On Fantasy Heartbreakers, New Games, and You... No, I mean "and Me"

So I'm hard at work on LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, due in 2010, and I've got a lot of things on my mind. Retail distribution has been put on the table, and I'm currently crunching factors concerning that. How the two previous sentences will impact the overall module release schedule needs to be determined. Hammers of the God artwork is done and will be delivered this week, and there are other things both good and crap happening with LotFP as a publishing entity.

A couple things ahead of time, because I'll know they'll be coming sooner or later.

"Fantasy Heartbreaker." As much as I hate Forge-derived terms being used in actual conversation, internet or otherwise, using them wrong is even more maddening. All I have to say about the matter as it relates to my game is that my goal is 500 copies sold, and I don't intend it to be The Next Big Thing or take over the OSR, let alone gamerdom. The design goals for changes to the system are to satisfy two things from my point of view: Explaining traditional game elements so they make sense, and power issues. Oh yeah, and Things Never Actually Covered by most versions of the game.

It'll basically be The Game, just from my own point of view. Full compatibility with other OSR systems is a must; I will make no changes that cause compatibility problems. What will make this product (for I don't even believe that I am creating a new game at all) distinct and hopefully appealing is that point of view and the fact that it will be made with complete beginners in mind (well, at least the Introduction booklet). Only one part of the package will be "The Rules."

In keeping with OSR traditions, the rulebook will be available as a free download. It will be 100% Open Game Content, barring trademarks and artwork of course. The other portions of the box set won't be, but I don't think that will be a problem once you see how it's all laid out.

The license to declare compatibility on products will be very liberal, but I hereby declare that if just talking about compatibility on blogs and message boards, other makers of OSR games and material have my permission to discuss similarities and differences between their products and mine (an OGL Section 7 issue, for those wondering). I'd appreciate the same courtesy in return!

I'll post whatever I have ready on Friday (Character Creation rules at least) as Version 0.01, and then update that whenever a new section is done. I expect critique and comments all along the way! Discussion has already started here.

Death Frost Doom back in stock at Noble Knight!

Use your Christmas money here! These will be the last print copies available in North America for some months (although the European vendors listed there to the right each have a few copies if you want to pay that shipping...).

And pick up a few other OSR items at Noble Knight at the same time!

What is Role-Playing?

Ever read a book or watch a movie and wondered what would have happened if it were real? If there wasn't an author's guiding hand moving events to their inevitable conclusion? If the characters stopped acting like they're supposed to in a given situation according to the audience the story is supposed to appeal to, and just did what they felt like doing at the time? If nobody knew what the ending was supposed to be?

Role-playing is what happens when you accept a fantastic world and then throw away the script and pre-conceived expectations of how a story is supposed to unfold, and start pretending that it's actually happening.

LotFP Customer Survey: Three Questions!

Grinding Gear style heavy stock maps or No Dignity in Death style pull-out section?

The printing in the booklets... is it fine, or should it be bigger?

The monster stats... do you like the format? If not, what should it be?

The answers to the first two questions directly affect the cost of a product. The third is purely a preference issue.

And Merry Holidays to you...

Experience: What to Award it For?

This has been going around the forums and blogs... again.

My thoughts:

• Experience should be awarded on concrete, objective standards.
• Experience should be easily tracked and awarded.
• Experience should be awarded based on things the characters don't have to do in-game.
• Experience should be awarded based on things anyone in the game can do.

So then.

I'm not going to deal with fiddly crap like fighters getting experience for fighting, magic-users getting experience for casting spells, blah blah. They players will come up with reasons to do this stuff when totally inappropriate just because they get experience for it.

Experience for role-playing? No way, because that usually means somebody is grading someone else's game performance on a completely subjective basis. Nobody should feel pressured to engage in amateur dramatics if all they want to do is say, "My guy asks that guy there if he knows where that thing is." Someone who's had a bad day at work, just got dumped two days before, maybe they're glad to get out amongst friendly types and play the game but don't want to engage. Maybe they don't really even feel like being there so much just this one week but don't want to screw the game up for the rest of the group and so show up anyway and just do the minimum on their end to keep everything going. I don't want to be a dick to those people by penalizing them in comparison to other players.

