Not back, just visiting, pt. 2

On a more usual note, I lost considerable interest in 4th Edition D&D about a week after release; I was really looking forward to the online tools. I hear a few of them are out now (or maybe just the compendium, I can't remember). And as much as I like the new rules, the adventures and other supplemental NPCs/monsters/items/etc. from the e-zines just didn't seem that interesting. The lack of an electronic GSL registry (and the requirement of registration) is more of a turn-off than the prohibitive license itself (since I just want to give my stuff away for free anyways, and D&D rules could provide me with a few handy shortcuts).

I'm probably not going to come back with a typical article of the type I set out to write when I started this blog, but rather very flavorful, genericised RPG supplements.

P.S. I think the most consistently awesome thing about D&D would have to be the art. I especially like the work they've been using since 4E's announcement. At the very least, it seems D&D products will always be pretty.

Not back, just visiting, pt. 1

I have miraculously discovered $15 in an online-transaction-ready account, and have yet another month of City of Heroes/Villains. My villain hit 50 about a month ago, and my hero is almost 20.

I never got into World of Warcraft. It was mostly because I didn't like the people there, and so I solo'd up to level 20. That was the limit of the trial account, and as far as I was concerned, I had accomplished everything I had set out to do. Did I mention I didn't like the people there? Wonderful areas, mildly interesting items/spells/etc. And I'll refrain from making generalizations about the players. During the 14 day trial I didn't meet anyone I'd want to associate with. That's just sad.

So when I started up City of Villains, I made a character that could solo. Oddly enough, the Brute archetype was also in high demand for groups - if you can take on a whole mission by yourself, you're very valuable for anyone's mission, after all. The nicest folks would invite me to team with them, do Strike Forces, mop up heroes and other villains. We'd talk about our new costumes and powers and beat the tar out of anything from petty thugs to rival archvillains, and of course the occasional hero. The City of Villains is populated by the most pleasant crime lords, demons and world-eaters you'll ever meet. It helps that I chose a medium/low-population server, too, probably. The folks hero-side seem to be a little more insular, although there are far more heroes online at a given time. Still, every one of them has been better than the folks I met in WoW, even the "hero" that logged in his L50 Blaster to toast me for beating him in fair PvP. (I swear my villain has saved the world more times than is right! Just what kind of game am I playing!?)

For both sides, it's a game centered around defeating enemies in exchange for resources that make it so you can defeat more enemies. It's been very cleverly set up so that the best way to get the most exciting enemies and powers most often, you have to work with other players. A major component of the game is also the costume and power selection. I've never met another player with a build like mine - I even get lots of "dark/stone/teleport? neat build" PMs. (It is a neat build, by the way. Could use more damage, but at least I'm tough as nails - or rock.) I've also never met another player with a costume like any of my 5 villain costumes or my hero's costume. (Which is also a source of occasional compliment.)

Anyways, City of Heroes/Villains. Buying one will unlock the other, now. Definitely worth the money, and that's coming from a stingy bastard. I play on Justice. (Although I have heard stories about the Freedom server... avoid that one, perhaps, if you're not sure?)

Star Wars

So I used to play the West End Star Wars game. It was a bit different than normal games of Dungeons and Dragons that I've had (if you could call those normal). Because of the game mechanics, I had bought a plastic case of all small 6-sided red dice - there were probably about 45 dice in all - and we called it the brick. Now, I made a childhood promise to the guy that worked at Gamer's (the game store) about never losing my dice. Maybe it didn't seem very important for anyone else, but this stuck in my memory. Possessions are very dear to me, both in game on character and things I physically own such as the dice. Out of everyone in the group, I was the one who cared the most about these things. I worshipped them secretly. On my desk I would have all my dice lined up in their original plastic cases, in order. You may remember my previous story about how I obtained my first set of sky-blue dice. Hold that as a reference point now for what you are reading.

