It’s a classic television trope: the message story (sometimes called the Aesop). But there are some serious problems that you’ll encounter adapting the concept to an RPG adventure. Fortunately, they aren’t insuperable.

The Problems

There are four issues that frequently present themselves in creating message stories:

1. There needs to be a script
2. Players won’t follow the script
3. Players may disagree with the message or dislike message stories generally.
4. Players may dislike the fact that there is a script.

There needs to be a script

In order to convey the message, you need the plot to follow a particular direction. If it doesn’t, the message doesn’t come through. It’s all well and good to have two societies at war because one side is black on the left, and the other, on the right; but if the PCs simply side with one, the message that you hoped to convey falls to earth with a deathly thud.

But that smacks of railroading the game, and that’s never a good thing.

Players won’t follow the script

Even if you avoid that trap – and there are ways of doing so, a couple of which are especially useful in this context, which I’ll cover in the ‘solutions’ part of the article – no plot survives contact with the PCs unscathed.

Sometimes they will be correct in stating that their PCs wouldn’t want to get mixed up in whatever you’re leaving on their doorsteps. Sometimes they will be contrary just because it sounds like fun, or fits their prejudices (the players, not the characters), sometimes because they are ideologically opposed to railroading and anything that smacks of it, and sometimes just to be contrary.

I’ve even seen occasions when the players deliberately chose an unorthodox path through an adventure simply because they thought the GM was getting too confident or cocky.

And sometimes, the PCs will be taken down a different road simply because in trying to hide or avoid a railroading situation, you haven’t given the players enough information to recognize the path forward. A solution that is obvious to you may not be at all obvious to the players when the time comes.

You need a script that not only won’t generate resistance, but which is protected and buffered against willful interference.

Players may disagree with the message or dislike message stories generally

This continues with the themes raised in the previous point. For example, let’s talk for a minute about that black-and-white vs white-and-black conflict that I mentioned a moment ago. This, of course, is a famous allegory from a Star Trek episode (the original series). Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.

Perhaps you want your PCs to encounter a similar situation and discover that the reason for the unique half-and-half appearance is that this was engineered into the race’s genetics a long time ago to end a terrible war between the blacks and whites. The message is that superficial solutions solve nothing, and meaningful solutions require the addressing of the deeper and less obvious real problems, perhaps because you think that the PCs have been employing band-aid solutions while avoiding the real problems that you’ve been putting in front of them.

That’s a legitimate message, both in the campaign meta-context and in broader terms. But there can be alternative perspectives, and counter-arguments, for example “Solve the immediate problem today and worry about the rest tomorrow”, which presumes that those deeper root issues may well be insoluble but that doesn’t matter so long as they are kept from boiling over, one day at a time.

Anyone who subscribes to that more pragmatic approach is likely to object to a plot designed to force-feed a message with which they disagree.

On top of that, some people have problems with message stories in general, because they are perceived as heavy-handed moralizing and tokenistic back-handed support of an important issue.

My earliest awareness of this was discussion of Lt. Uhura’s role in the original Star Trek, where she was perceived by some as a token Black Woman, present to do nothing but signal the diversity of the cast, and by extension, of the future. The problem wasn’t that she was there, it was that they never gave her anything significant to contribute. This almost led to her leaving the show after the second season, but she was persuaded not to be Reverend Martin Luther King. Just ‘being there’ made her a role model and inspiration, something she had not fully appreciated previously.

George Takai has made similar comments about his casting as a token Asian and his efforts to break out of the ‘racial bubble’ that came with it, for example the assumption that his character would know martial arts because he was Asian – instead, he suggested that his character employ fencing for that plot sequence, which created a memorable impression on cast, crew, and audience and broke the stereotype.

A lot of TV shows are very happy to break stereotypes when they think about them by making the stereotype central to the plot, but their support of the issue is only skin deep and makes no lasting change.

The heavy-handedness has manifested in characters being given flaws that have never been observed in their makeup before, for no other reason than conveying the message about those who suffer from that flaw, to cite just one example.

The cumulative weight of bad message shows has been enough for some people to have decided that they simply don’t like message shows – and that same attitude would extend to RPG adventures.

Players may dislike the fact that there is a script.

Again, I’ve telegraphed this item in my previous commentary. Some players hate railroading with a passion, others only mildly loathe it. A few may go along for the sake of the campaign, or because they trust the GMs – under protest.

That’s a prejudicial hump that any message adventure has to surmount, and it’s not always easy to do so.

The Solutions

So, let’s talk about the solutions to these problems. There’s no one magic bullet; instead, there are a group of techniques that, when applied collectively, make the message adventure more palatable.

1. Gift-wrap the message

Most people know to do this, anyway. Don’t address the issue directly, because you may hit on a raw nerve; instead, gift-wrap it in an allegory or a metaphor.

An Allegory is the use of a character, place, or event in a narrative to deliver a message, frequently through employing symbolic representations or personifications.

“The story of the apple falling onto Isaac Newton’s head is another famous allegory. It simplified the idea of gravity by depicting a simple way it was supposedly discovered. It also made the scientific revelation well known by condensing the theory into a short tale.” – an example offered by Wikipedia.

A Metaphor is the indirect referencing of a subject by directly referencing a situation, person, or object that can be seen to have qualities that are representative of the original subject.

From Wikipedia:

One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the “All the world’s a stage” monologue from As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances …
     – William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the behavior of the people within it.



Puppies are cute II
Image by Elena Rogulina from Pixabay

The following web pages may be useful. Allegory:

• What Is Allegory? Types of Allegory in Writing And 5 Tips on Using Allegory in Writing
• Literary Techniques: Allegory
• Save the Allegory!
  (covers the differences between allegory and metaphor)

…and Metaphor:

• Literary Techniques: Metaphor
• 7 Tips For Creating (Poignant) Poetic Metaphors
• What’s the Difference Between Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy?
• How to Use Metaphor to Deepen Characterization

Not all messages are created equal

‘Puppies are cute,’ as a message, won’t elicit the same response as something more controversial. The more intense the feelings or opinions that your story is to engage, the more strongly your players will either agree or disagree. This will color their character choices; I’ve even seen a player quit a campaign because the background required his character to adopt a stance that the player strongly disagreed with. Choose your message with care.

Know your targets

Why are you doing a message story? Who are you trying to communicate the message to?

You should know very clearly why you are presenting this message to the players, and make sure that this purpose stacks up in terms of entertaining them.

• If the goal is to educate them about part of the campaign background, that’s legitimate.
• If the goal is just to educate them, unless you’re a teacher in a classroom setting, that’s NOT an appropriate justification.
• If the goal is to lecture them or convert them to your point of view on something, that’s a LONG way removed from an appropriate justification.

There are legitimate reasons to tell message stories in an RPG every now and then. Make sure that your motivation is one of them.

There is also a subtle but profound difference between pitching a message at the characters and not at the players. If there is only one right answer, if you are forcing the characters to act in a certain way or think a certain way, that generally means that you are pitching your message at the players, because you are dictating the reactions of the characters. If the characters are free to react as they see fit, and all possible reactions are catered for (see below), then what ensues may be a challenge to the players’ roleplaying abilities, but if the story is good and internally coherent, they will find it to be fun, anyway.

Agreeing with your players

If you know that your players have a strong opinion on something, DON’T try to send a contradictory message. We play games for fun, not for social commentary or to be lectured at.

I know I’ve made that point a couple of times already, but it bears repeating. I really want to drive it home. If you take nothing else away from this article, I want this advice to stick.

I should also make the point that pretending to agree with your players when you don’t is much harder than most types of falsehood in an RPG and more likely to generate ill-will than most. They may feel like you are trying to sucker them, telling them what they want to hear.

Searching the soul of the characters

Perhaps the best reason to do a “message” story is because it will force the players to consider their character’s positions on a subject that doesn’t often come up in conversation and that isn’t obviously black and white.

The critical thing is for you to be a completely neutral arbiter in such situations regardless of your personal feelings or opinions. That starts by accepting that the opposite side of the fence on any issue may just have a valid point or two to make. Two past articles at Campaign Mastery address this problem directly:

• The Olympian Perspective: Personal Opinions, Fake News, and the GM

  and, more specifically,

• Lessons From The West Wing V: Bilateral Political Incorrectness for RPGs


Puppies are cute III
Image by Diego Hernando Otálora Barrero from Pixabay

The Binary Script

The Binary script is a plot outline that is written two ways, depending on whether or not the players choose to agree with the message or disagree with the message.

It’s one thing to pitch a problem or moral conundrum at the characters and let them choose how to react. This means that you are couching your message in the form of events or characters within the game world, and not relying on a particular response by the players or characters to deliver your message, or to make it relevant.

You may find this article to be helpful: Rainbows Of Neon Gray: Moral Topology – even though it’s only indirectly relevant.

The Trinary Script

Even better than a Binary Script is a Trinary Script. This adventure structure adds a third option in which the players may choose to consider both options extreme, and seek to chart a middle course or compromise.

This is particularly relevant if it is possible to devise a process that will deliver the deeper reform that your message is advocating in incremental stages, no matter how long they may take; a long term solution but one that will be of little value without dealing with the immediate brush-fire.

The unfinished Script

Don’t pre-script the ending of a message adventure. Script the situation that delivers the message, draft the alternative courses that the plot might then follow (Binary or Trinary scripts), but let the actual outcome be free floating; take things up to the point of a plot twist (there should always be a plot twist!) and let the players have total freedom from that point.

Heavy-handed NPCs

It’s always better to have the players perceive an NPC as a heavy-handed moralizer, especially if they are occasionally in error or flawed, than to have them think that about the GM (you) or your adventure.

A point that I’ve made before is that players will accept all sorts of things if they can point to an NPC who is to blame that they would never tolerate if they seemed to be coming from the GM. That usually requires establishing the NPC in advance, so that whatever antisocial behavior you seek to attribute to him or her or it can be seen as a logical outgrowth of that personality.

Divine Heavy-handedness

A number of my games have contained the presumption that divine might can only be used clumsily because a Deity never needs to learn finesse. Those with finesse, in contrast, tend to have relatively little Divine Might, so they learn to use it as a lever to get what they want.

That doesn’t mean that Thor or Odin are thick as posts; it just means that they tend to be very heavy-handed when they intervene.

If you are going to restrict the courses of action open to your PCs, it’s far better to do it using an NPC established within the campaign for that purpose than to try and do it as the GM.

Too Many Messages Sink The Ship

If you follow the advice given, you should be able to craft the occasional “message” adventure with perfect impunity. More importantly, you should be able to add them to your campaign toolkit, something to be used for the enhancement and betterment and exploration of the campaign by taking the PCs into areas they wouldn’t usually inhabit.

But Message Adventures are like a strong spice; they can easily overwhelm. Too many such stories in too short a time blunts the appetite for more; it’s easy to grow sick of them.

Multiple messages in the same adventure are definitely too many for most players to cope with, even if each is targeted at a different PC.

Used sparingly, Message Adventures can spice up a campaign and take it into rarely-trodden byways; they can be vehicles for atypical levels of action (much more or creating far more introspection); they can be a positive asset to a campaign. But be careful not to over-use them.

Message Ends :)

The Blog Carnival for July 2020 is on the subject of “What Would You Like To Know?“, and is being hosted by Of Dice And Dragons.

I actually find it easier to come up with topics for Carnivals than I do to answer this question. If I had to provide an answer to the question, it would be along the lines of “Information that I can’t easily find elsewhere” – which I don’t consider very satisfactory, as an answer.

In an attempt to discern a more satisfactory answer, I did a bit of navel-gazing on past topics and their relative success, especially those that Campaign Mastery has hosted.

Let’s run through them (links are to the the wrap-up post for each topic, and the number in [square brackets] is the number of entries received, divided into those from outside contributors and those from CM shown after a ‘+’ sign):

• September 2009: “Mistakes – ones you’ve made in the past and how you got past them, ones you’re making now and don’t know how to solve” [6+7]
• June 2010: “What non-game media have most inspired your games and how?” [18+1]
• March 2011: “Life & Death in RPGs” [22+4]
• October 2011: “Making The Loot Part Of The Plot” [37+8+ an extra link in the comments]
• September 2013: “Location! Location! Location!” [18+10]
• December 2014: “With A Twist” [11+6]
• November 2015: “The Unexpected” [6+6]
• November 2016: “Ordinary Life” [8+5]
• November 2017: “The Past Revisited: Pick A Post (your own or someone else’s)” [9+7]
• June 2018: “For the Love of RPGs” (Why do you love GMing?) [5+1]
• March 2019: “Echoes of Yesteryear” [1+1]
• September 2019: Visions Of Exotic Reality” [0+1]

The decline of the Blog Carnival is clear to see from the statistics shown. There were extraordinary reasons for the low turnout in November 2015, so the decline in participation seems to have started in 2018. The changing home location of the carnival would not have helped matters, because not everyone would have received the notification; for a long time, before Scot over at Of Dice And Dragons put his hand up, it looked like the whole thing was going to fold. 2010-2014 seemed to be the highlight years.

Two things seemed to do really well back in the early days: subjects upon which people were opinionated, and subjects that provided drop-in content that people could employ in their own campaigns.

I always try to include at least one article on the subject with the anchor post. As you can see, that was the only contribution to the most recent blog carnival hosted here. The question that lingers is whether that was due to external factors or is the result of the topic I chose.

The challenge that it posed was “Describe a scene observed around you as it’s equivalent somewhere or somewhen else, ready to be dropped into a campaign.” – explicitly an attempt to capture drop-in content, the second of those “popular” categories that I noted above.

Analyzing the site traffic for the week in question shows NO traffic heading for a specific page (which is where potential participants would have been led), with a fairly normal level of traffic to the site overall. So it doesn’t seem to have been a problem with contributors deciding that the topic was too hard; rather, a shortage of contributors interested in the blog carnival at all.

For comparison, I opened up a couple of more recent Carnival – “Are We There Yet”, hosted by Fitz at Moebius Adventures was the first. He seemed to get a grand total of four contributions (for the record, I started an entry and didn’t get it finished in time – but I haven’t thrown it away, and will eventually finish it). Last Month’s Carnival, provided by The Expanding Frontier was on “Organizations” and received a grand total of 3 entries plus two from the host.

Hardly earthshaking numbers, and far removed from those experienced in the heyday of the Carnival.

It’s my impression that too few bloggers are reading each other’s content these days. I used to be grateful for the bloggers who aggregated and reviewed blog content each month; not only did I often gain insight into the subjects that I had written about, and site traffic, but often discovered other articles of interest. There have been several of these over the years, but they seemed to have been killed or died out, one by one.

Perhaps the rise of podcasts and video-blogs is part of the problem. With a web page, it’s easy to link to something, or to skip to a specific paragraph; that’s a lot harder with a podcast, you have to make your own notes. Sure, the result is more immediate, but it’s also more ephemeral and short-lived. And it means that there are fewer people writing blogs out there. As for including a link to someone else’s content, there are obvious problems! By definition, then, these are insular and less community-oriented.

Another issue that has undoubtedly had an impact is the fragmentation of the RPG community. Social scandals and a seeming unwillingness to make an effort to repurpose content to your own setting or game system have caused a number of GMs to become more insular, interested in content that’s directly relevant to them and not so much anything that isn’t. This contrasts sharply with the way RPGs were, as recently as a decade ago. Many people no longer see RPGs as a wider community, they see RPGs as a collection or assemblage of smaller, more isolated communities.

You have to wonder about the impact of Covid-19, too. On the one hand, being stuck at home would give bloggers more time to write, with fewer outside distractions; on the other, not only are there fewer active games taking place due to restrictions on social gatherings, and hence less inspiration (and less need), but there’s also the problem of screen overload – simply put, if people are working at home by computer all day, they are less inclined to using that same device for their recreation.

Nevertheless, I remain convinced that the right topic will reawaken the sleeping beast. With that in mind, I thought that a quick analysis of the different types of subject that could be chosen might lead back to an answer to the original question posed.

A continuum from specific to general

Topics can range from the very specific to the very broad and general. The more specific a topic is, the more it will attract bloggers who find that subject to be relevant to their gaming. The more general, a subject, the broader the umbrella that it offers for contributions, but the less motivational it is.

In olden days, the broader and more general a topic within the Blog Carnival, the more responses you got. I’m not sure that’s still the case. The last three carnivals hosted here at Campaign Mastery, and both of the recent carnivals that I checked out earlier could be considered quite broad.

What’s the alternative, though? A subject that appeals to a small niche group may be more likely to attract contributions from those who are part of that niche (if they even know that the blog carnival exists), but those contributions are less likely to be of any interest to anyone outside that niche. And every blogger seeks to write to their audience, whether they realize it or not, intentionally or otherwise. So this would seem to be a dead-end.

But it does raise an issue that is directly related to this month’s topic, and to my whole analysis: is the number of contributions a valid metric of the success or failure of a subject? Should the question be what the Blog Authors would like to read more of, or what subjects would most interest their readers?

There’s an assumption that we all make, that the two are one and the same. Sometimes, it’s correct. But it should be borne in mind, for those times when it is not.

To some extent, this is diffused by frequency of posts and breadth of readership. When Campaign Mastery could publish twice a week, I had more than twice as many readers as I typically do now. That meant that a subject could appeal to a specific subgroup of readers and the rest would probably be served by the second post of the week. For any given subject, there were enough readers to make it a viable subject. I have to choose my subjects more judiciously now.

Courting Controversy

GMs are an opinionated lot – we have to be, because part of the skill-set is the ability to appraise situations and formulate a response quickly. There are certain subjects that everyone has an opinion on, and these hot-button topics would probably generate a lot of submissions – and each would generate a lot of controversy. The current hot-button is racism in RPGs; before that it was Sexism in the RPG industry. Making either of those the subjects would undoubtedly attract a lot of content – but it would be very polarizing, and divisive, and – in the long run – I’m not convinced that these would be healthy subjects for the carnival. They are too reminiscent of the Edition Wars.

Nevertheless, there is a touchstone there – a good topic should call on bloggers to crystallize their thinking on a ubiquitous subject, and should be something on which everyone has an opinion. What is to be avoided are topics which are unduly polarizing, in which disagreement with whatever is posted leads to judgments of the author.

Seasonal Topics

At least 7 of the last 8 October blog carnivals have been related themed around Halloween. as though that were the only thing that happened that month. The problem is that most bloggers have only so many articles that fall under that umbrella, and once they’ve been written, that author is no longer a contributor to that carnival. If there was always fresh blood arriving in the parent organization, that’s all right; fresh blood brings new ideas, after all.

If you have a new slant to offer, a seasonal topic can be a great idea. But seasonal topics require a bit more effort than other topics, or you will end up with people simply rolling their eyes and saying “not again” to themselves.

The Communication of Knowledge

Something that rarely seems to arise in the Blog Carnival are factually-oriented subjects. In fact, they seem to be rare in RPG blogging, generally. Yet, these are subjects that would be of use to a lot of GMs out there. What do you know about that I don’t, and how would that knowledge be useful in representing characters who know about the subject in an RPG? It could be leather-working, or how armor is fitted, or the basics of medieval defenses, or how long it takes to clear land, or dig holes, or any one of a vast number of topics. What traits to architects have in common, generally? What’s the social life of a beekeeper? The working week of a blacksmith, or a computer programmer? You may know about such things because you’ve done them in real life, but I haven’t, and so don’t know what you know. Heck, I don’t even know that I don’t know.

That’s why I visit sites like Quora regularly – I never know what I’ll learn next. That’s why I watch professionals – plumbers, electricians, etc – closely, whenever they enter my domestic orbit; I don’t know their profession, and the more I learn about it, the more realistically I can portray them in games.

An article on the history or candle-making, or how prospectors identify mineral deposits, might be absolutely fascinating.

What I want to read more of

Hmm – it seems that I’ve found my way to answers to the question posed by Scot as the subject of this month’s carnival, as I had hoped.

• Drop-in content
• Social subcultures
• Reference & Educational material
• Stimulating subjects

Heck, I’d love to see “Pick a past host of the Blog Carnival (not your own site) and write a review of a past month’s content when they weren’t hosting the blog carnival”. We could introduce each other to each other – and to our readers.

