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 grown so substantially that it has become necessary to split it into multiple parts.

World Conventions

In researching this article, a couple of other websites came to our attention, one of which divided the genre conventions for pulp fiction into three categories: World Conventions, about the settings in which stories take place, Story Conventions about the shape and nature of those adventures, and Character Conventions about the participating characters – though they were presented in a different order.

We thought this was a pretty useful breakup, given that we had identified almost 80 genre conventions and needed some way of organizing them. we would have presented a full list, but since that alone would consume more than 80 lines of text, we thought it better to just dive right in….

Gender Issues

Women are almost always portrayed as helpless and in need of protection in the pulps, just about the only exception being the Dragon Ladies (which get discussed in the next section). What’s more, women are not welcome in certain places, it is considered demeaning for a woman to hold most jobs let alone have a serious career, and as for equal pay, you must be joking! The glass ceiling was made of bulletproof glass in the 1920s and 30s and the pulps reflected that as well.

A delicate balance

Where it’s necessary to compromise or alter the standard genre in order to be compatible with modern players, we’ll put those notes in a separate subsection, just like this. We’ll deal with the gender issues as they pertain to PCs in a later section, but in terms of the game world, there is a broader scope.

When there is an area that you can modernize without affecting other aspects of a historical-period genre, as is the case with Gender Issues, it can sometimes be a good idea to take the opportunity. Doing so provides accessibility at minimal cost. But it is possible that, after consulting with anyone who wants to play a female character, the story potential of a crusader for Women’s Rights might hold greater appeal, so this is a campaign-creation decision that should be considered carefully, in consultation with the players.

Racial Stereotypes And Cliches

Women’s issues are not the only area of social progress that bears scrutiny. In the pulps, every German is either a Nazi or an maverick scientist; every Irishman is a Cop or a Criminal or both; every Italian male is a member of the Mafia, and so on and on. These are all characterization clichés, and as such can be tolerated without giving extraordinary levels of offense, but this is a sensitive area, and also requires careful scrutiny.

An Answer In Generalities

The best answer is neither to blindly adopt the genre stereotype, nor to equally-blindly reject it. The stereotype can stand as an entirely acceptable description of 90-95% of the representatives of a given race, class, or nationality, provided that there are prominent examples to the contrary. These exceptions serve purely to indicate, by way of contrast, that the GM knows how shallow the depictions of the majority are, and these do not represent a personal belief on his part. This furnishes a compelling counter-argument against the taking of offence by anyone sensitive to these issues, gives the GM a broader canvas for character creation and interaction, and stops players from blindly accepting the stereotypes.

This last is especially important, since the players are all too likely to bring modern perspectives to such questions without thinking about it. Compromising the genre in this way gives license for the PCs to be liberal in their positions on the races, in other words to have a modern attitude, something they will tend to do in any event.

Equally important is the historical attitude of the dominant cultures to these races, which should be preserved accurately, even exaggerated, no matter how much the GM alters the actual circumstances. The GM can make the Japanese technical wizards (though that would not be accurate within the genre) or a land of Ninja and Samurai (closer to the mark!) as he desires; but to the American man in the street, they will be primitive sandal-makers who pose no threat to anyone. A significant portion of Americans support (or at least approve of) the Nazi regime in Germany while the majority simply don’t care beyond demanding the government not entangle the country in matters beyond its own borders.

It can be argued that the greater the stereotyping of the perceptions of the common man, the more latitude the GM has in ignoring those stereotypes for the actual representative examples in the game (NPCs); and that the greater this discrepancy, the more a modern treat-individuals-as-individuals attitude can be justified on the part of PCs through exposure to a reality that is different to the lay perception. In other words, they’ve seen for themselves that the stereotype falls short of reality, and modified their expectations accordingly; the only failure will occur whenever they try to ‘educate’ an NPC in this reality.

The American Negro

Even more troubling is the issue of African American equality. These are the days of segregation, when Negros did not even have the right to vote. Higher education – heck, even any education – was not usually an option. The reason this is a subject that needs careful thought is that even in modern times, there remain controversies in this area, and people are still sensitive to it, both within the US and in the rest of the world.

The point can be debated endlessly without reaching a satisfactory conclusion: is it better to deliberately permit a more liberal attitude in this respect out of respect to those who are sensitive to such issues, or to deliberately replicate the social inequalities as an educational aid to those who don’t realize just how bad it was?

In general, once again, the best answer is to adopt a compromise approach. The story potential of the historical reality is too great to ignore, so as a rule of thumb, the historically-accurate circumstances should be the norm; but the PCs, and anyone who is allied with them, should have a more modern attitude unless it is a significant plot point for them not to do so.

This permits the GM to have his cake and eat it too. It promotes a modern attitude as being the right thing to have, permits the players to be more liberal in the PCs attitudes, while leaving intact that story potential.

For example, in the pulp campaign that Blair and I run, The Adventurer’s Club, the American Government is beginning to recognize that the Nazis are a threat and future enemy, but they are helpless in the face of public opinion to do anything much about it. This permitted the Nazis in a recent scenario to use the KKK as cat’s paws, inciting civil unrest in the factories by pushing a Racial Equality agenda that was designed to harden public opinions against the African American workers while disrupting the economy and (it was hoped) the future military effectiveness of the American military. This put the PCs in a position of having to support the ongoing mistreatment of the workers, who had very real grievances, in opposition to a liberal stance being promoted by the KKK, who planned to ride the resulting civil unrest (The Chicago Riots) all the way into the White House, with the Nazis poised to undermine the only opposition they saw as able to prevent total victory in the coming conquest of Europe. The resulting plotline was very satisfying to all concerned.

Near-Contemporary Leakage

One final aspect of this issue deserves mention – the Leakage of contemporary and recent social and international-relations issues into the pulp world. One of the best examples is “The Red Menace”, but others include Apartheid, and Irish Terrorism. In small doses, these can be acceptable from a story perspective, but in general, it’s a bad idea to colour the genre with such modern accoutrements. Of course, there was an outbreak of paranoia concerning Soviet activities in 1919-20, more properly known as the Red Scare. Even if the GM opts for these fears to have substance in his game world, as some pulps of the era did, he should be careful to distinguish between the post-war attitudes of the USSR and those pre-war. This article on Joseph Stalin and this one on Lenin should be useful. In general, it can be said that post-war, Soviet Paranoia stemmed more from invasion or attempted conquest from the outside than the West of the time believed, seeing all soviet actions (through their own paranoia) as aimed at conquering the world. The Communists may have believed that their system of government would sweep the world, but they were less concerned with accelerating that process for its own sake and more concerned with securing their borders and resources against an invasion such as that experienced in 1941. It is only since the fall of the Soviet Union that the actual Soviet perspective has come to light – explaining why the west was caught by surprise time and time again. Not understanding the Soviet mindset – Putin is the first Russian leader in office since Lenin not have personal memories of that invasion, something that was often overlooked by American leaders. In essence, both sides were suspicious, even paranoid, and each side’s paranoia fueled that of the other.

In the pre-war Pulp era, this dominant – even overriding – motivation was not a factor, and since that motivation was central to Soviet attitudes and policy throughout the cold war, it is extremely difficult these days to see past it. The “Red Menace” of the Pulps is about fears of subversion and revolution, focused on the labor relations of the era – greedy industrialists and robber barons against employees. Note that even that last sentence is coloured by modern attitudes!

Weird Science Works

It’s surprisingly hard to track down a definition for “weird science”. Often, what you find equates the term with “pseudoscience” or “fringe science”. For game purposes, I would define “weird science” as a plausible extrapolation from unfounded assumptions, but that’s not as important as defining how it works.

• Scientist formulates theory.
• Scientist constructs a device which utilizes the theory.
• The Device works.

The theory, when examined by any other scientist, might be absolute rubbish. Certainly, when examined from the standpoint of scientific knowledge acquired after the 1930s, it will be utter nonsense. None of that matters.

If you want an inertialess star-drive, build one.

Weird science, in this context, becomes an outgrowth of another of the genre conventions, one which was alluded to in part one of this series: plot trumps simulation. In this case, simulation can be considered “simplified or representational reality” – ie “real” science – and plot knocks it down flat.

Rules Differentiation

This is actually one of the key points of distinction between different rules systems for running Pulp-genre adventures: in a points-based system, such as the Hero System, there is a mechanism for the characters to create weird science gadgets if that is appropriate to their stickh; other systems rule weird science as being available only to the GM for use as a plot device or Macguffin.

For some pulp subgenres, like Pulp SF / Space Opera, the potential for Weird Science creations by the PCs is absolutely essential; in others, such as Pulp Detective or Pulp Horror, or Pulp Action-Adventure, it can be detrimental. So this is something that GMs need to consider carefully, and Players should analyze the implications of the chosen rules system for the additional information it will give them about the game world.

A word about consistency

Consistency of “weird science” theories should be maintained within a single adventure; if a time-travel gadget works at the start of the scenario, it should work throughout it. If one theory of the nature of matter is ‘right’ at the start of an adventure, it should be accurate throughout that adventure.

Consistency of “weird science” theories over a longer period is a more problematic question. On the one hand, if you change it all the time, you risk players becoming uncertain of the way the game world works; on the other, maintaining a consistent weird science theory can get in the way of future stories by providing resources to the PCs that get in the way of future adventures. I’m normally a big advocate for consistency, but this is one genre in which it can be counterproductive.

It’s my opinion that the subgenre chosen should be the determinant factor. In a pulp-SF game, because the “weird science” is an integral part of the campaign, it should be maintained consistently. In other subgenres, where the science is not so integral, it should follow the 90-10 rule discussed regarding racial stereotypes – the first time a “science” or “scientific breakthrough” is made within the game, that theory of nature will be consistently correct 90% of the time, but the needs of the adventure become paramount.

Any weird science actually given to the PCs must either be archived and left behind at the end of an adventure, or it simply works (even if the pseudo-scientific rationale behind it changes). If a PC spends character construction points on a device, it works regardless of the scientific reality, and if that means that you have two clashing scientific theories operating at the same time, so be it.

The Backyard Is The Forefront

Those are the really big-ticket items. The rest should start to come through a bit more quickly from here!

Scientific progress is not made by research institutions or government-sponsored labs, it happens in the private labs and backyard sheds of maverick inventors. Their discoveries are often unreliable, poorly-controllable, and prone to strange side-effects, but they are at the cutting edge. The technology which can be reliably engineered for mass production, in general, is several steps below that of the “weird scientist”. You really can build a rocket to mars in your backyard, for a ten-thousandth (or less) what it would cost a government to do it.

Outlandish Technology Should Look The Part

GMs should never ignore the “look and feel” of weird science technology. Buttons and dials and levers and switches and plungers and flashing lights and arcing electricity should be the norm, not something that looks packaged and manufactured.

Strange Things Lurk In The Unknown

In a Pulp world, not everything is subject to scientific explanation. Lightning can bring a Frankenstein’s Monster to life. Weird creatures do abound in swamps. Ghosts and Goblins and Ghoulies are real. Cthulhu really does want to eat the world. Strange Cults really do have mystic powers. Not all the world has been explored, and that which has been explored is not as well known as people like to think.

Only those who deal with such matters know it, of course. The ordinary citizen is mind-numbingly ignorant of such threats, incapable of dealing with the horrors that lurk in the shadows. They wouldn’t believe you if you told them.

Magic Is Real And Usually Evil

This was touched on in the previous point, but it’s worth reiterating. What’s new here is the “and usually evil”. The Shadow clearly had his dark side, and he’s one of the closest examples around to a heroic magic user, taught the ability to “cloud men’s minds” in a Tibetan monastery.

Opposing both the users of Magic and the Strange Things That Lurk are two types of character: the religious, who can wield their faith as a weapon; and the ghost hunter or paranormal investigator, who is usually modeled on some of the exploits of Harry Houdini. Houdini’s favorite pastime was debunking ghost stories and other paranormal phenomena, such as mind-reading. His basic tenet was that if he could replicate the results with sleight-of-hand and cheating, then it invalidated the claims of proof offered for these abilities and experiences. In short, he was a skeptic.

Of the latter, there are three subtypes: those who believe that its all bunk, those who simply want everyone else to believe that it’s all bunk, and those who want to convince the world.

