Worlds Yet To Conquer...

In which I display some setting ideas that I really want to run with and develop at some point but at the moment have neither the time nor the motivation (due to working on my RQ world) to do so:

I want to run an RPG, though I've yet to decide on the system, set on Oddworld. Dystopian high-tech world? Check. Tribal magic-based cultures? Check. Huge conflict between Industrial greed and naturist tree-hugging? Check. This is essentially Pandora but 15 years earlier and is such a developed world with a fantastic backdrop for adventuring and freedom-fighting/terrorising that it would be remiss not to run something here at some point. Unfortunately as it's a (very strictly) licenced world, I'd have to do all conversions and everything to a system myself which would be a drag. Not insurmountable but it's certainly delayed for now.

A long time ago there was Prince Of Persia, now there is Garshasp: The Monster-Slayer (A game I highly recommend playing by the way). Between them they sparked an interest in Persian mythology that has been brewing steadily of late. While Greco-roman and to a certain extent Arabian mythology (Al-Qadim anyone?) have been well covered in RPG canons of various flavours, Persian mythology seems to have gone somewhat unloved. Whether this is just due to a lower level of proliferation in Western culture or just the fact that their myths and fabulous creatures are less well-known I don't know but I'd like an authentically Persian feeling setting for one of my games. Similarly, classical Meso-American civilisations (Aztecs, Mayans) seem to have generally been relegated to being the calling cards of various Lizardman cultures (c.f. WHFB) and hopefully at some point an entirely jungle-based setting inspired by these cultures shall also be realised.

More shall probably be forthcoming but these two/three (primarily video-game inspired I notice) arethe ones I have been mulling over recently.

Maid: Impressions

So, as mentioned previously, Maid was played yesterday. It was... not nearly as bad as I expected. Both mechanically and thematically it flowed reasonably well and did what it's supposed to do.

As you may have noticed, the post when  I commented on the core mechanic was at 3:30 in the morning and so I am reserving the right to retract what I said about it due to not thinking it through properly. What the multiplication mechanic does to set itself apart from most mechanics to my mind is twofold. Firstly and most importantly it means there is a real difference between a skill 2 and skill 3. Whereas a + modifier would be the norm in *many* systems, the multiplication does make a difference. That is, a roll +2 is not significantly different to a roll +3, at least not when compared to a roll x2 and a rollx3. This didn't really occur to me when I was reading the rules before play, hence dismissing it as inflating the numbers. The reality is it allows a larger range of target numbers for challenges.

Secondly, the multiplication means that anyone with a skill of 0 cannot use that skill for anything. This was quite poignant coming from what might be regarded as a 'casual' game. Many games allow bases chances for success, even if it is just the roll of a dice. It was refreshing to note that as the skills are randomly generated it was possible you were going to have to work with a character that (like mine did) had 0 in a crucial skill (Athletics in my case). This is mitigated by the fact that whenever you perform an action you describe it in such a manner as to decide which attribute you roll on. If you emphasise the physical parts of an activity then you roll Athletics, if you emphasise precision and technique then you roll Skill etc. This is the main engine that drives the roleplaying aspect of the game and it works well as you have to work out how to proceed in the way that best emphasises your 'talents'.

As to the actual game: it was fun but a little disjointed and hectic. It specifically says in the rules that it could be used as a long-term game but I can't see it working that way for any group I've played with. It's fun as a distraction between other things but unless you're really into the theme (you know who you are) the ruleset is not really tight enough to facilitate campaign play and the kooky characters (lolita assassain ninja?) and plots would probably wear thin after a while. They certainly would for me anyway. But as always, YMMV and I know a few people who could probably get a kick out of it for a good long while.

The Things I Get Dragged Into...

Interesting happenstance: I have been roped into playing a game of Maid (no that is not a bad link, this is just somewhat out of character for me...).

I've been reading the rules and so far they seem pretty intuitive and actually fairly interesting. That said, I despise the core mechanic: I just don't see the point of the multiplications of dice-rolls, it only serves to inflate the values seen in gameplay. THis seems to just add unnecessary maths for no real benefit. Though I'm sure there is a reason and my amateur eye hasn't caught up to it yet. Otherwise though it actually seems to be a legit, if rules-light (which I like anyway) system. The GM is replaced by 'The Master' with the players representing his obedient maids and hilarity ensues as the world can be as mundane or as wacky as The Master desires.

Character gen is almost entirely random. You roll on what are essentially tables of fetishes to decide essentially what kink your maid will be fulfilling for your master. Examples include: lolita, leather, werewolves, cat-girls, hermaphrodites and vampires. Plus about 5 dozen others, some more obscure some less so. There is a perversion chart for Demogorgon's sake. It's all done with tongue firmly in cheek (not like that, you dirty sod) though and it takes refuge in audacity fairly well. You get the feeling this game is played by people who take their slightly fetishised games seriously but not so seriously that they can't laugh at themselves while doing it. The best kind of people in other words ;)

In the english translation there is something like 17 scenarios included though the nature of the game means they are basically just frameworks for you to do whatever the hell you want to do.

Needless to say, all the pontificating in the world is pretty useless without having played the game so I shall delay proper judgement till it's done. But I'm fairly certain it's going to depend entirely on meshing well with the GM (who is a first-timer as far as I'm aware) and especially the other players, most of whom I know but there are a couple of surprise players too.

Should be entertaining... I think...

Inspiration Series: Temples and Tabernacles.

Firstly, welcome to my new follower! Hope you enjoy your stay.

While there is an annoying lack of inspiration for commentary posts at the moment I shall at least attempt to post a content post. Dungeon design for the RQ campaign is going well so I shall post the results of my brainstorming sessions in the hope that it sparks something useful for you too.