Of course, it would be poor form for me not to point out a vested interest in the entire subject – Campaign Mastery is the host of Next month’s Blog Carnival. The subject will be “What we need is/are more…”

What does your current game not have enough of, and how can you correct that? One answer per campaign, please! Answers can be serious, or lighthearted; literal or, well, not.

Possible examples: “What we need are more mice. What we need is more plot. What we need are more treasure tables. What we need are more Goblins. What we need are more elephants. What we need is more Magic. What we need are more players. What we need is more tapioca. And salsa. And corn chips. And Dip.”

Of course, I’ll be posting a proper anchor post a little closer to the commencement date… consider this a sneak preview. But there’s a relevance to the current subject of discussion that can’t be ignored, either.

Last time I outlined the first half (roughly) of a process for the introduction of a system of organization for plotting to an existing campaign.

I hope everyone’s already familiar with what was in Webs Of Gossamer: Retrofitting For Plot Pt I because I don’t have time to do much of a recap.

Instead, I’m going to dive right in (there may be a few nibbles as we proceed)…

10. Identify cross-links and cross-purposes

At this point you have half a dozen plotlines broken down in detail but sitting in splendid isolation. The next step is to start looking for cross-links, places where one plotline can complicate another.

For example, one point in our plot spine consists of the following two events:

• When the PCs return to Tribwich and confront Konrad, he will claim to have been extorted into deceiving them by the leader of the Mercenaries. He will know nothing about the people who were following the PCs and trying to get them killed, but promises to look into it when he can; he dislikes not knowing things.
• PCs Vs The Mercenaries Of Tribwich plotline.PCs drive the mercenaries away after forging a secret alliance with Konrad.

We already have an external plotline indicated there, a side-plot hanging off the main plot thread, and an indication of what it’s supposed to be about. It’s probably a fairly straightforward “Find the Mercenaries, Attack the Mercenaries, Rout the Mercenaries” kind of thing. There should be some sort of setback – “Discover that the Mercenaries have a ‘secret weapon’ or ‘hidden ally’ “ sort of thing, which will contemplate the Routing, as well.

Just as the PCs are about to achieve said rout, we could complicate their lives and the current situation by bringing in an element from another plotline that both PCs and Mercenaries have to work together to solve:

The “Rake The Embers” plotline
A refugee arrives from the Elemental Plane of Fire and begs for protection from the PCs and Mercenaries, not recognizing that they are in the middle of settling their differences. She is being pursued by a pair of powerful Elementals because she wants to warn of a plot to set the Prime Material Plane ablaze as a replacement for their home, which is (mysteriously) going out.

This plotline adds more moving pieces to the aggregate plotline of the campaign. You could start it anywhere, and only the relative strength of the forces involved would need to change. But starting it “now” has some big advantages – because it’s remote to the main setting of the spine, plot developments can be sprinkled throughout the campaign from this point forward in relative isolation, and simply fester and bubble away in the background the rest of the time; and at this point in the campaign, the problem is way beyond the PCs capabilities.

Your goal is to drop future developments from all your plotlines into the main spine of the campaign. Note that since none of them ARE the main spine of the campaign, they should all be resolved completely before the PCs have their final confrontation of that spinal plotline.

11. Resolve complications, preliminary timeline

The easiest way of doing all this is to (1) make copies of your plotlines, and (2) cut-and-paste into the copy of the spine. This enables you to merge all the plotlines into one multi-threaded document. Keeping separate copies that isolate each plotline makes them easier to comprehend; the preliminary timeline that results from the merger is an index to when, in relative terms, the plotline will advance.

The preliminary timeline will have complications that you need to resolve – times when you need the PCs to be distracted by something else to give events time to mature. The best solution: drop in additional standalone plots at such times, little mini-adventures that do nothing important but take up time that the PCs would otherwise use to derail whatever the “master plan” wants to have happened.

Sometimes you will notice that a plotline implicitly gives the PCs a resource or capability that will complicate (there’s that word again!) a later stage of a different plotline – or a later stage assumes that the PCs will have a capability that you haven’t explicitly “baked in” like a contact or an ally. The answer, once again, is to drop in a mini-adventure that gives the required capability or that denies them the use of it at the critical moment.

So your next step is to go through your preliminary timeline looking for these exact issues, and inserting mini-adventures to resolve them. You don’t need to figure out the content of these adventures at this point; you simply need to flag the need for them, and the meta-purpose that they are intended to achieve.

12. A plotline (or two) for each PC

Once you have done that, it’s time to take a second look at your starring cast. Each of your PCs should have at least one plotline that focuses on them as an individual. You may even have a couple – one on their home life, one on their professional life, and one that leads to them having the chance to achieve whatever the ‘one big thing’ was that each wanted to do with their lives, or at least getting a step closer to that being done.

You need to create these plotlines, based on what your players have provided in terms of the background of their characters, and on the results of your discussions with the players.

To illustrate this: one of the personal plotlines for a DMPC (“Dungeon Master’s PC”) in my Champions Campaign revolves around one of their enemies, who has a very strong sense of honor, joining the team to repay the debt of honor that he has decided he owes them for saving his people from a civil war. He simply showed up and announced that he was joining the team in the first adventure of the campaign. Slowly, the PCs have begun to trust and respect him, and slowly, he has begun to trust and respect them. A major step in the “rehabilitation” of this character will come when he tells them his real name – to date, he has simply used his non-de-gurre of “Defender”. This is one step in a plot thread that radically shifts the DMPC’s point of view and reshapes the fortunes and destiny of his people (if all goes according to plan).

That particular plot event could happen almost anytime – but I want it to be in a relatively quiet moment, in terms of the campaign, so that I can take the time to make it feel significant to the players, because it will offer further insights into his species’ culture and society, laying the groundwork for a future visit to his home-world.

13. Integrate into the timeline

Once you have a plotline (or more) for each of the PCs and DMPCs, these need to be integrated into the timeline, the master plan, in exactly the same way as has already been discussed. In some cases, these can provide the mini-adventures you have already identified the need for; in others, they need to be standalone items added in to a master list.

One point that should have been made earlier, but that I don’t think was, is that this integration is a two-way deal; you shouldn’t merely update the master timeline to contain the elements of each plot thread, you should update the description and breakdown of each plotline to mention the context and circumstances within which the plot event occurs.

14. Create the blanks, fill in the blanks

Having pruned back your list of required mini-adventures by using PC-centric plotlines to fill some of the requirements that you’ve identified in the main timeline, it’s time to create empty files for each of the remainder and populate each with ideas. This essentially sets each up as another plot thread (a very short one) that is dealt with in exactly the same manner as the larger ones.

15. Finalize the timeline, divide into adventures

Finalizing the timeline is a simple process – you just go over it again, looking for anything that you’ve missed.

Dividing the content of your master timeline into adventures is – at best – a preliminary breakdown.

One adventure may comprise events from several plot threads as well as the main action of that plotline. I often look for a theme that I can make common to several of these events and use that as a logical grouping. That theme often also provides the title of the adventure (you do name your adventures, right? You should – Hints, Metaphors, and Mindgames: Naming Adventures (Part 1) and Part 2 will both help and explain why.

You’ll also find some advice and technique in Yrisa’s Nightmare and other goodies and The Surprising Value of Clickbait to a GM, which is why they are also connected to the “A Good Name” series.

Crafting an Adventure

Congratulations! Your campaign is now a loosely-knitted interweaving of multiple plot threads that interact and conflate into a bigger picture.

Now it’s time to look at how you use it.

This is a fairly simple process:

1. Create a document to hold the new adventure;
2. Copy in the various elements that comprise that adventure from the master plan;
3. Review the ‘big picture’ of what each of the events means in terms of advancing the specific plot thread that they are part of;
4. Sequence the events within the adventure;
5. Start expanding on the details, making lists of the NPCs that you need, updating any NPCs involved that you already have, writing narrative passages, and (in general) turning a checklist of content into an episode of the campaign.

I’ve actually described this process in some detail; it’s essentially the same as the one discussed in Tips for and from RPG Campaign Geriatrics – look for the diagram about 3/5ths of the way down the page, then scroll up to the “Plot”, “Structure”, and “Planning” sections (which continue beyond both that diagram and another big one) some distance later.

Integrating new plotlines

You can’t run a campaign for any length of time without two three four things happening: (1) you come up with a brilliant new idea that you want to incorporate into the master plan; (2) you decide that a plotline that seemed brilliant at the time is actually a bit stale and passe; (3) the players want to move in a different direction for a while; and (4) you fail to have an adventure ready in time.

Brilliant New Ideas

It’s relatively easy to incorporate a new plotline – you simply repeat the process given above. However, every new idea runs the risk of destabilizing another plotline that you had underway by introducing contradictions or complications that you haven’t factored in. So long as you are aware of the dangers, that can usually be managed.

Your “Campaign Master Plan” is not a blueprint, to be followed slavishly; it’s a collection of ideas for the advancement of the various plotlines that comprise the campaign, a starting point. Don’t fall into the trap of setting yours in stone.

Refreshing Stale Ideas

No-one is brilliant all the time. Some of your ideas will just suck. That’s all right, some of mine do, too. The time to recognize that is when you are writing the adventure, but we all get distracted by our own brilliance at times, too; confirmation bias is just as large a cognitive problem for GMs as it is for anyone else (see “I know what’s happening!” – Confirmation Bias and RPGs).

Sometimes, too, your pacing is off for one reason or another and a plotline is simply taking too long to get to the point – you can tell that everyone’s getting tired of waiting for it.

When that happens, you have two choices: junk what you’ve got planned for that adventure and start planning it from wherever it had gotten up to, or compress the plotline, as described in When Good Ideas Linger Too Long: Compacting plotlines.

Again, nothing is set in stone. The key point to remember is to examine cross-connections to your other plotlines, because changing whatever you had in mind produces an adventure that may not achieve the same metaplot functions that the original did.

I’ve learned over the years that it’s often better to keep plot descriptions short and bullet-pointed and only expand them into full adventures when the time of play is imminent. I’ve offered a number of campaign examples in this format; one of the best (in terms of an example) is Control-Alt-Delete – A Modern-day SciFi Campaign.

A Change Of Tack

Sometimes the players Zig when you wanted or expected them to Zag. Campaign Mastery tackled this problem quite a long time ago, in Ask The GMs: Giving Players The Power To Choose Their Own Adventures, and more recently in Giving PCs Choice And Having Your Plot, Too. The bottom line is that at the end of the day, so long as the players have fun and the metaplot functions that you needed the intended adventure to serve are satisfied, how you get there doesn’t matter.

It’s important, therefore, to know what the meta-goals for any adventure are (the big picture) and to be prepared to throw everything else away if the players want to do something else instead.

Sometimes, you don’t have to be that extreme, because once the players deal with whatever side-excursion they have in mind, they will be happy to follow the path that you expected them to take in the first case; you need to bear in mind what it was that the players want their characters to achieve with this excursion.

There are other occasions when the divergence is more serious – the players may want to resolve a plotline now, rather than waiting for the time when you wanted to resolve it. Again, the short answer is to let them try. If they fail, your original plans simply have added context; if they succeed, you can draw upon those later plans to improvise the adventure. Having your campaign planned actually makes it easier to (successfully) diverge from that plan – something that the GM can take advantage of, when they need to.

The Dreaded Deadline Doom

Every now and then, we all get bitten by this. Your options are simple: abandon the game session, run your unfinished adventure (improvising the parts that aren’t yet done), or drop in a fill-in adventure.

The first choice, in my opinion, is a last resort; too many missed game sessions and you won’t have a campaign any more; people will find other things to occupy their time. Choosing between the others is a question of the adventure in question and how much of it you have finished.

You can improvise settings and locations.

You can improvise characters.

You can improvise narrative.

None of these will have significant long-term impact on the campaign if everything follows the plot that you’ve outlined, but there is a greater potential for conflict between plot and the characters who are supposed to be driving it. In general, if the adventure has reached the point where the players know everything that they need to know to resolve the plotline, I would go with the planned adventure and improv whatever I had to; if they don’t, then a drop-in self=contained adventure would be preferable.

These situations are inherently unpredictable in their timing. Something my co-GM and I have taken to doing for the Adventurer’s Club campaign is preparing a fill-in adventure in advance, ready to go. When a critical player is absent, or other circumstances mandate it, we wheel it out.

Recommendation: An Ideas File

I strongly advocate that GMs keep another document: a file in which new ideas can accumulate until you need one to flesh out an adventure, or to be the kernel of a drop-in adventure.

By the time the first Zenith-3 campaign had run it’s course, I had so many ideas for plotlines for the next one that they form a distinctive pair of plot “threads” within the campaign plan – and I was fairly certain the well was dry, making this my last superhero campaign for the foreseeable future. But I’ve since come up with a handful of ideas, which I will keep on standby as fill-ins should I need them!

Complicating The Picture

When I outlined this article, one of the last steps involved in planning it was to review the information I had been given by the person requesting the assistance to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. This is something that you should do when creating adventures, too – a quick review of the big picture in case there’s something important that has been overlooked.

There’s an implication in what I was told that I hadn’t picked up on – a suggestion that the GM actually had four different groups adventuring in the same campaign world at the same time. Everything I’ve written about assumes a single group in a campaign environment.

Lacking a term for this sort of multi-ply campaign, I’ve coined “Megacampaign” to describe them.

This adds a new level of complexity, and your planning has to take it into account. This section is how to do that, using the principles and approach already provided.

Megacampaign Plans & Timeline

In a nutshell: create separate master plans, as described, for each campaign, and then integrate them into a Master Plan / Timeline for the overall campaign. This enables you to have the effects of what Group 1 do show up in the background of adventures by Group 2, and so on.

In general, it’s that simple. But I have some additional advice for such situations, some additional planning elements that will help.

Isolationism

First of all, do your best to keep the different adventuring groups separate and distinct. If one group is based in the capital city of the central Kingdom, the others should be somewhere else. If a second group moves to that capital city temporarily, as happened in the example campaign that I concocted in the first part of this article, then the master plan should move the first group away from there for as long as necessary. This helps keep the campaign plot threads isolated and prevents one group getting in the way of a second.

Checkpoints

An ongoing problem will be synchronization. between the campaigns. Assuming that they play with the same frequency can help, but won’t be enough; some adventures will take a single game session, some will take two or three or four or eight or whatever.

Whenever something major is planned to occur in one timeline, something that will have knock-on effects in the other campaigns, that creates a Checkpoint. These should be highlighted in your campaign planning to make sure that each campaign is ‘ready’ for the event.

In other words, you want to keep the campaign date roughly the same in all the campaigns.

Checkpoints won’t occur in every adventure (they will probably become more frequent as the campaign draws to a conclusion)..



Consider the diagram (done in some haste, so not as neat as I intended, but it will serve). You can clearly see a Megacampaign consisting of three separate concurrent campaigns. Each contains adventures of different lengths in in-game days.

At the bottom of the diagram, you can see a Checkpoint – an event in Campaign #2 that will have repercussions felt within the other campaigns. In Campaign #3, the impact is slight, it’s just an event in the background (at least for now), but in Campaign#1, the repercussions will trigger a significant new adventure.

The problem: there’s a substantial gap in time at three points in two campaigns before the date in question is reached – Campaigns #1 and #3 are ready for the event to take place before Campaign #2 actually delivers the event.

Some of that gap can be accommodated, if you anticipate the need, with a couple of days spacing between adventures – your introduction to the adventure simply starts off, “a couple of days after….” and proceeds from there. That won’t work with every adventure; some are too tightly connected with the adventure that precedes or follows.

But if that’s not enough, then you will need Filler.

Filler

Filler is another word for a standalone small adventure whose sole meta-purpose is to chew up time, giving PCs that are in a campaign waiting around for a checkpoint to be reached something to do while they wait. Of course, the PCs don’t know that they are waiting for timelines to sync up – and you don’t know how long (in game-days) the filler has to be; you have to wait for the actual event to occur in Campaign #2.

That makes Filler more complicated, because it has two separate time dimensions to be accommodated – game-time and game sessions. This can usually be managed, if you know about the problem in advance, but it’s something that you have to keep in mind.

This is where the ideas file can be a lifesaver, because it gives you something you can drop into a campaign as “filler”.

Because organizing a campaign into a system helps you keep track of the Big Picture, it actually makes the campaign more flexible and responsive. Prep and campaign management become much easier.

It might be easier to create a campaign in a structured and systematic way in the first place, but it’s by no means too late when you start finding yourself drowning; it just means that there’s a little additional work involved in making sure that the major plot threads already underway are documented and integrated into a comprehensive master plan.

The two parts of this article show how it can be done; the rest is up to you.

Further Reading

Although I’ve touched on some of the articles that I’ve written or co-written on campaign structures in the text as they became relevant, there are a lot more that were omitted for various reasons, mostly a lack of direct relevance to the problem at hand. They contain a lot of advice that can be integrated into the structure created by the process in this two-part article or otherwise be helpful, especially in the longer term.

When asked the question that sparked this article, I responded with that list of relevant reading as preliminary reading. I thought it germane to include it (with a few additions) here as a footnote to the main content. The sequence has been selected with some care, so tackle them in the order shown if you’re interested. There will be some redundancy with articles referenced in the article body.

• Tips for and from RPG Campaign Geriatrics
• Ask The GMs: In it for the long haul
• Basics For Beginners (and the over-experienced) Part 11: Campaigns
• Like sand through the fingers: Time waste and Campaign Prep
• Ensemble or Star Vehicle – Which is Your RPG Campaign?
• Directed Plots, Undirected Narrative, and Stuff That Just Happens
• Scenario Sequencing: Structuring Campaign Flow
• Ask The GMs: Giving Players The Power To Choose Their Own Adventures
• Ask The GMs: Pacing Your Campaign
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 1
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 2
• Pacing and the value of the Pause
• Anatomy Of An Interruption – Endpoints
• Status Interruptus: Types Of Pause
• Compound Interruptions: Manipulating Pauses
• Amazon Nazis On The Moon: Campaign Planning Revisited
• Been There, Done That, Doing It Again – The Sequel Campaign Part Two of Two: Sprouts and Saplings
• Ask The GMs: Iceberg Plotlines: Massive Plot Arcs in RPGs
• Ask The GMs: “Let’s Split Up.” – “Good Idea, we can do more damage that way!”

This list is not exhaustive; it’s very much a cherry-pick from amongst the hundreds of articles on the subject of campaigns. In addition, you may find other articles of value indexed on these pages (and you should find a summary of most of the above as well, so that you know what to look for within them):

• The Blogdex Campaigns Page, especially the sections on organization and prep management; and
• The Blogdex Campaign Plotting Page, especially the general articles and section on plot sequencing.

So let’s say that you have an RPG campaign that is doing well. Your plotlines are interacting with each other, your adventures are compelling, your players are happy, and everyone’s having fun, but you’re starting to struggle to keep on top of the entwined complexities of your plots and your prep is becoming a nightmare because nothing is organized.

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by one of my readers from the early days of Campaign Mastery who was in just such a bind and at the end of his rope; he was at the point where he was even contemplating having to kill the campaign because it was becoming more than he could manage.

He was smart enough to have analyzed the problem and recognized that the problem was the lack of organization making it hard to keep track of everything that was going on and losing sight of both the big and intermediate-scale picture as a result. What he wanted was a way to parachute some structure and organization into his campaign planning so that he could keep and even extend the complex interaction between plotlines that was a feature of the existing campaign while getting on top of the planning and taking the hard work and frustration out of it.

I’ve written about campaign structuring many times in the past, and was able to provide a huge list of links to those articles, but none really looked at the problem of retrofitting an existing campaign into a structure. So that’s what today’s article is all about (and next week’s, too).

Something I should make clear up-front: there is going to be some hard work involved. We’re talking about filtering and sieving a quivering morass of entangled plotlines to distill a coherent structure out of them. None of the step involved is overly arduous but there are a number of them, and some have to be performed several times. With even a complex campaign, it should be possible to do this in a couple of “weeks” (depending on how much time you can invest) [see below] – but that’s the rub, isn’t it?

The First Decision

The first decision that has to be made:

Should the campaign take a holiday while the process is ongoing?

There’s actually quite a bit to unpack in this question. The process relies on starting with a reasonably solid synopsis of play from at least one, and preferably two, game sessions. These can’t be too removed from the date of play, or essential details will be lost. But continuing play after you have this foundation will enormously complicate the process and can bring the whole procedure unstuck.

