Debate is still going strong over my last article taking a closer look at what constitutes good storytelling techniques (Deus Ex Machinas And The Plot Implications Of Divinity), but – never one to back away from potential controversy – I’m about to dive headlong into another, and one from the same technique.

Anton Chekhov famously advised never to show a loaded gun in the first act of a play unless it was fired by the final act.

The principle has become generalized and known in literature as ‘Chekhov’s Gun‘.

Like a number of literary conventions and techniques, this advice is all well and good in principle, but falls down at times in practice, and – I contend – especially so when it comes to RPGs.

Driving The Plot

As the Wikipedia page notes, Chekhov’s Gun is all about foreshadowing, and rests on the principle that any ‘active object’ that is present in a scene must be assumed to be there for the express purpose of foreshadowing future events (an ‘Active Object’ is an object that can be used to do something). A loaded weapon is used as a metaphor for all active objects within the scene.

There is a particular minimalism that is implied by this principle that works on a Stage, where a minimal number of props can be the subject of focus. But that principle fails in any immersive environment.

You would not include a telephone as one of the props on stage unless at some point a call was going to be made or received. But if you were making a TV show or movie, the absence of a telephone where you would expect to see one is far more disruptive than showing a telephone and not using it. However, having dressed the scene with a telephone, it then becomes logical for it to be used (or for an attempt to use it to be made) if there is a need for communications.

The RPG Paradigm

RPGs are a different kettle of fish again. Unlike a novel, a play, or a movie, the author of the adventure is not exclusively driving the action. It follows that if he places a loaded weapon in a scene, it is not his choice whether or not it is subsequently used. A better paradigm might be a choose-your-own-adventure structure, in which the objects used to dress an environment are both logically consistent with that environment and represent options made available to the PCs from which they cherry-pick the ones that will move them closer to a solution.

In fact, that’s not a bad structural analogy in other ways. You can think of each PC as carrying internally his own set of options that are always available unless specifically blocked by circumstances (and the GM is in charge of those circumstances); the combination of the repertoires of all the PCs, plus any specifically made available by the GM and less any that he has blocked represents the sum total of the options available to the PCs for dealing with the circumstances and moving the plotline forward. Which choices will they make? The GM can sometimes guess in advance, but will never know for certain until the Rubicon is crossed.

Creating Options not Railroad Tracks

In other words, the GMs placement of objects within a scene is all about creating or removing options for the PCs, rather than laying down a railroad track along which the plot has to run. The options should be those that are logically present, unless the GM specifically removes one – a decision that has to be justified by the circumstances.

If I mention a modern office building as a setting, I don’t have to state that there is a phone on every desk; it can be assumed. If there aren’t phones on the desks, that’s noteworthy.

Similar logic can be applied to a loaded firearm. If it is logical for one to be present, it must be assumed to be present unless the GM makes a point of the exception.

The corollary is that objects that would not be expected to be present are also noteworthy – and that brings us back to Chekhov’s Gun. The principle, as generally stated, only applies to situations and settings where the loaded weapon is going to be an unusual object.

The Assumption of Function

The other limitation on Chekhov’s Gun as a literary principle is that the only function of a firearm is to shoot at someone or something. Just how valid is that assumption? Are there any other uses for a loaded weapon?

Characterization

Of course there are. The first is characterization. A Big Game hunter is likely to have weapons on the wall – presumably unloaded ones. A lot of police officers have loaded weapons in their homes – as do ordinary people in a lot of countries. Criminals frequently have them lying around. If there’s a danger of wild animals, a loaded firearm is a natural precaution.

All these are examples of circumstances under which a loaded gun would be present logically – which means that if the characters know that this is the setting of the scene, they will be able to assume that one is present. However, if they don’t know that the setting justifies the presence of the weapon, they can infer it from the fact that there is a weapon present. An additional function of the weapon is therefore characterization of at least one of the inhabitants of the room.

Past Use

What if the weapon had been already fired when the characters arrive on the scene? So long as it has not been completely emptied of ammunition, it is still technically a loaded weapon. In order to justify the presence of a loaded weapon without having it fired at some future point, all you need is a body apparently dead of one or more gunshot wounds when the scene opens. The existence of the weapon is no longer justified by foreshadowing, and Chekhov’s Gun no longer applies.

This justification works equally well in all media, it’s not just a roleplaying thing.

Loot

The next one, however, is purely gamist. You put a loaded gun in the scene because you want the PCs to have a loaded gun.

Actually, that would be pretty sloppy writing under most circumstance. You would normally put a firearm and ammunition in the scene. Why? It’s easier to justify their presence than it is to both justify their presence and justify someone having loaded the weapon.

Why “under most circumstances”? I didn’t originally include that caveat, but then the following occurred to me:

It’s the zombie apocalypse, or the Day of the Triffids, or whatever. Someone takes refuge in a house and barricades the doors and windows. They locate and load a weapon, but before they can use it, they are attacked and killed by whatever the greeblies are, who have entered through some unprotected window or other entrance. At some later time, the PCs arrive for whatever reason, kill any greeblies that are still present, and discover the corpse and the firearm.

Under this scenario, it is totally plausible for the PCs to find a loaded weapon. They don’t have to know the back story, though they might be able to infer it from the circumstances. So why is this an example of superior writing relative to the finding of the unloaded weapon and the ammunition?

First, because it is more logical for an attempt to have been made to employ the weapon if it was present. And second, because it places the arrival of the PCs after the beginning of the scene (even the rest of it all occurred “off-camera” – showing that the world around them is not static, frozen in time and waiting for them to appear on the scene. Things happened before they arrived and will continue to happen after they leave. They may only become aware of this if they return to the location, but the pre-sequence alone is enough to increase the verisimilitude of the game world.

But the second reason only works because of the first.

Mystery

The next potential function follows directly on from the sidebar discussion above – if a loaded weapon is present, it can be assumed that someone had what seemed like a logical reason for loading it. That usually implies that they anticipated a need to use it.

And that gives grounds for a mystery: if the weapon is in the hand of a dead man, why didn’t he use the weapon to defend himself? It might be that it simply jammed, making the mystery trivial – or the weapon might have been fully functional but the man was killed before he could employ it, again making the mystery trivial – or he may have suffered a slow and deliberate death at the hands of a third party, apon whom he failed to employ the weapon at hand for some reason. That’s the mystery.

For some reason, as I was typing the above, scenes from The Abominable Dr Phibes kept flashing through my head. But there can be almost any reason for the failure to fire the weapon – anything from poison to paralysis from fear to the presence of a third party as a hostage against action by the dead man.

The expectation of use of an active object creates a mystery when it has not been so used.

Threat

And finally, perhaps the weapon was never intended to be used – but is present to provide the threat of its use. Weapons, by their nature, can be intimidating, and that usage alone can justify the presence of a weapon without it being used.

Where there are two reasons for a weapon or other active object to be present, there will be a third, and a fourth, and so on to the limits of the author’s creativity. The five justifications provided cover most situations, but more than anything else, they indicate the likely existence of other reasons .In fact, including an active object in a scene because you expect it to be used in a subsequent scene is one of the poorest justifications for its presence.

The Lack of a Loaded Gun

There is another point to be made: If, for whatever reason (including following Chekhov’s advice), you leave a gun out of the scene and then find that you need to write one in retroactively – or take something out that was included – it’s easy to do with a play, novel, or script, up to the point of publication. Even afterwards, it’s possible to write in a hidden observer or object in some media – and still have it seem plausible – though that’s a lot harder. Such retcons are much, much, harder – both to achieve and on the suspension of disbelief – in an RPG.

In fact, the hardest medium to retcon is the RPG in some respects, because the players are used to formulating a perception of the world based on the GMs descriptions, and deliberately omitting something – without even giving the PCs the chance to spot it – is widely regarded as deliberate cheating and railroading of the worst kind.

Metagaming Flavor Text

A danger that exists more substantially in RPGs than in other forms of literature is that of telegraphing significant plot developments and scenes by means of the specificity and quantity of flavor text. I’ve lost count of the number of times a character in KODT has said “Be on your toes, the flavor text is so thick you could cut it with a knife” or words to that effect. And, while KODT is a comedic drama, what they are lampooning with these statements is a real phenomenon.

It comes about because GMs focus their creative energies on the scenes and settings that matter, developing substantially greater quantities of flavor text just by including everything that’s important. A scene that doesn’t matter so much gets rather less descriptive effort.

But what are the alternatives? Overloading every non-critical scene with excessive flavor text may have been acceptable literary technique in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it quickly grows irritating to modern ears. And leaving out critical elements from the descriptions of important scenes to preserve a “flavor text parity” is also unsatisfactory to players, who will roundly complain to the GM about the practice whenever they encounter it.

All this is directly relevant to the discussion of Chekhov’s Gun. The minimalism that Chekhov described as good literary practice encourages the direct indexing of relevance to flavor text quantity and specificity, which in turn encourages this behavior by players.

That alone argues that Chekhov’s approach is not best-practice when it comes to RPGs.

Conclusion: What is good writing for an RPG?

We’re approaching the end of this article and at the same time, getting to the heart of the matter. Every literary medium has its own internal rules and structures, and it’s best practices that constitute good writing within that medium. Some of these are universal, while some translate from one medium to another incompletely, selectively in application, or not at all.

What are the qualities that I associate with good writing for an RPG adventure (rules are a completely separate discussion)?

In no particular order, I would argue in favor of the following criteria:

• Consistency – more a function of editing/layout, but each of us develops our own literary conventions when writing adventures for our campaigns. When I read an adventure written by someone else, I don’t care what their conventions are particularly, so long as they have been applied consistently throughout.
• Personality – some writers have a natural facility with the written word, and can impart personality into every line. Others are hacks who have difficulty imparting flavor to a curry. Most of us are somewhere in between. The more naturally personality and flavor leaps off the page and into the narrative, the better the writing.
• Accessibility – at the same time, I don’t want to have to stop and reach for a dictionary every time I read something. If there’s a term used with which most people are unfamiliar, it’s not enough to define it within the flavor text or GMs briefing or some NPCs dialogue – I want an explicit definition made clear on the page where it is used for the first time. If there’s an NPC, introduce them to me at the same time as they are being introduced into the adventure.
• Organization – Don’t, for the love of heaven, stick all the definitions and other essential information in an appendix at the back – and that includes NPCs, monster stats, treasure details, spells, map keys, etc. I don’t want to have to leave where I am in the adventure, find an entry somewhere else in the text, interpret it, and then go looking for wherever I was up to. Nor do I want to have to go find some other part of the adventure in order to be able to referee the current scene. The more self-contained each constituent part – be it scene, act, or chapter – the more functional the adventure, and hence, the better written so far as I’m concerned.
• Plot – I like adventures that go somewhere interesting, either literally or metaphorically. An adventure with something to say, or something to think about.
• Verisimilitude – a well-written adventure has to make sense. No 100 Orcs in a 10′ x 10′ room need apply. Nor do any adventures that have characters behaving against their best interests without explanation. Sure, it might be that the character has had a lapse in judgment or has misinterpreted a situation – in which case, tell me about it, and make sure that you tell me how the adventure will change if the PCs manage to clue the idiot in. And don’t assume that you know how the PCs will react in any given situation.
• Balance Of Narrative Passages – The best way to avoid Metagaming of the narrative (as described earlier) is to to have all the flavor text descriptions be roughly the same length. Rather than making some of them filler and others significant, put something significant into every scene. And don’t assume a linear structure to the adventure – remember, the perversity of the PCs tends to a maximum so far as following plotlines is concerned!
• Concision – finally, be as concise as possible, especially when it comes to synopses and directions to the GM. And if there is an alternative section of text that might apply, tell me about it before starting on the first alternative.

This list is almost certainly incomplete. The perfect format for an rpg adventure has yet to be invented, and its possible that it never will be – that we can only get closer with subsequent iterations while never achieving the ideal. But that’s a subject for some other time.

One definition of minimalism might be that it provides the minimum necessary information from which an entire description can be extrapolated. Chekhov’s Gun doesn’t apply to RPGs in so many ways and for so many reasons, but mostly because Roleplaying game adventures are a unique blend of narrative fiction, script, and non-fiction literary forms. Some of it is stage direction and some of it is plot navigation. Examining the reasons for that failure to apply is nothing short of illuminating, however – a window into crafting better adventures for any game, any genre. All it takes is a little extrapolating from the starting point that Chekhov’s Gun provides. In that respect, even in an RPG, it fulfills the spirit of minimalism that Chekhov was advocating – even while that recommendation is contradicted by the specifics. And that’s a noteworthy inclusion.

Wikipedia defines a ‘Deus Ex Machina‘ as a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. It can be roughly translated, they say, as “God made it happen,” with no further explanation.

They also state that the Latin phrase comes to English usage from Horace’s Ars Poetica, where he instructs poets that they must never resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots. He refers to the conventions of Greek tragedy, where a crane (mekhane) was used to lower actors playing gods onto the stage or raise them through a trap door – both ways of having them appear miraculously on stage.

I just happened to be reading that page this weekend and my first reaction, as a Gamer & a long-time GM, was “there’s something wrong with this picture”. The disapproval of the literary device only makes sense if one assumes that the Gods are fictional.- that’s why Gods are continually showing up in the Greek plays, they were as real to the Greeks as Mountains, Fire, Lightning, and Rain, capricious natural forces that showed up whenever something interesting was going on. There is an implicit assumption of fictionality in the disapproval; if Divine Beings are ‘real’ within the context of the narrative, then it becomes unrealistic for them not to appear.

Immediately, there is a conflict between what we are taught by experience – through television and novels and accepted literary conventions – constitutes ‘good writing’ and the demands of verisimilitude. My second reaction therefore was, ‘examining that conflict would make a great article for Campaign Mastery’ – and so it is that you come to be reading these words!

Reconciling the Conflict

The conflict exists because on the one hand we have the principles of good storytelling demanding that we eschew Divine Intervention as a narrative tool, and on the other the insistence that if the Gods are real (which they supposedly are within the fictional context of the game), the internal logic demands that they appear. The conflict is inherently present in the game worlds that we present to the players, in the adventures that we craft to occur within those worlds, and in the expectations of the players. Ultimately, they come down to the burden of suspending disbelief, and the requirement that we have to have it both ways in order to satisfy that burden.

After spending a few minutes thinking on the subject, I have been able to identify three ‘acceptable’ ways of resolving that conflict to everyone’s satisfaction. There may be more, but these are the only three that I’ve found thus far. They are:

• The Gods On Call
• Out Of The Frying Pan
• Just Another Character With An Agenda

The Gods On Call

If the Gods can only get involved when invoked by mortals – or can only intervene indirectly – then the conflict disappears because Divine Involvement is no longer a Deus Ex Machina. Instead, the gods become akin to the power pack on a science-fiction weapon or toolkit, extending the capabilities of the wielder. Their natures & personalities become a cloak of religious interpretation of physical phenomena and their existences mere metaphors for the limitations of the weapon/toolkit and its power supply.

The result is science fiction in fantasy clothing, as expressed in Larry Niven’s “Flight Of The Horse” collection, his “Dream Park” series, “The Flying Sorcerers”, or the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Devil’s Due”. It’s an extremely low-fantasy approach that finds favor with some GMs, especially those wont to explain “Magic” as some form of Psionics. This approach has never appealed to me, though I enjoyed all of the named sources, but I have a noted preference for high fantasy – others can and do prefer this approach.

Out Of The Frying Pan

It’s perfectly acceptable to employ a Deus Ex Machina in the classical sense of the term if it only gets the PCs “Out of the frying pan and into the fire”. This approach was used to good effect in Stargate, in which the Asgard are initially used to get the characters out of trouble – only for the piper to call for his payment with the introduction of the Replicators, a menace even greater than the ones SG-1 are already trying to cope with.

Although I rarely employ this approach in it’s pure form, it’s not entirely absent from my campaigns, especially the forerunners of the Zenith-3 campaigns.

Just Another Character With An Agenda

The final solution to the problem is to humanize the Divine Powers. If they become “just another character with an agenda” and their intervention makes sense in terms of that agenda, the implausibility of their involvement goes away.

This is my favorite of the solutions because of the depths of characterization it provides – a Divine Power can assist this week (in furtherance of their agenda) and interfere next week (in furtherance of that agenda). Interaction on a human, ie roleplaying, level becomes possible. What’s more, this approach lends itself to limiting divine power, as I advocated in A Monkey Wrench In The Deus Ex Machina in various ways, preventing them from being a universal Panacea to all the PCs problems.

A General Principle

All of these solutions require some work on the part of the GM. Some of this work is high-concept and some of it is mundane nitty-gritty, but it all has to be done.

One characteristic each of the solutions share is the insistent demand for consistency. Another is than none of them are fully encapsulated by the most common RPG systems, and each will therefore require careful examination of game mechanics, races, encounters, etc to ensure compliance with the chosen view of the game universe. I’m thinking specifically of D&D and Pathfinder here, though the comments are just as applicable to most other game systems – they are certainly true of the Hero System, GURPS, Rolemaster, TORG and 7th Sea, for example. Traveller, Space Opera, Paranoia, and the Star Trek RPG are all ‘hard’ SF series in which deus ex machina should all be technological in nature, if they exist at all, and hence the problem doesn’t arise. Interestingly, Call Of Cthulhu and The Lord Of The Rings RPG are amongst the most pure games in this respect – both have a specific solution in place and stick to it exclusively, requiring the GM to follow their line. Toon, of course, breaks all the rules and doesn’t care – and that more or less exhausts the list of game systems I’ve played enough times to comment on in this respect!

Most games simply assume that the Gods are, or are not – and then go straight into personalities (or perceived personalities) and other attributes of specific pantheons or divine beings. There is often little consistency between the concepts that frame one part of the game mechanics and another; and for a relatively superficial action-adventure series of dungeon-bashings, that’s probably good enough. For anything with more depth, though, there is the potential for scope and creativity here that can and should be exploited.

Conceptual Development

For longer than I have been writing for Campaign Mastery, I have been advising people to look at the big questions behind their RPG campaigns, the core assumptions that underlie everything that transpires within the game. I did so once again, here, in A Quality Of Spirit way back in December ’08. There are at least 7 such “Big Questions” that bear directly on these issues:

• What are the Gods?
• What is their origin?
• What are their limits?
• Where do they get their power?
• How do they translate this power into effects and manifestations?
• What is the role of Worship?
• What are their limitations?

These are all about putting salt on the tail of Divine Power as applied to Deus Ex Machina, about determining what the Gods can do, how, why, and how they can interact with the game world – and with the PCs who live in it – in a consistent manner.

Nuts And Bolts

Once you have the high-concept answers, you need to determine what impact the answers have, if any, on the game mechanics. The Cleric and Druid classes, or their equivalents, are obviously right in the line of fire, but so are the Paladin, and potentially the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Ranger class – or their equivalents. And if the nature of magic is affected, that can affect all Magic Items – which in turn affects Rogues and Fighters and Barbarians. There will be additional high-concept questions to consider along the way as well, such as “Where do new Clerical spells come from?”

Another Perspective

It should always be remembered that the purpose of all this work is to answer the question of what the GM can justify doing within the game. These are deliberate limitations on his palette of in-game events, with a restriction that has as much to do with creating ‘good adventures’ as it does anything else. Any other benefits that may derive, such as uniqueness of campaign, are incidental rewards. It can help, however to look at the questions from a couple of different directions:

• From the perspective of what the PCs and other character classes can do, in-game; and
• The tone and content of the planned or existing campaign.

Both of these can be considered consequences or derivations of the answers to the fundamental conceptual questions posed, but there is no reason not to put the cart before the horse; choosing the set of consequences desired and then reasoning backwards to the concepts and assumptions that generate those consequences. Being able to find your way from desired outcomes to causes is always a useful skill to have for a GM, in any event.

Character-inspired answers

To illustrate the utility of this approach, and the scale of the impact that these questions can have on a campaign, here are four possible answers to the question, “Where do Clerical spells come from?”, or – more correctly – “What are Clerical Spells and how are they created?”

• Clerical Spells are respectful requests of the Gods formulated by mortals. As such, formulaic prayers are given less weight than original compositions, and the Gods – to prevent themselves being run ragged – are literary snobs. Clerical Training is as much about poetic and lyrical improv as it is theology. Perhaps the gods only listen to their appointed followers and those within the bounds of a church or shrine consecrated to them. This gives the Gods far greater capacity for independent activity, implying that they are more (and do more) than what characters might read about in the equivalent of Sunday School.
• Clerical Spells are means of compelling activity on the part of the Gods, formulated by mortals to bind the Gods to their will as part of a compact. This implies that mortals have something the Gods need – worship being the most obvious. Perhaps the Gods derive some form of spiritual sustenance from acts of worship. It is likely that the Gods would either ignore requests from those who can’t deliver the power of worship (non-clerics) or do the opposite just to be perverse – it depends on how willingly they entered into the compact. Either way, clerical spells tend to be formulaic phrases strung together in a logic as binding as that of a computer program, and the Gods are dependant on mortals.
• Clerical Spells are means of compelling activity on the part of the Gods, formulated by the spiritual enemies of the Gods (Devils/Demons/Whatever). These enemies came up with this means of controlling and confining their enemies without realizing that it made them subject to the same limitations. As a result, they are perpetually angry and destructive. The whole “Good vs Evil” theology erected by mortals to explain the relationships between these opposing forces completely misinterprets the relationship. The previous answer was all about voluntary submission and a spirit of cooperation and collaboration; this is a much more sinister and adversarial solution in which both Gods and their Enemies are, to some extent, enslaved by the Mortals who worship them. Of course, both sides continually try to alter the rules of the ‘game’ – the Gods by imposing theological doctrine on mortals and Devils by twisting language like a lawyer. New Clerical Spells can be devised at any time but are as complex as designing a new clock, with its myriad of moving parts all functioning in harmony – or the clock doesn’t work.
• Clerical Spells have been bestowed apon mortals by the Gods. They are ways of telling mortals, “this is what we’ll do and if it’s not on the list…” Of course, there are several ways of ending that sentence. Clerics might be able to request new spells from the Gods to perform specific tasks, or the limits might be absolute, or it might even vary from Deity to Deity. There’s something about the notion of the God Of Luck saying, “I’ll give you your spell if you can roll better on three dice than I can” that I find quite appealing. Clerical Spells are more like command words or passwords – and perhaps only key words or phrases within the spell actually matter and the rest is subterfuge designed to protect the authority of the church.

Each of these puts a fundamentally different spin on the relationship between the Gods and Mortals, and hence a different spin on the manifestations of those relations within the game. They all explicitly confine Deus Ex Machinas into categories of those that are acceptable within the games narrative structure and those that are not.

Tone-inspired answers

An equally-valid approach ois to decide the type and style of the plots that the GM wants to run and choose answers to the questions that support and enlarge apon those foundations – then deal with the consequences to character classes etc that result. A campaign might be a dramatic end-of-an-epoch series of stories of imminent Armageddon” – or it might be “the gods have gone away leaving just their miracle-fulfillment machines” – or “the Gods are Demons with a better grasp of PR who have succeeded in enslaving the mortal races” – or… well, you get the idea. Each of these campaigns deals with a theological context either as a central point or one of a series of distinguishing themes in quite a different way, and hence will have different answers to the list of “Big Questions” – which in turn will have knock-on effects within the game mechanics.

Perhaps there was a zombie apocalypse 20-odd years ago that has just been beaten back – and the survivors now want to know how it happened in the first place, who’s responsible, and why. As soon as you (or the game mechanics) state that “Clerical Magic works” – or simply that undead shun consecrated ground – you’re into the territory of “why?” Having answers permits the PCs to discover those answers, making them ever more-connected with the plotline and the world around them – and permits informed judgment calls on the part of the GM when they do something not covered by the game mechanics. (“Can you dehydrate holy water? What happens if you sprinkle it in a circle around your campsite? Is there such a thing as un-holy water? What happens if you inject Holy Water into the venous system of a Vampire, for example using a dart gun?”) I’ve never known a game system to answer any of these in its game mechanics (one probably has, and I’m sure my enlightened readership will quickly tell me about it if so!)

But they are all good, practical questions that I have been asked by players in the course of a game at some point. If you don’t know why Holy Water affects undead in the first place, you’re going to be scrambling for an answer.

I was going to follow this with a discussion of the theological foundations – the answers to those “Big Questions” – from some of my campaigns, but rather than dilute this article with material of only tangental relevance, I think I’ll leave those discussions as the foundations for other articles down the track. Besides, why blow my was in one article whemn I can get 4 or 5 out of it?

For some time now, I’ve been aware of a subtle difference between the advice being dispensed here at Campaign Mastery and what really happened in the games that I run. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure that my perception was accurate; I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the differences were, indicating that it was something very subtle, and even when I became convinced that there was something to it, I was inclined to dismiss it as the difference between a perfect world (the idealized approach offered by these blog posts) and the real world, where compromise is often necessary. And I still couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the difference was.

It was while reading one of the books inherited from my friend, Stephen, that the penny dropped and I figured out what the difference was. The book was “Captain’s Logs Supplemental” by Edward Gross and Mark A Altman, and the text was discussing the differences between ST: The Next Generation and Classic Trek, specifically the differences in the casting process and the dynamic of the cast as viewed on-screen.

Star Trek was always intended to be an ensemble cast, but the triumvirate of McCoy, Spock and Kirk hijacked that to a large extent (according to the book) and turned it into a star vehicle for these three cast members. Thereafter, the rest of the cast struggled to get even a featured moment that didn’t involve one of the big three; while with Next Gen Roddenberry finally got what he had been aiming for all along. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with this assessment or not – or whether you like one or both Star Treks or not – the important point here is the difference between a star vehicle and an ensemble.

The differences are subtle but unexpectedly profound. And exactly the point of departure between the idealized advice that I had been advocating and the real world practice that I was experiencing in my own games.

Now, I’m a firm believer that the more you understand what’s really going on under the hood in your games – whether it be game mechanics, character interactions, or your own through processes – the more control you have over the game and the better you are able to GM that game. You’ll know when to encourage and when to discourage, when to play into and when to step away from, established player behavior patterns. And make no mistake, this is as much about the players as it is the characters that they bring to the table.

So what are the differences?

In an ensemble, there may be one or two featured characters in a plotline but these ‘hats’ get passed around from session to session, adventure to adventure. This week, the featured character might be Narcissus of Thiomipoles and next week Brutus the Barbarian. Those who aren’t wearing that ‘hat’ get only a passing mention unless they are interacting directly with the featured character or with the plotline that has derived from them.

In a star vehicle, there is a small segment of the character population who are consistently at the centre of things, who are the characters driving the show (or, in this case, the game) forwards. In general, this will be one-half or less of the total PC population. The other PCs are supporting cast, present not to star in their own right but to give the stars someone to interact with, to propel the story forwards. They may supply crucial information to the main stars that enable the plot to move forwards, but they rarely have the spotlight all to themselves – and when they do, it’s only a precursor to new complications in the lives of the starring characters.

In an ensemble, you could have an adventure in which a character does nothing except stay in the background and observe or may not appear at all except at the beginning or the end of the adventure, this week, while next week they are the centre of attention; while in a star vehicle, its unthinkable not to have the stars take centre stage for the majority of the adventure.

The differences as applied to RPGs

RPGs are a little different to a television series, or a play, of course – and a lot more complicated. For one thing, we have two distinct modes of play – combat and non-combat – in virtually every game that I can think of. For another, the players decide – to some extent – whether or not their characters are going to take an active role in the plot. It’s entirely possible for combat to be a star vehicle for one or more characters while roleplaying is more of an ensemble. There can be particular phases of non-combat play that are star vehicles and others that are more egalitarian – for example a character or player who always comes to the fore when detective work is called for. And even beyond those, in general “PCs talk to someone / talk amongst themselves” roleplaying, its possible to transition from ensemble to star vehicle and back again with no hard delineation between these very different styles of player-plot interaction.

The only way to make sense of this anarchy is to break the RPG down into sub-activities. Combat, Skill-Focus Activities, Planning and Dialogue are the categories that I’m going to use; while they are very broad, and there can be crossovers amongst them, they will hopefully be sufficient to delineate the different types of circumstances.

Combat

The more combatants there are, the more Ensemble in nature the treatment of PCs will be. Even so, there are potentials for individuals to star more prominently on a regular basis. To some extent this is a function of character abilities – in a D&D encounter with undead, you would expect the Cleric to star. At other times, a more traditional combat-monster PC might take centre-stage. In general, though, we aim for egalitarianism in combat.

Your Combats might be a star vehicle if:

• one specific character usually strikes the final blow;
• there is one specific character whose combat capabilities you always have to take into account when designing encounters;
• you have to deliberately design encounters to give a character spotlight time; or,
• one specific character is designed to take large numbers of low-level “supporting” enemies (ie flunkies) out of the combat quickly.

For example, in my Fumanor campaign Seeds Of Empire we have one PC, Eubani, who is unapologetically the star; everyone else fights a holding battle until Eubani is free to dispatch the enemy. There are exceptions, but they occur only when an encounter has been specifically designed to make another PC the star.

In the One Faith Fumanor Campaign, the entire campaign was designed from the start to be a star vehicle for one particular PC (it started out as a solo campaign) – but Combat is the one time when that character is potentially overshadowed, or at least no more prominent than any other character.

In Shards Of Divinity, we once again have a deliberate star vehicle for one specific character, but that character is not a combat monster by any stretch of the imagination, and it usually falls to the other PCs to try and keep the star alive! These three campaigns cover the full spectrum of possibilities.

Skill Focus

It’s entirely normal for one character to be the focus of attention when a question involving a particular skillset arises. You wouldn’t expect a rogue to be able to answer a question on arcane theory or a physicist to be great at criminal investigation (no matter how used to working logically they might be). But even here, it’s possible for a character to steal the spotlight more often than others do, depending on their skills and the adventures that you are running. One of the ongoing challenges every GM faces in every game (regardless of game system) is creating situations in which two disparate fields of expertise, held by two separate characters, are required in order to answer the question at hand. You can liken the objective to the solving of a jigsaw in which different characters each have one or two pieces of the puzzle but can’t see quite how they fit together.

Even within this type of scene, subdivisions are possible, because its possible to group skills and expertise into practical skills and theoretical knowledge. It’s entirely possible for one character to monopolize the theoretical knowledge “skills” while the practical skills are more evenly divided – and possibly exclude that “expert” character entirely.

Your Skill-oriented scenes might be a star vehicle if:

• one specific character (as opposed to the player) seems to know more about the world than anyone else;
• a single player is always asking to make a skill roll;
• only one character has an academic background;
• characters with high skill levels don’t have sharp boundaries to their knowledge; or,
• you have difficulty posing a mystery or surprising the players with a world background revelation.

In general, one of these being true might not be enough to definitively consider these scenes as a star vehicle, but the more of them that ring true, the more likely it is.

It’s relevant at this point to mention Lucius, the starring character (quite deliberately) of the Shards Of Divinity campaign. This character has exceptionally high theoretical knowledge – but with some very firm limits as to what his expertise covers and what it doesn’t. In general, if it isn’t a key moment in human activity, he doesn’t know anything esoteric; for example, he has a very high skill in architecture – but his practical knowledge of the field is virtually non-existent, and he has very limited awareness of non-human architecture. He might be able to grasp something about the latter working from the general principles of the field, but that’s about as far as it goes. This means that there are times when – as intended – the campaign is a star vehicle for the character, but there other occasions when an everyman with a skill roll 10 or 12 ranks lower than Lucius’ actually knows more about the subject than he does.

Or, to take another skill from the same campaign setting, two characters can have an equally high “Spellcraft” check – but it means entirely different things to them. In terms of its most practical function, the identification of spells being cast, it is exactly the same; but to the cleric in the party, that aspect of the ability is rote learning of certain key phrases and gestures, while the theoretical aspects of the skill relate to the proper formulation of prayers, the relationships between deity and worshipper, and so on, while to the mage the gestures are secondary; his theoretical spellcraft relates to the relationships between energy fields and matter and the ways in which they can be manipulated. Druids would have still a third, subtly different perspective on the subject, which includes some things the mage and cleric don’t while excluding others, and a sorcerer would have a fourth interpretation.

These examples show that there is a balancing mechanism between ubiquity of skill application and level of expertise that is always possible, which can give a little spotlight time to a relative “non-expert” by virtue of that character’s background even in the presence of an apparent “expert”. It’s subtle, but this is something that I always try to take into account when setting difficulty scores for skill rolls.

It also shows that just because a campaign or scene is nominally a star vehicle for a particular character, that character doesn’t have to be the prime mover in every respect.

Planning

Who makes the decisions in your games? Who decides who is going to do what – and who has to be convinced of a plan before the other characters can get started? This type of scene is the one most frequently turned into a star vehicle whether the GM wants it to or not. There’s not a lot that can be done to make an introverted player into an extraverted character effectively – they generally either do it themselves or they don’t. The best you can do is throw the occasional opportunity to make a decision their way and hope they take the bait.

It’s also true that star vehicle behavior is at its most obvious in this type of scene – so much so that a “Your planning scenes might be a star vehicle if” section would be redundant.

Dialogue

In contrast to Planning scenes, dialogue scenes are the hardest ones in which to detect star vehicle symptoms. Outside of combat, this is one area where most GMs strive to give everyone screen time, and this is arguably where it is most important to spread the spotlight.

Your Dialogue scenes might be a star vehicle if:

• one particular character takes the lead in speaking for the group on a regular basis;
• one player seems to make all the decisions;
• one character regularly interrupts dialogue between one or more of the others either between themselves or with an NPC; or
• one character or player seems to be involved in all the consequential dialogues.

Is A Star Vehicle A Bad Thing?

Not necessarily. If a campaign is designed from the start to be a star vehicle for one character or player, the GM knows the fact, and can make sure that any others involved get a share of the spotlight along the way, can make allowances in other words. Things only become a problem when this was not the GMs intent, and one character or player is effectively hijacking the campaign in certain situations or types of scenes.

Even then, it’s not necessarily a problem. It’s entirely possible to have a campaign which is a star vehicle for all the PCs, simply by making sure that different characters are dominant in each of the types of scene. Spotlight roles can even be traded off – if the character who normally dominates combat is to take a leading role in the key dialogue moment of an adventure, the character who normally dominates dialogue can take the lead in the combat of that adventure – if it is designed appropriately. It’s even possible to balance things out over multiple sessions by having one “spotlight” character in an adventure or series of encounters.

Ultimately, that’s the point of this article – that appropriate measures can be taken if the GM is aware of the situation, but is likely to run into trouble (eventually) if he blunders his way through, blindly.

Ensemble Ideals

This leads me back to the comments made at the start of this article. For some time now, the ideal presented here at Campaign Mastery has been that of “the Ensemble”, where everyone gets a fair slice of the pie; but that’s not the only approach, and may not even be the best approach – if implemented poorly, it can seem artificial and forced. The sore spot tickling my subconscious was that my instincts, when it came to my own campaigns, had led me to solutions that were not in keeping with the idealized recommendations that I had been advocating in writing.

Does that mean that I’m repudiating part or all of the advice offered here in the past? Not at all. I’m simply recognizing that the real world is more complex than some of those solutions might suggest, and that some compromises may need to be in order.

Metagame Remedies

When one character is dominant in more than one sphere of game activity – Dialogue, Combat, Planning, or Skill-focused scenes – this becomes much harder to do, and that’s when a campaign is likely to run into trouble, usually in the form of frustrated players who are demanding a greater share of the spotlight. This can also occur when one sphere of game activity is excessively dominant.- when there is too much combat, the combat monster dominates. Something to watch for particularly closely is a character who dominates one sphere of activity and who continually tries to push the players, as a group, in the direction of more of that scene. They can either be trying to grab the spotlight because they haven’t been getting their fair share lately, or because they are trying to get more than their share. Either is an indication of the same problem, but the responsibility – and the remedial action required – is different.

The first remedial action is to discuss the problem with the players – all of them, at the same time. It might be that the player concerned doesn’t realize that he’s hogging the spotlight, or that the other players are being sufficiently entertained just sitting back and watching.

The second remedial recourse is to introduce some house rules to cope with the problem – something like “Skill Ranks can only be used once per day”, though that might be going a bit far. Simply having NPCs who react more favorably on things said by one of the non-dominant PC might be enough. These should be kept as light as possible. Ultimately, it might be better to skip straight to the third course of remedy, reserving this as something that the GM can come back to if the third solution doesn’t seem to quite go far enough.

The third remedy that I recommend is changing the adventures that the GM is coming up with in order to emphasize anyone and everyone other than the dominant character, operating on the premise that by virtue of their dominance they will still get their fair share of the spotlight. It’s when you reach this point that the GM should be aware that his campaign is in serious trouble, and it’s going to take drastic action to fix it.

The fourth remedy is to ask the player to retire the dominant character. I’ve had to do this once, resulting in the Warcry campaign. But what happens if the player says no? What’s more, this might not fix the root cause of the problem, if one player is simply better at gaming the game mechanics to extract what he wants from them. It can even make things worse if you aren’t careful.

The fifth remedy is to completely change the game system of the campaign. Switching from Champions to Mutants & Masterminds, or to BESM from Pathfinder, or whatever, and converting the characters, can eliminate any rules loopholes that have been exploited by the player. This may not solve the problem, and may give (correctly) the impression that the GM is actively discriminating against the player / dominant character. It can also upset the other players. It also exposes all the headaches of investing in, and learning, a new game system. In fact, it’s so fraught with difficulty that a lot of GMs don’t, or won’t, even contemplate it.

That leaves only one remedy, the harshest and most extreme of the lot: asking the player to leave the campaign altogether. The only more extreme step is winding the campaign up altogether.

It must be emphasized that it is rare for this problem to reach these extremes. To contemplate anything beyond remedy #2 or perhaps #3, the campaign must be at the point of imploding. These are all desperate attempts to salvage something from the imminent train-wreck. If you aren’t at that extreme yet, look for variations on an earlier solution.

GM mélange

Quite often, when one character so totally dominates a campaign that the GM is forced to consider any action whatsoever, at least some of the blame can be put down to laziness or mélange on the part of the GM. At the same time, a case of GM lassitude can also result from one character dominating excessively, because it can get as dull and frustrating for the GM as it is for anyone else at the game table. In the second article I ever wrote here at Campaign Mastery, I made the point that Lassitude Is Not Burnout, and the principle of that (rather short) article still holds. If you feel like you’re burned out, if it all seems more like work than fun, try the remedy contained in that article. Once you’re back to feeling inspired, you can examine the situation at your game table with a clearer head and a sharper perspective. That can reveal causes and solutions that are completely beyond you at the moment.

Take Inventory Of Your Campaign

It’s extremely rare for things to grow so dark and grim, at least from this cause. More often, this problem causes the occasional niggle or frustration, and that can be eased by the remedial action suggested in “Is it such a bad thing”. The first step is always to be aware of what’s going on at your game table – and the subtexts and contexts that surround those events. Then you can do something about it if something needs doing.

So, every GM reading this should take inventory of their campaigns. Think over the last three or four game sessions, break each down according to the type of activity and look for any character dominating. Every player reading this should take an honest look at their actions over the last three or four game sessions of each campaign they play in – have they been causing a problem without realizing it? Might another player be simmering in his juices over not getting his fair share of screen time, or over his toes being trodden on (for what no doubt seemed good reasons at the time)?

You have to know something’s wrong before you can fix it. The sooner a problem is discovered, the easier it is to fix; don’t let it become ingrained behavior. You might just make the game more fun for everybody – yourself included.

I thought that I’d talk a little today about the way Blair and I write adventures for the Adventurer’s Club campaign. Because we share the GMing responsibilities in that campaign – and I don’t mean alternating in the GM’s Chair, I mean we both GM at the same time – this process is necessarily somewhat different to my normal approach. Along the way, I’ll throw in some information about the benefits and liabilities of co-GMing, and why you might need to try it sometime.

A Blending Of Styles

In the beginning, Blair was the only GM of the Adventurer’s Club campaign, and I was one of several players. After three adventures (two of which I was unable to participate in as my character wasn’t ready), the campaign was beginning to fall apart. The players were unhappy, and several were thinking of pulling out to play something else. Blair himself didn’t know how long the campaign would last when he started it, though he hoped it would be around for a year or two.

The problems that were afflicting the campaign were many-fold. The adventures, though reasonable as stand-alone fill-ins, lacked depth. The characters, though reasonably conceived, were wildly inconsistent in the level of opposition they afforded the PCs. The background elements were good as far as they went, but were patchy and incomplete, and felt superficial. Blair had created a number of NPCs with which to populate the game world but these were all allies of the heroes and, having been modeled on Blair’s favorite pulp characters from other sources – totally overshadowed the PCs. Finally, there was a severe problem with the amount of prep that Blair was investing in the campaign.

