There are five attributes to any encounter that define it, and any one of them can be the foundation of that encounter.

In the old days of D&D, it used to be that there was relatively limited flexibility. You chose an encounter based on one of these five criteria and everything else was more-or-less dictated by that choice. This was both a blessing and a curse, because it limited the scope to which the GM could tailor has encounters to his needs, and one or more of these corners of the Pentagon usually had to be compromised – but it also meant that encounters could be created fairly quickly and easily, simply because most of the choices were dictated by the domino effect of the one primary choice.

Points-based systems such as the Hero System afford far greater flexibility because you can construct any encounter more-or-less to order. But they provide this flexibility at a cost – construction time and complexity. One of the skills any GM of such a game system must acquire is the capacity to shortcut this creation process.

About six or seven years ago, everything changed with the advent of a new technique: Reskinning. Depending on how far you went with it, suddenly the entire gamut of possibilities was open to you, quickly and relatively easily – but with freedom to choose comes the need to consider the options; no matter how efficient the reskinning process is made, it is inherently always going to be longer and more complex than simply picking a monster out of the appropriate rulebook

This article is going to attempt to simplify the process of making effective choices in such a way that it applies equally to the really-flexible systems and to the process of reskinning. If I succeed, the results should be better encounters, produced more efficiently, regardless of game system.

The Pentagon

The reason that I have high hopes – in fact, near-total confidence – in my ability to pull this off is that theoretical studies of this sort of thing have always assumed that the five variables, the points of the Pentagon, are independent of each other. It’s my belief and contention that they are actually far more closely interrelated, and that this relationship permits the construction of a logical road-map through the choices that defines the easiest path for the GM to follow.

Before we can get there, you need to understand what the five choices, or points on the Pentagon, are, and this is where a lot of past analysts have gotten themselves into a tangle, because this is a Pentagon with 9 points! This causes complications than obscure the relatively simplicity. Tell you what, let’s deal with these as we come to them.

The five points are:

• 1. Plot
  • 1a. Purpose
• 2. Environment
• 3. Abilities
  • 3a. Offensive
  • 3b. Defensive
  • 3c. Other
• 4. Character
  • 4a. Capabilities
  • 4b. History
• 5. Challenge

I have no doubt that most readers will know what most if not all of these are, but let’s (briefly) get acquainted with each in this context”

Plot

What encounter does the story need to propel it forward? Is it someone who knows something the PCs need to know, or someone to complicate their lives, or a undead in thrall, or what?

Purpose

What’s the villain’s plan, and how is the next encounter to fit into that? Is he removing potential opposition, distracting an enemy, correcting a mistake, or going about his nefarious business? This is a sub-type of Plot.

Environment

“Well, the PCs are in the elemental plane of fire, so some sort of fire-based encounter….”

Abilities

‘Abilities’ refers to what the enemy in the encounter can do. You might pick a particular ability because it hasn’t been used for a while, or because you think it would be interesting, or because you have an idea for doing something interesting with it, or simply because it catches your eye. Abilities are often subdivided into three broad categories.

Offensive

Offensive Abilities are those used to harm, manipulate, or impede the PCs.

Defensive

Defensive Abilities are used to protect the NPC from harm, manipulation, or from being impeded.

Other

Other can be very broad in scope, but usually comes down to information-gathering or protection from information-gathering.

Character

Character-based encounters are those based on what one or more of the PCs can do or have done. There are two sub-varieties.

Capabilities

This is the “can do” part of the encounter definition.

History

This is the “have done” part of the encounter definition.

Challenge

Finally, you might choose an opponent for the PCs based simply on the degree of challenge that you want them to pose to the PCs. The only thing wrong with that is that one or more of the other aspects of the encounter often get scant or no attention.

The process of encounter selection

The contention that I am offering up is that because of the degree of interdependence and inter-relatedness of these various aspects of an encounter, once you have selected one as being the determining factor in who or what will be encountered, there will be a logical choice for the secondary criteria to employ, and that will lead to a logical choice for the tertiary, and so on. One answer leads to the next question like dominos falling.

A key 6th criterion will be used to dictate this logic: Instigator.

Instigator

Whoever causes the encounter to take place usually has a lot of control over the circumstances. If the PCs are confronting the villain in his lair, this control is shared; the villain has control over the environment, the PCs have control over the manner in which the confrontation proceeds, and the timing.

The instigator, coupled with the principle of self-interest, creates a compelling logical channel through the process of defining the encounter. No matter which starting point you choose from amongst the five, or amongst the nine if you prefer, there is a single “best path” through the minefield of all these decisions that not only simplifies the choices, but that defines the encounter in the process.

Plot-based encounters

I do a lot of these, because I’m a strongly story-focused GM. But I also leaven the mix with some random-chance encounters, simply because there is a hostile force to be encountered; some of these are based on where the plot has brought the PCs (environment-based), some on one or more abilities that I think will be fun and challenging, and so on. A lot of the focus here at Campaign Mastery is on showing how to accomplish this, for which I make no apologies; but other approaches can be equally valid.

So the plot calls for an encounter with a character of ambition A, whose plan is B, whose personality is C, whose plot function or personal story arc is D and whose stage within that personal story arc is D1 – the very beginning, from the point of view of his interaction with the PCs. I will probably have a name, though even that might be up for grabs.

Some of his abilities might be dictated by future plot function, but there is no restriction that states that he has to have those abilities already; he might acquire them in between this encounter and that future one, possibly even in response to this encounter. In fact, this encounter might have no purpose other than to introduce this character and his motivations and ambitions and to justify his acquiring that future capability. But beyond that, I have no idea of what this character can do, at least not at this point in time.

In the case of plot-based encounters, the logical path is as follows:

1. Plot
2. Instigator
3. Environment
4. Challenge
5. Abilities
6. Character

Plot is first, because that has been selected as the foundation of the encounter.

Instigator is second, because that defines who has control over the remaining aspects of the encounter. A key decision related to Instigator is always “why is the creature instigating the encounter”?

Environment is third. If the villain is the instigator, he will choose a battleground that gives him the advantage and that is within his reach. That advantage might be in enhancing his own abilities or in handicapping the PCs. What environment that the instigator can reach is most advantageous to his achieving his goals? If the villain is not the instigator, the environment is determined by where the PCs are and what they are doing at the time of the encounter.

Challenge is fourth. Once you know the environment, and whether it helps, hinders, or is neutral to either or both parties within the encounter, you can assess the challenge required, so that is fourth. If neither side are advantaged or hindered, or if both are equally impacted, the determinant factor is how difficult you want the encounter to be; if one side is advantaged relative to the other, you may need to weaken that side relative to the challenge level you would have set were the encounter to take place on neutral ground. In D&D / Pathfinder, this is the point at which you choose the base creature that is to be reskinned or enhanced. In a points-based system, this is where you decide the basics of what the character can do, given the environment and the challenge desired.

Abilities come fifth. Once you have the base creature, the environment, and the challenge level desired, you can compare the abilities of the base creature and tweak them accordingly, either enhancing them, diminishing them, or replacing them. This is the actual process of re-skinning. In a points-based system, this is where you decide all the nuances that distinguish this character’s “fire blast” (or whatever) from that of the last character.

Finally, Character. The significance of the encounter to any character is defined by that character’s relationship to the plot arc that is producing the encounter. It has no determinant value so far as any other defining element of the encounter is concerned.

Once you know all these things, you can create the encounter itself relatively easily. What is the base personality of the being that is to be encountered? How is that going to be affected by the foundation decisions? How does this individual vary from the “base model” – how representative is he? How well does the creature know the environment? How can he best take advantage of the opportunities it offers, how can ge minimize any impairments that result, what is he doing, how are the PCs likely to react and how will the creature react? The foundation decisions and knowledge of who is instigating the encounter and why make these decisions as straightforward as they can possibly be.

Purpose-based encounters

This is a variation on the plot-based encounter in which the encounter is taking place because the creature being encountered is acting to achieve some purpose or carry out some plan. This produces some subtly but profound variations on the process, and even reverses the sequence of two of the later steps.

In the case of purpose-based encounters, the logical path is as follows:

1. Plot (purpose)
2. Instigator
3. Environment
4. Abilities
5. Challenge
6. Character

Plot is first. You can only employ this architecture if you know what the character’s plan is, and are developing the encounter to fit that plan. This is reasoning backwards; it’s normal to have the character and to make a plan based on the character’s capabilities and objective, but this is also much harder work for the GM. It’s usually far easier to come up with a plan, and if the character doesn’t have the capabilities needed to carry that plan out, to set out to obtain them. Instant plot arc! But, more importantly, the character now has a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The plan produces the plotline.

Instigator is second. There are only two alternatives here: either the encounter is an integral part of the plan (in which case the hostile is the instigator) or PCs are to encounter and potentially disrupt the plan (in which case, they are the instigators but with limited control over the situation.

Environment is largely dictated by the plan – it is whatever environment is most conducive to the success of the plan. If the hostile is the instigator, his greater control over the encounter yields a more favorable environment: about 45% of the time, it will be beneficial to him, about 35% of the time it will be neutral, and about 20% of the time it will be to his disadvantage within the encounter. For the PCs, the division is even – one-third beneficial, 1/3 neutral, 1/3 inimical, unless their involvement is a mandated part of the plan, in which case the odds are 20%, 35%, and 45%, respectively. If the hostile is not the instigator, the differences are not so profound: for the hostile, 40, 30, 30; for the PCs, 35, 35, 30. These numbers reflect a number of considerations – the hostile has control over the plan, and environmental variables are going to be a consideration in that plan; and there is a good chance that what suits the hostile will also suit the PCs. So, if a range of environments are suitable to the plan, use these percentages, roll randomly, and decide based on the outcome – and bear in mind that any deliberate choice informs as to the personality of the chooser.

Having defined the plan and the environment, the next logical step is to answer the question, “what does the hostile need to carry out the plan, given these conditions?” This starts you down the road of determining the capabilities of the hostile, of deciding (in D&D terms) what the new skin will be before you decide what creature you are going to wrap it around.

Defining the abilities first can make the next decision, Challenge, more difficult, because you are now matching against two different criteria. First, there is the overall challenge level of the encounter, and second, there is the question of reskinned-abilities relative to the base abilities of the creature and any effect they may have on that overall challenge rating. There are two solutions to this: one quick and easy but vague and risky, and the other more difficult but more rigorous.

Difficult but rigorous: a table of challenge adjustments
There is a very rigorous system provided in the Monster’s Handbook by FFG for the D&D/Pathfinder/d20 system which can be reverse-engineered. But it seems overkill in this situation. So, instead, here are a couple of rough rules of thumb:

• Rule-of-thumb #1: 1d6 per level, or 1/2 d6 per level with enhancement;
• Rule-of-thumb #2: every level in advance of the base in one respect is 1/2 a dice overall.

Using these, we can construct a table as follows:

An excerpt from the table. Click on the image to download the table as a PDF.

Down the left-hand column we have the actual number of Hit Dice of the encounter (or equivalent from other systems) – multiply by 20 and add 100 to get Hero System build points, for example. Across the top, we have an estimate of the effectiveness of the combined new abilities of the creature. Most importantly, in the middle, the table contents, we have a rough estimate of the effective power level, assuming that the abilities are replacing those that the creature would normally have. A “+” indicates that you can either distribute +3 in stats or add half a HD of appropriate size.

I have color coded the results – white is fine, no problem; yellow is with caution; pink means with serious care; and red means “not recommended, proceed at your own risk”. In general, yellow starts with a difference between HD and effective power level of 2, pink at a difference of 5 to the top right or 4 to the bottom left, and red at a difference of about 6 or 7 to the top right or 5 to the bottom left. These are just my opinion, and they probably understate the danger margins, if anything.

The table can be used in either of two ways: you can identify the point on each axis of a proposed reskinning job and determine the approximate effectiveness level of the combination; or you can choose the appropriate ability level, track down that column until you get to the white zone, and then move left to identify a range of appropriate HD creatures to re-skin with the new abilities.

Example 1: You want a Kobold (1 HD) who has STR of about 20 and can throw lightning bolts. STR 20 is about 10 higher than what is defined as “average” for the D&D system, so that’s roughly +5 to the level (based on Rule of Thumb #2) – so this along would be appropriate for a creature of 6HD or more. Most creatures of 6HD or more also have an ability of some sort, the Lightning Bolt is not unreasonable; According to the 1HD=1d6 principle (Rule Of Thumb #1) that says 6d6 lightning bolts. Those sound a little strong to the GM, so he drops them to 4d6, a reduction of two, which says that the “appropriate level” should drop by half that (Rule of thumb #2 again). So the combination of abilities is about right for a 5HD creature. Using Kobolds (1HD) as the base creature gives an effective level of 3, and is within the yellow zone. With only 1HD, the kobolds won’t last very long, and will pay off better in XP than their longevity indicates they should.

Example 2: So let’s pick something else, re-skin it as a Kobold, with our extra abilities. The logic that took us to Column five on the table hasn’t changed; so let’s track down that column to get an appropriate range of creatures to be reskinned as our new breed of Thunder Kobold. The first white entry is an effective level of 4, and the last one is 7, with an additional bonus “plus” to get there. Tracking left from those entries gives a HD range of three to eight. Anything in that HD range is appropriate for this reskinning; it’s just a matter of what other abilities and stats come along for the ride, how powerful the PCs are, and how hard we want to challenge them. Consulting my Pathfinder Bestiary, Appendix 9, Creatures by CR reveals Troll in the CR5 category. Perfect – replacing the Trollish regeneration with 4d6 Lightning Bolts, upping the STR slightly, and “reskinning” the result into a Kobold-like shape, and this part of the process is complete!

Finally, Character. The significance of the encounter to any character is defined by that character’s relationship to the purpose/plot that is producing the encounter. It has no determinant value so far as any other defining element of the encounter is concerned.

Once again, the encounter itself is relatively straightforward to write from this point. Any PC encountering a group of these creatures will quickly learn not to judge a book by its’ cover!

Environment-based encounters

There are times when where an encounter is to occur is the dominant consideration. That might be a desert, because the PCs happen to be in a desert, or in an elemental plane, or whatever.

The logical path to defining an environment-based encounter is:

1. Environment
2. Instigator
3. Challenge
4. Abilities
5. Plot
6. Character

First, the environment. Does it advantage or disadvantage the PCs? Will it advantage or disadvantage the hostile?

If the environment hinders the hostile, he is unlikely to be the instigator; he or they is more likely to represent a passive barrier that the PCs must overcome. If the environment helps the hostile, he is more likely to be secure enough to be aggressive or territorial, and therefore to instigate the encounter.

Once you know that, the logical next step is to decide how difficult a challenge this encounter is to pose, given the environmental considerations.

This decision made, it’s easy to replace or modify abilities; the key question is always, “how can the creature use the environment to its advantage, if it’s the instigator? What does it need?” Similar logic enables the creation of abilities for an encounter being built with the Hero system. Use the same principles outlined earlier for any abilities that you decide to change.

By now, the basic outline of how the encounter is going to proceed should be fairly clear; you know the creature and how it is going to fit into the environment, you know how it is going to behave and why the encounter is going to take place. The next decision is how the encounter is going to fit into the plot. If the answer is that it is superfluous to the plot, an arbitrary danger to be faced, then the “plot” question devolves into its’ sub-entity, “Purpose”. What does the creature hope to achieve by Instigating combat? That should define how the encounter will begin, and the various ways in which it could end, requiring only translation into specific outcome descriptions and guidelines. You have the beginning and possible endings of this little mini-story; the middle is up to the players to choose.

A major factor in that choice will be the character histories and attitudes. Having outlined the various outcomes, you can use past behavior and current attitudes as a guideline to the outcomes that are most likely, and lavish a little extra care and prep on them.

Once that’s finished, the encounter is ready to play; there is little or no additional work required. Okay, maybe the narrative that introduces the encounter could do with some additional polish.

Abilities-based encounters

It doesn’t especially matter what the nature of the ability is, the logical path is still the same – but that path has a slight twist to it, compared to the simpler ones that I have examined so far. The path is:

1. Abilities
2. Plot/Instigator?
3. Character
4. Instigator/Plot
5. Environment
6. Challenge

When the most important factor in the encounter creation process is an ability that you want the encountered creature to posses, your reasons for wanting to base an encounter around that ability are going to be metagame-based nine times out of ten. Whether it’s an idea that sounds like fun, or because legend has it that creatures with that ability can be found in this part of the game world (and you’ve decided to make it true and not a myth), or because you haven’t used the ability (or anything like it) for a while, or whatever – those are all metagame to some extent.

An ability-based encounter, by definition, has a limited plot function. If it didn’t, the plot point would be the primary factor.

The second step, after defining the abilities that the encounter is to be based on, is to determine whether or not you have enough information based on that limited plot function to determine who is going to be the instigator. Obviously, if the PCs are looking for a creature with a certain ability – and there are reasons why they may want to do so – they are the instigator, if not then the either the creature is the instigator by virtue of that limited plot function, or you can’t say yet.

If you can’t say, then you need to create a plot outline for the encounter that will determine the identity of the instigator. It’s not often that you have a genuinely blank canvas to draw on, so this is your chance to do something you normally wouldn’t, your chance to do something unusual – and unexpected. A Drow with hydrophobia who leaps into a raging river to rescue children on a raft without thinking – and then needs rescuing himself. A goblin seeking wisdom, in search of a holy man that he saw in a vision. A white dragon that just wants to be left alone to practice his ice sculpture. A bugbear poet who is seeking out those who have decimated his people in past encounters to get to know them, that he can include them in his epic Saga about the suffering of his people. These may be insane by the standards of their race, or they may reveal a little hidden corner of light within the racial makeup (one that is usually suppressed). A devil who, once every hundred years or so, needs to do someone a genuinely good deed to permit him to be fully evil the rest of the time – and who isn’t going to leave until he has done so to his satisfaction, no matter how it might inconvenience the PCs to have him hanging around. An Elf who wants to enslave the Orcs until they have repaid his society for all the damage they’ve done through the eons and who is willing to start a war to achieve it.

In all these cases, the heart of the plotline is going to be how the characters are going to react. The plot is defined as being provocative to them, to their assumptions and to their personal histories.

A race always seems more evil if they have a choice and choose to be the way they usually are. By carefully playing against the stereotype, you can actually reinforce the stereotype.

Of course, if it were just the aberrant representative, there is no real challenge for the PCs. So you need something for them to overcome, be it a natural danger (the river) or other members of the society who oppose what the aberrant representative is doing, or a fearful mob, or whatever. Perhaps, for social class reasons, they can’t stop the aberrant from doing whatever he’s doing, but they can make sure there are no witnesses afterwards… And with that, the focus shifts from the encounter being based on the aberrant creature to being about the nature of the challenge that has to be overcome.

After making your choice of plotline, based on the character interaction with that plotline, you are therefore able to return to the question that we started with – who is the instigator? You need a clear answer to this before you can proceed, because the instigator controls, at least partially, the circumstances of the encounter.

Once you have that information, you can take the plot from being broad concept to an outline of specifics.

The instigator, of course, has the choice of the environment in which the encounter takes place. I once used the “bugbear poet” idea, with him stalking/hunting the PCs for almost a week, evading any traps they set for him, until they reached a place where the environment was suitable – he wanted to be able to approach from cover, and to have lots of room to evade them if they were not receptive. The two are often mutually-exclusive.

With that done, you are able to determine the challenge to be faced, i.e. how much trouble the encounter is going to be for the PCs, at which point the fleshing out of the encounter can proceed easily.

Character Capability -based encounters

This can be one of the most complex types of encounter to craft, depending on what you want to achieve – a metagame decision. It might be that you feel it’s been a while since a PC got to parade one of his abilities, and want to craft an encounter that does so. Or it might be that you are tired of the PCs employing a particular tactic and want to shake them up a bit by denying them access to or the functionality of, a key element of that tactic.

The logical sequence is:

1. Character – Capabilities
2. Environment/Abilities
3. Plot – basic
4. Environment/Abilities Revisited
5. Plot – specific
6. Instigator
7. Challenge

This is often a push-pull situation in which you not only need the encounter to have a particular (fairly obvious) vulnerability, but also need to deny the PCs any easier answers.

Part of that can sometimes be achieved through the environment in which the encounter takes place, part of it will need to be the result of the abilities that you give the creature, either defensive or offensive. A nice twist is to have the encounter not merely immune to whatever the PCs normally use, but actually empowered by it, either directly or indirectly.

However you are going to arrange to have it happen, you need to identify specifically what parameters you need for the encounter to have, and then devise a combination of environment and encounter abilities that produces that outcome.

That generally gives you the outline of the plot for the encounter. This usually reads, (1) Encounter Begins, (2) PCs use standard tactics, (3) PCs realize standard tactics won’t work, (4) PCs improvise/call upon tactics that will work, (4) Resolve encounter. In effect, this gives the enemy a free hit or two at one or more PCs while they are engaged in steps (2) and (3), so it may be necessary to weaken the encounter to take that into account, either directly (perhaps as a consequence of whatever treatment conferred the immunity/defensive ability) or indirectly (as a secondary environmental effect).

And that’s where the real complications start. With so many consequences and moving parts, it becomes easy to create the impression that the encounter has been crafted from a Chinese menu, more or less at random. The encounter can lack coherence. And achieving coherence while still ticking all those boxes is the difficult bit.

Having done so, it will often – even usually – be necessary to revise the plot in more specific fashion to achieve the broad outlines given above. How are the PCs to learn what they need to know? Or are they simply to remain ignorant until one of them realizes that the creature should have dropped by now – and hasn’t? How much damage are you willing to inflict on them in the meantime?

Once you have all of the above nailed down, the instigator of the combat will usually be obvious, and mostly irrelevant (for the first time). Of greater difficulty is determining the appropriate level of challenge, as I’ve implied above. How much an immunity or defense is worth depends on a host of factors, not least of which is how broadly it is defined.

The more specifically-targeted an immunity, the more obviously the encounter is targeted at the PCs – unless the GM is able to justify that, he can be (legitimately) accused of picking on them. This adds an additional burden on the plot – (3a) Justification – which makes these encounters more difficult to pull off, again. I would suggest that specifically-targeted immunity/defense should be worth +2 or +3 CR.

A very broad immunity is often the easiest to articulate, and even to justify at a metagame/plot level. But it makes the creature very dangerous. Such an immunity should often be defined as having a capacity limit, because that makes the encounter seem more plausible once the PCs discover the limit – but that again brings in the questions of how the PCs are to learn of this restriction, and how long it is going to take. Choice of language can often be the answer; instead of having the encounter gloat that he is immune to all physical attacks, have him sneer that the PCs are incapable of manifesting sufficient force to harm him. The key difference is between “all” and “sufficient force,” which implies that there is some limit.

But this can backfire, giving the Players hope that continuing with their standard tactics will eventually bear fruit instead of persuading them to try something else. So this, too, requires careful management and plotting by the GM.

A broad-based immunity can be worth as much as +10 CR. +8 is more usual. This usually mandates the provision of 2-4 more abilities of equal power, and it’s very easy for a snowball effect to make the encounter overwhelming except to very high-level PCs. One way that GMs can get around this is by specifying that weapons/attacks with a given magical bonus can penetrate the defense – but this can easily tip the balance in the other direction, because it’s not too difficult to stack an extra magical plus or two onto an attack.

The final danger that I want to mention has been intimated above – that of making a casual, passing encounter more significant than the boss-monster, making the rest of the adventure an anticlimax. You need to plan now how this problem is going to be avoided.

Character History -based encounters

The second-last variety of encounter foundation is a lot simpler, thankfully! Quite often, you will want to base an encounter around a character’s past, as much to give them an opportunity to talk about that character background as anything else. Whenever a character drops something into their background, I tend to look (hard!) for a plot arc (big or small) to build around that background element – and tend to leave the element sitting on the shelf until I come up with something satisfactory. Case in point: St Barbara, from my Zenith-3 campaign, has an African Warlord named The Blood Dove as an enemy. Nothing much was known about him until the player and I collaborated on the character’s background, many years ago, and because I’ve never found a good plotline, he’s remained in limbo since. In the course of plotting the overall structure of the current campaign, I finally came up with a small plotline revolving around him, and have dropped it into the master plan at an appropriate point.

The Evolution of an encounter based on a character’s past history is fairly straightforward:

1. Character – History
2. Instigator
3. Plot
4. Challenge
5. Environment
6. Plot Revised

Sometimes, you know that you want to do something with something from a character’s past but don’t know what; it’s just a way of giving that character a share of the spotlight for a while, and not meant to go anywhere major in plot terms. At other times, you have a clear plot arc for the NPC to follow, with (of course) the PC’s life intersecting with that plot arc at strategic points. The starting point has to be getting both of these up to the same standard of definition by selecting the character history element around which the encounter is to be built.

Second, you need to decide whether the instigator is going to be the PC (confronting their past) or the enemy (the past confronting the character).

That gives you the beginning of the plot, so the next decision has to be listing the possible endings, and (in particular) whether this is the end-point or just the first chapter in a larger plotline, perhaps one that is to be spread over a number of widely-separated encounters.

The fourth decision is the degree of challenge that this encounter is supposed to provide. This is an important decision because quite often the answer will differ from the level of outright challenge that the enemy represents.

That difference can stem from one or both of two sources: the circumstances (which may require some revision of the plot), and the environment in which the encounter is to occur. In general, there are limits to the effectiveness of the environmental factor, so it’s better to decide that first and then make up any shortfall by stacking the odds created by the circumstances in the NPCs favor – though sometimes an environment can be so hostile that the circumstances need to be in the PCs favor to balance things out the other way.

Challenge-based encounters

I’ve left the most obvious one until last. Choosing an encounter based on nothing more than it being sufficiently challenging to the PCs is probably the most common approach. You could argue that the entire concept of reskinning arose as a way of injecting greater variety of choice into this approach.

The pathway to defining this type of encounter is also straightforward.

1. Challenge
2. Instigator
3. Environment
4. Abilities
5. Character
6. Plot

You start by deciding on a challenge level relative to the PCs, and then factoring in their capabilities to determine an overall challenge rating.

Second, you need to decide who the instigator is going to be. Most of the time, this will be the hostile force, but from time to time it will be the party (depending on the make-up and attitude of the PCs, it must be added – some are super-aggressive).

Next, the environment. If the PCs are the instigators, the environment will probably not be of their choosing, it will be somewhere that the creature to be encountered calls home, or whatever the local conditions are at the PCs current location at the time of the encounter. The smarter the creature, the more it will have manipulated the local environment to create a sub-environment that is even more conducive to its success.

Fourth, the abilities that the creature needs to take advantage of the environment to whatever degree is desired. This permits the completion of the reskinning process. It also completes what you need to know to plan the start of the encounter.

Fifth, in order to determine and prepare for the possible endings of the encounter, you need some idea of how the PCs are likely to react, based on their history and current circumstances.

Sixth, using that knowledge, complete the plot outline for the encounter, and you will be ready to write it.

The limits of logic

That’s every possible foundation of starting point for an encounter, and a logical road map through the different decisions that leads through the maze of endless possibilities.

Except one.

The ultimate type of encounter is one which derives from the personality of the individual being encountered, which is a subset of the generalized personality of the race. These can be the hardest, and most satisfying, encounters to craft – and the most frustrating to play if the players insist on engaging in combat instead of roleplay, or vice-versa. There’s nothing worse than crafting a Combat Monster only for the players to parley with it.

Such encounters are best handled by applying the advice offered in a series of articles that I wrote back in 2010 (it doesn’t seem like 6+ years ago): Making A Great Villain. You don’t need to go to the same extent that you would if this was to be the main villain (or one of them) for the campaign, but applying the principles to even a small personality-based encounter yields the best possible result.

Use those techniques to make a great one-shot villain, use the result to generate a plot, and use the plot-based technique offered at the start of this article. And play them to the hilt; for this character, there is no tomorrow.

But don’t be surprised if the enemy totally takes over the adventure. Expect them to do so, and plan accordingly – don’t be caught short without enough plot!

Have fun :)

The Eleventh Shelf: Beliefs II – Ghosts, Poltergeists, and Apparitions – Introduction by Mike

Wouldn’t the world be dull if everything was predictable? That’s as true of the world in a pulp game as it is of the so-called objective reality that surrounds us. And from the cracks and crannies of what is usually a reasonably logical and predictable world, strange things can slither forth to challenge our perceptions of reality.

A ghost implies that something persists beyond death, and – given sufficient motivation or an external interdiction of sufficient force – the afterlife to which a spirit should be condemned / released can be denied, leaving that something to wander the Earth, interacting with the living.

This is a situation pregnant with profound moral and theological issues. If the ghost lingers for a morally-positive reason, does this nevertheless constitute a sin (denying the will of God)? If the ghost lingers for a morally-neutral or darker motive, such as revenge, are they condemned to damnation when eventually released?

Our conceptions of right and wrong have only limited grasp on the choices of action after death. And that puts characters who ten to try and do the right thing, the moral thing, in a bit of a spot when they are confronted by such spirits. When the Spectre was rebooted by DC Comics in the late 70s, this was the territory that they began to explore; a murdered policeman who was sent back to earth to bring his killers to justice, from the moment of this reboot he became an absolutist in dealing with those who thought they had gotten away with the ultimate crime, that of relieving another of their life. Sadly, the series came to an end after only about six issues, and before the creative team could really get into the implications of what they had created. The Spectre went back to being just another mystic heavy who wasn’t afraid to kill if he considered that just.

But there’s a great deal of similarity between that Spectre and a pulp character once one overlooks the outré means by which he inflicted justice. While a pulp PC should avoid killing his enemies unless left no other choice, he is still perfectly capable of doing so if there is an imminent threat to others and no other way of ending it.

As soon as you introduce a ghostly presence into a pulp campaign, then, all those moral and theological question-marks begin to swirl around in the background. They can be ignored for a time, but eventually, they will surface. Because an afterlife, and the ability to deny it, even if only temporarily, gets to the heart of what is right – and that’s something that is at the heart of any Pulp adventure. Its their morals that restrict and define the PCs, that pose a challenge for them to overcome.

But, even beyond that, it’s fun to rattle a PC’s cage every now and then… The first adventure that Blair and I collaborated on revolved around a Ghost Ship, first exposing it as a clever fraud, and culminating in an encounter that raised all the question marks over whether or not the phenomenon was real, all over again.

And that’s the space in which ghosts should operate in a Pulp campaign – trapped between plausibility and not, confined between the supernatural and the merely strange. The place defined, in fact, by Edgar Alan Poe’s The Tell-tale Heart, one of the earliest “modern” ghost stories.

The especially observant may have noticed that what was one shelf devoted to the weirder side of human beliefs (from a mainstream pulp-era perspective)

Up until the last possible moment (and some distance beyond, if I’m honest) it was the intent to get Beliefs finished with one monster post. But the workload involved was so high that it would not have been possible to post it until Saturday, maybe Sunday. One day late I’m happy to live with; three or four is just too far.

What happened?

The shelf became a monster, which in a way, is strangely appropriate, given the content. It contained more than 240 recommendations, which would have made it the second-biggest to date (the prize-holder would still be Shelf 5, with 269 recommendations). That’s roughly six times the size that it was originally projected to be, when the taxonomy was laid out.

There are two very good reasons for this: First, the late discovery of a number of series of books, some of which have now been extracted into their own subsections; and second, the very high degree of crossover between the different sections, which made it almost-impossible to subdivide the shelf into more manageable chunks. Take the regional myths and legends – some are True Crime, some are rumors, some are Cryptozoology, some are superstitions, some are myths and legends, and some are extracts from indigenous religious beliefs – all within the one book.

Editorially, I had done my best to slot things into a logically-progressive sequence, but that sequence has been twisted very strangely by the late decision. Don’t only look in the section devoted to any particular subject of interest over these two shelves or you will miss a LOT of potentially-valuable references.

Case in point: This shelf now covers ghosts and hauntings. Urban Legends are in the newly-created next shelf. Yet, many of those urban legends relate to hauntings, apparitions, and ghostly encounters, so if you only look here, you’ll miss out on a LOT of good material.

This last-minute reorganization has also delayed publication until Friday – the 13th, no less – which, given the subject matter, is also strangely appropriate. It’s almost as though it were predestined to play out this way…

Relevance to other genres

We can’t think of any subject more ubiquitous to RPGs, regardless of genre, than this one. Where would D&D be without it’s strange beasts? Where would Star Trek be without it’s not-quite-humans? Where would a James Bond RPG be without secret organizations? Well, Bond would be unemployed, for a start!

There really is something for everyone on this shelf. Or at least there would be, were it still intact. As it stands, most of the content touched on in that opening paragraph relates to material now dispatched to the newly-created 12th shelf.

Does that mean that what’s left has no value to the non-pulp GM? Not at all! Any genre can use a good ghost story – and that’s most of what’s here, post-split.