My recommendation, therefore, is to schedule a holiday for the campaign for two or three game sessions – allowing a “game session” to generate the first adventure within the new structure – to start after the next one or two game sessions.

I would assume that you can probably get a decent synopsis out of the last game session, and so would only need to continue for one more session afterwards, but that won’t always be the case; it depends on how sieve-like your memory is, and how long ago it was. So this is something that you will have to decide for yourself.

The other point to consider is that this schedule has no wriggle room, no contingency for things going wrong, or for work becoming demanding, or even for the process taking longer than I think it will. If you are totally confident about those things, then you probably don’t need this process at all! For everyone else, adding an extra game session or two of shutdown as contingency is probably a very wise move.

Scaling The Shutdown

The span of time between game sessions is a good indicator of how much free time you have to devote to the process. If you only run every second week, the time that’s available is the amount of prep time you would normally spend getting ready to run a game session. Other activities are likely to have occupied any leftover free time, though you may be able to squeeze a little more effort out by briefly sacrificing some of them. Assuming that game sessions are approximately the same length the world over – a VERY big assumption – that means that the calendar can be based on a game-session count and be more accurate and useful, than on a simple count of weeks.

Use your own judgment, and add 50%.

Plan For The Shutdown

If you tell the players why it’s necessary, they will usually accommodate you, especially if the alternative is to kill the campaign completely. So making sure that everyone is on the same page is part of planning the shutdown.

The other part is this: just because the campaign is temporarily shut down, that doesn’t mean that you and your players can’t get together as you usually would and play a board game, or maybe one of them would like to try a no-pressure fill-in adventure or two. It’s probably a good idea to make this completely different in genre to the usual campaign.

You can also take advantage of the impending shutdown to gather planning intelligence. Ask each player “What is the one thing that your character would most like to achieve by the end of the campaign”, and take careful notes – promising nothing, but you’ll see what you can do, mind you!

The Overall Structure

The overall structure that this process will implement is something that I’ve come to call the Spiderweb Structure, but it didn’t always go by that name. This is the structure that I have in place in my superhero campaign, and which I have discussed a number of times. I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with the essentials of what that implies and comprises, because if you aren’t, the process itself will educate you in that respect.

But I want to talk about some generalities and guiding principles to use in your conversion process before we get too bogged down in actual processes.

Perspective

All your planning – with one set of exceptions that I’ll get to in due course – should be done from the point of view of the villains. What do they want, how will they get it, what do they know that others don’t that will advance their plans, what don’t they know that will force them to modify those plans, and how will their implementation of their plans impact on the lives of the PCs?.

At it’s most elementary, you can view this campaign structure as a set of NPCs for whom those questions have been answered. But continually advancing and revising plans for each of these instigators is a daunting proposition because the workload increases geometrically according to the number of such NPCs.

1 -> base
2 -> 2^2 = 4 x base
3 -> 3^2 = 9 x base
4 -> 4^2 = 16 x base
5 -> 5^2 = 25 x base
6 -> 6^2 = 36 x base
7 -> 7^2 = 49 x base
8 -> 8^2 = 64 x base
9 -> 9^2 = 81 x base
10 -> 10^2 = 100 x base
…
20 -> 20^2 = 400 x base
…
50 -> 50^2 = 2500 x base
…
80 -> 80^2 = 6400 x base

…per game session.

My superhero campaign has 10-15 years yet to run, 36 interacting plotlines, many with multiple instigators with the PCs caught in the middle. If there’s an average of two such instigators per plotline (and that’s probably understating it), that’s 72 such plotters to keep track of – every game session.

One such plotline – “reasonably” self-contained – involves 27 moving pieces (the instigators) and 11 adventures. Along the way, it touches on and influences:

• World Politics
• US Domestic Politics
• The Russia-4th Reich War
• The 5th Reich & Central America
• Alliances & Enemies
• 4 “criminal” organizations
• A new alien race
• The role of Magic in the game world
• Time Travel
• Inter-dimensional Physics

….and a whole lot more, besides.

Not all of the plot threads are as sprawling as this one. But two-per-plot-thread is an underestimate, if anything – five is a more likely average. And 5×36 = 180 plot instigators, or 32,400 x the complexity. If it takes 10 minutes for the base update (1 instigator), that’s 324,000 minutes per game session, or 675 eight-hour days between game sessions. NOT what anyone would consider practical.

But that’s the point of this structured approach: it compartmentalizes, reducing complexity and redundancy, and makes this unruly mess practical to administrate.

A good story

At it’s heart, each of those 36 plotlines is one good story. Sometimes, two or more – but always at least one serial narrative that has been broken into multiple episodic segments. Actually, it’s been broken into multiple Events, which have then been grouped into episodic segments, but you get the point.

Multiple layers of good story

None of these episodic adventures takes place in isolation; each is surrounded by the legacies and context of past adventures and dangling unresolved plot threads, that will influence them; but the heart of the plan is one or more good stories.

And that’s the first scalpel that can be used to cut through that morass of plotlines: if a connection or interaction between two concurrent plot threads will enhance a plotline, it’s in if it can be made to work; if not, never the twain shall meet, and the job of the campaign plan is to make sure that they don’t.

A single adventure might be one episodic segment from one plot thread, but it is more frequently an amalgam of episodic segments from several plot threads.

More layers of good story

Another element that I stress is that each PC has to have some personal plot thread or milestone in each adventure. That might be inherent in the Events comprising the episodic segment at the heart of the adventure, or it might be something parachuted in to give that character a connection to the adventure.

Pacing

When the whole lot is compounded, that too has to form a good story. A much bigger and more rambling affair, to be sure, but a cohesive narrative.

It’s easy for it to form a story; that happens anyway, through sheer continuity of protagonists (i.e. PCs). The tricky part is to make it a good story – with reversals of fortune, and plot twists, and interesting character interactions, and menaces overcome, and an ultimate triumph (or at least, an attempt at one).

One of the key elements is the overall pacing of the campaign, and how the pacing of individual plot threads and segments within plot threads, combine to create that overall pacing. I’ve written extensively on plot pacing in the past – you can find everything under one umbrella in this article (Part 1, Part 2) and this series; but – for now, suffice it to say that pacing should be lumpy, but intensifying. Lumpy – there should be times when events flow thick and fast, and times where there is room for some introspection, punctuating those manic periods. Over time, those periods of calm should become shorter, or more manic in their own right, or both, while the manic periods should become more and more extreme, until the campaign reaches….

A Crescendo

Every campaign should have a crescendo, and there should always be a palpable sense that things are building towards something big. You don’t have to wrap up every loose end, tie off every dangling plot thread, in such a finish; that’s what sequel campaigns are for. See Been There, Done That, Doing It Again: The Sequel Campaign Part One of Two: Campaign Seeds and Been There, Done That, Doing It Again: The Sequel Campaign Part Two of Two: Sprouts and Saplings, when the time comes. See also A Grand Conclusion: Thinking about a big finish and the article linked to at the start of it (“How To Stage A Blockbuster Finish”) for more on the subject.

These principles are your guide, telling you what you are trying to achieve in different phases of remainder of the campaign.

The Overall Process

The process that I am going to describe in both this post and the next is not a short one. There are 15 steps, some of which need to be repeated multiple times. Each step is fairly simple and straightforward, and I’ll be looking into them in as much detail as I think necessary, but wanted to start with an overview.

• Synopses -> Multiple Plot Threads
• Character Ambitions -> Additional Plot Threads
• • Each Plot Thread -> Current Status
  • Each Plot Thread -> Planned Resolution
  • Each Plot Thread -> General Narrative, Now to Then
  • Each Plot Thread -> Specific Events
  • Groups of Specific Threads -> Collected into Plot Segments
• One Plot Thread -> Central Plotline
• • Central Plotline -> Campaign Spine
  • Each other Plot Thread -> connects with Campaign Spine
  • Each other Plot Thread -> other cross-connections, Context
  • Each other cross-connection -> additional Campaign Spine elements
  • Campaign Spine -> Core Timeline
  • Campaign Pacing -> Revised Timeline
  • Revised Timeline -> Campaign Plan
• Campaign Plan -> Adventure Plans
• • Each Adventure -> Plot Segments comprising the adventure
  • • Each Plot Segment -> Events within the Adventure
  • Planned Adventure -> Sequence of Events
  • Planned Adventure -> Start and Finish
  • Planned Adventure -> Pacing within the adventure
  • Planned Adventure -> Other adventure events
  • Planned Adventure -> Ready-to-play adventure
• Making the Campaign Plan dynamic, not static

Most campaigns will consist of 3-6 plot threads, plus one for each PC. Some may have less, a few may have more.

That’s a lot to pack into just 15 steps – but those steps only carry you through to the Campaign Plan. The rest is all about using that plan, translating it into adventures.

The rest of this article is going to detail the first nine steps of the plan, which will comprise 70-80% of the work involved:

1. Start With A Synopsis
2. Add another Synopsis
3. Break the Synopsis into Plotlines
4. Structure the future of each plotline
5. Select a core plotline
6. Flesh it out into events
7. Ensure that it tells a solid story
8. Flesh out the instigator
9. Repeat for the other plotlines

Next week, steps 10-15, and using the campaign plan to create adventures, and some final advice:

10. Identify cross-links and cross-purposes
11. Resolve complications, preliminary timeline
12. A plotline (or two) for each PC
13. Integrate into the timeline
14. Create the blanks, fill in the blanks
15. Finalize the timeline, divide into adventures

• Crafting an Adventure
• Integrating new plotlines
• Player Responsiveness
• Recommendation: An Ideas File

That’s the plan. Let’s get started….

1. Start With A Synopsis

Synopsis 1 is a snapshot of the campaign as it now exists, through the lens of your most recent game session or two. The focus shouldn’t be on events, it should be on decisions, and especially decisions by NPCs, which is quite distinct from the usual PC-oriented approach such synopses take.

You want this to identify the plot threads that are already running, and where you think they will go in the near future.

“Tired of their repeated interference in his earning a dishonest gold piece or two, Estrahd sent a couple of heavies to follow the PCs into the Caverns of Zilnych and lure the creatures that abide there into attacking them.”

“Konrad The Sage sold the PCs a false map to the Caverns of Zilnych because he feared they would interfere in his plot to discredit the Ruling Council of Tribwich..”

What did the NPCs do, and why? What is the desired outcome, IF it has not yet come to pass?

If there has been a decision or judgment made by the PCs that has yet to play out, that is also relevant.

“Juniper has convinced the other PCs that the two shadowy figures attracting all the wandering monsters are in the employ of Konrad the Sage, after discovering that the map they were sold is completely unreliable after the first couple of caverns. Because the PCs (and their tails) are now trapped behind a dead-fall, there isn’t anything they can do about this, yet, but when they can do so, Konrad will become the focus of their attention.”

2. Add another Synopsis

The other synopsis that is of value is one of the campaign overall, to date. This will hopefully capture any plotlines that are currently lying fallow, i.e. that played no direct part in the most recent adventure.

“The Ruling Council of Tribwich has responded to recent civil unrest by imposing martial law and hanging a couple of beggars. They are hiring mercenaries to supplement the town Watch, and have increased the levies charged against adventurers to enter the town to pay for it.”

3. Break the Synopsis into Plotlines

This is a lot more easily done using an electronic document. From the examples listed above, three plotlines are obvious:

• Konrad vs the Tribwich Council,
• Estrahd, and
• the Caverns Of Zilnych.

There are times when I think that putting each into its own document is more useful, and times when having them all compiled into a single document is the better choice. I normally come down on the former, simply because it means that I can have several of them open at the same time, making it easier to find cross-links.

Into each plotline, copy & paste first the relevant content of Synopsis 2 (overall campaign) and then the relevant content of Synopsis 1 (recent game session(s)).

4. Structure the future of each plotline

Turn each plotline into a “good story”. Where is the plotline headed? It’s often easier to skip right to “the end” of the plotline and then fill in the middle (between “now” and “then”).

Use a short paragraph or two. Make sure that everyone has times when things swing in their favor, and a reverse or two that they have to overcome. Use an estimate of the intelligence of the instigator, if you know it, to determine how likely it is that they will make a mistake, and how they will avoid making it a fatal error.

This narrative might not even mention the PCs.

“Konrad has fallen into the classic trap of thinking that the end justifies the means. To prepare for the Rain Of Blood that the auguries prophesy, and which no-one else believes in, he is convinced that he needs to be in a position to dictate policy throughout the Kingdom of Aztil. His plan is to seize control of the town of Tribwich, use it to blockade Silver caravans to the Capital from behind the scenes, and appeal to the Crown for military support to suppress the “bandits” who he blames for the disruption. Restoring the shipments should earn him favor in the Royal Court; he will follow this with a contrived “emergency” which only he fully understands, but which he can manufacture, eg a Dwarfish uprising. This will distract from a campaign of assassinations and discrediting of the other members of the Inner Court, ensuring that he has the ear of the King when the time comes and the Moons align to release the Whisper Dragon and it’s Rain Of Blood.”

Here we have a character of good intentions, suffering from the flaw of hubris (perhaps amongst other faults), who is intent on a ruthless pursuit of influence and power. What’s missing are the setbacks that have to be overcome. The first of these is the attention of the PCs, but a facile story about a “curse” should overcome that. He underestimates the opposition that he will face, a common wish-fulfillment failure of schemers; that could bite on a number of occasions, and should do so as often as possible. The Town Council, expecting the ‘Bandits’ to do what they are told, the ‘Dwarfish uprising’, and avoiding any overt connection with the plots and schemes of the Court. Finally, what if he’s wrong about the nature or timing of the threat? He also makes no allowance for existing intrigues, or for a real emergency arising while everyone’s dealing with his ‘manufactured’ one.

I would actually consider these two paragraphs to be not quite enough – the ultimate resolution needs to be defined, but perhaps that is part of another plot thread, one that has not yet started, the Whisper Dragon.

Perhaps Konrad is only half-right; the dragon will be released, as he has divined, but is a guardian against the Rain Of Blood (whatever that is!) And/or, perhaps, what Konrad is doing is what releases/awakens the Dragon. There are other possibilities, but those two are enough speculation for now – in an example.

5. Select a core plotline

The core plotline is the narrative “Spine” around which the campaign will be structured, the “all roads lead to this” plotline. It should also stretch from “Now” to the end of the campaign, and have a climax suitable to ending the campaign.

There are two contenders amongst the examples – the first is the Konrad plotline, in which case the Whisper Dragon is a furphy, and he is completely wrong, and the core plotline is all about obsession and the slippery slope of good intentions. The alternative is the far more dramatic and still-vague possibility of the Whisper Dragon plotline, in which the campaign seems to be about those things until the plot twist adds a whole new layer to the story and one final chapter.

I have to confess that I would be strongly tempted by that option, but this isn’t about me or the choices I would make.

6. Flesh it out into events

Once you have outlined the plotline that is to be the spine of the campaign, the next step is to break it down into a sequence of events.

Simply because it’s the more well-developed, for the sake of example, I’ll choose the Konrad plotline – and develop it about half-way.

• (Past event) Konrad begins destabilizing the local politics of Tribwich.
• (Past event) Through subtle mind-altering magic, the Thought Shadow, he has led the Ruling Council of the town to paranoia and heavy-handed enforcement of the law, stirring unrest amongst the populace.
• (Past event) The Council, influenced by the Thought Shadow, have imposed martial law and hanging a pair of beggars on charges of Treason. They are hiring mercenaries to supplement the town Watch, and have increased the levies charged against adventurers to enter the town to pay for them.
• (Current event) When approached by the PCs because they heard that he might have a map to the Caverns of Zilnych, Konrad worried that this might be a pretext to investigate his activities. He sold them a false map that would leave the PCs trapped within the Caverns.
• The Mercenaries will begin overstepping their bounds, influenced by the Thought Shadow, creating further resentment of the Council.
• The PCs escape the Caverns, thinking that Konrad has hired mercenaries to attempt to assassinate them by proxy while they were trapped.
• When the PCs return to Tribwich and confront Konrad, he will claim to have been extorted into deceiving them by the leader of the Mercenaries. He will know nothing about the people who were following the PCs and trying to get them killed, but promises to look into it when he can; he dislikes not knowing things.
• PCs Vs The Mercenaries Of Tribwich plotline.PCs drive the mercenaries away after forging a secret alliance with Konrad.
• Konrad leads the townspeople in an open revolt against the Council and forces them to abdicate their positions. He replaces them with a puppet government answerable to him.
• He ‘rewrites’ recent history to cast himself as a liberator who came to power after the evil and corrupt Council were deposed by a popular revolution. He sends the PCs to deliver reports to this effect to the Capital, getting them out of the way, at least for now.
• PCs in the Capital City plotline.
• Konrad uses the Thought Shadow to manipulate the greediest of the former councilmen. In disguise, he offers the councilman the funds needed to re-hire the mercenaries to operate as “bandits”, intercepting the Silver Caravans from the Dwarfish Mines.
• He also hires the Mercenaries to ambush and kill the PCs as they return from the Capital.
• The Ambush plotline. The PCs overcome the ambush but are injured. A crazed Druid heals them but imprisons them in his Grove (think Alice In Wonderland). The PCs eventually escape.
• With the PCs out of the way, Konrad sends an urgent message to the Capital accusing the Councilman of an open revolt against the Crown and Banditry, and requesting Military assistance in clearing the “Bandits” from the region.
• The PCs arrive to find Royal Soldiers in command of the streets and a former Councilman hanging from a Gibbet for High Treason (Konrad acts like he’s pleased to see them safe and whole; he feared the worst).

…. and so on.

Konrad needs to next parley his demonstration of loyalty to the crown into influence over the Royal advisors. The PCs should learn that he had nothing to do with the people who tried to kill them in the Caverns; when he heard their story, he quietly investigated and now lays the blame (correctly) at the feet of Estrahd to distract them in the meantime (another plotline)….

7. Ensure that it tells a solid story

It’s one thing to lay out a sequence of events this way, with each step in the story leading to another one; but too many people don’t re-read it afterwards to make sure that it “plays well,” i.e. that it tells a solid story.

That means that it has a middle, an end, reversals, plot twists, and so on. As you gain more experience with this method of planning, and more confidence, there will be less need for this, but the assumption being made is that you are starting from scratch in the middle.

You will also have noted that I’ve jumped the gun a little, integrating a couple of side-plots when they were needed to keep the PCs occupied elsewhere – or simply ensuring that they lead lives of adventure, wherever they happen to be. If the PCs are at the Capital City, for example, they should have an adventure there!

These plots may either be already in existence (though they haven’t yet undergone the process of expansion, first into a self-contained plotline, and then into a sequence of events), such as the Estrahd plot thread, or be entirely new, such as the Druid’s Wonderland plot idea.

I also want to call attention to the fact that this is all about what NPCs are doing, and not what the PCs are doing. Nor do these plotlines really require the PCs to follow any given plot direction; they are free to pursue their own agendas. That won’t stop the NPCs from fearing what the PCs might do, or acting against them.

8. Flesh out the instigator

The next step is to go into a lot more detail about who Konrad is, and what he wants to achieve, and why that impacts the PCs.

There are those who would suggest that this should predate the expansion into events, and from a pure story-telling perspective, they have a point; but I feel that doing things in this sequence enables the events to shape the character to fit the needs of the story, rather than the character forcing events, perhaps in contradiction to the outlined story.

I have a strong sense that I have a clearer vision of the personality and capabilities of Konrad from the event-by-event outline above than I did when I started writing it, for example; if I had outlined the character first, the personality would have dictated events that might have been in contravention of the story goals. Better to have the character emerge organically from the story.

9. Repeat for the other plotlines

Repeat steps 6-8 for the other plotlines. In some cases, you should have done this already, though they might need to be rewritten to fit the “spine” now that you have a clearer idea of what it is.

For example, some of the above is clearly designed to put the brakes on the Estrahd plotline until it suits Konrad to re=awaken it.

That doesn’t mean that Estrahd won’t make other, perhaps more serious, attempts, or that the PCs won’t interfere in his plans again before Konrad points them in the direction of their “enemy”; on the contrary, there should be regular reminders that there’s someone out there who doesn’t want the PCs around. Of course, when Konrad’s moves against the PCs get noticed by them, they will probably blame those on that “hidden enemy” as well.