Experience for exploration? On the surface this seems like a good idea and in tune with the themes of the game, but... I just watched all the Vacation movies in the past couple weeks, and it gives me visions of the PCs turning into Clark Griswold and arranging their triptiks for no reason other than to do and see it all. "Come on guys, let's go see The Cave That Looks Like an Ear!" If a character dies, do the players decide to tour the party around all the old haunts to give the replacement character that exploration experience?

There is experience for monsters, but you know what? Even though it fits all my criteria above, I don't like giving experience for monsters. Not a single point. What frickin moron (I'm talking in-game... I know plenty of frickin moron players that enjoy that sort of thing... ;) ) wants to fight weird and deadly beasts? Shouldn't that be an obstacle to a further goal than an end unto itself?

But those ends... goal and plot point oriented awards strike me as too arbitrary and almost self-congratulatory for the referee. "Hey, you guys willingly went along on this adventure! Have some XP! The award is exactly as much as I think it should be for you!" There might as well not even be an experience system. Just level the guys up whenever you want them to fight harder stuff. Why not?

Experience for gold is sublime in its effectiveness in taking everything involved with the playing of the game and abstracting it to an easily trackable game mechanic. You can't think of it literally - "Oh gee, I found a gold coin in the street, so I'm a little bit better at what I do!" - but the placing of gold in places that require role-playing, or mission-solving, or dealing with monsters, or exploration, or characters using their class abilities, effectively summarizes and rewards those activities. And all you have to do is keep track of how much money is gained during adventuring.

Now I would make that an important clause: Money gained during adventuring. If someone opens an inn and profits, they should just get the money, not experience, else every successful merchant will be a high-level NPC. The same for rulers and taxes (the "every ruler is a very high level character" thing was a major problem in the Mentzer rules that broke any chance of my believing in a setting using those rules as-is).

This does require that treasure sometimes be spread in areas where it might not make the most sense for treasure to be, and does result in de facto story awards at times anyway ("Rescue my daughter and I'll pay you 1000 gold!" has to be considered gold given for adventuring), but there are variable ways to go about it.

Players can say, "Up yours, railroader!" if they don't like a particular storyline and go tool around for random encounters in the wilderness hoping to stumble across a lair with treasure, and get experience for it. It doesn't require them to talk in character when they don't feel like it, it doesn't require referees to bend over backwards trying to come up with hooks that intersect with every character's backstory (WHO GIVES A SHIT?) and gives PCs automatic motivation to get up the hell out of the house (no "why should I?" crap from "players" who act like they need to be convinced to play after they've already shown up to the game).

With variable paths and variable activities resulting in variable amounts of treasure, what the PCs do at every turn potentially affects their experience total. With plain story awards, it doesn't matter how things happen. "You saved the princess! Here's some XP, on me!" With treasure for experience, the process becomes important. "You saved the princess, and did X and Y to do it, netting you Z experience." But if the PCs didn't discover the identity of the secret conspirator, or just didn't follow up on it, they can still save the princess and accomplish their goal but missed out on the side-issue that they could also have benefited from in objective terms, not just nebulous "story awards."

Complications can be thrown in as well. What if the way to XP is something that delays or derails the PCs from their in-character goals? That becomes an interesting choice to make... further the "story," or sacrifice it in the name of accumulating power? Done frequently, that's a dick referee move, but done every so often, and you create some real tension and debate at the table.

It makes people who want to be honorable heroes have to decide to be so, perhaps at a real cost that more roguish characters would not have to pay. You know, making players play their characters as heroic instead of just writing it down and then playing it any old way you want. (especially if you only divide experience among the survivors! Hee hee, stab you in the back, my XP take just went up 25%!)

