[Review] Openquest 2

Disclosure: I am a fan of Openquest. I was one of the backers of the Indiegogo campaign for OQ2 (I am thanked by name on the general thanks page, along with other contributors to the campaign).

Openquest 2 contains zero fundamental changes to the mechanics of Openquest. Instead, it provides more spells, better explanations of gameplay and how to tweak it to suit your style, a brief realm system, some new skills, and colour pictures. Broadly speaking, a lot of the changes are incorporating material / inspired by other systems, including other versions of BRP (Basic Roleplaying, the percentile system that powers Runequest, Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu and other systems). Sometimes this is good, sometimes it seems extraneous.

The two new skills are Wealth and Relationship (X). Both at optional, so you don't have to use them if you don't want to.

The Relationship skill is basically a passion-system like other BRPs have, and is something I really dislike outside of its use in Clockwork and Chivalry, since it rarely does anything directly in any of these games (typically, such skills add their tens digit as a percentile bonus to another skill). At least in C&C it represents one's ideological commitment to some position in the Civil War and comes up whenever you try to proselytise for your side or resist proselytisation by another side. I'm very leery of skills - and older versions of BRP are notorious for this kind of skill - where having them doesn't allow one to do anything different, it simply gives one a bonus to some other skill roll, or allows one to make a second kind of skill roll under certain conditions one otherwise couldn't. The Relationship skill here collects a bunch of fuzzy benefits together under four headings (Allies, Dependents, Enemies and Organisations) with different benefits in each case. If you wanted to create something like the D&D 3.5 Rangers' specialty enemy ability, this would allow you to do it. One of the things I like about Openquest is that it tends to give you clear expectations - whether in the form of concretely defined actions one can take, or in the Big Bonus rule - and I find that the relationship skill doesn't really do that.

Wealth is the typical BRP skill for people who don't want to track individual coins or assets. I go back and forth on this skill, since it mainly exists in games to represent credit but does a bad job representing how credit works or how it motivates people to act. This isn't OQ2's problem tho', it's really a problem with Call of Cthulhu / the BRP gold book, which use this skill. Personally, I think I would stick with the individual asset approach, at least at lower levels of play. This skill has all sorts of sublevels and requires you to determine where specific pieces of gear fall (tho' it provides a chart with some guidelines) so you know what kind of stuff you actually have to roll for or not.

The spells are strong, and good additions to the system. Openquest is now in competition with Runequest 6 for the best battle magic system in a BRP-type game.They're mostly fixed-magnitude, and appear inspired by various low level spells from D&D (this is good), though there are some progressive ones that upgrade. There are a few "extra action" type spells, which I am mixed about. Multimissile was already in the game, but new ones have been added, and I worry that this will create an action / magic point economy at the higher levels of power and transform high level combat into managing it. Still, overall, the additions to the spell lists (not just battle magic, but divine and sorcery as well) are welcome.

The Realm management system is mostly about quest generation, as it should be, and includes notes on using the quests for the various power levels PCs will be at. Like most stock OQ work, it's pretty sparse. I may expand on it and the attached mass combat system sometime in the upcoming year.

The game in general includes a lot more advice on how to play it, which is good for me, as I use Openquest to introduce people to BRP-type systems. I would feel more comfortable handing OQ2 to a new referee than OQ1, now that I have the option to choose between them. The examples are more fleshed out, different campaign power levels are discussed, and there's some discussion of modifying the base assumptions (i.e. different types of magic available and how) to help you create a particular feel.

So, I like Openquest: It remains one of my preferred systems for fantasy roleplaying games, and I will continue to use it for such in future. Openquest 2 is more an extension and continuation of that source text that a radical revision of it (the two are fully compatible, which is nice as I already own three well-loved copies of Openquest 1). I would recommend picking Openquest 2 up for all the same reasons I recommend picking up Openquest 1. I don't know that it's dire and urgent that you switch over if you're happy with Openquest 1 already, but if you like it and want more spells and options, it's worth checking out.

Filling Out Your Alignment Forms

"Changing Alignment
Alignments are registered with the Association of Useful Citizens – Administrative Division on a theoretically quarterly basis. One’s alignment changes by altering or forging one’s record, upon the result of a trial, upon release from punishment, upon registration with AUC – AD, by special request by the Guardians (common in inter-Guardian factional struggles), or through other forms of bureaucratic manipulation." - from the Necrocarcerus play document

Alignments in Necrocarcerus are simply an administrative recording of whether you are an enemy of the Necrocarcerus Program, and how much of an enemy. Think of them as combination terrorist watch list, no fly list, criminal record, and administrative categorisation used by the people running your reality. This means that you don't get to pick your alignment (except for Citizens, who get an initial choice, which is then set until they change it in the usual ways), nor does it motivate your behaviour. The biggest effect is mainly in interacting with spells and abilities - Detect Evil detects anyone who has a file marked "Chaotic" in the records of the Guardians, Unholy Word will smite anyone who is marked "Lawful". It's a metaphysical-administrative state. Bureaucracy is king, so even the Undead, Rogues and Projectors can be declared Citizens in good standing if their paperwork is in order.