This image combines books 1 by freeimages.com / debora prado with public domain clip art. Click on the image to see it full-size. Shelf Introduction We have divided this duo of shelves into seven sections and twelve subsections. Some of them are very small, with only one or two entries; others are vast. But most of them will have to wait until next week, and the new twelfth shelf. I have deliberately chosen to preserve the section numbering that was added to clarify the relationship between sections and subsections unchanged – which is why this article jumps from “1” to “6”. sections “2”, “3”, “4”, “5” and “7” – almost exactly half the article – will be found on the twelfth shelf. 1. Leftover Mythology and Religion – We start this shelf with a handful (plus one) of items that should have appeared on the previous one but which were misfiled for one reason or another, or which have come to our attention since the last shelf was published. 6 Ghosts, Poltergeists, etc – Ghostly phenomena were always going to be part of this shelf, and many of the Regional Myths and Legends relate to ghostly experiences. We’ve tried hard to broaden this section beyond the US. 6.1 Documentaries about Ghosts – the plural is misleading, but we do have one that we’re recommending. 6.2 Haunted Regional Britain – The series that was [will be] collected as “Regional Myths and Legends” led to a few new additions to the Regional Cryptozoology, and then Mike turned his attention to attempting to expand the “Regional Myths” beyond the US, in the course of which he discovered the series that has been compiled (with a few extras) into this section. There was no time to review the content of these at all, and no space in the article, so we’ve simply provided bare-bones information on price and availability for most of them. Unless you’re running a UK-based campaign, we recommend only picking one of these up when you know that it is going to be specifically-relevant. But the counter-argument is that many of these are in short supply, and if you wait, they might all be gone… A Recurring Note On Images: Wherever possible, we have provided an illustration showing the cover of the book or DVD under discussion scaled to the same vertical size (320 pixels for Recommended Books, 280 for DVDs, 240 for items in the ‘For Dummies’ Sections). Where there was none available, we have used a generic icon. Decoding the “Availability” Comments It may surprise readers to learn that these aren’t mere flavor that has been added to create a sense of the availability of items we are recommending. We have guidelines – sometimes overlooked or honored more in the breach than the observance, but they are there, nevertheless. “Slightly Limited” generally means 18-20 copies. “Limited” generally means 11-17 copies but can also be used as a generic term for under twenty, especially if there is a great disparity in prices (in which case it will usually be accompanied by the qualifier “cheap” or “affordable”). “Very Limited” means 6-10 copies. “Extremely Limited” means five or less copies, in which case we will usually specify exactly how many there are. “Ample” or “Plentiful” or “Abundant” or any similar terminology sometimes means thirty or more affordably-priced copies, sometimes means fifty or more copies available, and sometimes means triple digit availability. If we haven’t said anything, that means that there were at least 20 copies available and most if not all will be under our $20 cap. Of course, most of the time, if there are fewer than twenty copies at or under our price cap, or close to it, we won’t list the product at all, but sometimes one format or another will be restricted in quantities. Prices and Availability were correct at the time of compilation.
Leftover Books About Mythology and Religion With the exception of the first item on the list, these were all misfiled in our notes. It was tempting to simply forget about them, but there’s too much potential value – and relevance to the overall topic to be ignored.
	919. Myths and Mysteries of the World (Book & DVD) (Gift Folder DVD) – Parragon Books A book and DVD in a bundle? Where do we file this? The book is 256 pages, and at almost 8 inches by 10 inches, more of a “softcover” than a “paperback” as we normally consider the term. There’s no indication of the length of the DVD, but it’s long enough to cover 25 topics, however briefly – so even 3 minutes to a topic gives something on the order of an hour and a quarter, and it only goes up from there. On that basis, it’s hard to elevate one component of this package above the other. Breaking the deadlock came down to this: a DVD is hard to reference during play, but a “highly illustrated book” can be pulled off the shelf and used to illustrate something, or simply answer a quick question. That makes the book component ever-so-slightly more useful for our purposes. And so, to the content: this compilation looks at basic questions of history that are sometimes controversial even today. “What secrets lie hidden in the pyramids? Is Teotihuacan really a city modeled on the cosmos? Who built Stonehenge, and what was it used for? Did the ancient world develop sophisticated technology? Are there people with X-ray eyes?” That’s everything from archeology to mythology and religion to fortean beliefs to cryptids. The cover implies that we can add crop circles and dragons to that list. So maybe it’s found its way to the right shelf, after all! 16 used copies from $0.13 (DVD may be missing, check specifics carefully) and 4 new from $16.75. http://amzn.to/2jj6rjO
	920. World Mythology 2nd Edition – Donna Rosenberg This volume offers 59 of the world’s great myths including selections from The Iliad and the Odyssey, Beowulf, King Arthur, and Quetzalcoatl. Each is accompanied by an introduction that offers historical background and suggested avenues for literary analysis. In other words, this treats myths as “stories” – not the approach that is most conducive to RPG functionality, but better than nothing. What’s more, there’s a subtle difference between “mythology” (implying a system or coherence of common social origins) and a “myth” in isolation, at least to our mind – though we may be nitpicking, the title nevertheless seems to promise more than the book delivers. That’s the bad news. The good news is that what it does deliver seems to be very well done, including an extensive notes section and carefully curated bibliography. Some reviewers love this book, others are less convinced. The author has censored the myths to something that would be appropriate for younger teens, removing any hint of sexual content from the myths. Some can survive that treatment, but many are decimated by the omission. There is also little attempt to inject color and life into the text. In short, this is a passable reference work with serious shortcomings. The fact that we’re looking for RPG reference materials here transforms many of those criticisms into potential assets. Presentation of a more “G-rated” version of the myths makes them more suitable for use in a public application, or with younger players, and gives the GM the freedom to re-insert whatever level of sexuality he feels appropriate for his ‘audience’. The lifeless, dry text means that the GM can decide what the color should be and how to express it – even hitting different beats within different campaigns. The same base text could yield very different interpretations when applied to a high-school D&D campaign and a more mature-player Pulp campaign even by the same GM, for example. What we (ideally) want is a reasonable reference work that lets us inject our own creativity into the mix – and this actually comes pretty close to that mark. Just don’t take this as the definitive word on any of the myths presented – check Wikipedia at the very least! 584 pages, paperback; 33 new from $7.46, 90 used from $0.01 – so clearly the criticisms have had an impact on the prices. Which means that you can probably afford to buy this book and any value that you can get from it will be sufficient to justify the purchase. http://amzn.to/2iLWqbO
	921. Stuff You Missed in History Class: A Guide to History’s Biggest Myths, Mysteries, and Marvels – HowStuffWorks.com “From the hosts of HowStuffWorks.com’s popular podcast, Stuff You Missed in History Class, comes a crash course in world history. Featuring the best of HSW’s content and packed with quizzes, trivia, and more, this books explores the craziest scandals, myths, lies, and crimes the human record has to offer.” 272 page paperback, 30 used from $0.24, 31 new from $5.18. http://amzn.to/2iJzFHp
	922. The Enigmas of History: Myths, Mysteries & Madness from Around the World – Alan Baker “History is replete with unanswered questions regarding rumored past events, objects, and cultures that often turn into the stuff of legends.” This book takes 31 of them and gives a brief overview of each. There’s a chapter on Lovecraft, and one on the Amazons, and another on El Dorado. Stigmata and Black Madonnas and Atlantis and…. let’s just say that there’s a wide coverage. You don’t have to look very hard at this book to discover that there are a lot of very critical opinions of it, despite Amazon’s 5-star rating (from just one review). Goodreads rates it about three-and-a-half, and has reviews that are scathing. Google Books only has one, but it’s even more harsh in it’s criticism, and gives the book only two stars out of five. So don’t expect too much from what initially appears to be a most promising source. (That, incidentally, is why we consider 5 reviews to be an absolute minimum for reliability and 10 to be the minimum for any sort of confidence in a book’s rating). Having reported all that, there are sections in this book that cover subjects that, to the best of our knowledge, aren’t dealt with by any other source we have listed. However poor, something is always better than nothing and so this makes the list even though it doesn’t meet our availability standards by a margin of about 5 copies. Hardcover, 304 pages; 13 used from $1.85, 5 new from $18.95. http://amzn.to/2jjqmiI One final word of warning, buying this from Amazon direct “usually ships in 1-2 months”.
	923. Myths & Mysteries of the First World War – Leonard James My goodness, that title sounds tantalizing, doesn’t it? Relax; that’s as good as this book gets. There are some ghost stories, a couple of true-adventure stories, and a pronounced absence of anything of greater substance. That said, if you’re looking for something to spice up the background of some military officer or enlisted man from the First World War – and every pulp GM should be – this could be the perfect resource. And it’s one of the very few books available on the subject. Search Amazon using the title as your term and you find this book (two different listings), a couple of books about Canadians in WWI, and a lot of irrelevancies – ranging from The Fellowship Of The Ring to a history of the Catholic Church on Audio CD. Beggars can’t be choosers… Available on Kindle ($3.05) or 144-page Paperback (12 new from $5.55, no used copies): http://amzn.to/2hXXfB6
	924. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology 9th edition – Kenneth Feder This is the first book Mike has ever seen that has 9 editions with different covers for each. The cover he’s chosen to represent them all is the 4th, not because it’s the most visually attractive (it’s not) but because that’s the edition that best matches our availability criteria. Be very careful what links you click on in the Amazon pages devoted to the book, it’s very easy to find yourself down the rabbit hole of looking at a completely different edition to the one you had, and the “back” button won’t always save you. And so, to the content. “Frauds, myths, and supposed mysteries about humanity’s past are moving targets for anyone committed to the scientific investigation of human antiquity. It is important for anyone interested in the human past to know, for example, that there is no evidence for a race of giant human beings in antiquity and no broken shards of laser guns under Egyptian pyramids. Debunking such nonsense is fun and useful in its own way, but more important is the process by which we determine that such claims are bunk.” “This is the only textbook for a course of this sort.” This is, in other words, a splash of the cold waters of reality and reason after all the less-credible material in this section and before the even vaster deluge that is still to come. 9th edition: not released until February 1st of 2017. 352 page paperback, $49.95. For which reason, we don’t recommend the 9th edition. http://amzn.to/2iJxm7l 8th Edition: 416 page paperback, 7 new from $94 and 41 used from $59.98 – for which reason, the 8th edition isn’t recommended either. http://amzn.to/2iJvk76 7th Edition: 416 page paperback, 7 new from $54.99, 50 used from $17.89 – so this meets our criteria. http://amzn.to/2iJFeps 6th edition (described as a “book supplement”) 387 pages, paperback, 3 new from $12.99, 12 used from $0.14. If there were more copies available, this would get our recommendation (it certainly has the prettiest cover). http://amzn.to/2hYI0mB 4th Edition (pictured): 352 pages, paperback, 8 new from $24.93, 57 used from $0.01, 1 collectible from $9.85. Which makes this our recommended option, with the 6th edition in reserve. http://amzn.to/2iMeR00 3rd Edition: 320 pages, paperback, 17 used from $16.14, 16 new from $55.63. Our third choice only, because of the page count. http://amzn.to/2i0OTqP
Books about Ghosts, Poltergeists, Hauntings, etc We were quite disappointed to find that the only books on the haunts of France and Germany that we could find were Kindle-only editions. In fact, we had to bend our usual criteria to be able to include something on Canada, and that ‘something’ is about as anecdotal as it gets. Similarly, we had trouble finding good choices on Scotland, Wales, and Ireland – either there weren’t enough copies, or they were far too expensive, or both, or something about the book raised alarm bells, or it simply failed to sufficiently excite us (That was, until the series we’ve listed as “The Haunted Regional Britain collection” came to our attention). If we wouldn’t buy it for our own use (or haven’t done so already), it doesn’t deserve a place on this list – even if that leaves topics with incomplete coverage. But if someone knows of one or more good books on the ghosts and hauntings of Canada, Australia, Asia, Africa, or Continental Europe, we’d love to add them to the list!
	925. Empire Ghosts: New York State’s Haunted Landmarks – Lynda Lee Macken There are hundreds of ghost stories set in the state of New York. This collection gathers some of the most notable tales of hauntings, from hotels, restaurants, museums, theaters and resorts to ancient forts, historic landmarks and private mansions. Stories are often accompanied by brief commentaries, but the reported events themselves are the central focus, related in a light, conversational style. Paperback, 75 pages, 14 used from $0.01, 16 new from $1.99, 2 Collectible from $6.92. http://bit.do/EmpireGhosts
	926. Ghosts & Haunted Houses of Maryland – Trish Gallagher, illustrated by Howard Burns Twenty-five of the most fascinating paranormal / supernatural tales from a state awash with “ghosts, haunted houses, and things that go bump in the day as well as the night”. This book was written back in 1988, when the ghost-craze was just beginning; there are times when this dates the text. One reviewer states, “…many of the books coming out today aren’t worth the ectoplasm that it might take to slime a gnat. I am happy to report however that this book has stood the test of time very well and is much superior to many of the books that have followed in it’s ghostly footsteps.” and others echo the sentiment with less panache. 95 pages, of which only about 80 contain text. http://amzn.to/2j9NOik
	927. Haunted Florida: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Sunshine State (Haunted Series) – Cynthia Thuma and Catherine Lower There are at least three different series of books collecting ghost stories from this continental state or the other. So far as we can tell, none of these series contain entries for every state; in this series or that, there are states without entries, while some states are represented by multiple choices of series. While not even striving to be comprehensive in our listings, merely representative of the most interesting choices, where multiple options came to our attention, we have done our best to select the offering that seemed most useful to us, guided by our usual price / availability criteria, and by both the number and overall rating of reviews. Page count ranked a lowly fifth in our considerations. In many cases. these choices were subjective or even instinctive (and when in doubt, we list both); we mention this to facilitate readers taking the alternatives into consideration. Which brings us to this book and the subject of haunted locations in Florida. At 112 pages, it’s substantially longer than most such books (compare with the New York and Maryland books listed previously). One of the coauthors is a native of the state in question, and one reviewer has commented favorably on its completeness of coverage. Available in both Kindle ($7.49) and Paperback format (28 used copies at $1.81, 24 new from $5.39). http://bit.do/HauntedFlorida
	928. Haunted Ohio: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Buckeye State (Haunted Series) – Charles A Stansfield, Jr If there’s one state that seems to be ghost central in the USA, it’s Ohio. There is even a five volume standalone set dedicated to the subject (also named “Haunted Ohio”)! To be honest, this book seems to have a lower value-for-money quotient than the alternative listed below, but the specific contents described were too tantalizing to ignore: “Dead presidents, swamp monsters, and spying spaceships… the phantom in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery who perches atop his tombstone, the pitiful spirits of the Millfield miners, the fearsome ghost of boatman Mike Fink, and many more”. Kindle ($7.50) and 112-Page Paperback (28 used from $2.48, 18 new from $6.25). http://bit.do/HauntedOhio
	929. Ghosthunting Ohio – John B Kachuba (America’s Haunted Road Trip series) More than 25 haunted places are described by the author who reportedly visited them all first-hand. Adding to the appeal of this volume is that each report is accompanied by a map and travel information, even though some of the latter may either be out-of-date or not relevant in the Pulp Era. Kindle ($9.37) and 256 page Paperback (40 used from $2.02, 36 new from $3.92, 1 Collectible at $7.99). http://bit.do/cYJv2
	930. Old Ghosts of New England: A Traveler’s Guide to the Spookiest Sites in the Northeast – C J Fusco “By State” isn’t the only way these series are organized. Some, like this one, deal with entire regions. As with “Haunted Ohio”, it was the specific contents described that compelled inclusion: “…traveler’s guide to the many purportedly haunted inns, restaurants, lighthouses, pubs, museums, parks, graveyards, and schools in the New England states – as well as a few of the region’s most infamous haunted houses. Painstakingly researched, this book delves deep into the histories of New England’s “old ghosts” and provides pictures, maps, directions and contact information”. Paperback, 256 pages, 26 used from $7.78, 29 new from $10.21, 2 Collectible from $12.85. http://amzn.to/2iIN8jd
	931. Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era – Tiya Miles (The Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era) This book is not entirely what you might expect, being less about the haunting “Incidents” and more about the phenomenon of “ghost tours” through plantations, urban manor homes, and cemeteries throughout the American South. “Examining popular sites and stories from these tours, Miles shows that haunted tales routinely appropriate and skew African American history to produce representations of slavery for commercial gain… [highlighting] the most sensationalist and macabre aspects of slavery, from salacious sexual ties between white masters and black women slaves to the physical abuse and torture of black bodies to the supposedly exotic nature of African spiritual practices. Because the realities of slavery are largely absent from these tours, Miles reveals how they continue to feed problematic ‘Old South’ narratives and erase the hard truths of the Civil War era”. We have real problems with that description – there is a reason we have quoted it so extensively – because logical analysis leads to the conclusion that this book is pro-slavery, i.e. argues that slavery wasn’t as bad as popular perception would have us believe. After all, if the most sensationalist aspects of the institution of slavery – which universally play up the horrors of the practice – ‘feed problematic ‘Old South’ narratives’, as the description implies, it can only be interpreted as a claim by the author that these sensationalist practices are distorting the truth (which they probably are to some extent) and that the truth is counter to the impression created. Countering this initial impression is the racial background of the author, who is not – as might have been expected from the position implied above, Caucasian – but is in fact Afro-Cherokee and a respected historian, unlikely to be a party to a pro-slavery perspective as a result; and one of the customer reviews, which emphasizes the vivid descriptions of the tours that the author actually undertook as part of her research into the subject. Not that it’s relevant, or that we are especially privileged to have a more valid opinion, but our take is that sensationalized accounts of the worst practices of slavery represent accounts of how bad things could be, worst case representations of the institution. Logically, there would also be a minority of cases in which the slaves were well-cared for, and treated with dignity and respect (at least in comparison with the social expectations of the day), while the majority lie somewhere in between, suffering a level abuse that only rarely rises to the most sensational accounts; but any abuse is still abuse, and not to be considered acceptable. And that a Pulp Game is definitely the place for sensationalized accounts of absolutely anything to fit right in! At best, then, this must be recommended with the very strong caveat that it may have its own social axe to grind and may not be what you think you might be buying from the title alone (which is why we have deliberately done as Amazon do, and included the series title in our headline). And why we have discussed the issue so thoroughly. Kindle ($14.36) or 176-page Hardcover (21 used from $15.62, 33 new from the same price, published by The University of North Carolina Press. http://amzn.to/2j64YJo
	932. New England’s Haunted Lighthouses: Guide to New England’s Haunted Lighthouses, Forts and Ships – Theodore Burbank The third way that collections can be structured is by type of location, and this is an example of this approach. Ghostly Spirits that (allegedly) haunt lighthouses and old forts, and the phantom ships that “sail” the New England waters. Incidents are grouped Geographically, which might be useful. Available in Kindle ($8.63 http://bit.do/cYJGR) and 246-page paperback (9 used from $9.95, 15 new from $11.97 http://bit.do/cYJHb).
	933. Haunted Boston Harbor – Sam Baltrusis (Haunted America) Not to be confused with the book listed below, which has a very similar title. “Boston Harbor brims with the restless spirits of pirates, prisoners and victims of disease and injustice. Uncover the truth behind the Lady in Black on Georges Island. Learn about the former asylums on Long Island that inspired the movie Shutter Island, and dig up the skeletal secrets left behind by the Woman in Scarlet Robes. From items flying off the shelves at a North End cigar shop to the postmortem cries of tragedy at the centuries-old Boston Light on Little Brewster, author Sam Baltrusis breathes new life into the horrors that occurred in the historic waters surrounding Boston.” Mike opines that from a sociological perspective, this description offers an insight into why “Ghost Tours” are popular – the sensational stories of hauntings are counter-fables, warnings of the depths and depravities of which humans are capable, and places them in a historical context, offering a point of accessibility to those who find history to be dry reading. They punch up the vividness of history, in other words, while providing vicarious thrills and entertainments. While not completely convinced of this perspective as the be-all and end-all of the topic, what we can all agree on is that this shows up a second, indirect, source of value in books on the subject to Pulp GMs, and indeed, to GMs of any Genre – Ghost Stories can be used directly, as an encounter for the PCs that does nothing but add some supernatural color; can be used indirectly as templates for encounters of greater relevance to a plotline (while still adding that supernatural color), or even more indirectly as inspiration for villainous acts and motivations that are so dark as to linger in legends of hauntings. The first two, we knew about already; the last is a new thought, even to us. Kindle ($7.65) and Paperback (144 pages, 14 used from $10.13, 24 new from $10.20). http://amzn.to/2hUrVBP
	934. Ghosts Of Boston: Haunts Of The Hub – Sam Baltrusis (Haunted America) We had the previous book on Boston Harbor, shortlisted for inclusion; in the process of gathering links and reviewing the products that we are recommending in these lists, this item popped up and was almost listed as an additional source of the previous volume. Mike spotted the error, fortunately. We’re listing it as much as a reminder to our readers of this peril as for the content itself. And, of course, it also neatly segues into still another level of series organization – books about the ghosts of a specific city, in this case, Boston (one of a handful of American cities that Mike has actually visited). As usual, we were more impressed by the specifics included in the content description than we would have been by the generalities employed to describe books in other series. “Boston, Massachusetts, boasts countless stories of the supernatural. Many students at Boston College have encountered an unearthly hound that haunts O’Connell House to this day. Be on the watch for an actor who sits in on rehearsals at Huntington Theater and restless spirits rumored to haunt Boston Common at night. From the Victorian brownstones of Back Bay to the shores of the Boston Harbor Islands … there is hardly a corner of the Hub where the paranormal cannot be experienced”. Furthermore, because they have the same author, it is to be hoped that there is no overlap between this book and the preceding one. Kindle ($7.69) and 128-page Paperback (19 used from $6.83, 30 new from $6.06). http://amzn.to/2hSmwYN
	935. America’s Haunted Universities: Ghosts that Roam Hallowed Halls – Matthew L Swayne The combination of stress, freedom from authority, rampaging hormones, over-the-top passions, and an age-bracket that makes everything feel directed at you, personally, makes institutions of later learning especially fertile ground for melodramatic responses to situations, sometimes with tragic outcomes. The surprising thing is not that there are ghosts said to haunt many such institutions, but that they are not even more common. This particular book has some very mixed reviews, but also has more reviews than most books in this category, and still ends up with a respectable overall average. Much of the criticism complains that the writing is not all that vivid/exciting/thrilling, or that it doesn’t provide enough background details on the backgrounds of the alleged ghosts and, in particular, the circumstances that led to them becoming ‘ghosts’. The praise tends to directly contradict the first complaint, and also focuses on a reasonable degree of comprehensive coverage. Even if not of direct usage, the book is full of little anecdotes that color and distinguish different institutions, and since these are certain to appear in a pulp campaign from time-to-time, or have analogues in other genres, this book offers value beyond the direct applicability of the legends described within, and more than enough reason to list it. Kindle ($9.83) and 240-page Paperback (24 used from $3.98, 28 new from $3.62) http://amzn.to/2iFQX6r
	936. Haunted Colleges and Universities: Creepy Campuses, Scary Scholars, and Deadly Dorms – Tom Ogden If the preceding book isn’t quite right for you, this one might be. It lacks the anecdotal color, but that means that it can devote more of its text to the hauntings themselves. “This comprehensive guide contains information on over two hundred colleges and universities around the United States” … “If Haunted Colleges and Universities has a flaw, it is that it overreaches and cannot devote enough space to any one college (although there are certain colleges in the book that have a lot more space devoted to them than others)” …. “you will have to look in the reference section if you want to find a more in-depth examination of each location.” The author’s introduction acknowledges the scope of the problem – instead of two or three dozen entries, he found himself dealing with hundreds of tales of the Paranormal – which provides new perspective on the complaints regarding the preceding book, as well. Kindle ($9.37), 336-page paperback (25 used from $0.01, 28 New from $8.00). http://amzn.to/2iKgj5o
	937. Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses – Elizabeth Tucker Rounding out our triumvirate of campus-oriented ghost collections is this offering. “the first book-length interpretive study of college ghostlore”, which will introduce the reader to stories such as those of “Emory University’s Dooley, who can disband classes by shooting professors with his water pistol; Mansfield University’s Sara, who threw herself down a flight of stairs after being rejected by her boyfriend; and Huntingdon College’s Red Lady, who slit her wrists while dressed in a red robe. Gettysburg College students have collided with ghosts of soldiers, while students at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College have reported frightening glimpses of the Faceless Nun.” If this book has a flaw, it’s that the content may be less Pulp-usage-friendly than the others listed. “Tucker presents campus ghostlore from the mid-1960s to 2006, with special attention to stories told by twenty-first-century students through e-mail and instant messages. Her approach combines social, psychological, and cultural analysis, with close attention to students’ own explanations of the significance of spectral phenomena. As metaphors of disorder, insanity, and school spirit, college ghosts convey multiple meanings. Their colorful stories warn students about the dangers of overindulgence, as well as the pitfalls of potentially horrifying relationships.” This approach is more pragmatically real-world than others, attempting to look behind the curtain of this subset of urban legends into the reasons the stories are spread and perpetuated and the insights that they offer into campus life rather than simply documenting the legends themselves. To our way of thinking, that doesn’t diminish its potential value, but instead provides a different kind of value to the GM, a context that helps place all the other sources in this section into perspective. Available in Kindle ($9.91), Hardcover (too expensive at $48.66+), and Paperback (29 used from $10, 16 new from $20). http://amzn.to/2hSyYrc
	938. Haunted Washington, DC: Federal Phantoms, Government Ghosts, and Beltway Banshees – Tom Ogden “Washington, DC can make a legitimate claim to being the most haunted city in America. With its rich history and the parade of passionate, colorful characters that have walked its streets over the past two centuries, it’s amazing the district doesn’t have more ghosts than it already does.” Kindle ($9.96) and 240-page paperback (20 used from $8.70, 25 new from $9.90). http://amzn.to/2iCFiY5
	939. Haunted Chicago: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites, and Lingering Legends – Tom Ogden Amongst the most generic and least exciting product descriptions we’ve found, the mystique of the city of Chicago in the Pulp Era is enough to convince us that there is probably meat in these pages for the Pulp GM (or for the creative GM who runs a fantasy city with a Thieves Guild!) If we hadn’t already listed a couple from this particular author that were rather more promising, we would have given this book a miss; even now, we recommend that you carefully consider the two that follow before settling on this as your choice, unless you are especially budget-challenged. Kindle ($10) or 304-page paperback (24 used from $4.24, 35 new from $7.68) http://amzn.to/2hSWuJs
	940. The Ghosts Of Chicago: The Windy City’s Most Famous Haunts – Adam Selzer “Behind the crumbling walls, under the ancient bricks and the nearly forgotten streetcar tracks, the ghosts of Chicago live on. From Resurrection Mary and Al Capone to the Murder Castle of H. H. Holmes and the funeral train of Abraham Lincoln, the spine-tingling sights and sounds of Chicago’s yesteryear are still with us… and so are its ghosts.” “…dozens of never-before-told firsthand accounts. Take a historical tour of the famous and not-so-famous haunts around town, from the Alley of Death and Mutilation to Satan’s Mile and beyond. Sometimes the real story is far different from the urban legend?and most of the time it’s even gorier.” Which all sounds excellent to us! We especially like the fact that this book offers the GM a choice that can be made incident-by-incident, either to use the urban legend or the truth behind the legend, depending on which is most colorful and which serves his game purposes better. Twenty customer reviews give this an average of 4.8 out of 5; the most critical review reads “It was interesting. A lot of background info, which made it more interesting. Had some humor, as well, which was good” – and which begs the question of why it was rated only three stars by that reader! Available in Kindle ($10) or 360-page paperback (17 used from $7.99, 32 new from $9.40). http://amzn.to/2iKh3r7
	941. Haunted New York City: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Big Apple – Cheri Revai There are lots of books on this subject, as befits a city of the prominence of NYC. Unfortunately, none of them rates all that highly. This one has more customer reviews than the one below, an average rating of 2.7, and no five-star ratings. Which, unfortunately makes is a contender for best book on the subject. “Dry”… ”Poorly written and edited”… ”too short”… ”fractured”… ”not-so-haunted”… “Plenty creepy. Not too much of a thrill though. A lot of this is based on the history of certain areas/buildings.” It was that last comment that got this one over the line, promising value beyond the failure to deliver too much in the way of ghostly sightings/stories. But buy the cheapest copy you can find. Kindle ($6.77), 128-page paperback (21 used from $2.29, 24 new from $5.68 – close enough to Amazon’s price once P&H are factored in, though Amazon say they only have one copy left). http://amzn.to/2iCBjdQ
	942. Ghosthunting New York City – L’Aura Hladik (America’s Haunted Road Trip) The next contender for best title on the subject, this has fewer reviews but a higher average rating at 3.3 out of 5 – and four of the seven reviews give it 4 or 5 stars (evenly divided between the two). So this is at least promising, but inconclusive. Criticisms are that it seems to exclude some parts of the city, notably Brooklyn and Queens, and reads like fiction aimed at (younger) high-school students. But it brings the ghosts, at least – the overall impression is best summed up by one reviewer who wrote, “If you want a taste of places in NYC that are haunted without too much detail or any talent in writing, then this is the book for you.” Kindle ($6.95) or 256-page paperback (20 used from $4, 19 new from $5.80, 1 collectible from $14.95, Amazon has 5 copies for $15.95 but P&H is included – the other vendors will charge $4 on top of the quoted price for that). http://amzn.to/2hSzdTa
	943. Spooky New York: Tales Of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, And Other Local Lore – S E Schlosser, illustrated by Paul Hoffman The third contender! An average rating of 3.2 out of 5, with more 5-star reviews than any other rating by some considerable margin, from 9 reviews. But it’s only when you dig into the reviews and description that you realize that the thirty stories contained within deal with the … majority … of New York State and not the big apple exclusively. It is, nevertheless criticized for not being comprehensive (hence the caveat). That said, one reviewer offers, “Quite a number of stories took place around New York City. I had no idea that Central Park, the Empire State Building, and Ellis Island had ghost stories associated with them. Also, Captain Kidd left buried treasure on Liberty Island, the Devil had a fiddle contest in Brooklyn, a monster once roamed Wall Street, and a Revolutionary War hero rose from his Bronx grave to defend his widow and baby son.” So we feel justified in including it as a contender for the best books about haunted NYC – which is perhaps a more damning criticism of the others already mentioned than anything else written about them! Kindle ($7.90) or 227-page Paperback (48 used from $0.01, 36 new from $2.75, 2 collectible from $9.85 – so at least this has price on its side!) http://amzn.to/2iGdcsW
	944. Ghosts Of New York City: The Haunted Locations of The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island – Jeffrey Fisher And the winner is… well, not this book, because it’s only available for Kindle, and while it has the best review average (3.8), it earns that rating from only 4 reviews. Still, even with that paucity of conclusive evidence, this gets a big tick for answering every one of the criticisms leveled at the preceding books, which left us no choice but to list it as a contender despite being illegible for inclusion under our usual guidelines. Criticized by some for grammatical errors, especially mismatching tenses, which can drive some readers to distraction, but otherwise appears to be well-written. It certainly covers those parts of New York that Ghosthunting New York leaves out, as the title makes explicitly clear. If this were available in a hardcopy format, we would have no hesitation in listing it as the resource to have and specifically rejecting the others. As things stand, this is an equal contender – the preferred choice if you have a Kindle, not available otherwise. 132 pages, $8.42. http://amzn.to/2iCUWTj
	945. The Granny Curse and Other Ghosts and Legends from East Tennessee – Randy Russell and Janet Barnett There’s something about Tennessee. Maybe it’s the legacy of too many repeats of the Beverly Hillbillies (which seems to have been in Syndication forever, here in Australia, most recently in 2014 or -15), but something about the state has entered the popular zeitgeist almost subliminally; it holds obscure associations in our minds as somewhere that we would expect to find tales of the macabre, true or otherwise, though if pinned down to it, none of us could actually cite a compelling reason for that association. This book amply justifies that unsubstantiated impression. Where other states have a dozen or so prominent ghost stories (as reported in the books listed above), less if you exclude the big cities and seacoasts, this book offers 25 tales, all based on historical fact entwined with regional folklore and it only covers half the state! “Witches who fly down chimneys. A chair that won’t release its occupant until a drop of blood stains the floor. A mountain that grew — and continues to grow — from the grave of a woman who was larger than life. The ghost of a woman who jumps on the bumpers of cars driving past the graveyard where she is buried. An apple tree that growls at people who pick its fruit. A woman who rose from her grave each night to get food for a baby born to her after she was buried. A peach tree that grows on the head of a deer…” this book certainly packs a lot into its 112 pages! Available in Kindle ($3.80) and Paperback (47 used from 1¢, 22 new from $4.22, 1 collectible at $2.98) formats. http://amzn.to/2i2bzUt
	946. These Haunted Hills: East Tennessee Lore – Tabitha Prock As if the preceding listing weren’t enough, there is also this book. We would expect at least some overlap in the content, but 25 – the number of “tales” in that preceding recommendation – seems rather too neat a number for that to be “all there is”. But there is no table of contents, making it hard to confirm or refute this impression. Kindle ($2.87) or 118-page Paperback (6 used from $5.89, 15 new from $4.35). http://amzn.to/2jfiuuo
	947. Haunted Wisconsin: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Badger State (Haunted Series) – Linda S Godfrey Wisconsin may be in the popular zeitgeist as a “quiet state” (that comment will make more sense when you read the entries from the “Myths and Mysteries” series next week that were supposed to precede this section) but between this and the two books below, plus the Myths and Mysteries entry you have yet to see, the citizens are either working hard to change that impression, or have very definitely been flying beneath the radar! There seems to be enough weirdness going on there for any half-decent state and a couple of its neighbors. Contents include Witches in the Wisconsin Dells, Spirits in the state capital, the Headless Nun of Kenosha, the Man-Bat of Lacrosse, ‘Rocky’ the Rock Lake Monster, the pancake aliens (also described in the Myths and Mysteries volume). the ghost of notorious gangster John Dillinger, exploration of Aztalan’s ancient mounds, the ghostly bars of Madison and Milwaukee, and the town of Caryville, reportedly one of the most haunted places in America. Kindle ($8.12) or 128-page Paperback (28 used from $4.62, 29 new from $5.43). http://amzn.to/2j5UzkC
	948. Haunted Wisconsin – Michael Norman Not to be confused with the preceding reference is this collection of scores of ghostly incidents, which have been gathered from ‘credible’ first-hand accounts, on-site explorations, historical archives, newspaper reports, and other sources (what’s left besides personal correspondence?) Remarkably, from the product description, there is minimal-to-no overlap with the Godfrey book. This volume includes Wisconsin’s most famous haunted house, Summerwind; three Milwaukee men who encountered the beautiful ghost of National Avenue; a phantom basketball player; a spectral horse that signaled death in the pioneer era of the Wisconsin Dells; a poltergeist in St. Croix County who attracted a crowd of more than three hundred spectators; the Ridgeway Ghost who haunts the driftless valleys of southwestern Wisconsin; a swinging railroad lantern held by unseen hands; and the Ghost Island of the Chippewa Flowage. Note that this is a 3rd and revised edition published in 2011 with many additional details/incidents. Kindle ($9.98) or 272-page paperback (18 used from $11.01, 21 new from $12.79). http://amzn.to/2iDuQN9
	949. Spooky Wisconsin: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore – Retold be S E Schlosser, illustrated by Paul G Hoffman “Spooky” is probably a misnomer when applied to several of the stories collected in this third ‘weird Wisconsin’ book. While it does contain it’s fair share of ghostly sightings and a cryptid or two, it goes well beyond those limits. Again, it’s surprising how little overlap there appears to be with the previously-listed entries. Though it must be acknowledged that this offers fewer details about the contents than the first two: “Paul Bunyon and Babe, Native American Indians, ghosts, river mysteries, and more … You’ll meet the shrouded horseman of Milwaukee, the troll of Mount Horeb, the dark horse of the Dells…” Kindle ($8.98) or paperback, 224 pages (17 new from $0.48, 26 used from $4.00, and Amazon have 19 new copies for $9.75). http://amzn.to/2j5VhhW
	950. The Most Amazing Haunted and Mysterious Places in Britain: More Than 1000 British Ghosts, Eerie Haunts and Enduring Mysteries – Reader’s Digest “Goast Stories in great britain” (sic). We’re listing this, despite that being the sum total of the product description, for two reasons: first, because of our respect for the quality of most Reader’s Digest books; and second, because “Great Britain” is England, Scotland and Wales, and all the books we found on Scotland and Ireland’s ghosts didn’t seem to work out for one reason or another. Paperback, 256 pages, 18 used from $0.81, 4 new from $63.66. http://amzn.to/2jta42J
	951. Haunted England: The Penguin Book Of Ghosts – Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson “Watch out for a ghostly ship and its spectral crew off the coast of Cornwall. Listen for the unearthly tread and rustling silk dress of Darlington’s Lady Jarratt. Shiver at the malevolent apparition of 50 Berkeley Square that no one survives seeing. England’s past echoes with stories of unquiet spirits and hauntings, of headless highwaymen and grey ladies, indelible bloodstains, and ghastly premonitions. “Here, county by county, are the nation’s most fascinating supernatural tales and bone-chilling legends: from a ghostly army marching across Cumbria to the vanishing hitchhiker of Bluebell Hill, from the gruesome Man-Monkey of Shropshire to the phantom congregation who gather for a Sermon of the Dead.” Kindle ($10.79) or 480-page paperback (19 used from $0.77, 24 new from $7.40). http://amzn.to/2jsQrYK
	952. Haunted England: Royal Spirits, Castle Ghosts, Phantom Coaches, & Wailing Ghouls – Terence Whitaker The subtitle is all the information available about the contents, but it is so provocative that we couldn’t not list this book. Hardcover, unknown page count, 20 used from $0.97, 12 new from $9.98, 2 collectible from $3.49 http://amzn.to/2ieoG4T
	953. Haunted London – Peter Underwood The first of two books with the same name. We have listed them in order of priority as far as recommendations go. Underwood earns pride of place because he got there first – this was the first published book on the ghosts of London, written and published when Underwood was President of the London Ghost Club. “As well as all the famous hauntings – the Cock Lane ghost, the Grey Man at Drury Lane, the Tower ghosts, the haunted house at Berkeley Square etc – [this] book contains many new and hitherto unpublished findings. Not all ghosts date back to earlier centuries: there are ghost motorcyclists, for instance, and new buildings on the sites of older ones are as likely to have ghosts as those which still stand. “For easy reference, Haunted London has divided up London geographically. Ghostly associations are uncovered in churches, theaters, hotels, inns and scenes of murders. “Poltergeist infestation is another phenomenon included in this work”. Kindle ($8.75) or 192-page hardcover (11 used from $18.22, 4 new from don’t-ask), pictured. http://amzn.to/2j3K7tD Paperback (slightly different cover) 23 used from $1.94, 26 new from $8.57). If buying from Amazon themselves note “Usually ships in 1 to 2 months”. http://amzn.to/2jsXGj7
	954. Haunted London: Discovering the City’s Best-Kept Secrets – Richard Jones Our second recommendation under the title “Haunted London”, Jones earns second place through comprehensiveness and evocative description, ready to be usurped for flavor text. “…more than 100 sites, from the Tower of London and Westminster Bridge to disused underground stations and 16th-century inns. Each haunted location is described in detail and is accompanied by contact details, maps and travel information to show the reader where to find it.” Hardcover (32 used from 1¢, 10 new from $15.49) or Paperback (11 used from $10, 3 new from $11.29). http://amzn.to/2jh1epj
	955. Haunted London Pubs – David Brandon and Alan Brooke “London is a historical city full of mysteries and curiosities, and is home to many of England’s oldest and quirky pubs. It comes as no surprise that these pubs have a great deal more than their fair share of ghosts, phantoms, and ghouls! “A menacing ghostly soldier lurks in Mayfair’s Grenadier pub; the hooves of Dick Turpin’s Black Bess can be heard galloping up to the Spaniard’s Inn at Hampstead; a scary nun does the rounds at the Horns in Bermondsey; and many people have heard the voices of long-dead drinkers killed when the King’s Arms in Peckham Rye was blitzed. “Combining some well-known stories with others that are long-forgotten, this fascinating book delves into the rich tapestry of London’s pub history, with a perfect mix of the past, folklore, popular culture, and the supernatural. 96 page paperback, 13 used from $5.68, 18 new from $6.14. http://amzn.to/2jBJnx5
	956. Joe Kwon’s True Ghost Stories Volume 4: True Ghost Stories from Canada & The Rockies – compiled by Joe Kwon This book only just squeaks by our eligibility criteria because of a separately-listed Kindle edition. But it’s the only book on the subject of Canadian ghosts that popped out from our searches. “We asked readers to send us their own paranormal encounters, and they did. By the thousands. This volume contains some of the most interesting and most terrifying recent encounters Canada and The Rocky Mountains (including more than 100 recent encounters in the USA).” Paperback, 346 pages, 4 used from $11.85, 11 new fro $9.31, Amazon have an unknown number for $12.99. http://amzn.to/2jgTXWS Kindle: $3.03 http://amzn.to/2iDEj7a
	957. Joe Kwon’s True Ghost Stories Volume 6: Real Ghost Encounters in England – compiled by Joe Kwon The book that brought the Joe Kwon series to our attention. “We asked people to tell us of the strangest and scariest ghostly goings-on that they had personally witnessed, and they did:” “Submissions from all over England, of the weird, the frightening, the horrid. More than one hundred tales.” Paperback, 258 pages, 4 used from $10.73, 11 new from $8.33 – both of which make Amazon’s price of $11.99 look pretty good, at least as long as the copies last. http://amzn.to/2iZFD4Z
	958. Haunted Castles & Houses of Scotland – Martin Coventry 200 detailed ghost stories associated with Scotland’s many castles and great houses, including Edinburgh, Stirling, Fyvie, Crathes, Dunnottar, and Neidpath. A map locates all the sites, plus there are numerous photos of the castles. There are tales of headless horsemen, sorrowful Green Ladies, murdered serving girls, men too evil to rest, portents of death, and even a phantom cannonball. Paperback, 230 pages, 18 used from $1.88, 11 new from $24.56. http://amzn.to/2jBQnd1
	959. Haunted Wales: A Guide to Welsh Ghostlore – Richard Holland According to the product description, in 1831 researcher William Howells voiced the written opinion that Wales had more ghosts and goblins that any other country. Wales “abounds in castles and mansions, ancient churches, lonely lanes and crossroads, even bare mountainsides which can lay claim to a resident spook or two.” Holland has carefully studied the original sources of these myths, legends, and supernatural encounters, “delving into old books, journals, Eisteddfod transactions, and unpublished essays” resurrecting ghost stories which had long been forgotten, many of which are uniquely Welsh in character. Kindle ($2.29) or 240-page paperback (13 used from $2.74, 19 new from $8.40) http://amzn.to/2iEapj3
	960. Haunted Inns Of Britain & Ireland – Richard Jones There is so little product detail that we’re of two minds about recommending this book. What description there is only adds to that disquiet: “Find out which inns are reputed to be haunted in the British Isles.” Still, even if you have to invent your own haunting details/manifestations using the other works listed as inspiration, this could be worth having – simply because of the greater scope it affords. Ultimately, we’ve decided to leave that decision to the reader. Paperback, 176 pages, 42 used from 1¢, 12 new form $5, 1 collectible from $9.85. http://amzn.to/2jtmbwy
	961. Edinburgh After Dark: Ghost, Vampires, and Witches of the Old Town – Ron Halliday This book covers everything from UFO sightings to Vampires and all points supernatural that lie in between. Which actually makes it more like the “Regional Myths and Mysteries” series (to be listed next week) than most of the books in this section. Kindle ($2.87) or 224-page paperback (13 used from $1.12, 23 new from $7.25) http://amzn.to/2ibO4NG
	962. The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Ghosts & Hauntings – Tom Ogden One of the recurring tropes that we employ in the Adventurer’s Club campaign is the presentation of apparently-supernatural events with mundane explanations (the Scooby-Doo trope) and vice-versa as characters become more remote to civilization – with a huge fudge-factor up our sleeves in terms of how “remote” they actually have to be (more on that in the introduction to next time). Ghosts and Hauntings of isolated mansions, farmsteads, battlefields, cemeteries, and castles definitely fits that prescription! Ogden is all over this list – we’ve recommended several other of his books – which only completes a compelling case for this book to be in the main section. First Edition: paperback (17 used from $2.90, 12 new from $43.23): http://amzn.to/2ikgR12 Second Edition (Pictured): Kindle $12.40, paperback (46 used from 1¢, 11 new from $9): http://amzn.to/2j1J4Iz Given the price differential, we recommend the second edition while copies are available, with the first edition as only a back-up choice. No page count was given for the 1st edition, but in general there was a reasonably substantial increase from 1st to 2nd editions of other Complete Idiot’s Guides.
	963. Haunted Castles of the World: Ghostly Legends and Phenomena from Keeps and Fortresses Around the Globe – Charles A Coulombe Haunted Castles and fortresses can be found on every continent – from the Scottish Moors to German Hillsides, from the battlements of old Japan to the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. This book takes the reader on a guided tour of these locations, examining the legends and incidents that gained them their reputation for possessing ghostly residents. Reported to be short on the Ghost stories and long on the travelogue; criticized for the lack of a bibliography; and denounced for omitting some of the best known, such as Hapsburg Castle, and exotic, such as the Malacanang Palace of Manilla. At best, then, this is an incomplete foundation – but that alone is sufficient to justify its inclusion. 288 page paperback, 20 used from $2.01, 10 new from $8.50. http://amzn.to/2jq6xTq
Documentaries about Ghosts, Poltergeists, Hauntings, etc
	964. Is It Real?: Ghost Ships This is the final episode of the 2nd season of this series, and is the only one we consider worth recommending – the others were over-sensationalized, didn’t tell us anything new, and often contained substantial errors and significant omissions. We couldn’t find the series on DVD, but that hardly matters because unless it was dirt cheap, we could not in good conscience recommend buying the whole for this one part. However, individual episodes (including this one) are available through Amazon’s streaming service http://amzn.to/1q5AXwx and for anyone who can’t access those (the rest of the world?), the episode is online through YouTube .
The Haunted Regional Britain collection This is a series that we came across while searching for other things, but didn’t have time to review even to the extent we have done the regional US references (published next week). These deal with the various counties of England, Scotland, and Ireland with which (we have to admit), we are far less familiar than we are with the states of the US. Which, perhaps, says something about the influence of Hollywood on Australian Culture more than about any other subject. There may even be some Wales in there, we aren’t familiar enough with the locations to say. Note that there are a couple of books in the series that have been omitted because they were far too expensive, or now only available for Kindle. Since most of the text for next week’s entry in the series is already written, if there’s time, Mike will start retroactively adding descriptions – but that will take a back seat to getting future articles out on time, so don’t wait for him to do so!
	965. Haunted Aberdeen & District – Geoff Holder Kindle $2.87 or paperback from $1.88 http://amzn.to/2ieLBNs 966. Haunted Ashford – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Paperback from $5.93 http://amzn.to/2ieCTPi
	967. Haunted Barnsley – Richard Bramall and Joe Collins 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $7.33, very limited copies http://amzn.to/2j0b8w9 968. Haunted Bath – David Brandon Paperback, 96 pages, from $6.09 http://amzn.to/2j4C2Vk
	969. Haunted Bedford – William H King 96 pages, Kindle $2.87 or paperback from $3.96 http://amzn.to/2j4ymTS 970. Haunted Berkshire – Roger Long Paperback, 96 pages, from $1.41 http://amzn.to/2ibVfW9
	971. Haunted Berwick – Darren W Ritson Paperback, 96 pages, from $6.17 http://amzn.to/2j0cQO5 972. Haunted Bishop’s Stortford – Jenni Kemp 96 pages, Kindle $4.66 or paperback from $5.69 http://amzn.to/2j6zjes
	973. Haunted Black Country – Philip Soloman Paperback, 96 pages, from $0.96 http://amzn.to/2ibQEmT 974. Haunted Bolton – Stuart Hilton and Michelle Cardno 96 pages, Kindle $4.60 or paperback from $10.20, limited copies http://amzn.to/2ihDFP0
	975. Haunted Boston – Gemma King This is Boston in Lincolnshire, not Boston, Massachusetts. 96 pages, Kindle $2.91 or paperback from $5.71 http://amzn.to/2j6vJBe 976. Haunted Bray and Environs – Eddie Tynan 96 page paperback from 5.95 http://amzn.to/2jCdRyM
	977. Haunted Bristol – Sue Le’Queux 128 pages, Kindle $2.87 or paperback from $0.77 http://amzn.to/2iiPmoq 978. Haunted Bromley – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Kindle $2.91, paperback from $2.79, copies in very short supply http://amzn.to/2j78YwX
	979. Haunted Canterbury – John Hippisley 96 pages, paperback from $11.97, limited copies http://amzn.to/2ife7i7 980. Haunted Carlisle – Darren W Ritson 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $6.26, limited copies available http://amzn.to/2j775R1
	981. Haunted Carlow – Cormac Strain and Danny Carthy 96 pages, paperback from $6.88 http://amzn.to/2ictL2E 982. Haunted Chatham – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Kindle $2.31 or paperback from $5.26, limited availability http://amzn.to/2ifsrr0
	983. Haunted Chelmsford – Jason Day 96 pages, Kindle $2.73, paperback from $6.20 http://amzn.to/2iF3JB3 984. Haunted Cheltenham – Diz White 96 page paperback from $6.03, limited cheap availability http://amzn.to/2jCOWeo
	985. Haunted Cork – Darren Mann 96 page paperback from $5.97 http://amzn.to/2ics5Gx 986. Haunted Cotswolds – Diz White 96 pages, Kindle $2.98 or paperback from $0.77, plentiful supply http://amzn.to/2j75JWs
	987. Haunted Dartmoor – Kevin Hynes 96 pages, Kindle $4.66 or paperback from $5.56 http://amzn.to/2iiOgJq 988. Haunted Derbyshire – Jill Armitage 96 page paperback from $10.45 http://amzn.to/2j0MRpx
	989. Haunted Derry – Madeline McCurry 96 pages, Kindle $4.59 or paperback from $5.67 http://amzn.to/2j7e2kX 990. Haunted Doncaster – Richard Bramall and Joe Collins 96 pages, Kindle $4.76 or paperback from $11.21 http://amzn.to/2jibL3P
	991. Haunted Donegal – Madeline McCully 96 pages, Kindle $4.59 or paperback from $6.49 http://amzn.to/2juHo9q 992. Haunted Dundee – Geoff Holder 96 pages, Kindle $7.58 or paperback from $4.32, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j5JFv4
	993. Haunted Edinburgh – Rupert Matthews Not strictly part of the series, but this still seemed the right place to list this book. NB: Amazon were showing the wrong cover at the time of compilation. Be aware, however, that the cover might be correct and this actually refers to Haunted London by Matthews. 24 pages (that’s not a typo), paperback from 1¢, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j7hFaF 994. Haunted Edinburgh – Alan Murdie This is the “Haunted Edinburgh” that is part of the series. 96 page paperback from $6. http://amzn.to/2jD4u20
	995. Haunted Enfield – Jason Hollisi 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $10.37, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j5LF6h 996. Haunted Essex – Carmel King 96 page paperback, from $9.18 http://amzn.to/2iFc5Jc
	997. Haunted Exeter – Suze Gardner 96-page paperback from $6.10, slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2jisQuu 998. Haunted Grimsby – Jason Day 96 page paperback from $6.30, slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iiQBnM
	999. Haunted Halifax and District – Kai Roberts 96 pages, Kindle $4.59, paperback from $5.57 http://amzn.to/2jiqeN2 1000. Haunted Hampshire – Rupert Matthews 96 page paperback from $0.77 http://amzn.to/2j5GB1W
	1001. Haunted Hartlepool & East Durham – Paul Screeton 96 pages, Kindle $4.59 or paperback from $4.96 http://amzn.to/2jCZHxs 1002. Haunted Herefordshire: A ghostly Gazetteer – Ruth Stratton and Nicholas Connell We suspect that this might not be part of the series we’ve been tracking, despite the title, because it has a subtitle and a quite different cover, and is very different in page-count, but this seems the right place to list this book. 410 page paperback from $16.19. http://amzn.to/2icDjKO
	1003. Haunted Hertford – Ruth Stratton 96 pages, Kindle $2.91 or paperback from $3.59 http://amzn.to/2ifnUoq 1004. Haunted High Wycombe – Eddie Brazil 96 pages, Kindle $2.29, paperback from $5.68, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2juWzzu
	1005. Haunted Highgate – Della Farrant 112 pages, Kindle $4.66 or paperback from $5.52 http://amzn.to/2j7cMOM 1006. Haunted Huddersfield – Kai Roberts 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $6.97 http://amzn.to/2jiB1XC
	1007. Haunted Hull – Mark Riley 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $7.46, slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j7d8oP 1008. Haunted Ipswich – Pete Jennings 96 page paperback from $6.50, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iFmSmG
	1009. Haunted Isle Of Sheppey – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Kindle $4.66 or paperback from $5.65. Limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iFnp83 1010. Haunted Kilkenny – Cormac Strain 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $6.40. Limited availability. http://amzn.to/2jDh952
	1011. Haunted Kirkcaldy – Gregor Stewart 96 pages, Kindle $4.59 or paperback from $5.63 http://amzn.to/2icJ6QU 1012. Haunted Lambeth – James Clark 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $5.70 http://amzn.to/2ij7ZbY
	1013. Haunted Leeds – Ken Goor 96 page paperback from $1.77. Ample availability. http://amzn.to/2j5WMMG 1014. Haunted Luton & Dunstable – Paul Adams 96 page paperback from $1.52, ample availability. http://amzn.to/2jDcBvi
	1015. Haunted Maidstone – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Kindle $4.66 or paperback from $6.41, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j7s5qP 1016. Haunted Mansfield – Ian Morgan 96 page paperback from $25.37, very limited availability and possibly should not have been listed. http://amzn.to/2icWHYf
	1017. Haunted Neath – Robert King 96 page paperback from $6.14. http://amzn.to/2jDHlwk 1018. Haunted Newcastle – Darren W Ritson 128 pages, Kindle $2.87, paperback from $7.82, slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2id9oSI
	1019. Haunted North Cornwall – Michael Williams 96 pages, Kindle $4.65 or paperback from $0.78 http://amzn.to/2iFRRis 1020. Haunted Peterborough – Stuart Orme 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $14.93, very limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j6lJYg
	1021. Haunted Places of Nottinghamshire – Rupert Matthews Not part of the series but this seemed the right place to list it. 96 pages, paperback, from $2.13, very limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j0Pnw0 1022. Haunted Plymouth – Kevin Hynes 96 pages, Kindle $7.47 or paperback from $2.53, very limited availability. http://amzn.to/2ig1fs3
	1023. Haunted Rotherham – Richard Bramall & Joe Collins 96 page paperback from $5. http://amzn.to/2jvknDA 1024. Haunted Salisbury – Frogg Moody 96 pages, Kindle $2.31 or paperback from $2.83 http://amzn.to/2j7JrUu
	1025. Haunted Scarborough – Mark Riley 96 page paperback from $5.27, slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j7PEzy 1026. Haunted Scunthorpe – Jason Day 96 page paperback from $6.63, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j6BmPE
	1027. Haunted Southampton – Penny Legg 96 page paperback from $5.49. http://amzn.to/2idb4vv 1028. Haunted Southend – Dee Gordon 96 pages, Kindle $2.89 or paperback from $17.95, extremely limited availability. http://amzn.to/2ijNfRd
	1029. Haunted Spalding – Gemma King 96 pages, Kindle $2.33 or paperback from $7.12, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j6DiHD 1030. Haunted St Albans – Paul Adams 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $5.68. http://amzn.to/2jj8hOm
	1031. Haunted St Andrews – Geoff Holder 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $6.01. http://amzn.to/2idkoj9 1032. Haunted St Ives – Ian Addicoat 96 page paperback from $6.61. http://amzn.to/2ik2EAX
	1033. Haunted Stevenage – Paul Adams 96 pages, Kindle $4.59 or paperback from $5.69 http://amzn.to/2j6JEXN 1034. Haunted Stirling – David Kinnaird 96 pages, Kindle $7.74 or paperback from $6.99, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2jvnPxN
	1035. Haunted Stockton – Robert Woodhouse 96 page paperback from $19.54, very limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iGaLFY 1036. Haunted Surrey – Rupert Matthews 96 page paperback from $8.00, possibly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2jvEilO
	1037. Haunted Swansea and Beyond – South Wales Paranormal Research 96 page paperback from $2.45. http://amzn.to/2jj2Bns 1038. Haunted Teesside – Rebecca Hall 96 pages, Kindle $4.60 or paperback from $5.64. http://amzn.to/2ige5Xq
	1039. Haunted Telford – Philip Soloman 96 page paperback from $5.64. http://amzn.to/2igmn1j 1040. Haunted Tunbridge Wells – Neil Arnold 96 pages, Kindle $2.33, paperback from $14.95, very limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iG7QgA
	1041. Haunted Tyrone – Cormac Strain 96 pages, Kindle $4.59, paperback from $5.53. http://amzn.to/2iG8jPS 1042. Haunted West End – Gilly Pickup 96 page paperback from $4.10. http://amzn.to/2jjo0x1 More copies at ridiculous prices, plus a Kindle edition for $2.72: http://amzn.to/2jvKgmB
	1043. Haunted Wexford – Michael Benson 96 pages, Kindle ($4.66) or paperback from $5.01. http://amzn.to/2j6MvzT 1044. Haunted Weymouth – Alex Woodward 96 page paperback from $5.50. Slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2idfnY4
	1045. Haunted Whitby – Alan Brooke 96 page paperback from $6.36. May be slightly limited availability. http://amzn.to/2idq7Wn 1046. Haunted Wigan – Sarah Carberry and Nicola Johnson 96 pages, Kindle $2.29 or paperback from $6.23. http://amzn.to/2jvKzhm
	1047. Haunted Worcestershire – Anthony Poulton-Smith 128 pages, Kindle $2.33 or paperback from $8.31, may be limited availability. http://amzn.to/2iGkRGR 1048. Haunted Worthing – Wendy Hughes 96 page paperback from $14.63, limited availability. http://amzn.to/2j6FQpm
	1049. Haunted Nottingham: Myths, Magic & Folklore – Wayne Anthony We are also reasonably certain that this is not being part of this series, but this seems an appropriate location. 192 pages, hardcover (4 used from $18.36) or paperback (4 new from $20.07) plus Amazon have an unknown quantity in stock for $28.58. (They usually start issuing warnings about limited supplies when reserves drop below twenty copies or so, and as a result we are reasonably confident of availability, if not price). http://amzn.to/2id2FZa

