The thing that I hate most about being a regular blog writer is that your best ideas come to you when you have absolutely no chance to write them down and no hope of remembering them. In my head yesterday – the only medium available to me – I wrote no less than three absolutely brilliant and insightful articles for Campaign Mastery.

Of course, I could remember none of them by the time I actually got to my computer, or even when I reached a point where I could pause to take notes the old-fashioned way, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I can’t even remember what the sodding articles were about!

Of course, my memory has been failing progressively for some time. The wonder isn’t that I forget some things, it’s that I remember as much as I do. I’m always aware of the big picture (both in my campaigns and in real life), as Johnn has commented on more than one occasion when we’ve been planning together. I always remember the scenario that I’m running at the time, even if I don’t remember exactly what happened in the last session. I remember what the characters personalities are, both PCs and NPCs, and (in general) what they can do, even if the specifics escape me from time to time. So by no means is all hope lost for me.

All this exposition is actually quite relevant to today’s article, the subject of which – wonder of wonders – I had not forgotten. It was actually inspired by an item in Roleplaying Tips #517, which hit my inbox this week. The article in question is “For Awesome Campaigns Build A Player Campaign Book” by Kit Reshawn.

Initial Confusion

I have to admit that when I first read this article, I found it confusing until I was about 2/3 of the way through it. Only then did I realise that even though this was an article about a binder for Player information, it was maintained by the GM of the campaign. Suddenly, all the things that had not made sense before fell into place.

Whenever you come across a problem that has a familiar ring to it, and someone else’s solution to that problem, it’s only natural to spend a few minutes reviewing how you solve the same problem. Is your solution better? is it worse? Are those questions over-simplistic? On the basis that what works for one GM can work for another, that is the subject of this particular article.

The Player Binder, as described, has developed to solve multiple problems (all thematically related), so let’s look at each, and the solutions I employ…

Stephen’s Scrawls

What happened last session? What happened in the session before that? Sometimes I remember, sometimes not. In most of my games, a player by the name of Stephen Tunnicliff keeps a log of the events that affect his character which is often useful as a jog to the old memory. While this often excludes details that apply to other characters, it’s a starting point. Of perhaps equal value is the organisation: he writes his notes on the right-hand page of a lecture-style book and places tags next to important things on the right-hand-side of the left-hand page. This includes things like:

• NPC: for the names of characters encountered and summaries of their descriptions etc.
• Item: used for notes concerning any items that come to his attention – magic in fantasy, high-tech in sci-fi, and so on. With one book for each campaign, context makes the meaning of the term clear most of the time.
• asterisk: denotes information of critical significance.
• Place: Names and general descriptions of locations that are significant.
• [Player-name’s] PC: used as a reminder of the names of important PCs and which player controls them.

There may be others – for example, I’d use a $ sign for loot received.

What makes this especially useful is that Stephen has a particularly scrappy handwriting style that is very fast but sometimes difficult to read, meaning that he uses a lot of space per plot development. (Sometimes he himself can’t read it – and sometimes I can read it and he can’t!) A given page might have no tags, but would rarely have more than 2. This means that there is a lot of space on the left-hand page for clarifying notes, revelations, suspicions, and so on. In effect, the spacial relationship of items on the page becomes another tool for the organisation of information.

He also records XP on the left-hand page.

It’s important to note that what Stephen records is his understanding of events, which may or may not be correct. By using his notes as the unofficial “log” of campaign lore at the start of each session, he not only reminds himself and myself of what has just happened, he gives me the opportunity to clarify things that he AS A PLAYER may have misunderstood – and by extension, what the other players may also have wrong.

The real value of these notes comes after the campaign has had an extended break for some reason. I’ve written in the past about my gaming timetable – most campaigns get played just once a month; and it only takes a minor disruption – ill-health or family commitments or real life – for that to balloon out to a two or three or even four-plus month interval between sessions.

The Campaign Binder of Doom

This is my GMs equivalent of Stephen’s stack of Campaign Books. I use loose-leaf binders and plastic pockets. These contain maps, handouts, reference printouts, house rules, campaign plans – anything and everything that I might need to run the campaign outside of a rulebook set. When the binder gets too big, I archive everything that is no longer immediately relevant. I rarely write anything during the day’s play to go into the folder, and frequently print half-size, so its information density is extremely high.

Notepad

This is used as a scratch-pad to record factoids that are relevant only to the immediate play, at least that’s the theory. In practice, I may produce rough-drawn maps, sketches, tactical displays, jot down ideas for future scenarios or rules changes… but its all intended to be short-lived. If there is any chance at all that I might need it next time, it tends to get extracted and filed in the Campaign Binder.

Art Book

I use this for the occasional map, but most of the time it permits me to draw illustrations to clarify what the PCs are seeing. I often won’t take it unless I know that it will be needed; and I have several in different sizes for when that becomes important. I still remember one session in which I doodled a sketch while GMing the whole day until the end of the day approached, at which point I held up the sketch – A3 in size – and announced “This is what you see” to the table. They had seen this taking shape all afternoon with no idea of the significance (if any)!

USB Memory Stick

I don’t have a laptop (yet), but some of my players do, and sometimes I will take advantage of that to display clip art to the players as an illustration of the scenario (something I’ll write about in more detail some other time). Nothing goes onto this drive that is not for either eventual or immediate consumption by the players.

Sometimes it’s just eye candy to set the mood, sometimes it’s illustrative or specific. Often I will have manipulated the image in some way using my art software – transplanting a figure from one environment to another, for example. Sometimes it might be a diagram. It’s whatever I need to correctly orient the players.

On the day that I get a laptop, the memory stick will become a transportation medium and the laptop will replace everything except Stephen’s notes – and, since I type almost half as fast as I can speak, even they may also vanish (or at least, my reliance on them). And maybe the Sketch Books.

In Total

When you put all these together, you have my equivalent to the Player Binder. Because it’s a more modular approach, I can leave behind anything that I’m not going to need, or add in extras. The only way in which this is inferior to the Player Binder described by Kit Reshawn is that I have to remember where something is located. Which brings me back to the door I came in by…

Oh, and PS: I have since remembered what two of the three forgotten articles were. As they say, all things come to those who wait!

What forces govern your city?

We resume the city design series this week with thoughts about how to use magic and psionics to build interesting city government power bases.

For the purposes of this article, magic and psionics are treated the same. Your game system might make this thinking incompatible, but hopefully you can take the thinking that follows and apply it to match your circumstances.

Magic and Psionics

Spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items open up unlimited potential for governments and officials to do business. The variety of effects, range of powers, and resources of a government make magic an appealing power base.

Consider the politician with charm capability, or the city government who can afford to keep a dozen 18th level wizards on its payroll.

Strengths

Governments can wield magic to do a crazy amount of things. With deep pockets, a city could hoard relics for emergency use, employ clerics to feed and heal its populace, keep a unit of wizardly architects on call for infrastructure work, tame monsters for heavy labor, and more.

In many cases, the benefits of magic use exceed the cost of components or acquisition, making magic a cheaper and faster alternative to labor or personal action on behalf of staff and officials.

In other cases, magic makes possible what mundane governments could not hope to achieve.

Some magic can be made permanent, which offers powerful and beneficial effects to cities, governments, and politicians.

For spell casters, magic is a personal power base. Reliance upon components can make some magic costly or inconvenient, but overall it’s a great way to influence others and win political conflicts.

Magic items create a scalable power base, providing those with Use Magic Device access to powers they don’t personally have.

Weaknesses

Most spells eventually end and various magic items run out of charges, doses, and slots. Thus, most magic is a temporary boon and wise governments and officials must think a few steps ahead at all times.

They must ask and answer the question: what happens when the magic runs out or fails?

Magic rarely takes ownership as well, so enemies can turn or use magic against governments with the same ease governments can wield magic against its foes.

For those who do not study magic, its effects are a mystery and its control ephemeral, which makes magic riskier than better-understood power bases, such as loyalty and wealth.

What is the citizenship’s view of magic? Religion, cultural, and personal views can make magic-wielding politicians unpopular, heretics, or targets.

Magic is often an unsure thing. Saving throws, variable durations, variable damage, and other uncertainties make it a risky power base.

Flavor

For government-specific flavor, consider going through all the spells, psionic powers, monster spell-like abilities, and magic items in the books you’re using for your campaign and keep an eye out for useful effects an administration or official might use.

Use these categories to help frame your ideas:

• Influence (individuals and groups)
• Propaganda (illusion, communication, public image, thought influence and control)
• Administration (communication, travel, interfacing with the public, paperwork, delegation, supplies, buildings)
• Leadership
• Conflict and disputes (adjudicating, truth and fact investigation, resolution determination, resolution enforcement)
• Wealth management (collecting taxes and other revenues, protecting wealth, managing wealth, issuing payments, managing expenses)
• Power base enhancement (establishing, supporting, defending, expanding power bases)

Also consider how government magic might be portrayed and identified as such.

• Do government wizards and clerics dress or behave differently?
• Where do they live and congregate?
• How does the government protect and defend its magic sources?
• How does it counter foes’ magic?

How does the government’s stance on magic compare to the attitude and beliefs of the peoples it governs? It would be interesting to create a conflict where one side advocates it strongly and the other side vehemently opposes it.

This conflict can occur between the government between any of the city’s potential stake holders:

• Citizens
• Guilds
• Foreign powers
• Gods
• Neighbors
• Government divisions
• Religions
• Mages, sorcerers, clerics
• Social classes (nobility, merchants, peasants)

In addition, you can create compelling conflicts by picking points along the spectrum that exists between the two extremes of all-magic and no-magic.

For example, the guilds might forbid any mind- or people-influencing magic to protect itself and its members from backlash, but support the use of magic by craftsmen to churn out better products and services. However, the populace might prefer goods and services without any kind of magical taint.

In another example, the mage’s council might require certification for spell-use above second level while the Mayor lobbies for no public magic use, regardless of spell level.

Final thoughts

This topic, more than any other, offers you a chance to make your settings unique.

It is always a shame when a magic setting would be rendered indifferent if you stripped the magic out of it.

If your game offers magic or psionics, take advantage of them as tools to craft a unique environment.

For city design, you can use magic to build wonderfully divergent cultures from just a few GM decisions, as described above.

How have you used magic or psionics to build interesting urban environments or plots? Drop me a comment below.

Johnn’s recent mention of the Ostrich-GM approach he sometimes takes to the question of how Administrators and Nobles get their character levels (comments, City Government Power Bases – Class and Level) struck a chord. There are really only two answers besides the close-you-eyes-and-hope-it-goes-away approach, and adopting one of them has some interesting implications for the rest of the game. NB: While this post is going to relate primarily to D&D and similar fantasy games, it should be applicable more generally. YMMV when it comes to any specific game system, though.

What do you get experience for?

Experience for NPCs derives from the same sources as for PCs. Essentially, this boils down to three distinct types of experience-earning event: Plot-based experience, Encounter-derived experience, and Metagame-derived experience.

This article will examine both, with a view to both expanding on aspects of Johnn’s post (and his entire series of articles), and to studying the lessons that this perspective provides on rewards in general.

Plot-based experience

Most GMs hand out experience for achieving significant steps forward in the plotline, i.e. for achieving a goal set either by the GM or by the players themselves. The size of the reward typically relates to the immediacy of the goal at the time it was set – small rewards (or no rewards) for short-term goals, moderate rewards for medium-term goals, and substantial rewards for achieving long-term goals and ambitions.

This category of experience excludes anything deriving from experience-earning encounters, but does encompass rewards for roleplaying, for clever skill use, and so on.

These are usually considered rewards for achievement, and that can be a problem, because it fosters a competitive atmosphere between the players and GM, not a collaborative one. Some GMs completely eschew experience rewards for plot-related outcomes for this reason.

XP for decisions and actions, not outcomes

I prefer to think of this class of XP as an award for decisions and actions, not for outcomes, which eliminates the quandary. Does a decision result in the plot advancing, or becoming more interesting or connecting to one or more players more strongly? That is something that should be encouraged, and hence a reward is entirely appropriate.

This has some interesting implications. Rather than rewarding success in achieving a plot point, you are rewarding engagement and participation. A player may in fact make it harder for the group to achieve a plot resolution and earn a reward by looking not at the most expedient path but at the bigger picture and long-term consequences, and persuading the other players to take a more difficult path to resolving the immediate challenge.

Challenge Level: The Trap Analogy

A perpetual question that vexes GMs who hand out experience for this type of behaviour is how much to award. Frequently, the scale is an arbitrary guesstimate. Few of them seem to realise that there is an existing mechanism and precedent for them to follow: Experience for bypassing or neutralising traps is awarded by determining a challenge rating for the trap on the scale employed for combat encounters.

If GMs simply assess each challenge, at the time it is posed, on the same 1-20+ scale used for Encounter Levels, he can immediately identify how much XP the challenge should be worth. As events unfold, subtracting the XP earned from encounters etc along the way leaves a balance to be awarded at the completion of the challenge.

This simple mechanism – with a slight tweak that I will get to in a moment – gives a consistent foundation to the award scale.

Enhancing the concept

I would even suggest going further; measuring time by estimated character levels earned before the challenge is resolved gives a natural fit to the existing scale. For example, in one of my campaigns, a character wants to change his current status (wanted fugitive, known throughout the Land, huge reward for capture) to Nobleman in good standing, with his own estates, because he has identified a political power-base as essential to his longer-term ambitions. My estimate was that this would require a minimum of 15 levels – 5 levels earned while obtaining the tools for creating a seamless new identity, and 10 levels earned while working through political games to achieve the social ranking that he desires. The challenge is therefore a level-15 challenge, and earns rewards as an encounter of EL15.

This approach carries a couple of additional benefits. If the character takes longer to achieve the goals, his character level at the time the award is bestowed means that he automatically gets a smaller reward. If the character discovers a shortcut and gets there more quickly, then he earns a greater reward – which is automatically capped, according to the rules.

In roleplay terms, it encourages the players to set concrete goals, rather than nebulous ambitions – the difference between “triggering a war between X and Y” and “encouraging war”. This gives the GM plot-development material for the campaign and a tool to automatically get a character’s attention with an NPC – simply by having them come from, or represent, X or Y.

A further benefit is that it affords a sense of scale in terms of the combat-oriented encounters that might have to be overcome along the way, simply by adding the character’s level to the Challenge Level set by the GM. If the characters are 9th level at the time they establish a level-6 goal, anything less than or equal to CR15 is balanced. With CR15 as the level of the ultimate roadblock, it is clear that lesser challenges along the way will also have lesser level.

Tweaking the concept

Which brings me to that minor tweak that I mentioned earlier. Because the GM has established a scale based on the difficulty of achieving the goal and the character’s levels at the time, he can adjust the difficulty with changing circumstances in the campaign OR choose to have it become progressively easier to achieve (but worth a smaller reward) or anything in between.

Take the example of achieving political power that I mentioned earlier. So far, the characters have earned about 9 levels while striving to reach the 5-level checkpoint – the ability to establish a bulletproof false identity – and aren’t quite there yet (another 2 levels worth to go, so they are currently at the 3rd-level stage of the challenge). That gives me the choice of either keeping the overall challenge at level 15 (in which case the political phase of the game will be cut short) or of increasing the overall challenge level to be commensurate with the current power levels of the characters. The difference between where the characters are and where they were expected to be when completing the current stage of the goal gives an always-accurate scale to the modifier required. (9+2 to go = 11; 5-2 to go = 3; and 11-3=8, so I can add up to 8 levels to the difficulty of the encounters and the challenges to be overcome in order to achieve the goal).

This is the only mechanism I have ever seen for resolving hard numbers for such an increase.

Reward-matching vs Reward Differentials

Another area to be taken into account is the question of Reward-matching vs Reward differentials, or more accurately, reward differences. Some versions of the D&D game system match xp with the gp value of other rewards, some view the rewards as a global value to be divided into various pools and sources. The latter approach means that the value of any treasure or other reward is subtracted from the total awarded, leaving the xp component of the total.

