Procedural Metapharmacology

Broadly speaking, I think most approaches to alchemy in adventure games tend to go wrong in one of two ways:

1) All mixtures and alchemical works are ultimately random, involving combining some arbitrary combination of junk that results in nothing more than a random roll or two on a table. In some rule sets, this will not even be a repeatable process, so that eye of basilisk mixed with cyanide will be a healing potion one week and a potion of flame breath the next. Player skill is irrelevant to the final outcome.

2) In predetermining what combinations of ingredients will create. Usually this involves a list of ingredients or mixtures of ingredients, and a correlated list of effects. The list may be kept secret from players, or may not be. Either way, the referee must create a large table of ingredients and effects beforehand, only a small portion of which will likely be used. Once a given formula is determined, players will either ignore it (if detrimental) or attempt to reproduce it to the point of trivial accessibility (if beneficial).

Neither of these approaches is completely wrong, but rather each emphasises one possible fun element of alchemical systems in games and then builds itself around reproducing only that element. Random systems emphasise surprise and unpredictability. Indexed chemical lists emphasise reproducibility. What I will propose is not an alchemical system, but a procedure for running an alchemical system.

My Proposals Are That:

1) One ought to start off with no list of ingredient combinations in one's alchemical system. A potion mixture begins with combining two ingredients. Ingredients are two interesting bits of the environment that a PC wishes to mix alchemically (presumably using a lab, though not necessarily). Combining the two ingredients produces a random roll on the table of effects (or you can just make something cool up, as one pleases). Once this has been done, write the ingredient combination down with the effect next to it. As PCs continue to do this, more entries are added to the table, ensuring that only combinations that will actually be used in play are generated. Entries become fixed in this way.

2) If a third ingredient is added to the mixture, either roll an additional effect (increasing the likelihood of poison), or roll on the table of potion-mixing results if one's adventure game provides one, or make something else up. Add any additional effects created by the mixture of each of the constituent ingredients of the original mixture with the new ingredient. Write this combination down with its correlated effect twice. Once as "[Potion of X] + [Ingredient 3] = [Effect 1], [Effect 2]" and once as "[Ingredient 1] + [Ingredient 2] + [Ingredient 3] = [Potion of Y] with [Effect 1], [Effect 2]"

This will provide potions with multiply-realisable pathways for their creation. It may also lead to the production of additional effects as players work out the logic of various combinations:

i.e.
a) Eye of Basilisk + Cyanide = Potion of Healing [Randomly determined]
b) Cyanide + Kraken's Blood = Potion of Flight [Randomly determined]
c) Potion of Healing + Kraken's Blood = Potion of Flame Breath [Randomly determined]
d) A Potion of Healing (Eye of Basilisk + Cyanide) + Kraken's Blood = Potion of Healing + Potion of Flight + Potion of Flame Breath

Eventually a deadly poison or acid, or some other detrimental effect will be generated as one of the effects, so this system tends to be self-limiting. I tend to use a list that includes a variety of non-deadly poisons to make the decision to use potions more calculated. In Emern, the one type of healing potion the PCs knew how to make also caused them to hallucinate wildly for 1d6 hours.

3) For simplicity's sake, have the players keep the paperwork. If they can't produce a written record of what a previous combination of ingredients did, then mixing ingredients defaults to a random roll. If the potion has no obvious ingredients (viz. you randomly rolled it in a treasure hoard and are too busy dealing with the consequences of the ring of three wishes the PCs obtained at the same time), then the effect of its combination with another ingredient is randomly determined. If this ends up partly mimicking an already-existing combination and a PC can demonstrate so through reference to written records, then the potion was clearly composed of those constituent ingredients. This also means no one devotes more time to a complex alchemical system than they feel useful.

4) A PC may conduct alchemical research, which is just figuring out the effects of potions without having to administer them to one's self or another named character. This can be a skill test, cost money, whatever (this is not an alchemy system; this is the sort of thing alchemy systems exist to do). PCs name an effect they want (either off the table or more generally) and then are given two ingredients (which may be complex mixtures themselves) that will create some version of it. You can just roll on your already existing list of ingredients, or your already existing list of potions, or already existing table of monsters or whatever other table one pleases to generate these ingredients.

Additional Comment on "Potions"

"Potions" as fluid-in-a-vial are kind of boring and one can easily spice them up by doing nothing more than providing them in forms requiring different types of administration. One of the things I tried to do in my Emern potion tables from a couple years ago was to create potions that almost never came in the form of bottled liquids. One can provide an additional random factor to the above system by randomly determining the form the new potion is in. This may mean that certain combinations are more useful / tasteful than others, as well as providing amusing colour about the process of creating the potion (feeding it to docile spiders who then inject it into one; pouring it into the ground surrounding a tobacco plant and then harvesting the leaves, etc.).

A Procedure for Exploring the Wilderness

This post will refer to the party roles I outline here.

Structuring overland travel makes it easier to run, and in my experience, more fun for players. This post will outline one possible procedure for structuring this part of play. The procedure is sequential, with each numbered step resolved before moving onto the next one.

My assumptions in the design of this procedure:
1) PCs are moving overland under their own initiative.
2) PCs are in at best semi-civilised lands where resupply is uncommon.
3) There are subprocedures for certain steps not outlined in detail here (for example, wandering monsters, determining what you can see when you look around, searching and surveying, handing the PCs shady and contradictory agendas before their adventure).
4) You are using a hexmap.
5) The PCs move on average 2 hexes (20km) per day, one in the morning and one in the evening.
6) I interpret 3-in-6 to mean "On a result of 1-3 on a d6", 4-in-6 to mean "On a roll of 1-4", etc.
7) Each PC is executing their role in parallel rather than sequentially.

This procedure is executed each day the PCs travel, once per day.

1. Preparation for departure (2 hrs.)
a) Spellcasters determine memorised spells.
b) Any healing from resting overnight or for the previous day is recorded by each PC.
c) Any relevant landmarks within sight of the party are noted.
d) Roll 1d6. The corresponding hex face has the path of easiest travel.
e) The direction, pace and marching order are determined by the caller.
f) The timekeeper determines any expendable resources that have been activated by the PCs (rations, water, protection items, etc.).
g) Any relevant spells may be cast.

