications and roads, patrolling those roads, and so on.

Edges are by nature unstable. The classic Wild West era lasted about 40-50 years. There was a period of about twenty years in China where things like pulp adventures would thrive. Both of these eras ended with the spread of effective law enforcement for good or bad, and social disapproval of typical "adventurer" activities. I think the longest edge I can think of in a nominally civilized area would be France during the Hundred Years' War when bands of unemployed knights rampaged around looting and blackmailing cities.

The point is that an Edge requires some absence of oversight. This brings me back to Barsaive. The default setting for Earthdawn and roughly in the same area as Ukraine. Let's review the main conceptual theme of the game.

Magic is cyclical. At the low end, magic ceases to work. The problem comes at the peak of the sine wave. when our world starts to reach that level, barriers drop and things known as Horrors can enter our world. Immensely powerful, amoral, and hungry for new victims. Cenobites meet Lovecraftian nightmares. But as the world began reaching this level a few centuries ago, a great wizard or team of wizards learned how to build a magical barrier to the Horrors. String physical defenses would be needed as well. All across the civilized world, men and dwarves began digging Kaers, deep fortified cities. There are real examples of these you can tour in Turkey.

Stores were stocked, subterranean farms started, and everyone was safely inside, the great gates of the Kaers were sealed with iron and magic across Barsaive. Well, not everyone. The immortal Obsidimen melted into their Life Stones to sleep, and the T'skrang made Kaers in deep lakes and hibernated. Many elves worked a great ritual to leave the Earth, while the few who refused paid a great price for their survival. No one knows where the Windlings hid. Then the Horrors came.

The siege lasted centuries. Every Kaer faced attacks that ranged from the brutal force of an angry god beating on the gates to subtle attempts to poison the minds of Kaerfolk. When the attacks finally ceased, when the Sorceror-Kings determined it was safe, the gates were opened. . .

. . .and the world was changed.

This is where the game should start, a recently opened Kaer that has established its first villages outside the gates and is ready to start sending out scouting parties. How has the world changed? Where are the other survivors? What Kaers failed, and why? Are there any signs of Horrors remaining? Do our old maps mean anything? Go forth and find out!

That would have been a great game. Instead, FASA gave us not only a Barsaive that was already up and running, with trade and flying ships, and all that, there was a pseudo-Mycenean empire already on the march! The Edge was already gone!

If I were to run this, I'd rewind to the one known dot on an unreliable map. A game of exploration, diplomacy, horror, and mysteries. Most Kaers would have failed, leaving much of Barsaive a howling wilderness. Ruined Kaers make great Places of Mystery; yeah, Kizen fell, but why does it look like the gates were breached from the inside?

You can do so much with this setting, build something lasting, and never really lose the Edge needed for a great campaign. One thing I'd add. If you've ever seen the 1981 Heavy Metal movie, you'll recall that in the final segment, Taarna, The evil Loc-Nar smashes into a mountain, creating a wave of mud that overwhelms a near-by village and turns them into monstrous humanoid mutants. There's the second phase of the campaign, learning of this growing army of "changed men" who capture entire villages and march them off to an unknown fate.

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Since I'm in a world-building mood, meet my Orcs.

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 19:13:20 GMT

This takes place after the destruction of the Empire of the Giants and the scattering of the Dragons during the Greater War of the Gods and shortly after the Races of the Tree were created. It was a Golden Age, where the Races of the Tree (humans, dwarfs, halflings, and gnomes) worked together in harmony. Some humans, however, were touched by the Corpus Infernus and roamed the lands as barbarian raiders.

The orcs were created when the demon-touched leader of the greatest barbarian horde was frustrated by his inability to break the defenses of one of the great cities of this legendary age. This leader, Grummish One-Eye, made a pact with Canarak, God of Slaughter to allow him to sack this city.

Overnight, his army was twisted into what we now know as orcs, and with their new-found ferocity, were able to destroy one of the last Golden Cities. But Grummish's triumph was short-lived, as almost immediately his army turned on itself. Grummish himself was killed and is now a demigod in the service of Canarak.

Orcs, being children of Canarak, are violent beings who kill for sport. They live in tribal groups where the strongest and most successful lead by right of force. Orc warbands raid more civilized lands as a way of proving their worth. Orcs don't care about the value of treasure beyond its value as a display of the martial prowess in stealing it.

Orc tribes tend to weed out their own weaklings through hazing and ritual combat. Some males are expelled and forced to find new bands to join. Sometimes, a tribe will grow too large and destroy itself in a frenzy of destruction. While not strictly nocturnal, orcs prefer to operate in dim light. Bands usually try to find a cave system or abandoned tomb complex as a stronghold. Since they crave combat, they will abandon an area if it lacks challenges.

Rarely, an orc will appear with the strength, charisma, and intelligence to unite the tribes into a horde. Such orcs are known as "Grummishning haqiqiy o'g'li" or a "True Son of Grummish." When a True Son appears, civilized nations tremble. The only way to end the threat is to kill the true son.

I use the D&D5e sourcebook The Book of the Righteous for my games, as it is an excellent and complete pantheon, and most of it is system-neutral. It's also fairly easy to add to in careful doses. I've added the giants as div, a variant of the first intelligent species created by the gods. Other div in the current age are the elves, fae, and other nature spirits. These specific div were touched by the primal gods of the elements to create servants. Which is why you have fire giants, storm giants, etc.

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I'll probably use Sprawlrunners for this.

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 03:44:39 GMT

While engaged in a discussion of Cyberpunk tropes everyone is tired of in TTRPGs, one person mentioned the pervasive Asian Chic feeling, with Japanese zaibatsu dominating the world, ninjas, and the entire manga/anime feel.

I agree heartily. What I want to see, and may have to write for the SWADE Cyberpunk system, is a setting where the African Renaissance is full speed ahead and the US and China have been greatly reduced in influence. African corporations are the big influences, African music is hot, and the current First World players like the US and China are collapsing.

Having a campaign set in Mombassa would be really cool, as you have a totally different feel and all of the Continent to play in. You could even ignore the US. Scandanavian mercenaries, Ukrainian bankers, Arab and Indian factors, and a dozen languages are spoken in the new Sprawl as Mombassa (and the space elevator just offshore) have made this city ground zero for intrigue.

What would make this setting unique is Mombassa is an old, old city. It dates back to at least the 14th century. It has ancient mosques mixed in with modern areas. I love the idea of Old Africa meeting New Africa.

And you have all of Africa to play in!

Yeah, I need to write this. I'll be using Sprawlrunners, a cyberpunk Savage Worlds rule set for this. Does anyone want to help?

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This is for my NaNoWriMo Project, criticism and suggestions wanted!

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 21:26:05 GMT

This, after much research, is how I see the bridge and the surrounding deck area of the FFS Rube Goldberg which is a very important setting in my project. I really want to hear from Navy and Coast Guard veterans.

Deck 3 of the Rube Goldberg is home to the main bridge. The bridge itself is an octagonal space. At the center is the command chair, used by the Captain or the Officer of the Deck whenever the Captain is off the bridge. This station has a control panel on a swing arm if the OIC (Officer in Charge) wants to examine a specific detail of the ship's operations directly.