In trying to define my niche, I'm thinking of doing a series of posts on psychological principles as applied to gaming and how they can be used to improve your game. Not sure if I like it, or more to the point if it would be of any use to anyone but it's floating around. Anyway, enough of these (empty, going by past experience) promises, the last brainstorm I had was on shrines and similar places to be found. As they are for RQ they are predominantly designed for a high fantasy setting but some could probably be repurposed.

 Many of these may appear in my game and as I know some of my players read this, stop here.

The Temple of Tears: This mysterious temple is inhabited by two-faced statues. Each of these faces is crying, the liquid running down one face into a moat surrounding the statue and then runs up the back of the statue and into the eyes of the second face. Each statue cries a different liquid from water through blood and quicksilver to molten lead.

The Temple to The Stars: This shrine consists of a single round room. The domed ceiling of this room has been treated with some sort of lacquer or paint that absorbs all light. Inlaid across this backdrop are hundreds of gems. These emit a gentle and harshly cold light that gives the entire room a foreboding fear. Combined with the loss of depth perception on the jet-black ceiling, a true experience of the vastness of the skies can be had here. The gems can be prised from the ceiling with a lot of work but they stop glowing if removed from their settings and absorb heat, likely causing freeze-burns to the hands of all who wield them. If a suitable storage can be devised, they are worth 10gp each.

The Wandering Shrine: This is I suppose technically a creature rather than a place. An earth elemental akin to an bent and twisted Ent meanders through the forest, it's pollens spreading life to the forest's denizens and spreading disease and poisons through it's invading foes. The top of this wandering construct is formed from an age's worth of entwined and knotted branches in a plateau. In the centre of this plateau is a large spring bubbling up from the depths of the elemental's soul. Akin to the tears of nature herself, should this spring be blocked or spilled clear of the elementals pond temple-head the forest will die. Where the spring flows in the elemental's dying moments a new tree shall sprout and when the next age passes it shall pull itself clear of the ground, a new clear spring bubbling forth and wherever it treads and sprinkles its waters new forest shall grow.

(Shamelessly pillaged from Akrasia: Thief Of Time): The temple to the God of immediate gratification shows the promise of a fabulous building. A golden minaret perches above a gem-inlaid tower. Closer inspection reveals it is just a shell however, the inhabitants were distracted by more immediate pleasures before they could finish. Remnants of these pleasures litter the surrounding area, from the hastily constructed brothel/tavern to the nearby fields of hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms Akrasia has let grow around to fulfil those fantasies as fast as possible.

The Caged Temple: The ancient being associated with this temple believed that their priests should fully trust each other and as such, in order to enter two priests have to stand in metal cages. Each of these has a door that leads to the next room. In the next room it is clear that there is a single benefit of some kind. Two levers are present in each cage. They are clearly labelled, one allows the other priest to proceed while keeping their own door locked. The second unlocks their own door and traps their companion (or at least, prevents them advancing). This is according to the symbols anyway. In reality, to promote trust, if either priest betrays the other, both priests are killed by traps.

The Tabernacle Of The Fates: In the entrance hall to this labyrinthine construction there is a huge tapestry. If examined closely it will be revealed to update itself every 30 seconds as a view of various areas of the temple, not quite a map almost more akin to CCTV really. This will reveal the various traps and creatures wandering the halls if used correctly.

Always Believe In Yourself...

This thread on YSDC got me thinking a little about how to portray Real-World religions within the context of Lovecraftian nihilism. Partly because this intrigues me anyway - as I may have mentioned before, I'm a psychologist in training - and also because my current character in my role-reversal sessions of CoC is a Catholic exorcist. Now, my Keeper has specifically stated that religious rituals etc. will have no discernible effect on the world except for psychological effects. That's fine, and especially as he's only running a short game I completely understand the lack of ambiguity. That said, I think there's some wiggle-room for my own game to play with and I'd like to explore some options.

Obviously, some people will take it upon themselves to view this post as some sort of flame-bait. I do not intend to tread on any toes and these are not reflective of my RL views (which are entirely irrelevant to the issue) but my stance on portraying religion in a fictional universe, albeit one much like our own. If you are offended, please feel free to shut the tab and navigate away. Fair warning, I'll simply delete antagonistic posts.

I am working from the standpoint that no major world deities exist as independent deities. This is for two reasons. Firstly it gets very idealogically charged very quickly as you decide which ones are left out or left in, even things like meshing all the Abrahamic conceptions together can cause problems. Secondly, there are too many anyway, from major religions down to Egyptian beings. Incidentally, when there are exceptions to this rule, it is invariably Egyptian gods that actually exist in my game as I have a soft spot for the whole pantheon.

Option 1: The Facade.
This is an approach that is very popular among many writers of CoC scenarios as it is malleable to individual scenarios and situations. It involves treating the deity in question as an avatar or facet of an established Mythos entity (I hesitate to call them deities as they aren't technically in my game). This is typically Nyarlathothep (Baron Samedi in Burning Stars, for example) but could be Y'golonac, Yig or even Yog-Sothoth itself. I understand why it's become such a trope and have indeed invoked it myself, but I do have reservations about this. Firstly it disagrees with my conception of many of the mythos beings. Nyarlathothep especially suffers from this, probably largely due to a certain well-liked published campaign that is based around the concept, and it means he has basically turned into Loki. Who is far, far too human for my tastes. Mischevious and trickster deity is all well and good, but I don't like it when he's too heavily involved. It just smacks too much of anthrocentrism. With the exception of Y'golonac of course who is a deified version of everything that is wrong with humanity born from our basest desires. So fair enough. He doesn't usually use avatars though, preferring followers who join his debased ways anyway.

In this instance, religious folks who appeal to their deity of choice are in fact attracting the attention of a Mythos being. While this can never be a good thing, it may achieve short-term goals. There are likely to be conditions or, more likely, consequences of these appeals though and as the person's faith is likely to grow stronger if she has prayers that are answered the final revalation is likely to be that much more sanity-shattering.