Nightmares Leave No Mark

Unfortunately, that last group has to contend with this genre convention: the Strange Things That Lurk never leave proof of their existence behind when defeated, or certainly not enough evidence to convince anyone who didn’t already know the truth. Bodies turn to ash and blow away, or disappear into nothingness, or are sucked up by space-time vortices, or whatever. Film is confiscated by the Government “for study”. You get the drift…

Optimism Trumps Cynicism

We live in cynical times. Personally, I trace much of this cynicism back to the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal and the Kennedy Assassination, and still more of it back to the advent of sensationalist journalism (don’t get me started on those subjects or we’ll be here all day). Regardless of the cause, the fact is that Pulp originates in a different era, when the Government could be (mostly) trusted, where entrepreneurs (mostly) were perceived as popular heroes and philanthropists. There was a conviction that good was stronger than evil, that war had been rendered obsolete by the technological horrors of the Great War, and that the guys in white hats always won – eventually.

This is one of the most difficult aspects of a Pulp campaign to get right. To modern sensibilities, these attitudes are innocent at best, naive at worst; asking players to faithfully apply them amounts to asking them to “play stoopid – does ‘stoopid’ have two or three ‘ohs’?” (as one player once described it).

And to some extent, that player was right; as GMs we are committed to ensuring that victory is earned and not cheap, and that the characters will get themselves into tight spots and, in general, that life will be made as difficult as possible for them.

At the same time, this is such a hallmark of the genre that it cannot be left out.

The optimism is reflected on the way adventurers in the Pulps go about their business, which can be summarized as “Boots and all and we solve the problems as we go”. There is no situation too dangerous, no problem too difficult, no mountain too hard to climb, that it cannot be overcome by intelligently-directed action. It is reflected in the attitudes of ordinary people to the adventurers, brave souls who do what most men cannot, and walk calmly where others fear to tread. It permeates the background, and the inhabitants of the game world. And therefore it also has to permeate the personalities of the PCs – without diminishing the player’s control over their characters.

The only solution is for the GMs to give the players some room to exercise their cynicism, especially in terms of planning; and to ensure that if the players make honest efforts to find a solution to a challenge the GMs have posed in an adventure, a solution will be found. At the same time, they have to clamp down hard on excessive planning, and boneheaded moves. Action is not enough, it must be intelligently directed by the Players.

That is the compact that GMs must make with the players, and stick to: no matter how dark things get, and how improbable a victory may seem, there must always be a way to win, and if the players don’t find it, any intelligent attack on the problem will yield another solution. That’s not to say that everything the PCs will do will work, or even appear to work; one advantage that we have is that we can permit a temporary win by the Dark Side so long as it opens the door for the Men In White Hats to achieve the ultimate victory. There will always be a flaw in the other side’s planning or execution. It may not be easy, and it certainly won’t be assured of success; but if it fails, there will be another opportunity, and then still another. As long as they keep trying and don’t give up, we (as GMs) will keep throwing open windows of opportunity.

There’s Always Enough Money

Another concept of modern times that doesn’t translate to a Pulp Era is that there are limits to natural resources. There is always enough oil, there is always enough money, there is always enough of everything – unless it is important to the plot that there be a temporary shortage, of course.

It’s hard to get people to appreciate just how big a difference this makes unless they read fiction of the era. It flows through everything. Atomic Energy with minimal shielding can be used to power rockets, there is unlimited power to run cities, and when Atomic Energy is not enough there will be something else, and then something after that. A financial crisis like The Great Depression is due to mismanagement, or criminal greed, or both – because there is plenty for everyone, if they will only make the effort to go and get it.

Construction of a space ship, or the complete re-arming of a fleet with new armor or weapons, or whatever – the holdup is always the number of skilled men available to do the work, or the political will, or sabotage, or a shortfall in theory; it’s never a shortage of material (unless that’s a plot point) or a shortage of money (same caveat).

If money is short, that means that the characters have to find and convince a backer, or find out who has persuaded the banks not to trust them, or whatever else may be necessary to solve the problem. Similarly, if materials are not available, they have to convince the manager of the manufacturing plant to give them what they need, or raise more money to buy what they need, or find out who is working to derail the project – because there is always enough available.

As a side-note, there’s a lot in this philosophy that I believe in. The fear-mongers would have it that oil is running out – the first such forecast that gained major attention I’m aware of was in the 1960s – but production per year in modern times is greater than the 1960s estimate of the total oil available globally! Do I accept that there are limits to the amount of oil that can be extracted from the earth? Absolutely – but Jupiter has lakes of petrochemicals millions of cubic miles in size that can be extracted and refined. The total oil consumed by humanity, multiplied 100-fold, is less than 1% of these vast reserves. Would it be difficult to extract, refine, and deliver to Earth? Absolutely – though we’re just about at the technological point where it’s practical. OPEC exists to regulate the price of oil and it does so by regulating global production. Which is why I sneer whenever someone talks about “the oil shortage”.

It’s all a piece of modern cynicism. Ecological concerns (I’ve written before about my doubts concerning Global Warming in The Frozen Lands: A Science Fiction Campaign Premise. Money concerns. Distrust of Government. Distrust of Authority. Distrust of Corporations. Intelligent Design (a distrust of Science fostered by religious extremists – to give them the benefit of the doubt). Insecurity and Cynicism, rampant. A dystopian view of life that permeates modern society.

In a way, the moon landings were the ultimate expression of the Pulp-era optimism – it didn’t matter how much it cost, it got done. There was always enough money! When Armstrong actually set foot on the moon, there was a palpable sense of “anything is possible”, and an optimism for the future. But then came the cutbacks, and the cynics and naysayers piped up, and the attitude became “we went all that way just for a couple of pounds of moon rocks”. The romance was gone. As Leo McGarry (the late John Spencer) comments in the West Wing episode The Warfare Of Genghis Khan (season 5), “My generation never got the future it was promised… Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don’t even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped.” Josh Lyman then suggests “the personal computer” as a sign of progress, to which McGarry replies, “A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography? Where’s my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?”

The Five Corners Of The World

In the pulp era, much of the world is unexplored. Every continent has its unexplored wilderness. Once you are off the edge of the map, anything’s possible. The unknown is a shadowy fifth corner, lurking outside the experience of the known world. In such places may be found lost temples, strange beasts, monsters, tunnels to subterranean worlds, and who knows what else.

Even in the supposedly well-known and explored parts of the world, hidden byways lead to the unknown. Abandoned subway tunnels, deep forests, isolated valleys and mountain peaks, moors and swamps, cellars, and strange shops and storefronts…

One morning, a PC sees a man walking stiffly, eyes glazed and unfocussed. The man walks up to a wooden door hidden in the shadows of an alley, opens it – still apparently sleepwalking – and enters the room beyond. Behind him, the door swings closed. Curious, the PC opens the door, only to find that it opens onto the brick wall of the alley. Where did the sleepwalker go? He’s found a doorway into the fifth corner of the world…

Sometimes, the boundaries are not so easy to locate. As part of an epic multi-adventure plot thread, the PCs in The Adventurer’s Club campaign recently had to travel up the Yellow River into South-western China, then proceed on foot up into the mountains. The further up the river they travelled, the more they left behind the world they knew and entered a region in which Chinese Mythology was the literal truth. Encounters with warlords gave way to semi-plausible monsters such as a freshwater Kraken, and then the outright supernatural: Chinese vampires, Chinese gods, dragons, something akin to veloceraptors, the footprints of something that might (or might not) have been a yeti, and so on. All this was preparation for their encounter with the last Emperor of the Zhou dynasty (very Mummy III) and his terracotta army (and some Nazis as misdirection). Rather than a solid and fixed boundary, the edge of the world they knew was smeared and the transition gradual.

Google Earth and other resources

We’re fortunate in that we don’t have the kind of players who will go out and look up encyclopedias, atlases, or other reference books, or go searching for information on what can be found ‘off the edge’ unless we specifically ask them to do so. Not everyone is so lucky. There are players out there who will seek out what is known on the presumption that the game world will at least resemble it to some extent.

That gives us the liberty to actually base these ‘off the map’ areas on what’s really there, saving us a lot of work in the process. At the same time, we have absolutely no compunction about changing details as necessary to suit the plot – from inventing a Bavarian Castle to serve as the headquarters of the Büro Ausländisher Geheimnisse or “Office Of Foreign Secrets”; or remodeling Rugen Island into a top-secret R&D facility; or moving Haiti 150km in the middle of a scenario and then moving it back again a little later in the same scenario (no-one noticed).

Our players know that the more they try and rely on knowledge that was not available at the time, the more we will rearrange the landscape on them – usually at the most inconvenient time and in the most inconvenient way, so they don’t bother. As you can see, this produces a win-win situation for us – we can use real-world details to make the verisimilitude compelling while ignoring them at need. This is also the secret to dealing with players who try to obtain unfair advantages!

Most Worlds Have Breathable Atmospheres

It’s not yet come up in our game, but it’s a pulp truism – if there’s solid ground, there’s almost certainly an atmosphere of some type, and it will either be breathable by earthmen or completely inimical to terrestrial life…

It’s Alive!

…and home to something nasty that wants to move to the address just down the block from you. That holds true for Planets (Venus, Mars), Moons (Titan, Europa, Ganymede), and even the Gas Giants themselves (Saturn, Jupiter). Even the frigid depths of space occupied by Pluto (which is still a planet in a Pulp game) will be occupied by someone or something.

The Ether Is Real

…more specifically, the Luminiferous Aether is real. This was how physicists of an earlier time explained the transmission of light and other electromagnetic radiations. This was a plane of existence, the boundary between the world of solid matter and the world of energy, also known as the Etheric Plane. And, of course, so is the sub-ether, home of strange vibratory energies such as those used by EE ‘Doc’ Smith’s Ultrawave and related technologies.

What difference does this make? Perhaps the best answer is to repeat a misquotation from Shakespeare that is known around the world: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio”. Weird Science works, remember?

More importantly, it means a lot of pesky Einsteinian restrictions aren’t around to bother anyone. The speed of light is akin to the speed of sound – it’s just the speed that something happens. There is NO absolute limit to speed.

And who is to say what manner of weird and terrible beasties live in the subether? Perhaps that’s Cthulhu’s home address. Or perhaps not.

Imagination, unfettered by reality, is free to soar above and beyond our mundane existence, in a Pulp World; and few are the genres that are so open to all influences and yet still keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. That’s what makes it so appealing.

Next time: Pulp Story Conventions….

What forces govern your city?

In the introduction last week I covered the goal of this series, which is to use the idea of power bases – where do fantasy governments, government officials and factions get power and influence? – to make your cities interesting places to adventure.

Each part in this series will cover two or three power bases in detail. I cover multiple power bases in each part to keep the series limited to seven parts or so. The bases in each part might be related, but sometimes are not and are coupled just due to the schedule.

By the end of this series, you should be armed with a decent tool to make your cities unique, dangerous and compelling for players. This week discusses the power bases of law and affiliation.

Software giveaway

At the end of this post leave a comment about adventure hook ideas concerning Law or Affiliation for a chance to win NBOS software! More information at the bottom. There will be more NBOS software giveaways in other parts of this series, so stay tuned.

The Law

Every society has a body of laws, whether a set of traditional customs passed along via campfire lore or a complex constitution that fills a library. The law is potentially one of the most powerful power bases. It gives the government or politician the right to act on the behalf of the society it governs with that society’s implicit approval. If the government wants to act and it’s a legal action, the government doesn’t need to go to the people and ask for permission each time.

By choosing legal actions, the government can just go ahead and carry out its will. If a government takes unpopular actions, the government can reiterate, “it’s the law” and gain a high degree of compliance without effort.

Furthermore, if governing is akin to a game played by politicians, then the body of laws provides a discreet set of rules that can be bent, twisted and loopholed.

Strengths

The law gives governments the right and authority to take legal actions. Clever officials can change the laws through established legal processes to make future actions permissible, which is a powerful ability and a big reason why this power base is highly sought after.

The law costs little or nothing to wield. Each time a government wants to take a legal action, the only costs are usually just those imposed by the action itself. Lawyers and lawsuits can increase expenses, but in reality these only come into play for a minute fraction of the legal actions a government takes on a daily basis.

