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Weekend Roundup: May 5th 2017

I’m straight out with projects, but I wanted to get something posted today to maintain our 1 post/day goal for this month! After this month, for the summer, I expect we’ll slow the posting frequency for the next few months so we can finalize the 50in50 adventure challenge and get some other files finished. This would be a good time for guest bloggers, so if you have any interest reach out to Peter.

Every news article is an RPG idea!

If this is true, how much power in a Dragon bite?

Real monsters…are real. And this is just freaky.

Mana from the heavens.

Cool? Reminds me of this book series.

Rise of the Althans…it’s beginning.

Early attempts at Ritual Magic.

Everytime we try to frame the future in a Scifi RPG, reality seeps in…

First it was time crystals…now “Hyper Crystals“….soon “Essaence Crystals”.

THIS requires more discussion or an in depth blog post.

 

 

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Gun Powder in Shadow World.

So, I’ve introduced gun powder to Shadow World. Part of this is based on hints that Terry has made in various SW products and the other is my integration of “Alchemy” into my rule set. I’ve already established that the Essaence affects covalent and ionic bonds (which explains magical materials) and Kulthea is not rich with reactive minerals.

Gun Powder is interesting, unpredictable, and not necessarily a game changer in a world with Elemental Magic, but technology is still progressing. I like the steampunk opportunities in Shadow World, and I like the “Musketeers” angle that can be created by combining simple guns with sword play.

As an ancillary example, someone brought up the “Powder Mage” books on the RM forums. I think you could easily model that world with Rolemaster, but you would have to create a ruleset around the “powder control” displayed in the book. Any of the Magician elemental lists are good templates: rather than controlling an element, you just create spells around detecting, sensing, controlling or buffing using gun powder. The book series also has regular mages—very powerful and would need their own powers or spell lists. Otherwise, in response to that forum post, the Powder Mage setting is easily modeled with RM rules.

Back to Shadow Word. We have ancient tech lasers and energy weapons, crystal power, steam energy, electric zap guns and everything in between. Why not introduce gun powder and guns as a unreliable, but occasionally potent technology? Shadow World Gun Slinger anyone?

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50th level adventures in Rolemaster. Does it work?

50th lvl…the mythical pinnacle of roleplaying achievement. I vaguely recall 1sted. D&D and I don’t recall 50th lvl (maybe it was 20th in that game system?). I do remember looking through Rolemaster for the very first time and thought the 50th lvl spells were so crazy—and cool! It opened up a world of possibilities. After that, MERP modules continued to introduce VHL (very high level) NPCs that continued pushing this perception of Rolemaster: deadly, complex and high level. After that…Shadow World. Again, the inference was that this was a high fantasy world, only populated by incredibly powerful NPCs and organizations.

So, Peter and I are working on a 50th level adventure series. Mine are based in Shadow World, but I’m going to convert these adventures to a generic format. So guess what? Creating adventures can be hard, but creating an adventure for a group of 50th lvl +- adventurers is even tougher!

Some people would argue that RM system rules break down around 15th lvl. Others would argue that the gradual power progression of RM spells, while potent, is not the same progression as the power progression of spells in AD&D—spells like “Wish” make high level Magic Users or Cleric almost god-like. Many 50th lvl spells in Spell Law are just “Laws”: the ability to cast lower level spells 1/rnd. That’s an efficient resource spell, but perhaps doesn’t lend itself to a transcendent narrative.

My first question when starting this adventure design was: “Under what circumstances would a 50th lvl PC even get involved? Not all world threats should, or can be, handled by a “well balanced group” of 5-15th lvl characters. An adventure should be: challenging, interesting and rewarding. Once a PC reaches the heights of 50th lvl, what is challenging? What adventure could possibly be new, novel or interesting? What could be rewarding for a player group equaling 200-250 levels?

We are going to try and find out with our Rolemasterblog 5of50 later this year. Have you run or played in a VHL adventure or campaign? What worked? What didn’t?

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Rolemaster Adventure Hooks: Head Fake or Trope Embrace?

If you are a regular reader here than you probably know that Rolemasterblog is putting together a challenge of writing 50 Adventures in 50 Days! These are short adventures or “hooks”, and while there is no such thing as a new idea, I think that Peter and I have come up with some twists and turns that add depth to a one dimensional challenge.

