My Middle-earth

...and why I don't start with magic.

In the beginning there was a thought. Illuvatar (God with a capital G) is the source of Arda and where my personal thoughts on world-building often begin these days. There is an old adage among gamers that the referee, or DM, has god-like power over his/her/their game. This is especially true in old school games where worldbuilder is one of the cornerstone roles that the referee assumes when they set out to start a new campaign.

In my early RPGing days, I was heavily influenced by the fiction of R.E. Howard, particularly his Hyborean age and most of my settings reflected this. These days I find J.R.R. Tolkien's creation Middle-earth to be more influential on my gaming. Both authors' fictional worlds have heavily informed my stance as referee and worldbuilder, along with a few drabs borrowed here and there from other sources.

So why start with creation of the world? Because, like many I have tried starting at other places, like with figuring out how magic should work in a setting featuring Middle-earth (named as such or not), or just wanting a feeling very similar to that of Tolkien's fiction, and I have found the error in that approach - it's nearly impassible. Middle-earth is not about Vancian magic, or spell points, or even "powers" as have been used in any of the other numerous mechanical ways that games have styled "magical use". 

Rather I start with a mental image of the fictional land, before even maps are created, I have formed some idea of the nature of "being" in this cosmos. The brilliance of our good professor in regard to this creation myth/story came to me only after several readings of The Silmarillion. The song of Arda, the role of Melkor in introducing dissonance, the first born, etc. all reflects the will of Illuvatar and plays out through the developing stories as written by Prof. Tolkien, etc. Magic in Middle-earth is just a by-product of creation and this is a very important matter to consider.

A world is a wonderous if not "magical" thing if one only stops a moment to consider all the things that come together to form a functioning planet full of life. It is with this thought that I begin my worldbuilding. Illuvatar had the assistance of his valar and maiar, which together seem rather like old pagan gods (small g) and angels respectively - at least they do in my limited capacity to imagine them. They are the 'hands on" spirits, however, through which creation takes physical form. Creatures to inhabit the new world and playable beings are next on my creation list. 

In Middle-earth my understanding of the elves is key to informing how to give this fictional setting its proper feel in game terms. They are immortal beings forever linked to the land. They are spirits with physical form that draw upon and are part of nature and sharing its fate, are more a part of the world than the humans who come along later. Dwarves are beings constructed by Aule the smith and we only learn about one of their seven clans in the fiction- the "Longbeards". Halflings are presumably closely associated with humankind in Middle-earth, with whom they share much in terms of physical make-up (other than height).

The immortal elves, awakened prior to the placing of the sun in the sky, are at home in darkness and under the stars. Some elves have traveled to the west and experienced the light of the two trees, which seems to stay with them even after the trees are gone and the high elves, who have been to the west, have returned to Middle-earth and brought much of the influence of this magical light with them. They are resistant to the effects of temperature extremes and can pass without trace even over fresh snow. They are not just humans with pointy ears.

Dwarves are more than short, stout bearded humans who desire gold and gems (and drink too much). They are the created companions of a crafting god. Laid to rest beneath the earth until after the elves awoke, they emerged to learn, to explore and to name the things they found. Men arrived later with the coming of the sun. Melkor had already been at work corrupting the world long before men awoke because he was jealous of Illuvatar's ability to create (and perhaps wished to claim Middle-earth for his own kingdom).

Taking in all that I have learned reading the good professor - I have come to realize there is magic in the process of discovery!

The "magic" is built into Middle-earth rather than imported from outside. The Magic does not arise from formulas, nor from contacting other planes, or having a bound extra-dimensional being. Magic is inherent in the otherworldliness of our fictional setting and by our "tapping into" the essence of the world's creation, we referees impart a "magic" to everything in our setting - to our creatures, and to our game!

This is how I do Middle-earth (and can do so in any setting that I referee).

With that settled, I can think about the campaign map - my world's map (which will no doubt undergo change as it ages, just as Tolkien's world did). I can think about the characters and cultures, and finally about the rules for the game - all in that order. It all leads back to the setting.

Before I had read The Silmarillion, I thought of Middle-earth as a place where religion plays very little part. That idea now seems naïve to me.  

What's on a Cover?

Illustration Paints a Picture.

We humans are creatures who typically receive a lot of information about our surroundings through our vision. Our eyes quickly process reflected or source light and our brain interprets images almost before we have time to think about what we are seeing. I suppose it is a survival thing - see and react!

People in marketing apparently know much more about this than I do. They often package products to take advantage of the connection we have between sight and thought and emotion, or so it seems. A cliché I have heard often says, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Another is, "Seeing is believing." Obviously we can learn a great deal from looking at an image, but what we make of the image can vary immensely based on our associations and generalizations connected to it.

