Monster Weekend

I have spent the weekend thinking about monsters. I have said many times before that I am a monster snob. I think Gelatinous Cubes and Black Puddings are better suited to nouveau cuisine than for battling player characters. I just cannot buy into them.

I think I put my finger on what it is that a monster needs to have for me to want to use them and it comes down to two factors.

Really?

I like my monsters to feel real, like they could actually exist. If you tell me that Orcs are an evil corruption of Elves then I can kind of get that. The reason they exist is that someone made them. They are evil because they were intentionally made that way.

I can buy into Dragons. Technically, I have seen just as many living dragons as I have dinosaurs. I have no problem in believing dinosaurs were real so why not have fantasy dragons in a fantasy world?

Puddings, cubes, cloakers and mimics just do not reach my credibility threshold when it comes to monsters.

No Fear!

My second criteria is the fear factor. I like my monsters to induce a sense of fear in my player characters. I don’t mean necessary the Resistance Roll inducing game mechanic sort of fear but the ‘Are we going to get out of this alive?’ sort of fear. In a recent game session the characters slowly retreated from ground floor to first floor to the attic as the monsters surrounded and closed in on them.

One of my favourite monsters is the Drider. Think spider centaur. The top half is a dark elf failed priestess of an evil spider goddess and the bottom half is giant spider. the reason for their existence is a punishment for failing to meet the goddesses standards. My players characters nearly met one once. They looked up at her nest and retreated. With a Drider you have to think an plan in three dimensions. They would throw amazing shadows down cave passages as they advanced. Retreating may not be an option either if you are being hemmed in by web filled passage ways. All you can hear is up ahead is the scuttle of spider legs on stone while silently above you another drifts down on a single strand of web out of the dark.

I have written something like 27 adventures in the last two months and one of the recurring themes is that of trying to scare the characters. I don’t think a straight, in your face, battle is that scary. Players know that most of the time the odds are in their favour as they are the heroes of the story. The GM is not out to kill them. At least I am not out to kill my players characters.

Give them a foe they cannot see, or cannot count, or do not understand and all of a sudden this is a not only a battle but it is a puzzle or trap on two legs (if you know what I mean).

These monsters are easily killable if you can catch them or split them up into manageable groups and that is the challenge. En mass the heroes may die, if they cannot control the fight the heroes may die.

So this brings me back to my thinking this weekend about monsters. A Kobold is not scary because you know it is weak. When you reach a certain level a giant is not that scary once you have killed eight of them. So I have been planning monster variations. Twists on existing monsters. These are subtly different from their brethren, just enough so that when they meet the heroes it makes the players think ‘That is not right!’.

After all, I do think there should ever be a ‘comfort zone’ in a dungeon, should there?

Which Witch?

In my game most villages will have access to a spell caster. These spell casters will often be the local witch or wiseman/woman.

I know there is a Witch RM2 profession that works with RMC but for me I have found that the Sorcerer hybrid is the perfect fit for this role.

The sorcerer has access to the closed healing lists which fits with the idea of turning to the wise woman when there little hope of normal healing.

The sorcerer also has access to their own base lists which are great for putting ‘curses’ on people in the form of inducing neuroses.

Demon summoning and control is also great for requests for real revenge.

All in all the sorcerer is a great all rounder for the local villagers to rely on.

The point of this is to suggest to you to try creating an NPC sorcerer, dump the professional name and stick them in a hovel on the edge of a village.

There have been a few references this year about healers. How simply using them as a bolt on to the PC party is a cliche, how one can do more with them. What I am suggesting here is how about making the only healer available to the party a hag or a crazy old man in a hovel in the centre of the woods?

Meet the party’s new healer!

Not making the healer an attached part of the party means that the party now have to think strategically about their health and their healing.

Legends of Shadow World pt3: The %#!@ hits the fan.

Image result for it's a trap gif

Last night the group attempted Chapter 3 of “Legends of Shadow World”. It did not go well. The session only ended up being 2.5 hours with 3 out 5 players killed and the other two “tapping out” since they could see the writing on the wall. This section was just too hard, and there are still 2 more! However, there is a gap between C4 and C5 where the group can rest, heal and gear up for the final confrontation.