2. Morning travel (4 hrs.)
a) If the PCs are not on the path of easiest travel then the DM rolls to determine if the PCs veer off-course. (3-in-6 chance; +1 on the roll per landmark kept in sight for the entire morning)
b) The mapper is informed of what terrain the PCs are moving into and marks this on map in pencil. (Either procedurally generate or DM informs them based on prepared map). They also mark the existence of any paths the PCs have been following.
c) Any extended in-character socialising during the morning is performed.
d) The guard, or one PC not otherwise occupied, rolls for any morning random encounters and fills in the random encounter tracking sheet appropriately.
e) Resolve any morning encounters.
f) Timekeeper and quartermaster update their records.

3. Noon stop (1 hr.)
a) PC may attempt to determine if they are lost. (1-in-6 chance to determine correctly; +1 per landmark they can sight themselves on).
b) Any relevant landmarks within sight of the party are noted.
c) Roll 1d6. The corresponding hex face has the path of easiest travel.
d) The direction, pace and marching order are determined by the caller.
e) The timekeeper determines any expendable resources that have been activated by the PCs (rations, water, protection items, etc.).
f) Any relevant spells may be cast.

4. Afternoon travel (4 hrs.)
a) If the PCs are not on the path of easiest travel then the DM rolls to determine if the PCs veer off-course. (3-in-6 chance; +1 on the roll per landmark kept in sight for the entire morning)
b) The mapper is informed of what terrain the PCs are moving into and marks this on map in pencil. (Either procedurally generate or DM informs them based on prepared map). They also mark the existence of any paths the PCs have been following.
c) Any extended in-character socialising during the afternoon is performed.
d) The guard, or one PC not otherwise occupied, rolls for any afternoon random encounters and fills in the random encounter tracking sheet appropriately.
e) Resolve any afternoon encounters.
f) Timekeeper and quartermaster update their records.

5. Evening (4 hrs.)

a) PC may attempt to determine if they are lost. (1-in-6 chance to determine correctly; +1 per landmark they can sight themselves on).

b) The quartermaster, or one PC not otherwise occupied, draws the camp layout on a scrap of paper.
c) Any research, preparation for the following day, etc. may be done.

d) The caller determines the watch schedule.

e) Any extended in-character socialising during the evening is performed.
f) The guard, or one PC not otherwise occupied, rolls for any evening random encounters and fills in the random encounter tracking sheet appropriately.
g) Resolve any evening encounters.
h) Timekeeper and quartermaster update their records.

6. Night (9 hrs.)
a) The referee rolls for any night time random encounters and determines which PC is on watch if/when they occur. The PC on watch fills in the random encounter tracking sheet appropriately.
b) Resolve any night encounters.
c) Timekeeper and quartermaster update their records.

Note: Searching Hexes

The PCs may search hexes during morning and afternoon travel and during the evening. Searching a hex takes four hours and allows them to activate whatever searching subprocedure you wish.

Edit: (May 7, 2015) This system has been updated. The new version is here. 

Emern: Inspirations

Emern is going to go dormant for a while as the guys want to try out this "Openquest" and "Dawnlands" stuff they keep on hearing me talk about and post. In honour of it, I thought I'd post some biographies of conquistadors, explorers and colonial administrators that served as the inspiration for the setting.

Christopher Columbus, a partial inspiration for Governor Hesh of Arkhesh
The two cousins from Extremadura, Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro
La Malinche, Cortes's lover
Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Geronimo de Aguilar
Francisco de Aguilar
Hernando de Soto
Lope de Aguirre (there's a movie about him you should watch)
Diego Velazquez de Cuellar
Francisco de Ulloa
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo
Fortun Ximenez
Pedro de Alvarado who killed Tecan Uman and who was/is the inspiration for a yet undiscovered villain
Hernando de Alarcon
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado
Juan de Padilla
Melchior Diaz
Luis de Velasco
Gonzalo Guerrero (Father of the first mesztisos recorded & killed by Alvarado)
Ferdinand Konscak
Georg von Speyer
Gonsalo Jimenez de Quesada (A possible inspiration for Don Quixote)
Sebastian de Belalcazar
Diego de Almagro and his son, Diego de Almagro II
Blasco Nunez Vela
Nikolaus Federmann
Juan de Fuca
Vincente de Valverde
The Pinzon Brothers
Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Pedro de Valdivia
Bartolome de las Casas
Pedro de la Gasca
Alonso de Alvarado (the guy who started the "El Dorado" craze)
Pedro Alvares Cabral
Francisco Garay is basically one of the PCs once the domain game starts
Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza
Caramuru
Piet Hein
Juan Ponce de Leon

Emern Update

Here's the summary one of my PCs posted of last night's game to the email thread we use to coordinate it.

"Before last night's session, our evil party lost both Sapporosaki and Chris Brown to ambushing arachnids armed with assault rifles. Though we and some jaguarmen allies eventually eviscerated our eight-legged foes, we had hardly the chance to reload our guns when a mass of 40 possessed spiders, led by a giant insanity spirit, completed their weird ritual and began to reanimate a 100-foot long (har har, Rev) centipede corpse. Our forces weakened and ill-equipped for spiritual warfare, our salvation fell to Bobo, that brave cleric of few stats and fewer accomplishments. Yet that day, perhaps brought closer to his divinity by the nearness of his own life's end, Bobo summoned great gales of godly force and turned the spirits out of that murderous, many-legged mini-millipede, exposing them to the air and our magic bullets. Our great foe vanquished (or so we thought), we fled toward the exit. But in our overconfidence--or was it base avarice?--we paused to fish many magical artifacts from a pool of sticky goo, including the misplaced pocket portal, and to capture the large quantities of fetid biomass requested by the indigo-inked instigator of this adventure, the Overlord. Bobo, our great champion, was told to watch for any returning insanity spirits; he was the first possessed, and the first of the remaining humans to die, paralyzed and at the (no) mercy of a possessed Peter Gabriel's deadly sword. The last surviving jaguarman was next to fall to Gabriel's blade, followed by Samuelson, who lived only because of his ring of regeneration. After catching the spirit by surprise, it consumed his mind and broke his will. Luckily, by this time Peter Gabriel had recovered his wits and Gruber Kelly's machinegun and blasted both spirit and Samuelson's head to smithereens. Samuelson reformed with a new face, and we all made our way in haste to the safety and strangeness of the Overlord's camp. None who survived will ever forget the perils of The Spider's Pit."

