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50 in 50 adventure hooks. What works, what doesn’t, what can improve?

I’m in the final stretch of a hectic professional life, so I barely have time to write, post or respond. However, the Rolemasterblog must go on so I’m going to do a quickie for today. Hopefully this will spark some feedback.

We are nearing the end of our “50 Adventures in 50 Weeks” challenge we set for ourselves last year. It’s been a great experience in creativity, deadlines, limitations on using IP, and testing the limits of publishing. The last of my adventures start getting larger and more in depth and I’ll be putting in usable “stats” whenever possible using an abbreviated stat block that can be used with d100 and Rolemaster w/o any IP infringements.

Peter blogged previously about his views on the 50in50 and I wanted to toss out some thoughts and observations of my own:

  1. I’ve made a little money. Nothing significant, but I did buy hardcovers of Xa’ar, Emer III and Cloudlords the other day using my earnings.
  2. In hindsight, I wish my adventures were a bit “meatier”. That wasn’t the original goal of the challenge–it was supposed to be simple hooks and concepts–but looking over the published ones sparked new ideas.
  3. Reviews. No one wants to be criticized but it would have been nice to get some reviews from people. Even “I can believe I paid .50 for that” would have provided some insight.
  4. For my contribution, it seems like the “City of Spiders” and “Haunted Forest” were the two most popular. Some of my other products were encounters or people related so I wonder if the appeal was that they were both physical places that are easy to drop into a adventure or campaign?

Since we are going to continue to publish adventures past the 50 adventure limit I’m going to set a few more goals:

  1. Each of mine will be at least 3 pages of content.
  2. Include Rolemaster compatible stats
  3. Focus on places. Interesting NPC’s or encounters will be rolled into a “place”.
  4. Layouts. Everyone likes the battle maps so each adventure will have one.

I’m open to any suggestions as we move forward! What should we change or improve?

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Q: What has a spine but no bones?

A: A book!

Sorry for the bad joke but the non-corporeal undead also have no bones and one of the best suggested encounter locations was the library, it was just too good an opportunity for a bad joke to skip.

Here we have a rather interesting floor plan of a library. The architecture itself can hint at the former wealth and culture of the city before it fell into decay and abandonment.

We can have the floors littered with a carpet of decaying books and scrolls.

So what the players need to achieve is to find the location of the throne and to learn something of its nature.

I am imagining the library to be abandoned by day but as the sun sets a ghostly presence can be felt.

The monster this time is the former librarian, using the stats of a Wight. These start at 10th level and go up to 20th level. As a single foe against a party of heroes I think that is a fair fight. Given the ability of the undead to regenerate the party may need to fight this wight again and again if they are not adept at getting what they need from the library.

I think it would be important for the GM to describe the wight and it coming for the characters rather than naming it as a wight. If the characters have already fought undead that are hurling shockbolts or lightning bolts and these are doing cold crits it can be one of those situations where the players really have no idea what they are fighting. Most of us started in MERP so wights are nothing new. Against a background of spectres, revenants and apparitions knowing what is what becomes harder.

There is loads of opportunity for atmospheric description here with the sun going down and the characters feeling the temperature dropping. The light fading and then the appearance of burning red eyes in the darkness…

I have not added room numbers to the map intentionally. I think as GMs we can describe a sort of uniform rot and decay. I would suggest that the greyed out areas as the most sodden with swamp water coming up from the ground. the stairs down are flooded with stagnant swamp water. If you need to discourage investigations into the flooded basement we can stick a crocodile down there. Try fighting one of them in the dark. They are only 3rd level but with an 80 OB (Large Bite) and a bit of surprise they could put off the inquisitive!

So now we need to provide the characters with some reward. I do not like the idea of demanding skill rolls to find information that the players need to advance the story. I think rolling to see how soon the information is found is find. I am sure that the RM2 players here probably have Library Use or Research as a skill. I would suggest that good rolls allow for a speedier finding of the right scrolls and books and poor rolls means it takes longer.

Another alternative is that finding the location of the throne is an automatic success but we create a table so that 101+ tells the characters that there is a guardian protecting the throne, 126+ tells the characters that the throne corrupted all who ruled from it. 151+ adds the detail that the throne was known as the necromancers seat and so on.

Any thoughts?

 

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The Tribulations of the Orachu Tribe is our latest 50in50 offering.