I’m running these with loose notes, a rough outline and after the session I do an edit and then update the online files. Since they are meant as “tourney style” modules there is considerable railroading built into the adventure to segue between the chapters.

I’m heading off for an overseas adventure, so we won’t run Chapter 4 until next month. That will give me time to adjust the first three. What I would like to do is have another group play test these for feedback and other ideas. I can’t really run my own players through again and get good feedback now that they’ve already done it.

Keep in mind that these are not “publish ready”–it’s some bare-bones copy, a bit of exposition, pre-gen characters and hand-drawn layouts. I’m not interested in an editor or idea feedback–I need a 5 person group and GM run it in a session for gameplay feedback.

If you have an interest let me know. I can be reached at bhportland at yahoo.

Elves, Elves, Everywhere! Elves in Shadow World and fiction.

RMU has established a tool kit that balances out race, class and creature creation by assigning DP values to skills, abilities and attributes. It’s very detailed and typical RM!  A currently running thread on the RM Forums is about Race balance, and more specifically Elves.

We discussed Elves here on the RolemasterBlog, and it’s also a common topic on RPG blogs as well. It seems like people either love or hate em! However, if you look through the various games or popular fiction, Elves can vary quite a bit, differentiated from the foundational trope established by Tolkien.

For purposes of this blog, Elves can be measured on the “Fey Scale”, with 1 being basically human with some unique physical differences and 10 being truly unearthly or alien. Let’s take a look at a variety of products and how they treat Elves.

D&D. 

Per Wiki:  Elves are renowned for their grace and mastery of magic and weapons such as the sword and bow. Becoming physically mature by the age of 25 and emotionally mature at around 125,[1] they are also famously long-lived, capable of living more than half a millennium and remaining physically youthful. Possessed of innate beauty and easy gracefulness, they are viewed as both wondrous and haughty by other races; however, their natural detachment is seen by some as introversion or xenophobia.

Gary Gygax claims Dungeons & Dragons elves draw very little from Tolkien.[5] Elves in Dungeons & Dragons are immune to paralysis as a holdover from a game balance adjustment in Chainmail.[6]

Reviewing some of the earlier D&D products I think Elfs started with the intent of being more Fey, but they feel more anthropomorphized in later editions.

Fey Scale 2-4

Richard Morgan’s “The Steel Remains”.

Elves in this great book series are called “Dwenda” and the race Aldrain.

The Aldrain are a race of immortal humans. They are often referred to as the Vanishing Folk or dwenda. They reside primarily in The Ageless Realm. They are described as being beautiful, with bone-white colored skin, gaunt, bone-sharp features, and dark black colored eyes, and do not like the sunlight. They can move impossibly fast and strong, and carry weapons and armor with featureless, sleek helms. They have their own language simply referred to as the Aldrain tongue.

The Aldrain can control strong, magic-like powers. When they appear and travel to Earth, they are engulfed in a flickering blue fire. A black, crystalline rock called glirsht can be used as beacons to guide the Aldrain to Earth from The Ageless Realm.

The Aldrain are referred to by a wide variety of names:

  • dwenda
  • Vanishing Folk
  • Witch Folk
  • Eldar Race
  • Shining Immortal Ones 

When introduced in the story, the Dwenda are formidable, using powerful combat magic and seem virtually undefeatable.

Fey Scale 9-10

Steven Erickson. The Malazan Series.

In this sprawling series, the Elves are called “Tiste” and are divided into three distinct races:

Each Elvish type have distinct physical features—triggered by their choice of patron diety. While very long lived, the Tiste are powerful, but not much different than other races. Their motivations, emotions and personalities are very human.

Fey Scale 2-3

Tad Williams. The Dragonbone Chair

But long before Mankind peopled Osten Ard, it is said that the undying Gardenborn once ruled these lands, building nine great cities long before humans walked the lands. Old stories say that the Sithi, NornsDwarrows, and Niskies were driven away when Mankind grew powerful centuries ago.