After listening to the other players complaints, making my own observations, and discussing the situation with one or two interested non-participants, I came to the conclusion that Blair’s GMing style was weak in all the areas in which I was strong – and that there was a lot of potential worth preserving within the campaign. Since I had the luxury of the time in which to do so, I decided that it was worth at least offering to share the GMing duties. Blair saw the benefits immediately, and our collaboration began immediately. That was August 28, 2006 – so the collaboration, and the Campaign, has now run for more than six years and is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Lack of Prep

Blair can be considered a self-educated expert in the Pulp Genre and a Grognard when it comes to period militaria and atmosphere elements. He has read hundreds of novels and stories from the genre, if not thousands, or that are at least peripherally related. That’s both the advantage that he brought to the campaign and the curse that had to be overcome. With his vast repertoire, he was able to take a pulp-derived adventure premise – described in little more than a single line – and run an adventure built around it, off-the-cuff.

That’s both an admirable quality and a potential failing, because it takes more than reasonable in-genre adventures to make a campaign; the wider scheme of things has to be more than the sum of its parts.

There’s an element of self-fulfilling prophecy to the depth of investment in campaign prep: if you don’t expect the campaign to last, you don’t invest the depth necessary to make it last, and consequently it doesn’t last. The more layers of complexity and detail that you can build into a campaign, the more there is for the players to explore and interact with, the more campaign elements there are that can interact in interesting ways, and the more there is for the players to explore. Sustaining the interest of the players in the campaign world is essential to campaign longevity; that alone is not enough to create a campaign that will last for a decade or more, but it is a prerequisite.

In particular, a GM needs to invest prep time in covering those areas in which his natural style is deficient. If you are bad at coming up with NPCs on the fly, you should invest prep into creating NPCs that can sustain prolonged interest. If you are weak at balancing combat factors so that encounters will challenge the PCs without being overwhelming, you need to spend time working on the combat situations that will occur within the adventure. And so on.

In comparison, I knew virtually nothing about the pulp genre, I can still (almost) count the number of pulp stories/novels that I have read on one hand. But I have a far more disciplined approach to campaign prep, which I use not only to shore up areas in which I am weaker as a GM, but to hone and refine those elements that come naturally. Much of the time, I actually enjoy campaign- and adventure-prep.

Co-GMing turns adventure prep into a collaborative and social occupation. This interaction gives Blair the stimulus and discipline that he needs to do what needs to be done, while the fact that I am working outside my normal genre limitations forces me to get a bit more creative and stretch myself in unusual directions. Together, we make one good GM when it comes to campaign prep. In addition, the fact that he is good at some things I am not (such as faking an Indian accent) means that we can write to each other’s strengths in designing adventures.

Depth of Adventures

The consequence of taking a “typical” pulp premise and improvising an adventure around it is that they are completely isolated, completely meaningless in the greater scheme of things. They have no connection to what had happened before, they have no connection with anything that might happen in the future, and they have no lasting consequences.

I regard no act of creation within a campaign as complete unless it does two or three things within the broader context of the campaign. Connecting adventures together to form a larger narrative comes naturally to me.

In large part, then, the shortage of prep time that Blair was investing in his campaign was directly responsible for the absence of depth within the adventures that he was producing. My involvement in the Campaign forced him to look beyond the source material on which he was drawing, to the fundamentals of character and plot – in the process, expanding the limits of the genre to encompass less derivation and more innovation and creativity. From the first adventure we collaborated on, this was a solved problem.

Wildly inconsistent opposition

While Blair had GM’d a couple of times before starting the pulp campaign, and was a hobbyist-writer of pulp stories, he had never GM’d the Hero System (never mind the Pulp Hero variant) before. As a result, while he could create opposition in a literary sense, he struggled to translate those capabilities into game mechanics, in particular as regards power level.

The real problem was that he was constructing his opposition (in terms of game mechanics) to an idealized standard based purely on the character concept he had in mind, without consideration of what the PCs were capable of. As a result, sometimes they presented a challenge for the PCs, and other times they had all the impact of wet spaghetti. On the other hand, while I had not GM’d straight Hero System game mechanics for more than a decade, my variant system was still firmly rooted in the mechanics of the original – enough that I could see where Blair was going wrong.

My approach was to invert the process. After an initial concept, I would look at the plot needs that the character had to serve, set the game mechanics – OCV, DCV, etc – accordingly, then adjust the initial concept as necessary to justify the scores chosen.

Early on, I introduced Blair to the rule of 5: Opposition with stats of 10 was an easy fight for a single PC. Add 5 to get something close to a fair fight for a well-designed PC. Add 5 more for each doubling of the numbers of PCs of that standard that the character had to stand up to. So, to stand up to four well-constructed PCs, a single enemy would need stats of around 25. These numbers had nothing to do with how capable the NPCs should be, they were simple rules of thumb for describing how effective the NPCs had to be just to hold their own in play.

Amusingly, the same values work reasonably well in 3.x…

Overpowered NPC allies

One of the big problems to be overcome was the perception that the NPCs who populated the Adventurer’s Club were “Blair’s Favorites”, demigods who could solve any problem, and who did not really need the PCs. Blair’s original concept was that these would act as consultants and drop-in characters for any role the PCs needed – but by making sure that the PCs had a resource to call apon for any problem that might confront them, never mind ones that were exemplars of their professions, he inadvertently made the PCs seem superfluous, at least to the players’ perspective.

Solving this problem has been a multistep process that is still ongoing. The first step was to make them more rounded characters, rather than idealized depictions of Blair’s favorite Heroes from Pulp stories, giving them flaws. The biggest is that they are robustly individualistic, and cooperate with each other poorly, as a result. Secondly, to have them tackling problems that were too big for the PCs to deal with, and that took lots of patient inactivity, by having them ask the PCs to help in smaller aspects of the big problem. Getting the PCs tails caught in the gears of the bigger problems would present them with challenges that were appropriate to their levels of capability while implying the scale of the bigger issues. Thirdly, by giving the PCs a taste of the consequences of their own gradually-growing fame, to imply that the considerably greater fame of the NPCs gave them an even greater handicap to overcome. Fourthly, by having the NPCs fail a time or two, needing the PCs to come to the rescue. And finally, by pointing toward the concept of generational change within the ranks.

Making the NPCs less effective, and less ubiquitous, while emphasizing the one thing that the PCs by the very nature of the fact that they were PCs had as an advantage – that there was a team of them – gave them something unique to contribute to the campaign that none of the NPCs could provide. To that end, we ripped the club apart, had most of the senior members drop out (at least temporarily), put the FBI in charge, and had the PCs become the new club administration’s fair-haired boys.

All of this placed the senior NPC members at the periphery of the activities of the PCs, shifting the focus of attention away from these impossibly-perfect NPCs.

Incomplete and superficial background elements

Another part of this process was the fleshing out of other members of the supporting cast – the staff that keeps the Adventurer’s Club ticking over, shifting the focus away from the paragons of virtue at least somewhat. The goal was to put these isolated campaign elements into context, to make it feel like the PCs were people inhabiting a real world populated by real people.

One-line descriptions of these characters (many of whom did not even have a name) and locations within the blub premises simply didn’t cut it. I wanted the PCs to be able to have a conversation with a waitress, or with the cleaning lady, and for them to have an honest-to-goodness backstory to tell. I wanted to rezone the locations within the club to make them interesting places to visit, with an atmosphere and some impact.

It all comes back to campaign prep, really.

In summary

It’s not going to far to describe Blair as bringing the concepts and genre knowledge while I brought practical and professional expertise to the collaboration. The game world and the people who have made it the way it is are still Blair’s creations; my role is to ensure that they are presented to the players in the most interesting way possible, to make his campaign world live up to the promise that it derives from his expertise in the genre. It’s in this context that the approach we use to create the adventures should be viewed.

Phase Gray

Collaboration is at the heart of the process that we have developed over the years for achieving this ambition. Because these collaborations occur at my place for various reasons, I usually handle much of the chores of the writing while Blair documents character concepts and broad notes. In order to codify the different stages of the process, I have taken to using different text colors to identify where we’re up to. Although we don’t actually refer to them as such, I’m going to use those colors as labels to describe these stages of the process.

The first stage is conceptual, and I use a gray text color for any notes. We start by reviewing the premise of the plot, where it is intended to take the broader adventure, its style, and in general getting an idea for what the overall structure of the adventure is going to be. In most cases, the synopsis is an idea, expressed in little more than a paragraph or even a single sentence. I tend to think of it as the “back cover blurb” for the adventure.

Some adventures seem to write themselves easily, while others have a far more difficult development. Whenever possible, a three-step approach is used:

1. What’s the overall situation?
2. What are the villains doing, and what are their plans?
3. How can we involve the PCs in those plans, and what will the consequences be?

By deciding what the overall plan of the villains is, as they think it would proceed with no interference from the PCs (or from anyone else), we create a framework that can be used as the foundations of the adventure.

The PCs anticipated involvement can generally also be initially broken down into three steps:

1. Realize that something is going on
2. Investigate to discover what that something is
3. Identify an opportunity to do something about it, then exploit that opportunity.

While we’re aided by our knowledge of what the PCs can do, and what the players are likely to want to do, and can tailor the information received and the circumstances to steer events this way or that, we are often surprised in that phase; our planning is deliberately robust enough to ensure that there are multiple paths to success so that we are completely comfortable with the PCs going off in an unexpected direction. Having two sets of eyes go through the villain’s plans to ensure that there are no obvious solutions that have been overlooked which can bring the whole adventure to a premature end also helps immensely.

The goal in this stage is to break down the plot into Acts or Chapters, each with its own one- or two-line summary. If the adventure is flowing naturally, we may even go as far as three or four lines, but that’s fairly rare. Some of the plots are my ideas, some are Blair’s, and some have evolved out of discussions between us.

Phase Fuchsia

For each Act, we will then work out who the NPCs are that we need to create; what the locations are that we need to specify; any game props that we need to devise; and so on. What resources we need to have at hand, in other words.

Blair will usually write these down. At the same time, we will break the synopsis of each Act down into smaller scenes. Because we already know to what end the Act is supposed to lead, and from where things stand in the plot at the point it is coming from, it’s very much an exercise in connecting the dots – with each of those dots being another circumstance or resource.

A key sub-step of the process is to ensure that each PC will have at least one moment to shine within the adventure, one appearance on centre-stage. This in itself often has a formative influence on the plotline’s breakdown. And if a PC is not active within this part of the adventure, we want to know what he will be doing at the time.

Once we have a list of the resources needed and a more detailed breakdown of the plotline that tells us how those resources connect to form the main plot, it’s time to start generating the actual resources.

NPCs

We start by generating each NPC. Research is important; where the NPC is to be modeled on a real individual, we will look for a Wikipedia page on that individual (and go to Google or other offline resources as necessary); where it’s an entirely fictional character, we’ll do whatever research we need on the circumstances and background of the NPC. Because we have identified the NPCs role in the plotline, and are crafting the character to fit, then building a backstory that produces an NPC who is both willing and able to meet those story needs, there is not a lot of wasted activity. Defining and refining each individual can introduce additional plot points; we want characters to behave plausibly, given their mindsets and capabilities, and that often means adding in an additional encounter to establish the relevant character traits of the individual. Sometimes these will reach the PCs awareness prior to the NPCs contribution to the plot, sometimes they will explain their actions after the fact, and sometimes the justification can be built into the encounter itself.

We’ll talk about background, ethnicity, name, appearance, characteristics, and capabilities, all with a view to the role the character is intended to play. We also try hard to find a photograph to present the individual to the characters. Sometimes, in the case where a real person has been used as a model, we can find something on Wikipedia Commons; sometimes, we need to do an appropriate Google Image Search. We’re aided in this by the fact that I have a large (and growing) collection of clip art saved from the net. Most of these are not images that are in the public domain, but these are fine for private use.

And sometimes an image will pop out that leads the characterization in a completely unexpected direction. Like the time we had an encounter with a Romanian Lawyer and Larry Hagman from the original series of Dallas popped up – we made the Lawyer a wannabe Texan, and played him for laughs.

Location, Location, Location!

Another piece of research that gets done at this point is where we want the action to take place (if we haven’t settled on that already). We use Google Maps and screen capture extensively for this purpose, but sometimes have to do more fundamental research – I have four different atlases that see extensive use for different purposes. Sometimes, we won’t know where we want somewhere to be, but will have an idea what we want it to look like – Google Image Search permits us to enter our descriptive keywords and narrow the search down to what we want – then looking at the website from which the image derives gives us a location. Nor are we above inventing places as necessary!

Encounter Settings

Related to the location are images that are intended to convey the setting to the players. We prefer to use period photos where possible, but are quite happy to take a photograph of something that looks right and transplant it in space to anywhere we want it to be. We also try to be seasonally correct. Sometimes, Google’s street view can be useful in this context as well.

Sometimes we have to do it ourselves, such as the island shown here.

Quite often, I will have to manipulate the image in some way, especially to paint out obvious modern contrivances like satellite dishes, mobile phone antennas, air conditioners, and telephone lines. And again, my clipart collection sometimes comes in handy! Sometimes I will have strong opinions as to which image is most appropriate, other times Blair will make the final decision.

Of key importance is being sure that we’re both as happy with the result as possible.

Illustrations & Props

We also like to provide visual images to illustrate the story, and props to help the players visualize the action. On rare occasions, I will generate these from scratch, more frequently I will locate a starting point and edit the resulting image. The image shown here (from the next adventure) is an example – the car started off as yellow, but was otherwise perfect to our needs. The original yellow (still visible in the wheel rims) didn’t fit the character who was to own the vehicle, though – we needed it to be red. I’ve painted out people in modern clothing, cars, aircraft, highway markings, even whole buildings!

All this helps us to visualize the action while writing the adventure (which is why we don’t leave it until the last minute) as well as helping the players afterwards.

Once we have everything we need to depict the people, places, and things that the PCs will interact with, we’re ready to move on to Phase Blue.

Phase Blue

Phase Blue is where we expand on the outlines of the plot. We add details of characterization, of key pieces of dialogue, of relevant skill checks and game mechanics, of decision points within the adventure and how to respond to different general player decisions, and so on. To save effort, my typed adventure notes will often say things like “refer Blair’s handwritten notes”.

We will often not do these in the sequence they will appear within the adventure, instead following an internal logic. That permits us to focus on all the scenes involving a particular character, one after the next, for example, ensuring consistency of characterization throughout. The color-coding shows at a glance where we are up to and what we still have to do. Where we anticipate the PCs splitting up (or where the situation is going to force them to do so), we will usually do all the scenes involving one group and then go back and do all the scenes involving the other. This avoids wasting time reacquainting ourselves with the status of each group at the start of each scene.

Phase Black

When the scenario is finished, everything gets converted to black text for printing.

So, how is this different?

The key to the approach we use is discussion and being willing to compromise. Both of us contribute ideas, and often have to persuade the other; by digging into the reasons we think something is the right approach to take in order to do so, we both have to look behind the curtains at what the scene is trying to achieve. In effect, this is the equivalent of several dry runs through the adventure.

The act of collaboration affects the process in other ways. Blair can be thinking about characters while I’m thinking about plot; I can be thinking about dialogue while Blair is making notes about a setting. It’s much easier to do two things at once when there are two of you. This carries through to the game itself; one of us can be handling the dialogue for a key NPC while the other is dealing with the PCs. Two NPCs can have a dialogue with each other – which is far harder to achieve when there’s only one GM.

It means that if – no, when – the PCs do something unexpected, there are two of us who can react to it. One deals with the immediate situation, while the other can look at the bigger picture of how this will alter the overall plotline of the adventure. In general, whoever has the clearest idea of how to deal with the immediate situation will speak up first, leaving the other free to do big-picture thinking. On any number of occasions, one of us has started GMing a scene and the other has taken up the reigns part-way through. As a general rule of thumb, Blair is the better at reacting to ad-hoc situations and I’m better at the big picture stuff, but we violate that rule almost as often as we observe it.

The result is a far more structured and deliberate writing process, which has been formalized to the point of using technology in specific and structured ways to achieve the goals. And yet, it’s also a process in which you have two creative minds tossing ideas into the mixture, and having the luxury of choosing which works best; there is more scope for innovation and flexibility.

But the biggest difference is that we can’t take things for granted. If it’s not spelt out and mutually agreed-on in advance, neither of us can tell where the other one is going; when it has been worked out in advance, we can trust that the other has some mental road map of how he’s going to reach the required point in the plot, impart the required information, no matter how far we may appear to stray from the straightest line in doing so. Again, we cover each other’s deficiencies.

Of necessity, we’ve both learned how to focus on the objective of each adventure, of each act, of each scene, and how to break those down into smaller components that add up to what’s required to achieve the big-picture goals. Often, I will be able to identify a plot need, and Blair has an answer by the time I’ve finished articulating the problem, or vice-versa. Or I can come up with a good idea that Blair will twist or manipulate into a great idea, ir vice-versa. Overall, the efficiency of creativity does not suffer for the need to articulate and define everything in a more concrete form; just the opposite. We easily get twice as much done in an hour of plotting as either of us alone could achieve, even taking into account the potential for abbreviating and thumb-nailing the ideas when you GM alone.

Not all combinations just work

Of course, it helps that we are a good fit, collaboratively. There are other players with whom I have collaborated on projects and our styles were often too similar, or one had problems articulating ideas to the other in a way that was readily grasped. It was a struggle. Before you can co-GM with someone, you need to know your own strengths and weaknesses, and those of the other person. That alone can make you a better GM, whether working with someone else or on your own.

Hero Game’s Policy on publishing house rules is both enlightened and occasionally maddening. They have no problem with people posting their own characters, or discussing their rules, or publishing house rules – provided that you don’t quote directly from their rulebooks and your rules don’t exceed 5,000 words in length. You can’t publish variations on any officially published Hero Games characters, or anything that looks like it came from Hero Games. And you can’t charge money for anything. There are more restriction, and exceptions can be made with the permission of Hero Games, but that’s the nutshell.

On the face of it, that’s a very user-friendly policy, and I commend them for it. At the same time, the inability to reproduce ANY of the tables or official rules is really constraining, and less user-friendly than the OGL of D&D 3.x. This article is intended to comply with those restrictions. Most of this article will be discussion and commentary, any rules will be contained in a colored box, and the total length of rules will be less than 5K Words – and in an attempt to ensure compliance in that respect, the article itself has been split in two.

In part 1, as you may recall…

I looked at introducing a 3.x Initiative mechanic into the Hero System and ditching the character phasing in the hope and expectation that this would break open one of the major bottlenecks in the Combat Subsystem. It was also anticipated that there would be a whole raft of bonus add-on benefits, like a more even distribution of the spotlight across the different players.

Normally, when I make a change to the House Rules (and especially changes of this magnitude) they will be tested in my Warcry campaign. This is a spin-off from the original campaign and uses the same rules structure. But, in this case, I was so confident that the change would be beneficial that I decided to implement parts of it in the main campaign immediately, even though less of the mechanics had even been worked out than were presented in Part 1 of this two-article series – and absolutely nothing was in writing yet. And it wasn’t just any scenario either, but part 3 of the epic five-part grand conclusion to the last campaign, the part where twelve years of plot and subplot connected together into one massive chain of circumstances and one inevitable final confrontation with the PCs arch-enemy and sometime ally!

I wrote in the introduction to the previous article on the subject that changing one rule is like trying to eat just one potato chip, or take just one breath. It usually doesn’t work like that. A rules change is a stone dropped in a still pond, ripples spreading all over the place until the entire pond is covered. A rules change of this magnitude is a domino trick; it necessitates other changes, which in turn beget still more changes, until either the chain reaction peters out or explodes, enveloping the whole system.

Many of the domino-changes resulting from this particular rules change were created on the spot during that first live test – though admittedly, I already had ideas on how to handle them or I would never have tried a live introduction like that. Most worked perfectly, and the worst-realized required only a slight tweak. Part one of this two-parter dealt with the mechanics of introducing the Initiative system; this part will deal with some of the consequences and fall-out, and how some of the speed gained has been reinvested in improvements to other areas of the system.

Turns and phases

The biggest impact with the change stems from the fact that characters now act once per turn, not once per phase. This had all kinds of knock-on effects. Everything from Recoveries Power Activation to Movement to END Batteries to Transforms to the Berserk / Enraged disadvantage had to change. There were other changes, as well, but they were a consequence of other changes that had been made – like a sub-subsystem that gave some skills a modifier based on taking extra time to work on the problem and verify results.

Heck, we’re still finding the odd domino here and there. For example, aiming is now a much bigger deal than it was, and the size of the bonus on offer for doing so is no longer proportional to the cost – a full combat turn of aiming. There are multiple possible solutions to this problem, but none have been chosen (let alone written up as rules), as yet.

What’s that? Oh, the guy in the back wants to know what the possible solutions are that I am considering.

1. A straight, fixed, increase in the benefit for aiming.
2. An increase to the benefit of aiming that is derived from the character’s Speed, possibly capped.
3. A slightly more complicated idea in which the aiming bonus stays the same but an additional bonus gets added only to offset various negative modifiers like range, relative motion of the target, velocity of the target, size of the target, etc.
4. Or replacing the concept of aiming and then using a separate action to fire, with a single new tactical option called “aim and fire” which enables a limited tradeoff between the character’s OCV & DCV (the Hero-system equivalents of To-Hit and AC).

Of these, (1) has the benefit of simplicity; (2) has the virtue of being most in proportion to the increased cost of aiming; (3) always sounds good but has proven to have occasional game-balance glitches in the past; and (4) is the most complicated but the one I am currently leaning toward. For the time being, I’ve implemented solution (1) but don’t regard this as a settled issue.

Anyway, this example gives some indication of how fundamental a change the Initiative System really is – not directly (the direct effects were all dealt with in the first article), but through this more deep-seated and subtle knock-on effect.

Changes to Movement: Flight

By far the broadest changes have to take place in the movement system. Under the Hero system rules, a character with multiple actions can move, change his facing, then move again, while other characters get to react in something approaching a real-time system. It’s actually more akin to stop-motion animation. This is especially true for flight, which has a whole subsystem for dealing with character maneuverability – necessary because flight can involve some pretty high velocities, in terms of game scale [About 2000″ per turn is equal to Mach One (an inch being the game scale of 2m) per phase.]

Actually, I had never liked the original way of defining Flight as inches per phase. It played hob with the consistency of the cost-effectiveness of powers when a character with SPD 2 could spend 10 points on SPD and get a 50% boost in their flight capabilities. The more Flight the character had bought, the bigger the free kick. Many years earlier, I had switched to the more consistent “inches per segment” scale – without changing the price. Characters who did not have an action in a segment simply flew at their speed in a straight line. It meant that they could almost certainly start each phase with a direction change, having more than met the requirements since their last phase of their Turn Mode, which is the number of hexes of forward movement that had to be travelled in order to execute a hex-side change of face.

Changing the purchase of flight to So Many Inches Per Turn for So Many Character Points was the obvious solution. It was easy to set a target by multiplying the character’s old Flight Speed by 12, and the price could be dropped accordingly. In fact, the price didn’t change as much as might have been expected because instead of purchasing “by the inch”, the power was adjusted to sell Flight in bundles of 5″ Flight Velocity at a time.

Of greater concern was that the whole interactivity of characters in flight would be lost. Handling a full 12-second turn of movement in one lump meant that characters who acted before the Flying character would be dealing with where the character was at the start of the Turn while the rest would be dealing with where characters would be at the end of their Turn. For small-scale movement like running or swimming, that was an issue but not a huge one; for larger-scale movement like flying it was going to be a major problem.

Tactical & Non-Tactical flight

Rather than searching for a global solution that probably didn’t exist, I started by restricting the scope of the problem. A lot of the time, even in Combat, Flight is all about getting from point A to point B and the full mechanics are unnecessary – even the ones that used to be there. The Hero System already differentiates between Combat Flight and Non-Combat Flight, by permitting characters to buy increased non-combat flight velocity; why not take that a step further and split flight mechanics completely into two separate sets of game mechanics? To make the differential clear, call one Tactical and the other Non-Tactical.

Non-Tactical Flight

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  In Non-Tactical Flight Mode, characters simply divide the distance to be travelled in order to reach the desired destination by the maximum speed they can attain to determine how long it takes them to reach that destination. Acceleration to full speed is deemed instantaneous for convenience as is deceleration if the character is not entering a combat situation. Any non-combat speed multipliers apply to flight speed.

One of the big complaints that I have always had about the “Non-Combat Multiplier” in the core Hero Games system is that no rules are presented for transitioning between the two modes. It is for that reason that the above rules distinguish about entering combat at the end of a Tactical Flight. To be fair, though, I’ve never found the time to write any – there always seemed to be something more urgent to do. I have made some notes, though – and here they are:

• Deceleration from Non-Combat speed to combat speed = 10″ per turn. Or perhaps it simply takes one turn for every non-combat velocity multiplier.
• Characters exceeding their Combat Speed while in battle add +1 per 30″ or part thereof to their turn mode, to a maximum of 1/6 of their non-combat velocity multiplier.
• Characters exceeding their Combat Speed while engaged in combat operations subtract their non-combat velocity multiplier AND their current turn mode from their DCV, their OCV, and any Perception checks relating to objects, people, or circumstances not travelling with the character.
• Some of these losses may be offset by bonuses from velocity, others are in addition to such bonuses.

These don’t go far enough yet – I’d like something relating to the ability to assess a situation from a distance while approaching at high speed, for example, and some of them are too complicated – but the principles are there.

But that’s not all there is to Non-Tactical Flight – it also applies during a combat situation. In essence, if no-one is trying to impede the flight and there is no prospect of anyone doing so, there is no need for the full tactical ruleset to be used; the character simply flies as far as they can to wherever they are trying to reach.

The referee must judge each situation, based on his knowledge of what is occurring, to determine whether Tactical Mode is required.

Flight-Space: separate aerial combat

When it is required, the GM can invoke Tactical Mode. This divides the motion of the flying character or characters into smaller slices. Tactical Aerial Combat may require the use of Flight-Space.

Unfortunately, the flight-space rules have not yet been written up formally – another task that has slipped through lack of time. The following rules are from my notes and will eventually be cast into formal rules; they’ve been tested and work.

The speeds with which characters travel in flight are very different from those employed by ground-based characters, and it may be necessary to employ a completely separate tactical display in order to track that motion. For compatibility with the ground-based scale of the other characters, flight-space should be a simple multiple of the basic scale – it might be 5″ to a hex or 10″ or 100″ – whatever is needed. I have found it convenient to look at the flight speeds of the participants and use some common factor as a secondary multiple.

For example, if one character has a flight speed of 60″, and the other has a speed of 45″, they have common scales of 3″, 5″, and 15″ in common. These are the factors of 45 that are also factors of 60.

Sometimes, this is not possible, or the scale that would result is so close to normal that it is worthless in this context. For example, if a third combatant had a speed of 64″, none of the factors for the first two would fit. The best approach to employ when this occurs is “accumulated error”. If the scale chosen were 15″ to a hex, then after 4 turns, the 64″ character would have accumulated a full +15″ error, and could therefore move an extra hex – with an additional inch left over towards the next extra (each turn at 15″ scale, the character moves 4 hexes, since 4×15=60. That leaves 4″ left over per turn, which adds up to an extra 15″ hex after 4 turns). I would also consider 5″ and 10″ scales, using this approach.

The advantage of this approach is that turn mode scales along with every other aspect of flight – it’s a maneuverability restriction based on flight speed, after all.

Flight-time

Having determined the scale to use for the map and hence for the movement, it becomes a simple matter to determine the way in which the movement in flight is to be subdivided – it is the character’s maximum flight velocity divided by scale, rounding down.

50″ at a 10″ scale would divide the movement into 5 steps of 1 hex each. This is rather too small to be useful. The real problem here is the scale; 10″ is too large. 5″ would be a better choice, permitting 5 steps of 2 hexes or 2 steps of 5″. Of the two, I would opt for the first.

The Initiative score of the character with the highest initiative is then divided by the number of steps to determine the base initiative values for these slices of flight. The nearest value to the initiative total of the flying character is then adjusted so that it falls on the phase the character acts, and the same adjustment is then made to all the others to determine the actual “initiative values” of the slices of motion. This overlays movement in “flight-space” onto the passage of “flight-time”, distributing the total movement throughout the turn. During those steps of flight-time which do not coincide with the character’s initiative total, the character can do nothing but maintain their flight and maneuver; they can’t attack or activate any other powers or do anything else. If they need to do so, they either have to spend one of these pieces of flight-time hovering in place, having misjudged their flight, or they have to have previously deferred an action with a specific trigger (“I’m holding my action until I’m in position to do X” – grab the object, push the button, or whatever). These adjustments should always be subtractions except when it is the flying character who has the highest initiative total.

Let’s look at this step in the process in action. Suppose the character with the highest initiative total has an Initiative of 36. The flight is to be divided into 5 slices. That gives a flight-time step of 7 – so the slices of flight happen on initiative scores 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35. If the flying character had an initiative total of (say) 18, the nearest time slice is 21; and 21-18=3. So each of these initiative scores is reduced by 3. The flight takes place on initiative scores 4, 11, 18, 25, and 32 – or, more properly (since higher initiatives go first), 32, 25, 18, 11, and 4.

The result is that the character is moving throughout the turn; their flight has been distributed across the entire initiative pass.

Superhero Dogfights: Blue Max

A further refinement is possible and has proven very successful. There is a board game called Blue Max which does a great job of simulating WWI dogfights. Different aircraft have different maneuvers open to them at different speeds; these go well beyond the simple hex-side facings of the standard Hero System (I’ve reproduced a small portion of the maneuver chart for the Fokker D.VII to give you some notion of what I’m talking about, it matters). The numbers beneath each maneuver are maneuver number, direction of maneuver, and the number of hexes of movement the maneuver counts as, ie the minimum speed you have to be travelling in order to execute the maneuver. If it’s in brackets, the aircraft loses an altitude marker.

By selecting the appropriate scales, Blue Max becomes compatible with the Hero System. What you want is for the character with the greatest speed to move four scale hexes in each time slice. Then you – as GM – can select an appropriate aircraft to reflect the relative maneuverability of each character. And let rip the dogfight!

Changes to Movement: Running

Running faced similar difficulties to Flight, but without the alleviating prospect of being able to change the points-cost ratio, since running was an inherent, free ability to all characters. Ultimately, it was decided that (in general) it was good enough for a character to complete all his ground movement in the course of his action. This abstraction is a compromise with reality, but one that was deemed an acceptable price for the benefits of the Initiative system. So we simply multiplied all ground movement rates by 12 (they used to be measured as inches/second and not the inches per phase of the Hero System, for the same reasons given when initially discussing flight).

Sidebar: Setting more realistic movement rates:

Ground movement rates in Hero System are a fixed commodity – everyone moves at 2″ per phase unless they buy a restricted increase. Another change made in the House Rules I use is to provide a more realistic set of movement rates. These were determined by (1) setting values for the “average man”; (2) getting values from a copy of Guinness World Records for the best ever achieved by a human; (3) Determining the difference between these rates; (4) solving a set of linear equations using these two points, plus 0,0. AGIL 10 (by definition) is human average; AGIL 25 (again, by definition) is Olympic / Elite Athlete level. There were a number of refinements to the system, especially attempts to incorporate a continual narrowing of the performance improvements possible.

The latter came from my knowledge of Formula 1 racing. A bare-bones budget will get you to within a few seconds a lap of the front runners; each additional second will cost a million dollars a year, until you get to the same basic rate as the front-runners in seconds; then it’s $1 million per tenth of a second, then $1 million per hundredth of a second, and so on. This is an oversimplification, of course, but the principle holds – it gets progressively harder to achieve the next smaller improvement in performance.

Changes to Movement: Vehicles

And the same change was made to vehicle movement, though the option is reserved for implementing any of the flight subsystems such as Tactical Mode if it becomes necessary. In general, that only happens when the vehicle interacts with characters on foot.

But there is one additional refinement possible:

The Chase – Dukes Of Hazard style

Blue Max can operate in 2D just as easily as in 3D. Instead of losing an altitude value, the vehicle loses half it’s current speed in performing the maneuver. The results (in private testing) have successfully generated Dukes-Of-Hazard style chase sequences, with burnouts, rally-style cornering, and lots of drama.

Changes to Movement: Swimming

Swimming rates were initially generated in the same way as running, and adaption was also handled in the same way. The big difference is that a character can sacrifice 1″ of horizontal movement for 1/2″ of increased depth. A bigger question, and one that’s been hanging around for too long, is how long characters can hold their breath – especially when doing extremely active things. I’m still trying to find a satisfactory answer to that question – not only for the Superhero game mechanics, but also for 3.x.

Other Knock-on effects

I’ve collected a number of other consequences to the change in the system here, together with some indication of the resolution. Some of them were quite unexpected!

Power Activation

A power that doesn’t activate right away, or that doesn’t deactivate immediately after shutting it off doesn’t have a huge impact when we’re talking about a character getting multiple actions in a turn. In fact, you can have two versions of the resulting limitation, one measured in segments (seconds) and the other measured in phases.

Well, that doesn’t work so well. A couple of different solutions were tried but didn’t work as well as desired. I was even contemplating removing this power limitation!

Then I finally made my “spot the blindingly obvious” roll; the solution is to measure the delays as negative adjustments to initiative, and multiply the old delays by 5 for the phase-based modifier. So a power which used to deactivate in 3 seconds now deactivates three initiative numbers after the character makes the decision to shut it down; a power which required an extra phase to activate now activates 5 initiative numbers after the decision to activate it. If the delay is so great that the result is in the negatives – 4 phases is a delay of 20 initiative numbers, and if the character acts on Initiative 13 that would yield a -7 activation – then the extra is carried over into the next Initiative Phase. So 7 numbers after the highest initiative acts in the next phase is when the power would finally activate.

Simple, elegant (not the same thing) and it retains the full flavor of the original modifier.

END Batteries

This is a new problem that I recognized for the first time while writing these articles. With characters acting less frequently, there is less drain on these than there used to be; and at the same time, they may not get to charge up as quickly. The entire costing structure for this advantage needs to be reassessed. Are END batteries now more cost-effective than they used to be? Or less? Or are there more subtleties involved? I haven’t had time to look into this yet. I mention it here purely to bring the problem to the attention of anyone seeking to duplicate the Initiative concept in their Hero System campaign.

Transforms

Transforms used to wear off after a certain number of phases. It was a simple matter to change this to turns, but it did require some adjustment of the costs. (The House Rules we use have a different points scale to the regular Hero System so there’s no point in being more specific here; this is something that each GM will have to adjust for themselves).

Berserks or Enraged

The change means that there are fewer opportunities for these to activate than there used to be; and similarly, there are fewer opportunities to recover. These are currently still rated on the d20 scale (which replaced the default 3d6 scale early in the House Rules); adjusting the percentages accordingly should compensate without the need to change the value of these disadvantages.

Flash

The whole concept of Flash attacks needs a little readjustment. These used to blind a character until they had achieved a sufficient number of flash recoveries at the rate of 1 per phase (resistance, which reduced the target number needed, could also be bought). When a character could get 5 actions in a turn, a flash of target of 6 took them out of the fight for just over a turn.

There are two obvious options: simply substitute the term “Turn” for “Phase” (and consider increasing the price accordingly); or have flash operate for so many initiative numbers (and consider reducing the price accordingly). This is something that has not yet been decided. The second option is less likely to require a price adjustment, but I find the first a little more realistic since it can leave characters blinded for minutes at a time at reasonable cost in terms of numbers of dice.

Whichever way Flash gets changed will also impact the cost-effectiveness of Resistance, so that will need changing as well.

The Wrap-Up

Changing the combat system so fundamentally has had a number of unexpected flow-on consequences, but the advantages are clear. Nor are all these additional changes for the worse; there have been some positive flow-on effects, especially in three areas: Tactical Flight; Chases; and Tactical Vehicle Movement. Some granularity has been lost in some areas, but that’s an acceptable price to pay.

So, what do I hope GMs reading this will get out of it?

Firstly, those who run campaigns using the Hero System may get direct benefit from it. But there are some wider metagame points to be made, and I’m hopeful that there are lessons here for all GMs regardless of the game system they are using.

• Rules from other systems can be flown into a set of game mechanics to achieve some desired alteration – the trick is to look for the chain reaction of unexpected consequences of doing so, and make those adjustments as well.
• The more widely-read the GM – that is to say, the more game systems the GM has experienced – the broader the palette of rules solutions.
• House Rules in general can permit the campaign to go places and do things that the unmodified rules may do poorly or not at all. But there are lessons for all GMs in the experiences I have described herein.
• Playtesting House Rules is absolutely essential. Make sure you do it adequately – the number of times you can get caught by something that looks good on paper is astonishing. Just have a read of my older post, The Woes Of Piety And Magic if you want a real object lesson to study!
• And, lastly, the concept of a Game System Playtest Campaign can be a useful tool to keep in your armory.

There are a lot of things the Hero System does well. A lot of them can be done better, but that’s neither here nor there – they are a more than adequate baseline on which a campaign can be founded. But there are also a few things that the Hero game mechanics do poorly, or barely adequately, and combat execution is one of them; in theory, it works well, but there is an exponential rate of decay with rising character SPDs accumulated over an encounter, and inherent inequalities within the system. From a metagame perspective, anything that performs that badly should be replaced – but this has always been deemed too close to the heart of the look-and-feel of the Hero System to be contemplated. Our experience with the Initiative system shows not only that it’s possible, it delivers a blueprint for doing so. Some detail remains to be filled in by individual GMs who are still working with the Base System, but that’s true of any House Rule – and making those changes will help you learn the ins and outs of the change.

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. This one isn’t quite as developed as the others (but the last time I said that, I wrote 11300 words and it became one of the most developed of the Kingdoms. I don’t expect history to repeat itself, but you never know….

Postscript: 11,270 words later…. If you want to know why this article was posted late, that word-count should be all the answer you need!

Metagame Origins

What if all the Merchant’s Guilds and Trade Unions in the world decided that this nobility malarkey looked like a pretty good deal (for the nobles) and got together to form their own independent kingdom? The struggle between organized Labor and Big Business has been a central pivot-point within the backdrop of politics in Australia for longer than I’ve been alive. While parts of it I don’t know very well, parts of it have been experienced first-hand.

Against this backdrop, throw in a superficial understanding of middle American society of the 1950s and 60s, stir with influences as diverse as the Stonecutters from The Simpsons, the fiction of Robert Heinlein – especially The Man Who Sold The Moon, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, a few chapters of Time Enough For Love, and the latter third of Citizen Of The Galaxy – and surround it all with primary sources such Raymond E Feist’s Rise Of A Merchant Prince, and you end up with the Ineodolus Imperascora. Oh yes, and throw in some of Anne McCafferey’s Dragon stories as well.

In-Game Origins

There was a time when the populace of the Ineodolus Imperascora were all parts of other Kingdoms, isolated merchants and businessmen who worked for a living, buying and selling goods. When humanity escaped the destruction of Paradise, most of them founded small communities and isolated households wherever they could find somewhere suitable to settle down that wasn’t already claimed by something large and hairy / furry / scaly / elven – or overrun by something smaller with similar characteristics and greater numbers. Many of these communities failed to survive, but about 1/4, or maybe 1/3, of them managed to hold on, learning the arts of defense in a cruel world the hard way.

Others found that they enjoyed wandering from community to community and became Gypsies. These became, for a hundred years or so, vital elements of the overall society, as they travelled from place to place trading and learning, bartering expertise in one skill (acquired in some other settlement) for an education in another, and they were welcomed as such. Their trading was patently fair, they demanded only a fair price for their wares, and became used to living off the land as they went.

Over time, these settlements and communities grew, gathering in survivors of other failed settlements. From somewhere – no-one knows quite where – the concept of profit entered the collective social consciousness. Some of the larger communities began to send out their own buyers for the goods they needed, bypassing the gypsy network entirely. At the same time, they began to become more possessive of the improvements they had made and their possessions, and the gypsy habit of taking whatever they needed whenever and wherever they found it began to grow irritating. After a century of welcome and another century or two of increasing hostility and resentment, most of the gypsies were forced to settle down and integrate with one community or another.

The Merchant’s Associations & Guilds

Nonetheless, the old connections remained. They had their own language, and would still sell or trade amongst themselves more readily and on more favorable terms than with the surrounding community. Over the next 200 years, as communities prospered and grew, the mercantile demands within those societies also grew, as did the number of merchants who satisfied those needs. Various civic organizations and merchant’s associations were founded here and there for business owners to gather socially in that period.

It is claimed that a blacksmith named Malleus Ferrabius was the first developed the notion of a merchant’s association purely for those of his own craft, some 562 years ago, though the idea was swiftly copied – so swiftly that many other guilds disputed the claim of the Faberrarius et Fabri Gildam (Smiths & Crafters Guild). Both these tiers of organization welcomed others engaged in the same practices into their ranks.

Initially, these existed as purely social groups, but it wasn’t long before they grew into more significant organizations. It began with the complaint of a Furniture Maker about the qualifications of a particular apprentice who had come to work for him; the resulting discussion let to the establishment of a working group within the Lignorum Gildam (Carpentry Guild) who developed a set of professional standards and formalized a process for the promotion of apprentices and journeymen.