For me this is an exercise in both creativity and discipline. I try to outline an idea every day or two and work to add an interesting element to give it some “flair”.  What I have found is that I’m torn between embracing classic RPG tropes and trying to come up with something new and novel. As much as I want to avoid standard adventures ideas, there is something appealing about an old fashion dungeon crawl or fortress layout! But I also enjoy subverting classic tropes and messing with my players assumptions!

Hopefully, people will enjoy the Rolemasterblog creative content–even derivative ideas could spark your own creative process.

 

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Rolemasterbloggery: Happy Anniversary–to ME!

It completely escaped my notice until today, but April 26th was 1 year since my first post on Rolemasterblog.com. Since that first blog I was able to put up 114 posts in 12 months–almost 1 blog post every 3 days! I’m not sure how long I can continue that pace; part of the reason Peter and I would like to see other contributors on the blog (plus it’s nice to have new voices, thoughts and viewpoints).

I’ve started reviewing some of these older posts; even in one years time some of my ideas and positions have changed.  Plus I couldn’t even recall half of what I wrote so it’s fun to reread some of them to remind myself what I was thinking at the time. In no particular order, here are a few that I thought are worth revisiting:

5/15/16. Skill Atrophy. Judging by the response, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for this rule proposal, but, we’ve been using it for quite some time and I still like it. For anyone that took the winter off from exercise, you know that loss of physical fitness is a real phenomena. Skill atrophy models that,  it incentives players to continue spending DPs on core competencies,  and it tackles skill bloat at higher levels.

5/28 Missile Parry.  We’ve been using missile parry for so long I think of it as core RAW. Our missile parry encompasses the missile DB of Adrenal Defense, the secondary skill for blocking missiles and adds cinematic elements of master swordsmen knocking arrows out of the air. Like other combat modifiers, parrying a missile is subject to a modifier based on the missile type and the effectiveness of the weapon iteself. So blocking an arrow with a war mattock is not going to be that effective. ( Martial Arts generally have the lowest penalties).

6/4/16. Cool Shadow World Mounts. Terry’s use of cool animals for mounts is a great ADD for SW!

7/12/16. Quantitative Labeling.  I moved almost completely away from qualitative labeling in my RM game. Difficulties are just assigned penalties, creature sizes are numbered etc.

11/9/16. Interview with Terry Amthor. Always worth a re-read. I keep thinking of new questions to ask Terry but he is just too busy!!

12/12/16. Chartless Rolemaster.  This wasn’t the best written post, but it’s an important argument. Barring attack charts, crits and fumble charts we’ve eliminated virtually all charts in our RM game. My recent blog about character creation in 15 minutes and there is a path and counter narrative to the “RM Complexity/Chartmaster” complaints.

For this coming year, we are focusing on more game content rather than just rule hacks. Our 50in50 will introduce 50 adventure hooks: 1 per day for 50 days. For my own goals, I’ll be putting out a 50 page magic item supplement, a adventure guide for the Shadow World “Pales”, 5 high level adventures (hopefully with some help), SWARM ruleset…plus Mentalism realm for my BASiL project!!! In that time, I’m really hoping to have ICE/Terry move ahead with publishing “Priest King” and starting the review of “Empire of the Black Dragon”.

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Rolemaster Character Creation in 15 Minutes.

Search around the internet for Rolemaster discussions and you’ll see that a lot of people gripe about how much time it takes to make a 1st lvl character. Much of this complaining is grounded in the deadliness of the system: it sucks spending an hour or two on creating a character only having them die with a bad fumble or high critical roll in their first outing. I get it.

Even if you are an experienced RMer, you can easily spend an hour building a character and filling out the multi-page character sheet. But what if it only takes 15 minutes or so to make a character in Rolemaster? We’ve simplified and modified the rules enough that character creation is flexible, easy and quick…and…a player can make virtually any character type they want. The key is using “packages” to replace the normal Adolescent and Apprenticeship skill picks. We combine this approach with our own ‘no profession‘ rule set, but it can work for the standard professions rules as well. It’s also not an “all or nothing” proposition; players can still go through individual skill buy for character creation if they want, and normal skill selection is still used after the first level.