Afterword by Mike: How To Make A Story Scary

Blair had written an afterword for this article back when it was all one big shelf, but that is more appropriate for the new Shelf 12, so I’m stepping in to fill the breach.

Have you ever dried your face with a soft, fluffy towel?

Didn’t have a lot of impact, did it? Comfort-factor off the scale, but danger? Stress? Excitement? Not so much.

One of the cardinal sins of ghosts and hauntings is make the disquiet dead no more spooky than that metaphoric soft, fluffy towel.

There’s a real art form to projecting spookiness. It’s a combination of hushed tones and slowed delivery, slightly deepened voice and breathy delivery (with the occasional shiver in your voice if you can manage it), delayed responses, and then being completely deadpan and ordinary and matter-of-fact in tone and delivery at just the right moments.

You’ll know when you’re doing it right because your own pulse will quicken, your own palms grow just a little sweaty, and you too will have to face – and overcome – a natural tendency to babble faster and louder than usual.

It’s not a complete guide or perfect technique, but here’s what I consider to be the basics of what vocal technique to use, when.

• If you would normally offer an immediate response, wait a heartbeat. Half a second, holding your breath (if you can see it coming, hold your breath while waiting for the triggering phrase). Then use your most serious tone of voice, the one you would use to tell someone that they were going to die of some terrible disease; the slight breathiness will take care of itself. (1)
• When you feel like breaking out a big cheesy, malevolent, grin, because you know what’s about to be said is something that should scare the pants off your audience, that’s the time to force yourself to be deadpan and matter-of-fact and ordinary. In fact, whenever there is something for the PCs to get excited about, don’t. (2)
• When approaching the point where you are likely to need the matter-of-fact voice, hush your voice by as much as you can get away with without compromising your ability to communicate. If environmental-noisily challenged, a stage whisper is better than nothing. But you need to be a little bit subtle about it, or what you’re doing will be completely obvious, and the effect will be broken. (3)
• Putting the slightest shiver in your voice when roleplaying an NPC is hard. Much harder than anything else in this block of advice. It’s hard to do and easy to overdo. But do it right and you convey an undercurrent of fear , quite possibly with nothing apparent to be fearful of, priming those hearing to associate that fear (subconsciously) with the next scary thing to happen.
• The rest of the time, speak just a little bit more slowly than normal. Don’t slow or slow the delivery of individual words; space them out just a little more than you usually would, as though you were speaking with deliberate care, making an extra effort to be sure that you are not misunderstood. Try and get into a slight rhythm of speaking, avoiding any sing-song quality (which normally slips in when we try to speak rhythmically unless we’ve practiced otherwise). (4)
• When building up to the first spooky event, when there’s nothing to be scared of yet, use your normal tone of voice and delivery. (5)

That’s how to take a ghostly encounter and give it the gravitas that it deserves – instead of the fluffy-kitten-and-bathtowel treatment. Well, it’s the basics. There’s a lot more that could be said on the subject, for example controlling the use of sibilants (Ess-sounds) and harsh sounds like ‘-ack’ and ‘uck’, the use of alliteration and opposites and push-pull vocabulary, but I’m not an expert. I know such things exist and matter, but that’s about it.

Notes:
(1). We subconsciously associate heavy breathing with exertion and potential danger or excitement. The tone of voice tells them it’s something serious, i.e. the first, not the second. So if you deliberately make yourself breathe just a little harder than normal, the players will involuntarily be triggered to be on high alert.

(2). Excitement in the voice can be catching, but it can also be suggestive of hysteria and sensationalism. Being deadpan at such times conveys the message that “this – is – really – happening”, conveying a sense of danger rather than excitement.

(3). Secrets and privileged communications are always whispered – how else do you communicate that it’s a secret by tone of voice alone? But there’s an implication that there is something to be secretive about, that all is not as it seems – and that is both thrilling and just a little bit scary. That’s why human beings love to gossip – by it’s very nature, gossiping is the sharing of secrets, it’s vicariously thrilling. On top of that, we tend to automatically listen just a little bit harder when someone gets slightly quieter in their vocalizations, especially if it’s not obvious that they are doing so.

(4). One of the secrets to music is the metronomic beat at the pace that you want the listener’s heart-rate to beat at. Up-tempo rock is 110-120 beats per minute. Gentle love songs are usually around 80-100 beats per minute. Dance Music can often be faster than 120 bpm. Thrash and Punk can go as high as 180 bpm. (A beat is when something happens, rhythmically, or could happen but doesn’t). The heart-rate responds to the rhythm, helping create the very mood that you want the music to convey. When we speak rhythmically, almost chant (without the sing-song OF a chant), the brain responds as though it were hearing music.

(5). Most of these effects are rooted in the fight-or-flight response, and that can’t (and isn’t) sustained indefinitely. Half-an-hour, tops. Scariness is most effective when there’s a fear-inducing effect or sequence followed by a lull, then another trigger (without warning, but with buildup) just as it’s about to wear off. Watching a good horror movie will help you get the timing right – the second half of Alien is a great example to use. Watching a bad horror movie, or one that’s been butchered by commercial breaks will quickly show you what happens when you get it wrong – so that you’ll know what to watch for.

One more tip: a dramatic and unexpected sound effect to signal something scary instead of simply announcing it – and I don’t mean a ghostly wail or moan or anything cheesy like that – can be worth a dozen delivery tricks. I used to use the underside of the table and rap it with my knuckles, but the players can usually see me tensing my muscles to do so and know it’s coming. But you know those neutral-gas packing pillows that Amazon use? Slip one of those underfoot when the players aren’t looking, at least ten minutes in advance, and at the right moment, pop it with your heel, then tell them what that sound signifies… bonus points if you’ve built up the tension to the point where the players jump!

Next in this series: The 12th shelf – Everything that got left out of this one! Secret Societies!! Freemasons!! Knights Templar!! Voodoo!! Zombies!! Vampires!! Werewolves!! Urban Legends!! Cryptozoology!! And some really strange stuff!!!

On twitter the other day, one of my regular contacts (Rising Stars Press) posted a meme that read something along the lines of “All right folks, give yourselves 500 xp for surviving 2016” and an image of Gary Jackson. And, as sometimes happens, one stray thought had a whirlwind romance with another, and before you know it, a highly improbably and quite radical concept was born.

What if players gave the GM experience after each game session for all the things that GMs are supposed to do well?

And what if the XP so received translated into boundaries within which the players trusted the GM, would ‘go with the flow’ and not sweat the small stuff?

But Seriously….

No, I’m not seriously proposing that such a system be implemented. But simply developing one with your players holds benefits that aren’t immediately obvious.

You see, it’s relatively easy to make a list of all the things that GMs should do for, and in, each game session. It’s quite another putting them in any sort of priority sequence, let alone having some means of assessing the relative weight the players collectively place on the different aspects of gaming.

But, if you were to state that the absolute maximum xp to be awarded to a GM was 1,000xp, with up to X points coming from this aspect of the game, up to Y being awarded for another, and up to Z being awarded for a third – and so on – getting the players to reach agreement between themselves over what X, Y, and Z should be tells the GM what their priorities are, and in the process, what areas of his game he should be focusing on.

But even more usefully, the GM gets to hear what the players think as they are discussing it.

There’s no actual need for the players to rate any individual performance by the GM; if there’s something they aren’t getting enough of, they will naturally place a greater emphasis on that, it’s only human nature.

Furthermore, suitably massaged, it can provide a guideline for what the players want the GM to spend his prep time on – which might be radically different to what the GM is actually doing – as described in Game Prep and the +N to Game Longevity.

A list of tasks

To get the ball rolling, I’ve come up with a list of thirty-four GM functions, within five broad categories – Concepts, Prep, Execution, Admin, and General. Because the list is so long, I’ve actually placed it in three columns – not something that I routinely do at Campaign Mastery. After the list, I’ll discuss each (relatively briefly).

1. Concepts 1.1 Engaging Background 1.2 Scope Of Background 1.3 Interesting NPCs 1.4 Fascinating Plots 1.5 Surprising Twists 2. Prep 2.1 Dialogue 2.2 Adventure 2.3 Plot Logic 2.4 Simulation Aids 2.5 References 2.6 Rules	3. Execution 3.1 Player Immersion 3.2 Scope For Player Decisions 3.3 Dynamic World 3.4 Responsive World 3.5 Responsive Actions 3.6 PC Integration 3.7 Difficulty Of Combat 3.8 Tactical Involvement 3.9 Emotional Involvement 3.10 Vicarious Involvement 3.11 Opportunities To Roleplay 3.12 Adequacy Of Rewards 3.13 GM Flexibility	4. Admin 4.1 Experience 4.2 Character Evolution 4.3 Rules Knowledge 4.4 Rules Interpretation 4.5 Campaign Knowledge 4.6 Social Management 4.7 Timing 5. General 5.1 Fun 5.2 Interest 5.3 Eagerness To Continue

Let’s take a quick look at what each of these encompasses, because it’s not completely clear in some cases.

1. Concepts

Concepts are all about ideas and big-picture.

1.1 Engaging Background

Are the players interested in the background, and does the background make a difference, or is it simply hanging behind the action like set dressing?

1.2 Scope Of Background

Is the background too big, sprawling, and complicated for the players to grasp? Has the GM introduced too much too soon? Or is it too small to inspire and give the game world a distinctive flavor?

1.3 Interesting NPCs

Are the NPCs interesting to interact with, or are they meaningless cyphers that the players could care less about?

1.4 Fascinating Plots

Do the plots, in general, hold the player’s interest? Or are they mechanical plodding from A to B?

1.5 Surprising Twists

This section evaluates not just the quality of the perceived twists but whether or not they were actually surprising, or did the players see them coming from a mile away?

2. Prep

Prep is about taking those big-picture elements and turning them into an adventure ready for the PCs to get involved in. All prep questions come in two forms: was there enough prep done and what was the quality of the result?

2.1 Dialogue

Canned dialogue and narrative are essential components of any game. If the players are comfortable with the GM winging it, they may require less prep in this area. But if it’s hard to tell who’s doing the talking, they may want more prep time invested. Remember, this isn’t about how much the GM did, but how well he satisfied player expectations in this area.

2.2 Adventure

How interesting and complete was the basic adventure design? Was it too big, too complicated, too small, too yellow, too anything?

2.3 Plot Logic

Did the plot make sense? What holes manifested, if any? Did the plot seem to emerge from the basic personalities of the characters (both PC and NPC) involved? Or did it seem/feel contrived?

2.4 Simulation Aids

Props and minis – did the GM have everything he needed in this respect, or some reasonable facsimile?

2.5 References

If there were any references that had to be consulted, did the GM have them at hand?

2.6 Rules

How well did the GM know the basic rules? If any unusual section of rules needed to be used, had he read up on them in advance? Or was the game continually interrupted by the opening of rule books?

3. Execution

Prep all happens in advance of play. How well the GM actually performed on the day is the province of Execution, the biggest single category.

3.1 Player Immersion

Immersion is good. How well did the GM make the players forget the mundane world outside the game table? How tangible did he make the game world feel?

3.2 Scope For Player Decisions

How much room did the GM make for players to make their own decisions? Was he prepared to let them flounder until the thought of something else to try, or did he head frustration off at the pass by introducing a new plot development when the players got lost? Could the players simply follow their noses and adventure by the numbers, or were there non-trivial decisions they had to make – and did those decisions alter the outcome?

3.3 Dynamic World

How much did the campaign world feel like it had evolved since the last game? Since the first game? Is the world dynamic, changing around the PCs, evolving and developing new angles and situations that have genuine impact on the choices available to the players and keep the game fresh? Or does the whole thing reset to a static default at the end of each adventure?

3.4 Responsive World

How much does the world evolve as a specific consequence of PC decisions, both past and present? Are there consequences (beyond mere game mechanics) for mistakes – and benefits for smart play?

3.5 Responsive Actions

How much did the current adventure evolve as a consequence of PC decisions, for good or ill? Or did the GM only have to pay lip service to player self-actualization?

3.6 PC Integration

How much did the PCs feel connected to the world, a part of it, and how much did they feel like they were tacked-on afterthoughts? Would replacing any of the PCs with someone of identical skills and stats but different personality have made a material difference to the situation or how it developed?

3.7 Difficulty Of Combat

Were the fights too easy or too hard – or just right – and was that difficulty level appropriate for the situation in-game?

3.8 Tactical Involvement

Did the players have to think about their choices of actions? Or was this a push-button RPG session in which the PCs were algorithms, with a predetermined and predictable response to every situation?

3.9 Emotional Involvement

Did the players feel like their characters were emotionally involved in the game – caring about the things they were supposed to care about, angry about the things that should have angered them, enjoying experiences that they would have found pleasant? How much did the players care about the outcome – and did that match the degree to which the PCs should have cared about the outcome?

3.10 Vicarious Involvement

How much fun was it to be a fly on the wall when not directly involved in the action? Did the group feel like leaves in the wind, each following their own almost-random path but with an overall collective direction, and how much did they feel like they were a cohesive unit, sharing in each other’s successes and feeling each other’s defeats?

3.11 Opportunities To Roleplay
How much scope did the GM give for players to roleplay their characters? Did the players feel like they were their characters at all times? Most of the time? Whenever not confronted by system mechanics? Whenever not in combat? Only when the GM provided a set piece for roleplay? Or not at all?

3.12 Adequacy Of Rewards

Would the PCs have felt adequately rewarded for their efforts? Do the players? Is there a difference, and is that difference appropriate? Were the rewards disproportionate to the situations faced?

3.13 GM Flexibility

When something unexpected happened, how well did the GM bend to accommodate it? If the players wanted to do something he hadn’t planned for, could he cope? Did it feel like he was ready for anything the players might choose to do?

4. Admin

Some admin is almost inevitable. For most GMs, it’s a necessary evil, to be minimized at every turn. The best use it as a future planning tool, and are experts in their own campaigns, able to answer almost any question at the drop of a hat.

4.1 Experience

How much did the character learn from the encounter, and is that reflected in an appropriate amount of XP? Are the characters progressing so slowly that they feel stuck in neutral, or advancing so fast that the players can’t take the time to enjoy what they’ve got?

4.2 Character Evolution

How much did the PCs, both individually and collectively, evolve in the course of the adventure? Were changes to characters as a result of previous game sessions at least signposted within the adventure? Does it feel like advancements made through game mechanics come out of the blue, or does it feel like a natural step on the character’s personal journeys from what they were to whatever they will become (even if no-one knows what that may be)?

4.3 Rules Knowledge

How well did the GM know the rules of the game he was running – and how disruptive was any shortcoming in that department?

4.4 Rules Interpretation

Did the GM seem impartial when adjudicating rules decisions? Was he able to make a decision on the fly when the rules were inadequate or too complicated? Did the game keep moving, or did it bog down?

4.5 Campaign Knowledge

How well did the GM know his own creations? Were there any obvious oversights, and were any of these serious enough to require a retcon?

4.6 Social Management

While the GM can’t dictate player behavior, he is responsible for managing the social situation. Having players be engaged enough that they won’t get caught up in side conversations over the top of whatever else is happening? Rotating the spotlight fast enough? Giving a fair share of that spotlight to each? If any situations arose, did the GM manage them?

4.7 Timing

Did the game start on time, and if not, how much of the blame belongs to the GM? Did the game finish early or late? Did the GM fill the hours that the game was allocated?

5. General

Finally, we have a trio of big-picture overall considerations. It’s not far wrong to say that if the GM gets these three things right, it doesn’t really matter what happens in all the other areas – but the odds are that if the GM does well in these three areas, he would also score high marks in several of the earlier areas.

5.1 Fun

How much fun was it to be part of the game? And make no mistake, a PC can be enduring absolute misery while his player is having a whale of a time! One definition of role-playing vs roll-playing that I’ve come across in the past: Role-playing makes it fun even when your character isn’t having fun, roll-playing implicitly ties a player’s enjoyment to how much his character is enjoying himself.

5.2 Interest

How much food for thought did the game offer? Was it intellectually fascinating, did it offer situations that the players had never expected or come across before? Was it original, or did it feel derivative? Was it so original that it became hard work just trying to keep up?

5.3 Eagerness To Continue

How much are the players looking forward to the next game session? Would they have wanted to keep going if time permitted? Would playing a day earlier be a good thing just because you got to play sooner?

Three systems of approach

There are two basic approaches that can be adopted to negotiating how much each of these categories should be worth. The first is to start with a total and break it up amongst the major sections, then sub-divide to reach each detail item’s worth. The second is to allocate a convenient base number to each of the detail items and then adjust accordingly, letting the broader categories take care of themselves. The third is a “score out of five” system.

Let’s take a look at how each of these would work.

Big-Picture

In the big-picture approach, you start with a convenient total maximum award and then break it up amongst the major categories. With 34 categories, 1700 or 3400 seem to be obvious choices, but let’s be a little unconventional and choose 2000. That gives each of the five major categories a base 400 points each – after which, it’s a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

You might decide that the big three items at the end should be worth half the total – that’s as much as everything else put together, by definition. That would certainly be a reasonable weighting, in my personal opinion. So category 5 is worth 1000 points and categories 1-4 are worth 1000 points between them, or an average of 250 points each.

Next, the players might decide that execution should be worth as much as the remaining three categories put together. That means that category 3 is worth 500 points, while categories 1, 2, and 4 are worth 500 points.

Opinion might well be divided over which of categories 1 and 2 are more important. I can even see the balance being different from one campaign to the next, even with exactly the same players and GM. Admin, on the other hand, is almost certainly going to be low dog on the totem pole. Let’s say that the players decide that both categories 1 and 2 should be worth three times as much each as category 1. 3+3+1=7, so category 4 would get 1/7th of the 500 points – call it 70 points for convenience – while the rest (430 points) gets split evenly between categories 1 and 2, i.e. 215 points each.

So far, then, we have: Category 1, 215 points. Category 2, 215 points. Category 3, 500 points. Category 4, 70 points. Category 5, 1000 points.

Alternative perspective insights

Of course, there are an almost infinite number of alternatives. There would be absolutely nothing wrong with a breakup of 200, 300, 600, 100, and 800 points. Or one of 100, 300, 800, 200, 600 points. Or 300, 100, 800, 100, 700 points. If the objective was to playtest a new set of rules, the breakup might be 100, 800, 800, 100, 200 – placing all the emphasis on this adventure and its execution, with very little regard for the bigger picture.

Because that’s another way to think about the five major categories: 1 and 5 are big-picture, 2 and 3 are immediate, and 4 is the infrastructure that ties everything together.

In any event, we have a breakup of 215, 215, 500, 70, and 1000 points. Now we look at each of the categories and sub-divide. Again, it’s just my personal opinion, but I would start with the smallest total and go up from there.

Category 4, admin, 70 points:

Admin represents 7 tasks, which gives an average of 10 per task. It might be collectively decided that 1 and 4 are the most important, then 2, and everything else in third place. So let’s start by making 1 and 4 worth 20 points each, and 2 worth 15 points, and see what the rest would be worth: 20+20+15=55, leaving 15; divided four ways gives just under 4 points each. To have them be worth 4, we would need to steal back a point from somewhere else, with 2 the most likely candidate. That gives a final breakdown of:

• 4.1 Experience: 20 points
• 4.2 Character Evolution: 15 points
• 4.3 Rules Knowledge: 4 points
• 4.4 Rules Interpretation: 20 points
• 4.5 Campaign Knowledge: 4 points
• 4.6 Social Management: 4 points
• 4.7 Timing: 4 points

As before, there are many alternative choices that would be equally valid. 10, 10, 10, 30, 5, 0, 5, for example. Or 15, 5, 5, 20, 5, 0, 20, which should tell the GM immediately that he needs to keep a closer eye on his timing (he should automatically always be keeping a careful watch on his fairness).

Category 1, concepts, 215 points:

Five tasks, an average of 43 points each. That’s a slightly awkward number; so ignore the 3 and set a base value of 40 points each, with 15 bonus points to be awarded.

For my money, if I were assessing where I place my priorities, there isn’t a lot to distinguish one of these as more important than the rest. 3 and 4 might be a shade more important than 1, 2 a shade less important, and 5 the low man on the totem pole by a small margin. So, lets say +10 each for 3 and 4, -10 for 2, and -20 for 5, increasing the bonus pool to 25,

That gives allocations of:

• 1.1 Engaging Background: 40;
• 1.2 Scope Of Background: 40-10=30;
• 1.3 Interesting NPCs: 40+10=50;
• 1.4 Fascinating Plots: 40+10=50;
• 1.5 Surprising Twists: 40-20=20.

What to do with the bonus pool?

At this point, the players have to decide what to do with those 25 unallocated points. They have several choices: they can simply forget them; they could add +10 to 3 and 4 and +5 to 5, increasing the emphasis on the two major items and diminishing the de-emphasis on plot twists; or they could define some additional skill that fits in the category and give it the entirety of the 25 points. That category might be “Game Physics”, or it might be “Historical Knowledge”, or it might be “Educational Value” (in a game used for teaching students), or it might be something broad like “Creativity”. Or it might be a couple of these, each receiving a share of the 25 points – and possibly triggering a reassessment of the amounts already allocated.

Remember, the point of the exercise is for the players to define the relative importance they place on various aspects of the GM’s role in the game and quantify those results for the GM to use as a planning / prioritization / self-improvement tool.

The other categories

I could work through the other categories, but the above examples really sum up the entire process between them. So, instead, let’s turn our attention to method 2.

Small Picture

The second approach starts with the assumption that all aspects of the GM’s craft are equally important, at least in theory, and then modifies that theoretical result to something that accords a bit closer to reality. There are 34 tasks on the list; if we give each item a base score of 25, that’s 1,190 points in total. If we’re aiming for 1000, we would need to deemphasize some tasks by a collective total of 190 points. Dropping a task from 25 to 10 points in value saves 15 points; dropping about 1/3 of the list would get us close to the 1000 points target.

This really is very similar to the first approach, except that it increases the scope of the adjustments. You could boost “fun” by reducing “plot twists”, or emphasize Dialogue while deemphasizing Rules Knowledge and Dynamic World.

What it often means is that you don’t get the big swings that the first system can produce. Take category 5 of the “big picture” system: we (hypothetically, as an example) gave it a total value of 1000, which means that each task has a value of about 300, with 100 points left over. Compare those values with the ones that we were considering for the tasks in category 1, where we were sweating five-point differences! While the initial allocation of points and emphasis at the big-picture scale seemed reasonable, the results when you get down to the nitty gritty can be quite startling and even carry implications that weren’t intended.

On the other hand, it takes a big task and turns it into a series of smaller, more manageable tasks. So there is a lot to commend it.

Frankly, neither approach is all that ideal. Which is why I came up with a third alternative.

The “Score out of 5” system

Each player rates the importance of the five major categories out of 5. They then rate the importance of each task within the list out of 5. The GM gathers these results; he multiplies each of the tasks by the major category rating, then totals the results from each player to get an aggregate. Finally, he produces a grand total of all these individual ratings; dividing the overall score required (be it 1000 or 5,000 or whatever) by the total gives a conversion factor, which he can multiply the unrounded scores by, then rounded as he sees fit (to the nearest 10 or 20).

Let’s see how it works. I’ve invented 3 “players” with different priorities and preferences, then had them do the “ratings by 5”. The table below shows the results of the whole process (Never fear, I’ll walk you through it!)

Player 1 is a Storyteller, and even the roleplaying of his character is secondary to his engagement in an interesting plotline. Player 2 is a typical roleplayer, whose primary interest is in playing his character, and everything else is measured against its contribution to that end. Player 3 is someone who simply wants to let off some steam at the end of the week by killing something (or at least, beating it to a pulp). As you might expect, keeping this disparate group happy, week after week, would not be easy, with the first two often united in common interests against the third (the secret would be making the combat an integral part of the plot, using the resulting commonality between players 1 and 3 to balance the trend toward plot/roleplay at the expense of combat).
I’ve also produced this as a PDF, for those who want to study it more closely, or who are sight-impaired and need the data in text form. Click the image to grab it (it’s also helpful to have the lists and the example side-by-side).

The first column identifies the category and the tasks within each category.

The second column has the scores player 1 gave to each category and to each task, out of 5. For example, Category 1 has been given a rating by him of 4 out of 5 for importance, and task 1.1, an engaging background, has also been rated by him as 4 out of 5 for importance.

In the third column, I’ve multiplied each task rating by the category rating – so, for player 1, this is a result of 16, (four from the category multiplied by four from the task).

The fourth and fifth columns give the ratings and multiplied products for player 2 in the same way. For category one, player two gave a rating of 2, and for task 1.1, a rating of three, giving a combined value of six.

Ditto the sixth and seventh columns, which give the results from player 3. Her rated category 1 as a one, and task 1.1 as a two, so the product for his scores for this task is two.

The eighth column is where things get interesting. I’ve added the product for task 1.1 from player one (16) to that for the task from player two (6), and that from player 3 (2) to get a subtotal of 24. At the bottom of the column, I’ve totaled all these scores, and ended with a total of 1,058. Underneath that, I divided 2000 by this total to get an adjustment factor of 1.89. In theory, if I were to multiply each rating by 1.89, they should add up to a total of exactly 2000.

In column 9, I’ve done exactly that (without bothering to check the total). For task 1.1, the subtotal of 24 turns into an adjusted value of 45.36.

I didn’t check the total because in Column 10, I’ve rounded each results to the nearest 5. For task 1.1, that was (quite obviously) 45.

Again, in theory, the total of all the rounded, adjusted, results should be 2,000. Again, I haven’t bothered checking this; from what I noted as I produced the table, the rounding errors appear to be on the high side, though, so the end result might be 2030 or something. In the real world, I would then tweak the results to distribute that error and get an exact total, but that wasn’t necessary for the example.

Superiority Demonstrated

This method combines all the advantages of both the alternatives with none of the drawbacks. Values for any specific task range from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 25. The geometric nature of one number multiplied by another means that relative value rises disproportionately to the size of the small increase in the actual ratings – going from 4 to 5 might not seem like a big deal, but going from 4 times 4 to 5 times 5 is a difference of 25-16=9, or an increase of more than 50%.

At the same time, the effect of totaling the results from each player mean that if there’s something that only one player rated highly, it is the same as all three rating it of medium-low or mediocre significance. Only things that they all agree on get to the really big scores.

It also means that if one player habitually rates such things high, or low, such variations are evened out by the system, removing individual player biases.

Analyzing the example results

So, what was the washup of this theoretical example? The highest score by a small margin was “fun”. Players will forgive almost anything if they are having fun! It scored 115 points.

The only other result in the triple digits was 3.5, Responsive Actions. The players are placing an emphasis on NPCs reacting to PC decisions, suggesting either that this is a weak point of the GMs, or that they want a continued focus on it.

Scoring 95, and coming in in third place as a result, is 3.13, GM Flexibility. There seems to be some concern about plot trains, which definitely ties into the Responsive Actions result.

Almost scoring as highly at 90 points is 3.2, Scope for player decisions. There is a definite theme developing here!

Tied for fifth place, with 85 points, are another two items from the execution category, 3.6, PC Integration, and 3.8, Tactical Involvement. The players want to feel more strongly that their characters are a part of the world, and want combats to be more tactical than straightforward fights; again, the same theme shows up.

Two execution items also tie for 7th place, with 75 points, followed two execution items and the remaining general items at 70.

That means that nine of the top 12 scores are to be found in the execution category, and the other three comprise the general category. The highest score in the concepts category is 50, the highest in the prep category is 60, and the highest in the admin category is a 55. These are roughly half the highest-rated item.

All in all, the picture emerges of a trio of players who are fairly happy with the campaign the GM is running, with just one area needing specific attention.

Wrapping up the bundle

This article was originally subtitled “crawl before you can walk”. I’ve seen too many novice GMs try to run a marathon before they can even crawl. Don’t haul out and use your best idea for your first campaign; it will almost certainly prove to be too big and complex for your level of expertise as a GM. Start with something simple and fairly generic, with a lot of blank spaces; then add to it, week after week, filling in those empty places. This week, they discover a clever twist on Giants; next week, a twist on the relationship between piety, religious faith, and nobility; the week after, do something interesting with the politics of a new kingdom. Master the “just in time” approach and build your campaign using the Baby Steps In Campaign Design technique that I wrote about way back in Roleplaying Tips number 308.

One final application of the “scores out of five” technique merits mention as a closing thought: The GM could always do the survey on his own to assess the priority that he is currently placing on things. Because there is only the one “player” providing scores, the Factor would be relatively high, but the results would be directly comparable with player expectations and requirements as shown by their results, and should be highly enlightening.

This is a simple tool, but capable of producing profound insights. Make of it what you will – but remember that small steps in a given direction can have a big impact; if a campaign is mostly working already, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

Well, that didn’t take long! It seems like only a couple of days since I made noise about the new plans for Campaign Mastery… wait, it has only been a couple of days!

Having realized late in the day that there is absolutely no chance of finishing the first big article in time for publishing tonight, and quite possibly not even tomorrow, it was time to pull a Plan B out of my back pocket – in this case, a slush pile of campaign ideas (which I mentioned having in Monday’s article, you may recall).

Rather than taking the time to more fully develop one of them as a feature in its own right, I have decided to take the quick-and-easy route, and simply post all three ideas as a single article – requiring minimal editing and costing minimal writing time, which can then be invested back into that longer article, greatly increasing the likelihood that it will be ready to publish next week.

These were originally developed as examples to accompany A Vague Beginning, which was written in 2011 and published in 2015. So these ideas are all six years or so old…

The Frozen North – a fantasy / Pathfinder / D&D campaign premise

The existence of fire Elementals, the Elemental Plane of Fire, and the many creatures adapted to a fire-based existence, raises the question why there are no cold/ice -based equivalents.

The truth of the matter has been lost in the sands of time, or perhaps was never discovered: that there was once an elemental plane of ice but it was destroyed eons ago in a terrible war when the inhabitants attempted to conquer the prime material plane, bringing forth an unprecedented age of ice. All but a few of the Elementals of cold and ice were destroyed, and today they are a forgotten species.

Unknown to mankind, a few survive, secretly locked away in the Castles Of Ice of the Frost Giants, and in the lairs of White Dragons. It is by drinking the “lifesblood” of these domesticated slaves that these races attain their resilience and adaption to the cold regions they inhabit.

Also lost was the secret of what caused this attempted conquest to fail, but this is a secret that the PCs will need to discover, for one of the Ice Elementals has escaped during a tribal feud amongst Frost Giants, and it has slowly gathered an army of creatures that it has seized, converted into icy versions of their species (Ice-Elves, Ice-Dwarves, Ice-Men, etc). Now it is poised to once again walk the paths of conquest and revenge.

• Will the PCs suborn the slavery of an entire species – when the alternative is the destruction under walls of ice of their homelands?
• Will they seek the final destruction of a sentient species, condemning the Frost Giants in the process?
• Will the people of the warmlands declare war on the Giants – and how will the other races of Giant react?
• Will the old tribal alliances between them hold firm?
• What role will the manipulative and evil White Dragons play in these events?
• And – the biggest question of all – who arranged for the escape of the Ice Elemental and what is their agenda?

There are clearly questions for the GM to answer, but there’s no rush – let the campaign sprout and grow on its own from these beginnings, and wait for the cool ideas (pun intended) to show up!

Echoes Of Tomorrow – a fantasy / Pathfinder / D&D campaign premise

It is a truism to say “your whole life has been leading to this moment”, but there are those with a different perspective. The Anachrons believe that a creature’s life is but an echo of their true existence in the afterlife propagating backwards in time, and that this destiny shapes the mortal existences that lead up to it. It takes all kinds…

But there is, it seems, some truth to the Anachron philosophy, incomplete and bewildering as it may be, for the Mad Lich Luciferous has conceived a grand scheme to conquer all of existence by altering the past. Stealing and diverting the souls of those about to enter the afterlife with his foul necromancy, he has sent rapists and thieves and murderers to Heaven and the spirits of the faithful to the planes of Hell.

The innocent dispatched to the lower planes are easy prey for the vile inhabitants of those realms, while the gentle fields of Elysium have proven no match for the wanton cruelty of the wicked who were diverted there, and are now all-but-conquered. The Gods, whose province is the natural order, were taken by surprise by the machinations of the profoundly un-natural Lich, and are besieged and all-but-helpless before the Lich and his followers and minions.

And with each diverted spirit, the past history of the world changes, becoming more vile and corrupt, more in keeping with an existence in which the innocent are eternally tortured in hell by demons and devils, and the wicked and cruel are lauded in heavenly revelry, and the temporal power of Luciferous grows.