Roleplaying: Beyond Talking

I was participating in a discussion about some really interesting stuff over at Gaming as Women, but I was asked not to sidetrack stuff, so I'll talk about it here instead.

One of the most useful high-level insights I ever had as a DM and as a player was to realise that roleplaying is about more than just talking, and that engagement and interest in the game is not measured solely by how frequently and loudly someone speaks at the table. While this is one measurement, it's not the only one, and I think games are diminished insofar as the group playing them tries to restrict its activity to just this.

I came to this realisation a few years back, when I started playing in Economy of Force, a WFRP game Jude Hornborg of Liber Fanatica has been running off and on. In it, I play Siegfried Hausmann, a physician from Kemperbad, and one of the two class A shareholders of the Steiner-Hausmann Trading Consortium, a subsidiary of the Hofbauer-Bodlestein Trading Guild's Wurtbad subsidiary. One of the amusing recurring pieces of game play is that Siegfried maintains the company's accounts and is the only person who ever knows exactly how much gold is in our coffers (to the occasional consternation of the non-voting class B shareholders aka the other PCs, who are required to pool their funds into it).

I spend a fair bit of time keeping our money supply straight using double entry book-keeping. The effort only rarely comes up in-character, but when it does, all the quiet poring over columns pays off. People hurl accusations of embezzlement, characters go wild with the abrupt realisation that we are extremely rich, or the party becomes frantic with approaching penury. All of this drives interactions, schemes, etc., despite much of it deriving precisely from not talking a lot about how much money we have at any given point.

This kind of thing actually crops up a lot in Traveller and any campaign that features economic interactions that are tracked precisely, but there are plenty of other kinds of activity like it that are not economic. Mapping, keeping track of supplies and schedules, and choosing spell lists are three obvious ones, and others are created by the system or the style of the group's play. I think that rather than deprioritising these and treating them as unpleasant, subsidiary effects of talking and "playing" that have to be pawned off due to simple necessity, that we ought to approach them as ways of enriching the game, assign them to players who find them interesting, and use them to keep PCs occupied when other characters are in the spotlight.

While the activities I prefer are ones that derive from a very detailed engagement with the environment and the challenges it poses, this kind of activity can go far beyond that. In a game with narrative-driven mechanics like the FATE 3.0 family, PCs might be encouraged and rewarded for creating brief descriptions of features of the world that can occur later. For example, in Diaspora, PCs could be encouraged to write short descriptions of 30-50 words of some feature of the world with say, 3-5 related aspects. This might be a character, an astronomical feature, a piece of technology, etc. After creating it, they would be allowed to call on one of the aspects once whenever plausible, and then to hand it off to another player, who can in turn call on one of the unused aspects once before handing it to another player, etc. until all the written aspects are used up, whereupon the item becomes the common property of everyone to draw on as relevant.

In Emern, I tried to do this by assigning the PCs roles, including surveyors, quartermasters, guards, the leader, etc. Each one had an assigned duty that really didn't require a ton of interaction with other PCs (though others could be drawn into it), but that had them make rolls and meaningful choices (whenever possible, the Emern game isn't perfect on this, though it's something I shall strive for in future games). Incentivising this with XP, both individual and collective, encourages people to engage in these activities, though I recommend low values so that they don't overwhelm the value of treasure, monster slaying and progressing through the story.

Players come in many different types, almost all of which can contribute value to the game even if they are not the most social types. I think that limiting or prioritising player engagement through one particular mode (talking in character) excludes and drives away plenty of players who could really help create a fun game, and it could even give more social players a respite for nights when they're feeling off or out of it for some reason.

Abolishing Exploding Damage for Guns

One of the things I hate in games is when melee weapon damage is relatively static - you roll a die, add some modifiers and maybe roll a critical hit that doubles that - while under the same system gun damage explodes: You roll a die, and if it's above a certain result, you roll the die again, and if it's above the result again, you roll a third time, etc. then add some static modifiers or double it for a crit or whatever afterwards. I can take this in systems like the Warhammer 40K RPGs, where all damage has a chance of exploding, but I've seen many implementations of guns in D&D and its variants in particular where guns have a surprising deadliness compared to stabbing three feet of steel into someone's guts.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I have read it's totally possible to be shot and hit many times, at least by handguns using modern rounds, without experiencing incapacitation. While guns can and do kill, I'm not convinced that they are deadlier than melee weapons, or that a round hitting a person incapacitates them more quickly than a sword hitting them does. I'm especially not convinced of this with regard to unrifled black powder weapons firing musketballs. 

In Emern, I made a conscious choice not to have exploding damage for guns, or even to give them an extremely high base damage compared to other missile weapons (they are a bit higher, but the end result is about 2.5 average points more damage for an arquebus over a bow, in exchange for a lower rate of fire, once every other round). The one semi-exception to this principle is the +2 assault rifle a PC (Chris Brown, the Berserker) got last session from the Overlord to help him capture some Jaguarmen so the Overlord can sacrifice them to power a spell that will create a submarine so the PCs can go find the Overlord's former partner, "God", who is believed to be living on the bottom of the sea near Sword Isle. The assault rifle only deals 2d6 damage, but can rapid fire on fully automatic, which has the effect of +4 to hit and +4 to damage to represent the extra rounds. Chris Brown used it to kill an invisible giant spider last session, though he also slew a fellow PC (fortunately Nine-Fingered Samuelson was wearing a ring of regeneration the Overlord had given him). The Overlord needs God to help him adjust the microwave communications array on his tower in the lost city of Zancalla so that he can obliterate the Snakemen rocket armada coming from the moon.

Similarly, while I'm not happy with the exact stat profile guns were given in Clockwork and Chivalry, I do think like that the damage is within normal ranges for melee weapons, and that C&C uses a system (Mongoose Runequest 2 / Legend) that doesn't have exploding damage at all. I've been thinking of redoing the damage and load times, and skipping the somewhat complex 2 combat action penalty for shooting a matchlock, since I can't see why any combatant in MRQII would ever use one. Managing the combat action economy is critical to winning, and any weapon that costs you too many CAs to use, especially when the damge is not insane, is not a smart choice.