As anticipated, I didn’t have enough time to completely write up the process, but this should be enough that you can start to see the campaign taking shape. I might have been able to do so if it weren’t for the examples, but I think they perform an essential role in illustrating and clarifying the process.

Next week, I’ll pick up where this article leaves off. The good news for anyone attempting to put this process into practice is that it will probably take you a lot longer than that delay to get all this done.

Part Two of this article is now available: Webs Of Gossamer: Retrofitting For Plot Pt II

Last weekend, Ed Johnson, author of Bars, Clubs and Bands, contacted me to ask that I take a look at a guide that he had written for adding bars and nightclubs to role playing games including modern fantasy and modern horror, which was available for pay what you want on DriveThru RPG

I took a look at the free preview and was impressed. But I’ll get to the review a little later.

This supplement makes a perfect springboard for an article that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while now, an inherent problem with the pay-what-you-want model that I’ve never seen openly addressed in an RPG context.

Pay-What-You-Want

The Pay-What-You-Want model is an undoubted success. RPGs are actually latecomers to the practice, and are still largely dipping their toes in the waters. The history section of the Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject contains many fascinating stories, and I encourage anyone interested to take a couple of minutes to read it..

There are a couple of key points from that page (and some other sources) that are worth highlighting.

• The Pay-What-It’s-Worth model got a big popularity boost (and became a subject of intense scrutiny) when Radiohead released their seventh album, In Rainbows, as a digital recording using a PWYW system, and (according to Thom Yorke, in a 1977 interview) made more profit on the release than on all their previous albums combined.
• Market Research firm Comscore analyzed sales of the album and found that downloaders paid an average of $2.26 per download, globally, and 62% paid nothing. Of those who paid, the average paid was $6 globally, with 12% paying between $8 and $12, around the typical price of an album on iTunes at the time. But Radiohead themselves dispute the findings, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.
• There is some suggestion that some customers will refuse to “buy” a product for nothing because they don’t think they can afford what they think the product being offered is actually worth.
• Some retailers/producers don’t like the model because it risks being ego-deflating to see how consumers actually value their work.
• Ayelet Gneezy, Uri Gneezy, Leif D. Nelson, and Amber Brown tested the effectiveness of PWYW by selling roller coaster photos to visitors of a roller coaster park. Although many more people bought the photo when it was offered under PWYW, the average price paid was very low ($0.92), resulting in no income increase to the firm over standard pricing, and selling fewer photos. However, when PWYW was coupled with a charitable cause (buyers were informed they could pay what they wanted AND that half of the amount they pay would be donated to a patient support organization) the average amount paid increased substantially (to $6.50), resulting in a significant income increase in addition to generating substantial charitable contribution.

Some definite food for thought in those five points!

The honorable approach

Ideally, from a consumer perspective, PWYW results in people paying what a product is worth to them. In the process, as with all free and discounted samples, you can hope to build up customer loyalty to the brand and to the product line.

But that gives rise to a conundrum: how do you know what a product will be worth to you until you have bought it?

If you know the publisher or brand or product line already, you might have the basis of an informed guess. Take away any of those foundations, and your price estimate becomes more uncertain.

There might be some standard that you can employ – “most RPGs cost $X for a digital copy, so for this digital copy I’ll look at paying $X, maybe less if it’s got a low page count, or more for a really high page count” – but you have a foundation valuation upon which to base a decision.

I think that it’s important to distinguish between speculative purchases, buying something because it sounds like it might be interesting, and purchases with intent to use, where the purchase has been made to satisfy a specific need. In general, I personally would be less inclined to pay full price for a speculative purchase, and more inclined to do so (assuming affordability) for a purchase with intent.

The value of a preview

Sometimes, you can turn to reviews or to a preview to establish some foundation for an informed purchase. Reviews always have to be taken with a grain of salt; review systems are so easily compromised. I tend to look for reviews that provide additional information or context; I have a friend who looks exclusively at the 1- and sometimes 2-star ratings and whether or not the complaints appear to have merit or justification for the low rating. There’s been at least one occasion that such a 1-star review drove an immediate purchase decision by showing that a book was more fit-for-purpose than the default assumed standard because of what the reviewer considered flaws!

Previews introduce a new variable into the whole question: how representative is the sample excerpted?

This is a question that I’ve grappled with personally, if indirectly, when deciding what and how much of the content in Assassin’s Amulet should be incorporated into the free preview. The general guideline adopted was to provide just enough of the content from each section to be directly useful in and of itself, and a lot of behind-the-scenes material concerning the section and how to adapt it to a situation other than the one assumed in the sourcebook. Other parts were already selected for excerpting to promote the book in blog posts – and there was some overlap between the two.

The objective wasn’t so much to be representative, as to entertain the reader and convince them that if the preview was useful, the full text would be even more so. Did it work? I don’t know, as I have no standard for comparison. What I think probably did shine through was the sense of pride in the finished work. If you knew any of the authors, that was probably enough!

What I can state is that there’s a ratio of about 4 or 5 to 1, which is to say that 20-25% of downloads of the preview are matched with a download of the full product, and it continues to sell a few copies every year.

The bottom line, though, is that in order to Pay-what-you-want, you have to decide what you want to pay.

Overestimated Value

I think everyone out there has, at some point, bought an RPG product – paying either a set price, or what they estimated the product was worth to them – only to find that the product didn’t live up to expectations.

This has the opposite effect of that desired when it comes to PWYW – rather than building brand / product-line loyalty, it builds a disincentive into the purchaser’s psyche that future products have to overcome.

Any such impact is going to be amplified if the purchase was with intent – you buy something to meet an identified need, only to discover that the product isn’t actually fit for the purpose. The inevitable frustration gets added to the disappointment.

Conversely, there is a greater assumption of risk implied in speculative purchases, and most customers will instinctively recognize this, even if they aren’t aware of it consciously. That recognition will mitigate any disappointment over the product, and make the negatives easier to throw off.

It is also somewhat likely that this effect is mitigated by PWYW. When someone else sets the price, they are estimating the value of the product to you without knowing anything about you and your needs – and that’s a recipe for trouble. if you overvalue a product that has been purchased using PWYW, and hence overpay (in your opinion after the fact), you have no-one to blame but yourself. It might lead you to be more conservative in future valuations, but nothing more.

Underestimated Value

It’s not often acknowledged that the opposite is also a problem for honest customers, in that there is a sensation of guilt when you have paid less than the value that you ultimately associate with a product.

When the publisher has set the price, there’s not much that can be done about this situation except to consider the product to be a bargain. Such was the case with The Complete Guide To Doppelgangers from Goodman Games, which I reviewed (and expanded) in Pieces Of Creation: The Hidden Truth Of Dopplegangers.

At the time of that review, it was priced at $3.50; I think I paid $5 for it. In my opinion, it has more like a $10 value, and I’m happy to tell that to anyone who asks!

The emotional dynamics are slightly different when you have set the value. There’s relatively little sense of guilt when paying someone else’s underestimated value; that stops being the case when you have set the price.

If there is a product – call it Product Y – whose comparable products all cost $5, and for which you pay only $2.50, only to discover that the value to you is more like $10, you definitely feel guilty over not having paid that $10, and feel acutely guilty at not having at least paid the comparable $5 for the item.

The Ideal Solution: Delayed PWYW

There have been a number of attempts to make the PWYW model more useful and profitable to sellers while maintaining the inherent appeal to customers. One such attempt is employed by OpenBooks.com – a shift from ex ante payment to ex post payment.

In other words, you get to read the book and then set the value that you place on the product.

The people who would have been inclined to pay nothing will probably still do so. But the people who would have paid something, on average, are likely to pay more than they otherwise would have done, on average – because they can comfortably assess the value of the product. There is no need for the slight edge of conservatism that erodes valuations.

If you would normally sell 3 copies of product Z at a fixed price of $2, shifting to a PWYW model might get you 5 sales, three of which pay nothing, one of which pays $2, and the fifth pays $5 – so you get $7 instead of $6. But with an ex post valuation, that $5 might be $8, and the $2 might be $3.50 – so you are getting $11.50 in sales. What’s more, one of those pay-nothings might choose to pay a dollar or two on top of that!

Of course, that only works if the product is good enough to justify someone paying that much for a copy. Contemplate the formula:

Market Segment × Segment Value = Price share.

If 10% percent of the market will value your work at $1, that’s a 10-cent contribution to the total REAL value that you can expect to realize from the product. Do a similar calculation for the entire market of potential sales, add up the contributions to the overall valuation, and you get an estimate of what the total price of the product should be.

Here’s an example:

40% × $0 = $0
20% × $1 = $0.20
30% × $5 = $1.50
8% × $10 = $0.80
2% × $20 = $0.40

$0 + $0.20 + $1.50 + $0.80 + $0.40 = $2.90.

This is an example of a product designed to appeal strongly to a small segment of a market. At $3 a copy, it would probably be overpriced; at $2.50, you have excluded the share from that top 2% of customers, and you lose the $0 and most of the $1 customers, but the price will be about right for the rest of the market. You’re selling to that 38%. And, since 100/38 = 2.63, going to a PWYW model would not only bring back those $0 and $1 customers, but capture the extra revenue from the occasional $20 valuation; you would get more income overall ($2.90 instead of $2.50) and sales would be up 250%.

But that’s in a perfect world, where you can value the product after you’ve bought it. If you can’t, then you might get only 75-80% of those prices – $2.90 becomes $2.17-to-$2.32, and you would lose money as a PWYW. But this is very sensitive to a number of variables, especially those percentages. Look at what happens if I fiddle with those a bit:

30% × $0 = $0
30% × $1 = $0.30
20% × $5 = $1.00
13% × $10 = $1.30
7% × $20 = $1.40

$0 + $0.30 + $1.00 + $1.30 + $1.40 = $3.70
$3.70 × 75% = $2.78.

The $2.50 price is still fine, but now going to a PWYW model would both increase sales and income even with the conservatism inherent in valuing before purchase; and would go up enormously if you could value after the sale.

Again, that’s an excellent product in the opinion of it’s narrow target market. A poor product will arguably earn less under a PWYW system, and less again with after-purchase valuations.

And that’s the rub when it comes to setting a price for your product: you have to estimate what it’s going to be worth to people and the demographic breakdown of your sales. PWYW lets consumers tell YOU what your work is worth – but paying in advance muddies those numbers..

The Practical Solutions

Unfortunately, unless the marketplace has been set up to handle it, ex post pricing is not available – and make no mistake, it needs a LOT of work to implement. You need followup reminder emails and systems to track whether or not a payment has been made, and policies about how long a product can be unpaid, and enforcement, and a whole host of other issues. Most marketplaces, like DriveThru RPG, don’t consider it worth the hassle.

So, let’s look at some practical alternative solutions.

Suggested prices

I take suggested prices with a grain of salt, because you can never tell what the basis for the suggestion is. Does it reflect what the publisher would like to get? Does it reflect what the publisher thinks is reasonable for the product relative to others on offer? Is it priced to suggest a bargain? Or is it a reflection of the production costs (see Value for money and the pricing of RPG materials Part 1 of 2 and Part 2 of 2)? Or is it some complex hybrid of all of these (the most likely)?

You also have to wonder to what extent the desired price-tag drove the production decisions and vice-versa.

I will often relate what I find in the product preview to the recommended price after factoring in the length of the product, in order to create some context for interpretation of the suggested price. If the preview shows extensive artwork and expertise, then a higher price-to-page count ratio is explained; if it is more bare-bones, then the ratio has to be lower. But this is a vague and rubbery standard. Ultimately, either the visuals are the product’s chief value, or they are an extra that might add a little to the value of the content (at best).

The artwork in Assassin’s Amulet is definitely in the latter category, for the most part. The exceptions are the map at the heart of the product and the variations on that map that were included, which are integral to the overall value.

Price per word

As a rule of thumb, you get around 800 words to a page. In the 1990s, when I was writing short stories, the average price per word that a publisher would pay for one was around 10 cents a word.

A PDF with 10 pages of content is thus worth 800×10x$0.10 = $800. That value is then amortized, or spread, over the minimum number of copies that the publisher wants to sell – if 100 copies is the goal, that sets a price-tag for this element alone of about $8. And that’s without considering any other production cost.

Instead, you’re likely to get $2 for it. That requires a shift in the goal posts – 500 copies sold gets the writing cost down to $1.60, 1000 gets it down to $0.80. Those prices are more in line with the payment you can expect to receive – but the number of sales are not.

The typical payment per word of RPG products is about 1/4 of what low-end magazines were paying per word 40 years ago. Maybe less.

Nevertheless, this gives a basis upon which to value a product that you can estimate based on the content of a preview. Is what you read there worth “the usual price”? More? Less?

Price per page

“2.5 cents per word, divided by 100 copies” is all well and good, but not very practical. Writers work by the word, everyone else works by the page. When you do the math, it works out to a standard of about 20 cents per page. As it happens, that’s about what the local Cybercafe charges to print a page of text, but that’s sheer coincidence.

That’s a workable foundation. Adjust the price per page to the value you perceive from the preview, multiply by the number of pages (less an allowance for boilerplate and covers and so on), and you can quickly come up with a reasonable estimate of what you think a product is worth to you.

Buying Twice

But there’s an even better answer, if you’re buying through DriveThru RPG or RPG Now – you can buy a product once at a minimum price or even $0, and then – once you’ve read it and can evaluate its real value to you – go back and buy it again, this time paying what you think it’s actually worth.

This bridges the gap between speculative purchase and purchase with intent. Base your initial purchase on the speculative value, and add a bonus for actual achievement of the purpose for which the product was purchased if you bought with satisfaction of an actual need in mind.

Which brings me back to “Bars, Clubs, and Bands“.

Bars, Clubs and Bands

In terms of speculative value, I paid $1 for my copy. If I didn’t expect to get any value out of it other than this review, I would have paid $0, but I liked what I read in the preview – with caveats. I was fairly certain that it would hold actual value to me as a product beyond merely reviewing it, or using it as a launchpad for this article, and the author deserved some compensation for that. I regard this review as constituting some value as well; whether or not the sum of those two contributions equals the value that I place on the product, or if I need to “top up” my payment with a little more, remains to be seen.

Expertise

It’s clear fairly early on that the expertise in the area claimed by the author in his introduction is backed up by the content. He knows what he’s talking about, and that comes through very clearly.

That has a big impact in two ways: the reliability of the information, and the comprehensiveness of his handling of the subject matter.

Interestingly, this comes through more clearly when reading the whole supplement than it does in the preview. It also raises expectations regarding the value of the product.

Content

The content, in the areas of Bars and Clubs, is comprehensive and excellent (with caveats). The content, in the area of Bands, is relatively sparse and not up to the same standards of comprehensiveness as the rest. What mention is made of the subject is good.

The introduction makes clear that the author is qualified to discuss bands, contracts, riders, how much they expect to get paid, promotional activities, recording, negotiations for live recordings, etc – but there’s very little of that.

So that’s a negative, and two positives.

What content is there is placed in the context of being system agnostic; this is a detailed description of the real-world situation in the US at the start of 2020, or at the time of writing. It’s relatively adaptable to what you are likely to find in most westernized countries around the world – and I’m in something of a position to judge that, simply be seeing how much of the content was directly applicable to the situation in my native Australia.

The answer is that a great deal of it is transferable – and, in the recent past (say, about 10 years ago), it was a very close match. But the Australian situation has been migrating away from supporting live music over that period, and that makes some of the content less applicable. It wouldn’t take too much research or expertise to discern this, however, and once you know that, it’s easy to de-emphasize those parts of the text.

I think that a similar situation would obtain to bars in Germany, or in Moscow – you need to do a little additional research to fully use what’s presented here. That said, the fact that Ed has been so comprehensive means that you have all the foundation pieces that you need.

Communication

Ed’s style involves a lot of very long paragraphs. As an editor, I would have liked to see more subheadings to separate those paragraphs and then a greater breaking up of the text within. But the style communicates the information with an air of expertise, of knowing the subject well, and that’s – not priceless, but significant.

Visual Style / Visual Reference

The style, visually, is fairly austere. Illustrations are small, and certainly not something you could whip out at the game table to show players and set a scene. The textual content is in two columns, and the illustrations have clearly been sized to fit those text columns. So the layout is bare-bones.

That’s not necessarily an entirely bad thing, even though it once again means that you will have some additional “legwork” to do before you can actually use the material. It does mean that costs have been kept down; the lack of eye candy means that there is relatively little “extra value” provided by the visuals, but the core value was always going to be found in the words, anyway.

Flaws

I replied to Ed when I accepted the offer of writing a substantive review with some initial impressions based on a cursory examination of the preview, and offered three criticisms. I’m going to expand on those for a bit.

The good news is that a complete reading of the text has only added one more to the initial list that I offered in that communication. I’ll get to that fourth problem directly.

Flaw #1: numbers without context

“The average bar earns around $25k to $30k per week against an expense of around $5600 for staff, food, drink and rent/mortgage. This does not include insurance, breakage and other expenses.”

Nice and straightforward. But ‘average’ implies a range, and there is no indication of the relative ratios (low end to high end) – I would expect from my own general knowledge that 90% of bars would have takings of only about 10% of this, with expenses of 40% or so of that shown, while a few high-end nightclubs might take in ten times this amount. But this distribution model could be exaggerated or even totally off-base.



This statement is therefore inadequate, unless supplemented by a couple of ranges coupled to an indication of how widespread the applicability of the results. A small graph would do it, like the one to the right (illustrative purposes only):

This illustrates a situation in which the greatest number of bars earn about 60% of the average, declining rapidly in frequency as incomes diminish from that point, while some earn considerably more than average. Without scales, you can’t tell how much more, but the graph suggests double – but it might not be a linear scale The other information shown is the range of expenses as a percentage of the average – so that for each level of income, you can see what the range of expenses are. There are some shown where the average quoted is the minimum, and some where the expenses are more than your income – because some bars, logically, should be losing money at any given time.

This is an example of how the information could be presented – I am not an expert in the subject! – so don’t use this graph as real information.

Flaw #2: numbers without historical variation

“Average drink price is $10.50 while average VIP bottle service is $239. Average per person expenditure is $55 per visit.”

All nice and straightforward – but were the prices the same, 30 years ago (1990)? 60 years (1960)? 90 years (1930)? I already know they weren’t just because the dollar has inflated. For example, you can get a rough economic translation to mid-1930s prices by dividing by 10 – but that assumes that the salary of the barmen was the same (adjusting for inflation), and ditto the ingredients, and I doubt either of those is true. So “average drink price (1930) is $1.05 while average VIP bottle service is $23.90; average per person expenditure is $5.50 per visit” is not going to be correct. But I don’t know what the right numbers are going to be.

Flaw #3: absence of history

Nor do I have any information about how tastes have changed; I just know that they have. Were ales more popular than Lagers back then – and what’s the difference, anyway?

I know just enough to know that I don’t know, if you know what I mean. I have the references to dig the information out, at least about the 1930s, but the 1960s? No way.

The same is true of everything in the supplement – there’s too much focus on the right now, and no information on, say, the last century of history.



Flaw #4: sample venue layouts

These are all oriented across the page, and that has shrunken them in size. Rotating the images 90 degrees would have permitted them to be much larger: Take a look at the image to the left. The first is an actual screenshot from the supplement, and the second has the floor-plan rotated 90 degrees and enlarged 147% to fit onto exactly the same page. You can imagine how much more useful the image would be when printed.

A minor omission

One more minor omission: the supplement talks about the volume in such establishments, for example, but the numbers provided only really apply when a band or DJ is in operation, and historically, volume levels would have been different in the past. That’s okay, any GM can fudge that; it will still be loud, just not as loud, perhaps.

But I saw no mention of the fact that the hearing difficulties – ringing in the ears etc – can persist for an hour or more after a band’s performance. This is something that I know from personal experience. I’ve also been to gigs where the effect lasted a lot less – only a few minutes – so it’s very variable and markedly responds to small differences in the volume levels.

Overall assessment

There’s an awful lot to like in this supplement. Where information is included, it communicates it clearly and in straightforward language, and it covers everything you might need to know as a GM to drop a bar or nightclub into an adventure as either a one-off or ongoing location.