The Sithi
Chief among the Gardenborn clans were the 
Sithi, whom the people of Hernystir called “the peaceful ones”. It was the Hernystiri who gave these immortal folk the name “Sithi”. The Sithi called themselves Zida’ya, meaning Children of the Dawn. They once dwelled in the fair cities of Da’ai Chikiza, Enki e-Shayosaye, Kementari, and Tumet’ai. But their greatest stronghold was at Asu’a, the city which looked eastward, toward their lost homeland.

Despite the medieval European setting, the Sithi are Asian-influenced in their names and clothing. They also are quite different physically from humans, to the point of having recognizably different bone structure.

Fey Scale: 9-10

So what about Shadow World? Terry has given us several branches of Elves: the rustic Erlin (Wood Elves), and the Iylar (High Elves that are futher divided into Dyari, Loari and Linaeri).

Erlini Fey Scale 2-3

Dyari Fey Scale 3-5

Linaeri Fey Scale 7-8

Loari Fey Scale 5-7

I think the more “Fey” the Elvish type the harder it is to roleplay and perhaps harder to maintain a racial balance in a game system. Truly Fey elves are often depicted as higher beings with powers and attributes that mirror higher level powers in role playing games. How does that fit into the game world as a PC?

For more in depth info on the topic of Elves in fiction and games click HERE.

There are no stupid questions!

For probably a year now I have had the poll questions on the side of the blog here. There are half a dozen questions that pop up randomly.

I was thinking this morning that it was time to refresh that a bit.

Can any of you suggest poll questions you would like to see running to gather some feedback?

As we are full steam ahead on creating adventures what are the things we should be taking into account?

I know Hurin is a bit of a fan of polls and gaining hard figures to back up his arguments, so any suggestions?

SHORT TAKES pt. 2: Alchemical MAGIC IN ROLEMASTER & SHADOW WORLD

So yesterday I blogged about a simple, unified system for imbedding magic into objects: what we term “Enchanting”. I also noted at the end, and linked to a RM Forum blog about a separate, but related system of Alchemy.

Curiously, most of the original RM Alchemist material had little to do with our common definition of “Alchemy”. Sure, Alchemists could make potions, but most of the spells related to the creation of runes, magic weapons and armor and Daily “X” items.

Anyway, after I posted my blog, I got a message asking for clarification about the differences between Alchemy, Crafting and Imbedding. So first to be clearer, these three disciplines are “Three Legs of the Stool” in creating magic items.

  1. Imbedding is the most direct approach—you just imbed certain spell effects into an object to be used “Daily”, with a set amount of charges or with a permanent effect.
  2. Crafting, while applying to a wide range of products, means creating an object out of already enchanted/magical material. The crafter doesn’t actually ADD the magic to an object, but the end result is the same. The blacksmith that forges a blade from an ingot of Eog creates a +30 sword. The carver that whittles a javelin from a Dragon bone creates an enchanted spear etc.
  3. Alchemy is the craft of mixing elements to produce a Compound material. This material can have mundane properties (like glue) or magical properties—depending on the effect and setting.

Alchemy is Chemistry—just in a fantasy world. The art is dependent on Formulas, either researched, experimented, bought or given.  In my RM Forum post, I focused more on mundane creations: fireworks, gun powder, glues, acids, smoke grenades etc. However, it’s easy to add any and all formulas that allow for spell like effects or special powers. (Hurin, I think you brought this up in a blog comment or in the Forums). I never bothered devising specific magical formulas, but it has been done by other game systems, video games and works of fiction. Really the sky is the limit, but a lot will depend on the game setting. The newest Anthony Ryan book, the Draconis Memoria is based on the idea that distilled Dragons Blood gives special powers to the imbiber based on the type of Dragon.

It’s not that I don’t embrace the idea of magical compounds produced by Alchemy, it’s just that I haven’t got around to it yet! Shadow World offers a variety if interesting creatures and materials (and already has magical plants which is basically a narrow branch of Alchemy). Dragons and Shards probably have a lot of organic parts that could be used to make interesting compounds!