In desperation, the Gods have banded together to shelter a few privileged individuals (the PCs) from the worst of these changes, a last desperate hope for the past, future, and present of all existence. These privileged few have been largely untouched by the depredations of wickedness, only slowly becoming aware of what seems – to them – to be an ongoing collapse of society into barbarity. They are slowly coming to realize that to everyone else, things are now as they have always been. At last, they are ready to undertake the greatest and most desperate adventure of all time, the overthrow of an evil grown supernaturally preeminent over all of time and existence…

Unlike the previous concept, this one requires a lot of specific details still to be worked out.

What’s the mechanism? Do the PCs have to travel in time to the scene of various climactic confrontations to make sure they come out “right”? Or is the GM prepared to leave all that up to the players to figure out?

While the first campaign would suit a relatively structured GMing approach, like the one I use, this would suit a more improvisational style.

The Currents Of Space – a Space Opera / Sci-fi campaign premise

There are 23 perpetual motion machines with patents approved by the US patents office. Supposedly, one of the requirements is the provision of a working model. There’s a plot in these facts somewhere… but in the meantime, this is about the third time that I’ve used it as inspiration!

In fact, the problem with most such machines is that they consume more energy than they produce, if in fact they produce any at all.

The theoretical problems are harder to overcome, but they all depend on the definition of a closed system. So long as there is some source of energy that lies outside that closed system, perpetual motion – or something that looks very much like it to the layman – is easy.

The sun, for example, emits vast streams of charged particles. It would not be all that difficult to construct some orbital device that employed solar sails to convert some of that “lost energy” into rotational motion, just as does a windmill. The trick would be doing so in such a way as to reduce or eliminate the translation of that energy into movement of the collector as a whole rather than just the “blades” of our windmill – i,e, erecting our windmill on “solid ground”.

The lunar surface seems an obvious solution, as does the idea of placing asteroids into relatively stable orbits around the sun and then “coring” them to turn them into housings for our windmill blades. A relatively minor energy expenditure is needed for attitude control, making sure that the blades always face the sun.

Rotational energy can be converted into electrical power by a simple generator. The next trick is getting that energy to where it is needed – and, until recently, that has been a largely insoluble problem. As our battery technology has improved through research into efficient electric cars, however, it is becoming less of an issue.

This scheme is plausible enough that fifty years from now, if not a LOT sooner, it will be sufficiently viable that a pilot program would be undertaken. Let’s assume that it appears to be successful, and construction begins on a whole heap of these.

But that’s when the fun can begin. What happens to the solar wind? Does it keep going forever? or is it still gravitationally bound to the Sun, able to get a long way out before falling back? Perhaps a great solar current flows from solar equator out to the limits of the solar system before arcing back to re-impact the sun at the poles, twisted and accelerated by solar magnetic fields in a ballet of quasi-stability that has persisted for eons.

Our “windmills” would not only rob parts of the solar wind of some their energy, slowing them and causing them to arc back “prematurely”, causing a short-term increase in the radiation striking the sun, they would also quite likely perturb the smooth “flow”, creating turbulence within these slow-moving streams of solar wind.

There are two likely consequences:

(1) the sun suddenly starts to get a LOT hotter, effectively shortening its lifespan artificially. It would therefore expand in size. But at the same time, these returning particles have a lot less energy than they used to, so they would not be accelerated by the sun to the same degree on their next “loop” through the system – a potential domino effect in which the sun loses energy in the medium-term, slowly making it harder to sustain fusion at the core. A runaway cascade toward red giant status.

Then throw in the turbulence producing additional unstable “hot spots” within the sun, potentially blowing off additional chunks of the surface in solar flares.

Now factor in the human reluctance to grapple with environmental issues until forced, very reluctantly to do otherwise. It might take a thousand years, it might take ten thousand, it may take quite a lot less. It might take decades or centuries to convince the world that there’s a problem beyond the consequences of increased solar flare activity.

Humans have never encountered an energy source that we didn’t become dependent on. It would take rather less than decades or centuries to get to liking this new energy supply – a lot!

Shutting down the solar generators isn’t an option. What’s the answer? I’ll get back to that, shortly.

First, though, there’s consequence number (2). From time to time, at regular intervals*, one of those lower-energy turbulent ‘streams’ of solar wind would strike the earth. The interaction between the solar winds and our climate is only dimly understood at the moment, and the interaction between solar winds and the magnetosphere even less so; there have been some suggestions that this is a factor in the flipping of Earth’s Magnetic Field.

*Actually, it’s my impression that the frequency would rise and fall from an annual peak to an annual trough based on how close the planet is to the sun. But the rate of change would be relatively negligible; the Earth’s orbit may be an ellipse, but it’s a pretty round one, varying on a 100,000 year-long cycle from 0 to about 5%. Refer .

So, what happens if the Magnetic Field flips? That’s not all that big a deal is it? We’re not exactly dependent on compasses any more. Unfortunately, it is a VERY big deal, as from Live Science makes clear.

How big a risk of that happening are we facing? NASA has detected dramatic weakening of the Magnetic Field, and believes that the next flip is no more than 1,000 years away – and could commence in less than 100 years (refer ). That means that it would already be teetering on the brink at the time of the deployment of our solar windmills!

Between these two consequences, we would be facing a catastrophic situation – one short-term, and one long-term. Suddenly, generation ships searching for a backup habitable planet and relativity-based ships searching for a replacement energy source become engineering necessities.

So, the campaign:

• Phase one, PCs attempt to build generation ships, battling cynicism and conservatism, while protecting both the ships and themselves from religious fanaticism.
• Phase two, different PCs (the same players) explore the universe in a desperate search for a solution.
• Phase three, the first PCs have to save as many people as they can when the magnetic field begins to flip (or begins to flip out, as some have described it).
• Phase four, PC group 2 encounter aliens who have a solution (steal one from sci-fi) and are captured. They have to escape, steal one of the aliens FTL ships, learn how to fly it, and get the solution back to Earth, where x00 years have passed.
• Phase five, the astronauts get back to Earth and discover how successful, or unsuccessful, PC group 1 really were in Phase 3. They have to transform this post-apocalyptic society into a state-of-the-art high-tech military powerhouse quick-smart, because the aliens are almost certainly hot on their heels.
• Phase six is the showdown, as the Astronauts and their newly-equipped soldiers have to fight off the aliens and establish human independence.

An unconventional campaign structure, but one that makes sense given the premise. I would have liked a third phase involving the first group of PCs in between phases four and five, but couldn’t think of one that didn’t violate the relatively straightforward continuity. Nevertheless, the first group of PCs would be with the second group in spirit during phase five, because it’s the choices made in phase 3 that determine what the returning astronauts will have to work with when the time comes.

So there you have it – three campaign concepts that need only a little TLC and creative juice from the individual GM to have them ready to play. The Big articles will resume next week!

0. New Year, Old Business

Welcome to 2017! I hope every reader has had a happy and safe Holiday period and is now ready to face the New Year with gusto and confidence, recharged and re-energized. For the first time in, I think, eight or nine years, I took the Christmas/New Period off, completely. No thinking about future articles. No thinking about unfinished articles or series. No work on RPGs of any kind. It was great so long as I kept active doing something, but the itch to write grew stronger when time weighed on my hands. Which is another way of saying that I certainly feel all fired up and ready-to-go.

Though I did find it a little hard to get back into the routine that I had established in the latter part of 2016. I can’t say that I’m all the way there, yet – but, like an old comfortable shoe, that should change in a week or two, as I get back into the swing of things.

For the first few months of 2017 (at least), readers will notice a change here at Campaign Mastery – well, that’s the theory. I’m revisiting something that I’ve tried to do in the past – major articles or parts of a series once a week, on Thursdays, and “shorter” more ad-hoc articles on Mondays. Written using my usual techniques, mind, so they should still make sense and be fairly comprehensive within their subject matter.

In the past, this pattern has worked for a short while, and then floundered when an article wasn’t quite ready on time, or when something came up that took priority over the existing publishing schedule, or whatever. It’s certainly not set in stone!

One reason for that is that in December, Campaign Mastery very quietly celebrated it’s eighth anniversary. Which means that this coming December will be it’s ninth – that’s nine full years of publishing articles completed – and will start what is intended to be a year-long celebration culminating in the tenth anniversary. I have lots of plans for this, but they are all going to take a lot of time to execute – I’m talking months of extra work – so I’m trying to make room for it.

Not all that successfully, at least to judge from today’s article, a 21-section opus on creating plots. This is a subject that I’ll be writing about a number of times in early 2017, simply because I have a number of articles in mind on various aspects of the subject. And, like most of my articles, it started with a short, simple idea – so much so that I wasn’t sure it would be meaty enough to build an article around…

1. New Year, New Business

I used to pride myself on being able to build a plotline around just about anything. Not necessarily a good plotline, but a playable plotline nevertheless. From time to time, I would challenge myself by picking something at random or getting someone else to do so.

2. Take A Phone Book…

Take, for example, a phone book or directory. What could be done with that? Well, by inserting coded entries that someone else knew to watch for, you could pass vital intelligence – once a year – just by registering dummy corporations and setting up some sort of phone bank for all them. On the face of it, the flaws in that technique makes this not a very good plot – but it will be by the end of the process, I assure you! But I want to take readers through that process, step-by-step, so that means starting off from my first thought.

3. Function/Purpose

I reached that initial concept by looking at the selected foundation – a telephone directory – and analyzing its purpose, its function. In this case, it’s about associating specific information about an individual or business by name with numeric information (a phone number).

4. Adaption

Right away, codes and hidden messages leaped into mind (actually. its use as a cypher key leapt into mind but was immediately tossed aside because it wasn’t immediate enough, wasn’t dramatic enough, even though it’s more plausibly realistic). Why? because it’s a twist on the usual purpose of the phone book – a message with a “different” payload and intended recipient.

If we were talking about a vending machine, the purpose might be to dispense small quantities of snack foods, and pharmaceutical experimentation on unsuspecting subjects is the twist that comes most readily to mind.

If it was a packet of cigarettes, the first thought would be as a top-secret distribution mechanism for some life-saving serum back in the 40s, 50s, or 60s (when just about everyone at least tried smoking, and the cigarette companies worked very hard on getting members of the public to do so) without causing a mass panic. Why? Because, as the government never stops reminding us, they are bad for you, so why not a twist that makes them at least temporarily good for you at the same time? Perhaps there was good reason for the secrecy – an accidental release by a Russian Agent during the cold war, the US accepts the evidence from the Kremlin that release was accidental, but knows that if the truth is ever revealed, the public will go fully-paranoid and demand a nuclear retaliation for this “act of war”. Heck, even Congress couldn’t be told! Hmmm, that all holds together reasonably well – which brings me to the next stage of the process:

5. The Credibility Test

It’s easy to mess this up, to fall in love with your own ideas. The test isn’t to approve or reject ideas, it’s to pinpoint any and all flaws and weak points in your idea so that you can fix them.

In the case of the vending machine, the problem lies in tracking the effects of the pharmaceutical. Solve that by running a competition with the biggest prizewinners being the ones exposed to the new product – thereby giving them an incentive to provide their details to the company behind the snack-selling ‘front’.Beyond that, you need to think about why this method of testing would even be contemplated, let alone put into practice, compared with all the other ones available to a drug manufacturer. Lab tests of the chemistry, animal testing, even legitimate and properly-monitored human trials all have to be ruled out, or to have already been conducted with enough success to bring them to this point – and the potential benefits must be pretty significant, too, to both the company and the individual receiving the ‘treatment’. Tracking dosage can be built into the ‘contest’ rules by making it look like a marketing exercise – and that has the added benefit of being a superficially valid reason for the contest, an effective smokescreen.

In the case of our phone directory, the flaws are threefold. First, phone numbers are the logical place to encode information and those are assigned by the phone companies; my first-glance idea solves that by putting the encoding in the company names. Second, there’s the once-a-year nature of the method, and third, there’s the limited scope of the amount of code that can be delivered. And – an afterthought – fourth, it takes time and money to set up that many shell companies, and someone might notice and investigate.

All these problems except the once-a-year problem go away if you are the company subcontracted to produce the phone book. You can insert as many false entries as you want to, and even pretend that someone with authority ordered you to do so, like an obscure and secretive government intelligence agency, though that might pose additional risks, so save that for if someone asks questions and won’t be deflected.

You can even solve the once-a-year problem in the modern world of online telephone directories. Heck, you can even invent a non-existent 51st state (in the US) and list as many phone numbers as you want – and, because the code groups are so short, and only the intended recipient knows the intended sequence of names in which the numbers should be interrogated, the code would be practically impossible to break. And, because the phone numbers are not valid, anyone discovering one by accident and using it by mistake will get a “your call could not be completed, please recheck the number and dial again” message from the telephone carriers. You could even add to the credibility of the whole thing by calling your additional (fictitious) state “test” and claiming the whole data block is used for testing new display arrangements, new search protocols, and the security of the database.

What’s more, you can change the “hidden content” at will – names, addresses, and phone numbers – so you have a HUGE dump of information. You lose the cold-war relevance and immediacy, but solve all the practical problems with the idea – a trade-off that’s more than acceptable.

6. Correcting The Flaws

This is an excellent example of “Correcting The Flaws”. You can change who, you can change why, you can change how, you can even change what they are doing. In fact, you can change just about anything so long as you protect the original idea (or come up with an even better variation, and solve the flaws you identified.

7. Making it unique/A point of failure

In order to use this as a plot, you need some reasonable way for the whole dastardly plot to unravel when the “right” string gets pulled. You need a point of failure that hasn’t been anticipated, and that it is reasonable that the people behind whatever is going on would not have anticipated. Serendipity can work but is often viewed as the lazy way out. So is a turncoat spilling the beans, though you could use the latter by making the actual adventure about getting the prospective source out of wherever he is. But that can introduce new credibility problems in the case of our phone book example – this secret would be VERY highly classified, and the likelihood that anyone privy to that level of information becoming a defector is really, really slim.

The other thing that you need to do is make sure that this plotline is sufficiently original and unique. That’s not a problem in the case of our telephone book example – I’ve never heard of anything remotely like it, despite its now-obvious plausibility – so, to look at that, and a few other aspects of the process, we need a fresh example to work with. So lets take one of the most basic of all plots – boy meets girl.

7a. Boy-Meets-Girl with a twist

How can you make your plotline or story different from all the other ones that use the same basic model? Core concept or backdrop or characterization can all be your point of uniqueness – but just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean that it necessarily should be done.

But this is gaming, and things that for various reasons would never fly in Hollywood can be completely acceptable in a smaller audience market. Boy-meets-girl – on Mars. Boy-meets-girl – but one of them is an AI (that one’s been done). My initial thought: Boy meets girl – but one of them is a demon, and the two have to (literally) overcome heaven and hell to be together. This would be a story all about redemption and changing the unchangeable for someone you love – or trying to do so and failing. It almost writes itself – but Hollywood would never make the movie, the religious subtext is too controversial. That makes it perfect for gaming purposes because it’s something that can’t be done anywhere else (okay, maybe it would work in comics).

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to decorate it differently – and maybe use it in a different terrain.

8. Connecting to your PCs

In a novel, or a movie that isn’t part of a franchise, it’s so easy – because your protagonist(s) are, by definition, the ones most suited to being in the heart of the plot.

For a TV show, or a movie franchise, you need to work with an established cast and somehow integrate them into the plotline. In a game, you need to connect your players with the plot.

Sometimes that’s easy to do, sometimes you have to be indirect about it. You could add an element of potentially unrequited love (heightening the tragic content if the quest is to ultimately end in failure) by having an NPC demon fall for a PC and attempt to reinvent themselves for them (hang on, this is sounding a lot like some of the plots from Buffy and Charmed – maybe Hollywood would do it, after all!) That leaves the PC in total control of his role in the story while still involving them – up to their neck. But the story becomes far more dramatic if there are tender feelings (or more) on both sides of this unlikely match, so it might be better to make them both NPCs and to cast the PC in the role of the arbiter or enabler to whom they turn for help in dealing with the resulting challenges being thrown at the ‘happy couple’. Because the PCs are all going to be different, the best choice will vary from one game to another. But you need someone who isn’t a complete fatalist, and who is a bit of a romantic, to really make this plot work.

It would work for me as the player of a PC because my profile is both of those things. I always tend to hope for the best (while preparing for the alternative) and have definite romantic inclinations – I can look at a relationship (and have in the past) and predict with confidence that it will never work out, even while doing everything I can to make it a success, even at personal cost. And my only regret will be that I wasn’t able to do enough to make it a success-against-all-odds.

Others may be more pragmatic, or more half-hearted, or more unwilling to put themselves out over such an improbable long-shot; that’s their prerogative, but it means that no matter what the inclinations of a character under their control might be, they won’t be the perfect target of such a plotline.

The better you know both your players and their characters, the more effectively you can connect them to a plot. And, if your understanding in either of these areas is lacking, the more you can learn by analyzing their choices of reaction to such a plot. The trick in the latter case is sometimes to separate the player from the character and correctly attribute the reactions. But that’s a subject for some other time.

9. Subthemes and side-plots

A really good plot will involve everyone in some way – in the case of an RPG adventure, that means all the PCs, not just the one that is the focus. Everyone should have some reason to react and interact with the plotline beyond simply being there. One character might have no personal feelings on the subject and even care less about it – but the couple and that PC have a mutual antagonist, inclining him to be “on their side” despite his personal lack of empathy for the situation – that introduces a subtheme of “the enemy of my enemy”. A romantic might be disposed to be supportive. A strongly religious person would have strong objections, as would anyone who is more practical than romantic in inclination. A character with feelings for the target might be jealous, and even motivated to doing things they normally wouldn’t countenance. There’s a strong vein of “redemption” as a theme for the adventure, which might tie in with other characters and their own needs for redemption. Various characters might recall and even decide to do something about their own estranged relationships as the focal one strikes rockier ground.

If you haven’t already covered everyone (or perhaps even if you have), you can also look to give them subplots and side-plots to explore aspects of the situation. That religious character might need to confront articles of their faith – specifically, can anyone be redeemed? What of someone who is so ideologically opposed that they commit acts that directly contradict their usual policies.

10. Resolution

Before you can begin to plot the specifics of your adventure, the other thing that you need to think about is the resolution of the storyline. These come in four major categories.

10a. Consequences

What are the consequences of success? What are the consequences of failure? Which of these are mutually incompatible, and hence will leave the GM with an either-or choice in the advent of a partial or limited success?

10b. Ramifications

What are the ramifications of the question being raised at all? In the case of our boy-meets-girl plot, the very fact that a Demon can fall in love with a mortal and even attempt to change their nature is front-page headline news in terms of the campaign background, shedding light on who and what Demons are and why they behave the way they do. Simply being involved may make the PCs new friends – and new enemies, catalyzing further plotlines.

In the case of the “Telephone Directory” plot, the are a raft of security questions that arise over who is permitted to offer an internet service, and how you can stop them. A draconian over-reaction is certainly a possibility, and (if one judges by past history) even a probability. That would have ramifications.

I have a deep and abiding love of plotlines and conundrums built around the engagement of the legal mechanics of society and super-heroics. Superheroes routinely violate legal protocols, for example, which could cause every crime to be thrown out of court because the criminals rights were violated. There’s the whole question of secret identities, in the legal sense – it doesn’t matter what law you make about this, I can get a plotline out of it (All this, of course, is a subdivision within the whole “I can get a plotline out of almost anything” attitude). But my players don’t share that love, and non-weekly play isn’t conducive to such plotlines (Non-fortnightly even less so), so I rarely get to scratch that itch.

In the original Champions campaign, I got four adventures out of a law protecting secret identities – one putting the nature of sanctioned vigilantism under the spotlight, leading to the law itself, one in which testimony was thrown out as potentially tainted by the PC’s anonymity, and two in which a hero and a villain, respectively, were hoist upon the petard of the law, leading to it being changed.

Eventually, I might get the chance at a fifth, exploiting the loopholes and/or flaws and/or ramifications of the revised law – and there are all of those things present. It’s a situation in which there are no perfect solutions.

10c. Parachutes

It doesn’t matter how much you think you players will love a plotline, there are no guarantees until you actually start play. Again, the better you know both players and characters, the better you can anticipate and stack the cards in your favor. Worse still is the situation in which the players have already done everything they can think of about a situation and it wasn’t enough, and are now getting tired of the frustration. And then, there’s the situation in which the players make all the right moves but luck turns against them.

In all these circumstances, you will want to think about a parachute – a way to get out of a plot as quickly and painlessly as possible, wrapping things up in a nice, neat bow. And, potentially, a lesser parachute to get them past any particular challenge that they can’t solve – preferably without simply handing them the solution on a platter.

In fact, it’s entirely possible to write a plot that consists of nothing more than the introductory sequence and the desired resolution and a whole raft of parachutes. I don’t recommend it – it places maximum flexibility and responsibility before and on the players, and maximum stress on the GM’s ability to Improv – but it can be done.

10d. Measures of satisfaction

For any given adventure, there should always be at least two possible resolutions, and sometimes anything in-between is also a possibility. Normally, on most things, I am a strictly neutral GM, neither favoring nor hindering the PCs unreasonably, and letting the dice fall where they may; in most campaigns, though, I yield that neutrality to protect the lives of the PCs if the players are still enjoying playing the character and I still have plotlines that require that character. Losing a PC is traumatic at the campaign scale – another subject for another day – and not something that I do lightly, and definitely not something that I do without as much advance planning as possible.

The other factor that can cause me to yield my position of neutrality is anticipated player satisfaction over one resolution vs the alternative. I have no problem with the PCs losing if it merely sets the stage for a big comeback in a follow-up adventure. Similarly, I have no problem with the PCs solving a problem with which I had hoped to bedevil them for some time to come.

But, when one outcome is clearly going to be less satisfying to the players in the long-term, taking into account any subsequent come-back, I become very quietly partisan. Sometimes that means heaping complications on their shoulders (preventing too easy a victory) even if they have thought of something I had overlooked, sometimes it means shading the odds in their favor.

My goal is always to make sure that I am telling a story that the players enjoy being a part of, and a participant in. Every other consideration is subordinate to that goal.

So, for example, when my players encountered Mortus (better known to them as a variant Thanos), even though there was an easy way to resolve the encounter but not the long-term problem that the character represented, when they thought of the solution to the long-term problem, I was fine with them pre-empting a far-distant plotline (in terms of my campaign plan) to put their solution into place. Having done so, I then simply had to find a way to parachute the character out of the campaign so that he didn’t provide an easy resolution to other challenges that lay in the players’ future, in other words to park him until I needed him again. If I had been unable to think of a way to do so, I would have delayed their success, making the current problems too difficult for them to solve (they were already at a higher level of complexity than anything they had faced before or since) – but, once I had my parachute, the priority goal of giving the players the maximum hard-earned satisfaction possible took control.

There were occasions in the preceding Zenith-3 campaign when problems that they should have solved quickly and easily lingered because the players hadn’t yet found the right question to ask. Short- and medium-term low levels of frustration only yielded a greater degree of satisfaction when those problems were ultimately resolved.

No campaign plan survives contact with the players unscathed. The purpose of such plans is not for you, the GM, to get your literary rocks off, it’s a planning tool to facilitate the goal. For that reason, you invest the minimum possible time into such planning – just enough for it to fulfill its purpose, no more – so that no plotline ever seduces you so much that you become incapable of an objective assessment of likely player satisfaction.

11. A Second Credibility Test

We’ve added a lot of material to the basic outline since our initial credibility test, so with that final architectural block at the metaphoric plot construction site, it’s time for a second one before things get cemented in place. This works exactly the same as the first, but ultimately will be far more detailed in content and in the changes that get made at this. the 11th hour of plot design. This is also when any basic research needed should be done.

For example, if you had decided in the phone directory plot to go with the “get the turncoat out of danger” option because it provides a more action-oriented plot with more opportunities for the various players to participate, this is where you have to address the credibility problem raised earlier. The background and motivation for the source’s change-of-heart need to be rock-solid, and (at the very least) to motivate the PCs to be sympathetic toward him. You will want to test their ability to keep him alive to the maximum, and that requires their very best efforts – something that won’t happen if they are doing it all dispassionately, “by the numbers”. Especially since, for reasons of credibility, you will need to present the NPC “warts and all” in the course of the adventure.

In fact, it would be ideal if there was some history of the NPC being a known enemy of the PCs. Establishing his bonafides in this way in advance – even if there are adventures that have no other big-picture (metagame) purpose – buys him credibility in his position that can’t be obtained any other way. And it adds an element of both sides needing to overlook past animosities, always a great source of good roleplaying.

12. Big Bang or Many Little Bangs?

You have one final decision to make before you can execute final plot creation – dole this plotline out as a series of subplots and encounters in many adventures, or have it all happen in one big plotline? Or a third choice, using subplots to foreshadow the main plot?

For example, there might be those adventures to establish the NPC as a villain; an adventure in which things go pear-shaped because the other side had better intelligence; and perhaps even an adventure somewhere in the middle in which mutual interests forces the PCs and NPC to set aside their animosity, showing the character as not being all dark and evil, and giving the GM the chance to establish his motivation for eventually becoming a turncoat (this should be in the middle so that the character can re-establish his villainous bonafides afterwards).

These adventures don’t just buy credibility, they buy shared history and player engagement when the real plotline rolls around.

13. Refining The Plot

So critical is this decision that when you have made it, you should turn right around and go back to step 1, reexamining everything in light of how best to execute it. If you are going to make the NPC the focus of several prior adventures, for example, it becomes important to establish his capabilities and past history, and to ensure that this doesn’t produce any credibility gaps. In fact, you may need to go through the entire process a number of times, refining the plot and trying variations, before achieving a satisfactory result. Fortunately, it’s fairly quick!

13a. Spotlight Issues

One of the things that you definitely want to look at in the course of this refinement is the balance of the spotlight on the various PCs involved. I talked about that, and about introducing unrelated subplots purely to share the spotlight around a little more evenly, in late 2016, so I won’t go into it here in great detail – consult Ordinary Lives In Paranormal Space and Time, Ordinary Life in an RPG, and Paving Over Plot Holes: A Masterclass in Adventure Creation for information on the subject, and Ensemble or Star Vehicle – Which is Your RPG Campaign? for some of the fundamental concepts (which should have been included in the list of links at the end of the “plot holes” article).

13b. Linking and Conflicting Plot Threads

The other thing to specifically look at – and this may need to be done some time in advance – is how to tie other campaign plot threads into this plotline, and whether or not there is a conflict with any of them. For example, you might need this spy-turning-traitor to be the architect of the system for information smuggling that is the background focus of this plotline so that he knows enough about it to spill all the beans, but realize that having him do anything more would violate the premise of a planned future adventure by compromising his former intelligence service too much. That leaves you with two choices: revise that future plotline to incorporate the consequences of this one, or add a final act to this one in which, having stilt the beans on the Telephone Directory (and put the cat amongst the pigeons), a double agent from his former service kills him (protecting the future adventure at the price of compromising the satisfaction levels of this one).

I would choose between these by first trying to employ option (a), revising the future adventure; but if I couldn’t find a way to do so that didn’t excessively weaken its credibility, I would reluctantly choose option (b) – but then boost the satisfaction levels some way back to where they would have been by enabling the PCs to kill or capture the assassin. A minor flunky, he knows very little of value – certainly nowhere near as much as the now-deceased spy-master – and therefore poses far less danger to that future adventure.

In fact, I specifically aim to make this easier by having the different plots involving “villainous agency X” listed as a discrete plot thread so that it becomes obvious that a future adventure will rest on the resolution of this one. You may spend most of your time and effort pruning and shaping the tree in front of you, but being able to easily step back and see the shape of the neighboring trees can be invaluable to keeping one eye on the bigger picture.

14. Creativity Is A Muscle

Well, not literally, but certainly figuratively – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. As I’ve commented before in any number of articles, I create campaigns and adventure concepts that I know I will never get to play simply for the exercising of my creativity (and for the pleasure I get out of it). Usually, these get thrown away, or filed away for future use when I need something on short notice (a lesson I’ve learned the hard way – ALWAYS have a campaign on-tap, however unfinished it might be). Since starting Campaign Mastery, I’ve gotten in the habit of sharing these from time to time – for example, in Yesterday Once More: A pulp time-travel Campaign.

There’s no better way to get better at writing and executing adventures than by doing it. There’s no better way to get better at Improv than to start small (limiting the damage you can do) and doing it regularly. And there’s no better way to become more creative than being creative. Treat this approach as an exercise in creativity, even if the adventures you come up with have no relevance to your current campaigns.

Look around you, once a week or once a day, pick an object or an advert on TV or a random page from a sourcebook or reference book and build a plot around something you find. Don’t spend a lot of time; ten minutes, say, at most. Save the results (and index them) – you never know when one will come in handy – and in 6 months or a year, look back at the earliest ones and marvel at how far you’ve come.

This article was started way back when I was submitting articles to Roleplaying Tips, in fact, more than ten years ago, but it was never finished – until now. So “recently” means “relative to 2006″…

I recently read a book describing the calamities that befell Lloyds of London in the early 80s and 90s and it got me thinking back to the days when I was an insurance clerk, and what I had learned then about how insurance premiums were calculated. And I suddenly realized that some of what I had learned back then had not only started to make more sense in the decade or so since, but this new understanding had applications in the world of Gaming, in enabling the GM to adopt a whole new approach to some aspects of his craft. Does it work in practice? That we’ll have to wait and see.

Understanding Risk

Insurance premiums are set by calculating the risk that the insured party will have a claim of value “X” in the year, and then the risk of a claim of value 2X, and then the risk of one of 3X, and so on. Multiply each risk by the claim value and add up the results and you have the total risk of the insurance, ie (in theory) how much the premium should be for that particular driver or homeowner or whatever.

For example, let’s say that there’s a 1 in 100 chance of a $5,000 claim, a 1 in 1,000 chance of a $20,000 claim, and a 1 in 5,000 chance of a $50,000 claim, per year.

• 1/100th of $5,000 = $50.
• 1/1000th of $20,000 = $20.
• 1/5000th of $50,000 = $10.

So if those are the only risks to worry about, the average claim per year per customer would be $80. Set your premium for that, plus a share of your administrative, operational, & infrastructure costs, plus a profit margin, and all will be well.

In theory, you don’t need insurance – you just need to save $80 a year and you’ll have enough saved when the time comes, even without interest on those savings. But in practice, that’s not the case, as anyone who’s rolled dice knows – that 1 in 100 chance might come up on the first roll, the 15th, the 80th, or the 131st. The likelihood that it will hold off until the one-hundredth, when you will have saved the $5000 to pay the cost of repairs is vanishingly small.

How small?

Compound Risks

Well, for technical reasons, it’s a lot easier to work with the chance that something won’t happen.

• In the first year, there’s a 99% chance that the first event won’t happen, or 0.99.
• In the second year, there’s a 99%x99% chance that the first event won’t happen, or 0.9801.
• In the third year, there’s a 99%x99%x99% chance that the first event won’t happen, or 0.970299.
  …and so on.

Right away, you’ll notice that the chance that something will happen in those three years is smaller than you would get by just adding three lots of the 1% chance together. In the 100th year, the chance that it won’t have happened yet is still 36.6032341273%! Or, to put it another way, the chance that it will have happened at least once by this point is about 63.4%. And, the chance that it will have happened at least two times in that 100-year period is going to be a smidgen less than 63.4% of 63.4%, or 40.2%. There’s a significant chance that this once-in-a-century event will have occurred at least 5 times in the course of a century – just over 10% chance, in fact.

For most people, probability is inherently counter-intuitive (and yes, I’m one of the majority). This shows quite clearly that an insurance company who relied on once-a-century items only happening once a century would go out of business in short order. In fact, there’s a significant risk that the company would have to pay out $5000 five times in the course of that century. To be adequately prepared, the premium would have to be more than five times the $80 a year.

Risk Leveling

Except that this is impractical and unprofitable. Insurance companies make their product more attractive by dividing that risk by the number of insured that are not likely to have any claims in the year in question, and then insuring themselves against catastrophic events that would cause more people than normal to make claims. So if only 1 in 5 will actually have an accident in a given year, then you can divide the “true premium” by 5.

The Insurance Risk Assessment Shortcut

That’s all well and good in theory, but in practice it’s way too fiddly and it takes too long to be entirely practical. There are far too many combinations; it would take weeks if not months to calculate a single individual’s premium.

Instead, most insurance companies assume that they will have enough customers that they will encounter every possible outcome in the course of a year (within the scope of their coverage, at least) – in other words, that their customer pool represents a statistical universe.

They then use statistical tools to determine the average value of claims expected in the year and simply assess the risk of any given car having a claim of that size; they can then determine the premium to charge (plus a share of expenses and a profit margin). To make things easier for their staff, they use a points-based system to calculate an estimate of that risk – staff simply look up the total points scored on a table and compare it with the value of the insurance to get the premium (or have a computer system do it for them).

This means that staff can determine premiums without being taught really understanding the underlying complexities.

The same approach can be used by GMs for a number of types of Event and Occurrence in RPGs. Wandering monsters, weather, plot complications, etc. The result is a table showing a die roll on one side and an outcome based on the risk.

Why this would be an advantage over the traditional methods of creating such tables are the ability to incorporate a multitude of factors that normally have to be handwaved due to the complexity of calculating probability combinations, as will shortly be seen.

Wandering Monsters & Other Chance Encounters

Every game system, whether it’s level based or points based, has a method by which the power level of an encounter can be measured. In points based systems, it might be set multiples of character points in the encounter, for example 100, 125, 150, and so on. In level based systems, it’s levels. But levels are not a linear measurement in most systems; it takes more experience to go from level 17 to level 18 than it did to go from level 7 to level 8. This distorts things, because it means that there will be far fewer encounters of higher levels than the straightforward “by level” system would allow for. The answer (again) is to use the experience-point equivalent of the level, instead of the level directly: 1000, 2000, 3000, and so on. D&D 3rd Ed (and 3.5) uses an Encounter Level system to allow for the non-linearity.

Because most people will be familiar with it, I’ll be using the D&D / Pathfinder model for this discussion.

Encounter Table Structure

Most encounter tables assign specific encounters to entries on their encounter tables. I think that’s actually counterproductive, because it means that the table contents have to be continually revised as characters increase in levels.

A better approach would be to employ a more abstract system that doesn’t need such revision.

For example, you might list on the table:

You will have noted the empty column – we’ll populate that shortly. Right now, it’s the entries on the right that we’re interested in – the first of them is EL-3/- which should be reas as “Encounter Level minus three, or less”. That’s followed by EL-2, EL-1, EL, EL+1, and so on all the way up to “Encounter Level plus three or more”. The term “Encounter Level” in this table refers to the EL of the PCs, collectively.

The table functions as an index of encounter levels relative to the level of the party, so “EL+2” means the “encounter level value of the party, plus two”. As a general rule of thumb, encounters should rarely be less than 2 below the party’s level or more than 2 above, according to the DMG.

Using this table requires and assumes that you have a separate record, possibly even a completely separate document that lists all the actual encounters that you have prepared, and that meet the specified encounter level; the first page might be labeled EL0, the next EL1, then EL2, and so on. On each page you list encounters, an entry for each monster type that exists in your campaign world that can meet the EL target. The first entry for EL1 might be “1 Orc”, then on page EL3 would be “2 Orcs”, EL4 would have “3 Orcs”, EL 5 “4 Orcs”, and so on.

In the 3.x system, EL rises with numbers as a multiple of the square root of 2: 1, 1.4 (no such thing), 2, 2.8 (call it 3), 4, 5.6 (call it 6), 8, and so on. One representative of a given creature will have its base EL given in its writeup as its CR, or Challenge Rating. You keep going until the numbers no longer make sense to you, as in “there is no way that many of them would be found in one place”.

Depending on the creatures, that might be 1, 2, 3, 4, or 32. That’s up to you. The beauty of this system is that you can keep adding to it as you go, and you can populate the lists with as many customized encounters as you like. If you decide that a creature that is normally CR2, such as a bugbear, becomes CR4 if it has this ability or that equipment package, you know that EL4 should list one creature with that package, EL6 should list 2 of them, and so on.

As a very rough rule of thumb, for example, you might decide that if you total the magical plusses of armor and weapons that a creature wields, you get the increase in the creature’s CR. You might also decide that increases in Hit Dice follow the same 1.4-factor progression, so that a CR4 creature with 4 levels in a character class is a CR 9, as shown below:

The top row is the number of creatures of CR1 that are needed to reach the EL designated in the third row, after appropiate rounding. The middle row shows the real values with a decimal place, the “raw data”. To permit the chart to be a reasonable size, I’ve split it into two triple-rows – the first deals with ELs 1 to 10, the next, ELs 11-20. (If I were doing this for real, I would extend it to at least EL30 and possibly 50).

Some of the “rounded” values have a + symbol. If you look closely, you will see that if the raw value is something-point-two, or in fact anything less than something-and-a-third, it has no plus symbol and is simply rounded down; if there is a decimal higher than 2/3, it is rounded up. The plus is there for those in-between values like “1.4” and “5.6”.

The “+” symbol also confers some kind of advantage to the creatures – so a group of creatures whose EL has a + next to it needs a minor advantage beyond the number of creatures encountered and any other form of EL adjustment.

As you can see, character levels are really easy when you make the assumption described earlier – simply find the cell with EL that has everything else taken into account and move to the right 1 space for each character level. (Note that you don’t have to use this shortcut method if you don’t want to, it is NOT canon. My experience is that it comes pretty close to “reality”, though, in terms of relative effectiveness in combat).

Or perhaps the table is telling you that you need eleven creatures of a given CR to reach your target EL but you want fewer creatures and to give them a couple of character levels instead – just count one space on the table left for each character level on the top line to find how many of the modified creatures should be encountered. Two character levels, two spaces left, so 11 to 8 to your choice of 5 creatures with an extra little “+” advantage or 6 creatures without.

The chart can be used in a host of other ways. Suppose you were to have a group of 8 CR2 creatures who you wanted to take up to EL10. Look across the top row until you find 8, then down to the third row to get the CR of 8 CR2 creatures – a seven. That means that you need to give each of them +3 CR’s worth of advantages. Those advantages can be the same for all, or you could decide to give this one +3 STR Bonuses (i.e. +6 STR), that one +3 CON Bonuses (+6 CON), a third gets +3 in magical weapons and armor, a fourth gets three extra hit dice, and the other 4 receive 2 class levels each – in different character classes. Your eight CR2 creatures start to look like a population of individuals and not a homogeneous, generic, monster “with benefits”.

Event Likelihood

Okay, let’s turn our attention to the empty column. What we want here starts off as a dumbbell probability curve, such as you might get from 3d6. But we want one that gives us some multiple of 7 result categories, because our table has 7 slots to fill.

A few minutes playing around at Anydice.com (my go-to site for this sort of thing) gives me the results as percentages. But there’s some messy rounding involved – the numbers are 1.16%, 8.56%, 23.84%, 32.87%, 23.84%, 8.56%, and 1.16%.

That curve is a little sharp for my tastes, though. I’d like to roughly halve those percentages and apply a flat +7% to each. 7 plus-7-percents is 49%, so the curve component is providing 51% of the roll, so that’s what those numbers have to be multiplied by, as shown below.

When I did the calculations, as you can see, I ended up with a 3% error unaccounted for.

I flattened the top result 1% more to make it an evenly divisible 4% error, and then gave 1% each to the two values on either side of the peak to arrive at the final numbers in the table.

Encounter Probability – base chance

So far, it’s all been fairly conventional going, but here’s where the risk assessment element comes into play.

Most adventures simply assign a percentage chance of an encounter. Surely we can do better than that?

Let’s start by saying that there’s a base chance of an encounter that we want to assign based on the levels of monster inhabitation in the area.

Right away, that incorporates the climate and the levels of non-monster population (who would drive hostile creatures away) and a host of other factors. From there, it’s all about conditional modifiers.

Encounter Modifiers

Those modifiers all go in another table, one with a whole bunch of headings. There are three possible types of adjustment: An increased chance with an increased risk, an adjusted chance (up or down, evenly balanced) with an bias on the encounter table, and a straightforward encounter chance adjustment with no increase in risk.

Every time you think of a factor that you want to track individually to tweak the results, all you have to do is add another set of lines to the modifier table.

For example, you might want to track time of day. Monsters are more likely to be active late at night if nocturnal or in the early morning and late evening if not. At first, it might seem that only unintelligent monsters would follow this pattern, but for that very reason, intelligent monsters would be out hunting at that time of day. Noonish is typically the quietest time of day.

Right away, there’s a complication: nothing we have so far distinguishes nocturnal from diurnal creatures. Our list of potential encounters certainly doesn’t. So, we either complicate our nice simple process, or we use risk assessment techniques to balance the books. No normally nocturnal creature would operate during the day unless they were desperate, or had some advantage that made them diurnal instead, one that most members of the creature’s race don’t have. Similarly, diurnal creatures don’t operate at night unless desperate or they have an advantage at night that most such creatures don’t have.

Instead of a straight adjustment to the encounter chance, we are better served by converting some of the adjustment into an increase in risk posed by the encounter. +1 EL worth is the standard, and it’s worth -5% in my book.

Using this information as a basis, I created the following:

Let me walk you through the table and the process that it demonstrates.