In many ways, the majority of the flaws can be expressed in terms of what’s NOT there. What’s included is excellent; what’s missing is the problem.

The useful content starts about 1/3 of the way through page 2 – before that, you have cover, contents, and introduction. Once it starts, it doesn’t really let up until you reach page 61. So there’s a lot of content of value.

Based on the 20-cents-per-page standard, that’s 59 x $0.20 = $11.80. Even if the flaws cut the price in half, and I then knock another 1/3 of the result (for the missing “band” content), I get a value of about $3.93 – which is almost double the suggested price.

But I’m not convinced that those reductions are fair – they are quite severe, and assume that the value of the content is fundamentally and fatally flawed as a result, and I don’t think that’s the case. Is the product weakened by the omissions I have described? Yes, absolutely – but what’s there is still first-hand knowledge and expertise from someone who knows the subject.

This is $5 or $6 value, in my opinion, even with the flaws I’ve identified. It won’t do it all for you – but it never actually promises to do that, anyway. If you run any games set in the 20th century or beyond, this is a game product that is worth your money.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I owe the publishers a little more of my money.

0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:)

— The Sixes System is a minimalist game system suitable for any and all genres.

— It has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, which has just come to a successful conclusion.

— Characters are constructed using a point-buy methodology with NPCs generatable using die rolls for speed.

— Success or Failure on tasks is determined by adding dice to a pool based on ability and circumstances which are then rolled against a target number determined by the GM.

21. Genres and the Sixes System

Skills can be divided into four broad categories. There are (1) skills that are so quintessentially human that they are common to all characters, regardless of species and genre, just because they are being played by Humans; there are (2) skills that define a character’s professional abilities within the bounds and context of genre, often implicitly but in generalities; there are (3) skills that define what knowledge the character has within the bounds and context of genre, but which usually do not actually explicitly say so; and there are (4) skills that define a genre by specifying what a character can and can’t do within that genre.

So far as characters are concerned, Genre comes down to (1) abilities and (2) equipment. Abilities can be further divided into (1a) things they have learned to do, and
(1b) things that the character can innately do for one reason or another. Everything else is up to the GM.

That’s actually fairly profound, when you think about it. If you ‘universalize’ (to coin a term) the game mechanics, characters are 90-95% translatable from one genre to another, and this explains why. You can have a Darth Vader analogue in a superhero campaign, or a fantasy campaign, or a western campaign; you can have s Batman in a medieval setting, or an anime setting, or a spy setting.

Some people might argue that this means that Genre is irrelevant, because characters can survive without it. One or two might grant an exception for any genre elements that are important enough to be enshrined within the game mechanics.

Others – and I’m one of them – would argue that this reflects the potency of Genre. Like a spicy curry, you need to balance it with a lot of fluffy white rice – but it’s the curry that carries the flavor.

The 90:10 rule

I once was told that, to be a success in any job, identify the 10% that is nine times as important as the other 90% put together – then master that 10%. I think the maxim overstates the principle – it should be more like 30% and 3 times as important – but as a generality, it holds up fairly well, and the stronger version is far more memorable.

Take what I’m doing right now. The 30% that is absolutely critical to Campaign Mastery is being able to write well. If I can do that, then it doesn’t matter as much if I’m a little lax at site maintenance, or answering emails, or organizing sponsorship, or map-making, or American spelling, or promotion, or editing. There are technological solutions to some of that, and I think I’m fairly good at some of it, and the rest? I’m good enough to get by. But none of that would matter if I weren’t able to generate the content. Do that right, and I wouldn’t get fired, no matter how poorly I did the rest of it (within reasonable limits, of course).

And it’s true of every job out there – there’s one-third of it that’s absolutely critical, and two-thirds that are useful filler, and are nice-to-have, but they won’t save your job if you mess up that one-third.

Genre-based content is the one-third of a character (less, actually) that really matters. Characters can change professions. Characters can be physically transformed into a different species. Characters can change their personalities (and should, under sufficient provocation). Personal Lives are as changeable as the weather. But genre is the glue that holds characters together, and binds them to the world around them. You can take the Vader out of Star Wars but you can’t take the Star Wars out of this particular Vader; it is the distinguishing feature.

Genre In The Sixes System

In the Sixes System, Profession or Dominant General Ability is expressed through the choice of optional characteristic, and everything else – special abilities, equipment, knowledge (within genre restrictions) – that’s all covered by skills. Everything else is up to the GM to convey through story and setting.

That means that any discussion of genre, and how to adapt the rules system to it, only needs to touch on five critical factors.

1. Professions & Stat Choices
2. Genre Skills
3. Equipment within Genre
4. Character Points
5. Personality Traits

Some of these will be more important than others, but which ones will vary from genre to genre.

I should (once again) point out that these are not intended to be rigorous definitions of genre; they are general in nature, more introductions than anything else. They will assume that the GM and player are reasonably familiar with the genre already, and try not to tell them things that they already know. The question this section is going to try to answer is “What does a Player/GM who is well-versed in the genre in question, need to know in order to use the Sixes System within the genre?”

Let’s get started. Half now, half in the next (and final?) part of the series.

PS: I’ve shuffled the order given in the contents around a little to separate a couple of the bigger categories.

The Secrets Of The Images

Each part of this series has featured illustrations that are representative of one or more of the genres to be discussed. Part one used elements from Dr Who (for obvious reasons, given the immediate history of the game system). Part 2 was illustrated with Fantasy elements. Parts 3 and 4 were Sci-Fi (and a little Cyberpunk on the side). Part 5, Detective and Western; Part 6, Cthulhu and Horror (with a little Sci-Fi on the side); Part 7 was Superhero; and this article is built around a Spies and Secret Agents motif. Next time – ah, but that would be telling!

21. Specific Genre Notes

21a. High Fantasy

High Fantasy is all about stretching the sense of wonder. Adventures can relate to anything from the nature of magic to the fabric of the universe to the machinations of dark Gods.

That’s a lot of flavor to convey, so it’s important to use every opportunity.

Professions & Stat Choices

Avoid any sort of 6th stat choice that doesn’t add to the fantasy flavor. Instead of “Fighter” choose “Swordsman” or “General” or even “Leader”. Where you can’t do so, try to add racial distinction to the profession – “Elven Archer”, “Dwarven Miner”, “Halfling Farmer”. Then make sure to define the difference that the distinction represents. Instead of “Thief”, try “Cut-purse” or “Scout” or “Spy” or “Burglar” or even something like “Adept Hand” or “Shadow Warrior” or “Escapologist”:

Genre Skills

The most important Genre Skills are going to relate to magic and sorcery. The fact that mages have to invest heavily in this area to contain all their spells automatically means that they will want to skimp on non-essential stats – let them, within reason. Anyone that takes a Mage should also take a disadvantage related to Magic or Sorcery; what this might be is up to the GM and the player. This serves three important purposes: (1) It distinguishes the character; (2) It (at least partially) funds spells; and (3) by controlling the value, it enables the GM to determine the overall effectiveness of the character relative to those without spells. This is something that some systems are notorious for struggling to achieve.

It’s also going to be essential to character differentiation that there be some distinction between magic items used by the non-mage and magic spells used by a mage. The most common solution is to restrict magic items to “pre-programmed functions” with limited flexibility of application, while mages are capable of finesse and finer manipulation of effects. Some of this will come down to the way the GM interprets what characters attempt to do with their respective tools and the target numbers that he sets as a reflection of those interpretations.

It’s often better to use broader skill interpretations if they can sustain the sense of genre.

Equipment within Genre

I used examples of magic items in the equipment section, so there’s no need to repeat here. It’s important that the GM limit the number of magic items that can be carried by any individual – “One personal protection, one off-hand, one weapon-hand, one boots, one belt, one cloak, and one miscellaneous for every x-hundred construction points” is a valid formulation. Some might permit a ring instead of a belt; others might simply tally these up and state “no more than 6 plus 1 per x-hundred construction points”.

This becomes important because mages can take magical gear, too, yet the use of such equipment is a vital point of distinction between non-mages and spell-wielders. As an example of the sort of genre-rule that might be enforced, contemplate mandating an extra 6 to cast a spell for each point in protection from magical armor. I would also rule that very few be “at will” magic items; most should require attention, or at the very least, concentration, to activate – so that there is a limit to the number of magic items that can be activated at a time.

Character Points

High Fantasy generally mandates the expenditure of a number of skill points in various forms of exotic knowledge, as well as the purchase of magical equipment, and characters (in general) tend to be verging on the superhuman. 100-150 points is not unreasonable, +25 if your party will be 3 or fewer including allied NPCs.. I would also recommend a limit of 30-40 points from disadvantages.

Personality Traits

There is a temptation to make these relatively ordinary, simply because so many other aspects of the characters can be considered extraordinary. Fight this, or mandate that each “ordinary” personality trait be matched with something that is game-world or genre- specific. An “ordinary” trait is one that could be placed on a modern-day character and not look out-of-place – so “alcoholic” and “money-miser” and “gambler” and the like qualify. “Fascinated by myths & legends” skirts the line, because “myths and legends” might have a nuanced meaning in the context of the fantasy campaign, where they might be truths and current information.

I also recommend that you discourage the use of cliches. “Hates Magic” has been done to absolute death. “Addicted To Magic” is better – that’s one of the themes a character is exploring in my superhero campaign. “Mages are security blankets” is a good one. “Magic irritates the Gods” is another. “Magic pollutes the Divine Environment” is an interesting belief that might or might not be true.

It’s not unreasonable for you to provide a list of potential traits that reflect the thrust of the adventures that are to occur within the campaign. “Magic is a strategic weapon” works in a number of contexts – but not all. “Demons pervert everything” is a similar case – being anti-Demon in some way in a campaign that is to feature Demonic manipulation, schemes, or invasion helps explain why this character is one of those at the forefront of the resistance to whatever it is, i.e. is a PC.

Be over-the-top and larger-than-life in this area.

21b. Low Fantasy

Low fantasy is about grit and violence. If there’s a high-level mage out there, he’s almost certainly a bad guy to be opposed by an entire party. Gods are interfering busybodies with feet of clay – and vulnerabilities that can be discovered if they step over the line.



Image by SamWilliamsPhoto from Pixabay, crop and tonal tweak by Mike

Professions & Stat Choices

Embrace the grit. Endorse the mundane. Reject anything too highfalutin. But, at the same time, you need to embrace the genre – once again, “Fighter” is off the menu. Instead of racial alternatives, though, national differentiation is preferable.

Genre Skills

In terms of skill definition, this is better suited to narrow definitions and specifics.

Equipment within Genre

Less magic. You can either make magic more expensive to achieve this, or simply limit the number of items more strictly – maybe to four, maybe less if hems are considered an armor type in their own right when on their own, and part of the suit when partnered with matching pieces. Ditto shields.

Character Points

70-90 character points, plus a maximum of 15-20 in disadvantages, is my recommendation. If you only have a few party members, add another 5-10 points. With an average of 6.5 XP per adventure likely, that’s 10+ adventures before you can even think about matching up with a starting high fantasy character. Except that they get more in disadvantages and more magic and broader skills, so you’ll probably need to double that, minimum. 20-odd adventures is a largish campaign, in my book – so that works.

Personality Traits

The advice in this area is, once again, the exact opposite of that given for High Fantasy. Embrace the gritty and the specific.

21c. Superhero

The superhero genre is a lot trickier than it often seems to the uninitiated. Adventures can span the range from gritty street-crime to cosmic and multiple points in between – with the same characters. It’s easy for characters to be too overpowered for one or too under-powered for the other. Both present challenges to the GM.

The best solution is a two-word term: “Thematically Matched”. The general concept is that each character should have a theme or broad concept, and that each should resolve into a broad item, one or two narrowly-defined items, and two or three extremely narrowly-defined items. Not all areas of the concept need be reflected in abilities. “Items” might be skills, or equipment, or super-abilities.

For example, the theme might be “Mental Abilities”; the broad item might be “Psionic Awareness” (which is so broad that it actually requires further definition before anyone will know what it means), the two narrow items might be “Psionic Search” and “Psychometry”, and three specific items might be “Telepathic Communication”, “Telepathic Whisper”, and “Telekinetic Throw”. High on the shopping list might be “Telekinetic Deflection”.

The idea is that the broader items can be used in multiple ways that gives the character broad utility on the more “Cosmic” occasions, while the specifics permit the character to function in a more “street-level” adventure without the broad item being overwhelmingly powerful. The Narrow items provide flexibility and extra punch under specific circumstances to both; they aren’t applicable all the time, but are useful when they do come to the fore.

Professions & Stat Choices

It should be obvious from the above that the theme should be reflected in the optional stat choice. Sometimes, that will be easy, and sometimes hard. Where that doesn’t work, the (distant) second choice should something like “World’s Greatest Detective” or “Crime-fighter” or “Defender Of The Earth”. The problem with using these calling-cards as central focus is that more than one can lay claim to the title, and every time someone else does so, it diminishes the uniqueness and cachet of the character – even if their claim is less worthy in some respect. So you should avoid them if you can.

Genre Skills

It’s useful to try and put a super-heroic “spin” on as many skills as possible. Instead of “Oratory”, consider “Inspirational Speeches”. Instead of “Deduction”, contemplate “Instinct For Truth”. There are a lot of skills where this won’t be reasonable or even possible, and more where it won’t be reasonable for the specific character in question, but don’t miss any valid opportunities.

Equipment within Genre

Equipment in superhero campaigns covers four primary fields: (1) Skill Enablers; (2) Fantasy Gear; (3) Sci-Fi Devices; and (4) Pulp Gadgets. The great thing about the universality of the sixes system is that (1) are presupposed to be there, and used, unless circumstances dictate otherwise; and (2) through (4) can be imported directly from the relevant genre or sub-genre.

This is true, even in many inobvious cases. For example, take Cerebro, the mutant-detecting psionic enhancement featured in most of the X-men movies (and in many issues of the comic before that); while overtly it’s a superhero gadget, you could easily work it as Fantasy Gear (a crystal ball), or a Sci-Fi Device (some sort of advanced Sensor) or as a Pulp Gadget.

Character Points

Super-heroic characters are best constructed as a two-phase operation: an initial build followed by a bundle of extra points that can only be spent enhancing or improving something that the character already has, but can’t be spent on anything new. The first part is conceptual, the second part elevates the power levels to the desired baseline.

Conceptual: 100-110 points, plus a maximum of 30 points in disadvantages.

Elevation: Street Level: +10-20 points, +10 in disadvantages; Medium Level: +30-40 points, +20 in disadvantages; High-level, +40-50 points, +30 in disadvantages.

Personality Traits

Superheroes are easy in a different respect: it’s generally easy to get them involved in an adventure, because they have strong senses of responsibility, or are obsessive/driven, or are driven by fate (which includes ‘reluctant hero’). But it’s necessary that the character sheet actually reflects whichever of these matches the character description, and puts an individual spin on it.

21d. Mystery/Detective

Mystery/Detective genres (as distinct from crime and police campaigns) tend to be fairly rare, and even more so in modern times. I’m not entirely sure why that is – except, possibly, that such adventures are a lot more work to write and run.

The Sixes System lends itself very strongly to such campaigns, thanks to its inherent flexibility.



Image by himanshu gunarathna from Pixabay.
Beautiful women abound, and are always dangerous, in spy games!

Professions & Stat Choices

Characters can have any profession that requires the solving of puzzles. Doctors, Lawyers, and Police are obvious ones. Unlike most genres, however, I don’t recommend that the profession be the 6th stat.

Instead, the player should attempt to distill the method by which the character solves mysteries into a single comprehensive term, and use that for their 6th stat. Elimination (the Agatha Christie model), Observation (the Sherlock Holmes model), Interrogation, and (obviously) Deduction are just some of the many possibilities.

A secondary consideration that should be spelt out by the player is how this approach impacts and advantages them in their professional life.

Genre Skills

Without the stat to be the primary driver of profession, the use of skills becomes more important. The temptation would be to list the profession as a single skill, but – even if bought to a high level – that tends to devalue it; the profession becomes easy to lose sight of, as the forest no longer contains the trees.

Instead, the profession should be broken into separate activities and each of those manifested in a separate skill to construct a suite of related abilities and expertises. This prevents the character from over-investing in capacities that are not relevant to the profession, while still retaining enough flexibility that the character can cope with most situations in which they may find themselves.

Another problem that permeates the genre and may explain the relative dearth of representative RPG campaigns is the inherent difficulties raised by multiple characters with the same general focus. I have seen it suggested that there is a 90-95% overlap between such characters, and while I think that an exaggeration, there’s enough truth in there to make it a concern for any GM contemplating such a campaign.

The approach that I have recommended here is designed to actively combat this problem in two ways; firstly, multiple characters in the same profession can have different strengths and weaknesses relative to each other; and secondly, the diversion of skill points into multiple professional activities reduces the scope for overlap, reducing the overlap between characters of different professions.

Equipment within Genre

This tends to be a fairly low-equipment genre, and most equipment will be 1-point gadgets. As a general rule, the GM should think carefully about anything that exceeds this guideline.

Character Points

Characters for this genre should be built on 80 points, plus 5 for each PC fewer than 4. Disadvantages should be initially limited to 10 points, but GMs may wish to increase this to 15 after trying the lower limit.

Personality Traits

Again, this is a problem when you no longer have profession to distinguish one character from another. To resolve it, consider all the detective doctors that you’ve seen depicted on television, and contemplate the differences in personality and mannerism between them. Start with Marcus Welby MD; then Dr Kildare; then Dr Mark Sloan (Diagnosis Murder); then House, and Dr Watson (Sherlock Holmes – multiple interpretations). Where you go from there is up to you – but those are quite enough to prove the point: no matter how similar these characters might be, they are also clearly distinct and different from each other.

This is the goal that you have to set for personality traits. Anything that is too generic, or too routinely associated with the profession in question, should be rejected; encourage things that promote distinctiveness. Now, that’s always good advice, but this genre demands that you be more heavy-handed than usual.

21e. Crime & Cops

At first glance, you might think that everything written about Detective/Mystery campaigns would apply double to campaigns that deliberately focus on Crime and Law-enforcement. And, to some extent, that’s true. But one of the big impacts of TV shows such as CSI and NCIS is that it becomes obvious that there are many different ways of fighting crime, and success generally rests on a combination of all of them.

Which means that there is greater potential for focusing on those differences.

Professions & Stat Choices

With that in mind, if a character is to be a specialist in some specific form of crime or crime fighting – Cybercrime or forensics or even accountancy (“Follow The Money!”) then those professions would be eminently suitable for reflection in stat choice. If, however, a character is to be a generic “Policeman” or “Detective,” then I would apply the techniques described in the previous section with full force.

Genre Skills

See above.

Equipment within Genre

As per 21d.

Character Points

As per 21d.

Personality Traits

As per 21d, but using cop shows instead of medical detectives. Diversity is the key to successfully adapting this perennial television genre to RPGs – something that I’ve never actually seen done.



Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabaym background by Mike

21f. Spies/Agents

This genre seems to come in waves, becoming popular for a while and then fading away again. Part of the problem seems to be that it is a common sub-genre. within a whole bunch of other genres – you can have a spy/agent campaign within a Fantasy milieu, or in a Sci-Fi setting, or in the old west, and these are still viewed as predominantly attached to the parent genre and not as a variation on the spy/secret agent genre. As a result, it lacks the cohesion and critical mass to receive the recognition and ongoing support that it deserves. It’s fan-base is too fragmented.

Of course, there can be good reasons for such fragmentation. Conceptual Integrity is not a phrase that drops into many conversations, but it goes a long way to explaining the situation, and the approach of the Sixes system bows to it as well, in the form of the following instruction: If there is an element of another genre within the proposed campaign, said campaign will be better-executed using the rules and interpretations associated with that genre and not with the advice within this section.

In other words, if your spy campaign is set in a sci-fi environment, use the sci-fi genre rules; if a Fantasy setting, use the Fantasy genre advice; and so on.

The purist form of the genre is reserved for modern-day campaigns, set between the end of World War 2 and the very near future – not far enough away to be considered cyberpunk, to be more specific – and it is to that “pure” form of the genre that the advice below is intended to apply.