Why Are You Currently Chaotic, Citizen?

1 - An open warrant from local authorities
2 - Misfiled form JM-58 (b): Application for Incarnation (1-3 Wrong cabinet 4-6 Incomplete form)
3 - Bureaucratic delays in filing the paperwork to clear your name from last time (1d4 weeks)
4 - Same name as someone else on the Guardians' Priority Threats Schedule for 9998
5 - Currently listed as "Evading Arrest" due to clerical error on punch-card
6 - Name appears on informant's list of criminal confederates
7 - Local Guardian disapproved of conduct, filed form HX-99: Request to Remove Citizenship
8 - Office containing your records was recently attacked by a third party and all records lost
9 - Daring raid by unknown enemies surreptitiously inserted false denunciations into your file
10 - Taxes in arrears (1-3 Receipts and a thorough audit can rectify 4-6 Will need tax lawyer)
11 - Identity theft has led to you being blamed for someone else's crimes
12 - Your actual behaviour has been duly, efficiently and correctly logged

Where Is the Master Copy of Your Record Stored?

1 - In the Incarnation Temple you were created in (1d20 Guardians, 4d10 AUC guards)
2 - In the regional AUC - AD headquarters (4d10 bureaucrats, 1d10 guards)
3 - No one is really sure, but you can file a form to request they search (1d6 months, roll again)
4 - Last copy is in a monster's hoard via a circuitous route of happenstance
5 - In the corrupt clutches of Theosophist sadistocrats (1-3 hermit sect; 4-6 militarised sect)
6 - In one of the haunted outer rings of the Ineffable Nomoplex (1d6 shadows)

Bureaucratic Assistance With Changing Your Alignment

Type	Cost
Clerical bribes	1d10 x 10 / case
Filing Fees	10 / page
Forged Forms	200 / page
Lawyer	2500 / case

Changing your alignment requires processing 1d100 pages, in cases where you pay by the page & this is possible. All prices are in obols.

Tables from Necrocarcerus

I'm trying to turn Necrocarcerus into a single document with all the handy reference material in one place a la those primers that Courtney Campbell puts together. I'm working on the gear section right now. Here are some extracts. I'm using Erik Jensen's Oh Crap My Hat rule in Necrocarcerus.

Clothes

Outfits	Cost (OB)	Notably Includes
Artisanal Workwear	10	Leather apron, gloves
Cold Weather Gear	50	Wooly mittens
Diving Suit	100	Form-fitting bodysuit
Fancy Tailored Clothes	500	Slick styling
Former God-King	1000	Lots of gold fabric
Grey Jumpsuit	5	Many pocketed-jumpsuit
Hot Weather Gear	25	Brightly coloured fabrics
Military Uniform	20	Tabard of issuer
Petty Official’s Suit	10	ID badge, wrinkles
Priestly Vestments	200	Gaudy religious icons
Spiky Biker Gear	50	Sweet leather coat, chaps
Stealth Gear	200	Ninja mask & gloves
Tattered Rags	Nil	Rags
Trenchcoat	200	Trenchcoat
Wizard Robes	200	Softly glowing runes

Hats

Type	Cost (OB)	Special Effect
Aviator & Goggles	100	+1 to Pilot rolls
Balaclava	15	+1 to Stealth rolls
Bonnet	50	+1 to Decipher rolls
Capotain	100	+1 to Tracking rolls
Diving Helmet	250	Breathe underwater
Gas Mask	175	Immune to gases
Hardhat & Goggles	50	+1 to Engineering rolls
Impressive Wig	175	+1 to Law rolls
Kufi	15	+1 to Religion rolls
Mortarboard	50	+1 to Geography rolls
Outback	50	+1 to Foraging rolls
Scary Mask	100	+1 to Arcane Lore rolls
Shako	100	+1 to hit with blades
Surgical Cap & Mask	50	+1 to Healing rolls
Telescoping Goggles	175	+1 to Devices rolls
Tin Foil	100	+1 to saves vs. spells
Top Hat & Monocle	100	+1 to Appraisal rolls
Tricorn	50	+1 to Listening rolls
Turban	50	+1 to Alchemy rolls
Ushanka	100	+1 to hit with guns
Veil	100	+1 to Disguise rolls
Wreath	50	+1 to Athletics rolls