Option 2: The Derleth.
This is a very unpopular approach among many purists in particular. It involves factionalising the various beings into 'good' and 'evil' sets that are at war in the cosmos. The general divide is that the GOOs are fighting for the destruction of the Earth, while the Elder Gods are attempting to suppress their efforts. Thus, again the native gods of earth religions are likely to be avatars and masks of the Elder Gods. The differences are chiefly that these deities are much more likely to be sympathetic. Again though, they are unlikely to wear repeated pestering and smiting shall be visited upon an uppity follower. Under this section would also come the 'actual' deities, such as Bast and Hypnos in the game's canon. These tend to exist as benevolent deities and also work with Nodens if he is around. Similarly, it could be that all benevolent gods are facets of Nodens. While I'm a pulpy gamer, I'm a Lovecraftian purist so I don't like touchy-feely deities like Nodens wandering about in my game world.

Option 3: The Lovecraft.
No being that isn't mathematically summoned using the correct ritual can be interacted with. Prayers and the like go completely unanswered and many will lose their faith in the face of the unholy truths they encounter. Most powerful entities are mere aliens and natural forces rather than actual deities.


I tend towards option 1 when these issues come up. But it varies and as I have said before, I am constantly meddling with my world's canon as much as the rules of my game.

Now, I reckon that there should be psychological implications of religion for characters. These can be both positive and negative of course. To start with at least, the promise of an overarching plan and a guardian would make a seriously religious character fairly hard to shake. Similarly, courage of one's convictions can lead to a persuasive personality and a master of argument. Of course if and when their faith is challenged and found wanting, there is a massive downward spiral from there.

Orc Traitor-Beasts

So, as there has been little activity here and I have little in the way of properly prepared material due to me being up to my ears in exams at the moment, I'll just throw out an interesting creature idea I've been tossing around in my head. I like the idea of undead being specifically formed by the method of their dispatch and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of Orcish undead around so here goes. I play RQ and as such would use either the ghoul or orc profiles from the Monster Colliseum, but beyond that I'm not doing stats or anything just fluff.

Orcish Traitor Beasts.
These are physical entities, born when Orc traitors are caught and sealed into purpose-built chambers. Being a culture that is entirely absorbed in blood and honour, betrayal is one of the highest of Orc sins. Death is seen as an honourable end that allows a joining with the great Orc spirit army that marches across the lower planes of the ethereal realms for all eternity and as such being cursed in undeath and perpetuity is a great disgrace and a denial of eternal honour. Seeing as those subjected to this punishment have often also shown a knack for survival the Curse-sealers who place the undeath upon the traitors take great amusement from their fate. The orcs are flayed and have spiked chains wound around them. The ritual of entombing them takes 3 hours of chanting and laying curses upon the doomed Orc. After 73 days of incarceration the transition to un-dead is fully complete. The chains are healed into the flesh of the beast, who is driven mad through despair, shame and rage. The Orc's flesh, already a greyish shade turns almost chalky white and their blood and other bodily fluids run crystal clear from their wounds.

Their voices are high-pitched and chittering, the creatures chuckling to themselves as they contemplate their fate in their sealed chambers. Communication with their own kind or other undead creatures is achieved through complex gestures and rattling of their chains, however they can spea whatever languages the Orc could in life, in a chittering high pitched mockery of the Orc's guttural accent. Ironically, pronounciation of human and similar languages is arguably improved as the traitor orcs usually have their tusks shattered during the imprisonment ritual.

When they deign to speak to mortals at all it is in twisted riddles and metaphors. They swing around on and use their trailing chains to attack intruders. Due to the knowledge they have been denied eternal honour, they have no qualms about any tactics and are often highly effective trap-setters. They favour hiding and ambushes and are naturally cowardly and deceptive. By far the most common tactic is to sneak up on targets (a difficult task given the amount of chains many are burdened with) and throttle them untill they pass out. They can then be bound (often to the Orc by his spiked chains) and then tormented at will. If they escape their sealing chambers they make their homes at the tops of mountains in as isolated a location as possible.

The traitor-beasts are usually lone deserters or small groups of plotters that are caught, but there have been known cases of entire regiments being ritually interred together after being suspected guilty of treasonous activity so any number could be found together.

Making It Interesting

This is the 'reactions' table for my wandering monsters in my sandbox campaign . My actual random encounters are generated by rolling 2d8 and then using the corresponding table, for a total of 56 different encounters (the combination of numbers is what's important, rather than the sum total of the dice). As there are different tables for each environment, it would be a tedious process to reproduce them all here. Besides, I find this to be the more defining characteristic of an encounter. The encounter roll shows you what you've found, this shows how you can go about dealing with it.

Then 2d6 (rolling for sum-total this time) determines the situation that the creature is encountered in:

2:   Overtly Hostile
3:   Defensive
4:   Patrolling/Guarding
5:   Dead
6:   Engaged
7:   Ambivalence
8:   At home
9:   Celebrating
10: Caravan
11: Vulnerable
12: Overtly Friendly.

As can be seen, I have attempted to use the bias of using 2 dice to try and lead to most encounters being what the players make them. Only the rarest results have pretty much foregone conclusions, and even then they can be manipulated by suitably skillful players. In particular, I want to give more options than fight or flight.

Each category is purposefully vague and obviously will apply to different creatures differently, for example:
Caravan: For many of the more sentient races this could very easily be a simple trading caravan or a platoon of Troll explorers riding a train of Karrg Beetles. Slightly more abstractly this could a be a migrating group of young dragons. Or a herd of wildebeast stampeding across the plains.
Engaged: This was specifically meant as a catch-all for other situations not covered elsewhere. Could be feeding, could be hunting, could be crafting, there is pretty much an infinite list of things this could be.

