Sunsetting Your Character

A Fitting End.

One of the potential problems with long term campaigns can occur as a result of the characters themselves. Campaigns can be described in many ways, focused or unfocused, plot driven or sandbox, but all revolve around its unique cast of characters.

Over the last 15+ months I have been following an online campaign that is using the "Advanced" 2e system. I won't mention the name or "channel" because I am not going to be particularly kind in my comments. Frankly this campaign see4ms to have outlasted its vitality and this is evidenced by the players who no longer "show-up" for scheduled sessions and by characters who now seem to lack purpose and direction. In other words, it has become tedious and boring to watch and probably to play. This is not how this campaign began, however. In its early sessions it was interesting and engaging. The setting was revealed to show depth and surprise and the characters acted as explorers and investigators as well as combatants. Somewhere along the way, the campaign lost its way and devolved into playing characters who although they are getting more powerful, they also are very much less fun to play and watch.

Every character in every campaign has a beginning when we as players "roll them up". Some characters die a violent death during play. Some succumb to disease or level drain. Some get rich and retire, maybe to become a recurring NPC in future campaigns or to run the local tavern. Too many characters are just abandoned, their ultimate fate lost to anonymity, largely due to the campaign being abruptly abandoned. 

There comes, even to kings, a time of great weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the diadem and upon the fingers of women sparkle drearily like the ice of the white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester's bell and the feeling comes of things unreal; even the sun is copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh. – from “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thane” by R. E. Howard 1929

At some point we all desire to play something new and our old character loses its appeal. Sometimes we just feel that we have exhausted all the interesting possibilities this character presents. Our PC's "story" may have been told and we have reached a logical stopping point with them. Maybe we are just bored with our PC, or maybe the "latest and greatest supplement" has given us an idea for a new and improved PC and we are looking to start anew? 

In many games the characters are there simply to explore the fictional world - the setting is the central element of this type of campaign and PCs may come and may go without serious consequence to the on-going campaign. This may seem "natural" and is often how the real world works for us adults as acquaintances come and go. Children may view the world, and everything in it, as being there merely to meet their needs, but we adults quickly learn that this is not the case. 

In a role-playing game where the PCs are the focus of play, the dynamics of an evolving "story" can be quite different than in a sandbox style game where the setting is being slowly revealed through exploration - during which play may involve many quests, each of which adds to the compiled lore that enriches the setting.

What seems logical to me is that a PC focused campaign should be planned from the beginning to be  of a relatively short term and should be goal oriented. A specific task for the PCs should be clearly defined and the cast of characters (and their players) devoted to accomplishing the task. This is quite similar to a novel such as the famous "walking the magic ring to mount doom" which has a beginning, middle and end. The character(s) should be facing some crisis which when resolved will complete the "story" and therefore the campaign. Wrap it up nicely - then move on to the next campaign.

Regardless of our reasons for retiring our old character, I would encourage us to see the character deserves a decent send-off. After all, has not our well-played PC given us hours of enjoyment, and probably provided us with some laughs along the way! By giving careful attention to exactly how the PC will "ride off into the sunset", we can nicely wrap up this particular chapter in our emergent story - and perhaps provide a plot hook for some future adventure.  

There and Back

The Journey to Middle-earth Adventure!

Of late I have been much  focused on Middle-earth as a setting for tabletop adventure gaming using an old school format. One of my goals has been to explore some ways to make my favorite FRP game feel more like the Middle-earth source material. Professor J.R.R. Tolkien created Middle-earth as a setting for some of his most famous works of fantastic fiction and inspired many of us gamers with a desire to bring that setting to the tabletop, Professor Tolkien treats Middle-earth somewhat differently in his various novels, namely The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, where narrative story is the goal and in the other related works, published posthumously and including the essential title The Silmarillion where the subject is more "history". When viewed all together, I see the "history" of the land and its people as having immense potential for gaming (and story telling) well beyond the events covered in the novels. I will henceforth treat the novels more as guidelines for how to adventure in the original author's style and the supplemental materials, including The Silmarillion, as reference works from which to draw details and inspiration for further adventure.

