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Rolemaster Spell Law: Revisiting and rethinking Project BASiL.

Our rewrite of Spell Law was always going to be a work in progress: every new idea, every game session of playtesting or a random thought makes us rethink our basic assumptions. So a recent comment on the Rolemaster Forums  and various blogs on the RolemasterBlog has me thinking about “Realms” again.

Peter makes the argument against the Channeling Realm and his solution rolls various Channeling spells into either the Essence or Mentalism realms. I think my discussions of BASiL realms can be misleading—I don’t see “Realms” as separate properties of power; instead we see “Realms” as the separation of magical powers by casting mechanisms. In RMU this is the same distinction between generating magic effects via spells versus magical effects via rituals. We just take it one step further and further divide spell casting into more distinct mechanisms. This just happens to mirror the original Essence, Channeling, Mentalism to some degree, but we added 4-5 other “Realms” so the comparison starts to lessen. (I just haven’t gotten around to put up these other Realms yet). Peter refers to this as Schools of Magic which I think is a pretty good model to view it.

I think RMU and RM in general has it wrong to use the same spellcasting mechanism for all three realms (SCR, 1-3 round casting time .etc). Furthermore it’s clear that some spell lists just don’t fit the assigned realm or that casting process. We attempted to correct that in BASiL and just took the process where it led us. That meant that “Imbedding/Alchemist” magic needed a better casting and process methodology; “performance magic” (bard, dance, sing etc) needed a more unique process and “written” magic (runes/sigils/glyphs/symbols/circles) didn’t really fit into a 1-3 round casting time.

I’ve blogged about increasing distinctions between Realm powers, but in my thinking over these latest posts and blogs I think I made a mistake—one that I write about often. It’s difficult to completely remove all the tropes/memes and biases built up over a lifetime of gaming and I question my thinking all the time when writing new material, but I stuck to a trope I should have reconsidered. Why shouldn’t the Essence realm have healing spells?

In BASiL I made a clear distinction between Essence (manipulation of the physical world) and Channeling (miraculous and affecting spiritual issues): sort of Science versus Faith paradigm. So while it was clear to me that Spirit Mastery, Souls, etc were solidly in the realm of the metaphysical, I kept healing in the Channeling realm (and self-healing in the mentalism). I do remember questioning this during the Spell Law redesign but I kept healing in Channeling for “balance” purposes!!! My hypocrisy.

Spells that heal tissue, stop bleeding or knit tissue and muscle are very much a physical process and should be included in Essence. At the same time the healing spells in Channeling should be less technical and more miraculous—or just more effective—given their source to divinity. So it looks like I’m moving the Healing Law lists to Essence and writing new and improved healing spells for Channeling.

For more thoughts on the Spell Law rewrite:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

 

 

 

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Advanced Technology in Shadow World

For those that want to utilize it, ancient advanced technology is a narrative aspect to the Shadow World setting. Advanced technology was not just achieved by the Althan/Ka’ta’viir civilization in the 1st Era, but also utilized by several other notable cultures during the Interregnum: Taranian, Jinteni & Worim.

When we think of technology in fantasy role playing we often visualize laser pistols, laser swords, shield devices, power armor—objects that are just more powerful version of standard fantasy weapons (crowsbows, swords, armor etc). I posted up an older file on using technology in SW here, but the convenient fact is that although it’s tech, it can be handled easily within the RM fantasy magic rules. Laser Guns cast “Firebolts”; Lightsabers inflict Electricity, Fire or Plasma Crits; Anti-grav belts cast “Levitation”, etc.

While there have been numerous ancient high-tech civilizations and contemporary cultures that use “science” (Krylites), none of them reached the advancements of the Althans or Ka’Ta’viir.(Tech Level 13+). Truly advanced technology can transcend common form factors and seem inscrutable to normal understanding. In other words, they will seem magical.