Incidently, I like the idea of rolling an encounter with an ambivalent Amphisboena, purely because such a sequipedalian serpent will be a pain to pronounce.

But, But, What If He Wrecks Everything?!

I made a rather rash decision yesterday. At the moment I have a lot of work going on as the end of term rushes inexorably closer and I have to complete deadlines and prepare work for my dissertation so to protect next monday's session from cancellation I am handing the reins over to one of my players.

This will be somewhat of an interesting experience to say the least. As gaming compatriots we go right back to both of our first games and in fact I've only ever run one session in which he didn't participate. So I've no fear of his credentials with cthulhoid gaming. However he's never actually GM'd anything before and it's a while since I've been a player so this'll be a learning experience for us both I think.

My main problem is that this has made me reflect on my own progress as a GM over the last year or so. Don't get me wrong, I've improved I think. Certainly I'm more confident and no longer sweat my own body-weight before a session. But he asked for advice on GMing and I came up completely blank. I know what I do in preparation and my own tips but I have a hard time separating what's my own little rituals and what's generally useful practice. I wonder if this is a normal thing or does it just take time to formulate your definitive ideas about gaming style and practice?

Regardless I think I'll try and formulate a list of 'tips' for new GMs based on my own noobish credentials. Should it become substantial enough I'll probably post it over the weekend.

My Style On Show

A while ago, Strange Magic published these little indicators so one can indicate stylistic preferences in GMing.

Click to make it appear roughly the same size...

The selection here shows my choices. The link above shows the full meanings of each symbol but in order from left to right, top to bottom:
- Story-based game
- Rule 0 is in full effect: GM ruling is final
- Characters can and, most likely, will die
- The emphasis is not on combat
- However PvP combat is allowed
- Mystery and Exploration play a large part
- There may well be disturbing content
- You will have to flee some things
- There may be wacky and silly happenings
- There is a predefined map and probably some scripted events
- There is an emphasis on character and drama
- I like tinkering with rules and so on. Sometimes from session to session.

On Predilections and Predications

Normally I don't like to get involved in OSR vs Story Gaming as it invariably leads to nothing good. However this post by C at Hack & Slash. interested me enough to throw my own tuppence at the faceless masses of the internet. (I know the context is set against different ways of playing D&D specifically, but it got me thining about gaming in general).
 
Now I will preface this by nailing my 'Story-Gamer' colours firmly to the mast. (Ironically I do this largely via the medium of one the oldest and least changed games in the industry.) I'm not above messing around with dice-rolls and fixed encounters to facilitate interesting circumstances (the proverbial quantum Ogre). I am upfront about this with my players though and make sure they're fine with it before we start playing. I have only been roleplaying for about 18 months seriously, but I have learned that 99% of problems come from a dischord between expectations. Usually dischord between GMs and Players.

That said, I have only been playing for a short while and the prevalence of the OSR in the blog-o-sphere (is that even a term anymore?) has piqued my interest in that style of gaming too. I like to think (erroneously I suspect) that I am open-minded enough to try some different types of gaming. I have played almost exclusively investigative type games up until this point*, so as clichéd as they might be to everyone else, dungeon crawling is not something I'm particularly familiar with. Now, I can't see much appeal in the genre from a purely mechanistic point of view: kill-monsters-get-treasure-get-power-to-kill-more-monsters. Up until today I thought, 'Why not just play a video game?'. But what I saw from C's post is that so much of this game is determined by the player attitudes. What I had been taking as preachy from a lot of gamers was more honestly just 'Here's why I like what I like'. Unfortunately a rather vocal (primarily forum-based I find) minority are determined to knock all other play-styles.

So, what are my aims in a game?
1) Enjoyment

That's it. It sounds trite but I play not to experience a particular thing or even play a particular thing but to enjoy what I'm doing. Rather more accurately, the specifics of what I'm looking for vary from game to game and even session to session occasionally. Sometimes I want a nice monster-of-the-week game that ends with a shoot-out, and sometimes I want complex and intriguing investigation that culminates in foiling a plot without ever raising a weapon. It all comes down to what the person C was discussing with says:

"...in the OSR having your dude be a meeple isn't a bad thing..."

Both camps have a tendency to take the core characteristics of the other and then use them as insults, when actually they aren't. It's just a matter of disparate opinions. WHICH IS OK. And nobody should need to justify it (though it's probably helpful to be able to of course) it's just how you like to play.

This is why I don't think I'll ever be able to get on with public gaming or con gaming, because I judge a lot by knowing my players and what they may or may not enjoy in the current mood and what I feel like running this week.

Moreover, both my recent revelations and C's above post have shown me that game-selection both in tone and (though I suspect to a lesser extent) system need to be informed choices. Not because any is inherently better than any other (sorry D&D players ;) ) but because they are each focussed differently. It's why I need to play some different games and as I said before, the best way to improve a game is to ensure that every decision is a conscious decision and not a default decision even if that means nothing changes. The game will be better purely for you knowing why you are doing everything you are doing.

Thus, this shall be my mid-year's resolution: I resolve to play a greater variety of games so I can at least learn about why other people like them in practice. I've no doubt there will be at least one game I walk away from and never go back to, but that's ok too. The aim isn't to like everything, it's just not to dislike everything on principle.

Wow, this had a much more positive outcome than I was expecting when I started. I admit I was expecting to sort of dissolve into a dribbling polemic against the internet.

*Incidentally, I would be interested to now how often this sort of game crops up outside of games that are specifically geared towards it (CoC, GUMSHOE et al.). That being detectivery, rather than just investigation in the sense of exploration.

In-Character Ingenuity, Out Of Character... Outgenuity?