Emern Update

The Emern game has been on hiatus for a month, but I ran a session tonight and it looks like we'll be playing every fortnight for a while. The PCs encountered Yuan-Ti from the moon who took them into custody and offered to make them rulers of the human population of the world so long as they would conduct their dominion in the interests of the Yuan-Ti. The Yuan-Ti left for the moon 2000 years ago when the various underpeople created to be the successors to Don Marengo's civilisation went to war with one another (or so they claim) and returned six months ago when Don Marengo was killed while trying to stop the Caquix in Xapoltecan. They chose the Isla de Naufragio for its regional importance (and its climate), as a number of dangerous individuals from Don Marengo's time are located there, including "God", who the PCs awoke on Sword Isle and who created the leechmen and kraken-shoggoths.

The Yuan-Ti have decided to conquer earth and preserve its ecological diversity before mankind once again rises to an advanced technological civilisation and destroys it. This will preserve with the genetic material they need to artificially supplement their small genetic pool to prevent cloned Yuan-Ti from degenerating into mindless snake men through mutation. They will cull the population of humans, elves, dwarves and goblins (which they see as one species) to keep it manageable. They need some human figureheads to make this process more easily palatable, and because the Yuan-Ti are a non-hierarchical, non-territorial society that does not operate on an exchange economy, while the most widespread societies on earth are. Also, the Yuan-Ti are not inherently violent (they are predatory but not territorial) and wish to harness the sentient races who are to do the dirty work.

This session was a lot of roleplaying. There was a brief period where the PCs were taken to the Yuan-Ti outpost, and then they met the 2000 year old Yuan-Ti Ambassador, who had silver translator wires that let him speak Emern and Tash (and all other human tongues), except for words that didn't exist in each language but did in Yuan-Ti. The voice his translation wires projected was metallic, like Stephen Hawking with emotion, until they had trained him to speak the languages. When it couldn't find the right word, it spat out "UNTRANSLATABLE" like Stephen Hawking on PCP. He looked mostly human except for yellow snake eyes like a python. They ate a bowl of live baby mice and drank a diluted narcotic venom in cut crystal goblets in an art deco lounge. One of the PCs had to pee, and managed to get through using a modern toilet without humiliating himself (the other side of the room had a trench for the more snakey Yuan-Ti to slide into for snake craps). The Yuan-Ti let them stay in the guest suite of their cave-fortress's tower, which had a computer, a printer, a Brita pitcher and a handheld neural-disintegrator along with several comfortable beds.

Most of the session was talking to the Ambassador and trying to figure out his agenda or see what they could get from him. He gave one PC an injection that stopped the ageing process and cured a minor genetic flaw that would have led to pancreatic cancer in forty years. Another PC found the lost city of Zancalla on the satellite feed, but the Ambassador warned him away from it, saying that it was the laboratory where the underpeople (including the Yuan-Ti and minotaurs) were created, and that it had defenses that were still intact and would kill him. The PCs eventually decided that they would be in deep shit if they accepted, and they had Sapporo Saki, whose player just bowed out, draw out the Resolver of Conundrums, a small white metallo-ceramic disk with a peace symbol on one side and a line on the other which they found in a altar last session that was being protected by a giant undead sloth with laser eyes created during the underpeople wars (or so the Yuan-Ti claim). Nobody is totally sure what it does. Saki concentrated on the disk, clapped both hands around it, there was a fade to white, and the session ended.

Fighter Abilities, Morale Checks and Fatigue

I think morale enriches combat and allows PCs options on resolving combat other than slaughtering their enemies mercilessly. When I finally introduce fatigue mechanics (the fatigue saving throw concept), I plan to make morale an off-shoot of them - morale checks will be a type of fatigue check. Turning undead will be a morale check (specifically, it will force undead creatures to make a major fatigue check, and will be one of the few ways of forcing them to make such checks).

I also think that yet another feature fighters should have is the ability to force morale checks in certain situations. This represents the awe-inspiring and disheartening skill with which they dispatch their opponents, or perhaps merely their savagery. Mindless monsters like golems and undead will have special rules about making fatigue checks that will make this less useful against them. Two proposed powers:

Ferocious Hewing: Whenever a fighter deals sufficient damage to kill an enemy, he can force one other opponent to make a morale check. Failure means they must cower or retreat for one minute (DM's choice).

Champion Slayer: Whenever a fighter of 5th level or greater deals sufficient damage to kill the enemy with the highest remaining hit dice, he can force all remaining opponents to make a morale check. Failure means they throw themselves on his mercy or flee screaming (DM's choice).

Gaming Plans 2012

If you had asked me even in university if I would have been able to plan out my gaming plans for an entire year ahead of time, I would have laughed. These days, things are different, and I find that my gaming is stable enough that I have a planning horizon of about 18 months.

In 2012:

Thousand Thrones (Every other Sunday) 

This is an expected 36+ sessions, so I should still be playing it somewhere around a year and a half from now

Emern (Every other Wednesday) 

This is a recent change, and may not be permanent. Emern used to be weekly, but we've had the last two weeks off. School is getting busy for one of the players, and I recently had a player leave due to scheduling commitments, so I'm hoping we can recruit some new blood and fiddle with the schedule to make sure it works for everyone.

Dark Heresy (Once a month on Saturday)

Curtis, the best DM I know, is planning to start coming back to Toronto in April or May to run a heavily houseruled version of Dark Heresy in a custom setting. The group attached to this game was for many years my "main" gaming group, but it imploded in spring last year, lingered in its dying spasms through summer and fall, and died full on in late December / early January. I'm hopeful we'll go from Narsil to Anduril over time.

Dawnlands (TBD)

I was originally planning to run a Dawnlands game in March, but I've been busy with the interview process for a job and some other things. Now that I have the job and a definite starting date, I'm thinking of running the game online per a suggestion by my buddy Jude. I'm thinking it will be every other week, on IRC or another platform if people have recommendations, in 4 hour sessions. I'm looking for text-based platforms instead of speech or video ones, I think. Anyhow, this'll have open recruitment, and I'll put up a post when I'm ready letting folks know.

Representing Warrior's Expertise with Weapons

I run a Swords and Wizardry Complete game without weapon proficiencies. This is because I hate them, and find them pointless. I want wizards to use swords, for everyone to wave guns around, and for people to select weapons that express some element of their character's personality or style rather than because they're proficient with it. As readers of this blog know, I am strongly influenced by Runequest, where everyone casts spells and waves swords around, and I wanted to introduce this feature to D&D.