The difficulty of this approach has always been translating non-economic awards into hard valuations. Once again, however, this equivalence principle can now come to the rescue – assessing a non-financial reward on a 1-to-20+ scale means that an immediate xp equivalent can be determined. That makes the Reward Differential view practical.

For various philosophic reasons, I subscribe to the reward differential approach, as I mentioned in one of my more controversial posts here at Campaign Mastery, “A Different Experience: A Variation on the D&D 3.x Experience Points System” – I’m going to avoid getting side-tracked into why, and save that for a post some other time. But it has always bothered me that there was no way to incorporate all the other types of rewards a character could receive. Finally, this approach has yielded a solution to the problem.

What this means for Administrators and Rulers

Okay, so now we get down to the nitty-gritty. We’ve established that there is a type of XP that gets awarded in some games for decisions and actions that propel the plot forward or that otherwise engage the campaign or achieve an ambition, and assembled a game mechanics system for determining how much those rewards should be.

Administrators and Rulers set goals and ambitions all the time, and actively work to achieve them. That translates immediately into a source of experience for such characters.

Past actions and decisions by NPCs can either be “stuff that just happened to fill in the time/background” or they can be intended to justify or propel the plot forward, arriving at a signpost point (by happenstance) just as the PCs reach a position to be affected by the goal that the NPC was fulfilling at the time. That means that there is a second source of XP for such characters that boosts their awards SOME of the time – and the more that an NPC matters to the plot, the greater the additional awards that the character has received as a result of reaching the point of mattering to the plot.

What has been created here is an interpretation of the XP game mechanics that permits an administrator or ruler to gain experience for doing what they are supposed to be doing. In other words, Assessing an NPC’s past history by means of the Challenge Level system gives a concrete total of XP earned by the character in the course of that history.

Equally, this permits the fabrication of a background to match a desired experience point total.

What has previously been a matter of abstract guesswork has been replaced with a systematic and quantified approach. While not all of the guesswork has been removed from the equation – a GM still has to estimate what Challenge Level is appropriate for various goals and achievements – the questions that are now being asked are finite and specific and not general.

What this means for Adventurers

There are ramifications at all levels of interaction between PCs and NPCs. An NPC whose actions show that he is more capable than his history dictates can be assumed to have hidden elements to that history. An NPC whose abilities appear to be less than those that his history would make available may be someone else’s stooge, or may be taking credit that does not belong to him.

Administrators can possess hit dice, feats, class abilities, wealth, and magical enhancements aimed at furthering their goals, making them a match for the PCs. They are no longer pushovers.

Just as significantly, this system establishes a new class of activity for an Adventurer to pursue – an astute political manoeuvre can earn a PC as much experience as a hard-fought battle that achieves the same ends. This enables new types of adventures, new types of encounters, and new types of campaigns.

What this means for other characters

In fact, any activity practiced by NPCs can be classified according to goals and decisions. From:

• an Artist choosing how best to depict a battle scene;
• a farmer deciding how best to manage his planting and harvesting;
• a bookmaker choosing what odds are best for minimising his risk in any given sporting event;
• through to the blacksmith choosing what to craft next and the approach he will employ.

The scale of the goal determines what XP it is worth, and the XP accumulated in the course of a character’s history advances the character in level and increases their abilities, enabling them to become more skilled and more capable of setting larger goals.

Expertise correlates directly to past experience.

Game Impact

This system has a profound impact on the game. Effectively, every NPC has class levels. That’s a major alteration over the old-school assumption that most people did not. Adventurers become less defined in as a group by what they CAN do and more defined by what they CHOOSE to do.

The system encourages a number of positive roleplaying aspects – firstly, on the part of the PCs, but more generally on the part of the GM. Every character has a goal, every character has a history, and both of those are appropriate to the character. Those histories and goals will affect how NPCs relate to, and interact with, PCs.

NPCs become rather more capable than they are frequently depicted. If you have class levels, then – in a pinch – you can do as an Adventurer does, and are not completely a helpless victim.

Social hierarchies also develop naturally. Farmers tend to focus on short-term goals – seasonal, annual – and thus earn small amounts of XP. As a result, they are generally low-level characters under this system. Rulers and Administrators make bigger decisions, have more substantial goals, and thus earn more XP, giving them more levels. The abilities that they achieve are going to focus more on their own goals and ambitions than on the sort of mayhem that Adventurers are designed to cope with. So the PCs remain special to the campaign.

Ultimately, the game world becomes more challenging, and more consistent. Opportunities for plot development are opened that weren’t there before. It’s all good stuff. But it comes at a price.

That price is for the game to demand more insistently that a GM does his game prep.

There are shortcuts, of course, in fact the same shortcuts that GMs use all the time; when an NPC is needed, one can be created on the spot and the characters background and history assumed to exist. The GM need only create those elements that are necessary to the plot function of the NPC. Some experience may be needed to correctly assess what character level the NPC will have, but even that can be achieved by choosing an analogue from the Monster Manual which would be an appropriate level if reskinned; the creature’s CR then becomes the basis for an estimate of character level.

And, of course, giving an NPC one or more goals is always best practice, whether the GM is employing this system or not.

Encounter Experience

The second major source of experience for Adventurers is experience earned in encounters. Unlike the experience sources given above, these rewards result from the overcoming of an obstacle, whether that obstacle is a Trap, a magical effect, or a hostile creature. This is XP for outcomes, not decisions and actions.

It is important to note that this is the province of the existing XP game mechanics of D&D and related games; as such there is a lot less that needs to be said regarding it.

Type Of Outcome

The DMG makes it clear that the nature of the outcome is not important, only the achievement of it. It does not matter whether or not the opponent was defeated in battle (or the trap escaped, by extension), or was persuaded to stand aside. Only the relative difficulty (party level vs encounter level, degree of success (half XP if the enemy escapes), and difficulty (measured in terms of expenditure of resources) are significant in determining how much XP to award.

That’s actually very telling, because it means that overcoming any obstacle to the achievement of a goal earns the reward.

What this means for Administrators and Rulers

Rulers and Administrators come up against obstacles all the time. Just as PCs should earn XP for roleplaying and other Plot-based activities, so NPCs should earn XP for overcoming their obstacles, determined using exactly the same criteria.

When one noble manoeuvres another out of their way through politicking, the rival has been neutralised in terms of obstructing the goal. The character level of that rival should then be used as the basis for the experience earned exactly as though the character had been defeated in battle. If the rival escapes with influence and power intact, then it is as though he had escaped the conflict, yielding and fleeing to preserve their life. If the noble was forced to expend significant resources to achieve this result, he gets more XP; if significantly less resources were expended than might have been expected, he gets less.

Implications

There is a subsystem within the game mechanics enabling a net EL to be determined when faced with a combination of foes. I use a variant means of doing so – refer to the XP-related article I linked to earlier – but the principle remains the same.

This same system can be used to assess the balance between allies and enemies, between factions and challenges. If a Ruler is 8th level, he had better not be facing more than two challenges of 6th level or greater or he will be overmatched, unequal to the task of achieving his goals – at least not directly. To ensure success, he will either have to isolate the two from each other, or obtain an ally of his own, or persuade one of the two to ally with him. The other can then be securely crushed/overcome.

These need not be rival rulers that we’re talking about. They could be minor social problems, or a thieves’ guild that’s gotten out of hand, or a river that has been poisoned, or any of a hundred other challenges that the Ruler might face. Where two problems connect with each other, they are allied – for example the thieves’ guild with a corrupt police force. Either the problems are separated somehow, or the ruler will have to throw everything he has into overcoming the combination – leaving other problems aside for a while.

Battlefield strategic analysis, under this paradigm, leads to the appropriate political or social strategy. Once the goals have been defined, tactics can be constructed to achieve them.

What this means for Adventurers

Ultimately, it means very little, at least in direct terms. This is what they are already receiving, and that’s the end of it.

Indirectly, however, it can matter a lot, because it means that NPCs earn XP at roughly the same rate that PCs do, just for doing what the NPC is supposed to be doing – practicing their craft, administering their group, Ruling their domain. Their character level will reflect the challenges that they have had to overcome to achieve their current positions. They will not be pushovers or wimps, and will expect to be treated with an appropriate level of respect – and are just as capable of punishing those who do not offer it as any PC would be.

Metagame-derived Experience

Some GMs award extra experience for player activities that support the game – whether that be doing research for the GM, taking notes on behalf of the party during the game, providing miniatures and battlemaps, or whatever. This is an approach that I have advocated in the past, though it should be a small component of the overall experience tally. It is assumed that the benefits to the enjoyment of the game are enough of a reward, but some small encouragement is occasionally necessary.

This is the one source of XP for which there is no equivalent for the NPCs, the one edge that PCs have over the field. Certainly, the GM could reward the NPCs for the tasks that he undertakes in furtherance of his game, but this should never be an option the GM takes up. These are things that the GM should do anyway, and penalizing the PCs in comparison for doing so should not be an acceptable choice. What’s more, there are so Many things that the GM should do that if XP were awarded the NPCs for performing them, it would be quite unbalancing.

The Logical Conclusion

This article has been all about taking one simple assumption – that NPCs are to be treated by the XP system in the same way as PCs – and carrying it through to its logical conclusions. Generalising the meaning behind the existing principles and then identifying the analogous situations for non-adventuring NPCs provides objective frameworks for the awarding of experience to NPCs for activities that:

• make them better characters to play;
• make them more interesting characters to interact with;
• make them worthy objects of respect by the PCs;
• open up new gaming opportunities; and,
• enrich your campaign.

You can’t ask for much more than that.

The dead will not always give you clear answers

In part one, you saw how spell details can inspire encounters. In part two today, we continue to walk through the plight of poor Halcos and who the PCs’ enemies plot to prevent them from casting Speak With dead. We also offer tips on how spells can help you design game worlds and regions.

We have covered the first of a series of steps I run through when mining spells for game play: determine limitations. Let’s pick up with step 2.

2. Guess PC actions

We have gone through the spell rules to determine what options the game world (aka reality) presents the PCs and NPCs. Lots of interesting ideas and tactical options there.

Next, I try to guess what the PCs will do. I split this into two parts:

1. What will the players do?
2. What will the players have their characters do?

Question #1 lies at the meta-game level. As a fair GM, NPCs only ever act on information they have at hand with the abilities and resources at their disposal. For example, a stupid NPC will not make chess-like moves against the PCs. An aggressive NPC will not take a subtle approach unless properly counseled.

In this case, the NPC leader, a Crime Lord in Riddleport, is smarter than me and has many wise voices whispering in his ear (wise in the ways of magic and war). To make up for my lack, I use meta-gaming to game NPCs smarter than me.

First thing the enemy does is cast divination spells to determine the best or most likely course of action. In-game, I rule that it lets me make decisions about NPC decisions after knowing what actions the PCs take.

Because I am a geek GM, I like to play such scenes out in my head while driving or killing time elsewhere. I will make dice rolls, if needed, when I get the chance. And, I make notes about the results so I do not forget.

I know I could give NPCs the best in all things (stats, equipment, resources, knowledge, decisions) but I like to simulate things out. Mega-NPCs are boring to GM, are uninteresting, and frustrate players.

However, to roleplay and game genius NPCs and NPCs with more resources than I have, I meta-game to simulate their abilities.

My players prefer direct action over subtlety. During debates, chances are good at least one player will make his character jump into action, deciding the situation through impulse. (It is always tough getting consensus, or being subtle-by-committee, so this is no mark again my players, it’s just the current group dynamic).

In this case then, knowing my players, they will most likely take Halcos to the Temple of Dreams for a casting. They will go as a group, and put Halcos in a sack or just over a shoulder to carry his body around. They might do this at night. They will suspect an ambush, but because each day is filled with so much activity, they will hold off on spells and temporary buffs, holding out for an emergency.

3. Turn limitations into tactics

Step three, we have already done. When doing this by myself, I read the spell, skill or game rules for whatever is in play, then think about my players and their PCs, then start writing down ideas for tactics.

However, in this blog post, I went over the tactics in step one when exploding out the spell details to share my thought processes.

The most likely enemy tactics will be:

• Cast divination magic for counsel
• Spy on the PCs
• Ambush the PCs en route to the Temple of Dreams
• Find out where Halcos’ body lies
• Cast Animate Dead, Speak With Dead or any other spell that mitigates Halcos talking to the PCs
• Destroy Halcos’ body
• Buy off or coerce the Temple of Dreams to prevent their services to the PCs
• Find leverage to arrange an exchange – Halcos for a hostage, key information, or large sum of money

Just thought of another tactic: disguise a priest as a Temple of Dreams cleric and have him go drinking at the PCs’ home base – the Silver Chalice Inn. The PCs spot him, think how lucky they are, and take the priest to Halcos. The priest then casts Animate Dead.

The enemy priest would need to disguise his alignment and have an escape plan.

An Amulet of Proof against Detection and Location would offer some protection against Detect Evil spells and abilities.

Better yet, an Undetectable Alignment spell offers more robust coverage.

Escape is trickier, as Halcos is likely stored somewhere in the Silver Chalice (he’s actually in the cold room in the cellar, but the enemy does not know this), a clear escape route is possible (jump out a window or run out a door) but not if the cleric gets cornered.

So, I need a diversion. A henchman will also be drinking at the Chalice. When the priest is picked up by the PCs and taken to Halcos, the henchman will give the signal through the tavern room window to ambushers hiding invisibly across the street. On the signal, they wait 30 seconds and charge in.

The cleric knows he has roughly a 30 count to stall and cast his Animate Dead spell. When Halcos awakes as a zombie, the priest will tell the PCs it is Halcos’ spirit come to life to answer their questions. Hopefully, at that time, the diversion starts and the PCs rush downstairs.

I will also repurpose all these NPCs to form an ambush party in case the PCs go mobile.

4. Convert into details

Next, interpret these parameters to what NPCs and PCs would experience in game. What would people in the game world know about this stuff either from experience, stories or consulting experts?

World details

Back to the spell description – I like to imagine how it becomes reality to the game world inhabitants. To commoners, for example, they would likely not distinguish or even be aware of such magics as Speak With Dead…. Unless it was a service offered by temples:

• “Speak with your loved ones for guidance and peace of mind.”
• Estates and wills: get it right from the source who gets what
• Criminal investigations, especially murder
• Service to ancestors – the dead who cannot find each other in the afterlife could get on a conference call through temple priests

These services and more could either be a valuable and good service to society, or a cash cow, depending on the ethos of the temples.

In Riddleport, the Crime Lords have power. I think they would say “dead is dead.” Which is code for, do not stick your nose where it don’t belong.

In other areas of Golarion, Speak With dead might be well known and valued, but in Riddleport, it is forbidden (except to Crime Lord, of course).

As Riddleport has a busy port, many foreigners would come and go. So, I would say Speak With Dead is uncommonly known, but spoken about in hushed tones else an informant might overhear and a Crime Lord gives them grief.

However, Riddleport being the kind of city it is, for every forbidden thing an underground economy exists. That means mid-level thugs would known about Speak With Dead as a service you could pay for if you keep your mouth shut and pay well. That knowledge would slowly seep into the streets.

The purpose of this step is to provide flavour, clues and options to your game by roleplaying the rules in your head as part of world building. It is too late for me to sew the seeds of Speak With Dead in my campaign, but you could start doing it now.

I am armed for future encounter seeds and flavour, though. The PCs can brush up against Speak With Dead now that it’s been embedded in my world a bit better.

Encounter details

Spell rules turned into details help flesh out and govern encounters. (They could also spawn campaigns and adventures, if used right.)

I play a game with rules. Pathfinder is tactical and rules-heavy. Therefore, I play within the rules. When I played D&D 1E and 2E, I hand-waved a lot of stuff. When I play FUDGE or some other rules-light system, I did not use rules or this type of thinking.

For rules-heavy systems such as D&D 3+, Pathfinder, GURPS, and Rolemaster, however, rules are excellent seeds for encounters, which is really what this post is all about.

The spell parameters dictate PC and NPC options. You turn those options into plans and actions. Those actions become encounters if triggered.