Enforcing the law could become costly, so government officials must pick their battles carefully. If you are thinking about guard and military forces here, you are correct, but note that the idea of professional, full-time forces is uncommon in Earth’s history and should be a conscious design decision instead of an assumption.

Further, creating a body of professional soldiers represent a risk for any government. At the least, extra effort must be made to ensure loyalty, something a government might not have the resources for. Other complications arise from professional guard and military forces, as well.

Weaknesses

If an office is caught acting outside of the law, there’s often hell to pay. Public reaction, legally stipulated penalties (such as fines, removal of governance privileges and prison terms), and weakened position are the main repercussions. The law then often becomes a limiting factor for governments.

In addition, the law is a fragile power base. Some cities might provide legal means for law changes against the ruling authority’s wishes. Also, once a government or official has been replaced, their legal authority is gone – it’ll take a coup, re-election, re-appointment, or whatever to get this power base back.

Flavor

Those who have the law on their side often publicly display their authority. Badges, symbols of office, uniforms, wardens, and such are wielded to reduce resistance on legal actions taken.

How do the people in your fantasy city visually recognize who has legal authority?

City folk often develop certain philosophies about how the law should work, or be formed, enforced, or applied. These points of view can become firmly entrenched and some societies can be divided by who holds what view.

For example, in your city certain families might be known for their aggressive, mean politicians; others are reputed for their generosity and community spirit; and others are noted for their commitments to economic reform. These families are intense rivals and a constant source of PC adventures.

Do sub-groups within your city hold opposing views of how the law should be used or interpreted?

Affiliation – it is all about bonds and connections

Having inborn or cultivated alliances with others of power offers a definite asset. A government can try to tap its affiliations whenever it needs assistance, be it monetary, military, social or just a few votes. There are several types of affiliations and this presents many opportunities for campaign customization:

• Family or clan
• Character class
• Racial
• Beliefs or political views
• Shared history or background

Example – The Khan’s Truce

The Khan wants to raid a faraway settlement known for its salt and other resources. He asks all clan leaders to supply 100 raiders in one week. However, three clans band together and defy the Khan, saying they are the weakest of the clans and cannot afford 100 raiders as that would leave them under-defended again rival clans in the city.

The Khan cannot afford to lose 300 raiders from the mission. He also cannot appear weak to the other clans. In addition, one exemption will lead to more, decimating his raiding force. He calls a meeting with clan leaders the night before the raiders leave. He negotiates a temporary truce between all clans – until the raiders return – so all clans can operate without need for defenses against each other.

Normally a truce is impossible. However, the Khan went to the second most powerful clan (with the Khan’s being most powerful) before calling the truce meeting and promised them a larger cut of the raid’s pillages if that clan would support a truce.

With the top two clans calling for truce, the other clans fell into line, making the agreement happen.

The truce satisfies the three hold outs who agree to supply their 100 raiders each. The raiders return eight weeks later, victorious. The spoils are given out, but the three weakest clans’s spoils are halved.

“Why?!” they demand.

“No one defies the Khan. For the inconvenience of the truce, your halves are cut. I also am taking 25 of your returning clansfolk. They will become my slaves.”

“Why?!” they demand again.

“For defying me! When I say you do something, you do not conspire to say no. Next time, it will be your heads as my spoils!”

With that, the Khan uses the half shares to give himself a bonus and to pay the second largest clan its extra due, further cementing loyalty with that clan and future affiliation leverage. The Khan also quashes thoughts in the other clans about forming unions to get their way. He also knows the three weakened clans are now in jeopardy, and when the time is right, he will offer protection – for a price and future affiliation power.

Strengths

An affiliation offers a strong bond government can place trust in and gain a good amount of leverage and benefit from. The threat or mere mention of certain affiliations can sometimes be used as an influential playing card in political dealings – the affiliation does not actually need to be tapped to get a desired result, which is quite powerful. “If you do not support me on this in the senate, I’ll get every dwarf in the kingdom to stop buying your wool!”

Weaknesses

The boundaries, depth and quantity of affiliation are not often known, increasing its risk as a power base. One never knows how an affiliate will act until the moment of truth arrives. When an affiliate does act, it’s also difficult to forecast their degree of commitment.

Drawing frequently upon an affiliation can overtax it as well, making future requests more likely to be refused or ignored.

Finally, affiliates have their own minds, needs and power games to win. Most affiliations are not absolute bonds, so one always risks being played by the other party.

Flavor

Affiliations are one of the core parts of politics! Who supports whom and why is the stuff of conversations, rumors and debate. For the political entities you design, create a list or chart of affiliations.

You might consider making three columns: Strong, Weak, Potential. Opponents will target weak and potential affiliates and try to sway their allegiances. You can create impromptu NPC parley using all columns.

Spy games are great adventure sources as government entities try to determine the nature and extent of affiliations of their foes and even of their own side. “Talk to the head of the Bureau of Taxes for me would you? Find out what he thinks of us down here in the Licenses Division.”

A show of support is another great source of flavor. As mentioned, you can utilize the mere existence of an affiliation as a gambit for political aims. Sometimes things must be played further by proving that such an affiliation exists. This is perfect fodder for interesting background events, plots, and encounters.

Decide whether the proof of affiliation must be public or not, if any side-deals must be formed to make the demonstration of support happen, and how the affiliation will be demonstrated.

For example, a politician might tap his old friend from the war who is an officer in the Weavers’ Guild. To prove the politician has the Weavers on his side, he and his friend arrange a one-day strike-in exchange for a lucrative government linens contracts.

Next

Stay tuned for the next part of this series, which covers class and level. If your game system uses such rules, these become personal power bases that cause interesting repercussions throughout all levels of government.

Win NBOS software

It is time to bring this theory to the game table with some game hooks related to what we’ve just discussed. That’s where you come in.

NBOS makes such fine software as Fractcal Mapper, Astrosynthesis, The Keep and Screenmonkey. Leave a comment below with an encounter or adventure idea related to The Law or Affiliation power bases.

A random commenter will be drawn on Friday. The winner gets their pick of one NBOS software title! Enter your hooks ideas now.

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 grown so substantially that it has become necessary to split it into multiple parts – yet another series!

It’s pointless re-creating precisely a historical period or past fictional genre. For maximum utility, like television programs, these have to be adjusted to suit a modern audience who simply don’t think the same way that the people of the source era or genre.

In some cases, the adjustment is beneficial, increasing the options and storytelling range of the GM; in other cases, it is counterproductive at best, and some form of genre enforcement may be necessary. I know that this flies somewhat in the face of the advice offered in part four of the “Game Mastery” series so I thought that I should start by addressing that.

The Hierarchy Of Dominance

• Gameplay Trumps All
• Campaign Trumps Plot
• Plot Trumps Genre
• Genre Trumps Simulation
• Simulation Trumps Rules
• House Rules Trump Official Rules

This hierarchy of dominance operates in all my games and defines how one game element controls and overrides another. It’s arranged here in a sequence of dominant to submissive, but for maximum clarity, it should actually be read from the bottom up.

House Rules Trump Official Rules

This is the most obvious level of the hierarchy. I was going to add ‘inarguable’ to that adjective, but then realised that there are people out there who feel that it should be the other way around – that the only justification of a House Rule is to cover a situation not addressed by the published game system mechanics. I don’t agree with them, but that doesn’t make the position they adopt necessarily wrong, as this dominance relationship comes at the price of universality – before one can join a game, you have to know the house rules; taking the opposite perspective promotes universality (the published rules are the same everywhere and in every game). The key to resolving this debate (in my opinion) lies in the reason for the House Rule: if the rule exists to facilitate, or derives from, one of the hierarchy layers higher up the ladder, then it should trump the official rules; if a rule is present purely to be distinctive or different, then it has insufficient justification and should be overruled anywhere that it conflicts with the published rules.

Simulation Trumps Rules

A more contentious relationship. It has long been my view that when we participate in a roleplaying game, we (players and GM) are describing events within a reality in which the in-game events are actually occurring, and that the game mechanics exist purely to (imperfectly) model those events. It follows that if a given outcome is logical within the bounds of a real simulation, then that outcome should transpire, no matter what the game mechanics describe.

For example, in a science fiction campaign (and just off the top of my head), you might have a gimmick that increases the intensity-vs-distance relationship of particle electrical charge, so that protons and electrons don’t repel others of their kind so strongly, and don’t attract each other so strongly. This change would have a number of consequences – nuclei could be more compressed, fusion power and black hole creation would be easier, electron orbits would increase until equilibrium between the speed of the electron and the charge tethering it to a nucleus are obtained – gravity being a negligible force at this scale. This would mean that electrical bonds are more easily broken – more materials accumulate static electricity, materials are more conductive, etc. This could be offered as an explanation for how Fusion is achieved, or how a black-hole-making-weapon operates, or how artificially-strengthened super-dense alloys are created for starship hulls, or the principle behind a room-temperature superconductor. In essence, from a game mechanics point of view, you buy the gadget that does what you want – whether that’s a fusion power-pack, a weapon, or a starship hull, or a length of room-temperature superconductor.

With Simulation trumping rules, however, all of the physics-based consequences apply, not just the one that justifies the high-tech. Using the tech in question requires either it experiencing the side-effect, or having some ancillary engineering requirements to address them. So the fusion power pack gives off high-voltage electrical arcs (very Pulp SF) when it’s plugged in, and operators have to wear protective suits. Or perhaps the weapon has to have a lead grounded before it’s safe to fire, making it only semi-portable at best, or whatever. Buy the effect or tech you want, then justify its existence in a manner consistent with the genre, then simulate the side-effects and deal with them.

It might sound like this is a lot of extra work, and even detracts from the purity of the genre; I get such arguements regularly in my superhero campaign. But, in the long run, it saves me time and effort, and vastly increases the verisimilitude of the campaign.

• When two forces or objects interact, this additional information can be used as a guide to what happens if the rules aren’t clear, especially in unusual environmental conditions – which happens surprisingly often. “I have this gadget that creates an artificial gravity ‘glue’ to trap people, and he’s just fired his gravity-bender at it – what happens?”
• Side effects and other colour narrative stem naturally from the way things work, and can be enhanced with a lot of little technical details. I don’t have to get creative and worry about consistency, I can just be descriptive.
• Effects and technology acquire a distinctive flavour, and through asking ‘what else can be done with this’, entire families of tech improvements can be created which have that flavour.
• It adds to the challenge and mental stimulation of the game for the referee.
• Ad-hoc decisions can be made more quickly and certainly.
• And finally, it helps replace technobabble with something a little more meaningful.

The downside is that players can feel cheated when side effects cause problems; their characters have spent money or building points on some ability or some gadget, and they want what it said on the label. This is especially the case in game systems like the Hero System, where side effects and limitations are specified and factored into the price. When such disputes arise, my answer is always the same: we work out a way to mitigate or overcome the side effects and you can build it into the original device or ability for free, or we can add the inherent limitations into the pricing, or both. When you buy a car, it will do the job – propel itself, turn corners, brake, etc. But you always have engineering and design side effects – blind spots, long brake pedals, being temperamental on cold mornings, or whatever. Since this is what everyone is used to, including this sort of detail in the details makes an ability or piece of engineering feel more real.

Genre Trumps Simulation

This was implied in the previous section. I a gritty detective yarn, you don’t use flying saucers to justify something – not normally, anyway. In Science Fiction, you don’t use magic. In FRP, you avoid modern concepts of chemistry and physics and biology. The Square-Cube law routinely takes a vacation whenever genre says that a giant critter is called for. People can be 30′ tall.

Players can mix charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter all they want to, in my fantasy campaigns – if the genre doesn’t permit gunpowder to work, all they get is a gluey mess or a gritty powder, rumoured to be good for festering boils (or some such). Even if there are primitive explosives available from an alchemist, gunpowder won’t work.

Astonishingly, in all the cases where players have complained about the simulation not giving them what they want (or not being free of complications, which is the same thing in their book), not one of them has couched an arguement in genre terms. There have been rules terms, one or two playability terms (we’ll get to that in a little bit, and even once a campaign-based justification – but never a case where the player said that a simulated effect is not in keeping with the genre.

Plot Trumps Genre

Do what you have to in order make the story work. Just because flying saucers are non-genre, that doesn’t mean that you can never do an “invaders from mars” plot in a wild west game – just that you shouldn’t make a habit of it.

