A New Start

...Not in a Tavern.
The tavern has become a bit of a cliché location in which to begin a new campaign. "You meet in a tavern." is a useful opening referee line, but one that will often result in jeers and eye-rolling from our veteran players. The "borderland keep" is almost as cliché as is an abandoned mine or ruined tower and its dungeon. For something different let's say we start our new campaign in a vineyard.

"Seated around a warm stove on a chilly winter night sipping fresh wine and drawing slowing on a good pipe, you wonder whether to break out the cards or the checker board."

Frontier and mining towns have their appeal as locations of potential drama, but they are certainly not the only source of rumors, supply and sanctuary for our soon-to-be-imperiled adventurers. A sleepy little valley and some local vintners will add a lot of color to the game as our home-base and combined with a bit of classic intrigue can form the basis upon which a good RPG campaign can be built.

A place to put one's feet up and consume the local wine will also provide a convenient place to meet others, hear rumors and encounter interesting strangers. Competition between the local wine producers will provide some usually "friendly" rivalries and the opportunity for employment. The presence of an aristocrat will link the locals to more regional intrigues. Add a church or two, perhaps an abbey or monastery, any of which was originally attracted to the area by the rich soils and willing servants and has subsequently become a major player in the local wine trade, and we have divine competition for the souls and a resource for our party of stalwart would-be heroes in need of healing. 

The lime-rich local soils and valley geography suggest the presence of limestone caves to be found among the surrounding hills. Caves are notorious for housing bandits and worse. A bit of thinking on our fictional valley can yield a lot of possibilities.

How does our wine travel to outside markets? Perhaps our valley is located along a navigable river or canal? In the automotive age of today, we mostly travel and ship goods by road, but in the pre-industrial era, water transport offered the best means to move especially bulky goods. Waterways are also a convenient way for a referee to manage the next destinations and potential travel routes when compared to wilderness trekking cross-country.

At some point the player characters are likely to ask, "Where does the wine go? What lies further down river, or over the far hills?" It is precisely this sense of wondering that can lead to further exploration and adventures in a meaningful context. By starting small, the referee "worldbuilder" can have something manageable as their beginning point, and yet by following the connections hinted at rather than those deliberately pre-planned in laborious detail, the campaign setting can go where-ever the players lead.

Ours is an imaginative hobby. By applying a bit of creative referee thinking, it can remain fresh and alive. By creating a shared sense of "place" our fictional setting takes on more meaning and can be the basis for even more entertainment.

Worldbuilding 101

Only The Basics!

Start local. A sketch map of a single location and a mental image of the basic culture, climate, and technology can be the basis for a rich and rewarding campaign. The rest of the setting can come as needed and your players can assist in the creation. Listen and learn, referee!

Having a setting for your game is a necessary element of running any tabletop role-playing game. Whether implied by the parameters of the rule system or fleshed out with maps and illustrations and lengthy paragraphs of lore, the setting is the stage on which player characters act out their story. 

The easiest is to set your game in the "real" world such as the New England region of the United States circa 1920s. Of course an anachronism from recorded history may cause wrinkles - which you can explain through the supernatural if you choose. Borrowing a setting from science fiction or fantasy literature has many of the same potential advantages and pitfalls that exists with a historic or modern day reality setting.

Drawing inspiration from history or certain select fictional works while changing the names to protect your anachronisms offers even more advantages than a "sticking to the facts" approach. Having a solid sense of setting details that you haven't given too much preparation effort to, but will invariably come up at the table, is an invaluable benefit of drawing upon one or more sources of inspiration. Names are immensely useful in this effort as they conjure memories and suggest there is something familiar based on the name. A shared image carefully selected from an online search can also go a far way toward suggesting many aspects about the the fictional setting.

At the beginning of play, I have often found it sufficient to describe my game's setting as "rather like Middle-earth, only different" or some similar comparison. The mere mention of something like Middle-earth, with which most people today have at least a passing familiarity, will bring to mind images and shared assumptions which in turn by-passes the need for going into a long preamble describing various elements of the setting and allows us to get right into the action involving our characters. The comparison to a known world establishes enough familiarity for the players to feel like they can make logical decisions for their PCs. Certain expectations and assumptions in the player's mind simultaneously makes the game setting seem more real while leaving the question of "how is it different?" to be answered through play. Having no point or reference, no prior assumptions about the setting can be paralyzing to players as they feel overwhelmed by unknowns. This is obviously to be avoided (unless total disorientation and confusion is your goal and I can't imagine too many players I know going in for that!).