Actions within encounters are further influenced by spell details. Casting time and range are huge factors in this particular case. The NPCs have to get close to Halcos. One option requires them to linger for 10 minutes. Another option requires them to be around for at least two rounds of combat.

For flavour, I also think about the casting process and how that looks, sounds and smells. Sometimes I can convert that to boxed-text or ad-libbed description, which makes gameplay fun and deep.

5. Determine the cost

I do not give NPCs free rides. They do not have unlimited resources. Neither do the PCs.

So, I take a minute to figure out how much various tactics and options might cost.

As a rule of thumb:

• Cheap = many uses
• Moderate = specialized uses
• Expensive = highly specialized uses

The greater the expense, the more important a situation must be for an NPC to expend the needed resources on it. In this case, the situation is important but not dire. If the PCs do get information out of Halcos, the enemy can try to eliminate the PCs. So, much budget is Moderate.

The enemy has spell casters on their team. No cost there. The spell components incur no extra cost. Flunkies are already getting paid, and no special talent is required. Turns out, this is a Cheap endeavour for the enemy.

The PCs will either pay for the casting or come to some kind of arrangement with the Temple of Dreams (my preference, because favour owed = future quests and encounter hooks). The cost is Moderate for them.

The end cost questions are, who can afford their intended actions, and at what cost do they come?

For this situation, PCs and their foes can continue along without any cost barriers. Further, the expenses involved are not enough to modify tactics or bring in new tactics.

Best case for a campaign like this is a tactic costs so much the PCs must take additional action. “This spell is more than we can afford, so let’s go out and get the extra money somehow.” Enter more plot hooks onto the stage!

6. Embed into your world

For any spell, ask these questions:

• What problems could it solve?
• What pleasures could it bring?
• How could it be used to gain power (social, resources, wealth, political, authority, physical)?
• How could it be put to evil use?
• How could it be put to good use? How could it be used to help the poor and weak?
• What side effects or consequences does the spell cause (economic, military, political, cultural)?

We already discussed world details, but I did this in passing while working at the campaign and encounter level.

It is always good to step back and look at the larger picture to help your world building. Spells offer a unique element in fantasy games to make worlds unique. Use implications of spells and magic to prevent your world suffering from Star Trek rubber mask syndrome.

Take any game world book and open its table of contents. Pick a spell. Run each item in the contents against your spell to see how your world or region could be shaped a bit differently.

Creatures are emotional, imperfect, irrational, and surprising. You have a lot of leeway with that fact to create interesting interpretations, reactions, and uses of any spell to spin off unique cultures and regions.

7. Bonus: generate encounter seeds

This whole post has been about how the enemy will react to the death of someone who has too much knowledge. All this thinking and planning will result in actions, which will result in at least one encounter.

Giving a spell the treatment we have given Speak With Dead should also give ideas for future plots and encounters. Make note of these in your ideas book for future reference and inspiration.

A quick trick is to take the PCs out of the picture and replace them with NPCs. What will happen if NPCs and their enemy get into the same bind? How could the PCs get caught up in all the machinations and ensuing events?

Another trick is to recycle your plans. What if this happens again? You’ll be able to react much faster, possibly taking NPC actions with all this thinking and planning already informing their plans.

And what if this happens again, but just between NPC factions? The PCs, having already been through a similar situation, will enjoy using their hard-won knowledge. They will roleplay and take actions with the glee of experience.

A third trick is to mess with scale. In this case, what if this is either a common occurrence or situation, or is becoming one? Who will step in to make a profit, difference, or power play?

Give it a try

This process seems at first glance long and complicated. However, that’s just because of my long rambling about it. After a few times, it becomes fast. Just run through the steps in your head:

1. Determine limitations
2. Guess PC actions
3. Turn limitations into tactics
4. Turn limitations into details
5. Determine the cost
6. Embed into your world
7. Bonus: generate encounter seeds

You can defer Steps #6 and #7 if you have little planning time available between sessions. The first five steps become fun and fast, especially as your rules knowledge grows, if you play a rules-heavy game.

I asked Mike for advice on helping me learn the Pathfinder rules. This technique with spells is another fine way to get on top of your game system.

How have spells changed your world?

What about you? Any memorable moments in games caused by spells?

Disclaimer: This article was prompted and inspired by my receipt of a free copy of Player’s Option: Flaws from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming, but it is largely based on my experience with the Hero System. 4 Winds did not solicit this review and did not recieve notice of the content. /Disclaimer

So that we’re all on the same page, let’s start with a quick review of just what’s in Player’s Option: Flaws:

Player’s Option: Flaws: A brief review

Flaws is a smallish low-priced game supplement that gives characters the option to selectively mar their “perfection” in exchange for an extra feat or extra skill points. Each flaw is presented with descriptive fluff and game effects in a format similar to that used for feats. Flaws can eventually be removed using techniques that are customised for each flaw, without losing the benefits that accompanied the original purchase.

Things to like

There are a lot of things to like about Flaws. It helps individualise characters by enabling them to be more intensely focussed on one key area by virtue of a feat or skills they otherwise would not possess. It provides additional colour to a character by means of and additional source of variety. After all, when you reduce it to its simplest elements, a character can be defined by the combination of three things:

• What the character can do
• What the character can’t do, or can’t do well
• Personality – what the character could do, but won’t, and vice-versa, and why

Flaws establishes a new set of relationships between these, opening a new avenue for characterisation.

The requirements for removing, or treating, a flaw also open a new source of adventures for the characters, and no GM can ever have too many of those!

Mechanics

I’d give a solid “thumbs up” on the mechanics for simplicity. I’m not sure that 3 skill points are commensurate with a single feat – the rule of thumb that I’ve always used is that one feat = +4 in four thematically-related skills, +2 in two related skills, or +4 in a single skill, simply because that is what a feat can confer. But that’s a relatively minor quibble, and I have bigger fish to fry.

Content

The 49 flaws listed are well thought-out for the most part. There is not enough information on the game effects of some of them – in fact, of most of the ones that I looked through, however, and that’s my first serious criticism.

Take “Tin Ear” for example. So the character can’t hold a tune, and suffers penalties to perform checks as a result, but what other game effects does it have?

Does it force the character to make a listen check to be affected by Bardic Music? Does it impact other checks? Does it bar the character from learning to speak tonal languages? Does it impact the use of “bird whistles” as a means of surreptitious communications between characters? Does it make it harder for a character to recognise someone by voice alone?

None of these are unreasonable, and none of them are mentioned. Equally importantly, the penalty of the flaw is disproportionate to the benefit received unless one or more of these additional penalties is included.

Roleplay

There is also not enough information on how the flaw should affect a character’s roleplay. Game mechanics can always be interpreted by the player affected, but guidance should be included in the flaw description. What does a character with a “Tin Ear” (to continue the same example) actually hear? Is it like colour-blindness, where the character simply cannot distinguish one note from another? Is it a hearing problem or a problem with the character’s ability to generate sounds correctly? Is the character afflicted with Tinnitus, an occasional ringing, whistling, or humming in the ears resulting from exposure to sounds of excessive volume?

By no means should one answer fit all, but the lack of any answer at all is not helpful. A single paragraph outlining possible causes and roleplaying effects, and another listing other possible flaw consequences with the admonition to the GM to select a penalty that “fits” with a flaw subtype chosen by the player would make Flaws far more useful and far less work for both player and GM.

Flaw removal is flawed

The roleplay problems don’t end there. As indicated above, characters can undertake procedures or quests to rid themselves of the flaw, or at least manage their condition, once they reach third level, and cannot remove or relieve themselves of the flaw in any way other than the proscribed ‘treatment’. I like this idea, but the capacity for removing flaws doesn’t have enough roleplay requirements built in. Once again, what’s presented is virtually all game mechanics.

In particular, I missed GM advice on the subject of controlling access to the treatments. A section full of campaign implications would greatly enhance the value and ease of integration of Flaws. There are two primary types of content that such a section should contain:

• “Demand for the following services will increase if Flaws is an option in your campaign, and providers would gain power, prestige, and wealth as a result: [list of services with relevant flaws sub-listed];” and
• “If [X] is less readily available, the following flaws are more difficult to treat: [list]. The GM may need to make an alternative available.”

Other things missed

There are a few other things that I felt were missing from the product. A simple list of flaws; a classification system for the flaws containing the roleplaying advice described earlier; and a blank flaw template for GMs to use when adding their own creations, with some guidelines for such creations, could all be added.

Player's Option: Flaws is available from RPGNow for $1.99.

The Verdict: Inspirational But Incomplete

Flaws is an inspirational product, there’s no question. But implementing it requires more work by the GM to implement than is readily apparent, and this is effort that could have been avoided or made easier with a bit more content from Four Winds.

Implementing all the suggestions herein might have doubled the content page-count (ignoring cover, OGL, etc), but I would have preferred paying an extra dollar to have it. Perhaps in a Flaws 2.0?

Flaw Classification

Here at Campaign Mastery, we like to go the extra mile in providing value for “money” – even when that “money” is just the reader’s investment in time and attention. So, having identified what’s missing from Flaws, I thought it worthwhile to attempt to remedy at least one of the shortcomings, and not simply to offer a review. (Note to 4 Winds: If you want to use this as the starting point for your own version of the content I found missing, contact us – we’re happy to be reasonable!) Think of this as me putting my money where my mouth is!

I thought the place to start was with a general Flaw Classification system, based on my Hero System expertise, and a paragraph or two on the roleplaying implications of each category. I’m not going to list individual Flaws in each, this is about a systemic framework. Added value derives from such a systematic approach because it can be suggestive of new flaws!

Mighty Within Limits

This category describes Flaws which weaken or limit the character’s existing or standard abilities. Since the advantages taken in compensation for the flaw would either enhance a different existing or standard ability, this category of flaw represents the beginnings of specialisation on the character’s part. It may permit a character to qualify for a prestige class more quickly or more readily than would otherwise be the case. The character’s personality should reflect a fascination for the area of specialisation and/or an avid dislike for, or fear of, the area being weakened. For example, if the flaw affects a combat capability, the character might be pacifistic by preference.

A Fish Out Of Water

Flaws which weaken the character when not in their element. This type of flaw reflects either a sheltered upbringing or a case of obsession, reducing the character’s ability in areas other than a specific type of situation. The character will probably be socially naive and may be idealistic. A major component of the character’s roleplay will focus on their learning to cope with “the real world”; the character may embrace it, flee from it, or attempt to reform it. His relationships to the other PCs will also be a focal point, as they will be the most frequent interface between the character and this “real world”.

Constraining Flaws

Flaws which constrain the character’s behavior, forbidding some solutions to the problems they must overcome. This type of flaw mandates that the GM present the character with situations in which the flaw becomes apparent. These can either reaffirm the restrictions faced by the character or make the character perceive it as a weakness to be overcome. The difference is so profound in terms of personality and characterisation that the GM should collaborate with the player in setting the direction of the campaign in this respect. With this type of flaw, the advantage that the character receives in compensation can be relatively inconsequential, or can synergise with the flaw to provide additional focus on the character’s abilities. The choice of advantage should be made with a view to emphasising dominant aspects of the character’s nature and personality, and should form a thread binding the characters’ future development to his basic concept and origins.

Steering Flaws

Flaws which mandate behaviour. These mandates can be narrow, giving the character very limited capacity for self-expression under very restricted circumstances, or can be broad, giving the character more latitude but with the steering restriction playing a more regular part in the character’s day-to-day life. A mandatory, daily, hour-long ritual which must be performed regardless of circumstances is broad, because it doesn’t restrict the character outside of that hour; a mandated directive to “Destroy all Demons at any cost” is narrow, because it doesn’t constrain the character outside of very specific circumstances but is absolute when it does kick in.

Steering flaws provide a unique opportunity to characterisation in that both flaw and the advantage that the character receives in compensation can synergise, the advantage becoming most prominent or effective when the behaviour is constrained; the combination describes a character who has been developed, like a living weapon, to complete a particular task or quest.

Vulnerabilities & Weaknesses

These are flaws which make the character more susceptible to specific types of effect. This is a very important category of flaw because the implication is that the flaw comes from the same source as the advantage that the character receives in compensation. That in turn suggests a philosophy that connects the two, that makes this vulnerability or weakness an acceptable price to pay. The nature of that philosophy should be developed by the player and GM in collaboration, and the truth or falsity of the philosophy then determined by the GM and revealed to the player (and character) in the course of play. In other words, these flaws can be Campaign-Defining if used correctly.

Dependencies & Needs

The final category of flaws contains flaws which require the character to have or do something regularly. This is a category that can be just the tip of an iceberg of profound relevance to a game world when utilised properly by an inspired GM, because ultimately it is all about questions. Does the character really have to do [X] or is that information erroneous? Where did the knowledge of the need come from? Is the requirement really associated with the ability that the character receives in metagame compensation, or is it a need stemming from somewhere else – or even a deception that is being practiced apon the character? And if it’s a deception, and the character doesn’t really need to do [X], then what is the true source and purpose of the advantage that the character receives?

Or is the dependency/need a racial factor? Like Aquaman, can the character only survive for so long without immersing themselves? Or do Orcs need to purge their hormones with the type of adrenalin surge that you only get through anger?

Or is the dependency the work of a third party, affecting individuals from multiple races? Why?

That last is the key question for this category. Why is the character dependant on [X]? Why does the character need to do {X}? The answers can be trivial, or they can open whole new aspects of the game world to the character.

Flaw Treatment – A Systemic Problem

I’ve already indicated that there are limitations on the usefulness of the treatments offered for the removal of flaws, but there are a couple of systemic problems with the game mechanics offered that also need consideration.

The official mechanic is that once a character achieves the required level, they simply arrange – in game – to receive the appropriate treatment. In some cases, this may be achieved by obtaining a specific feat, or a magic item, or being the subject of a particular spell, and so on. The first requirement is to achieve the specified level, and that’s where the problem lies.

Commencement Level

A lot of GMs start their campaigns at a higher character level than first. That means that – under the rules as written – a character is essentially being handed an extra feat, an extra serving of skill points, or both – with none of the pricetags or character development that the flaws system is designed to express.

There is, of course, the obvious solution of ruling that Flaws is not a valid choice for such campaigns – but that’s not all that happy a solution, since it throws the baby out with the bathwater.

A better solution is to make the buy-off point relative instead of fixed. Instead of the character needing to earn N levels from 1st level, what if the character had to earn N levels from the commencement point of the campaign?

Even better, what if the GM permitted the character only to count levels in which the flaw had a significant influence on the game, in the GM’s opinion? It might take N levels, or N+1 levels, or whatever – but it would ensure that the character experienced the penalty of the flaw before it could be bought off; which is the same thing as the game experiencing the benefits of the flaws system.

Expanding the boundaries

Other options exist for the GM to consider. Here’s a meaty one: Doubling the buy-off target for double the benefits.

That means that instead of One Feat for One Flaw, a character might receive two feats, or twice as many skill points, or a partial dose of both, but not be able to buy off the flaw for six levels instead of three.

That’s an obvious choice, but the GM should be wary – too many feats for a single character can be game-unbalancing. If he permits this option, he should be careful to ensure that NPCs take advantage of the opportunity as well, in roughly the same proportions as the PCs do – if one in four takes the double-buy-off, then one in four NPCs should, as well.

Compounding Flaws

Another option is for the GM to provide an extra reward for flaws whose consequences readily stack. If the consequences of a single flaw are viewed as a set of circumstances under which the flaw impacts the character in negative way, then multiple flaws can be viewed as compounding when the triggering circumstances overlap.

When this is the case, the flaws can be said to compound under the right circumstances. The broader the overlap, the more likely that both restrictions will take effect at the same time, proving more detrimental than either would be on their own.

How much should compounding flaws be worth? This is a difficult question, because the degree of overlap can vary, as the series of diagrams show. As a general rule of thumb, however, I would argue the following as reasonable:

Any such extras should be applied only AFTER any effects from Expanding The Boundaries, above.