Without weapon proficiencies, one of the few advantages fighters and fighting-man classes have is removed. I am not bothered by its removal, since it's such a minor advantage that it barely qualifies as such. I have been considering replacing it with an ability that represents the fighter's training and expertise but that is also a significant and distinct advantage over other classes using weapons. I think that this expertise is not represented in the main mechanical use of the fighter's expertise, which is making attack rolls and dealing damage. I think in S&W Complete, the ranger and paladin already have enough advantages to compensate for this reduction, but the fighter doesn't really (though I do find S&W does a better job balancing the fighter with other classes. I would not be opposed to extending it to rangers and paladins in games with stat minimums to qualify for those classes (something I do not use). Here is my proposal to compensate the fighter:

Weapon Expertise

A fighter using a weapon upgrades the damage dice he rolls on a successful attack by one type using the following progression.

1d4->1d6->1d8->1d10->1d12

I prefer this system to static bonuses because it upgrades both average damage and maximum damage each time. It also incentivises the fighter to attack and press the offense, instead of just tanking for thieves and wizards, by making them attack specialists.

A Sketch of a Possible Swords and Wizardry Variant

I really like Majestic Wilderlands, and even more importantly, my PCs like it, since we've been using bits and pieces of it for the Emern game since the 2nd session. Mainly for classes, since no one has bothered to figure out the skill system or used the gazetteer. I borrowed it back from the apartment we play at the other day, and I've been reading through it. I think it does pretty much what I want out of a game supplement these days, which is it provides me with a bunch of ideas for my own Swords and Wizardry stuff.

I'm not saying I'm ever going to write this up in a totally coherent form, but I've been at least thinking of putting together a reference document of material including house rules, ideas for new rules, etc. that I've either used in my Emern game, wish I was using in my Emern game, or plan to incorporate into my Emern game.

A brief summary and list of what it would look like:

Six stats generated by 3d6 in any order: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Acuity, Focus and Grace

No stat requirements for classes.
No weapon or armour proficiencies.
No level limits for demihumans.
No alignment.
Fatigue saving throws.
Level 1 characters start at max HP.
A simplified version of my current death rules involving saving throws.
Ascending AC.
Ascending BAB.

Four races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobgoblin each with one special ability. Humans get +1 to any stat, elves don't have to sleep, dwarves have infravision, hobgoblins get +1 to hit and damage in melee. No species-based stat modifiers otherwise.

New classes: Holy Warrior, Missionary, Priest, Necromancer, Conquistador, Knight, Swashbuckler, Berserker, Rake, Mountebank, Trader, Manhunter, Shapeshifter, Diviner, Artificer, Psychonaut.

An expanded equipment list including common, useful tools that are never on the equipment list (i.e. rasp, machete, twine, brushes). Also, more weapons, including guns. Also, horses and horse stats.

A cleaned-up alchemy and magic item creation system incorporating the potion tables and expanding the same puerile peril to all forms of magical items. Also one for magical beasts and undead things.

An opposed-attack roll system for combat maneuvers with some suggestions for specific maneuvers like tripping, disarming and sundering.

Sweet maps of things.

No skill system.

Some sort of naval system so you can have an awesome boat with cannons and be pirates.

A bunch of different monsters, including toadmen, jaguarmen, leechmen, 60' tall undead laser-eyed sloths, grashkalki, the Caquix, etc.

New spell lists and spells.

Some new religions.

A bunch of my opinions and ideas for running games.

A quick write-up of the Emern setting, which I will probably have to rename to avoid confusion ('Wait, the setting is called "Emern", but that's only a continent, and not even the one the game is set on?').

My Dying Rules for Swords and Wizardry

In my Emern game, I use the following sets of rules to adjudicate healing and dying:

1) When you reach 0HP you are incapacitated through pain, unconscious, or otherwise inactive except for rolling around on the ground, spasming, screaming, crying, clutching at the stump of your ass and other non-purposive movement.

2) If you reach -10HP, you are dead, no exceptions.

3) If you are between 0 and -9 HP, you roll a d10 every round, at the start of your turn (we use group initiative, so all the PCs go at once). First round - you survive if you get anything but a 0. Second round - you survive if you get anything but 0 or 9. And so on until you are either healed or dead.

4) Healing takes you back up to 0, and then restores the amount of HP rolled on the die.

5) Going to 0HP, even if you live, usually means some sort of horrendous scar or occasionally mild mutilation. In game so far, this has included having all of your skin burnt off, having your ass cheek bit off, being half-swallowed by a toad, bleeding out of every pore in your body, and so on.

6) Constant use of Cure spells can lead to a weakened immune system, since the Cure spells only cause red blood cells, platelets and plasma to be created. If you go down to 0HP, you may, depending upon where you are, need to make a saving throw the same day to find out if you catch something while your white blood cell count is artificially low.

Tagging and Emern Update

I'm kind of a crappy tagger, so I've resolved to get better at it. Since the tags are mainly for other people's benefits, I'm going to propose some tags and changes to tags, and I'd like your feedback on whether they'd be of any use to you.

1) Labeling all my various "Abolishing X" posts with the "Abolishing" tag, since they seem to be popular.
2) Labelling all maps regardless of campaign setting with "Maps"
3) Supplementing the "Runequest" tag with "MRQ2" and "Openquest" depending upon which specific variant, if any, I'm writing about
4) Labelling all "The Long Narrative" posts with "Long Narrative"
5) Adding "WFRP 2e" tags to all posts currently tagged "Thousand Thrones" even if they're not directly about WFRP and more about playing the Thousand Thrones (i.e. Abolishing Preprinted Character Sheets would now also be tagged "WFRP 2e")

I tested out the Emern dice maps and everything, and it's going well, though I have to keep the surveyors from trying to jump massively ahead of schedule before everyone else can catch up. That's good, that means they have the exploration bug. It was a busy session, all forward momentum. We started on Day 3 and ended on the beginning of Day 6 of 30.