The same is true of player actions – normally, genre would prohibit players from undertaking certain actions. In a superhero campaign, the characters should be reasonably heroic. In a fantasy campaign, they shouldn’t attempt to use mass-production principles, or atomic physics. But I will permit the occasional non-genre action to succeed if it advances the storyline (or if it’s self-contained and funny enough) – on the understanding that it’s a one-off concession that might not work next time it’s tried.

Campaign Trumps Plot

This is another contentious one. Should plot – an one-off individual storyline – trump genre, instead? The answer is both yes and no.

On rare occasions, you can violate your campaign premise for the sake of a single story, but doing so comes at a price: every time you do so, you weaken the campaign premise, and eventually it will be so full of holes that it will fall apart. So, while the investigators of CSI might, on a rare occasion, solve a case with a shootout, it should be the exception and not the rule. In general, the campaign premise should trump the plot, and a different solution to the problem be found.

Gameplay Trumps All

This is the big one, the High Card, the Ace Of Spades. Above all else, the game mechanics have to be easy to use. If a simulation element gets too hairy, if the concept of customising weapons damage to the type of armour worn gets too complicated or too slow, it doesn’t matter what the rules say, or the house rules, or the genre, or modern science, or the storyline – practical game-play considerations rule supreme. If you really need element X of the rules to accurately simulate the genre, but the cumulative burden is too much, maybe you need to simplify somewhere else.

The alternative is for the game mechanics to get in the way – of the story, of the game, of the fun. And that doesn’t help anyone.

In Part 2, my collaborator and I will look at the genre conventions of a Pulp-game world, and where and how they can or should bend to suit a modern audience.

What forces govern your city?

The topic of city government causes GMs big yawns. Other than picking a government type, you find it a difficult city element to make interesting for game sessions, adventures and city design.

However, it is an important part of urban environments that should not be ignored. And it does not have to be a difficult or boring thing. The key is to think in terms of power.

• Who’s got it?
• Who uses it?
• Who does what with it?

Change government from paperwork to power struggles, add in some good, evil and magic, and suddenly this part of city design gets exciting!

In this series, I will talk all about city government power bases as a cool tool to help you do more than pick an “-ocracy” for your city.

I will introduce the idea of power bases as a way to design government so you can bring the effects and consequences of your government design down to the daily life and game session level in interesting ways.

Cities are people

A city represents a society. While there might be hundreds of sub-groups and smaller societies within your city’s walls, the place also represents a single community.

Left to their own devices, urban citizens would have to compete on an individual or family basis for life’s core needs: water, food and shelter. Once these items become a wee bit scarce, violence and aggression usually erupts, and it becomes a matter of the strongest and meanest surviving. Quality (and length) of life drops to a low level, the finer and more enjoyable aspects of civilization evaporate, and no one is able to rise above the daily quest for basic survival needs.

A government can change all that. Simply put, it’s organization. It’s a team of society members who have authority to make decisions for the whole community. Their job is to govern things so society members don’t have to compete with each other each day to survive.

They have the big picture – the best interests of the whole society – in mind as well as the best interests of each individual when they make each decision on behalf of the community they represent. If left to their own devices, most individuals would devolve into thinking just of themselves and no further than tomorrow. A government helps raise the vision of the society as a whole to a collective, long-term level.

That’s the ideal. In practice, of course, things are different. Governments often exist to serve themselves. Leaders make decisions to ensure their continued power at the expense of their society. The individual can lose their ability to participate, have their voice and concerns heard, or to receive fair consideration.

Many risks and pitfalls such as these can occur within a government. However, for now, for city design, just keep in mind the fundamental reason and purpose for a city government is organization of resources.

In many game worlds, the line between limited local government and absolute government blurs. While some cities are members of a large governmental organization, such as a kingdom or empire, many GMs’ cities are independent, free, or large, and they have absolute reign over themselves.

Therefore, when considering your civic government, you might have to think beyond the concept of mayors and councilors and craft a new governing body as you would at the nation level.

Three levels of design

The principles discussed in this series are intended to apply to three levels of government:

1. Government – body, administration, rules
2. Office – government roles and positions
3. Politicians – NPCs

The first level is the government body itself, whether the administration is a tribal chief and his right-hand shaman or a thousand souls occupying a senate, royal family and huge bureaucracy.

The second level applies to a government office independent of who actually occupies the office at the moment. An office is a role, a variable whose parameters and functions can be designed using the same principles of whole government design. Duke, Mayor, and Ministry of Defense are three examples of second level offices.

Level three consists of the individual NPCs who populate offices and governments. Their political aspects can also be designed using these tools and techniques.

When reading the tips and advice in this series, feel free to apply the terms government, office, and politician interchangeably. For example, if your current task involves designing a deputy minister role, then just mentally switch “government” and “politician” with “office” as you read along.

The troika of power

At its core, government is about power. It needs to be listened to and obeyed by those within its own bureaucracy and by those it governs within its political borders. It is also of great value to have those outside its boundaries, such as foreign governments and epic level NPCs, give the city’s government credence and respect.

A challenge at the government level of design is how to describe power and compare power between different governments, offices and bureaucrats.

For the purposes of defining and describing the power of your city governments and the individuals and offices within it, use the following three attributes, the troika of power:

1. Power Base – the source and flavor of power
2. Power Level – the amount of power and the ability to wield it
3. Domain – the jurisdiction or borders to which the power extends

Power bases

Power base represents the source of power.

• What resources can the government or politician draw upon to exert his will upon others?
• What ammunition do they have with which to fight their battles?
• What right or ability do they have to be able to take action?

A government is useless if its edicts are ignored, its laws freely broken and its will repulsed. A leader will soon fall if others do not obey. A politician’s worst nightmare is to become powerless. A government must have a source of power, be it lawful leverage or just a big stick, or it will be ineffective and soon disbanded.

Use power bases for flavor

Power bases are a great tool for injecting flavor into your governments. This is one of their main benefits as you can use them to make each political entity in your campaign distinct and interesting.

For example, characters barging into town figuring they’ve got the whole “Mayor thing” figured out will be in for a surprise when they learn this Mayor is different. Instead of a bribe to look the other way, this Mayor might need the PCs to increase his popularity, find political leverage on an opponent or fix a sudden nuptial emergency.

Once you’ve established a power base, use it to slant and color other government design and in-game encounter decisions.

The type of power base determines the pool of options available and the nature of actions a government will usually take.

For example, a regime without gold could be quite limited in how it deals with the barbarians camped outside its walls, and the barbarian chief must take into account his father-in-law’s wishes when forming tribe policy.

Consider the following questions next time your game involves tangling with a government:

• How can the power base be leveraged or wielded by the government to get what it wants?
• How can an over-reliance on the power base be used to create interesting situations for the PCs to encounter?
• Is it possible to reverse-engineer the situation or design decision at hand to reveal the core power base involved? If not, consider adding more evidence.
• What are the effects of using (and abusing) the power base? What consequences, are felt at the society level? What consequences are noticed during day-to-day life?
• Does the power base have positive or negative effect any particular sub-group of the society? For example, each year that Imran Cookson gets reappointed as community warden because of his clan’s reputation, the social status of his family and that of his in-laws rises, causing jealousy and rivalry with certain other clans in the district.
• Is the fuel for the power base unlimited? If it’s finite, can it be replenished? If so, how? For example, a department might abuse its budget but then it schemes up a request for additional funds at the next council meeting. A politician might pass a few laws for the betterment of society that severely reduces her popularity, but then she approves a series of low-cost public works over the next few months to bolster her image.
• How can the power base be increased? How can it be lost?

Next in the series

This has been a broad overview of city government and a key design tool, power bases. The rest of the series delves into specific power bases you can use for city and government design, adventure hooks and encounter ideas. Next part we take a stab at Law and Affiliation – power games and killer handshakes.

One of the best pieces of writing/direction that I’ve ever seen in a TV production takes place in a later episode of the series, in season 6 or perhaps 7, and it’s something that has made an indelible mark apon my awareness and handling of the passage of time in my campaigns.

The Scene

One character (Josh Lyman) has been away from the West Wing for some time, and the narrative in preceeding episodes has been following his story out on the campaign trail. When he returns to visit his old haunts (and try to arrange a photo opportunity between his man and the President), one of the supporting cast (Margaret Hooper) is visibly several months pregnant, and he makes the observation, “Wow… I didn’t know she was even married.” It had been several episodes since we had seen this cast member, and would be several more before we saw her again; when we did, she was no longer pregnant.

The Lesson

Without making a big deal about it, this scene put the passage of time within the plotline front and centre for a moment, letting us see the changes that had been experienced while we were away. Josh was speaking for all of us in his astonishment. It’s one thing to tell the audiance that “eight months have passed”, it’s quite another to make them actually feel it. This achieves the task effortlessly, in such a way that it doesn’t have to impact the plot; it just lets it happen in the background and then gets on with the story. All told, the scene lasts for only a few seconds before returning to the main plot, but the impact of the scene lingers.

We often face a similar conundrum in RPGs; either we make a great fuss about how much time has passed, and how things have changed, or we ignore the passage of time and have everything be exactly the same as it was the last time the characters passed this way. In other words, it’s either a central plot point in which time has brought about a change in circumstances that directly and significantly impact one or more PCs, or time has brought about no changes at all.

Often, as GMs, we feel compelled to ensure that the players are hit over the head with the reality of the time passing by forcing them into such a “things have changed” scenario. I know I’ve run several such.

There’s a better way, and this partial scene from the West Wing demonstrates it perfectly: let time have just… happened. To everyone.

The Implications

The success of the scene is that it doesn’t talk about time passing, it demonstrates change that is commensurate with, and a reflection of, that passage of time. It shows, it doesn’t tell.

Let’s think about change over time for a moment. Examine your own life over the last six months; what has changed? What has visibly changed? A different hairstyle? A different fashion? Visible lines and wrinkles? New scars? New clothes?

How about the environment around you – different posters on the walls, different adverts on the billboards and TV, a different station on the radio, a room that’s been repainted? Different decorations?

In the local neighborhood, a store or two may have closed or changed, the forthcoming holiday being promoted within those stores has changed, some new product lines have come and some have gone. Prices have changed on some items, and new government regulations have perhaps made a mark. A neighbour has a new car, or a new baby, or a child who has started school; someone has gotten married, someone’s moved out and someone new has moved in, someone’s lost their job or are now working for a different company.

Politically and socially, not much may have changed on the surface, or a lot may have changed; six months is a long time in such circles. At the very least, the practical considerations that frame the exercise in politics will have changed, as will the topics on everyone’s lips. Perhaps some of the talking heads have changed. Socially, there may be a new hot party site, there will have been changes in the favourites of other things like the most popular TV programme for water-cooler discussion, and so on.

And some people will have died. Either naturally, or in tragic circumstances.

One of the major sources of humour in Back To The Future was the difference in experience and expectation, in look-and-feel, between the modern world (exemplified by Marty McFly) and the world of a generation earlier. Everything, even cultural idioms, had changed.

All that is needed to make the passage of time seem real to the players and to the characters is to drop a line describing a change into every major narrative passage. You don’t have to beat their heads in with a “everything has changed” adventure (usually, a “gone to hell since you’ve been gone” adventure), which always seems shallow and short-lived in terms of the awareness of the players.

In Practical Terms: Differences In Day Number

I’ve long been an advocate of maintaining an index of NPCs met in the course of a campaign and a summary of the things that the PCs have learned about them, enabling depth to be added to characters cumulatively, and ensuring consistency in characterisation and other details over time. But this lesson in imparting a realistic sense of time flow necessitates a change in that position. From now on, I’ll also be recording the day number of the last encounter with that NPC.

Day Numbers

I’ve seen all sorts of calendars used in RPGs – everything from entirely invented to copies of our own. But little has matched the usefulness of a simple expedient: the first day of play, in-game, is numbered “1” and the second “2” and so on until the end of the campaign. Some divide these into years, but I don’t think that’s as useful, as you will soon see.

This information is for record-keeping only; the GM should never refer to a “day number” in his narratives.