Synergising Flaws

Alternatively, a flaw could emphasise existing character constraints or predispositions, in which case it can be said to be a Synergising Flaw. One old-school example might be a flaw that restricted a cleric to a single variety of weapon – given that they used to be restricted to non-bladed-weapons by the rules, but my preferred example comes from KODT: the character formerly used by Brian, “Amber Lotus”, who was a fire mage who had taken the “Pyromaniac” flaw.

The result of a synergising flaw is that the character is rewarded for something that he would be doing anyway. The rule of thumb that I would normally apply in such a case is a maxim from the Hero System: A disadvantage that is not disadvantageous is worth no points.

But this can be a difficult area to police. In the case of “Amber Lotus”, which came first: the focus on Fire Magic or the Pyromania? Viewed one way, it’s a character design that takes advantage of the rules to gain an unwarranted advantage; viewed another way, it’s a character design that reflects consistency of concept, with a flaw that has impacted on the character’s choice of careers. One is rorting the system (or, at best, min-maxing outrageously); the other is good character design and good roleplaying technique.

This is where the refinement that I offered under the heading of “Commencement Level” above becomes relevant. Not only would I ensure that the penalty for the flaw (and it’s worth noting that “Pyromaniac” is not actually one of the flaws listed in the e-book) reduced the character’s ability with non-fire magic, but I would not consider a level in which the character’s choice of spells was the only negative impact as “counting” toward the buy-off target. Instead, in order to be counted, I would require the mage to have needed to cast a non-fire spell and for it to have failed because of the penalty, or in which the character set inappropriate fires to the detriment of the party.

This is a harsher restriction than would normally be appropriate; but, when discounted for the Synergising effect, it would be at about the right standard.

Flaws as characterisation

One final criticism can be levelled at Flaws – that it gives characters a reward for doing what players should be doing anyway. This is criticism that cuts right to the heart of the philosophic foundations of the supplement, and as such is not easily dismissed.

That’s because, to at least some extent, it’s true. It is, however, a truth that fails to view this game supplement in the proper perspective: Flaws is a source of inspiration, a tool to stimulate personality and roleplay. It is from that perspective that I approached it from the moment I first opened the file, and that is the perspective that led to the critique and embellishments that have been offered in this article.

Like any tool, the value of Flaws is not that it should not be necessary, but that it gives the campaign more characterisation gristle for both players and GM. Ultimately, the use of Flaws can be perceived as the GM rewarding the players for enriching the game for everyone. And that’s a fair bargain to strike.

March 2011’s RPG Blog Carnival covered Life and Death in RPG. Full XP to everyone who participated with insightful and inspirational articles, and thanks for your contributions.

Readers, you are in for a treat as you have many articles to choose from this month. I encourage you to read through them and make life and death more memorable elements of your games.

• “Despite how much the hobby has grown, it is hard not to notice how much of each core book for each game is devoted to the taking of life, as opposed to living it.” That is the central issue discussed by Casting Shadows in their post, To Live and Die in Roleplay.

• In Burial Customs of the RandomDM, we are treated to some sweet tables to generate death rites in your game’s cultures. I am always a sucker for good random tables.

• Read about memorable character deaths over at The Dump Stat in their post, RPG Blog Carnival March Part 1 – Life and Death in RPG @ Campaign Mastery.

• Moebius Adventures explores the carnival topic in two parts. In Pt. 1 – Life, he talks about the importance of backgrounds in character development. Pt. 2 – Death discusses how the death of all things should have an effect, and to not fall into the video game mindset of infinite lives and foes.

• Is healing too easy in D&D? Mike Bourke poses that question and delves into fluff and crunch commentary in his article, Too Much Life for The Living.

• Dark Dungeon 2nd Edition offers us several cool ideas for using reincarnation for characters in your campaign in The Joys of Reincarnation and The Shock of Reincarnation. A third interesting post – The Secret of Reincarnation – explores how a society would be different if its citizens had past-life memories.

• Tower of the Archmage muses over past campaign situations in their blog post, Life and Death in RPGs. Is life cheap?

• Casting Shadows philosophizes on the matter in his post Turning the Wheel. I like his tie-in with gaming experience and the changing nature of RPG, a mini turning of the wheel itself.

• One GM plans on shifting more towards death. Read how in the post Death and Undeath in my games over at Creatively Anomalous.

• In Life, Death, and Life Renewed, Mike explores the consequence of rules changes because of a switch to game editions on the same world. And rather than take one of the common solutions other gamers came up with, he chose The Third Way.

• Dvoid Systems handles the tricky matter of why the PCs risk their lives in the post Life and Death in D-Jumpers. I’m glad this is talked about. It has always seemed strange to me that PCs laugh at death and never suffer from stuff like PTSD. I guess that’s the escapist element of RPG.

• The Action Point teaches us to ensure NPCs will be missed and grieved for in their good article, Murdering Your NPCs.

• The carnival of life from the Fame & Fortune blog explores how changes in birth and mortality rates might affect your game. And the carnival of death discusses the other side of the coin, including funerary rites, veneration of the dead, and death of species.

• Surprise Round brings up great points about character death and how to handle it. Check out The death and life of a PC.

• RandomDM treats us to more tables in Rites of Passage, covering random life events.

• Johnn tackles a tricky campaign situation where the PCs and their foes race against each other to contact a dead NPC. This situation evolves into a formula to help GMs play out spells in interesting ways. How To Cast A Spell On Your Campaign And Make It Sparkle Like Gold Dust.

• Hey, undead are people too. Shouldn’t they get personality, backstories, and intriguing goals like the rest of us NPCs? Check out the Undead Foe Generator.

• Late To The Party offers this excellent opening line in their post about game balance, Life is Cheap: “I tend to run dirtbag games and resurrection is generally off the table.”

• Scrolls of the Platinum Warlock talks about how death had poignant impact on a recent game in In Which The Warlock Mourns the Death of a Plane…

• Dungeon’s Master talks about the implications of casting the Raise Dead ritual in Casting Raise Dead, and then possible campaign opportunities in the cool topic, Negotiating For Souls.

• Death and the Underworld in the Sea of Stars recounts the premise of the PCs as death’s agents for the longest running campaign Sean has had in his excellent Sea of Stars setting.

If all has gone according to plan, you are now looking at the final part of what’s been a massive series on the Pulp Genre. This article is mostly afterthoughts and GM advice that I’ve culled from many discussions with players and with my co-GM, Blair Ramage, together with some stuff straight from my own head. It’s a cleanup article, let’s be honest, the appendices that go with the series. But there’s something of value here for everyone…

Invert Tropes Selectively

There was a lot of advice in parts of the previous articles about inverting established tropes and genre conventions, especially when it came to matters of race and culture. It’s easy to get carried away when doing so, making each NPC a square peg in a round hole, simply to make them more interesting. Doing so devalues the effect; in order for the exceptional characters to contrast strongly with the norms, those norms need to be the most common foundation for characters. Your game is best served by working within the clichés as much as possible and reserving the exceptions for when they will be significant.

Your accountants should all be mousy types who are good with numbers and not much else – unless it is especially important that one is not. Your Irish-Americans should all be heavy drinkers who work in law-enforcement – unless it matters that one is not.

Another way to look at this is to say that your characters should follow clichés unless the genre is overruled by the power of plot, which – as discussed in the first article of the series – overrules genre conventions when necessary.

This has the effect of letting your players quickly assess the nature of a character, extrapolate from the genre conventions, take note of what’s significant, and discard the rest; it enables them to focus on the plot.

There is also the added benefit that the players are rewarded for knowing and following the genre conventions and stereotypes, which is an important subject addressed below (“Genre Enforcement”).

Especially For Sidekicks

The temptation to invert tropes tends to be especially strong when it comes to sidekicks and villains. Because these characters are more significant than the run-of-the-mill NPC, there is a desire to make them individuals, and to ensure that they stand out from a crowd.

That alone is not a good enough reason to invert a genre cliché of characterization. Giving the villain enough originality that they can be the foundation of multiple plotlines is a better reason, but one that will not normally be valid for sidekicks.

If anything, convention inversion should never be used for sidekicks so that they do not distract from the villain. If a hierarchy of increasing NPC individuality is considered:

• General Public
• Grunts and Muscle
• Named One-off NPCs
• Recurring NPCs
• Prominent NPCs

…then villains occupy the top level, while Sidekicks occupy the middle level. In effect, they are a Mook with a name and a smattering of personality.

I once created a Villain for my superhero game and made the mistake of giving him a sidekick who was more interesting than the supposed focal point of the adventure. As a result, it did not go well – right up to the point where (in desperation) I made the Sidekick the real “power behind the throne”, pulling the villain’s strings. Suddenly, the adventure came to life just in time to reach a sparkling conclusion. Sidekicks should exemplify the genre conventions.

Players, Trust Your GMs

No matter how much the theorists might suggest that participating in an RPG is a cooperative venture between GM and Players, there is always an element of competition between PCs and GM simply because the latter controls the former’s enemies. This sometimes-adversarial aspect of the relationship can never be wholly eliminated from the game.

Unfortunately, this often leads players to be suspicious of the GMs when they offer information or plot leads. At its worst, this can become something akin to full-blown paranoia. Because of some of its genre conventions, like the deathtrap, the Pulp Genre can be especially susceptible to this.

Just because your GM is plotting, that doesn’t mean that he’s plotting against you!

It’s part of the GM’s job description to make life as difficult and interesting as possible for the PCs – and to make sure that they get out of it with their skins intact. They are to generate situations that produce thrills and spills, but setting out to willingly screw his players over would also be screwing with his campaign.

The more adversarial the players are, the more a GM is forced to reciprocate in order to keep the adventure moving. So, players, cut the GM some slack – and expect him to reciprocate when the time is right. The goal is to have the best adventure collectively possible, okay?

Genre Enforcement

Another part of the GM’s job is to enforce the genre, and this is where things can get sticky. For example, in the pulp genre, federal officials are trustworthy and honest until proven otherwise, regardless of appearance. If the players react to everything that such an official says with distrust and suspicion, they are contravening genre, and the game suffers as a result. The harm might be as small as hours of wasted time while the players hatch plans to deal with any betrayal, or it might be the total derailing of the adventure because the plot twist (betrayal by the official) has been anticipated by the PCs.

For that matter, spending hours planning anything is a violation of genre by the players.

Having said that, you can take the player out of the culture, but cannot take the culture out of the player – at least not completely. Or perhaps that should read, “you can take the PC out of the player, but…”. The GMs have to compromise genre a little to make their game accessible to modern audiences. That means that if an NPC is supposed to be trustworthy, according to convention, part of the GM’s task is making that NPC feel trustworthy to the players.

That means that in most modern campaigns, especially with players who are unfamiliar with the genre conventions, genre enforcement can be a significant problem. It was while discussing this issue that Blair and I began to conceive of this article series.

Adversarial Enforcement

The worst possible approach is to attempt to employ force majeure to enforce genre conventions. Banning players from making plans, for example, or mandating that “your characters trust this NPC”, or otherwise explicitly interfering with the players freedom to express and control their characters. This achieves nothing in terms of solving the overall problem while arousing resentment.

Only slightly better is attempting to use logic, even the logic of genre convention, to persuade players that their PCs should behave in a certain way, or not behave in a certain way. This can arouse feelings of inadequacy in the players and heighten the sense of disconnection from the genre that logically results from not living in that time and culture.

Education

A far better approach is to educate the players as to the genre conventions, and then use a carrot-and-stick approach to enforcement. Providing such education is the purpose of the entire article series to this point. The articles are not aimed at GMs so much as they is aimed at Players.

Having provided the information necessary for such an education, it’s now time to move on to the ultimate point that the series has been aiming toward from word one, which is providing specific advice or GMs on the subject of Genre Enforcement.

A Foolish Consistency

The first point to be made is this: Choose Your Battles Carefully.

Fighting unnecessary battles does nothing but tire both sides out and make people sick of the subject, unwilling to listen, when it does matter.

Every time that a genre convention is broken, the GM should consider whether or not it will make any real difference to just let it slide. Only if it will really matter should the GM consider any form of active genre enforcement.

In-Play Constraint

That is not to say that the GM should not anticipate possible genre violations in advance, and arrange in-game circumstances accordingly. If there is a character that you expect the players to mistrust and who you want to make trusted, introduce them early and spend game time making them trustworthy. If you want the characters to act and react on their wits and not spend time pre-planning, arrange events in-game so that they don’t have time.

Communications technology is primitive. Enforce the difficulties of collusion. If the players are separated, require contact to be by (written) telegram, or timed telephone call (there’s no such thing as a conference call in this era, remember), or a simulation of radio protocols (you can talk or you can listen, you can’t do both).

Transportation technology is also primitive. If the party have different places to go, they will have to split up, and may have to do so immediately if they are to reach their destination in time.

Control WHEN the genre violation occurs instead of WHETHER it occurs. If PCs have to travel to the adventure on a ship, give them a brief period to brainstorm in advance (5 minutes per PC sounds about right) before they depart, and let them plot to their hearts’ content when underway – with no preparations that can’t be made with what they have with them already. If they discover that they need a radio set, they will have to acquire one while underway unless they had the foresight to pack one in the first place. Force the players to improvise with what their characters have brought with them.

Lead By Example

It is incumbent on the GM to ensure that he establishes the standard of behavior that he expects to enforce with his own behavior. It is not enough merely to tell the players what is expected of them in terms of genre conventions, he has to demonstrate them.

Experience

Most genre-enforcement will occur in a metagame context, however, and controlling the experience awarded is one of the best tools available.

Award extra experience to a character who is played in-genre even despite the players’ natural inclinations. If the players want to take an out-of-genre advantage, let them buy the ability to do so with a reduction in the amount of XP to be awarded for achieving success.

These techniques in combination make for a very powerful tool. It leaves the choice of whether or not to violate genre in the hands of the players while establishing that there is a cost to doing so – in effect, a cost for claiming an advantage within the game that the characters are not supposed to have.

But they are very blunt instruments. Reserve them for major violations or plot points. Willingly letting themselves be captured in hopes of learning more about what is going on? Bonus XP. Refusing to let themselves be captured? Reduction in XP. Letting the Villain capture them only to avoid this penalty? Neither bonus nor penalty.

Most importantly, communicate. If someone is about to violate genre, warn them of the infraction and the cost if they continue to pursue their current course, then leave it up to them. This reminds the players of what the genre conventions are, educating them while rewarding those who learn.

And if you’re concerned that the extra experience will unbalance the game, make allowances for the awarding of extra XP when planning your regular XP awards. Instead of “4 XP” (Hero Games scale), make the base for successfully completing the mission “2 XP + up to 2 bonus XP”. Use one point of bonus for roleplay or being clever or whatever, and use the other for genre enforcement.

Bonuses & Penalties

For lesser choices that are either in keeping with, or opposed to, genre convention, a better choice is to award a one-off bonus or penalty to whatever it is that the character is attempting to achieve. That could be a bluff, or a persuasion, or an investigation, or an attack mode, or (in fact) just about any task the character wants to attempt.

This bonus should be doubled, or penalty halved, if the action is in keeping with the character’s Shtick, whatever that might be. An acrobatically-inclined character should receive bonuses to swinging from chandeliers when that’s appropriate.

To be honest, we’re fairly generous when it comes to these one-off bonuses. If the action is entertaining enough, or advances the plot in the direction we think it should go, or is simply fun for the player, we might award additional bonuses. If the circumstances favor performing the action, of course, there will be bonuses on top of that. Even if each of these individual bonuses were capped at +2 (on 3d6), putting them all together could earn the character up to a +10 – and there is no such cap (but bonuses of this scale are rare, +4 is more typical total).

On the other hand, actions that derail the plotline (like trying to kill the villain in the first act rather than learn what he’s up to), actions that are contrary to what’s appropriate to the character, actions that put a dampener on the fun at the table – these are all good reasons to award an ad-hoc penalty. Doing everything wrong can earn a -10 penalty just as easily as doing everything right grants a +10 bonus.

It’s also fairly unusual for us to announce these bonuses, though we will do so from time to time (as much to remind the players that they exist). More often, we will vary the target value to be achieved for success.