In the session last night they encountered a sleeping green dragon in a geyser mudpit that they backed off confronting, and a 60' tall undead sloth with green laser eyes that they are planning to kill next session. The party split up to survey more hexes so that only Bobo and Sapporo encountered it, and they had to run away, but everyone else is gunning for its blood now. Shaqueefa decided to change name and gender to become the feared berserker Chris Brown. A bunch of people nearly got killed by an ambush by giant toads while exploring a swamp, which resulted in someone's right butt cheek being bit off by the toads, and went on until some hungry crocodiles showed up to eat some of the toads. A friendly naga rescued the evil party members when they got stuck in the mud on the bottom of a riverbed and were up to their chests in water without a clear plan of escape. Also there was quicksand, talking to giant lizards and birds of paradise, an avalanche that killed the party's mule that was carrying all the food, three PCs (the ones trapped chest-deep in the river) got tons of insect bites, a geyser sprayed boiling water in someone's face, and there was a lot of panning for gold. The quartermasters drew up a menu of what they cook each day and got 100XP each for it. There's probably some other stuff I'm forgetting too.

Mortality is a bit low right now, since I have a rule that you only outright die if you're reduced to -10HP. Otherwise, when you drop to 0 or below you're rolling around, helpless and screaming, and start rolling d10s every turn. On the first turn, you only die if you roll a 0, on the second turn you die on a 9 or 0, and so on. Otherwise, two PCs would have died tonight against the toads, but some last minute cure light wounds spells saved the day. They did get pretty badly maimed though - Samuelson had his pinky finger and his ass cheek chewed off. CLW cured the latter, but not the former. He's now "Nine-Fingers" Samuelson.

Also, cure light wounds in Emern stimulates the production of red blood cells and platelets but doesn't affect white blood cell production, so you tend to become immuno-deficient if you rely on it too much. Samuelson passed his saving throw against disease though, so he'll be fine in a couple of days.

Exploring the Isla de Naufragio

So last week the PCs got started on their exploration of Isla de Naufragio. I finally got around to drawing up some additional handouts to further help clarify and define what people do.

This resource map is for the assessor, Eugene. His job is to find resources on the island. He and Lt. Peter Gabriel, the expedition leader, get to decide how hard Eugene is going to look, and if anyone is going to accompany him. Whenever they enter a new hex, Eugene can pick up as many dice of whatever type he wants and drop them on the map. The total on the dice is the number of hours he's out there searching continuously for resources. The things the dice land on are what he finds.

Cotton, Cocoa and Citrus are the three vegetable resources, Gold, Silver and Salt are the three mineral resources, and Coney Burrows, Turtle Nests and Macaw Nests are the three animal resources. If the die lands on any of these, Eugene's player's job is note it down so they can claim an XP reward for it. Springs are not resources but are handy for water.

Some of the hex segments are good, some are bad, and some are neutral time-wasters. Good hex segments include placer streams, quartz veins, carcasses, guano deposits, flocks overhead, deadfalls, isolates and seedlings. Get six of one type of these, and you can trade them in as counting for a full "resource" of the appropriate type. There were originally going to be "salt licks" on here as well but I forgot to write them down and filled the spaces with "Nothing" instead, so mineral resources are a bit rarer, which is fine.

Paths are good in that they point to a path to an adjacent hex, in addition to any the surveyors find (more on that below). The direction of the hex segment is the direction the path goes.

Stuff like sore feet, sunburn, and insect bites tack on extra time. They roll an extra d6 for each one and add that many hours on.

Random encounters are random encounters off Random Encounter Table A. Accidents involve saving throws against damage. Monster Lair, Weird Location and Ruins are all special incidents, of which I have a number planned.

So I split the difference here in the two approaches I recommended when making this random encounter table. This will be handed off to the ranger who is the expedition's guard at an appropriate moment next session. Random Encounters A is the basic wildlife of the Isla de Naufragio, which the PCs will get a sense of next session. Random Encounters B is special encounters, which the PCs will gradually fill in the details of, either by having to roll on it (for example, when Eugene stumbles into a Monster Lair, Weird Location or Ruins, or when the surveyors get something unusual) or by discovering information about the island's monstrous inhabitants from other sources.

This is the surveyor's tables. I originally had a rigid schedule of 12 hours to survey, but I thought that was boring and I wanted to increase the players' agency here. I have two surveyor PCs, and one colours in the map (just as one of them in game is working as the cartographer) while the other rolls. Terrain tells you what type the hex is, pathways tells you where you can go out of the hex from, and landmarks help you avoid getting lost. Each roll requires 4 hours of work in game, and rerolls on landmarks and pathways are allowed by paying the time again. Unusual means a special location of some sort. For terrain, it could be a geyser field, a lost city and its suburbs, tar pits, etc. For landmarks, it could be a tower, a giant set of dragon bones, a flaming pillar, etc.

Unfortunately, I don't have the hardcopy map of the island that the surveyors are filling in or the minimap of the encampment set-up that the quartermaster PCs drew, or Lt. Peter Gabriel's schedule for the expedition, since they're all at the apartment we play at, but I'll grab them once this whole thing is done and stick them up here.

Agenda Cards in Emern

In the Emern game last night, the players created new characters, the survey team who will be exploring Isla de Naufragio on behalf of Hesh and their other characters, who have recently been given it as their fief. The survey team is mostly evil and mostly human, as a change from the other set of PCs, and they are almost all there on someone else's behalf, as the selection process was thoroughly corrupted by special interests.

Because of that, each PC drew an agenda card, representing a secondary goal they have in addition to the successful completion of their mission. If they didn't like it, we set it aside and they got another draw that they had to live with. The PCs are basically mapping and surveying hexes, while trying to find resources, eliminate monstrous threats to further settlement, and making contact with the natives. If they can clear 40 hexes, they'll get a premium, but at least 20 need to be mapped for satisfactory completion. They have 30 days to do this in, maybe 37 if they can work out a deal with the ship's captain who will be picking them up, and it takes at least 12 hours to survey a 5km apothegm hex, so it's a tight deadline that may require splitting the party.

The surveying party has Lieutenant Peter Gabriel, an evil elvish paladin, in charge of it; Bobo, a neutralish priest of the Sword, as chief surveyor assisted by Shaqueefa, a chaotic evil berserker; Sapporo Saki, a chaotic evil assassin, is the quartermaster, while Samuelson, a good human monk, is assistant quartermaster. Eugene, a human wizard, is the assessor responsible for finding resources and determining their value. Finally, Gruber Kelly, a neutral human ranger, is the expedition's guard. On a side note, the only reason I remember the alignments is because everyone said them aloud yesterday during character creation.