Directly in front of this station is a fairly large holographic display. Normally, this is used to track the position of the Rube Goldberg in relation to its assigned battle group. In combat situations, it can be used to monitor threats and the Captain can direct the ship's escorts based on this information. The display can also provide information on the ship's status, updates on replenishment or repair operations on other ships, as well as a variety of live camera shots, both from fixed cameras and remote platforms.

To the left of the display is the Maneuvering station. Here the two pilots (normally an experienced Petty Officer and a rating) work in concert, controlling the ship's movement along the three axises as directed by the commander. Also at this station are an engineering PO who monitors the performance of both the six main drives as well as the maneuvering thrusters. Supervising them is the Maneuver Officer.

To the left of that station is the Environmental Control station. Manned by a Petty Officer and a Rating, they monitor the interior status of the ship, everything from gravity control to O₂ levels and the health of the ship's solid waste recycling plant. Most of their job is watching, as the actual work is spread out through the ship.

To the immediate right of the display is Sensor Analysis. Manned by a junior officer and Chief Petty Officer, this station takes in all the information coming from the various sensors, as well as updates from the Battle Group, and organizes it for the main display. They have a team on Deck 4 That does the initial filtering and analysis.

On their right is Communications. Responsible both for exterior and interior communications, this station is manned by the Communications Chief (a CPO) and two operators. They work closely with the sensors crew so message masers are aimed correctly.

Behind the Captain's Chair is Operations Management. As the Rube Goldberg is a Fleet Repair/Supply Ship, this station is a repeater for the one in the Operations Master Control Center on Deck 33. When the ship is engaged in any evolution involving the transfer of materials, repairs, or anything else where OMC is active, a team from the repair and logistics crew will be on the bridge, updating schedules and answering that commander's questions. This station is a holotable, about 1x2 meters, with workstations built in. This is the one station not equipped with seating, although emergency acceleration couches can be rolled out from the back wall.

The space is crowded, with multiple monitors, control panels; and the walls have multiple emergency air hook-up stations, firefighting equipment, and plaques filled with operational procedures and warnings. every station has a binder with printed checklists and troubleshooting guides. The lighting is usually kept dim to reduce eye strain and make the holotank easier to read.

There are two entrances to the bridge. The one to the left of the holotank as you face it is known as the Captain's Hatch and opens onto his office and underway cabin. The one to the right leads to the lift area, a security station, the midrats galley, and the "crash room" and space outfitted with bunks for quick naps during extending operations. Also on this deck are the Navigation Center (Real Space) and the office of the ship's feared head of the FIS, Fleet Internal Security. It should be noted that there is an entrance to the Captain's Office off the main corridor and that Internal Security is posted both at the Lift Lobby, and at the hatches to the Bridge and the Captain's office, as they are quite close to each other.

These are hatches heavy, manual, and designed to hold pressure.

So, what did I fuck up? What did I miss?

OK, what did I miss?

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The Third-Best Thing About Hârnworld Is. . .

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 21:51:39 GMT

. . . the jokes they embed in the articles.

For those not familiar with it, Hârn is an island just off the northwest coast of the Lythian continent on the fictional world of Kèthîra. It is roughly analogous to Great Britain in the 8th Century. The northern portion of the island has been conquered by Ivinians (the setting's Vikings) and the island is divided between several kingdoms and one republic.

It is an amazing detailed setting with decades of work behind it. As originally designed, the setting was issued as articles designed to be placed in a three-ring binder. Recently, Columbia Games has begun doing Kickstarters for kingdom books. The second of these is the Kingdom of Melderyn. Melderyn is an interesting place. While Hârn is generally a low-magic setting, it is present, and the island of Melderyn and the later kingdom are centers of magical power and learning.

The capital city of Melderyn is Cherafir, which is the only port in Hârn where trade with the Lythian states is allowed to pass through. It is a bustling port city and gets its own article in the kingdom book. These articles include detailed maps of the city, its districts, and places of interest. Every district has a listing of interesting and important buildings, characters, and plot hooks. And the occasional land mine.

I shall quote from the Cherafir article, this part detailing the Alienage, the quarter reserved for those passing through with no right to enter the city proper.

E39 Tenement

This three story block is owned by Sarin of Eyloch [C13]. The most interesting resident is Stenyl of Rogern, a crippled beggar who may be found plying his trade on the docks. Stenyl is a former seaman who is paralyzed from the waist down. He has enormous upper body strength and is more than capable of handling ruffians intent on robbing him. Stenyl loathes Lavro of Dulkai [E37]. Six months ago, he beat the pimp severely after objecting to the way Lavro was "disciplining" one of his women.

Stenyl claims to have served with Baret of Nolda, a notorious merchant sea captain from Tarkain. Baret was as much a pirate as a mercantyler and there are many tales of his daring raids against unwary ships and Shorkyni ports. At the peak of his career about 15 years ago, the sight of Baret's personal flag (three black rings on a field of green) or his ship (the "Black Joke") was feared by honest seamen from Karejia to Harbaal.

Barret disappeared around 707 and is speculated to have perished in the Cape Renda disaster. If Stenyl knows the truth of the matter, he has kept it to himself. It may be noteworthy, however, that Stenyl calls himself "the last of Baret's privateers."

Ouch.

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Demons and tying game books together.

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 23:44:53 GMT

As part of the Blue Rose setting Kickstarter, I also received a second book, The Book of Fiends - A Malefic Bestiary for Fifth Edition. I've always loved the Lower Planes as a great source of adventures at higher levels. The mastermind behind everything the party has been fighting is an Arch Devil or the party has to enter the Abyss to recover an artifact, whatever. Demons, devils and the netherworld make a great change of pace at higher levels.

It's a great book. What challenged me as a GM/worldbuilder is integrating it with both the established pantheon of The Book of the Righteous and the descriptions of the Netherrealms in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. For example, TBotR describes Asmodeus as a fallen God, Ruling Hell while plotting the overthrow of the Court of Light. The BoF describes Asmodeus' abode in the Ninth Hell as being a frozen wasteland, whereas in TBotR he was once the Elemental God of Fire. Those kinds of things are easy to smooth over.

A bigger issue comes with how Hell and the Abyss are connected. Both TBoF and MToF agree that the "uppermost" layers of both Hell and the Abyss are marked by contact warfare between the two realms. This is easier to justify using the old-school model of the outer planes. But in TBotR, Hell and the Abyss are separate spheres in the Great Sphere, connected by the Black River. How to account for vast armies moving back and forth? Luckily, there's an answer in TBoF. Seere is the Demon Patron of Portals. Delighting in destroying the lawful order of the multiverse, Seere Could easily open a gateway for the Hordes of the Abyss to pour through into Hell.

There's still the issue of Gehenna, the plane where Neutral Evil souls end up. Of course, there's nothing stopping me from adding a new sphere, is there?

There was one Demon Lord whose write-up gave me an idea for an entire campaign. I'll write about that tomorrow.