The result is that actions that are in keeping with genre conventions, that are in line with what the character is good at, that bring the fun, are all more likely to succeed – and those that aren’t are more likely to fail. And you had better believe that players are quick to learn what works and what doesn’t!

Plot Convolutions

Another technique is to convolute the plot to circumvent any genre violations. This is a more problematic approach, but one that has its place in any GMs repertoire.

There is not a lot of fun for the players if things are too easy. Contemplate the following sequence of events:

1. The GM presents the PCs with a problem;
2. The players spend three hours plotting and making contingency plans to deal with the problem;
3. The GM informs the players that everything went according to plan and hands out XP for the adventure.

Inserting an intervening penultimate step to have the players actually roleplay through their success is an improvement, but still a marginal one.

This is no fun for anyone. It is far better for the GMs to metagame in this situation, to improvise plot complications and convolutions that the players have not anticipated, than for them not to do so.

This is a delicate line to cross, but as an example it clearly shows that there are some circumstances in which the GM should adopt an adversarial approach, and should employ every dirty trick in their repertoires, utilize every advantage that they can muster, including any knowledge of what the players have planned or might plan in secret.

This is, paradoxically, a situation in which the players have to trust the GM – not to abuse their authority and power. That simply won’t be possible unless the GM has previously earned and established that trust.

Compensation

Which brings me to another tricky point. If the GM blatantly metagames in this fashion, should the PCs be compensated in some way? Extra XP, bonuses?

My opinion is that the only justifiable reason for the GM to metagame in this way is to compensate for an egregious and blatant genre violation on the part of the players. Any form of compensation for doing so sends mixed messages and rewards the players for failing to live up to their part of the genre equation. On the contrary, the penalties discussed earlier are more appropriate than any form of compensation.

This is an extremely hard-line position to hold, and that means that it should not be applied lightly. A certain level of planning by the PCs should be accepted by the GM, and if he needs to alter the adventure slightly to keep it challenging as a result, that is part of the burdon of being a GM. Only in the most extreme of circumstances should the GM adopt such a hard line, and he should make it very clear to the players that this action has been taken in response to the genre violation.

The result will almost certainly be a heated conversation, something the GM should be prepared for. The players will almost certainly see this as penalizing them for being too clever for the GM, and they will have a point; however, the ultimate good of the game is at stake, and the GM should make his objections to the behavior clear to the players.

This should certainly be a last resort, not to be employed until after other attempts at remedial action have failed.

Integrating Exceptions

Of course, if there is an occasion when letting the PCs have planning time will change nothing in terms of the adventure – and this happens more often with Pulp scenarios than many GMs expect – then the GM should permit the players to plot and plan all they want. At the same time, this represents the perfect opportunity to educate the players without creating ill-will – “It’s not quite genre-accurate, but I’ll let you do it this time”.

A Summary Of The Conventions

I thought that it might be a good idea to reiterate all the genre conventions before moving on to the big finish of both the article and the series…

World Conventions

• Gender Issues – how are women treated?
• Racial Stereotypes – use clichés and exceptions
• Weird Science Works – use it as necessary
• The Backyard Is The Forefront – most scientific progress happens through private research by backyard inventors
• Outlandish Technology Looks The Part – practice your descriptions of “look and feel”
• Strange Things Lurk In The Unknown – there are strange powers and unspeakable horrors that science cannot explain
• Magic is Real and usually Evil
• Nightmares leave no mark – there is never proof of the paranormal
• Optimism Trumps Cynicism – make sure that there is always a way for the PCs to win in the end
• There’s Always Enough Money – resources are unlimited
• The Five Corners of the World – nowhere is fully explored
• Most worlds have breathable atmospheres – and there are ways to travel to them
• It’s Alive! – and it wants to invade earth
• The Ether is Real – which means no Einsteinian Limits

Story Conventions

• Action is always Right – doing something always advances the plot
• Risk Equals Reward – the more risk a PC takes, the more success they will have in the long run
• Over-planning leads to Opposition – as explained above
• Players, permit your characters to be captured – put PCs in position to learn what the villain is up to
• Spectacle Equals Success for the Heroes – the more flamboyant the action, the more likely it should be to succeed
• Fiendish Death Traps are both inevitable and doomed to failure
• Characters rarely die
• Death Is Cheap for everyone else
• Henchmen are Disposable – so use them up
• Assassination never pays – attempting to kill the heroes before they interfere only makes them mad
• Most targets are faster than most speeding bullets – everyone should miss more often than they hit
• Damsels may be in distress – the role of women in a campaign is an important decision
• SWF, Villain’s Assistant, Seeks Hero – assistant villainesses always fall for the hero
• The Government are (usually) the Good Guys
• KOs – Violence that should break bones and cause permanent injuries do little but knock PCs & major NPCs out
• In The Nick Of Time – cliffhangers are an occupational hazard
• Ninety Miles An Hour is how fast the game should run
• The Improbable is Probable – coincidences happen – in the PCs favour if they have acted instead of debating
• The Villain will return
• Story trumps reality
• A foolish consistency – physics can change from adventure to adventure if necessary – use the Asimov technique
• Silencers Are Golden – good for unlimited shots and more effective than they have ever been in real life
• Use detail where it doesn’t matter
• Super-men and Elite Forces – have a rational explanation for the alliance of the PCs
• The Authorities are Inadequate to whatever the problem is
• Straight (plot-) Lines always Twist
• Optimism Trumps Cynicism (again)- there’s never a problem too big for a PC to solve

Character Conventions

• Use Gender issues to define characters
• Racial Stereotypes & Cliches – employ the 90/10 rule
• Society Is Perfect – someone’s always to blame when things go wrong
• Morality is Black & White
• Parity Of Weapons use – PCs shouldn’t use anything stronger than the villains do
• Motives are simple
• Chutzpah beats expertise, Every Time
• Everyone’s (a) Jack-of-all-trades – every character has whatever skill they need to win in the end
• Smart Characters are still Smart
• and yet, the smartest characters have Inexplicable Lapses in Judgment
• The Jungle Breeds Noble Savages
• Leopards hardly ever change their spots – villains will usually stay villains and heroes usually stay heroes
• Irredeemable Evil can be used to explore complex moral questions with focus
• Villains (usually) boast
• Melodramatic Schemes are par for the course
• Everyone is a Master of Disguise at times
• Respect your enemy (your enemy grudgingly respects you)
• Optimism Trumps Cynicism (one more time) – people are always confident things will get better (doubters aren’t right in the head)
• Characters are colorful
• The Feds are the Good Guys
• A Depth of Character – don’t mistake simple building blocks for simplistic characters
• Pretty Girls and Macho Men – everyone is attractive
• A Warped Body means a Warped Mind
• Businessmen are either Philanthropists or (Greedy) Industrialists
• People dress appropriately (unless it’s funny)
• Individuals thrive, conformity withers
• Everyone is doomed to fulfill their Destiny (whatever it is)
• Villains are frequently hoist be their own petards
• Consumption is (usually) safe
• Internal Consistency is important but less vital in pulp

It’s Not Just Pulp

Much of the advice offered in this series transcends the pulp genre itself, as Rodney observed in the comments to Part 7.

But the value of these genre conventions extends beyond the pulp genre in another vital way: considering them and translating them into the equivalents for a different genre can be used to create a similar roadmap for that genre. The advice and discussion offered with each can then be used to determine game impact of the specific genre and subgenre.

For example, let’s start looking at:

a science fiction genre:

Gender issues – equality is assumed. Issues relating to gender equality can be explored using a character who is deemed to be equal but who is actually inferior by nature.

Racial Stereotypes – racial profiles are in common use but are considered to be oversimplification, however accurate a foundation they form for individual personalities. Many races are subject to racial prejudice by a small minority, but equality is the standard.

Science works – everything that happens has a scientific explanation (or at least a pseudo-scientific explanation).

Technobabble works – the better a player is at describing how to rearrange the engineering using buzzwords and technobabble, the better his character is at getting technology to achieve a specific effect.

Progress Requires Teamwork – almost all scientific progress is achieved by a research team focusing on a single issue in a specially-equipped laboratory. Only advances in theory may take place outside this environment.

Outlandish Technology looks mundane and is remarkably easy to use.

…and so on.

Conclusion: What Is A Genre?

When you get right down to it, What is a genre? I consider it a set of assumptions concerning the environment in which a story takes place, a set of conditions that describe the nature of the stories, and a set of characterization guidelines that are compatible with, and logical derivatives of, the preceding elements. Sometimes this defines a subgenre within a broader framework, but for all practical purposes a subgenre is merely a genre which has a certain resemblance to related genres.

ANY genre can be defined using this framework, and those definitions are automatically in a format that manifests as a practical guide to GMs and Players and Writers working within that genre. The Empire Of The Petal Throne is not the same genre as Bushido, which is not the same genre as D&D, which is not the same genre as Rolemaster. These are similar, clearly related, but with different assumptions as to the nature of the world, the nature of the plotlines, and the nature of the characters that will participate. Some things are common to all – in the broadest possible sense – but there are enough differences to make each unique.

What’s even more important and useful is that individual campaigns can be described using exactly the same framework. The result is an explicit blueprint by which the GM can communicate the ground rules of a campaign to his players.

And anything that makes it easier for GM and players to communicate is worthwhile. These are your tools now – go out and use them!

One spell can change the complexion of a campaign

If two people are casting Speak With Dead on the same body, does one get a busy signal?

In my Riddleport Pathfinder campaign, an NPC named Halcos was assassinated as the PCs were dragging him away to be interrogated. In reaction, the party plans to bring the body to an allied temple for a Speak With Dead service.

The faction who killed Halcos does not want this to happen. Halcos knows stuff the faction wants kept a secret.

Two enemy tactics come to mind immediately. One is to get to Halcos first in his afterlife and warn him of the consequences of talking with the PCs. Second is to physically foil the PCs’ Speak With Dead attempt.

These are great ideas, but how to bring them into the game? I do not want to wave my GM wand and tell the PCs the body is missing. There’s no fun in that. There’s especially no game in that.

So, as I’ve done in the past, I go through a short process to figure out how to make a game of spells. I want to bring things down to the encounter level where actions are possible and ready to trigger.

I find these kinds of encounters compelling because they are tied to the party and past campaign events. They are not random or isolated encounters.

If the PCs succeed in foiling the faction’s attempts, and succeed in talking with Halcos, then not only has the victory been well-earned, but they’ve changed the game world a bit and seen it change around them as well.

The steps for casting a spell on your campaign

Here is a rough list of planning actions I take to turn spells into encounters:

1. Determine limitations
2. Guess PC actions
3. Turn limitations into tactics
4. Turn limitations into details
5. Determine the cost
6. Embed into your world
7. Bonus: generate encounter seeds

1. Determine limitations

We’re dealing with a spell as the central issue. The PCs are going to pay to have one cast. The faction is going to try to get it cast before the PCs do. What happens?

First, lets look that spell up in the rules and determine all the parameters we have to work with. Limitations are a source of creativity. They defeat blank page writer’s block.

I enjoy going back to the rules and seeing how they shape the reality of the game. Doing this often gives you a bunch of options for PCs and foes to overcome, deal with, or take advantage of, depending on the nature of the limitation.

So, before I do anything, I like to look up the spell description and note the parameters I have to work with.

The spell in question: Speak With Dead for PFRPG. It offers these parameters:

10′ range

The person casting the spell needs to be within 10′ of the body. Interesting! This gives the PCs the current edge because they have the body right now. Their foes will have to find a way to get within 10 feet to speak with Halcos in his afterlife.

Cleric, spell level 3

Means the PCs will need to outsource the casting because they are not powerful enough to cast it themselves. An alternative tactic would be to wait until they were powerful enough. Is this likely?

Well, they own an inn with a chilly basement and even a couple of secret rooms. So body storage is not an issue. Is the information they need urgent? From their point of view, they just want to know why Halcos was murdered before he could be interrogated. It’s a mystery, which is compelling, but otherwise there is no current need for urgency.

This is cool, because I can now use Halcos as a source of clues. As the PCs play through various plot threads, I can hint that Halcos might have important information regarding these. I have a lever to create urgency when desired for the PCs to Speak With Dead on Halcos. I just need to include Halcos in other plot threads. This lever could help me meta-game things in favour of more exciting encounters.

To answer the main question though, yes, it is possible the PCs will delay the spell casting.

How about the he PCs’ foes? They do have immediate access to third level cleric spells, so they can disregard this parameter. However, the PCs could figure out who could do the casting for their foes and neutralize them, making it impossible for their enemies to speak with the dead Halcos. Interesting!

As the party is low level and weak, and without much obvious leverage, I do not think the possibility of neutralizing the enemy’s casting sources likely; however I will keep it in mind.

Can the foes execute the same tactic – neutralize PC ally casting sources? The PCs would likely go to their friends at the Temple of Dreams for the casting. A raid on the temple might work. Perhaps some politics or coercion with the temple’s leadership so they deny the PCs’ request. That is also a good possibility.

School and Level – Necromancy 3

No limitations here. The mages’ guild in Riddleport has restrictions on what spells their members can know, cast and sell castings of, but the various Riddleport temples do not, other than standard alignment and ethos restrictions.

The PCs should be able to ask their allies, the Temple of Dreams, for this service without problem as long as they have the guilders (Riddleport gold pieces). A potential tactic for foes might be to rob the PCs so they cannot afford the casting, but it is likely their ally would offer a loan or gimme.

While the PCs will need to tap their allies for necromantic spells, their foes have necromantic spells on tap. Further, they are aware of the PCs’ alliance with the Temple of Dreams.

another idea: is there a way to globally disable necromantic castings in the city? Hmmm, not really. But it was worth a shot.

Casting time 10 minutes

This means no snatch-and-cast possibility for the foes, putting things in the PCs’ favour. If it took only seconds to cast, foes could distract the PCs for mere moments to get in their spell first. This is a huge limitation. The foe caster will need at least 10 minutes undisturbed with the body to get the spell off, which means a good hiding spot, defenses, and escape plan.

This analysis provides me clear guidance on a potential foe plan. They need to find the body, determine if and how it’s being guarded by the PCs, wrest it away, hide out, and then protect a priest for 10 minutes while he casts the spell.

Likewise, PCs will need to protect the body for 10 minutes while an ally casts, or they do the casting themselves when able in the future.

The foes figure assaulting a temple should the PCs opt to tap an ally is not the best course of action, so they need to get the body before a PC ally gets involved.

Though, if the PCs opt to bring a caster to the body, that’s a different story. Aha!

The foes figure this unlikely though, but they better put a tail on the group to see if they do travel to a priest and start bringing one back to their home base.

Saving Throw

A Will save blocks the spell if the dead person has a different alignment from the caster.

Halcos was evil. The enemy has already scouted the PCs and knows their auras – alignment and magic. (You can’t beat good information gathering – foes watch and re-scan the PCs regularly.)

Good news for the enemy is Halcos cannot block resist their spell. It’s the price Halcos pays for his sins in life. Against the PCs, however, Halcos can try to resist unless the party hires an evil spellcaster, which is unlikely.

Components

Speak With Dead needs prayers spoken, holy gestures made, and a holy symbol or divine focus. All are situational. Technically, either side could silence the area before or during spell casting, or prevent the caster from making any gestures, or take away the caster’s focus item to prevent the casting.

The enemy will have spells and tactics ready to spoil components as a long-shot backup plan. Too many variables to count on this. Beside, this would be a stalling manoeuvre, at best.

Duration

The spell lasts at least three minutes. Foes know combats last seconds, so no advantage here.

Spell Details

The spell description ends up having many juicy details that arm me with ideas and tactics.

“You may ask one question per two caster levels.”
The enemy’s caster allows them at least two dozen six questions. Likely, the PCs’ hired caster can ask a dozen three or so. A dozen too many, for the enemy’s comfort.

“The corpse’s knowledge is limited to what it knew during life, including the languages it spoke.”
Halcos spoke Teldane (common). However, see the next item for an interesting possibility.