The addition of an extinct ancient culture (human or not) can add a lot of possibility to the setting and present many adventures waiting for intrepid adventurers. An in-land sea (or large lake) is another worldbuilding feature that I find brings a setting depth and additional opportunities for adventure. And don't forget those rumors. They are important to establish ideas in the players' minds and get them going down the road to adventure.
When starting small and adding details as needed, it is essential to take notes and record setting facts as they emerge. The existence of a large urban settlement, the worship of a named deity, a powerful NPC - all should be recorded and remembered for use in future sessions as consistency lends to believability and this is how the game world starts to feel like a real thing. If something does get forgotten, or if as referee we occasionally change our mind and decide to change something, the infrequent inconsistency that results can be described as an "inaccurate rumor" which turns out to be false, but perhaps commonly believed. 

Mysteries add depth to a game setting and I strongly recommend not explaining everything. When a player asks how something works, or if a certain thing is "true" about the world, I frequently respond by questioning them, "What does your character think?" Real people have questions. Real folks don't always know how something works or why things are the way they are. Real life contains lots of unsolved mysteries. Make your fictional setting seem real by leaving many things unexplained.

Reuse the known. By returning to a previously visited location that place starts to feel permanent. By encountering the same individual or creature again and again, the fictional world becomes more predictable and familiar. As a player it is easier to become engaged with and immersed in a fictional world that is familiar and somewhat predictable. Achieving this state at the game table presents the referee with an opportunity to genuinely surprise the players when the familiar and predictable takes a turn.

Homebrew Your Setting

Setting Value in Your Game is Important.

I am an acknowledged tinkerer and do-it-yourself amateur re-designer of almost every game I have played, especially the role-playing games. I cannot help myself. It's a weakness or an obsession of perhaps a strength? Ideas just come to me as I am reading or playing the game - ideas that seem to me to be an improvement over the game as written and ideas that I really want to try at the table. Many times, they turn out to be not very good ideas and I toss them aside and hope to learn from the experience, but then a "better" idea comes to me and off I go again. The long suffering players that have been present at many games I have refereed know well that this will be a part of the gaming experience when they agree to let me sit in the referee's seat. 

Perhaps, in light of my previous statement it is needless to add an admission that I almost never run any adventure module, or setting "as written". Again, those pesky ideas involving improvement of one kind or another that pop into my brain unsought for, but seem so compellingly good (at least they do at the time) and that I find that I can't resist taking things "off script" and for better or worse (time usually will tell) into the realms of my personal imagination.

Adapting material to suit my own tastes and to include my own ideas is a common way that I play as referee. What is even better, I think, is to create something uniquely our own. Yes, it takes some thought, planning and work, but I have so many published products from which I can draw inspiration that I seldom want for ideas. Over the years I have learned what I like and don't and my own creations reflect my values better than anyone else's work can. 

In defense of the homebrew approach I will merely point out that it hardly matters in such cases if a player is familiar with the published module or setting material, because through my revisions I will provide surprises aplenty and referee in such a manner so as to be (hopefully) entertaining to all. Established Canon aside, the inclusion of my own material, even when dealing with a personalized riff on a famous setting like Middle-earth, will encourage my own enthusiasm and result in my being a more dynamic referee to the ultimate benefit of all players, especially me! (And yes, it is important that the referee, who is also a player, enjoys the game!)

I find that at least for me, the best way to play a role-playing game is to use a setting that reflects my own values and not just those of another. To referee is to homebrew.

Grim & Perilous Alignment in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play

A New/Old Approach to Looking at the World.

My journey of rediscovery continues. One of the joys of rereading favorite tomes a few years later is that we/I have changed - become a slightly different person with additional experiences and perhaps a fresh perspective. This obviously affects my interpretation of the material, but also makes certain things more salient than I recall them ever being.

In 1986 my experience with gaming was more limited, more influenced by The World's First Role-Playing Game and its assumptions - including alignment. I am fairly certain that I noted Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play included alignment along with a number of other familiar FRP tropes - PC elves, dwarfs and halflings, monster orcs, goblins and giants, etc. I probably gave these elements little thought at the time, but today, alignment carries more weight as a concept as The World's Most Popular Role-Playing game seems to be pushing it aside.

Alignment is not ubiquitous among FRPs and many games written today make no mention of it at all, but I still prefer to use it in the games I referee. I find the classic law - neutrality - chaos ordering of the fictional world setting to my liking and I incorporate ways to make it meaningful in my games. As a source of conflict, alignment has few equals. It suggests the power struggles of humanity and other sentient creatures is part of a greater struggle for dominance having cosmic and divine roots. Alignment implies that our actions matter - that there are consequences from success or failure beyond personal power and satisfaction. Alignment makes sense to me.