• I started by breaking the day up into eight of broadly-defined time periods. That makes it easy to make symmetrical “probability curves”.
• I populated the Nocturnal Modifiers column with a peak of 12%, diminishing to a minimum of 0%. Then, because there were two Diurnal columns, I doubled those values, and finally, because those two diurnal columns were going to be distributed without a lot of overlap, I reduced the nocturnal values to 3/4 of their interim values.
• That scaled the nocturnal readings to match diurnal peaks of 12%, so I added them – one with a peak in the early hours and one with a peak in midafternoon. I reasoned that more creatures would stir in the very early morning than in the afternoon because those who had already found what they needed would not be active; this bias shifted the morning peak to earlier in the day.
• Adding those up gave me the first subtotal column.
• Next, I allowed for normally nocturnal creatures becoming diurnal because of an advantage and vice-versa using the “-5%” column – I’ll talk a little more about that in a moment.
• Another subtotal.
• ..Which was needed so that I could calculate a relative adjustment. Because our base value incorporates the overall impact of every variable, the average modifier needs to be +0%. If you total the values in the second subtotal column, you get 83%. 80 divided by 8 gave a base adjustment of -10%; I then tweaked the after-dark adjustment to -9%, giving me a total of 4% to deduct. Two of it was allocated to the Evening timeslot to make it more closely resemble the “after dark” total, while the other 2% were split up and applied to mid-morning and “noonish”.
• Adding the Relative Adjustment and second subtotal together gives the final adjustment values. But note that five of these adjustments refer to creatures with an added advantage and three don’t; so this table is a mixture of straight adjustments and adjustments with an increased risk attached.

The Increased Risk adjustment

These represent an increased capability in exchange for a reduction in likelihood to occur. In this case, I applied them to those time periods when nocturnal variations of day creatures were most likely to be operating, and to when diurnal variations of traditionally nocturnal creatures would be most likely. I also took into account the increased competition and danger that would be faced during the time periods when the greatest number of the “normal creatures of opposing type” would be active – that’s why there is no pre-dawn adjustment when one would otherwise be expected.

What do these values mean? Well, I wouldn’t write this whole table in my modifiers table; just the conditions and the final scores. Those that got a -5% adjustment for increased risk would be marked with an asterisk.

If it’s, say, Midmorning when I make my encounter roll, then the base chance of an encounter is down 7%, but if an encounter does result, the creature has +1EL relative to whatever the encounter table says. When I select from my list of appropriate encounters, if the creature is normally diurnal, I can choose to use that to “flip” their orientation; if not, or I choose to have them at a disadvantage in respect of the time of day, I can use it for something else.

That’s how you can take a specific condition and turn it into a general one so that there’s no need to differentiate between them in your encounter lists.

How Often should checks be made?

It’s important to realize that if you wait long enough, any given level of encounter will eventually take place. The risks being assessed are the risks in a specific time frame. In roleplaying terms, this should be the risk of whatever time unit is next highest compared to the frequency with which you are going to be making die rolls to check against the risk, on average. If your checks are to be daily, then your base levels should be the risk of such an encounter in a week; if hourly, then in a day; and so on.

This means that you can produce a different base chance chart for each of the major time-spans that you might want to hand-wave. One table – the one I showed earlier – would be reasonable for a week’s, or perhaps a month’s, travels. That’s why there’s such a high risk shown for the “Extremely High” habitation level; daily, it would probably be only half or even a third of that amount, despite the population “density”.

Most of the time, nothing happens.

Other Modifiers to consider

ANY condition that might impact the chance of an encounter can be taken into account.

Are the PCs carrying torches, advertising their presence and potentially attracting diurnal creatures?

Or are they using some form of Infravision to get around without so advertising their presence, which reduces the opportunity for other creatures to flee a potential danger?

The first would increase the risk of encountering high-level creatures who have enough confidence that they aren’t frightened off, while reducing the risk of encountering low-level creatures who don’t have that confidence.

The latter increases the likelihood of low-level encounters and removes the opportunity for high-level creatures to be attracted to the PCs – by the time the relative adjustment is made, the high-level encounter likelihood is effectively reduced. So this would be a case of a modifier with a bias to the encounter chart. In some cases, it would be a reduction in encounter chance, in others it would be a reduction in encounter chance and a bias toward low results on the encounter table – perhaps a -10% or a -20%.

Use your imagination a little. The PCs have a lot of magic with them? Then they are more likely to encounter beings that can detect that magic. They have captured some rare artifact? Then they are more likely to encounter beings that have an interest in that artifact. Both of these suggest an increase in the encounter rating. The PCs are currently engaging in, or have just had, a battle? The noise generated must increase the chance of another encounter, but it will reduce the risk of a low-level encounter (which is more likely to run) and increase the risk of a high-level encounter (which feels secure enough to investigate) – in other words, it would be an increase in the chance of an encounter and a bias high on the encounter table.

Check Frequency Revisited

It gets even more entertaining when the time comes to use the table.

First, vary the frequency of die rolls according to the risk the party are taking. One roll in camp on the way to an encounter per night is enough; maybe 2 a night on the way back. Perhaps you might increase the risk of a low-level encounter if they have no campfire, or the risk of a high-level encounter if they light one.

Instead of a roll every hour when they are exploring the dungeon, make one every 3 hours – but make an extra roll at the start of combat to see if an unexpected encounter will take place during, and another one afterwards to see if one is drawn by the sounds of battle.

By doing this, you let the circumstances help you to determine the nature of the encounter – (What type of encounter would be brave enough to show up in the middle of the fight? Or perhaps the extra is cowering in a hidden lair within the room – until the fight crashes through into their living room. After the battle, looters and carrion eaters are more likely) – and use the history of what the PCs have been and are currently doing to compile modifiers as you need them and as you think of them.

Remember, because of the “Base Chance” system, any factor you haven’t specifically included a modifier for is automatically taken into account. All of them.

The Net Effect

There are obvious advantages to this approach. Not only are you assessing the risks of encounters based on the behavior of the party, encouraging clever game play, but you are adding realism. You are also increasing the risks when the party have more to lose (and hence making the party more interested in the outcome) but you are increasing the risks when they are freshly-weakened by battle. In short, you are making your random encounters more interesting, more relevant, and more appropriate.

Application II: Setbacks And Plot Complications

When originally conceiving of this article, the Random Encounters portion was as far as I intended to go. But in the course of writing it, I began to catch glimpses of other ways of utilizing the same basic approach.

For example, scenario generation – plot twists always happen about 2/3 of the way through the story or later, right? That gives the players time to understand the situation, to have wasted efforts and resources going down the wrong path, to be committed to “X” when they suddenly find that “Y” is what they should have been trying to achieve all along, and still have time to reverse course and achieve a last-minute opportunity to turn things around.

But setbacks and plot complications can occur ANYWHERE in the story, provided they are not resolved until the end. You can work out a table of likelihood of a complication occurring at each given point in a scenario in exactly the same way as I have done with encounters, and roll for them according to how quickly the party are getting through the scenario. If your campaign has strong continuity, you don’t even have to explain them in the course of the scenario – you can just leave the events a mystery for a later occasion.

The PCs are receiving their mission briefing when their car explodes in the parking lot (a medium level setback).

The PCs are about to board their flight to the adventure location when they discover a mistake with their tickets (another medium-level setback).

The PCs break into the vault to recover the stolen crown jewels only to discover that they have tracked down the crown jewels of a completely different Kingdom – which may or may not have been stolen (a high-level setback).

Another favorite trick (if not overused) is to make the triviality of the encounter proportional to the level of paranoia of the party. I once had a group obsessing for hours about a flower, much to my entertainment; a young woman approached a member of the party, took a flower out from a bunch of them that she happened to have with her, and pinned it to the lapel of one of the PCs, simply saying this would look better on you, and then walking away, casually tossing the rest of the flowers in the garbage… (she had just broken up with her fiancé, who had given her the flowers. The PC reminded her for a moment of her boyfriend) – (a low-level setback).

The more of this sort of thing that you can come up with on-the-spot and leave to be explained later, the more dynamic your plots will be as actually played. Some of your best ideas will be spur-of-the-moment and I’ll-explain-it-later. If YOU can’t predict when these things will come up, neither can your PCs – and they will never be completely sure of the significance of any encounter. Your players are more than capable of complicating the lives of their characters with no help from you – given enough rope – and this helps massively when it comes to avoiding plot trains.

Application III: Weather

Another area where this sort of risk assessment approach is useful is in the determination of the weather. Assume an average day and then roll for deviations from it. Here, the risks are unlikely to be modified too much by what the PCs are doing or have done; the basis of the risk is the combination of local geography and preceding weather conditions.

As a trivial news item within one campaign, I once mentioned that a Weather Wizard had escaped from custody while the PCs were on their last adventure, and a large reward had been posted. By sheer chance, every time they passed through a certain small town thereafter, it began to rain. After 4 or 5 such occasions of sudden shifts in the weather, they became convinced that the Weather Wizard was hiding there. He wasn’t, but an economic war was being waged in the vicinity using weather magic, true enough. Why? Because when they went looking for the Wizard, I decided that they should find SOMETHING for their troubles. Meanwhile, the Weather Wizard was safely tucked away in his glacier, putting the finishing touches on his plans to trigger a new ice age, and carefully NOT doing anything to give away his location….

Conclusion

These basic examples show how the principles of risk assessment, as used by insurance companies the world over, can be applied to RPGs in a number of interesting and beneficial ways. But these only scratch the surface. Tactical situations can be described in terms of minimizing risks, for example. There has been no real effort to treat different kinds of risks separately. Even combat can be considered in terms of the level of risk of taking damage given the conditions, defenses, and armaments involved.

And if a really fun idea occurs to you, as GM, you can always fudge the dice. The risk of a powerful artifact disguised as something trivial that everyone wants to get their hands on being mistakenly sold to the PCs for a silver piece must be pretty low… “But he gave all the right recognition signals and code phrases!”

Have fun…!

This is the last post at Campaign Mastery for 2016. I had hoped to generate Christmas/New Years Greeting and schedule publication in advance, but time (and Christmas planning) simply won’t permit it. For the first time in about 10 years, I’m taking the Christmas/New Year period off (aside from ongoing maintenance of the site, of course). So let me take this opportunity to wish every reader a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2017…

I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of weeks working on the next adventure in the Zenith-3 campaign, and the techniques employed have enabled me to illustrate some of the techniques that I’ve written about in the past.

Normally, I would not post an article on the subject until after the adventure had been played, because I know that several of my players read Campaign Mastery regularly if not religiously, but since my intent is to generalize a fair bit, that shouldn’t be a problem in this case – and it’s usually better to write these things when thoughts are fresh in your mind and recent experience.

Because I intend to touch on a range of issues, this article might seem a little less organized than usual. You have been warned!

Adventure Structure

The basic structure of this adventure is as follows:

1. Real Life of the characters I (for 4 PCs and 2 NPCs)
2. Incident
3. Real Life of the characters II (for 4 PCs and 2 NPCs)
4. Murder Mystery
5. Investigation
6. Complication/Setback
7. Solution

The Blank Page

One of the advantages that I didn’t mention in my various posts on the Real Lives of the PCs but that was presented to me fairly forcefully in the writing of “Cold Cases” is that it provides an easy icebreaker. There was very little blank-page angst; I was able to just dive right in and start writing.

It’s never that simple.

I had a list of subplots and pieces of real life that I was supposed to touch on in the course of the two Real Life segments, but for the most part they were sufficiently vague in content that they could go anywhere. I had the basic outline of the mystery and complication segments in a fair amount of detail but nothing more than a wealth of possibilities and no idea how they would all go together into a coherent form. As a result, I hit writer’s block almost immediately.

More than anything else, two particular tools are my go-to solutions to this problem: the Adventure Title, and the Adventure Theme.

Adventure Title

I strongly believe that names matter enormously, even if the title’s relevance is going to be vanishingly obscure to the players, or not even revealed to them. Not just adventures, but characters, and places, and campaigns. They are a crystallization of the thought process of the GM, especially when they apply to the totality of the thing being named. That’s why I wrote a major series on Names a few years back.

Ideas for the adventure title in this case began flowing very quickly and easily. In short order, I had a dozen – I’ll quote some of them because trying to understand them won’t give my players any real clues: “What if they held a Zombie Apocalypse and no-one came?”, “Always In The Kitchen At Parties,” “CSI: Arcanum,” “A Bad Moon Rising,” and “Hallowed be thy name.”

Picking a name helps because it lets me examine each of the minor plot points to be incorporated from the perspective of linking it to the title in some way. When there is only one title that really sums up the major part of the plot – items 4 through 7 on the list in this case – as was the case with “The Monster Makers,” the adventure that’s about to wrap up and which I have written about extensively over the last 6 weeks or so – that provides context that can be used to generate ideas and expand the vague list of items into situations that enhance or reinforce the heart of the story.

Take, for example, the “Incident” phase of the plot. This is just an encounter that has no direct bearing on the plot. I had a character name but no real concept for either the character or the way that character would produce a situation for the PCs to have to resolve; it was just window dressing, present to show the team doing the things that superhero teams do, i.e. take down a bad guy. If I had chosen “Zombie Apocalypse” then I might have picked some other interpretation of the phrase “Zombie” and built the incident around that. This in turn would make “Zombie” or “Loss of self-control” or “Slave to whatever” the theme of the adventure and away I would go.

In this case, the title was no help – I had too many titles that touched on part of the main plot without really summing it up. So, I turned to plan B: the Adventure Theme.

Adventure Theme

Again, this is a conceptual touchstone about which everything in the adventure should revolve in one way or another. But themes are rather more slippery than a title; they can be abstract, or literal, or conceptual, or metaphoric, or several of these things at the same time. And, right now, my adventure didn’t have a theme – it was just a bunch of stuff that was going to happen.

I tried thinking of one. In fact, I thought of about half-a-dozen – none of which really fitted. To clarify and refine my thoughts, and give my subconscious something to chew over, I took another look at what I did know about those personal life incidents. I noticed that one event was a character attending an autopsy. That seemed to connect with the Murder Mystery angle. Thirty seconds more thought gave me a theme that perfectly fitted based around the synchronicity of these two unrelated events. Another thirty seconds showed me how each of the other planned incidents (and several that were empty spaces waiting to be filled) could be an expression of that theme.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the theme was; it reveals entirely too much about the adventure. But it finalized the choice of title (to something that wasn’t even on the list of possibilities that I had created), and gave me the nature of the Incident. It also made that incident rather more important in the context of the campaign.

Character “Real Life” I

The theme gave me about 75% of the particulars of these incidents – what they were, why they were happening, and so on. A number of minor plot threads would progress. In most of these cases, they were things that the players had said they wanted their characters to do or learn, in others they were outgrowths of that activity. Once I had the theme, I really did just dive in and start writing.

The events in this phase were tagged with the unofficial names “Premonition”, “Showman”, “Industrial Relations”, “Self-Image”, and “Fitness”. These are all of the variety, “what were you doing when the incident started?” Player involvement is minimal and primarily consists of “these is what you are doing and a reminder of what’s been on your mind lately” so that players can decide what their character’s head-space is like at the moment. What’s their mood? Their emotional state? The primary purpose is to enable the players to decide how their characters will react to “The Incident” when it begins, given this context.

The Incident

A recurring subplot that started in the last adventure or two was that magic had gone wild. When a mage cast a spell, they suffered a compulsion to exhaust their mana reserves (which power spells in this game system) and as much more as the mage can suck in from the surrounding environment, dumping it all into the spell that they were casting, which is horrendously over-powered as a result. A “flare” spell sucked the PC mage dry, was visible over half the North American continent, and blinded the pilots of three aircraft coming in to land who were too close to the spell (and could have been much worse).It’s important to note that I know why this is happening, but the players (and characters) do not.

In the course of “The Monster Makers,” an NPC who claims to be a mage (a Voodoo Priest, to be more precise) made a discovery that only spells which affected the world around the mage were subject to this problem, and passed the information on to the PCs. So long as the spell only affected the mage, it would work just fine.

I had more particulars about the nature of this effect to be revealed to the players as circumstances warranted. The Incident, given the shape it assumed by making it relevant to the Theme and the title, became the perfect vehicle for providing some of that information. But it also presented the next roadblock in writing the adventure – because I needed to come up with a unique and original fantasy world as background to the characters at the heart of the Incident, as the cold case that one was pursuing suddenly spontaneously combusted.

That took a day or two, but when it was done, writing was again straightforward. Everything to this point was then collectively labeled as Part I of the adventure, and given the title “Fangs Of The Dragon”.

Real Life of the characters II

The ultimate effect of The Incident will be minor – one character will regain some lost confidence, and his teammates will regain some confidence in his abilities to participate in situations when they develop. The game universe will expand a little to contain that new fantasy world, and they will gain an ally – but one with problems of his own, so ‘don’t expect much benefit in the short-term’. That expansion is not an unalloyed blessing; it also opens a new vector for future team problems to arise. In general terms, though, it can largely be characterized as edging the day-to-day lives of the team back towards normality, and getting the adventure started with a bang – assuming the PCs don’t make a meal of The Incident, of course.

But that leads into the first major roleplaying section of the adventure, as life settles down to something resembling normality for a while and the characters go about living their ordinary lives. This is reflected in the title for this part of the adventure: “Business As Usual”.

There are several ongoing subplots that progress in this phase. Characters get to spend time doing the things their players have said they want to do, there’s some cultural reference for them to play with, and some opportunities for roleplaying.

Again, I can’t do much in the way of being specific. But I can offer the following summaries of the events, secure in the knowledge that they won’t tell the players anything I don’t want them to know in advance:

• Scene 1, “Prussian Blues” advances one character’s social life, enhances the game world, and gives progress in a subplot of that character’s.
• Scene 2, “Puppet To The Red Tape” is all about the responsibilities of leadership and the personality of one of the PCs, and the price that has to be paid for the privilege. An ongoing theme for the character involved, this continues exploring those key themes of the character and is more about establishing precedents and connections with other plotlines.
• Scene 3, “A Taste Of Not-Quite Home” permits another PC to touch base with his cultural roots, and marks a distinct change of pace compared to recent subplots for the character. But it also advances an ongoing plotline focusing on that character, and gives two characters the opportunity to advance in hobbies that the players have respectively selected for their characters, enlarging on that personal development subplot, and develops the interaction between the two.
• Scene 4, “The Holiday is over” gives a character who didn’t get much of a chance to roleplay in this part of the plot the opportunity to do so, and also edges circumstances back to “Business as usual” while enlarging on the consequences of the recent divergence from routine. This develops a PC-NPC relationship and progresses the history of the world beyond the PCs.
• Scene 5, “Muffin Routine” establishes a new subplot within this campaign for a PC, provides some additional color and verisimilitude for the game world, introduces a new NPC, and advances the relationship between that PC and another NPC while furthering a subplot focusing on that NPC. Furthermore, it touches on the relationship that has developed “off-camera” between two of the major NPCs for the first time in the campaign, signposting a further evolution in the game world around the PCs.
  

  That’s an important tip, actually: NPC subplots only matter to the extent that they impact on a PC at the time. If there is no such impact, they can be hand-waved until the next time a PC interacts with that NPC. Which means that if there is an important plot development in the life of an NPC, you need to find some way to have it impact on a PC. You can even generalize this further: NPCs only matter within the game to the extent that they interact with PCs. PCs can have solo encounters and plot developments; while NPCs can also have these, actual play of them should be handwaved until the next interaction of NPC and PC.

• Scene 6, “A different perspective/Anatomy lesson” contains two beats for a particular PC. The first is a continued exploration of the character’s non-human perspective yielding an unusual theory about the observed behavior of humanity, and the second permits the character to learn something she needs to understand in order to achieve a personal development that the player has decided he wants the character to have. It also introduces a new NPC and gives the player of the PC a chance to do some roleplaying.”
• Scene 7, “Koffee Klatch” advances the social life of another PC, adds a circle of new NPCs to that social life, and touches on the a consequence of the abnormalities of his physical condition that I doubt the player, or the creator of the character, ever thought of. It also teases a future plotline, and advances a subplot belonging to another PC, which should heighten the sense that this subplot will soon be resolved – a “cold case” that has been troubling the PC who is attached to it for some time, and which occasionally spills over onto the rest of the characters. I guess you could say that it actually teases two future plotlines in the same scene.
• Scene 8, “Fourth corner of the triangle” builds on an NPC-PC relationship that has become a focus lately, adds to the NPCs value to the team, and builds on the ongoing subplot that was the non-immediate relevance of The Incident, further pushing the campaign toward a sense of “getting back to normal”. Depending on how it goes, it could also introduce a new relationship between two PCs and offer three of the four Players a roleplaying opportunity.

These all flowed from the keyboard without pause, except briefly when I tweaked the order of presentation to spread the spotlight around a little more and give a nicer flow from one item to another. Each assumes that the other players are in earshot. And seven of these eight scenes relate in some way to the overall theme and title of the adventure, while the eighth provides a partial foundation for the main plot of the adventure, and so is also indirectly linked to the theme.

The Mystery

That all leads into the major plot of the adventure, a murder mystery of very outré nature. I can’t give any details at all without ruining the adventure for the players, so let’s talk a little in more general terms.

Mysteries are easy to create – all you need do is have something happen, or reveal that something has happened, with no obvious explanation.

Good Mysteries with predetermined solutions are even easier in fiction because the author has a privileged position – he knows what actually happened and why that solution to the mystery is hidden. It’s then simply a matter of leading the investigators one step at a time until the other improbable explanations are eliminated and the truth stands revealed in some suitably dramatic fashion.

Problems arise when the author is forced to induce incompetence on the part of an investigator in order to explain why they didn’t solve the puzzle right away, or makes the mystery so impenetrable that a dues-ex-machina is required to solve the puzzle – something that always leaves the reader feeling cheated, or when there is a flaw in the author’s logic.

One of the most obvious techniques for plotting such mysteries is to start with the solution, consider what the criminal can and would do to cover it up, and then ask “what does the investigator need to know in order to determine the culprit and solve the mystery?” – then work backwards determining how and from whom the investigator gets that information until you get to the initial condition of confusion before any investigation has begun. Then you actually write the narrative from front to back, guided by this outline.

Things elevate exponentially in difficulty when you’re talking about an RPG, for three reasons:

1. The GM doesn’t know what questions the PCs will ask.
2. The author has to ensure that the investigator is competent, as explained earlier. The GM has no control over the competence and deductive abilities of the players.
3. While a strongly linear plot can work for a novelist, players and PCs can’t be controlled by the GM.

Getting around these problems largely means providing several different ways for the PCs to get the information they need, and simplifying the mystery to the point where the GM can be sure that the players will be able to solve it without relying on ultimately-unsatisfactory die rolls to do so. But every such compromise weakens the mystery and the entertainment value that can derive from it.

A long time ago, I offered several “GM’s cheats” for creating successful mysteries in RPGs, and the heart of them all is the GM being as ignorant of what really happened and who is responsible, and operating under the theory that if the investigation continually advances in some way, it will eventually reach a destination. That article has been a very popular one, and is often mentioned on other blogs as the state-of-the-art in creating mysteries for RPGs, which is very gratifying.

The Problem

For various reasons, those techniques simply wouldn’t work in this case. So I had to do an old-fashioned mystery while avoiding the pitfalls listed above. On top of that, one of the PCs is a telepath; I had to frame the mystery in such a way that it followed the rules of “fairness” of a mystery while ensuring that an inadvertent mind-scan wouldn’t upend the apple-cart.

At first, I had no idea how to achieve this second requirement, so I simply ignored it for the moment and assumed that a solution would present itself in time.

The Process

I started by outlining how the mystery would come to the PCs attention, and what the actual mystery was going to be. That gave me several obvious leads that I could reasonably assume the PCs would follow during the investigation phase. It also set up a number of roadblocks and hurdles that would have to be overcome by the PCs in the course of the investigation, and introduced a number of NPCs who would figure into the discovery of what the mystery was. Finally, I was able to introduce an entirely-reasonable-in-context constraint that would prevent the players from getting too creative in their approach or taking too many shortcuts.

Along the way, I also decided on a title for this part of the adventure, one that was tantalizing and appropriate but that didn’t give anything away: “Body of Confusion”.

It was important to ensure that none of those obvious leads could lead immediately to the solution to the mystery, but each one would have to advance the investigation process in some way. So, having written the narrative of the introduction of the mystery, I turned my attention to those obvious leads. For each, I asked “what might be learned that would move the PCs closer to the solution to the mystery? I was also able to throw in a red herring or two and ensure that the herring nature became obvious in due course, and ensure that there was enough going on in each stage that each PC would get a fair share of the spotlight. Finally, I made sure that the featured NPCs never did anything that did not involve at least one PC – following the same maxim as outlined in the sidebar box above.

At this point, I was forced to make assumptions based on the abilities and personalities of the PCs in terms of who would do what. Those assumptions let me write the narrative for each of the initial stages of the investigation, populating it with interesting and colorful characters. At the same time, I made sure that if my assumptions were incorrect, that the critical information would still be learned; the encounters might not have the same impact under those circumstances, because I was pitching the roleplay as much at the players as to the PCs that they controlled, but they would still be interesting enough.

So long as each of these leads either dead-ended or produced a new line of investigation as to what had really happened, i,e, advanced the plot, that was all I needed from them. I would then repeat the process for the resultant next batch of leads, incorporating challenges for the players to overcome and ensuring that failure was always an option, and would not derange the overall plotline.

The combination is a situation in which the overall plot can be shaped and directed, while still leaving room for the players to make their own decisions.

Body of Confusion

So far, then, “Body of confusion” contained the following scenes:

1. “Prologue: State Of Mind” – links the beginning of the adventure to the previous part by doing the same thing as the events did in “Real Life of the characters I”, establishing circumstances that permit the players to determine the PCs state of mind when the main events start.
2. Mystery:
   • “Scene Of The Crime” – gets the PCs to the scene of the crime and introduces the person who’s going to drop the mystery into the PCs laps.
   • “Hall Monitor” – introduces an NPC who will complicate and restrict the PCs freedom to take investigative shortcuts and gives him a motivation that the PCs would support, making their cooperation with the restrictions more likely. Also lays the foundations for the mystery.
   • “Discovery of the crime” – tells the PCs how the crime came to be discovered and introduces the NPCs who made the discovery and called in Law-enforcement.
   • “Preliminary Investigation” – tells the PCs what the police discovered in their investigation of the crime scene, completing the particulars of the mystery, introduces an ally in the investigation, describes the source of the road-blocks and shows that the PCs have a better chance of going around them than the police do, which in turn explains why the problem is being handed to them.
   • “Formalities” – sets the PCs involvement in motion and directs the clues to the PCs attention.
3. Investigation, Wave 1 [note that the PC who featured strongly in “The Incident” does not feature in this phase):
   • “Zuber” – follows obvious lead #1 and introduces a colorful NPC who should be lots of fun for a PC to roleplay with.
   • “Case File” – follows obvious lead #2 and delivers a number of specifics about the case that the PCs didn’t have, opening a second generation of leads to investigate, and permitting roleplay for a second PC.
   • “Arrangements” – makes arrangements for investigation of obvious lead #3 while giving a third PC the chance to roleplay and reintroducing an NPC from earlier in the adventure. This plays on a piece of serendipity that would have been impossible for me as a GM to predict, since it ties a pre-adventure decision by a player to this plot.
4. Investigation, Wave 2:
   • “Research” – follows up a lead from “Case File”.
   • “Assignments” – identifies a second wave of investigation results and almost-certainly puts an NPC in charge of this part of the investigation. He spells out certain facts that he needs and details the PCs to obtain them, assigning the problems logically according to personalities, positions, and abilities.
   • “General Motors” – two PCs attempt to carry out their assignment, encounter a road-block, get to roleplay and to find a solution to the roadblock which will lead to a subsequent scene.
   • “Council” – another PC attempts to carry out her assignment, encounter a road block, get to roleplay and a solution is hinted at which will lead to a subsequent scene.
   • “Picture of trouble” – fourth PC carries out the first part of his assignment, encounters a major roadblock that is built into the campaign background, gets to roleplay.
5. Investigation, Wave 3:
   • “Collector” – follow-up scene to “General Motors” in which the PCs from that scene implement their solution to the roadblock only to encounter another one with three possible solutions offered to them (or they could devise a fourth). They get to roleplay and may interact with another PC in the course of it.

… and that’s where I encountered a major road-block of my own. I needed to find a solution to the inherent problem mentioned in “Picture Of Trouble” or be left with a plot hole the size of Jupiter. Everything to this point had simply flowed, requiring little or no pause, but this was going to require careful thought.

I could contrive a one-off solution – the latest in a series of such solutions to this particular restriction – or I could implement a permanent solution that removed or revised one of the fundamental tenets of the campaign.

Significance

So far, this entire adventure had contained little of lasting significance in terms of the overall campaign. A number of subplots had inched forwards, and there were the long-term consequences of The Incident, but the dominant part of the campaign, the mystery, held no major repercussions for the campaign; it was a standalone adventure. This was an opportunity to change that and make this another milestone in the campaign. This is something that I’m always keen to do when significance doesn’t automatically attach to the plot, but there were good reasons for the presence of the restriction that created the problem in “Picture Of Trouble”.

The alternative was to revise part of the adventure, significantly reducing the involvement of the PC who was at the heart of the situation in the adventure, and significantly shortcutting the adventure. And, since I still had no clear path forward after the follow-ups to “Collector” and “Council”. that also held a certain level of appeal, because the “Investigation” phase was already larger than I had originally expected.

There are, in my campaign plan, a number of “free-floating” events that I intended to introduce at some point if the opportunity presented itself, but that weren’t necessary to the campaign plan. After wrestling with the problem for a couple of days, I realized that choosing the more significant change would permit me to integrate a couple of those major campaign background developments, and tie this adventure to a previous one. The choice, then, was between no real significance, or a triple-dose of significance.

The decision was made when further thought showed that this triple-dose of significance reflected an ongoing campaign theme, giving a fourth layer of significance to the whole thing. That combination was too much to resist.

Contrivance

But, in order to pull this off, I needed to contrive some means of getting the PC in question (or possibly all the PCs) to the point of revelation. That could only be done by laying some groundwork earlier in the adventure, a dues-ex-machina that the PCs would have to earn, and adding still another layer of mystery to the overall plot, and still another connection to the adventure theme.

In order to pave over the Plot Hole, I needed a significant scene – by far the largest and most complicated of them, involving all the PCs – somewhere back in “Real Life of the characters II”. This would prominently feature the PC who had no involvement in “Investigation Wave 1”, equalizing the screen time each PC was receiving, a further benefit.

I therefore decided to attach this additional sequence close to the end of “Real Life of the characters II”, i.e. as close to “Investigation Wave I” as possible. The optimum point was the end of Scene 8 of “Business As Usual”, and so “Scene 9: Puzzle Box” was added, about 2 1/4 pages in length, doing nothing but setting up the next scene in “Investigation Wave 3”, “Leapfrog”.

“Puzzle Box”

I have to be very vague about the content of those 2 1/4 pages. Something unexpected happens, which adds to the campaign background and to the PCs base of operations. That leads to an authentication procedure that is fairly rigorous – only the PCs could reasonably be expected to pass it – resulting in a foreshadowing of the significance of a future event and introducing yet another mystery to the overall mix.

Most entertainingly, while the specific events are definitely not “Business as usual”, the broader context of something unexpectedly leaping out of the plot shadows is very definitely “Business as usual” for the PCs. This was the final tick of approval for what I was planning, so far as I was concerned – “Puzzle Box” was an essential part of the adventure, I just hadn’t known it at the time.

The relevance of The Ordinary Lives Of The PCs

At the start of this article, I indicated that this would be illustrative of a number of things discussed in recent articles here at Campaign Mastery. It’s time to haul that relevance out into the open and spotlight it.

It would be entirely possible to write the adventure without the “Ordinary Lives” sequences, hand-waving the character development, and skipping straight to the “good stuff” – The Incident, Puzzle Box, Mystery, Investigation, Complication, Solution. It would also be possible to hand-wave a lot of the roleplay in “Investigation” – “you go to X and learn Y”.

Doing either or both of these things would elevate the significance of Puzzle Box, conferring a disproportionate share of the spotlight to one particular PC, and make the obvious-contrivance levels go off the chart. It would significantly shorten the adventure, making it far more disjointed internally and making the campaign far less contiguous. Since I’m of the opinion that roleplay is a vital ingredient in making an RPG fun, it would also diminish greatly the entertainment value of the adventure as a whole.

In a different campaign, that would not be the case. The style of this campaign is far more Marvel than DC, far more about telling the story of the lives of extraordinary people living in even more extraordinary times. The Ordinary Lives sequences make “Puzzle Box” just one event amongst several, and the high level of detail in those sequences justifies an equally-high level in the main part of the adventure. I am deliberately counterbalancing the outlandish nature of the events and concepts that are central to the superheroic genre with an infusion of “reality” that makes the PCs people, with foibles and flaws and problems, some of which assume larger-than-life significance because of who the PCs are.

Where to from here?

If the following gives the impression that the as-yet unwritten parts of the adventure are now clear in my mind, and need only to be executed, you would be interpreting things correctly. The Puzzle Box Sequence is essential to the “Simulation”, which is critical to the Solution being available for the PCs to discover. “Puzzle Box” broke the creative logjam.

• I have a couple of minor creative elements to work out that form part of “Leapfrog”.
• I have a couple of scenes already emplaced that need a little further expansion in one case and a lot in the other – Scenes “Research” (listed above) and “Inside Man” (the planned follow-up to “Council”).
• That will be followed by “Ancient”, the planned follow-up to “Leapfrog” and which will resolve the Puzzle Box part of mystery, then “Breaking The Barriers”, which is the major payoff to the “Puzzle Box” – “Leapfrog” – “Ancient” plot thread. That will lead into “Life Of The Streets” and “Moonlighting”, which will connect the “Puzzle Box” sequence back to the main mystery, overcoming the roadblocks in “Council” and “Picture Of Trouble” respectively, and concluding Wave #3 of the investigation.
• Wave #4 will comprise “Prescription”, “Simulation”, “Hope”, and “Missing”.
• “Complication” consists of “Vanished”, “Lost and Found”, “Dead Men Tell Tales”. and “Discovery”.
• “Solution”, “Dash”, “Hunt”, and “Justice” will follow, wrapping up the mystery.
• Finally. “Hobby”, “Zombie”, “Law Of The Jungle”, “Connections” and “Contact” are epilogues and will wrap up the whole adventure.

Lessons

There are many points in the above where the PCs make critical decisions. Despite the linear structure described, there is no certainty of success at any point short of “Solution”. What the PCs decide to do before the investigation even starts will have a material effect on the outcome – in the ideal situation, a criminal’s guilt is proven and another suspect exonerated, accelerating an increase in racial tensions and triggering a wave of racial unrest. A lesser success if possible in which all of the above takes place except that the criminal escapes. And complete failure is equally possible, in which the criminal escapes justice at the expense of another man, also triggering the increase in racial tensions and wave of racial unrest. If the PCs do make a meal of things at some point, there are also ways to salvage the situation.

The biggest lessons from this exercise are to make progress one step at a time, using outlines and brief mnemonics to keep track of the bigger picture, to remember the importance of NPCs, the genre balancing (‘mundanity’ to counterbalance the fantastic), spotlight round-robins, the principles of significance, themes, and titles, and inserting content as a way of empowering you to break through writer’s block.

The adventure is now 33 pages long, full of dialogue and narrative and with barely any mention of game mechanics. By the time it’s finished, that number will probably be closer to 60 than to 50. What resemblance the planned adventure has to what actually transpires remains to be seen; I’m always optimistic, but three times in four (or more) it won’t be the case.

If it were not a mystery, which requires an adventure to swarm with details, and the need to be consistent in prep standards throughout an adventure, I would not be writing to the level of detail that I am. The previous adventure was about as lengthy in playing time and complexity and consumed a ‘mere’ 17 pages. The one before that was 25 pages, and before that, an even more complex situation was detailed in only 10.

Most of the difference is in canned, pre-prepared dialogue. A lesson that I didn’t get to relate in the course of the article is that information should never be related ex cathedra when it can be conveyed by dialogue, i.e. by NPC-PC interaction. Using the old yardstick of a picture being worth a thousand words, I have also saved about 56,000 words of descriptions of people, places and objects by using photographs, digitally altering them as necessary.

When play has finished, I’ll revisit the subject, either in a follow-up article or by appending to this one, and providing the actual adventure for people to compare to what I’ve described herein. Although it wasn’t intended to be such, this has definitely turned into a masterclass on adventure creation, but that is needed to complete the value of it. I guess a lot of the decision between those options rests on how far the players deviate from what I expect them to do.

And no, guys, that’s not a challenge.

Articles referenced in the above text (directly or indirectly);

I have one more post to make before Christmas, and then Campaign Mastery will be taking a week off in terms of substantial content, resuming in the new year. So, the following oldies-but-goodies will give you something to read (or re-read) in the meantime.

• The Butler Did It: Mystery Plotlines in RPGs
• The Jar Of Jam and The Wounded Monarch: Two Mystery Examples
• Blog Carnival November 2016: Ordinary Lives In Paranormal Space and Time
• Blog Carnival November 2016: Ordinary Life in an RPG
• The Beginnings Of Plot
• One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post
• Ask The GMs: “Let’s Split Up.” – “Good Idea, we can do more damage that way!”
• The “Good Names” series
• Top-Down Design, Domino Theory, and Iteration: The Magic Bullets of Creation
• Game Prep and the +N to Game Longevity
• Refloating The Shipwreck: When Players Make A Mistake
• The “Breaking Through Writer’s Block” series
• Lessons Learned: A change of perspective brings plot rewards
• The Heirarchy Of Deceipt: How and when to lie to your players
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 1
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 2
• The “Touchstones Of Unification” series
• The “Secrets Of Stylish Narrative” series
• Stealth Narrative – Imputed info in your game

The Tenth Shelf: Beliefs I (Religions, Nazi Occultism, & Cthulhu) – Introduction by Mike

It’s always difficult when you need to take something that was supposed to be whole and split it in two, usually for reasons of practicality. Take this shelf and the next as a case in point: No-one can argue that Religion, Superstition, Unlikely Beliefs (such as Cryptozoology), and Mysticism form a continuity of sorts, bound together by the common foundation that people believe in them to varying degrees, and that those beliefs are held in different degrees of social credibility. But where do you draw the dividing lines? If you are a devout believer in one particular theology, all others have to be superstitions. If you don’t then they all hold equal weight, except when considered as a social force that one must take into account.

Fortunately for us, we can adopt the objective measurement of the level of acceptance, globally, in the 1930s, without making any statement as to the validity of those beliefs – a statement that would be sure to rub someone the wrong way. That’s a position that lets us then employ the even more objective measure of simply dividing the two halves as evenly as we can manage, given the categories and subcategories which we have employed to bind like subjects together, sometimes superficially.

Even so, the placement of individual works into different categories was often the subject of much angst. Take Wicca: should it be listed as a religion (which is how modern practitioners want it to be perceived) or a superstition (because that’s how most people in the 1930s see it)? Where should Voodoo be placed?

Or take superstitions – some of these have a foundation in fact that has been recognized; others are as out-there-with-the-pixies as flying saucers, which is to say that while some people believe implicitly, others are skeptical, and some are even derogatory in their assessments.

Taking fringe science out of this category helped, even though there is at least a superficial match in terms of the core subject. If the principle approach to a subject was science-based, no matter how flawed or manipulated the science, then the core of the subject is evidentiary-based and supposedly objective, rather than being matters of faith. That distinction made the distinction between Fringe Science and Mysticism/Superstition/Religion easier to make and ‘purified’ the remaining content.

This shelf and the next, then, are all about beliefs. Some are deemed credible by a large number of citizens, some not; some are respected by the western world of the 1930s, some are not.

Before concluding this introduction, I need to make it clear that no offense is intended to anyone’s beliefs by the categories into which a particular book has been placed. Such decisions are not intended to even be commentary on the beliefs except in terms of how the world at large perceived them during the 1920s and 1930s. Many churches and faiths don’t even get a mention, and omission should not be deemed significant in any way, either.

Of course, what is “truth” in the Pulp Reality of a game may be something completely different to what is acceptable as a belief in the real world. The Adventurer’s Club campaign has featured Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Amazons, A reincarnated Aztec Deity (or so that person thought), a Chinese Vampire, A Japanese Demon, A Freshwater Kraken, A unified Hell, Ghosts and people pretending to be ghosts, and a resurrected Chinese Emperor – amongst other things. The Wrath of God routinely strikes down supernatural evils. How much of this do we believe in ourselves? In the form in which they have appeared in the campaign – pretty close to zero. That’s never stopped us in the past; the criteria is always what makes for the most interesting story.

So check your personal beliefs at the door and join us as we begin an exploration of human beliefs in the Pulp Era.

Relevance to other genres

Of all the shelves, this one and the next are the ones with the most direct relevance to many other genres. Superstitions are fertile grounds for plots in any genre, and where would a cleric be without his religion? Then we have all the books on Nazi Occultism, which offer a completely different perspective on the relationship between power and “theology” to the usual – in particular, the discordance between those beliefs and the way in which the Nazis were nevertheless able to cozy up with the Vatican. And, as for the Cryptozoology (on the eleventh shelf), what campaign can’t make use of additional weird creatures?

