Observations of the Fox

I mentioned in the previous post that we didn't have the terminology to adequately describe what was happening in games back in the 80s and 90s. We didn't really think we needed it, there were people who were good at running games and there were people who weren't. Some people ran games that meshed with certain groups of players and others just didn't match their running style to the style of the players in their group. If a person running a game had enough tools in their toolkit, they could tailor their style of game to match the players in the group...but then you need to consider whether a person runs a game better because they have more tools at their disposal, or because they are better at using use the tools they've got.  Then in the early 2000s came the first real attempt to codify tabletop roleplaying games. This was the web forum known as "The Forge", massively influential in independent gaming circles as certain designers loved the ideas coming ...

Yesterday's post  got a bit of feedback, and that's great. It's also interesting to see parallel discussions emerging on various Facebook groups today. I don't know whether it's my superpower of "Tapping the Zeitgeist" at work again, or if those people starting the discussions were prompted by reading my blog. Either way, there's some good thoughts out there and I'd love to engage the area more deeply. One of the great points raised, came from Joseph Teller... " The questions in design you need to ask yourself is, does Age=Experience or does Activity=Experience? " It's an awesome question that isn't really addressed in a lot of games. I'll address it with some instances I've seen over the years. It was probably about four years ago when I joined up with the fledgling Clans of Elgardt LARP. During tbe first couple of months there were teething problems, including a "gold = XP" system akin to the early d...

2. What's a campaign you would love to play in, but nobody is running it? So many campaign ideas, so few people who want to run games in this part of the world. Once we put aside the idea that I'd just like to play in a good campaign that isn't simply a GM being railroady in their personally designed dollhouse of a game world where we aren't allowed to touch things in case we break them... Then we can also probably put aside those campaigns that I know are being run, just because I regularly see posts indicating that they are... such campaigns would include +John Harper 's  Blades in the Dark , Warhammer Fantasy, a few of the Warhammer 40k RPGs,  +Steve Dee 's Relics (maybe it's not being run regularly, but I'd still like to be more active in it)... ...the new version of Necromunda is coming out soon. So, maybe adapting one of those 40k rule sets to play a Blades in the Dark styled game in the Underhive...or maybe simply changing up the Blad...

Once the hand drawn elements of he ma are completed, the image is scanned into the computer.   Generally the image seems to end up a bit faded, so I increase the contrast to make the dark elements blacker, the pale elements whiter, and fade away the pencil work until it's generally eliminated. The next step sees a shadowing around the coastlines. I do this with layers. The top layer is the hand-drawn inked map. The second layer is a white block filling the shape of the land mass. his is done by making a complete white layer, then using the "magic wand" tool to select the water and delete the white layer in these parts. A third layer is a duplicate of that white layer, but inverted to black and then blurred a bit. This gives a black nimbus around the coastline. In this case, a fourth layer was created in a very similar manner to the third. For this layer, the blurring was more pronounced. The final effect of this is to make a more pronounced outline that fade...

I've toyed with the idea of the crossroads as a place of power several times in my games. It's a concept of modern myth that really intrigues me. Today I was wondering why the most powerful crossroads depicted in popular culture always seem to be in isolated locations. A modern city is littered with grids of crossroads as north-south aligned thoroughfares intersect those going east-west. Why wouldn't a city be a place where thousands of demons are waiting to make pacts with mortals? Maybe they are. But another option might be to consider the length of the roads leading to the crossroads. In the middle of a city, it might only be a few dozen metres (or yards) from one crossroads to the next, which isn't enough length for the incoming energies to generate much of a charge. In a rural environment, it might be kilometres (or miles) between crossroads, thus giving ample length for the crossroads to generate significant charge levels. If the charge level isn't high en...