Here are a few advanced technologies that might be a good fit in your Shadow World game:

Post Physical Entities: This is a term often used to describe an “upload society” where consciousness can be transferred to a computer network, object or virtual emulator. Shadow World modules already features stored Ka’ta’viir intelligences (Cloudlords) and the Thalan are a good example of a post-physical entities (PPE’s). From a game standpoint, introducing an ancient Althan/Ka’ta’viir consciousness could be interesting. The entity would probably have their own agenda, limit information flow and perhaps “guide” the players to their own purpose. This could provide a useful guide for the GM to direct the PC’s through the adventure or tie multiple adventures into a greater campaign. Mechanically, PPE’s should be treated as an NPC, only limited by the ability to interact with the physical world. Additionally the PC’s may not even realize the “entity” is an uploaded consciousness or ancient being.

A.I.: Similar to Post Physical entities, A.I.’s are already featured in SW. Two prominent ones are the A.I. in Andraax’s tomb and Morik in Eidolan. Unlike PPE’s, A.I.’s are a technical/software artifact and may be limited by their learning ability, programming and information resources. Like PPE’s, A.I.’s should be treated as NPC’s.

Time Control: Ka’Ta’viir use a “Chronagenic” process to hibernate. Not to be confused with a cryogenic process; rather than freezing or preserving a person through physical or biological means the capsule seals the entity into a time singularity. It’s not clear whether the Althans had additional control over time (barring localized events). Jinteni also had some time dilation abilities (Emer III and Inn of the Green Gryphon). Time travel and control have always been tricky in RPG’s: a GM needs to decide the long term effects of causality and impact on the game narrative. There are three basic mechanisms for time manipulation: devices (machines & portals), spells (I’ve uploaded a Time Mastery spell list on the RM Forums  ) or Essaence effects (Essaence Storms and Foci). Time Travel introduces an introducing plot device to allow PC’s to explore other parts of the immense SW timeline. In fact, you could probably roll randomly for page, paragraph and line or 1-100,000 years to pick a date in the timeline to send the players. At the least, they could be spectators to interesting historical events and experience some of the intriguing past of Kulthea!

Matter/Energy Conversion: A truly advanced society will have mastered matter – energy conversion. This is more than simple fusion, it’s a two way process to generate power from any matter OR the ability to produce objects or material from energy. This probably has less game-world impact than other technologies but it does allow for devices to be powered indefinitely (by harvesting small amounts of matter for energy), self-repair of devices and vehicles or for generating objects “out of thin air” like a Wish spell.

Molecular Assembly: Before they have the ability of creating matter from energy, a post scarcity society will have obtained the ability to create any object from scratch using “feedstock” raw material. These Replicators or “Cornucopia Machines” are just highly advanced 3D printers. In Sci-fi and economic theory, such a machine would be a major societal disruptor allowing for the easy creation and accessibility of wealth. This technology was the basis for the post-scarcity society presented in Star Trek. In your SW game, this technology could be useful but not unbalancing on a limited basis—perhaps program/design access is prohibited except to authorized users (i.e. weapon mfg)

Mal-Metal: Malleable, changeable or programmable materials would be common in an advanced society. This allows for amorphous forms—wings that can change shape, weapons that can morph into others with a thought, adjustable cloaks, armor that can distribute impacts or force etc. This type of technology would be very useful to a PC and would be indistinguishable from common magic item tropes. Obvious examples would be morphing weapons (retain weight/mass but changes shape), fluid bracers that cover the arms as greaves at a thought etc. In SW, “Malloys” (malleable alloys) could combine advanced tech with materials like Keron, Eog or Ithloss.

Bionomics: A step past cyborg implants, Bionomics are organic based technological capabilities built into a person at the molecular and cellular level. These could be energy projections (disruptors, beams), shields (force fields or environmental shields), wetware computing power for advanced mental and calculative abilities. Unless they were born from a very specific parentage, installation of Bionomics would require substantial surgical procedures and DNA manipulation.  Bionomic abilities could be treated as innate spell abilities powered by a reservoir of cell energy (use CO. stat?).  In our campaign, Bionomic technology was a significant part of the Xiosian heritage.

Von Neumann Self Replicators: These machines combine the technologies of molecular assembly and matter/energy conversion to build copies of themselves. This is a powerful concept but might not have too much relevance in a gaming environment. However these could also work on a nano scale—“Nannite” clouds that replicate and perform programmed tasks (healing, buffs, metamorphis etc). Examples of “Nannites” might be found in upcoming SW material!