And of course in the traditional dungeon crawl, finding the most treasure is a direct indication of player skill (and luck!). Players that aren't so skilled are going to miss a lot of the hidden treasure, make bad choices in pursuing the more obvious treasure.

So many things you can do.

The entire experience system, and indeed the entire class and level system, is an abstraction. Breaking it down to the level of "This is the sort of thing that makes people better at their skills in real life" and trying to apply that to an abstract system just makes my head hurt.

Gold for experience just seems like the simple way to do things. I don't know the exact thought behind the experience system as originally presented in early D&D, but it (especially after Supplement I slashed the experience awards for monster slaying), like many early D&D systems which seem to be "illogical" or examples "sloppy design," actually turn out to be far more flexible and applicable than perhaps they were ever intended to be.

Selection from the Suppressed Library of the Temple of the Old Miner

Summary of the Fourth Volume of the Chronicles of the Time of Great Changes:

Chronicle of the establishment of Control Zones by the dwarfs as a solution to “the goblin problem.” All goblins living within dwarf lands are relocated to these zones. These zones will be guarded so that no one is allowed in or out without proper permits. The goblins are told that if they wish to re-integrate with dwarf society, they must succeed in organizing their own affairs first. A senior dwarf Councilor is quoted as saying, “If they can not behave, they will suffer.”

How to Stock a Library

We're in the middle of the International Snow Like a Motherfucker Festival, as continents on both sides of the Atlantic get hammered by the wonderful, wonderful white stuff this weekend. It's snowing sideways outside my window right now.

But I'm thinking in four dimensions right now. There's the upcoming Hammers of the God, the upcominger Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill, the right-around-the-corner Death Ferox Doom, and the further-down-the-line plans for LotFP Traditional Fantasy Role-Playing.

The problem with ideas is that having these ideas and imaging how it'll turn out is the exciting part. Fleshing it out and writing the stuff, that's work, and while working, ideas come for other projects that seem much more inviting and awesome because they haven't reached the stage of needing work yet!

But Hammers of the God is done writing-wise except for the history of the location which in many ways is the main feature of the adventure from a writing point of view. I'm sure from a GM and player perspective, the thrilling locations and deadly foes and diabolical traps will be the most interesting feature of the adventure.

Of course, six rooms' descriptions depend on that history, so it's a bit less done than that paragraph makes it sound. The final pieces of art still aren't finished (but I've approved the sketches) and the map's not done yet so I've got some time.

The context that the adventure that became Hammers of the God was run in (ugly sentence, sorry) won't work for a commercial release, as it was adventure #2 of the Vaasa campaign, and it was used to communicate important information about what the campaign was, and that campaign lasted a full year. Obviously I can't do that for general release... or can I?

One of the important points within the location of Hammers of the God is the library. At the time of the original running, the books that were there were not so important. It was the book that was not there that was important for spurring the players to later action.

For the commercial release, I'm swapping that. The book that isn't there will be very ominous and may very well inspire a campaign arc for referees, but it's not the matter at hand. So the rest of the books in the library all need to have relevance to the location itself. Or at least a significant number of books needs to be relevant; irrelevant books will just be there to divert and delay attention, and perhaps misdirect PCs into harm whereas the relevant books will help them avoid harm.

How to do this?

A random table, sure, but it seems like cheating to throw in a random table with quick information like it's some damn rumors-at-the-tavern table.

No, I've got 100 index cards, and I'm writing a short synopsis of a book's contents on each one. When I get to the end, I'll put them in chronological order according to in-game writing date, then decide which bits are boring or extraneous and eject them. With the ones that are left, I'll see how each particular one might be able to be twisted around or have some "historical perspective" and spin doctoring put upon it, so a single subject might have multiple books - with conflicting information.

