Your place in the story

Posted on January 30, 2012 by hurcheon

This follows on from my previous post, and is basically me ranting on the same subject after criticisms I got in reviews of C&S Essence for the scenario that was included was my idea that the player characters might not, ever, get to know what was going on. I don’t do that all the time but it is something I do on occasion.

I know why I do that, but it’s never ever been something I took the time to explain, however an article I read recently about the difficulty of early D&D adventures got me thinking. The article is here and the Clark Ashton Smith story is speaks of can be found here. The thesis of those early D&D adventures seems to be the world is a harsh and uncaring place, sudden death, without meaning, purpose or honour is around every corner, whether it is being trampled by runaway horses or choking on your soup.

That wasn’t my reason for not involving my characters in everything, but it did prod me towards actually setting it down for once. In the D&D philosophy the story is the world, individuals don’t matter.

I prefer that the characters are heroes, so what they do does matter.  However my inspiration is from Tolkien. I have nothing against Clark Ashton Smith, the setting of my one published story is inspired by his Averoigne stories. In Tolkien the story can continue with characters entering and leaving like players on a stage.

However the story can intersect with other stories and plotlines. The characters from one meet the protagonists and antagonists of the other briefly but they do not necessarily know the beginning and the end of the others’ story. Merry meets and travels with Eowyn, they share part of the story of the Ring, but when Eowyn meets and falls in love with Faramir a story that started before she met Merry continues while he has gone his own path.

By keeping this in mind while there may be some frustration to the players in the short term, not knowing what is going on, it means that later pieces of news and actions might tie into the events they took part in. This gives some depth to a campaign and allows mew to pick up on seemingly inconsequential things and work them into something of more significance. I know that if I don’t do that, my players will, which makes the idea of trying to plan everything out in advance into a waste of time.

E.g. While accompanying a merchant they have to deal with the City guards who take a value of 1/20th of the incoming goods as the King’s Tax. In a later adventure the city they are going into has a different tax, 1/16. I decide to work in what was originally bad memory on my part into the local lord skimming from the taxes to hire mercenaries and brigands in preparation for a rebellion.They defend an outlying village (that has not being paying the taxes) from some of those brigands but do not, at that time, know about the rebellion.

They didn’t know about the rebellion at that stage, but later on they got involved in thwarting it, and earlier elements started to tie together as part of that, but little of it had been planned at the start, my original idea had been an expedition to a mysterious land, but that got lost in court intrigue.

If all is known, if all is wrapped up neatly at the end then that limits the scope for surprise, for inspiration and spontaneity by the GM, who can enjoy the way things develop by the way players interact with the World much more than if he or she is desperately trying to hold things onto the rails

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Why do I have a loose approach to scenarios?

Posted on January 7, 2012 by hurcheon

I know I shouldn’t read reviews, but I do, mostly to get ideas for things I should add or improve or try and plug the holes in.

However an attitude I’ve seen in a couple of places didn’t concern the rules, but the scenario, for it not being specific enough. This puzzled me a small amount, because I used to try and set out THE THINGS THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN! only to find they never did.

Unless you are going to force your players along the rails, I’ve always found players will do their own thing. They will pick up on a small detail you just put in for flavour, assign it significance, and ignore the clue you thought might be too obvious, they will have their own expectations of the game, and play accordingly, in some cases to extreme. The obvious example I remember was me trying to run a Star Wars game with the characters Rebel Agents in the Corporate Sector, only to have them turn pirate and slaver. Why? Because they worked hard and wanted to blow off steam.

They wanted a game that let them indulge their sense of mischief (which probably included the fun in watching my face turn red as I tried to adapt to circumstances on the hoof) and I would have been better not being so serious and whipping up an old fashioned Dungeon Bash rather than a serious game grounded in politics and a “realistic” view of society.

The game going off the rails is not always a bad thing, if you can cope (big if there). I’ve had my imagination stimulated and been involved in fun games as the characters forged their own path, and I still had the original scenario just in case. Though the situation might change because of the choices, e.g. if supposedly meant to try and forestall an invasion, the invasion has occurred, and, by the time the characters return to the path, the characters now need to seize the opportunity to throw the invaders out.

So my experience has been rigid scenario definition doesn’t work, moreover my own practice has been to convert any scenario to my own campaign, and that is part of what I see as the “GM’s art”. Maybe I’m learning that not everyone sees it that way.

