In Favor of Repetition

• In Favor of Repetition

• In Favor of Repetition

• In Favor of Repetition

• In Favor of Repetition

• In Favor of Repetition

It bears repeating.

I'm working on a Pb STARTER BOX (more on that as GLAUGUST rolls around), and one of the things I wrote up was a strange theatrical horror dungeon. As a piece of work, I think it's strong- I could run a deliciously creepy game with it- but something nags at me about it, and the language of In Favor of Repetition helps me pin down why I feel like it's out of place in what's supposed to be a quintessential Pb adventure.

In the Motescape, there are two types of dungeon: tombs and shrines.

Tombs are ruins, overripe with dead worlds. Hulking, rusted war machines that predate man's discovery of fire, sunken castles with alabaster towers, ruined alchemical laboratories reclaimed by malignant molds. What was here is gone, and what is here is dying too.

Shrines are touched by God. Riverbend altars to local spirits, bloodstained altars in fungal groves, byzantine chemical cathedrals. Sites of worship where the stories of the saints crackle with holy life.

The best Pb dungeons are sites that work through the problems of faith and death. How do we shirk their duties, embrace them? How are they swallowed by empire? What is it to live, to live, in the ruins of generations who never found the answers they, too, sought?

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

"Do every challenge in 500 words or less": an elaboration

Thanks to Loch for carrying the torch another year forward.

So, for the speedrunning, either...

A) Do 6 prompts, each entry being 500 words or less.

B) Do 6 prompts, which should sum to 500 words.

C) Do all 36 prompts, each entry being 500 words or less.

or, most frighteningly...

D) Do all 36 prompts, which should sum to 500 words. (This will include a game, 3 dungeons, and a "megaclass", and ~400 of its words must be sourced from the extant work of one literary artist.)

...I'm sticking to A or B.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Pb levels

LEVELS. Every time you gain a LEVEL, to a maximum of 10, choose a relevant TITLE and roll on the table below. You have ADVANTAGE on rolls pertaining to your TITLES.

1-3: 3 stat points to distribute. Stats cannot exceed 18.

4-5: +2 max HP, to a max of 20. After that, gain 3 stat points to distribute instead.

6: CLASS ability.

    WARRIOR: +1 favored weapon OR +1 SCAR range.

    PICARO: +1 KNACK.

    ALCHEMIST: +1 ELIXIR per day.

    ZEALOT: +1 MIRACLE or +1 CHARGE.

    SORCEROR: +1 INCANTATION or +1 CHARGE.

    OCCULTIST: +1 TECHNIQUE or +1 CHARGE.

LEVELING. For each campaign, define how LEVELS are gained. For example:

    -Attend your LEVEL in sessions.

    -Defeat your LEVEL x 10 foes.

    -Waste your LEVEL x 1000 gold.

    -Find an ARTIFACT, singular and hidden.

--

     I recently wrapped a short playtest campaign for Valley of Lune, a delightful sandbox ran by friend of the blog Hilander. This game was my first exposure to Cairn, a delightful little Into the Odd hack. Like Into the Odd, or another personal favorite ICRPG, Cairn characters generally don't have innate abilities, but are instead differentiated by the equipment they carry and use.

    I didn't notice this as the campaign unfolded, but after the game wrapped up, looking down at my character sheet and realizing that my character's capabilities had not changed in the wake of a fairly elaborate adventure, I found myself missing leveling up. It would have been nice to see the growth my character had experienced over the course of the game more tangibly reflected on my character sheet. I realized that I'd need to add levels to Pb (without breaking the minimalist sensibility, of course) if I want to make it sustainable for long-term play.

    Speaking of, I have ambitions to write a Pb sandbox. I've had the pleasure to play in a few sandbox, or at least open-world, campaigns in the past year or so, and I want to put the lessons I've learned from those great DMs into practice. I also want to exercise the muscle of putting what makes a setting cool on the table and in play- meeting SAINTS, discovering where all the titanium is, exploring below the Æther level, all of those things that let players feel like they're movers and shakers in the world instead of side characters in a novelistic canon. Hopefully there'll be more to share with that soon.

