22 August 2019

If your Euro Fantasy Setting has__, it should also have___, or you need to shut up about historical accuracy.

 https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2F105OwsN7a4UQ2Q%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1


I am specifically talking about the long running and eternal dispute over "historical accuracy." Which is often trotted out for such things as justifying a lack of diversity in Euro based fantasy settings or the low level of technology.

So potatoes come from the Americas. Along with the tomato, they were imported during the Columbian "Exchange" (someone other than me can do some more unpacking on colonialism).

Ok cool. They came from across the fucking ocean, what does that have to do with historical accuracy.

They weren't cultivated in Europe until about 1544, tomatoes, and 1570, potatoes, both in Spain because conquistadors.

An abbreviated list of technological and cultural things that happened before or during the period when these 2 nightshades were introduced and cultivated in Europe. Because my basic thrust is about technology and diversity, although yall are still racists for having milk-stained folks.

Matchlocks: 1440s
Wheellocks: 1490s
The Protestant Reformation: 1517 to 1521, depending on how you wish to think of its start.
The Gutenberg revolution, i.e. moveable type printing presses: 1540s.
Snaplocks: 1540s
Snaphance: 1550s
Miquelet locks: 1560-70s

A list of historical treatises that cover in part the use of the rapier through this span of time, a perennial favorite of murder stab machine rogues in some games like D&D:
Conclusion, of a sort:
Yall need to learn some history. Yall need to stop using bad history to justify the exclusion of non-Euro peoples and cultures. If yall don't want gun in yall's fantasy setting because of magic sure, but if yall want to include potatoes and tomatoes, yall need to have fantasy equivalent of the Americas. And yall should not be racist as fuck when you do include them.

14 August 2019

[DRAFT] High Fructose Hyper Space Travel & Navigation


These are draft rules in plain unformatted text for

High Fructose Hyper Space
AKA
Candy Space
Or
Saccharine/Saccharide Space
This sub-net of the ancient Hyper Space Transit Network is modeled by the included map.



The entry point is the red space with the stone arch in the lower left corner.
The exit is the central pink space with the stone arch.
It starts out as a unidirectional and very linear pointcrawl. The arrows indicate direction of travel.
Pink spaces signify the systems in this sub-net and points of exit from hyper space.
<PLACEHOLDER> signify a hyperspace hazard.
Travel through the sub-net is determined by drawing from a deck of colored cards.
Each draw of the deck represents one day of travel. When the sub-net is stabilized each space represents one day of travel downstream and two upstream. <OR 10 DOWN/20 UP??>
This represents the instability of this sub-net.
The ship will travel to the next space on the map that matches the drawn card.
Exceptions this rule are:
Any pink card will move the ship the matching pink space, and subsequently exiting through the gate.
The ship MUST stop in hazard spaces. Reaming there until a matching card is drawn.
Passing by a pink space with a broken gate allows for a disadvantaged Astrology test to notice a hyper space exit, and a disadvantaged Pilot test to exit hyper space. If a map or any other kind of foreknowledge is possessed that there is an exit there allows for a standard Astrology test to notice. Thereafter, it only requires a Pilot test exit.
Once (or if) the party repairs a gate within the sub-net it become bidirectional between it and the adjacent gates and will no longer require a card to be drawn. Travel with the flow is automatic, as travel upstream to another repaired gate. Otherwise, travel upstream requires a disadvantaged Pilot test (failure results in a draw from the deck and subsequent travel downstream).
There are two pairs of "short cuts" signified by a rainbow between two clouds, and a stone gate. Entering the upstream end of a shortcut is automatic if moving to the space, and if passing by requires disadvantaged Astrology and Pilot tests to first notice and then enter. Travel along the shortcuts is always unidirectional.
Additionally either Astrology and/or Pilot can be tested with disadvantage to draw an additional card, choosing one. <FUMBLE RESULTS?>

Hyperspace Hazards
These are ideas for either the cause of the Hazard or an encounter at the Hazard, or as random encounters.
<CURRENTLY> 1d6
1 Hyperspace Snarl
2 Licorice incursion
3 Spacehulk leaking exotic particles
4 Hyperspace Pallet-swapped Elfs
5 Goblin Exploration Team
6 Temporary Engine Failure

13 August 2019

10. You will die, or a response to a question about the OSR

This is from the dead as a ghost town itch table top forum. This is response to a portion of the greater question and assumptions about old school play.