It breaks rules and ignores principles that have been held as sacrosanct in other genre discussions, and that’s appropriate, given that Genre should always override rules and game mechanics – or perhaps that should read “Genre appropriateness”. Anyway…

Professions & Stat Choices

It contradicts the approaches taken with other genres, but there is nothing wrong with characters from this genre using generic labels for their sixth stat like “Spy” or “Secret Agent” or “Mole”. That’s because the differences from one character to another within this genre are much less distinct and more reliant on specific skills than any other.

On the assumption that a GM’s productive time and attention are limited, he is better advised to spend his time scrutinizing those, and ensuring that characters are distinct in their capabilities and that there is not too much overlap, than in looking too closely at the sixth stat; in this context, the sixth stat is just a delivery vehicle for the skill specializations.

That said, a more-than-acceptable compromise is to use the sixth stat to shoehorn additional flavor into the character – there may be a difference between “British Secret Service” and “CIA Agent” and “KGB Operative”, even though these superficially mean the same thing. The differences lie in style, and approach, and attitude, and a whole bunch of unwritten flavor elements – but just because you can’t put your finger on them, doesn’t mean that they aren’t as real, and as important, as the distinction between Strength and Charisma.

This will work very well so long as the GM and the player are on the same page in terms of those undefinable distinctions – which they will be, at least some of the time. It’s when there are differences in interpretation that things can become a little sticky. At such times, the GM should Pause The Game and have a (brief) round-table on the specifics, with the GM going last and taking on board what the players have said. He might change his mind, based on what the players have said, or may revise his position to a third possibility, or may be able to articulate his own position more clearly as a result of the input – but until player and GM agree, the game can’t go forward.

Another way of looking at this is to state that each organization has it’s own style, which is expressed in everything from it’s recruiting practices to it’s attitude, and which will constrain both what they will and won’t do, and how they will do it. Violations of these unwritten rules are even more important (in many ways) than violations of the written rules and laws, insofar as violations of those laws can be excused (internally) or justified in terms of that “unwritten code”.

It follows that the number of players should be limited. The amount of playing time is inverse-exponentially proportional to the number of players. From personal observation with other rules systems – and it seems to apply regardless of game mechanics – four can work well, three requires more work by the GM, two is just fine, and One… one is a special problem in that the one player has to be “on” all the time, and that’s hard when you have to share the burden of creating the right atmosphere and style. If your “one” is capable of that, is at least as big a fan of the genre as you are, then that’s fine; but if not, then trouble will eventually strike, and it will be your responsibility as GM to lead the way out of the valley of darkness.

Genre Skills

There is an art form to defining skills sufficiently narrowly as to enable distinctiveness while being sufficiently broad-based that the character can at least be competent (if not proficient) in other areas.

The simplest approach that I have found is depicted by the diagram below (don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it):



This illustrates three “agent” characters and the relative degree of overlap between their skill-sets. Those expertises have been grouped into 3 broad categories: Specialist skills for the specific character (detailed and usually at a high level), related areas of expertise (broader and at a moderate level), and Other General Spycraft (very generally defined and at a relatively poor level).

The first character has 6 specific specialist skills, 4 related areas of expertise (or one that has been divided into 4 skills), and “other general spycraft” has been broken into 6 general skills.

The second character has a completely different specialty, one that overlaps in part with the “related expertise” of the first, and in part is even more widely separated from the specialist expertise of the first. The second character’s related expertises are also split – half overlap with the specialist skills of the first character, and half overlap with what he considered general spycraft. The two have enough in common that they could communicate professionally, but they are very different characters.

Note that since each player can define his skills as he wishes, within the bounds of what the GM considers acceptable, the skill boundaries don’t quite line up between the two characters.

Character #3 is different again. Like the others, he has 6 specialist skills; half of these overlap with the other half of character #1’s ‘related’ areas of expertise, the other half are in areas defined as “general spycraft” by the other two characters. Unlike those characters, #3 has five areas of related expertise, two of which comprise three of character #2’s specialty, and three which do the same with respect to character #1. Note that there is ‘half a skill’s overlap’ between the “related” areas of expertise of characters #2 and #3.

On the far right, I’ve done a symbolic representation of the trio as a team, using a score of 4 for areas of specialist expertise, 2 for areas of related expertise, and 1 for areas of general spycraft. First, I totaled the expertise of the three characters; as you can see, this has produced a narrow 1/2 skill in which both Characters #2 and #3 are experts, and Character #1 knows what the other two are talking about. There is a second area where both characters #2 and #3 have related expertise in an area in which Character #1 is a specialist; so the total is 8 out of a possible 12. Everywhere else, they are collectively at 7 or less, in total, and there is a small area in which all three of them are completely inexpert.

Which is as good a time as any to talk about why three characters don’t make a great foundation for a spy/agents campaign. With four, you can have two strands of action running concurrently, two teams of two agents – one functioning as support/backup for the other. With three, you either have one team “unprotected” or you have all three on their own – that’s either extra work or a diminished capacity for character interaction and roleplay for someone. Yes, you can work around that, but it’s not easy to do so.



Image by Majabel Creaciones from Pixabay, background by Mike.
….Right, ALWAYS dangerous.

Equipment within Genre

Gadgets in this genre tend to be more powerful than in pulp, but are often not intended to survive an adventure. Where a character has spent points on such gadgets, the GM either has to replace the item at the end of the adventure or give the points back. Few gadgets would be worth more than 2 dice, however, with the potential exception of vehicles – but, having said that, Bond didn’t leave many of his vehicles in one piece at the end of a case.

Character Points

As a general rule of thumb, I would recommend 65-70 character points, plus 20-25 for specialist skills, plus 10-15 from disadvantages. Characters should generally have no more than 10 points in equipment (including weapons) – it’s more about improvising with what you’ve got than having a tool for every occasion. But there can be exceptions to this last guideline, especially for characters that need to buy multiple knives or dual-weapon use as a choice of fighting style.

Personality Traits

Color and Glamour run hand-in-hand with this genre. Most characters should reflect this in some respect. Obsessions of any sort can be tricky for a character, but not as much as the icy-cold professional; the last should really be reserved for GM use in villains and their henchmen. The right balance is for the characters to care about something, even if they aren’t sure quite what it is, but not to the point where they will sacrifice Queen and Country (or equivalents thereof) to further them.

21g. Anime/Mecha

I’ve never GM’d this genre, so take this advice with a grain of salt. The closest I’ve come was running some NPCs in my superhero campaign – one bunch of villains, and one bunch of Soviet Heroes forcibly inducted into the PC team for a while. I’m actually going to lean rather heavily on the latter experience in this context.

Each branch of the Soviet military took a stock-standard Iron Man -type super-suit and modified it to suit their particular combat style, then selected a “Hero” to wear it from amongst their ranks. The Pilot went for speed, maneuverability, missiles, and cannon. The Tank driver went for strength and armor, and could barely get off the ground, and so on.

The end result was that each was clearly a derivative of a common foundation, but each also had a distinctive personality both in action and in more “yak-yak-yak” moments (to quote one of them). And that’s what you’re aiming for with this genre.

Characters should be generated as they are outside their armor. Players should then generate a “variant” character, preserving anything non-physical in nature from the first, which reflects their “In-Mech” abilities. GMs may provide a limited pool of additional points for stats and skill enhancements – a small number goes a surprisingly long way. For example, a Mech with a 1-point “Sensor platform” may enhance many skills that have been defined individually.

This works because the two characters are at different scales, but those scales don’t interact, or if they do, the machine generally wins. If a Mech (of STR 3) grips you and squeezes and you aren’t in a Mech yourself, it doesn’t matter much if you have STR 20 – the hydraulics will win (if you are in another Mech, that’s a different story!)

Anything that can stand up to a Mech – say, a dragon – will likewise make easy work of any character not in their Mech. The two scales simply don’t intersect.

The same is true of Mech-mounted weapons vs personal weapons, but the GM should use common sense – if a character fires a bazooka at a Mech, whether it has an effect or not depends on the campaign, but it seems reasonable that it should.

Professions & Stat Choices

Avoid, at all costs, professions such as “Sentinel Pilot”. Instead, the stat choice should be something the character is good at whether they are suited up or not. Wearing the Mech should enhance that action, but more importantly, that field of expertise should impact the way the wearer uses his Mech.

Genre Skills

Mech-related skills should be defined in terms of things that the character is likely to want to know how to do. “Repair” and “Field Repair” or “Jury Rig” should be kept separate – one assumes spare parts, specialist diagnostic equipment, and every tool you are likely to need, and the other assumes their absence. No more than a dozen points should be permitted in these skills, collectively.

Equipment within Genre

There’s an important distinction to be made between the Mechs and related equipment, and equipment for use when the character is not wearing their combat suit. Thinking about that distinction is what gave rise to the notion of treating the two as two separate characters who share one directing consciousness.

Personal equipment is probably only 6-10 points. Mechs may be built on 10-20 points, plus everything that is saved from stats, skills and abilities that don’t transfer – that includes everything from STR to shotgun skill, and definitely includes some of the Purposes – Attack and Defend, for example! Analyze could go either way, and deserves careful thought on the GM’s part.

And note that because the character scales are different, it’s entirely acceptable for a character “In Mech” to have a lower Stat or Purpose than he has “Ex Mech”.

Character Points

Build the normal characters on 70 points, plus 10 points from non-mech disadvantages. Provide the points for mech-related skills as a separate pool, to be used for nothing else.

Characters can “reserve” character construction points “Ex-Mech” to expend on beefing up their Mech. The actual value should depend on the campaign that the GM intends to run – if the action is to be 50% in-Mech and 50% ex-Mech, two for one is justifiable. Save 5 points from your character and you could get 10 points to spend on your Mech. If the ratio is 66% to 33% (more out-of-armor adventure content than in-heavy-metal adventure), then 3-to-1 is called for.

In other words, divide 100 by the In-Mech percentage and that’s the exchange rate.

A more difficult question is whether or not to permit the exchange to operate in the other direction – effectively, characters compromising their Mechs because they have overspent on primary construction. I have to admit to being of two minds on this question; it might be permissible under some circumstances and not under others. Decide on a case-by-case basis.



Image by Toby Parsons from Pixabay, contrast adjust by Mike.
….and hot cars are NEVER out of place.

Personality Traits

This is a really interesting discussion. A character can have more insecurities than you can shake a two-by-four at – out of armor – and feel totally invulnerable in his or her Mech. At the same time, a different character could be totally self-confident outside of their Mech, and still feel inadequate, forced to attempt to over-achieve, in armor.

The personalities can therefore be totally different in some respects – and yet, they are both outgrowths and expressions of the one characterization. Players and GMs should consider the question of how the character’s mindset changes when wearing their Mech, and ensure that this is reflected in their personality traits.

And, still to come, in the final part of this series:

21h. “Low” Sci-Fi
21i. “High” Sci-Fi
21j. Dr Who / Time Travel
21k. Cyberpunk
21l. Pulp
21m. Wild West
21n. Horror

I’d like to promise this for next week, but my experience in writing the above shows that it is harder to shift mental gears between genres than I think it used to be! That means that I’m likely to need to post something else, which eats time away from writing the series. So one week’s delay can become two, three, or even four.

Oh yes, you might wonder about those strange labels – “Low” and “High” aren’t normally terms associated with Sci-Fi genres. Well, not until now, anyway. Stay Tuned, it will all make sense in the end!

A long time ago – 2013 – I wrote a series on Writer’s Block. Recently, that problem reared it’s ugly head in a very specific circumstance within my (still shut-down-for-Covid-19-reasons) superhero campaign. I’ve never encountered a writer’s block this bad in my entire life, to be honest.

You see, I have a long string of related events planned for the campaign, all of them consequences of a previous event having occurred, regardless of whether or not the PCs resolve that previous event when they come to it. I have some flexibility in the timing, but the basic outline is more or less linear. You can even divide it into multiple strands or plot threads that cross-connect and weave into one another.

At the same time, I had the initial setup for this part of the campaign worked out in detail – a nice little travel-yarn to set the stage for everything else. As the impetus for that initial setup… no, that’s getting a little ahead of myself.

The Backstory

In-game, the US has just gone through a period of extreme isolationism – yes, even more extreme than what’s been happening in the real world – and a subversive invasion by a group of extra-dimensional refugees who used knowledge and power to re-frame politics within the nation. The old political parties were rent asunder, and then found common cause with one faction of former enemies to create new political parties with new agendas and priorities, and each being steered by one faction of these refugees.

As I hinted, that period of isolationism is coming to an end, and both political parties can sense it. One wants to re-engage with the world but on favorable terms for the USA – these are modern-day empire-and-alliance builders. The other wants to re-engage with the world as the one true super-power (politically speaking). “Equal with everyone but more equal than anyone else,” if you get my drift. This group are – dare I say it? – more Trumpian than the first (It’s probably worth a side-note to point out that these geopolitical changes were first planned and described in my campaign notes back in 1996, twenty years before life imitated art)..

Not everyone is happy with this notion of being part of the wider world whether Americans liked it or not. There are a number of hard-line militia groups who liked isolationism and “America First, Last, and Always” just fine, thank you. Most are weekend warriors who never amount to anything all that significant. A few rise to the level of Domestic Terrorists, ready to use violence to achieve their goals.

One of those has just bought a pair of nuclear weapons from Russia, who needs money to deal with the resurgent 4th Reich (backed by a third faction of these refugees, it should be added). It won’t be long before Moscow and Leningrad are under direct threat; the Russians may have the backing of most of NATO, but the two biggest guns (the UK and USA) have been busy with their own problems, so that hasn’t helped them much.

The closest thing to a world government is the UN, a rather more muscular organization than in our reality, thanks to their military arm, UNTIL (in fact, it was the alien whose string-pulling and back-room deals led to the founding of the organization that it would eventually become a world government, but UNTIL and the UN have thrown off those machinations and been charting their own course).

The PCs are superheros who work with (in some respects) or for (in other respects) UNTIL. There is a critical presidential election coming up, and the political consequences of being seen to interfere are too dangerous to contemplate. In order to have agents who are free to operate without that perception and effective enough to get the job done, UNTIL have organized new superhero identities for the PCs and are sending them in via back channels.

The first phases of the plotline dealt with establishing the political situation. The second dealt with the initial insertion and a bit of cloak-and-dagger through the streets of a revitalized Sao Paulo. The third was a series of hand-offs between different “Kingdoms” within what used to be Mexico, and were designed to challenge the players, get them used to operating in these new identities, and enrich their world. They also grew close to their guide, a representative of the faction of refugees behind the political party that the PCs would prefer to win, but who are less likely to come to the aid of the Russians and others in trouble. In fact, there is almost an unofficial alliance between them – for the duration of this mission.

The Problem

But there’s the rub. For days now (game time) / months (real time), the PCs have been getting closer to the border and their real mission. They’ve encountered delays and difficulties that have upped the ante. All they know is that these good ol’ boys have a couple of nukes and plan to use them for some sort of public display on the 4th of July. They have a Plan.

Well, good for them. But I didn’t know what it was – not the faintest idea. I had the beginning, and the end, but not the middle – a Plot Divide.

There were all sorts of possibilities, but I had some rather strict criteria to apply. The plan:-

1. Had to be plausible, in the context of a superhero campaign;
2. Had to be plausible, in the context of this superhero campaign;
3. Had to be plausible, even clever, in the context of this group’s objectives;
4. Had to be im-plausible, in the context of giving ideas to any real-world groups who might hear of what was being described;
5. Had to challenge the Players;
6. Had to entertain the Players;
7. Had to fail to get in the way of later events;
8. Had to be spectacular enough to justify the build-up;
9. Had to contain at least one major surprise or plot twist;
10. Had to engage the characters (and players) in different ways so as to facilitate spotlight rotation amongst the party;
11. Had to contain a plausible way for the critical information to fall into the PCs hands at the right time so that they could act on it.

Nothing I was thinking up made it through this rigorous checklist. For week after week, everything I came up with was (1) too limp and uninspired; or (2) too predictable; or (3) too plausible, or too implausible, in the wrong ways.

The Light Dawns

Until last weekend, that is, when I eventually found a solution that worked. I can’t go into specifics, my players read this, but I can talk about the key to the solution.

I had to go back to the fundamentals. What do this group want? How can they use these weapons in a symbolic statement on July 4th, 1988, to achieve these goals?

I knew the answer to the first question in a superficial way, but hadn’t dug deep enough. The solution wasn’t their immediate political desires, but something more substantial and extremist-libertarian. It would require adding something to the recent history of the fictional-USA to provide them with a target whose destruction would serve those more fundamental ends, but that’s the advantage of having walled the place off from the PCs for so long – I can invent whatever I need to be there – in this case, something I’ve been calling “Warehouse 13”..

Plausibility? Check, Check, Check, and No

This objective, and these tactics, were clever, rooted in the ideology of the group, and made total sense given the totality of the in-game situation including the addition of the developments that provided the target. At the same time, without that history to create that target, they wouldn’t tell any such group anything they didn’t already know, wouldn’t give anyone plausible real-world ideas.

Surprise? Diverse problems and Spotlight Rotation?

The players, whose thoughts had been following similar arcs to my own, would be both surprised and challenged, and would have to deal with a crisis on multiple fronts, with multiple facets, at the same time. Some of those would suit the more action-oriented characters, some would suit the deeper thinkers.

No roadblock to the future?

Just the opposite – done properly, Warehouse 13 would facilitate the future, putting more of the building blocks in place and tightening the integration of the plot threads.

A Trail To Follow

Executing this plan would require my fictitious militia to have access to certain expertise that they would not be likely to have, innately. That meant that they would have to hire that expertise, and that in turn would create a trail that the PCs could follow. And in the process, it would create yet another layer of the onion, another uncertainty as to whether or not the PCs could fully trust the people who were giving them orders. One of the themes of this campaign is that “friends will become enemies, and enemies, allies”. There are multiple examples of this occurring throughout the campaign, and more on the way.

Fun?

You betcha! With at least one plot twist that I haven’t yet mentioned, and lots of scope to ham things up in the name of roleplaying, and surprises and challenges to be faced, it should be heaps of fun for all involved.

The Payoff

Finally, this plotline had a climax that was worthy of the buildup. What’s more, I had the option of pulling my punch-line – if it looked like the players were going to succeed too easily, I could up the ante, if not, then I could file that part of the idea away for a later occasion.

This ticked all my boxes. It rings true because it derives, fundamentally, from who this group were, and what they wanted.

As a result, I’m no longer feeling like I want to delay and hold things up in the campaign to avoid the inevitable. Instead, I’m eager and looking forward to it!

And, speaking of inevitable, I’m still plugging away at the final two parts of the Sixes System. It’s proving more difficult than I expected switching my headspace from one genre to another, but I’m getting there!

It’s happened to us all at some point: the adventure has sidetracked down an unexpected alleyway and brought the PCs face-to-face with a character that you’ve made up on the spot.

When this happens, you’re generally thinking only in physical terms, at least in the immediate term; that is because the first interaction that the players will have with this new NPC is through their awareness of his or her physical presence, and that requires some sort of physical description.

In fact, and in general, you start with a noun and an adjective, and from that beginning, everything else sprouts. You embellish with details and then try and come up with a personality – and that’s where the cardboard stock-character problem creeps into the games of the most astute GMs.

“The angry Elf”. “The ancient Ogre.” “The harried Grandmother.” “The albino Barkeep.” See what I mean?

In the past, I’ve shared many different methods of creating characters, but they pretty much all rely on having the prep time and anticipation of the need. The whole point of this situation is that you don’t have those luxuries. You need a technique that will produce playable results in seconds, and only a handful of them at that.

Yet, at the same time, you should not be willing to compromise your standards any further than absolutely necessary, and whatever the product is, it should be both immediately playable, and extensible after the fact.

It should be a springboard for ideas that you can capitalize on immediately, and develop and finesse later, when you have the time. And it needs to be even faster than the time it takes to say so.

Now, techniques like that don’t grow on trees. I’ve been looking for a better one for quite some time now, and only marginally satisfied with the ones already at my disposal. But finally, the right combination of thoughts finally clicked into place to satisfy my prescription. Today, I share the results with you, my readers. Today, I offer you the Inversion Substitution.

The Inversion Substitution Technique

This is a four-step technique.