We never spelled it out, but the rules of our group concerning dice were that whenever dice were left behind, they became the property of the person who lived at that location. I'm not the kind of person who would forget to pack up my dice - I always kept an eye on where mine were on the table - but once in a while I would notice that a few were missing from my set, so I would take a look through my friend's dice pouch (That's right. A pouch. All the dice thrown together in one place without regard to keeping the ones of a set together. Ridiculous.) and find a few that I knew were mine. This was a very difficult decision whether to take them back though. I summoned all my ethical skills that I had as a child and in the end found myself unable to reclaim the dice which were mine, even though I fully believe they were stolen from me.

To get my dice back, I would be going against the rules of our group.

I could not do it. It would have been traumatic for my young mind. Behaving with such disregard for rules and laws out of the game just could not be done because of all the illegal activities going on in the game. As you know, there are only two things in the Star Wars universe: Storm Troopers and Crime Bosses. Nobody wants to actually be a Storm Trooper, only obtain their armor which outclasses bounty hunter blast vests. So the only thing you're going to be doing in Star Wars is working for Crime Bosses to get credits to pay off those absolutely ridiculous black market fees. It was tough, but the only way do go.

I never saw that guy at Gamer's again. It might have been related to me never again entering the store, but I failed to keep my promise. My dice are gone.

Hi, atus!

My energy can be better spent elsewhere right now, so until further notice, my two readers, I will not be updating The Dungeon Blogger's Guide.

People-Food Dynamics

I was going to head over to a friend's for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It was probably 3rd edition, I don't really remember. I don't think it matters though anyway for this story. Usually during a game, the host has a bunch of snacks ready for us to eat while we play, such as a bag of chips sitting out, or soda in the fridge. Well, I decided that it would be a good idea to bring over a food item this time. Cake is good; everybody likes cake, so that's what I made. I followed some recipe from a cooking book. This isn't about cooking food though, so I'll cut to the end of the story: the cake had a ton of butter in it, and for better or worse, the cake was the highlight of the day.

I don't know if this whole food thing whole food thing is actually a good idea or not. Depending on the type of food, it may serve as a great a distraction from the actual game. Of course, this all depends on how seriously the game you're running is being taken. If it's the type that's laid back, the game is just an excuse for meeting up with friends, it's completely fine since distractions are fairly common, such as conversations leading to tangents that have little to nothing to do with the game. For a serious game that's fun value comes from the mood it creates, a minimally distracting food would probably be best, and as players become engrossed it will become unnecessary.

When the game is being conducted over the internet, the food situation takes a different form. You can enforce a rule that all participants individually must have a specific food item prepared. This will result in a great success for a few reasons: food tastes good for those that have it. the promise of food will help with getting people to sign down to a specific time to play, you don't have to actually have food for other people, and people that are embarrassed that they don't have the food won't admit it; they'll just pretend they're eating food and no one else will have to know about it.

4th Edition: Unit Combat

I've put together what I think is a pretty good looking PDF that uses 4th Edition swarm-monster design for making swarms of humanoids - combat units! It should be similar enough to 4E that it doesn't distract from gameplay or feel like a separate system, but interesting enough to give large-scale conflict an interesting flavor when it comes up. Enjoy!

Law of the (Fantasy) Land

Your party has entered a small harbor town of your own design for a homebrew campaign. Right away that chaotic rogue gets everyone in trouble. The militia show up to the inn and shout, "Open up! We have a warrant for your arrest!" The rogue wants to know if he has the right to one long-distance telepathic collect call with A. (for Arthur!) Wizard (for Sorceror). Something strikes me as less than awesome about how this situation is being handled!

And it's a gross exaggeration of the point of this post: know your setting(s). While few people, at least in a semi-serious session, would tolerate such a modern (and nonsensical) spin on their fantasy setting, you may have a developed or developing republic. If that's the case, it doesn't make much sense to, later on (and in the same country), have people accept tyrannical oppression as a way of life or express loyalty to or admiration for the divinity of their leaders. Conversely, if the rogue is judged by a magistrate that expresses pride in having been appointed by the king, it's a risky idea to have NPCs (openly) complain about the un-democratic, rights-trampling tactics of the court; chances are, those NPCs don't have any rights to speech, either!

This isn't just about maintaining consistency, but about setting the tone for your setting. What do you want authority to represent? What are peoples' expectations regarding their rights? Is power a corrupting force, or can the common man aspire to it and do great things?