"10. You will die"

I think this is better stated as "You can die, and it may be at an inopportune or 'dramatically inconvenient moment'" In other words, being a PC doesn't grant them immunity from grave consequences.

"And lastly, "you will die" gives me the issue that... narratively, death is the least interesting thing that could happen. If a character dies, that's the end for them. There's no further drama, laughs or tragedy to be had. It's on this point that I don't think OSR games should really call themselves role-playing games, if this is their focus. They are very much games, but if cycling through multiple characters that die is the point, and its focused on what players can do rather than what characters can do, all those points together make it feel more like a board game with less rules than a role-playing game."

I agree that death as a consequence is one of the least interesting consequences, along with no lasting or serious consequences. I personally have PCs being down at 0 hp in a state of uncertainty until another PC comes to check them with a check penalized by time since 0 hp. and I've also offered other consequences of being downed like dismemberment and the like. Oddly, I've never had any players take me up on that, not even letting me get to actual possibilities of it; choosing death and reroll.

And like David says, I really don't think that even at a basic level, both in rules and in actual play, for death to be a permanent discontinuity in a narrative, such as you can have in D&D.  To me it feels like a reaction to the continuous ease of surviving death and the 'Level Appropriate CR Encounter' mode of 3e onward. Which is as the default CR equal to Average Level is basically 4:1 odds favoring the players. The immediate risk PC death is minimal by design.

There is the play-style of each PC also has a henchperson as well as hirelings which should the PC fall could become the newest PC, maintaining a certain amount of continuity through the shared experiences the previously NPC had with the party and their relationship with the slain.

There is the erase or add a suffix to the PC's name retaining all stats making death to be more of an inconvenience, and in the case of a suffixed name, or even a new name, the 'new' PC is a relation to the prior, with any and all prehistory between them and the drama of "oh my dear sweet dead relation." As well as the rolling up a new character and gaining an inheritance. 

In these cases, yes the PC is dead, but their death is added to the collective's story.

This does ignore the constantly dying at level one situation which means there is can be very little growth and continuity, which is a complaint that is made. This is also where the rewrite the name on the sheet thing most frequently comes into play.

But more importantly, IMO, than these ways of creating continuity through or despite PC death, is that within the Cook/Marsh Expert D&D book it says to make sure the starting town has some kind of temple with a cleric of sufficient power to cast Raise Dead. The Moldvay Basic book doesn't because it doesn't include spells of high enough level. And these two books, B/X, are one of the main editions of D&D to have OSR games based on. 

TL;DR(?)

"You Will Die" should be "Death is a real consequence." And it's more of an immediate consequence of reckless action and an acknowledgement that PCs aren't necessarily favored by fate.

08 August 2019

Renaming & Reworking Sanity as a Mechanic a Discussion

This is discussion I had on a Discord about how I don't like SANITY as a Mechanic or Stat in RPGs.
https://img.scryfall.com/cards/art_crop/front/b/f/bffc360e-db41-48f3-9365-680d55046e04.jpg?1562933598

Me
So heres a thing that's been bothering me about eldritch horror rpgs. SANITY mechanics.
Cuz while I like the idea of SPOOOKY POWERS FROM BEYOND decaying your soul and shit, I really hate the continued conflation with actual brain problems.

Not Me 1
nod

Not Me 2
i mean, HP Lovecrafts entire thing was that losing (his) mind was his biggest nightmare, which, to be fair, he saw his mom go through and that's how he lost her. So in that it makes sense.