In the meantime, as always, thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Was playing a game this evening...

 ...and I was thinking about risk aversion in dungeon games.

    There are many benefits to a high-risk, high-lethality game environment. When characters are vulnerable, one false move could spell their end, and every choice takes on increased meaning and impact. It's an easy way of heightening a game's emotional impact, and even works in extreme cases of murder-hoboery.

    The trouble with these environments is that they, naturally, inspire risk-averse play. This is only logical, appropriate, and encouraged. However, the heuristics involved in risk aversion means that the right decision is often the boring one. For example, I don't think I'm alone in the following default behaviors:

-It would take external time pressure, or the promise of reward, to leave an open road across easy terrain. I won't, say, cut through the forest instead of circumnavigating it, even if it's deeply convenient.

-When I'm choosing between pathways in a dungeon (for example), all else being equal, I'll avoid virtually all sounds. Then, I'll avoid virtually all smells. Then, I'll avoid virtually all light.

-Once my blood has been drawn, I will not parlay, even if the option is offered.

    Do you see the problem here? The risk-averse choice is almost tautologically similar to the boring one. The game world signposts its most interesting, dynamic elements. If you're in a high-danger game, these elements are liabilities, and customarily avoided. If you're in a low-danger game, poor choices don't have meaningful consequences, and the whole experience risks sagging.

    Even when I make the conscious choice to "play the character who pushes the button", a niche I love to occupy, there's a difference between assuming a personal risk and suggesting a potentially risky behavior for the whole party. That is to say, in my experience, the very same glue that holds the adventuring party together keeps it from making bold decisions.

    I don't think this problem has one clean solution. XP for gold helps, but doesn't solve the problem. Aggressive time pressure, and clear and specific objectives, often help, but aren't always possible to implement, and in cases of extreme stringency can lead to myopia, exacerbating the issue. Parity between choices (down this hall you hear laughing, down the other you hear chains rattling) neatly sidesteps the issue, but isn't always feasible.

    The most concrete suggestion I can give is to design adventures with risk aversion in mind. Intentionally build incentives to risk into the structure of the adventure, and design choice points to minimize the impact of risk averse play. Reward risk early, instead of merely not punishing it, so the party learns quickly that big swings can be worthwhile. Above all, assume by default that a party will interact with an adventure conservatively- if that would steer them away from what makes the adventure cool, consider putting those elements closer within reach.

    If you have other suggestions or thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Does this reflect your experience of OSR+ play? If you're a DM, or a player, how do you contend with these challenges?

    Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

The Raining Place

You want to know why it rains, my child? I’ll tell you.

Once upon a time, there was a great king. This first king of the elves was named Solomon in our tongue. In his lifetime, he performed three great miracles.

The first great miracle of King Solomon was the binding of the spirits. The Solomonasya Mudra, or the Great Seal, once held the boundary between the Spirit World and our own. Now it lies sundered, and the spirits have returned to roam free.

The second great miracle of King Solomon was the founding of Svadeshah. At its height, the shining kingdom of the elves was said to wrap the world from end to end in a great chain of gold. Now its great spires lie fallen and ivy-choked, its glittering underpalaces ruined and mouldering.

The third great miracle of King Solomon was the creation of the mortal races: dwarves from rock, goblins from soil, and humans from clay. Under the rule of the elves, their kingdoms grew vast and rich, and their bonds ran deep as blood. Now, their lonely empires sit at the brink of collapse, and the peace they tenuously maintain threatens to buckle under the weight of old grudges.

A century ago, the elves disappeared, and the sky wept for them. It hasn’t yet stopped. This land is called Varshasthanam in their memory. In the tongue of the elves, it means the Raining Place.

WEATHER. Churning clouds have blanketed the sky for as long as the elves have been absent.

1 Lightest mist

2 Wet fog

3 Smallest drops

4 Gentle patter

5 Steady rain

6 Downpour

7 Deluge

8 Thunderstorm

HUMANS. Of every type, and every mien. Dwarves stay in the mountains and the caverns below, goblins hole up in the deep forests, but humans roam to every edge and corner of this world.