Solid State Technology: When we think of machines we often conflate it to devices with moving parts and collections of components. An advanced society will utilize microtization, exotic meta-materials and atomic level functionality to produce devices that work as machines but won’t have moving parts. To PC’s this will give machine or software functionality to solid objects–just like magic items.

Neural Control/Interface: The Ka’ta’viir were not only advanced technologically, they were able to utilize the Essaence AND access Psionic/Mind powers. At the height of their powers (Late Imperial Era) many devices were controlled through mere thought. In the game, neural interfaces should be treated as quasi-mentalism or accessed via “Attunement” skill (treat as Absurd or -150 due to the complexity of this technology or allow a PC to have some Althan heritage and reduce the penalty).

While primarily a fantasy setting, Shadow World also has elements of a post-apocalypse setting and a sci-fi setting. Maybe the PC’s will initially be unaware they are encountering technology and not magic but these elements could add flavor to your campaign!

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Nature vs. Nurture. The emphasis between Stats or Professions.

I really can’t get off my soap box regarding adopting a “No Profession” system. One of the arguments I often hear for professions and profession assigned skill costs is that early character development locks in affinities that define the characters learning patterns for life.

For me, this is a perfect example of the Nature vs Nurture paradigm. “Nature” being defined as a characters stats and stat bonuses (natural aptitudes) and “Nurture” being defined as early influential training. Rolemaster assumes the primacy of “Nurture”: early choice of a Profession sets skill costs that influence the characters progression and development. However the rules themselves allow that paradigm to be easily broken. For instance a player can choose “Fighter” as a profession but spend all his developments points on thieving skills. At what point or level does continuous training of thieving skills outweigh the early choice of the Fighter profession? Should that character even call themselves a fighter?

I am firmly in the camp of “Nature”—that learning is driven more by innate, natural abilities, but that intensive, immersive training can eventual overcome natural talent. Even a weak, clumsy person can become a competent fighter with enough training and dedication. So if innate ability (Nature) is more important, it argues for the elimination of profession based skill costs and thus professions in general.

Ideally, the best solution might be skill costs set by stats or stat bonuses. I.e. a character with high physical stats would have lower costs for physical skills etc. While this makes intuitive sense it would be cumbersome in practical application. However, if you like the “Nurture” argument, RM and RMU rules are already poised to model this reality with just a few tweaks.

We achieved this via the following:

  1. First there needs to be an increase in the influence of stat bonuses. In RM2, stat bonuses are really only influential at the first few levels and then begin to diminish quickly as the skill rank bonus increases. We adopted the RMU stat bonuses and 3 stat per skill calculation to increase the benefit of stats.
  2. We set all skills costs to 5*. That doesn’t mean that skills cost the same for everyone: the increase in stat bonuses means that the real measure is the acquisition cost/skill bonus ratio.
  3. We adjusted the skill rank bonus progression to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….up to 10 and then it drops 1/rank back down to 1 again. This accomplishes several things—it increases the importance and influence of stat bonuses (by lowering skill bonuses) and reduces the benefit of picking up a handful of ranks in a skill to “max out” the rank bonus vs. acquisition cost. Plus, in general, this progression better models a natural learning curve.
  4. We introduced unlimited rank development. This allows a character to singularly focus on a skill to overcome innate limitations. But this comes at a high opportunity cost—each additional rank taken costs an additional 1DP/rank (this resets each level) so focusing on one or a handful of skills will allow a player to truly excel but at the cost of other skill development.

For our gaming group the application of three elements allows for fast character creation, flexible characters and a more intuitive modeling of character development in the Nature v. Nurture framework.

 

  1. Cultural Skill packages (Nurture) to reflect early development and culturally appropriate knowledge.  This is non-stat influenced as it is skill transmission driven by society and culture.
  2. Vocational Skill Package (Nurture) to reflect young adult vocation, job or trade. This is non-stat influenced as it represents an early “career” decision, availability of vocations in a specific culture or the imperative of cultural norms (ie everyone must join the military).
  3. (Nature) Uniform skill costs, influential stat bonuses and unlimited rank development to give players maximum flexibility and cost/benefit decision making. This is stat dependent as detailed above.