Me
I've thinking about different ways to name that whole mechanic

Not Me 1
my personal take, and I think that there's actual textual evidence from Lovecraft's stories to back me up on this, is that "san loss" should mean one of two (or both) things
oh, whoops!
waits till you're done

Me
I dunno. I just have mixed feelings on holding on to legacy game concepts when they relate to any form of marginilzation.

Not Me 1
nod

Me
Anyhoo. In Silent Legions' conversion sections, because Crawford does one for each of this games, it suggests replacing the loss of WIS from psionic torching as gaining a like amount of Madness instead. Which is conceptually cool as SWN psionics are a result of metadimensional exposure in humans.
And sure SWN already has special cool magic powers via psionics, but do find the idea of including some of SPOOKY sorcery stuff from SL. Not only because metadimensional influnces and such, but also because Jupiter is a massive living THING and there are SPOOKY mythos like things associated around it and in the trans-neptunians.
I'm just trying to think of a better term than Madness or Sanity.

Not Me 1
nod
I like "Enlightenment" rather than Madness
subjectively, that's what it probably feels like

Me
That's an interesting take.

Not Me 1
(and that's how I tend to do it in the stories that I write. Everybody thinks you're, well, crazy, but you know that the hounds of tindalos can't get you so long as you stay in a room with no right angles)
(or, everybody thinks you have an irrational phobia of underground places, and the guy upstairs can hear you scream from your nightmares on a regular basis, but that's because you've seen the ghouls that lurk in the deeps, and your disinterest in traveling through the subway is quite rightly the result of learning that ghouls will abduct people down there and eat them.)
(going with that take, you might find other good names by thinking about words that reflect one's ability to function in the everyday world.)

Me
I was thinking Erosion, Corruption, or Fragmentation.

Not Me 1
I like "Fragmentation."
It feels clinical.
I could easily imagine a therapist making notes about his latest client, who appears to be suffering from a typical case of fragmentation.

Me
To reflect the physcial changes to your mind meat interface due to continued contanct and/or useage of the more dangerous metadimensional arts.

Not Me 1
I like.

Me
Oh god. So in Cthullhutech. That's actually a thing. They use eldritch mathmatics and arcanotech, and technicians undergo regular evauls because even being a mechanic exposes you BAD SHIT over time.

Not Me 1
"Erosion" also works, but "corruption" feels too value judgment-y

Me
Yeah.
Like I like Coruption because it's supposed to evoke storage media breakdown, but it's still so value judgmenty

Not Me 1
yes
maybe keep it in as an old term that has since been replaced

Me
I really do like Enlightenment because it makes it sound so positive, but is it really? Sure you gained more power and through it can see the universe more clearly, but is it worth it?
There's also a nice ancillary effect of including the SL sorceries in that anyone can learn and use them, at a cost, while only special people can use psionics. Making one "safer"
Oh shit. This is like the Dark Sun psionics vs magic but with souls and cults instead of defiling and sucking away the lands ability to sustain life.

Not Me 1
this might be too weird for what you're going for, but what about changing the name of the trait based on how high it is / what your PC's stance on it is
maybe you can, at any time, automatically increase your Fragmentation/Enlightenment by +1 by "leaning into" and embracing it, but this increases the difficulty of reducing your score

Me
That can work. Especially if all PCs are subject to degrees of it. Some just come to embrace while others seek to withdraw further from the world.

Not Me 1
so it's a no-brainer for someone who thinks it's a good thing, and a tempting but risky idea for someone who could benefit from an increase right now (by having a better chance of reading some eldritch tome or something, idk) but will make it harder to keep their score at manageable levels through therapy
(or whatever it is that can help someone keep their score low)

Me
I also don't want to go too into this because then it would shift the focus from DND IN SPAAACE to Cthullhu in SPAACE with lasers.

05 August 2019

Troika Backgrounds - Shardheimesque - Also several are orcs


These are not the final version of the first 36, so there will be discrepancies between this and elsewhere.