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Why do I do this?

Posted on January 1, 2012 by hurcheon

So, 2012 begins, another year gone when the novel wasn’t written.

Let us see if IN UISGE BEATHA VERITAS.

Well, the script was done, but that was possible at the expense of my MMORPG time on LOTRO. Writing takes time.

NaNoWriMo found itself second place to finishing up C&S Essence and illness, so here I am with ideas in my head, but a lack of time and gumption to get them into a file. Not saying the novel would be good, I have the talent and inclination to write, but I am not claiming as a certainty that I write well. Sometimes I am pleased with what I write, often I hate it with a passion.

My wife reckons that I do the hobbies I do because of a need to write and create worlds. I write games and scenarios not because that appeals to me absolutely, but because it is a creative form I am used to and which exposes my ideas to others, the poor lambs.

With wargaming, what is it I enjoy, painting figures, a bit. Given my luck with dice it surely couldn’t be the need to constantly lose on the table ( 😉 ) but I seem to enjoy adapting figures and scratchbuilding things, even though I am, to use the scots phrase, ‘haunless’. I am proud of my ungainly tree trunk cannons (stick, air setting clay and flock), wolf-drawn sledges and the Steam Tank. The latter two built out of wooden coffee stirrers and pound land meccano-a-like.

So. I feel the need to be creative, but also crave recognition, which leads my desires to be a novelist, even if I seem to find the short story a better medium/ In the UK the Short Story does not seem to be a great stepping stone to greater things, unlike the US, but that shouldn’t stop me, I suppose, doing linked short stories as a single book, and I have an idea for that too.

Well, I put down hard plastic for this keyboard, might as well see if I can earn the cost back and more in 2012. It would be nice to earn a writer’s Linux Laptop out of royalties.

OK 2012, I’m game, if It’s going to be a hard year, let it be a creative year too.

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Melée Combat in RPGS

Posted on December 22, 2011 by hurcheon

A subject that has been mulling around my brain is trying to think about a realistic system for melée combat for RPGs.

My qualification for presuming to consider that I could do such a think is based on several years of re-enactment. Now, I’m always quick to point out the difference between re-enactment and real combat, a blunt weapon is heavier than a sharp, we don’t always know the correct style and we aren’t trying to kill each other.

But we practice, we try things and some things come to mind, that the standard combat system is very abstract and even some of the more “realistic” systems don’t take real moves into account. They tend to abstract them into attack and defence without accounting for the movement.

An example.

I have a spear and shield and am coming up against a bandit with a cudgel. I decide to try and end this quickly and thrust out with the spear, my right foot is now forward, my shield is brought back against my body.

The bandit can do a few things. He can jump back. he can strike the spear blade down and shift slightly, he can knock it away to his right, across my body, and slide forward to his left bringing himself almost to my back.

If he does that then I can spring forward and turn, or turn back on my left foot so that I am facing him again with my shield forward and my spear refused again. Or I can get caught on the hop and get a quick dunt to the back of my head by the bandit’s club

That sort of sequence doesn’t happen in an RPG, you might get attack and defence, and a choice between parry, block and dodge, but the motion part doesn’t feature. Even where the blow lands is likely to be dependant on the style of the attack, the direction it comes from and the movement of attacker and defender, never mind the actions of others in a swirling melée.

To great way to see this in action are the fight recreations of the Royal Armouries in Leeds, especially when they show you sequences from the 15th and 16th Century European manuals. Then you will see a sequence of moves, turns, parries and blows including holding your sword by the blade and attempting to smash in your opponent’s head with the pommel.

The only game that made this work quickly and fairly seamlessly was the old “Lost World” games, pity that isn’t available any more. Those had a book a bit like a comic book, You handed your character’s book to your opponent and chose your tactic based on what was available to you on your character card. The result would also affect what you could do next, for example perhaps you had committed to a low defence that would make a high attack next move impossible as you would have to recover your position.

But “Lost Worlds” was a game of single combat, with very limited scope for melées of more than 2, so wasn’t viable for RPGs.

So, is it worth trying to do a totally realistic combat system for a game?

Dammit, but no. Simulating all this in a game would slow it down dramatically, and be like Star Fleet Battles where it takes you 20 minutes to get through 1/32 of a second of real time.

Add in more characters and the game will slow down there and then and, after all, the game shouldn’t only be about the combat.