For those that like Professions, this still allows the creation of creative, emulative or societal driven Cultural or Vocational training packages. Our Shadow World campaign has over 40 Cultural Packages and 50 Vocational Packages that can be combined to make thousands of interesting characters without the arbitrary dictums of Professional names or concepts.

Just my two cents—what’s yours?

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More thoughts on “Level-less” Rolemaster.

Rolemaster is inherently a skill-based system but it has clung to some of the established level mechanisms of D&D by reverting them into skills. Peter had a great blog on making hit points independent of skill. I’m really embracing this idea now–and it gets rid of Body Development skill which is a plus in my endless efforts to reduce skill bloat. (We’ve shifted the other aspects of Body Development  into our meta-skill “Athletics”).

So I’m still struggling with disconnecting RR’s from character level. We use “Spell attack level = PP’s” which makes a lot of sense to me, but could be unbalancing if characters didn’t have a better chance of saving as they progress. Or is it unbalancing? Here are some scattered thoughts in no real order:

  1. Set all RR’s to a base of 50/50 success. The threshold is adjusted by the “attack level” of the spell/poison/disease/effect etc. So a PC resisting a 50th lvl spell would need to roll above 100—but would still have their stat bonus and any other spell buffs. A RR vs a 10th lvl poison would need to roll above a 60 etc.
  2. Magic is powerful and should be difficult to resist. However, using this system, a lower level caster who dedicates enough PP’s could affect a 50th lvl character. Is this unbalancing? Higher level characters should have substantially better protection in both items and spells.
  3. While this may increase the potency of spell casting, our own character law system results in casters having fewer, more individualized spells. Under normal RM rules this system might greatly enhance spell-casters.
  4. More buffs. I’ve always felt that the protection spells in RM were fairly weak, something we have tried to correct in our Spell Law re-write. If protection spells were increased in than this might offset the bump in potency in spell casting?
  5. I’m trying hard to get almost every action resolution into the standard RM 1-100 resolution process. The idea proposed in #1 above doesn’t quite work within that frame. RMU tries this with spellcasting by incorporating +100 into the SCR which I find cumbersome. Perhaps, like weapon attacks, I’ll have to let this be just slightly different.
  6. I’ve seen some proposals to get rid of levels to determine RR and to introduce “resistance skills”: skills that give bonuses against Essence, Channeling, Mentalism. That leads down a whole complicated path on spell mechanics, training etc–anybody try this?

Resistance Rolls seem like the last vestiges of a level based system; one that I would like to eliminate. Open to any ideas.

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Weekend Library

Greetings all and welcome to my new column: Weekend Library.  I read quite a bit so I thought I would offer up a list of books that might be a little obscure but worth checking out for great game or campaign ideas for your Rolemaster, Shadow World or fantasy setting.

The Mechanical (3 book series). Interesting take on Clockwork men and alchemy. I got some ideas to update my adventure “The Lair of Ozymandias”.

Six of Crows. A grittier version of “Lies of Locke Lamora”. Good characters and ideas for a urban “Sting/Heist” campaign.

The Face Fakers Game. The writing is a bit inconsistent, but an interesting system of magic that gave me a few ideas.

The Copper Promise. A throwback to the early D&D style adventures. Fun but a straight forward translation of game to store.

The Dungeonneers. Witty and fun quick read. However, it’s interesting because it acknowledges all the traditional dungeon tropes and tackles them head on via a group of Dwarven adventurers.

Free the Darkness. What type of game would you have with a character that was good at EVERYTHING?

Mountain of Daggers. Very old school (Howard or Leiber). Short stories of a famed thief.

Low Town. Great urban low-magic fantasy.

 

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Shadow World Religions as Rolemaster Professions?

If you read this blog consistently you are probably aware that both Peter and I are proponents of a “No Profession” game. But the truth is that a having “No Professions” generally means that most players end up designing a character that conforms to a common fantasy trope anyway. Whether that’s because players are guided by long held biases and profession models or that a balanced design forces players into basis archetypes (at least non, pure or semi) a no profession system almost always results in customized but identifiable classes without the need for “one-off” rules, talents, quirks or similar work-arounds. (For more thoughts on this check out my blog “No Professions Equals All Profession”.)