The agenda cards are basically there to stir up some dissension. PCs can talk about them in character if they wish, but can't reveal their cards to anyone else without paying 500XP on the spot. That means that PCs have to balance accomplishing their objectives vs. paying the cost to reveal. Most of the cards give enough XP that even if you pay the 500XP to reveal it to the other players, you'll still come out ahead, albeit not as much as if you didn't. The ones I'm posting here are four of the six that weren't chosen or were rejected, and there was a total pool of thirteen cards (there were going to be more, but I made some spelling mistakes or used unclear wording in the rush to get them done and had to rewrite some of the ones I wanted to make sure were in there). These ones tend to be fairly negative, but there were a few in there that were positive, pro-social ones, so that at least one person has a reason to keep everyone together and smooth over differences.

Abolishing Alignment

I can honestly tell you that I have no idea what the alignment of any PC in my Emern game is, nor do I have much interest in what they are. Alignment is pretty much the worst "pseudo-mechanic" in D&D, and one that can be gotten rid of without much work. I recommend doing so.

Alignment is bad because it's either useless or overly restricting. If it's a simple description of behaviour without prescriptive ideals, then it's useless. I had this problem in an Iron Heroes game I played in (that had alignment in it), where my polite, pacifist, vegetarian doctor was "lawful evil" simply because he didn't fundamentally care about other people except as means to his own ends. He considered violence to be a failure of will and intellect, and he ate a vegetarian diet for health reasons. I considered the character selfish to the point of sociopathy, but his actual actions weren't particularly bad, and his intentions were more arrogant than intentionally cruel. If anything, the character saw himself as the one good man in a world run by killers and monsters, and it was incumbent on him to seize control from them for the good of everyone. I don't really consider lawful evil to be a useful description of that kind of behaviour or worldview, and it got me thinking about how inadequate the alignment system is.

If it's not descriptive, then it's prescriptive, which is even worse in actual play, since the alignments are incoherent mishmashes, and you're artificially pushed into situations where two conflicting principles each dictate different, irreconcilable behaviours. This is considered "dramatic conflict", but it's really closer to metaphysical horror in the vein of Kafka. Having specialised in moral philosophy in university, this kind of false moral dichotomy makes me see red, as it totally differs from anything resembling real life moral decisions.

One option that's been attempted recently is to rationalise and dehumanise alignment, so it becomes a cosmic jersey indicating which team, angels or elder gods, one supports. This usually coincides with simplifications from the nine-point alignment chart into a binary split with "wishy-washy" as the middle choice. This can lead to more rational outcomes, but it doesn't really resolve the underlying problems. Alignment stops being a useful description of character behaviour, and it also leads to either a manichean worldview or the question why one doesn't simply use some sort of allegiance system?

The purpose of moral systems is to provide people with guidance in navigating the world, and the purpose of alignment is theoretically to categorise those moral systems in useful ways. Over the years I've experimented with creating different scales or categories split along more useful and relevant moral features (like how intense one's akrasia is, etc.), but I've abandoned each of these in turn. Ultimately, they either measure things that serve no purpose to measure, or they become so complex that they almost block out and predetermine roleplaying. I think the best way to capture morality in games is not to lean back on mechanics for them, but to push them completely into the domain of roleplaying. This captures the contingency and specificity that operate in true moral reasoning far more accurately than "lawful good" ever will.

Having made this decision, I was surprised at how easy it was to change the spells and abilities that interact with the alignment system. There tends to be only a few of these in any given version of D&D. One method I use is to strip Negative and Positive Energy of their moral qualities and simply change all spells that "detect evil" or "harm only evil creatures" to affect only creatures made of or charged with Negative Energy, and for "detect good" etc. to affect only Positive Energy. This still has some of the cosmic jersey approach, and one can stop there if one wishes, but I've been moving toward collapsing this into simply "divine energy". Undead, angels, demons, clerics, are all charged with divine energy, perhaps with slightly different flavours to distinguish the source of each, but it's all the same energy ultimately. Paladins who detect evil detect the presence or absence of this energy, and maybe whether it's their associated god's flavour or not, but that's it. This also keeps "detect evil" from being as constant an annoyance as it can be otherwise.

And of course, most people aren't charged with the stuff at all, no matter how good or evil they are. Spells that would previously affect only some alignment now either affect only creatures infused with divine energy or not infused with divine energy as appropriate. This makes spells like Holy Word a bit more like AoEs that you have to be careful about deploying, instead of IFF-equipped hunter-killer god missiles.

In Emern, this works because there is a single god of magic, the Hollow, and there are some suggestions in game that all gods are essentially instantiations or aspects of the Hollow, despite having their own clerical powers, churches, etc. I recommend trying it out in your game. If you still want to deal with moral issues and considerations (and I think people should), then leave it for roleplaying.

Hex Map of Isla de Naufragio

Isla de Naufragio

I merely combined a blank outline map from here with a hex map from here. This is going to be the map for the next part of the Emern game. Now that the PCs own this island, Hesh will be sending surveyors out, which the PCs will be playing. The reason the map isn't filled out with details is that the PCs will be expected to colour it in as they survey it. I'll be procedurally generating it as we go along, with a few set points here and there for specific ideas I have. The scale here is about 1 hex per 10km.

Changing Characters in Emern

I use a house rule in my Swords and Wizardry Complete game, which is that if you die, no matter what level you were, your next character starts back at level 1. On the other hand, if you swap out your character for another during downtime, they can be the level of your current PC. The purpose of this house rule is to make it easier for me, as referee, to introduce new characters, while encouraging the PCs to diversify their character holdings.

Surprisingly, while people have discussed doing this a few times, no one has yet. Partially it's due to an investment in their characters - I've tried to make everyone feel like they've got a unique thing going on, from our ninja elf woman with a leechman's enchanted claw, to Shithead the wizard and his transparent chest, to Mordechai the Silver Man of Arkhesh (who skin was burnt off by an exploding rocket and replaced with a nanosuit by the soul of an astronaut-wizard) and McGillicuddy the dwarven cleric's crisis of faith. Actually, since no one's died in a while, people may just have forgotten this rule, which nullifies its incentive far more effectively than any amount of poor design does.

As it stands, the PCs were given Jamaica by Governor Hesh last session. Technically it's the "Isla de Naufragio" (Shipwreck Island in doggerel Spanish), but it's Jamaica and we just call it "Jamaica" out of character. The scene was one of my favourite interactions so far, since Jamaica hasn't been surveyed, and Hesh is basically willing to give it away to a bunch of adventurers because it's temporarily-worthless wasteland he hopes they'll make something of. Hesh is this old man, and knighting the PCs involved him hoisting his extremely dull ceremonial blade up onto their shoulders and muttering some phrases before trying to figure out how he can award them territories in Jamaica without knowing what the interior of the island is like.