In my post on death I said that players need to work within the limits of their characters to create a memorable character that will be looked upon kindly by reminiscences. This post is about the polar opposite, how out of character actions can create memorable situations. By this I am not referring to the inevitable joes that constitute 99.99% of table chatter. Its more about the issues I alluded to when I was talking about rollplaying vs. roleplaying and that have come up repeatedly in this thread. Namely where the balance point between using character abilities and player ingenuity is.

As I mentioned in the linked post on roll vs role I am a strong advocate of using player ingenuity to solve problems. The INT or equivalent stat in my eyes should not limit the ways in which a character can act because of a low score, anymore than a high score would lead to me giving answers to every puzzle that the character comes across. The classic example is rolling perception (or Spot Hidden for those of a Lovecraftian bent) checks. I usually handle these by using the checks as a sort of 'you notice something is off' trigger, if they make the roll then they are rewarded with the information, if not then the players get (usually two) guesses to try and work out where the thing they have noticed might be. Of course if they are percieving an ambush, they are unlikely to get additional attempts and if they're searching a room then they might get a few more as they narrow down locations. Season to taste, the point is that this is a nice compromise to my mind for two reasons:

Firstly, and this is important, it doesn't eliminate the usefulness of the character skills. I have heard of many GMs (for CoC in particular, though it is a common thing among 'story-gamers' I think) that ignore many checks, especially if the 'story' demands it. This seems to be pointless and cheats those players who have spent days agonising over their point placement (I'm not talking power gamers, just committed players).

Secondly, this is a game after-all. This means the players can actually get involved and influence their fates without being at the complete mercy of the Dice Gods.

Another way that is suggested to utilise player ingenuity is by including puzzles that can be solved by the players. This is the kind of thing that can lead to those afore-mentioned memorable situations, be it the players working out the correct sequence of levers in a Mastermind-esque minigame or the tactical planning of a dungeon assault. These things exercise the player's creativity and (provided they are not too time-consuming or difficult) can be good liittle intermissions and give oppurtunities for character advancement. If you can combine the two, so the player has to work out the correct way to use the character's skills, then this is truly the holy grail of gaming puzzles.

One of the best ways (in my humble opinion of course) is through investigative gaming. Call Of Cthulhu is focused on this of course, but I'm intent on building this into my RQ game too. Simply put this is where a scenario of some description requires the characters to collect clues of some description, but the players have to put them together to gain any sort of use from them. This can be solving murders as in many detective styled games, or merely collecting information that reveals the way to open that Dwarven carved lock. This is of course how the sandbox investigation will be implemented. The players will encounter various locked or otherwise blocked locations, and will discover information that will enable them to open it. Not that it will tell them that of course. The best structure for these things is most definitely to make them optional so the players know they will get interesting rewards if they do choose to follow up, but they won't be hindered if they don't wish to mess around with it.

A quick google search can bring plenty of tips on putting puzzles into your games and places like Gnome Stew have decent articles too so I won't bother linking any particulars here. Specific examples will be revealed once I have constructed a few for my RQ map.

The Transcendent Beauty Of Esoteric Miscellany

I am a rather pretentious person. Who isn't if we're really honest? But in relation to RPGs, I am of the opinion that the GM should be allowed to have fun as well as the players, and perhaps at their expense.

In particular this manifests as a sort of literary ADD on my part. I pride myself on being a fountain of cultural references (it's one of my few useful qualities), and so I enjoy slipping these things into my games. Call of Cthulhu and Kerberos Club are both marvellous settings for this sort of play. For example having Byron Humphrey from The Dreaming Stone campaign enthusiastically rambling about the fantastic research of Dr Cavor, or the detective abilities of Chevalier Dupin is a gleeful opportunity for me. Even such obvious things as having a pub named 'The Winchester', a cult known as the 'Esoteric Order Of The Golden Dawn' or the 'Knights In White Satin' in my RQ games are much more amusing to me than they perhaps should be.

I have no idea what it is that causes things like Alan Moore's famous 'League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen' to have such a profound effect on me, but even if I don't immediately get the reference I'll spend time looking it up and then savour the moment when the penny drops. I've lost count of the times I've lost whole afternoons to the minutiae of these things, giggling to myself hysterically as all sorts of ideas for connections come to me.

It also offers a genuinely connecting moment with a player if they understand the reference, especially if only one of them does. That glint in the eye as you see they understand is an excellent moment and one that should be encouraged often, but not often enough to exclude others of course. I've found this to be a good litmus test for how well I'm going to get on with a player, if they get around a quarter or more of the references and grin when they do, we'll get on fine. Those who are so uninterested in the backstory as to ignore even the references they do get are unlikely to stay a full campaign, either by my instigation or theirs. It's not a hundred percent proof though, so  I try not to make snap judgements on it. This can probably also be taken as 100% proof that I am a story-gamer at heart and will keep coming back to it even in my dungeon crawls....
I guess the point of this post (albeit in a roundabout and unnecessary way) is that one of the best ways to achieve player investment is to have players that are on the same wavelength as you, who have similar humour and interests. And who don't mind you mocking them (good-naturedly) for missing a joke.

Just To Clarify

Just a quick note to say: A couple of people have been a little confused as to why I started my worldbuilding with defining the player races, rather than by making a map or plotting a history.

I've decided I'm going to do it by first defining the societies that will have a major impact on the players, followed by the map to show the terrain that could support harmonius living between them. This will help concrete in my mind how I want the societies to interact which will lead naturally to determining what monsters are likely to be around, and snowballing to give ideas about quests and dungeons to be located on the map as well. But it starts by defining the home base, which needs people and people I am providing. History will be provoked, I suspect by features that crop up on the landscape as time goes by...

I could have started with any aspect really I guess, but it just made sense this way.