Image credit: pixabay.com / DariusZSankowski Shelf Introduction This shelf contains five sections, some of which started life as subsections within others. Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy – We aren’t especially inclined toward political correctness, but at the same time, remain sensitive to, and respectful of, any individual’s beliefs and in particular of that individual’s right to believe. In our original plans for this series, we weren’t going to list anything that meets this description, as much because we didn’t want to leave anyone out as because the subject didn’t seem that strongly in keeping with pulp sensibilities; but as one compromise after another was forced on us. and we were forced to grapple with the realization that this list was not and could not be perfect, it became clear that something needed to be offered in this section. There was also a strong temptation to include these books as a section or subsection in the “everyday life” shelves, because that was the connection that seemed to have the greatest relevance to the Pulp GM; what changed that position was a count by Mike of the number of adventures within the Adventurer’s Club campaign in which Religion, Mythology, or Philosophy had played a strong role, either to the main adventure or to a singular encounter. The only responsible course after the results were revealed to the co-authors was to make the category as broad and inclusive as possible. But, because we’re human and this was an afterthought mid-way through the development of this series, it’s always possible (even probable) that something has been left out, or mis-categorized as a legacy of earlier phases of planning. Nazi Occultism & Nazi-related Fringe Theories – Although it is listed second, this was actually the first section to be explicitly defined as being part of this shelf. When turning everything up to eleven for a pulp campaign, it becomes impossible to ignore the superstitions and radical occultism of the Nazi regime. Indeed, it would be very easy to construct a pulp campaign which was nothing but Nazi Occultism and an elite force who sought to block them from achieving supernatural primacy. Of course, the extraordinary levels of success achieved by the Nazis in their early campaigns play into these myths and legends and always raises the question of what changed – how was Britain able to resist, and why did Eastern Russia fail to fall? And then there were the Maltese campaigns and North Africa. In the real world, there were sound tactical and political reasons for those failures, but the contrast in success rates is so marked that in a fictional environment, the temptation must always exist to attribute the change in fortunes to some behind-the-scenes supernatural cause. Although we weren’t able to include all the books in this section that we wanted to list for reasons of price and availability, we were pleasantly surprised at the number that we were able to provide. The Spear Of Longinus – While tempted to include these books in the preceding section, it was ultimately decided that there was enough non-Nazi involvement in the subject to warrant creating a new, specific, subsection. Note that many of the books listed in the previous section probably mention the Spear at some point. The Ark Of The Covenant & Holy Grail – Similar logic and caveats to those expressed regarding the Spear Of Longinus. It’s probably worth observing that there is good reason for two of the Indiana Jones movies being derived from these legendary artifacts. Cthulhu Mythos Reference – If there is an outlier on this shelf, this is it. No-one actually believes in the Cthulhu Mythos except the characters involved, and yet the nature of those beliefs on the part of the characters is completely appropriate to this section. And, in a way, that’s the significance of including this section on this shelf, signaling that we aren’t interested in what people believe in the real world, but we are interested in what characters believe in the pulp world. Besides, it was the right size in terms of number of entries to even the two halves up at the time we committed to our taxonomy! So, why include it at all? The answer comes in a single word: Inspiration. Cthulhu literature is a strange beast in many ways, bridging the gap between modern horror and the more lurid and macabre imaginings of the Victorian age. The concepts of ancient evils awakening is one that can be cited as a source of inspiration for everything from Hellboy to Alien, and is prime fodder for pulp adventures. On top of that, a lot of Cthulhu sourcebooks provide invaluable cultural and social relevance to the pulp era. A Recurring Note On Images: Wherever possible, we have provided an illustration showing the cover of the book or DVD under discussion scaled to the same vertical size (320 pixels for Recommended Books, 280 for DVDs, 240 for items in the ‘For Dummies’ Sections). Where there was none available, we have used a generic icon. Prices and Availability were correct at the time of compilation.
Books About Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy
	884. Comparative Religion For Dummies – William P Lazarus and Mark Sullivan Most GMs, pulp or otherwise, have neither the time nor the inclination to make an in-depth study of the religions of the world, even though religious beliefs of some sort are pretty omnipresent – and distinctive – throughout the world. This book promises the ‘abridged version’ of this vast subject and as such should conceivably have a place on every GM’s bookshelf. If we were relying on Amazon’s description, or on the cover, this book would not even have made the list, let alone being deliberately placed to lead off this section. Fortunately, we looked deeper, specifically at the contents pages, and discovered that it was far more comprehensive than either of those sources would lead you to believe. There are sections on everything from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Kabbalah. Nevertheless, there are major omissions from this book, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Where it provides greater value is in demonstrating the principles of Comparative Religion, and that’s something that any GM can benefit from – and the minor distinction that has promoted it to the head of the queue. http://amzn.to/2hnT7Jp
	885. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to (Eastern) Philosophy – Jay Stevenson Ph.D. (Second Edition) While there are many “For Dummies” books and “Complete Idiot’s Guides” on specific religions and philosophical movements, we deemed these to be too specific in subject matter to have general relevance; hence our recommendation of “Comparative Religion for Dummies”. This book fits neatly under the same umbrella. The first edition included the word “Eastern” in the title, but there are virtually no copies left and the less-than-a-handful that were listed commanded ridiculously high prices. So we have linked to the more liberal second edition which omits “Eastern” from the title, of which there are many copies available at low prices. For now. http://amzn.to/2gLXP4w There is also a third edition (pictured) available with comparable prices and availability. This has an additional 71 pages of content, so you might want to make this your first choice, even though the existence of this more-recent edition will suppress prices of the older one for a while to come. http://amzn.to/2hQBHC7 …and a fourth edition, but there aren’t as many copies of that, and prices are a bit higher. And some of those additional 71 pages aren’t there any more – this edition is only 352 pages in length. http://amzn.to/2gLWXNk
	886. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions, 4th Edition – Brandon Toropov and Father Luke Buckles This is similar subject matter to “Comparative Religion For Dummies” but this seems to tread, however lightly, into strange religious backwaters and side-alleys that other books do not. And there are specific sections that would definitely have been useful in the Adventurer’s Club campaign. It definitely belongs in this list. http://amzn.to/2gNReVs
	887. 12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity’s Most Influential Faiths – Jason Boyett A great many books treat a faith as a monolithic whole. Not only does this go beyond the “big three”, covering religious systems as diverse as those of ancient Egypt and of the Norsemen, but it also looks at the subdivisions within the most common faiths, which include Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Judaism, Confucianism, Bahá’í, Shinto, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism! What’s more, a number of reviewers have commented on a complete lack of bias within the text. http://amzn.to/2hQJdN0
	888. South American Mythology – Harold Osborne Lacking the expertise to criticize the volume, we can only describe it as lavishly-illustrated and seemingly comprehensive. Includes the Incas but not the Aztecs (who either were not considered “South American” by the author or who were covered in a separate volume of the series), and that’s our biggest criticism. http://amzn.to/1RIcpoq
	889. Tales From The Rainforest: Myths and Legends from the Amazonian Indians of Brazil – Jeanne Wilmot and Mercedes Dorsen Compiled from numerous sources, these tales place the mythology of the Amazonian Indians into urban, social, and village-life context. http://amzn.to/2d5lGsc
	890. Mythology Of The American Nations: An Illustrated Encyclopedia Of The Gods, Heroes, Spirits, Sacred Places, Rituals And Ancient Beliefs Of The North American Indian, Inuit, Aztec, Inca And Maya Nations – David M Jones and Bryan L Molyneaux It’s ironic given their exclusion from the previously-mentioned volume that the only South/Central American deities to figure in either the Adventurer’s Club or Zenith-3 campaigns are Aztec in origin! To address the deficit, we recommend this volume, which has the bonus value of Amerind mythology. 256 pages and over 500 images suggests that they are not terribly lavish, and the description of this as an A-Z suggests a less-than-user-friendly encyclopedia- or dictionary-style format, but it’s hard to find books on the subject that aren’t, for some reason. Interestingly, this was first published in paperback format and has only just come out (Mar 2016) in Hardcover; most publishing works in the other direction. http://amzn.to/1ViHSMX
	891. Celtic Mythology – Ward Rutherford We also lack the expertise to critique this one very much. Reviews tend to give it from 3-5 stars out of five – from which we infer that it’s at least reasonable, and might be better than that. http://amzn.to/1oj9Z3C
	892. African Mythology: An Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend – Jan Knappert More useful as a reference than a primer on the subject, and criticized by one gamer in a position to do so fairly for being insufficiently critical in separating the beliefs of one African Culture from those of another. But there’s not a lot going around on the subject. There is another volume by the same author entitled “The Aquarian Guide To African Mythology” with virtually the same cover, of exactly the same page count and page size, and which we suspect of being the same book with a different name. If there are no reasonably-priced copies of the first available, buy the second. “An Encyclopedia”: http://amzn.to/1ViJczo “The Aquarian Guide” (pictured): http://amzn.to/1QiKtBX
	893. Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines – W Ramsay Smith Since our preferred choice isn’t available in anything close to sufficient quantities (and therefore has to be listed in the honorable mentions section), we can only rely on recommendations by others, and this volume seems like a good place to start. It suffers from a common problem in homogenizing the aborigines into a single culture when, in reality, there were thousands of separate cultures side-by-side, but as a collection of stories without context, it’s a good starting point. http://amzn.to/1KmtC5p (To understand the scale of the homogenizing problem, take a look of Native Australian Tribal groups/languages). (yes, this is the same resource that Mike has linked to in the past).
	894. Mythology of Asia & The Far East – Rachel Storm Not quite enough copies to make our list normally, but there is a shortage of alternatives. The utility is obvious. http://amzn.to/1KT2Tx4
	895. Mongolian Folktales – Hilary Roe Matternich Contains 25 folk tales from the plateau between Russia and China. “The most ancient date back to the 12th century and are concerned with human relations with the natural world. Others use the whimsicality of animals to describe people’s struggles to find a good and decent life. Still others frankly applaud cunning … and the ability to survive an unfriendly competition.” 132 pages, from $12.31. New copies are currently one cent cheaper than used. http://amzn.to/2ejtJnS
	896. Tibetan Shamanism: Ecstasy and Healing – Larry Peters The results of sixteen years spent investigating the daily lives, beliefs, and healing rituals of four Tibetan shamans forced into exile by the Chinese invasion of the 1950s. Which means that these belief systems and practices were present in Tibet during the Pulp Era. http://amzn.to/2e3QtV1
	For-Dummies Books relating to Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy In most cases, we haven’t read any of these, and are recommending them for consideration based purely upon the publisher’s descriptions and on general principles except where otherwise noted. This also shifts the content of each review from one of “this book is recommended and here’s why” to “this book might be useful and here’s why”. We have made the assumption that availability and price would fall within our parameters, or close enough to them; we have rarely found this not to be the case. Selected works were so promising and so relevant, that they have been promoted to the main list of recommendations, excluding them from the above caveats. A note about Complete Idiot’s Guides While the “For Dummies” series has a website that lists all the books currently available in the series, there is no equivalent for the “Complete Idiot’s Guides”. Our blanket advice is that if Amazon lists a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” that matches the subject of one of our “For Dummies” recommendations, you should buy both.
	897. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft – Denise Zimmerman and Katherine Gleason This book has enough material in it that might be of value that it deserves a listing somewhere, but we have some concerns that the Pulp GM will want to romanticize what magic and witchcraft can and can’t do in their campaigns and this book – which treats Wicca from the perspective that modern practitioners want to promote, i.e. that it’s a religious movement – is more likely to confine if used too liberally. Make up your own mind. And yes, we know this isn’t a “For Dummies” book. Never seen a ringer before? http://amzn.to/2hQCEKF
	898. The Origins Of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth For Dummies – Greg Harvey Tolkien drew on a lot of influences to achieve his stated goal of creating a European-style epic mythology for England in Middle-earth. Many of his creations have assumed iconic status in many RPGs, regardless of genre. We defy any gamer not to have immediately thought “Orc!” on seeing the green-skinned pig-faced guards in Jabba The Hut’s palace in Return Of The Jedi, for example. Of more relevance in the pulp genre, Mike has seen one interpretation of the three primary groups of Elves being French, Swiss, and Belgians, respectively, while the Orcs were allegedly inspired by the invading Mongol armies of Genghis Kahn. We don’t necessarily agree with that interpretation, but drawing such parallels can afford a distinctive and unusual perceived flavor to the different nationalities of Europe. Finally, there’s the mythology itself, which can be used as the inspirational foundation for pulp adventures set in Northwestern England or spun more broadly to inspire adventures elsewhere in Europe. Sauron’s sword makes a perfectly acceptable Macguffin that can have your players guessing about lost history for many contented hours. So this book definitely deserves a place somewhere on the bookshelf. http://amzn.to/2hyZCa9
Books About Nazi Occultism & Nazi-related Fringe Theories The big-name Nazis may be near-to household names in their strange beliefs, but their predecessors in intellectual mysticism are not. Most works that describe the beliefs and activities of these predecessors would be informative regarding mysticism and racial politics within the Nazi regime. The predecessors that we have in mind are Guido von List, Lanz von Liebenfels, Rudolf von Sebottendorf, Karl Maria Wiligut, Hans Horbinger, Dietrich Eckart, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who were the more notorious mystics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Any work which does not cite Goodrick-Clarke, who wrote the definitive analysis of these early mystics, is also a little suspect in our eyes.
	899. The Secret King: The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism – Stephen E. Flowers and Michael Moynihan This is a fairly factual book on the subject, which makes it less useful to a pulp GM than a more sensationalist work might be. This book will be at its most useful if you want to parallel and contrast such a sensationalist work with this one to define the differences between what (some of) the Nazis thought they were doing and what was really going on in some of the stranger recesses of the Third Reich. This would not normally have been one of our first choices but our two primary choices had to be rejected due to excessive prices. http://amzn.to/1Ssyt7t
	900. Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi involvement in the Occult – Peter Levenda If there is a book in third place (behind the two we would like to recommend but can’t), it’s likely to be this. Controversial in that some reviewers appear to have made deliberately misleading statements attempting to discredit it with claims of bias, but the research appears impeccable; the author even specifies where readers can find the original microfiche versions of his source documents. Accordingly, we discount those. Of greater concern are one or two reviews that suggest the book’s organization is scattered and anarchic; however, most reviews describe it as very readable. A few reviews hint that the presence of side-bars on every page, or close to it, interrupting the main text, might be the source of these complaints. Nevertheless, it’s one of the most promising-sounding volumes we can suggest under this heading – since the books we want to offer aren’t available to us. Once again, there are times when he seems to believe his own theories too unobjectively. http://amzn.to/1OchhLy
	901. The Nazis and the Occult – Dusty Sklar This is a difficult book to evaluate. The same comment can complain both that the book is too broad in its subject matter and also that subjects such as the search for the Spear Of Destiny are not mentioned – but you can’t have it both ways! This book had the conspiracy theorists coming out in droves in the reviews – which could mean that it’s perfect for a GM’s needs, or that the author has drunk too deeply of the kool-aid – it’s very hard to know. Fortunately, used copies are quite affordable so most readers will be able to make up their own minds. We find it useful. Not to be confused with the similarly-title book below. http://amzn.to/1R4Py47
	902. Nazis and the Occult: The Dark Forces unleashed by the Third Reich – Paul Roland This volume is rife with unsubstantiated speculation of the worst kind, so much so that it is useless. On top of that, the author steeped the book in scandal by posting his own reviews both in his own name and using pseudonyms. Nevertheless, the title sounds so good that we’re including it with a recommendation not to buy at any price. Not to be confused with the similarly-title book above. http://amzn.to/1VhmFmB
	903. Hitler’s Occult War – Michael Fitzgerald Also known by its original title, “Storm-troopers Of Satan”. Reviews suggest that this is an excellent overview of all – well, most – of the loony fringe theories surrounding World War II. They also suggest that the author implicitly believes them all, on the flimsiest of evidence or no evidence at all, has melded them all together into one grand conspiracy, and that might make them difficult to tease back apart for use in a Pulp campaign, where one would want to pick and choose. http://amzn.to/1ok6FWz
	904. The Nazi Occult (Dark Osprey) – Kenneth Hite, illustrated by Darren Tan The first paragraph of the Amazon description of this book makes it sound perfect for a Pulp GM’s needs, and certainly comprehensive in its content. The second paragraph undoes most of this good impression by stating, “For years, the Allied governments worked to keep this information from reaching the public, and sought to discredit those few who dared to seek the truth.” Nevertheless, this book offers content that the previous one does not (and apparently leaves out some of the things that it reports) so you would need both to be comprehensive. This is a fun book to read, but the author freely admits to mixing real history, Nazi occultism mythology and invented fantasy based on literary and film in-jokes, on his website. This makes it unreliable as an overview, but might make it more culturally-accessible to a pulp GM. http://amzn.to/1TjqsR4
	905. The Occult Reich – J H Brennan An examination of the occult influences on the third Reich and on Hitler personally. Most interestingly, it goes into the symbolism of the Nazis, something that many other works ignore. http://amzn.to/2crHAry
Documentaries About Nazi Occultism & Nazi-related Fringe Theories
	906. Hitler’s Jurassic Monsters The title is misleading. This National Geographic Channel documentary describes Nazi attempts to retro-evolve modern-day creatures into their more primitive antecedents. This was (of course) completely unsuccessful, but does not have to be so in a Pulp World – and neither does the title have to be so misleading in such a campaign, either. It does not appear to be on DVD anywhere (perhaps it’s part of a series, and we’ve forgotten the fact), but it is available through YouTube at the current time.
	907. Myth Hunters, aka Raiders Of The Lost Past, season 1 We are recommending this for five of the 13 episodes: Episode 1: “Hitler and the Spear Of Destiny”, Episode 3: “The Hunt For Pirate Treasure”, Episode 7: “Himmler and the Holy Grail”, Episode 8: “The Hunt For The Book Of Spells”, and Episode 10: “The Nazis and the Book Of Power”. Available in the US as an import from Australia only ($63.69 http://amzn.to/1RLTW6w), but the UK has access to domestic versions of the DVD set (£47.69 http://amzn.to/1qoqDAp). Unfortunately, Canadian readers again miss out – while Amazon Canada lists the box set, they also state that there are no copies available. Fortunately, three of the episodes are available through YouTube as well (again, at the time of writing): “Hitler and the Spear Of Destiny” , “Himmler and the Holy Grail” , and “The Hunt For The Book Of Spells” . For both these and the remaining episodes, you can also try . [UPDATE: That resource now appears to have gone belly-up. We’re continuing to list it anyway in case it was just a temporary problem when we checked]. NB: We had already approved part of this, back when there were only two episodes we were recommending, with a caveat that the price might be too high. With the increase in desirability, we dug a little deeper to uncover the additional options.
Books About The Spear Of Longinus There are three artifacts of early catholicism that figure prominently in Nazi Occultism, bridging the gap between the two preceding sections. Another of the somewhat esoteric discussions that took place in planning this list was whether those three should be grouped into a single category. Bearing in mind that this section was originally a subsection within the broader subject of Nazi Occultism, whereas outside of the Indiana Jones movies, the other two were not the subjects of as much Nazi attention, the ultimate decision was taken to maintain the separation because their treatment and historical relevance were sufficiently different and distinctive.
	908. The Spear Of Destiny: The Occult Power behind the Spear which pierced the side of Christ – Trevor Ravenscroft Not to be confused with any of several other books with the same name, this is a ‘history’ of the Spear of Longinus up to Adolph Hitler. It can be very heavy going, but is one of the most ‘definitive works’ on the subject – if you can say any such thing about a subject in which much of the evidence was obtained by Psychic Visions courtesy of Rudolf Steiner and General Helmuth von Moltke. In addition, many of the more grandiose statements in the book are not referenced at all, and thus the reader has no way of verifying the authenticity of the author’s claims. All of which can be ignored by the Pulp GM who decides that Ravenscroft was bang on-the-money for campaign/plot purposes. http://amzn.to/2c4RVF1
	909. The Mark Of The Beast – Trevor Ravenscroft and Tim Wallace-Murphy Built on the same foundations as “The Spear Of Destiny”, rehashed. Any good conspiracy theory grows to incorporate new and disparate events, and this narrative follows the same pattern, building to a rather spiritual and mystically-oriented sequel, carrying the ‘story’ of the Spear of Longinus all the way forward to its role in the The Apocalypse – with some very strange stops along its travels. http://amzn.to/2clAHoC
	910. Secrets Of The Holy Lance: The Spear Of Destiny in History and Legend – Jerry E Smith and George Piccard Not to be confused with “Adolf Hitler and the Secrets Of The Holy Lance,” which you will find in our Honorable Mentions. This is similar to the other books listed, but it includes the Nazi period in between as well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t flow in a linear fashion, chapters jumping from one era to another and back again. This makes it heavy going and hard to use as a reference work. http://amzn.to/2bRqlz8
Books About The Ark Of The Covenant & Holy Grail
	911. Otto Rahn and the Quest for the Holy Grail: The Amazing Life of the Real “Indiana Jones” – Nigel Graddon This book has a mixed reputation as a result of containing too much frothing speculation and too little fact with some of those few facts demonstrably wrong. That makes it unreliable as a historical reference but lovely for the Pulp GM willing to go over the top. Available in Kindle and in Paperback. And, no, your eyes are not deceiving you: the cover text really is off-center. http://amzn.to/2arbv0F
	912. Emerald Cup, Ark Of Gold – Col. Howard Buechner Traces the history of the Cup and the Ark and ties in Otto Rahn. Receives mostly negative reviews on Amazon – one states “An extremely speculative work about the real quest for the Grail in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. He gives at least two new definitions as to what the grail is: 1) The Cup of Moses, 2) A series of enruned tablets,” while a second, more negative, reviewer comments, “The whole book is filled with highly speculative stories and straight out inaccuracies”, based on the reviewers personal knowledge of the subject matter of one chapter and projecting its flaws over the totality. None of which should matter to the Pulp GM who wants to use it as source material! http://amzn.to/2cyr7RE
	913. The Lost Ark Of The Covenant: Solving the 2,500-Year-Old Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark – Tudor Parfitt One man, who the Wall Street Journal describes as “The British Indiana Jones”, and his quest to find the Ark. Booklist describes the book as “thoroughly cinematic in tone, with scenes of heart-stopping action and featuring characters so quirky they feel more fictional than real” – though they add the caveat that with the names (and who knows how much more) changed and no notes, it’s hard to tell where reality ends and fiction begins. That said, if you are going to reinvent the content for a pulp setting, who cares? It might even make it easier to use for our purposes! http://amzn.to/2cxUPUQ
	914. Blood Of Avalon: The Secret History of the Grail Dynasty from King Arthur to Prince William – Adrian Gilbert The author’s name on Amazon has a middle initial “G” that doesn’t show on the front cover, and can complicate attempts to locate copies of this book, which suggests that Princess Diana was related to King Arthur as part of its thesis on the importance of the Holy Grail in British History. In order to find this book credible, you first have to accept that King Arthur is real, and not a myth. That said, using the logic espoused above, the difference between what we consider “true” in the real world and what we consider “true” in a Pulp Campaign can be worlds apart. http://amzn.to/2cKsx8S
	915. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail – Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln Rennes-le-Chateau is a small mountain village in the foot of Pyrenees where a buried cache of documents were reportedly discovered by a French Priest in the 19th century. Starting from these alleged documents, the authors trace their way back through the Knights Templar, the Cathar Heretics of the 12th and 13th centuries to a dynasty of obscure French Kings deposed more than 1300 years ago, suggesting that Christ did not die on the cross, instead marrying and becoming a father to a bloodline that persists to the modern day. There are three editions of this volume, and each has their own attraction; the oldest dates from 1996 and has a kindle edition and a lot of cheap copies http://amzn.to/2cdCs6Z. The middle edition is from 2004, has hundreds more copies available at a pittance, http://amzn.to/2cMKFmH, and is 118 pages shorter that the first; while it’s possible that this saving has been achieved by smaller print and tighter editing, it represents more than 1/6th of the length of the original – so it seems more likely that there has been a cut in content. At first, Mike thought that maybe they had cut out a large photographic section to account for a large portion of the reduction, but then he found the third edition – one explicitly described as an “Illustrated Edition” (pictured), with an abbreviated title http://amzn.to/2cKx6jg – and another reduction of 7 pages. There are not as many copies of this version and they are not as cheap, but if you want to use this for inspiration, the illustrations are likely to represent a significant enhancement of its utility – and the illustrated edition is still well within our price and availability criteria.
Books About The Cthulhu Mythos
	916. Cthulhu by Gaslight – William A. Barton Predates the pulp era a little but there’s enough crossover to make it worthwhile. If you want a new copy, the third edition is more affordable, if you want to save a few bucks and buy a used one, the second edition is the better-priced. 2nd Ed: http://amzn.to/1SsNEgP 3rd Ed (pictured): http://amzn.to/1R4T1jh
	917. The Keeper’s Companion Vol 1: Blasphemous Knowledge, Hidden Secrets – Herber, Deitz (Chaosium) Lots of excellent material on the era in general as well as more Cthulhu-mythos specific content. Parts were reprinted in the Call Of Cthulhu 1920s sourcebook “Keeper’s Compendium” which may contain new material as well, but we weren’t confident enough of that to list it separately. http://amzn.to/245AGtv
	918. The Keeper’s Companion Vol 2 – Gauntlett, Sammons, et al. (Chaosium) More content useful in both general and mythos-specific ways. We suspect that the Keeper’s Compendium may also contain reprints of some of this volume. http://amzn.to/1Tjta9i

Afterword by Saxon:

This may seem like a broad and eclectic category – and it is! – but a gamesmaster can usefully get a handle on it by identifying what the various mystical elements are contributing to the adventure or even the game setting as a whole. On the one hand, the mystical elements can be thematically linked by a general description that: “Some people think that the world operates in a way other than that of the everyday, obvious and mundane (and who knows, they may be correct).” (And thinking about it, that’s a description that even applies to weirder and counter-intuitive aspects of modern physics.)

On the other hand different religious and mystical elements may be doing different things, from benign cultural effects all the way through to incredibly hostile metaphysical threats. In a pulp game based on two-fisted adventure these might be arranged by answering the question: “How much (and what type) of danger does it pose to the player characters?” That’s not the only way sort the answers, of course, but it can be used as a starting point.

At the simplest, it might act as local color. This has been discussed before in this series, and can be summarized as minor details placed to pique the interest of characters (and players). Then again, it need not be quiet as simple, since religion and mysticism can form an important part of a non-player character’s world view. In such a case, the gamesmaster could use it to answer basic questions such as: “How would character X react in such-and-such a situation?” Moving on, does a religion or cult hold some form of influence that complicates the local politics? Is there some element that complicates local (or not so local) metaphysics? Is there some way that it provides a Macguffin for the player characters to chase after? Does it provide some sort of problem, threat or enemy that the player characters must work around or overcome? And since this shelf includes the possibility of using Cthulhu mythos elements, is there some existential threat which overshadows the entire campaign setting?

And, finally, there is the eternal question of how one set of beliefs interact and interrelate with another. One population believes one thing, another believes something else, and they can’t both be right. Or can they? Are there unspoken assumptions that, if challenged by the creative GM, makes room for both? Or perhaps it’s the case that they are both 95% right – and unity of applicability can be forged in those 5% gaps, through things that have been left unspoken. Mike and Blair have repeatedly challenged simplistic perceptions of religion and theology while permitting individual characters to be as singular and unwavering in their beliefs as the operator of that character thought appropriate to their personality. An excellent example is the assistance offered the group by the Goddess Kali through one of the least-religious and most practically-minded characters in the party simply to put such questions aside when they weren’t relevant to the situation at hand – a neat technique for preserving that respectful divergence between “objective character reality” and “subjective understanding of the world”. If Kali had chosen to work through my character, a catholic priest, a theological crisis for the character would be a foregone conclusion; working through Captain Ferguson avoided that issue, leaving Father O’Malley free to continue to wrestle with the compromises forced on the religious authority he regards as supreme and the political realities of the world around him.

Although these questions have been ranked in a rough hierarchy of danger for simplicity’s sake, you’ll observe that the answers are not simply escalating levels of threat. The answers demonstrate how different elements of religion and mysticism will operate in different ways within a game, possibly in several different ways at the same time. That’s a useful analytical tool, for real life as well as Game and campaign construction. The gamesmaster can variously use that as a springboard for new ideas, as well as a way of identifying something that the game needs and then looking about to see what elements can be used to fulfill that need.

Next in this series: The 11th shelf – Other beliefs from the credible to the even stranger fringes: Secret Societies! Freemasons! Knights Templar! Voodoo! Zombies! Urban Legends! Ghosts! Cryptozoology! plus General Mysticism, Superstitions, and some really strange stuff!!

As part of the recent Blog Carnival, I shared a tool that I had developed for creating a character’s background (Blog Carnival November 2016: The Ordinary Life of a Fantasy PC).

As part of that article, I originally had a section (entitled “An Alternative Route”) discussing playing a pre-game to enable players to develop the personalities and backgrounds of their characters before the main campaign starts, but ended up having to cut it when it began to overwhelm the main thrust of the article.

Reader Alan Kellogg noted the omission in a comment, which read,

Of course it helps when you make the process fun. Have a pre-game game where the players as a whole get together and play out how the group got together. Perhaps they work for an Ibo Merchant as he travels from Niger to Albion looking for items to bring back with him. Or a Seneca Shaman has brought then together to seek a lost artifact of the Mound Builders days.

So, what’s the story with pre-campaign adventuring? What are the benefits and the pitfalls? And why, despite the self-evident appeal, don’t I recommend it except in special and quite limited circumstances?

Stating the Obvious: What is a pre-campaign game?

Let’s start by making sure that we’re all on common ground when it comes to the subject of discussion. A pre-campaign game is a game in which the characters are not finalized in personalities, in which both players and GM get to discover what works and what doesn’t about their latest and greatest creations, in which the characters establish their backgrounds within the game world and in which the story of how they came together in a unit gets “told”. It establishes relationships between the characters and between the characters and the game world, and may or may not introduce key elements of the campaign to follow such as important NPCs and situations. I’ve never met the GM yet who didn’t also take the opportunity to diffuse the spreading of background information to the characters and players.

It’s a game that introduces the characters but not the campaign, though it does introduce the environment in which the campaign will take place. Aside from the PCs getting together, not much that happens is intended to have a lasting impact.

The Benefits

There are some obvious benefits to this approach, and the preceding description touches on many of them.

• Players begin to get a handle on personalities, background, mechanics – especially useful with a new game system.
• Gives the Gm the chance to intro characters, situations, and see what’s working and what’s not.
• Makes the final part of the character generation more process fun.
• Gives everyone the chance to tweak and adjust anything that isn’t quite right.
• Moves the awkward “getting-to-know-you” phase out of the campaign, which is important if the characters are supposed to know each other and have been working together for weeks, months, or years.

Quite often, the campaign will start with the characters having achieved character level X, in D&D terms, while the pre-campaign game will depict the characters at a much lower character level. The separation helps create a firebreak between the pre-campaign adventure and the campaign, ensures that some elements of the campaign and setting are new and fresh for the players, and allows game-time “room” for revisions and tweaks to characters and setting.

The Pitfalls

That doesn’t mean that the idea isn’t without its potential negatives. There are four big ones that come to mind. These need a little more explanation (I tried producing a simple list the way I have above, and it just doesn’t work).

Pitfall 1: Ideas without foundation

Either the GM already has the whole campaign setting and background worked out, and it’s just a matter of revealing it to the players in a dynamic and interesting way, in which case there isn’t a lot of value to the pre-campaign adventure, or he hasn’t.

Either way, the implication is that the players have little or no idea of that campaign setting and background, and the characters that they come up with might or might not fit it. They are creating characters blind, and simply hoping that they will fit. I once met a GM who vastly preferred convention gaming because it meant that he got to create the characters instead of the players doing so, ensuring that they were fully integrated into the setting. Personally, I think that might be going a little overboard, but I can see his point.

Back in the old days, when characters started out as nothing more than a bunch of randomly-generated stats, with the ‘personality’ of the character still waiting to be discovered, the pre-campaign game had more merit. It might still apply to old-school gaming. The more input and direction a player has into the capabilities of the character, the more they are conceived as an integrated unit complete with personality and ambitions, the more significance this pitfall assumes.

Pitfall 2: Shifts the creative deadline to no great advantage

So the obvious solution is for the GM to make at least an outline of the campaign world available to the players prior to character generation so that they can integrate their creative concepts with the game environment. Which means that the GM needs to have it all, or almost all, fully worked up and fleshed out prior to the pre-campaign game.

This undermines several of the most significant advantages listed earlier. Really, all that it means is that the GM needs to have his campaign design completed that much sooner, or delay the real campaign that much longer. The only advantage that remains fairly intact is enabling the players to start play feeling that their PCs already know each other, begging the question: is it really that difficult to justify their coming together for the first time in the first adventure?

And, if there is a clear advantage to the campaign in having the characters establish relationships before play starts, there are other ways to achieve that, and I’ll offer one later in the article.

Worse still, the shortened deadline might lead to the GM rushing his campaign development, detrimentally affecting the entire campaign. There’s little worse than integrating a half-baked idea into the campaign foundations, something that the players and GM have to continually avoid looking at too closely or the internal logic of the whole thing falls apart. To the players, it’s a no-go area that’s barred from their characters; to the GM it’s a constant reminder of failure; and it’s something that the players can use to exert pressure on the GM to change other things they don’t like about the campaign. Most players aren’t so ruthless, but I have known one or two who were not above emotional blackmail in my time. And I’ve met one GM who was so emotionally scarred by this behavior that he gave up gaming altogether.

Not worth it.

Pitfall 3: Can derail the whole campaign

The problem with placing a discontinuity between the adventure and the campaign is that you risk divergent trajectories as characters pass through the discontinuity. In effect, the players want to go in direction A in the campaign, while the campaign that the GM has planned lies in direction B. Unless there’s substantial common ground, and a willingness to compromise on both sides, the expectations and desires generated by the pre-campaign adventure can derail the whole campaign.

This happened to one GM that I know; he ended up starting a second campaign with different players to play out the campaign that he originally intended while permitting the players in the pre-campaign call the direction they enjoyed in the original. This not only spread his prep too thin, it ate into his sleep and his health – two campaigns were simply too much for him to handle. In the end, he had to choose between his career and his hobby, because the hobby was wearing him out. So he dropped out of gaming for a number of years. He’s now back in the GMs chair with an extremely irregular campaign whose pace is dictated by his ability to prep to a standard that he finds acceptable. Sometimes there are games only weeks apart, sometimes three-to-six month intervals – but he refuses to wear himself out, and its hard to argue with his logic and compromise. An irregular game is better than no game at all!

Pitfall 4: Raises issues about the transition process

So you’ve had your pre-campaign adventure and each of the players has found things they didn’t like about their characters. One wants to change one optional ability for another. Another doesn’t like the way his chosen race are being interpreted by the GM, and in particular the baggage that the GM is saddling him with, and wants to change races. A third has found that his chosen character class isn’t as much fun as he thought it would be, and wants to change it. And a fourth dislikes the personality he came up with and wants to completely revise it into something that’s easier to play.

How many such changes have to be made before you end up with an entirely new party, anyway? What changes should be permitted, and what’s going too far? Is it good enough to say to player number two that his character has undergone a magical transformation that has altered his entire outlook and precepts, but that his early life and experience remained unchanged (maintaining the validity of the pre-campaign adventure)? How about telling the third player that he was free to take a new class but that his one level in the other class had to remain for the sake of consistency? Or might that be penalizing the character for using the pre-campaign adventure for the exact purpose it was intended?

How about a player taking what he learned in the pre-campaign adventure and using it to modify his character to give him an advantage over the other PCs?

I’ve seen some of these problems arise in the course of an actual campaign, never mind in the gap between pre-campaign and campaign. I have no doubt that some or all of them would eventually befall any GM who employed a pre-campaign adventure. Viewed one way, the pre-campaign could be described as a safety valve permitting these changes to take place before they overwhelm the main campaign; viewed another, it’s inviting compatibility issues between PCs and campaign.

Once again, you would have to ask if it’s really worth the grief? And my answer would be, “Maybe – it depends on the players”. Some players would use this as an opportunity to enhance both the game and their enjoyment of it; others, not so much…

The pre-campaign adventure as Pilot Episode

I have often held that changing perspectives on a situation can reveal hidden aspects and solutions to that situation. Perhaps looking at the pre-campaign adventure in a different light will find a way to maximize the advantages and minimize the problems?

The first such alternative perspective that comes to mind is one from Hollywood TV. A pilot episode forms part of the primary plotline, but permits wholesale changes that are retroactively introduced into the continuity. Any justifiable change is fair game. There have even been cases where a supporting character has become one of the stars while a supposed star has been relegated to supporting character status. And sometimes, those changes were even justified in terms of the popularity of the character. At other times, the character’s number one fan was one of the executives behind the show.

And, to be fair, sometimes the executive was right and the character grew into the new role.

President Bartlett was intended to be a supporting character in the West Wing, someone who parachuted into the plotline just in time for the climax or lobbed demands and hurdles to be cleared, from the sidelines. That changed right after the pilot, a change that hindsight says was probably inevitable.

G’kar was originally going to be the villain of Babylon-5, the character seduced by the Shadows, while Londo was going to escape foppishness and foolishness and become a hero of the series. That began to change right after the pilot, and even more-so after the first season, but shades of those conceptions remained, giving both characters depth and nuance and even pathos. At times, we caught glimpses of the Londo and G’kar that might have been.

Casting changes are also common after pilot episodes. Entire roles can be redefined – that happened with Babylon-5 as well, with Lieutenant Takashima was out, and Ivanova was in. Dr Kyle was out, and the much younger and more dynamic Dr Franklin was in. De’Lenn underwent a complete change of gender!

Clearly, almost any change is possible. Which changes should be permitted? There are two options: either revising a character from the initial adventure, or completely replacing the first character. Either should be permitted provided that there is a justification for the change; it’s really a matter of player and GM figuring out the least-disruptive way of handling the changes called for.

Viewing the pre-campaign adventure as part of the campaign in which there is a window for negotiated revision kills off virtually all of the pitfalls while retaining most of the advantages. But is it really a pre-campaign adventure anymore?

The main campaign as sequel

Or perhaps, “viewing the pre-campaign adventure(s) as a prequel” might be a more accurate way of describing this approach, which I have employed myself: in the original Fumanor campaign, the main plot couldn’t begin, in my opinion, until the characters reached a certain level of capability. Specifically, third level spells was the marker that I had in mind; at that point, characters would be sufficiently versatile to cope with the challenges. In the meantime, I could move various chess pieces into place as developments in the prequel part of the plot instead of having them already in place and starting the characters at the required character level. This gave the players time to get used to the campaign world before I pulled the rug out from under their characters’ feet and turned that world upside-down.

This approach was always my intent, from day one of designing the campaign. I wanted the game to feel just like any other D&D-oriented game world, with dungeons and the like, before the big picture emerged to transform the campaign utterly. This approach was modeled on the first season of Babylon-5 very deliberately, resting on the theory that the players wouldn’t really feel the upheaval unless they had time to get used to the status quo first. But there were ongoing hints that bigger things were in the works.

Through organic changes to the characters as they developed, over time, the campaign’s cast evolved to suit the game world and the player’s proclivities, in particular the number of players – several were part of the campaign and dropped out for a variety of reasons. In essence, instead of one massive change after a single prequel adventure, evolution was spread over the course of the entire prequel phase, making them seem more natural and giving players more opportunity to grow used to the changes.

This approach works – but it does so because it was a key part of the campaign plan from the beginning. And, once again, I have to ask the question – are we still talking about pre-campaign adventures, here? This clearly goes a long way beyond the scope of what was described at the start of this article, and it succeeds more effectively because of those changes – effectively arguing against the utility of pre-campaign adventures, instead recommending that various aspects of the pre-campaign adventure be grafted into the campaign proper.

Prequel adventures as “more of the same”

What if the GM has no radical “big-picture” shakeup planned to signal the commencement of the “main campaign”? If there is no real difference between pre-campaign adventure and the ongoing campaign, why bother having the pre-campaign adventure in the first place? In this circumstance, it’s the benefits that are almost entirely wiped out – I’ve never met a GM who wasn’t ready to make major changes to their campaign if they thought it necessary to preserve the entertainment that everyone was getting from it, or to restore that entertainment if it had mis-stepped somewhere along the line.

Prequel adventures as “something distinctly different”

But there is a danger in the “radical transformation” model, too – what if the players don’t like the changes? To avoid that problem, I generally assume that the players will assume an objective of restoring the status quo, or something as close to it as possible. The implication is that the changes are not intended to be permanent, though there are always ways of preserving any changes that go over well, and an impermanent change is far more tolerable than a permanent change that is viewed as ‘ad-hoc’ or capricious. Another key element of my planning of the original Fumanor campaign was ensuring that the justifications for the changes that the PCs were to experience in the game world were in place long before they actually occurred, though situations were often taken at face value and the embedded hints not appreciated at the time. As events unfolded, however, those clues became recognized for their true significance.