Judging a book by its cover - or a game by its box - can be tricky. Some cover illustrations seem to inform, others may leave one wondering, and a few may seem misleading. The publisher of The World's First Role-Playing Game communicated several key concepts to be found within their new game quite effectively with cover illustrations. Thinking back on the Basic box art and at the covers of the three Advanced books, I find dragons, and other monstrous creatures, often inhabiting an underground environment, and evidence of magic, and of treasure in abundance - in other words, lots of adventures to be found within. Anyone familiar with the games they contained will likely grant that their cover illustrations reveal much of what the game is about. 

The Avalon Hill Game Company published RuneQuest as a boxed game (1984) prominently featuring the above cover illustration by Jody Lee. The image is attractive and it immediately "caught my eye" and helped to fuel my excitement for the new edition of RuneQuest. The box's cover illustration remains a personal favorite image to this day. 

So what does the box art tell us about RuneQuest? The colors are attractive and the composition is centered on two human figures, one male, one female. The fact that both figures are human in appearance and that the female is outfitted with spear and armor does not escape my notice. RuneQuest is a game that freely allows for non-human player characters, but the default setting (Glorantha or Fantasy Europe) assumes a mostly human cast of PCs. 

As mentioned, both characters appear as warrior types. RuneQuest includes game magic, but does so with a more subtle touch than other fantasy role-playing games often use. RuneQuest is a skill based system that does not use character class as a mechanic. Therefore magic use in RuneQuest is not relegated to a magic user class. Magic is treated more like another skill in RuneQuest. The game does not include openly "flashy" magics either - i.e no fireball or lightning bolts.

The illustrated figures wear armor that reflects the hit-location based system RuneQuest uses for combat and encumbrance. Metal plate armor is heavy and expensive in RuneQuest. Our box art adventurers make sparing use of metal and instead show a lot of areas of their body covered by leather. One is armed with sword and shield, the latter object sporting a motif suggesting possible Germanic or Viking influences. The other adventurer (with flowing '80s hair) is armed with a two-handed spear and small buckler, both consistent with certain tactical considerations found under the RuneQuest combat system. A shield is very handy for parrying incoming attacks, which is vital to avoiding damage in RuneQuest, and a spear provides both reach and the possibility of impaling damage - both have potential advantages for the spear wielder in the RuneQuest combat system.

The illustration background shows a rugged range of mountains suggesting possible geographic isolation for the setting location. Ruined stonework, perhaps of a somewhat alien aspect, is featured in the immediate area upon which the adventurers stand. The plants are suggestive of a warm climate and the presence of a somewhat canine skull (or is it that of a troll perhaps?) which is lying loose upon the stone steps and yet further enhancing the feeling that we are viewing some forgotten ruin - a city or perhaps a temple complex. The stonework death-head motif flanking the steps presents a somewhat foreboding visage. Skull-like images clearly suggestive of some death cult are topped by large stone faces of creatures that perhaps suggest they depict the game's peculiar version of trolls (or they could also be interpreted as stylized lions?). For me, as perhaps by those familiar with the RuneQuest world, they look like trolls.

I do not know how familiar the artist, Jody Lee, was with RuneQuest? Does the interpretations I see in the cover art represent the intended message of the artist? Or are my thoughts merely projections of my having taken perceived or apparent connections between the game and the image well beyond any intent on the part of the artist? And does it matter?

A quick online search of the artist Jody Lee reveals she has produced book cover art for a number of science fiction/ fantasy novels written by notable authors including Mercedes Lackey, Micky Zucker Reichert, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, and others. It seems logical to assume that an experienced cover artist would get to know something about the subject for which they are creating the cover image. I think Jody Lee did an excellent job conveying the spirit of RuneQuest!

So, What About Those Vikings!

Inspiration for Heroic Dark Age Fantasy Role-Play

The so-called "dark ages" are poorly documented - hence the name. It's not that the sun shone less brightly between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance in Europe, rather learning took a step backward. Literacy seems to have declined and the established social order that had once been a rule of law deteriorated to a point of decentralized petty warlords who imposed their personal will through might of arms. There is a lack of specific facts in many cases, lending speculation a free hand. It's "dark time" in human history - at least that is the popularized version of sixth through fourteenth century history that I recall, and I find all this very liberating and inspiring from a story-teller's perspective.

Role-Playing games are a form of cooperative story generation. The referee usually sets the stage for the players who direct the actions of their characters within the limits imposed by what-ever rule system and dice rolls are used. We call this a game because the object is for everyone to have some good, social, fun.

What it isn't is a history lesson. When we play, we are creating fiction. Indeed, this may take on the form of "historical fiction" if we borrow certain aspects from history (as we understand it) and the result is something akin to historical novelization as practiced by writers of historical fiction. The popular "Viking" image has roots in history, but it is also so much more, often combining legend, myth and imagination to create something which never truly existed, but maybe should have!

