Garamondia in Review (GLAUGUST 26)

  Louis du Garamond is a luminary newcomer to the GLoG scene (by my crusty old standards). I’ve read some of his work, but I never quite got into it the way others have. This GLoGtober is my excuse for exposure therapy. I’ve selected a small handful of his posts for totally subjective and personal review.

Pilot-in-Dreaming. A unique class, deftly expositing setting mystery, and a well-executed retire-as-monster capstone. The tension between the evocative concepts, reminiscent of Vulvania or the Bad Doctor, and quotidian mechanical text dulls the shine. 6/10

North, South, East, West. Punchy and cool. Are we supposed to go there, or is this a glorified rumor table? 9/10

Brain Ghosts. My career aspirations are as a songwriter for musical theatre. I often feel that, beyond the basic principles of engaging storytelling, there are limited ways to bring that experience into gaming. A unique, compelling, and theatrical monster is ingenious, and inspiring. Can I come up with an existentialism monster? A dad rock monster? 9/10

Modron Calculator. I don’t know if the Modron Calculator lives up to the beholder’s standard of iconicity, and I don’t know if it’s worth its weight in ink (do we need, say, Matrix? Or the banal things you’re signing off to do?), but there are some fun ideas hiding in the excess. “The next time you fight a Calculator there will be two of them. The third time there will be four, etc. etc.”- I really like that. 5/10

What are your Dragons/Who's in Charge. For a long time, I wasn’t sure what Pb’s dragons looked like, and now I do. Epochal post of ideas (save for the unremarkable Baroness). 10/10

Hatesteel Blades. Holy mechanical text, Batman! 2/10

How I Run Games. This was a very interesting post, but I was particularly struck by Louis’s description of his blog writing. “I really enjoy writing in this mode, totally detached from running games.” In my experience DMing, players get antsy when they’re not speaking. As I write for games, even when I’m getting heady, I try to design with verbal economy in mind- designing things that, even when they’re meant to be complex or alien, can be described and grasped in few words. I wonder how Louis would introduce the Barony to new players? Would its most abstruse elements, like image games, make it to the table? (How) can one offer its depths to a player who won’t take on assigned reading? (I have the same question for authors like Locheil.) 8/10

Overall, while Louis’s writing is often more verbose than I think is responsible, it’s more often compelling and inspiring than I’ve historically given it credit for. I don’t know if I’d read through his whole backlog, but I’ll certainly click a few more index links, and read his new output more consistently. (Leave any other must-reads in the comments.) Thank you, Louis, for your writing, and commitment to craft. We’re all bettered by it.

GLAUGUST 1: “Review Another's Blogpost.” Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

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.