Many, many RM’ers love having lots of professions, but many of the Companion professions are only slight variations on the 1-2 dozen standards used. I’ve read lengthy argument about tiny variations in individual skills costs to justify the differentiation, but let’s be honest—do you really need different professions for a Knight, Barbarian, Duelist or Warrior? They are all just fighters aren’t they? A barbarian is just a fighter that wears less armor!!! That differentiation could best be done with equipment choices.

However, if you like the endless variations in professions than let’s talk about Channelers, and more specifically Clerics. RM paints a very broad brush with Clerics; they basically have the same vanilla powers set in DnD: protection, healing, creation and resurrection. Blah!!! Channeling Companion went a long way in addressing the need for differentiation in Clerical powers based on their specific Diety and added several new professions as well. In my view, the choice of God makes each pantheons clerics a unique profession. In fact, I see Animists/Druids as an extension of this viewpoint—they are Channelers of a “nature god”. Why Animists/Druids are singled out as a profession when Clerics of the God of Fire, or Lightning, or Trickery should be equally as valid makes little sense—unless you are stuck in the common profession tropes of DnD and standard RPGS.

We play in Shadow World which as a very specific set of Gods. It’s common sense that a Priest’s training (spells and skills) will reflect the nature of their patron. Isn’t this the very definition of RM Professions? A “Battle-Priest of Z’taar” should be VERY different than a Cleric of Eissa. In our SW campaign, Clerics of differing religions rarely share the same spells—unlike RM RAW where most Clerics will have all the same Open, Closed and Base lists.

Because we designed our Shadow World Clerics with very specific spells and skills they basically create whole new professions. A quick look at a few of our Shadow World “Clerics” with basic tagline descriptions (you need an RM Forum membership to see or download the files):

Scions of Kuor: Lightning wielding priest, moderate pro-business republican, conservative, male, Zeus, WASP, 1% upper class, politician, elder statesmen. Spell List. RM Profession: Cleric.

Scholae of Valris: Gnostics, scribes, professors, Loremasters, scientist, Da Vinci. Spell List. RM Profession: Scholar.

Messengers of Teris: Travelers, Messenger (Warded Man), navigator, postman, pony express, information guild, courier, dispatcher. RM Profession: Spell List. Rogue, Bard?

Disciples of Cay: Olympians, Wrestlers, Greek Athletes, Gladiator, model, youthful, Grecian. Spell List. RM Profession: Monk, Fighter.

Stormbringers of Shaal: Stern, fierce, mercurial, father figure, Stormriders (Malazan) not humorous, storms, cold. Spell List. RM Profession: Cleric, Paladin.

Daughters of Inis: Assassins, seducers, dancers, Middle-Eastern, exotic, silk, razor sharp, beautiful, deadly, incense, jewelry. Spell List. RM Profession: Dervish, Dancer, Rogue, Assassin, Nightblade.

Order of the Sun: Haughty, arrogant, Kings Guard, Knight, Sun, Templar, plate armor, gold. Spell List. RM Profession: Paladin.

Battle-Priest of Z’taar: Beserker, barbarian, hermit, unkempt, unbalanced, rabid, frenzy, Kurgan (Highlander), Vikings. Spell List. RM Profession: Fighter, Barbarian.

Under RAW RM, these should all be “Clerics” but as you can see they really are a variety of other professions or new professions. (The RM Professions noted are really just approximations).  Does a player even need to be a “Cleric” to be a high servant of their God? Some of these could be considered Semi-Spell Users under normal RM rules. We don’t worry about it and I have the flexibility of coming up with any creative ideas for a NPC, organization or group without worrying about which profession it can or can’t be. Likewise my players can create any PC they want without being limited by an arbitrary profession system.

However, if you have Professions shouldn’t the Clerics of varying gods be given the same consideration as Fighter or Mage variations?

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Thoughts on Resurrection in Rolemaster & Shadow World.