In each of his Middle-earth novels, The Good Professor takes us on a journey - mostly from the perspective of a humble hobbit. We walk out the front gate of Hobbittown and travel across the land having many exciting encounters with various peoples and creatures - all the while taking note of  the wonderous natural features that make Middle-earth so memorable. I think a game set in any version of Middle-earth ought to channel this inspirational style of the author and deliver some similar experience to the players. In other words make your game a journey!

The time spent traveling "there and back again" need not be a hand waved portion of the game, but rather offers the referee many opportunities to act as "travel guide" as one describes the world and narrates certain relevant "facts" about its various inhabitants. It is through exploration that the world takes on a living presence for the players. The combats are merely tests of fighting prowess (and hopefully clever play). Rolling for random encounters can reveal much more than a hungry beast or greedy bandit. By including natural and man-made features and encounters of a more mundane type (a really ancient forest, ruin, wandering tradesman, or grazing animal, etc) the players will get a better feel of for the setting and it will come alive! Having read the inspirational source material and drawing upon your knowledge of Middle-earth you will find that you will have much to share with your players. The opportunity for various "side-quests" may also present themselves as your players take special interest in something, or some one they encounter along the journey.

In previous posts (here, here, here and here).  I have discussed my views on taking liberties with the legendarium and making my own version of Middle-earth and how I might (and have in the past) adapted The World's First Role-Playing Game (as well as subsequent variations on the theme) for use in Middle-earth play. So let's begin to spin our (somewhat) original tale...

Wizard - Warrior - Dragon

"I tell you the old dragon, Smoke, or whatever his name is - he is dead! No one has seen hide nor hair of his scaly self in ages. Even the birds have returned to nest on the dwarf's mountain. You would think that would make the old wyrm roar if alive he be."

"What you say makes sense. The dragon may be dead. It has been a long time since he breathed fire and chased the dwarves out of their mountain. I can picture his great red-scaled bulk settling down atop that fabled mound of dwarven gold and gems - his great apatite sated with slightly charred dwarf flesh. A long nap he likely took then. Maybe even now he still slumbers?"

"No, I tell you the drake has passed on! He died in his long sleep - perhaps of indigestion! Dwarf flesh, ugh!" The crafty wizard smiles adding, "I picture his rotting bones now sitting atop that gleaming hoard. All that gold, just waiting."

"If the dragon is indeed gone, it will be just a matter of time before them greedy dwarfs, or other treasure hunters, start skulking about. Maybe we should go and take a peak? Maybe so?" The tin-clad warrior grins raising a bushy eyebrow.

So begins our journey into the dragon's lair deep under the mountain where a dwarven king once ruled. What the bold adventurers find is perhaps depicted on the Holmes Basic Set box cover below.

Inspiration for a fun adventure or an untold chapter and prequel to the events described in The Hobbit - you decide! 

Delving Deeper into Middle-earth

Hacking Basic D&D for Middle-earth

Middle-earth is often characterized as a "low magic" setting. Personally I take exception to this description as being somewhat oversimplified. The magic and wonder, the horror and dread that constitutes the fictional setting of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is all those things and more. Fantastic hardly begins to describe my feelings about Middle-earth or the nature of its lore, locales and creatures. A more imaginative place full of wonder and magic, I have seldom encountered.

Where The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game differs most from Middle-earth, in my humble opinion, is in scope. Even in its Basic edition, D&D is a "large tent" fantasy game in that it includes many things that do fit into Middle-earth, but also many things that don't. This is true if the game is compared to most any published setting drawn from popular literature. Fortunately, the game system is both robust and flexible and easily accommodates modifications without breaking the game. I firmly believe that the aspiring referee should "make the game their own" whether using Middle-earth as their setting, a homebrew realm or some other published world.