Several of the participants made excited reports to their local Merchant’s Organizations, even before the working group had completed its work, and those passed the notion on to their own Guilds, and Professional Standards seemed to mushroom throughout the Shared Kingdoms within all crafts virtually simultaneously.

The Standards Of Measurement

The next step in the evolutionary process that would lead inevitably to The Ineodolus Imperascora was made by the Pistoribus et Panis Gildam (Baker’s & Breadmaker’s Guild). Tithing was an ongoing problem for many members of the Gildam because while the King set the tithes, the local Nobility controlled the standards of weights used to measure those tithes. When the Noble wanted more, he simply shaved a little off his weights or had a new measuring stick crafted – one where the marks were a little closer together. As a professional body, the Gildam sought an audience with the King for their representatives and persuaded him to standardize the weights and measures throughout the Kingdom on the basis that the Nobility were undermining the King’s control of the nation.

This was the first time that a professional guild exercised any form of political authority, and since it was successful, this was another idea that quickly followed. For the next fifty years, the political buzzword was Standardization – of fees, of prices, of weights, and lengths, and volumes, of coin values – in fact of just about everything.

One Voice

Quite often, the product of one guild was a tool or a component used by another in the exercise of their craft. It started with a dispute between the shipwrights, carpenters, builders, and smiths. When the Smiths had standardized the lengths of their nails, they had roughly averaged the demands of each of the three guilds who utilized their products, and none were overly satisfied. Standardization had been taken too far.

Each of the three petitioned the King of one particular city-state to have the standard length changed to accommodate their requirements; the smiths viewed this as an attack on their autonomy. The King responded by locking the representatives all four in a room to sort the problem out. If the negotiators had been different people, the outcome would have radically changed the course of history within the future Shared Kingdoms; but agreement to implement three different standards was quickly achieved, and the negotiators moved on to talk about other subjects and discovered many areas of common interest.

The process of guilds talking to each other at more than the local level had begun, and the result was the founding of an overarching organization to deal with disputes and problems arising between the different member guilds, the Conlegorium Commercorum (Guilds Of Commerce).

Then arose the Galliamic Empire, and the Conlegorium was given authority over the Guilds and became more than a forum for negotiations and inter-guild relations. The president of the Guilds was given noble title within the Empire (to be honest, a Noble of the Empire was appointed to the position by Imperial Decree). This Noble, Thesius Denigrata (not his real name) forcibly unified the Guilds.

Birth of a Kingdom

When the Galliamic Empire fell, and the Shared Kingdoms arose in the aftermath, it was a small step for the Conlegorium to vacate the presidency of their association and elect one of their own to the post – who promptly declared the reformation of the Conlegorium into an independent Kingdom within the bounds of the Shared Kingdoms and himself its ruler. Justinium Immensam I was the founder of the Ineodolus Imperascora.

His reasoning was that the merchants had their own society, with their own practices and etiquette; they had their own language; they had their own internal hierarchy; they were used to dispensing justice internally within their Guilds; and the interests of their subordinate organizations needed to be heard as an equal voice to those gathered in the council chambers.

How much of the above is truth and how much is fiction? No-one knows for certain. Many records were lost in the fall of the Galliamic Empire, which was almost as catastrophic an event as the original expulsion from Paradise – which may or may not have happened as written. Certainly, many of the records and orally-retained histories of other Kingdoms disagree with this account; but the leadership of the Ineodolus Imperascora are not interested in learning the truth of the matter, deeming it an irrelevancy at best and an attempt to undermine their power at worst. They would rather be able to sneer at others for their ignorance in believing something different to them – or so historians from the other Kingdoms would have the public believe.

Internal Structure

The Ineodolus Imperascora is the only kingdom to employ the concept of Dual Citizenship. It is the only Kingdom which sells citizenship to its members, and accepts anyone willing to pay. They do not require the forswearing of other political relationships that may already exist, though one can do so if one chooses. In many ways, they are still more of a professional organization and lobby group offering free or discounted services to their members than they are a Kingdom. In other ways, they resemble a trade union of local merchants.

The merchants of the Shared Kingdoms believe that wealth is the best measure of capability, and therefore that wealth should equal power. EVERYTHING in this realm is for sale, usually at exorbitant prices.

In practice, the internal structure of the Ineodolus Imperascora is that of a Democratic Plutocracy with overtones of Plutocratic Democracy. And if those terms are unfamiliar to you, bear with me and all will become clear!

Noble Titles

A Title is a reflection of one’s mercantile possessions, as explained in more detail in subsequent sections. Buy a business and a Noble Title comes with the deed. These titles have no direct relationship to the level of authority within the Kingdom; those are a function of Internal and External Guild Hierarchy.

It is entirely acceptable for someone to be 3/5ths of a Count on account of a 60% share of one source of revenue. To claim a full title, they must also acquire smaller stakes totaling 40% stake in other revenue sources. Below 1/100th part, shares are considered too small to be reckoned as a portion of noble title.

Layers of citizenship

As with many societies, the Ineodolus Imperascora has a stratified structure of citizenship.

The lowest level is occupied by the Servus (Servant) class. These receive substandard food, substandard lodgings poor-quality clothing, and very little more. Once a month, it is traditional to give each a silver coin to be spent as they wish, for luck. Once per year, good service may be rewarded with an additional gold coin, many will receive a second silver coin, and a few will receive nothing more than the monthly silver they would have received anyway. From these funds, they are expected to purchase anything else they may need, and to provide themselves with what luxuries they can afford.

The second tier is the place of the Artefix (Worker) class, who must be paid for their labors, and who must pay taxes apon that wealth. Pay scales are fixed by each Guild on an established basis depending on hours of work, difficulty of work, age, skill required, years of experience, etc. Payment is made each eighthday, less taxes which are paid on behalf of the Artefix by their employer. There is little scope for variation within each pay grade, though some employers will reward exceptional workers with bonuses. The employer also provides food and may provide lodgings, though these are frequently obtained separately as rented premises; if lodgings are provided, a fixed deduction is made from the Artefix’s payment, again according to Guild rules. The Guilds also determine what clothing and tools must be provided by the employer; everything else is the responsibility and choice of the individual. Many Artefix save, dreaming of the day when they can open their own businesses.

The third tier is occupied by those of minority citizenship – Minoritate Citatum. These are Discipulae (apprentices) (refer to the section on Education, below). The chief difference between an Artefix and a Discipulae who is a Minoritate Citatum is an obligation to educate the Discipulae in the basics of the business within a certain time frame, and to obtain for them a journeyman’s position and gift them with the tools (both literal and metaphoric) required for them to occupy that position according to Guild guidelines at the end of that apprenticeship, provided that they are able to demonstrate sufficient skill according to the established professional standards of their occupation. They are paid, clothed, and housed in the same way as Artefix and at the same pay scale, and are expected to divide their time between education in their craft and earning revenue for the master to defray his expenses. Each apprentice is named as a Minoritate Citatum on the rolls of the Guild of his master, who pays dues on his behalf, and is answerable to them for their treatment. Taking one or more Discipulae is a big deal for the business owner, depending on the industry; it can easily cost him up to 100 gold a year, not counting the cost in spoiled and ruined materials and damaged tools. Failed apprentices are released from all future obligations to the teacher who took them on, and are free to seek employment elsewhere as an Artefix. If they are fortunate, they may even find a second teacher who will take them on as an apprentice – though that may reset the clock on their apprenticeship, depending on the terms arranged with the new teacher.

Within the fourth tier are the Iteromines (Journeymen), who receive Medius Civium (Middle Citizenship). These are apprentices who are entrusted to accept commissions of their own, and who may leave the shelter of their teacher and make their own way as apprentices gaining experience in their trade. It is as Journeymen that the investment made in training the Iteromine in his early years begins to pay off for the teacher who took a chance on them; for the next 10 years, 5% of the journeyman’s income is paid directly (annually) to the teacher. The Iteromine is also responsible for paying his own Guild Dues. At various times, the journeyman may return to the tutelage of his master; refining and developing his skills. Each day so spent adds a further eightday to the period of obligation of the Journeyman. When the Master, based on the income earned by the journeyman and the commendations received from satisfied customers of Noble Rank, adjudges the Iteromines to be of a fit standard, he may put forward his name for examination as a Master. All expenses of this examination are to be met by the Master, so he does not want to do so more often than necessary. On the other hand, it is in his best interests to elevate the Iteromine as quickly as possible as doing so increases the earning power of the journeyman while he is still obligated to the Master.

When an Iteromines graduates and becomes a Dominus, he also acquires his full citizenship, entering the sixth stratum of society. The Dominus who educated him is then obligated to pay all the establishment costs for the former journeyman to establish his own business if the journeyman so requests, or he may sell his existing practice to the journeyman if he is preparing for retirement. Any such investment must be repaid over the ten years following the completion of the Iteromine decade of repayment, plus 1% of the Dominus’ income during this interval. At the end of this period, the now-established Dominus is free of obligation to his former teacher. By this time, he should have his own crop of Discipulae ready to graduate to Iteromine status, if they have not already done so. Each new Discipula is an investment in future prosperity; the more journeymen a Dominus has, the greater his income, and income is what matters most in the Ineodolus Imperascora. All told, a Dominus has spent between 25 and 30 years of his life beholden to a Master within his craft before his debts are cleared; since apprenticeships normally commence somewhere between the ages of ten and twenty years, the Dominus is aged between 40 and 45 years before achieving full independence.

Where a business owner has not graduated through the Discipulae-Iteromines-Dominus hierarchy but has simply established his own mercantile or commercial operation, he holds dual citizenship. Most members of the Ineodolus Imperascora hold this type of citizenship, which is to say that they pay taxes and tithes, and are responsible to, some other government in relation to everything except their business practice. These business people are barred from certain ranks within the Guilds and therefore within the Ineodolus Imperascora overall, and constitute the fifth tier of society. They must still adhere to all guild regulations in terms of price, quality, etc.

Only about 1/5th are full citizens, who not only pay dues to the Guilds and to their local bodies, but also pay taxes to the Master Trader. In return for this allegiance, they are eligible for any office within the realm, as are any dual citizens who have passed through the full educational structure.

Some business owners adopt a lesser form of membership (with lower dues, fewer obligations, and greater independence from Guild Rules) known as an Aggregare Ciutatem (Associate Citizenship). This enables them to purchase from and bargain with full citizens at citizen’s rates, but grants none of the other perks and benefits of membership of a Guild. Such members are considered to be equal in rank with Iteromines and part of the fifth tier within society.

And some traders and merchants ignore the guilds entirely and operate as Independents. They may pay local association dues for the civic goodwill that results, but otherwise adhere to the policies, laws, and tax regimes of another government. These are considered equivalent to Discipulae in that they have no say over the operations and policies of the Ineodolus Imperascora but are recognized as business owners nevertheless – however unqualified and amateurish. Between the obligations that come with citizenship, this choice is just as viable for an individual as any other; they lose the protection and guarantees of the guild, and a certain customer base as a result, but have far fewer drains on their profits.

The first five layers of society constitute the bulk of the citizens of the Ineodolus Imperascora. Only members of the rank of Dominus may aspire to authority within the Guilds, and it is the Guilds which form the political leadership of the Realm. Accordingly, we must now turn our attention to the internal hierarchy within a Guild.

Internal Guild Hierarchy

At the lowest level within a guild are the local associations, including Aggregare Ciutatem, Servusi and Artefixi. These enjoy the protection and administration of the guild, and can bring grievances against guild members to the attention of more senior members of the Guild for arbitration, but have no authority within the Guild.

Above them are the Gildambrum (Guildsmen), the actual dues-paying members of the guild. These include Discipulae, Iteromines, and Dominusi.

Once per year, the senior members of the Guild meet to elect new Gildamdux (Guild Leaders) from amongst the Dominusi. The Gildamdux select Dominusi to represent the Guild elsewhere, especially within the overall administration of the Ineodolus Imperascora. The Gildamdux spend the revenues accrued by the Guild, set Guild policy, conduct examinations of prospective Dominusi, maintain Guild offices, investigate offences against the Guild and its members, prosecute and punish the offenders, and – most importantly – compensate the hardworking Master craftsmen within the guild who pass up opportunities to earn additional income in order to devote time to Guild administration.

Guild Elections

These elections are something akin to a high-stakes poker game. Each Gold Piece that a Dominus pledges to the Guild (win or lose) is worth one vote. The first round of voting is secret, and results only in the announcement of the size of the highest bid – meaning that every other Dominus aspiring to the position doesn’t know who is leading, only that it’s not them, and the difference between their pledge and the current leading bid. A round of private politicking follows, alliances are formed and broken, businesses sold for immediate capital and bought by those with longer term ambitions, and so on.

This is followed by a second round of ‘voting’; even the current leader will be obliged to add to his commitment, since others will wish to not only exceed what he has already committed but also whatever sum they think he may commit in the second round. Election strategies have varied through the years; a dominant showing early may scare off rivals, or exhaust resources prematurely. After this second round, the current rankings and votes are announced, and any who are not within 10% of the highest total are obliged to cede the position. Another round of private politicking follows, as leaders attempt to shore up their position, undermine rivals, and prevent the coalescing of opposition behind a rival. A third round of ‘voting’ ensues, with the winners declared as final – unless there is a tie, in which case only that fact is announced, leaving contenders uncertain of how much more they need to commit. It may transpire – it has, from time to time – that the leader after the second round is someone so controversial or disliked that spontaneous coalitions will form with the express purpose of voting someone else – anyone else – into office.

The bulk of the Guild treasury derives from these pledges, which must be honored, win or lose – and it is under the control of the people “elected”. Cutting your losses early and conserving your resources for a future bid can be a winning strategy in the long run. A proven track record in office is also a must – if you succeed in increasing the fortunes of those not elected with effective policies, those improved fortunes are likely to back you next time around. If your leadership fails, you are more likely to create coalitions opposing you. Guild politics is cut-throat.

If there’s something hauntingly familiar about these proceedings, its because there should be. In western democracies, money is raised for elections and then expended on advertising and counter-advertising, but it often still comes down to who has the bigger budget (all other factors being even close to equal). Consider the race for the US Presidency – there is an anonymous phase (when people are deciding whether or not to run); there is a weeding-out phase (aka the primaries), when candidates are seeking the nomination; and there is the actual contest against political rivals for the office. The only difference is that instead of blowing this money on nothing of practical value, the Guilds stick it in their treasury. If the US was run the same way, it might not have the budget deficits that it currently ‘enjoys’. Or it might make no difference. This is just fantasy gaming, after all.

The winner is named the Merchant Prince of the Guild for the next year, the man (or woman) with the authority and resources to dominate guild policy for the next year, to agree the biggest contracts and commissions, the wealthiest and most successful practitioner within his Guild – for now. From the moment they are elected, the Merchant Prince’s primary goal is ensuring his reelection twelve months hence. (There’s more on the consequences of this political structure in a subsequent section).

Other positions within the Guild of note are Thesaurarius Gildex (Guild Treasurer), Gildam Concilarium (Guild Councellor), and various positions of Regionalis Caputildex (Regional Guild Leaders). These are all appointed by the Merchant Prince, usually from amongst his supporters – indeed, it may have been promises of position that gained their support in the first place.

External Guild Hierarchy

In theory, all Merchant Princes are equal in rank and authority. In practice, things are not so clear-cut. Remember, wealth equals power in this society. It follows that there is actually an unofficial hierarchy of Guilds, one that is often dependant on factors external to the Guild itself and not amenable to the control of the Merchant Princes. These factors, in their usual order of significance, are:

• Demand – the more demand there is for the production of a particular guild, the more influential that Guild is. The Wigmaker’s Guild rarely dominates. In troubled times, the Arms & Armourer’s Guild (who used to be part of the Blacksmiths Guild until they split in a messy squabble) generally rises to the fore.
• Profitability – the more profitable a particular type of commerce is, the more influential the Guild. Profitability means either industries only of interest to the wealthy and nobility who can make substantial profits from a low-volume industry, or industries who make a modest profit from a great number of transactions.
• Membership – when the preceding factors cancel out or produce a state of equality, the actual number of members of the guild becomes significant – because a large guild only needs to acquire an additional GP from each member to be able to financially bury a smaller guild.
• Cost – Strange as it may seem, the Ineodolus Imperascora does respect investment in the future, even if current returns are not as high as might be desired. So it follows that when breaking any remaining ties, the industry with the highest production cost per unit of production (whatever that might be) is the more respected. Thus the Goldsmiths outrank the Silversmiths – but not the Platinum Smiths, whose level of demand is nowhere near as high.
• Titles – Finally, if all else is balanced, Guilds may compare titles, because even thought they mean nothing internally, they are considered significant to outsiders – and political relations can have a direct impact on the preceding factors.

The Imperascora Cabinet

One of the tasks of each Gildamdux is to select a representative to the Imperascora Cabinet, also known as the Advisory Council, which is the modern incarnation of the Conlegorium Commercorum. Nominally, the Merchant Princes are the actual members of the Cabinet, but it is traditional for each to send a representative instead. The choice of representative is always a delicate question; Cabinet activities will consume vast quantities of their time, and representatives are unable to stand for office within the Guild, so it can be a means of removing a strong rival from the field. On the other hand, they are well remunerated, and are often privy to intelligence that can offer allies an advantage. Merchant Princes will generally agree that giving the position to an ally who can be trusted is the ideal solution, but one that is not always available; that can weaken key support by removing a substantial vote from the Guild Floor, or there may be no one that is trusted, at least not that much.

The Cabinet also contains of Aides, Assistants, and Bureaucrats. These are all employees, independent of any form of political appointment, and ineligible to stand for office themselves. The theory is that this makes them incorruptible, though everyone knows better; many may have kindred owning businesses and eligible for office within Guilds, for example, and (of course) anyone is potentially susceptible to bribery.

The Cabinet’s primary task, aside from setting global policies and dealing with inter-guild rivalries, is to select from amongst the Merchant Princes (using the funds made available by their Guilds) one to serve as The Master Trader.

The Master Trader

The Master Trader is appointed for life. This position is the equivalent of King within the Ineodolus Imperascora. The Master Trader’s responsibility is to set long-term policies for the overall betterment of the Ineodolus Imperascora, to arbitrate any disputes between the Guilds, to negotiate treaties, and to appoint ‘diplomats’ to the Embassies of the Realm, empowered to negotiate on behalf of the entire Realm and to represent the interests of Guild members within the other Shared Kingdoms. Internally, he has very little direct power, but exerts considerable indirect authority through the other Kingdoms.

Education

Many of the specifics of the Educational system within the Ineodolus Imperascora have been detailed already, in particular the Apprentice – Journeymen – Masters career path. In fact, all that remains is to detail an extremely rare rank within a Guild, that of Senior Craftsman. This rank is an acknowledgement that every Apprentice ever taken on by a Master has now risen to the rank of Master themselves, and that each of those has successfully elevated an Apprentice to the rank of Master. Since this takes 60 years or more of professional life on the part of the potential Senior Craftsman (excluding his own apprenticeship and most – if not all – of his Journeyman period, another 20-30 years), it can only be conferred on a Trader who is still active within his Guild at the age of 90+.

The position carries with it a stipend of 1% of everything taken in by the Guild or its members; in return for which, the Senior Craftsman is required and expected to advise the Merchant Prince and bring his vast experience to bear on any problems within the Guild.

The Politics

Some of the following may recapitulate information already provided. That’s because this (and the section that follows it) is an extract from the original briefing material presented to the players, while everything that has preceded this section has been an enlargement apon this and other sources, newly written for this article.

Understanding the structure of the Guilds is essential to unraveling the politics of the Imperascora. Heading each Guild is a Merchant Prince, the guild member who has paid the most for his membership. This places him in line of succession to be the Master Trader of the Realm, their equivalent of The King. With the death of the current Master Trader, the profitability of each of the Merchant Princes is assessed, and the most profitable of their number assumes the vacant office.

The Master Trader controls the law as it pertains to individuals, sets the personal taxation rate, pays the overall expenses of the Realm, and controls the Treasury. He is required to sell all his personal holdings and businesses at a price determined by the profitability of the enterprise before assuming his new position, which he holds for life. His wife and children are entitled to a percentage of the profitability of the Imperascora throughout his reign apon his death, enabling the family to retain rank. The more the realm prospers under his stewardship, the greater his family’s legacy. Immediately apon ascending to the rank of Master Trader, the former Merchant Prince is replaced as the head of his Guild by the number 2 within that Guild.

Collectively, the Merchant Princes form the Advisory Council, together with any specialists and consultants that are hired by the Master Trader on behalf of the Imperascora. However, they are usually too busy with Guild matters to attend to this personally, and appoint a representative to the Council to act in their stead. While the Master Trader is required to brief the Advisory Council on current events, and to listen to their advice, he is not obligated to pursue their recommendations. This state-level Intelligence is a powerful resource for the Merchant Princes, giving them a distinct advantage over the majority of their rivals, and helps to maintain stability within the Imperascora. The Advisory Council has only one power and obligation: should 2/3 of them agree, they can remove the Master Trader from office, declaring him Sicut Mortius (‘As Dead’). The business of the Imperascora is too important to leave in the hands of the Senile, Incompetent or Corrupt!

Each Guild has its own administrative council. The size of this council is determined by the combined wealth of the members’ holdings that are subject to the rulings of the Guild. The title Guild Councilor is more prestigious within the Imperascora than Duke, because Guild Councilors make and break Dukes. Every member of the Guild pays membership fees annually and purchases a license to operate a particular business within a specific location. Membership within the Guild permits a business owner to purchase nominations at the rate of one Nomination per Guilder (gp) (non-refundable). The business owner with the most Nominations becomes the Merchant Prince and head of the council; thereafter, rankings are determined strictly by profitability. The Guild sets the wholesale price levels for all services and products that fall within the Guild’s purview, the price of memberships, the price of licenses, etc. The Guild is required to pay all costs of internal regulation, to subsidize the training and education of members and the children of members (even if that training is within another Guild), and to ensure adequate provision of guild services throughout the Imperascora. The Guild is also responsible for relations with non-Imperascora businesses in their sector of the economy.

Within each region, local guild members form a Chamber Of Commerce. This body appoints one of its number to act as spokesman to the local authorities. The Chamber Of Commerce is permitted to set the retail markup for its members’ products and services, allowing variations on the overall prices set by the Guild Councils for local conditions. However, it is normal for a Chamber Of Commerce to elect an executive council from amongst its membership. These Regional Councilors act as the connection between the Guild administrations and the local members. In areas with sufficient populations, multiple Local Guilds may exist, usually one per economic sector, each of which elects a single representative to the local Chamber Of Commerce.

These Guild Ranks are in addition to the usual peerage ranks (Dukes, Viscounts, etc), which reflect control and dominion over a region or population, as described in the Kingdoms and Cultures Overview.

Nobles & Nobility within the Causa Domasura

Titles in the Ineodolus Imperascora reflect and accompany ownership of property or other wealth-generating resource. Buy a mining concession and the title of Count comes with the purchase. Buy a business, and another title of Count comes with it. However, the titles are automatically downgraded one step every year unless it can be proven to be a profitable enterprise. Nobles are encouraged to seek the highest title possible as the degree of autonomy and authority that comes with the title directly establishes his authority to expand, establish new settlements and businesses, sell concessions, dictate the terms of trade agreements, and lowers his tax rates on the profits he reports. However, it also increases the burden of responsibility on the titleholder and increases his overall taxation expense; there is automatically a natural optimum balance at which his personal profits are maximized, and over time his titles will stabilize.

A stable income is vital, as many licenses and authorities are annual expenses and not one-time payments, and the price of those licenses and authorities are established by Guilds, within which ranking and authority are determined annually by net profits of the relevant operations. A noble can have as much power and authority as he can afford to purchase – but if he overextends himself, he will find himself both short of capital and subject to the decisions of his rivals in ensuing years. Under-claiming simply brings this problem forwards.

At the same time, there are years in which dominance is vital, and years in which it makes little difference. Knowing when it is to your long-term advantage to over-extend or cede control is an essential element of politics in the Imperascora, and fundamentally relates to how well that sector of the economy has performed during the year relative to others, and how well the individual’s holdings have done relative to others within the same sector. This year, it might be more important to control mining licenses than grain prices; next year, salt might be more important than horses. Complicating everything is the self-evident fact that the more one expends on authority, the less one has available to invest in concessions and new businesses and the like. Plots and plans can be short-term, annual, longer, or even requiring decades to come to fruition. The result is a maze of alliances and obligations and authorities. In such an environment, Intelligence is a prized asset, and represents another significant drain on the personal treasuries of the Nobles of the realm.

Village Politics in the Shared Kingdoms

The Ineodolus Imperascora is ubiquitous; almost anywhere there are traders, merchants, and businesses, you will find at least one member of the Traders And Commerce Empire. In most places, they are isolated, a lone representative or a minority, present merely because the Merchant Princes like to know what any potential customer – or rival – is up to; but with prosperity and a growing population, their numbers swell. As they amass authority, it becomes much harder for unaligned independents to keep the Ineodolus Imperascora at arms length; some will capitulate, others will seek the advantages of Associate Citizenship. The Ineodolus Imperascora makes it easy to join and relatively painless to remain a member. The traders like to have eyes and ears everywhere, and may even subsidize businessmen who resettle into a less prosperous area – or so rumor has it.

Each village has a council to settle local disputes and deal with minor legal matters; they will usually appoint one or two local officials for the purpose, and may maintain a few civic structures (a jail, council chambers – which often double as a meeting & community hall – common green, and, the like). Initially, the dominant regional political affiliation will dominate the appointment of members to this body – in the Verus Fidesora, faith is likely to be the pervading principle, for example. As the urban population grows, the merchants and their guilds grow from a minority to a substantial part of the local council – they represent those with money, after all, and that always makes a difference. In theory, when the majority of council positions are held by merchants who are citizens of the Ineodolus Imperascora, the allegiance of the village will switch. Within the heartland of other Kingdoms, the Commerce Empire does not press this point; in more cosmopolitan areas they can and do. They look forward to the day when every urban centre is under their control, either overt or covert.

Such switching of village allegiances is permitted by the Shared Kingdoms as a better alternative to Civil War. Experience has shown that the Merchants usually override local passions with hard mercantile practicality – after a few years dominated by the merchants, they have made so many unpopular decisions that they are thrown out at the next local council elections, regardless of how much money they might have behind them, and some other group takes their place (most of the time, this will be a restoration of the previous regional affiliation).

The members of the Shared Kingdoms have grown used to the authority over any given minor population centre switching between them from time to time; in the long run, it tends to even out.

None of them have given any thought to the possibility of the Commerce Empire deliberately holding back until something important (to them) comes up – within a year, they could (effectively) seize almost total control of the Shared Kingdoms. Would they give it back afterwards? Maybe, maybe not. It would require almost complete cooperation between the Guilds, something that is likely to happen three days after Hell freezes over, or so the other Kingdoms think…

Taxes

The Ineodolus Imperascora has a fixed Income Tax of 30%. If the wealthy cannot change the tax rate – and the Merchant Princes try every now and then, only to be blocked by the Master Trader, who controls this income – then their only recourse is to change the definition of what is considered Income. So far, few initiatives in this direction have been successful, again because they are blocked by the Master Trader; but a small concession in this direction is occasionally politically astute (and can always be taken back, later).

Geography

The overall shape of the area dominated by the Ineodolus Imperascora is a long, elongated playing-card diamond on it’s side. In it’s northern reaches the terrain is like northern France; it’s Western side is top-quality farmland; to the east, it contains hilly terrain and mountains, as well as coastland and a number of small islands; and to the south there is forest, swamp, semi-tropical savannah, some tropical swamp, and a fringe of jungle. They really do have something of just about everything.

Borders

The westernmost point runs east-west from the Capitas Duodiem along the Via Negotarentur (Trade Road) (pronounced Neg-Oh-Sha-Rent-Ur) to the Lihumen Negotarenture Transitum (Stony River Trade Bridge), where the road crosses the Lihume Lapillos (Stony River). That river continues south, bisecting the Realm until it reaches the border of the Longex Dextora just west of the Iriduserde Foliumprasi (Vivid Green-Leaf Forest), the home of the Elves. The border itself continues east, following the line of the road until it peters out in the Thunderhell, then proceeds at an arbitrary thirty degree angle to the horizontal through the fringes of the Thunderhell until it reaches the Undus Verdestus (Green Ocean). Aside from the occasional island to the northeast, the border then follows the coastline Southeast along the northern edge of an eastward peninsula, then south down the eastern coast. Shortly before reaching the southern extremity of the peninsula, the border returns inland, following the course of the Lihume Magnusortali (Great Eastern River), which can be navigated upstream all the way back to the Capitas Duodiem.

It is worth noting four things that are wrong with this overall picture of the borders of the Realm:

1. The Thunderhell belongs to anyone stupid enough or resilient enough to live there, and borders are a cartographic indulgence in wishful thinking.
2. There is a large chunk missing from the northern border which contains Parumveneaora (The Vale Of Dreams) and Silvunduzora, (The Deep Hollows), home to the Gnomes and Dwarves, respectively. NB: Dwarvish claims extend in pockets all the way up the Montis Levitasvirgo (Thunder Mountains) and into the Montis Nixcumulum (Snowcapped Mountains).
3. While the Ineodolus Imperascora claims the river and its vital trade passage, it has a bite taken out of it’s southern border for the Sylvarnpluprasi
   (The Sylvan Grange), home of the Dryads, and part of Congressus Feyunctusora (The United Association of Fey).
4. The Ineodolus Imperascora lay claim to the coastal fringes running for several leagues to the north of this border, on the coastal side of the Montis Levitasvirgo mountain range, but have not placed the settlements presumed to be there any any map disseminated to outsiders. How fair-flung is the true Realm? On the Merchant Princes and Master Trader really know, and they aren’t talking – at least, not in public.

Neighbors

The capital city of the Shared Kingdoms is obviously one of the most notable of the neighboring realms adjacent to the Ineodolus Imperascora, but they share borders with no less than ten of the Shared Kingdoms – and are within easy travel of an eleventh. Listing them is like listing a Political who’s who. In fact, the only realm not within easy reach of the Guilds is Behr Yuralvus!

Population

The highest population density is located to the west of the Realm, but the differences are slight. Only on the Northeastern fringes is there any significant reduction in population density – as always, the Thunderhell is an unhappy place to live. It should also be noted that the Ineodolus Imperascora is the most dispersed of the members of the Shared Kingdoms, with (as noted earlier) citizens in virtually every community.

From A PC Perspective

PCs should love the Ineodolus Imperascora. If it’s made, they can buy it there; if it’s for sale, someone will probably buy it there. The politics are almost as Byzantine as anywhere else in the Shared Kingdoms, there is always employment on offer, and joining the Adventurer’s Guild is a certain ticket to eventual Noble Title. What’s more, the general risks of misappropriation of one’s property and incidental hazards to one’s health are generally lower than anywhere else in the Shared Kingdoms – because both are bad for business. Getting on the wrong side of a Merchant Prince, or caught in the wheels of some plot or other is always a danger, however. In general, it presents a safer base of operations than the Causa Domasura (though one with fewer opportunities).

From A GMs Perspective

It’s been said that Commerce is the lifeblood of any Society. If that’s true then the Ineodolus Imperascora is at least half of the beating heart of the Shared Kingdoms – but it’s a heart muscle with sporadic internal problems and the ability at any time to seize control of the entire organism, spreading strife and discord in all directions. I’ve deliberately avoided talking about the current Merchant Princes or the Master Trader; the internal structure of the society leave the former group subject to change without notice, while any decisions as to the latter are a vital choice that can radically alter the scope of any campaign containing this Realm or the Shared Kingdoms in General. A relatively young and aggressive Master Trader will be in an expansionist mode, capable of arousing the anger of any number of potential enemies from both within the Shared Kingdoms and without; an especially cunning and deceptive one will be enmeshed up to his eyebrows in the internal politics of other members of the Shared Nations; while an older one might be wise, or beginning to lose his grasp on power, or both, which will focus political attention inwards – leaving scope for other members to attempt to reclaim power lost when the Commerce Empire was last feeling expansionist. Any of these make for interesting adventuring. On top of that, you have the potential for some massive public crisis leading the Master Trader to seize power throughout the Shared Kingdoms for the good of all (as he sees it) – an entire campaign could be built around this incident, the resolution of the crisis, and the subsequent attempts to restore independence to the rest of the Shared Kingdoms – not to mention imposing some sort of limits to prevent this from happening again. Throw in the possibility that the Master Trader is flat-out wrong in his intended approach to the problem, and put the PCs squarely in the cross-hairs, and you have the potential for all sorts of fun.

The Language Relationships Table: The Rare Languages

There are 26 spoken languages in Shards Of Divinity, divided into four groups: Common, Unusual, Rare, and Obscure. As mentioned in the previous part of this series, if a character has more ranks in a language than its relatedness relative to the language he is trying to speak, he gains a +1 synergy bonus on his attempts to use the language.

For example, an elf would have Elvish (aka Elven) as his native language. If he was trying to speak Dwarven, he would get +1 if he had 8 ranks in his native language – or if he had 4 ranks in Draconian, Giant, or Terran, or 6 ranks in Trade Tongue or Abyssal or… well, the list goes on. He can qualify for multiple +1 bonuses if he meets multiple targets but only one per row on the chart – so he might get +1 for 4 ranks in Giant, +1 for 6 ranks in Trade Tongue, and +1 for 8 ranks in Elvish.

Twenty-six languages won’t fit all in one reasonable-length table, even though that’s how they were presented in the original house rules, so they have been broken down into a series of smaller tanbles. In this part of the series, I’m going to look at the Rare Languages. Note that this table mentions languages that are currently not known to exist in the campaign world. Following the table are descriptions of the languages and how to simulate them.

Rare Languages	Relatedness
	Ranks	Related Languages
Pious¹ Notes: ¹Language is: Common for Human Clerics and Priests, Rare for other humans, Obscure for non-humans.	2 ranks	City-State, Celestial
	4 ranks	Original, Draconic
	6 ranks	Kingdom, Gypsy, Abyssal, Infernal
	8 ranks	Trade Tongue, Sylvan, Orc, Old Kingdom, Elvish, Draconian
	10 ranks	Druidic, Terran, Gnoll, Halfling, Undercommon, Dwarven
	12 ranks	Aquan, Ignan, Goblin, Tribal, Gnome
	14 ranks	Giant
Druidic² Notes: ²Language is: Unusual for Druids only, Rare for Gypsies, Elves & Fey, Obscure for all others	2 ranks	Gypsy, Elvish, Sylvan, Aquan, Old Kingdom
	4 ranks	Halfling, City-State, Draconic
	6 ranks	Undercommon, Gnome, Trade Tongue, Original
	8 ranks	Kingdom, Draconian, Celestial, Orc, Giant, Tribal, Pious
	10 ranks	Goblin, Dwarven, Terran, Abyssal, Ignan
	12 ranks	Infernal, Gnoll
City-State	2 ranks	Original
	4 ranks	Gypsy, Draconic, Tribal, Pious
	6 ranks	Old Kingdom, Sylvan, Goblin, Orc, Giant
	8 ranks	Elvish, Draconian, Dwarven, Celestial, Ignan, Gnoll, Trade Tongue
	10 ranks	Terran, Abyssal, Infernal, Aquan, Druidic, Kingdom, Gnome
	12 ranks	Undercommon
Giant	2 ranks	Dwarven, Ignan
	4 ranks	Terran, Infernal, Gnoll, Tribal, Orc, Gnome
	6 ranks	Goblin, City-State, Sylvan, Undercommon, Celestial, Draconian
	8 ranks	Abyssal, Halfling, Trade Tongue, Original, Elvish, Draconic
	10 ranks	Kingdom, Pious, Druidic, Gypsy, Aquan
	12 ranks	Old Kingdom
Orc (by Tribe)	2 ranks	Orc (any other Tribe), Giant, Draconic
	4 ranks	Goblin, Tribal, Gnome, Dwarven, Ignan
	6 ranks	Gnoll, Sylvan, Elvish, Draconian, Infernal, Original, City-State
	8 ranks	Halfling, Celestial, Abyssal, Terran
	10 ranks	Undercommon, Gypsy, Druidic, Trade Tongue, Kingdom, Pious, Aquan
	12 ranks	Old Kingdom
Goblin	2 ranks	Gnoll, Orc
	4 ranks	Tribal, Giant, Infernal, Draconic
	6 ranks	Gnome, Ignan, Celestial, Dwarven, City-State
	8 ranks	Abyssal, Terran, Draconian, Elvish, Sylvan, Original
	10 ranks	Undercommon, Gypsy, Pious, Halfling
	12 ranks	Aquan, Druidic, Old Kingdom, Kingdom, Trade Tongue
Draconian	2 ranks	Draconic, Dwarven, Abyssal
	4 ranks	Terran, Infernal, Celestial, Ignan
	6 ranks	Orc, Elvish, Undercommon, Original, Giant
	8 ranks	Gnoll, Trade Tongue, Pious
	10 ranks	Sylvan, Aquan, Druidic, Gypsy, City-State, Old Kingdom, Gnome, Tribal, Goblin
	12 ranks	Kingdom
	14 ranks	Halfling
Gnoll	2 ranks	Infernal, Giant
	4 ranks	Goblin, Dwarven, Celestial
	6 ranks	Orc, Tribal, Gnome, Ignan, Abyssal, Terran, Draconic
	8 ranks	Draconian, Undercommon, Sylvan, City-State, Pious
	10 ranks	Elvish, Original, Halfling, Trade Tongue
	12 ranks	Old Kingdom, Kingdom, Gypsy, Druidic, Aquan

Language Descriptions & Notes: The Rare Languages

The following language descriptions frequently mention rendering text using particular fonts that I have in my collection. Some of these may have unrestricted licenses, some may be free only for non-commercial use, and a few may even have come with collections or software that is only available to paying customers. In the seventh section on Languages,, I’ll include a brief sample of text rendered into each language and displayed using the relevant font. For now, all that really needs to be noted is that I have chosen fonts that ‘look right’ for the language as I envisaged it for this campaign.

Similarly, a number of modified modern languages have been used as a shortcut for simulating the various fantasy tongues. The goal was not to create a genuine language, not even to be consistent, but simply to create an appropriately non-English “sound” with the right sort of accents and noises. I hope no speaker of any named language takes offense – or undue compliment – from the use of their native tongue. Such usage says nothing about the language itself, and even less about the people who actually use it; at most it is a commentary on the sounds and flow of syllables that result to English-speaking ears.

Some of the languages fall into multiple categories. While it might be redundant, each language description is included in all relevant categories.

Druidic:

The first release of the Shards Of Divinity House Rules asserted that “Druids do not have a separate language’. Further examination of the campaign concepts have shown that this is both true and misleading; there IS a language called “Druidic”, but it is NOT a language that can be used to communicate effectively with anyone else that knows the language. Rather, it is a learned ability to communicate with nature, to hear what the surroundings have to say about the weather that is coming, the local conditions, any threats within the region, any sites with peculiarities nearby, where the nearest spring is, and so on. It is also employed to tell the spirits of nature that inhabit every geographic feature, that shelter and nurture every species of animal and plant, that bring the rain and the storms and the weather, exactly what the Druid would like them to do. They may not listen (they often don’t) and may not answer the request in a timely fashion (they don’t have the same concept of time as mortals, but neither do Druids, so that’s all right).

This “Druidic” language has evolved from little bits of a number of different languages, predominantly Elvish and Sylvan, but with a slight tinge of more human languages such as Gypsy and Old Kingdom. Each Druid’s Circle – and, in fact, each Druid – develops his own Druid’s Tongue. As initiates, this essentially comprises parts of the lowest common denominator amongst the “Druidic” of the Druid’s Circle that has accepted the initiate; as a character grows in understanding, so his version of “Druidic” becomes more and more unique, and more and more dedicated to the terrain in which he spends most of his time. It also, therefore, becomes less and less useful generically, ie when the Druid is outside his own terrain. Druids who adventure will often need to select companion species to accompany him; while they may be useful for other reasons, the dominant reason for their presence is to translate the Druid’s requests into the local dialect. Of course, the less native they are to the local environment, the less help they can be.

Druidic is considered an Unusual language for Druids, a Rare language for Gypsies, Elves & Fey, and an Obscure language for all others.

Translating into Druidic is an ‘entertaining’ exercise. Extract and translate proper nouns other than animal and plant species using a random choice of Sylvan, Elvish, or Kingdom. Translate the remaining nouns into sounds and/or actions that are characteristic of the creature. Reformat the rest of the text using Alphabet Of The Magi – then interpret loosely into animal noises, weather sound effects, hand gestures, and anything else that comes to mind.

There is no written form of this ‘Language’.

City-State:

Legend holds that there were once 9 (or eleven, or twelve) human families or tribes living in Paradise, and each had their own language. The lingua franca that emerged between these nine is now known as “Old Kingdom”, while the long-dead languages of each family are known collectively as City-State.