In The Tribulations of the Orachu Tribe, the characters encounter a feared local tribe, coming across the tribe when the characters need something, or simply by chance. The characters will be taken by the tribe and will be required to prove their worthiness in a series of tests.

I don’t want to give anything away but there is an interesting Rolemaster-esque point here. In one of the tribulations there are sharpened stakes upon which the characters could fall.

In Brian’s version he gives the stakes an OB and an attack table, in this case +25OB and the Spear attack table. I have used this same threat in some of my adventures but I tend to use “(x number) of ‘A’ puncture criticals” rather than an OB. On the A puncture critical table there are plenty of chances of no extra damage or just a couple of hits but chances are at least one stake will do something regardless of what level the characters are. With Brian’s version a +25OB means that probably most characters won’t take any damage as their DB will cancel most of the OB and the GM would probably have to roll open ended to ‘hit’.

Furthermore there is only one fatal result (a natural 00) on the ‘A’ puncture critical column. No one really wants the hero to die to a fairly simple staked pit trap or in this case a balancing beam style challenge. Heroes should die heroically, at least most of the time. With my version I don’t need to pull any punches knowing that the challenge could harm, hinder and challenge the party, there are still nasty wounds that can happen on the A critical. That 00 result is a severed vein leading to a heart failure but with life keeping plus vein/artery repair (5th, 7th and 8th level respectively) the fatality can be avoided. Even if your party are not 8th level those spells are ‘overcastable’ at a push.

In contrast an open ended attack roll is five times more likely than a natural 00 on the critical and that opens the way to much more severe criticals than just an A.

So for future adventure hooks which method would you prefer for pits and traps? Fixed criticals or OBs for attacks? Do you care? We can use this to improve our adventure hooks for everyone. 

 

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Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

So we have our gatehouse on the causeway with its undead guards. We have marshes patrolled by roving undead but where do all these undead come from?

I want a necromancer, but not just any necromancer.

Some where in this city there is going to be access to an underground lake and lurking in the depths of that lake is our Necromancer!

The bottom of a pool is not the usual place to find necromancers, well not BEFORE the party meet them anyway.

I rather like the way that RMU applies Archetypes to any creature to create a unique build. I want to do something similar to that here but using RM2/RMC stats.

You will also remember from the first post in this group that I want to make all of this scale-able to a wide range of character levels.

So our scary monster is going to be an off the shelf creature and then tweaked to make a suitable Super Creep.

I want to start with an Octopus(!). I then want to apply one or possibly two changes to it. The first of which is to give it a profession.

A professional octopus?

Just because Octopi don’t wear tee-shirts and buy coffee at Starbucks does not mean they are not intelligent. They are just differently intelligent. So this Octopus is a cleric and an evil cleric to boot!

A large octopus/squid has 30′ tentacles, is 6th level and has an +80OB which is a fair challenge for a low level party. If we give it the Necromancy (Base) and Calm Spirits (Closed Channeling) lists you have an interesting villain. A 6th level evil cleric given enough time a bit of overcasting or ritual can create type I and II undead and control them. So the villain at the heart of the city can create the undead that protects the city. It has had plenty of time to build its minions so that is all consistent.

So lets scale up our Super Creep.

Using the RAW for GIGANTISM (C&T pages 139 for the RMC version of the book) one increase in size for our octopus takes it from 6th level to 14th level. It also takes its #hits from 70 to 160. As an 14th level Evil Cleric we are now able to create (at a push) Type IV undead. Type IV include Ghosts and Spectres that are up to about 10th level monsters. The Octopus itself now had an OB of 100 and is doing Huge Grapple attacks.

Want something tougher?

Lets scale him up once more!

So with two levels of size increase we have an Octopus that is 16th level, 180#hits and OB of 120. Its criticals are reduced by 2 levels so ignores A&B crits.

I think this kind of end of level boss makes a wonderful Cthulhuesque  mastermind. You can be pretty sure that he party will never have met one before and to be honest I doubt if anyone would be expecting the giant octopus to be a spell caster! That should make the players have to reevaluate their tactics at some point if nothing else.

So what comes next?

I would like to introduce two things, first, something that the party need to bring back from the city, their primary quest. I like the idea of this being so big it needs a cart. I am thinking of some kind of throne that just happens to be sunk at the bottom of the pool.