My own FRP games which have been nominally set in a Viking Age have been influenced by years of my exposure to various influences, literary and otherwise, some of them riffs on their author's exposure to diverse sources of inspiration. It's how stories develop.

In this post I shall give credit to some of the more salient sources of inspiration that have greatly influenced my thinking on role-play in a Viking Age.

The Broken Sword, written by Poul Anderson, is not the first book I recall having read about Vikings (that distinction belongs to a children's book by Ingri d'Aulaire titled Leif the Lucky), but it is the first that comes to mind when I contemplate major influences. In The Broken Sword, Mr. Anderson relates a fantastic tale of not only Northmen, but elves, trolls and magic. The cover illustration image above hardly does the novel justice in my eyes, but it's probably a marketing decision. The elves and trolls in The Broken Sword bear little resemblance to those found in Professor Tolkien's fiction or those depicted in Dungeons & Dragons, but they are memorable and have a nice "Viking Age" feel to them.

Eric Brighteyes by H.R. Haggard and Styrbiorn the Strong by E.R. Eddison are two additional novels that have greatly influenced my thinking. Both written more than a century ago, they present a more romanticized version of Norse culture than either The Broken Sword or history books do. Likely inspired by the Old Norse Eddas, both novels tell a tale of a bigger-than-life hero doomed to live out a fate that unravels like the thread of a tapestry.

A more recent discovery, Guy Gavriel Kay's The Last Light of the Sun has also become a favorite source for gaming inspiration. Set in a version of the period of Alfred the Great, the novel draws upon myth and legend, folk tales and history and weaves an epic tale I have found myself returning to many times to drink of its magical waters (yes, there is an enchanted pond in the novel where a creature of fairyland is first glimpsed).

Blending fact and fiction, gritty realities with mystical fancies, and the traditions found in epic saga, the fictional world of Vikings can offer the FRP gamer a dragon's horde of treasures from which to weave our own heroic tabletop tales.

Festering Wounds, Bad Teeth, and Body Lice!

The dark side of gritty realism.

Yes, I like "realism" in my RPG. I think it helps make the fiction more believable. I think it channels the imagination and promotes immersive gameplay. I think it engages players with personal memories (hopefully not painful ones) and can tap into emotions in a fun way - all leading to an entertaining "adventure" experience much like watching a good film or reading a great book. 

As referees, we talk about our role serving as the player characters' eyes, ears, and other senses. It is through our referee's description that players are able to mentally "visualize" what their characters are experiencing - even down to a bit of fright or disgust, or conversely, affection and empathy, perhaps for a favored NPC. It's all make-believe and it should be a safe, risk-free fun experience, offering no real danger or ill effects for any player, despite their fictional character finding themselves in a tough spot.

To that end, I like a degree of "realism" in my games. It's a personal preference and many others will certainly differ in this regard. (I have friends who have indicated they have "no interest in a game based on gritty realism.") I believe that differing preferences is one of the reasons why there are so many flavors of RPG to choose from. (Obviously the same is true of literary fiction, which also comes in a variety of "flavors" to suit a variety of tastes.)

My recent posts have been centered on a nostalgic look back at RuneQuest Vikings and similar forays into role-playing in a dark age setting having fantastic undercurrents. In previous efforts to set "my dark ages" apart from more modern times 9or even from historic dark ages), I have found that a smoky, fire-lit world of poor hygiene and superstitious belief can be ripe with possibilities for adventure, atmosphere and spooky encounters. But as a game setting, this has its challenges as well.

Realism in terms of a role-playing game can mean a number of things. I like to feature a "common sense" approach using logic based on our real world knowledge. Heavy things are HEAVY, and cannot easily be moved about and doing so will tire or fatigue the people that strain to do so. Wounds hurt. They don't go away overnight and therefore combat is dangerous - if not outright deadly. Hot things are HOT, and cold things are COLD. Thirst is debilitating, as is disease. One avoids these perils when possible. Planning and clever use of whatever is available to improve one's odds of survival are rewarded. Foolishness and carelessness can lead to unpleasant consequences, and the characters live in a society, have neighbors and kinfolk and there are established authorities.

Sometimes the folks at my game table tire of the struggle "realism" can impose on our game. In my experience, a little bit of gritty game reality goes a long way and the realism thing can be easily overdone if the referee is not careful. Honestly, a tolerance for, or even an interest in, game realism varies a lot, even for me. It is small wonder that I have found striking the right balance to be an elusive target.

Debilitating injuries and tooth decay may be the realistic after-effects of a life of adventuring and of character aging, but they aren't what most folks sign-up for when they agree to role-play.