First off, Happy New Year! Over the holiday break I’ve been able to plot out a number of blog topics for the coming year and working on at least one new interview. I’m also hoping that my long gestating Shadow World module: Priest-King of Shade will make publication this year! (It seems unlikely that “Empire of the Black Dragon” will be published anytime soon even if I get the final draft to Terry and Nicholas in the next few weeks).

There was a recent POST on the RM Forums about Resurrection that caught my attention. It included a great poll that broke down some good options for Resurrection, but I wanted to explore the subject in greater detail as it touches upon several other blogs I’ve written recently. This topic is really a subset of the “impact of magic on a setting”. I explored another subset of this in a blog on “Musings on Magic and War” and a sub-topic of the “Gap between game rules and setting“.

RM was initially designed as an insert rule-set for the D&D world, and as such, still contains quite a bit of D&D DNA that is rarely questioned. As the forum responses suggest, Resurrection and its uses differ from GM to GM and raises a lot of issues around the games metaphysical setting as well.

RM expands upon the basic DnD Resurrection by dividing death into 3 separate processes:

  1. Soul departure. RM Soul departure rules are byzantine—calculating the time of death from unconsciousness and then applying a number of rounds for soul departure based on the character’s race. Unnecessarily complicated? Absolutely.
  2. Physical deterioration (stat loss). There are some vague rules in RM about recovering lost stats but despite a comprehensive healing system RM never fleshes out a consistent framework for causes of stat loss (undead, Unlife, spells, drain etc) and spells to cure temporary stat loss. A consistent system could unite various processes that use different mechanisms: unlife draining, life levels, Unlife corruption etc.
  3. Soul recovery. Returning a soul to the body is a fairly straight forward affair, with a number of spells at various levels allowing for resurrection.

Spell Law provides three spell mechanisms to deal with these: lifekeeping (keeps soul from departing), preservation (keeps body from decaying and stat loss), and lifegiving (returns soul to body). There are various iterations of these spells and herbs that allow for body preservation and lifekeeping. The first question I have is whether this is the best framework to deal with death and resurrection and at what level should these spell abilities occur? I don’t think I thought about this enough in my Spell Law rewrite so I may end up going back and changing some things! The second question is how rare is resurrection and how does the metaphysical framework of the setting  enable resurrection?

Barring the two extremes: resurrection is very common and easily obtained or it doesn’t occur at all except in myths, there are two aspects that could be explored.

Economics. If we conflate resurrection with technology and healthcare than the U.S. healthcare system is a great model for seeing resurrection in an economic framework. Resurrection can be seen as an expensive, elective procedure available to the wealthy and/or privileged. Is this any different than what we know of medieval or class based societies? The wealthy live longer, healthier lives because they have access to healthcare, safer environmental conditions and better diets? Does treating Resurrection as an expensive, exclusive, service unbalance or disrupt the game setting? Resurrection alone is not an age prolonging treatment, just an option for traumatic injury or illness. (I would argue that life-prolonging magic should also be available either through a spell list or ritual magic).

Religion. For resurrection to work there needs to be a meta-physical framework for “souls”. What is a soul? Where does it go? How does it come back? In Shadow World, Eissa is the Orhan god of death, but does she alone control the gate to death and the disposition of souls? Why/how do some souls stay on as ghosts or undead while others pass to somewhere else? Do Elves have souls? If not than what happens to them? Are followers of the Dark Gods prohibited from resurrection since they are opposed to Eissa? Even if you don’t use Shadow World as a setting these can still be valid questions. What about “spirits” and other totem spells introduced in the RM Companions—how do they figure into all this? To me, this seems like the setting drives the mechanism and not the other way around. This makes it hard for generic rule sets like RM to be a good fit for any setting without the setting being genericized.

For the GM that wants resurrection and wants it rationed via the settings religious structure than there are lots of great options. Perhaps resurrection is only available to followers of a “God of Death”. (Probably not the most popular of Gods) Getting resurrection from a Death Cult might require quite a bit of sacrifice from the party. Another option is that a priest can only resurrect someone from their own religion. That would neuter the “generalist” Cleric in the group unless the party was all part of the same religion.

Some things to think about. Personally I’m going to review and revise my spell list “Life Mastery” and follow this basic framework.