We recently added a player to our group so I had the chance to test my newer rules out. So how do we do character creation? First, I have a player sketch out their character concept and review the various skill packages (cultural and vocational—we’ll get to that in a bit). They now have strong idea of the character they want to play and probably a solid plan moving forward. This was done prior to, on their own time and I didn’t add it to the creation time, but, that conceptual planning certainly makes the quick creation time possible.

Step 1. Roll Stats. I have the players roll 11 sets (appearance stat is used) of 3 rolls. The lowest roll in each set is dropped, the next lowest is the temp and the highest the potential. There is no minimum threshold and there are no prime stats that can be replaced with 90’s, but the player can assign the stat roll sets as they see fit. We have started adopting innate stat skills, so every stat now has some important use. Time: 2-3 minutes.

Step 2. Choose a race & culture. Like RMU we use preset skill packages for various general cultures, races and specific SW societies. This replaces the original “Adolescent Skill Pick” step in RM. You can see some of the choices HERE (need RM Forums account to download).  Time 2-3 minutes.

Step 3. Choose a vocation/profession package. We have over 40 regular vocations to choose from, plus another 20 SW specific vocations. This replaces the “Apprenticeship Skill Pick” step in standard RM and represents the time spent after childhood in teen and early adult years. Vocation packages include cultural notes, type of training, years spent at vocation, skills, spell lists, established relationships, experiences, starting equipment, and wealth and property. You can see some of the choices HERE. Time: 2-3 minutes.

Step 4. Special Skill Rank Bonus. Players have 6 “points” that can assign as skill rank bonus(s)—sort of like aptitudes and replaces the normal assigned profession rank bonus. They have the choice of: (1) +3 OR (2) +2, OR (1) +2 and (3) +3 OR (6) +1 to assign to specific skills of their choice. This gives the player flexibility to really shape the character’s abilities and talents! Time: 2-3 minutes

Step 5. Pick Spell Lists if applicable. Cultural and Vocational Packages will give general and/or specific spell lists but some choices might need to be made. We individual spell pick. Time: 0-5 minutes.

Step 6. Calculate HPs and PPs. Calculate rank bonuses, special bonuses and stat bonuses for skills. Time: 5 minutes.

Step 7: Fill in character sheet. Add equipment, calculate encumbrance and DB. Time: 2-5 minutes.

Obviously with a spreadsheet version, steps 6 & 7 are almost automatic, reducing time further. In my player’s example, he chose a Fustir-Gost Shaman which gave him a good range of outdoor skills,  fighting ability, and practical Channeling magic. It took him 21 minutes to make complete his character.

A couple of points to emphasize:

  • After the 1st lvl players follow normal skill selection (50 DPs)—the packages are only for adolescent and apprenticeship.
  • New cultural packages are easy to design and introduce and can be effective in framing a particular race or culture’s comparative advantages or unique attributes.
  • While we use around 50 vocational packages, the possibilities are infinite. For example, a Fustir-gost fisherman will have a different profile of skills than a Sulini fisherman or a soldier from Eidolon will have different skills than a soldier from Rhakhaan.
  • Vocation packages include more than skills—it provides a variety of resources and background cues to flesh out the character. Here is a rough outline for several of the “Militia” professions:

Vocation Packages Sample

Quick character creation doesn’t mean generic characters—50+ cultural packages and 50+ vocational packages allows for thousands of unique combinations. For us it’s a great solution for simplifying and shortening the Rolemaster character creation process and it may be a good bolt in when introducing new players to the game.

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Monks kick butt. Meta-physical or not.

It’s no secret that Monks are my favorite profession. From the early days of AD&D to the later days of Rolemaster, when I have been a player it’s always been Caylis the Monk. As I have mentioned before, I like the independence of the Monk—a class that uniquely breaks the whole trope of the balanced party. Monks don’t need equipment (10’ pole, oil flasks or iron spikes), don’t need armor or weapons, have stealth, resistance to disease and poison and can hit as a magic weapon…WAIT…just had an AD&D flashback….

In Rolemaster there are no inherent class abilities, but…Warrior Monks have low cost of adrenal moves, adrenal defense, wear no armor and have unarmed combat ability. One of my favorite AD&D skills the Monk had: Slow Fall. This was duplicated as an Adrenal Skill in Rolemaster and still one of my favorites and allowed for great gameplay situations. Some would say that a simple levitation spell does the same thing but that’s more of a RM Monk thing than a non-spell user Warrior Monk.