Changes In A Difference

So, on day 173, the PCs meet an NPC who they had previously encountered on day 120. It only takes a moment’s maths to see that 52 days have passed in between – almost two months. So all that needs to be done is for the GM to think of something – just one thing – that might have changed in that two months and insert it into his description, as something that’s changed or different. If he hadn’t made a point of whatever has changed in the previous encounter, or the players might not remember that detail, including the way things used to be as part of the reference completes the allusion to the passage of time.

It’s really that simple. On it’s own, this one item might not mean much; but cumulatively, it can be tremendously powerful as well as very subtle.

The Intensity Of Change

An even more sophisticated subtext can be carried by the cumulative effect of these changes – if a time of great turmoil has been experienced in the meantime, it will be reflected in a preponderance of more substantial changes. The subtle aftereffects of war can be implied by having a disproportionate number of the people the PCs met exhibiting some cultural referent to mourning – wearing all black, or wearing armbands, or giving away the dead person’s clothing, or displaying wreaths or portraits, or having service stars in the window – whatever is appropriate to the culture. Throw in the occasional character reference to funerals – “I hate funerals”, “I’ve been to too many funerals lately”, “I was speaking to the Clayton Widow the other day, and she said…”, “I saw something at the Rogers Funeral last week – the younger, not the older – and…”

The same approach works for any source of mass death. If there was an invasion of monsters, souvenirs, signs of hasty window and door reinforcements, evidence of superstition, and so on would reveal the impact on the general populace.

If you enter town and find all the locals have started hanging strings of garlic in their windows since you were here about 4 weeks ago, you could probably guess that they’ve had trouble with a Vampire since – or think they have, at any rate. If only a few houses have done so, and a few have lines painted across the stones outside each window or door, and some more have religious icons displayed more prominently, the impression is of some other kind of undead, against which the locals are unsure – but feel the pressing need to do something, implying an immediacy to the situation.

Equally, once the players get used to this (they will probably be hypersensitive and prone to overreaction at first), it’s absence when expected will immediately create a wary discomfort – just like the town where everyone smiles and is polite no matter what befalls them. It starts to get creepy… and that can be exactly what the GM needs.

In Practical Terms: A Visual Calendar

Another visual metaphor that I like to use to reinforce this is to pick one building or location and make it a visual calendar. This month, it’s an old, run-down building, next month someone’s boarded it up, a couple of months later someone new is moving in, the next month the exterior boards have been refurbished, then it gets repainted, then new curtains appear, then a sign appears about borders wanted, then a notice about a lost pet, then there’s a fire, and so on and on. Every time the PCs visit that urban centre, the description includes a comment about some change on the visual calendar.

This only works in reference to somewhere the PCs return to repeatedly, but in that context it’s better than any number of “It’s been three months” reminders.

The Experience

Incorporating the changes wrought by time into your narrative gives a palpable sense of duration to the players and adds immensely to the verisimilitude of the world. It stops being a static backdrop, like a stage set, and emerges in their perceptions as a living, breathing, environment – but in reality, it’s the exact same static environment which has just been dressed slightly differently. There is virtually no more work involved, the description of a location overall doesn’t have to be completely rewritten; change can occur one line of narrative at a time, and it will be subconsciously accepted and interpreted as a visual shorthand for more substantial alterations. The rewards vastly outstrip the costs involved.

Drow are soon to make their appearance in my Riddleport campaign. They are part of The Great Game being played out in the background as the characters struggle for fame and power in the pirate city.

To help me GM the dark elves I created the following tables and references. Maybe they would be useful for your campaign too?

Following are tables I crafted for drow generation.

• 100 Names – So I do not need to look them up during games
• 20 Roles – To help flesh out the drow contingent (all warriors and priests gets boring) and theme individuals until it comes time to create stat blocks for them
• 12 Pets – One way this faction will seem and play different than the other Riddleport groups
• 10 Ambitions – Fast motive creation
• 8 Habits Of Successful Drow – To help me figure out there approaches to problems, especially ones the PCs create
• 6 Drow Weaknesses PCs Can Take Advantage Of – To inspire non-combat gameplay
• 4 Drow Sayings – Check out the link; I just picked four I liked to help me roleplay

	Drow Roles
1	Assassin
2	Inquisitor
3	Priestess
4	Slaver
5	Warrior
6	Consort
7	Captain
8	Wizard
9	Sentinel
10	Knight
11	Psycher
12	Spiderkeeper
13	Vermin Trainer
14	Infiltrator
15	Avenger
16	Torturer
17	Seducer
18	Scout
19	Dark bard
20	Webmaster

	Drow Pets
1	Wyrmling dragon
2	Lizard
3	Goblin
4	Spider
5	Kuo-toa
6	Scorpion
7	Carrion crawler
8	Troll
9	Ooze
10	Gelatinous cube
11	Minor demon
12	Duergar

	Drow Ambitions
1	Dominance over rivals
2	Reveal a traitor or frame a foe to be one
3	Perfection
4	Gain reputation or prestige for deeds done
5	Recognition from high nobles
6	Acquire great wealth
7	Murder a foe (via indirect confrontation)
8	Continue serial killing
9	Slay ruler of own house and replace her
10	Blackmail a rival

	8 Habits Of Successful Drow
1	Blackmail and Extortion
2	Murder (do the kill yourself)
3	Assassination (employ a murderer)
4	Poison
5	Intelligence Gathering
6	Frame (produce false evidence)
7	Pre-emptive Strike
8	Propaganda (ruin reputations)

	Drow Weaknesses PCs Can Take Advantage Of
1	Vanity	Drive them to rash action
2	Greed	Motivate them in the wrong direction
3	Suspicion	Sow dissension
4	Hate	Create false enemies
5	Ambition	Blind them with poor opportunities
6	Lust	Distract with shiny objects

	100 Drow Names*
1	Barolin	Fate, fated, luck, lucky; Ascension, love, lover, lust;
2	Yrr’Baediira	Initiate, sister/brother; Protector, rival, wielder; Fate, fated, luck, lucky;
3	Bardyn’yl	Drow, woman/man; Fate, fated, luck, lucky; Flight, flyer, wing, wings;
4	Maytana’vyrae	Mistress/master, overseer; Beautiful, beauty, silver; Darkness, lurker, prowler;
5	Jhaelual’inil	Ambitious, clan, kin, family; Speed, strider; Lady/lord, rider, steed;
6	Phyrriina	Bless, blessed, blessing; Enchanter, mage, spellcaster;
7	Ice’Jhul	Obsession, taker, taken; Charmed, rune, symbol; Apostle, disciple;
8	Alaklochareth	Beloved, best, first; Messenger, spider; Obsession, taker, taken;
9	Istrysn	Endless, immortal; Artifact, dweomer, sorcerer, spell;
10	Dinfein’ryn	Berserk, berserker, orc, wild; Minstrel, singer, song; Blooded, elder, experienced;
11	Intra’Tsabica	Envoy, messenger, prophet; Abyss, empty, void; Baron, duke, lady/lord;
12	Iivvyrae	Liege, war, warrior; Mistress/master, overseer;
13	Mernar	Doom, doomed, fate; Adept, ghost, spirit;
14	Ton’Uhlsaghar	Darkness, lurker, prowler; Gold, golden, treasure; Cynic, death, end, victim;
15	Filfraema’bryn	Dwarf, dwarven, treacherous; Crafter, fist, hand; Agent, assassin, killer;
16	Aonar’Erthraen	Guardian, guard, shield; Mithril, resolute; Apostle, disciple;
17	Trieldiira	Bat, winged; Initiate, sister/brother;
18	Shyntice’nolu	Invisible, skilled, unseen; Obsession, taker, taken; Art, artist, expert, treasure;
19	Kalanagharrar	Elf, elven, far, lost; Cynic, death, end, victim; Secret, seeker, quest;
20	Zekaghar	Dragon, lithe, rage, wyrm; Cynic, death, end, victim;
21	Illiama	Devoted, heart, love; Breaker, destruction, end, omega;
22	Bhindorl’hriir	Craft, crafty, sly; Knight, sword, warrior; Seneschal of, steward;
23	Uque’Ghuanra	Cavern, digger, mole, tunnel; Accursed, curse, unlucky; Fool, game, prey, quarry;
24	Iira’Dilarra	Harbinger, herald; Cold, ice, still; Queen/prince, queen of/prince of;
25	Wehlrooslin	Deep, hidden, south, southern; Born of, child, young; Arm, armor, commander;
26	Sharzen	Dagger, edge, stiletto; Cutter, gem, jewel, jeweler;
27	Taroj	Love, pain, wound, wounded; Aura, cloak, hide, skin;
28	Mollay	Blue, storm, thunder, wind; Flight, flyer, wing, wings;
29	Alakgloth’dan	Beloved, best, first; Path, walker; Speed, strider;
30	Jss’Phyxerd	Scout, stalker; Bless, blessed, blessing; Giver, god, patron;
31	Belzt	Burned, burning, fire, flame; Finder, hunter;
32	Micaroyn	Lost, poison, widow; Follower, hired, mercenary;
33	Wode	Bold, hero, heroic; Servant, slave, vassal;
34	Vrae’Iimarra	Architect, founder, mason; Life, living, spirit, soul; Queen/prince, queen of/prince of;
35	Nolu’Jhaelriina	Art, artist, expert, treasure; Ambitious, clan, kin, family; Enchanter, mage, spellcaster;
36	Ryne’Rauvfryn	Blooded, elder, experienced; Cave, rock, stone; Champion, victor, weapon, weapon of;
37	Szoromphryn	Amber, yellow; Binder, judge, law, prison; Blooded, elder, experienced;
38	Ree’Spiraxle	Enchanter, mage, spellcaster; Learned, skilled, wise; Ally, companion, friend;
39	Rilxenaafay	Foretold, omen; Cutter, gem, jewel, jeweler; Eyes, eyes of, seeress/seer;
40	Iymylene’nitra	Endless, immortal; Handmaiden/squire, maiden/youth; Kicker, returned, risen;
41	Aunvayas’cice	Crypt, dead, deadly, death; Forge, forger, hammer, smith; Born of, child, young;
42	Nolu’Bhinhriir	Art, artist, expert, treasure; Craft, crafty, sly; Seneschal of, steward;
43	Nadrynor	Cunning, genius, mind, thought; Blooded, elder, experienced; Fool, game, prey, quarry;
44	Solicaolil	Deft, nimble, spider; Baron, duke, lady/lord; Corpse, disease, ravager;
45	Chaloniatana	Earth, stable; Rod, staff, token, wand; Darkness, lurker, prowler;
46	Vrae’Xunisstra	Architect, founder, mason; Demon, fiend, fiendish; Acolyte, apprentice, student;
47	In’Belagh	Lady/lord, rider, steed; Burned, burning, fire, flame; Breaker, destruction, end, omega;
48	Tsabdynolil	Abyss, empty, void; Flight, flyer, wing, wings; Corpse, disease, ravager;
49	Uhlserd	Gold, golden, treasure; Giver, god, patron;
50	Shalee’G’eldriira	Abjurer, gaze, watch, watcher; Friend, spider; Mother/father, teacher;
51	Qualyn’Tazatar	Ally, caller, kin; Bat, winged; Queen/prince, queen of/prince of;
52	Aunynda	Crypt, dead, deadly, death; Captain, custodian, marshal, ranger;
53	Antar’Iminid	Matriarch/patriarch, ruler; Devoted, heart, love; Harbinger, herald;
54	Tran’Vicdriirn	Spider, spinner, weaver; Abyss, deep, profound; Mother/father, teacher;
55	Vasavin	Blood, body, flesh; Guardian, guard, shield;
56	Tran’Berglochar	Spider, spinner, weaver; Graceful, fluid, water, wet; Messenger, spider;
57	Vornmyr	Honor, honored; Bone, bones, necromancer, witch;
58	Elkomphin	Chaos, mad, madness; Binder, judge, law, prison; Lady/lord, rider, steed;
59	Rikdax	Magic, ring, staff; Nomad, renegade, wanderer;
60	Zen’Kronaxle	Cutter, gem, jewel, jeweler; Sick, venom, venomed; Ally, companion, friend;
61	Vicintra	Abyss, deep, profound; Envoy, messenger, prophet;
62	Ryldhrae’inyon	Brand, branded, owned, slave; Heir, inheritor, princess; Drider, feet, foot, runner;
63	Waerffyn	Deep, hidden, south, southern; Minstrel, singer, song;
64	Neervaidil	Core, root, strong; Comrade, honor, honored; Alpha, beginning, creator of, maker;
65	Vayas’Kalanoj	Forge, forger, hammer, smith; Elf, elven, far, lost; Aura, cloak, hide, skin;
66	Zaknlochar	Dusk, haunted, shadow; Messenger, spider;
67	Omarlinhriir	Skin, tattoo, tattooed; Arm, armor, commander; Seneschal of, steward;
68	Antar’Amald	Matriarch/patriarch, ruler; Blessed, divine, godly; Blood, blood of, heir;
69	Aunune	Crypt, dead, deadly, death; Diviner, fate, future, oracle;
70	Aunlin’yrr	Crypt, dead, deadly, death; Arm, armor, commander; Protector, rival, wielder;
71	Elvandra’e	Elf, elven, far, lost; Lover, match, mate; Servant, slave, vassal;
72	Laelthrae	Iron, west, western; Charmer, leader, seducer;
73	Drizojtar	Hard, steel, unyielding; Aura, cloak, hide, skin; Glyph, marker, rune;
74	Rylnet	Foretold, omen; Kicker, returned, risen;
75	Trieluit	Bat, winged; Breath, voice, word;
76	Driirn’Lymeyrr	Mother/father, teacher; Bright, crystal, light; Protector, rival, wielder;
77	Inriinathara	Hidden, mask, masked; Enchanter, mage, spellcaster; Glyph, marker, rune;
78	Sszolin	Silk, silent; Ascension, love, lover, lust;
79	Lluteral	Servant, slave, vassal; Iron, west, western; Abjurer, gaze, watch, watcher;
80	Jyse	Hard, steel, unyielding; Servant, slave, vassal;
81	Welvdiirnnet	Cave, rock, stone; nitiate, sister/brother; Kicker, returned, risen;
82	Jhuloyssue	Charmed, rune, symbol; Binder, judge, law, prison; Arm, artisan, fingers;
83	Inxaeisstra	Hidden, mask, masked; Orb, rank, ruler, scepter; Acolyte, apprentice, student;
84	Eari’Nathniss	Giver, god, patron; Doom, doomed, fate; Chance, gambler, game;
85	Micaronim	Lost, poison, widow; Rod, staff, token, wand;
86	Welvhriir’axle	Cave, rock, stone; Seneschal of, steward; Ally, companion, friend;
87	Zszlochar	Ancient, elder, respected; Messenger, spider;
88	Szinrak’intra	Festival, joy, pleasure; Chaos, storm, tempest; Envoy, messenger, prophet;
89	Tsabaonar’uque	Abyss, empty, void; Guardian, guard, shield; Cavern, digger, mole, tunnel;
90	Xunorvir	Demon, fiend, fiendish; Crafter, fist, hand;
91	Mayala’lin	Beautiful, beauty, silver; Healer, priestess/priest; Arm, armor, commander;
92	Tana’Felynva	Darkness, lurker, prowler; Pale, thin, weak, white; Comrade, honor, honored;
93	Umraefrynquiri	Faith, faithful, true; Champion, victor, weapon, weapon of; Aura, cloak, hide, skin;
94	Diira’Dhaunarra	Initiate, sister/brother; Infested, plague; Queen/prince, queen of/prince of;
95	Masinonim	Beautiful, beauty, silver; Lady/lord, rider, steed; Rod, staff, token, wand;
96	Drizlochar	Hard, steel, unyielding; Messenger, spider;
97	Shi’nymma	Fool, foolish, young; Drider, feet, foot, runner;
98	Bhineyl	Craft, crafty, sly; Archer, arrow, flight, flyer;
99	Chalxae’rae	Earth, stable; Orb, rank, ruler, scepter; Secret, seeker, quest;
100	Valzyr	Black, dark, darkness; Sage, teller;