  1. “Resurrection” is a higher level ability (starting at 12th lvl?) thus making it rarer in general.
  2. As a Closed list, Life Mastery is only available through a few of the Gods.
  3. In general, most religions are reluctant to provide services to follower of another god. (UOC and the Orhanian pantheons provide some leeway).
  4. The cost will be high in either an offering or services.
  5. Stat loss, both temporary and potential will be notable, increasing the cost of resurrection.

These rules almost preclude a battle-field resurrection occurring. Instead, the group would need to find a cleric of the right religion, of the right level, pay the cost in either money or service and the resurrected player will need to recover and pay a cost in stat loss. That’s a lot of hurdles that may not make sense for the group. However, it does provide an adventure hook if they do.

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Season Greetings and Happy Holidays!

This may be my last post for the year due to the holidays and travel so I thought I would finish up 2016 with some random thoughts.

  1. I started posting earlier this year and I’m not really sure how many articles I’ve posted. I keep a running list of ideas that pop into my head: some random, some sparked by comments on the RM Forums and some when I’m working on RM/SW stuff. A few times I come up with great ideas and don’t write them down—only to forget them. That’s frustrating. Obviously Peter has been doing this longer and keeping up a 2 blog/week pace takes quite a bit of discipline. Other RPG blog sites post MUCH less frequently or have lots of contributors to share the load. Both Peter and I have encouraged others to write posts but haven’t really gotten a strong response. That surprises me given the number of people that write fairly long and technical arguments in the RM Forums; I would think they would have other material to contribute?
  2. I’ve posted up a number of blogs and RM posts regarding to big projects I’ve been working on for over 10 years. Project BASiL (Brians Alternate Spell Law) and SW “Red Atlas” (name inspired by the Redbook used for RMC I). Our SW “Red Atlas” is over 300 pages without charts, pictures, graphics, layout or any creatures and a narrative timeline rather than the standard date timeline and fills in a lot of fundamental information that we needed to address during our own gameplay. More importantly it consolidates all the “world level” info into one tome, drawn from all the canon books that Terry has written. Differentiating world info from local or regional info was a useful exercise—and allowed us to identify gaps in material that could be expanded in a future Master Atlas.
  3. Priest-King of Shade. Terry has hinted that he’d like to get “Priest-King of Shade” done this year. The module is 27 years in the making—the original manuscript was approved by Coleman in 1989 and sent back with hand-written notes by Terry but life got in the way and ICE when through changes and I never finished it. “Shade” is actually a spin-off of that original project: Empire of the Black Dragon (which is now a separate module I’m finishing up). There has been some speculation on its relationship to “Shade of the Sinking Plain” so I thought I would provide a few answers. In fact, Priest-King was meant to be a re-imagining or ret-con of the “Sinking Plain”—a module that really never fit in with the Loremaster or Shadow World series. I took some of the material from Empire of the Black Dragon and worked to make a loose adaption or “inspired by” module. If you have ever read “Sinking Plain” you know that there isn’t much info that fits into SW—it is very D&D in style and feels like an early Midkemia Press or Judges Guild product. However there were some cool elements that were used for inspiration. Here is an early blurb I wrote for the back cover:

Agyra. Far from the historic events of Emer and Jaiman, this region has been cruelly shaped for thousands of years by both natural forces and the powerful flows of Essence.  Scattered and isolated tribes peoples are a legacy of a nation that sunk beneath the waves in millennium past. Monolithic blocks scattered along deserted coasts and leagues of crumbled ruins lying in shallow waters are remnants of a lost civilization.

 However, these lands are not dormant. Powerful nations and secretive groups are at odds: a war of not just arms but of politics and commerce.  Into this conflict a new power has risen. A mysterious Priest-King and his devout followers have occupied an ancient citadel and are slowly expanding their power across the lands.  For the nearby tribes that inhabit the coasts, these newcomers are viewed with outright fear. Rumors of demonic armies, missing children and empty villages have cast a pall throughout these lands.  