Anyhow, since four of the PCs are now barons of various parts of Jamaica, and three are knights or dames, and they've all got a fat chunk of change in the bank, it's about time they had retinues and people working for them. You may recall I planned some changes to the XP rules, and I think in a few sessions I'll be introducing them. In the mean time, one of the things I'm going to do is have Governor Hesh hire a surveying and exploration team to head out to Jamaica and check it out... meaning new characters and a new adventure, while their old characters remain behind to help Hesh deal with a slave revolt (which we will also play out). And so the cast begins to expand.

I'm really looking forward to the Jamaica map, though I may have to keep it secret for a while since some of the players read this blog. It also means more background cards. Right now there's a two week break since one of the guys is going to be out of town next week, but that works out well, since is the sort of thing where I want extra time to plan and get things in order.

My Potion Tables for Emern

I got the idea for these from a quirk early on in the game where the PCs' only supply of healing potions was also a powerful hallucinogen.

Racist Terminology in Emern

"We have white elves, white dwarves, white humans, all sorts of different races."

Emern is set in the equivalent of the early 16th century, during the exploration of a new continent. I decided when I was creating it not to shy away from racism (or classism or sexism) because I think to do so would present an overly rosy view of what was one of history's most vicious periods for it. Things like the Spanish casta and encomienda systems are critical to understanding the system of power by which they dominated, exterminated and utilised other peoples who actually formed the bulk of the population in the area.

That said, I thought that simply importing real-world contemporary racist terminology wholesale into a fantasy game where there are hobgoblins, elves, etc. wouldn't necessarily make a ton of sense, and it might lead to misunderstandings about what I was trying to do. Plus, I myself would find it pretty awkward and weird to be spouting racist terms constantly when I attempted to depict the coarse speech of the everyday Emerni. It's specifically the terminology that seems to be the critical point. Putting slaves and slavery in games isn't going to automatically get people's hackles up, but using real world racist terminology definitely will.

Because of that, I decided to invest some time in creating an alternate set of racial / special categorisations that would be more appropriate, and allow for some critical distance when they are used. I also wanted to simplify the casta system so that it could be presented quickly, as an aside at the right moment, rather than turning into an extended lecture. Finally, since epithets tend to be culturally-specific, I knew that another culture's most vile term of abuse would mostly roll off the backs of my players.

The main cultural divide in the Old World is between the Emerns, and the Tash. The Emerns are primarily dwarves and humans, the Tash primarily elves and hobgoblins. Dwarves and humans have the same range of skin tones that humans do in real life, but the groups in Emern are pale or olive ("white", though the existence of creatures with white-like-snow skin means that terminology is not used and is just confusing).

In Tash, hobgoblins come in maroon and umber varieties, while elves have dark-brown or green-skin comparable to an actual olive. The drow, which are sort of the elvish equivalent of albinos, form a self-sustaining third group at the apex of Tash society, though they are extremely rare (there is one in all of Arkhesh). All three groups have pointed ears comparable to the elves in the image that starts this article.

Terms of racial reference to Emerns by Tash, in order of offensiveness "Emerns", "pinks" or "pinkies", "stinkers", as human and dwarves eat a diet that causes them to smell bad to Tash noses. If they need to break apart the two racial groups, they call dwarves "Shorties" and humans "Biggers".

Emerns referring to Tash have a similar set of terminology. "Tash" is the most polite, followed by "points" (for the ears) or "rocks" (the Tash worship a mountain). Elves are known as "greens" and Hobgoblins as "tuskers".

Any child of a mixed race background (humans, elves, hobgoblins and dwarves are all interfertile) is known as a "mestizo", "metis" or "mulatto", the rare time in which I decided to use real world terminology since at least two of the words aren't offensive and the third is somewhat archaic.

The Arkheshi are the natives of the new continent. They include everything from brown-skinned humans and dwarves to grey-skinned hobgoblins and elves, who all breed together (all groups are interfertile with one another), much to the disdain of the Emerns and Tash.

Emerns and Tash see themselves as part of the "Gentes de razon" (the people of reason), while the natives are "Gentes sin razon" (people without reason), though this is a technical distinction mainly used in formal contexts. "Arkheshi" is a term used only by the foreigners, not the natives, who call themselves "Ikani" or "Xorca" or after their local tribe. "Natives" is the most common term, and is not pejorative, but "Cannibals" is common and is. "Mutts" is common, since the most notable feature about the Arkeshi to Emerns and Tash is that they freely reproduce with one another (this was more common at one point in Emern-Tash relations as well, but most people don't have a strong sense of history).

Black people exist, and the most commonly encountered types are black humans and black halflings, both of whom come from the southern frontier of the Empire of Tash, where they are enslaved, sold to Emern shippers, who then transport and sell them in Arkhesh. At this particular point in time, the slave trade is only developing, with more trade in Arkeshi slaves than black ones. The accepted term is "darks", with halflings called "halfers" and humans called "fulls" (from the size of berth they occupy on slave ships, this is slaver's argot that has bled out into the general population of Heshtown). There aren't any white halflings in Emern, so most people still aren't clear about whether halflings are kids, dwarves, humans, or something else.

The gradation allowed by these has the same effect as varying racial terminology does in real life - it allows people to precisely and clearly indicate their opinions on people different than them, while also allowing them to use euphemism to obscure their more vicious feelings when convenient. It also subtly signals the class of the person using them, as lower class people tend to use the more abusive terms, while members of the upper class favour euphemisms. 

For example, Paulie, the proprietor of the Rover's Rest, is one of the few bartenders in Heshtown who serves mixed clientele (elves and hobgoblins; Heshtown was founded by an Emern), and is definitely the nicest public house to do so. Paulie himself, being a man of broad mind but limited education who is rising out of the lower class into the middle, uses racist terminology frequently but without hostility, and if a customer asks him not to, he respects that wish. By contrast, Captain Rudolfo, the captain of a slave-ship who puts on airs of being a gentleman sailor while being pretty much the opposite in practice, uses the euphemisms but with venom in his voice, and when he loses his temper he slips into streams of the coarsest racial invective.