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Because the hook brings you back. . .

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 21:37:48 GMT

I hate murder hobo TTRPG campaigns. That's where the characters wander around looking for things to kill and loot. That's it. It was fine in the early days when role-playing was still heavily influenced by war/miniature games, but we are so far past that.

A good game has a hook, an overarching plot that may not even be readily apparent at the beginning. Think of the first season of Babylon 5, where events happened, there were adventures, but only one character even suspected that the Shadows were returning. There were, if I may steal the name of one of the best episodes of that season, signs and portents, but the full push of the Shadow War only really got started in Season 2.

I guess at this point I should remind people who may not remember these elements of the plot structure that are so useful in designing campaigns.

Every campaign needs a push to get the characters moving along and a reason to keep going. In Romancing the Stone the push is finding the legendary emerald. A push can be the heat of war, a natural disaster, or a charge from a patron or employer. The push is towards a goal: finding the emerald, stopping the war, or saving people from the disaster. The push is forced movement to advance the plot. Most scenarios inside a campaign should have some element that pushes the plot forward.

Next, you have the pull, which is usually some reward or pay-off that the characters are striving for. The dragon's horde, learning the truth behind the X-files after stopping the conspiracy. . . something the players and their characters want. Killing or otherwise disposing of the main villain can be a pull that grows on the players as they deal with the baddie over and over, never quite winning. The push and pull should be related in some way.

The enigma is the main mystery to be unraveled by the characters throughout the campaign. Finding the Lost City, deciphering the code needed to save the world, learning why the colony ship was found abandoned; all are mysteries that can make a campaign's worth of adventures to solve. One of my favorite enigmas comes from the 70s kid show Land of the Lost, where the questions of who built the land, how the pylons and gems worked, and how to escape were slowly answered over the show's run. (And I need to win the lottery to get a really good reboot done on Netflix or something. It was good science-fiction, damnit!) Answering pieces of the enigma are great rewards during an adventure.

Finally, the MacGuffin. This is the thing, person, or place that is either the focus of a quest, important to resolving the campaign or simply drives the plot. The falcon statue from The Maltese Falcon is perhaps the most famous of these; as it drives the entire movie and only shows up in the last ten minutes (naq vg gheaf bhg gb or snxr.) The One Ring was a MacGuffin, as were the Death Star plans. The MacGuffin is the essential thing in the campaign.

What makes me think of this is I'm still noodling with my Pirate elves of the Caribbean concept and I was thinking about what to hang a game on. Why would these people be hacking their way through dinosaur and lizardman-infested jungles, fighting Aztec zombie armies, and trading cannon fire on the high seas with dwarf pirates in their smoke-belching ironclads?

Well, I was in the porcelain reading room, and I passed the time by reading one of our Bathroom Readers when I found an article about the crystal skulls. Bingo! In this setting, the elves and dwarfs fled the Americas because the elf empire panicked when they realized they were losing their war with the dwarfs and summon something very, very big. The resulting magical storm destroyed both states and twisted the land. Now, the barrier has finally been broken, and these new old lands and being explored, looted, and fought over.

The crystal skulls, twelve is a good number, were either used in the magic ritual that destroyed everything or created by them, still exists, but have been scattered. John Dee, still alive at 146, has learned that the Ottoman Sultan has dispatched agents to find the skulls to finally crush the remaining Christina world!

He must be stopped, but to move openly would upset the delicate balance of power between the Islamic Caliphate in Iberia and North Africa and the Dual Crowns of England and France, no, he must turn to his agents, they hardy and resourceful men and elves who serve in. . .Their Majesties' Sorcerous Service!

The push is obvious, find the skulls before the enemy does. The pull is the riches the agents can gain both in terms of gold and lost knowledge and power. The enigma is where the skulls have been flung to, and the MacGuffin of course is the skulls.

See how that works? With one idea and those four plot elements, I have the framework for a campaign. I could even cut it back to one skull, which might work better. But now I have a roadmap for adventure. Oh, there's one more thing. . . The twist.

John Dee wants the skulls to make himself the ruler of all Europe as an immortal lich-king.

Or not. You never know, but planting clues is fun!

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Getting there is all the fun, a campaign concept.

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 20:15:32 GMT

One of the all-time problems in table-top role-playing games is why the characters are traveling around slaying monsters and gathering loot. "What's my motivation?" as the classic plea from actors goes. Many players establish elaborate backstories and long-term goals for characters, but rarely is the question asked: why are we going in this direction right now?

Well, I think I've found a good answer to that. I'm currently reading a great biography of Harald Hardrada who early in his life followed the river trade routes from Scandinavia through Russia to Constantinople. Other routes rand down to the Caspian Sea and on to Baghdad. The flow of trade in the 11th century was heavy and extremely profitable.

But it was a hard road. The trip one-way takes months; rowing up rivers, porting around rapids and between rivers, in some cases simply selling your boat at a settlement and carrying all your goods a few miles to the settlement on the next river where you buy a boat left by a merchant going in the opposite direction. Despite the claims of the rulers of Kyjevŭ (Kyiv), the vast reaches of the route are still harried by Bulgars and Pechenegs, and pirates are rife on the big lakes and in the Black Sea.

Sounds like fun, yes? Now add fantasy elements. I've always thought that the Pechenegs were a great candidate to be replaced by a goblinoid state. They were aggressive, hard to rule, and never became Romanized like so many other Turkic peoples. The wild forests of the Kievian Rus can hold orc tribes, strange cults, feywoods, and just mundane threats like river pirates. There are also social situations to deal with, like coming into a settlement where the local king just died, and the newcomers are asked to adjudicate the succession because the gods sent them.

So, who is traveling? Along with the merchant-captain and a crew of NPC rowers/spear-carriers, you have a chance for a Canterbury Tales collection of backstories and motivations. The key question is simple: why do you need to go to Constantinople? (or Baghdad.) Fighter types might be attracted by word that the Roman Emperor hires Northern fighters for an elite bodyguard that pays well in gold. A cleric might be carrying a report to the Patriarch, along with a gift of a holy book decorated in amber and gems. you might have a journeyman wizard returning to his master after his required year-and-a-day sojourn in the world. Bards bring new tales to tell, a rogue who is an escaped thrall. . .the key is to have them all have a reason for being on the boat, and a reason to have an interest in completing the journey.

After that, it's just adventures and encounters. This, I think, would be a great way to build a real team, rather than the old "you are in a tavern, and old man approaches you" style of bringing a group together. You can even establish lasting foes, allies, and long-term plots during the voyage. The best part is, no matter which route you take (and there were several) the PC's end up in one of the 11th century's great metropolises in a time of great change and challenges.

And if they decide to just get rich by heading back north. . . that's another adventure to be had!

As always, all comments and ideas are welcomed.

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Bodicies will be ripped!

Sun, 19 Sep 2021 23:07:27 GMT

I'm doing a little work on my Elvish Pirates of the Caribbean setting for Savage Worlds. Magic! Steampunk dwarves! Lost cities! Lizardmen! Zombie Aztec warriors! High adventure and ripped bodices!