In my last post I discussed some quick modifications to adapt Basic - in particular the edition edited by J. Eric Holmes - for adventure gaming in Middle-earth. Chief among my suggestions is for the referee to carefully craft a "feeling" for either Middle-earth by name or for a close approximation of Middle-earth by drawing on various familiar tropes and images - and perhaps names and geographies - all with an eye toward conjuring associations with known aspects of the famous setting. Using descriptions and aspects of character that are consistent with Middle-earth, one leverages the power of the familiar in much the same way that all fantasy makes use of certain assumptions about the "real world" - things like gravity which causes a dropped object to fall to ground. 

Professor Tolkien's Middle-earth has more in common with a late dark-age or early medieval period when contrasted with the late medieval early renaissance feel of D&D. Hence, I would drop plate armor from the equipment list making chainmail (AC 5) the highest armor a "hero" is likely to achieve without access to better metals or magical enchantment. This immediately changes the "feel" of the milieu and makes characters and creatures a bit easier to hit and damage - both are desirable outcomes, I think. characters that hit more often are arguable more fun to play, and characters who are hit and damaged more often can result in players who consider entering melee more carefully. Combat should be a last resort in many situations.

Restructuring the Basic game to make it feel more like Middle-earth can include some significant changes to the mechanics, both subtracting from and adding to the rules as written in an effort to achieve the unique feel of adventuring in the Good Professor's fictional world (or one very similar). Chief among them is the selection of protagonists - the player characters. Fortunately, the Basic rules are pretty close to what is desired in this endeavor.

The Fighter  class will be the basis for most PCs. Players should be encouraged to choose humans and by offering a number of culture heritages based on the (free) peoples of Middle-earth, each with modest mechanical benefits such as proficiency with horses, or woodcraft, etc. the human heritages will make human PCs both more attractive to play and lend the proper feeling to your milieu.

The Cleric's  "Turn Undead" ability is a defining feature of D&D and is perhaps less appropriate for a game set in Middle-earth. I have both used the class and ability and also eliminated it while running my version of Middle-earth D&D and I think it can work either way. If "Turn Undead" is used, I suggest it be thought of as similar to "elven light", such as certain high-powered Noldor elves may occasionally display thereby causing evil creatures to be repelled and flee. This may make the Cleric a good candidate for conversion to "elf" as a class. If the Cleric class is converted to represent certain high elven character abilities the spell list and flavor descriptions (as well as the class name) will need to be altered appropriately. 

Undead play a powerful role in the fiction of the Good Professor and should be portrayed as much more threatening than zombies ala "Dawn of the Dead", or Ray Haryhausen skeletons (both offer quite good cinema entertainment, but not exactly what I would like for my Middle-earth game). The ability for characters to harm the undead ghosts, wraiths, barrow wights and even lessor undead when under the control of shadow should be minimal in order to make such creatures even more frightening. Necromancy is a central theme of the dark forces of Middle-earth and can be used to good effect when played in just that way. The powerful servants of shadow will practice dark sorceries and command potent magic that is unavailable to "good" characters and this is indeed part of the "feel" for such forbidden lore one gets from reading the fiction. (The struggle of certain humans to achieve magical "immortality" in opposition to their gods is one of the defining themes in the legendarium.)

Other adjustments to the Basic edition rules that can make the game feel more like Middle-earth include the possible addition of a Journeying or Traveling routine and a corruption or shadow mechanic. Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle-earth (a game using elements of 5e) has a journey system inspired by their previous Middle-earth game The One Ring. AME also includes a Fellowship phase in which characters spend an extended period recuperating in a safe environment. It is during such periods that characters rebuild their resistance to the corrupting influences of encountering "Shadow" forces. In order to promote the feeling that one is playing a game set in Middle-earth I have found it helpful to include some method of tracking corruption (call it despair or anything you like). Traveling across the land and encountering familiar and unfamiliar aspects of Middle-earth seems like an appropriate thing to do and journeys should not be ignored.