On The Frustrations Of Diversity In FRPGs

(Apologies to anyone who started looking at this for CoC content, I'm on a bit of an RQ binge at the moment, the indescribable horror will return eventually, honestly...) Little thing first: I'm always amazed at just how often posts like this are actually needed by the community. Surely it's common sense that you should ask your players what they're comfortable with and not push those limits. I mean really? I'm not mocking the author by any means and he makes good points, it just seems like it should be something we know by now...

*Ahem* Anyway, now I've got that off my chest onto the meat of the post:

Non-human PCs. Can these actually work?
I really like the idea of being involved in a game (on either side of the screen) where you can play as non-human species (they're not races, it's a stupid use of the term etc. etc.). This needn't be limited to the usual elf/dwarf/halfling set and similar 'human but with a single defining characteristic' crowds (I'm looking at you, planetouched). More like trolls and pixies. I'm not talking necessarily even bipedal characters e.g. centaurs etc.

As part of my worldbuilding for RQ, I'm looking to provide a decent - around a dozen probably - set of playable races for my players, each with unique builds and traits, rather than just reskins of the same template. I also want to make it so that different races can also do different things, otherwise it just becomes an unofficial class system i.e. all elves are mages and similarly playing any other race as a mage is pointless. I have however run into a few potholes with this, both mechanically and in-universe.

The term balance gets thrown around a lot both positively and negatively, and I am resigned to the fact there are going to be optimum builds no matter how I work it out. However, I am determined to not make each race only useful in one role. The difficulty lies in making this feasible and still having interesting and significant differences betweeen them. Thus I can think of two options here:
A) Specifically reverse this, instead of building the species to fit a role, build them to NOT fit a particular role, with compensatory bonuses to relatively general areas. For example, Trolls in my game are pretty much descended from boulders and thus have no spirits. No spirit magic for Trolls then, but to compensate they gain some physical bonuses that emphasise the very material flavour of these beasts, don't prohibit anything. So you can still play a Troll priest, Troll scout/thief or a Troll tank fighter. Flavourful and not too restrictive.
B) Pretty much balance the rollable characteristics equally but give each species interesting and flexible racial abilities that give them unique abilities that are preferably not tied to a specific style of play. Though this is easier in some cases than others.
Pour exemple, Humans have all their normal stats +30% in common magic representing their diversity and power over the natural world. Trolls have the same stats, but have natural armour at AP1 on all locations because of their trollhide. Elves have the same stats but have Charm Animal as a free ability etc.

Both of these break down when you have more variation. For example B) doesn't work with species that are substantially smaller (halflings/dwarfs/pixies) or bigger (Centaurs/Trolls if they're to be interesting/Myrmidon). A) still pigeonholes players. I think this is inevitable really though, and I'm just going to have to accept that species is basically class by a different name. Besides if they're all the same it's boring isn't it? I like the idea of a tiny pixie magus, who would be flattened by anything that hit but can flit around so fast and fire spells off so she's not in anymore danger than the trollkin barbarian with her greataxe and the Centaur wielding his recurve bow or the human thief who is swiftly fleeing with all the loot while they are distracted.

I think that overall, I'm going to deal in a sort of one-up-one-down, advantage/disadvantage system to prevent things that are huge and magically inclined as then there is no real reason to play any other race. If something comes out as being a rubbish version of another race or a broken version, it'll get binned. That said, some species are built for specific roles. Using a centaur as a moutain climber is not going to work, so he'll get some counterbalancing to compensate.

Some more fluffy restrictions that I'm also using to pare down the list of available creatures to play:
The species must be capable of integrating with general (human) society. They don't have to get on well with humans, and in the case of groups like the Dragonewts, will possibly have been exiled from their own communities. Having the groups pet minotaur having to be shackled by the gate of every town is not going to fun for the player and is a pain in the ass for me to administrate.
Similarly, the race must not be overtly evil, stupid or undead. This rules out things like Satyrs who are openly malevolent towards humans and cave trolls who are too stupid to understand any quests given to them. Again, for everyone's convenience and I've never heard of a campaign with evil PCs going well.

When I have finalised my list, I'll post them here. Meanwhile I welcome any suggestions that might arise both for cool races and

An Open Relationship With The Story? (and other quirky questions)

As I'm trying to settle into the routine of posting regularly, my post topics have been all over the place. I'm trying to aim for quality over quantity of course but I think what I need is a project to focus on. By no means will this be the sole focus of the blog but just to warn you that I'm going to start preparing a sandbox world for an MRQII game that will materialise at some unknown time in the future and as such there will be an incoming stream of posts about this, along with the OPD competition entry...

Anyway, here's several meta-questions that are more attitude than mechanic-centric to counter-balance yesterdays post. This was mainly inspired by people bandying about questions about attitudes to gaming on the blogroll, forums and in the Real World^tm, so this gives me some general answers I can direct them too. If it inspires you to think about your style as well then so much the better!

1. Do you fudge dice rolls? The GM in me says occasionally it's ok, the Player says no. In general I don't because it seems to defeat the point of rolling.

2. Do you play with a GM screen? I never have for purely practical (i.e. space-related) reasons but I've never felt like I'm missing out. I'd like to try it though as it's an iconic sort of image...

3.Improvisation or Strict adherence to prepared material? Obviously improvisation has to be a huge part of any game (to avoid plot-train syndrome) but I like to follow prepared material as I am very much still amateurish in my attempts to riff off my players. That said, I like to think I'm improving and that's a large part of what the sandbox project is going to be about. That and my passion for worldbuilding...

4. Roleplaying or Rollplaying to solve problems? This is an age-old question which I think addresses quite a large flaw in mechanics such as searching for traps (in D&D) or Spot Hidden rolls (in CoC). If theplayer specifically states they look where the trap (or clue, item, enemy etc.) is, but fails their roll, do they find the thing? In my book, yes they do. I'm very much about promoting player (as opposed to character) ingenuity as much as possible in my games, so yes they do.