“Answers are brief, cryptic, or repetitive, especially if the creature would have opposed you in life.”
The first opportunity is, as GM, I can swing answers how I like. I am a fair GM, though, and will answer in-character for Halcos, though cryptic is my middle name.

Second opportunity is, Halcos will oppose the PCs at every step because they got him killed. At least, that’s the way he sees it. So, Halcos will be as short and unhelpful as possible. He knows three languages. The spell does not say he needs to use a language the caster understands. So, he will try his other two languages to foil the caster.

Halcos know Korvosan and Riddleport Slang. The PCs have these languages covered, unfortunately, but there is room for them to make a tactical error. They often divide themselves. Could be, one of more PCs does not take part in this encounter, or are sent away to multi-task on something, or are indisposed of. It’s a small chance, but I’ll keep it in mind.

“If the dead creature’s alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive. If successful, the corpse can refuse to answer your questions or attempt to deceive you, using Bluff.”
We covered the saving throw above. Halcos was an expert bluffer. That could be fun to play out!

One thing my players tend to do is accept the second answer in parleys and not dig deeper. I do not know why. So, Halcos just needs to Bluff a Bluff to foil the PCs.

For example, if the PCs successfully Sense Motive on Halcos making a Bluff, they will call him on it and use what little leverage they can to make him tell the truth (probably just Intimidate, unless they take time to delve into Halcos’ life to find some leverage – it’s what I’d do, but the party will likely not go this route). So, Halcos just needs to lie about his lie and the PCs will likely accept the second explanation.

In-character, Halcos think the characters are suckers, but does not know the players are too. However, as with most evil creatures caught between a rock and hard place, they will keep lying and reveal the truth only for great advantage or as a last resort.

Still, the enemy cannot count on this, and they remain worried about what Halcos might reveal about them.

“The soul can only speak about what it knew in life. It cannot answer any questions that pertain to events that occurred after its death.”
Fair enough. Nothing comers to mind about taking advantage of this for better gameplay or NPC tactical advantage.

“If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails.”
Aha! Stop everything. This little detail offers a tasty morsel of potential. The enemy just needs to cast Speak With Dead on Halcos before the PCs can, and the PCs are blocked for a week.

It’s a shame about the long casting time. A strike team could swoop in, cast the spell if it has short casting time, and buy the enemy a week of time to build a better and more permanent plan.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the caster could start the spell nearby while hiding, and then get to within 10′ of Halcos in the final few seconds of the casting. The primary goal would be to get the spell off on Halcos before the PCs get their cast. Secondary goal would be to issue Halcos a warning to shut up and stay shut up, else his afterlife is in jeopardy too.

“You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all.”
Another potential tactic, if the NPCs can get close enough. Chopping Halcos’ head off and running away with it will block the PCs entirely. So will disfiguring Halcos’ face so he cannot talk.

This again requires getting into tactical distance for melee or offensive spells. The enemy does not know where Halcos’ body is, so hopefully the tail on the PCs discovers it.

“This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.”
Wow, another sweet option. Thank you spell designers.

The enemy need only cast Animate Dead, which requires a touch but only takes a standard action (a couple seconds) to cast.

So, the enemy could ambush the PCs taking Halcos to the Temple of Dreams, have a caster sneak up and cast Animate Dead on Halcos, and the whole problem is solved.

What if the PCs kill Halcos-turned-zombie? I would rule that, once animated, a corpse has the taint of undead on it that prevents any Speak With Dead castings. The players might argue this, so I’ll be prepared to defend my position when it comes time to do a group vote on the ruling.

Note: while writing this, the fine folks at Gnome Stew wrote a post about spells changing the world. I recommend giving it a read, as well.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this article, where I outline the other steps for using spells to make your campaign glitter:

1. Guess PC actions
2. Turn limitations into tactics
3. Turn limitations into details
4. Determine the cost
5. Embed into your world
6. Bonus: generate encounter seeds

I also include examples and some tips so you can put this advice to use in your campaign immediately.

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This article is being co-written by Blair Ramage, with whom I co-referee a Pulp Hero campaign. Although it started as a single item, it has grew so substantially that it became necessary to split it into multiple parts. The first part dealt with the relationship of genre to other aspects of a roleplaying game, and furnished a context for the whole series. The second part covered Pulp environmental and game world conventions. Parts Three and Four dealt with the plot and story conventions of the Pulp Genre, and parts Five and Six began an examination of Character conventions within the Pulp Genre. This time around the intent is to wrap up that examination, leaving the final part of the series to tie it all together with some additional GM advice.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Fed

We start off by revisiting something that’s been brought up before: the citizens of the pulp world can, and do, trust the government. That means that for the most part, a Fed is the Pulp equivalent of a Paladin in D&D: virtuous, honest, mild-mannered, incapable of giving offense and completely unwilling to take offence. A mild exception is made for the Tax-collector, but even they are not so much mistrusted as feared and disliked.

The implication is that every encounter a character has ever had with any branch of officialdom is going to be a positive one except in the most unusual of circumstances. They can make mistakes, they can overlook things they should take into account, but their intentions are always good. Bureacracy is there to facilitate getting things done, and red tape can always be cut through in an emergency.

There are no ‘cracks’ for someone to fall through. There are no real safety nets because none are expected.

A World Without Depression

One of the changes to history that has been made in the Adventurer’s Club campaign is that the Great Depression was not as severe as has been recorded in real-world history. There were a number of reasons for this digression, but the main one was necessity.

It can be argued that part of the sense of optimism that is fundamental to the pulp genre derives from a role as escapist literature, a contrast with the difficulties post- Wall Street Crash. Blair felt that some historical divergence was necessary in order to make that escapist optimism manifest in ‘the real world’ when he created the campaign setting. Since then, we have discussed the consequences and implications on several different occasions.

I’m not going to repeat these discussions, but some of our conclusions bear reporting.

• The “New Deal” was not as substantial an economic revolution as recorded, because it wasn’t necessary.
• The underlying fragility of the American Economic Policies of the time that caused the Great Depression was masked but not repaired.
• While unemployment spiked, it was quickly restored. Economic prosperity is thus closer to 1940-45 levels than those recorded for 1930-35, and so are prices.
• There was no loss of confidence in the business leadership. Corporations are the people’s friends.
• Manufacturing is at a higher level as a result.
• There is enough loose capital floating around to make it practical for backyard inventors and weird scientists to ply their trade.
• Technological research has benefitted from greater access to capital, and is generally at an early 1940s level, though few of the benefits of this progress have yet manifested in benefits for the ordinary citizen.
• These changes enable wealthy dilettantes the wherewithal to build supercars and rappelling guns and whatever other gadgets are required to transform a playboy into a Pulp Hero.

Much of the required infrastructure and justification for the world having a more “Pulp” flavour can be traced back (with a bit of oversimplification) to this one point of divergence.

Of course, there are other consequences. Without the difficulties of the Great Depression to make reparations payments impossible for Germany and so stridently demanded by the allies of World War I, the rise to power of Adolf Hitler needs a little tweaking. His skill at oratory needs to be elevated to a near-superhuman level. He becomes, quite literally, a hypnotic speaker. Whatever shred of justification there may have been for the Nazi revolution in Germany is lost, and the entire ascendancy of the Nazi Party becomes one of deliberate subjugation by a demagogue. In short, the Nazis become even more pulp-villainous than they were historically.

Prior to World War II, the fascist economy was widely admired for its efficiency and productivity, transforming Germany from a crushed nation to a world power in a mere decade. There was a view that this was the next step in economic and political evolution. This view, a result of the contrast with the economic woes of the US and repercussive consequences on the rest of the world, won the Nazis many sympathisers. If that contrast is muted because the depression was less severe than expected, then once again, those sympathisers become more villainous.

It fits.

A Depth Of Character

There is a mistaken impression that some people, both players and GMs, subscribe to – that Pulp characters are simplistic and without depth as a consequence of this simpler world-view. Blair and I would contend that the exact opposite is true; by making choices black and white in their morality, and forcing characters to have perpetually chosen between these extremes in their past, situations are automatically heightened in dramatic impact, and characters are forced to wear their past sins on their sleeves, as it were. While individual elements of characterisation may be simpler, the tapestry they weave can be every part as rich and complex as is found in any other genre.

Before I (Mike) was a co-GM in the campaign, I was a player. My character was named Paulo Lumierre. I started writing a background for the character, but my status changed and the character was retired before it was complete. But, as proof of the statement made in the previous paragraph, here’s a snapshot:

• Son Of A Made Man: Paulo started life as a Sicilian American named Gino Samuele Vassili shortly after his family emigrated to New York. His father became muscle for Donatello Lancioni (a gangster) and was eventually killed in a turf war with the Jade Dragons, a minor Tong.
• Footsteps On The Path Of Betrayal: Gino blamed both Tong and the Lancioni family and spent two years setting himself up as a double agent for the Tong to get the information he needed to have them destroy each other in an orgy of escalating violence. Heo could have gone to the police, but he didn’t want them found guilty of other charges, he wanted blood for his Father.
• Exposure & Flight: Obsession led to Gino making a mistake: the heir to the Tong expected him to continue to spy for them. At the same time, the Lancioni family’s territory was taken over by Don Corlione, who knew that the Tong had a mole in the former family and set about discovering who it was. Gino’s brother was ordered to “take care of the problem” but Guiseppe gave Gino just enough warning to flee.
• Performer: Gino changed his name and became a roustabout and wandering clown for Barker’s Cavalcade Of Star Attractions, a minor circus. He stayed with them just long enough to establish his credentials as a Carnival Hand before moving on and again changing his name to further muddy his trail.
• Europe: He eventually hooked up with Simon’s Travelling Big Top, who were concluding an extended tour of the US and Canada, and returned with them to the Continent. Now using the name “Larry Sanders”, he was an established member of the troupe when they were joined by a new act, The Great Zabroski, a stage magician. “Sanders” became Zabroski’s friend and understudy and mastered the secrets of hypnotism.
• Agent Of Deception: Two years later, “Sanders” discovered that Felix Zabroski was actually a spy for the Romanovs who stole government secrets wherever the circus went. Rather than kill his friend, Zabroski recruited him.

That’s as far as I had gotten in the 3-and-a-half pages that were completed before the project was put on hold, but I had roughly as much again plotted out. Zabroski was going to get wind of the unrest that would unseat the Romanovs and go into business for himself; then get caught and sell out his “friend” to save his own skin. “Sanders” would then flee to France and adopt yet another new identity, “Paulo Lumierre”, only to get caught up in World War I. Distinguishing himself as a spy behind German Lines for the Allies, he would rediscover his morality and after the war, become an adventurer. He would always be looking over his shoulder in case the Tong or Corlione families learned of his survival.

What’s the point? Well, “Paulo” became a bad guy to avenge his father, betraying two crime syndicates in the process. He made his escape only to become a spy in the employ of another villainous family in order to save the life of his friend – who then betrayed him, anyway. He then used a solid War Record to give himself a clean slate, using everything he had learned to become a hero – but a hero with a shady past and a solid streak of ruthlessness. He was someone who would do the wrong thing for the right reasons without blinking an eye.

There’s a lot of very solid characterisation there, and the ongoing story of Paulo’s redemption would have been great to play. Certainly, there is no trace of simplicity in the finished product, even though every element is starkly black and white, morally.

Pretty Girls And Macho Men

Plastic surgery would not be a very profitable career choice in a pulp world. The women go from being pretty girls to voluptuous women, and the men from strapping youths to Macho Heros. Even characters who are thin and emaciated are “whipcord leather”. Unless you’re a villain, you are handsome/beautiful. And so is everyone else you meet – think of 1930s movie stars.

Warped Body, Warped Mind

The reason, of course, is because of this genre convention (which is occasionally honoured with an inversion, but that is always noteworthy). There is a social assumption that any physical abnormality will be reflected in a mental abnormality. This does not mean that the unfortunate character will be slow or stunted or any of a dozen other impolite terms applied to describe intellectual disability or limitation; it means that the character’s thinking will be aberrant in some manner. And, since aberrant thinking is incontrovertibly NOT “right” thinking, it follows that any form of aberrant thinking makes the character in question a villain, or the murderous henchman of a villain.

Blair and I are actually fond of inverting this convention (I hate the word ‘trope’) with respect to the major villains on occasion. We will not scar them, mutilate them, or deform them; instead, we make them as close to perfection as a PC would expect to be (in his or her own way) to offer a subtexted implication that the villain is a twisted reflection of the hero. This plays especially well when it is obvious that by his or her own standards and objectives, they ARE a hero – but those standards and objectives clash with those of The Good Guys and so must ultimately be flawed in some way.

However, as a general rule, all our villains are marked in some way. The Nazi super soldiers all have a mass of surgical scars all over their bodies. The head of the Nazi division responsible for recovering treasures and artefacts of a possibly arcane nature wears a skull-like mask made of steel for a face (after his real skull was crushed in an accident – the mask holds the shattered pieces together), and so on. The occasional crazed expression may be used if the villain is otherwise unrelentingly normal. Once it was a pair of eyebrows that looked like animated overgrown hedges and a nervous twitch. Shades Of Cindy Crawford, even our femme fatales (and we haven’t used enough of them) usually have a mole or birthmark or tattoo somewhere on their bodies (even if it is never visible to the PCs).

At the same time, we are careful in our choice of language to describe the “good guys”. There are no blemishes, there are beauty marks. Wrinkles signify character and experience, not decrepitness or age. Old people never have liver spots. Everyone has perfect teeth, and eyeglasses are practically an affectation.

The same should apply to the PCs, of course. Paulo Lumierre was scarred multiple times by the life that he led before becoming a hero, but when he did so, his deepset eyes went from “sinister wells in the shadows” to “mysterious pools hinting at the fringes of the unknown” as fast as the character could take breath, his expression from “haunted and edgy” to “concerned and constantly aware of his environment”.

Philanthropists And Industrialists

These same dichotomies reduce CEOs to two fundamental types: there are Philanthropists and there are Industrialists. The first are good guys, charitable, usually friendly and helpful. The latter are greedy schemers out to advance themselves beyond what is fair and reasonable – villains. The concept of a corporation or business entity which did not have the welfare of its staff and customers foremost in mind when making policy decisions is unthinkable, and no shareholder would want or trust such a person to operate on their behalf.

These labels are subtexts that can always be used to place a moral appraisal on a businessman’s performance and behaviour. This is not only the language employed within the game by the GMs, it is the language employed by the newspapers and the public. Ebenezer Scrooge would be described as a “wealthy industrialist”.

Some labels can supersede these categorisations, especially those relating to noble origins. A Duke may be a Philanthropist and a maniacal would-be world conqueror. A King can be an industrial magnate and still concerned with his citizen’s wellbeing – that simply means that his slave labour comes from outside his own subject population. National titles, such as President, or Senator, can similarly mask either of these labels, as can military titles. Remember that a heroic figure can do the wrong thing because he believes the end justifies the means just as easily in Pulp as in any other Genre.

This is one genre convention that we found the players could access more easily than we expected. On reflection, we realised that this is because the ideological loading placed on these terms persists from the pulp era into the modern day, even in the real world. We have also had some success infusing the same ideological subtext when applying the terms “Newspaper Publisher” and “Media Magnate” – the first implies a love of and reverence toward truth and honesty and public welfare, the latter is underhanded and sensationalist.

Through careful use of language, we have been able to apply similar value judgements (not always accurately in fact, but always accurate in public perception) to just about everyone the PCs have encountered in the Adventurer’s Club campaign – though I doubt many of them were aware of it! While not in any way railroading the campaign, this subconsciously preps the players to react appropriately to the characters they encounter.

People Dress Appropriately (Unless It’s Funny)

It’s a strange thing, but characters never seem to LOOK out of place, in terms of attire, in any pulp story. If James Bond is not dressed appropriately, the villain will expand the Hero’s wardrobe when inviting him to lunch – usually at the point of a gun. A Magician always wears his coat, cape, and top hat.