To simulate “Old Kingdom”, write text with an ‘old-world’ phrasing, then translate as shown below:

• Voorst (First) – Dutch
• Segundo (Second) – Portuguese
• Eulogmuda¹ (Blessed) – Greek
• Hato (Herder) – Spanish
• Berg (Mountain) – Swedish
• Dalen (Valley) – Danish
• Joki (River) – Finnish
• Phasmatis (Tower) – Latin
• Vara (Last) – Icelandic²

¹ literal translation, letter by letter, from the Greek translation of the meaning, based on the names of the letters. The original is as shown to the right.
² choose the result with the fewest non-standard-English characters. Render all non-standard characters as their visual English equivalent.

Giant:

Giants once dominated many of the other races, It was when they attempted (and failed) to conquer Dwarves that they learned to write, and that in turn shaped and altered their language.

Translating text into Giant is best simulated by first translating it into Russian, using German for any terms that do not translate, with Hungarian for a third choice. The written form of the language can be achieved by rendering the result using Czar (note that italic and bold versions are also provided).

Orc:

When the Orcish tribes broke free of the domination of the Giants they retained much of the Giant language, but this quickly fragmented as any cohesion between them broke down. Each tribe now has it’s own dialect, extremely divergent from the original, which are collectively known as Orc, or Orcish. This makes communications with any specific tribe or individual extremely touchy; what might be a compliment to one tribe may be an insult in another.

Spoken Orcish is best rendered by first writing the text in English, randomly inverting the meaning of a few words here and there, translating the results into Hungarian, with Russian and then German as secondary and tertiary choices, removing all the spaces and inserting new ones after every one or two syllables. The exception is proper nouns, which have hyphens inserted instead of spaces.

Written Orcish is achieved the same way, but with the final text rendered into Czar.

Goblin:

Where Orcs were dominated by Giants, Goblins were subjected to the intimidation of Gnolls early in their civilization’s history. Once the Orcs broke free of Giant subjugation, the Giants attempted to replace their former subjects by conquest of the Gnolls, into whose territory they had been driven by the Dwarves. There had been constant border skirmishes between the two groups in the past, now it became a full war – but a war fought primarily by proxy, as each group threw their subjugated races against each other, until the Orcs rebelled against the Giant yoke. The Giants were driven completely out of their former territories by Orc death-squads who were completely satisfied to trade their lives for another kilometer of territorial gain. Twenty orc lives were traded for every Giant slain – which was a net victory for the Orcs.

Having been forced into the Gnoll territories, the Giants did their best to carve out their own territories, but were no match for the cunning and cruelty of the Gnolls, and were eventually forced further north into the frozen wastes. But they did enough damage to the Gnoll gangs that the Goblins were able to mount an insurrection against their masters. The Orcish tribes then began to seek to dominate the Goblins in much the same way as they had been dominated, but the Goblins were not eager to trade one set of masters for another. Fortunately for them, some of the human communities that rose following the eviction from Paradise made the unwise choice of settling in territories adjacent to both, and a two-way conflict became a three-way political minefield of shifting loyalties, temporary alliances.

The Goblin language reflects this history in a number of ways. Fundamentally, it derives from Gnoll, but with infusions of second-hand Giant from both Orcs and Gnolls, and with a little Orcish thrown in directly by their enemies. It might have been expected that the Human tribes might have further contaminated the Goblin tongue, but if anything the flow of dialect has been in the other direction, as vulnerable human Tribes were subjugated by the relatively-unified Goblins, who imposed their language.

Translating text into Goblin is best simulated by first translating it into Hungarian, using German for any terms that do not translate, with phonetically-interpreted Russian for a third choice. The written form of the language can be achieved by rendering the result using Czar.

Draconian:

This is the dialect of Draconic spoken by Troglodytes, Lizardfolk, and Kobolds. It is actually a blending of Draconic, Dwarven, and something else, with the latter contaminating the former. Religious authorities make much of the purported resemblance of the alleged language of Demons and the “Something Else” of Draconian, but no-one has any proof of this alleged language’s existence beyond citations in religious texts relating to cases of demonic possession and exorcism. Note that for the bulk of the population, the “something else” is not even known to exist, let alone the church’s ‘explanation’ of it (Knowledge: religion 15 ranks required).

To translate into Draconian, follow the procedure for Dwarven for a random selection of words (approximately 1 in 6). Translate all remaining verbs and relationship terms into Greek, phoneticise, and then reverse the sequence of syllables. Then employ the procedure given for Draconic for the rest.

To render Draconian, display the resulting text in Autorealm Phoenician without spaces between words except on either side of a Proper Noun, and without other punctuation except at the end of a complete passage of text.

Gnoll:

Where the language of the Gnolls originated, no-one knows. It uses Giant, backwards, for adjectives and verbs, and some other tongue for anything else. Religious authorities make much of the purported similarities between the alleged language of Devils and the ‘Something Else”, but no-one has any proof of this alleged language’s existence beyond dreams and hallucinations and babbled statements uttered under torture, which are assigned meaning purely because that’s what the churches believe the individual was saying at the time. Scholars ridicule this as a circular arguement – the language is that of Devils because the church’s translations of what has been said in that tongue, based on the assumption that the language is that of Devils, is defined by the church as inherently evil, and therefore Devilish. However, it is a fact that the “something else” presents inherent mechanical difficulties of pronunciation for knolls and is obviously not native to them. Note that for the bulk of the population, the “something else” is not even known to exist, let alone the church’s explanation of it (Knowledge: Religion 20 ranks required).

To translate into Gnoll, translate the adjectives and verbs into Giant, then spell them backwards. Translate everything else into Filipino, then modify it as per the Naming rules for Gnomes. Remove all spaces and punctuation, then insert new spaces after selected consonants in the sequence 2,5,3,4, repeat.

To render Gnoll text, display the resulting text in Autorealm Futhark.

Undercommon:

This is a “perversion” of Elvish, according to the Elves, that is spoken only by Drow and a few subterranean races that they have manipulated into attacking other species.

Undercommon is considered Unusual for Elves, Dwarves, and Demons and Obscure for all others.

To translate into Undercommon, first translate into Elvish as per the notes on Elvish Names and then apply the following transformations: replace c with z, replace ch with gh, replace p with k, and q with t. Then tweak for a flowing pronunciation.

To render Undercommon text, display the result using the appropriate Elvish variant by tongue.

Simulating an unreal language

As promised, starting with this part of the series, I’ll be sharing tips and tricks for using the language simulation techniques described earlier in this series.

The key principle to the simulation of a language is being able to recognize the dominant ‘flavor’ of the language and how to manipulate it to achieve the flavor that you want. For example, here’s a small passage from earlier within article in plain English:

Each of the three petitioned the King of one particular city-state to have the standard length changed to accommodate their requirements; the smiths viewed this as an attack on their autonomy. The King responded by locking the representatives all four in a room to sort the problem out. If the negotiators had been different people, the outcome would have radically changed the course of history within the future Shared Kingdoms; but agreement to implement three different standards was quickly achieved, and the negotiators moved on to talk about other subjects and discovered many areas of common interest.

And here’s the same block of text with every vowel doubled, and every consonant shifted one step later in the alphabet. To be consistent with English usage, a ‘p’ becomes a ‘qu’. I’ve then reduced excessively long strings of vowels and split any excessively long words in two:

Eadj oog vjee vjsee queviviopef vjee liiph oog oopee quaasvidumas divz-tvave voo jawee vjee tvapfasf meephvj djaapheef voo aaddoon noofaavee vjeeis seeruisee neepvt; vjee tnivjt wiexeef vjiit aat aap aavvaadl oop vjeeiis auvoo poonz. Vjee liiph seetquoo pfeef cz moodliph vjee seequseet eepvaa viweet aamm gous ip aa son voo toosv vjee qusoo cmeen ouv. Tig vjee peehoo viavoost jaaf cep figgeeseepv queoqumee, vjee ouvdoonee xoumf jaawee saafidaammz djaapheef vjee doustee oog jitvoosz xivjip vjee guuvuusee tjaaseef liiphfoont; cuuv aahseeneepv voo inqumee neepv vjsee fiiggeeseepv tvaapfaasft xaat ruidlmz aadjieweef, aapf vjee peehoov iavoost nooweef oop voo vaaml aacouv oovjees tuckeedvt aapf fiitdoo weeseef naapz aaseat oog doonnoop ipveeseetv.

This goes so far that the resulting text is completely unrecognizable – and almost completely unpronounceable. Each language has “letter pairs” that dominate words within the language; change a few of the most common ones to something else (choosing something less arbitrary than a simple rightward shift) and you completely change the character of the language. For Japanese, for example, I would start with ku, so, ka, and wa. These might not be enough to completely change the character of the language from an “Asian sounding” language, but they make a good start.

A key technique is to start with a sample of text to be converted; make your initially planned changes and then decide what to do with any remaining text. This is especially true if you are basing it on English and not on some internet translation.

Another important point is to consider the usage and biology of the creatures in question. Even the length of the tongue can have a major influence – you don’t want to risk biting it in ordinary or excited conversation! Read a few sentences to yourself as though you were going to speak them aloud and note how your mouth and tongue move; then apply a different movement. A short tongue might have trouble with “l” sounds, sounding them more as an “er” sound, for example.

I make it a point to try and get the language unrecognizable in origin simply so that I don’t offend anyone who happens to speak the unmodified language.

More tips next time!

Next: A much smaller (I hope) post on the Longex Dextora (The Hinterlands); The Obscure Languages; And more on how to choose modifying adjustments to your source language.

GMs are called apon to make decisions all the time. Sometimes we can make our choices off the top of our heads using common sense and our knowledge of the in-game environment/circumstances, sometimes we can be guided by the rules after identifying an analogous situation, and sometimes when both of these fail us, we can choose between alternatives based on which answer best serves the interests of the plotline and the entertainment value of the game for all participants.

And then there are those other times, when there’s no real entertainment differential, it makes no long-term difference to the plotline, there are no rules to guide you, and common sense doesn’t offer much of a guideline.

Color and Character decisions

Some GMs will tell you that if none of those guidelines apply, the decision doesn’t matter – pick an answer at random and get on with the game. There are times when that is the correct call, but this ignores any number of opportunities for the GM. Most of the decisions that aren’t covered by these tools are what can be described as “color” or “character” decisions.

“Color” decisions are those that add vibrancy and color to the game world. What is the name of that inn? What is on the menu? What are the patrons doing? What entertainments are on offer? What is the condition of the roads? What are the names of the roads? What’s the name of the village, and what’s the architectural style? There are endless decisions of this nature. Some of them you have time to mull over in advance, others need to be made on the spot, and those are the decisions that can really make you sweat.

“Character” decisions are about how the characters, especially the PCs, interact with the world. These involve helping the player get a better grasp of the unique individual inhabiting the game environment, and how that environment has shaped the character.

Comparing Color and Character decision-related articles

Through a vast number of articles here at Campaign Mastery, and elsewhere, there’s lots of advice out there on how to make Color decisions. The reasons for this are that these articles are relatively easy to write, and there are a lot of simple solutions. Rather than choosing one solution, GMs build up a library or repertoire of solutions and learn (over time) which suit them best, and which tools to keep in the back drawer until they are needed.

There are nowhere near as many articles anywhere dealing with the techniques of making Character Decisions. That’s because they are hard to write in generalities and broad principles while presenting any depth. In fact, they are hard to write, period. The techniques that may be provided are also hard for a GM to apply, because characters are the property of a specific player, and decisions affecting that character are the province of that player; they can’t be made unilaterally. At the same time, because the game world is involved, or rules decisions, the player can’t make these decisions either; they have to be solved collaboratively.

The General Principles of Character Decisions

There are a number of general principles that I employ when dealing with character decisions relating to a character’s player. They are:

1. Remember your role
2. Break down the question
3. Develop a theory
4. Develop Objective Guidelines
5. Interpret these as ad-hoc rules
6. Remember they are hints and shortcuts, not holy law
7. Collaborate in applying these rules

I’ll start by looking at each of these steps, and then move on to a real-world example.

Remember your role

Your job as GM gives you the authority to make decisions about what the characters can and can’t do, not what they will or won’t do, nor how they will react to and adapt to, the restrictions that you impose on them. Your job description in this respect is purely to give the player the information they need in order to make their decisions in these latter respects, and to assist the player in interpreting the results.

Nor should these ad-hoc rules, no matter how relevant they might seem to be, ever be used to alter anything that is already covered by the rules; they should not play a part in combat, for example. The reason for this principle is very simple: these are, by definition, ad-hoc rules that have not had even the level of rigor applied with which one would normally craft a standing house rule.

If they work, they may become such house rules, but right now they are quick-and-dirty foundations for a decision and nothing more. They should be treated as such.

Break down the question

So the first job is to break the question down into the parts that are your responsibility as GM to answer, the parts that are your responsibility to provide guidance on, and the parts that are not part of your purview at all. That usually involves rephrasing the question in some manner.

Its often easier to make the question broader and more general, to start with. That enables you to develop a general line of attack on the problem – a theory to apply to more specific versions of the basic question.

Develop A Theory

In order for a player to accept the restrictions and character input that you are about to provide, you have to be able to justify your conclusions. In order to justify your conclusions, you have to take accepted facts and reasonable assumptions and transform them into a solution using logical connections. And that requires some reasonable theory to generate those logical connections, to create a logical path from accepted facts and reasonable assumptions to acceptable results (I’m sure this will become clearer after the example).

Develop Objective Guidelines

Now that you have some navigational references, it’s time to turn them into a road map – to turn your general theory into specific answers to more specific GM-province form of the original question. Once you have a theory, it’s time to develop a means of interpreting that theory in specific cases. These interpretations are usually in the form of mathematical operations or tables of results; the more you know about abstract and higher maths, the more options you have at your disposal. But most of the time, simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division will see you through, so don’t panic if higher maths is not one of your strengths. Oh, and knowing how to square numbers and derive square roots is often useful, as are at least a basic understanding of geometry and probability.

Interpret the guidelines as ad-hoc rules

Rules have certain characteristics that make them rules. One big one is that they apply to everyone equally – NPCs and PCs alike. Another is that they don’t come and go without serious consideration. These ad-hoc rules may not be as functional or as developed as the standard rules, and may only apply to non-critical situations and hence may be disposed of with less impact or caution, but while they are in play, they should be applied equally, like any other rule, and should either be in force or be scrapped – no dithering.

These are all reflections of one key directive: be consistent. Before you come up with any more ad-hoc rules, make sure that the ones in place don’t answer to your need – at least enough to get the decision made and play underway again.

Remember they are hints and shortcuts, not holy law

It’s important not to enslave either yourself or your players to these ad-hoc rules. Their general purpose is to give you a foundation for a reasonable decision when one is needed and not provided by the formal rules. If a player feels that the results contradict their feeling of how their character would function and how they would apply themselves to a situation, if it’s not mandated by official rules, the player – and the GM’s common sense of what is acceptable and what is not – should over-rule the ad-hoc rules. However, it is then up to the player to describe how the character achieves this feat.

The ad-hoc rules thus provide a foundation for the roleplaying of unexplored aspects of the character, and their primary benefit lies in permitting the player to get that little bit deeper into the character’s headspace – while integrating the character that much more strongly with the game world.

Collaborate in applying these rules

As I said earlier, it’s not the GM’s job to tell the player how to play his PC. It is the GM’s job to describe the natural limits of the character based on a rational foundation and description of the world – and then let the player decide how to interpret the impact of those limitations on the character’s behavior, attitude, and approach.

Only if the player has given a prior indication of the character’s attitude toward a subject is the GM able to rephrase his results to suggest to the player certain possible consequences of that attitude that the character would be aware of. The GM can’t enforce any one particular consequence, though he may designate one as appearing most appropriate to the character’s nature as previously expressed; he can enforce the requirement that there be consequences.

The GM is guide, advisor, arbiter, and expert – not lord and master.

So let’s get practical – how does it work?

The Problem: I’ve been working really hard to keep the Zenith-3 campaign a little more episodic in nature, structuring everyday activities into the narrative, leaving gaps between adventures in which nothing (of importance) happens except what trouble the PCs may stir up for themselves, and so on. One of the difficulties to be faced by any even reasonably episodic campaign is that at the start of each new adventure, you have to determine where each PC is and what they are doing.

This is made somewhat easier by the fact that they are at the intersection of three bureaucracies (or possibly four, five, or six, depending on how you count them):

• They are a field unit of their parent team and have to follow their policies and procedures to at least some extent;
• The parent team, and all field units beneath them, are also enmeshed within U.N.T.I.L, who in turn answer to the U.N;
• They are granted the exclusive use of their headquarters and the staff and support needed to run it, by a local government agency, I.M.A.G.E, who in turn answers to the local government and to the Imperial Civil Service;
• And they have their own internal policies and procedures.

Depending on which of these agencies you ask, they are either an independent branch of an organization of superheroes, a paramilitary field unit of extraordinary capabilities and responsibilities, or a troupe of entertainers whose function is partially law-enforcement and partially to give the common people hope that whatever may be wrong, people are working to improve the situation – or a team of superheroes with paperwork and bureaucratic directives coming at them from three directions at once.

One of these is currently hot on the Japanese management techniques that were all the rage in the 80s and early 90s, another is big on holistic wellbeing in the workplace environment, and the third demands semi-militaristic, no-nonsense, problem-solving.

They are also about as popular as the Beatles were in 1969, when the group was breaking up.

So some of the activities of the team can be taken for granted – the demand for press interviews, dealing with solicitations and fan mail, and so on. Others need quantification before they can be used for the purposes of “What your character happens to be doing when we first see them in this adventure”.

For example, what is the character’s approach to paperwork? Satisfying these three bureaucracies takes some effort, but how does the character prefer to distribute that effort? How long can the character concentrate on something that’s mind-numbingly dull, or on a difficult decision or subject of interest? Do they take frequent breaks, do it in small lumps, dedicate as much time as possible to getting it out of the way as quickly as possible, or dump it in the shredder? Do they struggle heroically with the task but take any excuse to set it aside?

Step 1: Remember your role

This question, in its current form, is WAY beyond the scope of what is reasonable for the GM to decide. It has no intrinsic value in terms of adventures, but has considerable capacity for inducing interactions between the character and the ‘outside world’. It is, by definition, what I have described above as a ‘Character Decision’. So we have to start by deciding to reframe the question into a form that is valid for the GM to answer.

Step 2: Break down the question

What is a character’s capacity for paperwork? For that matter, what are the limits of a character’s ability to concentrate, and how does the degree of interest or importance of the subject matter relate to it? What is a character’s capacity for academic study that is not connected to an immediate problem – and how does the level of interest in the subject affect that? How should these values be combined with a character’s attitudes, philosophies, personality, experience, and skillset to determine an answer to the original question?

These are far more valid forms of the question; they are objective and deterministic. Developing some sort of a guideline as an aide to roleplay benefits both players and GM, so it’s worth doing.

In consultation with the player of a character, this sort of information – however unofficial and ad-hoc – can then be used to determine how that individual character will deal with the bureaucratic paper-shuffling and general nonsense that the game world will be sending their way on a weekly basis. That gives the character something to be doing when the adventure lands in their laps – instead of standing around waiting for something to happen.

Step 3: Develop A Theory

Are there any rules or attributes in the game rules already that speak to this point?

To start with, there are two skills, Administration and Bureaucracy, and there are two characteristics, Intelligence and Will. The latter also have a measurement on a universal scale, named the Intelligence Roll and Will Roll (and abbreviated INT# and WILL#).

• Administration is defined as the ability to get what you want out of a bureaucracy. That’s a nice, deterministic, definition that relates to the sort of things a character will want to do with the ability most of the time. It doesn’t help very much with the current question. In fact, unless the character wants to achieve something specific like obtaining permission to do something, it’s clearly only indirectly related to the current question.
• Bureaucracy is defined as the skill of being a bureaucrat. That’s really quite unhelpful as a definition; it doesn’t talk at all about the things that you can do with it. Nor is the original source material of any assistance – the Hero System has a skill, Bureaucratics, but every application listed for the skill shows that this is analogous to Administration, above, and unrelated to the Bureaucracy skill. Nevertheless, this is the skill that appears most relevant to the question.
• INTelligence is defined as the character’s ability to comprehend the physical and metaphysical world around them, combined with his deductive ability, scholastic ability, and his ability to remember what he has learned or deduced. It is one of the fundamental building blocks of both of the skills discussed. This is also clearly related to the subject – you can’t answer a question correctly, let alone format that response in an acceptable manner, if you don’t understand either the question or the format.
• WILL is A measure of the character’s determination and stubbornness, and his ability to concentrate and ignore distractions. All four of those aspects of the characteristic are clearly relevant, especially if the subject is not of interest to the character.
• Like the Hero System on which it is founded, Characteristics in the homebrew system are not measured on any universal scale but are instead built on the basis of values appropriate to the in-game function they are to perform. A conversion system is employed to translate all characteristics into “roll values” on a universal scale – these are used directly for a character to make a check against a particular attribute, and as the building blocks of skill scores and skill improvement costs. The reasons for doing so are involved, complex and irrelevant to the subject at hand; what matters is that they are all concerned with the application and usage of an ability score in any practical way. So, while INT and WILL are relevant, it is INT# and WILL# that should be used in any solution.

In this way, the initial list of relevant character statistics has been distilled from the original five to three – Bureaucracy Skill, INT#, and WILL#.

There are two aspects to the basic question, as reframed: Capacity and Productivity. In other words, how long can the character persist with the activity in question, and how much will they get done in that time?

Phrasing the question to be answered in that manner permits the development of a general theory: INT# and WILL# determine how long before a break is needed, and Bureaucracy determines how efficiently the character works within that time frame.

Step 4: Develop Objective Guidelines

So the problem has been reduced to three specific goals:

1. A method of objectively determining how long a character can do paperwork without taking a break;
2. A method of objectively determining the consequences of continuing past that point;
3. A method of objectively determining how efficiently the character works during the time-frame specified by (1).

Capacity For Paperwork

One of the characteristics of ad-hoc solutions is that you dive right in, without taking the time for rigorous thought. You want an answer quickly, not one that has been developed and described to the Nth degree – a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule. So that’s what I did, based on the indoctrination and OHAS education I received when working for the Australian Bureau Of Statistics.

Here’s my chain of thought:

• Paperwork capacity is a number of blocks of 10-minutes duration each that can be performed without taking a ten-minute break.
• This number is equal to a fraction of WILL# plus a base amount, both to be determined.
• OHAS guidelines for computer-intensive work are 50 mins followed by a 10-minute break. This duration is twice the actual requirement so that staff can miss a break when engaged in urgent activities with only slight reduction in their efficiency. Therefore, a typical human capacity should be somewhere in the 4-11 time units, assuming only slight reduction in capacity for exceeding the limit the first time.
• WILL# has a minimum of -80 and a maximum of 120. The average human has a WILL# of -9. (Yes, I know. It was a compromise that was kept because in every other way, the system works.)
• WILL#/10 +9 gives a minimum of 1 time unit at WILL 0, 9 at average human WILL, 10 at the normal human maximum WILL, 11 at the extreme human maximum, and 21 at the absolute maximum.
• WILL#/20 +4.5 gives a minimum of 1 time unit at WILL 0, 2 at average human WILL, 5 at the normal human maximum WILL, 6 at the extreme human maximum WILL, and 11 at the absolute maximum.
• The first of these is a little high, the second is a little low; the best answer will be somewhere in between. Rather than get all complicated, I’ll take the second answer and increase the unit size to 15 minutes of paperwork.

Penalties

If I were developing a full-on set of rules for this, I would get all fancy and complicated about penalties for excessive paperwork, like reduced efficiency and increased chance of error. These are ad-hoc rules so I’m going to ignore all that and simply state that people want to take a break after they have spent the amount of time indicated above doing paperwork.

Efficiency

So that brings us to the question of efficiency.

• It’s reasonable for a character with a better score in Bureaucracy to take less time filling out paperwork. Part of this gain will be wiped out doing things right when they would otherwise be done wrongly, in other words, correcting any errors.
• As a rough rule of thumb, I want there to be some improvement, but I don’t want characters to be able to fill out forms at superspeed unless they’ve bought superspeed in the first place. A Maximum Benefit of completing a form in 40% of the time seems about right. So that’s multiply by 0.4 or divide by 1/0.4 = 2.5.
• So that means that I want a Skill# of 150 (the maximum possible, including the bonus for having a specialty in the relevant organization’s paperwork) to give a result of about 2.5 or thereabouts and a Skill# of -9 to give a result of 1.
• SKILL#+9 = 0 at average and 159 at maximum. But call it +10 for convenience.
• 159/2.5 = 63.6. Call it 50 for convenience.
• So (SKILL#+10)/50 gives roughly the answer we want.
• Or does it? What happens at below average skill results? Well, the minimum possible result is -80, and that gives -70/50 or -1.4. And that makes no sense at all, since the objective is to get a number by which to multiply the amount of paperwork.
• Obviously, we’ve used the wrong minimum value for SKILL#. There are two possible approaches: use the correct minimum and the desired value for an average skill level, or simply add 1.5 to the results we have now and see where we end up.
• The latter is easier. It gives 0.1 as the minimum, 1.52 at average, and 4.7 at maximum. Which means an hour’s paperwork would take 10 hours, 39.5 minutes, and 12.7 minutes, respectively. That’s too close to superspeed for my liking.
• So we have to do things the harder way, and start over.
• SKILL#+80 = 0 at minimum and 230 at maximum.
• 230/2.5 = 92, but use 100 for convenience.
• So (SKILL#+80)/100 gives the right minimum and maximum answers. At average results (SKILL#= -9) it gives 0.71, so 1 hr’s paperwork takes about 1 hr 25 minutes.
• That’s not as bad as it sounds. Most Civil Services recruit above-average candidates and train them in the Bureaucracy skill. Very few will be at the -9 “average human” standard. What SKILL# is needed for an efficiency of 1?
• Well, 1=(SKILL#+80)/100, so SKILL#+80 = 100, so SKILL#=20. But a specialty in the specific bureaucracy is worth +30, so that lowers the SKILL# to -10. Which is not very far from the -9 average at all.

Putting it together

What we have, then, are three calculations:

WILL#/20 + 4.5 = 15 minute Units of work before a break is desired
Twice that = 15 minute Units of work before a break is needed
(SKILL#+80)/100 = efficiency; divide the typical time to complete the paperwork by this value.

Step 5: Interpret the guidelines as ad-hoc rules

This calculation is all about willpower, about getting through mindless drudgery. Doing anything creative tends to be far more fatiguing – but should be based on INT# as well as WILL#. So:

(WILL# + INT#)/40 + 4.5 = 15 minute Units of work before a break is desired; twice that= 10-minute units of work before a break is needed. And a skill roll should be used to assess the quality of the result.

Variations can be used for any desired purpose. (WILL# + INT# + INT#)/60 + 4.5 is a good estimate for the time that can be expended in reading and understanding complex bureaucratic instructions before the character needs a break. Probably 5-minute blocks, based on what I was taught about optimum study habits in High School and University. (WILL# + WILL# + INT#)/60 + 4.5 works for the amount of time (also 5-minute blocks) one can study a textbook before the mind starts to wander.

(CON# + WILL#)/40 + 4.5 could be used to determine how long a character could exercise – perhaps in the original 10-minute blocks. Or perhaps (END# + WILL#)/40+4.5 might be more appropriate – that’s what I’ll use.

(STR# + CON# + WILL#)/60 + 4.5 could be used to determine how long a character can participate in hard labor without physical distress – again 10-minute or perhaps even 5-minute blocks might be more appropriate than the 15-minute blocks used in the original “paperwork” calculation. Actually, I think I’m going to go with 2.5-minute blocks!

This is not about how long it takes to do something, it’s about how much like work it seems – and what the characters’ capacity is for doing it.

Step 6: Remember they are hints and shortcuts, not holy law

These are not robust game systems, but they are excellent guidelines to what a character can do. How the character makes use of this information is up to the player.

Step 7: Collaborate in applying these rules

Which brings me to the final step in this example. Blair, who plays St Barbara, the team’s leader (she didn’t step back fast enough when volunteers were called for, but has grown into the position), is the only person who has spoken to me about how their character approaches paperwork. According to Blair, she sees it as a necessary chore, to be completed each day at the earliest opportunity, leaving her free thereafter to handle more interesting tasks and situations.

St Barbara is a gymnast, so I would expect her approach to exercise to be more eager – and probably exactly the tonic that she needs after several hours of wading through red tape and paperwork. But Blair hasn’t actually indicated that – so I won’t make that assumption, simply suggest it as a possibility.

Let’s look at St Barbara’s stats and what guidelines they offer when interpreted through these ad-hoc rules:

INT 15, INT# 1%
WILL 15, WILL# 1%
STR 15, STR# 1%
CON 30, CON# 21%
END 100, END# 35%
Base Bureaucracy Skill 12%; Actual Bureaucracy Skill# 54%
Base Sketch & Plan Skill 65%; Actual Sketch & Plan Skill # 35%
Base General Aptitude 56%; Actual General Aptitude (used for studying) 61%
Base Acrobatics Skill 95%; Actual Acrobatics Skill# 120%

Now, the ad-hoc interpretations:

• WILL#/20 + 4.5 = 1/20+4.5 = 4.55 (round in char’s favor to 5). St B can do paperwork for 5×15=75 minutes before she wants to take a ten minute break.
• Twice that = 9.1 (round in char’s favor to 10). St B cab do paperwork for 10×15=150 minutes before she needs to take a ten-minute break.
• (SKILL#+80)/100 = efficiency = (54+80)/100 = 134/100 = 1.34. In 75 minutes, St B can do aprox 100 minutes worth of paperwork. In 150 minutes, she can do aprox 200 minutes of paperwork.
• Creative Tasks – St B can draw for 4.55 (rounds to 5) blocks of 10 minutes before she wants a break. That’s 50 minutes. Therefore, she can sketch for 100 minutes before she needs to take a break. In those times, her efficiency is (35+80)/100=1.15, so she actually gets 57.5 and 115 minutes work done. And she needs to make a sketch-and-plan roll to determine the quality of the results of each drawing.
• (1 + 1 + 1)/60 + 4.5 is 4.55 again, which rounds to 5. So St B can study procedures and manuals for 5 five-minute blocks before she wants a break, ie 25 minutes – but can actually study this way for 50 minutes if she wants to. Her efficiency is (61+80)/100 = 1.41, so she actually gets 35 min and 71 min worth of work done in these times. So she is a quick study.
• Because the numbers are the same when plugged into the formula, these are also the times for reading a text or reference book.
• (END# + WILL#)/40 + 4.5 = (35+1)/40 + 4.5 = 5.4, rounds in character’s favor to 6 – so St Barbara can exercise for 6×10=60 mins before she wants a break, and can push herself for another hour before she needs a break. And, if she’s performing acrobatics in that time and not just calisthenics, she has an efficiency of (120+80)/100 = 2 – so she works twice as hard, or achieves twice as much, as the normal skilled amateur in that time frame.
• (1 + 21 + 1)/60 + 4.5 = 23/60 + 4.5 = 4.8833… which rounds to 5 – so St B can perform hard labor or strength training for 5 blocks of 2.5 minutes each = 12.5 minutes before she wants a break – assuming she’s working to the limits of her STR. But if she really wants to “feel the burn” she would have to go to 25 minutes of strength workouts – at which point she will be completely wasted, in need of a break.

What do these numbers mean? Not a thing, really – but if I tell Blair that St Barbara has been doing paperwork for an hour before being interrupted, he’ll know there’s no problem; if I say she’s been hard at it for four hours without a break, he’ll know her thinking is starting to get fuzzy. And I can use the efficiency rating to estimate just how much there is for her to do in this way each day.

Aliens

Another character I could have looked at is the NPC Kzin superhero who has joined the team (on a probationary basis, at least). I didn’t, because I didn’t want to complicate the example by bringing up the various additional factors to take into account.

Defender (he hasn’t told them his real name yet) is alien. He doesn’t think exactly the same way that humans do, and there could be all sorts of hidden assumptions in the design of paperwork for humans that he might not interpret correctly. On top of that, English is certainly not his first language, and while he speaks it passably, he is not quite as adept at reading it – though he is improving, and so far the team haven’t noticed. All of those complicate his values.

When working out paperwork values for Defender, entirely aside from stat values, I would apply a x2/3 factor to the efficiency, maybe even x1/2 or x1/3. It would depend on what he had to do. As for his personality profile, he’s a warrior – he’ll sign his name on the dotted line to say he’s read something and toss it in the filing without a second glance; if it was important, someone would have asked him in person. I’m sure this will catch up with him at some point. And of course, he does a pretty convincing imitation of a paper-shredder when he gets frustrated…

Conclusion

There are always going to be things that the rules don’t cover. Having some ad-hoc rules to guide you can take a lot of stress out of the need to deal with such situations.

The chain of thought described in the example actually took less than half the time to create that it now takes to read the steps. We’re talking five or ten minutes, tops. Doing the example numbers for St Barbara took even less – or would have, if I didn’t stop after each one to type out an explanation. It took literally 10-20 seconds each. It’s that speed that characterizes ad-hoc rulings. But a lot of GMs seem afraid that their ad-hoc rulings will be wrong, and so they characterize the questions as unimportant, or resolve it with a die roll; this diminishes their campaigns by ignoring a wellspring of vital color.

The next time this sort of question comes up, put something on the page. Look at the answers it gives. Tweak if necessary. Give the players another small window into the world your characters inhabit. Do it time after time, and watch the compound effects accumulate. The results can be astonishing!

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. So far, these have appeared in exactly the same order as they were presented to my players in the initial pre-campaign briefing notes apon which these articles are being based. With this part, that changes; the next item on the agenda, if that pattern were to be followed, would be the Congressus Feyunctusora, the United Association of Fey, which is what I promised to address this time around. The Good News is that because the Fey have been a central part of the most recently-completed adventure within the campaign, I have done more development on this Realm than any other within the campaign. The Bad News is that because there has been so much development of the Realm, I don’t think I could have finished it in time to publish this article on schedule – so I’ve set the Fey aside for the moment and moved on to the Therassus Amora, The Centre Of Attraction. Which will only be about 11,300 Words…

Metagame Origins

The conceptual origins of this Realm were a combination of three strands of thought, which took place in three distinct stages of creation and conceptual refinement.

Line of thinking #1: The Common Standard

It’s a truism that’s been pointed out to me on a number of occasions by Ian Gray – Humans are the common standard against which all Fantasy races are measured, and hence every party should contain at least one human to make the uniqueness of the other races stand out. I agree with the first part, and can see his point with the second – though I don’t have 100% agreement with him in that respect. The logic connecting the “common standard” with the inclusion of a representative of that standard rests on the fallacy that characters (or individuals) from a particular race or culture will be exemplars of that race or culture.

When you’re dealing with cardboard cut-out NPCs, that may be true; but any decent NPC will have some individual traits that are not necessarily representative of his origins, and most PCs – at least those created by experienced or ambitious gamers – will be more individual than racial or social exemplars.

Most people, and most PCs, are not so much explorations of the cultural boundaries of their origins as they are partial projections from it. Their culture and society don’t define boundaries that restrict, confine, or channel their individuality; instead, there will be aspects of their society’s cultural ideals and standards that they exemplify, and aspects that they contradict, and aspects that never touch them.

This can be a hard concept to grasp without an example. The PHB (or equivalent volume) gives a page or more of description of elves and their society. These paragraphs don’t define limits beyond which elvish characters are not permitted to exceed; they define the mythical ‘typical’ elf, the statistical average if you will. Any given individual may vary from this model by a little or by a lot – but unless they are a cardboard cut-out of an Elf, they will vary from it in at least one respect. A race is a collection of individuals.

The Therassus Amora was intended to be the cultural equivalent of a “human” in Ian’s arguement. The Shared Kingdoms were so radical a concept that I wanted to include some familiar foundations, like the titles of nobility, which could act as touchstones for the players as they explored the world and the relationships and societies within it. Those cultural touchstones needed some point of origin. If there is a common standard of feudal society, you need at least one feudal society to provide that common standard for the other cultures to measure themselves against. Moreover, for the concepts within that society to be the universal standards, they must – at one time, at least – have been the dominant culture.

Line of thinking #2: Antithesis

The conceptual origin of this Realm was nothing more than the need to include a relatively “standard” fantasy feudal society. It’s history largely evolved as a result of the role it was intended to play within the broader society of the Shared Kingdoms. Of course, once it had provided those standards, once it had fulfilled that role, I was free to tinker with it, and take it beyond the equivalent of a cardboard cutout – to make it an individual unto itself. Certain elements of the culture had to remain fixed, because none of the other societies I had come up with were providing those elements to the Shared Kingdoms; but others lent more freedom. I didn’t need to integrate Wizards into the society, or Clerics, for example – because other members of the Shared Kingdoms were bringing those ingredients to the feast.

However, as I have noted in earlier parts of this series, I wanted each of the political ‘factions’ of the wider society to be evenly balanced with an opponent having an opposing principle. This not only provides contrast, but a structure of power struggles and convoluted politics, a delicate balance into which the PCs could intrude. Much of this opposition was built into other cultures that had been created, but there were a few areas that were left over. Where those elements were amongst the touchstones, fixed conceptual components that I needed to use as points of reference for the players, the opposition had to be placed into a new member of the shared Kingdoms, or added to the mixture of elements of an existing Realm; where they weren’t needed to be part of the common foundations of understanding, I was free to add an extreme ingredient to the makeup of the Therassus Amora.

At a metagame level, then, some of the social attitudes within this realm exist purely to act as antithesis and counterpoint to another of the member Realms.

Line Of Thinking #3: A dash of realism

When I first started playing RPGs, my concepts of Feudal Society were more fairytale than functional. The information provided in the AD&D volumes was scanty, to say the least, and I had not read a great deal of Fantasy literature; my first passion was Sci-Fi, and I had not strayed too far from those roots. I had read and enjoyed the Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, but that was largely as far as it went. (And the Incompleat Enchanter, I might add). Movies were a bigger influence than literature, so far as fantasy societies went. My education in history had focused more on the ancient civilizations, the exploration of the pacific, some key battles, and World War II. The Medieval period of European history was largely skipped over.

Over time, my conceptualization built up, added to by articles in The Dragon, and exposure to the fantasy creations of other GMs, and water-cooler round circles with those GMs, and exposure to other sourcebooks. I also found other fantasy authors, notable Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings, Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffery’s Dragon series, Robert Asprin, and a few others. Nevertheless, my concepts were still more cartoon than concrete.

That changed when I stumbled over a TV program from the BBC called Time Team. The whole process of recreating the society of the past through the archeological exploration of the remains of that society was fascinating, and reawakened a general interest in understanding the historical foundations of fantasy societies. That, in turn, led me to a few reference books on the subject (listed at the bottom of this article, if you’re interested).

While I did not intend to go so far as to create an exact replica of a medieval society, I thought that incorporating a little more realism into the social structure would add a unique flavoring. The end result is undoubtedly as romanticized as any other FRP society, but I think that I’ve chosen some different aspects of the society to romanticize than are traditional.

The Road not travelled

Finally, there are a number of conceptual areas that have been left blank in this particular society. This is quite intentional – I don’t intend to fill those areas until something happens in-game to make the matter significant to the PCs and I will then choose answers that are most relevant to the campaign at the time. So, fair warning – this Realm won’t be as fully realized as some of the others that have been described thus far, or as some of those still to come will be.

In-Game Origins

The Galliamic Empire has been mentioned in this series on a couple of previous occasions, most notably in the introduction to the Capitas Duodiem, capital of the shared Kingdoms. In essence, there was once – at least according to most human histories – a unified human empire, known as the Galliamic Empire. Its capital was the Buhrs Galliamus. Something happened to that Empire which caused it to disintegrate, and which caused the destruction of the Buhrs Galliamus, at the time the largest (Human) city in the known world – the details as to what happened, and who did what to whom, differ from Kingdom to Kingdom and usually reflect the prejudices of the narrator or philosopher trying to explain it.

While most of the Empire splintered into the different factions that are now independent parts of the Shared Kingdoms, one still holds true to the culture and traditions of the Empire, or so they believe. That one is the Therassus Amora. According to their history, the destruction of the Galliamic Empire was the result of an economic crisis that resulted from the sheer costs of administering the Empire. The former subjects of the Empire were released to form their own independent Governments and the Therassus Amora became just one member of a community of many.

Between them, the other Kingdoms dispute just about every aspect of this story. Some claim that the Empire was declared more as wishful thinking and the announcement of planned conquest by the Therassus Amora, and that forces opposing the conquest were victorious and destroyed Behr Galliamus. Some claim that it was a single ambitious nobleman of Behr Galliamus who not only carried out an attempted coup within his own Kingdom but planned the violent conquest of the other Realms, and that it was the rightful rulers of Therassus Amora whose armies destroyed the usurper and his city. Still others place the blame on moral decay and the influence of Dark Forces – though they differ as to the identity of those Dark Forces. Some say Demons, some say Dragons, and some say that it was a Wizard’s experiment getting out of hand.