5. Story gamer or dungeon crawler? While this is pretty much a false dichotomy, I tend to do both. Having cut my teeth on Call Of Cthulhu's heavily plot-driven scenarios I have a soft-spot for a good storyline, but I have also been the victim of GMs who enforce their storyline to the hilt, and thats no fun. So I have overarching, background machinations but mostly for me, the players don't need to be restricted. I had this driven home for me, last weekend in fact, when one of the players who was used to a different CoC GM kept asking if the things he was about to do would 'break' the scenario because he'd done them in another guy's game and the GM had flat out said if he did that they may as well go home, the adventure is over. That seems wierd to me...

6. How much random/procedurally generated content do you use? I guess this ties into the previous question, but at the moment not a lot. Many of the blogs I read wax lyrical on the wonders of random encounter tables though so I'm very tempted to implement in a game somewhere. I have an interesting idea for a procedurally generated game bouncing around in my mind, but I'm sort of stuck on how to implement it without it becoming boring after the novelty wears off.

7. Do you actually ENJOY GMing? This is a weird one. I've heard so many people say "I only GM because no one else wants to" that it's become almost my standard assumption, but I find it hard to believe that the people who spend hours preppig for a session are doing so just for the sake of their fellows. I enjoy GMing Call Of Cthulhu very much so, and I don't think being a player in that game is ever going to hold appeal for more than one or two sessions because I've seen too much behind the curtain and I'd miss the little bits of knowledge that make everything hang together behind-the-scenes. That said, there is a particularly sad kind of heartbreak that comes of having players stomping through your meticulously prepared world...

8. How detailed do you want characters? Again, this varies between GM and Player me. GM Malik wants specific details that he can use as plot-hooks and similar devices. Anything else is nice because it gets the player invested, but superfluous for my own purposes. Player Malik isn't particularly bothered about the character history. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against those who devise whole family trees and so on, but it's not for me. What I like is the personality of a character, the quirks, the hooks, the habits, something that really influences what he does so that other people will be able to almost predict what he's going to do based on his personality not mine and they'll remember him and his actions. That said, these tend to be minor traits as hugely quirky characters tend to clash with the party and the GM. This probably stems from my psychological background I admit. If players want to write up long backstories I'm good with that and it definitely helps player investment, and some people like reasons for their behaviour.  As I'm writing this, Wrath Of A Zombie has written an interesting piece on this exact subject here. An alternative point of view is covered here.

9. Do you use props in gaming? This varies humungously, based on the game. In CoC I do, a lot, because handouts are cool and tangible clues are the best in a invetigative game. Also decipering them shuts the players up for a while. In other games I suspect I won't as much, though the occasional visual puzzle will inevitably pop up here and there.

I've covered worldbuilding before and so suffice to say that I enjoy it immensly but feel it often goes to waste as players ignore half of it anyway. That said, if it makes the world more believable and helps you with your roleplaying NPCs (it does for me) I think it's an excellent idea. (BTW, I know that post and my current sandbox idea are a little at odds, but that was referring to maps in the context of campaigns where there is a specific objective, because I'm a largely new-school story-gamer as noted above, hence why I'm trying to broaden my horizons).

Anything else you want to know about, please ask!

Oh, Hell Everyone Else Is Doing It...

While I'm not a member of the Old School Rebellion cos I don't play D&D enough to have joined the edition wars, this has been everywhere enough to have gotten me on board:

1.Ability scores generation method? 3d6, lowest score can be re-rolled, assign as you like.
2.How are death and dying handled? Unconscious at 0, dead at -2
3.What about raising the dead? Yes, but it'll cost you.
4.How are replacement PCs handled? They are written in in a fashion that links the backstories
5.Initiative: individual, group, or something else? Individual, every single time.
6.Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work? Yeah I like them, fumbles usually lead to dropping a weapon or similar, critical hits do max damage by default
7.Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet? Yeah, it provides armour on your head. What sort of question is this?
8.Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly? Very much so. Idiots must be punished!
9.Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything? Depends how Lovecraftian I'm feeling...
10.Level-draining monsters: yes or no? Sure, why not?
11.Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death? As 9.
12.How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked? Encumbrance pretty strictly, resources depends on how ridiculous the players are being.
13.What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time? Down time mostly.
14.What do I get experience for? Defeating enemies, finding treasure, solving puzzles. Ad hoc bonuses for excellence
15.How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination? Description can find anything rolling misses.
16.How do I identify magic items? Through use probably unless you're high-level or know someone who is.
17.Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions? Not cheaply...
18.Can I create magic items? When and how? By learning how to do it, over a long period of time. And you must be prepared for back-firing...
19.What about splitting the party? Go Ahead. Make my day!

I Am Become Death, Temporary Interruptor Of Campaigns

Death. The greatest theoretical obstacle to any player character. I can't help but feel that it has lost it's sting a little. Granted my main game of choice is 'that one where everyone goes mad and dies' but even so, I have noticed that players are noticeably blasé about the prospect of character death. I think this could be influenced by one of two things, or rather one thing from two different perspectives. Namely commitment, from both me as GM to getting adequate buy-in and from the players to their characters.

Naturally I'm going to start by offloading as much blame onto my players as possible. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely convinced that much blame can actually be passed on this one. Fundamentally, this is a problem of players not caring about their characters. Some people (I fall into this category as a player usually) care about every character they create automatically and spend endless amounts of time crafting quirks and gimmicks both physically and mentally, that have nothing to do with stats, or often even the campaign at hand.