Mounts

Mount	Cost (OB)	Daily Speed
Your Feet	Nil	20 km
Horse-like	150	40 km
Motorcycle	2500	75 km
Golem Palanquin	60 / day	10 km
Charter Train	500/ day	100 km
Nightmare	10,000	400 km
Airship	200,000	1200 km

Mount	Upkeep	Cost / Day (OB)
Your Feet	Calluses	Nil
Horse-Like	Fodder-like	5
Motorcycle	Gasoline	35
Golem Palanquin	Nil	60
Charter Train	Wages & supplies	500
Nightmare	Eats people	1 person per day
Airship	Wages & supplies	200

Alchemy: The Junkie's Science

Here is my alchemy system, designed in line with my previous post on alchemy.

It uses the following resources:

Gavin Norman of City of Iron's Theorems and Thaumaturgy (Buy a printed copy here)
Jack Shear of Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque's Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque Compendium Vol. 1 (Buy a printed copy here)
Eric Jensen of Wampus Country's Arcane Abecediary (No print copy currently available)
Benjamin David of A Rod of Lordly Might's Skills: The Middle Road system
Blacky the Blackball of Gratis Games's Dark Dungeons (Buy a printed copy here)
This list of potion qualities I made up.

This system does not have a list for generating ingredients of potions. You can use this resource from Wizardawn if you don't have your own preferred list, or are not having your PCs generate them actively by harvesting things.

As per the Necrocarcerus house rules, we use Dark Dungeons skill-categories with Middle Road levels (So a PC has the Arcane Lore skill from Dark Dungeons at unskilled, skilled, expert or master levels, and tries to roll above a 5 for a success on whatever die type their skill allows). Potions are made with the Arcane Lore skill. Potions are always one use.

Note on terminology: "Consume" means activating something and using it up so it can't be used again. "Expend" means using something up without activating it. "Formula" means a recipe for creating a potion. "Potion" means the physical object itself.

Potion and Formula Qualities: 

Potions and formulas have the following potential categories of qualities: Effects, Proper Consumption, Ingredients. Not all potions or formulas have all categories of qualities automatically, and not all potions or formulas have multiple entries for each quality.

Potions and formulas typically have an effective level of the minimum spellcaster level required to cast the spell, if their effect requires an effective level.

Once a formula's qualities are discovered / defined, the same combination of ingredients will generate them again. Potions may be ingredients in other potions and formulas.

Use the procedures from Procedural Metapharmacology to determine what different combinations of ingredients do.

Alchemical Laboratories and Testing:

Each Arcane Lore test outside of a lab costs nothing and takes 1 turn.
Each Arcane Lore test in a laboratory costs 1000gp and takes 1 week.
Tests in the field may be done sequentially. Tests in laboratories may be done simultaneously by different PCs.

An alchemical laboratory costs 5,000gp one-time. The 1000gp costs takes in upkeep, resupply and maintenance of the lab.

Consuming Potions:

If a PC knows the Proper Consumption method to use a potion and is able to do so, they may consume the potion and activate its Effect.

If a PC does not know the Proper Consumption method to use a potion, they may consume the potion but must roll on the Side Effects table.

Examining Potions:

A successful Arcane Lore test outside an alchemical lab will reveal one quality of the potion from any category of the PC's choice without consuming or expending the potion.
A failed Arcane Lore test outside an alchemical lab forces a PC to immediately decide whether to consume or expend the potion(s) involved. This counts as consuming the potion without knowing the Proper Consumption method.

A successful Arcane Lore test in a laboratory will expend a potion and generate a formula with Effects, Proper Consumption, Ingredients.
A failed Arcane Lore test in a laboratory will expend the potion and reveal nothing.

Creating Potions:

Creating potions can only be done in a laboratory.

1) Two ingredients without a corresponding formula are combined and consumed, and an Arcane Lore test is made.

On a success, the PC randomly generates one Effect, and one Proper Consumption quality. Ingredients are logged. These become qualities of both the formula and the potion. One potion matching the formula is generated.
On a failure, no formula is generated, but a potion is, with one random Effect quality and no Proper Consumption quality.

2) An Effect is named and two Arcane Lore tests are made:

a) On a success, two Ingredients are randomly generated and added to the formula.
On a failure, no qualities are generated.

b) On a success, one Proper Consumption quality is randomly generated and added to the formula.
On a failure, no qualities are generated.

Producing Potions:

A PC must have a formula and a laboratory. Two ingredients are combined and consumed, and an Arcane Lore test is made.