So. After this meandering thought process I have to conclude that you might as well move to an abstraction, but one that allows the player SOME level of choice in what their character is doing, so some allowances for tactics and manoeuvres. Leave the really detailed stuff to very specialist combat games, or people who like to dress in steel, wool and leather and beat thee bejasus out of each other.

Happy memories! Ahhhh!

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Followup material, the continuing story

Posted on December 19, 2011 by hurcheon

Well, a couple of weeks in and what I thought would be a quick pickup with existing material, isn’t.

These are the topics I have to date

  • Some thoughts on the game
  • an article on balancing the game
  • Optional Hit Location system
  • New armour to suit a hit location system
  • Masses and the Choir
  • Clarifications on the rules
  • New introduction to tie “The Serpent of Paun-i-Tawe” to the idea of a “Queen’s Falconeer’s Campaign
  • Basic info on an Arthurian Campaign including a scenario outline and soem other plot suggestions

At present, this is already 12 pages long, and there is more to be filled in! Much more and I have to start thinking about charging. Of course, if I charge, then I need to do a fuller and more detailed job, with more than just general descriptions of characters.

So, do I plough on and do a big big job, making it for sale, or split it about the Arthurian stuff and make that a second freebie?

The Arthurian stuff is the bulk of the work so far, it has the potential to be a book on its own, as it shows no sign of being constrained within the ‘high-level’ limit I set it, and I’d begs for detail, dammit.

Answers on a post card to….

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Followup material – it begins

Posted on December 10, 2011 by hurcheon

When I submitted the C&S Essence manuscript to BGD I also submitted a Character Sheet, but I like to minimise the margins to make use of every millimetre of space, not always suitable for a book.

So the character sheet as published makes use of the space available, and this separates out the sheet.

So Thursday I revised my sheet, and hopefully this weekend it will be going up on the Drivethrurpg sheet as a free download.

I’m also working on the C&S Essence Apocrypha #1, which will also be free, with some optional rules, clarifications and a wee bit of extra material.

I hope to get that finished by next week, then I can get back into ‘Vis Imperium Victoriana’

No wonder I never get on with my masterpiece novel!

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Vis Imperium Victoriana – Designers Notes FROM THE GRAVE!

Posted on December 8, 2011 by hurcheon

I mentioned that an update of this was in my list of projects. To be honest I don’t know where the notion to do the original ViV came from, though I had always been a Flashman fan I don’t remember any big rush to those books or any other founded in the Rush to Empire of the 19th Century.

It was seen as a “Boy’s Own” style, rather than Steam Punk, but then again it was only 8 sides of A4, in small type at that, so there was a limit to what I could get in.

I decided to see what folk had said about the original, assuming they said anything at all. Some did, and I’d like to answer their points now, even though it was a decade ago and the chance of them reading this is slim, it gets it off my chest, be a bit of cathartic therapy, though obviously without the persecutions and burning people at the stake

First of all Yaghish on Gothic Steam Phantastic
“The rules (a 20-sided die or D20 is needed) are not very inventive, and most rpg-ers will have no problem understanding them.”

They weren’t too clichéd actually in 2000 when they came out, in some respects. The compared success mechanism has changed to make the game flow faster (both roll, highest success wins)

My goal was simplicity and quickness and ease of play. I read a lot of “new systems” with cards and dice pools in the 90s and wasn’t a fan of those. Except the West End Star Wars RPG, but I digress.

“However, the basic rules are more appropriate for a fantasy-game than for a Victorian game. Victorian adventurers didn’t run around with battleaxes, for example, nor would they carry a shield. There are even some magic-rules.”

Victorian adventurers from the West might not start with them, but plenty of people in other lands would, and you never know when the adventurers might find themselves in a lost city or alien environment

To use an example. Imagine there you are, a passenger on a ship of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company). You are ashore in Jakarta when your party are attacked by a gang of Malay and Chinese pirates. One of them has a battleaxe in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Sword and shields were still in use in the 1880s campaign in the Sudan by tribesmen, Mogul Indian cavalry used battle-axes and wore light chain mail.

This time is not only a time of colonial adventure and lost cities, it is the start of scientific romance and John Carter, Warlord of Mars is technically a Victorian gentleman.

