Yet more advice on How to Referee

Ideas Borrowed

If we have read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit we have an idea of how an adventure to defeat a dragon and take its treasure may begin, progress and even end. In the novel we are introduced to the concept of an adventuring party or "company" is comprised of individual characters possessing unique skills including warriors, a wizard and a burglar. We have some idea of how to describe a journey across the wilder lands, encounters with monsters and with helpful folk met along the way, and with the big "showdown" at the finale. In effect, we have the pattern for developing our own adventure story through game play.

Many a game of the world's most popular fantasy role-playing game has followed this model.

If we have read Fritz Leiber's Ill Met in Lankhmar we have before us the blueprint for an urban adventure. The novella Ill Met in Lankhmar features two companions , a fighting barbarian and thieving ex-wizard apprentice who dabble with romance, crime and intrigue with a thieves' guild, murder and arson, carousing, and other flavorful aspects to be found in a fantasy urban setting. Again, reading about Lankhmar prepares us to think through our own tabletop adventures in an urban fantasy setting.

The best referee advice I have come across to date is to run as many games as one can and play in as many games run by another as possible. 

Next to that, the next best referee advice I can think of is to read lots, and always with the thought in mind - Can I use this in my game?

The Hero's Journey

...From One Fool's Perspective.

The tabletop-roleplaying experience has at times been compared to the mythic "hero's journey" (see the works of Joseph Campbell and others if this topic intrigues you). My fool's understanding of the epic hero myth is that our hero starts small, learns from failure, then grows in stature so as to be able to achieve a great task. It is a story of metamorphosis, "from zero to hero" as it is often described in classical tabletop gaming circles.

A slight variation on the Journey theme is known as the "Fool's Journey", which is the journey from ignorance to enlightenment. Again our protagonist or "hero" starts as something small, a foolish person in this version, and through various adventures learns wisdom so as to eventually be redeemed and usually accomplish some good in the world often in spite of a poor understanding of the situation. In my eyes the two journeys are closely related.

So how is this discourse connected to tabletop gaming you may be asking? Our paper heroes are essentially on an epic journey to better themselves, to right wrongs and perhaps to save others from a dastardly fate that is being plotted by an evil villain. There are successes and failures along the way, but our paper hero, should they survive danger, will grow in stature and power so as to eventually be prepared to take on the "big bad evil" and through heroics, save the world. It is essentially an exercise in turning the "Journey" into a game.

With its roots (arguably) in literature, tabletop role-playing games have drawn inspiration from many versions of this classic myth cycle. Tales of King Arthur, the works of Professor Tolkien and the pulp adventure stories of authors such as Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard are all recognizable in the classic editions of the game (and specifically named in the Appendix). CRPGs often draw heavily from the TTRPG traditions and have frequently repeated this rags-to-riches character progression. The Hero's Journey is a concept that plays well with an audience who can imagine that a humble beginning is no barrier to a life of high adventure and heroic questing.

So my question today is what happens to the game when the journey ends before it begins? What is there to accomplish when our hero starts life as a nearly invincible protagonist, can easily defeat all challenges and when our "story" becomes a laundry list of various messes that we have cleaned up. The spectacular (and heroic) become the mundane?

Sometimes it feels just so.

Gateway to Another World

Fighting Fantasy and other adventure books offer the reader a chance to have a gaming experience much like role playing while reading a book (and rolling some dice), no friends required. The first in a series of the Fighting Fantasy logo books, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, was written and published by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson back in 1982 (it's still in print). The Fighting Fantasy books are a fun introduction to the concept of fantasy adventure gaming, or a nice diversion from gaming with a group and they have once again become an entertaining solo gaming experience for an old adventurer such as myself.

I recently re-visited The Warlock... and found this book still offers a fun challenge. The book is not an adventure that one is likely to complete on our first try/read and the author of the book warns us to expect to lose a few characters before we learn all the secrets of success. Yes, some might call this "metagaming" but the idea is to use what we learn from the last delve to help make wiser choices in the next attempt, even though it is with a fresh character.

Warlock is a classic fantasy setting complete with underground corridors inhabited by orcs and an evil warlock/mastermind to defeat. The game system is mechanically fairly simple, but it still offers all that is necessary to get the imagination going. The reader starts by "rolling up a character/adventurer" who is your imaginary self as you make choices and suffer the consequences of failure through damage to the character's stats. This should sound familiar to anyone who has played any tabletop roleplaying game. The Fighting Fantasy books use three stat scores, Skill, Stamina and Luck. Magic in the book is found in the form of potions and items and in the fantastic elements of the setting.

Skill is a generic ability score that represents combat prowess, sneaking about, tinkering with locks and traps and opening doors (and anything else that "skill" might cover). You test Skill by rolling two six sided dice and adding your Skill number for a total which is often compared to a monster's total (generated in the same manner) in combat or to a target number for a non-combat task.

Stamina is health or hit points and an adventurer loses Stamina when they take damage. Lost Stamina can be restored by taking time-out and eating a ration or by quaffing a "magic" potion.

Luck is tested in a manner similar to saving throws found in some other games and success can get you out of a bad situation or outcome. Luck diminishes as it is used/tested however and the Luck score is lowered by one each time it is rolled against. The player can also choose to test luck in an effort to inflict more damage on a on a monster as part of a successful attack or to reduce the amount of damage your character takes when the monster has won a round of combat. Luck is replenished by drinking a fortune potion or as a reward for accomplishing some task as instructed to do so in the text.

The adventure presented in The Warlock... book recently entertained me for most of a day as I worked my way through the tunnels, lost a few adventurers along the way and defeated the boss warlock. Revisiting the Fighting Fantasy system also inspired some ideas regarding modifying it for further solo or group play using some adventures of my own design involving some random dice roll tables. 

The idea of moving the FF game out of the book and onto the table is an obvious outgrowth of the system. The authors would publish their own Fighting Fantasy tabletop role-playing game doing just that in 1984. 

This book is no longer in print and therefore is a little harder to come by these days. Fortunately, the mechanics of the FF game system lend itself easily to adding homebrew innovations - and who doesn't enjoy making things up!