DWARVES. After a dwarf is born, their clan anoints them in molten metal. This metal rolls off their crystal hair and already-hardened hands to pool and calcify in the cracks that streak their stone flesh. Bronze dwarves are laborers and craftspeople. Silver dwarves are scholars and administrators. Gold dwarves are warriors and nobles. It is said outcastes bathe their kin in tin.

GOBLINS. Some look like bits of rock and moss stuck through with fresh-torn sticks. Some look like mud-stained burlap dolls, loping and ragged. Some look like patchwork skeletons of animal bones held together with twine and rusty nails. Goblins, eternal children, fashion each other out of whatever they can scrounge up, building themselves families out of spit and stitches and love.

SPIRITS. Miniscule or titanic, kindhearted or impish, anthropoid or alien, everything in this world has its own spirit. These otherworldly souls, live wires of emotion and energy, live in painfully technicolor vividness. They are foreign to the world of man, and uneasy in its ways.

ELVES. The elves have left this world. Where have they gone? What did they take with them?

This is an informal GLoGtober gift for my dear friend Hilander. He was talking the other day about a setting he had had some abortive progress in designing. This is a gesture towards that setting- hopefully it inspires some new insight, or progress.

This is designed around Hilander's Felwoods, or rather, an older edition of Felwoods; if my memory serves, there was an older version of the game with a Spiritcaller in lieu of a Cleric. It's a fabulous-looking game, and when I'm next running a crunchier (by my standards) fantasy game, I'll probably be taking it for a spin myself.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

On Scarcity

     Here's something that I, as a DM, don't quite know how to wrap my head around. It seems, however, to be a cornerstone of a particular type of play I surround myself with. I'd love to hear from other minds on it, to see if I can figure out how to make it work for me.

    The most elementary case: I don't get how to make tracking light in dungeons fun. When you run out of light, I stop being able to describe the space you're in on visual terms, and so you lose virtually all of your chances to interact with the world in a knowledgeable way. When you're out of light, your only sane option is to backtrack (so no new exploration), and you're incredibly vulnerable to ambush and punishingly difficult combat. Losing light is a fail state that grinds the game to a halt, has the potential to invite catastrophic danger, and is avoided by spending money (which could be spent on cooler things than torches) and space (which could be spent carrying more unique equipment and treasure). I don't know how to make tracking light a more interesting game than not tracking light.

    A similar case: I use Usage Dice mechanics because I don't get how to make tracking ammunition fun. Looking down at my sheet and counting the arrows until I'm unable to shoot my cool weapon (which is, of course, one of the core ways of interacting with the game), and then needing to shell out a few coins whenever I get to town just to keep using it, feels like a bummer.

    I feel like I "get" keeping characters scarce on gold, or keeping them on foot instead of giving them a caravan or an airship by default, because the problems associated therewith produce interesting gameplay that keeps the momentum up. But things like light, ammunitions, rations, etc., stultify the players instead of propelling them into interesting situations, and resources they spend avoiding this stultification aren't worth the opportunity cost.

    What am I doing wrong? How does my analysis fail? I want to experience the thrill people seem to get out of these things, but I don't know how to square the circle for myself.

    Leave a comment, if you have thoughts. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

d20 animating conflicts (+weird terrains!)

    This recent, brilliant (as usual) post of Phlox's references a setting's animating conflict. It's the first time I recall seeing it on a blog, though I could swear it was in the zeitgeist before then. This is proving an increasingly useful concept for me. If I had to define it, an animating conflict is a conflict so essential to a setting it's impossible to describe it without its mention, and that any arbitrary dungeon game problem might be plausibly blamed on- this is in the service of creating a greater sense of cohesion and depth.

    Here are d20 generic conflicts that might serve as animating conflicts for a setting.