There are greater problems to overcome if the transition is not intended to be reversible. Running a prequel campaign which is a political thriller with James Bond overtones and ends in World War III and a nuclear holocaust may be a train-wreck that the players can see coming while being helpless to stop it – but there’s no road back from that, the world after is irrevocably changed. The only solution that I can see is to make sure that the players are told in advance that the ultimate goal of the prequel campaign is to end in a nuclear Armageddon which will set the main campaign in motion, which at least cushions the blow. But don’t be surprised if the players work to prevent the disaster as hard as they can – it’s something that is eminently reasonable for their characters to do, after all – and resent any attempts by the GM to railroad his way toward that outcome.

That’s the key word in this discussion – railroad. Avoiding any hint that the rails to the main campaign are laid down unalterably undermines and devalues the prequel section of the campaign. It’s not acceptable to the players, and that makes the ‘permanent, radical, transformation’ infinitely more difficult a proposition.

To a certain extent, the shorter the ‘bedding in’ period, the less the players and characters will have invested in the status quo, and the less resistant to the changes they will be, especially if it is made clear to them in advance that something of Magnitude 12 is going to take place to launch the campaign proper.

The pre-campaign adventure as Prologue

I have seen suggestions that a pre-campaign adventure should be treated as a prologue to the main plot. On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with a prologue depicting “life as usual” for the PCs; it certainly works in novels, especially when the power of foreshadowing is exploited.

Unfortunately, an RPG game is not a novel. This sort of prologue works in fiction because the characters are designed to be highlighted by the prologue, and the prologue is designed to highlight the basics of the fictional world. The two, plot and characterization, are intertwined, and each designed to fit the other like a glove. If a character is the rakish type, there will be something in the prologue to show that. If the character is honest and honorable, there will be something about his values and beliefs in the prologue.

You can’t integrate the personalities of the PCs into a prologue in an RPG because you don’t know what they are going to be. And that ties one hand behind the GM’s back in many respects. If he knows the game world that he’s created well enough, and is inventive enough at improv adventures, he might be able to steer the character into a situation that lets him show off his traits as the GM identifies them. If not, then the GM is left fumbling with generica, with cliché.

The only way out of this situation is for the initial encounter in the prequel to be fairly irrelevant to the PCs in terms of interaction, designed to show off the campaign world with the PCs as eyewitnesses. From their reactions, the GM can begin assessing personality traits and inventing more substantial plot elements that highlight the characters – who may well be evolving from generic cut-outs at the same time, as both players and GM grope in the dark for the shape of the eventual campaign.

The big difference between a campaign prologue and an prequel campaign or “Pilot Episode” is that most things are left unresolved, dangling plot threads that can be picked up on in the future. Only the immediate situation tends to be resolved. And, if character generation is taking place at the game table, that might be all that there is time for.

Prologues exist to thrust the characters into the main plot faster and harder than they might like. That’s a function that negates some of the negatives, but that leaves little room for the benefits. Incorporating any other function into the prologue weights it down and dilutes its effectiveness. Putting the entirety of the burden listed as functions of a pre-campaign adventure dilutes it so much that you have to wonder what the benefit is.

That’s not to say that prologues don’t work. I use prologues all the time. For adventures, they are usually a single sentence or brief paragraph; the longest was aimed at capturing the “feel” of New York City in the 1930s, the mood of the city, the tone of it, and required four short paragraphs – and a lot of work went into trying to abbreviate it further. As it turned out, it was effective and just short of being too long.

At the campaign level, a prologue sets a domino piece in motion or puts a chess piece on the board, Its purpose is to manipulate the players with knowledge that their characters don’t posses, i.e. to function at a metagame level. Such a prologue can be anything from that one-line length (“Somewhere, an old man in a Santa Suit mails a package…”) to an entire adventure. It’s a First Shoe.

So long as prologues exist to service the plot by getting players into the right mind-set, they work perfectly and are completely acceptable or even ideal. It’s when you load them with additional overarching functions that the situation becomes akin to spinning many plates on sticks at the same time.

Getting to know you: a practical alternative or two

So, if pre-game adventures have all these problems, and you decide to shelve the idea, but the PCs are still supposed to start the game knowing each other and with a common history, what’s the answer?

One solution is to play an entirely separate game, one in which the character’s backgrounds and relationships are forged as a narrative structure – in effect, collaborating with the players on a backstory. All that’s necessary is to agree on the goal of the story, what it’s supposed to achieve, then have everyone roll a d20. Highest roll gets sixty seconds to advance or complicate the narrative using his character, then he puts the die away and hands the baton over to the GM, who gets a minute to revise and edit the player’s contribution, and then the next highest roll gets a minute, and so on. Once everyone’s had a turn, you either start over in the same order, or roll again. The narrative structure means that a lot of game time can be consumed really quickly – travel from place to place and lots of mundane details get handwaved in favor of The Story. And, of course, the GM makes notes as he goes. There are other ways of achieving the same end, but they all have the same fundamental characteristics.

But there’s a specific tool that I have devised that I would employ before beginning that process. Each player needs a sheet of paper, on which they write the names of the other PCs and their players, as evenly spaced out as possible. Each player then takes it in turns to describe their character, while the other players make notes about how their character would react to the PC being described. Each player then gets to ask a question about the PC to enhance whatever they have decided without revealing what they have written.

Once all players have described their PCs, the GM asks them to make some additional notes in answer to specific questions – yours may vary, but these are the ones I would employ:

• “Which of the described PCs will your character get on best with? Write ‘Friend’ next to their name.”
• “With which of the PCs described do you have the least in common with? Write ‘Stranger’ next to their name.”
• “Which of the PCs described do you think is most likely to make you uncomfortable? Write ‘Suspicious’ next to their name and add a note as to why to your notes on that PC.”
• “Of the characters described, which are you most interested in, fascinated by, or curious about? Write ‘Intrigued by’ next to their name, and if it’s specific, add a reason why.”
• “Which of the characters is most likely to get your character into trouble? Write ‘Trouble’ next to their name.” and, finally,
• “When you get into trouble, which of the PCs listed do you think is most likely to come to your rescue? Write ‘Wingman’ next to their name.”

This gets followed by something akin to a speed-dating situation, supervised by the GM, in which the players get together in pairs to exchange how they see each other and work out what the relationship is like between them. This should only take a minute or two for each combination.

The resulting relationships then provide a foundation for the narrative ‘game’ that I described earlier, exposing the relationships to the players other than the ones directly affected. “I buy Glorwith a drink, but since he abstains, I drink it for him. I tell him to loosen up, and attract the attention of a barmaid, tip her, and tell her he’s lonely.” (Glorwith’s player rolls his eyes).

Immediately, there’s a rapport, a camaraderie. It feels like they have known each other for years, and this is just the latest in a long line of practical jokes between them. The getting-to-know-you process between them has been short-cutted.

This approach is just as much fun as a straight adventure, possibly even more-so because of the change-of-pace factor, and the best part? This is fully compatible with and complimentary to, the characterization tool that I offered in the post referenced at the start of this article.

Conclusion

In limited circumstances, where the GM has solutions to the problems raised and the pre-adventure campaign has a definite purpose that can’t be achieved in adventure #1 of the main campaign, and where the content of the campaign makes it especially desirous that the first adventure “hits the ground running”, a pre-campaign adventure may be the ideal solution. But unless you can tick all of those boxes, you have to ask what the real benefit is, and whether they outweigh the pitfalls.

A pre-game adventure is a compromise between starting “cold” and running a prequel campaign, and (as with most compromises) no-one is ever completely satisfied by the result – especially when there are alternatives.

The Ninth Shelf: Life In The Pulp Era II – Non-Civilian Life [Crime, Policing, and Militaria] – Introduction by Mike

It sometimes seems that the term “delicate balancing act’ is over-used, but when it comes to Pulp it is a true description of some aspect of reality for the GM in at least some respects.

Fantasy is easy in comparison. So is Sci-Fi, especially more space-opera-ish sub-genres. Superheroes all four-color and sharp edges, blurring only when and where the GM chooses; no-one expects any ordinary people, no matter how well-equipped, to stand a chance against supervillains.

In Call of Cthulhu, the balance is generally the other way, with characters facing evils that cannot be overcome directly, but that may be vulnerable by virtue of their dependence on lesser, human, agents. But there’s little ambiguity about it.

In Pulp, that’s not true. The official forces that form part of ordinary need to be competent, but not so much so that they overshadow the PCs. At the same time, some of those forces will often be the source of the opposition that the PCs have to defeat. And right away, you’re into a delicate balancing act.

The best solution is to have the military, police, etc, be as competent and formidable as they were in real life, or even more so in the case of selected enemies; then making both problems and the PCs who will handle them that little bit more. More difficult, more capable, more than the official forces, just as those forces are more capable than any ordinary civilian.

But there is a price to pay for that solution: it requires the GM to know his stuff, to have his research done. And that’s where this shelf comes in.

Relevance to other genres

Of course, the same principles often apply, in somewhat looser fashion, to all those other genres. Even without the potential for cross-genre conversion – using pulp-era crime figures as inspiration for fantasy bandits that are a cut above the standard, for example – there is plenty of relevance to selected parts of the listings below, regardless of genre.

One of the biggest, most noticeable, differences between American police procedurals and those of Europe (including England) is that due process only seems to occur in the American shows when that’s convenient for the writer – and, half the time, the plot is about getting an arrest or conviction despite the protections afforded the presumed-innocent. European shows tend to be far more respectful of the limitations and processes of police work; this often makes them slower-paced, more Poirot and Sherlock Holmes than Die Hard or Starsky and hutch.

One of the reasons for the great success of the Law and Order and CSI franchises is that they combined a more European sensibility with something uniquely American-TV: gritty reality and American-show pacing, respectively. (Another is that they weren’t afraid to raise socially-controversial issues; early seasons of Law and Order were frequently food for thought. But I digress.)

The Pulp Genre is unashamedly action-based. If you want relevance, you have to squeeze in between the cracks like spackfiller. And yet, many of the adventures have a mystery component that is more European in style. Understanding this dichotomy, and the differences, is essential to managing a good pulp campaign – but also contain lessons for other genres, too, where the differences might be less extreme, less profound – but where they exist, nevertheless.

Image Credit: freeimages.com / m s Shelf Introduction There are only two sections to this shelf, but they are both bulging with good resources. Courts, Police & Detectives & Crime – The underworld and the forces of civilization that combat it are pretty much at the heart of the pulp genre. If you start from the basis of reality in these areas and then make your villains even more OTT, more Bond-villainesque, you won’t go far wrong. On top of that, the mechanics of manhunts, police investigations, etc, define what is possible to the ordinary – anything beyond this lies in the realm of the extraordinary (for the era), and that’s the province of PCs. Again, a very easy way to determine what their capabilities are is to look at the state of the art X years later, where X is a number that you define – it could be 5 years, 10 years, or even 20 years. That’s what at least one subgenre of Pulp is, really – characters with abilities ahead of their time, opposing opposing villains who are beyond the ordinary standard. But the heart of the genre is characters with pluck, resilience, and a boots-first attitude going head-to-head with villains who are ahead of the curve and beyond the abilities of ordinary law enforcement – and finding a way to win. Either way, the contents of this section are indispensable resources. This major section has been further divided into 9 subsections: Mysterious Deaths Prohibition Hollywood & Crime Criminal Organizations Criminology and Investigation Forensics Specific Types Of Crime or Crime Scene Law Courts, Trials, & Justice Military Installations, Forces, and Campaigns – The usual response in the real world to a threat beyond the capacity of standard law-enforcement is to call out the military. It’s something that gets seen time and time again in the monster movies of the 1950s and 60s, but it goes all the way back to King Kong. Even in fairly matter-of-fact gangster movies, you will often hear the phrase “Call out the National Guard” or “The National Guard have been alerted”. Most readers won’t even know what that means, let alone what they were capable of doing in the Pulp era. If the military can handle the threats, what need is there for the PCs? it follows that the viability of the Pulp Campaign rests on an inability for the military to handle whatever the emergency is – or at least, to do so without the PCs leading the charge. Another way of viewing the pulp era is the last great period of the individual as supreme over the collective. Although historians may dispute the point, it can be argued that the death-knell for that perspective came with the massive aerial bombardments of World War II, though we tend to think that it was the public response to the entrepreneurs and speculators who they blamed for the Stock Market crash and the Great Depression that started the rot, and the alliance needed to uproot the Axis powers that completed it. Throughout the pulp period, then, the primacy of the individual is being eroded – and the genre itself was a reaction to that, a statement that the world still needed Heroes. Completely aside from the direct referential value, these books provide invaluable context. . A Recurring Note On Images: Wherever possible, we have provided an illustration showing the cover of the book or DVD under discussion scaled to the same vertical size (320 pixels for Recommended Books, 280 for DVDs, 240 for items in the ‘For Dummies’ Sections). Where there was none available, we have used a generic icon. Prices and Availability were correct at the time of compilation.
Books About Courts, Police & Detectives & Crime This is a vast and sprawling subject that is at the heart of the majority of pulp campaigns. Accordingly, we’ve focused quite a lot of attention on the contents. While those contents have been divided into smaller subsections, there can be quite a bit of overlap.
	Books about Mysterious Deaths
		839. London’s Curse: Murder, Black Magic and Tutankhamun in the 1920s West End – Mark Beynon “Throughout the 1920 and 1930s, London was gripped by the supposed curse of Tutankhamen, the Egyptian boy-king of antiquity, whose tomb was uncovered in 1923. Over the next few years more than 20 of those involved in the tomb’s exhumation perished in strange, often terrifying circumstances, prompting the myth of the curse.” Meticulously researched, this book shows that not only is the truth stranger than fiction, it can be more interesting. 224 pages, Kindle ($9.57), Hardcover (12 used from $9.96, 24 new from $12.20) http://amzn.to/2godFPm
	Books about Prohibition
		840. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America – Edward Behr Although the bulk of the prohibition era belongs in the 1920s, much of the social architecture translates into the pulp vernacular such as gangsters and corrupt officials even if your pulp campaign is set outside that particular decade. This book appears to be the best “read” amongst several on the subject, though others may suit individual tastes better. You only need this or the following choice to be equipped on this topic for a Pulp campaign, though “The War On Alcohol” (842, below) would be a useful supplement to either. http://amzn.to/1Pkk3Cv
		841. Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless years of Prohibition – Karen Blumenthal Written for a young-adult/ high school student, this has been nominated for or won a number of awards for quality. Filled with period art, photographs, anecdotes, and literary character portraits. http://amzn.to/1nXavEa
		842. The War On Alcohol: Prohibition and the rise of the American State – Lisa McGirr This was almost listed as an alternative to the previous two, but at the last moment we decided that its perspective was sufficiently different to recommend it as a compliment to either volume on Prohibition. Deals with racial bias in the enforcement of Prohibition, for example, something that no other volume highlights. Without this book, you only think you have the whole story. http://amzn.to/1RovBHz
	Books about Hollywood & Crime
		843. Hollywood and the Mob – Tim Adler This book examines the relationship between Hollywood and the Mafia. Only available as an import or on Kindle, but quite affordable – and, since the paperback is print-on-demand (and almost a quarter of the Kindle price), they aren’t likely to run out of cheap copies anytime soon. There are a very limited number of hardcovers available for even less than the paperback, so that’s what we’ve linked to – if they are all gone, click the “show all formats and editions” link on the Amazon page to find the $2.12 paperback. http://amzn.to/1NOE1kF
		844. Gangster Films: A comprehensive, Illustrated Reference to People, Films, and Terms – Michael L. Stephens No modern-day GM can avoid having his Pulp campaign colored by the cinematic treatment of gangsters even though much of it will date from long after the pulp era and be extensively romanticized, one way or the other. That makes this volume an essential. Prices exceed our normal limits, but it looks so useful we wanted to include it anyway. http://amzn.to/1RYiD4c
	Books about Criminal Organizations
		845. Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement – James B Jacobs We’re always wary of political bias whenever the subject gets even close to mentioning a Labor movement. We’re also very wary of the contamination of history by J. Edgar Hoover’s …shenanigans… during the first half of the 20th century. Jacob’s reputation seems impeccable, and on that basis we are recommending this book despite none of us having read it – yet. (We suspect that Amazon describing it as the 49753 rd edition is a mistake, BTW). http://amzn.to/1PwW18O
		846. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires – Selwyn Raab The “Five Families” are the ‘families’ based in New York City, arguably amongst the most powerful in the country for most of the early 20 th century. Chicago may have been more notorious, other places more violent from time to time, but New York is where the people – and therefore the money – really were. http://amzn.to/1VHln48
		847. Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s – Anne Margaret Anderson and John J. Binder Chicago’s mobs might have been more famous, New York’s families may have been more powerful – but Philadelphia had more than its share of ‘colorful’ characters, and this book will introduce you to them all, from “Mr. Big” to “The King Of The Bootleggers”. http://amzn.to/2cI3CT6
		848. Paddy Whacked – T J English Refer to the TV & Documentaries section entry under the same name (Entry 044, 2nd Shelf). http://amzn.to/1WcPmDr
		849. Tong Wars: The Untold Story of Vice, Money, and Murder in New York’s Chinatown – Scott D Seligman “Nothing had worked. Not threats or negotiations, not shutting down the betting parlors or opium dens, not house-to-house searches or throwing Chinese offenders into prison. Not even executing them. “The New York DA was running out of ideas and more people were dying every day as the weapons of choice evolved from hatchets and meat cleavers to pistols, automatic weapons, and even bombs. Welcome to New York City’s Chinatown in 1925.” It may read like fiction, but this is true crime set against the backdrop of Tammany Hall -era NYC. “The city government was already corrupt from top to bottom, so once one tong began taxing the gambling dens and paying off the authorities, a rival, jealously eying its lucrative franchise, co-opted a local reformist group to help eliminate it. Pretty soon Chinese were slaughtering one another in the streets, inaugurating a succession of wars that raged for the next thirty years.” Available in Kindle and Hardcover. http://amzn.to/2deMmnq
		850. Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld (25th Anniversary Edition) – David E Kaplan and Alec Dubro The infamous gangsters of Japan comprise a criminal class with eighty thousand members, more than four times the size of the American Mafia. And, like the Families, they are a lot more than simple criminals; they maintain power by being a social lubricant, a way to get things done that advantage those under their protection in return for favors received or to be demanded in the future. This bureaucratic by-pass system has led to a degree of acceptance by the culture that is almost impossible for non-Japanese to fully grasp. This is a reprinting of the first book to reveal the full scope of the Yakuza beyond the Hollywood clichés, so controversial that it could not be released in Japan for five years after it first saw print, and which has become the Western “bible” for understanding the group and their society. Kindle, Paperback and Hardcover – but most are beyond acceptable limits in price for this list. http://amzn.to/2deNwiM
	Books about Criminology & Investigation
		851. Criminology For Dummies – Steven Briggs Criminology is the science of what used to be known as “Detective Work”. Sure, you might be able to get away with “Means, Motive, and Opportunity” – but the technicalities are things you can build an entire adventure around. http://amzn.to/2h89IkH
		852. Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit) – Lee Lofland Lofland is a recognized expert on police procedures and crime scene investigations. This book contains over 80 photographs, illustrations, and charts showing everything from defensive moves used by officers to prison cells and autopsies; Detailed information on officer training, tools of the trade, drug busts, con air procedures, crime scene investigation techniques, etc; and first-person anecdotes from the author concerning his experiences as a detective, including accounts of arrests, death penalty executions, and criminal encounters. http://amzn.to/1pgfP76
		853. Police Procedural: A Writer’s Guide to the Police and How They Work (Howdunit) – Russell Bintliff This book takes you inside the day-to-day world of police work – how police officers work, when they work, what they wear, who they report to, how they investigate crime, how they get promoted, and generally how they go about the business. http://amzn.to/1Szytlx
		854. Scene of the Crime: A Writer’s Guide to Crime Scene Investigation (Howdunit) – Anne Wingate How evidence is measured, collected, identified, and analyzed, the timetable of activity at a crime scene, and technical terms and professional techniques used – this is what NCIS refers to as “processing a scene”. Doing so was far more primitive in the pulp era – sometimes you were lucky if photographs were taken, never mind anything else being documented – but this describes best-case practices; all you have to do is determine how that standard has to be compromised to keep your mysteries a secret. http://amzn.to/1TLsdZz
		855. Just the Facts, Ma’am: A Writer’s Guide to Investigators and Investigation Techniques (Howdunit) – Greg Fallis Former PI Greg Fallis uses real-life scenarios to show writers how investigative professionals gather evidence, interview witnesses, determine motives, and find answers. http://amzn.to/1LRjcee
	Books about Forensics
		856. Forensics For Dummies – Douglas P Lyle, MD Forensic science originated all the way back in Europe’s 16th century with a Frenchman and two Italians. Not much came of their groundbreaking studies until they were published in the 18th century. The science’s roots go back even further, all the way to Aristotle. Believe it or not, the person most directly responsible for popularizing the science in the mid-20th century is the fictional lawyer, Perry Mason, and the real-world author of his stories (almost all of which were adapted into episodes of the long-running TV series), Erle Stanley Gardner. In the introductions to many of his stories, he would ‘introduce’ a forensic scientist (long before there was such a term) and describe their real-world breakthroughs and successes. After Mason came Quincy, about a Medical Examiner, and then the CSI franchise, and Abby Schuto in NCIS. Our big fear is that this book will be more about the techniques that would be familiar to viewers of those last few series and not applicable to the state of the “art” in the Pulp Era. However, the contents allay those concerns somewhat; while sections of one of the Parts on the Forensics Lab would not be relevant, most of it looks just fine. http://amzn.to/2h5igFQ
		857. Cause of Death: A Writer’s Guide to Death, Murder and Forensic Medicine (Howdunit) – Keith D. Wilson Detailed descriptions of what happens to a body from trauma to burial, how autopsies are conducted, the paperwork involved in a death, and the (US) laws that govern how bodies must be handled and buried. http://amzn.to/1XcKWux
		858. Forensics: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit) – D P Lyle Award-winning author and TV show consultant D.P. Lyle, M.D., takes each area of forensics — from fingerprint analysis to crime scene reconstruction — and discusses its development, how the science works, how it helps in crime solving, and how you as a writer might use this technique in crafting your plot. Includes real-life case files and the role forensic evidence played in solving the crimes; a breakdown of the forensics system from its history and organization to standard evidence classification and collection methods; detailed information on what a dead body can reveal, including the cause, mechanism, and manner of death; and the actual steps taken to preserve a crime scene and the evidence that can be gathered there, such as bloodstains, documents, fingerprints, tire impressions, and more. While Forensics was still in its infancy during the pulp era, it can be a vital element of many adventures – as is making sure that Forensics doesn’t offer an adventure-wrecking shortcut to the players! http://amzn.to/1nwx2qZ
	Books about Specific Types of Crime and Crime Scenes See also “The Poisoner’s Handbook” and the other books on poisons (entries 617-619 on the 6th shelf).
		859. The Crime Writer’s Reference Guide: 1001 Tips for Writing the Perfect Murder – Martin Roth A book no writer of murder mysteries, thrillers, action/adventure, true-crime, police procedurals, romantic suspense, and psychological mysteries, whether scripts or novels, or adventures, should be without; Pages and pages of lists, from the so-broad-they-are-almost useless (“Weapons Used by Criminals” which begins “Acid, Air gun, Ax, Bayonet, Bazooka, Billy Club…”) to material that’s too contemporary for pulp (6 pages of LAPD police radio codes) to the irreplaceable (3 pages of FBI case classifications, 16 pages of organization charts for the LA County Sherrif’s Department), much of it very hard to find anywhere else. In short, this book may not be period but we think a lot of the subject is universal in application. Our first link is to the most recent edition (pictured), and there are quite a few reasonably-priced copies of it available http://amzn.to/1OYqkAn; but if they run out, there is an older edition with reportedly identical content: http://amzn.to/1W5GDRr.
		860. Murder One: A Writer’s Guide to Homicide (Howdunit) – Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino Prosecuting investigators Mauro Corvasce and Joseph Paglino take you step by step through the nuts and bolts necessary to build your fictional murder scenario, from motives, plans, commission and disposal of the bodies. http://amzn.to/1R6YEdL
		861. Malicious Intent: A Writer’s Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists and Other Criminals Think (Howdunit) – Sean P. Mactire A matter-of-fact book about the criminal mind, beginning with ancient history (from 1500 B.C.) and moving to the present-day serial and “nonserial” killers, showing how the creation of a police force changed criminal activity from open assault to cunning and secret operations, examining the psychology of criminals and the development of profiling (psychological mug shots), all supported by examples from the careers of actual criminals. http://amzn.to/1UeEd3V
		862. Rip-Off: A Writer’s Guide to Crimes of Deception (Howdunit) – Fay Faron From street level shell games to high stakes real estate swindles, professional PI Fay Faron profiles con artists, cons and the victims, providing the lowdown on scams for authors who need the facts. http://amzn.to/222VPm2
		863. Modus Operandi: A Writer’s Guide to How Criminals Work (Howdunit) – Mauro V. Corvasce and Joseph R. Paglino How criminals carry out murder, arson, smuggling, armed robbery, safe-cracking, and more. Copies of this book are starting to get hard to find and the price is going up. http://amzn.to/1QH7EKP
		864. Old Car Wrecks: And the Vehicles at Accident Scenes, 1920s to 1960s – Ron Kawalke “Motoring mayhem unravels in this photographic history of tow trucks, police cars, ambulances and other vehicles in the aftermath of accidents. This … volume includes hundreds of photos and motoring misadventures from the 1920s through the 1960s.” Also contains a section on early crash testing and the evolution of safety equipment, but that’s not especially valuable to the Pulp GM, unlike the photos – it’s VERY hard to find anything both similar and period online. We know, we’ve looked – hard – and even had to rewrite part of one adventure because we couldn’t find what we needed. This book would have solved that need. http://amzn.to/2fuIWQE
	Books about Law
		865. Law For Dummies – JD John Ventura This is all about how the law applies to ordinary people in everyday, ordinary situations. While the law has evolved since the 1930s, it tends to progress with glacial slowness punctuated by periods of radical shakeup – so large parts of this will (we hope) be directly relevant to the Pulp Era. It’s almost certainly America-centric so inhabitants of the US will get some value from the book even if it’s not useful for Pulp purposes – inhabitants of other countries should NOT rely on this for legal advice and should aim for cheap copies. http://amzn.to/2gd4a3E
		866. Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About American Law, Fourth Edition – Jay M Feinman A last-minute discovery by Mike, this is regarded as the quintessential introduction to Law for the layman. Since most GMs are not going to be qualified US Attorneys, that means us. As is usual with any book that has an “nth edition”, this is extremely up-to-date – but that actually diminishes its value to the Pulp GM. It’s entirely possible that the “For Dummies” book above is better value-for-money from that perspective – which is why this book has been listed lower in the list. But there is an upside: Any book that sells well enough to go into a fourth edition will probably have a fifth and then a sixth (and so on) in due course, so availability should not be a major issue for some time to come, or – if it is – it will probably only be temporary. http://amzn.to/2h5tQB8
	Books about Courts, Trials and Justice
		867. A History of Modern American Criminal Justice – Joseph F. Spillane & David B. Wolcott Discovered in the course of researching this article. Many of the books listed in this section are subject-specific and we have concerns about how “contemporary” they are in terms of the Pulp Era; we hope that this provides an overview and context for working out what is relevant to the Pulp GM and what is not. Recommended without having read it. Cheap copies are limited in number. http://amzn.to/2bi5Uv2
		868. The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O. J. Simpson – Sadakat Kadri For similar reasons, we are also including this book, again with the caveat that we haven’t read it. Cheap copies appear plentiful. http://amzn.to/2bNz9lT
		869. The Great Trials of the Twenties: The Watershed Decade om America’s Courtrooms – Robert Grant and Joseph Katz The roaring twenties played witness to a number of sensational encounters in the courtroom whose impact is still being felt – and, in some cases, challenged – today. Baseball’s Black Sox, Al Capone, John T. Scopes, Sacco and Vanzetti, Leopold and Loeb, and the court martial of Billy Mitchell. This book describes ten of those momentous clashes in depth. “The authors dwell on the factual background of the cases and the social forces that swirled around them, glossing over the actual courtroom proceedings. (Predictably, the only attorney whose performance is noted at length is Clarence Darrow, in both the Leopold-Loeb trial and in the Scopes trial).” – Publisher’s Weekly. “The authors spent a great deal of time each chapter delving into the background information (what was going on in the country prior to the trial). They “set up” the scandal at length before the reader learns about it. I think this is beneficial if the reader is looking to understand more about the 1920s, but I think it is also a little unnecessary at times.” – An amazon reader’s review. Most usefully, having placed each of the cases in the context of the period, each discussion concludes with an examination of the consequences to society in general or to the defendant after the trial concluded, which also places them in context with respect to the modern world. Unfortunately, we could find no equivalent book detailing the 1930s. Hardcover, 308 pages, 33 used from $0.01, 20 new from $18.99, 4 collectible from $9.85, Amazon price $30.00 http://amzn.to/2gk2HvQ
		870. Laws of Men and Laws of Nature: The History of Scientific Expert Testimony in England and America – Tal Golan Discovering this book, which has a most promising write-up at Amazon, was one of the inspirations behind Mike’s article at Campaign Mastery earlier this year, Consequential Expertise: A Neglected Plot Opportunity. He was enthused about the book from the very first sentence of the write up, which asked whether or not expert witnesses are partisan supporters of the side of the legal argument which hires them to appear in a court case, or are they spokesmen and women for the higher principle of objective science? This is a question that has plagued the scientific expert’s role ever since they were first called to testify – and it’s not always easy to tell where any given witness falls. Justice can easily be derailed by judges and juries assuming that a witness has a particular bias – or has no bias. More time can often be spent exploring bonafides and potential biases on the part of expert witnesses, and rebutting their testimony on that basis, than is actually spent listening to what they have to say. As Mike’s article points out, PCs in a Pulp campaign can easily be parachuted into an adventure by serving as ‘expert witnesses’ in a controversial court case. That alone seems to justify including this book on the list, but that’s just the start of what it seems to offer. http://amzn.to/2bi8NMa
	For-Dummies Books relating to Courts, Police & Detectives & Crime In most cases, we haven’t read any of these, and are recommending them for consideration based purely upon the publisher’s descriptions and on general principles except where otherwise noted. This also shifts the content of each review from one of “this book is recommended and here’s why” to “this book might be useful and here’s why”. We have made the assumption that availability and price would fall within our parameters, or close enough to them; we have rarely found this not to be the case. Selected works were so promising and so relevant, that they have been promoted to the main list of recommendations, excluding them from the above caveats. A note about Complete Idiot’s Guides While the “For Dummies” series has a website that lists all the books currently available in the series, there is no equivalent for the “Complete Idiot’s Guides”. Our blanket advice is that if Amazon lists a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” that matches the subject of one of our “For Dummies” recommendations, you should buy both.
		871. Forensic Psychology For Dummies – David Canter This book we’re not so sure about. Understanding the real reasons why people commit various types of crime might be useful, or it might simply stifle creativity and be too confining for the over-the-top Pulp Genre. We suggest you limit your costs on this one in case it’s not as useful as it might be. http://amzn.to/2gEl649
		872. Homebrewing For Dummies – Marty Nachel The Pulp era blankets prohibition, when home brewing and illegal stills were at their height. Even post-prohibition, there were undoubtedly a few of these still lingering around. Slowly, home brewing seemed to go out of fashion until experiencing a resurgence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries – hence this volume’s existence. It would have limited utility, but if you can pick up a cheap copy, it might help verisimilitude enormously. http://amzn.to/2h5tOJp
Books About Military Installations, Forces, and Campaigns In some ways, this is easier to subdivide – but when we looked at doing so, the plan fell apart very quickly. Why? Well, book “A” covers a specific campaign that involved military forces from countries X, Y, and Z; book “B” might be a different campaign involving V, W, and X, which would suggest a break-up by campaign. But then you get book C which is about multiple campaigns by one military force – into which category should it be put? Or should it be out on its own in yet another category? The conclusion was that there was only one fully-inclusive taxonomy – and that was to lump everything together in the one broad topic. While it started out as large as the “crime” section (above), however, right from the first, content began to leak out into other sections, notably the weapons & technology sections, and the vehicles sections, where they formed subsections in their own right (Shelves 6 and 7, respectively). Additional information will also be found in the sections dealing with specific countries and regions (shelf 3, shelf 4, and shelf 5) and in the history section of Shelf 8. These factors have combined to make this section a lot smaller than it appears from the very broad title.
	873. Fortress America, The Forts That Defended America: 1600 – The Present – J.E. Kaufmann & H.W.Kaufmann Two chapters of period relevance and several chapters of historical reference. There are several at low prices (plus a kindle alternative) here http://amzn.to/1PCqhei, and some more expensive ones here http://amzn.to/1NhugeI.
	874. U.S. Forces Travel Guide to U.S. Military installations/Military Travel Guide U.S.A. – Crawford, L Ann/Crawford, Ann Caddell Written by the Military for the Military, this is nevertheless a useful reference. Updated periodically, we have linked to only two editions of this rather specific travel guide (one http://amzn.to/1lpfsEo and two http://amzn.to/1WpjlGG) – which Amazon attributes to different variations of the author’s name – because there are cheap copies available second-hand – there are more out there if these are gone. While the contents may refer to modern installations, many of these have histories stretching back to the 1930s and beyond – and that’s without the GM reinventing history just a little! But you may need the Schading book listed below to translate it into meaningful content if you aren’t a military person.
	875. Guide to Military Installations, 6 th Edition – Dan Cragg “Reflects latest base realignments and closings with data on 300 military installations in the U.S. and overseas. Includes maps, climate, housing, phone numbers, and local area information.” Useful information for GMs on the places that are still operating (as of the date of publication). Again, written for military personnel who are being based in the installations described; you may need the Schading book for translation. http://amzn.to/1JW0t0f
	876. US Forces Travel Guide to Overseas US Military Installations – William Roy Crawford & L. Ann Crawford, edited by Donna L. Russell Most of these will be modern, but it can be hard to find information on the few that pre-date World War II. Included on spec, and should be purchased with the same attitude. Obviously, this is another book written for military personnel being deployed, and, for a third time, the Schading may be indispensable. http://amzn.to/1ZxImzJ
	877. A Civilian’s Guide to the U.S. Military: A comprehensive reference to the customs, language and structure of the Armed Forces – Barbara Schading & Richard Schading If your campaign is going to have anything to do with the US Military, you need this book (even though it is written regarding the modern-day military). Background information, ranks, insignia, organization, slang, etiquette, military law, academies, decorations & medals, and more – plus a list of resources for more information. http://amzn.to/1n728Wr
	878. Hitler’s Nemesis: The Red Army 1930-1945 – Walter S. Dunn Jr. Part of a series, this volume “…traces the development of the Russian army in reaction to the rise of Hitler, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and the progression of World War II over the following four years” with “Details on the Soviet infantry, armor, artillery, and cavalry formations that waged World War II on the Eastern Front.” http://amzn.to/1T0gBzL
	879. The Battle For Spain – Antony Beevor The Spanish civil war (1936-1939) is the largest conflict underway during the Pulp Era. This book focuses not only on the events but on the ideals, goals, and politics that shaped the two sides, giving the GM the ammunition he needs to portray them accurately in any encounter. http://amzn.to/1ZIM0ff
	880. French Foreign Legion 1914-45 – Martin Windrow, illustrated by Mike Chappell The history and uniforms of the French Foreign Legion including a comprehensive battle history of the Legion on the Western Front in World War I, the colonial campaigns in Morocco, Syria, and Indochina, and more. Illustrated throughout by photographs and with eight color plates. Only 50 pages, but this is content that is hard to find anywhere else. Paperback; new, from Amazon $17.95, from third parties 21 copies at $7.96+; used, 20 copies from $7.96. http://amzn.to/2dPtYUS
	881. Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War: The Army National Guard, 1636-2000 (Modern War Studies) – Michael D Doubler The first of two books we have selected on the National Guard, this is a history of the “Citizen Soldiers” over almost 400 years of history. Unfortunately, it’s unclear how much of direct relevance to the Pulp Era is contained within; Part II covers the period 1898-to-1945 and consists of Chapters 4 and 5; Chapter 4 is “The Birth of the Modern National Guard” and Chapter 5 is “The National Guard in the World Wars”. Either or both might contain information of relevance, or might – like a great many other books on Militaria – ignore the inter-war period completely. The only good news is that the book is extensively book-noted and contains a comprehensive bibliography, so even a hint of relevance can be hunted down into something more substantial at need. Paperback, 482 pages, 13 used from $4.96, 10 new from $5.35, 1 collectible at $5.95. http://amzn.to/2hgBJXK
	882. National Guard 101: A Handbook for Spouses – Mary Corbett “Spouse” in this context means someone with no knowledge of the military or its protocols, let alone how those relate to the National Guard but who has become part of that world. This book “covers a broad range of topics, from practical knowledge about the history of the National Guard and understanding rank to softer subjects like social life in the Guard and family programs.” It’s written to be relevant to the modern-day, and that’s it’s biggest drawback from a Pulp GM’s point of view, as it again raises questions of relevance to the inter-war period. Nevertheless, it is the only book that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and serves as a general introduction to everything you might want to know in order to properly represent the National Guard in your campaign that we could find. Kindle $10.02 Paperback 35 used from $0.01, 31 New from $5.92, 3 Collectible from $9.85. http://amzn.to/2gC5rlM
Documentaries About Military Installations, Forces, and Campaigns There’s only one Documentary on this shelf, but it’s a doozy!
	883. Secrets Of War While we’re recommending this entire 65-episode collection, and they were all of interest, there are only three episodes of specific pulp reference value: “Super Guns”, “The French Resistance”, and “Stalin’s Secret Air War”. Normally, we wouldn’t recommend a 13-disc set for so little reward, but the prices were sufficiently reasonable that anything more you get from the series (and there’s enough additional material that you probably will get something) is totally a bonus. Amazon US $17.41 http://amzn.to/23JnAnU, Amazon UK [NTSC Region-1 US Import] £14.14 http://amzn.to/1U6BWJ7, Amazon Canada CDN$30 http://amzn.to/1ViPNNI, with a few cheaper second-hand copies available in all three markets. In addition, the Second Season (which includes two of the recommended episodes) is available online through Amazon US’s streaming service (US$20.99 for the entire season, or $1.99 for a specific episode): http://amzn.to/1rQLWv7 “Super Guns” is (mostly) about the Nazi obsession with ever-bigger artillery, a trait that carried over into several other German Military projects. Everything had to be bigger, stronger, or faster, because (in Hitler’s mind), that was what made them better than everyone else’s equipment. “The French Resistance” is pretty self-explanatory as a subject matter, but it’s the pre-war context that makes this episode especially valuable. “Stalin’s Secret Air War” is all about Stalin’s meddling and political maneuvering behind the scenes during the Korean War, which makes it an unusual resource to recommend for a Pulp Campaign; however, the episode does a better job of getting into the head of one of the leading political figures of the Pulp Era than just about anything else we’ve seen. If Stalin is going to give orders to anyone that might impact on the PCs of your campaign, you need to watch this episode. It will also radically reshape your understanding of the Second World War, explaining the Pact Of Steel and how Hitler could (and did) underestimate Soviet strength so badly.

Afterword by Mike:

In the Victorian era, lurid headlines and melodramatic descriptions of crimes and events were used by newspapers to excite the readers; the term for this practice became sensationalism, and, at the time, it was not held in the same sort of contempt that it ‘enjoys’ in more modern times. In a pulp setting, those lurid headlines and melodramatic sensationalism are an accurate depiction of the high drama of reality. Perry Mason’s courtroom theatrics are more genre correct stylistically than the gritty realities of Law and Order or the slickly scientific approach of a CSI.

There is an undeniable absolutism to outcomes. In any conflict, there is a clear winner, and a clear loser, whether that be in an attempted bank robbery or a military engagement or a courtroom. If an event does not have an absolute outcome, the story has not yet run its course, no matter how conclusive it appears.

That’s not to say there is no room for ambiguity. In the first adventure on which Blair and I collaborated, we went to great lengths to build up a mysterious ghost ship with seemingly-supernatural powers; we then permitted the PCs to uncover proof that the whole thing was a hoax, perpetrated to distract the American Navy while a coup was mounted in Haiti. But along the way, the PCs met a Houngan with strange powers, and – as a postscript to the adventure, after smashing the equipment and facilities used to mount the deception and capturing the ghost ship, they had a passing encounter with another ghost ship – one that could not be explained away by anything that the PCs knew other than the supernatural.

Ambiguity is fine. Complex characters with shades of gray are fine. But outcomes are absolute.

Next in this series: The 10th shelf – Religion & Mysticism!

I wasn’t going to write and publish this until later in the week, but a mis-remembered schedule means that there will otherwise be no article today, so this seemed the practical solution. After all, the odds of a late entry coming in grow vanishingly smaller with each passing day; the carnival itself has well-and-truly moved on to 6d6RPG, where the topic is garbage and sewers and, presumably, things that go “rot” in the night (sorry, failed saving roll).

NB: The following are not presented in chronological sequence of receipt, they have been grouped by subject matter.

The place to start is with the anchor post by yours truly, which spelt out the scope of the subject, “Ordinary Lives“, in addition to providing an unrelated article on the expiration of potions. It identified three major headings within the subject, and I’m pleased to say that between the contributors, there was something on each of those subjects.

All links will open in a new tab/window.

The Ordinary Life of the GM

The first major topic dealt with how the GM manages his work/life/gaming balance and the compromises that have to be made – and how to cut corners and not have it show.