For example, my current Dark Heresy character is a voidborn cleric. With DH you roll for background and quirks, I got 'born on a space-hulk' and 'elegant hands' as my recognisable quirks. Focusing on the first, Akadia became almost tribal in her dedication to the god-emperor due to her uncivilised upbringing, gathering totems and items and using vicious weapons (an eviceserator being her current favoured toy) as the campaign developed. These include the skull of an adopted bird that was eaten and an unhealthy attachment to a lamp which she has an almost maternal bond with. These details (both from the character gen and from the campaign itself) and the anecdotes that accompany them are what make me love a character, the fact she can dual-wield hand-cannons and wave a chainsword almost her own height are bonuses and fun to mess with. So come on players, invest a little in your characters and crucially make these things pop-up in game. Going back to my DH group, one of my comrades plays a pacifistic psyker who refuses to kill people unless absolutely necessary. This is actually quite fun when you get used to it (and as he is easily the most powerful character in the group, get used to it we did) and makes the character memorable.

Memorable characters are mourned and protected, the schadenfreude that drives me as a CoC GM loves the anguish experienced by a player losing a well-developed character, which is one of the reasons I try not to kill my players every session. The guy who's characters die every other session and do so because of his intended decisions is unlikely to mourn character #7 any more than #1, but equally he will not be memorable for the other players or myself and that seems a bit pointless really.

So, what's the GMs part in this? I think one of the other key faults lies with GMs who don't require enough from their players. If you just roll up stats and stick a name at the top of the sheet without anything else and then jump into a game, what message are you sending? That your pen and paper character is like a video game character: a list of numbers that interact with other numbers and when the health bar runs out you get a new one, probably nearly identical to this one. That's certainly how I felt with my first character. A Dragonborn Paladin in a 4e D&D game who breathed poison and could heal people once a day or so. He was just a stat block so I didn't care if he died or lived. And it's the same in my current CoC campaign, when I started I didn't ask for enough detail (I asked basically for occupation, hometown, siblings and a single memorable event from their history). Now a couple of players went beyond and detailed histories but these tend to be the ones who are roleplaying more anyway. The others simply picked a stat, pumped it up really high and then built a flimsy concept to explain it. In conclusion, while GMs can do somethings to encourage player engagement, at the end of the day it's all about engaging your players if you want deaths to be memorable and a decent deterrant.

Upcoming Posts

As much as a reminder for me as any (and I'm not convinced there are at the moment) readers out there, this is the plan with current projects:

- I've got a copy of the 'Mortal Coils' coming in the post, which has been recommended many times and I'm quite excited to read it and I'll post my thoughts when I do.

- Runequest II also came yesterday so I may post some plans for a campaign for that. Also a very interesting magic system which has got me thinking about different magic systems but I don't know if enough for a full post

- The Burning Stars from Terrors From Beyond for CoC. Running this legendary scenario for a one-off group this Sunday and due to the high amount of interest in the scenario over at Yog-Sothoth I'll be posting a write-up of the scenario and a semi-review. 

Probable rants on:

- Leveling vs Stat increases, character progression in general

- RPG Book Design

- Death (and other ways of permanently retiring characters)

Starting an RPG blog. Oh how original...

Please note that the date is wrong. It's 2011. The purpose of this blog has changed a couple of times so it keeps getting edited.

So it appears I've been allowed to run a Call of Cthulhu game for some guys at my uni's gaming and rpg society. Frankly I'm quite looking forward to it. I started keeping relatively recently and as such am looking for opportunities to improve. Needless to say, being given free reign over a bunch of freshers to torment and drive insane is as good an exercise as any, and I relish the anticipation.

While I wish not to publish details of myself of others on the 'net, if you have any suspicions that you're in my group, please don't read the majority of this blog. Anything tagged 'player safe' will be fine for you. Similarly, for everyone else, these will be the posts containing no spoilers etc. so beware

While I haven't actually got my players yet (and thus perhaps this blogging thing is a little preemptive), I shall be assigned them in a week or so. They have to express an interest, and there are plenty of alternative groups running D&D and Shadowrun etc (though I don't recall any WoD DMs which is odd...) so I should get players who are willing to buy in properly. Not that I'd put up with people who had been arbitrarily stuck in my group. Nor they with me if they had any sense at all. So I thought I'd start be examining the probable course that at least the initial sessions will take. At some point, after they're settled, I want to run them through Spawn of Azathoth. A) because it looks fun, varied and interesting, B) because even relatively new players should have a decent chance with it and C) because I don't want to spoil a 'classic' campaign like Masks, HoTOE or BTMoM when there is a good chance we may not finish it and all the players are relatively new etc. etc.

However, that is probably getting a bit ahead of myself at this point. Obviously I need to introduce them to the concepts of the game and all first. So, where to start?

I think the rulebook will be the best place. I'll be introducing the rules verbally as and when we need them and allowing them to read the rules and skills etc. on their own time if they're interested, so there'll be no need for quick-start sheets or anything. This approach has worked well before and thus prevents a lengthy discussion on the mechanics of grappling followed by a dozen or so sessions of gaming in which no one even thinks about using the skill.

But, more importantly (I think), I shall be running a scenario from said rulebook. No, not that one. I dislike The Haunting, having run it before. It's ok, but I feel it's too dungeon-crawly for my tastes, and crucially -SPOILER- the player research plays absolutely no part and has no relevance at all. And certainly doesn't help defeat the Giant Mook. (Welcome back, I have no doubt that link just consumed a good 4 hours of your day. Sorry.) -/SPOILER-

No. I shall be running Edge Of Darkness. It looks a much more solid adventure, with some -SPOILER- nice magicky bits and zombies and research that will actually help, what with the ritual and all. -/SPOILER-. After that, I'll probably run something from the Dreamlands box to get them acquainted with that particular setting too. Then a couple of practice adventures to segue into the beginning of Spawn, by introducing familiar NPC A. Or Plot-Hook-Man as you may know him, he features in many major campaigns/adventures, but requires a little effort to get the players invested in him...

More notes to follow as I prep for the first session.