1. Replace the adjective with something ridiculous, in your mind, and look for a context or interpretation which makes sense.
   

   EG: “The Albino Barkeep” – becomes “The Chocolate Barkeep”. That could mean dark, or sweet, or smooth, or bitter.

2. Then replace that substituted word with something that does make sense – but if the current term describes personality or an emotional state, use something social, or political, or physical – and vice-versa.
   

   EG. “Albino” describes a physical condition so use a personality or emotion item – “The lonely barkeep”, “the jealous barkeep”, “The greedy barkeep”, “the love-struck barkeep”.

3. Replace the noun with something personal to the character.
   

   EG. “The albino Lothario”, “The albino musician”, “The albino drunkard”, “the albino ex-soldier”.

4. Finally, put all these thoughts together. At least one of the terms should refer specifically to how the character will relate to at least one other participant in the encounter – usually a PC, but I’m keeping in mind that this might be a scene that they are observing or overhearing and not engaging in. One more should describe the character’s appearance or apparent social standing. Everything else goes to personality traits that can be expressed at once.
   

   So far, we have “The Albino Barkeep”:
   — ‘chocolate’ -> dark, sweet, smooth or bitter;
   — lonely, jealous, greedy, or love-struck;
   — Lothario, musician, drunkard, or ex-soldier.

   That’s 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 possible combinations. In practice, you wouldn’t work through all of them, you would cherry-pick something that seems consistent and interesting.

   CHOICE 1:
   Dark -> brooding, angry, slow-boiling. Jealous. Dresses like a Lothario. = “The albino barkeep is perpetually at a slow-boil because he and ‘his girl’ have had a fight over the way he attracts other girls to his side. To get back at him, she has started going out with other men – hence his anger. This is an imminent Shakespearean tragedy.”

   CHOICE 2:
   Smooth = suave, sophisticated. Love-struck. Musician. = “The albino barkeep is overdressed in an immaculate 3-piece suit and putting on airs to try and impress someone he is sweet on. He is spending every moment not serving a customer trying to write an ode to his beloved.”

   CHOICE 3:
   “Bitter” implies anger, betrayal. Greedy. Ex-soldier. “The albino barkeep is dressed in a faded military uniform with decorations from some long-forgotten border war. He is instantly suspicious of everyone other than a regular, sure that the government has sent them to spy on him. To anyone who will listen, he will complain bitterly about the way ex-servicemen are mistreated by the government, how they are all corrupt, etc. His obvious biases would make this a perfect breeding-ground for sedition, a gathering-point for paranoid hard-heads looking for privacy, no questions asked. Make no waves, and you might eventually fit in; attract attention and you will become everyone’s target.”

   Those are three perfectly-serviceable characters, all of them with much greater depth than what you had a few seconds earlier.

Note that it doesn’t matter what the original adjective was, but some choices add whole new twists. For example, try applying the above three personalities to:

— The Gnomish barkeep, or
— The Undead barkeep, or
— The artificial barkeep.

Why this approach works:

The first substitution is designed to kick-start your imagination by deliberately picking something ‘ridiculous’ and then trying to make it sensible in some way. By relegating one of the terms to description, which can be set aside at will (so long as you’re running through this process before opening your mouth and committing yourself), you are able to cherry-pick the resulting ideas to form the core of a personality profile.

Because it doesn’t try to give you anything more than a starting point, there are very few constraints on you. You can extend the concept in response to direction questioning and interaction with the others in the scene, or in subsequent scenes, if you have to; anything not so extended can be detailed as extensively as desired after the end of the session. Until then, it places demands on the GM that are as small as possible.

Folk wisdom is a funny old thing. Sometimes it’s a pearl, other times it’s what in Australia might be called a Pearler.

Much of the time, it’s sensible, practical advice when applied to situations that are comparable to that which gave rise to the saying; – and incredibly foolhardy when not.

For example, take that old aphorism, “Beware Of Greeks Bearing Gifts”. This, of course, is not meant to insult or even discriminate against our Greek cousins should they approach with bountiful parcels in hand; rather, it speaks to one specific occasion, when a clever ploy (hiding a band of soldiers, presumably a small one) inside a wooden horse which was gifted to the Spartans. You see, the Spartans had an excellent army of their own, and solid city walls, that the Greeks could not overcome – from the outside.

Yet many people think that another saying – “Never look a gift horse in the mouth” – derives from the same incident, which makes absolutely no sense. If you looked in the mouth of the gift horse, you might discover that it was full of Greek soldiers! Shouldn’t the saying therefore be, “Always look a gift horse in the mouth”? – with a meaning that something that seems too good to be true might well not be as honest as it seems. It seems to me that in this internet age of scams and identity theft, such a saying ground into the consciousness of all and sundry might not be such a bad thing.

There’s even “don’t bite the hand that feeds” to pick up the slack – it only takes a little expansion of the meaning of “the hand that feeds” to give this saying 100% applicability to every situation in which the original “Don’t look a gift horse” would apply.

I think that popular “wisdom” is wrong in attributing the original to the Spartan incident, anyway. It is far more likely to refer to some long-forgotten situation in which a horse was gifted to someone (or sold for a really cheap price), who showed ingratitude by making sure that the horse was healthy by checking it’s teeth – implicitly showing that he thought the gift-giver couldn’t be trusted not to have given him a sick horse.

Of course, it could have been a forgotten tale of the time someone gave away a horse with bad teeth and consequent ill-health to someone who deserved better from the gift-giver – and the meaning has simply gotten all twisted around because the original incident was lost.

Nor does folk wisdom make any allowance for changing technology or expertise. Lemon and Crab-grass may well be the way your gr’gr’grandmother did it, but that doesn’t mean that better ways have not been discovered since.

Bollocks or Brilliance? The only way to find out is to put the aphorism to the test by applying it in real life and seeing what happens. As a guide to sensible and courteous behavior, they are shaky at best. As a guide to practical actions, they are positively rickety.

I was all set to write an article asking “What are the aphorisms in your game world that we don’t have in our culture?” and “Are they right or wrong, misapplied, or misunderstood?” When a new thought intruded: “What a cracking idea for a fantasy Campaign!”

You see, I was contemplating how GMs might go about revealing the answers to the players. The dull way would be to give them a list. It would almost certainly be quickly forgotten, just another meaningless handout. But if you built a whole adventure around an aphorism, applicable either literally or metaphorically, what then? And why not extend the concept to all sorts of folk wisdom – everything from survival tips to naturalist advice to healing potions and lotions to, well, you name it!

Characters shouldn’t be able to advance a level until they’ve completed the current adventure – and each of these adventures should earn the party enough XP that they will gain a level.

So, let’s cook ourselves up some folk wisdom!

The process is simple: Take an existing piece of folk wisdom, replace one or more of the key terms with in-game terminology, create an incident that spawned the folk wisdom or some underlying logic that makes perfect sense (even if it doesn’t make such sense in our world), write the results down, decide if the folk wisdom is going to be right or wrong in the case that is about to engulf the PCs, and then build an adventure around that piece of folk wisdom.

There are some practical considerations that you should observe: anything related to healing should be early in the campaign when Cure spells are hard to find, for example.

Adventures should follow some sort of standard template, too: A briefing/assignment to which the party can’t say no, someone offering the players the relevant folk wisdom as advice (sometimes it will be good, sometimes it will make matters worse), and then the adventure itself gets underway. At the end of the adventure, XP is conferred, PCs level up, and the celebrations begin. Roll the credits and start thinking about the next one.

A good piece of folk wisdom will contradict reasonable advice for our world at least half the time – and remember that this advice has to be right, at least half the time. By the time you’ve explored the consequences and ramifications and differences that this fact leads to, your game world might be very strange indeed – so it’s probably necessary to have all your pieces of folk wisdom lined up before character one is generated, and rigorously analyzed.

Furthermore, it would be best to establish a pattern of the folk wisdom being helpful (even if that only becomes obvious in hindsight) before you throw a “bad” one at the party – otherwise, they will simply ignore them after the first time one bites them. It would be especially desirable if it could become obvious to the party that the flaw in the first “bad one” wasn’t with the folk wisdom but in their interpretation or application of it.

That implies that you will need to choose the sequence of “pieces of folk wisdom” very carefully. This is your hand-crafted adventure seed, after all – and the seeds of adventures suitable to a party of 18th-level characters will be very different to those suitable to a party at 5th level.

Chart a course, a through-line for the entire campaign, a (short) statement about the way the campaign will change and evolve as the characters progress through it, and use that as your guide to the selection and sequencing of folk wisdom.

You may well find that you need many more items than you initially think. Besides, if you give the party three pieces of advice more-or-less at once, one that will turn out to have short term relevance, one that will be relevant to the middle of the adventure, and one that will be important to the resolution of the adventure – and don’t tell them to the PCs in order – they are never going to spot the bad ones. Especially if they decide “that can’t be right” (when it is) and get themselves in deeper trouble as a result.

Don’t be afraid to mess with game physics, cosmology, biology, evolution, history, etc, in order to achieve the counter-intuitive validity that at least some items on your list should have. Yes, rose bushes do wander under the full moon, in search of their lost love. It just so happens that their lost love is a legendary Vampire…. but take care to be consistent about it, try not to contradict yourself.

Think of it as just another way to lead the players down the garden path (to the pit trap at the end)….

0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:)

— The Sixes System is a minimalist game system suitable for any and all genres.

— It has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, which has just come to a successful conclusion.

— Characters are constructed using a point-buy methodology with NPCs generatable using die rolls for speed.

— Success or Failure on tasks is determined by adding dice to a pool based on ability and circumstances which are then rolled against a target number determined by the GM.

17. Characterization

There are four principal avenues of characterization in the Sixes System.

First, and perhaps strongest, is the choice of Optional Characteristic. Not necessarily how high a score the character has, though that is a secondary aspect, but the actual choice of characteristic. This choice serves to define what the character is naturally gifted at, and how the character will think and will approach any situation. A scientist, for example, should always be questioning and trying to understand; action may be required as a result of that understanding, but intelligence/data acquisition and analysis should always comes first. An Engineer will think in terms of systems and mechanical responses. A (medical) Doctor will translate the world in terms of health and well-being. You get very different interpretations of the character of Doctor Strange if he is a healer who happens to know magic, or a sorcerer who was once a healer. Personally, if creating the character using the Sixes System, I would define the stat as Sorcerer Supreme, implying that he has a responsibility to Magic itself and to those who use it which he acknowledges.

Second, and stronger than anything bar the Optional Characteristic definition, are the choice of Disadvantages, if any. Most characters will have some, and many will have several. These serve to restrict the otherwise free reign that a player has over his character – either prompting him to be inclined in a certain direction, or forcing him to avoid certain choices of action. Note that the value of any disadvantage should be campaign specific, and based on how frequently the disadvantage will restrict the character as well as how severely. As a general rule, the more abstract a Disadvantage is, the more frequently it will be a factor. GMs should also think carefully about the implications and consequences of choices of Disadvantage. A character who is “Nervous going into battle” may manifest this fear in many ways – shaking of the hands, a quivering voice, indecision and hesitation, a cold sweat, and other signs of stress like snapping at people. If the player doesn’t want the GM to have free reign in this area, he needs to define the Disadvantage more explicitly – and accept that its impact will probably be reduced, and hence its value to the character, as a result.

The third strongest characterization definition is implied and not explicit, unlike the first two items. This is the choice of skills and how they are defined by the player creating the character. To anyone who has read any of the comics (far more than is shown in the movies), Spider-man should have a skill in Wisecracks, or perhaps in Banter. I would permit the character to add “Distracting” to the title, thereby defining what it was that this was used to achieve. That skill, on the other hand, doesn’t belong anywhere near the Terminator – any Terminator!

The weakest, by far, are the actual characteristic values. This is in direct contrast to the experience offered by most RPGs. Once again, the characterization imparted is more by implication or consequence than it is explicit in definition, though the values may alter the relative frequency of occurrence of certain behaviors. A character with a Disadvantage, “Apologetic and Sincere after making a mistake,” yields a very different individual if he has a low Intelligence score or a high one. And note that this means that the character is not Intelligence-Oriented (See section 1.2).

18. NPCs

One benefit of the game mechanics is that it’s really easy to generate NPCs when you’re in a hurry.

1. Stats: roll 2d6 for the values. At least one should be 9+. Generate a value for the optional stat even though you don’t know what it is, yet.
2. Purposes: roll 1d6 for the values. At least one should be 3+.
3. Decide what the character does. Label the primary stat accordingly.
4. Skills: Make a list of possible skills that the character might need to use.. Ignore anything that doesn’t fit that definition, you can always add to the list if necessary. Roll 1d6 for the values, reading the results as 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4.
5. List any Disadvantages that will be obvious factors in the character’s in-game manifestation – behavior, appearance, etc. Ignore the rest, but assume that they are there.

That’s it, you’re done.

But, even better, if you have some idea of the characterization and profession already, you can generate a single stat – the optional stat – and move on to step 2 immediately. As I said in step 5, you can always generate the rest if and when you need them.

19. The Scales Of Ordinary

The above technique generates characters of typical PC levels. There are times when a more mundane character is needed.

1. Stats: roll 1d6 for the values. Add 2 to one of the results. Generate a value for the optional stat even though you don’t know what it is, yet.
2. Purposes: roll 1d3 for the values. Add 1 to one of the results.
3. Decide what the character does. Label the primary stat accordingly.
4. Skills: Make a list of possible skills that the character might need to use.. Be more generalized than usual. Ignore anything that doesn’t fit the “might need to use” definition, you can always add to the list on-the-fly if necessary. Roll 1d6 for the values, reading the results as 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2. A result of 0 means that the character either doesn’t have the skill, or has it in an even more generic form, or has it just as a hobby. If that doesn’t seem right, “steal” a skill point from somewhere else.
5. List any Disadvantages that will be obvious factors in the character’s in-game manifestation – behavior, appearance, etc. Ignore the rest, but assume that they are there.

It should be remembered that characters are rarely “all they can be”. They are normally deficient in some areas related to their field of expertise. If a character is supposed to be an expert in their field, you can steal points to take that specific skill up to a very notable three or even four.

Image by naobim from Pixabay, Background by Jorge Guillen both from Pixabay, Color & background modifications by Mike. (I’m quite proud of the job I did on this one, so you can click on the image above to get the full 1285×1466-pixel version).

20. The Scales Of Extraordinary

You may also need to generate the occasional extraordinary character, superior to normal. This is appropriate for arch enemies to oppose a group of PCs, for example.

1. Stats: roll 3d6 for the values and discard the lowest. Generate a value for the optional stat even though you don’t know what it is, yet. Rearrange the scores so that the user-defined characteristic is highest.
2. Purposes: roll 2d6 for the values and discard the lower die for all but one Purpose, where you must discard the higher die. This lower purpose should have a value of three or less.
3. Decide what the character does. Label the primary stat accordingly.
4. Skills: Make a list of possible skills that the character might need to use.. Ignore anything that doesn’t fit that definition, you can always add to the list if necessary. Roll 1d6 for the values, reading the results as 0, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4. Pay special attention to any abilities that you want the character to have, including spells and super-powers.
5. You may raise one skill to a score of 5 by ‘stealing’ two skill points from another one or two skills.
6. List any Disadvantages that will be obvious factors in the character’s in-game manifestation – behavior, appearance, etc. Ignore the rest, but assume that they are there.

These settings are intended to accurately model superiority while still leaving room to grow and space for imperfections, flaws, and shortcomings.

Designer’s Notes & Discussions: Characters

There’s only one innovation of note within this section, and it’s actually more contained elsewhere and only expressed here.

The Innovations

“A character is defined, within the Sixes System, by what he tries to achieve and how he goes about accomplishing the achievement” – that’s how I explained it to the player in the Lovecraft’s Legacies campaign when he was creating his interpretation of the 11th Doctor, informed by the analysis I presented back in 2014 (Dr Who and the secrets of complex characterization). And it’s a fair representation of the way characterization works in the game system.

This does mean that it can take a bit of effort for a player or GM to get their head around when first encountering the system – it’s fine once you get used to it. I often find that the adjustment is more easily made by first converting a character – like Batman or Spider-man, or Buzz Lightyear or whatever – that the player/GM already knows very well. That way you can experiment a bit, you can nuance different elements of the character and get some idea of how that would alter the characterization rendered during play, and so on. For example, if you chose Batman’s “Optional Stat” to be “Crime-fighter”, you get a very different character to choosing “World’s Greatest Detective” – perhaps with an Obsession for fighting crime. Remember, too, that the same character sheet has to apply to both Batman and Bruce Wayne!

It is far often easier to have a character in mind – a profession and a distinct personality and even a history – and then to realize or actualize that character through the game mechanics, than it is to start with a completely blank slate. This points up one final aspect to the game system that needs to be highlighted: The mechanics of this system are very character- and role-play- driven, and not the other way around.

This can be either a benefit or a curse – that’s entirely a function of how you use what has been provided.

The final two parts of the System write-up deal with adapting it to suit different genres of campaign. I’ll post something else next week and resume this series at the start of next month. These aren’t meant to be comprehensive guides to the genres in question – certainly nothing on the order of the series on Pulp that I co-wrote a few years back – more information on how best to integrate the genre with the game system.

Over the years, there have been many attempts to combine RPGs and Board Games, with varying degrees of success. So pervasive is this pattern that it can only be concluded that it’s a far harder bridge to cross than seems initially apparent.

Attempts…

…like Monopoly, for which I developed variant rules within 6 months of exposure to RPGs, as a way of introducing some of the key concepts to my family. This simply gave each playing piece an individual special ability. I don’t remember most of them, these days, but let’s see… The boot could take one of his movement dice and give it to another player (before rolling). The thimble could advance to the next red property anytime they rolled double-sixes, collecting money if they passed go. The iron could add one free house per turn to a dark purple property (Old Kent Road and the other one), even if they didn’t own both of them. The train could advance to any other railway station if they landed on one; if un-owned, they could buy it from the bank, if owned then they had to pay the owner as usual, adding the extra movement to their die roll. The top hat earned $5 every turn for each Dark Blue (Mayfair, Park Lane) property they, or anyone else, owned. The Cannon could prevent any other piece from landing on the space they currently occupied, forcing them to move one space less. The dog could, if they landed on a space one behind another piece, choose to follow that piece instead of rolling next turn, and didn’t have to decide until that player rolled for movement. Hey, what do you know – I think that’s all of them! But there isn’t much roleplay to it.

…like Illuminati, which gave individual (and secret) victory conditions to each player. Like the monopoly variant described, this influenced in-game behavior to at least some extent, but that extent was quite limited – especially if tactical deception and misdirection were employed to disguise the victory condition. Again, there wasn’t a whole lot of roleplaying involved.

…like Gloomhaven, which is a more modern representative of the concept (review at gamecows.com/best-RPG-board-games/) and promise to unite the two, but reading the review, it seems more like an RPG with a tactically-abstract combat engine than a true Board Game. Still, coming at the problem from the other direction and putting the shoe on the other foot is an interesting approach.

…like Mice & Mystics (review, same location), which certainly evokes D&D and a number of other RPGs with its name! But when you dig into the review, it starts to seem more like a Board Game with story elements that are more or less central to the game-play – any roleplay involved is something you bring with you and tack onto the top, and neither inherent in, or central to, the game.

…like Descent, which takes the player-vs-GM ethos (of which Campaign Mastery has been critical in the past as bad GMing) and formalizes it by building a board game around it that takes the form of a dungeon-bash. No matter how well it might play as a board game, it’s so far removed from real RPGs that it rings hollow as a true union of the gaming spheres.

…like Mage Knight, which started as a miniatures game and got rebooted into an RPG that uses a deck-building mechanic to customize characters. But in terms of personalities and the expression of the same? – it’s still a tactical card / board game. There’s no enforcement of personality, nor even definition.

There are others, but the above give a sense of the state of things – there’s still a gap between RPG and Board Game elements, the two don’t seem to quite join up. “Puerto Rico” (now available in a Deluxe expanded edition, link is to the Amazon page) is as much an RPG as some of them, however great they might be as board game or as an RPG.

Into this sphere now comes Euthia: Torment Of Resurrection, which describes itself as “a board game” and an “open-world Fantasy RPG”. Given the existing examples of such hybrids, the question has to be posed: has someone finally nailed the brass ring?