Back in the early 2000s, White Wolf were doing some really interesting things with their World of Darkness lines. Then they went and crashed the whole line to start something new, and I left because I thought it was both a stupid business decision, a great way to alienate existing fans, and generally a step that felt weird. I can understand why they did it, but it just wasn't for me any more. But back to the good days before the crash. The thing I'm interested at this point is the way the sourcebooks specifically integrated two versions of the rules in them. The background text was exactly the same, but the books provided a way to handle powers from a tabletop perspective, then a separate paragraph (or two...sometimes in a text box) that described how the power should function in their live format "Minds Eye Theatre". The tabletop and live games functioned so differently that there was a distinct need to explain the powers within the structure of each set of rules, ...

Longest Campaign Played I was in two minds about this one. When it comes to tabletop play, I've rarely had much luck... Maybe fifteen-or-so sessions has been the largest number of continuous sessions for a single story. But in sheer timespan, I did have a campaign that was only played on solstice nights for a while, and six stories of that game lasted almost four years (because we couldn't get together for some of those sessions). Then I remembered my time in the Live Action Camarilla global campaign, where I was both a GM/Storyteller and player. This saw fortnightly games (with multiple games occuring each week at the most regular times, monthly games at it's slowest), and was a part of my life for about five years in one form or another. I've vaguely come into contact with one of those epic "fourty year chronicles", but I do know of a group who started playing a campaign in the 70s and are still playing it to my knowledge. I've sat in and watched ...

I've just finished up an illustration for my character in the new Pathfinder campaign I started during the week. Well, it's not quite finished, but it'll do for the moment. If the game actually goes for more than a couple of weeks (and I finish drawing the other characters in the group), I might come up with a more refined version of the image. At the moment it's looking a bit like a promo shot for a comic book.

A half orc barbarian with massive intelligence but no formal training in how to apply it (think of him like a pseudo-medieval/fantasy mythbuster who likes to pull things apart and blow things up). A human monk with a penchant for hanging out in bars after recently leaving his order. An elven wizard who focusing on herbalism and alchemy, who has decided to become the core of the region's drug empire (hoping to absorb other existing drug cartels into his ring, or annihilate them) A gnome rogue who can diplomatically persuade and charm almost anyone, after spending almost an entire human lifetime on the high seas as a specialist in the piratical art of the "parlay"...and who rides a combat training giant gecko. That's where we started. Character generation started at 7pm, and used a single copy of the Pathfinder rulebooks between four people (two of whom had never played a tabletop RPG, only computer RPGs...and a first time GM). By the time we had an understand...

Now that we’ve looked at the way the system works, let’s make a few modifications to the set up. Instead of gold as the standard unit of currency, let’s switch to silver. It may not be very historically accurate, but we’ll work off a standard metric coinage to make it easier on our mathematics. We will also give our coins some names to add a bit more flavour to the system. One Gold Crown = Ten Silver Ducats One Silver Ducat = One Hundred Copper Pennies Gold Crowns are issued by a central imperial mint. They are called a crown because they bear the symbol of the empire’s crown on one side of the coin. Gold crowns are the preferred currency of the nobility, since they are accepted everywhere and have a high value for their portability. Silver Ducats are issued by the various dukes around the empire. Ducat means Duke’s coin, and each duke mints their own with distinctive heraldry. Ducats are typically only legal tender in the regions controlled by a duke, this helps ens...

First we’ll look at the idea of isolated, secluded and open factions. An isolated faction is a group of dedicated individuals, they live their life according to the ideals of the faction and belong to no other faction but this one. Examples of an isolated faction might include a fanatical sect within the church, an isolationist group of paramilitary hermits, or the local duke’s personal guard. A secluded faction is a group of individuals with a common goal, but they often have other agendas beyond the faction. Members of a secluded faction may not belong to another isolated or secluded faction, but they may belong to open factions. Some secluded factions may exist within open factions (as their leadership or inner circle). Examples of a secluded faction might include a family group, a secretive conspiracy (with tendrils reaching into other factions), a general religious group, or an organisation that takes up a lot of a character’s time (such as the local courtiers, or town gu...