The basic concept is this. There used to be vast dwarf and elvish empires in the Americans, the dwarfs mainly in the mountains of South and Central America, and the Elves in North America. They, of course, were constantly at war along with their human client states.

The dwarfs, being mad scientists, were getting the upper hand. So the elves did something very stupid. They summoned something much bigger than their collective heads.

Several years later, in the mid 11th century, two fleets sailed out of the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. The Elves landed first in Ireland and Great Britain, the dwarfs in Umayyad-controlled Iberia. Elf magic and dwarf science rewrote Europe.

The year is 1673. In 1492 a Genoan Navigator-Sorceror managed to break the Great Barrier that prevented ships from traveling back to the old lands of the empires. Now, the United Kingdoms of Britain and France (also known as the Royaume-Uni de France et Grande-Bretagne) duels with the Emirate of Al-Andalus to resettle and loot the remains of the lost cities.

But much has changed! Now strange lizard men roam the jungles, riding monstrous beasts and loosing trained attack lizards that are faster than a horse on their enemies. Strange ruins are found that don't appear on any map. And the islands of the Sea of Storms are thick with pirates of every nation. One thing that terrifies everyone is every attempt to settle the northern continent has failed. All expeditions have vanished. Some say that whatever the Elves summoned so long ago is still there, and it is hungry. . .

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More inspiration from ibn Battuta

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 20:39:48 GMT

As always, I read history mostly for education, but with one eye on things I can steal for my gaming and fiction settings. The travels of ibn Battuta have been a goldmine for both.

But this one comes from when Battuta was in what is now Souther Iran, near the city of Shiraz. Hus guides tell him that the wastes they were covering were unpassable for two months in the summer, as the winds blow so hot that anyone who braved them would die, and that if a man's friends tried to wash his body for burial, it would simply fall apart.

I did a little fact-checking, and that part of southern Persia does get seasonal hot, dry windstorms, similar to the Santa Ana winds here in California. Dangerous, yes, but not as deadly as reported. Unless we put the winds in a fantastic setting. . .

Pick a stretch of blasted desert in your campaign world. As I tend to use a fantasy version of Europe and North Africa, I'll use the Sahara. Now, in my setting, there was a great Dwarf Empire that stretched across most of North Africa when it was still grasslands. Human clients or slaves worked the land, and the dwarfs protected them from their mountain redoubts.

One of the greatest dangers facing the empire was the periodic appearances by the demon lord Yeenougu, who was able to somehow manifest himself in central Africa at least six times in recorded history. The Visitations, as the records call them, resulted in Yeenougu creating vast mobs of gnolls and hyenas which he would send on invasions of the fertile Sahara lands.

During the Fourth Visitation, a team of human and dwarf wizards combined in a magical ritual designed to destroy the approaching horde and the demon lord himself. They created a huge firestorm that raged for weeks, destroy the gnolls, and banishing Yeenogu. But they miscalculated the power they were harnessing and were unable to fully dismiss the storm. Now, every summer, when the winds begin to blow hot wise beings run for their lives.

Because what begins as hot winds will soon develop into raging gales, and wind-blown dust will give way to burning ember and sheets of flame. Being from the Pillar of Fire appear, and rage uncontrolled. At their peak, the fire winds consume everything, leaving not ever ash, just scorched rock. Then the winds and fires die down, and in a few weeks, they are gone for the next year.

Sounds good, right? Let's make it better!

The dwarfs, knowing that Yeenougu was not the only threat from the mysterious South, built lines of forts along their southern borders. Knowing that even with the fire winds, the borders still needed to be guarded, they built tunnels between the forts and turned them into storehouses, deep wells, and barracks. The only entrances are in the now ruined forts and require special keys to enter. . . unless you are in the fort when the fire winds start to blow, in which case they will open for any dwarf.

So you have a linear dungeon that is at least a hundred miles long, a Maginot Line of forgotten chambers. Who knows what the dwarfs left behind, and who knows what has crept in?

Now, placing this wonder. . . looking at the Sahara, I think the Tanezrouft works well. It's utter dry, desolate, and no one dares live there.

This is why I love worldbuilding. Three lines in the journals of a 14th-century traveler have created not just a place of danger, but a place of mystery that has a reason to be there!

Oh, and those wizards? They did this working in around 4200 BCE. Their magic caused the desertification of the Sahara and hastened the fall of the dwarf empire.

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History is great. Steal from it!

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 23:19:09 GMT

I've really been enjoying The Travels of Ibn Battúta. As this is a travelogue dictated from memory of a journey that lasted nearly thirty years, he does make mistakes and confuses the timing of some of his side trips, but it is an amazing read.

One thing stood out to me as great window dressing for an RGP setting or a story. At the time of Ibn Battúta's travels, the cult of the "12th Iman" was extremely strong in Shi'ite areas of the Persian Empire. In the city of Shiraz, Ibn Battúta observed a curious custom. Every night, the men of the city would go into the streets armed for battle. They would march to the governor's house and demand a horse or mule equipped with saddle and tack.

Then, horns blaring, drums pounding, the men singing and waving their swords, they would proceed to the main mosque. This was a mosque where a well-regarded Iman supposedly vanished years before. The men would come to the mosque, and start to chant for the 12th Iman to come forth and help them rid the land of evil and inequity. This would last until the call for evening prayer.

Now put this in a fantasy setting. Imagine such a scene in a RuneQuest game, with Orlanhti warriors calling for a great hero to rise. Can you imagine the spirits that would be drawn to this event? Even if you make an event that only happens on the god's holy days, it still would be a wonderful piece of flavor, and a fun thing for characters of that cult to take part in.

Now imagine that the doors open and the Hero emerges. . .

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I hate darkvision.

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:16:22 GMT

There's a joke that makes its way around TTRPG places every so often.

DM: "The cavern is pitch black, and you. . . "
Player 1: "Darkvision."
Player 2: "Darkvision."
Player 3: "Darkvision."
Player 4: "Darkvision."

The simple fact is that in D&D5e nearly every playable race has fucking darkvision. Dwarfs, elves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings all have darkvision. Humans, Dragonborn, and halflings are the poor critters that can't see in the dark. As a Dungeon Master, it's frustrating, and to me, sloppy design to eliminate the need for torches or lanterns.

Let's face it, of that list only dwarfs and gnomes are really good candidates for having darkvision, and I'm being generous. The justification for some of the other species having this trait makes me laugh. Elves are used to living in dim forests? I was an infantryman, I learned to use all my senses to navigate the woods at night.

What follows are a few house rules I'm considering.

Dwarfs still have darkvision, they thrive underground and even though their halls are well lit, they can operate in near-total darkness.

Elves lose darkvision but gain exceptional sight and hearing. They get an advantage on Perception checks and can see much farther than most.

Gnomes have enough advantages already, so I'm taking darkvision and giving them a +1 to any characteristic at generation.

Half-elves get the same benefit as the elves.

Half-orcs lose darkvision but gain a +2 to both STR and CON.

Tieflings keep the trait.