Magic is included because of the possibility that the mystic powers of native magicians or Alien scientists MIGHT be real. It was also the rebirth of interest in magic in Europe, the Theosophical Society, for example, was founded in 1875

“What I found a bit out of place was the remark on lady adventurers. Of course, in reality there weren’t that many, but it’s still a fantasy game, especially when you hand them carpet bags and parasols as weapons. I think in a more serious game, a lot more female characters can be used, even without “unsexing” them and keeping them fully ladylike.
Yaghish is not the only one to pick up on this though, Metalman at RPG.net

“Ladies, if you want to play VIV, be forewarned that it takes few compromises to accommodate you unless you want to play a woman of few morals or one that has substantial money. Otherwise, I hope you have a sense of humor or really can involve yourself in the roleplaying experience. There is little for you here if not.”

So, am I a sexist pig? I hope not. I say in the start of that section, society is UNFAIR. If you wish to portray Victorian society correctly then you have to accept that, else you are not really portraying the society. The unfairness is an obstacle for the female characters.

Having said that, if I was an evil GM, at one point the adventurers would find themselves in an Amazon society where men are discriminated against, or they could always eliminate the unfairness if it offends them.

So adventurous women are more exceptional that adventurous men

This is what I say in my (as yet unpublished) Pulp SF game

“Female player characters are taken to be as much above average as male characters, made of stern stuff, and not to be frightened by a tentacle or three, however many of the sexist males they encounter will probably have to be convinced of their worth proving again the old adage that women have to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good.”

Yaghish continues
The “natives” are not really worked out either. Maybe because there’s a lot of different kinds of “natives” in the world, but the game would be somewhat more attractive when providing a little bit background on the colonies and how to play natives.”

and again Metalman comments
Rules are given if the player wants to play a half-breed as well. Although, looking at the rules, why anyone would want to play one outside of a challenging roleplaying experiment is beyond me.

ViV is based on Western perception and attitudes. That bias is inherent

As I type this I’ve seen a couple of reviews of C&S Essence, mainly positive, a couple of niggles about linking the scenario to the setting suggestion. I wish I had picked up on that, easily fixed but better to not have made the slip.

So, what did I learn from these reviews? Although I can post explanations of the decisions taken the better thing, as in the reviews of C&S E, would be if I had explained my thoughts and reasoning more fully.

The reviewers aren’t wrong for writing what they saw in the game, at least those ones, are not, because they didn’t have access to my head and thoughts. Possibly a by product of having been on the internet for 14 years, too used to conversations rather than theses. I get one chance, effectively, to say what I am saying, and if I blow it, it’s my fault.

I will put some things into the C&S Essence Apocrypha, which is for things left out and extra ideas, to tie in the scenario and cover some loose ends, and I already knew I needed to do a new character sheet, but it’s good to go into the ViV process with a few nudges already there,

Having said that obviously ALL the info was ORIGINALLY there and Steve editted it all out, the swine. Yes, yes, that was it!

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Genesis of the Daleks, sorry C&S Essence

Posted on December 3, 2011 by hurcheon

So, how did this tiny printed giveaway come to pass? Well, the usual answer, drink and someone kind of noising me up, in this case by email.

(this is my life btw – http://xkcd.com/386/)

Anyway. It was 2000, Steve and the gang were busy on C&S: The Rebirth, but the big news in the rest of the RPG world was the release of D&D 3rd edition. The significant, headline news were the couple of licences that was supposed to allow other companies to publish games compatible with the D&D system and that system itself, no myriad of platonic solids, instead everything was done as a d20. Not original, but a bit change for D&D.

Then one day Matt Johnson (never met him, but a respected RPG designer with Crucible Designs) said “why not release C&S as an d20 system?”

It was meant well, but after the blood sweated over C&S3, getting C&S from Highlander to Brittannia and getting C&S:TR written, that didn’t go down well. Also it would have meant losing some differentiation. C&S’s system is partly worked around the unfair feudal society of the Middle Ages, from the advantages of education, training and equipment, and to the influence you could exercise in society and the peculiar magic system of C&S.

As I said, I’d been drinking, so after a chat with Steve (he didn’t buy the drink, he never does. See the C&S:TR Hobgoblin mutation ‘Short Arms, never buys a drink’, word to the wise [only joking Steve]) I said “right, I’ll show him”

I didn’t own a copy of D&D 3rd, all I knew about it was that it used a d20. I might have known that it used skills or not, the important thing was that C&S did. My original goal was to try andd get it down to 1 side of A4. In the end it was 4 sides, and even then it took a tiny font size.