These are kind of the most potpourri collection. They are supposed to evoke some of the feel of Shardheim as well as my own view of Troika as a game.

1 Magical Mishap Orc
You're one of the orcs that always happens via magical oops.
Possessions
BIG weapon
Animal fur loincloth
Wicked scarification
Boombox
Advanced skills
3 big weapon fighting
3 strength
2 fist fighting
2 run
2 wrestling

2 Orc Exchange Student
Unlike most orcs you have arrived here voluntarily to study abroad.
Possessions
School uniform
Club
Traditional orc garb (animal fur loincloth)
Advanced skills
2 run
2 strength
1 alchemy
1 club fighting
1 cooking
1 mathmology
1 spell - random
1 spell - random
1 spell - random
1 wrestling

3 Kobold Banker
You were one of the countless clerks in the Bank. What you are under the mask matters not. You dress as a kobold and that's all that matters.
Possessions
Draconic hat and mask (+1 etiquette with dragons)
Business suit
Briefcase (as club)
Merchant Scales
Advanced Skills
3 Banking
3 Run
2 Etiquette
2 Trading
1 Briefcase Fighting
1 Mathmology

4 Kitchen Goblin
Some goblins are gross murder babies. Others are gross harbingers of civilization. You? Are an artiste.
Possessions
Soup pot big enough sleep in
1 gallon of cooking oil
Giant whisk
Meat tenderizing mallet
Greasy chefs hat
How to serve man (+1 cooking people)
Advanced skills
1 cooking
1 drinking
1 swimming
3 dumpster diving
1 mallet fighting
2 omleteering
3 salting
6 goblin

5 2.3 Pounds of Hallucinating Pudding
You are pudding, maybe. And you are hallucinating, maybe. You are conscious of yourself and the world outside of yourself. You for some reason have a rad, but conceptually disgusting bio-mech.
Possessions
Bio-mech that looks totally like a normal person
Potted Succulent
Anxiety <This Is A Quest Item And Cannot Be Discarded Or Sold>
Advanced Skills
3 Baristaing
2 Poetry
1 Climb
1 Run
1 Strength

6 Arcanotech Engineer
You are a skilled engineer. Your decades of experience with engines of all types has certainly shaped you into the person you are today. Unfortunately your last berthing has offloaded you due the ship’s doctor declaring you physically unfit for duty.
Possessions
Mutated Crab-arm (as medium beast)
Kilt
Bagpipes
Advanced Skills
6 Barely comprehensible human dialect
3 Engineering
2 Strength
2 whiskey drinking
1 Bagpiping
1 Claw fighting
1 Tobacco chewing
Special
You feel fine. Bizarre energies just don't affect you immediately and you are in denial of any mutation effects.

7 Stowaway
You’ve stowed away on a ship, hidden among the barrels. Unfortunately, you’ve been unloaded in an unknown port.
Possessions
Dank barrel
Advanced Skills
3 Sneak
2 Mycoculture

8 Cabin boy
You may or not be a boy but everyone assumes you are because you may or many be pretending to be one to see the worlds on a golden sailed barge.
Possessions
Cute sailor clothes
Locked sea chest full of disguise stuff
Advanced Skill
3 Beautician
3 Disguise
2 Swabbing
1 Flirting
-1 Grog drinking

9 Oblivious Tourist
You're a very wealthy but clueless personage. You somehow never clue into that you are adventuring
Possessions
5x starting money
Sunglasses
Bermuda shorts
Expensive suit
Advanced Skills
None

10 Former Watery Tart
Times have been tough. Your homeland has changed it form of government away from divine deliverance of swords to some bullshit listening to the masses. So you've left in search of adventure or at least a new land to distribute swords.
Possessions
Sparkling white dress
2d6 Dehydrated swords
A bucket
Advanced Skills
2 Swimming
2 Sword Catching
1 Sword Fighting
Special
You can breath water and can always extend an arm to the surface of a body of water regardless of the depth.



The final versions can be found here.