When it comes to the PCs, the GMs will ensure that there is always a mechanism to at least let them look appropriate to the setting IF they want to avail themselves of it. What’s more, the character’s usual dress will get them by in most settings. Consider who our current PCs are, for a moment: There’s a Merchant Captain who dresses in Naval costume; a Dashing Pilot with multiple decorations from the war; a Priest; and a Doctor (and they are always well-dressed). It doesn’t matter whether or not they are at a warehouse, a graveyard, or a reception, these are reasonably appropriate clothing.

The only times a PC is dressed inappropriately is when they insist on wearing something other than their normal attire as a disguise, or when it’s just plain funny for them to be out of place. If the PCs ever try to sneak into somewhere by way of a brothel, expect them to emerge wearing veils and tassels – and his collar, in the case of the Priest! Not because it’s reasonable for them to emerge dressed that way, but because it’s downright hilarious. If we’re feeling generous, we might let them be carrying their street clothes!

Individuality Thrives, Conformity Withers

This is one of the more subtle, not-recognised-at-first-glance genre conventions, and yet it is one that anyone who is at all well-read in the genre will recognise the truth of, immediately. Heck, I’ve read hardly any pulp, Blair is the expert in our little team, but even I recognise it!

The more individual and individualistic, the more distinctive a character, the more they will succeed over the long run. As soon as a character leaves his life of distinctiveness behind and “settles down”, his life – and his enthusiasm for life – begins to wane. Cipher characters are a dime-a-dozen and matter about as much, in terms of plot and relationships.

And it’s not just because the most individualised characters going around are the PCs either; the same is true of NPCs. Either they are colourful and noteworthy (in which case they will probably survive and even prosper in the long run) or they are chicken fodder of no great relevance.

Not only should GMs and players actively bear this in mind and use it as a characterisation tool to ensure that the most interesting characters are those tapped for success by events, they should also apply the converse; characters who thrive or prosper should always be a little more colourful in some respect than those of less success in the same task.

You don’t have to take it over the top – that should be saved for those really special characters that come along every now and then – but giving each character that meets this description some unique mannerism or personality element is necessary to conform with this genre convention. Of course, this is a good idea in any genre, but when it comes to pulp it is mandatory.

Doomed By Destiny

Every character in a pulp game has a destiny, and no matter how much they struggle against it, fate always wins. Villains, for example, are fated to fail, usually at the hands of a specific nemesis or group of enemies. Heroes are fated to have the lives and fates of others thrust into their hands. Some characters are doomed to lives of misery, no matter how promising events may seem in the short term. Some characters can fall into a cesspool and strike oil, others will always struggle.

Obviously, this also applies to PCs. Players can make their lives (and their characters) more interesting by determining what they think their characters’ destinies are going to be – but the final determination should be left to the GMs and to the outcomes in actual play, and the GMs are under no obligation to match the PCs ambitions in this regard. In fact, it can be argued that the tension between expectation and reality elevates the interest within the character.

When it comes to NPCs, GMs should take a more active role. They should never control events while the PCs are present and involved (though they may shape them) – that way leads to plot railroads – but as soon as the NPCs are whisked off stage, events should conspire to restore the appropriate “status quo”.

Hoist By Their Own Petards

Another genre convention that GMs should respect as often as possible is the mechanism of defeat for the villains – as the title of this section says, they are generally undone by their own natures. This is, in itself, an expression of the “Doomed by destiny” convention.

The easiest way to achieve this without railroading the players is twofold:

1. Build multiple potential failure modes and plans to overcome them into the Villain’s plans in the first place, then ignore every failure mode except the second one that the PCs pursue (or possibly the third); and
2. Don’t only take the genre convention literally – consider metaphor and allegory and symbolic representations as well.

This manner of directed Sandboxing ensures that the GM (and players) are not overwhelmed by options, as the Villain himself has closed off most of them in advance, just be being a competent opponent, while ensuring that the adventure will be challenging. What’s more, by making the “weak point” the second or third option pursued by the PCs, the GM ensures that the PCs can attempt one thing, make progress, encounter setbacks, and still ultimately succeed – all while staying true to the genre convention.

Of course, there are still weak points in such planning – what if the PCs can’t find the flaw in the plan? What if they think of something the GM hasn’t? In the case of the first, the GM should let events progress while dropping the occasional hint or clue as to the flaw, preferably as a result of the attempts to utilise the ‘first’ flaw. This gives the PCs a sense of achievement even while it delays the ultimate success. And in the case of the second, let the Villain do everything that the GM thought of, blocking all avenues of failure of his plan – except the one that he didn’t think of, and the PCs did. This is one of those occasions referred to earlier in which everything works out the way the PCs expect it to – eventually.

Consumption Is Usually Safe

In 1982, Joe Jackson released Night And Day, which included a track with the chorus “Everything Gives You Cancer”. In modern times it seems there is something wrong with everything – not enough of this, too much of that, this side effect, that problem. If you listened to all these pronouncements of doom, you’ld never eat or drink anything again, and would wear a respirator connected to an oxygen bottle at all times.

The Pulp world and its characters reflect a different attitude. While a few things are poisonous, most things can be consumed without ill effect. You can be a hard-drinking chain-smoking private eye while never worrying about Cancer or Liver failure. And, so far as poisons are concerned, the attitude is “whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” – read the story of Rasputin, for example!

Only when it becomes important to the plot will a character encounter any ill effects from any form of conspicuous consumption.

Even unlikely radiations are generally safe – even though Marie Curie died of radium poisoning caused by the radioactivity of the element she made her life’s work, this was still considered a case of accumulated poisons and not an effect of the radiation itself. Characters can handle refined uranium with their bare hands and suffer nothing worse than a few blisters.

Internal Consistency

Consistency in pulp tends to be a one-adventure-at-a-time thing, as discussed in part one of this series (and elsewhere). Anti-gravity can be impossible in one adventure and central to the next. Throughout a character’s history, that character’s personality remains the common thread that ties the adventures together, while the definitions of some skills will change as necessary to encompass whatever the game reality is within the current adventure.

That can be tricky for players to manage, and even trickier to integrate within a character’s timeline; GMs should expect to have to help them, and to encourage the players to get creative. Once again, the general solution is to take the first interpretation to feature and consider it to be the default, and all other interpretations to be limited exceptions.

I have to apologize for the vagueness of that advice; it’s hard to be specific about this without making this article even more unreasonably large than it now is. I can only refer the reader to earlier parts of this series where the problem and solution was discussed at greater length.

Even more likely is the problem of intersecting backgrounds in conflict. Character A proposes that Voodoo works one way, with one set of limitations, in his character background, while character B has a quite different set of rules in place for his own encounter with Voodoo in his background. Or perhaps they have both encountered someone with the same title but a different name and personality, at more-or-less the same time. The players expect the GM to sort this problem out, and without requiring substantial revision of either of the characters if at all possible!

In cases like this, we will generally choose the option that has the most story potential, or is the most interesting/inviting, and make that our default (unless we don’t like either of them). Then we simply have to graft in a circumstance that explains why it worked differently, or appeared to work differently, in one character’s case (or both cases, if we’ve chosen option C, Neither Of The Above).

We may not tell the players of the solution, or even that there is a conflict – we can build an adventure around their discovery of the truth, and it gives the characters something to talk about!

Or, if we’re feeling lazy, we’ll simply let the players argue it out until they come up with a solution – or leave it as a mystery. Not everything needs to be explained!

The finishing line is now in sight! Next time around there’s some general advice, some discussion of genre reinforcement and integrating exceptions, and a look at why it all matters. Join me next week as we wrap up this examination of genre!

Win a set of these

Who says undead can’t have personality? While rank and file skeletons and zombies will get mowed down faster than you can roleplay, you can turn any single undead into a remarkable NPC. To do that, you just need to add a few details beyond the stat block. Today’s generator will help you do this.

Skull dice giveaway

I also have the last pack of Q-Workshop dice on my desk to give away: red and black skull dice. Details are at the end of this post.

Undead generator

Start with d10 Motives. It is good to know what your special foe wants to accomplish in the campaign.

Next, d20 Mannerisms gives you some fun roleplaying details. Build out your rumours and news with this information too.

d12 Backstories works in combination with your motive. Use the pair to create unique personalities.

d8 Interesting Lairs offers ideas on interesting places your creature might make his home base. Cemetery is not on the list. I figured that was a gimme.

2d6 Undead Themes. How is the campaign affected by your antagonist? Give it a theme to guide your designs and encounters.

2d4 Unexpected Defenses. Surprise your players!

Undead generator tables

	d10 Motives
1	Revenge on a fallen paladin who forced his fiance to marry the diabolical knight.
2	Gather 1000 powerful souls as part of a scheme to become immortal.
3	Become the leader amongst a secret society of undead that aims to overthrow King or empire.
4	Visit orphanages in the land, kill the masters, rescue the children, and start an orphanage “farm” of his own.
5	Thinks he is still alive but with special powers and is starting the let greed and lust control him impulses.
6	Find his murderer and make him undead too so he can inflict eternal pain and torment on the killer.
7	Cursed to free a kingdom under the withering rule of a lich by one who thinks you must fight fire with fire.
8	Seeking immortality but discovering a tortured existence instead, this poor creature only finds misery company. He now targets anything with peace or beauty and destroys it.
9	Turned into undead against her will, she now seeks a way to return to her former life. But growing more desperate and succumbing to her unnatural state, she has started turning to cruel methods to further her quest.
10	The event that turned him into undead was so traumatic he has blocked it from his memory. Now he seeks out those afflicted by the curse of undeath and wishes to assemble a support group and network. However, he is unaware this is by design, and a greater power who planted this suggestion in him at the time of his conversion plans to seize control of this network when the time is right.

	d20 Undead Mannerisms
1	Never stops his school-girl giggling, which gets higher pitched the more evil he performs.
2	There is a poem people in the land learn to ward off evil spirits. He never stops repeating it in a hushed voice, and he seems to time his actions to key phrases in the poem that twists the meaning of the poet in the worst possible way.
3	His hands are those of a random creature. When a hand gets severed, which he often does to himself, another random appendage appears. Yesterday, it was a giant lobster claw, which he cut off and sold to a nearby restaurant. A hoof appeared in its place, and now he’s getting a gold shoe fashioned for it.
4	Takes every chance, even if it involves breaking in, to stand over a bed and watch someone sleep.
5	Scratches hands, arms, and legs through skin to the bone unless someone makes him aware of what he is doing.
6	Has scars that magically form into patterns that seem like important information or clues, but are usually meaningless.
7	Enjoys eating people’s pets, even though he need consume no flesh to survive.
8	His face grows black blood-filled zits and boils that ooze and pop, offering materials usable as deadly poison.
9	He smells of fond memories, giving him a small bonus to any manipulative social situations.
10	Espouses the tenets of a lawful god, trying to convert everyone he can, pleased with the taint he imbues in unwitting converts.
11	Speaks in a selfless and compassionate way, making those unaware of his nature think he is a wonderful friend and loyal companion.
12	His eyes give him such an uncomfortable gaze it becomes difficult for those he stares at to lie, maintain a poker face, or not fidget.
13	Adorns himself in holy symbols, runes and icons. Tattoos, jewelry, clothes and possessions all tie to good deities.
14	Is beautiful or handsome. Perfect skin, brilliant smile, and engaging eyes makes everything think the undead is some kind of higher creature.
15	Still has masterful control of facial muscles and body functions, allowing him to continue with his hobby and craft of disguise. He enjoys impersonating others.
16	A strange sound accompanies him wherever he goes. The sound does not seem to emanate from him, and it sometimes changes. Some report hearing crickets, others a low stringed instrument, and still others animals crying out in pain.
17	Can take off his skin. He does so frequently, in front of others, either to clean it or put it on again so “it fits better.”
18	Covered in a horrible creature of the GM’s choice: moving green slime, writhing maggots, birthing botflies, starving leeches. The undead likes to get close to people and reach out to touch them in friendly gestures.
19	Cracks knuckles, which actually breaks them. The knuckles heal in a couple of minutes. Also enjoys breaking his fingers in interesting ways and watching them reknit.
20	Becomes confused when viewing any reflective surface. After a few moments of disorientation, the undead descends into a blind, destructive fury that lasts for a minute.

	d12 Undead Backstories
1	A jealous rival took him fishing and then drowned him in the shallow pond.
2	Was forced to drink a glass of blood by a bully who confronted and beat him one day at random.
3	Challenged a vampire who killed his family. He won, but not without being bitten first.
4	Was on a date and wandering through the house of horrors when she was attacked. She never saw her attacker, and her transformation took just a few hours. She turned on her date, who failed to protector, and he became her first undead minion.
5	Saw something shiny in a sewer opening. When reaching in to grab it, a hideous creature lunged out and clawed him. He lost his arm that day, but gained a new look on unlife.
6	Step-father beat him to near death, took all his money, and dumped his bleeding body in the bad part of town. The open wounds attracted a certain creature who drank his fill, killing the boy but giving him a chance for revenge moments later….
7	Studied for years by an undead lord, protected and subtly groomed, the wizard always suspected he had a guardian angel. When the time was right, the lord sabotaged an experiment that grievously wounded the magic practitioner.
8	They embalmed and entombed him, performing with perfection all the steps for venerating their beloved ruler…but one. A follower, wishing for longer rule, sabotaged one step, which resulted in the leader coming back as an undead.
9	His lord sent him and several other soldiers on a suicide mission to save the land. Turns out the mission was a diversion so the lord could attack a foe by surprise and pillage. The soldier died, mere inches away from his goal, and in the afterlife upon learning of the ruse, he forced his way back to the land in the form of an undead.
10	A mad priest dug his body up and imbued it with unlife. After years of service, the priest was finally slain by heroes. Freed, he managed to escape and journey to this part of the world.
11	Little did he know the book he found captures the souls of readers. Imprisoned for centuries, he was disgorged by the book as the tome can hold only a certain number of souls and then it frees older ones in favour of new readers. Upon release, however, the book turned him into undead, having drank his life while trapped.
12	A famous pit fight ironically died in his sleep. Unwilling to let his cash cow go so easily, the manager arranged for the fighter to be raised as undead (cheaper than full resurrection, plus other advantages). The fighter won many more matches until his nature was discovered. His manager was put to death but he escaped before clerics could perform their painful ceremonies on him. That was yesterday.

	d8 Interesting Lairs
1	Defiled church. The locals are unaware of the taint and still come to worship.
2	Black library. Profane, rebellious, and corrupting titles brush up against works of knowledge that enhance residents’ strategies and tactics.
3	Local make-out place / lover’s lane. The raw emotions attract certain undead, who fight each other for control of this area.
4	Crowded orphanage. The day to day activities mask the presence of an unspeakable evil.
5	Popular bordello. The constant flow of strangers allow undead to anonymously pass…and feed.
6	Busy hospital. Run by nuns who lock the doors of their rooms at night.
7	Asylum. Formerly a place to protect the insane from the public and themselves, a new threat tears at their sanity.
8	Travelling carnival. The strange and wondrous roll across the land and entertain crowds.

	2d6 Undead Themes
2	Terror
3	Dread
4	Obsession
5	Despair
6	Shock
7	Disease
8	Poison
9	Fear
10	Phobia
11	Insanity
12	Depression

	2d4 Unexpected Defenses
1	Immune to Good attacks
2	Heals when physically struck
3	Blinks as a move action
4	Heals when Turned
5	Turns to stone until danger passes
6	Doppelganger (switches identities so foe looks like the undead)
6	Living shield (grapples foes so foes take all damage)
6	Magic rebounds off him

Win a set of Skull Dice

Comment below with d4 more entries for any of the tables above: Motives, Mannerisms, Backstories, Interesting Lairs, Undead Themes, or Unexpected Defenses.

Enter multiple times – each helps fellow GMs roleplay their undead better.

I will mail the winner a set of cool Red & Black Skull dice from Q-Workshop.

I’ll draw a random entry Friday, just a few days away, so enter now:

One more article for the Blog Carnival! Next time, I’ll get back to the series on Pulp Genre Conventions, if everything goes according to plan…

A Variant Combat System for D&D 3.x

Is healing too easy in D&D? Sometimes it seems like Clerics are little more than magical drip bottles, especially in more tactically oriented campaigns and adventures, like the typical dungeon. Only when adventures move beyond this restriction and begin to explore themes of theology and the nature of divinity do Clerics contribute more to the party than being a source of healing and a second-rate fighter.