I had decided not to just write a straight précis version of C&S, but instead cover the main points of C&S, the main advantages, but in a quick and easy system. So it had

  • a character generation, that included the inequality of feudal life & starting vocations granting skills
  • contested skills
  • combat with different tactics
  • magic that allows the magicians to enhance their spells
  • character improvement
  • etc, it was a brief, but full RPG

I, of course, ran a C&S Essence campaign myself, using the kingdom of “Darken” as the setting since I had started writing that and it let me test ideas out as we ran it. Later on a C&S play-by-email C&S campaign I was running was also converted to Essence, as it was easier for me to do the system stuff.

I can’t remember why I wrote “Vis Imperium Victoriana”, the 8 page Colonial and Scientific Romance RPG, but after that Steve asked me to write a SF game. Since I am into Pulp SF I thought I’d try and write a game to allow play in a universe like that of the Lensmen, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers etc.

Being a completist eejit, I included rules for a history of technology, including relatively primitive technology, so you could have Renaissance Robots if you wanted, but although the Rocket Jocks manuscript was finished in 2002 for various reasons it hasn’t been published yet.

That got a lot of playtesting though, and in doing so I suddenly realised that I could improve one of the clumsier C&S Essence mechanisms it had inherited. In the original Essence, the person who had rolled under their skill chance by the most, won a contested skill roll. So, if I have a skill level of 14, and you have one of 11, and I roll 10 and you roll 10, then I win as that is 4 under my chance. Combat used that difference in calculating damage.

It was clumsy as hell in play, at least for everyone else, only people with an unhealthy interest in mental arithmetic liked it, so I changed it to highest, successful, roll. That changed speeded up and simplified play greatly.

My involvement with C&S dropped off, and I started to convert C&S Essence, to a new game, Borderlands, based on my old C&S Play by Email campaign, set in the Scottish/English borders with a large dose of Celtic and Norse mythology to the early 14th Century Scots history.

Then, earlier this year, Steve (EVENTUALLY!!!!!) took my advice and started to look at PDF and Print on demand sales of BGD products. At the same time I started to engage with some C&S fans on a forum. I said I would update C&S Essence with some things from my campaign and with rules updated after years of play. I originally intended to put it on the forum, but Steve took a look at what I had done and proposed selling it, for a tiny, tiny amount.

Given that, I figured out that I should add some more for value. So THAT version of C&S Essence, with an adventure and a set of skirmish wargame rules (so that larger combats can be handled quickly) is the one for sale.

I’m a great one for recycling work. The Troll text for C&S Rebirth had been drafted originally for a different gameworld, other bits of that might see light of day if I ever do produce Borderlands, or finish any of my fiction set in the world and so, similarly my next big project, an update of “Vis Imperium Victoriana” will include things originally written for Rocket Jocks. I want to add SteamPunk to that, luckily the Rocket Jocks manuscript already contains Victorian era Steampunk gadgets, so I have a head start, but I can’t avoid it, sometime soon my store of incomplete works is going to run out.

I might actually have to start working!

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The Inn is open again, kind of

Posted on December 2, 2011 by hurcheon

The original Salient Hurcheon was a list of Chivalry and Sorcery players, firstly on my personal site then the LOCS (Loyal Order of Chivalry and Sorcery). That contacts site no longer exists, but I have to call this something

WHY? I hear no one ask.
Why blog?
Simple answer it keeps my hand in writing, and it might be a good place to explain some of the stuff I am up to.

Why now?
C&S Essence, the free RPG I wrote in 2000 has been updated, had stuff added and is now available for sale. PDF only until 12th December, but printed after that 

Despite my best intentions, it looks like I’m back in the RPG writing business

What next?
A couple of freebie supportive things for C&S Essence. Then a similar update to “Vis Imperium Victoriana” with addition information and expanding on scientific romances and, of course, SteamPunk/Gothic SF.

After that the “Darken” Kingdom supplement for the Chivalry and Sorcery game world of Marakush. I had a good part of that written before the “hiatus” so I need to finish that off.

Lastly, a replacement for C&S Light. Not sure what I’ll call it. In my files it’s “C&S Unplugged” but that’s just a silly working title until I can think of a better, Essence having already being taken.

So, that’s it. next post on the genesis of C&S Essence!

 

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