I'm just doing my part to make the adventuring world a bit darker.

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Who are all you people? (Book of the Righteous Project)

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 20:47:45 GMT

I'm finally going to get a start on my project of integrating the larger D&D multiverse into the amazing The Book of the Righteous (BotR) from Green Ronin. In case you missed my previous posts on BotR, it is a complete pantheon of gods and a full cosmological structure. It includes a Great Church that encompasses the worship of all the gods (something missing in other setting religions) as well as heresies, divine and infernal critters, and rules for playing fully-fleshed out clerics. It seriously is one of the best books I've ever bought for D&D.

But there is an issue when it comes to applying BotR to a game setting. BotR gives the origin of several races. Dragons were born out of Kador's fire in the Great War of the Gods. Elves and the Fey are descendants of the Div, the first race to inhabit the world, as are all the genies. Four races were born of fruits hanging from Eliwyn, the Tree of Life: gnomes, dwarfs, halflings, and humans. And that's it. No mention of orcs, giants, or any of the hosts of intelligent species you can find in the Monster Manual or other supplements.

The easiest thing to do is to just insert these species without comment. I seriously doubt any player is going to stop a game session to inquire about the theological implications of the Kuo-toa or to inquire about the creation of the hobgoblins. But I'm the kind of guy who wants to fill in the blanks, and I want to do it in a way that respects the tight pantheon and story structure of the BotR.

The first step is editing. Foes are like seasoning, adding too many spices ruins the experience. Look at the whole span of J.R.R. Tolkein's works and count the actual monster types in them. The count is pretty low. He created amazing works with goblins, orcs, Uruk-hai, giant spiders, a dragon here and there, and a few unique foes like the balrog. This is an important rule: just because it is in an official publication doesn't mean you have to use it. Take for example the Bullywug (MM p35). While an aggressive humanoid frog is interesting, it doesn't fit in my Fantastic Europe setting, so I can ignore it. Dungeon Masters should always strive to avoid the "kitchen sink" approach to foes.

But that still leaves us with any number of classic foes that lie outside the creation stories of the BotR. I'm going to use a shortcut to handle a whole lot of them right now. Most of the monsters classified as humanoid share an origin with humans. Go back to when Eliwyn bore the fruit containing the four Peoples of the Tree. Each fruit has a just-so story explaining why each race is the way it is. For humans, the chaotic goddess of madness and inspiration, Zheenkeef ate the fruit, and it made her quite ill. Morwyn, the goddess of healing, make Zheenkeef vomit up her stomach contents, and all the gods put together what they found there.

No one said being a god was an easy job. This story is used to explain why humans can look so different, but let's take it a step further. Zheenkeef's puke also accounts for many of the humanoid foes, especially the goblin types, the goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins. I have plans for the orcs and kobolds, so I'm excluding them.

Finally, as I embark on this, I want to state a few goals. I want to make as few changes to the existing BotR story as possible;e. I'm not going to layer on new gods. Instead, I'm going to use things like existing gods having different names, demi-gods in service of the true gods, intercessory figures, and the like. I want to keep BotR as the primary source and to create some moral quandaries. That Hobgoblin army is made up of children of the Tree, just like your forces, In the eyes of the Great Church, do elves, being descendants of the Div, have souls? I'll be playing with these themes.

First up, by popular request. . . An ancient act of cowardice being paid for today. The dragons in your basement, the cursed of Tiamat, the kobolds.

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There and back. . . no, wait! Let's go there next!

Tue, 11 May 2021 21:22:36 GMT

One of the toughest questions in assembling a TTRPG group has to be "why are you all working together?" The usual random assortment of races (some of which hate each other,) classes and goals can make it hard to understand why this team doesn't just split the spoils and got their own way after the first big score.

I'm going to discuss one of my favorite methods, and I was inspired to do this after being reminded of the story of ibn Battuta, a 14th-century scholar and lawyer from Tangiers who set out to spend a year or two doing the Hajj and came home 26 years later having seen much of the world. You can see an amusing take on his adventures in these videos. The idea of the traveler in distant lands isn't a new one, we do have Marco Polo and Pánfilo de Narváez as excellent examples of this sort of adventure.

But it rarely shows up in TTRPGs for some reason. This is a shame because you can have so much fun and take the player-characters to new lands where new and interesting things will try to eat them! Or enslave them or get them involved in a plot to overthrow the evil snake people. . . you get my drift.

I'll admit that his sort of game does require a bit more world-building than mapping out yet another dungeon, but there are so many good, detailed settings, not to mention the real world, that the diligent GM just needs to fill in the blanks on the map. Pick a starting point, pick the initial endpoint, and add in a few side trips and you're off!

As an example, using the real world, let's say one player, a low-level cleric in Aachen, is charged with carrying a case of letters from the Archbishop to a church synod happening in Constantinople. This is when Session Zero becomes very important. We need to add each character to this group and give them a reason to join the trek all the way to the end. A fighter might be attached to the Archbishop's guard and be sent as protection. A ranger might be hired to scout the way. An arcane magic use might be friends or related to one of the established characters, you see how this is going.

The best part is you can use these character motivations to establish side trips along the way. The Wizard might offer her services in exchange for a side trip to Prague, City of Mages, so she can call on her order's home and make a report. Which becomes an adventure in itself! You can do this for each character, which gives each of their players starring roles as you go along.

What happens when the party finally reaches Constantinople and delivers the goods? Well, after some adventures in the Queen of Cities where they foil a plot to kill everyone at the synod, they might learn that the Princes of Rajputana are offering money, titles, and land to anyone who comes to help them finally end the threat of the Rakshasa Lords.

Of course, once they accomplish that, they'll be shown an opportunity to travel even further in pursuit of a greater goal, and so on.

Running this game almost cries out for a flow chart, as you can use it to track not only each stage of each journey but also those lovely side trips that are going to be half the fun. Using a flowchart lets you plan for how to move the party back on track, and how to maneuver them into places you need them to be without railroading them. If the next major waypoint is the City of Screaming Statues, does it matter if they walk in, arrive in a stolen pirate ship, or emerge from a cave after sacking the Derrow stronghold?

You can also build in something that is very important: stumbling blocks. All three of the great voyagers I mentioned gained and lost as they traveled. That needs to happen to the party. They are shipwrecked, and all their armor and ger except for a few precious items are lost. The Mad ilKhan imprisons them, and they escape with nothing but the clothes on their backs and few spears. Steal their money, steal their goodies, and leave them to figure out a way to climb back on top again.

Also plan for the players to pause for a time, especially if they get good jobs. The DMG has good rules for this, but wintering in a fortified inn, or waiting out a religious festival are other reasons to slow them down if need. Illness, war, and insurrection are always good, especially if they trigger an uprising against foreigners (guess who our characters are in this instance?)

Finally, one great strength of this type of game, is it allows players and characters to come and go with relative ease to the ongoing story. If Mike is tired of playing his Rogue, that character announcing he's from the city they are in and retires. Easy enough to introduce a new character in the next stop on the itinerary.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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All Power to the Workers! A plan for a constructive Cyberpunk campaign

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 20:54:38 GMT

There were two recent discussions on the Facebook group for Cyberpunk: RED (CP:R) that got me thinking about a campaign framework that is constructive in nature.