So as I am recently reading the following words on skill tests as found in WFRP 1st edition, I am struck by a fresh angle on this familiar topic. Continuum!

For the purposes of these tests, it is most convenient to consider the five alignments as a straight line, running as follows:

        Cbaos - Evil - Neutral - Good - Law

You should apply a -10% modifier for each level of difference. For example, Good is 1 alignment away from Neutral - so if a Good character must make a Gossip test during a conversation with a Neutral character, it will be modified by -10%. Evil and Law are 3 alignments away from each other, and a -30% modifier would be imposed for Fellowship-based tests between characters of these alignments.

An example is given in the rules involving the PC's effort to bribe an NPC.

Alignments are an important consideration:

Chaotic characters would be likely to accept a bribe ( + 20% chance).

Evil characters would be quite likely to ( + 10 % ).

Good characters would be unlikely to (-10% ).

Lawful characters would be very unlikely to (-20%).

Alignment can (and should) affect both one's behavior choices and reactions to others based upon your assessment of their loyalties. Lawful characters should likely be more trusting of those whom they perceive as being of lawful alignment and this should have a mechanical effect in the game.

There is a lot to unpack here and I am just beginning to explore how I could use these concepts in other FRP systems, but here are my initial thoughts. 

Would it be readily apparent to others what one's alignment is? Obviously the outward display of certain emblems and religious symbols might provide a strong indicator, as would the use of the certain detection magics and the much discussed "alignment languages" as found in the earliest editions of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game. 

Given knowledge of "just who we are dealing with", would it be appropriate to provide a modifier to reaction rolls and even combat morale? Would beings with a strong alignment adherence be more likely to stand their ground against perceived agents of an opposing alignment? 

I have long adhered to the belief that many/most magic items should have an alignment as it presents players with decisions to make and generally makes play more interesting.

In a fictional milieu having friends one can count on and enemies who can be opposed without hesitation or moral dilemma can be appealing. The real world is often not so simple, but I am talking about a fantasy game played for fun! I suppose we can create our fantasies in any way that suits us.

A World of Grim and Perilous...

Magic!

As I continue to re-examine my experiences with Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (written by the late Richard Halliwell and other GW notables WFRP was first published by Games Workshop in 1986) I find myself leaning into its magic system. As with other aspects of this design, the rules for magic build upon systems I have seen before. Rather than inventing an entirely new take on game magic, Mr. Halliwell seems to have borrowed things that appealed to him from other games, modified the concepts to suit his preferences and assembled the pieces. The resulting synthesis gave the hobby a game that retains a loyal following and has in turn influenced many subsequent designs. 

To begin, we don't just decide we will play a wizard character in WFRP. Chargen in The Old World is a random thing, you see. Much like in real life, fate plays its part in determining how we end up. The player may assign the character an Academic career class, and may even choose the Wizard's Apprentice as their starting career, but the road to becoming a Level 1 Wizard is long and filled with perils. The dice will invariably show us where each particular character fits into the general background of academics (and other career class choices) and our wizard aspirant character may exit their apprenticeship as any of the following:

Career Exits

Bawd

Charlatan

Entertainer - Bunko Artist

Gambler

Grave Robber

Tomb Robber

Wizard, level I

As a wizard's apprentice we gain access to the game's lowest level of spellcraft - that which is termed "petty magics". All spells are cast through expending magic points. The caster must know the spell to be thrown, do nothing but cast during their turn, make the proper hand gestures, speak the necessary incantation words and expend the required spell ingredients/components, all necessary conditions for making magic. 

Once the magic user reached level 1 wizard, battle magic becomes a possibility. The wizard must roll to learn each new spell and a failed die roll may mean that particular spell eludes their ability (at least for the present as they may roll again upon advancement). Wizards may also specialize once they advance choosing to specialize as an illusionist, elementalist or take the more dark and dangerous path of either the necromancer, or the demonologist or may remain a generalist wizard. The practice of the more unspeakable arts will eventually lead the wizard into acquiring disabilities related to their dabbling in things "mortals are not meant to know". Those who dabble with demons risk insanity. The use of necromantic magic invariably leads to taking on a cadaverous appearance others will find repulsive. The use of certain "preparations" may lesson the adverse effects of such disabilities - at least temporarily.  