So, a funny thing. In my efforts towards a level-less/classless system I greatly reduced the number of skills—basically corralling them into ‘meta-skills’ for parity and utility. (rather than unlimited parsing). Part of that process was removing ‘magical skills’—abilities that broke into the metaphysical realm, and this included the Slow Fall skill (which really makes no real sense) My changes nerfed some of the Monks skills—specifically Adrenal Defense which, while AWESOME, also made no sense. My solution—just allow normal parry allocation for martial artists. Rather than a physical parry of blade blocking blade, it’s assumed that martial arts provides a reactive defense against armed opponents including missile parry. This means that a martial artist will lose OB to increase DB like any RM combatant—where before they got the AD bonus at no cost to their OB. At the same time, we applied individual weapon modifiers and unarmed combat gets a MAJOR bump due to its low situational penalties: multiple attacks, multiple opponents, reverse, 180d etc.

In my rewrite of RM I probably hurt my favorite profession. That’s ok. Monks are still awesome and shouldn’t be given special spell-like abilities to enforce their character tropes. In my rules,

  1. Monks are the few characters that get targeted skills in Adolescence plus focused skills in Apprenticeship/Vocation. This means they have a more narrow, targeted skill set than other starting characters with more general and broad skill range.
  2. I don’t expect unarmed combat to be effective against an armored foe or animal/monster so the idea of Monks hitting non-corporeal creatures was silly anyway.
  3. In an anthropomorphic setting, Monks are at little disadvantage since most of their opponents will be human-like.
  4. I do use a meta skill ‘Meditation’ that provides for controlling metabolic activity (feign death, oxygen use, blood loss, calming etc). Monks have that as part of their adolescent and vocational skill package.
  5. I allow for unlimited* skill development so a focused vocation like Monks can develop a higher level of a few skills.

In my campaigns, Monks are still cool but certainly lack special powers granted in other game systems. Strangely enough, my work towards a level-less system was driven by the Changramai Monks of Shadow World. (and to the same degree Loremasters, and Navigators).

In our world, there are real Monks with amazing skills and tribulations. How about the  Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei?

 

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RPG Maps. A new tech solution?

In my opinion, maps and layouts are the linchpin of RPG’s and adventures. While you could argue that form follows narrative, it is possible, and perhaps easier to build a story around a map than it is to come up with a story first. Peter touched upon this with his decahedron blog post: how many of you thought to use this great 3d layout?

I am a poor artist, mapmaker and layout illustrator–that’s fine when my group never sees the source doc, but a horrible handicap when creating products for print!  My perfect solution would be to find an artist that can create awesome maps and layouts and I can fill in the content. What I call the “Elton/Bernie” solution. Unfortunately, I have yet to find my art muse…

What if there is a better solution for our map woes? What if there were a way to create “Fenlon” style maps on demand, quickly, that can provide filler for a GM’s campaign?

I present to you, the “Uncharted Atlas” per Atlas Obscura: “a Twitter bot made to produce a new map every hour, each with its own array of  mountains and rivers, fjords, island archipelagoes, and deserts. 

The landscapes are rendered in the pen-and-ink style of maps printed at the front of certain fantasy novels à la Tolkien, complete with alien names: “The Pez-mes-Lüch Coast,” “The Confederation of nos-Us,” “Outer Háukwuénoé.” (the designer built a language generator, too).”

Tell me this isn’t the future? I recall talking to Matt about the future of Rolemaster/Shadow World years ago. The solution, above all else, is maps. Terry writes amazing content but the most useful material is campaign and tactical level maps. Check out the original Loremaster series or Court of Ardor. Those Fenlon maps marked roads, trails, terrain, cities, forts, ruins and other useful markers. As a GM that’s all I really need to create an adventure (plus my random encounter tables). Campaign Cartographer already has a “Fenlon Style Pack“: how about combining the style of Fenlon with the instant computer generation of Uncharted Atlas?

Fairly soon, cool maps will become a computer generated solution. Personally, I can’t wait!

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Grand Apathy? Where are all the 50th lvl characters?