The roleplaying games The Burning Wheel and Adventures in Middle-earth present the idea of having a formal audience with a person of importance as a significant in-game event and each offers their own mechanical method to handle this audience. Whether as referee using the Basic rules you add skills or talents which can be directed at just such social encounters or not - and in keeping with the spirit of Basic, if you do use a skill system, may I suggest a single d6; 1 in 6, 2 in 6, etc. - the social event should be played-up a bit so as to give players an opportunity for role-play and to emphasize the importance of the "audience" event to the campaign and setting. (The culture of Middle-earth differs from our own in many ways and part of the referee's job when striving to present their Middle-earth is to impart these little factual differences to their players.)

Rest and recovery of hit points or relief from various conditions such as poisoned, sick, etc, can best be achieved while resting in a place of safety and sanctuary not while camping in a vacant hall in Moria. A quick overnight at the roadside inn may be better than sleeping by the road, but the traditional 1 hit point per day recovery rate of Basic rather sums up my feelings about how much "resting " in this manner may be worth. In order to really recover from the stress and injuries an encounter with the forces of shadow may lead to, characters ought to winter-over in a place of sanctuary. One where there will be comfort, safety and freedom from the influence of shadow. Time spent in the presence of friends and mentors will also benefit the weary adventurer in many ways which can be characterized as contributing to HP recovery and level advancement. .

The 5e system uses the terms "short rest" and "long rest" and associated system mechanics to rejuvenate certain abilities and while I would not recommend directly borrowing these mechanics (which seem over-powered when compared to Basic), the "short" and "long" concept does offer a useful distinction regarding resting - namely that not all rest is equal in its value or ability to restore the character. Some similar mechanical distinction could be brought into our Basic game to good effect.

Hopefully, the ideas presented here will help you see the potential of using The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game, with some modification, to run a version of Middle-earth with your players. The familiarity we have with the game system makes it nearly a universal gaming language in our hobby and the popularity of the iconic setting deserves more game-play at our tables. I personally think the two can work nicely together.

Middle-earths

Gaming Middle-earth for all its worth!

An essential part of running a game set in our own personal version of "Middle-earth" is to make use of at least some of the many well-known aspects of this iconic fictional setting that we are all now familiar with from the published sources, movies, etc. To include some NPC members of the classic Tolkien races - hobbits, elves and dwarves. And to play such NPCs in a way consistent with how they are portrayed in the books. (Obviously, elves in Middle-earth should feel like Tolkien's elves - NPCs that follow stereotype can be your friend here.) Make orcs and goblins the most commonly encountered monsters other than bad/evil humans (remember Middle-earth is a "moral" setting - Good vs. Evil.). While describing things, make occasional reference to the known history from the legendarium and use some familiar place names - unless you prefer the freedom that anonymity will provide your setting. By calling it Middle-earth, Gondor, Rohan, etc. a referee conjures up familiar images for your players that may benefit the game and add to their feel for your setting. Doing so also comes with many player expectations that can also limit your options as referee. 

I have frequently heard experienced referees exclaim "D&D just doesn't work for Middle-earth". Your mileage may vary, as they say, but this has not been the case for me. I have found that The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game can work quite well to give players (including myself) a satisfying Middle-earth gaming experience. If you are in doubt, please allow me to explain further.

Let's take the Basic Rules as edited by J. Eric Holmes (the box image appears above). This version of the game is written as an introduction to role-playing and to D&D and as such it only covers character advancement from levels one to level three. Perfect for a game set in Middle-earth! Character classes are Fighter, Magic User, Cleric (the referee may see this last PC class as less desirable in a Middle-earth setting and eliminate it as an option) and Thief. Character kindreds (races) are human, elf, dwarf, and halfling. The Holmes Basic Set refers to the Advanced game if one wishes to pursue higher level play. We shan't require that for our Middle-earth game, however.