As I peruse the magic section of this game from 1986, I am surprised at how many of the ideas and concepts I see here have been carried forward in our hobby and have relevant descendants among the games being written today. Dangerous magic can be found in Goodman Game's Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and Low Fantasy Gaming from Pickpocket Press, just to name two favorite FRPs that immediately come to my mind, and other examples of games taking inspiration from WFRP can be named with little effort.

Sudden Death...

...& Critical Hit Table

In 1986 Games Workshop published their in-house FRP game, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play: A Grim World of Perilous Adventure. Like many RPGs, WFRP as it came to be known is built upon the foundations of what has came before, both in terms of previously published FRP systems and in the authors utilizing lore from Games Workshop's own The Old World fantasy setting.

Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play is a percentile based tabletop game system utilizing both class and skill mechanics. Typical of many systems written in the 1980s, WFRP's character generation is designed with a heavy dependence on random dice rolls. Playing the character one roles is part of the appeal - to some even today! The Old World setting is dominated by humans and this is reinforced through the extremely low probability of randomly rolling a character of any race except human. While the player may choose which of the four career classes their character will pursue warrior, ranger, rogue or academic, the specific career occupation their character will start out with is subject to a random die roll - for in a grim and perilous world, fortune will ultimately have the final say. (If one finds this last statement unappealing, it may be that much of WFRP will not be to their liking.)

This randomly determined, unpredictable and somewhat harsh approach to the fate of our paper protagonist from start to finish is one of the best aspects of this or many other RPGs in my estimation. I instantly fell in love with the grim tone of this game and the perilous conditions that will face our band of low-born adventurers. Adapting and looking for any way to "even the odds" is a big part of play in a "grim & perilous world". There are plenty of decisions players will make during a WFRP campaign, but they are not necessarily the same type of decisions one makes while playing any version of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing game. Coming to that realization has taken me many years.

Regular readers of this blog will note that I rather enjoy and prefer a game that can feel like it could be "for real" - a game that engages my imagination on an immersive level allowing me to temporarily suspend my disbelief in the fantastical elements and experience the adventure through the eyes of my/our characters. This "realism" factor together with the friendships and the stories that develop during play is why I enjoy our hobby so much.

In my last post I wrote about a struggle with the concept of hit points and wounds in The World's First Role-Playing Game. WFRP takes a very different approach to weapons and wounds. The combat mechanic in WFRP seems to borrow a bit from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniatures wargame, a bit from Chaosium's RuneQuest and of course it is also influenced by the first ever RPG published by TSR - Games Workshop had sold all of these games prior to publishing WFRP. The folks at Games Workshop came up with their answer in the form of  a roll under percentile mechanic using strike and parry, hit location and critical damage and gave one the feeling of being witness to some very bloody combat as limbs are lopped off, bones broken and bodies bleeding out. Once armor is pierced, the character suffers a critical hit effect, which often produces incapacitation or a roll on the table of sudden death. The character's "Wounds" statistic represents their ability to avoid  real damage or as the rules state:

A target can absorb damage up to its Wounds total without penalty. This characteristic represents a 'buffer level', and only once this has been destroyed is real damage incurred.

I appreciate that the authors (Richard Halliwell is listed first in the credits) of WFRP take the time to spell this out about "Wounds" thereby removing some of the confusion produced by the use of the term. Once we get to the Sudden Death Table, it's likely to be a grim fate. (Can't say we aren't warned as it does say "Perilous" right there on the cover!)

To be completely transparent, I have no idea how the authors of WFRP envisioned the game being used at the table. From my perspective today, it seems that investigations and solving mysteries are the game's forte, not combat. Of course that's based on hindsight and not a little bias acquired through familiarity with the game's premiere adventure - The Enemy Within!

The difficulty is that a combat resolution system that feels both realistic and deadly inevitably leads to a lot of inglorious character deaths when "hacking & slashing" is your go-to response to every challenge the game throws your way. It took me and my friends quite a while (and a host of dead PCs) to figure this out. Perhaps we were just exceptionally slow to catch on? Today I observe that the authors of WFRP were not entirely helpful in fomenting our understanding of this little fact when they lead right off at the beginning with a lively description involving a first rate combat action narrative set in a dungeon crawl type of environment, implying this is what their game is all about.

This game remains one of my top favorites and has been extremely influential in my realization of what I like best in my fantasy. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say WFRP changed how I approach and play every other role-playing game. On the rare chance that I get to actually sit down and play WFRP these days, I have a much better idea just what to do with it.