I also want some interesting suggestions for some ‘set play’ encounters. Something challenging for the players to showcase the city of undead.

Any suggestions?

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City of Forgotten Heroes

This is not one of our 50in50 adventures, no, rather this is a sort of crowd sourced adventure. So if it is crowd sourced then technically I am not saying that there will be this monster at this location, no, you will suggest that monster goes there and this one here and so on. The end result should be an adventure with monsters and villains for which I am entirely not to blame.

Or so the theory goes…

So, the inspiration for this was a quote I heard on the radio today. I wasn’t paying attention so I have no idea of the original context but I thought “That sounds like one of Brian’s adventures”. I googled that title and there is a piece of fan fiction of that name and this has absolutely nothing to do with that but I have linked to it just out of courtesy as Lady of the lake came up with the title before me.

My initial thought was for a originally coastal city or large town that over the years flood defences had crumbled or drainage ditches had become choked so that the surrounding land had returned to a wet march. The city itself is approached by a raised causeway. Part way along the causeway are the remains of a gatehouse. One tower has completely collapsed into the march, the arch over the causeway has also crumbled but one tower remains mostly whole.

I am thinking that the city is inhabited primarily by the incorporeal undead, so no zombies and skeletons but more shadows, wraiths and spectres. These marshes could be home to corpse candles and corpse lanterns. For a lower level party the marshes could be haunted by phantoms, being only 2nd level.

So this is a real gatehouse. If we wipe out one side due to collapse we have six remaining chambers over three levels if the party decide to approach our city along the causeway.

That is not a given of course. There are parties that will stubbornly insist on slogging though the marsh to avoid it, those that will fly over it or longdoor past it.

To address some of these I propose that the last vestige of the gate captain be a Spectre.

There are three levels of Spectre in Creature; Law Minor, Lesser and Major at 5th level, 10th and 15th respectively. These attack using Shockbolts, Lightning Bolts or more so they can control an area hundreds of feet across the road. Yet they are easily within the capabilities of even a low level party to take on.

The rest of the gatehouse guard can be Ghosts which start at just 3rd level (Minor Ghost).

So that is the first set piece encounter, can the party get past the gatehouse?

What about those pesky players that refuse point blank to go anywhere near the obvious adventure site of a gatehouse on a causeway?

I would happily let them trudge their way through the swamp. To make things interesting we can weave a bit of back story into this. Imagine this city was being defended for a reason. I can imagine a city under siege being protected by the heroes in the title when along comes an evil necromancer (That’s a stupid phrases isn’t it? How often we we have good necromancers saving the day?) and brings down the city from within. That explains the undead and why the city was left abandoned. Bound forever to defend the city are the ghostly remains of the heroes. Any party that want to try and approach the city via the marches can face random encounters with ghosts, phantoms and for those at a higher level Revenants and Shadows.

I am sure we could produce a scaling table of random encounters for parties of varying levels. If anyone tries to rest in the swamps then we can toss in an encounter with a Mara.

So what about in the city?

I don’t want to detail that in this post. Have a think about it between now and next Tuesday. I will put forward some ideas. I have an awesome idea for a BBEG at the end of it all but we also need a good reason for the party to need to journey to the city in the first place.

So your mission should you choose to accept it is this:

  • Can you add to or embellish what I have suggested so far?
  • Why do the party need to enter a city of the undead?
  • Do we need more set piece encounters for the opening chapter?
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Knight Fall

Sorry for the delayed Sunday post, I was away competing all weekend and just too tired to write anything last night.

So this week’s 50 in 50 is Knight Fall, an encounter with a knight fallen on hard times.

Knight Fall sees the party encountering a knight whose family has fallen on hard times after backing the wrong side, losing lands and titles in the process. The knight, although still possessed of some honour, directed at those who work for him, is no longer a true knight as he has been pushed to breaking point and beyond. The characters will most likely encounter him as they search for highwaymen who have been operating in the area.

For more take a look at http://bit.ly/KnightFall

As a teaser the page layout of May’s Fanzine issue should be finished this week and will be released by the weekend.

 

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As requested, a solo primer!

I have so much to write about that I don’t know what to tackle first. There is lots of fun stuff I want to cover including some ideas I have stolen on character creation or should that be personality creation. I also now have the Dark Space book, this harks back to a discussion from last year on Rolemaster/Cthulhu.