Several historians have assumed that each of these accounts contains some nugget of the truth, and have attempted to craft a coherent and internally consistent account based on those nuggets, with some success – but they all choose different nuggets.

The bottom line, then, is that no-one is really sure and no history of the Therassus Amora can be considered accurate. It simply is, and the truth is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.

Internal Structure

In many ways, the Therassus Amora will be the most familiar nation within the Shared Kingdoms. They are a somewhat-generic Human Feudal Kingdom, and those have been a staple of the Fantasy Genre for so long that they are almost a cliché. And, superficially, the Therassus Amora would fulfill expectations in that respect – at least until you look beneath surface.

The Therassus Amora is the most decadent of the Kingdoms, the most formal and rigid in it’s social structure, and considers itself the most senior of the Shared Kingdoms and architect of the concept, but at the same time it is the most egalitarian in many respects. It is the most martial of the Kingdoms, responsible for maintaining and protecting the trade routes that bind the Shared Kingdoms together.

Although it appears a feudal society on the surface, closer examination reveals more than a little Plutocracy about the internal structure. While the familiar feudal system of interlocking debts and obligations is present, wealth dictates position within the nobility, and it is theoretically possible for individuals to climb the social ladder – or fall from grace. In practice, inheritance laws and taxes create a relatively-rigid set of social classes.

It can be generally stated that there are three hierarchies within the Therassus Amora: Farmers, Craftsmen, and Miners. Within each hierarchy are five levels – Worker, Peasant, Official, Noble, King. These are known by specialized terms within their own hierarchy but the features of each level are so similar that these distinctions are rarely applied, and it is generally sufficient to define and explain only these eight terms in order to have a working understanding of the society. Within some of these ranks are sub-ranks, the structure of which varies. Nor are the boundaries completely clear-cut; the edges are fuzzy, defined in part by birth and in part by prosperity. A particularly prosperous Official might outrank a particularly poorly-performing Noble, regardless of official rank or title.

Farmers

If it is a self-renewing or renewable resource, whether it be grown on the land or extracted from a watercourse, it is the province of the Farming hierarchy. This branch of society therefore includes forestry and fishermen.

In general, farmer produce is not ready to consume as is; the results of their labors (save that for their own use) are passed to Craftsmen for preparation.

Farmers come in two varieties: those that work the resources owned by a superior within their hierarchy, and those that own the resource themselves in trust from a superior within their hierarchy. The difference is one of liberty; the former have less of it, but greater protections and lower expectations, making it easier to survive and prosper, while the latter greater independence but higher obligations and expectations, making it harder to survive and harder again to prosper. Another title that could accurately be applied to the first group could be “debt-slaves”. The default status is for the farmer (and his immediate family) to own the land in trust, from which they are expected to earn a living, and pay taxes to the noble who has granted him the trusteeship over the land. When they cannot pay these taxes, or are failing to sufficiently provide for their family or their own well-being (and it is generally assumed that the farmer will feed himself first and pay his taxes second), the trust will be revoked and the farmer’s family will be forced to work lands owned directly by the noble under the direction of his appointed representatives until the debt has been repaid. He will then be issued a new trust (possibly to the same land he held before, but more likely to some other local tract of land), and can make a fresh start. If he has learned from his supervision how better to manage his trust, he may prosper; there is no animus within the society against those who have been temporarily indentured, though repeatedly failing is looked down apon.

Some taxes will often be paid in the form of produce. Because this bypasses the expense of a Craftsman’s fees, this is the most profitable outcome for the farmer, because the prices are still set by demand and the quality of the produce by the Craftsman. For the same reason, the purchaser also generally receives more produce for his money. This income can be applied directly to the farmer’s tax burden, being in the form of currency.

There is usually some bartered direct exchange of produce between two farmers that bypasses the official markets run by the Craftsmen and provides some variety to the diet, but opportunities to conduct such trades are rare, and restricted to monthly Market Days, or to trade between immediate neighbors. Because these trades avoid all, or almost all, Craftsman’s fees, they are also likely to be highly profitable for both sides, but they do nothing toward the farmer’s tax liability save maintaining his overall health and hence ability to work toward meeting those obligations.

Most of the time the farmer will sell the results of his labors to a Craftsman. A specialist Craftsman known as a buyer will establish the value of the produce as it will probably be when it comes to market and purchase the produce at that price, recording the value in his ledgers. To the total value he then adds a fixed fee by weight, a fixed fee by consignment, and a further fee based on his assessment of he value of the produce after it has been prepared professionally, to determine the price he must charge (by law) for the produce. Another Craftsman, known as a Carter, will then purchase the produce at this price or less, as agreed between the two, and add a surcharge by distance (measured in time) to the market he adjudges most profitable for this particular produce. The more distant the market, the higher the surcharge and final price, but the greater any decline in value through spoilage and weather; factoring in likely demand, there will always be an optimum location to sell the produce. He then transports the produce to that market and attempts to sell it to a third Craftsman. The price to be charged is completely deregulated; it is a question only of how much the Carter wants for the consignment (minimum), and how much the purchaser is willing to pay to obtain it. Sometimes the Carter will have overestimated the value or demand for the produce, and will lose money on the transaction; on other occasions, he will have underestimated one or both factors and will earn an additional profit.

Until the produce leaves the control of the Carter, it is still considered to be transitioning between the Farmer or primary producer and the Craftsman system. The valuation prior to sale of the Carter is used to assess the tax burden on the Buyer, whose valuation is in turn used to assess the tax burden on the Farmer. If one undervalues the produce, or persuades the preceding link in the chain to accept a lower valuation, the income from the produce is reduced, but so is the imposed tax liability.

Market Days

Thirteen times a year, each Noble holds a Market Day within the townships under his control. He is entitled to charge a small fee for entrance to this market, whether the attendee is buying, selling, or both, but derives no other income from any transaction conducted at the Market Day. Nobles will generally strive to keep this fee small; if they overcharge, the farmers will go elsewhere and he will receive no fee at all. Local Craftsmen, other farmers, and the Noble himself, are then free to purchase produce direct from the farmers, at prices set by the local Buyers, who receive a small fee from the Noble for providing the service. These purchases may be paid in coin (Craftsmen and Noble) or bartered exchange (other farmers). Either way, as noted above, these are usually the most profitable sales the farmer will make.

This is also considered a day for the dispensation of justice by the Nobles, the announcement of any new laws, and so on.

Some Market Days through the course of a year are popular and well attended, others are relatively poor (especially those in Winter). Produce is a seasonal commodity. Note that farmers are not permitted to speculate on the yield of a future crop – they can purchase using produce they have on hand, or coins received from produce they have previously sold, but may not sell orders in advance of the harvest.

Craftsmen

If it involves manipulating, transforming, preparing, or creating something, it is the province of the craftsmen. This hierarchy includes professionals of all sorts, from cooks to waggoners to apothecaries to furniture makers. Because this is a catch-all for any occupation which is not expressly part of the other two hierarchies, it includes servants and waiters. It is also the military hierarchy.

In general terms, a Craftsman does something to something, and are paid according to expertise, production, and service. Craftsmen’s fees are strongly regulated, but at each stage in the Production/Delivery/Sale process, the value assigned to the products of their labor are assessed by the purchaser according to the current market and the quality of the workmanship.

Where a Craftsman is a professional whose services do not yield a tangible product, the value of the service to the customer must be negotiated prior to the service being performed, and may not be altered afterwards, but no more than 1/3 of the agreed total may be paid in advance. Standard bonuses structures for rapid delivery and penalties for late delivery are also applied to the final sum, as may additional bonuses for performance. If a Noble’s military forces sacks a village at the behest of the Noble, the soldiers and officers will receive their standard pay, a bonus or penalty for early or slow success, and (depending on the Noble) an additional bonus for performance in the field. Timely Success is all that matters.

Again, there are two subcategories within the ranks of Craftsmen: those who own their own tools and professional license, and pay taxes based on their income; and those who have failed to pay those taxes and who have been indentured to the Noble’s Service at a fixed rate of pay, but who do not have to provide tools or purchase licenses, until their debt has been cleared. However, there is considerably greater disdain within the ranks of other Craftsmen for Craftsmen who fall even once into the latter group. This is because much of a Craftsman’s valuation derives from their reputation for professionalism, workmanship, artistry & creativity, and reliability. A failure to achieve sufficient income to pay their tax burdens is considered indicative of a serious failure of judgment, which in turn impacts one or more of those reputation indices. The age at which this occurs is also a factor: the very young are generally given greater latitude to make mistakes and learn from them, while the very elderly may experience symptoms of decrepitude but have a wealth of experience apon which to draw. It follows that the harshest judgments are reserved for those who fail while in their professional primes.

The majority of craftsmen are of the type who convert one or more raw materials into a finished product, whether that be a meal, a saddle, or a sword. The series of trades and purchases that result in end-purchaser receiving the product they have purchased is very similar to that described for the purchase of farm produce, though the titles of the specialists change somewhat. In place of a Buyer, we have a Valuer; in place of a Carter, we have a Distributor; and in place of the Craftsman who ultimately purchased the raw materials, we have a Vendor or Peddler (depending on whether they maintain a foxed point of sale or a travelling point of sale). To avoid confusion over the use of the term Craftsman, I will assume the Craftsman under discussion is a saddlemaker.

The Valuer specializes in buying raw materials that a Craftsman – a saddlemaker, in this case – can convert into finished goods, assessing the quality of the raw materials and the price that a skilled craftsman will pay for them. The more highly-skilled the saddlemaker who will utilize the raw materials, the less likely they are to purchase inferior quality materials, while the lower that skill, the less profit the Valuer can expect to make from the resale of high-quality materials. The Valuer’s primary skill is his ability to determine who gets what, matching the quality of produce with the skill of the purchaser to whom he intends to sell. He buys raw materials at the price agreed-to with the Carter, and sells for a percentage of the estimated value of the resulting product AFTER the saddlemaker has employed his skills.

That estimated value rests on the reputation of the saddlemaker, his known preferences in raw materials, and the quality (and rarity) of the raw materials. The Valuer buys the raw materials and conveys them to the saddlemaker they expect to want to purchase them. Another factor of which the Valuer must be mindful is the “saturation of the market” – if a saddlemaker already has too much raw material, he will be less inclined to buy more. Often a domino series of transactions is required, in which part of the payment accepted by the Valuer is raw material of a lower quality which can be resold to a less-skilled saddlemaker.

Quite often, as in this case, there will be an intermediary step – the Valuer sells hides to the tanner, then he or another Valuer purchases the tanned hides on behalf of the saddlemaker (or some other leatherworking tradesman such as a cobbler). He then sells the tanned hides to a tradesman – hopefully, the one he based his assessment of value on – based on a negotiation between the two of them. The saddlemaker then uses the leather (and other raw materials from other Valuers) to create a Saddle, which he sells to a Distributor for a sum the two negotiate, again based on the reputation of the artisan and the quality of the finished product. The Distributor determines the market at which he is most likely to get a good price for the saddle, factoring in the costs of transport and storage, and his own commission, takes the saddle there, and attempts to sell it to a Vendor or Peddler. If he fails, he can either attempt to sell it at a less-profitable market, or leave it in storage for a time until his targeted market becomes more willing to buy (losing him some profit in the process). The Vendor or Peddler who buys it adds his own commission to the price he paid, and attempts to interest a customer in purchasing the product. The higher the price, the higher his target will be ranked, because they are the ones with sufficient capital to pay his price – though a gullible purchaser of moderate rank may be more profitable than an expert of higher rank.

Taxes are assessed based on the assumption of sale at the value placed on the commodity by the prospective salesman – so the first Valuer’s taxes are assessed according to what he thinks he can get for the hides he has purchased from the tanner, the tanner’s taxes are assessed according to how much he thinks the second Valuer will pay for the tanned hides, and so on.

Miners

The extraction of any non-renewable resource is the province of the Miners, as is the refinement of that resource into a saleable commodity if that is necessary. There is less scope for direct trade between them, but in most other respects this branch of society is similar to that of the farmers.

The major distinction is the collective ownership of the extracted resource by everyone who participated in the extraction process. Once again, there are two subcategories within the ranks of the Miners – those who own a share of the mine & refinery, and those who do not. The first group are expected to pay taxes and purchase licenses, but are permitted to profit from their labors; the latter don’t have the obligations, but don’t work for a profit, and is reserved for those who have failed to meet their tax obligations, and who are ’employed’ by a nobleman directly – usually to work a mine that is currently untenanted, though any manual labor may be required of them.

The Potential For Corruption

There is a huge and obvious potential for corruption within these economic systems. Undervalue something, sell at the true value, and pocket the difference – and only pay taxes on the lower value. Two functions within the society exist to combat this potential; the first is the system of tithes, which is based on external measurements of prosperity and forms a second tier of taxation; and the second, and more important, is the right of Dominant Assessment.

Dominant Assessment

The authority issuing the license to mine, to function as a craftsman, or to work a tract of land, has the right at any time to seize 20% of the produce on hand, paying the assessed value on record in compensation. They must then sell this produce for whatever its true market value turns out to be. If that value is established as being in excess of the recorded value, the entire stock on hand at the time is considered to be undervalued by a like percentage, and the producer or craftsman is taxed at the higher rate so established – backdated by up to 5 years, or since the producer was last indentured. A degree of allowance is made for market fluctuations and slight under- or over-valuation, but significant excesses (more than 5-10%) are harshly punished.

If the actual value is significantly down on the estimate, the possessor of the merchandise is permitted to retain the inflated sum paid following the seizure – but the tax obligations owed are subjected to more intense scrutiny, and the process of Dominant Assessment is likely to be scheduled for early repetition. It is anticipated that over-valuing the product on hand means that the possessor will have trouble meeting his tax obligations, which are based on that over-inflated value. If there is a pattern of over-valued products and the citizen being able to pay his tax debts despite this, over a number of years, it is suggestive of some other illegal activity that is raising the needed funds.

Agents in the employ of the official, noble, or throne randomly spot-check all licensees within a five-year time-frame, so the punishment is always more than any actual gains through corruption.

Of course, corruption is still possible, through the use bribery on the Agents, or the unrecorded seizure of products for “Dominant Assessment”. To combat this, each level of society has the same right of Dominant Assessment apon the Agents of the rung immediately below them – so the Nobles spot-checks on Officials (the Agents), and the Crown spot-checks the Nobility. Successful systemic corruption by anyone except the Crown thus requires ever-increasing bribes.

Worker

Workers are those who do not hold licenses, and work on behalf of a license holder. Often family members, the license holder is expected to pay tithes and taxes (at one-fifth the standard rate) for workers, feed and clothe them adequately, provide them with suitable shelter, and so on. The definitions of “adequately” and “suitable” frequently vary considerably, however. The license holder is also required to provide all tools needed for the workers to carry out the tasks they are assigned.

Peasant

A Peasant holds a license issued by an Official which must be paid for every year.

Official

An Official is the holder of an Office granted him by a Noble for a period of time, renewable at the Noble’s discretion. The Official is permitted to issue a sub-license for any lands, mines, or businesses that he is in turn licensed to operate, but is not permitted to actively work these operations personally, and receives the taxes and fees for these sub-licenses. He may also perform other services for the Noble, for which he is remunerated by the Noble. His tax liability is assessed on the basis of this income, and he is tithed as a Craftsman.

The Official issues other licenses on the Noble’s behalf and on his instruction and accepts the proscribed payment for those licenses. He also collects taxes and tithes from the Peasants to whom he has issued licenses. The taxes paid are forwarded to the Noble who granted the Office, while the tithes are forwarded directly to the Throne.

Like Peasants, Officials may have a number of Workers in their employ. These (essentially) provide muscle. Some of these will be people who have been indentured for failure to meet their tax obligations, some may be contracted professionals.

Officials may also have subordinate Officials – who have to be paid out of the higher Official’s pocket. For obvious reasons, these subordinates will only be appointed if the income they will generate for the appointing Official will exceed the cost of employing them. Officials are also permitted to purchase licenses from the Nobles on whose behalf they are employed.

Nepotism and Bribery are rife within the ranks of Officials, and it is not uncommon for subordinates to pay regular Kickbacks to retain their positions. An Official is thus closer to being minor Nobility than the title suggests.

Noble

Nobles have to pay the Officials who work on their behalf. They will also have a number of Peasants and Workers in their direct service. Nobles have titles granted by the Throne which confers the right to earn income from them in return for meeting certain obligations imposed by the Throne. Some of the properties that accompany the Titles will be operated directly by the Noble using workers who have failed to meet their tax obligations, and who have to be clothed, fed, etc, by the Noble. Most such properties will be administered by Officials on behalf of the Noble, however, and subdivided amongst peasants licensed by the Official on the Noble’s behalf. Nobles receive the taxes and licenses paid to the Officials by these Peasants; some of this may be in the form of produce, but most will be in the form of currency, which the Noble can use to purchase goods and services.

Nobles do not pay taxes upward, but are required to provide services to the throne (such as supplying levees of armed and trained soldiers on demand), and are tithed far more stringently than those of lower social rank.

Nobles are required to house, feed, and pay Officials in their employ.

King

The King is the ultimate nominal “owner” of everything within the Therassus Amora. He receives tithes directly from every craftsman, peasant, and lesser Noble within the Realm. He has his own set of Officials who collect fees on his behalf for various public services. He will operate a few resources directly through his own set of Officials, but will mostly grant titles to others to operate his resources on his behalf.

In theory, anyone from any other rank can purchase ownership of property from the throne – if they can raise the money, and the King is willing to sell. In compensation for the moneys received for the purchase, the King gives up the right to tithes from the property, though the residents are still liable to pay taxes. In practice, only the most successful artisans and the nobility are able to afford to purchase property of their own. Although it may seem shortsighted, Kings are usually willing to accept such offers – at an exorbitant price – for the capital needed for large-scale civic improvements that boost the value of holdings he has not sold. The current monarch, Frugarus II, has also been known to sell titles to mines that have played out, and the occasional tract of useless swampland.

Tithes

Nobles are required to tithe a percentage of their body weight in silver (or equivalent) every year to the Noble to whom they are beholden, on the basis that the prosperous will gain weight while those who are less successful will be gaunt and drawn (and will therefore weigh less). This also reduces the tax burden imposed by the crown after a lean season (drought, plague, whatever) while increasing it in years of plenty. It is presumed that other inaccuracies within this system will balance out, either year-to-year, decade-to-decade, or generation-to-generation.

In turn, the Nobles charge merchants, tradesmen, and other individuals not engaged in primary industry or public/military service, a percentage of their body weight in bronze every year for the privilege of not having their businesses nationalized and themselves forced into service to the crown until the debt is discharged. With businesses, this debt is paid directly from profits; individuals must work for the noble to whom the debt is owed at whatever rate of pay the noble decrees, within the limits set by the crown, effectively providing a rotating force of debt-slaves. For those engaged in primary industry, the tithe is generally 1/5th of the production by weight of the product of their labors.

Failure to pay the tithe results in confiscation of the lands not ‘leased’ from the Noble, plus a 25% penalty. The resulting allotment of land can then be turned over to another farmer (or individual forced into service by tax debt), hopefully to be worked more profitably. These base rates varied slightly (±25%) from noble to noble.

The Reckoning

Taxes and Tithes are all reckoned on the second day of the 5th full moon of the year, which always commences on the 3rd moon after Midsummer’s Day. This is also commonly held to be the first day of autumn, when the harvests are all in and the winter crops are about to be planted. This day is known throughout Therassus Amora as The Reckoning.

Tolls, Fees, and Duties

The crown also charge tolls for the roads and maintains a network of inns along the most heavily-travelled, both of which are sources of direct capital to the King, which he uses to purchase mines and tracts of land; the ownership of which he leases or gifts to those members of his court which are adjudged best able to manage them (or most in need of a serving of Kingly largesse to ensure their continued loyalty). The king doesn’t quite own everything, but he owns many things and most of the land in between. As explained earlier, even these ‘bequests’ simply mean that the land is held in trust for the crown.

The Political Consequences

An awful lot of the preceding should sound fairly familiar to any fantasy enthusiast. The patterns are not quite the same as the villein-nobility-monarch relationship of the historical monarchy, but there are enough similarities that historians would find much that is plausible within the description.

The practical consequences are that the fortunes and power of the King are tied directly to the prosperity of the land, while that of the Nobility is not – and, to a large extent, the Nobility control the prosperity of the land. At the same time, the throne has the power to remove from power – if necessary by force – any Noble who is found to be acting against his interests. If a substantial minority of the Nobility were to oppose the King, the result would be Civil War – but that invites intervention by the other Shared Kingdoms, something neither faction would want.

Power is overtly, and tenuously, shared between Monarch and Nobles, and subject to ongoing revision and give-and-take, and is transferrable from one Noble to another – making the Court a hotbed of Machiavellian intrigue. It is not uncommon for one Noble to ally with another to undermine a third, even while collaborating with the third to disrupt the economic foundations of the second, in an elaborate scheme aimed at weakening an ally of a fourth for the – perceived – benefit to a fifth, who the first is hoping to woo into an alliance. Multiply this scheme a dozen-fold or more and the true complexity of the political situation becomes clear. It’s not uncommon for two nobles to be allies in one cause, opposed in a second, and feigning a relationship over a third.

More subtle is the power of the peasantry to bring a despotic noble to heel. Harvesting a little earlier or later than they should reduces the value of their crops, but also reduces their tax liability. The peasant thus foregoes a little luxury and profitability for the ability to influence the profitability of a greedy noble or oppressive official. If this pattern becomes sufficiently widespread, as is likely to be the case if many share the opinion of the peasant, they may be forced into the direct service of the King for a time – but the Noble will be ruined, if not beggared. If that keeps up for very long, the Noble will be stripped of influence by his rival Nobles, and then usually stripped of his holdings by the King.

A popular sentiment in Therassus Amora is that “Peasants are like raindrops – insignificant in isolation but given time and numbers, able to wear down the strongest rock.”

The Rules Of Inheritance

Inheritance of property (land & dwellings other than family estates) is from mother to daughter, inheritance of other property (including titles) is from father to son. Surviving eldest children of each gender at the time of the parents death inherit the entire ‘family fortune’. If there is no daughter, then the eldest son gets the property and the next eldest son gets everything else. If there are no sons, the eldest daughter gets everything. If there are no siblings, the crown reclaims title to the land, and whoever can make the best claim to being the closest companion of the deceased gets everything else. This ensures that the nobility must marry within its own social class or be reduced to relative paupers, while ensuring that families who gather sufficient wealth are able to bring fresh blood into the nobility.

Education

Eldest children are educated solely in how to manage the property or estate or inheritance, such as it may be, and how to behave appropriately within the family’s social stratum. Junior sons and daughters are given more general educations and for the most part are expected to make their own way in the world; they may receive a lesser share in an inheritance at the whim of the eldest children. Girls are also educated in music, etiquette, politics, etc – everything they need to snare themselves a husband; Boys are trained in arms and one or more trades of some sort (which in theory gives them what they need to support a wife). Note that widows inherit nothing from dead husbands (but custom has it that they are then cared for by the daughter who inherits the land), widowers inherit nothing from dead wives (but are required to be supported by the eldest son until remarrying).

Nobles & Nobility within the Causa Domasura

The Nobles of the Therassus Amora use the standard peerage structure, as described in the first part of this series (about 1/3 of the way down).

Geography

One of the largest and best-populated of the Shared Kingdoms, the Geography of Therassus Amora is as complex as such a large domain implies.

Borders

The principle region of Therassus Amora is roughly shaped like a pie wedge running from the edge of the region controlled by the Capitas Duodiem, which is built apon lands “donated” (for a fee) to the Shared Kingdoms.

The right-hand base of the wedge runs roughly east-west along the Via Negotarentur (Trade Road) (pronounced Neg-Oh-Sha-Rent-Ur) to the Lihumen Negotarenture Transitum (Stony River Trade Bridge), where the road crosses the Lihume Lapillos (Stony River). The border then follows the line of the river north until it emerges from Behr Yuralvus (the home of the Endless Library), located in the Montis Nixculum (Snow-capped Mountains).

Therassus Amora’s northern border continues along the Montis Nixculum past the border with Behr Yuralvus; every accessible point and valley in these mountains west of Behr Yuralvus and East of the Lihume Pallibus (White-flecked River) is claimed by the Kingdom.

The river runs slightly west of due south until it joins the Lihume Limosa (Slimy River) to form the beginnings of the Lihume Magnusortali (Great Eastern River), which turns Southeast, flowing past the Atterro Montis (the Waste Range) and the Buhrs Galliamus (The Ruined City), former capital of the Galliamic Empire, until it reaches the Capitas Duodiem.

Neighbors

The only civilized realm that lies to the north of Therassus Amora is Behr Yuralvus. To the west and to the south on the western side lies the Arred Anigesasi (The Black Lands) – an arid, rocky wasteland, occupied by intractable non-human enemies. The central south is the possession of the Capitas Duodiem, and the eastern south is the province of the Ineodolus Imperascora (The Traders And Commerce Empire). The eastern border is shared with the Causa Domasura.

Ecology

The southern parts of Therassus Amora are amongst the best farmland in the Shared Kingdoms, and especially those that lie to the East of a north-south line through the Capitas Duodiem – about half the Kingdom. The slopes to the north are heavily forested and one of the prime sources of lumber for the shared Kingdoms (this continues into the Causa Domasura). The more western regions are more desolate but suitable for goats and sheep. The northern and northwestern regions also contain numerous deposits of various minerals, while the southwestern line near the Lihume Limosa are a source of natural oil and tar springs, which give the Lihume Limosa its name.

Population

The majority of the population are concentrated to the south and east within the Kingdom, where the capital city of Behr Magnificus (Magnificent City) is located. Other regions are more sparsely populated. A string of forts and fortified villages are located along the western border, containing a substantial military presence and population to support them, a bastion against the “nightmares of the wilderness”.

From A PC Perspective

The Therassus Amora is an ideal place for PCs to use as a base of operations. People of all ranks rub shoulders with each other, and there is no restriction on the freedom or activities of peasants – provided that their taxes and tithes are paid. Rank isn’t quite for sale, but a quick relocation when sufficient fortune has been amassed will solve that problem.

Of course, it’s not that easy; two out of three adventurers don’t return, and only one of three of those who do achieve any profit from their expeditions.

There are always political games afoot, but these rarely impact on the lives of the lower classes, so PCs can choose to get involved or let these pass them by. As a foundation point, it presents the best of all worlds to any PCs.

From A GMs Perspective

it is almost as desirable from a GMs standpoint, being naturally sandboxed. Adventure lies to the west and the south, as does the political centre of the Shared Kingdoms; the major trade rival lies just to the south; and the conflict between Behr Yuralvus and the Causa Domasura occupies the eastern border. There are also all the mines of the north, and what they might uncover. So there’s plenty of scope for adventure all around, but only what is immediately needed has to be prepared.

The Language Relationships Table: The Unusual Languages

Recap: There are 26 spoken languages in Shards Of Divinity, divided into four groups: Common, Unusual, Rare, and Obscure. Knowledge in one language at a minimum level or greater confers +1 miscellaneous bonus to attempts to speak or interpret another, due to the commonality of certain words and structural elements. Controversially, some scholars have attempted to use these language relationships to construct a history of the world from a lingual perspective.

In this pasrt of the article, we’re going to look at the Unusual Languages. Note that this table includes languages that are currently not known to exist in the campaign world.

Unusual Languages	Relatedness
	Ranks	Related Languages
Old Kingdom	2 ranks	City-State
	4 ranks	Original, Druidic, Trade Tongue
	6 ranks	Kingdom, Gypsy, Aquan, Sylvan, Elvish, Draconic, Pious, Tribal
	8 ranks	Halfling, Giant, Orc, Goblin, Celestial, Dwarven
	10 ranks	Abyssal, Infernal, Ignan, Gnoll, Gnome, Pious, Undercommon, Draconian
	12 ranks	Terran
Tribal (by tribe)	2 ranks	Tribal (any other), Orc, Goblin, Giant, City-State
	4 ranks	Gnome, Gnoll, Ignan, Dwarven, Original
	6 ranks	Gypsy, Sylvan, Draconic, Draconian, Terran, Infernal, Pious
	8 ranks	Old Kingdom, Elvish, Undercommon, Abyssal, Celestial, Halfling
	10 ranks	Kingdom, Trade Tongue, Druidic, Aquan
Gypsy	2 ranks	Sylvan, City-State
	4 ranks	Druidic, Old Kingdom, Original, Elvish, Trade Tongue
	6 ranks	Aquan, Draconic, Tribal, Pious
	8 ranks	Undercommon, Dwarven, Orc, Goblin, Halfling, Kingdom
	10 ranks	Draconian, Celestial, Gnoll, Gnome
	12 ranks	Giant, Abyssal, Infernal, Terran
	14 ranks	Ignan
Druidic² Notes: ²Language is: Unusual for Druids only, Rare for Gypsies, Elves & Fey, Obscure for all others	2 ranks	Gypsy, Elvish, Sylvan, Aquan, Old Kingdom
	4 ranks	Halfling, City-State, Draconic
	6 ranks	Undercommon, Gnome, Trade Tongue, Original
	8 ranks	Kingdom, Draconian, Celestial, Orc, Giant, Tribal, Pious
	10 ranks	Goblin, Dwarven, Terran, Abyssal, Ignan
	12 ranks	Infernal, Gnoll
Halfling	2 ranks	Kingdom, Druidic, Gnome
	4 ranks	Old Kingdom, Trade Tongue, Gypsy, Sylvan, Elvish, Aquan, Giant, Orc
	6 ranks	City-State, Draconic, Dwarven, Ignan, Pious
	8 ranks	Original, Undercommon, Draconian, Terran, Celestial, Infernal, Goblin, Tribal
	10 ranks	Abyssal, Gnoll
Sylvan	2 ranks	Elvish
	4 ranks	Druidic, Gypsy, Aquan, Draconic, Gnome
	6 ranks	Old Kindom, City-state, Undercommon, Giant, Orc
	8 ranks	Abyssal, Celestial, Ignan, Draconian, Halfling, Dwarven, Trade Tongue, Original
	10 ranks	Tribal, Gnoll, Goblin, Pious, Terran, Infernal
Gnome	2 ranks	Giant, Orc, Sylvan
	4 ranks	Ignan, Halfling, Elvish, Draconic, Dwarven
	6 ranks	Terran, Draconian, Gnoll, Tribal, Kingdom, Druidic, Gypsy, Aquan
	8 ranks	City-State, Original, Undercommon, Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal, Goblin
	10 ranks	Old Kingdom, Pious, Trade Tongue
Undercommon³ Notes: ³Language is: Unusual for Elves, Dwarves, and Demons, Obscure for all others	2 ranks	Abyssal, Elvish
	4 ranks	Draconic, Terran, Celestial, Infernal
	6 ranks	Sylvan, Aquan, Druidic, Dwarven, Draconian
	8 ranks	Pious, Gypsy, Old Kingdom, Original, Ignan, Orc, Gnoll
	10 ranks	Gnome, Halfling, City-State, Giant
	12 ranks	Kingdom, Goblin, Tribal, Trade Tongue

Language Descriptions & Notes: The Unusual Languages

The following language descriptions frequently mention rendering text using particular fonts that I have in my collection. Some of these may have unrestricted licenses, some may be free only for non-commercial use, and a few may even have come with collections or software that is only available to paying customers. In the seventh section on Languages,, I’ll include a brief sample of text rendered into each language and displayed using the relevant font. For now, all that really needs to be noted is that I have chosen fonts that ‘look right’ for the language as I envisaged it for this campaign.

Similarly, a number of modified modern languages have been used as a shortcut for simulating the various fantasy tongues. The goal was not to create a genuine language, not even to be consistent, but simply to create an appropriately non-English “sound” with the right sort of accents and noises. I hope no speaker of any named language takes offense – or undue compliment – from the use of their native tongue. Such usage says nothing about the language itself, and even less about the people who actually use it; at most it is a commentary on the sounds and flow of syllables that result to English-speaking ears.

Some of the languages fall into multiple categories. While it might be redundant, each language description is included in all relevant categories.

Pious:

Also known as ‘Divine Speech’. Used exclusively for the conducting of human religious services and ceremonies, the way churches used to use Latin. It derives from one of the City-State languages (described separately below), making it the most ancient human tongue still in regular use. As such, it uses a lot of generic terms for more recent innovations; it has no descriptive terms or proper names for different non-human species, for example. Instead, it has a number of terms for describing an individual’s state of Grace, from “Irredeemable” through to “Most Holy”, which are applied to whole classes of non-human. “Heretics” might be Orcs or Elves or Fey or Wizards.

Pious is used for all formal church doctrines and holy books, and this blanket terminology shapes theological attitudes to non-human species. For example, the title ‘Paladin’ literally translates as Protector or Defender. As such, anyone who takes up arms to defend a Church may be blessed as a paladin by the church, and treated in the same way as would a Paladin, giving rise to such phrasing as ‘The Paladin then gathered to him paladins to oppose the heretic’.

This sample phrase also shows other aspects of Pious deriving from it’s age: (1) a stilted, almost pretentious, phraseology; and (2) collective nouns are used only for the subject, not the object; ‘The Heretic’ might be one or it might be a besieging army. The next phrase in this story might well be ‘And the Heretic were layed low by the holy might of the paladin.” Sentences tend to be short and declarative, with full stops used where commas might be expected. It is also normal practice to number each statement.

Note that this language is not taught to non-priests, though many laymen will gradually pick up phrases here and there. To render text into Pious, translate into Greek without font change, then add or subtract vowels as necessary to permit a smooth flow.

Pious is considered a Common tongue for Human Clerics and Priests, a Rare language for other humans, and an Obscure language for non-humans.

Written form: display translated text using a Greek language or appropriate mathematical Symbols Font.

Old Kingdom:

This is now a dead language, and is also known as the language of Paradise. Although some Elves and members other non-human species survive from the time when it was in use, it had fragmented into dozens or even hundreds of Tribal Dialects following the human Expulsion before contact with those species took place. Nevertheless, it is the mother tongue of almost every other human language. Compare the English of Chaucer or Shakespeare with modern English. Reconstructing “Old Kingdom” is a popular research topic amongst historians.

Tribal:

The legend/myth/theology of human history is that when Humans were driven out of Paradise (the reasons given vary) they fragmented into hundreds of isolated tribes, one of which were the Gypsies. The most central of these reunified their language into Old Kingdom through mutual contact with the Gypsy Caravans, which wandered from settlement to settlement carrying trade goods and lost skills. More remote – and more primitive – settlements had no such unifying influence, and their language continues to be a degenerate form of Old Kingdom.

Translating text into tribal is best performed by translating into each of the City-State languages (see below) and picking and choosing amongst them, word-by-word. Written text should be rendered in Comic Book Commando or similar, supplemented where necessary by Comic Sans MS.

Gypsy:

Gypsy is a more florid, less formalized, and more sophisticated form of what became trade tongue. It is still spoken by the Pirates of the Solvo Mondibanus. The gypsies themselves became Traders (founding the Ineodolus Imperascora), evolved into the modern Bards as they found themselves more unwelcome and mistrusted, or became part of the Behr Yuralvus. Left behind by Civilized cultures, they had no choice but to evolve or segregate. Gypsy remains a common Linga Franca between the City-states of the Longex Dextora – which are really nothing more than tribes that have been civilized (to some extent) but which maintained political independence from the Galliamic Empire (aka the Shared Kingdoms).

In translations, simulate Gypsy by translating into Italian and adding or subtracting vowels and consonants for ease of pronunciation by an English-speaker.

Written Gypsy should be rendered into Nuptial or a similar cursive font if deriving from the Republic of Independent City-States or a Bard, into Devroye or similar if deriving from the Unified Association Of Free Ports, into Phosphorous if deriving from the Traders and Commerce Empire, and into Queensland if historical.

Druidic:

The first release of the Shards Of Divinity House Rules asserted that “Druids do not have a separate language’. Further examination of the campaign concepts have shown that this is both true and misleading; there IS a language called “Druidic”, but it is NOT a language that can be used to communicate effectively with anyone else that knows the language. Rather, it is a learned ability to communicate with nature, to hear what the surroundings have to say about the weather that is coming, the local conditions, any threats within the region, any sites with peculiarities nearby, where the nearest spring is, and so on. It is also employed to tell the spirits of nature that inhabit every geographic feature, that shelter and nurture every species of animal and plant, that bring the rain and the storms and the weather, exactly what the Druid would like them to do. They may not listen (they often don’t) and may not answer the request in a timely fashion (they don’t have the same concept of time as mortals, but neither do Druids, so that’s all right).

This “Druidic” language has evolved from little bits of a number of different languages, predominantly Elvish and Sylvan, but with a slight tinge of more human languages such as Gypsy and Old Kingdom. Each Druid’s Circle – and, in fact, each Druid – develops his own Druid’s Tongue. As initiates, this essentially comprises parts of the lowest common denominator amongst the “Druidic” of the Druid’s Circle that has accepted the initiate; as a character grows in understanding, so his version of “Druidic” becomes more and more unique, and more and more dedicated to the terrain in which he spends most of his time. It also, therefore, becomes less and less useful generically, ie when the Druid is outside his own terrain. Druids who adventure will often need to select companion species to accompany him; while they may be useful for other reasons, the dominant reason for their presence is to translate the Druid’s requests into the local dialect. Of course, the less native they are to the local environment, the less help they can be.

Druidic is considered an Unusual language for Druids, a Rare language for Gypsies, Elves & Fey, and an Obscure language for all others.

Translating into Druidic is an ‘entertaining’ exercise. Extract and translate proper nouns other than animal and plant species using a random choice of Sylvan, Elvish, or Kingdom. Translate the remaining nouns into sounds and/or actions that are characteristic of the creature. Reformat the rest of the text using Alphabet Of The Magi – then interpret loosely into animal noises, weather sound effects, hand gestures, and anything else that comes to mind.

There is no written form of this ‘Language’.

Halfling:

Halfling is, technically, the youngest language around. When first encountered, the Halflings spoke a dialect of Gnome and had no written language. Because Gnomish was not well-suited to their daily needs, they had already begun supplementing it with additional vocabulary, and quickly seized the opportunity to incorporate large extracts of Kingdom into their speech. Further, since Kingdom provided them with a written language for the first time, these supplements came to be the dominant feature in their language within a generation. In modern times, their language is essentially Kingdom with some phonetically-spelt Gnomish terms, rather more phonetically-spelt original terms, and a few supplementary bits and pieces lifted from other languages, such as Elvish, especially a fairly fundamental form of Druidic. They invent new terms at the drop of a hat to further supplement their language; these spread through the Halfling community like wildfire and usually vanish back into obscurity as quickly as they came, though a few persist (when they prove useful) and become part of the regular lexicon.

Halfling Names are as per the PHB, translated as below.

Translating into Halfling is best achieved by translating into Latin (as per Kingdom) and then stripping off Latin “affectations” such as the ‘-us’ from the words. ‘Primorus’ (First, Greatest) becomes ‘Primor’. Where this eliminates virtually the entire word, that word is omitted if possible and rendered into Gnomish otherwise, as are any terms that are untranslatable or that remain the same in Latin as in English.

Render using any Sans-serif font.

Sylvan:

Supposedly, the Sylvan tongue is a derivation of Elvish. But Fey seem able to impart a layer of communications between one another over the top in some fashion, which is suggestive of a second Sylvan tongue. Sylvan, and Fey Names, are simulated using Gaelic via an online translator and simplifying for pronouncability. I use http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/ for the purpose.

Written Sylvan is a recent innovation and is achieved by rendering the Gaelic in the Tengwar Sindarin font.

Gnome:

A later element of the anarchy of the wilds was the discovery by Orcs of the Gnomish settlements shortly after human tribes became the political ‘currency’ of Orcish and Goblin politics. Deprived of their chance of empire through conquest of the Goblins, the Orcs sought to turn their will apon the seemingly-vulnerable Gnomes. The result was an almost-stable condition of anarchy, with no group strong enough to dominate. But the Gnomes proved to be naturally-gifted at the Byzantine politics that emerged and were able to trade alliances with Goblins, rival Orc tribes, Human tribes, Gnolls, Giants, Fey, and Dwarves as necessary to always maintain enough strength to resist and those who would conquer them. Eventually, the Gnomish Monarchy rose to power in response to the human tribes coalescing into the Longex Dextora, and the Parumveneaora joined the Shared Kingdoms, giving the Gnomes enough military backing that they no longer need fear Orcish conquest.

Gnomes once spoke Sylvan, suggesting to some that they are another branch of the Fey, but the dominant experiences which shaped their language were their encounters with tribes of Giants and Orcs, both of whom imposed much of their grammar and language on the Gnomes. When these unwholesome and primitive elements were pushed back by the growth of civilization at the height of the Galliamic Empire, the Gnomish settlements were left behind. The Gnomish language is a blend of all three sources.