The first was about the murder hobo problem. If you're not familiar with the term, "murder hoboes" refers to the style of campaign where the characters go from place to place, kill opponents, take their stuff, and move on. This style of game traces its origins to the classic dungeon crawls of Du geons & Dragons, which itself was heavily influenced by D&D's background as a miniature wargame.

Sadly, this style of play has become common, no matter the genre. In a dystopian setting like CP:R it manifests as endless runs against corporate targets that are basically dungeon crawls with guns and netrunning. While combat is a fun part of any game and triumphing over foes is satisfying, endless killing gets old after a while.

Another factor against a murder hobo game is the reality of how societies work. Even in a crapsack work like you find in CP:R, a bunch of casual killers are going to attract attention and be hunted down. Look at the classic "Wild West" era (c. 1870 - 1900) and you'll see that that the famous gunfighters were hunted down and killed or forced to flee. So in any genre, the murder hoboes will find themselves with no place to rest as the world turns against them.

The second discussion was CP:R as a sandbox game. This concept is closely tied to building a better world. In a sandbox game, the characters work in a well-defined area; a neighborhood, a city, a newly cleared province, and work to improve it. D&D has taken a few steps into this kind of campaign, and Traveller: The New Era was supposed to be this kind of thing, but sadly got sucked into the Star Vikings murder hoboes trope.

Cyberpunk: RED is uniquely set for this kind of game. The default setting has already established that people are rebuilding. Reclaimers are resettling cities abandoned during the worst of the hard times, Nomad families are re-establishing highway, rail, and limited sea trade. The world economy is stabilizing. It is a time of change.

This is where the concept of a politically-based campaign comes in. Despite the advances, the default controlling authority is a corporate oligarchy. Despite the fall of the megacorps, Corporate players still control local government to a large extent in a case of raw capitalism run wild. The fact that corporations like Consolidated Foods field military forces to destroy local farms is proof enough of that.

As I pointed out above, people want security. They want shelter, clean food and water, and not to be afraid. The current situation is much like what we see in modern India. A select elite lives in well-protected luxury and work in gleaming city centers, a small desperate middle class clings to the ragged edge of financial and food insecurity, while a large disposed underclass lives in the ravaged suburbs and warrens of the city.

In the Time of the Red farming is a revolutionary act.

The collapse of the last forty years (game time) didn't happen overnight. People would have time to rip up their flower beds and plant food. Neighborhoods would band together. And as they saw society disintegrate around them, they would start organizing against the corporate and civil elite that keeps them poor. It starts with community farms and guarding them against raids by booster gangs and corporate troops.

In the Time of the Red organizing labor is a revolutionary act.

Like the slums of Mumbai, these outskirts will see a thousand cottage industries bloom. They would band together in guild structures to fend off corporate interference. In my San Francisco setting, the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been rebuilt and is a thriving co-op building and repairing coastal freighters. Which has led to the south-eat corn of San Francisco becoming a hive of small industry. Each shop is more a family than a business, a commune if you will.

In the Time of the Red education is a revolutionary act.

With state-run schools vanishing decades ago, teaching has fallen to the communities. The big corps don't want well-read workers. Free schools are frequent targets of attacks. The communities have to join together to not only run but defend their schools.

The Time of the Red is a time of revolution.

This brings us to the campaign. The People and Workers Front of California has emerged as the organized political opposition to the ruling oligarchy. They educate, organize, and preach a socialist state with a distributed democratic base. With almost everyone having access to the local Datapool, everyone should have a voice. They are working with the Reclaimers to settle the homeless, working with Nomad families to begin moving goods to the people instead of the plutocrats. Like any revolutionary group, they work in cells so no one cell can give up the entire network.

For more direct action, the PWFC has the Peoples' Army of California, also known as the Bear Flag Army. This is where the player-characters come in. They are a PAC cell. They get missions in dead drops, taped X's in windows, all the usual methods of confidential communication. While some of the missions will be capers in the traditional sense, some might involve espionage, escort an important party leader, or flat-out assassination.

This campaign works because it has a clear long-term goal: power to the people! But the road is bumpy and filled with dangers. There will be rival movements, ethical dilemmas, and the possibility that one member of the cell is a plant. But having a goal to build to not only gives each mission meaning but also gives a nice endpoint for the game. You've toppled the ruling power structure. You've won.

This style of game would work with all the character roles in CP:R except the Exec, it would be a reach for a corporate climber to be working for the revolution. Also, the Lawmen would be PWFC cops, enforcing not only whatever laws exist in party-controlled areas, but also enforcing party ideology.

I'm interested in any feedback.

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Chinese got a lot of Hells.

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 22:56:03 GMT

Today's research for the SFBA:RED project, reading the history of San Francisco's Tongs, the Chinese organized crime groups that grew up with the city. It's a fascinating topic.

The tongs are classical minority crime groups. Part local support structure for the Chinese, part business people, part criminal enterprise. The youth gangs in Chinatown would compete for the tongs' favor by doing the dirty work for them. This includes the infamous Golden Dragon massacre.

I think I'll recreate Rose Pak, a local legend who ran the political machine in Chinatown for many years, right up to her death in 2016. She's the perfect tong boss, aloof from the actual crimes, but has a hand in everything. She'll make a great long-term foe. . . or ally.

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San Francisco in the Time of the Red

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 21:30:16 GMT

One of my focuses in doing the SFBA:RED thing is to make San Francisco noir again. The wharves are revitalized as shipping goes back to smaller cargo ships. The general SOMA area is a maze of bars, tiny shops, and sailors hostels. The streets are clogged by food carts and bar runners. Sailors from around the Pacific Rim rub shoulders with longshoremen and slumming Execs.

Most of the Sunset and Richmond are combat zones. In the inner sunset and Richmond massive defensible hives have grown up, called Kowloons by the locals. They house the lower class workers who ride downtown on the over-stuffed N train every morning to their menial jobs.

Chinatown has become a foreign territory, controlled by the Tongs who rule the smuggling trade. The Finacial District is revitalized with an influx of NewCorps challenging the last few Megacorps.

Yeah, I've got a lot of writing to do.

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The Stuff that dreams (and good scenarios) are made of.

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 02:07:44 GMT

I had an evil thought today while doing notes for my Cyberpunk RED Bay Area setting. One of the standards of the established setting is that large container ships are a thing of the past due to economic collapse and world instability. Sea trade has gone back to smaller freighters carrying crates and bales of goods.

In my setting, the quake that destroyed Los Angeles (Learn to swim!) set off a sympathetic quake on the Hayward fault that devastated Oakland and leveled the Port of Oakland. This has led to a renaissance of the San Francisco waterfront as smaller vessels working the Pacific Rim come to one of the last three deepwater harbors on the west coast. I'm having fun with having the long-derelict Hunters Point Naval Shipyard roar back to life, controlled by a co-op that has transformed the Bayview-Hunters Point area into a thriving industrial area filled with vehicle shops and support industries.