In my Long Awaited Game post, Gabe Dybing asked about how I solo play. I did promise to elaborate on this and so here it is.

There will be a lot of asking you to imagine stuff as I go through this. You have to sort of see it as a thought experiment more than anything else. Solo play, I found, is harder than it looks when you first try it but with practice becomes much more fluid and easier to get into.

What solo play is NOT is test driving combats with you playing both sides. It also it does not really require you to randomly roll for rooms and corridors. There were rules for that in the back of the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. That is more Random Play as opposed to Solo Play.

I am not saying there won’t be combats but they will happen when the story leads up to that sort of encounter. You are both GM and Player and if you want to fight your way though hordes of barbarians then that will almost certainly happen.

So we are going to make two kinds of rolls during this. Some will be skill rolls using the skills on your character sheet and the rules in the book. When I Solo Play I tend towards much lighter rule sets than a full on, every companion, every skill and 37 house rules version of RM. I know this is the Rolemaster Blog but I guess most GMs have at least one shelf of games they have played once or never played. Solo Play lets you get those games out and dust them off, even if your players are die hard Tolkien worshippers you can still strap on some Kavlar and lock and load* your M16 and go kill something.

The other kind of roll are Solo Engine rolls. Solo Engine rolls act like the Magic 8 Ball in that it gives answers that you need to interpret. The most common question is the Yes/No question. Other open-ended questions tend to give more ‘cryptic’ answers that you then need to think of a logical interpretation for.

Before we start open this link in a new window or tab. You can completely ignore the Fudge Dice Roller in the top right corner, we don’t need that.

The other thing you will need is somewhere to keep notes. If I am at a computer I tend to use a bullet list. This serves a couple of purposes. Firstly, if you have made a choice and then double back to the same location it helps you keep your facts straight. Secondly, when picking up a game for a second or subsequent session it serves as a quick synopsis to bring you back up to speed.

So pick a favourite character of yours and imagine that they were locked in a cell in the dungeon of a keep. (Who, what, where and when are completely up to you.) Someone has arranged for your escape and you know that on the roof of the north tower a Griffin is waiting to carry you to freedom. You just need to get from dungeon to roof. So that is our opening scene if you will.

You need to imagine the character, the setting, the lighting, sounds and so on. What, if any, questions would you ask your GM if this was a traditional game? Are there any other prisoners? Are there any obvious steps up and out of the dungeon? Are there any guards?

So lets test those questions. How likely are is it that there are prisoners in a dungeon? If you have absolutely no intention of setting them free then you can just hand wave this and decide for yourself. If you actually want to know then you can ask the solo engine. I think it is likely so I click the ‘likely’ link under the Oracle (Yes/No Question) section.

I got a ‘No’ answer, but you probably got a different answer. If you got a ‘No but…’ there is no prisoner but there is something else relating to that. My first gut instinct said that there was a cell that was obviously in use but the door open and the prisoner was not there. Maybe they were being questioned? Your imagination could come up with some other explanation. If you got a ‘no’ like me then there simply were no prisoners. A ‘yes’ says there are prisoners, A ‘Yes and…” means that yes there are prisoners and also something else equally important, like someone you know? If you got that ‘Yes and…’ result your adventure could already have forked in a new and interesting path. Maybe you now have an NPC. An alternative Yes and… result could be that there are other prisoners and one of them stupidly tries to raise the alarm because they see you escaping. Again, that takes the story in a different direction.

You now know if there are prisoners or not. That is the reality but does your character need to make a perception roll to know if they are there? Is it dark in this dungeon? In my version I see it as flag stone floors, regular wall mounted lanterns, solid wooden doors with barred windows in each door into a cell. So I do not need a perception roll, there are no prisoners and going by sight. If your dungeon is different then you may make a perception roll. This can lead to there being prisoners there but you cannot see or hear them.

I would now make a note:

  • Are there prisoners? No.

So I am alone in this dungeon. The next most important questions are are there any guards and can I see or hear them. I think that the chances are likely and I will make a perception roll.

  • Are there guards? Yes.
  • Perception: 50 + 23 skill = fail

OK, so right now I think I am alone down here. I think my character knows the way out as he was awake when he was brought down here. I have no stalk & hide skill so just moving as quietly as I can I head towards the centre of the cell block. I know there was a guard post there.

