Incongruous characters – a failure to get on board

In the old days when I actually used to take part in and GM conventional role-playing games I recall coming up against a bizarre event. This almost always occured at the start of a campaign set up, or change of setting. No matter how much the GM of the moment would describe the coming setting, or provide background material and books of art to illustrate what the cultural, technological and historical basis for the game was, there would always be someone who would choose to be a character that could not possibly exist there and/or call themselves something that was glaringly incongruous.

It seems I am not alone in finding this strange phenomenon. As I was reminiscing about Runequest I went surfing, as you do, and found a lovely site that a GM had obviously put a lot of work into. The games sounded as if they were fun, though I noted the sad comment that no game had happened for 158 days. This pricks my heart in sympathy – there is nothing worse than having a labour of love, as an RPG campaign is, just wither away through lack of interest/committment/availability.  

Runequest is clearly designed to be viewed through a bronze-age, heroic classical Greek lens. The original sources all confirmed this. The art of the site in question really hammered it home.

I looked at the character lists. There were characters named Alansar, Cleombrotus and Darkos. These seemed within the general mood. Then, sure enough, I found one called Grant McKielsen. Very Greek. Very bronze age.

It reminded me immediately of the time I tried to start a similar bronze age camapign. I layed out books of Greek architecture and art, described the fashion and weapons of the time, brushed over the stories of the Illiad. Then I invited the players to think about the characters whey might want to portray in this setting. Most got it straight away. We discussed hoplites, senators, physician/philosophers, and priestesses. All seemed to be going well.

Then one of the players declared that he wanted to be a bard. With a lute. And a big floppy hat with a feather in it. Armed with a rapier.

I can still hear the crickets and see the tumbleweed around the table as the rest of us digested this information.

What is the psychology at work here? Conceit (didn’t hear a word anyone esle said – too busy being a hero in their own mind), misguided sense of humor (see, it doesn’t fit, that breaks the suspension of disbelief, cause we’re not really heros, we’re just playing a game. Get it?), ignorance (back in the ancient days, like before flat screen TV everyone blah blah blah sword, last movie I saw), or something else?

Comments?

Hân campaign map redrawn

HÂN – campaign update

It is one of those campaigns that I come back to every now and then with a wistful attitude. There is every chance that it will never be played, but the material is there. Call it a pet project.

Here is a Mind Map I made of some of the material.

Voila – a bar

Just picked up a couple more of the Paizo maps, and also a couple of the D&D modular terrain. Using the Harrowing Halls set I overlaid the Bandit’s Outpost to make a tavern. Here it is:

Mythic Hân – map update

I felt the need to cartographise. Here is an update to the geography of the Empire, continuing the policy of making the representation abstract. This time I have included the idea of Judicial Circuits: those regions that are under Imperial Administration and can expect a high ranked Judge and other administrative staff to be active in running the areas.

In a nutshell: each province has its own Governor. This may be an appointee from the capitol, or it may be some local king or warlord. Groups of provinces are joined together in a Judicial Circuit and a Judge is appointed to this next higher level of command. His job is to tour his provinces and act as a ‘High Court’ for any matters of law or policy that cannot be handled at Provincial Government level.

However, not every ‘province’ is a Province of the Empire. Some remain outside of Imperial law for various reasons – which we will find out during play.

So far we have only explored province 01, Parangaricutiro.

From Mythic: is this a province contained within an active Judicial Circuit? Somewhat Likely; 78, No.

This is consistent with our finding in play that no Governor was in place, which was why the demon prince was attempting to achieve some legitimacy. However, after I had rolled I realised the question was ambiguous. What did I mean by ‘active’. I decided that province is a Province – since this is consistent with what we found in play – but that there is something not only wrong with the Provincial Government, but with the Judicial Circuit as well.

Has a Judge been assigned to the Circuit that Parangaricutiro belongs to? Very Likely; 39, Yes.

So there’s a new thread: what is the reason for the Judge of that Circuit being so lax? Why had the region not been visited for so long? Why had he not appointed a Governor?

Mythic Ravenloft – time to get back to work

There has been a long pause in this story while I have been bringing other writing and gaming elements forward. I am now starting to think about this story again and I wonder what has brought it back to the surface.

The odd conclusion I am coming to is that it has to do with the weather. Ravenloft is a winter story – the way I am telling it. As the days became longer here I could think of nothing to say. Summer in Australia is about long long days and hot hot temperatures, interspersed with the odd thunderstorm and imperilled with bushfire. Hardly the kind of inspiration I need for a story about snow and ice, and Vampires,  zombies, and loves lost…

But now the threat of fire is receeding, and the mornings are darker. It’s still pleasantly warm, humid even. All the indications are that it will not be a particularly severe winter. Still, I am anticipating that the reduced light and the morning fog will get me thinking black thoughts again.