Gnomish Names:

• Gnomes use the Dwarven alphabet but associate different sounds with the Dwarvish runes. Replace all P’s with R’s, all H’s with N’s, all K’s with S’s, all Z’s with H’s. Add extra vowels as necessary, especially U’s and O’s.
• In construction, use PHB (except as noted below), but ignore the suggested names.
• Gnome names always mean something in common, often something ridiculous or seemingly incompatible. “Ash” and “String” might be joined to form the name “Ash-string”.
• To derive a gnomish name, use Spanish translations of what you want the name to mean and replace or remove consonants as per Dwarvish; then replace consonants as stated above and add vowels as necessary.
• Gnomes are not clan-oriented in Shards Of Divinity. In place of a clan name, a Patronomic is derived from syllables of the first name of the ruling lord in the region and the name of the year.
• Gnomes have a succession of 37 month-names that are 1 syllable long and are used in fixed order. Since there are 12 months in a year, each year can have a name derived from the months of the year which identifies that year with a name-pattern that will not repeat for 36 years. However, every 36 years they reorder the sequence using a lottery draw that extends the uniqueness indefinitely. The current sequence, which was introduced 28 years ago (and hence is to remain in effect for another 8 years) is:
   
  1 BEW – 2 VIL – 3 SHI – 4 JUF – 5 LAK – 6 SOR – 7 GAH – 8 GOS – 9 PAD – 10 JUF – 11 GYS – 12 MAJ – 13 PUW – 14 FEN – 15 WOF – 16 ZAS – 17 FID – 18 LAJ – 19 HOK – 20 FOP – 21 WUD – 22 FAH – 23 BIM – 24 TUW – 25 FAL – 26 NIL – 27 KAS – 28 FUJ – 29 LAS – 30 FEH – 31 NUD – 32 LOB – 33 PAS – 34 KUD – 35 NER – 36 WAD.
• The specific pattern, by year number, is:
  

  1: 1-12	2: 13-24 5: 12-23 8: 11-22 11: 10-21 14: 9-10 17: 8-19 20: 7-18 23: 6-17 26: 5-16 29: 4-15 32: 3-14 35: 2-13	3: 25-36 6: 24-35 9: 23-34 12: 22-33 15: 21-32 18: 20-31 21: 19-30 24: 18-29 27: 17-28 30: 16-27 33: 15-26 36: 14-25	4: 37 + 1-11 7: 36-37 + 1-10 10: 35-37 + 1-9 13: 34-37 + 1-8 16: 33-37 + 1-7 19: 32-37 + 1-6 22: 31-37 + 1-5 25: 30-37 + 1-4 28: 29-37 + 1-3 31: 28-37 + 1-2 34: 27-37 + 1
  …then repeat with new syllables

• That means that the current year is named Feh-Nud-Lob-Pas-Kud-Ner-Wad-Bew-Vil-Shi.
• The first-born takes the first syllable of the name of the current ruler, modified as appropriate, and the syllable formed from the vowel+ last consonant of the first month and the first consonant of the next month.
• The second-born takes the second syllable of the name of the current ruler and the syllable formed from the vowel and last consonant of the second month of the year of their birth and the first consonant of the 3rd month of the year they were born.
• …and so on. When they run out of syllables in the christian name of the ruler, they move on to the second name, then the surname, and then they start over. Again, this virtually guarantees a unique surname for the gnome.

Translating Gnomish is as described above. To display written Gnomish, simply render the resulting text in the Dwarvish font.

Simulating an unreal language

As promised, starting with this part of the series, I’ll be sharing tips and tricks for using the language simulation techniques described in the previous article (Causa Domasura, The Home Of Reason. Starting with: what’s the best approach to use in choosing a language as a basis?

Every language, to those who don’t speak it, has a particular sonic flavor when we hear it. Through character substitution (aka search-and-replace), two types of operation become possible:

1. changing the pattern of sounds and syntax without altering the overall tone; and
2. changing the overall tone by manipulating the syllables that generate it.

In order to choose a basis language, you have to (at the same time) consider exactly how you want to manipulate it to achieve your goals. That means that you have to identify the non-verbal components of each language and how they will fit the persona and style of the race that is to speak them.

Some languages sound harsh, such as those from Eastern Europe; others have a natural flow, like Japanese. Italian conveys a lot of passion because many of the words and names end in vowels, generally in a rising tone.

You don’t have to know these things, there is a shortcut, and that’s the subject of today’s tip: Use an online translator to translate a section of typical speech from the race or society in question. Note how many words won’t translate; attempt to sound it out based on an English-language rendering of the language. Look for common patterns and what you can do with them. Consider the history of the race and whether or not they would use some other race’s language for part or all of their speech.

The text to be translated should be more than a single sentence; it should be several sentences long, and perhaps even a full paragraph.

For example, to find a language for Dwarves, I might use:

The spirit of the earth is in his bones, the strength of the mountain in his heart. The bones of the world below speak to his feet. The no – beard (beardless) youth shows much promise. I shall lift (hoist) a tankard (mug) of ale in his name when we return to our camp. The wealth of kings will flow through his fingers, I am certain.

From this starting point, you can run through multiple possibilities for a foundation language quickly and easily.

• French: L’esprit de la terre est dans ses os, la force de la montagne dans son cœur. Les os du monde d’en bas parler à ses pieds. Le non – barbe (imberbe) montre des jeunes très prometteurs. Je lèverai (palan) une chope (tasse) de bière à son nom quand nous retournons à notre camp. La richesse des rois s’écoule à travers ses doigts, j’en suis certain.
• German: Der Geist der Erde ist in seinen Knochen, die Kraft des Berges in seinem Herzen. Die Knochen der Welt unter seine Füße sprechen. Die nicht – Bart (bartlos) Jugend zeigt viel versprechen. Ich werde heben (Hubwerk) ein Krug (mug) Ale in seinem Namen, wenn wir zu unserem Camp zurück. Der Reichtum der Könige durch seine Finger fließen, bin ich mir sicher.
• Hungarian: A szellem a föld az o csontjai, az erot a hegy szívében. A csontok, a világ alatt beszél a lábát. A nem – szakáll (beardless) ifjúsági mutat sok ígéret. Én Felvonó (emelo) egy korsó (bögre) sört az o nevét, amikor visszatérünk a táborba. A gazdag királyok fognak folyni az ujjai, biztos vagyok benne.

…and so on. With lots of z’s and k’s, Hungarian would be a good choice. Sure, there are some funny characters, like á, ü and so on – but they can be replaced by English-alphabet equivalents easily enough.

It’s as easy as that to choose a foundation language. Even with copy and paste, it took me longer to compile those three examples than it would have taken to try the translations – it’s that fast.

Next: Ineodolus Imperascora (The Traders And Commerce Empire). The Rare Languages. And how to choose modifying adjustments to your source language.

Hero Game’s Policy on publishing house rules is both enlightened and occasionally maddening.

They have no problem with people posting their own characters, or discussing their rules, or publishing house rules – provided that you don’t quote directly from their rulebooks and your rules don’t exceed 5,000 words in length. You can’t publish variations on any officially published Hero Games characters, or anything that looks like it came from Hero Games. And you can’t charge money for anything. There are more restriction, and exceptions can be made with the permission of Hero Games, but that’s the nutshell.

On the face of it, that’s a very user-friendly policy, and I commend them for it. At the same time, the inability to reproduce ANY of the tables or official rules is really constraining, and less user-friendly than the OGL of D&D 3.x.

Changing one rule, as I’ve said a number of times in the past, is like trying to eat just one potato chip, or take just one breath. A rules change is a domino in a china shop; the consequences ripple through a supersaturated solution of possibilities causing all sorts of odd crystals to assume solid form. Especially when you’re talking about a combat system or subsystem, there are all sorts of knock-on effects on other parts of the rules.

It’s my full intention to comply with these restrictions. So most of this article, and the next, will be discussion and commentary, Any rules will be contained in a colored box, and the total length of rules will be less than 5K Words – and in an attempt to ensure compliance in that respect, the article itself has been split in two. This first part will deal with speeding up the combat; the second part will deal with some of the consequences of the changes made to achieve that speed, and how some of the savings have been invested to make other parts of the game easier for participants to visualize and take part in. Between them, they offer a very different Hero System, and yet one that is going to sound strangely familiar…

The pace of battle

There are things that the Hero System does extremely well. Combat is not necessarily one of them; though there is nothing inherently wrong with the resolution systems, it just gets slow with increasing numbers of combatants and with combatant SPD. In fact, my experience is that combat slows as a function of both factors.

The reason for this is simple. Like all action resolution systems, there is a necessary level of overhead per action to be resolved. In the standard Hero system, each character has a SPD characteristic, which specifies how many times the character gets to act in a 12-second turn, which is subdivided into segments of 1 second each. A character’s phases may be of different lengths, or may all be exactly the same – depending on whether or not they are an even divisor of 12. Not all characters will complete a phase in the same segment; instead, they will be sequenced more-or-less evenly throughout the 12 seconds – except for “Segment 12, Everybody Acts”.

[Side-note:] One of the earliest changes that I made to the combat system in my Champions campaign was to devise a more even distribution pattern to do away with that last item – but I don’t think there’s going to be room within in the 5K words limit to present the alternative table I created, and it might be considered to look too much like the standard table, anyway. In any case, it’s been rendered moot, consigned to the pages of history by the later changes which are the subject of this pair of articles, so there’s no point in considering it at this time in any event.

Too Much Overhead

Let’s say that we have a team of 6 superheroes on the one side, most with a speed of 2 or 3 (assume they average 2½) – but one has a speed of 6 and another a speed of 10. They are opposed by a team of 4 supervillains and a dozen hired goons. The hired goons have a speed of 1, two of the supervillains have a speed of 3, one a speed of 5, and another a speed of 11. In a twelve-second turn, that’s 2×2 + 3×2 + 6 + 10 + 12×1 + 2×3 + 5 + 11 = 60 actions to be resolved in a turn – plus once-a-turn overheads like recoveries, one for each character – call that another 6 + 4 + 12 ‘actions’ for a total of 82.

Too freakin’ many. It’s rare for even a large battle to last more than 2 or 3 full turns – but at (say) a minute to complete each action, those 2-3 turns are 82×2 to 82×3 (=164 to 246) minutes of play. 2.75 to 4 hours. And yet, 24-36 seconds, game time, is an unreasonably short time for such a battle to take place.

It gets worse. If it takes an extra ten or twenty seconds to resolve an action or decide on an action or look something up on a character sheet or any of a dozen other things, those 24-36 seconds can easily inflate to five or six hours!

Solution 1:

Part of the problem can be resolved simply by increasing the length of a turn, say to 1, or 2, or 4, or 5, or 10 minutes in length. But the combats will still take an unreasonable length in real time and all sorts of consequences would have to be dealt with – starting with the fact that a lot of other game subsystems assume that a turn is 12 seconds long and would have to be rejigged.

Solution 2:

A more likely solution would be to junk many of the different elements of combat in favor of a more streamlined resolution system. You have an attack roll, you have a success-or-fail assessment, you have a roll for damage, you have a damage-handling vs target defenses assessment, you have two types of damage (Stun and Body), and two types of damage (Energy and Physical) and then there’s NND and it just goes on and on. Junk most of that, and you can attack part of the real problem at its core: that 1 minute resolution time per action. Couple this with Solution 1 and you have a result – or so it might seem.

The fact is that all this variety exists for a reason, the simulation of a wide variety of superheroic abilities crafted by hundreds of fertile imaginations through the roughly 80-90 years that superhero comics have been published.

[Side-note:] Officially, the first superhero comic is Superman, in 1933. But even before Siegel & Shuster’s seminal creation, there were arguably others, Pulp-derived characters like Dr Occult (also 1933), Buck Rogers (1929), and Tarzan (1929) make the beginnings slightly fuzzy; similar characters were usually considered superheroic after superman debuted, and it can therefore be argued that these prototypical characters and strips make deciding the actual starting point a little fuzzier. The first comic published in the US was a hardcover book published in 1842, but The Adventures Of Obadiah Oldbuck bore little resemblance to the Superhero genre.

That’s not the only problem

Here’s another problem: in combat, a player’s share of the screen time is directly proportionate to his character’s Speed, plus the time that he spends being a target. Excluding the latter, that means that in the example given in the previous section, the character with a SPD of 6 will be doing things three times as much as those with a SPD of 2, and twice as much as those with a SPD of 3, while the character with a SPD of 10 will have five times as much as the former and more than three times as much as the latter. Or to put it another way, and ignoring the character with a SPD of 6, the player whose character has a SPD of 10 will have as much screen time as all the other PCs – put together. Meanwhile, the rest are twiddling their thumbs.

And, in the variant rules…

…this problem is even worse. These rules are intended to facilitate characters of the power level of Thor, Superman, The Hulk, The Flash, and so on. Characters who can do the things that most characters can do in the comic books – and not characters who are on a par with most members of the Legion Of Superheroes in the 60s (1 power each), the original X-men of the 60s (1 power each), or the original Teen Titans of the 60s (kids who were barely teenaged, and who usually only had one or two weak powers each). That means that some of them have some very high stats – DEX of 200+, for example. That, in turn, gives SPDs of 20+, or it did until I changed the formula for calculating SPD. That doesn’t mean that the standards have changed – the average human still has a SPD of 2, maybe 3. It just means that the top end has shifted. In most ways, this is an improvement, since it provides more scope for variation between characters, especially those who specialize in super-speeds; but in terms of a fair allocation of screen time, it’s a total disaster.

In an effort to maintain some semblance of sanity at the gaming table, I imposed a maximum SPD for flesh-and-blood of 12 (machines could get up to 24, no more). It wasn’t enough. During the most recent rewrite, we decided to scrap the entire SPD subsystem and replace it with something we knew worked reasonably well.

A 3.x solution: Turn-based combat

It was with a certain wry amusement that I read Johnn’s articles about speeding up combat in his Pathfinder campaign, ‘My Group’s Time Thief Revealed‘ and ‘Fastest Pathfinder Combat Ever‘, because I turned to the 3.x system to speed up combat in my superhero campaign.

Initiative

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  In-game activities take place in an Initiative Pass or Turn lasting 12 seconds. In an initiative pass characters act in initiative order which is determined by ranking the results of initiative rolls for each character. A character’s initiative = d20+SPD. Ties are settled by SPD. Initiative is generally rolled at the start of combat and persists throughout that combat, but the referee may require a reroll whenever her feels circumstances dictate one.

Surprise

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  At the commencement of battle, when one side is ready for a fight and the other is not (for any reason), the GM may declare the other side Surprised. Those characters who are not surprised then participate in a special, extra Initiative Pass which occurs prior to the commencement of the first normal initiative pass.

 
There are some extreme/unusual circumstances where one set of characters may get multiple surprise passes, especially if they have surprise and do nothing to alert those surprised to the presence of enemies. Under some unusual conditions, the GM may also specify a certain roll that has to be achieved by the character before they come out of surprise. Both are rare and not worth detailing here.

There are also some special abilities that permit the character to always act in a special initiative pass in advance of the usual one unless they push. Again, this is a refinement that doesn’t need to be specified right now.

Pushing

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  Pushing can occur in one of two ways: through the expenditure of a Heroic Action Point, or without such expenditure. If the character employs a Heroic Action Point then their action takes place at the normal time within the Initiative order. If the character does not employ a Heroic Action Point their actions are relegated to a special initiative pass exclusively for characters who are pushing in this manner, which follows the regular initiative pass (when necessary). Villains have an equivalent set of alternatives.

 
Heroic Action Points were something Ian Gray and I came up with to act as a genre-promoting game mechanic. In a nutshell, you get them for being heroic and doing heroic things; you can lose them for doing un-heroic things (doesn’t often happen) or for deliberate villainous actions. We were modeling the idea on Drama Dice from 7th Sea and didn’t realize that Hero Games were going to include something by the same name in Pulp Hero as optional rules. When we have time to put our heads together on the subject, we’ll come up with a different name because the HAPs in these house rules bear no resemblance to those in Pulp Hero, which more closely resemble the way our rules handle Luck. (I think he may have also lifted some ideas from the dice game FATE, but I’m not sure).

The GM can also dole out extras any time he feels like it, for good roleplay, for making the entire table laugh, or whatever. I’m not going to go into all the rules surrounding them, it’s not only off-topic but it would use up the 5K limit on them alone. They can be used for all sorts of things, something else I’m not going to go into, here and now.

When it’s your turn

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  A character’s action consists of three parts: 1 Movement action, 1 Attack action, and 1 Utility action. These may be performed in any sequence desired by the character but they must all be completed before the next character’s initiative round begins. A movement action may be the character moving, operating a vehicle, or using a movement power. An attack action is any activity or use of a power that is intended to cause damage or directly inconveniences an enemy, this includes any combat maneuvers with a damage-to-target element such as move by or move through. A utility action is an action that does neither of these things, but may activate some defensive power or specify the performance of a defensive maneuver, use a sensory ability, or any other activity that meets these requirements. A character can choose to substitute his attack action for a second move action or can choose to forgo performing any actions to recover Endurance equal to the character’s REC or STUN equal to 1/10th the character’s REC.

 
Ian and I debated whether there should be two actions in a character’s phase or three. In the end, I gave in; I wanted characters to have to choose between moving (which carries its own defensive benefits) or employing a ‘static defense’ or a non-movement non-attack action as their utility action. The jury is still out on this minor phase of the rules; we’re trying them his way, and if they aren’t good enough then we’ll try it my way.

The other thing worth mentioning is that our rules don’t actually say “1/10th the Character’s REC” at the end. We have two recovery stats, once high and cheap (REC A) and one low and expensive (REC B). The first is usually used for STUN and END recovery amounts, the second for BODY recovery amounts. The Official system uses one stat and one-tenth of that stat for the same purposes; I simply wanted to make them independent of each other to forestall characters buying extra of one “only for the purposes of” increasing the other, which a couple of early characters did.

Deferred Actions

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  Characters may specify a trigger event for part or all of their actions, eg “I wait until the third bad guy passes my hiding place”. This temporarily defers the action until either the trigger event takes place or everyone else has acted, but does not change the character’s initiative value. At the end of the Initiative Pass, any character who has not acted may choose to either use his action or continue awaiting the trigger event. Note that if the trigger event does not occur prior to the character’s next opportunity to act (in the next Initiative Pass) the character is assumed to have lost that action. Players may not attempt to ‘logic’ their way past this rule; ‘if nothing else happens before I can act again,’ or any variation, is not a valid trigger event.

 
Another rule that we considered and decided not to implement used up the character’s utility action watching for the trigger event.

Recovery Phase

Excerpt from the Zenith-3 Campaign Rules:  Each character automatically receives 2 Stun recoveries and 2 Endurance recoveries every 12 initiative passes. Both recover REC in the appropriate stat. These can be taken on any initiative pass but with no more than 1 of each on any given initiative pass. These recoveries occur after all actions have taken place in a pass. The powers Major Stun Recovery and Major Endurance Recovery give extra recoveries that must also follow the above rules.

 
The above might not be terribly clear without further explanation. Characters start combat with 2 STUN recoveries and 2 END recoveries. They can use one of these recoveries at the end of any Initiative Pass in what is known as the Recovery Phase. They have until the start of the 11th Initiative Pass to use all four, at which point the character’s ‘hope chest’ is refilled with 2 more recoveries of each type. Unused recoveries are simply lost. There are certain powers which we’ve added to the system that give extras to the number of recoveries.

Another area of the rules we’ve added converts excess STUN damage to additional BODY damage – making it plausible for one normal human to beat another to death in a reasonable time frame.

The consequence of these rules, in combination with those in the previous section, is to force characters to stop and rest in battle. Why a d12? I wanted to use a dice to count Initiative Passes. A d20 gave too few recoveries, Combat and skill checks had been changed over to a d% system so d10s were out, d6s are used in combat all the time, and d4s give too many recoveries – that leaves d12s and d8s. Which one to use was a bit of a toss-up, but we’re used to using a d12 to count segments in a turn. If 12 Initiative Passes prove too many, we can either try the d8 or increase one or both recoveries, or make it 4 recoveries but player’s choice of how to use them – so the d12 gave us more flexibility to tweak the system.

Some Additional options not trialed

Along the way, there were a number of other ideas that were either set aside for later consideration or junked altogether.

Act in unused Healing Phases
This would grant an extra partial action phase – attack, movement, or utility – if the character chose to use it, at the cost of one of the standard STUN or END recoveries specified in the previous section. This was junked for good reason: first, it would not have made a big difference in outcomes but would have made for massive inconvenience; second, it would have conferred an extra advantage to characters who bought the major Recovery powers; and third, it was potentially unbalancing in the hands of characters with enough END or STUN that they could afford to pass up a recovery.

Heroic Action Point for an extra action in a surprise round
The idea was that a character who spent a Heroic Action Point would be able to recover from Surprise quickly enough to act in a round in which they were surprised – but only after the last of the characters who weren’t surprised had acted. This was set aside because we think it might devalue surprise too much – but if surprise proves too powerful, it might make a late comeback.

Heroic Action Point to increase STUN recovery when resting
Actually, the rules as used to date don’t give any STUN recovery when resting. This didn’t seem right to me, in principle; and private testing suggested that a minor STUN recovery when resting, as an alternative to an END recovery, was both necessary and would not overly prolong combat. So I have added the appropriate rule above, and will be adding it to our House Rules when I’m done. So this option is one that has only just become possible – and that has been set aside until the impact of the minor recovery is assessed.

Randomized Axis Of Battle
Picture any superhero fight from the comics and you will see the characters dancing around all over the battlefield. The ‘attacks’ that are resolved as part of an Initiative Pass represent several feints, manouvers, attempted attacks, and ducks, bobs, and weaves. Under consideration at one point was a rule that stated that at the end of an initiative pass, any combatants in immediate proximity (adjacent hexes) who had been in battle with each other during that Initiative Pass should have the axis of the line connecting them rotated one hex-side about the slower (lower SPD) character. Overall position would not change by more than one hex, so if the roll indicated a location for the faster combatant two hexes away from their position prior to the randomized axis check, the slower character would move into the space being vacated by the faster character and the position of the faster character would then be adjusted relative to the new position of the slower character. Manouvers would permit characters to ignore the axis of battle to focus on some external orientation.

In principle, this all sounds good, but it was thought that in practice it would bog combat down too much. It remains on the list of items to revisit at a later time, especially given the solution to the problems of movement under the new rules (discussed in part 2).

The effects

So, let’s look at the effects of these changes. The downsides are obvious: Domino Changes to other rules, especially movement rules, and a new system for people to learn. Balanced against that are a quintet of seriously-significant advantages:

Faster Combat

In place of the 82 actions in a turn (to quote the example offered earlier), we now have one per character – 5+12+4=21. And those turns are now (on average) taking significantly less time – some take only 10 seconds, others 20, and about 1/6th still take the full minute. Overall, I would assess the average as being between 25 and 30 seconds a turn. The combination makes for serious time savings at the table – a combat turn (a full set of Initiative Passes and Recovery Phase) would now be 21x(25 to 30)/60 = 8.75 to 10.5 minutes of play – and not the 82 minutes mentioned earlier.

Slower Combat

At the same time, it takes more turns to complete the battle than the old average of about 2.5 – Five to Ten of them. That means the average fight is now lasting about a minute-and-a-half, game time. A big fight might last several times that long, 6-10 minutes in game time. These are still not completely realistic, but they are a lot closer to the mark.

Overall, combat has sped up significantly. Official System Benchmark: 82×2.5 = 205 minutes. New system: 21×7.5 = 157.5 minutes – and that’s while players are still learning the new system. In the long term, I expect it to drop below the two hour mark to somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes, real time. But even now, that’s almost a 25% improvement – which is 25% more gameplay every day.

More Tactical Battles

The new rules put a premium on exerting force where it will do the most good. When you only have one action in a combat round, there’s more pressure to make it count. At the same time, you have to remain flexible. This trend is further reinforced by some of the flow-on effects of the changes, to be discussed in part 2.

Reinforced Genre Flavor

Fights tend to be a lot more evenly balanced, with both sides taking rather more damage than previously. Even a weak set of opponents can last long enough to injure a much stronger character. The ebb and flow of battle is more noticeable. At the same time, the action feels faster, because your turn in combat rolls around much faster and more often, increasing the drama of the situation. The whole thing feels more like a comic-book donnybrook.

Equal Spotlight Time

Well, more equal, anyway. A character with a high SPD may act first, but he doesn’t act more often – so each character receives a nominally-equal share of the spotlight. Some abilities still take longer to resolve than others, but in general, things move along far more quickly.

In the pulse-pounding conclusion:
The knock-on effects to the rules, and some additional combat mechanisms to elevate the game experience even further.

I’m sneaking in after the deadline for last month’s blog carnival, hosted by Dice Monkey…

The benefits of an established setting

There are a lot of obvious benefits to the use of an established campaign setting. Because I expect a number of other carnival participants to have weighed in on this aspect of the topic, I’m just going to hit some of the high points here (in no particular order), and move on.

Depth of vision

The most obvious benefit is that most game settings have a lot of material to draw on. The 3.x release of Forgotten realms is nine volumes, according to a quick head-count on my bookshelf, while Ebberon is thirteen volumes. This is all material the GM doesn’t’ have to create. On top of that, there may be older versions and sourcebooks that can be easily adapted or simply used as game resources such as the 2nd ed version of “The Ruins Of Undermountain.” On top of that, there are anywhere from a few to a few hundred adventure modules that are designed to plug straight into the campaign setting. In some cases, such as TORG, it can be hard to tell where the game system stops and the campaign world begins. To an arguably lesser- or greater-extent, the same is true of 7th Sea.

Professional standards

Since the material is being published by a professional game company, it is hopefully being written and edited to a professional standard. Most GMs feel that this is inherently (choosing my words carefully) at least as good as anything they can come up with. What’s more, because you will get many authors contributing to the collective game setting, it should be a richer creation than is possible for any one GM working on his own.

Community support

Most commercially-published game settings have their own fanbase, which can operate as a consultancy when there’s an aspect of the setting that a GM is having trouble getting his head around. Such community contributions can even end up becoming canon within the setting. As a result, they are continually growing; rather than being a static environment, they can become a dynamic gaming environment. Probably the most extreme version of this was the Infiniverse updates for TORG, but most game settings exhibit it to some extent. There is a clear development path from this aspect of a campaign setting to the concept of an MMORPG.

Ubiquity

With the same gaming setting common to many different campaigns, transfer of existing characters into other GMs campaigns becomes relatively painless. This can be advantageous when a player has to move for reasons of education or employment. It is also a big factor in Convention play, where a large amount of the background material can be assumed to be already known to the participants, enabling them to get on with the game in a far more immersive environment.

Prep focus

And finally, an established setting takes a lot of the effort required, and a LOT of the time required, out of game prep. You don’t need to worry about game setting prep, you can get on with adventure creation. If you’re using an existing game module, you don’t even have to do that.

The price of an a-la-carte campaign world

There are shortcomings that come with any published setting though, and they are often the flip side of the advantages.

Familiarity

It’s a lot harder to surprise or challenge the players if they have all read the source material – and when you are dealing with commercially-published game settings, you have to assume that most if not all of it will be known to the players.

Baggage

All game settings come with baggage that you may or may not like. One GM I know found Kenders to be nothing but irritating. Another hated Elminster the Wizard, which he regarded as the most obnoxious dues-ex-machina ever published in a game setting. There’s an inherent lack of control over the contents of a commercial setting, and with that comes the absence of a sense of ownership of the setting and the game. There’ll be more on this aspect of an established setting, and how to solve this particular problem, in a subsequent section of this article.

Assumptions

Game settings can make assumptions about the way things work. Utilizing that game setting means accepting those assumptions, whether you agree with them or not. The big difference between material that falls into this category and that which falls under the heading of “Baggage” is that assumptions are about why things happen in a certain way – they concern philosophy, in-game physics, economics, and political theory. Baggage tends to be a concrete expression of some, all, or none of the above, and can be written out or written into the past without overly changing the game setting; Assumptions are more fundamental and much harder to remove.

Experts

The impolite term for an ‘expert’ is a ‘rules lawyer’. With a published game setting, you open yourself up to having to deal with a player who knows more about the campaign setting than you do, or – perhaps worse still – who thinks they do. Sure, this can be advantageous at times, but it can be an acute hindrance at others (or even at the same time).

It’s bad enough having a rules lawyer who is an expert in the rules themselves; there can usually be a beneficial relationship worked out with such a player, tapping them as an expert consultant; but when a player corrects you on elements of the game setting, they can undermine the whole adventure.

But it makes no sense

We’re all human and capable of errors of logic. That means that every game setting will contain such errors of logic, where the designers came up with an idea that sounded ‘cool’ but where their explanations made no sense. Standards have changed a great deal in this respect since the early days of RPGs, when it was acceptable to say ‘it makes no sense because your character doesn’t understand it’ and just move on.

A great example is the dimension of Aysle in TORG. A two-sided coin of a world, this is a fantasy game environment, but in every other respect physics seems to behave more or less as you would expect. Down is always perfectly perpendicular to the surfaces of each coin ‘face’, wherever you are, and gravity is always the same strength, no matter how close you are to the edge of the world – even though gravity functions as a point source. There were no unusual climatic effects of being near the edge, either, and there was no real concept of a sustainable ecosystem in place for the recirculation of water. It still had mountain ranges and volcanoes, but these never unbalanced the world. As adventuring environments went, it was dominated by law of cool – a genuine example of a flat ‘earth’ world. And yet the world was thick enough for mining operations, and underground societies.

The first two years of play in my TORG campaign was set in Aysle before the commencement of the Probability Wars. And most of it was dedicated to gradually educating the players in the changes to in-game physics that I had come up with to make sense of all of the above – and their ramifications. Educating them, in other words, in not only why the world made sense, but in the fact that – despite initial appearances – it did make sense. By extrapolation, this set a standard for all the other environments that they encountered while adventuring in the campaign world, which was not so much about the presence of these differing realities but in their interactions. Until you’ve come across the compounding of Nile Empire weird science and the horrors of Orrorsh, you’ve never really scared your players as much as they can be scared!

Sure, the results of my efforts made the game world completely different in rationale – and, through the logical exploitation of the physical principles I created, different in execution and technology in places – but superficially, everything looked pretty much the same as in the Aysle sourcebook. It’s just that it now made sense to a more cynical group of players, requiring less effort to suspend disbelief.

Incomplete worlds

Another ongoing problem with a published game setting is that it is almost certainly incomplete. The PCs will almost inevitably (at some point) intrude into this terra incognita. This forces the GM to decide what’s there – putting back onto his agenda work that he thought that he’d dodged using an established game setting, and leaving him exposed to the problem of the Incomplete World: what does he do when an official sourcebook plugs that particular gap in some way that contradicts his own creation?

This can be more trouble than creating the whole game setting yourself, depending on the importance of the differences, and how incompatible the two solutions are.

Hexagonal pegs in octagonal holes

Finally, there’s the problem of Hexagonal pegs in octagonal holes. No matter how good a game setting is, its largely worthless if it doesn’t permit the type of adventures the GM wants to run.

Choose the right world

Which brings me to my next major topic – choosing the right game setting to play in.

Subgenre

Is the subgenre the right one? Steampunk and high-fantasy are usually unhappy bedfellows. This is usually fairly easy to assess from online promotional materials and reviews.

Flavor

Assuming that subgenre appears to be correct, the next step is to assess the flavor of the campaign setting. This is the primary difference between Ebberon and the Forgotten Realms – while the former has some steampunk elements, these are baggage that can be easily set aside. The more fundamental differences are in the political structure, the nature of magic, and other such issues.

It’s my opinion that the best approach is to choose a published adventure from the campaign setting before committing to the campaign setting itself. Choose one that looks like it will be adaptable to your game purposes if you choose not to invest in that game setting, or that could be run in isolation. It’s also preferable to buy an adventure written by one or more of the primary authors of the game setting. If you find, on reading that adventure, that it’s exactly the sort of adventure that you want to run, that’s a big tick in favor of the game setting being suitable for your purposes; if not, then you’ve saved yourself hundreds of dollars.

Context

Finally, there’s the game setting itself, and how much it appeals to you. How easily can you envisage it in your mind’s eye? I always had trouble with the Nippon Tech world in TORG, for example – I could work with the characters, and the concepts, and the technology, and the politics, but I struggled to find ways of imagining and verbalizing the world itself.

One of the reasons I set my original superhero campaign in the 1950s, its sequel in the 1960s, and the sequel to that (which was the beginning of the main campaign that ran for a decade afterwards) in the 1970s – even thought the real calendar date was the 1980s – was that I found it easier to envisage that world, and I had more historical context and analysis to draw apon. I understood that era better than I did the world around me in the 80s. The current game date in that campaign world is 1987, but most of the campaign takes place in an alternate 2055. In writing the history (which I’ve been expanding in the ongoing series The Imperial History Of Earth Regency here at Campaign Mastery) is that it all went swimmingly until I reached the 1998-2015 era, the “Post Modernist Dark Age”. I could quite happily write in generalities, as I did in part 11 of the series, but specifics took a lot more time to research and write – which is why there’s only been the one part of the series done since. Part 13 is about 1/3 done, and has been for quite some time. (Part of the reason is that the original draft was written in 2003, and there wasn’t a lot of organized, published history available on the era at the time – there is now, but much of it is still in the form of dates and events, without contextual relationships and analysis. So I’ve been updating the original to encompass more of the events which actually occurred; real-world history forms a moving “wave front”, behind which organization is possible, in front of which vagueness is acceptable, and in which there is a middle ground of chaos.

In general, there is only one way to know for certain if the context of a published setting is right for you – and that’s to buy at least one volume of the game setting.

But there’s a hard choice to make: if you’re an early adopter, you are more likely to be caught by the problem of the Incomplete World; if you aren’t, and a lot of other people also hold back, then there might not be enough demand for the parts of the game setting that especially interest you to be published.

In a perfect world, I would advise the purchase of the core setting book and at least one volume that – like the adventure mentioned in the previous section – is potentially useful in a standalone context. For Faerun, “Underdark” or “Magic Of Faerun” leap out as the perfect starting points; for Ebberon, “Five Nations” or the “Explorer’s Handbook” or “Magic of Ebberon” or “City of Stormreach” would fit the bill. But this isn’t a perfect world.

To some extent, you can be guided by reviews – a positive reception generally means a greater likelyhood of more to come – but this is not a universal constant to be relied apon. In the end, you are better off buying the core setting book and making the decision, based on that book, to either buy nothing more – or to buy it all, as opportunity and financial resources permit, and hoping that if it doesn’t live up to expectations that you can recycle whatever you have bought.

Know the world thoroughly

Which brings us to making the game setting useful to you. Frankly, I have never run a game setting exactly as provided by the publisher, so I have only one piece of advice in this respect, and it’s summed up in the title of this section.

Read everything – several times over. Every time you come across rules content, cross-reference with the game system core rules. It might be going too far to buy a copy of the core rules just for use with this game setting and fill them with stick-on bookmarks and tabs that point to material that diverges in this particular game setting – but I know some GMs who do exactly that, at least in terms of the Player’s Handbook / DMG (or the Core Rulebook if we’re talking Pathfinder).

Any time you come across something you don’t understand, or can’t see the implications of, make a note of it on an index card – then, when you find material elsewhere that supplements or explains or clarifies that issue, add that to the note, building up a cross-indexed set of crib notes for “the hard parts” – then study them extensively.

To be honest, this can take as much time – if not more – than coming up with your own campaign setting, if you are any good at doing so; YMMV.

Making it your own

One of the questions that comes up regularly when official game settings are discussed is the degree of customization that is permissible. The more you make the campaign setting your own, the more you diminish both the advantages and the limitations that come with a commercially-available setting. There are an almost-infinite range of variations between the “as published” setting and the “complete rewrite”. I would contend, however, that even an “as published” campaign setting becomes uniquely your own in surprisingly short order – whether you realize it or not.

Divergence through rulesets

For a start, not everyone has the same sourcebooks, or even the same preference in sourcebooks. This is especially true when we’re talking about sourcebooks from third-party publishers – which means that the degree of commonality in 4e is far greater than is the case with 3.x/Pathfinder, simply because there are more third-party game supplements which can be recombined into the ruleset of the campaign setting.

If I incorporate, say, “Path Of Shadow” into a Forgotten Realms while my neighboring GM incorporates “Complete Scoundrel” and his neighbor incorporates both, we will all end up with slightly different treatments of Rogues, Scouts, Assassins, and any other thief-types. That will then have repercussions through game events on the world at large. The more game supplements there are, the more combinations become possible, and the greater the scope for divergence. Throw in the potential for additions from places like RPGNow, and the number becomes something monstrous – two to the power of the number of supplements, by my rough calculations. If there are a hundred game supplements, that’s a 29 digit number. If there are a thousand, which is more likely in the case of 3.x, it’s a 300-digit number. By way of comparison, it is estimated that the number of atoms in the milky-way galaxy is roughly ten to the 65th power, or a 64-digit number. So the number of combinations for each atom is itself a 235-digit number…

These numbers are so big as to be meaningless. Even ignoring the PDF market, and assuming absolutely no creativity on the part of the GM, many campaigns will be as individual as a fingerprint or a genetic code. Of course, some game supplements will be more ubiquitous than others, so there will be certain combinations that occur with greater frequency, so this alone is not enough to completely individualize every campaign. But the more game supplements you have, including the game setting books themselves, the more unique your campaign will inherently be.

If you want to ‘fingerprint’ your own campaign, count the number of game sourcebooks and supplements you have actually used in the course of the campaign, including adventure modules and Net supplements, add the number of PCs that have appeared, multiply by 0.30103, and subtract 1. The result is the number of digits in the answer. If there are 100,000 gamers in the world – a number off the top of my head – any result with more digits than that (6) is likely to be unique (24). To be on the safe side, the population of the world was 10 digits long in 2011, so any answer of 11 or more (40 supplements) can be virtually guaranteed unique. If you want even more certainty, any result of 13 will give a choice of at least 100 possible combinations for every person on the planet – 47 supplements.

Simply by virtue of the different combinations of rulesets, most campaigns are going to be unique to their GM.

I was talking to a GM at a Science Fiction convention, many years ago back in the days of AD&D, and it was his contention that the best way to assess a new game sourcebook was in isolation, using a published setting with which the GM was familiar (and temporary characters), before incorporating it into the “real” campaign. Even three or four weeks’ trial was enough to assess the impact that the new supplement would have, and show the GM any potential danger points in relation to other sourcebooks currently in use within the primary campaign. I can’t say that I’ve ever used this technique directly, but I was reminded of it when we decided to make the ongoing Warcry campaign a testbed for the rules of my superhero campaign.

Extemporizing the unoriginal

Next, unless the GM is simply parroting the words written in the campaign sourcebooks and modules verbatim at every point, he will inevitably put his own unique stamp on the campaign. Even two GMs running the same adventure with exactly the same rules may employ a different means of describing a scene or setting, or give an NPC a different accent, or have an NPC make a different choice at some branch in the road, or simply roll a different result on a die. Some of these differences will be so small they can’t be measured objectively, others may be so significant to the path taken to completion of the adventure that the campaign will forever after be a little different to all others.

One of the significant facts that everyone who uses text or email communication has to face, sooner or later, is that plain text does not convey tone of voice and is hence devoid of a certain level of contextual abstraction. It’s very easy to say something that is intended to be heavy in context, such as in a sarcastic mode, or as a joke, only to be taken literally. This same lesson applies to dialogue in an adventure, where only vague emotional overtones (at best) are provided – this version of the NPC is irritated, that version is friendly, another version is compassionate, still another is curious, and yet one more is arrogant – the words may be the same, but the context added to humanize the characters by the GM, i.e. to roleplay them, makes them different individuals. When the PCs react to these overtones, the campaign diverges, slightly or significantly, from its neighbor.

Try saying the following in six different ways, and imagine how your players would react each time:

• Arrogantly: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
• Regretfully: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
• Near tears: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition…”
• As a question: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition?”
• Conspirationally whispered as though sharing a secret: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
• Conversationally, emphasizing ‘Spanish”: “No-one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

Over time, the accumulation of these small differences will make each campaign different. In one, this noble is a hothead, in another he’s a wimp.

‘It’s the game setting, Jim, but not as we know it’

PC actions – will transform a campaign setting until it’s no longer the same as any other. Just by being different people, your players cannot help but alter the game world, whether the setting is a published one or an original. Simply watch a couple of sessions of a Convention module – same GM, same characters, same situations, but different players – and see how different the outcomes are and how differently the paths taken to even similar outcomes, and this fact will become incontrovertible.