“The Hero’s Journey” is an oft used theme for fantasy fiction; an unknown and lowly character is drawn into a grand adventure, grows and ultimately defeats an existential threat. As a fiction narrative, it provides a predictable but satisfying arc, and for an RPG the Hero’s Journey is the very essence of a PC’s path.

Anecdotally, few campaigns actually last long enough to see a PC progress from 1st to 50th lvl, and there just seems to be few high level 20+ adventures as well. The more common Hero’s Journey is from level 1 to around level 15–leaving unaddressed how many higher level NPCs actual populate the world. There have been conversations on the RM Forums about the distribution/frequency of spell casters in various world settings with the implication that no matter how common low level casters are, there needs to be at least one 50th lvl caster on the other end of the spectrum. In short, there are 50th lvl NPCs somewhere—so where are they and why don’t they do anything when the shit hits the fan?

Fiction and gaming is ripe with examples of world threats being confronted and defeated by modest means—it’s the very essence of the Hero’s Journey trope. But given a world shaking threat, why don’t these high level NPC take care of things? Obviously, that wouldn’t make for a good story or campaign arc. For example:

  1. Middle Earth. Why doesn’t Gandalf just jump on a Giant Eagle, fly to Mount Doom and drop that damn ring into the volcano?
  2. Star Trek. How do you create narrative conflict when you a technologically powerful civilization? You handcuff them with the “Prime Directive”.
  3. Shadow World. The bad guys (Jerak Ahrenrath) have no trouble utilizing their powerful members to create havoc—including stealing the Northern Eye. Why wouldn’t the Lord of Orhan just command their Arch Clerics and most powerful followers to get together and deal with it? It’s not as if the disruption of the Essence Flows is a small issue, or beneath their notice.

The obvious answer is that allowing powerful NPC’s to intervene eliminates these challenges for lower level PC’s. So an excuse is built in to prohibit or explain the lack of high level intervention:

  1. Aloof. The Gods are indifferent to the common plight or mundane issues of the world.
  2. The “Balance”. The use of high level power would destabilize the world.
  3. Destiny. Only the “chosen one” can solve the problem.
  4. John Galt. The powerful have withdrawn from the world of man.

If the very foundation of RPG’s is built around the common man solving meta-threats what role is there for high level characters? In order on create an appropriate challenge for a 50th lvl player, you need to come up with an appropriate threat: end of world ritual, evil god empire, extra planar entity, Lord of the Demons, etc. You would think that such a threat would demand the involvement of every powerful character in the world—but where were they for threats just slightly below world destruction?

As I outline out a half dozen adventures for 50th lvl I have to come up with threats so serious that they would require the involvement of powerful PC’s and would challenge them but aren’t realistic adventures for lower level adventurers. That seems easier in D&D when there are real differences in levels than in RM where there aren’t any innate class abilities, and spells and skills follow a graduated progression.

What possible threat requires a group of 4-6 50th lvl PC’s? It’s been an interesting exercise, both mentally  and creatively.

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“Let the Wookie Win”: Turning a group loss into a campaign positive.

I recently read this blog and it got me thinking about the standard adventure and campaign progression. It also immediately brought to mind this scene and quote from an Indiana Jones movie.

Single adventures usually follow a linear narrative that provide a final challenge or battle that the players want to, and should win. But what about longer campaigns? Is it a series of wins, each providing experience and levelling up or is it a campaign of fits and starts? Can the players and groups lose at the end of a chapter? How about at the end of the novel? Gaming should be both fun and rewarding and few GM’s want to end a long running campaign with failure but significant set backs and even tragic losses during the campaign will make the eventual triumph that much sweeter.

An early blog I wrote was on “Newmans“–long running adversaries for the PC’s. If these adversaries are less enemies and more competitors it’s natural that they should succeed as well. But what about the opponent of “ultimate evil” or “mob boss”–should they put some points on the scoreboard or get a major win?

Of course a GM may want to build some early losses into an extended campaign–but those are intentional and meant to control the narrative. What about unpredictable losses? In RM the critical system and open ended rolls works both ways. Short of TPK, can a GM turn a unexpected tragic encounter into a positive for the campaign? Of course: most fantasy RPG’s have some form of resurrection, Rolemaster has healing spells for almost every unimaginable injury and equipment and items can be replaced eventually.

Anyone have thoughts? Have you turned a catastrophe into something better?