Vikings

A Saga of Adventure Gaming!

Anyone familiar with RuneQuest in any of its editions will recall that it is a d100 roll under skill based fantasy role-playing game system - one of the "second wave" in the once-new role-playing designs of the late 1970s. RuneQuest, being among those games that explore the use of mechanics different from a straight house ruling of The World's First Role-Playing Game's system, it represnts a departure from the class-based roll a d20 to succeed games. As an early percentile based RPG and one that combines a default setting markedly different from the Tolkien/classic fantasy worlds, RQ sets an example that influences many later RPG designs.

As gamer legend has it, RuneQuest (1978) came about as the result of The Chaosium (Greg Stafford) wanting a role-playing game to compliment the Glorantha setting used in previous boardgames and having tried a house rules version of the popular game published by TSR, they instead developed their own ground breaking system (RuneQuest) that would eventually be the game engine for an entire line of games published by Chaosium, known collectively as Basic Role-Playing (BRP). 

Much of the success of the BRP family of games is largely due to the intuitive nature of the D100 roll under mechanic, skill based character profile (rather than class based) and its flexibility and modularity lending itself readily to customization such as can be seen when comparing Call of Cthulhu to RQ (take out RQ's hit location system, add in rules for Sanity, etc.). Adaptability has become almost synonymous with BRP - which is arguably one of the first "generic" systems for RPGs.

In 1984 Avalon Hill published RuneQuest 3rd Edition. Written by the same good folks at Chaosium that had developed previous versions, 3rd edition RuneQuest seems a logical "upgrade" to its predecessors. The Avalon Hill Game Co. added a fantasy Europe setting to the RQ box set - perhaps in a marketing  effort to appeal to the many historical wargamers who had traditionally formed a large part of Avalon Hill's customer base. The "fantasy Europe" idea certainly appealed to me at the time, and it still does. 

One of the early releases for the 3rd edition would be the boxed supplement RuneQuest Vikings (1985).

As anyone who has seen even a single episode of the recent Vikings dramatization on the History Channel knows, the "Viking" image is one that lends itself readily to larger-than-life stories. A blend of fact and fiction accompanies much of the popular images we associate with the Vikings. Explorers, warriors and sailor merchant/pirates, the Vikings are commonly seen as a romanticized mystic warrior culture, familiar yet also fantastic - and a nearly perfect setting for role-play and adventure.

My journey into FRP games, particularly those featuring a more history feel, took a sharp turn in 1986 with the then new Harnmaster rules. Drawn to Columbia Games Harnmaster's cover art which depicts a very Norman looking knight in the forground and a burning village in the background, I soon discovered in Harnmaster 1st edition a D100 skill system that felt familiar nestled within the pages and as a bonus, one that seemed to offer a couple of improvements over the RQ system it most closely resembled. For example, RQ uses what we now call a "degrees of success" distinction in the form of critical, fumble and special success rolls alongside simple success and failure results. The extreme low end and high end of the D100 range being used to calculate the numbers that produce these extraordinary or "special" outcomes. Keeping a running count of what the specific values are that count as a critical or special result could be a bit cumbersome as that target number range changes along with the effects of fatigue and according to various situational modifiers.

Harnmaster uses a D100 roll under mechanic similar to that of BRP/RQ, but substitutes the rolling of "doubles" on the percentile dice for high and low range in determining a critical or fumble result. Double digits (like "55" or "99") trigger the rules for a critical if the total value is less than the target and therefore a success and if a failure, rolling doubles becomes a fumble in Harnmaster.

The hit location and armor layering systems in Harnmaster seem more detailed and "realistic" when compared to those I had experienced in RQ and wounds in Harnmaster are not merely lost hit points, but rather involve a narrative description such as a "minor injury to the skull" or a "grievous elbow wound" (either of which is liable to become infected). In the late 1980s this sort of detail was exactly what I sought in my role-play gaming - a brutal degree of "realism".

Orbaal (a supplement for the Harn setting, published by Columbia Games) was transformative in migrating my Viking dark age low fantasy Europe campaign from RuneQuest 3rd edition to Harn. Orbaal, like other early Harn material, is written without a specific game system, no doubt in part due to Harnmaster being only an idea at the time. The island realm of Orbaal is a kingdom with close connections to mainland Ivinia - itself a fantasy version of the old Norse culture and it therefore shares some nice parallels with the Vikings of myth, legend and history while offering the creative freedom of a fantasy setting. By about 1986 I was referee for a band of Viking enthusiast gamers and using the Orbaal module and my own fictional Otar's Isle lore I had developed for RQ Vikings, drawing inspiration from various sources including several favorite horror and ghost stories. But, that is a saga for another day.