The rules to D&D as written are "generic" in that they present a game that can cover a lot of different interpretations of what fantasy adventuring can be like and in a lot of different fantasy settings. To give a good feeling for Middle-earth, I think Holmes Basic requires just a few (easily administered) changes, but only a few. Most obvious to many would be the relative incompatibility of its so-called "Vancian" magic system, which is common across all the early editions. I suggest we alter the spell list - and perhaps the spell slots and levels practice, replacing such mechanics with spell points or the roll for success mechanic borrowed from Chainmail. Should one see a need for imposing some sort of maximum spell use per day limit, we can that as well.

More importantly, however, is limiting the actual spell choices to only those that seem to fit the fiction. The spells "Light", "Magic Missile" (think flaming pine cones) "Cure Wounds", "Bless", "Sleep", "Protection from Evil", and perhaps "Web" - all from the Holmes Basic spell list - have some equivalent precedence in the literature and therefore feel about right for game use. 

Tying magic use to some item, such as to a staff, also seems appropriate. Middle-earth is full of magical things - at least from a humble halfling chronicler's perspective - as is frequently recorded in their histories such as The Hobbit (There and Back Again) and The Lord of the Rings. If we "re-skin" spell casting as making use of various "magical" items - focii, crystals, talismen, herbs, drinks and breads - we can at once give our magic a more believable Middle-earth character that seems in line with its portrayal in the source fictions and limit its usage to an acceptable level for game balance (whatever that is?) and remain consistent with a "low magic" feel.

The magic of the elves in Middle-earth should be distinct from the magic of the wizards and their imitators, or from sorcerers and witches who serve their darkmaster. Elven magic is based on song which seems distinctively in character. (The use of a signature item in casting magic is also useful in achieving the desired feel as in Galadriel's use of her ring of power - Nenya!). 

Non combat spells may be best characterized in Middle-earth terms as "ritual magic" involving more than a quick minute. Most divine magic in the Middle-earth game setting may perhaps be seen as involving such ritual - an act which distinguishes it from other sources of magic and perhaps leverages an association with more traditional religious practices. The game use of evil (NPC) clerics devoted to Morgoth works well in my experience as villains, despite their not appearing in any of the official novels as significant characters (possible exception the Mouth of Sauron). The agents of evil were obviously not all ring wraiths, but rather were often just corrupted men.

Monsters of Middle-earth require the same careful approach as is expected of magic if the game is to achieve the proper feel. The referee desiring to present a facsimile of Middle-earth for their game should consider the game's list of monsters and whether each will fit with the setting. (Incidentally, this seems to me like good advice whether the setting is Middle-earth or any other.) The family of goblinoids, including orcs, can be seen as merely the different power levels (hit dice) of the same goblin/orc creature. Each named creature grouping is distinct in the D&D game and are given names like "Hobgoblin" and "Bugbear", but can all be thought of as "orcs" for use in a Middle-earth campaign and described as such by the referee. 

Undead are most assuredly appropriate monsters to use in a Middle-earth setting and the game's level draining ability is quite frightening to players - therefore I would keep that as is. Characters may be turned into a wraith - like undead creature in a manner suggestive of Frodo's struggle with the Morgul shard or the hobbits who fall asleep in the barrow. The level draining effect could be seen as "drawing one into the realm of shadow!" How we describe the effect can greatly influence the perceived fiction regardless of the actual mechanics. 

How we as referee characterize and describe the setting is what ultimately provides the tone and mood of our game. It is the little details and what we don't say is as important as what we do say. It is often that which is left to the players imagination - the details they supply from memory that will bring the setting alive and incidentally, may also furnish the more frightening encounters! By carefully considering what we say, how we say it and when we say it (or don't), we can spin our game in such a way that we may imagine we are adventuring in Middle-earth.