On a successful Arcane Lore test, a potion matching the formula is generated.
On a failed Arcane Lore test, nothing is generated.

Altering Formulas:

A successful Arcane Lore test in a laboratory allows one already-generated quality of a formula to be altered to another result from the same category of the PC's choice. The new quality must already be recorded in the PCs' logs.
A failed Arcane Lore test in a laboratory allows the referee to alter one quality of the formula or to generate a new quality if there is one undefined.

A successful Arcane Lore test in a laboratory allows one quality of a formula that is not already defined to be generated by the PC
A failed Arcane Lore test in a laboratory allows one quality of a formula that is not already defined to be secretly generated by the GM.

Mixing Potions:

By consumption:
1) Roll on the Side Effects table and apply the results with imagination, sadism and verve
2) The PCs check the list of ingredients of each potion to see if they can be assembled into any other potion(s). The potions are automatically created and consumed by the PC, and the effects applied.
3) For each additional potion created and consumed, roll an additional entry on the Side Effects table.

In a laboratory:
1) Roll on the Side Effects table and apply the results with imagination, sadism and verve
2) The PCs check the list of ingredients of each potion to see if they can be assembled into any other potion(s). The original potions are expended and a new potion created with the qualities of both the originals and any new potions their combination forms.
3) For each additional potion created by the combination, roll an additional entry on the Side Effects table.

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.).

Second Dawnlands Campaign Finished

Finished the second Dawnlands campaign last night after nine (maybe ten, I lost track) sessions.

The set up: The PCs are Kadiz nomads, members of the Barreeve clan. Killer Rohan, a mercenary related to them, returns home for the winter assembly and kills one of the members of the rival clan while drunk (the dude hit Rohan's kid). The PCs are recruited by their clan to assemble the goods necessary to win the potlatch that will decide Rohan's fate.

What they did: They decided to slay the Killer of Wives and Children, an undead sorcerer who used to belong to their clan who killed a bunch of people 70 years ago before fleeing into the wastes. Along the way to finding him, they explored a ghost city inhabited by necromantic terrors and a friendly cyclops; interfered with an archaeological expedition looking for demons to dig up; slew a golden god-shard golem; got killed by the golem and then brought back to unlife by the cyclops; attempted to become kings of the ghost city; met a raiding party from the Orthocracy led by a guy with no face who rode horses made of shadow; met a cool gobliness tattoo artist one of the dead PCs married surreptitiously; had a wagon chase with some hobgoblins; picked up a cantakerous and slightly nutty priest of the God of Gates; hung around with some Dwer merchants and helped them against the guy with no face; met a cannibalistic ogre hermit whose dryad wife made him eat vegetables (because she was also a cannibal); slew the cannibalistic ogre hermit's former wife, a harpy with a leech head who shat blue flames, and her twisted spawn, including giant spiders with human hands growing out of their backs, a thing that's kind of like Jabba the Hutt except it sprayed poison gas, and a thing that was basically a starfish made of legs.

The conclusion: They got to the citadel of obsidian glass the Killer of Wives and Children had raised, got inside to meet him under the pretext of negotiations, and then one of the PCs thought negotiations had broken down and tried to trick the KoWaC into believing they had come to welcome him back to the clan. The KoWaC proceeded to make them his Nazgul, complete with flying black horses, summon his zombie legions to crawl into the belly of his Dracolich for easy transport, and fly with them back to the ghost city to summon the rest of his army before heading back to conquer the Barreeves, their rival clans, and anyone else nearby. About half the PCs were pro-Nazgul, and half were uncertain. The KoWaC summoned the ghosts and met up with the faceless Orthocrat's band, who the PCs had sent to this city several weeks beforehand thinking it was a good way to get rid of them. Finally, realising they weren't going to get a better chance, one of the PCs threw a javelin into the Killer of Wives and Children, and an epic battle ensued, with PC vs. PC combat, a dracolich tearing someone in half after biting their head off, the KoWaC doing the Vader death grip and a PC's magic shield repelling it, ghosts possessing zombies that the dracolich was shitting and puking out of itself all over the battlefield, somebody shooting a giant lightning bolt, and shadow horses tearing off people's shadows as they escaped their control. It ended with one of the PCs using magic berserker axes to behead the dracolich while the priest of the God of Gates castrated the KoWaC's decapitated body (to neutralise his sorcerous power). They released the ghosts from their imprisonment, waved goodbye to the Orthocrats who'd helped them out, and went home where they won the gift contest handily, released Rohan, and retired as mighty heroes of their clan.

Pretty good for nine or ten sessions.