  • Stalking skill 56 -18 skill = fail
  • Guard perception: 89 + 18 skill = 107 success.
  • A guard calls out “Halt! Who goes there?”

I really don’t want to get into a fight. Looking around I have two immediate questions, is there an empty cell I can duck into and is it unlocked?

  • Is there a cell I can hide in? No.

Damn, this must be a longer corridor.

  • Are the guards coming? “No, but…” I hear the alarm gong being struck (no need for a perception roll for that one).

OK so things are not going so well, the guards seem to know something is wrong and soon this place is going to be crawling with guards. I am guessing there are going to search cell to cell so hiding is not going to be  a long term solution. Scrabbling around I look for any small stones or loose bits of mortar and pick them up. Backing off I try cell doors until I find an unlocked one. If needs be I will retreat all the way back to my own cell.

  • Are there unlocked cells? Yes.

So I am lucky and I find a cell. I am going to try and fashion a makeshift sling as a weapon from the basic bedding in the cell.

  • Crafting Roll 93 + 38 skill = 131 success. This is a pretty rudimentary sling -10OB due to poor quality.

OK, so I am at least armed to some extent. I listen out for the approach of any guards.

  • Perception roll 47 + 23 +10 difficulty = 80.

I actually give myself a +10 here as I know I am completely alone here so any other noise is either a rat or guards and I don’t think the guards are going to be particularly stealthy. Total 80/Partial Success. I can hear the guards moving about but cannot guess the direction or distance.

* * *

So if you had followed that same introduction there are all sorts of places where your story could have diverged from mine. You may have an NPC with you, you could have made your perception rolls, the guards could have failed theirs. There may not have been any guards. That is an interesting point. If there are no guards, why? Maybe the person who engineered your escape also cleared the guards away. So who is this person? That sounds like a start of a plot right there. I took the idea of the Griffin from the Harpers from the Forgotten Realms, a semi secret organisation that are known to use Griffons as mounts. So that is another avenue of adventure.

Quite often Solo play produces a lot of loose ends that could easily lead to new adventures. “Does the tavern owner look pleased to see us? No. Does he look scared? Yes” Those two questions could spawn an entire adventure.

Many solo engines use a great many tables and die rolls. I like the automated ones like the page I linked to above. They make questions really fast to work through.

I only used the Oracle here. The complex question results are somewhat stranger. Imagine you reached the point where you can over hear what the guards are talking about. So we click the “Tell me now” link and it comes up with some thing like “seeking + social” So guard one is asking if his colleagues sister is still stepping out with that apprentice from the bakers? Maybe the result was “opposing + magical”. The guard is moaning about how he hates magicians, as far as he is concerned they should all be burned at the stake. As soon as you have that simple hint you can start to hang the start of a personality on the guards in the dungeon.

My log of my adventure so far looks like this.

  • Are there prisoners? No.
  • Are there guards? Yes.
  • Can I hear the guards? Perception: 50 + 23 skill = fail
  • Stalking skill 56 -18 skill = fail
  • Guard perception: 89 + 18 skill = 107 success.
  • A guard calls out “Halt! Who goes there?”
  • Is there a cell I can hide in? No.
  • Are the guards coming? “No, but…” I hear the alarm gong being struck (no need for a perception roll for that one).
  • Are there unlocked cells? Yes.
  • Can I make a sling? Crafting Roll 93 + 38 skill = 131 success. This is a pretty rudimentary sling -10OB due to poor quality.
  • Can I hear the guards coming? Perception roll 47 + 23 +10 difficulty = 80.

So that is the way I solo play. If you want to ask any more questions then post them below in the comments.

*I actually have no idea what lock and load actually means.

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Grosk’s Tavern

This week’s 50in50 is one with a printable battlemap or should I say battlemaps (plural). I think these add a great deal to the download as maps and floor plans are so easy to recycle that any GM should be able to make use of them.

It is also my understanding that this is one of Brian’s favourite 50in50 adventures. So please enjoy Grosk’s Tavern!

Grosk’s Tavern is an apparently former temple that has since been converted into a tavern for those who are down on their luck. The beer has absolutely nothing to recommend it but the clientele have an oddly military demeanour. For Grosk’s is actually a place to hire mercenaries and the tavern keeper is not just that either. Those starting a fight in the tavern may well regret it.