Then I'll come up with titles for each of these books, write up coherent summaries of their contents to be given to players who want their characters to take the time to translate these books, and put them in a list in chronological order so the referee can see the Big Picture, and tack random numbers on to each of them so the referee can randomly determine which book the PCs are rifling through at the moment. This whole thing will be stuck in the back of the adventure as an appendix so it doesn't clog up however many pages right at the beginning of the module.

The result will be a fully-stocked, no-cheating library for the players to research within, or not (things in there will definitely make life easier for the PCs, but nothing will be necessary to proceed to certain areas). It's already an interesting experiment to write, and I can't wait to see how it turns out, and how it is received by the people who buy the adventure.

I've always thought of traditional fantasy adventuring to be something akin to Indiana Jones-style archaeology. That there are ruins and treasure (and foes and conflict) are all good and well, but the success of the expedition depends on research and knowledge. Indy is a second-generation academic, you know. Gandalf pulled the same sort of thing when he visited Minas Tirith before returning to inform Frodo about the nature of his Ring. Pushing this sort of thing as necessary in an adventure might be pushing it, but making it available is something that should be done more often!

Dan O'Bannon 30.9.1946 - 17.12.2009

I normally don't do the death announcement thing, but Dan O'Bannon is a name I think that is not well known, and should be.

He wrote Alien, which is impressive enough.

He was one of the writers for the Heavy Metal movie, which is cool enough.

He was one of the writers for Total Recall, which is huge enough.

He was involved with Dark Star, which is cult enough.

But one project which made the name "Dan O'Bannon" important to me is Return of the Living Dead.

Return of the Living Dead is just a great movie. The characters seem very real to me, even (especially?) today, the effects are (mostly) excellent, and the humor that is in the movie is entirely situational (unlike the piece of shit Return of the Living Dead 2, which O'Bannon was not involved with).

This movie is also responsible for one of the few vivid memories I have of my father. He and my mother split when I was quite young, and I didn't see all that much of him except when he'd take me (sometimes with brother in tow) to the movies. In this case, I can see him now, head in his hand as Linnea Quigley danced naked on a tombstone, wondering why he ever thought it was a good idea to take boys aged 10 and 6 to see this movie. Fun times. :D

In my many years interviewing low-fame musicians, I became a fan of people willing and able to be self-critical. O'Bannon's commentary on the DVD also showed him to be fairly down to Earth and not full of his own bullshit. I've seen directors do commentary on failed (creatively, financially, or both) movies that have no connection to reality and act like the film was absolutely great and well-received and talk like every idea they had was awesome (for instance, when I listen to an M. Night Shyamalan commentary, even on his good movies, I want to punch the idiot, and I wonder if he pays people specifically to tell him how every turd he drops in the toilet is a brilliant expression of artistry). O'Bannon took a movie that was well-made and profitable (though hardly a hit) and pointed out his mistakes as a director as well as where he felt the film failed in particular instances (his frustration over one special effect in particular rings very true...).

I associate the movie with O'Bannon more than the more famous examples because this one was his. He co-wrote the movie (including the bits that gave it its charm) and directed it. His more well-known projects are primarily associated with other people (Ridley Scott, John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven, etc).

He gave us "BRAINS!" so something that was all his has entered the general culture, even if people don't exactly know where it comes from.

So yeah, thank you Mr. O'Bannon, you did some good work, some inspirational work, and through that work made quite an impression on at least one person in this world.

Adventure Design as Motivation to Alter Spell Choices. Also, Movement!

B/X Blackrazor talks about the water weird here. I haven't used one in a real game in quite some time (there is a Urine Weird in Green Devil Face #1 but I did advertise that it wasn't actually ever played...), but the key part of that post to me was: "Most players simply aren't carrying a purify water spell in their repertoire."