So, besides the “Third Leg of the Stool” analogy, Alchemy does several things:

  1. Producing “Substrates”. Liquids for potions, paper for runes, powders, candles etc are all examples of Subtrates—Alchemists produce the BASE product that is then used to imbed magical effects.
  2. Mundane Compounds. Alchemy is used to produce Inks, Oils, Glues, Acids, Itching Powder, Gun Powder, Dyes etc.
  3. Magical Compounds. Alchemy is used to produce magical products by mixing, distilling, reducing Magical Ingredients.
  4. Enhanced Materials. This is the big one that ties into yesterday’s post. Alchemy allows for the production of Enhanced materials that are more effective for Imbedding. For instance, while normal glass has a low item strength, Alchemical Glass can be made with a much higher strength. Or an Alchemist can devise a powder of ground Dragonbone that allows for imbedding of high level spells. In other words, Alchemy allows a user to fabricate an item with a higher Item Strength than  normal.

In any event, Alchemy acts as an important “meta skill” in our Rolemaster/Shadow World game. Maybe this gives you an idea for yours!

 

 

 

Short takes: Imbedding Magic in Rolemaster & Shadow World

INTRODUCTION:

Although I wanted to slow my blogging pace down for the summer to focus on other projects it’s a hard habit to break! I want to spend less time on house rules; the RM Forums provides plenty of opportunity for rule minutia, and I think most of the active readers here already have their own set positions. So I’m introducing “Short Takes”, a minimized discussion for rule theory where I can offer conceptually ideas without getting into the weeds with my own solutions.  If you look over some recent posts, I’ve already started with this approach. By offering a rule theory in more vague terms, I’ve found that people respond more with their own ideas that I can adopt to fine tune my solution. That’s been the case for “Stats as Skills”, “Resistance Rolls”, “Fixed HPs” and a few others.

ITEM IMBEDDING:

For my first “Short Take”, I wanted to tackle the subject of Item Imbedding. I believe that Rolemaster was one of the first rule sets to tackle a comprehensive system of magic item creation, and while no one in our group ever played an Alchemist we loved to look through those Base lists and play around with making cool items.

While they were a leap forward in the early 80s, a lot has changed over the past few decades. Reviewing the Alchemists lists for BASiL made me realize how inadequate the lists are now. At the very least, they should just be reclassified as Closed lists, but that doesn’t solve the problem of the lists themselves or working in issues with other realms.

The spell lists that I have the biggest issues with are: Inorganic Skills, Liquid/Gas Skills & Organic Skills. These spell effects should be handled with regular RM skills, and by establishing these lists, it infers that spell users are needed to produce certain items and materials. Take the Udahir of the Iron Wind—they have a Laen Crafters Guild but under RM rules the members would need to be 20th lvl to work the material. So either the Guild has an abnormal number of 20th lvl Alchemists or there must be another process to work Laen. Later rules did a bit of hand-waving, offered up ritual magic or other reasons to explain cultures like the Udahir (or Dwarven crafter societies), but ultimately RM established a very high benchmark to work materials that were ubiquitous in the game world: mithril, laen eog etc.

It seemed obvious to me that de-coupling Crafting processes from Enchanting processes (a better word than Alchemy in my mind) was the first step. This allows for societies with high technical competence to make items without the need for Alchemy spells and puts more importance on crafting as a skill in general.

Of course, eliminating those 3 Alchemly lists only leaves 3 Base: Enchanting Ways, Essence Imbedding and Ment/Cham Imbedding. The last two are basically the same so in the end you are left with 2 basic lists to handle RM magic item creation. Let’s put that aside for now (I’ll discuss in another blog re: BASiL Investiture Spells).

So now that we recognize that Crafting is used to work materials, magic and non-magic, how does that tie into imbedding magic? We decided to unify imbedding, crafting & item breakage into 1 mechanic: Item Strength.

Here is the basic chart I posted on the Forums last year. We’ve done some improvements and changes to it since.

SW & RM Material Strength

Meta-physically, this directly ties together a material’s physical strength (fragility), susceptibility (resistance) and its magical capacity (# of spell levels). So, a glass object is fragile, unsuitable for magical imbedding and resistance to holding lots of spells. This means that for someone wanted to enchant/imbedding glass will either need to use a very low-level spell or be a powerful spell caster that can overcome the materials limitations. Conversely, strong items (like Laen) are both easy to Imbed and can hold lots of spell levels, but are difficult to craft.