* I used this online drow name generator to create this table. The generator offers meanings for the syllables as a bonus, for instant NPC hooks, which I have included below.

Win a set of Drow Dice

Comment below with d6 more Habits Of Successful Drow or d6 more Drow Ambitions. You can enter multiple times – each helps fellow GMs roleplay their dark elves better.

I’ll draw a random entry January 23. Winner receives the set of dice Second Darkness depicted in the post. Enter now:

In the course of part 2 of this series, which was all about overcoming a resistance to studying rules for their own sake, I suggested that the GM learning a new set of rules should watch for patterns, and use them to make understanding the rules a little easier.

Starting in this part of the series, I’m going to start explaining some of those patterns. and how rules systems inherantly contain two elements that form a foundation from which an understanding of all the other game mechanics and internal systems can be founded. These are the Rules Touchstones, your guides through the maze of the rules. The first of these is the combat system, and the second – which will occupy our attention in Part 6 – is Character Generation.

Styles of Combat system

The Combat System is the more important of the two. There are two basic styles of combat system, and they are distinguished by the damage-handling subsystem. Specifically, does damage penetrate defences or does it alter the probability of the inflicting of damage?

This distinction has ramifications throughout the rest of the combat system; identifying what type of system is in place provides a key indicator of what to look for in other subsystems relating to combat, and – by inferance and extension – how non-combat systems function.

Damage Penetration Systems

This is probably the less-familiar of the two. It is the system used by Rolemaster, and by classic Traveller, amongst others.

• This type of system frequently has relatively consistent hit points from one individual to another, regardless of the level of experience/expertise of the individual;
• Attacks generally hit the target;
• Armour and other such defences subtract from the amount of damage inflicted;
• Combat resolution may take the form of opposed rolls, or both attack and defence may be fixed numeric values determined from the individual’s stats;
• If both attack and defence are fixed, damage will be more variable, and may include some ‘exploding’ componant;
• If attack resolution is by opposed rolls, the damage may be fixed by weapon type;
• Damage is often broken into different types with different effects.

Damage Penetration-style systems are better suited to highly-specific detail-oriented approaches, as that last point implies. It is often a question not of how much damage a particular weapon or attack inflicts, but how much damage it inflicts when opposed by this type of armour as compared to that. This means that each type of pole arm has a completely different set of combat characteristics, for example, which is a far more accurate reflection of the historical origins of such weapons.

This can make these systems slower but more realistic. In such systems, everything has to be placed in its proper context before it can be meaningfully interpreted, and many of the values that d&d players expect to be fixed aren’t, and vice versa.

Probability Alteration Systems

The alternative is to define the target value of an attack roll not as the number needed to hit, but as the number needed to both hit and inflict damage. In this context, armour no longer absorbs damage directed at the wearer, it alters the likelyhood of damage being experienced at all.

This is the basic approach employed by D&D since the game first came out. It has quite different characteristics to the first system considered:

• This type of system frequently varies the number of hit points to reflect increased skill in battle;
• Attacks often do not hit the target, but when they do, they usually automatically inflict damage;
• That’s because armour and other defences don’t alter the damage done, they reduce the likelyhood of damage being experienced by the target;
• Combat resolution rests on a single die roll with circumstancial modifiers which must achieve a target value, based on the defender’s ability and protection, or better;
• Damage per blow is relatively fixed within a narrow range;
• Damage is usually treated in a collective manner, without distinguishing between different types such as crushing, slashing, stabbing, electrical, fire, etc.

Probability Alteration systems are more abstract, and better suited to less realistic combat modes, with far greater capacity for the fantastic. A given weapon design will usually inflict the same amount of damage with the same level of variability regardless of what sort of armour or protection the target has.

Hybrids

Some game systems are a complex hybrid of both types. The example with which I am most familiar is the Hero System, in which each of the key factors is inherantly variable. While this has benefits in terms of flexibility, it can also increase the risk of strange synergies and loopholes within the rules that produce unexpectedly severe or mild results.

Where there is one complexity, there is usually another, and then another. Not only does the hero system distinguish between two types of attack modes (killing vs standard attacks), it distinguishes between three attack types (physical, energy, and mental), and it distinguishes between two types of damage (stun and body), and on top of all that, it is replete with exceptions to all of these, where different attack types are given unique combat resolution systems – flash attacks, transforms, presence attacks, and so on. And, over the top of that layer of complexity are all the modifiers that can be applied to distinguish one attack from another – Armour Piercing, Penetrating, No Normal Defence, and the like – and multiple kinds of defence, such as force fields, armour, ablative armour, etc.

Combat As A Systems Touchstone

Entirely aside from the fact that combat is a major element in any RPG campaign, and hence any increase in understanding the combat subsystem is a valuable achievement in and of itself, the combat system is a key to a number of other elements in most game systems.

Perhaps the most obvious point of connection between the combat system and the rest of the game is the approach that the rules system takes to skill resolution. The truth of this statement is easy to prove: pick any game system that you already know and consider the similarity between the way attack rolls are resolved and the way skill tests are resolved. Are modifiers applied to the roll, to the basis of the roll, to the size or number of dice rolled, or to the target to be achieved? How large are the modifiers? How are they determined?

How is success or failure determined? How are fair fights scaled? Is the system more detail-oriented, or more abstract? How does magic or technology (as appropriate) interact with the system? How is perception figured? How are ranges handled (more on that in part 7 of this series). How are tactics and circumstances translated into game mechanics? How do characters improve their abilities? How about movement?

There are few subsystems within the mechanics of any game that intersect with so many other parts of the overall game system. That’s why the combat system is one of the best possible places to start when learning a new system, as recommended in the third part of this series, and why it is one of the two rules touchstones.

Yesterday I put Pathfinder Bestiary 2 in my shopping cart. I need to wait for a few Christmas bills to get paid before I order it, though. I also happened to meet with one of my players for coffee, and we got to talking about monster books. He is not a fan of them. Why? Waste of money, he says, because he only uses some of the monsters out of any given book. I, on the other hand, gobble up monster books. I love’em. More please.

All this got me to thinking about the new digital world we live in. My friend has a good point. I have only used a fraction of the monsters from Bestiary 1. I have actually used more community crafted monsters from the Pathfinder SRD. Monster books feel so limiting now.

What would my idea of a perfect monster manual in 2011 be, then?

To start, I don’t want just a book anymore, I want a GMing solution. I want a tool that inspires my games, helps me plan better and faster, and helps drip more flavour into my sessions.

Part 1: killer searching and selection

Pretend I am shopping, but instead of buying goods and services, I am selecting monsters and foes for the next game. Following are my wishlist items. As a boon to publishers and designers, these online tools would not only help existing customers, but find you new ones too if you made the tools public. The tools make your book more valuable without giving away its content.

Sorting

The most basic thing monster publishers can do for me is offer more ways to search for monsters. Some books do offer this, which is great. However, likely due to print publishing limitations, I do not seem to get the full array of information I need.

For example, I will get a listing of monsters sorted by challenge rating along with page numbers. Great!

Then I will get a listing of monsters grouped by type – undead, humanoid, aquatic, and so on. This listing is valuable, but never offers page numbers. It is always faster to find a page referenced by number than it is by monster name. So I need a listing of monsters grouped by type and sub-type that also offers page numbers – too much for a printed book but easy to offer online.

Then there’s monsters sorted by sub-types, climate, playable as PCs, make great villains, can speak for roleplaying encounters, and so on – all good fodder for listings.

Publishers of any multi-monster book should offer this online by default. It does not give up their content for free (you still need the book for the monster entry) and allows GMs to find monsters sorted in the way they need at the moment.

A monster recommendation engine

This blog offers you related posts you might also like at the end of every article. So too should a monster manual. “If you found this screeching ball of acidic fury fun to play, then you might also like….”

This would use up valuable space too expensive in a print book, but is a perfect companion tool online to help customers out.

Synergies

When I pick a monster for new encounter, give me a list of additional monsters that would work well together. Dragon Magazine ran this series when D&D 3.5 first came out. Lethal combos to provide greater challenge for buffed and optimized PCs. Interesting combos to challenge multiple types of PCs. Fun combos that work together like Kato and Green Hornet.

Similar to “You might also like,” you could name this online listing, “Works well with others.” It gives me the opportunity to spruce up solo monster encounters and change up combats involving repeat creatures. It offers the harried GM a small tactical advantage. For location design, you can use this tool to stock nearby regions with some additional logic and symmetry.

Filtered search

Lets go beyond a one dimensional list. Offer me tags I can click on to create a compound search to help me find the perfect monsters. For example, let me click on Swamp, Tough Critter and Intelligent to pull up a list of available monsters.