1 CASTE SYSTEM. Strict social classes delimit who has access to power.

2 CUTTING-EDGE. Technological growth outpaces cultural growth.

3 DECADENCE. A great nation shows signs of collapse from within.

4 FAMINE. Profound, desperate poverty grips a food-scarce mote.

5 FOREIGN CONQUERORS. Distant powers rule this mote by proxy.

6 INHOSPITABLE. The mote’s landscape is difficult to survive in.

7 LOST TREASURE. A world-changing bounty hides somewhere on the mote.

8 LOW-RIDING. The mote sits too close to the Æther’s maddening horror.

9 MONSTROUS TYRANNY. A demon rules unjustly and autocratically.

10 NOBLE HOUSES. Aristocratic bloodlines vie in cutthroat competition.

11 OTHERWORLDLY INCURSIONS. The walls between worlds wear thin.

12 PLAGUE. Disease ravages the land, bringing poverty and paranoia.

13 PROPHECY. A cryptically foretold doom suddenly begins to unfold.

14 REBELLION. A slighted population rises up against its oppressors.

15 RELIGIOUS FRINGE. The CHURCH combats an obscure foreign faith.

16 RELIGIOUS HEGEMONY. A dominant foreign faith combats the CHURCH.

17 RUSH. A boom causes an influx of riches and those who seek them.

18 TYRANNY. An all-powerful lord rules unjustly and autocratically.

19 WARRING MOTES. This mote is a home front in a large-scale war.

20 WARRING STATES. Competing nations carve up this mote in open war.

    As a sort of reverse-joesky tax, here's tables of exotic terrains you could encounter in the motescape. I'm thinking of running a limited-length Pb campaign for GLoG server people coming up soon, and I'm coming up empty in terms of putting the pieces together and actually making a game happen, so I'm generating all sorts of tools for myself in the hopes I'll use them. We'll see how that works.

THE SURFACE.

1 ASH DESERT. A terrible burn leaves only a sea of fine black cinders.

2 BLOOD MARSH. Rubidium deposits turn swamp water a violent crimson.

3 BONE WASTE. Titanic, alien skeletons jut madly out from the earth.

4 CHLORIC MOOR. A cloud of grey-green death drives off even the wind.

5 CORAL GRAVEYARD. A living sculpture garden survives a bygone ocean.

6 CRYSTAL FIELD. Raw jewel spires refract endless starlit rainbows.

7 GLASS DESERT. Lightning scours an expanse of silicate geometries.

8 HANGING GARDEN. Miniature vine-strung floating motes drip with life.

9 IMPERIAL RUIN. Shattered idols and fallen pediments choke the earth.

10 IRON SPIRES. Great metal fingers twist hungrily towards the stars.

11 LUMINOUS BLOOM. Carpets of phosphoric flowers glow in every hue.

12 MYCELIAL FOREST. Fungi flourish in the shade of titanic toadstools.

13 NOBLE VENTS. Geysers of pure gas erupt from deep below the ground.

14 PETROGLYPHIC COUNTRY. Every surface bears indecipherable glyphs.

15 ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN. Nail-sharp sugar gravel shreds most shoes.

16 RUST FIELD. Hulking war machines from before history deteriorate.

17 SINGING PLAIN. Hollow grasses whistle in harmony when wind blows.

18 SLAG VOLCANO. Molten metal spews up into the smog-choked sky.

19 SUGAR LAKE. Saccharine serpents swim in the cloying depths.

20 SUNDERED ZONE. Shattered chunks of mote hang limp in the sour air.

THE UNDERDARK.

1 ACID WELL. A great waveless lake devours living matter in seconds.

2 CHTHONIC SEA. Depths untouched by time teem with antediluvian life.

3 MAGMA VEIN. Molten rock burbles forth, boiling all in its path.

4 OIL OCEAN. Rippling rainbows shine against a bed of black gold.

5 OOZE COLONY. Pools and pockets of toxic slime ferment and burble.

6 PHOSPHORIC GROVE. Glowing crystals spell out strange constellations.

7 SALT SPINDLES. Eyeless beasts lick profane glyphs into sodic spires.

8 SCREAMING SHAFT. Howling wind wracks the rock, shrieking as it goes.

9 THE FLESH. Walls of sinew and bone writhe, slick with blood and pus.10-12 Roll as THE SURFACE.

    Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

(All those tables fit on one line of a google doc. Ugh. You'll just have to wait until they show up in a published version of Pb to see how sexy they actually are.)