This also simplified item crafting—the Item Strength number can be used either as an Item Level or a SM maneuver penalty depending on our own resolution process. For example, a crafter wants to make a sword of High Steel (Str 50). The crafting skill check roll would be made using a -50 (Sheer Folly), the sword could conceivably hold up to 50 lvl of spells and if an Enchanter wants to imbed a spell or power the item would save as 50th lvl to accept the spell. (Note that this is a bit counterintuitive–the material making the save would ACCEPT the imbed).

Occasionally there is an outlier (a strong material that is also magic resistant like Kregora, or a fragile material that holds magic well)—but it’s easy to track a few outliers than come up with a more complex system.

These guidelines also mean that potent magic items are going to be made with strong, high quality materials while those made with lesser materials will be weaker, used 1 time or disposable (potions, charms, wards, candles, powders, oil, ointments etc).

Hmm…I’m not sure this turned out to be a “Short Take”! A couple notes:

  1. I think Alchemy Companion and Construct Companion are fantastic books—but for us just too granular and complex.
  2. We’ve expanded our own Alchemy Rules (see HERE) which is different than standard RM Alchemists, so we call making magic items “Enchanting” to differentiate the two.
  3. When Imbedding fails the item makes a breakage check modified by the spell lvl.
  4. We have “Simple Imbedding” spell lists that allow players to make imbedded, 1 time items on the fly. Simplified rules like these make it easy to do “in game”.

 

Looking Forward

The second half of 2017 (yes,  know that June is technically in the first half of the year!) seems to be about completing projects.

After much badgering, Lightning Source found the print master for the RolemasterBlog Fanzine issue 1 and that is now in print and available.

This weekend  I will start the selection process for issue 3 and start to write the new unique content. I want the Fanzine to diverge from what is posted here and contain more playable content, more detailed NPCs, more new magical items and more fully detailed hoards using the treasure rules in C&T. Out posts here are open for all to read but the Fanzine is easier for a GM to keep close to his or her chest and not spoil the surprise if an adventure has a sting in the tail.

Why a fanzine?

I was asked last week, “Why a fanzine?” The answer is that paper has a longer life than a blog post that rolls off the front page on the site in just a few days or weeks and is then rarely seen again. A fanzine will hopefully be bought by one member of a gaming group and passed around. Hopefully for every one copy bought ten people will read it.

Moving forward I am selecting posts that have the most upbeat and positive views of RM. I don’t want someone to read it and think ‘these are the fans and all they do is complain’.

I hope to have the June issue in the can by the 10th of June and then we will see how fast it gets into print. Issue 2 was much faster to produce and layout than issue 1 and I can apply all of that to issue 3.

Now we are easing off on the blog posting this leaves more time for completing other projects. There is much hinting at the 50in50 project. We now have almost all fifty plot outlines sketched out, thirty of the fifty are written up in long form. I have also seen some of the graphics and battlemaps and they are looking great. We have mooted a September start and I cannot see that being a problem at all.

40th to 60th level adventures

Brian is full steam ahead with his 40th to 60th level adventures and I would like to join him in that. I have two ideas of my own for that. As it happened I was reading the stats for Titans last night. I had no idea how tough they were but surprisingly low level (15th). Thankfully it is easy to level them up to make a tougher version.

Gamemaster or Rolemeister

I also have, possibly two, child friendly versions of Rolemaster to write over the summer. I really want to keep the rules for each to under 30 pages and the cards used for skill, maneuver and combat resolution will all be generated by an algorithm which will save me a lot of work. I think that will be branded as Gamemaster rather than Rolemaster or some other variation. I quite like Rolemeister but I am not sure it is appropriate for a childrens RPG.

If that doesn’t keep me busy I have some games to run. My RMU playtest is back up and running. My playtester has returned from university for the summer. Before I know it my autumn gaming weekend will be coming up.

Not much gaming content in this post but if you get bored over the weekend look up Titans. They are seriously impressive.

Legends of Shadow World: Surviving Chapter 2

This is a continuation of my previous blog post on “Legends of Shadow World“, an adventure series I’m writing for characters level 40-60th. Last night the group attempted Chapter 2 (out of what is now 5 total chapters)! It’s getting longer….