Trouble with Words is...

...that they have Meaning. 

Our language exists to communicate ideas. Danger! Affection, and so-forth. Beyond communicating emotion and simple images, we can share ideas and vicarious experiences. The more complex the message, the more it depends on us having a shared vocabulary, however. 

I frequently muse over the game's concept of "Hit Points". The use of hit points in our hobby harkens way back to its inclusion in The World's First Role-Playing Game - those three little brown books I so dearly love. The problem is the concept didn't get explained well - ever. Does it represent meat and bone?, Does a loss of hit points amount to various cuts, bruises and blood loss? Or are hit points just "one's ability to avoid a killing blow" as some grognards have described the concept? In the end, hit points seem to be just a convenient game mechanic, but one that frequently challenges, or perhaps runs counter to our search for verisimilitude. 

It has become common to narrate combat as referees and players engage in what was once termed "melee". Thrust and parry, swing and block, hack and dodge, the combatants attempt to score a "hit" on any opponent in reach or perhaps concentrate their group effort on taking down one foe at a time. Players will announce., "I hit 'em with my axe", then roll the die...

In the game. a successful to-hit die roll is followed by another die roll for damage - what-ever "damage" is beyond the loss of "hit points" is poorly defined. The referee may narrate, "Your blow catches the goblin just below the waist and slices open its belly! The now badly wounded goblin staggers away and collapses in a corner. Another steps in front of you drawing your attention immediately." It all sounds pretty cool, if you don't think too hard on the game mechanics behind such narrative.

Maybe its just me - probably it is - but I am left wondering, "If our goblin started the fight with 3 hit points and the swordsman just scored 2 points of damage, can't the goblin still fight back?" Did he fail a morale check? And if our goblin survives, can a night or two spent recovering in the nest bring him back to his full hit points?

Healing is another term that causes me to ponder and muse. So-called "natural healing" is described in my favorite edition of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game as restoring a single lost hit point per day, thereby it implies the kind of healing of wounds that I have some limited real world knowledge and experience with. Magical healing is an altogether different matter because, well "it's MAGIC" and all that implies. 

The game concept of  "to hit" in melee suggests that a success in this dice roll is through skill or luck striking an effective blow resulting in "damage" and "wounds" being inflicted, all of which constitutes actual physical injury. Then follows "healing" which clearly involves the removal of an injured state (at least that is how I see it). All these terms, as they are used in the game, seem to be at odds with reality. (I know it's a game of fantastic fiction, but there is that "suspension of disbelief" thing.)

Certain gamer legends connect The World's First Role-Playing Game with naval wargaming (its co-authors having previously collaborated on "Don't give Up The Ship" naval rules) and their mechanical conventions including armor class (big ships with more armor are harder to penetrate and damage), variable damage (big explosions causing more damage), healing or "repair" of damage, to name a few. Where the analogy seems to break down is the incremental loss of movement and fighting capability associated with a vessel taking damage in naval wargaming and this having no equivalent in the FRP game. (Maybe it should!) 

Words do have meaning and the choice of the words can lead to certain images entering our imagination - that is often the point. 

Think about how the following example sounds:

The veteran spots an opening in the goblin's defense and attacks with success. The goblin's resolve suffers damage and he stumbles backward, fear entering his beady red eyes! Given time to recover, the goblin may return to full resolve points.

If we replace the word "healing" with recover, or recuperate, and rather than saying hit points we speak in terms of vitality, resolve, fortune, or determination, all of which is diminished through damage rolls, I think the believability in the narrative fiction is more to my liking.

Metal weapons, tooth and claw may all be the cause of PC wounds and death, however. If our "vitality" points reach zero, our PC will be out of the fight just as well. Once the melee is over and the other PCs have a chance to regroup, a version of "roll the body" can determine if said fallen PC has a physical "wound" or is only knocked about and may therefore return to active adventuring after a short period of rest and recovery. 

"Have a seat, friend, and take a swig of this ale, here. You'll feel yourself again shortly and we'll explore what's beyond that next door."

Inglorious PC death is a frequent criticism of more "realistic" versions of our adventure game, but for me the prospect of this fate adds that bit of suspense, "dander" that makes the game worth while. I have heard it said that at its core, D&D is a game of chance where players gamble with their PC's lives in hopes of winning imaginary power and wealth. Of course a "deadly tone" may not be to everyone's liking. In my saner moments, I sometimes wonder why I even worry about the game feeling "real" when it involves anthropomorphic animal player characters? It's just a silly game, after all.