Monkeying with ‘perfection’

Original material – whether it’s adventures or house rules or metaphysical explanations or simply the knowledge possessed by one GM and not another – will have an even bigger and more dramatic impact. Repeating the Convention experiment with two different GMs will show this quite clearly, or reading almost any issue of Knights Of The Dinner Table. Much of the humor in that comic series derives from the players having their characters act outrageously, and experiencing equally-outrageous consequences as a result, in comparison to what would be expected at a “normal” game setting.

The surest and fastest way to individualize a campaign setting is to add something original to it, to change it in some way.

Some players enjoy this, because it means that two different GMs can run the same module and it will be different both times. To others, this is monkeying with ‘perfection’ and not to be tolerated. Ian Gray is that way about spells, classes, and feats – anything that is aimed at the players, in fact. He has no problem with GMs creating original magic items, or crafting original spells, or original monsters, or new game mechanics – but hands off the published player material.

Babies & bathwater

Every time you add something, you are almost certainly removing something, even if what is removed is simply the absence of whatever you have added. GMs should always be careful not to throw the Baby out with the Bathwater. There is often a good reason for the absence of something, whether that’s a rules subsystem or a particular encounter in an adventure.

There are, for example, a great many ways of adding to the combat system of any RPG. Anything from combat modifiers based on the potency of specific weapons against specific armor types through to critical hits and fumbles through to wounds and combat conditions. An injudicious “enhancement” to the combat system can destroy what little efficiency it has, slowing combat to a crawl. There are also various ways of streamlining combat by removing and simplifying rules, and it might be that if you really want your hit location system, you have to deliberately simplify some other aspect of game play to make room for it.

There is an analogous situation for a campaign setting. You can change the political structure of a city, or populate a region with your new Killer Orcs, or whatever – but if you aren’t careful, the flavor that led to the choice of this particular campaign setting in the first place can be lost.

The compromises

There are several ways to have your cake and eat it, too, when it comes to established game settings. I’m going to mention the five most common of them (some of which get pretty exotic, I warn you).

Across the pond

The simplest one is to emplace an established game setting within an original game environment, separated by some natural barrier. The PCs can adventure in the established setting, and at the same time make excursions into the unknown and original, just by crossing that natural barrier. It might be a mountain range, it might be an ocean – the details don’t matter. What is significant is that you have sandboxed your original content out of the primary campaign setting, so it can be junked or obliterated without completely obliterating the campaign.

This is an especially good technique for inexperienced GMs, because they can simply run adventures in the established setting until the next phase of ‘construction’ of the original content is complete, cross the pond, and explore the renovations and extensions – then go back while the GM takes as long as he needs to for the next part. One of my original dungeons had one area being “renovated and repopulated” by “Industrial Stone And Magic” – it was a large open area with stacks of raw materials, a number of caged beasties, and encounters for the unwary with uncaring automata that looked like bulldozers, forklifts, and so on. If the PCs proceeded too deeply without investigating fully those parts of the dungeon that had been completed, they might find themselves in a demolition zone or in an area being renovated. They got no experience for killing anything on those levels – but they took damage from them as usual. They soon learned that the yellow-and-black striped barricades meant “go elsewhere and come back later.” This solution to the question of using an established setting over a home-grown one applies a similar logic – in a more realistic and less tongue-in-cheek manner.

A long time ago…

Another solution is to take the established setting and retread it into it’s historical past. This gives you a starting point for your creative expression, while employing many of the strengths of the established setting. A key decision to be made with this approach is whether the established setting is the fore-destined outcome or just one possible future – the first means that the adventures will be about the PCs trying to make sure that events work out the way it says they did “in the book”, while the other employs the history simply as a background.

A divergent tomorrow

Another approach is to take the established game setting and add a century or more of original ‘future’ to it. This mitigates the problem of the players having read it all, because what they have read is a (possibly inaccurate or incomplete) foundation that relates only tangentially to what they are encountering. This often permits you to use the maps for the campaign setting virtually unchanged, which can be a desirable outcome. Of course, it’s a divergent future because that isolates the campaign from any incompatible changes resulting from the Incomplete Worlds problem. All you need to do is take whatever gets published subsequently and figure out how your game world got from the “A” provided to the “B” experienced.

Holes in space

Somewhat more exotic in flavor is the “holes in space” approach, in which the primary action takes place in the established setting, with one addition: periodically, on a semi-regular (perhaps even predictable) schedule, portals open to somewhere else. Miss the portal opening, and – like early Adam Strange adventures – you might have to make your way half-way round the world to catch the next one. Sometimes these holes in space can lead to another established setting, sometimes to a home-brewed environment. The great advantage to this approach is that all things become possible; you can adapt a Star Wars adventure this week and an Oriental Adventures module the week after. The imperative of the time pressure adds to the element of drama and tension, as does the fact that once through the portals the PCs have only what they have taken with them, what they can find, and what they can take. Limiting the portal size and duration of opening restricts what can be carried back, as well. “We only have four hours to clear the last level of the dungeon and get out – no time to wait for the cleric to recover his healing spells or the Wizard his fireballs!”

Still better is an additional consequence of the limited duration on the other side, which limits the amount of construction and assembly needed by the GM to manageable proportions, no matter how limited his prep time might be, and which prevents the players from digging too deeply behind the curtain, further limiting the amount of detailed work provided. I’ve only seen this approach used once, which is perhaps the biggest surprise of them all, since the benefits are so obvious.

The multiphasic world

The final solution to throw out there for GMs to consider is the multiphasic world. Every time I’ve seen this, it’s been linked to the phases of the moon or to the seasons. The notion is that world is sometimes an established setting, sometimes a homebrew setting, and sometimes something else – it changes in some cyclic way. Even the topology can twist and transform, though there may be a geographic or geological similarities between where you were and where you are. So if you’re on a lake, you will still be on a body of water. If you’re in a dungeon, you’re still in a dungeon – though this one’s upper levels won’t have been cleared, and you may be deeper or higher than you expect. If you’re in a town or city, you will still be in an urban environment of some sort – but it might be an elvish city or a Halfling hamlet.

Who benefits the most?

So, who benefits the most from using an established campaign setting?

Beginners

There are obvious advantages for new GMs, as it gives them time to master the basics of their craft before they move on to creating game settings of their own. Some never want to take that step, preferring to focus on other aspects of being a GM. Nothing wrong with that.

The time-squeezed

Another group to obviously benefit are those without the time to grow their own settings. Using an established setting is as much work as you let it be, most of the time.

Drag-and-drop game elements

Finally, there’s everyone else! We can all use the occasional assist from time to time, and the place you’re most likely to find whatever you need is something that’s already trying to be complete – and that’s an established campaign setting.

I started this article by extolling the virtues of the established setting, in general. Those virtues set a standard, one that everyone who doesn’t use an established setting tries to live up to with our own designs. If for nothing else, this purpose alone makes them invaluable!

Introduction: The Online World

The internet changes everything it touches. New production models, new distribution models, even new funding models. It blurs the line between professional and hobbyist by enabling the hobbyist to produce work of a professional standard – simply by replacing the infrastructure that an old-style game manufacturer needed to have with technological substitutes.

Some of these impacts, it must be said, are not strictly due to the internet per se but are the result of advances in the personal computer, one of the technologies that makes a wide-scale internet possible. I’m not interested in splitting hairs and in the wrap-up to the first part of this article I lumped it all in together.

To summarize where we’re at, here’s a quick look at the breakdown of key production costs and how the modern world affects them:

• Writing – slight increase in efficiency, but overall relatively unchanged.
• Art – budget for a major project is unchanged (but produces a higher art-to-page ratio). Assuming that you use clip art or digital artists that really take advantage of the technology available, art budget can be slashed dramatically for smaller products, even reduced to zero for tiny ones.
• Editing, Revision, and Layout – massive increases in efficiency. Assassins Amulet took months to write and weeks to edit. Some savings are offset by learning curves and new format requirements, and there can also be a large up-front investment in software – that can be spread over multiple products. Overall, editing is 10-25% of the production cost that it used to be. But these efficiencies affect both dead-tree and PDF products.
• Printing & Binding – non-existent in an electronic product. Can be as much as the first three categories put together in the case of a dead-tree product. Quality of paper and binding makes a big difference, and this is a per-page cost, so the more art and white space, the more it costs. Print-on-demand adds to the editing/layout budget but eliminates this factor.
• Distribution – very cheap for electronic products, still very expensive for dead-tree. Distance is not a factor in the first case, is a major factor in the second.
• Marketing – often cut too deeply in budgeting. Can be as much as the printing costs for a major dead-tree product – for a while. Electronic Marketing is possible but is usually under-budgeted and overvalued. A lot of small e-projects allocate virtually no budget for marketing.
• Management – the smaller the other costs, the smaller the project, the smaller this component is as a percentage of the total. Otherwise the same for both product types.
• Administration – mostly this is a project-based overhead. Unaffected by the publishing format.
• Taxes – the bigger the budget, the more likely this is to be a major factor. Can be 40-50% of the cost of a major dead-tree product – if it sells enough. Less likely to be a factor with PDF production, and may well be a smaller one, because electronic products can be one-man self-employed projects that fall into the category of personal taxes. Expect to spend money on professional advice at the start and spread the cost over multiple projects.
• Legal – as per taxes. Mostly a per-project overhead.
• General Overheads – time based, size-based. The bigger the project, the more this rises as a percentage of the whole. However, if you produce a LOT of products, this can be spread over them all – forcing an organization to grow.
• Profit margin – can be a little, a lot, or simply whatever is left over. In general, the more of a product you expect to sell, the smaller the per-unit profit margin can and should be.
• Commissions – Every time a dead-tree product changes hands from producer to customer, expect the price to inflate by 30-50%. That’s reality. Every time an electronic product changes hands between producer and customer, expect the price to inflate by 10-17%. And expect there to be few such handovers.
• Remainders – between 10% and 15% of the production costs of a dead-tree product – if you produce 5-10 per year. The fewer you produce, the more variability. A totally non-existent double-whammy for electronic products. Print-on-demand offers the best of both worlds – for the price of an extra commissions factor. So WOTC will probably never use print-on-demand but smaller game companies might.

The scores (estimated, and using writing as a unit cost of 1):

• PDFs etc: Small: 1.9888; Medium: 3.4465; Large 5.7065. Adding Print-on-demand: Add 0.565,1, 1.75 respectively.
• Print-on-demand: 4.52; Medium 8.03; Large 12.265
• Dead Tree: Small: 19.205; Medium 30.682; 45.862.

In compiling these estimates, I’ve tried to factor in the amount and quality of the art used and other typical factors. If you’re producing an atypical product, or have thought of something I haven’t, Your Mileage May Vary.

Profitability Impact

This is largely a function of sales. Because they have bigger distribution and more markets (bookstores etc) in which to sell, Dead-tree products can be 100x as profitable as a PDF of the same size. They will have a larger profit margin, and will reasonably expect to sell more copies. But the risks are also 100x as large, and the need to sell product month-in, month-out, is also 100x as large. Some of the costs and risks can be minimized with cheaper production – less art, less color, poorer binding, cheaper paper – at the expense of an unknown degree of loss of sales.

PDFs, on the other hand, have much smaller risks, are much faster to produce (typically days or weeks instead of months, months instead of half-years) and a far greater percentage of the money goes straight back into the producer’s pockets.

The sales targets for success are relatively proportionate to the square of these numbers. A dead-tree product with a net unit cost of 45.862 needs to sell 8×8=64 times as many copies as the equivalent PDF (costing 5.7065) to be considered as successful. (In fact, it’s probably higher, but that’s a fair baseline). Selling 1000 copies of such a PDF is roughly the equivalent of selling 64000 copies of a hard-covered dead-tree book. Selling 100 copies of a medium-sized PDF product, like a 10- or 20-page module or supplement, is the equivalent of selling 8000 copies of the same module or supplement as a dead-tree product. At the end of the day, after expenses, the creative staff get about the same money, either way.

Most people recognize these ratios – approximately – almost instinctively. And that impacts directly on value-for-money considerations, and buying decisions, when it comes to PDFs.

The Value-for-money of PDFs

In general, different standards are applied to PDFs as are applied to dead-tree products when it comes to assessments of value-for-money. There is room for a huge debate about whether or not it should be that way – and I can argue both sides of that question to a standstill – but that’s neither here nor there.

These standards differ, to some extent, based on size, and price. What’s more, the standards are also different if the product has to be printed in order to be useful. I don’t care how pretty a map tile is on the screen, what I’ll assess value-for-money on is the standard of the printed end-product.

So this is where it starts getting complicated. To cut through the fog, I’m going to look at each size of PDF separately – and subsection those as necessary.

The Amateur Press origins

The PDF industry can, if we’re honest, be traced back to an Amateur Press origin. All these GMs with their homebrew house rules sitting at a typewriter or an early word processor, waiting for their dot-matrix printers to spit out their latest stroke of genius.

If you were arrogant enough, or sure enough that what you were writing would be of value or interest to others, you might work up the nerve to submit your work of genius to Dragon magazine, or The Space Gamer, or Pyramid.

For most people, though, the distribution would have been either strictly local, around your own game table. The next step up from that was to publish a self-funded fanzine, either irregularly or regularly – the 1970s/80s equivalent of a blog. In the 70s, you would probably have used a stencil and run off 30, or 50, or 100 copies at your own expense. These would have been given away free, or (at most) you would charge costs-per-issue. The thought of making a profit from them was pie-in-the-sky.

Some enterprising people got together and realized that if they took copies of each of their fanzines and bundled them together, stapling them into one big volume, they could make their own work more desirable – value for money was a compound effect. These were generally known as APAs, or Amateur Press Associations. In Australia, the biggest RPG APA was Alarums & Excursions, and it collected about 40 amateur fanzines on the subject, of between two and ten pages each. Most of these were produced with stencils and typewriters. Some were even hand-written, though that was relatively rare.

In the later 80s and early 90s, the more technologically inclined may have taken their original plain-text documents from their primitive word processors and uploaded them to a bulletin board so that other computer users all over the world could download these 1-2K documents and see how brilliant you were (or weren’t). Current E-zines like Roleplaying Tips are the heirs to that legacy, their modern-day incarnation.

The desktop-publishing boom of the later 90s didn’t seem to have a huge direct impact on RPG materials, for some reason – at least not in Australia. I suspect the problem was the limited distribution mechanisms available. It may have been different elsewhere, but the primary impact appears to have been secondary – developing the tools that eventually became WYSIWIG word processing and the Portable Document Format or PDF.

Then came the world-wide-web and it all moved online. Suddenly, distribution was global, and the search engine was your friend. The documents themselves were still mostly plaintext, because embedding fonts was a huge pain in the posterior (I know, I looked into doing so). The only way to produce a high-quality PDF with embedded fonts, etc, was an A$1000 piece of software from Adobe. But you could take that plain text, and use some standard high-quality fonts, and turn it into a web page.

The problem was that web pages were ephemeral. They came and went with great regularity. A few sprung up that did nothing but archive material by others, leaving a legacy of their contributions behind when the original website vanished into the mists of the internet. Often hosted at universities, these persisted as long as the student responsible studied there – then these started to vanish as well. (There are a few left, often without a web front page, accessible through FTP, but they are becoming few and far between).

Drive-through RPG and RPGNow and a few similar sites took these amateur productions and monetized them. To start with, some were still plaintext documents, but the PDF was becoming more accessible as a format – and with it, enhancements in quality. Nevertheless, when it comes to tiny PDFs, the quality standard by which products are judged are those of a cleaned-up fanzine or a single blog article.

At the same time, PDF scans of larger dead-tree products began to circulate illegally. In time, some dead-tree game companies started to release and distribute electronic versions of their products, a trend that is continuing, even accelerating. So the larger a PDF is, in page count, the more likely it is to have the same production standards as a high-end dead-tree publication. And, in between, there is the middle ground.

That is the context within which the profitability, and perceptions of value-for-money, have to be assessed when we’re talking about PDFs.

Tiny PDFs

Anything under 10 pages I consider to be a tiny PDF. Most are half that size or less. These will typically cost $1-2 each. There may be a single piece of artwork, or there may be none – but that art won’t generally be of a very high quality. The standards applied are strictly about content functionality. Because the price is so low, I’ll often take a flier on something that sounds interesting.

These are often publications that the creator would have produced anyway. All GMs are creative, of necessity, and that creativity usually spills over. About half the price covers expenses of production, and the other half is total profit for the creator.

The typical post here at Campaign Mastery averages 2-5000 words in length. That’s the same size as these products. And I knock out two of them a week.

2 per week x 50 weeks a year x $1 each = $100 – selling one copy of each. If the minimum wage is about $500 per week, x52 = $26000 per annum – and that’s roughly right for Australia – you need to sell 260 copies of each to make the minimum wage.

Not going to happen.

Selling between 10 and 100 copies of each, with the average about 1/3 of the way through that range – call it 40 copies in a year – gets you to $4000 a year. That’s a part-time wage supplement, but don’t give away your day job.

Because the value-for-money standards are about perceived functionality of content and nothing more, it doesn’t take very high perceived value to make the purchase worthwhile to the customer – as I said, I will often take a chance on something that sounds interesting. And if it turns out that the product isn’t useful, I’m only out a dollar or two – no big deal.

Two Caveats
I said that sales of 260+ copies, on average, weren’t going to happen – I have to add a couple of caveats to that statement.

Caveat The First
The first caveat is Marketing. Most of these tiny PDFs receive little-to-no promotion. If you can invest some money in marketing a series of them, it might just be possible to double or quadruple sales – getting you close to that minimum wage. If 1-2% of these products is a smash hit that sells 500-1000 copies, and you produce 100 a year, that’s 1-2 bull’s-eyes. Marketing could double the number of bull’s-eyes, or more.

If you could get 10 products a year out of 100 to sell 1000 copies each, that’s an average of (9×40+1000)/10 = 136 copies, average. You need those 10 products a year to sell 2500 copies each to achieve an average of 286. That puts you well over the top of the minimum wage – so long as you keep writing.

Caveat The Second
The second caveat is accumulation – of both product and reputation. Accumulation of reputation over a period of years increases the number of sales of any product. Ian Gray and I are so taken by the various Mongoose products that we’ve bought over the years that we will buy any we come across, sight unseen. I feel almost the same way about FFG’s Legends & Lairs series.

Accumulation of Product is all about the accumulation of residual sales. Let’s say that after the first year, sales of any product drop to a steady 5% of what they were when the product was new. That’s 8 per product per year thereafter, or 800 a year. Since all the costs have been paid for in the initial flurry, except for the ongoing distribution cost, that means that of every $2 transaction, $1.76 is income. So that 800 sales a year is the same as 1408 sales in the year of release. The shortfall – discounting improbable hit products of unpredictable sales – from simply releasing new product is about $22000. And $22000 divided by 1408 is 15.625 years.

Now throw in the occasional big seller, and the effects of a growing reputation, and it should be possible to go from zero to earning a minimum wage in a decade – provided you can keep churning out two products a week for year after year.

Medium PDFs

Quadrupling the size of the PDFs brings you into the medium-sized territory. That’s between 10 and 40 pages, and usually closer to the higher end of this scale – 25-35 pages. These will typically cost about $5 to $7 – which means $2 to $3 in the pocket of the creator. These will usually have some cover art – some of it great and some of it poor, though they may not.

Tiny PDFs of maps and art also fall into this category, and this price range, because it usually takes longer to create a piece of reasonable-quality art than it does to write enough words to fill the same space.

You don’t have to be a genius at math to realize that on the face of it, this size of PDF is less profitable than smaller ones would be. You’re making $2-3 on something that takes about 4 times as long to create.

What’s more, the standards of production and content expected are considerably higher. So it could conceivably take five or six times as long to create.

Why on earth would you do it?

In a word: profit.

At this size, you have to sell a lot less product to get to that minimum-wage goal. Two of these a month selling 40 copies is the same as six-to-eight small PDFs selling 40 copies. At this page-count, print-on-demand starts to become viable, adding a relatively cheap extra sales platform to your arsenal. Sales on this size of product are easier to ramp up than sales on a long series of tiny PDFs because you don’t saturate the market as much – making people less inclined to tune out your advertising. If people find your product interesting, they are more likely to buy in the expectation of some depth to the subject matter – so average sales will probably be higher, anyway, maybe 60 copies a month instead of 40. You are no more likely to have a runaway success than before, that’s still 1-2% – but the scale of what you get with a runaway success can be several thousand copies, perhaps as many as 5000. And finally, those residual sales? Not only would you expect those to be higher, but after the first year, profits on them are MUCH higher.

Regular visitors to DriveThruRPG and RPGNow will have noticed their “copper sellers” and so on – how many have stopped to mentally observe the page counts? It’s rare to find anything smaller than 20-30 pages being a really good seller.

In the long run, it becomes possible to do this for a minimum wage at this scale (though just barely) – whereas with the tiny PDFs, it really is impractical. It will still take years, though. More likely, you would be able to do this part-time and supplement your income with another part-time job.

In order to achieve this, though, you are giving up a hefty percentage of the casual purchaser – maybe half, maybe more or less. And, as I said earlier, the standards of quality are expected to be a lot higher. It’s a trade-off that takes you from amateur to the fringes of the professional ranks.

Ironically, this is the size at which value-for-money is least important as a consideration. It’s cheap enough to get the occasional purchase on a whim, and cheap enough also that the potential for value is more important than the actual value at the end of the day. If you buy one and it’s not useful, you won’t be all that happy about it – but you won’t be overly distressed, either.

Big PDFs

Quadrupling the scales gives us the 50-160 page range, and now we’re into serious head-to-head comparisons between dead-tree products and PDFs. If the typical price of the dead-tree product is about $80, the ratios of production costs show that the price of a PDF equivalent should be around the $10 mark – but because we tend to equate something that size with a price that low as a bargain, anything up to $20 tends to be an acceptable price tag.

If you can write two or three of these a year, you can do fairly well out of it. Once again, it’s easier to use marketing to ramp up sales, and the scale of success for the occasional hit is even higher – up to perhaps 7500-to-10000 copies – and the residual sales are even juicier. More importantly, and the reason for that $20 price tag, it gives you room to employ discounting as a serious incentive in promotion and marketing. If the product costs you $10, plus $3 on the marketing, to earn you $5 at the end of each sale, you can drop 25% off (to $15) in a sale and still make not only that $5 but a couple of extra $ on the top.

Here’s the reality: If you see a product in this page size priced at around $7-8, it is below cost – or the costs have already been paid for by a dead-tree edition. If you see a product priced around the $10-12 mark, it’s at cost. And if you see one priced at $15-$20, the author is trying to make a living out of his writing – and more power to him.

Eating into all this profitability is the perception of value-for-money. At $20 for a PDF, and a page-count somewhere in the 80-100 page range, I’m not only not going to consider the product if it is not interesting, I’m going to assess the quality of the content, and how likely it is to be useful. I’m happy to invest that sort of money in something I can use time and time again; but each percentage of uncertainty about that reusability erodes at the likelyhood of converting interest into an actual sale.

Eye candy is very pretty, and can be genuinely inspiring – but at this price scale, perceived value in the content is going to come roaring back into consideration in a very big way. There is a delicate balance to be maintained – too little eye-candy makes the production look cheap and raises questions about how much the darned thing is costing (i.e. it undermines the perceived value for money), while too much looks like padding out the content (again undermining the perceived value for money).

This is also a scale at which a relatively small change in price – a couple of dollars – can nuance those value-for-money expectations. If the product is art-light but only costs $15, the page count promises a higher return in value for the investment. So the solution to the problem of too-little art is to drop the price a little (while staying within the overall profitability window).

I buy PDFs of this size about as often as I do a physical product of this size. The standards of perceived value for money are comparable, despite the 4-1 or more ratio of prices. The profitability of the product to the producer is often roughly comparable, as well.

The big return is in residual sales. While your initial sales will be depressed to some extent, they will be slower to tail off, and will remain higher than they would have with a smaller product, even allowing for substantial discounting – dropping the price to $8-12 after the first six months to a year, for example. Remember that after 12 months or so, that’s all income and it will persist for years.

Very Big PDFs

Once you go above the 160-pages or so, you’re into the terrain of the Very Big PDF. I’ve seen these priced at anywhere from $25 to $125. Page-count alone can remove print-on-demand from consideration unless you deliberately subdivide your PDF into a bundled product.

But here’s the thing: To buy one of these, even at the $25 price, I have to be darned convinced that I’m going to get something worthwhile out of it. I’ll check multiple reviews. I’ll expect a free sample – and that sample had better include something that’s usable outright, and not just a set of incomplete samples that might be useful if they were complete.

If I’m releasing one of these onto the market, I’d want to be darned sure that I had my marketing plan lined up and ready to go. Day 1, this happens. Day 2, I do this. Day 3, I do that. And so on, all the way through to about day 100. If I’m going to be spruiking its value on websites and blogs, I’m going to want the list of targets spelled out and in clickable form.

At 300 pages, this is the size category into which Assassin’s Amulet falls, and I’ll be talking specifically about it in a little while. At $20, it seems like a very fair price – a bargain, in fact – and that was the perception that we wanted it to have.

Check out the free sample from RPGNow if you’re interested in knowing more about Assassin’s Amulet).

Per-unit costs vs Amortized costs

The larger a product is in page count, regardless of publishing format, the goal is always to try and spread the costs out over as many copies as possible. Some costs can’t be minimized this way, they are a fixed $X per copy or per page. Some costs such as production overheads can be amortized over several copies. The real difference between dead-tree and electronic publishing is that the costs of the latter are smaller, with a greater percentage of them going to creators – but the dollar value at the end of the day is much the same in terms of income to the producers.

If you were to compare the value for money of a physical book – say, the DMG, or Pathfinder core rules – with the value-for-money perception of a copy of the same product in electronic form costing the same price, you might expect them to be the same. Some game companies do, and it’s a colossal mistake to make. The correct comparison for anything other than teeny-tiny PDFs is about 4-1 in price.

The customers aren’t dumb; they know that electronic publishing is a LOT cheaper, even if potentially a lot less profitable when sales are added up at the end of the day – simply because the market for PDFs is smaller than that for physical rulebooks (though its growing, and this won’t always be the case). Any attempt to charge the same price for a PDF as you do for a physical product simply makes the company seem greedy or stupid (to give them the benefit of the doubt), and therefore makes both versions seem overpriced – even if the actual perceived value-for-money of the physical product was reasonably good.

Print On Demand

I’ve mentioned print on demand a number of times in this article, and the reason is because I think it’s a game-changer. It offers an increasingly-viable means of generating a physical product for a price approaching that of an electronic one, plus postage and handling.

That’s because the product IS essentially an electronic one until it reaches the final step in the production process, which has been moved to AFTER the point of sale.

It used to be that print-on-demand had page limits, and was only about soft cover publishing. Those limitations have largely been erased over the last few months. I have seen POD services offering hard covers, and POD services offering products well over the old 100-page-or-so limit. I haven’t seen both from the same vendor, yet, but the market is moving fast.

Perceived Value vs. Actual Value

It’s probably worthwhile to discuss the differences between perceived value and actual value for a bit.

Actual value is a function of how much utility you get out of a product – how often you use it, how indispensible it is when you do, and so on. But there are no fixed standards that you can point and use to measure this. Instead, the standard is also a perceptual phenomenon.

You buy three or five or ten game products, and the average of their perceived actual value becomes the standard that you use to measure the potential value of future purchases.

Right away, there is a double standard and an element of fuzziness. The core books from any game system are, by definition, supposed to be at the heart of the system, the common touchstones, ubiquitous – and that gives them a fundamentally higher perceived actual value. Then there are world settings like Ebberon or the Forgotten Realms or Faerun – are these core books or game supplements? By which standards do you judge them?

Then there is the question of player vs. gm – sourcebooks that one finds irreplaceable might be worthless to the other. Throw in personal tastes, and customers looking for sourcebooks to shore up areas in which they might be weak, and it becomes apparent that my standards of actual value will be different to yours, which will be different to the next player or gm over. The best any reviewer of a product can say is that “I found this sourcebook to be useful/useless and here is why” – permitting the reader of the review to form his own opinion, according to his own standards, of whether or not the product represents value for money.

On top of that question comes the issue of the difference between actual value and perceived value as a basis for decision making. The first is a standard – now shown to be very loose and fuzzy – of actual usage, while the latter is about preconceptions and anticipation.

Everyone who buys anything regularly – whether it be toilet paper, music, or RPG products – has bought something that looked promising but turned out to be worthless, or at the very least, extremely poor value for money. Equally, we have all bought something cheap or heavily discounted because it didn’t look all that promising, only to discover a hidden gem.

So, what can be done drive up the Perceived Value of an RPG product? And does this translate to an increase in Actual Value?

Production costs

The bedrock foundation is the actual production cost of the product. This is the minimum price that a game company can charge for the product and break even. In a heavily-remaindered physical item, it can be a negative value, or close to it, because it’s costing the company warehouse space, earning them nothing, and the price of production has already been written off as a loss – so that anything you can get for it is a windfall. When this is the case, you would sell it at a pittance, or give it away, or simply have it destroyed.

A comparison of the retail price demanded with the typical price of a product indexes the expectations of this particular product against the personal value-for-money standards that you have developed.

The role of utility

A product can sound good, and even look good, but it’s worthless unless you actually use it. I don’t care what the actual page count is, if I’m only using 20 pages of a game product then so far as I am concerned it’s value is that of a 20-page sourcebook – depreciated because of all the dead weight that the rest of the book represents.

This is where the differences of perception between different GMs, and the differences of perception between player and GM have their foundation. And it reveals one of the cleverest, and most subtle, marketing tricks used by Paizo to make Pathfinder the success that it is today.

The Core Rulebook, as Greg pointed out in the comments to part 1 of this article, contains the equivalents of both the Player’s Handbook and GM’s guide in the one volume. This not only drives up the page count, it reduces the value of the overall book to both players and GM by incorporating a substantial chunk of material that is only of value to one of them – lowering expectations of value-for-money for subsequent game supplements. In other words, it makes the Core Rulebook appear to be more of a bargain while simultaneously lowering expectations – a very difficult trick to pull off at the best of times.

Vanity Upgrades

Ian Gray uses the special anniversary PHB that was brought out with the fancy pseudo-leather cover when he’s in one of my 3.x campaigns. He claims that he bought it because it incorporated all the errata up to the date of publication – but there was an ordinary edition at the same time that was just as up-to-date, and the errata had been pretty much all cleaned up in the previous printing, anyway.

Vanity upgrades have been used for years to market products. CD and DVD booklets are prime examples. They don’t add anything to the utility, but they do make the product prettier – at a price. Because you can actually see the extra price manifest in a physical difference to the product, you are predisposed to value the content more highly.

Immediate vs. Delayed utility

Of course, there are two different types of utility. There’s stuff that you can use immediately, and there’s stuff that will eventually be worthwhile but that can’t be used right away.

Market research has shown that immediate utility is typically valued over delayed utility, even if the ultimate value of the two is comparable. The reason relates to the psychology of need.

Advertising exists to generate a perceived need in the mind of the potential customer, and to then suggest the product being advertised as a solution to that need. It’s all about immediate gratification. The difference between immediate and delayed utility is analogous to the difference between a cheaper, disposable, product and a longer-lasting equivalent – unless the longer-lasting version can successfully be positioned as solving a broader immediate problem, the cheaper disposable product will outsell the more expensive one every time.

It’s to reinvent the “need” that razor-blade manufacturers keep changing the design of their products – so that they will no longer fit in the old handles, and we have to buy new ones.

The 95 cent phenomenon

Psychologically, there seems to be a big difference between $9.95 and $10. There is a smaller but still real perceptual difference between $9.99 and $10. In fact, it doesn’t matter much what the $ amounts concerned actually are – the .95 or .99 are the important part.

This scales, as well. That’s why car sellers price their cars at $32999 and the like. Would Assassin’s Amulet have sold better if we had priced it at $19.95 than it did at $20? I don’t know, I really don’t.

The Psychology of Price

I’ve touched on this already, but the fact is that price itself has its own direct impact on perceived value.

It’s human, but if we pay a high price for something, we need it to have a high value to justify that expense in our own minds. So the theory holds – but I have to admit I’m not completely sold on this one.

The inverse situation, on the other hand, is easy to demonstrate, as the following cautionary tale will demonstrate – even if it is a slight diversion from the topic at hand.

The Ausworld story

In 1999 and 2000, I was part of an ambitious attempt by a company called Ausworld Pty Ltd. This is the story of that project.

The goal was to provide Broadband internet access through dial-up modems, guaranteeing a maximum connection every time.

For the benefit of a modern audience, used to lightning-fast broadband on tap, a little context: the theoretical maximum connection of a 56K dialup broadband connection – the best going at the time – was actually 48Kb (that’s 48,000 bits a second, each bit being an eighth of a byte. A 1KB text file has 8000 bits. A 32KB graphic has 256,000 bits. A 500K hi-res graphic has 4,000,000 bits.) If you didn’t have a state-of-the-art modem, one that was less than 6 months old, the theoretical maximum was 33.6Kb!

But, in practice, you would rarely achieve this. A 56K modem might get you a 32K connection, if you were lucky – but more often would give 28K, or 24K, or even 16K if you were unlucky.

At 16KB usable, that 500Kb image would take 250 seconds to download to your computer screen – a bit more than 4 minutes!

Compare that to the 100Mb connection I now use, which could grab that same image in 0.004 seconds, at least in theory. In practice, overheads and route switching and slow connections elsewhere in the system mean that it’s probably closer to 4 seconds. I can live with that : )

The goal, then, was to use a state-of-the-art router to connect a hundred or so dial-up accounts directly to one of the two T1 underwater cables which between them (at the time) provided all internet connection to Australia (aside from some minor satellite connections). By adding more routers, we could divide that internet backbone connection amongst half a million customers and guarantee all of them a perfect, 48Kb, connection, every time.

What’s more, because we were using state-of-the-art technology, straight out of the laboratories of companies like Ericsson, the cost was going to be incredibly cheap to run (though it wasn’t cheap to set up in the first place – the router cost more half a million on its own).

From Bookkeeping to Network Engineering

I was originally brought on-board to design and implement the bookkeeping systems that would track usage of the bandwidth, print invoices, receipt payments from customers, and so on. But one of the people employed by the project failed to deliver the programming and configuration information needed to make the system operational – being careful to avoid naming names, you’ll notice – and the primary systems engineer and I had to step up to the plate.

We had expected the infrastructure and software to take 3-6 months to complete; because neither of us was an expert on what we were doing, and had to grope our way along, it ended up being 18. There was no operating manual for the router – we were writing it as we went! This delay ate into the budget for the project, which would have a critical impact on its ultimate outcome.

Sidebar: IPv6 vs. IPv4

This project was also the first implementation in Australia of IPv6, which is only now gaining momentum for a wider implementation. That shows how far ahead of its time the systems were that we were developing.

IPv4 and IPv6 are internet protocols. They describe how information is to be requested over the internet, broken up, and sent from the source back to the requesting computer.

The internet as we know it now is built on IPv4, which has a number of shortcomings. It was first designed back in 1980, and simply wasn’t designed for all the things we have very cleverly manipulated the internet into doing in the 32 years since. As a result, many of the things that we do – from streaming video to encrypting secure websites for e-commerce – are far less efficient than they could be (the wonder is that they work at all).

IPv6 solves these problems. It also has security benefits, solves (for at least the time being) the problem of the internet running out of IP addresses, and has a whole host of other advantages. The Wikipedia page listed above has a whole section devoted to comparing the two.

The Ausworld Price Comparison

At the time, a typical dial-up account cost about $30 a month. While some accounts were unlimited in the amount of traffic you could use at that price, others limited your bandwidth after a certain amount. There were on- and off-peak rates. Australia’s biggest internet provider had a number of plans – their “Power Plan”, for “Power Users” cost $39.95 a month for 40 hours of connection. Many charged a premium if you exceeded certain bandwidth limits.

Compare that with what Ausworld was charging – it’s significant. With a 900% profit margin, the highest we could justify charging, our charges were 1 cent a minute or 20 cents a megabyte, whichever was lower.

A dollar an hour is 100 cents for 60 minutes. We were charging 60 cents for the same connection time. Typically, in a month, a power user might download 25 or 30 Megabytes. Taking the higher number, you get about $6.00 under our pricing plans. So, for high-level usage, we were offering $40 worth of internet usage for about $6 – and it was costing us about $0.60 in costs to provide.

(In actuality, because of the setup expenses, it was going to cost us about $3, most of which was going to be used to pay off the technology – it was an overhead that was being distributed).

At those prices, we calculated that we needed only 100 customers to break even, each month. Anything over that was all gravy.

The price of delay

As I said, the delays ate into our budget, leaving virtually nothing for proper marketing. We didn’t really consider this a handicap when we finally had everything working, though; at our prices, we were sure that our services pretty much sold themselves, certainly enough to get that initial 100 customers. We printed up about 20,000 cardboard bookmarks and started handing them out at railway stations.

How many customers did we get? One, and that through a personal connection.

Feedback on the ground

The common perception we encountered was that our prices were so low, there had to be a hidden catch. A half-reasonable marketing campaign would have addressed the problem. We could have tripled our prices and then slowly dropped them as customers over the resulting 34 minimum came on board.

But, by the time we found out, it was too late. Our budget was depleted, bills needed to be paid, and the operation folded. One more month would have made the difference. An extra $5,000 for a serious marketing campaign would solved the perception issue. We could have offered a money-back guarantee.

No Price exists in a vacuum

There is a saying, “when it’s time to railroad, everybody railroads.” The corollary is that when it’s not time to railroad, you’ll have a hard time getting anybody on board one of those “damn fool dangerous contraptions”.

Ausworld was offering modern broadband prices and technology before the man in the street was ready to accept them. It’s that simple, when you get to the bottom of it.

Lessons for RPG Pricing

There is a lesson here for Game manufacturers. “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is” – so says conventional wisdom, and (most of the time) it’s good advice. The reality for game makers is that they have to charge a credible sum for their products, or they will have an uphill battle convincing people to buy their wares.

The Profitability Curve

If you lose sales for having prices too high, and you lose sales for having prices too low, then you have a curve of some kind, with an optimum pricing point, or even a couple of different optimum points.

Looking at that a slightly different way gives the following very interesting trio of curves:

Of course, various factors like the 95 cent phenomenon would distort these pretty curves. What’s even more interesting is what happens when you think about the impact of increased perceived value for money on them.

• Sales for a given price go up.
• Profit per sale for a given price goes up.
• Net Profit goes up by more than either of these increases alone, because these two increases compound geometrically.

The Value of Extras

The most obvious way of increasing the perceived value for money is to include extras. That’s hard to do with print products, though it can be done with shrink-wrapping and splashy stickers proclaiming the extra on the cover. It’s easy to do with electronic products that can be bundled into a zip, or with some method of distributing them to people who sign up for free updates to the product – which gives you a ready-made subscriber list for marketing future products to.

The last is the approach we used with Assassin’s Amulet.

The Scope of Assassin’s Amulet

The thought process behind what became the eventual shape of Assassin’s Amulet was to make sure that everyone got value for money, whether they were a player or a GM.

We also wanted to be sure that there was some content of immediate value as well as some content that would provide residual, long-term profits.

We wanted to avoid, as much as possible, content that would provide only one-time value, and to focus on reusable value. Even the map around which the entire sourcebook was oriented was capable of reuse, with multiple variations provided for each part of the map key – and advice on how to apply these variations in a consistent manner. I estimated that you could reuse the map about 100 times before all the possible variations that we had provided would be reused.

We deliberately targeted all varieties of campaign level, with content that was useful at low levels, content that was useful at mid-levels, and content that was useful at high levels – and we even had some content that was designed to span the entire length of a campaign.

Any idea that any of the three authors had for content was thrown into it, on the assumption that half of whatever we provided would be dead space to someone. It’s no coincidence that the sourcebook is priced appropriately for a volume of half the size – we were deliberately going for the “value for money” sales incentive.

At every step of the production, the goal was to set a standard that approached our theoretical ideals and then strive to achieve that standard. That includes the production of extras. Where traditional presentation methods wouldn’t meet our ideals, we tried to invent new ones, and it was in the extras that this really showed up. Even the number of extras was exceptional:

1. A 300dpi full-sized version of the map (spanning multiple sheets of paper);
2. A 600dpi full-sized version of the map (spanning multiple sheets of paper);
3. A 300dpi full-sized version of the map that obscured internal details from players;
4. A PDF containing the map sliced to fit A4 pages instead of letter-sized pages (18 pages);
5. A PDF, “A Player’s Guide to Legacy Items” (17 pages)
6. A PDF, “The expanded GMs companion guide to Legacy Items”, which was annotated with additional advice and behind-the-scenes info (26 pages)
7. A PDF Player’s version of “The Shield Of Madrassias”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (15 pages);
8. A PDF Player’s version of “The Mask Of Seriphides”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (20 pages);
9. A PDF Player’s version of “The Crown Of Thorns”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (16 pages);
10. A PDF Player’s version of “The Spiked Gauntlet Of B’rrastis”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (18 pages);
11. A PDF Player’s version of “The Cup Of Dewarr”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (17 pages);
12. A PDF Player’s version of “The Armor Of Atrisses”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (17 pages);
13. A PDF Player’s version of “The Lantern Of Tevariers”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (21 pages);
14. A PDF Player’s version of “The Shortsword Of The Shahd’rah”, one of the Legacy Items from the sourcebook (20 pages);

Plus, of course, the free sample version.