1. Campaign Mastery

Campaign Mastery led the charge in this area with “The Everyday Life of a GM“. In this somewhat omnibus post on the subject, I looked at how my ordinary life had impacted on my ability to prep and my capacity to run RPGs through different periods of my life, and some of the unexpected impacts on things like GMing style. These things always happen more smoothly if you consciously accept the consequences to your gaming instead of blindly trying to maintain business-as-usual, so I expect the greatest value of this article being how GMs can alter their gaming to fit in with changes to their real-world commitments. I consciously tried to offer as much practical advice as possible for that reason.

2. Renaissance Gamer

Brent Jans, aka the Renaissance Gamer, also found the topic to be one to his liking, and led off a trilogy of posts with “The Ordinary Life of a GM: Getting Lost“, which is full of great advice on how to get things back on track when you get entangled in your own plot webs and lose track of who’s doing what to whom and why.

3. Tales of a GM

Phil Nicholls provided “Mixing Gaming with Life” late in the month, and really deserves the last word in this section for his deeply introspective piece on how gaming informs and influences every other area of his life, and vice-versa. If ever you find yourself struggling with fitting gaming into your work-life balance, this is the article to read for inspiration and motivation.

The Ordinary Life of the Players

The second part of the subject dealt with player interactions with the game and how their ordinary lives could impact on it. This probably posed the hardest questions to get to grips with, and so unsurprisingly, there were relatively few entries.

4. The Watch House

Leading off my listing of contributions in this category is The Watch House, with Ordinary Life, which talks about how differing levels of player interest defines the approach that the author, Craig Oxbrow, takes to the subject.

5. Renaissance Gamer

Brent Jens offers a second post for the Carnival, “The Ordinary Life of the PCs: Making Magic Magical“, in which he first laments the absence of the “magic” in D&D 5e’s item creation subsystem, then plugs the gap in an interesting way – by integrating the item creation process into the character’s ordinary life. An excellent article for even GMs and players of other editions and genres to read. This article is about transferring a player-reality activity into game reality, and as such, it could go in either this section or the next.

6. Renaissance Gamer

A third submission from Brent, in which he answers a metagaming question that I posed in the anchor post – “If one of your players has had a bad week, do you consciously twist the game in a direction they will like to get them ‘in the mood’ or permit them to blow off steam – rather than letting it interfere with the game in some more substantial way?” This was an intentionally-loaded question, and I was very much hoping that someone would pick up the issue and run with it. In “The Ordinary Life of the Players: Feeling Happy?“, Brent does exactly that. He describes the results as feeling a little disjointed as thoughts on the subject crowded in on him, but I would actually consider this the most inspirational of his three submissions, because he ends by turning the question on its head and asking what the GM does to deal with a bad week without becoming a feral killer-GM. I was left thinking that the whole subject was something that should be chatted about at far greater length, that the surface of a far deeper conversation had only been scratched. Definitely food for thought for every GM.

The Ordinary Life Of The PCs

The third article dealt with questions of verisimilitude and the incorporation of a character’s day-to-day existence into the game.

7. Anarcarnivàle

Clark Timmins created this blog at RPGGeek purely to participate in the Blog Carnival. His article, “The Real Life of Heroes“, asks why PCs should have to suffer any form of Ordinary Life and raises some very valid questions along the way. While I disagree with his conclusions (as you’ll discover later in this list), I agree with everything else he’s written on the subject, and recommend it as food for thought for any GM designing a new campaign – or running one already.

8. Board Enterprises

Board Enterprises found that this topic really resonated with them, leading them to submit three very diverse articles to the Carnival. This is the first of them, “Ordinary Life in RPG” in which he/they realize that “Ordinary Life” touches on almost every product they have have published and at least one that is still mired in development, and in which they argue that “an adventurer’s down time needs to be split between working, training and living, and those takes hours and money. Balancing that is the trick.” I’ve always felt that the economics of adventuring and adventurers were a fascination topic (right behind the sociology of adventurers as a social class) – is dungeon-bashing a hobby, a crisis intervention, a part-time job, or a profession that can support a decent lifestyle as the sole source of income? What are the social, political, and economic implications? This article only scratches the surface of these topics!

9. Board Enterprises

Most people would be content with a single submission (I go the extra mile when I’m hosting), but Board Enterprises went further, as I said a moment ago. In their second submission, “(Prior) Ordinary Life in RPG“, they look at a character’s backstory, which is often the only “ordinary life” component they experience. Creating a backstory with strong links to the diverse cultures and locations within a campaign binds the character to the campaign and makes players more invested in the lives of their characters, a tenet with which I heartily agree.

10. and 11. Campaign Mastery

A two-part article primarily focused on Fantasy PCs but applicable to all genres with a little adaption, which proceeds from the same foundation as the above-mentioned Board Enterprises article. The first part, “The Ordinary Life of a Fantasy PC“, describes a new campaign planning tool, most effective with new campaigns but viable even with long-established games, for working out what the ordinary life of a PC should look like, based on their backstory. This tool is rather more abstract and big-picture than every other character “survey” that I’ve seen, and designed to ensure that each PC has equal opportunity for an equal share of the spotlight.

The second part, “The Extraordinary Life of a Fantasy PC Pt 2“, is about using that tool to develop encounters and subplots and incidents with which to populate game play with interesting times.

12. Campaign Mastery

My fourth submission under this blog carnival’s banner dealt with the very soap-opera approach taken to PC lives in my “Zenith-3” superheroes campaign. “Ordinary Lives in Paranormal Space and Time” is mostly about campaign planning, and the principles and techniques work with any genre of campaign where this is your chosen approach.

13. Campaign Mastery

The 5th and final submission from Campaign Mastery on the subject, “Ordinary Life in an RPG“, is half rebuttal, sequel, and reply, to Clark Timmins’ article, listed at the start of this section, and half about how the “Ordinary Lives” of the PCs are handled in the Pulp Campaign that I co-GM because that proves the perfect example and illustrative mechanism for dealing with the problems raised by Clark. ‘This is obviously some strange new definition of the term, “Ordinary”.’ And, thematically, it brings us full circle leading back to the advice offered in the first article listed in this wrap-up.

Wrapping up the wrap-up

What strikes me, on reviewing the blog anchor and list of possible topics under this umbrella, is that only about half of them have been dealt with – there is still so much untapped scope within the subject.

The “ordinary lives” of the PCs in any game should be extraordinary by any mundane standard. Events within the “real” lives of the players and GM can have a definite and measurable impact on game-play and, while they can force compromises on a campaign, the changes don’t have to be detrimental and can even be harnessed to improve both campaign and GM capability. Between them, the articles that came out of this blog carnival offer you all the tools you need to make real life a positive force within your games.

Now, where’s the wrap party? In the sewers at 6d6RPG? Ohhhkay, where are my torch, leather boots, and broadsword?

Once again I’m daring to tackle a topic without the counsel of my friends and fellow GMs, largely because I had a clear answer in mind.
	Today’s question comes courtesy of Jason B, who asked, “Hey, I was about to start up a campaign that would ultimately take characters to all ends of the world. I was wondering, what is a good way of handling travel? I was thinking of having an Elder Scrolls-style system, where once they discover a location, they can “fast-travel” on future visits. This would of course be overruled by ambushes and trailing enemies. But they must find the way to their destination first. For me, it would give role-playing opportunities as well as ways to give plot hooks outside of cities. Maybe they find the lost temple on their own while on their way to the Elven capital. Maybe the Old Road that connects the three human kingdoms, usually protected and open, is being held by highwaymen. What would you guys suggest for handling long-distance travel?”
Travel inevitably gets faster as characters gain in levels or power, depending on whether we’re talking D&D / Pathfinder or some other game system. Not only are there fewer creatures that will make them break stride, but they have access to rapid-transit magics – whether that be a flying carpet, a flight spell, a friendly dragon, or Teleportation. Jason’s solution is just another variation on this well-worn procedure, and so would work perfectly well. But, (and it’s a big but), there is still that initial journey, and in fact, any travels undertaken while the characters are still low-level. I always use these as opportunities to establish the framework of the campaign, the ground rules as it were. I will deliberately design supposedly “random” encounters to highlight any house rules that demand such recognition, for example. I’ll make sure that the players encounter people from a variety of the religious, social, and cultural backgrounds in the campaign, because dry words on the page are one thing, actually encountering something “in-game” is far more real to the players. Beyond that, though, once these metagame considerations are dealt with, what then? To a surprisingly large extent, it doesn’t matter what the game genre is, or how the PCs are getting around – the determining factor is travel time, and greater distances in some campaigns merely mean that the speeds are greater. I treat a week aboard an FTL starship the same way that I treat a week spent on horseback, or on foot, or on a sailing vessel, or handling a big rig.

Travel in RPGs

Travel is one of the trickier campaign elements to get right. Most of it can be hand-waved, but if you hand-wave the entire journey, characters will have no perception of the scale of the distances that they travel, and that can lead them into errors of judgment tactically. Hand-wave too little, and it can be desperately boring. The balance between these two contradictions can be tricky to manage.

The Problem

Much of the problem results from the fact that Travel is 90% GM Monologuing, and there is a limit to how much Narrative is acceptable in a big block, or even a succession of Moderately-sized blocks. That can be hard enough to manage on it’s own, but it’s far from the only headache; the limits of what are acceptable and what is sufficient are not fixed. In fact, there can be quite a lot of variation, from group to group, game session to game session.

Just some of the factors that can be involved are:

1. Length of Narrative,
2. Type of content,
3. Predictability of content,
4. Repetitiveness of content,
5. Monotony of content,
6. Quality of delivery,
7. Expectations,
8. Interval since the last narrative block,
9. The Length, Nature, Subject, Content, Quality and Reception of that previous narrative block,
10. Storytelling priority relative to interaction priority on the part of the GM,
11. Storytelling priority relative to interaction priority on the part of the Players,
12. Player psychology,
13. PC psychology,
14. Calls to action blocked by narrative,
15. Any sense of railroading of plot, (right or wrong), and
16. Any sense of bias against the players/PCs on the part of the GM (right or wrong).

You would need to be a mind-reader to assess all these factors with any accuracy – and many of them will be different from one player to the next. What’s the standard to aim for? Is it the lowest common denominator, is it the minimum that will get the job done from a functional perspective, is it a medium value that is still within the tolerance range of the least-tolerant player in this respect, or should you aim to satisfy everyone at the table while not going farther than any find tolerable? That last is obviously the theoretical ideal, but is it practical in the real world?

If everything aligns against the GM, he can even discover that the minimum non-handwaved travel in order to properly abstract the passage of time is more than the maximum tolerable amount of game time to be allocated to the cause – a gap that can only be bridged through strenuous efforts to change the base factors of one or both ranges, increasing tolerances as much as possible while lowering demands.

If you find yourself dealing with cases 4 and 5, there’s no problem. Most of the time, however, cases 1, 2, or 3 will be the reality, and the challenge for the GM is to change the factors that he can control to altar these conditions to something more acceptable.

In other words, how to bring the journey to sufficient life while increasing substantially the players tolerance for the journey?

Well, the place to start is with that improbably long list of factors, and what the GM can do to shade each of them in his favor.

Length of Narrative

There is an art to being able to compress narrative without loss of detail, nuance, and emotional resonance. It’s by no means easy, and yet it’s one of the fastest ways of improving the ability to write. That’s why (in addition to reasons of practicality) so many writing workshops focus on stories with very restrictive word limits.

Still, it’s not difficult – it just takes an effort, one that grows less as you learn the skill. I’ve devoted an entire series (The Secrets Of Stylish Narrative) to the subject and the techniques, plus a few tips and tricks shared along the way.

Type of content

Some things are more interesting than others to hear about. Focus on those things and hand-wave the rest.

Repetitiveness of content

If you’re merely repeating yourself, collapse the information into a single narrative statement, and consider hand-waving it if that still results in repetition. Kill repetition stone cold dead.

This:

Day 23: Becalmed
Day 24: Slow Progress
Day 25: Slow Progress
Day 26: Becalmed
Day 27: Slow Progress
Day 28: Slow Progress
Day 29: Slow Progress
Day 30: (Something interesting happens)
Day 31: Slow Progress
Day 32: Slow Progress
Day 33: Becalmed
Day 34: Becalmed
Day 35: Slow Progress
Day 37: (Something else interesting happens)

becomes:

For a week, the prevailing winds are against you, resulting in slow progress, sometimes none at all. But the monotony is interrupted on the 30th day of your voyage when…
(Something Interesting Happens)
Almost a week later…
(Something else interesting happens)

Note that a further occurrence of “Almost a week later” or anything too similar is also repetition and prohibited. Find another way of phrasing it, or even ignore it altogether: “The next break in the dull routine takes place [N] days later…”

Predictability of content

If the players already know that their ship’s sails are not built for sailing into the wind, don’t tell them again. It’s predictable, it’s another repetition, even though it may be the first time in this journey that it gets mentioned. If the season is changing from Autumn through into mid-winter, don’t tell them that the days are getting shorter, and don’t give daily weather reports; use your narrative to make it clear that the season has changed and leave it to the players’ intelligence and general knowledge to tell them that the days are getting shorter – if they even have some way of keeping precise track of time.

If the players know that they are sailing in a northern latitude in winter, don’t bother mentioning snowfalls, or ordinary levels of sleet or storms. Compress and hand-wave: “The Cambulian Sea is notorious for its winter storms, making your passage to Port Tuffnarkle an exercise in misery.”

Monotony of content

“In the mid-afternoon, the wind shifts again…” Kill it.

Some modes of travel lend themselves to narrative differentiation due to the changes in the landscape, while others do not. Compare the following two passages:

“Over the course of the next week the foothills grow steadily steeper and taller, and you begin catching glimpses of the Dragontooth Mountains when the weather is clear. The winds grow chill, especially at night, and your journey is becoming a real race against the changing of the seasons – it seems Winter is coming early this year.”

“Over the course of the next week the waves grow slightly and increase the force with which they crash into the ship, especially when the winds shift in the afternoons.”

The first is great; it gives a sense of the many leagues of travel implied in a journey of that duration and implies that the world is moving on about its business while the PCs are going from point A to point B. It even threatens something interesting in the near future and lays the foundations for difficulties resulting from picking up the pace.

The second is barely tolerable. It could be improved – “the waves crash with greater force against the hull in the afternoons, when the wind shifts” – but even then, it doesn’t say much more than “time passes, the sea grows more agitated,” which is pretty ho-hum. Save it for the narrative when you introduce something more interesting going on – “Over the last week the waves have grown more violent, and the ship pitches and wallows ever more violently. Today, as the horizon rose over the side of the ship, Kalton saw…”

Quality of delivery

Some people are better at oration than others. The rest of us have to work on it, and do so again and again, because it’s easy to fall into bad habits. The more adverse the gaming environment, the more you are constrained in this department. Do whatever you can to improve your skills.

Over the last century or so, Oratory has gone from an art form to at least semi-scientific. There are all sorts of principles and techniques that can be used to enhance the style in which content is verbally arranged for best delivery.

Too many GMs take their narrative style from the delivery of actors and voice-over men in movies and TV shows. They get to deliver their lines in sound studios and often to do it over and over until they get it exactly right. Even worse, when some people read text they sound like they are reading text. You can tell.

Probably the easiest quick improvement that can be made in this respect is to read everything you have written in advance aloud at least once, at something approaching the volume levels that you will need at the time. Rehearse. Better still, if you can, record it and listen back to it at least once.

At the very least, this will point out passages where you have to take an awkward breath, or where your delivery becomes flat and monotone, or where you have pronunciation problems. Rewriting to avoid the first and third and adding reminder notes regarding your delivery will do wonders. And watch out for sentences running together.

Expectations

Some expectations need to be confounded, and other embraced. If the PCs are expecting a harrowing journey through danger, deliver. If the PCs are expecting a dull, routine, trip, liven it up at least once, and hand-wave the rest.

Interval since the last narrative block

As you’ll see when I get into travel narrative content, later in this article, an interval consists of player interactions with someone or something. No matter how interesting the content is, narrative blocks come in just two lengths: Too-long, and Not-Too-Long. The same is true of the intervals that separate one block from another.

There isn’t a lot of information out there on the specifics that distinguish Too-Long from Not-Too-Long. But I do have a rule of thumb that I employ: subtract the length of the interval from the length of the preceding narrative block, in terms of delivery time, and then consider the combination as though it were one larger narrative block. If the result is a narrative block that is too long, something needs to be done about it – either you need more content in the interval, or you need to shorten one or more narrative blocks still more, or you need an additional interval to be inserted somewhere.

The reality is more complicated than that:

• if the two narrative blocks are on the same subject, the interval is only 75% effective at separating them.
• The same is true if the second block can be considered a continuation of the first – 75% of 75%, or about 50% effective.
• There is also a compounding narrative length factor: every subsequent block of narrative after the second is effectively 25% longer than it seems, cumulative – so (roughly) +0%, +25%, +50%, x2, x2.5, x3, x4. The only way that isn’t the case is if the total of the intervals on either side of such a narrative block are at least as long, in playing time/reading time, as the unmodified block of text, which resets the pattern at +0%.

Let’s apply those “more complicated” principles to an abstract example:

• Narrative Block 1: 3 minutes
• Interval 2: 0.5 minutes (estimated)
• Narrative Block 2: 2 minutes
• Interval 3: 1 minute (estimated)
• Narrative Block 3: 3 minutes
• Interval 4: 2 minutes (estimated)
• Narrative Block 4: 5 minutes
• Interval 5: 0.5 minutes (estimated)
• Narrative Block 5: 3 minutes
• Interval 6: 30 minutes (estimated)

Becomes, step by step:

• Interval 1 is a die roll which is intended to be rhetorical. The PCs should succeed easily. Therefore:
• Narrative Block 2 is effectively a continuation of Block 1, so Interval 1 (a PC die roll) is effectively half length: 0.5 minutes becomes about 15 seconds.
• Narrative Block 1+2: 3+2 minutes-15 seconds = 4 minutes 45 seconds.
• Interval 3: 1 minute (estimated) – a brief conversation and a decision. Narrative Block 3 is on the same subject but isn’t a direct continuation because of the decision point, so it is 75% effective, or about 45 seconds, effectively.
• Narrative Block 3 is effectively +10% in size: approx 3 minutes 20 seconds.
• Narrative Block 1+2+3: 4’30” + 3’20” – 0’45” = 7’5″.
• Interval 4: 2 minutes (estimated) – a conversation of greater substance, and maybe a die roll at the end of it. Therefore Block 4 is not a direct continuation of Block 3 but is on the same subject, so the interval has an effective value of 75% of its length, or 1’30”.
• Narrative Block 4 is effectively +25% in length, so 5 minutes becomes 6′ 15″.
• Narrative Block 1+2+3+4: 7’5″ + 6′ 15″ – 0’45” = 13’20” – 0’45” = 12’35”.
• Interval 5: 0.5 minutes (estimated) – perhaps a simple yes/no decision. Effectively 75% long, or about 25″ long.
• Narrative Block 5 is effectively +50% in length, becoming 4’30”.
• Narrative Block 1+2+3+4+5: 12’35” + 4’30” – 0’25” = 16’40”.
• Interval 6: 30 minutes (estimated) – a minor combat or substantial roleplaying encounter. Since this is vastly more than the cumulative effective narrative total of 16’40”, and since the other side is “before play” (effectively an infinite interval), this breaks the pattern of increasing narrative length. Narrative Block 6 will therefore be a fresh start.

As a general rule of thumb, a 2:1 play-to-narrative total is tolerable to most players, provided that the initial narrative isn’t too long. This example seems more or less right – the narrative is a little longer than half the estimated length of the combat/conversation, but battles/conversations are easy things to underestimate, and the narrative has been broken up with GM-party interactions and decisions.

Note that I don’t normally calculate things out in this fashion – I do it by eye, feel, and instinct, and then pay as much attention as I can to the response of the players at the table. Perhaps that attention isn’t enough at times, but it’s the best that I can do.

Oh, and one more hint: you can use breaks to extend intervals, but not AS intervals in their own right. Taking a break after the players get to do something is fine, but making them wait to do something is not.

The Length, Nature, Subject, Content, Quality and Reception of the previous narrative block

The above already deals with this in a fairly substantial way; there’s not a lot more to say.

Storytelling priority relative to interaction priority on the part of the GM

We all have different levels of emphasis on storytelling as opposed to the PCs interacting with the game world and its inhabitants. The former promoted chunky narrative blocks, the latter breaks them up. By way of example, compare the very interactive outline used as an example above with:

• Narrative Block 1: 16’40”.
• Interval 1: 30 minutes (estimated)

Even though the Narrative Block is the same length as the effective combination of the individual blocks, given the intervals in between, this is a horse of an entirely different complexion. The GM drones on for more than 15 minutes before the players get to do anything. There are GMs who focus VERY strongly on storytelling who might consider this acceptable; I consider it extremely marginal, and I have a strong storytelling emphasis in my campaigns. Most GMs would consider it unacceptable, even if the players were content to listen to it.

Sidebar: The reality of storytelling priority

Actually, while we’re on the subject: the very concept that GMs have a single tolerance/desire level to narrative is a myth. In reality, it varies depending on where you are in the adventure. During the set-up phase, when there’s a lot of information to impart to the players, it can be fairly high; as the adventure gets underway, it declines to a mid-range sort of level; and as the adventure approaches a climax, it should plummet.

Or, at least, that’s the GMing style that I employ, which is all about my getting the PCs into an interesting situation and letting them find their own way out of it; the consequences then forming part of the initial conditions for subsequent adventures.

Other GMs have different approaches; my former partner here at Campaign Mastery recently discussed his own approach (I’d provide a link but I’m not sure it’s available online yet), which is to always start the session with some action. He and I would probably be a poor fit for each other’s campaigns – I’d be wanting to talk story and character development while he was reaching for dice, and vice-versa. Nothing wrong with either approach, or with some other pattern that suits you and your players.

The same is true of just about every metric defining GMing or Campaign Style that I’ve ever seen – whether it be continuity, or emphasis on combat vs roleplaying, or whatever. At best, they are a starting point for a conversation about style, not an adequate definition.

Storytelling priority relative to interaction priority on the part of the Players

What the GM considers acceptable may not be the same thing as what the players consider acceptable. And each player will have a different tolerance level. And it can vary from one campaign genre to another. One mistake that some GMs make repeatedly is writing to the PCs intelligence and not that of the players – addressing all the information blocks to the most intelligent character, for example, as though the less-intelligent fighter was irrelevant.

I try to treat all PCs as having situational intelligence and pitching party information in terms of that situational intelligence. If I’m giving the tactical situation, I will point the information towards the Fighter. If we’re talking about Magic, I’ll write to make the narrative accessible by the player with the Mage. If it’s about puzzles or security, a rogue gets the focus of that part of my briefing, and so on. Every PC should have their own focus where they are the expert, and the narrative should be pitched from their perspective. And I never short-change one to make room for another to receive additional information.

Player psychology

Or, to be more precise, player emotional and psychological state. There are days where you just want to hit something – hard – even if you aren’t a fighter. Bazorting something with a fireball can be a tolerable substitute if that’s the way your character rolls. If the player wants a fight and you’ve planned political dances, you’re in trouble.

The best approach is to have something for everyone and let the players decide who wants to do what – and NOT based on character abilities; the trick is to read these prevailing winds in advance and tailor the content so that what appeals to the player this week is suited to the character he runs. The impregnability of fortresses can vary enormously depending on who wants to penetrate it – if the fighter is feeling relaxed and comfortable but the thief craves action, a frontal assault may miraculously become impossible between the time we sit down at the gaming table and the time the PCs approach the fortress, tower, or whatever, while some flaw in the defenses might equally-miraculously materialize at the same time. Maybe there’s a bling spot where a climbing rogue would not be noticed, enabling him to undo whatever is making a direct assault impossible…

PC psychology

Some players tend to get as deep inside the heads of their characters as possible, wrapping themselves in their PC’s persona like a cloak. Others seem incapable of relating to their characters except from a distance and through what the game mechanics permit them to do in any given situation. Some of a GM’s biggest headaches arise when the mechanics and the character are in conflict. I don’t want to get deeply into the metagaming that can result, or we’ll be here all day.

Suffice it to say that the more deeply a player role-plays, the more you need to aim information at the personality and capabilities of the character and not of the player, and that for most, you need to take both into account.

On top of that, every character has certain ‘buttons’ that you can push to provoke a particular response. The psychology of the individual character is something that the GM always needs to be mindful of – whether that is because it defines the abilities that the player will apply to a situation (the deep roleplayers) or because the player has more trouble than most thinking “in-character”.

Tolerance for narrative can vary enormously depending on whether or not the content of that narrative accords with the psychological profile of the player-PC gestalt. To some extent, this lies beyond the capabilities of the GM; to some extent, it can be manipulable. Doing something to put the PC-player combination in a good mood can directly impact their tolerances. I know one player who has a great deal of difficulty making decisions when he is responsible for what a character does, but who is perfectly capable of making excellent and insightful suggestions when they are only kibitzing. In the former mode, he is capable of tolerating enormous amounts of narrative, even demanding as much information as possible to help them reach a decision, while their instincts outside that framework are far more direct and interactive in nature.

Calls to action blocked by narrative

It happens to all of us at times – you’re mid-paragraph, haven’t finished describing the situation confronting the PCs, when one of them wants to interrupt to ask a question (often one that you were about to answer) or to take action on the situation as they perceive it.

Action:

There is little more frustrating to a player than wanting to do something right now while the GM wants to continue with the briefing.

Whenever this happens to me, the first question that goes through my mind is whether or not the remaining information can be repackaged to result from the action being proposed by the character. If yes, problem solved.

If not, is there a way for the character to initiate the action they have described only to pull up short as the additional facts come to light? Again, if yes, then no problem; the player has simply inserted an additional interval into the narrative block, signaling that there should have been one there, all along.

Again, if not, is there any way to rescue the situation from reckless, perhaps precipitous action? If so, then no problem, let the player go ahead. If not, I will usually ask the player if they are really sure, which is polite table code for “you’re about to make a colossal mistake, you fudgeknuckle”. This is effectively asking the player to expound on his character’s thinking, giving the GM an opportunity to reassess the earlier yes/no questions, and the chance to initiate discussion of the desired action if nothing changes as a result. But if they say “yes,” then let the chips fall where they may.

Persuading a player that their decision is the wrong one when it’s the only one that they can think of may be frustrating to the player, but that won’t last if the reason they can’t see any alternative is because they didn’t yet have all the information that they needed, or because they were making a flawed assumption.

Question:

Is the question one that the briefing will answer in due course? If so, is it possible to preempt that passage and answer the question? A yes to this combination solves the problem – answer the question and then continue with the briefing. A ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively and I’ll just tell the player to hold his horses, I’m getting to that.

If no to both of these questions, is the question a fair and valid one? And is it one that the character, or some other character present might/would think of? A double-yes earns the character a brownie point in the form of a bonus point of experience – about 100-300xp on the D&D scale – and some quick thinking on the part of the GM. If I can’t give an answer pretty much right off the bat, I’ll take a couple of minutes break to think about the problem, usually having to rethink the internal logic of the whole adventure. It doesn’t happen often.

But, if not, then it’s my job to explain why not – sometimes the player will accept that, and sometimes they will offer a counter-argument that I will accept, leading to a reassessment.

Ultimately, most players will deliberately ignore a genuine plot hole if you acknowledge that you’ve included one by mistake, letting the adventure play out – and, any number of times, one of the people at the table will come up with something to wallpaper over that plot hole eventually.

Any sense of railroading of plot

Nasssty, Nassssty, we hates it, we hates it! The only time this is tolerable is when it is an agree-upon mechanism for the GM enabling the character to go somewhere, plot- or character-wise, that they have already agreed to go. In other words, a plot train is perfectly acceptable if there’s a player at the wheel and his character is the only one affected. Under any other circumstance, tread with extreme caution. And derail the plot train at your first opportunity.

There is a big difference between a plot railroad and shaping circumstances to lead to a specific outcome, however. If something happens despite the players’ best efforts, that can be fine (though the next point might apply). That said, I never like imposing a situation in which there is nothing that the PCs can do about a situation; they can try and fail, that’s fine, but there has to be some chance (and one beyond a mere die roll) to steer events – eventually. They might have to endure a situation for a while before an opportunity presents itself to them!

This is relevant because any block of narrative is essentially describing the outcome of decisions already made by the PCs, or that the GM assumes they will make. And that last is where things can come unstuck – that, and assuming that when things start diverging from their wishful thinking that the PCs won’t do something to change their decision.

Compressing narrative is never an excuse for taking decisions out of the PCs hands. That’s why there are intervals.

Any sense of bias against the players/PCs on the part of the GM

It’s human for a player to feel like the GM is picking on them from time to time. It’s also human for the GM to want to rub salt into wounds. I work very hard when writing narrative to guard against the first, and to resist any urge toward the second. I may not always succeed, but I always make the effort.

I always seek refuge in the “Yes, but…”, or the “You can, but…”, or “That won’t work because…”, or even, “That won’t do it unless…”.

Of course, it’s not bias against the players/PCs for a super-smart opponent to have anticipated an action and prepared a countermeasure. Doing so is one of the easiest ways for those of us who are mere mortals to simulate the super-genius. But the NPC needs to have already been described as a super-genius to the players, or they are entitled to find out the hard way.

There have been times when I’ve wanted to simulate not a super-genius plotter, but a crafty individual, or a someone who is just a little smarter than the PCs – which I do by letting them come up with a plan while I think of something that could be done to stop it, with word of that piece having been moved onto place on the metaphoric chessboard just as the PCs are about to put their plan into motion, signaling that their enemy has only thought of it a short time before they did, or that he took a long time to come up with a countermeasure.

The players should never feel like you are making up their minds for them. Constraining their decisions is fine. Adopting the role of someone in a battle of wits with them is fine – even cheating a little to make up for the fact that it’s X players against one, or to simulate the villain having had a lot of time to think about things and prepare accordingly.

Ultimately, I prefer to ensure that there is always a fatal flaw in the most brilliant of schemes simply so that I know what the solution that the players ultimately find should be, and can steer them gently in that direction if necessary. Players are not their characters, and each has limitations and advantages that the other lacks; players can often see the big picture more readily than characters who are swept up in the moment, for example.

Another point that’s relevant in this context is that NPCs can and will lie their heads off if so inclined, but anything delivered ex-cathedra is gospel as the players understand the situation to be. If something happens to contradict that understanding, I make sure to highlight it.

Narrative must always be honest.

Narrative Travel Content

Confession time: when I first blocked out this article, what follows is all there was after the numbered list at the start of the article. Everything you have already read was an afterthought, expounding on the items in that long list.

So here’s where we’re at: Travel is best handwaved into narrative passages interrupted by passages of interaction. What should be contained in those narrative passages, and what should those interruptions to the narrative be?

Well, the basic assumption is that the narrative will describe the journey being undertaken by the PCs up to the point where something interesting happens. Quite often, a narrative passage will naturally lead to some form of interaction; at other times, you need to break a large block of narrative up into digestible chunks.

Narrative passages essentially consist of two parts: Summation of otherwise boring/mundane events and introductions to an interaction that interrupts the narrative long enough for the players to have input into the situation, to make decisions, or to otherwise interact with the GM, with an NPC, with a situation, or with the game mechanics.

Every trip starts as a blank slate. Here’s what should go into that vacant space:

• Environmental Transitions
• Awesome scenery
• Noteworthy locations
• Noteworthy events
• Notable Weather Events
• Peculiar Events
• Encounters – trivial
• Encounters – non-hostile interactions
• Encounters – hostile interactions
• Mini-adventures

Environmental Transitions

If the terrain changes, the PCs should get a description of that change. “Over the next few hours, the bracken part before you like a stick parts the sand, but ahead of you now stands the Darkflame Forest, the very stuff of nightmare, or so legend would have it.”

“You forge the icy stream and crest the pass. A valley of reds and golds, forever autumn, stands before you, and a wash of warm air envelopes you in the scent of honeysuckle and roses.”

Awesome scenery

You would have to be blind not to recognize that there is fantastic beauty in every country on Earth, be it the breathtaking pyramids of Giza rising out of the sand dunes or the waterfalls of South America. People have been going out of their way to look at such sights for centuries; whenever possible, roads pass within view of them, and when not, side-roads and paths lead to amazing sights – side-roads and . paths that may be sufficiently unofficial that they do not appear on any map.

Placing such a natural wonder in the path of the PCs and ensuring that there is something distinctive and memorable about it forever transforms an otherwise forgettable road between obscure townships. No longer is it the road between Farns-something and Junomacallit, it’s the Road of Giant Idols or the cliff-side forest or whatever.

What’s more, because these are natural sights of attraction, places to break a journey, the odds are far greater that a fellow-traveler will be encountered at such locations, affording an opportunity to break the narrative with a bit of roleplay.

Noteworthy locations

Sometimes the location might not have natural beauty but may have deep significance historically or culturally. This is not only a chance to bring some of that campaign background to the fore, it’s a chance to directly connect one or two PCs to it. “Mid-afternoon, you reach the Humbolt Crossroads, where three armies once clashed in battle, slaughtering each other to the last man. With a start, you realize that the forest of sticks stabbing skywards are actually grave markers that go on for as far as the eye can see. Bruclaw, you’ve heard of this place and its story all your life; your Great-Uncle is amongst those buried here.”

If you forgo the personal connection, it becomes just another passage of narrative, another brick in the wall of perception of the journey; adding that connection gives an opportunity for some roleplay. If your players are reluctant to take the hint, you can get more direct, asking if, for example, Bruclaw is stopping to pay his respects to the fallen, or suggesting to the cleric that some words of prayer might be appropriate.

Noteworthy events

Some events are sufficiently noteworthy that the narrative should inform and then pause for the characters to investigate. “As you watch, the stream running alongside the path turns blood red for a moment before clearing.” “In the distance you hear an anguished scream.” “The horses panic as two dragons flash overhead, eye a potential lunch, and decide it isn’t worth the price of collection.”

Notable Weather Events

One of the things that I specify for every region that I create is the risk of an unusual weather event at different times of year. This risk is usually expressed as such-and-such a percentage per day spent in the area. I then do a calculation to tell me how many hours are needed for the cumulative chance to reach 10%, 25%, 50%, or 75%. This reduces the die rolls required to check for such phenomena to just a couple, and makes it practical to skip results or roll additional dice if the PCs pause for whatever reason.

An ordinary storm would be mentioned only in passing during the narrative, as would an ordinary wind. This is reserved for the really unusual and noteworthy weather events. As a further rule of thumb, unless the plot has something funky going on with the weather, there is a limit of one such event per month, no matter what the roll might be.

For example, a once-every-four-years winter event would have a chance as follows: One day in four years, divided by 4 seasons in a year, is one in 365 x 4 / 4 = one in 365, which is about 0.275% per day.

10% is therefore 10/0.275 = 36.5 days.

25% is 91 days.

50% is a bit more complicated, because a season is only going to be about 91 days long. 50 divided by 0.275 = 182 days – so if there wasn’t one last year, the odds of one happening this year are doubled to get the same net percentage chance. So 50% is two years, or 0.55% per day if it didn’t happen last year.

Similarly, 75% becomes 25% if there was one two years ago, and 50% over the entire 90-day season if the last was longer.

Note that these are not accurate calculations in terms of the probability; they are rough numbers that give a near-enough description of the situation, and are fairly simple to work with.

If it is going to take the PCs a week to cross the region, it’s a simple answer to make seven rolls against the daily total. If it’s going to take longer – thirty days, say – that becomes impractical. But if 10% chance is 36.5 days, then 30 days is 10 x 30 x 36.5 = 8% chance.

Once I know that there will be an event, the question becomes how serious? The base that I use is always once every four years, because 91 is close to 100, making for convenient calculations. (I will usually define a season as 100 days with some overlap between them, just for the convenience, to be honest).

Roll one d6 for each year. If any of them come up a six then it is worse than a once-in-four-years event, it’s a once-in-eight years. If two come up six, then it’s a once in sixteen years, and so on. For every two additional years, roll an additional d6; a six again doubles the numbers from 1-every-16 to one-every-32 to one-every-64 to one every 128. I don’t go beyond that 128 years is “never in living memory”.

Once I know how bad it is, I can plan the event accordingly, write the narrative that goes with it, and so on.

Peculiar Events

Sometimes, inexplicable things happen. Other characters are out there having adventures, and sometimes there’s a spillover. I use these when my imagination produces one. “The horizon lights up with eldrich fire; the display persists for a little more than an hour before vanishing.”

Encounters – trivial

Trivial encounters are something noteworthy but that don’t involve any PC interaction or combat. A pod of dolphins swimming alongside a ship qualifies. These don’t even rate a mention in the narrative unless they are unusual – so including one by definition makes it a notable event. A two-headed owl? Yes. A small lizard which runs through the air from snowflake to snowflake? Yes. The largest herd of buffalo that you’ve ever seen, more than 1,000 head? Probably. A dozen brown bears sitting around a campfire in some standing stones? Very definitely.

Most of these will simple get mentioned in passing. I place a limit of two of these per month of travel unless the PCs go somewhere where everything is new and strange, in which case I will have it at two or three a day for the first week and once a day for the rest of the month.

Encounters – non-hostile interactions

A non-hostile interaction is one in which there is a potential danger but no actual combat unless the PCs are foolish enough to start it. Those dragons flying overhead? They would qualify. A strange footprint in the mud? That would qualify. A passerby who hails the party and wants to chat about something? That definitely qualifies. I will use these as often as they seem appropriate when I need an interruption to the narrative.

But these can’t be filler. All right, one can be. The rest have to be significant in some way – either conveying news of something that will affect the journey, or that might affect the PCs on arrival. They are story groundwork.

Encounters – hostile interactions

Quite obviously, if someone has hostile intent, the encounter escalates to this category. I only use these when I need to reset the narrative clock unless the PCs are somewhere known to be dangerous.

Mini-adventures

I define a mini-adventure as anything that will take less than an hour to resolve. It could be five minutes, or it could be fifty-five minutes. Unless it is going to be shared by the entire party, the length is divided by the number of players and each of them needs to get one somewhere in the course of the journey; in truth, I always try to have at least two taking place for different PCs at the same time, just so that the other players at the table have a variety of things that they can get mixed up in, even though it’s not strictly any business of theirs.

I also permit players whose characters aren’t involved in a mini-adventure to kibitz. If I can involve them in some other way, that’s good too.

For example, in one of my campaigns, Dopplegangers need only have physical contact with someone to be able to replicate their appearance and mannerisms. In that campaign, at one point, a PC in a mini-adventure encountered one of the other PCs, even thought that second PC was last mentioned as staying put in the Inn where the characters were staying. The two went on to share the mini-adventure. At the very end of it, I handed the second player a note that said, “the character who has been adventuring with Thessald Brasstacks is a Doppleganger. Your ‘character’ should make an excuse to leave. When he returns to the inn, you will have no knowledge of any of the events of the evening, and won’t have gone anywhere all evening. Pull this off and you get full XP for the mini-adventure.”

Note that I have changed the name of the second PC. The first PC asked no questions and still has no idea that the encounter he had wasn’t with his friend…

The Principles of Compilation

I start by laying out a rough draft of the narrative. It might be as simple as “Depart Z’Lessig; Fields of Miphrew; Crossing the River Hellspan; Forest of Gressel; Summer -> Autumn; First Glimpse of Monbark; Arrival during an uproar.”

Some of these will suggest natural intervals in the Narrative where some interaction is clearly likely to happen or at least possible. There may be inadvertant gaps – in the example there is no mention of exiting the Forest of Gressel, the trees of which would make it hard to catch a glimpse of anything other than more trees until you were right on top of it. Always, each item is accumpanied by the unspoken question, “Why is this significant?”; the question might be implied, but the answer will not be.

Once I have rough-drafted the results, I can look at the length of the existing narrative blocks relative to the intervals already assigned and decide whether or not to subdivide the narrative block, bearing in mind that doing so will require the insertion not only of the interaction details but the inclusion of the introductory narrative to that interruption. If your narrative is twice as long as you think you want, divide it in three!

Once I know what the intervals will be, and I have allocated the ones that are logical outgrowths of the narrative block, it’s time to decide what goes in the others from the palette of choices described earlier in the article. Rough-draft them, estimate how long it will take to resolve, and then read it through from start to finish looking for issues of poor narrative flow from one section to the next. The more distinct each passage of narrative is, the better.

Then it’s a matter of polishing, adding detail and color and tonality. Simple, really.

Some rules of thumb:

• A week’s journey should take up no more than half a page unless there’s a roleplayed encounter involved, in which case I’ll let it stretch to 3/4 of a page.
• Between a week and a month should be less than a page.
• More than a month but less than three months should be no more than a page and a half.
• Up to a year should be disposed of in two pages -with full narrative flavor text and interruptions.
• Between one and five years, three pages, at least one of which is used by one or two interactions.
• Between five and twenty years, six pages.
• Longer, seven pages.

(All with 10-point text).

These are absolute maximums. I typically try to achieve half this – or, to put it another way, that’s the length of the rough draft of my narrative before I compress and polish it.

As a rough rule of thumb, it takes me five to seven-and-a-half minutes to read an A4 page of narrative aloud. Letter-sized pages are a little smaller – call it four to six minutes (3/4 inch margins).

In the next ATGMs: Shared Worlds and Co-GMs!