Part 2: modding and crowdsourcing

My ideal monster manual could be modified and could tap into the brilliance of all us gamers. Such a monster manual becomes more valuable after publication. How cool is that?

Skinnable monsters

Let me make a copy of a monster’s stat block online, change a couple of things and call it something new. This classic GM advice works well to throw off meta-gaming and veteran players who have memorized your monster collection.

It also serves world builders and designers well by offering regional variants and other flavourful tweaks.

And it would allow GMs like me, who want to make players hate their foes with a passion, to run PCs repeatedly up against critters of the same type without making combat stale. Think draconians from Dragonlance here.

Further, allow fans to upload or save re-skins to your catalogue to expand its offering. The re-skinning process means any GM of any skill level or comfort zone can add new critters to your monster resource.

Publishers will want to do some moderating and curating, or offer their fans tools to do this themselves.

Suddenly, my $30 investment for 200 monsters (15 cents per critter) has become an investment in 1000+ monsters.

Clever publishers will offer incentives for the best re-skins to help motivate and surface quality designs over time.

Tailored

Factor in my PCs’ abilities and weaknesses. I do not need a character generator, just a way to tell the engine what capabilities my group has so it can spit out suggestions of monsters that would offer challenging encounters.

Worried about building a smart AI to do this? Instead, offer the community a way to enter tactics and gameplay reports per monster entry. Whether you offer the monster behind a customer login, or offer a monster shell entry, like a wiki, while keeping the art and stats locked in the product, you can still offer a way for fans to help each other with tactical advice.

Use tags so tactical entries can be sorted and filtered. This allows the system to accommodate future rules expansions, such as new magic items or PC classes to contend with.

What is the best defense for this critter? What is it best opening move at range? What should it do if it detects the PCs two rounds before they detect it? What should a GM do if it gets surrounded?

Treasure

Recommended treasure gets old with repeat encounters. Randomized treasure works well. Best is to let fans create cool treasure packages for other fans to peruse, along with flavour text.

This time the giant frog has a gem in its gut. Next time some coins in a dung pile. Third time a partially digested hand with a ring on it. Fourth time its skin has a rare and valuable pattern.

Lairs, hazards and traps

Offer me clever environmental combos to make encounters more interesting or difficult. Let fans submit lair designs or offer fun trap or battlemap hazard ideas.

Most of us are not good mappers. So let us take photos of our battlemats, tile layouts, and game tables and upload them so we can see how others have crafted their lairs and battle grounds.

Part 3: My monster report

I have been shopping around now for a few minutes. I have searched and filtered and found my perfect monster for next session – plus a few others (hey, what can I say, they were impulse buys). I have selected some good tactical advice, treasure and trap suggestions. I also liked some alternative flavour text somebody wrote and added that in.

I click Checkout. And I get my report.

It is a thing of beauty. A PDF or online record, it offers all the stats I need to run an encounter. The information has been arranged for smooth encounter play and optimized GMing reference, not efficient print page layout.

And all my related rules are there. Monster type rules, sub-type rules, feats, powers and all. It is a keyword extravaganza.

My monster manual is more than a static list of monster entries now. It is part advice, part customization engine and part community.

What would your perfect monster manual be?

A lot of blogs and articles talk about “realism” (or verisimilitude) in RPGs and how to achieve it. Campaign Mastery is no different in this respect, a number of my articles having dealt with the subject. Over the last few weeks, as I write this, I’ve been spending time thinking about a fundamental question that a lot of these articles and opinions take for granted. Just what is “realism”, anyway?

A lot of people seem to assume that “Realism” means a slavish dedication to representing, in-game, a physical reality that is dictated by the best knowledge imparted by modern science and distributed through encyclopedias, textbooks, and the internet.

Opposing this interpretation are an equally-vocal and ideologically-entrenched faction who support an absolute fidelity to the rules as printed – sometimes, as mis-printed – in any official source.

I think they are both wrong.

An Alternative Definition

For my money, “realism” is fidelity to both the genre of the game and a subordinate fidelity to the specifics of the individual campaign, as I have explained in past articles.

That fidelity should extend to *all* facets of the in-game RPG experience and this represents an extension of the philosophy that I have previously outlined.

The truer the game mechanics are to the genre (and possibly the subgenre) in question, the “better” those rules can be adjudged to be. While some compromise may be necessary in terms of game balance or playability, this aspect of “reality” is equally critical to the effectiveness of the game system.

Similarly, the adventures that take place within the campaign should be true to the genre and subgenre, and so should the character types, and the house rules, and the encounter types, and the internal logic running through the plotlines, and, well – everything.

The Implications For Reverse-Engineering Rules

It follows that genre conventions can be used as a key to identifying the intent of the game designer when the game mechanics were designed, to an extent that is directly proportionate to the quality of those rules in terms of simulating the genre in question.

Each time that a rules system or subsystem’s mechanics become understood, a perceptive GM will ask themselves what aspect of the genre those rules are attempting to simulate, because the answer should explain not only why those particular rules are the way they are, it can shed light on the question of why other rules work the way they do, and that in turn can make those rules more comprehensible.

Similarly, if there is a rules system or subsystem that makes no sense after reading and re-reading it, identifying the genre conventions that the subsystem represents can provide a catalyst to comprehension.

The Limitations

This approach doesn’t always work. Game systems are designed by people, and nothing created by people is ever perfect. No game system is ever uniformly excellent at simulating the “realism” of a genre, even before those compromises mentioned earlier are taken into account. So this tachnique is also going to be imperfect, by definition.

However, this imperfection provides a system for measuring the utility of house rules, and that can be the most valuable outcome of this particular analytical tool.

A standard for the assessment of House Rules

If the quality of a rules subsystem is measured apon a triumverate of metrics, as described earlier, then any change in those rules must improve one of the three qualities, and by a greater margin than the cost in the other attributes if it is to be adjudged a universal improvement.

Understandably, this is quite rare. If a rules subsystem is so obviously flawed that it can be so easily improved, that flaw is usually discovered during playtesting and the game mechanic replaced with something more functional.

More commonly, then, a house rule will shift a game mechanic subsystem on one axis at the expense of some sacrifice in one or both of the other attributes. A house rule may make the game system more playable, or it may eliminate an unfair advantage conferred by a particular loophole, or it may more accurately simulate the genre of the campaign. It may even do two of these, at the expense of a massive penalty in the remaining quality.

This is where the artistry of rules design can be found, because clearly there can be no one right answer to the challenge posed by the design of a given game subsystem. Every subsystem is a compromise, and a slightly different compromise may be perfectly acceptable, even preferable, to some GMs.

One GM may be willing to sacrifice a little more playability in exchange for a lot more “realism” or much better game balance, because he has a greater capacity for remembering and interpreting a slew of complicated game mechanics. Another may make the same choice because he has settled for a more abstract subsystem elsewhere in the game mechanics to free up capacity for this more “realistic” variant on the subsystem.

Others may be overwhelmed by the existing game mechanics and need a more abstract, playable substitute for a given subsystem. Or may want to simplify this element of the game system to permit them to place greater emphasis

But here’s the thing that a lot of House Rule designers overlook: not all the rules are in play all the time. Rules on character improvement don’t make any difference to attack rolls, rules on language handling don’t make much difference when adjudicating ranged weapons fire, and so on. It’s not the total complexity that matters, it’s the cumulative moment-to-moment loading on the GM that determines whether they are overwhelmed by a change.

In conclusion

Not everything has to make sense in a game, so long as it makes sense in the context of the genre conventions. And that’s the difference between “Realism” as most GMs define it, and how I apply it to RPG design.

How high do you dream?

Last post I covered 2010 and how I fared against my plans and intentions. This week, I lay out my goals for 2011.

Gamer Lifestyle has a good pair of posts of setting goals for 2011 you might want to check out.

Goal #1: Hit every scheduled Campaign Mastery post

My blogging schedule will probably change in early 2011, but no matter what it is I will hit every deadline. Last year I missed two out of 52 deadlines. This year I aim for zero.

Goal #2: Maintain current series, start new series

More important to you, what will I be writing for this blog? There are several ongoing series I would like to continue. Feedback on them is welcome.

Ongoing series

• Ask the GMs – we have a backlog building up due to some project work and Mike’s recent move to a new home. We hope to start catching up on these in early March.
• Combat Hazards – this treacherous series resumes with more tips on how to entrap PCs and make encounters better with dangerous terrain and environments.
• Hooks – More character and personality hooks for characters and villains.
• Generators – How have you liked the Q-Workshop generators series? Are you finding these themed random tables of value? Any table or generator requests?
• iPad RPG reviews – You requested more, and I will keep writing about the apps I find useful on the iPad for RPG.

New series

• City building – How to design certain background elements of cities you can use to ramp up the adventure. For example, in the first series you will learn about government – a necessary function but too often not tied into fantastic gaming.
• Stat blocks – The Plot Stat Block seemed to be popular. I will reveal more – and get your design help with them – so we can all have better organized games plus some cool design tools.

Goal #3 Books

I am working on one right now with Mike and Michael Tumey. The project got beaten up a bit in 2010, but first draft is nearly complete!

Other books are in the works, but I will keep those top secret until more details can be announced.

Goal #4 More contests and giveaways

Between Campaign Mastery and Roleplaying Tips, I aim to run one contest or giveaway per month. If you are a publisher or product seller, drop me a note if you would like to promote your products through our contests by supplying prizes. http://www.campaignmastery.com/contact/

Goal #5 DM 12 times this year, play 12 times

Riddleport has switched to a monthly game, and a player is stepping up to start a 4E campaign so I can play more. Our group still games every two weeks, but in 2011 I now have a change to play 12 times this year, and GM 12 times this year. Awesome!

Goal #6 Roleplaying Tips Newsletter

Continue to publish this every other week and pack every issue full of GM tips and ideas. I will be revising the content a bit as I am wont to do to try to maintain the sweet spot of good GM advice plus immediately usable tips.

I would love to see an HTML, PDF and mobile-friendly edition this year, but I have not solved those problems yet. Each version would take extra time to generate an publish. I need to figure out a workflow so that all my time is not spent publishing various versions. There must be a solution, and I will keep thinking about it.

Goal #7 Gamer Lifestyle

The RPG publishing and writing membership site continues to thrive. New members joined us in 2010 and we look forward to working with all the gamers who want to start earning an income from RPG in 2011.

This year we have our new Relationist on board to provide support and help for members. Plus we have a lot of new content planned to help those who have worked through the 5 month course take their business to the next exciting stage.

CM reader goals

Last post I ran a short contest. To enter you had to comment on what your 2011 gaming goals were. If you are still laying out your plans for this year, check out these entries pulled from the contest to give you some ideas:

• Continue my weekly DM session with positive feedback from my group for the entire year.
• Improve the integrated world aspect of my campaign. Ensure there are references before they become a relevant to the PCs, including NPCs, legends, sayings etc.
• Include more fantastical events and encounters in the campaign.
• Improve my campaign with a lot of stuff, legends, NPC, sites, etc.
• Keep my blog running, at least with sessions post and campaign information.
• Complete my Doctor Who Campaign by June and have the players say it was the best game I’ve ran.
• Successfully complete a Broomstix campaign for daughters and friends to get them vested into tabletop RPGs.
• Master the sandbox style of game.
• Decrease game prep time by 20%.
• Go to 2 gaming cons.
• Paint at least 12 miniatures this year.
• Take a 3-month break from GMing and be a player.
• Use what I learn as a Player to improve my own games.
• Learn to not rely so heavily on miniatures when I GM.

I hope 2011 is your best year yet. Mike and I thank you very much for reading this blog. We value your time and attention and comments. You inspire us to write every week and your feedback is always highly regarded.

I keep unfinished article ideas in a text document on my computer. When I first started writing Campaign Mastery, I set up a list containing some seventy-odd ideas deriving from material I had produced for my different campaigns. In the past year, that list has, quite obviously, reduced in size – by all of four entries.

In November, I moved apartments, and my computer was the last thing that I packed, and the last thing that I unpacked. I knew that once I let the genie out of the bottle, it would take 80% of my attention and nothing else would get done (and I was right – I still have three boxes to unpack!)