Nor was the intention to stop there. We had another 8 items planned that ultimately had to be shelved when Johnn began to wind down his involvement here; I had to choose between compromising Campaign Mastery, giving up on the sequel to Assassin’s Amulet, or giving up on the other freebies – at least for now.

The hard realities

It’s time to start bottom-lining this article. I have a whole list of points to make but I’m going to try and get through them as quickly as possible.

promo vs production

The hard reality is that people budget for production and don’t leave enough space in the budget for adequate promotion.

damned if you do, damned if you don’t #1 – Art

I worked damned hard producing the art for AA. There’s a lot more in there than was originally intended – simply to keep the art levels consistent throughout the book, because it looked unbalanced with only some chapters having extensive art. For about three weeks, I was producing three pieces of art a day – and was totally exhausted at the end of it, in fact it took more than two months to recover from it.

The hard reality is that if you don’t include art, your product can look cheap; and if you do include art, you have to either produce it yourself or pay someone else to do it, which can cost so much that your profits get completely wiped out. And if you do it yourself, as I did, there will be quality control issues; there’s some art in AA that I’m very proud of, and some that I worked very hard on and that still doesn’t look right. All I can say is that I did the best work I could in the time available.

The big mistake we made was committing ourselves to a publication date before the editing, layout, and art was finalized. Once we announced the forthcoming release here at CM, we had only so much material to expend in blog posts and articles at Roleplaying tips to generate buzz – and if we faltered, the buzz would die down.

damned if you do, damned if you don’t #2 – Freebies & Samplers

These take time to produce. And I’m the first to admit that we probably went overboard when it came to AA – but we were looking to provide a reason for people to keep talking about the product.

The problem is that this is dead time – unless it directly enhances the sales of the main product, its time spent creating for no return. You can minimize the negative impact by planning and creating these as you go, but most people aren’t that organized. And even when you are, it consumes time that could be spent on creating something else that earns money.

The more your product costs, or exceeds expectations, or is unusual in some way, the more you need these – but they are always a drain on your creative time and energy. So if you think a free sample is good, and especially if it persuades you to buy the full product, tell somebody. Tell the publisher. Tell the author. Tell someone else who might want to take a look. Let people know that the freebie has done its job – or they might stop including them.

Its All Compromise

With so many competing considerations, compromise is inevitable. With Assassin’s Amulet, we compromised as little as possible and while it didn’t fail, it wasn’t the roaring success we were aiming for. With Ausworld, there was no compromise at all, and it DID fail at the final hurdle. Certainly, the next game product I release will be compromised in various respects as a result of the AA experience and learning what is practical and what is not.

The Impact Of Kickstarter

Offering some sort of salvation from these problems is the phenomenon of Crowdfunding, through sites such as Kickstarter. The ability to raise the funds that you need to see a project through is a breakthrough. It offers a new purpose to freebies that has an immediate return to the creators. They can immediately see what’s popular and what’s not. I know Kickstarter say they are working to correct that limitation – but progress has been slow.

The only complaint I have about Kickstarter is that you have to from the US to use it. There are other crowdfunding sites, but none have quite the cache of and reputation of Kickstarter and are going to struggle that little bit more to achieve the same ends.

Feedback is gold

Finally, I want to reiterate a point I started to make a few paragraphs ago: feedback is like gold to a games publisher. If you don’t tell them what you like and what you don’t, they will either assume that nothing’s wrong unless sales are abysmal – in which case they can change all the things that were working and miss the real problem.

On top of that, there’s the fact that writing of any sort – whether it be a game product or a blog like this one – is hard work, and a very lonely pursuit at times. Sometimes you can wonder if anyone’s really listening, especially when no-one comments except the spambots. We all have days when we feel like tossing it in; without the occasional piece of encouragement, there is always the risk that someone will yield to that feeling. So if there’s a game product you really like, tell the creators!

So there it is – a comprehensive review of why game products cost what they do, why they might not be as successful as they could or should be, the role of perceived value for money in the purchasing decision – and why no game product will ever be exactly what you might want it to be.

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. My players will be examining this one carefully for any additional nuggets of additional information that I include because this particular group are tied up in their current in-game situation. They think they know who’s responsible and have a working theory – are they right or wrong? Only time will tell – but they might get some additional hints from the content below…

Metagame Origins & Status

When I was creating the Kingdoms for the Shards Of Divinity campaign, I wanted to ensure that each Kingdom had a rival or counter-balancing influence. If things are more-or-less stable, politically, the environment permits the PCs to be the instruments of change within the campaign, inadvertently (or quite deliberately) promoting or provoking one faction over another.

I was also careful in delineating the origins of the Kingdoms, because again they had emerged from a stable political situation – a group of city-states in an isolated valley now remembered as Paradise. Each of these city-states was to be the origin of a Kingdom or other significant population within the Shared Kingdoms after a thousand years of Post-paradise Human History.

Finally, I wanted to seed the political scene with opportunities for roleplay and adventure. Each of the Kingdoms should present a different flavor and different set of circumstances from which an adventure can be derived.

Some of the members of the Shared Kingdoms better fulfill one or two of these criteria, but in the Causa Domasura, I think I hit the nail squarely on the head in all three departments. Based very directly on the civilization of the Ancient Greeks – with lots of other sources thrown in as seasoning – the results are a group that is always trying something new, that has a distinctly different attitude to most things. They might miss a lot – and that knocks their world-view askew – but if anyone’s going to breed a new bunch of bug-eyed monsters, this is them. Science and Reasoning without conscience, guided by the personal philosophy of each individual researcher – there’s no scope for adventure in that, surely? (Says the GM with a far-too-innocent smirk)…

I drew on a number of divergent resources in creating the Causa Domasura. Everything from the mad scientists of uncounted B-grade Horror and SF Movies of the 50s and 60s, to the West Wing, and historically, early American society (post- War Of Independence). There are also a few ideas from David Eddings’ Mallorean trilogy, from some of the Alien societies in Babylon 5, and the occasional sneaking subtext from the Unseen University of Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld. Like any good writer, I’ll steal ideas from anywhere I find them, file off the serial numbers, and claim them as my own – after throwing them together in new and interesting combinations. : )

In-Game Origins

One of the city-states of Paradise valued learning above all else. They dismissed the priests and the Gods as misunderstood natural phenomena, and built a city-state on the premise of scholarship and philosophy. They claim that it was the city-state of their forebears whose experiments invented steel weapons, but their history (written many years after the fact, and with the cataclysm in between) claim that they employed it purely defensively, and that it was the jealousy and ambition of another city-state that led to the theft of the technology and its use in an attempt to conquer Paradise. They also claim to have invented Magic independently (while conceding that the Elves helped with some of the more difficult implications of the theory).

A society of experimenters

It’s important to note the points of distinction between the Causa Domasura and Bher Yuralvus (which was the focus of the previous article in this series). Bher Yuralvus are scholars and record-keepers. They believe implicitly that if it is in writing, it contains at least a grain of truth, and when two sources conflict, learned debate is the way to resolve the dispute – identifying that grain of truth, identifying the misunderstandings that have led to a misinterpretation, and writing concordances and references to document these resolutions. The principles apon which the Causa Domasura operate are entirely different, and can be summed up:

• Develop a theory;
• Experiment to test that theory;
• Learn something new from the test;
• Use that something new to develop a new theory.

Some of their experiments and theories have yielded valuable innovations. While it is not recorded, the concept of the Shared Kingdoms as a working political relationship is almost certainly something that the Causa Domasura came up with, back when they (and everything else) was part of the Galliamic Empire. Their own internal structure is a hodge-podge of contradictory theories, a mish-mash of elements from this political theory and that, but somehow it seems to work reasonably well – at least as well as the government of any of the other Kingdoms. But if you don’t like the current form of government, just wait a generation and they’ll be trying something new.

That being said, the Causa Domasura is quite happy to employ the collected data from Bher Yuralvus, and Bher Yuralvus is happy to add the published books and writings of the Causa Domasura to their collection. The two exist in a practical symbiosis, and often align the same way in political debates. A key tactical consideration for other Kingdoms is how to separate the two on a policy issue should one of them oppose a measure and the other be more receptive.

Internal Structure

It’s impossible to consider the internal structure of the Causa Domasura without first considering the philosophical foundations apon which the entire “Kingdom” has been erected. This philosophy values intellectual capability over learning, learning over skill, skill over experience, experience over service, and service over everything else.

While the forms of governmental structures within the “Kingdom” change from time to time, this philosophy is the common uniting thread that ties them all together.

The current yield of governmental structure that has resulted is a combination of a unique Caste System and Republican Meritocracy dominated by Mages, with Democratic underpinnings.

The Caste System

The Caste system employed by the Causa Domasura permits lateral movement under direction of superiors and vertical movement by achievement. It thereby recognizes that the majority of citizens don’t have the ability to move beyond the social status inherited from their forebears while acknowledging that talent, and genius, can flower anywhere.

• At the lowermost rung are the Slaves, whose capacities for self-governance are so limited that they need someone to make the decisions for them, care for them, shelter them, and ensure that they are fed. In return for giving up any real independence, they are wrapped in cotton wool and cared for like children.
• The 2nd tier contains the military, police forces, slave masters, and other purely service-oriented occupations.
• The lower levels of the third tier overlaps the upper levels of the second, containing bureaucrats, civil servants, merchants, and so on. These are service occupations that require some capacity for judgment.
• The fourth tier contains the lower elite – any form of expert, teachers, and apprentices.
• The fifth tier is reserved for the true elite – administrators, researchers, mages who have completed their apprenticeship, and implementers of government policy.
• Finally, the Sixth tier is occupied by the Senate, who set government policy, and the Head of state, the Legatus.

The Republican Meritocracy – in theory

Individuals who are willing to serve in the various governmental positions are assessed to derive an order of merit based on intellect, achievement, and scholarship.

Positions are ranked in terms of difficulty and authority and filled from the top down with the most suitable eligible candidate.

Positions, willingness to serve, and suitability are all reassessed every 5 years. Should an individual die in office, the most recent order of merit is used to determine their successor.

Hereditary rank in the Republic has been completely eliminated, at least in theory. Service is rewarded both directly in remuneration, indirectly in services provided at government expense, and in the accumulation of tax credits against future taxation.

The flaws in the political model

In practice, this model of government has three major problems: (1) the examinations must be set and marked by people who are qualified to do so, but anyone who is that qualified should be a candidate; (2) the cost of the periodic examinations and reviews is substantial, and mandates an extremely high taxation rate; and (3) those with means (after the high taxation) can always afford the best education and preparation.

The combination of these problems and the tax credits system has produced an unofficial caste system which only superficially resembles the official system. While, in theory, it is possible for a plumber to become the head of state, in practice he never has a chance. The peerage consists of those with the opportunity to become peers.

Nevertheless, it is possible for a citizen to petition the administrator of whatever social fraction he is part of for a transfer into another social fraction, and to be tested for suitability (at his own expense); and it is also possible to rise through the ranks on merit. A plumber might not be able to go all the way to the top in one generation, but a plumber’s family can rise to dominance over multiple generations.

The Practical Solutions

The problem of suitable testing materials is partially solved by having all those already serving in official positions contribute one question each year to the official examinations. These are then sealed until the death of the serving individual, at which point they join a pool of questions for testing suitability for a position of that rank. A small number of these questions is then chosen at random for the assessment. That means that a question can be hundreds of years out of date (which might favor historians but no-one else) or might be reasonably contemporary or timeless. While imperfect, this seems satisfactory to those in charge, and is a reasonably functional compromise.

The Popular Vote

The administrators of the Causa Domusora recognize that their testing methodologies are not going to be universally accurate, and hence for the most important positions, the uppermost group of eligible candidates are then subjected to a popular vote for election to the governing body, The Senate. It is the senate’s role, led by the Legatus, to administer the Republic as a whole and to appoint other positions according to the order of merit. The republic does not support the concept of 1 man 1 vote, instead awarding individuals a number of votes based apon their (official) tier within the caste. It also restricts the franchise for all sorts of reasons.

Most of those reasons ultimately boil down to indicators of civil responsibility or a lack thereof. Unpaid debts, criminal behavior, holding unpopular philosophies or beliefs, a violation of the philosophic underpinnings of the society, or causing unauthorized trouble between the Causa Domasura and another of the Shared Kingdoms, are all valid reasons for the restriction or removal of the right to vote on the membership of the senate, or the identity of the Legatus.

There are also various mechanisms by which additional votes may be earned, such as years of public service (differentiated by rank), experience in other industries or capacities, (to a lesser extent), a particularly valuable expertise such as spellcraft, or even crass wealth.

Even slaves have the right to vote (assuming they pass all the civil responsibility criteria) – though it takes six of their votes to equal just one vote from a member of the existing Senate – before additional votes possessed are taken into account. Taking such additional votes into account, a past Senator’s opinion may be worth that of 200 or more slaves. Slaves cannot cede the right to vote on their behalf to their overseers; instead, a specialist department within the Bureaucracy who lobbies the Senate for Slave Welfare exercises any votes not actually cast by the Slave himself. It is also worth noting that each decade of service, even as a slave, earns additional votes.

The Political Consequences

While individually, the slaves may have little political power, collectively, the slave lobby can make or break a candidate on most occasions. As a result, political candidates work hard at keeping that lobby on-side.

One of the regular sources of debate and contention is the desire of various factions to elevate their own status within the caste system by achieving recognition of their expertise, and one of the keys to doing so is the development of specialized skillsets amongst the slaves that are employed within the industry. This effectively transfers the voting power of those slaves out of the hands of the Bureau of Slave Welfare and into the control of that faction while elevating the value of those votes, thereby creating a self-sustaining faction within the government that must be catered to. The support of the Bureau in any such endeavor is essential, and can only be obtained if they can be convinced that this is not only in the best interests of the slaves in question, but also in the interests of the Causa Domasura in general.

However, no candidate can champion an improvement in the condition of the slaves at the expense of the welfare of the rest of society without risking a united front against them, something the slave lobby cannot overcome. A delicate balance must be maintained if a candidate is to be successful. The final year of any election cycle is therefore a time of celebration and general wooing of votes, similar to that of the US prior to the rise of mass communications and railroads.

Slave Welfare

Life as a slave in the Causa Domasura would be completely unrecognizable by anyone who was subjected to that condition in our history. Their enfranchisement, even in a limited capacity, and the resulting power of their collective votes, has ensured that slaves are VERY well cared-for. They are pampered and cared for, and have – over the years – won many rights and privileges. Hours of labor are restricted, mistreatment is forbidden, they receive the finest of medical care, and even earn modest wages for their labor – which they are free to spend on luxuries. The burden of serious decisions and the daily struggle to survive has been taken from their shoulders, and all they have to do is their share of whatever task needs doing. Nor are these tasks overly arduous – slaves have been known to faint dead away at the mention of “hard work”, and then lodge a complaint with the Bureau.

The general solution is to pile more bodies onto whatever task needs doing, employing the maxim that many hands make light work, ensuring that the slave population – and the political power that it confers – remains high. At the same time, the Bureau of Slave Welfare is cognizant of the potential economic consequences of expanding this segment of the population – and the expense in maintenance that it carries – and strives to maintain a balance between slave numbers and conditions that optimizes the best interests of the slave population in the long term.

The existence of the Bureau of Slave Welfare, an administrative body with professional expertise in analyzing the impact on the slaves of any policy proposal, ensures that any attempt to appeal to the slaves directly during an election cycle is received with suspicion – but is essential to any policy that is unpopular with the Bureau. Analysis of a candidate’s lobbying of slaves directly is considered a barometer of their unstated intentions in other, more controversial, policy areas. However, there are always enough candidates for the Senate and the position of Legatus that there will be some – and this is considered essential to restraining the authority of the Bureau to within reasonable boundaries. Should the Bureau’s staff ever stop adequately and fairly representing the interests of the slaves, it will be relatively easy for a candidate to convince the slaves of this, winning their direct support (it’s happened a time or two).

Aged Care

Another faction that does very well out of the political system in the Causa Domasura are the elderly. Between the additional votes for years of service, accumulated wealth, and experience and expertise, they command significant power. This is usually dispersed behind multiple candidates, but occasionally an issue will unite a significant number of them. Self-interest ensures that the issues which most frequently unite them are those relating to aged care.

One of the characteristics of the elderly in general is a natural conservatism, and the awareness that most problems will solve themselves eventually. While some radical theory that becomes the flavor of the day may garner significant support in a single election cycle, enough conservative candidates will be elected that the policy’s implementation will be naturally limited and will be thrown out if it doesn’t work.

This is another major element of the system of checks and balances that act to stabilize the Causa Domasura, constraining their willingness to experiment by imposing practical limits to their experiments in government.

Youth Activism

If there is any faction that is marginalized in the Causa Domasura, it’s not the slaves but the young. Prone to headlong rushes into change for its own sake, filled with an excess of zeal and an impatience for change, they are the progressive, radical, and rowdy element of the political scene. Substituting rhetoric and volume for reasoned consideration, they rarely make a direct impact on the policies of the government, but frequently have a substantial indirect impact.

It is quite frequent for prospective members of the Senate to gather a small group of relatively young activists with whom they don’t disagree too profoundly, and who show some glimmer of promise, who they use to generate ideas. A radical agenda, once confined with a proper set of controls, a degree of practicality, and a means of monitoring outcomes, become progressive policies. In return, the youth become trained in the realities of practical politics, gradually becoming fit to pursue their own political careers.

Subterfuge, Intrigue, and Corruption

It should be obvious that one of the major dangers of this system of government is the political candidate who promises one thing while intending to do quite another. Safeguarding against such subterfuge is one of the priorities of the legislation that empowers the Senate and the Legature. Unless a real and pressing need for change is agreed by a three-quarters majority of the senate, the Legate is not permitted to enact any legislation not specifically put forward as a policy position during his candidature. Moreover, while the Legature receives a mandate for carrying out the changes and policies announced during his candidature for office, the Senate defines the scope of that mandate.

Both sides are fully aware that abusing these powers will normally result in a censure at the next election. Proposed changes to the scope and weighting of the franchise are the most contestable policy positions, preventing any attempts at self-perpetuation of a particular group. Furthermore, the Senate consists of those who came closest to winning the position of Legature without actually winning, and has no power to enact change on its own behalf – in other words, the current Legature’s political rivals and enemies.

Achievement of policy reform must be achieved by decree of the Legature – subject to the confirmation that it is within the scope of the Legature’s Mandate by the Senate – or with the support of three-quarters of the Senate. The inevitable result is a hotbed of political intrigue in which favors and support are exchanged constantly in return for support on other policy matters. Coalitions come and go without warning and without notice. This trend is accentuated even more by the banning of any form of overt political party structure or coalitions during elections. All elections are of individuals, and the scale of the majorities required to exceed a mandate is such that anyone attempting to form or permit such overt political alliances will not succeed, and will not be re-elected five years hence.

Bribery is a capital offence. There is a specialist branch of the Bureau of Laws which investigates any suspicion of bribery and who are required and empowered to arrest anyone if the charges can be proven to within a reasonable standard. Such criminal cases are always adjudicated by the next most highly-ranked official or member of the Senate – someone who will directly benefit from a guilty verdict, provided that they can convince the public at the next election of the rightness of their actions – but only after that official or Senator has been vetted by the Bureau of Laws to verify their own innocence in this respect. Arrest by the Bureau of Laws generally results in a pro-forma verdict of guilty.

However, the Lagature and the Senate are both empowered to investigate and prosecute any charges of corruption or abuse of authority by the Bureau of Laws. They all know that if the Bureau exceeds its authority, they might well be next on the chopping block – so they are both vigorous and zealous in this duty. Once again, any reasonable charge levied is followed by an almost pro-forma verdict of guilt – and, once again, the public are the final arbiters when it comes to abuse of this authority.

The same pattern persists throughout the government – a body with certain powers and authority, an enemy or rival charged with the monitoring of that rival, and the ultimate authority vested in those who are only permitted to enact the will of the people.

The Economics

This approach is also used to control economic management. The government taxes Labor Time (which includes time spent in thought and education, and the labor of slaves) and raw materials (which include the ownership of slaves). All government services, including service as a Senator or Legature, are paid from these taxes. The Senate sets pay rates and tax rates as necessary.

Should the Senate abuse this power, by voting themselves a big pay rise, they will be driving future votes toward a policy of tax reform. Should the government have insufficient funds to provide essential services, they will be driving votes toward candidates who promise a redistribution of funds.

Furthermore, service within the Senate is considered part-time, and remunerated accordingly; Senators are expected to operate their own sources of income but are barred from the most lucrative positions within government service (which have been filled by their less-popular and less-successful rivals). You can have power, or you can be well-paid for government service, but not both.

In practice, this results in political swings as candidates alternately stand for office with adequate funding and live off their savings while in office until they no longer have sufficient funds to be reelected – relegating them to a position with relatively little power but sufficient income to replenish those savings in 5-10 years – if they work hard and save their money.

Political fundraising of any sort is defined as “Soliciting Bribery” – punished by and in the same way as actually accepting a bribe or bribing someone. The only thing that is not forbidden is the provision of services to the public. A lobbyist seeking to curry favor cannot give money directly to the Senator he is courting, but can shore up his popularity amongst that senator’s supporters by providing them additional services or gifts. This is perceived as doing what he was elected to do, i.e. enhancing the lives of the people who elected him. Note that it is not permitted for restrictions on who may use such facilities on any political basis, though caste restrictions can apply.

The consequence is that such “lobbying” is always overt and obvious, and subject to public scrutiny – by both those who voted for a Senator and by those who voted for a rival. Once again, abuse of authority is subject to the approval of the public.

Nobles & Nobility within the Causa Domasura

The Causa Domusora have abandoned the concept of hereditary peerage. The head of state is given the title Legatus. Beneath him or her is the Senate, comprising Senators both male and female. The Senate appoints other positions within the civil hierarchy for a fixed term (currently and traditionally 5 years, though there is a growing movement toward six-year terms). There are currently 62 Senators.

The most senior positions appointed by the Senate are the Praefectus (Prefects) (the term is both singular and plural) who administer a city and the surrounding region. The Praefectus has a wide latitude of civil authority, able to dictate additional taxes (above the general standard set by the Senate), make local additions to the criminal code, instigate public works beyond the mandated minimums decreed by the senate, call tenders for contracts, and so on. Keeping the Praefectus in check to some extent is the requirement that he reside in the region for 5 years after being recalled from office (unless the Senate promotes him).

A second check apon excesses by the local Praefectus is the local Tribune, who serves as a magistrate and dispenses judgment according to the merits of the case and local laws. If he finds a law to be excessive, he can make it moot simply by sentencing offenders to a lesser verdict, or vice versa. He is also entitled to bring excesses to the attention of the Electum.

The Electum is a central body whose members are appointed by the Senate to investigate and (if necessary) prosecute, judge, and punish Praefects who are unsatisfactory in performing their duties. There are currently 24 Members of the Electum.

Beneath the Electum are a number of Bureaus, each of which is controlled by a Septras, and who has a deputy Sestras to assist him, both of whom are appointed by the Senate to control one Caste or Sub-caste. These are effectively Guilds with externally-appointed heads. They have the authority to set costs and pay scales within their Bureaus, both of labor and materials (which include slaves). These also have the responsibility for testing and administering internal rank within a caste or sub-caste, of setting approved standards of workmanship and behavior, and so on. There are 34 Septras at this time.

Monitoring and reviewing the decisions and actions of the Sestras and their civil servant subordinates are the Factras, another central body whose members are appointed by the senate. What the Electum are to the Praefectus, the Factras are to the Sestras – investigators, prosecutors, judges, and juries. There are currently 12 Factras. The Senate, in turn, oversees the activities fo the Electum and Factras, and is able to investigate, prosecute, and punish corruption or misbehavior within the ranks of their overseers.

Beneath all of these and assisting them are a number of civil service positions whose power and authority derive from the master they are appointed to serve. All such positions are assigned based on the order of merit last derived. These civil servants perform the bulk of the actual work of administrating the Republic, and are known collectively as the Civilis Vernula, and individually are given the title Vernulas.

Equivalent Titles

The Legatus is considered to be the equivalent of a King, Senators are Dukes & Duchesses, Tribunes, The Electum, Septras and the Factras are all considered Counts, and a Vernulas is considered to have a rank equivalent to that of a Knight. Since the other kingdoms are uncomfortable with the notion that these come and go with such regularity for a given individual, they often continue to treat a former ‘Noble’ of the Republic at his highest previously-achieved rank, and prefix their previous title with ‘Priori’ (former) to such individuals.

Geography

Geographically, the centre of power of the Causa Domasura lies to the Northeast of the Capitas Duodiem, beyond the Therasus Amora (Centre Of Attraction). It is bounded on to the north and west by natural features: Lihume Lapillos (Stony River) to the west, which flows through the valley of Bher Yuralvus from the Montis Nixcumulum (Snowcapped Mountains) which form the Northern boundary. East of Capitas Duodiem, the Via Negotarentur (Trade Road) forms the southern border where the Causa Domasura abuts the northern edge of the Ineodolus Imperascora (Traders & Commerce Empire).

Like the “Kingdom” itself, the Via Negotarentur (pronounced “Neg-Oh-Sha-Rent-Ur”) gradually peters out to the east, becoming little more than a track before vanishing completely into the Levitasvirga Abyssora (The Thunderhell). That region of rolling hills and unpleasant weather forms the southernmost part of the eastern boundary of the Causa Domasura. As one proceeds north, one runs into the marshy swamps of the Gramen Dromubyas (Grassland Marshes); these are quite impassable, and must be circumnavigated either west through the eastern regions of the Causa Domasura or east through the Thunderhell. Eventually, the Gramen Dromubyas gives way and the Thunderhell reunites with the eastern “border” of the Causa Domasura, slowly giving way to the more mountainous region of the Procerus Terrora (The Giantlands). These quickly become more mountainous until they merge with the Montis Nixcumulum, the northern border.

The northern regions of the Causa Domasura are heavily forested; the central, western and southern regions are fertile farmlands, becoming less so as one proceeds east. The Thunderhell is grassland; no trees or brushland can grow in that inhospitable domain save in small huddled clumps scattered here and there. Many small rivers flow north to southeast through the Kingdom, the most easterly of which emerge from the Giantlands, skirt the northern Thunderhell to the west, and then turn east to drain into the Grassland Marshes (which, ultimately, are little more than a flatter, somewhat depressed, region of the Thunderhell). It is believed that the Marshes, in turn, drain into one or more rivers that flow south through the Thunderhell past the Montis Levitasvirgo (Thunder Mountains) that lie beyond the Thunderhell, joined by many more creeks and streams from that font of unpleasantry, before emptying somewhere into the Undus Verdestus (Green Ocean) – but no-one can say for certain, the region remains unexplored.

From A PC Perspective

The Causa Domasura is the place to find an expert on just about anything contemporary or arcane, and the most skilled artisans except in certain specialist fields. If you need a spell cast, this is the place to come.

Remember not to try and bribe anyone and not to offer tips for service. Both are capitol offenses!

Carry plenty of cash, things are quite expensive – and being caught short gives one the choice of hunger or slavery.

Oh, and never be surprised at what might come crawling out from the East or North…

From A GMs Perspective

The Causa Domasura is a fun place for GMs. Almost anything can be justified as an “experiment gone awry”, you have Orcs and Goblins and Gnolls and Giants living in the Thunderhell and Giantlands, and the Marshes are a breeding ground for strange critters at the best of times. Add the potentials for more traditional plotlines involving magic itself and the political intrigues of the Republic and you have ample opportunities for adventure.

When writing up the players briefings, I tried to entice them in that direction by mentioning the practice of slavery without describing what that actually means in the Causa Domasura. They didn’t take the bait; other GMs using the ‘Kingdom’ in isolation may have better luck. Keep the possibility in mind.

Ambitions & Political Relations

The Causa Domasura continually plots to force Bher Yuralvus into their republic. The two are frequent political allies, and (as described above) have an ongoing symbiotic relationship, but it still irks the rulers of a Republic which reveres Knowledge and Expertise that the greatest collected source of knowledge stubbornly insists on its independence.

The other great ambition is to destabilize the Verus Fidesora (People Of True Faith). Religion and Progressive Science have never sat well together; the Verus Fidesora believe that the Causa Domasura lack morality and should be subordinate to them, the Causa Domasura believe the Verus Fidesora to be blinded by dogma and bent on the ideological conquest of the entire Shared Kingdoms – to which the Clerics respond, “Ideological Conversion, not Conquest!”

The Study Of Languages

One of the most controversial theories to emerge from the Causa Domasura concerns the relationships between languages. This theory holds that certain languages are related to each other, sharing vocabulary, syntax, and written forms in common. By measuring the degree of similarity between languages, the historical influence of one culture apon another can be determined. Put these together like a jigsaw and the lost history of the world can be recreated.

That’s the theory…

The Language Relationships Table: The Common Languages

There are 26 spoken languages in Shards Of Divinity, divided into four groups: Common, Unusual, Rare, and Obscure. As mentioned in the previous part of this series, if a character has more ranks in a language than its relatedness relative to the language he is trying to speak, he gains a +1 synergy bonus on his attempts to use the language.

For example, an elf would have Elvish (aka Elven) as his native language. If he was trying to speak Dwarven, he would get +1 if he had 8 ranks in his native language – or if he had 4 ranks in Draconian, Giant, or Terran, or 6 ranks in Trade Tongue or Abyssal or… well, the list goes on. He can qualify for multiple +1 bonuses if he meets multiple targets but only one per row on the chart – so he might get +1 for 4 ranks in Giant, +1 for 6 ranks in Trade Tongue, and +1 for 8 ranks in Elvish.

Twenty-six languages won’t fit all in one reasonable-length table, even though that’s how they were presented in the original house rules. So in this part of the series, I’m going to look at the Common Languages. Note that this table mentions languages that are currently not known to exist in the campaign world.

Following the table are descriptions of the languages and how to simulate them. Where they are appropriate for PCs, I’ve included discussion on the naming of characters – which is the point of the whole series!

Common Languages	Relatedness
	Ranks	Related Languages
Kingdom	2 ranks	Trade Tongue
	4 ranks	Old Kingdom, Pious, Gypsy, Halfling
	6 ranks	City-State, Celestial, Sylvan, Dwarven, Druidic, Gnome
	8 ranks	Original, Elvish, Aquan, Draconic, Terran, Giant, Orc
	10 ranks	Abyssal, Draconian, Infernal, Tribal
	12 ranks	Undercommon, Goblin, Ignan
	14 ranks	Gnoll
Elvish	2 ranks	Draconic
	4 ranks	Druidic, Undercommon, Sylvan, Aquan
	6 ranks	Draconian, Gypsy, Old Kingdom, Celestial, Orc, Original
	8 ranks	Halfling, Abyssal, Dwarven, City-State, Gnome, Giant, Terran
	10 ranks	Trade Tongue, Kingdom, Infernal, Tribal, Goblin, Ignan, Pious
	12 ranks	Gnoll
Dwarven	4 ranks	Draconian, Giant, Terran
	6 ranks	Trade Tongue, Abyssal, Draconic, Infernal, Undercommon, Ignan
	8 ranks	Gnome, Tribal, Orc, Gypsy, Old Kingdom, Celestial, Elvish
	10 ranks	Kingdom, Sylvan, Goblin, City-State, Original, Gnoll
	12 ranks	Halfling, Druidic, Pious, Aquan
Pious¹ Notes: ¹Language is: Common for Human Clerics and Priests, Rare for other humans, Obscure for non-humans.	2 ranks	City-State, Celestial
	4 ranks	Original, Draconic
	6 ranks	Kingdom, Gypsy, Abyssal, Infernal
	8 ranks	Trade Tongue, Sylvan, Orc, Old Kingdom, Elvish, Draconian
	10 ranks	Druidic, Terran, Gnoll, Halfling, Undercommon, Dwarven
	12 ranks	Aquan, Ignan, Goblin, Tribal, Gnome
	14 ranks	Giant
Trade Tongue	2 ranks	Old Kingdom, Gypsy
	4 ranks	City-state, Kingdom, Sylvan, Dwarven
	6 ranks	Original, Elvish, Druidic
	8 ranks	Halfling, Aquan, Draconic, Draconian, Terran, Tribal, Gnome, Pious, Giant
	10 ranks	Undercommon, Orc, Goblin
	12 ranks	Gnoll, Abyssal, Celestial, Ignan
	14 ranks	Infernal

Language Descriptions & Notes: The Common Languages

The following language descriptions frequently mention rendering text using particular fonts that I have in my collection. Some of these may have unrestricted licenses, some may be free only for non-commercial use, and a few may even have come with collections or software that is only available to paying customers. In the seventh section on Languages,, I’ll include a brief sample of text rendered into each language and displayed using the relevant font. For now, all that really needs to be noted is that I have chosen fonts that ‘look right’ for the language as I envisaged it for this campaign.

Similarly, a number of modified modern languages have been used as a shortcut for simulating the various fantasy tongues. The goal was not to create a genuine language, not even to be consistent, but simply to create an appropriately non-English “sound” with the right sort of accents and noises. I hope no speaker of any named language takes offense – or undue compliment – from the use of their native tongue. Such usage says nothing about the language itself, and even less about the people who actually use it; at most it is a commentary on the sounds and flow of syllables that result to English-speaking ears.

Some of the languages fall into multiple categories. While it might be redundant, each language description is included in all relevant categories.

Kingdom:

Also known as common. Despite the name, this is not the usual Lingua Franca used for cross-cultural communications. Written Form: uses Roman characters.

Elvish:

Also known as Elven. Has three dialects, the skill conveys capacity in all three. Quenya is conversational Elvish, and the written form used by elves to pen quick notes. Sindarin is formal language, used for addressing Nobility, making official reports, diplomacy, etc. Naldori is a language used only for singing and for religious services. To the untrained ear, these are identical languages, differing more in manner and tone than in pronunciation. Sindarin is respectful, while Naldori is lilting and almost soporific.

Elvish Names:

• The elvish alphabet contains no equivalent letters to ‘c’, ‘ch’, ‘g’, ‘p’, ‘q’, ‘t’ (but does have ‘th’), ‘v’, ‘x’, and ‘z’. Use ‘s’ for ‘tt’ and ‘fl’ for ‘j’. Any ‘s’ followed by a consonant is doubled unless it is followed by a double consonant.
• Otherwise as per PHB.
• For inspiration, use French translations of what you want the name to mean and replace or remove letters that elvish doesn’t have. Use ‘Fe’ for ‘The’ and remove all spaces between words. Then tweak the result for a flowing pronunciation.

Written Form: Translate as per the Naming notes above. Then reformat using the Elvish fonts Tengwar Cursive, Tengwar Sindarin, and Tengwar Sindarin respectively.

Dwarven:

Also known as Dwarf.

Dwarvish Names:

• Dwarvish names emphasize A’s, K’s and Z’s. Replace all R’s with H’s.
• The syllable “Kha” often figures prominently and means ‘deep’ or ‘strong’ or ‘valuable’ or ‘important’ depending on the phrasing and pronunciation, much of which is inaudible to the human ear.
• Replace all S’s with Z’s.
• Otherwise as per PHB.
• For inspiration, use German, Hungarian or Russian translations of what you want the name to mean and replace or remove consonants as above.

Written Form: Translate as per the language notes above. Then reformat using a Dwarven Runes font.

Pious:

Also known as ‘Divine Speech’. Used exclusively for the conducting of human religious services and ceremonies, the way churches used to use Latin. It derives from one of the City-State languages (described separately below), making it the most ancient human tongue still in regular use. As such, it uses a lot of generic terms for more recent innovations; it has no descriptive terms or proper names for different non-human species, for example. Instead, it has a number of terms for describing an individual’s state of Grace, from “Irredeemable” through to “Most Holy”, which are applied to whole classes of non-human. “Heretics” might be Orcs or Elves or Fey or Wizards.

Pious is used for all formal church doctrines and holy books, and this blanket terminology shapes theological attitudes to non-human species. For example, the title ‘Paladin’ literally translates as Protector or Defender. As such, anyone who takes up arms to defend a Church may be blessed as a paladin by the church, and treated in the same way as would a Paladin, giving rise to such phrasing as ‘The Paladin then gathered to him paladins to oppose the heretic’.

This sample phrase also shows other aspects of Pious deriving from it’s age: (1) a stilted, almost pretentious, phraseology; and (2) collective nouns are used only for the subject, not the object; ‘The Heretic’ might be one or it might be a besieging army. The next phrase in this story might well be ‘And the Heretic were layed low by the holy might of the paladin.” Sentences tend to be short and declarative, with full stops used where commas might be expected. It is also normal practice to number each statement.

Note that this language is not taught to non-priests, though many laymen will gradually pick up phrases here and there. To render text into Pious, translate into Greek without font change, then add or subtract vowels as necessary to permit a smooth flow.

Pious is considered a Common tongue for Human Clerics and Priests, a Rare language for other humans, and an Obscure language for non-humans.

Written form: display translated text using a Greek language or appropriate mathematical Symbols Font.

Trade Tongue:

This human language is an evolution of Gypsy, described separately elsewhere, and is the most common lingua franca outside of the Shared Kingdoms. It has an extremely restrictive format, designed by discarding unnecessary terms and objects of reference. Every statement comes in three parts, which roughly translate as “You have,” “I/We have,” and “You/I/We could,”. The declarative mode is always used for the first two parts, which are statements of fact, and are always in the past tense; the third part is always tentative and suggestive in mode and always in the future tense. “We could” is always a proposal of action; the language has no terms for “I accept” or “I refuse”; these are indicated by one party performing an action proposed by the other. For example, consider the following exchange:

“You have many fine furs. I have nine silver coins. We could profit from an exchange.” (The speaker wants to buy a fur coat or cloak and offers 9 sp).

“You have nine coins. I have newly-tanned sable. You could earn more coins.” (The furrier rejects the offer, demanding a higher price).

“You have furs that have not yet fully cured. I have 2 golden coins. I could go to a different stall.” (The buyer counters the furriers arguement for a higher price, increases slightly the value of his offer and shifts the medium of exchange to gold, which is often more desirable, and threatens to go to a competitor – in other words, ‘take it or leave it’).

“You have a good eye. I have a fine family. We could share wine to celebrate an exchange.” (The seller accepts the bargain, to be sealed by a sip – less than a teaspoonful – of wine from a common mug.)

Notice that flattering the other side is inherently part of the exchange, but that the terms are very simple and could be quickly translated by either party with absolutely no knowledge of the other’s language, using signs and gestures.

Trade tongue is inherently diplomatic in nature, having expressly discarded everything that is not needed for the act of bargaining and simplifying what is left. It adds and subtracts words with every bargain and conversation, restricting itself to only those terms that are relevant to a particular negotiation.

A more highly-developed form of trade tongue in which whole paragraphs are dedicated to each of the three elements is the language of modern treaties and Diplomacy, capable of everything from ‘we demand your unconditional surrender or we invade’ to mutual defenses. When treaties are signed/accepted, they are rendered into the formal language of each party outlining their understanding of what the terms mean, but the actual treaty remains the common document in trade tongue. It is felt that this practice prevents either side from subverting the intent of a document through verbal trickery while leaving specifics loose enough to accommodate changes of circumstance.

Trade Tongue is also the primary mechanism by which terms and phrases from other languages enter Kingdom, as labels for new products and concepts.

Trade Tongue is best rendered by first writing the statements in the specified form and then translating only proper nouns into local languages, leaving everything else in plain English.

Creating RPG Languages The Modern Way

So now the big secret has been revealed! The easiest way to create an alien language is two-fold: Use a real language and apply a series of rules to it to create a consistent variation. Then use an appropriate font for the written form to make it LOOK alien.

Literal translations using the same rules make non-human character names easy and consistent.

No doubt readers can see the connection between the approach employed by my language generator and the techniques demonstrated above. And yet, without examples, it’s an incredibly difficult process to explain. Which is what lead to the current series of articles in the first place.

From this point in the series onwards, I’ll be concluding each article with a few tips on how to choose a language on which to model your artificial tongue, and how to come up with the rules – at least until I run out of tips to share! We’ll start with that in the next part. For now, I’ll leave you to get your heads around the concept itself.

In the next part of this series I’ll detail the Congressus Feyunctusora, the United Association Of Fey; Examine the Unusual Languages in Shards of Divinity; and share the first couple of tips on how to choose a real language on which to base your artificial construct.

But I like to interrupt series from time to time with an article that might be of value to people who might not be getting anything useful out of that series. It may be a day late (officially) but I have an article for this month’s Blog Carnival on adventuring in an Established Setting that I’d like to run…