While I thought I would replace the current group with other SW personalities of higher level, I didn’t have time this past week to put together the replacements. (btw: I liked T’vaar Dekdarion but I think he’s still in a coma an assassination attempt by the Cult of Stars). I did end up bumping the characters levels a bit:

Malim Pelax: 43rd lvl Loremaster (Magician)

Sumendar: 46th lvl Navigator –“Guides of Vurn-Kye” (Magician)

Knight-Captain Kroger: 48th lvl Captain of the Sun Guard (Lightbringers of Phaon)

Chomen Drah: 50th lvl Priest of Iorak

Jan Jo’drin: 54th lvl Changramai Warrior

The biggest change was allowing Chomen access to his 50th lvl Spell “Master”. (this is one of a few allowances I’m making while using RM2) All of the characters were effective, but the Navigator felt constrained due to his organizationally mandated neutrality. I may need to replace the Navigator in the group and just have the PCs use Navigator services when needed.

Chapter 1 introduced some environmental challenges and restrictions (Essaence Fluxuations) while Chapter 2 has different restrictions, this time on Channelers. The PCs were already depleted by Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 occurs immediately so there is no time for the group to “recharge”. C2 is more of a traditional dungeon crawl, with traps, guardians etc. For the most part, the group progressed slowly but steadily, but the challenges continued to erode their resources. The final confrontation proved to be a surprise–there are RM creatures that are incredibly dangerous to even high level characters! And no, they are not Shards.

While the players followed a fairly directed route that I sketched out, I’m going to flesh out the rest of the complex for the eventual published product. I think it’s going to be an amazing place to explore!

I think my biggest take away: even though there is lots of talk about high level spell casters having an advantage over non-spell users at higher levels, the reality is that casters better get good at some type of combat skill! Large numbers of semi-powerful creatures can overwhelm and defeat the most powerful caster and smart opponents will target casters who try and stay back and cast spells. (Isn’t that always how PCs beat tougher opponents?)

So far, I’ve been pleased with how the RM2 system rules are holding up at these high levels but a bit sad my group is back using RAW rather than my own simplified system. (although we are using the simplified encumbrance rules). My players and I discussed the differences playing this in RM2 versus our normal SW campaign using our own ruleset (SWARM). Here are some thoughts:

  1. Set HPs. We adopted Peters idea of set hitpoints and eliminating Body Development. The players liked having a lot more HPs at lower level, but now wonder if it would be better to have Body D back for these high level adventures! Ha, the grass is always greener!
  2. BASiL. RM2 and most iterations just give spell casters too many spells. A 50th lvl caster could conceivably have 25 lists and over 400 spells. By 15th lvl, most casters will have all the Open and Closed, the only differentiation being Base Lists. The players like having less, more distinct, more specialized and more powerful spells that BASiL allows.
  3. Unlimited Rank Development. The group would have liked to have unlimited rank development back. A fighter could have 200+ skill ranks in a weapon. Thats a 200+ OB, but more importantly we use # of skill ranks to offset combat maneuver penalties (not Combat Specializations). So a Fighter (or Monk) with 200 ranks could engage 4 opponents without any OB penalty (-50 per opponent, but doesn’t take into effect position penalties). Or parrry most missile weapons or engage in multiple attacks against several opponents etc.
  4. Meta-Skills. By 50th level, you HAVE to bake in meta-gamer effects and assume powerful characters will just know things and be good at things. Fewer meta-skills lends itself to higher level gaming.
  5. “Level-less” gameplay. We have been using “Stats as Skills” which are basically level agnostic. The players like the improvements that a level based system gave them, but agreed it didn’t make much sense.
  6. Magic Power rules. I nerfed Daily Items quite a bit, so the players liked having Daily items that didn’t require them to provide the powerpoints!
  7.  Great Role-Playing. Having the group adopt pre-gen characters allowed them to stretch a bit without the emotional attachment they might have with their own custom built characters. Out of the 5 characters the group favorite for roleplaying was Sumendar with Kroger coming in a close second! In terms of efficacy, guess who was the most potent character?