Worse still, other characters can come to take this instant total recovery for granted, giving them a sense of invulnerability, which expresses itself as a disrespect for the capabilities of the creatures encountered.

Nor can the GM counter by using the principle of “what’s fair for the PCs is fair for the NPCs”; doing so means that the combat will last long beyong the point at which it is interesting, becoming tiresome and exhausting, and taking entirely too much game time. Slowing the game to a crawl is not an acceptable solution!

The Value of Healing

There is also an arguement to be made for an answer of “No” to the initial question. The characters are supposed to be exceptional, after all, and the chutzpah that comes from having sufficient healing available enables them to act that way. This is the same line of arguement that led me to introduce a ‘quick healing’ technology in my superhero campaign.

A second line of argument runs that reducing the game to an exercise in bookkeeping drains the fun from it faster than anything else around, continually dragging the players out of immersion in the roleplay and back into the metagame.

Finally, there is a third arguement that if clerics are less effective at healing, the value of the character type is weakened, reducing the variety in party composition, and that the risk involved in taking anything other than a high-hit point character class becomes disproportionately high. Having a reasonably high level of healing available makes variety more accessable as a choice.

The Delicate Balance

With as many reasons for having ample healing available as there are reasons for limiting the benefits of healing, it’s clear that there is a delicate balance to be maintained between too much healing and not enough.

Which still leaves the initial question itself to be unresolved. My answer is that it depends on the nature of the campaign.

Dungeon Campaigns

In dungeon-oriented campaigns, there will be more combat per day, and the number of healing spells available to a cleric will quickly be consumed; since this is the type of campaign that the designers of the game clearly had in mind when they wrote the rules, it was for this style of campaign that the availability of healing is balanced.

I would include in this category combat-heavy campaigns that take place above ground, as well.

Storytelling Campaigns

The answer is not so positive when it comes to campaigns that are more about roleplaying and less about frequent combat for its own sake. In these situations, where many game days in a row can be completely combat-free, I find that healing is too readily available, and that players can generally assume that they will enter each battle fully healed. The inevitable side-effect is that combat is not as thrilling as it could be – for anyone.

What’s Needed

What’s needed is an optional system that the GM can invoke. It must be compatable with the game as it operates normally, so that if a campaign enters a phase in which the ‘normal’ game balance is appropriate, the system can be ignored. The arguements, both pro- and anti- healing restrictions, can be viewed as design restrictions.

Standard vs Dramatic Combat

TORG had such a system, one of many worthwhile innovations that were either invented in that game’s rules or intruded apon my awareness for the first time when I read the system. They divided combat into two types: Standard combat, and Dramatic Combat.

If we designate the rules as written as “standard” combat, and the variations on healing effectiveness as “dramatic” combat, then requirement #1 – compatability – is assured.

When to use Dramatic combat

The goal of dramatic combat is to make both sides aware of every blow, to make the combat feel more knife-edge life-and-death dramatic. It follows that it should only be used at certain times:

1. when the prospects for more combat in the near future are lower than they would be in a dungeon setting;
2. when the outcome of the battle is unusually significant;
3. when the GM has some specific reason for desiring the participants to feel every blow more keenly than usual;
4. when the GM wants a more dramatic or epic flavour to the battle.

We’ll talk about this question again, once the mechanics are ironed out.

The Drama Of Dramatic Combat

By retaining the existing rules as “Standard combat” for compatability, certain choices are barred. We can’t reduce the effectiveness of healing spells, for example, or reduce the number of hit points a character has. We can’t increase the amount of damage inflicted, either. In fact, NONE of the standard paramaters can be altered at all; what we need is something “on top” of the existing rules.

Some sort of damage or combat effect that can’t be healed with the administration of a healing spell.

Wounds

Every blow that lands on a target inflicts a certain amount of damage on the target. We don’t want to mess with that, it’s fundamental to the operation of standard combat; so it follows that we are talking about an additional kind of damage, which I shall call Wounds (unoriginal but it gets the point across).

Wound Capacity

Next, we need a quick way to measure wounds, one that differentiates between combatant combat capabilities. The obvious device is the size of a character’s hit dice, plus their CON modifier. If the character’s hit dice is a d6 and they have a class modifier of +2, then every 6+2=8 points of damage would inflict one wound. The character has a wound capacity of 8.

If an attack does less than 8 points of damage (in this case), the character doesn’t get wounded by it – it’s just a scratch (to them). If an attack does 25 points of damage, the character suffers 3 wounds (because 25/8=3-and-a-bit).

Compare this with a Mage (d4 hit dice) and a CON modifier of -1. That’s a Wound Capacity of 4-1=3. So the 8-point attack would do 2 wounds, and the 24-point attack would do 8 wounds. Such characters might well end up with a negative BAB. What’s a mage doing in melee, anyway?

The Effect Of Wounds

Third, we need some sort of effect for these wounds to have on the game. How about:

• -1 to the character’s AC, or
• -1 to the character’s BAB, or
• -1 to either of the above, player’s choice?

The characters with a lot of wound capacity – those with a large-sized hit dice and high CON modifier – are also the character types with lots of BAB and AC to lose, and so are the most likely to feel this effect on combat. With BAB going down, they will slow with each nick and slash – but so will the enemies that they are attacking.

These effects apply ONLY in Dramatic conflicts.

The best choice, in this case, is the first one, because I have another trick up my sleeve for BAB.

Fatigue

Why not use a similar mechanism to track the effects of repeatedly inflicting damage? In effect, each blow of sufficient magnitude would inflict a “wound” on the character inflcting the damage.

Fatigue Capacity

Fatigue should not accumulate as quickly as Wounds, so let’s set Fatigue Capacity to 150% of Wound Capacity (round up). Our Fighter example had a Wound Capacity of 8, so he would have an exhaustion capacity of 12.

However, exhaustion should not be determined on the basis of counting only extraordinary blows; instead, it should be a reflection of the total accumulated damage handed out. If the fighter lands three blows in a round, doing 6, 12, and 15 points of damage respectively, they have inflicted a total of 33 points of damage and have suffered two points of exhaustion and are working on a third.

Effects Of Fatigue

It should now be obvious that Wounds have been applied to AC so that Fatigue can affect BAB. Every 5 points of exhaustion costs the character one attack a round, until they are reduced to a single blow.

This effect applies ONLY in Dramatic Conflicts.

Undead

Undead need to be treated as a special case. Since they don’t get a CON bonus, they are disadvantaged by this system. To compensate, Undead have their Wound Capacity doubled, and do not suffer from exhaustion. This actually reinforces the flavour of Undead – even when hacked to ribbons, they keep coming.

Regeneration

A creature that regenerates can remove 1 wound each round for every point of regeneration. This again acts to emphasise the fact that they remain whole more readily than normal creatures.

Healing

A Cure Wounds spell can heal 1 wound for every Wound Capacity of healing, up to a maximum of 25% the wounds currently suffered (round up). This reduces the Healing amount by Wound Capacity. Once a character’s HP are fully restored, the character’s Wounds cannot be healed by spell or by potions of healing. These spells have no effect on Fatigue.

So if a character with a wound capacity of 10, who has suffered 8 wounds, receives 60 points of healing during or after a battle, he can either take all 60 as HP recovery, or up to 20 points of it to recover 2 wounds – the maximum permitted. If the character still has damage to recover, he may receive a second dose of healing, and another 2 wounds (25% of 6, rounded up, is 2) may be recovered.

Not only does this reduce the effectiveness of healing, it CAPS it. The character is unlikely to fully recover all wounds, and recovers no Fatigue.

Resting In Combat

A character can take the option of resting during battle as a Standard Action. This removes one point of Fatigue, but the character risks taking Wounds during that round.

Resting Out Of Combat

At least eight hours of continuous rest permits a character to recover half his accumulated Fatigue (round up) and 1 Wound. This can only take place once per day – it doesn’t matter if the character does nothing but lie in bed all day, he only gets this much recovery. If the character has no Fatigue to recover, he may recover a second Wound.

The effects Of Negative AC

If a character experiences so many wounds that their AC is reduced below zero, that simply means that attackers (effectively) receive a bonus to hit their opponants.

The effects of Negative BAB

If a character experiences so much fatigue that his BAB is reduced to 0 or less, this simply means that it becomes harder to successfully attack the enemy. In effect, the enemy is receiving an AC bonus because their attacker is Fatigued.

Consequences

This mechanism would dramatically alter combat in many ways. Creatures with different ratios of damage inflicted, number of attacks, and Hit Points would necessarily adopt different tactical styles; in some cases, battling several targets at once, in others focussing on a single target until it is down and then moving on to the next. Melee with a large number of opponants becomes more dangerous because a character will accumulate Wounds and Fatigue, then confront fresh opposition in a weakened state. Numbers alone can eventually bring down the strongest combatant.

Healing becomes less effective, and two Dramatic conflicts in close succession become far more difficult; the character is unlikely to be fully recovered from the first when he enteres the second.

The psychological impact of becoming more vulnerable as a critical combat continues, and becoming less able to inflict damage apon the enemy, should be equally great. For the first time, there is a cost to inflicting massive damage on the enemy, and a player will FEEL his character’s wounds accumulating in the course of battle.

Spellcasters are unlikely to suffer Wounds (unless they are silly enough to enter melee) or they are attacked at Range. However, their most potent spells are likely to severely deplete their Fatigue; while this may make Touch Attacks more difficult, it will have no effect on Area Effect spells such as Fireball. That means that tactical spell use acquires a new and different parameter, one that will alter slightly with different types of opposition.

At the same time, properly utilised, this system permits the details of enemy’s nature to impact on their style and behaviour on the battlefield, giving colour to what is otherwise simply “more of the same”. Even without special planning in the way of Tactics, this will have an effect on the flow of combat. The uniqueness of each combatant becomes more emphatic and larger than life – exactly what you would hope to achieve with a “Dramatic Combat” system variant.

When Should You Use Dramatic Combat (revisited)?

That’s up to each GM. An arguement can be made for using it all the time, no question. As a general rule of thumb, if the EL is two below the average level of the party, I would always use Standard Combat, if the EL is two above the average level of the party, I would always use Dramatic Combat.

Wandering Monsters would almost always use Standard Combat, except when the EL indicates Standard Combat as defined above. Encounters that are designed to advance the plot or nudge characters in a different direction would almost always use Dramatic Combat, regardless of their EL.

There are a couple of downsides. There are more numbers to track in battle, and that’s a big one – though the bookkeeping is relatively straightforward. Combat might take a little longer as a result – and that’s another big one. The role of Clerics would shift somewhat away from being walking Healing Potions, and for characters who have been optimised to deliver the maximum Healing punch possible, that can be another.

For me, the key question to be asked in each encounter is: What would you rather have: a better combat or a faster combat?

Mike is now on Twitter! You can find him as @gamewriterMike. Why not stop by and say Hi? And, of course, you can always leave a comment if you have something to add to, or say about, this article!

What forces govern your city?

A strong military is real, solid power. A city with a skilled, well-equipped and well-led army can protect itself, fend off its neighbours, go on a conquering binge, and keep its own citizens under control, though not necessarily all at once or in that order.

A politician with a private army can often get away with what he wants until someone with a bigger or better army comes along.

Strengths

People can be coerced into doing many things when they’re at the bad end of a sword, making the military a powerful and influential card to have in any government’s hand. In addition, unlike city walls, the military is a mobile defense or weapon. This allows a government to influence its neighbors and, possibly, more distant powers.

The military is also good tool for taking what a government wants, whether it’s land from neighbouring cities or states, civil liberties from its citizens, or money and resources from anyone.

The military has its own internal, controllable, social and economic rules, which often makes it easier to wield than other power bases, such as affiliation or popularity.

A military is easy to develop as well, either through conscription, feudal obligation, recruitment or slavery. As a tool, it can be honed and shaped to the government or politician’s needs, making it quite flexible.

For example, a government might require a small navy, a larger land force, and a special unit of spell casters, based on its analysis of internal needs and external threats.

War itself is a potential power base. Wars tend to unify civic factions, freeing up government resources or providing government with breathing room to do its own plotting.

Wars provide good cover, as well. While the populace casts its gaze outside the city walls, the government can be quietly performing various actions and maneuvers that might meet with great outcry during peaceful times.

A war victory can launch many political careers as well, as soldiers and generals leverage increased fame from valorous deeds or great leadership, fortune from pillage, and popularity from victory and reputation.

Weaknesses

There are few limits to an army, other than movement rates and supply logistics. While this makes the military a potent threat to a city’s enemies, it also makes it a deadly threat to a city’s own citizens.

Many cultures go to great lengths to protect themselves from their own military. A rogue general or ambitious politician might turn a civilization’s weapon against his kin. Consequently, some governments might decree that troops cannot enter the city proper or must remain a certain distance in miles from the city walls.

Others might have clear legal guidelines about who can order the military to do what. Different branches of a government might be given different executive powers where the army is concerned to establish a safe system of checks and balances.

Armies are expensive. They need food, water, supplies, equipment, training and fuel. Troops need wages, unless the motivation to serve and fight isn’t economic.

Leadership is a critical weak link as well. Superiority of numbers sometimes works against the enemy, but at the cost of great waste and long-term viability. Good leadership will not only make better use of fewer resources, but also maintain discipline and the ability to maintain an army in general.

This factors into loyalty, which is always a cause for concern. Unless discipline is tight and loyalty of the leadership assured, there’s no guarantee an army will do what a government or politician decrees.

A good military can attract unwanted attention. Other parties, such as neighbors, enemies and any higher powers the government serves, might fret about their safety with a rival military in their back yard. This might start unwanted conflicts or unify the opposition against the city. Therefore, as a power base, having a military can cause a great deal of trouble.

Wars can’t last forever, making them unstable power bases. They also tax the resources of all those involved. The government must also constantly assess whether the costs of a potential loss outweigh the benefits gained from war activity or from a potential victory.

Flavor

The military provides great flavor opportunities:

• Divisions and units. Different sections of the military have different functions, require unique equipment, and have different character and NPC class make-ups. Consider how different you can design parts of your city and the military folk who work or live there based on their function: navy, air force, land force, tunnelers, siege experts, war casters, magic defense, medical, administration, training and so on.
• Uniforms. Every professional military unit has a uniform, and this clothing lets you distinctly color and decorate NPCs, villains and locations.
• Military activity. Troops rarely get to rest. They’re always doing something. Put standard military activities into the background and foreground of your campaign: training, exercising, sleeping, eating, deploying, returning, patrolling, swabbing the decks, building equipment, cleaning equipment, assisting civilians, building public works, maintain public areas.
• Military life. Civilians don’t salute. Right there is a unique roleplaying opportunity you can wield. Inject the military into your city. Have NPCs salute, bark orders, obey commands, stand at attention, goof off, function as a well-oiled team, curse and so on.

War is the backbone of many campaigns. War oozes flavor like blood and provides lots of possibilities for molding a great city design or campaign.

For starters, there’s the conflict itself. The PCs can encounter units fighting and join in or carefully sneak around. Then there’s conscription, press gangs, a nervous citizenship, siege, clandestine military operations, broken families and torn lovers.

There’s also the possibility of civil war. Imagine a city design where brother has fought brother for months or years. What is the condition of the city’s infrastructure? Who’s left standing? How does one survive?

Figure out the personality of your city’s military (or militaries). Will it be aggressive and domineering? Will it be quietly confident? Will it abuse its power, and if so, how?

Comment plot hooks for a chance to win NBOS software

It is time for another software giveaway, courtesy of NBOS.

Comment below your ideas for encounter seeds and hooks based on military civil power base. What kinds of encounters could PCs have in a city where military is the power base?

Multiple entries are welcome and give you a better chance of winning. I’ll draw the lucky winner Friday, so enter now before it’s too late.

The winner gets an NBOS software title of their choice, delivered electronically.