You may think these are dangerous subjects to cover in your game, and if you had your players actively developing the setting with you I'd agree. But until the players start playing, they don't have to know what kind of world they're being dropped into, and chances are they'll take whatever challenges you throw at them - whether it's toppling a military dictatorship or protecting the throne.

Just because they didn't sit up with you all night slaving away over the spiral notebook, designing the world, doesn't mean they still can't shape it. Once their characters are playing in the world they can become a driving force to hijack the setting and take it in the direction that they (and hopefully their characters) want it to go in. Take note of what the players do, and try to figure out why they do it. Are they uncomfortable with a dominantly evil setting? Do they just think all evil is meant to be vanquished? Will this become a limiting factor in future sessions involving similar themes? The foundation of your game's conflicts and the quality of their delivery hinge on these things.

Welcome, Zeefer!

That's right, anxious readers, I've added a new author, Chris K. from Zeefer Madness. Artist, cook and fellow gamer, I'm sure we're all looking forward to his nougats of wisdom.

In other news, I'll have the minimum weekly theme post tomorrow at 11am sharp. You almost get the feeling I have all these articles written up already in a vault somewhere, scheduled to be published even if I wake up dead in a ditch somewhere over the course of the next few minutes.

The Name of the Game

I originally thought I had until the first week of June to get this out, but some stores have jumped the gun and delivered/shelved early, and the internet is saturated with pirated copies. You know what I'm talking about. Dungeons & Dragons. 4th Edition.

With 4E on the horizon, the choice to switch or stick with 3.x (or even AD&D!) has been brought to many game tables. The argument has been raging for over a year on forums around the world, with each new snippet of official information being released sparking a dozen new debates on each board. Some people praise the mechanics; others condemn its redesigned themes. What's important is to remember that it's a game, and that means it should be about fun.

And that means it's going to be as fun as you let it. After all, finding a stick that looks like a gun can be fun; there aren't many things you can mechanically do with a stick, and its implied "themes" (when it's just a stick) are fairly limited. But it's a tool in your imaginative hands, for doing whatever you want.

Mechanics are hardly the most important thing about a game, unless they're both strict and complex. While chess would be very hard to enjoy if every piece behaved differently under variant rules, that's not the case, so everyone follows fairly similar rules, with negligible changes based on household or tournament. But Dungeons & Dragons is a wholly different animal compared to chess. Any given edition has rules that span volumes of manuals and magazines. D&D is complex. One might argue that it's more cumbersome to stick with an older edition plagued by layers of errata and third-party materials, than it is to start with a fresh set of rules, but that isn't the argument for here, and I don't think that should be the argument for your table, either.

The argument should be, "can we get something fun out of this?" If you can use the rules on Powers, if you like the way the new classes are organized, if you like the thematic elements of the new races and monsters, and your group agrees, it might be a worthwhile investment to get a group copy to pillage for ideas. The same can be said of any other roleplaying game system. Take Shadowrun, for example. Those are some involved rules! But a few of them might appeal to your or your group. While I was in the reality-survival phase of my DMing, my favorite Shadowrun concept was 10HP for all characters, no matter what. Oddly enough, a few D&D players agreed with me about that, and we adapted our rules to accomodate the HP range and played reality-survival-fantasy. (I got sick of that after both playing and running it for a little over a year, and ever since have supported straight-up fantasy, with survival elements for thematic purposes/dramatic situations only.)

One of the biggest complaints (from DMs) seems to be the 6-hour rest, at the end of which all temporary conditions are removed and all HP is restored. Some time after my bout with realism, I more or less began handwaving away whatever held my group back from continuing the adventure. They loved (1) not having to track little details across sessions that were sometimes months apart and (2) having fairly even footing at the beginning of each session. Everyone was always able to participate. Now it's in the rules. My advice if you want to slow down characters' recovery? Don't mess with the HP restoration. Add a "long-term injury" tracker. Maybe treat them like feats. "Shot in the leg" is a speed -2 penalty that lasts until three milestones are passed. "Stabbed in the lungs" is speed -1, CON -2 that lasts until six. I strongly advise against making tables for these things. Write down what injuries you make up so you can be consistent if you use that injury again, but try to improvise based on how the game is flowing. As amusing as it might be to roll a 1, consult the chart, and say, "laser enters eye, exits back of skull," you're going to lose the narrative control and future variety that improvisation provides.