Most of the cargo work would be at the even-numbered piers which would make SOMA (South of Market Area), China Basin, Dogpatch, and other areas close by the piers a bustling port area, filled with sailors (aka sea-going Nomads in game terms) from around the Rim and beyond. Seedy bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and houses of ill-repute would fight for space with ship chandlers and tech shops.

Of course, sailors and longshoremen work mainly during the day, so the place really comes alive at night, so most people call it. . .

. . . please. If you ever even touched a Cyberpunk RPG, you know what they call it.

But the evil idea. San Francisco is once again a crossroads for the world. The characters are approached by a woman searching for her missing sister, who has been linked to a notorious booster gang boss. She needs the party's help, and she can pay!

Almost everyone reading this will recognize this as the opening to The Maltese Falcon. Done right, it could be a fun set of scenarios.

I like how my brain works.

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For a change, I love the game, but hate the setting.

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 22:50:56 GMT

I've been reading Cyberpunk: RED, the latest version of the groundbreaking RPG. By the way, according to the second edition of the game, we should be living in a cyber-enhanced dystopia right this minute. We got the dystopia, where's my cyber eyes and chipped smartgun?

Anyway, this new version is awesome, taking everything learned from the earlier editions as well as thirty years of RPG evolution. The combat rules, Friday Night Firefight, is as deadly as ever. Guns kill, OK? This is a combat system that rewards sound tactical planning.

But there's one thing. The default setting. I love the history, the larger-scale world-building. It's a great setting that really sets the theme of soaring technological achievement amid global chaos. But there's one sore point.

Night City. I hate it.

First of all, it's supposedly built in the Morro Bay area. That is hell and gone from anything in this state. Even giving the idea that Los Angeles had been devastated by a massive earthquake (learn to swim!) building a massive new city on landfill, no less, when the SF Bay Area is sitting right there makes no sense! As we all learned in 1989, landfill liquifies in big quakes!

So if I run a game, there will be a few changes. "Night City" becomes the San Francisco Bay Neutral Commerce Zone. Commonly just called the NCZ, or Night City by edgerunners. The Arasaka Tower nuke was in Oakland. Biotech firms still dominate Oyster Point in South San Francisco, and the little boxes of Daly City have been swallowed by fog-shrouded corporate megabloc apartments. Atherton and Hillsborough are walled enclaves for the elite. With the loss of the global internet, Silicon Valley has become a ghost town and the place to go for black-market tech.

With the Port of Oakland devastated, San Francisco has once again become a maritime city. What sea trade stills moves comes here. The new Emperor Norton Bridge has a rail deck. Corporate towers have jumped Van Ness and moved into Hayes Valley, but the City by the Bay is still home to rockers, revolutionaries, and rejects. Block by block, apartment blocks are replacing homes in the Sunset.

Marin is a mix of walled towns and deserted subdivisions. Wester Contra Costa county survives as a bedroom ci=omunity, sending those able to afford life outside the corporate stacks into the city on maglev trains. Eastern Contra Costa is home to small farmers who defy the corps and raise food for themselves to sell at exorbitant prices to executive dining rooms. They get some protection for this.

The Tri-Valley area is mostly deserted, except the ultra-exclusive and heavily defending Blackhawk township. Rumors that the workers are kept as chipped slaves abound. Lawerence Livermore National Labs, now run by the Cascadian government, is armored like a fort. The guards shoot to kill at 500 meters.

So, any comments? I can just picture 'runners squatting in the Oakland Exclusionary Zone, riding into SF to meet a Fixer in the neon nightmare of SOMA, and trying to plan an extraction from a Hillsborough mansion.

That's the nice thing about doing this. I know the area, so I can make it live. Hell, I imagine Santa Cruz hasn't changed much, except for the drugs of choice. Can you imagine running into a Lost Boys Poser Gang at the Boardwalk?

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As usual, I am inspired by history.

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 22:15:45 GMT

It is the distant future. Humanity spread to the stars, founded a glorious empire, and long ago that Emire fractured. Now, the Successor State squabble and fight border wars, while Earth has become a backwater. People make quasi-religious pilgrimages there, but it's not really that important.

Four centuries ago, a rapidly expanding alien empire took Sol almost without a shot. As they allowed travel and trade to continue unimpeded, no one really cared. Life went on. But in the last twenty years, things have changed.

A new faction has emerged, preaching a New Empire of Man, and regaining Earth is a matter of manifest destiny! Seeing the opportunity to gain more territory, and possibly claim the new Terran Throne, the Successor States are mobilizing for war! But they still don't trust each other.

In case you don't recognize it, this is the start of the First Crusade in 1096 set in shiny space opera. Plenty of space (no pun intended) for different governments, epic personalities, strange tech, and an alien menace more concerned with trade and spreading their faith/philosophy than fighting, but they are more than capable as warriors.

I've dedicated the rest of this year to working on my long-neglected novel Sideways Solutions, but this might be an idea I play with.

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One article, two game ideas!

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 19:50:52 GMT

This Gothic castle wasn't near water, wasn’t strategically important, and had no one living in it. So why was it built? According to legend, the answer was the only other logical option: to trap demons.

For Ars Magica, move the construction back to the 10th century and you have a tailor-made abandoned House Tytalus Covenant. Everyone says the portal was sealed, and that the old Covenant should be revitalized. . . but are they right?

For more rational FRPGs, the portal isn't to Hell, but an unusually large and shallow entrance to the Underdark. The fort was abandoned after decades of inactivity, but now it appears that something has taken over the old keep and is growing in power.

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In which I get all pulpy.

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 21:11:34 GMT

I'd love to either run or play in an RPG campaign that starts with a shipwreck. The characters have whatever the can salvage and have no idea where they are.

The nice thing about this is the campaign push and pull are really clear from the start. Find a way back home, and survive. You can throw in all the classic Lost World tropes. Dinosaurs (ridden by lizardmen, natch,) lost cities from fallen empires, noble savages (mortal enemies of the lizardmen, of course) Sorceror Kings, and a slowly advancing menace that must be stopped!

And volcanoes. Gotta have volcanoes. Where else is the female PC going to be threatened with a sacrifice to the local gods?

This would probably work best with a smaller group and a low level of magic. Too much magic makes escaping easy. Of course, I could always have made the storm a magical one, and the Lost World is in the Bermuda Triangle or whatever.

This would be perfect for Savage Worlds; if I could just get anyone to play it!

Plenty of inspiration, of course. Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and all its adaptations, "Lost," "Land of the Lost," and the entire run of DC's Warlord. Hey, the Hollow Earth is always good for this!

So, a game set in the early 30s or roaring twenties, a crew of strong-jawed stereotypes, a Lost World, and an evil sorcerer-king to overthrow.

A great Golden Age SF/F pulp adventure!

So, what era stereotypes need to be in the game?

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A great campaign idea from an Avatar song.