But adventurers have come nonetheless. Ancient ruins have been discovered: a sprawling city lying submerged in the shallow waters off the southern coast of Agyra. Many believe the ruins date millennia back to the First Era and holds untold wealth and the secrets of the Ancients.

The Priest-King of Shade is a module detailing the lands of South West Agyra and the growing empire of the Priest-King of Shade.  This product contains a regional guide, maps and layouts of key places, detailed description of key NPCs and 12 adventures ready to play.  Designed for player’s level 5-20.  Will you confront the minions of the Priest-King?

 

  1. Empire of the Black Dragon. I was focused almost exclusively on getting “Shade” published and let EotBD idle for several years. Now I’m back working on it and hope to have a draft ready for review in the next few months. I’ve always found Ulya Shek the more interesting of the DragonLords and the tech angle adds to the creative design choices. It feels more like a “Fortress” book (MERP) rather than a linear adventure or regional overview module. We’ll see. I had also wanted to tackle Drul Churk but Terry covered him in Emer III.
  2. It’s amazing how much work has gone into the RMU re-design. Given the fact that it’s all volunteer you really have to applaud the contributors. House ruling professions or combat sequences is quite different than designing a framework for attack tables and critical charts or a foundation for creature development. Yes, some of it is very crunchy and may not need to be in the initial product offering, but it’s a tremendous amount of work. So Kudos to Matt, Vlad, Dan and now Jonathan (sorry if I missed anyone else) for all their effort. I’m sure they have felt unappreciated at times but they carried the load for all of us.

If you are regular reader here at the Rolemasterblog, thanks! If you have an interest in adding your voice to this blog than please reach out to Peter. Best wishes to all on this holiday season.

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RPG Game Design. Leveraging familiar elements into your creative process.

The more things change the more they stay the same. When designing an adventure it’s difficult to avoid using established tropes—most stories can be distilled down into just a handful of plotlines. Some GM’s and players embrace common fantasy standards but for the GM that wants to create something a bit different what can you do? After 40 years of RPG history, thousands of modules and game ideas can you really come up with something unique?

 

Even Shadow World has been accused of being too “kitchen sink and it’s obvious that many of SW’s elements are fairly standard tropes are similar to our own world:

  1. Greek/Roman pantheon of Gods.
  2. Planets and moon names.
  3. Orcs, Goblins, Immortal Elves, High Men
  4. Classical western architecture.

If no idea or plot device is truly original, how can we continual design new adventures that feel fresh to our game group, challenge them, or surprise them? Here I want to discuss three mental models that I use when developing adventure content: the “Loki”, “Bohdi” and “Constanza”.

  1. The “Loki”. This is one of my favorites. Loki was quite the trickster and a good head fake can throw the players off their standard operating procedure. Embrace an established idea but give it a twist: the Dungeon Boss that the players confront for their final challenge? Make him a low level impostor. The Orc lair in the foothills of the mountain that the players want to raid? Turn it into a monastery and school of learning. Messing with established tropes can challenge player’s ready assumptions and tactics and put a new spin on the game.
  2. The “Bohdi”. The Bohdi is adopting an established idea, trope or reference as a framework to build your own material. For instance, I had a culture descended from an ancient high tech race (Xiosians) living in the mountains. The people were genetically modified but appeared to be barbaric due to the loss of the technical heritage. I thought that the depiction of Khan and the crew of the Botany Bay marooned on Ceti Alpah VI (fyi Star Trek) would be a great template to use. By adopting this idea I anchored a strong image in my mind as the basis of my desired culture which sped up the writing process.
  3. The “Costanza”. What does George do when nothing seems to be working? He does the opposite of his normal instincts! This is a more extreme example of the Loki—doing the diametric opposite of a trope or established idea. The supposed bad guys are actually the good guys, food has more value than gold or treasure, the “Good” gods are actual manipulative evil bastards, traps that heal not harm etc. A perfect example is the “Killer Bunny” in Monty Pythons Holy Grail movie (I think that deadly bunny is in C&T?).

Combined these three mental models help me write new adventure material. The “Loki” keeps the players off balance, the “Bohdi” helps create material that seems new or novel but with a foundation of familiarity and the “Costanza” teaches the players not to get to comfortable with long held beliefs and assumptions.