By the way, it's totally an ancient egyptian laser beam in the example above.
(Third bullet in the list.)

Name change

I found out there's a full-blown e-zine out there called Save or Die, and all-crunch/low-fluff to boot. It doesn't seem like anyone out there is reading this yet, anyways, so this is for history's sake.

Tonight, this blog has been renamed "The Dungeon Blogger's Guide."

A little idea about enjoying your role

This is probably most true with DMs who use campaign guides and buy adventure modules, but even homebrew settings probably end up with lots of these: NPCs the players keep trying to interact with, that you absolutely hate, perhaps to the point where you want to just kill off the NPC.

You really shouldn't let yourself end up in that position. Don't let any NPC exist in your world that you would not enjoy portraying (but don't get too attached if the NPC also has to die for plot reasons). Even with NPCs that you know will die three or four sessions from now, feel invested in the character. If you're worried that your interests are too narrow and your world will be populated by clones, try finding an NPC's archetype on TV Tropes, and looks around at related tropes and find subversion examples. Chances are you'll find something that can make this character more fun, without applying your typical preferences to it.

The TV Tropes trick is especially helpful when dealing with other peoples' canon NPCs. It's your game table, so even when using someone elses' work, make it feel like your own. If you're not having fun, you've got to ask yourself why you're playing a game in the first place.

Anything more than none...

A seasonal (or perhaps year-round) forum debate has started up out there on the Internets about hit points, damage, hits and misses, and I'm going to tell you about the Dramatic Hit Point (which really has more to do with damage).

But the keyword is dramatic. Not simulationism. Not complex. Not even abstract (although it's pretty close). This is about hit points in relation to story telling, and there's a very important separation of system and narrative that needs to be established first: hit or miss is a mechanical word used to inform players/the DM whether or not damage was applied to hit points. A giant, 20 ft high, perhaps 10ft wide, is wearing full plate, and it subject to a Hold spell. The fighter attacks this living barn, and misses the broadside. That's just lame from a narrative perspective. What really (should have) happened? The fighter's sword clinks against the giant's armor, causing no damage.

In a reverse situation, a really nasty weapon or spell is used against a character; it should kill a common person, but the adventurer survives. Clearly it's a grazing wound, or it was just "too close for comfort," or maybe the enemy is taking their time, torturing the player's character instead of making full-on lethal blows. The distance and damage scales to plot. A mechanical hit might be a narrative miss. (And in the previous paragraph, a mechanical miss was a narrative hit.) There is no absoulte, "it must always be handled such-and-such a way." The narrative can be flexible; the mechanics, obviously, are only as flexible as the DM.

I found this post over on the Wizard of the Coast forum, and I quite like the take. It even calls hit points a dramatic device! <3
I've edited some of the choice sections to post here; these quotes were original written by Iorwerth, but they have been edited.
When talking about heroes what is really being talked about is the fact that the characters are the leads in the story being told. As in all good stories, a lead character does not die without having some dramatic incident. In D&D, hit points are the mechanic that makes sure this happens when the time comes. The lower a character's hit points, the nearer they come to death/defeat and, in story terms, the closer they come to that story-point where their death/defeat has dramatic impact.

When a character loses hit points it does not mean that they have a wound of a certain type, or that they have suffered no wound and are just suffering fatigue. Instead, it is a mixture of the two. It is the numerical description of how near, in story terms, the character is to death/defeat. In a novel this would be accomplished by the writer describing the situation. In RPG terms there is no "writer," so hit points are used to cue the players in the writer's place.

A wound, no matter how it is described, is only dramaticially crucial if it is the one that causes the character's death/defeat. There's no getting around that description, but the final blow is only successfully because the lead character has been weakend by previous events, whether by wounds, by exhaustion or by being distracted by something at a crucial point.

Ah! It's almost 11:59. Mmgh, deadlines.