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 19:04:57 GMT

In 2018 Avatar released its seventh studio album Avatar Country, a sort of concept album about a mythical heavy metal nation. A companion film was recently released, chronicling the was between Avatar Country and an evil nation dedicated to Electronic Dance Music.

You really should watch it, it's fun. But be sure to watch the video for A Statue of the King immediately after, as it should have been the ending of the movie.

But enough about that. There's one song on the album, King After King that struck me as a great basis for a fantasy RPG campaign. Let's look at the lyrics, shall we?

The last spoken will of a warrior King:
"Bury me next to my soldiers
Set my horse free and let people sing
Of their son with the world on his shoulders
Then look to the mountains
I left my grave wide open."
Eyes fixed on the mountains
"I was buried at dusk, at dawn I'll return."

Here it comes
Death undone
King after King

From this tomb we shall build you a throne
In your name we shall sing
Light your torch, let the flames lead you home
Long live the King!

OK, a great start. a heroic warrior king is struck down and tells his followers that he will return at dawn. Let's take some license with that. After all, a king who comes back after a good night's rest isn't much of a legend.

The heart of a King can be measured in dreams
Reaching the sleep of his people
A whisper of ghost saying we'll be redeemed
From our sins he will build us a castle
One day we'll be stronger, we will ride right beside you
Until we are stronger, we put stone upon stone
Await your return

Here we go! The dead king is reaching out, calling his people to . . . build? Fight on? The call to grow stronger so that when the king returns his people will ride beside him.

The longing for sun and a heartbreak undone
Breaking the back of false idols
Bring our King home, for among us are none
Who is worthy to be his disciple
Out there in the wasteland, there's something coming for us
A call from the wasteland:
He was buried at dusk, at dawn he returns

There it is. The King fell battling a menace, and since his death, the sun has vanished and the world is a wasteland. And something is coming. We need to find out how to bring the King back, for he is the child of the Sun God, and since the other gods have fled (the "breaking the back of false idols" line)the world needs heroes to step up, face the threat, and brave death itself to bring back the King and bring the dawn!

I could write this up as a full level 1-20 campaign, starting with defending a city, then scouting and fighting the enemy, to greater quests for information and artifacts, and finally, awakening the Sun King and saving the world!

This would be like the old Dark Sun campaign setting; a dim star burning like a coal, widespread food shortages, gold is no longer worth much. Also, there would be severe restrictions on clerics in the beginning. Probably no more than 5th level until quests have been completed to begin bringing on the dawn.

I have time, I might start doodling this up.

Glory to our king
Our lord
The master of steel
Glory to our knight in shining armor
Long live our king
My lord
We raise our swords
The legend has come true
You've come to save us

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The Starpower State – A Reexamination of Traveller’s Third Imperium, Part I

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 19:58:57 GMT

I. Introduction

In 1977 Traveller was released by Game Designers’ Workshop, and the world of role-playing games changed. Traveller was the first real science-fiction game, and one of the first to introduce detailed character backstories through the character generation process. Traveller characters weren’t callow youths, but experienced professionals.

And, of course, you could die during the character creation process. It’s a tough galaxy.

What Traveller lacked, initially, was an official setting. This wasn’t uncommon, as it was expected that groups would create their own campaigns using the rules as a framework. But the gamers of the day wanted official campaigns and settings. So we got places like Blackmoor and Greyhawk, Glorantha and Tékumel, all epic worlds for fantasy adventures. Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) handled things differently.

The first mention of an established empire in Traveller came in Book 4: Mercenary, which was released in 1978. The book states that Traveller assumes that there is a distant central government, the Imperium, that due to travel times and the vast area it controls, has little influence on the frontiers. As Marc Miller has stated that the idea was to create a Roman Empire feel, this image of the Imperium gave you the idea that games would be played in the interstellar equivalent of Gaul or Palestine.

The problem is that nature and gamers abhor vacuums. We demanded more details, and, with the rise of the internet, began to create more and more stuff to fill out this vague distant government. What became an issue was that most of these writers, fan and professional, were living in western federal states, with a strong central government that handles almost every aspect of government. The writers, knowing almost no other way to govern, began inventing Imperial ministries and departments. There were multiple variations on Imperium-wide law enforcement and court systems.

A great deal of this was caused not just by our reliance on centralized government in our own lives, but on a catastrophic failure to understand the consequences of information moving only at the speed of travel. We are all used to living on a globe where information and communication moves almost instantly. I could, right now, check the current weather in Istanbul, a city some 9,000 miles away. (46 degrees, but a little windy.)

It is impossible to overstate the consequences of Traveller’s “jump takes one week” rule on how an interstellar government would work. Even in a subsector, news of a crisis might take weeks to reach the nearest naval base of subsector capital, and weeks for help to arrive. Informing the Throne? Months. Just to get word of a crisis on the edges of the realm, even with high-jump couriers on stand-by, the core worlds will never have a handle on what is happening in the Imperium except on the largest of scales.

With that in mind, it is clear that the Imperium has to cede most of the powers of planning and enforcement to the local nobles and to the officers of the Navy. The Emperor simply cannot rule in anything short of plans for the next decade. The Imperium is ruled by the nobles of the realm under the guidance and authority of the Emperor. This is a paradigm shift and needs further explanation.
Last summer I read an amazing book. Seapower States, by Andrew Lambert. It examines those historical states the eschewed traditional land empires in favor of sea power and trade. It’s an incredible book, and I highly recommend it. But in reading it, I was struck by how states like Carthage and Holland resembled the canonical Third Imperium.

• The Imperium contains 11,000 worlds, but actually controls less than a hundred of them.
• The Imperium rules the “space between the stars", rather than worlds directly.
• The Imperium allows its members almost unlimited self-rule.
• Most of the rules the Imperium forces on member worlds enhance trade. (Universal currency, calendar, trade language, etc.,)
• The Imperial Navy is cruiser-heavy, and many of its missions support free trade.

From that reading, and close examination of the canonical writings on the Third Imperium, I have to conclude that, for most of its recent history anyway, the Imperium has been operating as a starpower state, if you will. Cleon Zhunastu saw that the cause of the Long Night, and what killed so many failed states during that era, was the failure of trade. The empire he forged was dedicated to one thing, and I’ve created a quote that sums up his view.

“Without the free flow of trade and ideas, without open markets and open minds, the flame of civilization dies in the darkness.”

The Third Imperium at its heart is a trade federation. Everything it does is to encourage trade. If you look at it that way, you see that there is no need for a large, central bureaucracy. The power structure of the Imperium is not a pyramid, it is a web, with all parts working in tandem.

But there is one final problem. Seapower states universally were run by parliamentary organizations. The Senate of Athens, the Dutch Staten-Generaal, even when there was some sort of hereditary monarch or other executives. I have to conclude that the Imperial Moot is far more than the debating society portrayed in official publications. At some point, the Moot grabbed the reins.

That is a topic for the next essay, which is my slightly modified history of the Imperium, showing how it went from expanding empire to trade federation. After that, I’ll tackle the structure of the Imperial government and the Moot, the role of Imperial Consulates on member worlds, and finally, having written Ground Forces, I’ll take on the Imperial Navy.

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