Because I had prepared blog posts in advance, I spent almost four weeks devoting no thought at all to what I was going to post next. So, when the computer was finally unpacked (but my internet connection not yet restored), I had to get myself back up to speed, and that’s when I noticed that only about four items had come off my list.

Naturally enough, I started thinking about why there has been so little movement on the list. A number of reasons came immediately to mind, including (in no particular order):

• New article ideas
• A number of articles that ran longer than expected
• New series: Personality Archetypes, Lessons From The West Wing, Rules Mastery
• Articles inspired by events in-game
• Articles inspired by events out-of-game
• Artciles in response to reader’s questions
• Articles that could be written more quickly than others while under time pressure

Application to Campaigns

At the same time, I was thinking about campaign structure (because that’s something that I do a lot) and I realised that there is an analogy to be made between these circumstances and what happens in my campaigns. I’ve already talked in an ATGMs post, “In It For The Long Haul” about why my campaigns tend to last for so long, and realised that there was more to the story of why this is so, or perhaps a different way of looking at why it is the case that makes my points more accessable to the readers. So, as a sequel to my contribution towards that answer, I now present this article.

When I create a campaign, I set out a list of plot threads that are to get successively ticked off the schedule until they lead to a crescendo. These aren’t plot trains; they are external stimuli that get folded into whatever else is going on in the campaign. Some of these are inspired by the characters that the players have created, some are inspired by the things that the players tell me they want their characters to do, and some are interesting ideas in their own right. Many exist purely to establish foundations for later plotlines.

For example, in my “Fumanor: One Faith” Campaign, the plot threads that have taken place thus far are (in sequence):

1. “Surfaceworld” – Gallas (PC) leaves the Drow Tunnels and makes his way to Fort Sharpfang and is recruited by the Inquisition, a new branch of the Church designed to hunt down and destroy the ideologically corrupt and impure. En route, he discovers that the Elves have been training themselves to ride dragons that they are force-maturing; having obtained the eggs from Goblins in exchange for lessons in Magic.
2. “The Silver Palms” – Gallas receives his first assignment, joins the Silver Palms (an NPC adventuring group deliberately based on the Untouchable Three and Black Hands from KODT), and gets to know them en route to The Grave Of The Prince Of Lies, which they have recently discovered. Sebastion (2nd PC) joins the party. Along the way, they discover that the current high taxes prompt the commons to form rebellions and become bandits and robbers. Law and Order in the outer Kingdom begins to break down.
3. “The Grave Of The Prince Of Lies” – The Silver Palms find the clues leading to Khom (location of the Red Masque) within the icy tomb of the Dwarven Prince seduced by a Drow Priestess, and learn new campaign background material on Elf/Dwarf/Drow relations.
4. “Reap The Whirlwind” – En route to Khom, the Chaos Power imprisoned within the Red Masque seduces one of the Silver Palms by playing on his overconfidence. The Silver Palms pass through a village where it is revealed that the Church has inadvertantly been subverting the economy of Fumanor, which is the root problem that has necessitated the crushing tax rates. The subversion of the party Cleric is discovered by Gallas and Sebastion, but they decide to take no action – yet.
5. “The Burning Sage’s Demense” – Silver Palms reach the Lost City of Khom, which is temporally fragmented as a result of the imprisonment of Dis The Destroyer in the Red Masque. Dis has mastered his imprisonment and turned it to his advantage, giving him free reign throughout time. The Silver Palms disintigrate as a group, torn apart by greed and subversion. Kardles redeems himself, providing the key to restoring the imprisonment.
6. “The Red Masque” – Under constant threat, Sebastian and Gallas transport the Red Masque to safety, undermining a Church-led rebellion against the throne en route. They discover that the Goblins are a bigger threat than anyone realises, but manage to forge an armistace with one of the Goblin tribes.
7. “Brown Heart” – Gallas and Sebastian are assigned to discover the identity of the Assassin who killed Ceriseth (Druid and PC in a former campaign). They discover that the Druids have more power than anyone realises and have been using it to evolve Goblin Society, transforming them into the deadly enemies that they have become. They learn that the other Goblin tribes have wiped out the Goblin tribe with whom they had arranged the armistace, for heresy. The PCs ally with Razel of the Jal-Pur, a desert people independant of the Kingdom, who bears unprecedented diplomatic overtures to the King. They achieve a peaceful settlement with the Druids.

and, currently underway,

8. “Monastry” – Razel, Gallas, and Sebastian are assigned to meet a prickly but honourable Ambassador and escort him safely to the Jal-Pur to complete negotiations for the treaty offer conveyed by Razel, and to ensure the success of the mission at all costs. En route, they discover that someone is manipulating and structuring Wild Magic in the vicinity of the place where they are to meet the Ambassador (a remote monastary), a feat considered impossible to achieve under all the rules of magic that they know about(and that includes the knowledge one of the players has from a former character who became the preeminant mage of her generation and several others).

The “One Faith” campaign kicked off in mid-2006, and – if everything had gone according to plan – would have reached its current position (halfway through the 8th scenario) in April 2008. By now, the entire campaign should be wrapping up. What happened?

The Problems and The Delays

Well, part of the story lies with the real world problem of too many campaigns, not enough time, which has meant that for the last 2 years, the “One Faith” campaign has run only 6 months of the year, instead of continuously as it was originally intended. Taking that into account reduces the discrepancy from 32 to about 20 months.

Even when it is running, we can only play once a month, as I explained in
“Clash Of The Timetables” back in January 2009. So that “20 months” is really 20 game sessions.

This makes the campaign more sensitive to the vagarities of real-world interruptions and disruptions – like moving. Not only have I moved recently (a month without gaming and without ‘net access, I was practically climbing the walls), but one of the key players has been looking for a new place of his own – and missing the occasional gaming session as a result.

And it only takes 12 sessions missed for us to be talking about a whole YEAR of gaming opportunities lost.

Balancing this effect has been an attempt to schedule extra sessions outside the regular continuity of the game on Sundays. These have proven to be even more sensitive to real-world pressures, but even so, I can’t really hide behind the excuse of real-world interruptions. It can take a share of the rap, but it’s nowhere near being the whole story.

So why are we 20 game sessions behind where I expected to be?

The answers are not that dissimilar to those I listed earlier for not being farther advanced through my list of articles for Campaign Mastery:

• New plot and subplot ideas
• Plotlines that ran longer than expected
• Two new characters being integrated into the plotline
• Additional Scenes and subplots inspired by events in-game
• Additional Scenes and subplots inspired by events out-of-game – ie, player requests and suggestions
• Additional Scenes and subplots in response to player’s questions
• Drop-in scenes and subplots that could be prepped more quickly than others while under time pressure.

At which point I have to ask myself the question: Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

Well, it’s both. It’s good, in that it is a sign of a vibrant campaign with engaging plots and situations, which has inspired active participation on the part of the players, which in turn has influanced the overall shape of the campaign.

And it’s bad, because what should have been a 4-year campaign now looks like running for eight-to-ten, while other campaign ideas are put on hold. And it’s bad for another reason – because the longer it runs, the more frequently those 6-month intervals are going to get in the way. But it’s good for another reason, one that trumps all the others: eight-to-ten years of fun is better than four years of less fun!

This approach to adventure scheduling is a technique of planning that I have written about before, in “Scenario Sequencing: Structuring Campaign Flow” but I have a new term for it: Directed Sandboxing. It means that while characters are free to move in any direction within the sandbox, they are confined to it – but that I keep changing the shape of the sandbox to accommodate the directions that the characters want to move in. My plotlines are devices to stimulate the characters, and to keep the world around them evolving, and to provide the players with the raw materials from which to determine where they want to go. It’s like giving the characters a detsination on the map to try and reach, without telling them how to get there, or how long to take. The direct route gets there quickly, but ignores all the interesting tourist-traps and compelling vistas and interesting side-trips along the way. It’s just not as much fun.

There are another 14 items on my “set list” of adventures for the One Faith campaign, some shorter than others. Some of them might not happen; some of them have been pre-empted by characters moving in unexpected directions. Some of the losses will no doubt be replaced by new ideas, new inspiration. Those ideas that are not replaced might well evolve with changing play style; I am just a little bit different as a GM now than I was in the year 2000.

No, I take that back; I’m now very different as a GM to what I was in Y2K. The differences are subtle but profound – and result (in part) from the time spent writing this blog every week over the last two years. I have no idea what developments and changes lie ahead in the passage to 2014; I can’t even forecast the key events within my life for the next year, never mind doing so for a significant part of the next decade! But so long as we’re all having fun, what does that matter?

Christmas Tree by Enimal

A few years ago I ran a Christmas-oriented scenario in my superhero campaign, and it was pretty successful on a number of fronts – so much so that I thought it worth taking the time to tell you all about it.

Scenario Premise

The concept of the scenario itself is remarkably simple: I had the characters do their christmas shopping and then give each other the gifts. There were only three rules:

• The gifts had to reflect the personality of the gift-giver;
• The gifts had to be appropriate to the recipient; and,
• The gifts had to reflect the character’s cultural attitudes toward the season.

Each character was to rate which gift was most appropriate, both in terms of the giver and the receiver and the relationship between them; these ratings would be the basis apon which experience for the scenario would be determined.

Along the way, I was able to sneak in some campaign background, and a couple of subplots that would lead into future scenarios, but in essence, that was the heart of the scenario.

But as a scenario structure, and delivered in two parts with a time-gap in between, it hit a lot of sweet spots.

• It gave each player the chance to dig a little deeper into their character’s background, either discovering their native society’s attitudes toward christmas, or – in the case of those which were completely fictitious – the chance to expand the character’s background into perspectives on property, on ownership, on generosity, on religion, on commercialisation, and so on;
• It gave each player the chance to dig a little deeper into their character’s personality and relationships with their team-mates, exploring areas that rarely recieve attention during play;
• It provided an avenue to progress and develop those relationships;
• It captured a sense of ordinary day-to-day life within the campaign without being boring or about mundanities;
• And lastly, by wrapping the gift descriptions at the table and including little christmas tags, it made the scenario itself feel like Christmas. In other words, it was fun, and light-hearted, and filled with a sense of comradeship and friendship, all without being soppy.

This scenario was so successful that early in the new campaign, I intend to run it again. Only two characters remain from that earlier time, out of five, and one of those two has experienced severe shifts in his personality in the intervening period. That won’t happen until Christmas 2011 or 2012, but it will happen.

Variations On A Theme

If you’ve already run something similar, there are a few variations on this theme that you can pull out of the box.

• The Unwanted Gift – in which a gift is recieved that (entirely unintentionally) wreaks havoc on the vicinity;
• With Enemies Like These – in which the characters have to provide an expensive gift for an Enemy for political or social reasons;
• The Department Of Whimsy – in which government regulations collide with the christmas plans of a neighbour or friend and the party has to sort out the problem;
• Scrooge For A Day – in which one of the characters is mistakenly targetted by the three spirits of Christmas as a Scrooge and has to convince them that he’s not
• The Gift That Matters – in which the conflict with an enemy inadvertantly ruins the christmas of a small child, necessitating a cease-fire and the opposing sides coming together to make matters right {nb: humanises an enemy);
• Can’t Buy Me Christmas – in which a PC and a stranger compete for the last gift on the department store shelf (play for laughs or it can get too schmaltzy)

…and so on.

I’ve tried many other christmas scenarios over the years, some based around the theme of hope, some based around the theme of three wise men, and so on; none of them have proven to work as well as gift-oriented scenarios, perhaps because there is too much baggage and too much scope for schmaltz with anything else. (I do have one more scenario up my sleeve, but I can’t talk about that one until I run it…)

And if there is no Christmas in your campaign?

…invent one. It might be a local celebration that the party just happen to be in the vicinity of. It might be a long-lost ritual that is being brought back for some reason. It might even be completely out-of-continuity, having zero impact on the campaign – the rewards it offers still make it worth running.

If you want more ideas on how to integrate real holidays into your campaign, you can read this post on the subject: “Holiday Hell – Rec-creating real holidays for RPGs”. If you would like more info on how to put a holiday together within a campaign, I recommend Johnn’s post “How to design a cool holiday for your game”. You might also find “With An Evil Gleam: Giving Treasure A Personality” to be useful.

Merry Christmas, everyone!