Well, it certainly looks impressive:


…. but to really answer that question, we’ll have to dig a little deeper.

Convergence

Gaming formats have been converging for quite a while, now, so the time might be right for a successful blending of the two forms. Computer RPGs have been around for donkey’s years, and starting looking a LOT like tabletop RPGs from around the time of the SSI games of the 90s, starting with Pool Of Radiance.

More recently, online communications have reached the point of permitting the playing of true RPGs through an online interface, like Roll20 (Wikipedia page).

This convergence is significant, because Euthia isn’t actually trying to bridge the gap between Tabletop RPGs and Board Games; instead, it wants to connect to computer RPGs.

But It’s just possible that the Computer-game definition of an RPG is the perfect middleman for a shotgun wedding between a tabletop RPG and a board-game.

Certainly, when you look at some of the game elements, what springs to mind most readily are the ‘rulebooks’ that accompanied those old SSI computer games, transformed into a board game.

Characters

Some computer-based RPGs offer character generation; others do not. The primary concept of most of them is that the computer assumes the role of the GM and the player is, well, the player. In some cases, the character is pre-ordained, such as was the case with The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy computer game.

Character generation is a key attribute of tabletop RPGs.

Or is it? It’s quite normal for convention gaming to feature pre-generated characters that the participants then have to interpret.

Euthia has fixed characters, one to a player – but the definitions are as much a question of defining those characters as though they were the representatives of an entire character class in a Tabletop game as defining them as individuals.

Beyond that foundation, a character’s personality as an individual is up to the player. Unlike other games, there’s the potential for these personalities to actually impact game-play – so Euthia is actually more like a tabletop RPG than a computer game, at least in this respect. In terms of meeting the brief of a merger between these two forms of gaming, Euthia gets a big tick, then.

Even more significant is that there Euthia can accommodate from 1-4 players – but there are 5 archetypes (and a sixth is likely to soon be unlocked as a stretch goal).

For example, “Ael” is described as “a kind-hearted person who likes to help others” despite “being punished for using magic”. “Dral” is a “master of fighting,” whose “skill in handling weapons is unparalleled”. There’s lots of scope for further refinement in those descriptions – I can’t even tell, from reading them, whether or not the two would get along. What I can see is a situation in which they find common purpose, seeking the same outcome for different reasons..

Cooperation

Which brings me to the subject of cooperation. This is one of the strongest points of distinction about tabletop RPGs – that they are more cooperative and collaborative than traditional board games.

The PCs in Euthia are all rivals, but can nevertheless come to agreements with each other for short-term alliances. Trustworthiness as allies would obviously be informed by the preset character traits, but those pre-definitions are not the final word on the subject. Beyond those, the personality and competitiveness of the player becomes a contributing influence. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy the character description says the character is – if the player is one of those cut-throat ultra-competitive types, how much would you trust them?

Sound familiar? These are the same issues that RPGs have struggled with from the day someone first decided to pick the pocket of another PC.

Packaged Scenarios

Unlike most board games, there are multiple adventures and side-quests in Euthia, like volumes in a multi-novel epic. This makes it more like a tabletop RPG than most board games.

Unlike tabletop RPGs, a GM doesn’t get to design adventures; but you don’t get to design adventures in a computer RPG, either, and I know of several RPG campaigns that rely exclusively on canned adventures. This erodes the distinction between the different forms of game.

And the playing time is significant:

• Main story scenario Farruga: 60 minutes per player.
• Main story scenario Mirrezil: 90 minutes per player.
• Main story scenario Brasath: 120 minutes per player.
• Side-quest scenario The Hunt: 30 minutes per player.
• Side-quest scenario Faer Invocation: 50 minutes per player.
• Side-quest scenario Eminent Threat: 40 minutes per player.
• A main plot with 5 chapters and 12+ individual tiles for each.
• 86 Quest Cards like “Bring Raw Demonium to the Sorceror”.

Add all those up and you get a lot more than 390 minutes per player (6 1/2 hours). You might be able to get through the whole thing with two players in one extended gaming day, but I doubt it. Four? No way.

No, this is more like a campaign than an individual adventure. The more players you add, the more true this is.

And there are so many random elements – like those 86 quest cards, or the 40 different monsters (+4 more added on), plus encounter cards, plus dragons, plus spells and equipment, that the game could be played multiple times with each occasion bearing little-or-no resemblance to any other.

“Every hero has a different starting point, unique abilities, and a different learning curve. You will never see the same map twice.” – More like an RPG than like a typical board game, then.

Game Contents

Make no mistake, Euthia is still a high-end modern board game. Take a good look at the components shown in the photo at the start of this article.

The components (some of which I’ve mentioned already) include:

• 4 Game Boards
• Starting Map Tile
• 12 Chapter I Map Tiles
• 12 Chapter II Map Tiles
• 12 Chapter III Map Tiles
• 14 Chapter IV Map Tiles
• 12 Chapter V Map Tiles
• 40 Monster Cards
• 24 Gold cards
• 24 Silver cards
• 21 Control cards
• 66 Merchant tiles (goods the merchant has to sell, not all available at once)
• 68 Alchemist tiles (magic items the Alchemist has to sell, not all available etc)
• 51 Dragonslayer tiles (rewards for killing dragons)
• 68 gold tokens
• 42 treasure tiles
• 64 gem tokens
• 25 Mountain resource tiles
• 25 Lake resource tiles
• 24 Cave resource tiles
• 4 Elemental Cards
• 86 Quest Cards
• 31 Quest Tiles
• 5 Hero Boards
• 5 Hero Standees
• 22 Hero Tiles for Ael
• 21 Hero Tiles for Dral
• 21 Hero Tiles for Maeldur
• 21 Hero Tiles for Keleia
• 23 Hero Tiles for Taesiri
• 30 Action tokens
• 130 Shield Tokens
• 60 Damage Tokens
• 50 Trade Tokens
• 150 Interaction Tokens
• 10 Hero Dice
• 19 Dragon Cards
• “Die Of Hope”
• 36 Combat Cards for solo play
• Rulebook & Appendix
• 80 Other components!

And that’s without any add-ons, and without the miniatures and stretch-goal inclusions! They even have a tutorial video on how to unbox the game!

From a roleplaying perspective, perhaps the most interesting inclusion is the game setting itself – a bespoke game world with its own lore and legends. You get some of this information through the game elements and rules/appendix, but still more will be unlocked as part of the stretch-goal-after-next.

You can even give yourself a sneak preview by downloading the draft versions of the rule-book and appendix from the Kickstarter page!

Gameplay

“Euthia: Torment of Resurrection is a competitive strategic role-playing board game set in an open fantasy world. Players choose one of five heroes and uncover a modular map full of quests, precious natural resources, and dangerous enemies. The heroes gain experience, learn unique skills, obtain new equipment and treasure, and explore places of elemental power.”

The key elements of the gameplay are:

• Explore and Search
• Mine Resources
• Trade with Merchants
• Gain a reputation by defeating Monsters
• Complete Quests
• Interact With Elementals
• Unveil and Train to Level Up
• Specialize and Enhance your abilities
• Face the ultimate challenge of the Scenario
• Start another scenario
• Other players are rivals and enemies – but cooperation is possible

One form of roleplaying of which Campaign Mastery has been critical has been described using the rather derogatory term, “Roll-playing”. Despite that, there is an element of “roll-playing” in every RPG – players who will roll a die for an interaction with an NPC because they have an interpersonal skill rather than using that skill to guide what the character says and does.

And, to some extent, that’s entirely acceptable; it has to be, because the player is not the character. The game mechanics function as an interface between the player’s capabilities and those of the character that they are portraying.

Good Roleplaying is acting as though you had the interpersonal skill even if you don’t.

When PCs come to town and find a merchant, they will want to look over his wares. If there’s something there that catches their eye, they are just as likely to roll a die for their attempt to buy it as they are to take up valuable table time talking to a “nobody important”.

Now, as a GM, I don’t want the players to know which NPCs are important and which are not, so I’ll want them to talk with all of them. The practical line to walk is somewhere in between. But, setting that aside – in what way is the process of rolling a die in an attempt to buy something to determine the outcome of the negotiations any different to any other resolution mechanic – including the one in Euthia? Rhetorical question.

There are those who will decry the board game aspects of Euthia as not being those of an RPG – and they are missing the above point, or ignoring it out of some sense of “purity”. The problem is that no board game could ever meet such narrow definitions, and neither can a lot of RPGs.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part IV

There are an awful lot of good reasons to be enthusiastic about Euthia, then. In addition to those I’ve highlighted already, I’d like to touch on a few more:

• Game Craftsmanship – you don’t have to look at many of the illustrations on the Kickstarter to realize that this is first-class quality. And, while the game’s pieces are not a conclusive indicator, it would be very strange if that level of Craftsmanship did not extend to other areas of the project.
• Game Substance – the mere existence of what I think of as the “supplementary material” – lore and world-building notes and the like – suggests that this will be a game of substance.
• Sense Of Style – the whole Kickstarter page reeks of quality and style. There is nothing amateurish about it. And that, in turn, bodes well for the quality of that substance. A graphic demonstration is provided by the “Gameplay” title above.
• Sense Of Humor – there’s a gentle undercurrent of humor in the content of the fundraising page; never at the expense of the important business, but layered on top of it, a constant reminder that people play games like this to have fun. Well, Campaign Mastery puts a pretty high value on fun, too.

You can see an example of that sense of humor in the breezy attitude taken in the “Why This Might Not Be The Game For You” section, which I have excerpted from the Kickstarter text:

• Storytelling – Can’t live without flavor texts on cards? Then this might not be the game for you. That’s not to say, however, that we don’t have plenty of Lore behind Euthia and its characters to brighten your mood.
• Preference for Cooperation – As stated in our introduction, Euthia is a competitive, not cooperative, game. There are some changes in the Rulebook you can try to cooperate with other players, but note that it could change the game experience.
• Small Kitchen Table – Can you hardly eat lunch with four people present at your kitchen table? You might need to buy a bigger one for your living room!
• Time per Player – If you hate planning your moves, watching your opponents develop their strategies, or want to be playing every minute of the game, you may want to avoid playing a three- or four-player game.
• In-Game Over-thinkers – Do you know anyone who overthinks their strategies? I personally don’t, but others hate me for it. There are many situations which might require thinking through the best move to play, but that’s the fun part, right?
• Can’t Handle Dying – If you’ve read the story behind Euthia, you know that dying is a part of the game. If you can’t stand watching your hero die, be warned. While it is possible to stay alive, it’s going to be a challenge.
• Rivalry Between Players – When others take all [the] trading places and you have to pay them for trading, it sucks. But when they steal your treasures and quests right in front of you and kill you with a monster in combat, always remember, they can be next!
• Dice In-Game – Are you scared of dice? Don’t tell me, same here. But we manage to make it fun & fair. Shii’s blessing will help you on your journey.
• Long Rulebook – It’s long, we know. But let me assure you that you will find everything that you need to know. If you don’t want to read it, just watch [the] How to Play video.
• Tons of Components – When it comes to cleaning up the table after the game, you will hate us. We hate us! If you don’t like tons of components but still want to play the game, head over to Tabletopia and give it a try. One mouse-click and your table is clean and ready to start over again.

The Campaign Mastery verdict

In terms of being a tabletop RPG – board game hybrid, Euthia comes as close as anything else on the market – with caveats. Those caveats are mostly an expression of that not being what the game is even trying to achieve – bringing the flavor of a computer-based RPG into a board game.

That, they seem to have achieved, in spades.

Yes, it’s a lot of money – but look at the quantity of game components that you get for the money.

I have been assured by those behind the game that even if the fundraising campaign has ended, there will still be purchase options available for those who need them. They may not be as cool as the package a supporter gets, but don’t let the price deter you any longer than necessary.

The Public Verdict

The public at large seem to have no doubts. Not only have podcasters been falling over themselves to review the game, it met it’s fundraising target in just four hours and is presently 247.6% funded – it may well be 250% by the time you read this. That means that they have blow through four stretch goals in 6 days and are closing in on a fifth (US$14,789 to go as I type this).

I don’t know that Euthia is successful enough as a design entity to be called a game-changer; that appellation is thrown around all-too-casually for my liking.

This is clearly a significant event in the history of board games. Whether it proves to be one in the history of RPGs is harder to judge – but with success, there will be imitators and encouragement for others to try. And that can only mean that Euthia will deserve some of the credit, should any of them succeed.

Unfortunately, the launch was just a day or so too late for me to cover it last week, though we have been advertising it for the last couple of weeks. So anyone deciding to join the party after this review will be fashionably late.

As a GM and an RPG enthusiast, I can heartily recommend this board game. Take from that what you will!

A Tale Of Australian Cuisine

I have the advantage of living in a country which is remote from just about everywhere, in which much of the culture has been imported from Europe and the US, and parts of Asia. That’s particularly true when it comes to diet.

Our basic recipes have all been imported from elsewhere, modified to suit local needs and local conditions and local produce, and repackaged as Dinky-Di True-Blue Australian. Even when they aren’t, or the claims are a little questionable – did New Zealand really invent the Pavlova? They certainly think so!

A growing trend in the late 20th century and into the 21st has been the use of native ingredients (rather than imported stock). We are the only country in the world that doesn’t blink at the notion of eating our national symbols (the kangaroo and emu, chosen because neither can walk backwards). Offer an American a serving of bald eagle, and they would be horrified (setting aside the fact that they’re an endangered species) – it would be an affront to their patriotism.

These native ingredients have exotic names and unusual flavors. Typically, they will get substituted into existing recipes, many of which are variations on the imported originals.

Australian Burgers often have beetroot and sometimes pineapple on them. Australian Pizza is different from both Italian and American in small and subtle ways. Australian Chinese Food is different from American Chinese Food and from Chinese Chinese Food.

The great foodie explosion here over the last couple of decades has eroded some of those distinctions, as though serving the Australianized Dishes was low-brow and gauche, while serving the traditional versions is exotic and up-market. This ignores the fact that the Australianized versions became popular for a reason. The inroads being made by “native ingredients” can be seen as a cultural counter-movement to this highfalutin’ pretentiousness, a way to Australianize recipes that is culinarily-acceptable in the face of this search for “authenticity.”

A Tale Of Tales

Cooking programs on TV have exploded in popularity right alongside these trends. Masterchef Australia – an Australianized version of a British show that failed – is now shown in more than 40 countries and rates highly in all of them. In part, that’s because we are a natural melting pot which is quite prepared to mix one good idea with another and see what happens.

We have never been so well-served with information about food. The US has a ‘food network’ on Cable TV – we have one cooking channel Free-To-Air, and until recently, had two, and neither of the two best-rating food shows on TV were shown on either. Almost every major network has its own food shows, some more than others. At first, there was a tendency to schedule these in direct competition with each other, but eventually the network executives figured out that a lot of people would watch BOTH if given the chance. Competition between the shows is still strong – but its’ no longer direct.

A Tale Of Names

I’m sure most people will have heard of Top Gear – it used to be the BBC’s #1 export around the world. They did a special in two parts called “The Ultimate Road Trip”, and then a sequel, “The Ultimate Road Trip II” (also in two parts). A major plot thread in the second pair of specials revolved around one of the presenters, Richard Hammond, discovering that the only place Spaghetti Bolognaise is named that is outside of Italy – in Bologna itself, the name refers to a completely different dish.

I’m sure that to many viewers in Britain and the US, this was an astonishing discovery. It certainly wasn’t news to me, or to a great many other Australians, though; we had learned the fact from “Food: Fact or Fiction” or from “Good Eats” or from any one of a dozen celebrity chefs who have mentioned it in the course of various programs – and I think it was even mentioned in a Masterchef Australia Masterclass back in the early days.

Nevertheless, the name has stuck, and been carried world-wide, and the dish itself is responsible for a significant part of the tourism enjoyed by Bologna (or it was, until Covid-19).

Nor is it the only example. Place names have been attached to an extraordinary number of dishes through the years, such as

Boston Cream Pie, Philly Cheese-steak, Buffalo Wings, Boston Baked Beans, Mississippi Mud Pie, Nashville Hot Chicken, Long Island Iced Tea, Chicken Kiev, Singapore Noodles, Swedish Meatballs, Bisque (believed named for the Bay Of Biscay), Cantaloupe (transplanted from Persia to the Papal Gardens in Cantalupo near Rome), Fig Newton (actually invented in Philadelphia), Frankfurter – the list just goes on and on.

Add in the number of dishes named for people, like Peach Melba, Fettuccine Alfredo, Caesar Salad, Carpaccio, Bananas Foster, Frangipane Tarts, Earl Grey Tea, Kung Pao Chicken (named for a late Qing Dynasty official whose title was Gong Bao, or Palace Guardian), Margherita Pizza, Bloody Mary, Mornay Sauce, Nachos, Napoleon Brandy, Oysters Rockefeller, the aforementioned-Pavlova, Praline, Strawberries Romanoff, Salisbury Steak, Beef Stroganoff, Crepes Suzette, and (most famously), Sandwiches – to name just a few of the ones most people will recognize.

Add in the still-greater number of examples of produce named for either of these two things – Moreton Bay Bugs come to mind (a type of seafood), and Barramundi (a fish). And Philadelphia Cream Cheese (which actually comes from New York, it was named thus to give it Cache in an era when Philadelphia was a culinary giant in the US), Vidalia Onions, Brussels Sprouts, John Dory, Boysenberries, Galliano (liqueur), and Bartlett Pears

Names are not always a reliable guide to origins. Aside from the Spaghetti Bolognaise example mentioned earlier, consider: French Toast (actually English), Creme Anglais (French), Welsh Rarebit or Welsh Rabbit (English), English Muffins (American), Scotch Eggs (English), Swiss Cheese (American), Hawaiian Pizza (Canadian), Szechuan Ginger Beef (Canadian), Dom Perignon (Champagne), Mongolian Barbecue (a Taiwanese Stir-fry!), and Mongolian Beef (which doesn’t come from Mongolia).

Then there are Places named after foods – Oyster Bay, for example.

There are two phenomena at work here of which a GM should be cognizant: The human appetite for variety and exotic flavors – i.e. the “Native Ingredients” trend – and the use (and misuse) of people and places in food names.

The “Native Ingredients” Trend

If it looks edible, a human will eventually stick it in their mouth. If it doesn’t or isn’t, another human will cut it open to see if part of it is edible. If the answer is still no go, still more humans will try to find a way of cooking or processing the ingredient to make it palatable.

Combine all that with the multitude of exotic creatures found in a D&D campaign – a multitude that should be matched if not exceeded by the number of exotic plants in any rational bio-system – and you have a cornucopia of new dishes awaiting invention and naming.

And that’s before we even get into the culinary traditions of the other sentient races.

The Famous Names Trend

Famous people of the past, famous places, and obscure places that just happened to invent something, sometime, should all be reflected in the names of the exotic produce and exotic recipes that should fill your culinary landscape.

These name-drops should come without explanation, for the most part – they should simply be there, part of the landscape, a moment of color.

That changes when the PCs travel to or through one of these locations. Locals should revel in the distinction that comes from being the source of a famous dish (if correctly attributed), and PCs should be told of expectations (whether it’s true or not). I understand that tourist requests for Spaghetti Bolognaise are greatly irritating to chefs from Bologna (though the waiters don’t let on, of course). To give in would be to undermine the true individuality and identity of the region – so if you want what you think is a Spag Bol, you should ask for a Beef Ragout (pronounced Rag-ooh).

A geography of Cuisine

In addition, there should be some dishes that are common in one geographic area and rare elsewhere – in Lapland, reindeer meat is easily available, but elsewhere, it is uncommon, while other forms of deer meat are exotic but not unheard of.

Remember, too, that most preservatives were unknown, but that various techniques of preparing food to last were not – and that if it’s on the menu, someone has to go out and get it.

Pate de Flambe Draco sounds exciting – but it would be dreadfully expensive if it really derives from the Livers of Red Dragons, costing hundreds or thousands of gold an ounce. Unless, of course, it’s something rather more common with strong spices and the name is misleading.

Play games with the foods, and the names of foods, in your campaign – both to entertain yourself and your players, and to earn a little extra verisimilitude on the side. That’s a winning dish in my book!