Too true. I know that most of the time when I'm presenting Adventure of the Week, spell selection looks like this for clerics: Cure Light Wounds, Cure Light Wounds, Cure Light Wounds, Cure Light Wounds (etc for as many level 1 slots available). For magic users: Magic Missile, Magic Missile, Magic Missile, Magic Missile (etc ditto)/Sleep, Sleep, Sleep, Sleep (etc ditto) (depending on whether it is expected to encounter Big Baddies or masses of Small Baddies). Strength gets taken for level two to enhance the fighter for fights. I suspect as soon as the magic-user gets a Lightning Bolt or Fireball, that'll get taken every time, but right now it's Haste.

Alternate spells are taken afterwards, on the second trip to a location if it is suspected they might be useful. But seemingly never on a first trip.

On one hand, this all makes sense. Perfect sense.

On the other hand, this only makes sense because the way I set up my dungeons and adventures allow it all to make sense.

So, is this "move in with combat spells loaded, scout out the locations and eliminate opposition, then show up tomorrow with the intel spells" pattern unique to my games because I suck at first-go-round dungeon/adventure writing? Or do other people see this happen as well?

Is it even a problem? As a referee, should I be concerned with this and come up with ways to discourage this way of going about things?

Let me rephrase. As a referee, should I be concerned with this and frequently come up with ways to discourage this way of going about things?

... and then, movement.

Movement in D&D and the clones is in many ways... weird. In Wednesday's Insect Shrine game, there ended up being a situation where combat happened where everyone was far, about 100' apart. And per-round (10 seconds) encounter movement for a heavily-encumbered (filled up to the gills with oil, etc) characters wearing plate mail armor is... 10'.

So there was a lot of problems with PCs getting caught out in the middle of nowhere (relatively speaking) and not being able to do anything because their immediate foes were eliminated and it was a long way to the next cluster of combat. Labyrinth Lord (the system we were using) was kind enough to have running speed (which someone looked up partway through the combat), which was full-turn movement in the round, with lots of exhaustion penalties.

There was some grumbling. And I felt bad at the time.

But you know what?

On further reflection... the good guys and the bad guys (or the PCs and the NPCs if we don't want to play hero) were operating with the same rules, and if you want the AC protection of plate mail, this slow-as-molasses movement is the balance. I didn't see the unencumbered guy with the greater movement trying to complain that his AC wasn't too great, you know?

I'm lax about enforcing encumbrance. Sometimes I'm positive that every PC has 6 weapons and 5,000gp worth of copper coins, 6 weeks of rations, 45 flasks of oil, and that 50 pound art object they just found all in their backpack and two sacks, and that's not counting the weapon, shield, torch, and ten foot pole in hand. Plus somebody's mapping. I want to keep things focused on what they're doing instead of what they're carrying and not be a hardass making everyone explain every last piece of equipment they're carrying. (this did cause a rather amusing situation one time where a player had "a backpack" that had everything the guy ever picked up in an adventure, including I believe three spellbooks... that became an issue when the thing burst while he was suspended over a body of water) Even if they are technically carrying an allowable amount of encumbrance (albeit heavy), there's doubt in my mind whether they could physically fit all this stuff on them.

So yeah, likely my players get away with hell equipmentwise. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. Or maybe there's one character who isn't carrying squat compared to the others because the player is actually keeping track (this would be me if I were a player, incidentally).

I dunno. I'm trying to concentrate on the things I need to do during a session and trust the players to not cheat the living hell out of the game. I don't think I've ever looked at one of their character sheets between sessions. I drop the closed character folder on the table before the game and ask them to make sure all the sheets are back in there before they leave for the night.

So I don't think I've ever looked at any of my current campaign's players' character sheets... ever.

But I'm still not going to stress about it.

You know what else I'm not going to do? Put up with any complaints, should they come, about 10'-per-round combat movement.

And I'm going make it a point to put some (not constant...) situations where such things matter.

Not to be a dick.

Let me rephrase. Not just to be a dick.

But to make the choice of wearing heavy armor, and the choice of suiting up with every piece of equipment known to adventurerdom, a meaningful choice with consequences.

RPG Pundit reviews People of Pembrooktonshire

Here.