The adventure comes with two battlemaps, a 14″x24″ map of the tavern’s ground floor taking up six pages and a 21″x24″ map of the cellar taking up nine pages that can be printed out and assembled.

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A Knightly Encounter

This weeks publication round up brings you the 25th instalment of our 50 in 50, so exactly half way. I will also highlight A Baker’s Dozen of Pieces of Lore by Neal Litherland.

A Knightly Encounter

In A Knightly Encounter, the characters will be halted in their travels by a group of knights who will pick a fight no matter what. There are a number of different reasons provided as to why they might fight and there are five knights in total, each of whom is described. The encounter pits characters against a dangerous d100 foe.

 

<oh how I wish we could write Rolemaster NPCs in place of d100 foe!>

A Baker’s Dozen of Pieces of Lore

This is a collection of thirteen different histories, legends and myths that can be used to add colour to a campaign. They describe people, places, items and events. They can be used as possible adventure and encounter hooks or simply to make a world seem more alive. The pieces of lore are not tied to any specific setting so they can be easily dropped into the majority of fantasy campaigns.

I picked out A Baker’s Dozen because this is one of Azukail’s supplements created using freelance writers. I was thinking along the lines of Azukail is Rolemaster-Friendly + Azukail has a growing stable of freelancer writers, therefore if we ever get a license from ICE then RolemasterBlog + Azukail is an increasingly strong proposition for writing supplements.

And talking of supplements…

I am realy busy this week, next weekend I have my face to face RMC gaming weekend (this is the game being run using RMC RAW). I get back on Sunday and then Monday morning I am going on a weeks riding holiday. Once that is over I have the fanzine to put together.

Once all of that is out of the way the very next thing on my ToDo list is the Nomikos Library. I have some technicalities like installing databases and configuring a new wordpress installation but I hope to have something ready to show and tell by the beginning of May.

Watch this space, as the cliche goes.

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Adding “dark things” to your Rolemaster and Shadow World games.

Poisons, diseases, curses. Oh my. In the earliest days of D&D, adventurers not only had to avoid traps, navigate mazes and defeat monsters, they had to contend with other insidious agents like poisons, level drains, curses or cursed objects, petrification and the diseased touch of the Mummy.  Not really a safe vocation when you really think about it! While much of the Saving Throw/Resistance Roll mechanic was built around these attack types, how often do GM’s really use these “dark things”? How often do you introduce poisons & diseases in your campaign?

D&D made many challenges fairly simple. Curses could be countered with a particular spell, poisons could be Saved or cured etc. They were designed to be yet another discrete challenge that has to be overcome. A binary mechanic: effect vs. cure. D&D didn’t bother with specific poison antidotes (unless part of the narrative) or even causation (what is a curse and why so prevalent in D&D). You Saved and you were good, you failed and you had to seek out a singular solution.

Rolemaster introduced a more realistic system for many of these challenges; and poisons were definitely more detailed! Not only were there many poisons, they were defined into 5 types, had specific antidotes, and had varying levels of effects. A similar approach was taken with diseases and whole spell lists were devoted to varying curses whose effects spanned the realm of imagination.

A few years ago I took a critical look at my own campaign and GMing proclivities. I realized that I rarely used diseases, never used curses (or at least hadn’t for many years) and was reluctant to delve into poisons.  Now I see these interesting affects as not just a quick add-on but great additions to my narrative toolkit. Let’s take a look:

  1. Poisons. Many GM’s are reluctant to use poisons due to their variety, unpredictable effects AND some sort of ethical standard (maybe established by D&D class restrictions). I think that’s just wrong and leaves a whole layer of complexity to gaming. Putting our own social norms aside, the widespread use of herbs in the RM/SW world clearly lays a path for the common use of harmful herbs and agents as well. I just finished then newest Mark Lawrence book that prominently featured the use of herbs and poisons–it really inspired me to add more depth to poisons and an added value to the skill. Luckily, RM and SW already has a comprehensive list of substances that I collated into a MASTER LIST. I also left Poison as a meta-skill that covers identification (by taste, smell, symptoms etc) preparation, application and use, and as part of our system that provides a benefit for ranks, the # of ranks in Poison is also added to any RR vs poisons.  (This models the idea of a poisoner taking low doses over time to build up their resistance). So now poisons are like spells, with varying effects, methods of delivery and counter-antidotes. To facilitate poison (and similar substances) it helps to use a variety of mediums: paste, liquids, powders, oils that have varying effect times and for pre-prepared antidotes to the most commonly known agents. And poisons don’t just have to kill, they can paralyze, knock a person out, make them dizzy etc, so they aren’t just a deadly, unethical or cowardly attack only favored by assassins and “low men”. Poison preparation also shoehorns into our alchemy rules and can be combined with various substrate delivery systems. I’ll be expanding on this in an upcoming blog or RMBlog fanzine edition in the near future.
  2. Diseases. I think my reluctance to use diseases is multi-fold. First, diseases are generally slow acting so they don’t create a sense of urgency. Second, Elves and even half-Elves are basically immune to diseases so in SW much of the population doesn’t eve worry about it. Finally, Spell Law healing makes curing diseases fairly simple and implies most societies are not going to have problems with disease in general. Besides having a disease as a core plot point to an adventure, I think diseases only work well if they have affects measured in days or weeks and not months or years. That may only be magical diseases. Like poisons, I avoided using diseases for many years, but now I like them a lot–especially the slow, sapping type. Perhaps it’s reduces Str & Co 1 pt a day or week, or there is a slowly increasing fatigue penalty. That hits home with the affected player as it directly impacts the game play–they’ll want to deal with it!
  3. Curses. I still can’t remember when I last used a curse. I specifically reduced “Curses” down to a single spell list in BASiL (and even then it was difficult to rank them by level) and I don’t think I’ve used a cursed object in RM or my SW campaign. I feel that curses are very setting driven and probably generated from Channeling/Diety. In Rolemaster, Curses are more “ill effect” than the common idea of curses that tend towards future effects and augury.  Traditional curses are too open ended and hard to fit into the gameplay. I’m open to ideas, so happy to hear other peoples experience with them.

But “dark things” are not just limited to poisons, disease and curses. Beyond these traditional agents, Shadow World may provide a bevy of interesting taints, attacks and complications that can add to your campaign. Here are a few thoughts and ideas:

Demonic Possessions. I’ve blogged about the problems with summoning and demonic possessions should be based on the particular setting. But Shadow World does have Demons, so it’s possible to have Demonic possessions beyond the thematic demons introduced by Terry. Having a player possessed could make for interesting sessions: Demons may not have any particular agenda beyond being a chaos agent and maybe they even impart some Demonic powers (like Frenzy).

Mental Illness. Introducing a mental illness to a player really relies on their roleplaying skills, but can add a interesting twist to group dynamics. Traditional Mentalism spells can cause mental illnesses, but how should they work and manifest in game play. Serious illness beyond phobias and violent tendencies are going to be metagamed by the player, but a players that really commits to it can be a lot of fun even if it gets the group into trouble.

Unlife Taint. There has been several attempts to mechanize Unlife taint in past GC’s and some other thoughts on the Forums. Obviously there needs to be corruption rules for SW. Should this work as a player accesses “Dark” spell lists? In my own campaign I differentiate between “dark” lists (that are the result of the Gods of Charon) and “Unlife” spell lists which tap into an alien, malevolent power. These lists are the various Priest Arnak lists I posted up on the RM Forums, and the lists Terry made for the Steel Rain and other Unlife organizations. Ideally, the Unlife lists should be really different from standard SL lists and more powerfully to justify and entice spell users to explore and experiment with them–and start down a slippery slope. Unlife corruption should be a core rule mechanic for SW. The concept of players “flirting” with learning and casting powerful Unlife spells and risking being corrupted or subsumed by the Unlife is a great fantasy theme.

Channeling Block. A priest who defies their god, behaves in a inappropriate way or similar should be punished. The quickest and most obvious is to sever them from their spell casting ability until they make atonement for their actions. This atonement process is a natural trigger for an adventure or quest!

God Cursed. Similar to the disfavor in a channeling block, a character could get a “mark” that shows they are cursed, outcast or disfavored by a god. This could be in the form of a birthmark, shaped scar, change in eye color, or symbol that can be seen in the person’s skin (excommunication). This would be an ill omen in most cultures, and make it difficult for the player to interact with society.

Just a few ideas that I need to explore in more detail or finalize as rule mechanics. RMSS and RMU have introduced Flaws that are similar to these, but I like for fluidity to these more than CharGen mechanics to offset talents. What has been your experience with “Dark Things“?