Now to get the juices flowing. First: I need to reacquaint myself with the characters, and I need to appreciate what important thing has just happened (in the last scene) .

In true Mythic style, I rolled against my tailor made Mythic Focus chart and found ‘Remote Event’.

Next entry: what Remote Event pushes the characters into action?

Mismatched requirements in D&D

A funny thought occured to me as I was constructing a new character in preparation for an upcoming D&D game – the first such game in a very long time.

Role-playing (specifically the first such – D&D) was designed in the States and has had a distinct American character stamped on it. Many different interpretations of the RPG have come out over the decades to present more English or European sensibilities. But at heart it is an American passtime. It is, essentially, an egalitarian art: the notion that YOU can be a hero. Even if you won the meta-lottery of fantasy life and your character was the prince-in-waiting, at a real-life level it was just plain old ordinary you who was vicariously experiencing the adventure. This is an insidious political notion: that the driving spirit behind greatness and adventure could come from anywhere and not from inherited destiny.

That’s heady stuff, but this post is not about that. Instead my thoughts ran something like this:

American ‘fantasy’ or mythology has only a few topics or themes. One of them is the ‘West’. And the notion of the West was shaped to a greater or lesser degree by Spaghetti Western movies. And these in turn were shaped by Samurai movies. Gross oversimplifications I know – but hey, this is my blog, not an academic article.

Now the thing about Samurai movies, and the way we consider Japanese swordplay, was that it was fast and brutal. It was a one-cut affair and whoever did not die first was the winner. The greatest swordsmen were those that could fast draw their katanas and slaughter before their opponents had cleared their sayas. Sound familier with the quick-draw gun play? Is it real? Probably not, but that’s not the point – it is a mythology.

This is in stark contrast with the Chinese style Wu-Shu movies (which admittedly are only very modern in comparison) where the heroes bash away at each other incrementally damaging each other over long periods of time. Even then they often jump up and run away at unfeasible speed after receiving a pummelling that would have crippled any normal ox.

And that’s strange: that American fantasy idolises the Samurai/gunfighter quick kill, yet the American fantasy realisation vehicle for the common man (RPGs, specifically D&D) actually models Chinese attrition fantasy.

Sounds like faults in both the busines requirements gathering phase and in allowing the developers to build to a technical specification constructed in isolation.

SD&D Thief class

Source: Castles & Crusades, 1st edition AD&D
Hit dice type: d6
Primary characteristic: Dexterity
Skill cluster, in brief: Stealth, althleticism, criminal activities, basic combat

Level progression benefits:

Level	Skill cluster improvement	Special (aka FEATS)
1	0	The following skills are known to a thief: pick pockets, open locks, find/remove traps, move silently, hide in shadows, hear noise, climb walls. Back stabbing. If you can surprise an opponent you may attack with the +4 attack bonus. Damage caused is doubled for every four levels.  You gain a +1 bonus when attempting to decipher (non-magical) foreign languages. This skill increase by one for every level.
2	+1
3	+2
4	+3
5	+4
6	+5
7	+6
8	+7
9	+8
10	+9
11	+10	You may attempt to decipher magical scripts and use scrolls. This is treated like any other language translation attempt, with the exception that if you fail to interpret it correctly there will be unexpected and possibly unpleasant consequences.
12	+11

SD&D Fighter class

Source: Castles & Crusades, 1st edition AD&D
Hit dice type: d10
Primary characteristic: Strength
Skill cluster, in brief: Physical combat, military tactics

Level progression benefits:

Level	Skill cluster improvement	Special (aka FEATS)
1	+1	You may choose to specialise in the use of one weapon. This weapon may not be changed for the rest of your career. When using this weapon you gain an extra +1 per level in both attack and damage
2	+2
3	+3
4	+4	You gain an extra attack when fighting opponents who have only one hit dice. You gain an extra attack of this type for every four additional levels gained. That is: at level eight you are allowed two extra attackes in the same round against opponents with only one hit dice. At twelve level, you have a total of four attacks against these enemies.
5	+5
6	+6
7	+7
8	+8
9	+9	You are legally entitled to construct or claim title to a Freehold: a castle, keep, or manor house, and establish your own domain. This may be part of a larger clan affiliation you have, or a bid to found a new clan from the ground up.
10	+10	You gain an extra attack per round against all oponents, regardless of their hit dice. This does not sum with the extra attacks gained at 4 and 8th level.
11	+11
12	+12

SD&D character class template

Source:
Hit dice type:
Primary characteristic:
Skill cluster, in brief:

Level progression benefits:

Level	Skill cluster improvement	Special (aka FEATS)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Simply cut and paste this underlying HTML to get the table. Use this template to describe the character classes.