Triangular numbers are a common pattern in RPGs, whether overt or covert. You may not know what triangular numbers are but as soon as I show the pattern, you’ll probably recognise it. The triangle of 1 is 1 (1 = 1) The triangle of 2 is 3 (1+2 = 3) The triangle of 3 is 6 (1+2+3=6) The triangle of 4 is 10 (1+2+3+4=10) The triangle of 5 is 15 (1+2+3+4+5=15) As an example, you can multiply this pattern by 1000 and you get the basic scheme for experience in early versions of D&D (modified a bit on eother side to account for the benefits and weaknesses of different classes). I’m thinking that factions in a LARP could easily follow the same triangular structure. One player can’t form a faction (Individual = L1), Three players can form the most basic faction (Circle = L2), Six players can form the next level of faction (Squad = L3), Ten players are needed for the next level (Order = L4), Fifteen to progress further…etc. Being in a faction provides benefits to the m...

I started working on the following idea Three levels of items... Raw materials Refined materials Goods These would be split down into specific types... Raw materials Ore – Gain one per day of work. Wood – Gain two per day of work. Grain – Gain two per day of work. Livestock – Gain one per day of work (may be done once per week). Oil – Gain one per day of work. Rock – Gain two per day of work. Herbs – Gain two per day of work. Cotton – Gain one per day of work. Refined materials Metal – Expend two ore, and spend a day of work to produce 1 metal. Timber – Expend two wood, and spend a day of work to produce 1 timber. Bread – Expend a grain, and spend a day of work to produce 6 bread. Beer – Expend a grain and a herb, and spend a day of work to produce 6 beer (do this once per week). Stone – Expend a rock, and spend a day of work to produce 1 stone. Meat – Expend a livestock, and spend a day of work to produce 1 meat and 1 hide. Paper – Ex...

The specific rules for actions behind the scenes need to be simple enough for new players to quickly grok them, but complex enough that they provide richness to the setting and develop storyline. I’m thinking of using three currencies for behind the scene actions. Gold – A single use currency that is expended as it is used. Status – A replenishing currency based on open standing within the community. Influence – A replenishing currency based on networks of social intrigue and shadowy manipulation You could probably include an additional currency reflecting favours, but sometimes an economy works better if certain things aren’t specifically codified. They also work better when there is a different set of rules governing different aspects of the economy, this allows different parts of the economy to become more valuable than others and a flux to develop within the system. Such a flux leads to tension in some areas where stories can develop, we see it in the real world w...

I love the idea of player driven storylines and player led factions within a setting. The biggest problem with the concept is the requirement for high player count. A faction needs at least three players; typically one to lead, one to act as second in command, and one to do the dirty work (but another valid option might be the one who publicly leads, the one who leads from the shadows, and the one who is overlooked but who gets the faction ahead). This means a minimum of six players for two factions, but factions really start to get interesting with five or more players in each...and cross factional politics starts getting fun with three or more factions that are capable of playing off against one another. So for my liking, this means a minimum game with three factions of five players, preferably more players in each faction, more factions, or both. Once we start wandering down this path, the "non-leaders" can develop their own niches of value. A faction might need s...

I don't know the specific definition of Eugenics, but it is basically the science of optimising the human race through selective breeding. Cold City is a game about picking up the pieces in a variant Berlin after World War Two, the key variant in the Cold City Berlin is that the Nazi's were very close to unleashing a supernatural catastrophe or weapon that would have changed he course of history. There may be a single supernatural revelation, or there may have been many secretive laboratories all working on different forms of paranormal research...it's all up the the GM and the way the campaign unfolds. You can play it noir, pulp, thriller, slapstick, or you can go really dark. I like to tread the line between slapstick and dark when I do the GM duties, but I'm hoping to go a bit more noir this time around. When it comes to quasi-scientific Nazi research, it's only a matter of time before you run into eugenics as a concept. The whole idea of a master race is mired...