Way Off-topic: TV Tropes and Appleseed

Yesterday I found out I spent four hours reading TV Tropes, the wiki with explanations of every stock device, character archetype, and genre/subgenre/subsubgenre composition. It's worse than Wikipedia. But, for my purposes, it helps me use a bunch of obscure references to things which some people consider Serious Business, which will make my blog seem like Serious Business. I don't remember what article it was under, but there was this thing about tarot cards being used for random story telling. My not-so-useful advice for the day: just follow the links around TV Tropes, write the article names on slips of paper, stick them in a hat, and pull plots out of your ass. Of course, read my blog to see me polish off the ideas this generates. You'll have a plausible excuse for Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots in no time.

On a completely unrelated note, I also saw Appleseed for the first time today. It was neat. You're expected to just accept what the state of the world is (much like Deunan), ask few questions, and buckle up. It's got an R rating for violence, but it's almost a Disney film when compared to something like The Animatrix (and, a spoiler!? is: Deunan's mother dies, just like in a Disney film!) Perhaps that's because Appleseed is less of a mind rape than Animatrix (there's actually nothing freakishly disturbing at all, just gorey), and it's "symbology" seems superficial at best. Still, if you haven't seen it, give it a whirl. The plot is fun, at least once.

I've got more than a couple CCD/DDP drafts (by which I mean exactly three) half-finished and just waiting for me to sit down and seriously complete. One of them should be ready by Saturday at 11:59 PM.

Making Mice of Manly Men

In the realms of high fantasy, in lands of limitless possibility, at a fair and fun game table, how do you make the player feel small, and weak, and utterly doomed?

This is where a DM's artistry and knowledge of the group shines through when it comes to delivery, but there are concepts so elemental that they also deliver themselves. Things that undermine party loyalty, cast doubt on everything that anyone does, and force the party to re-evaluate their values and perceptions. A master of such concepts is H. P. Lovecraft, with such stories as "The Colour Out of Space," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Dreams in the Witch-House." (Why not include "Call of Cuthulhu," you ask? I see that story as being more of a monster/horror story than a genuinely disturbing mindfuck. Not that it's a bad story, but it doesn't suit my purposes today.)

One problem with suddenly bringing twisted/dark concepts upon your group is that it feels like a retcon more than a planned plot twist, and this means you have to build up to the twist, dropping clues that someone isn't all right in the head, or someone isn't exactly playing on your side of the court, but not to such a degree that the character can't justify themselves until the right moment. Another way to avoid tipping your hand is to simply make the eventual turncoats unreliable or vulnerable - perfect candidates to be taken in by the evil cult or enthralled by the wicked sorceror.

Now an NPC that the players suspected or tolerated has turned on them. They're preparing to draw the battle lines. The coup de grace: the actions of the PCs has been working towards the goals of the villain(s). The destruction of the evil Elder Brain will allow the Hive Mother to capture more thralls and have uncontested control over the local Underdark. Can they side with the Illithid? Can they survive against the Beholders when they can turn all eyes to the party? If they make any bold declarations of taking on both foes, will formerly passive enemies become aggressive? How much of their success was dependent on this secret conflict? How many more questions will your party bring up?

It can be even more subtle than having unwittingly changed the tides of a secret and beneficial war between evil powers - misinformed PCs might have done the villain's dirtywork, eradicating fellow heroes while believing them to be brigands. Worse yet is making the PCs think they've done foul deeds on behalf of the villain, be it through illusion or more misinformation.

Today I give you the Missing Keep concept, a tricks-and-traps/who-dunnit? dungeon that will have most of the play directed by the players. If you're like me, and usually don't regulate non-combat situations with turns, you might want to do so in the Keep if things go beyond simple conversation.

Setup: Getting Into the Missing Keep
The Missing Keep can be any ruined or incomplete structure near the PCs' location. A magic-user in the employ of the villains (or a villain him/herself) has woven an illusion about the place, making it look complete, inhabited, and menacing. This mage may either invite the party to the keep through a thrall or pique their curiosity by seeding rumors in the town. Perhaps a monster under the mage's control will attack and lure the party to the keep. However you do it, they need to be brought inside.

Missing Keep Interior: The Main Hall
A brief, winding corridor leads to the high, open main hall. Bleeding walls and apparent structural instability should set the tone; if anyone tries to turn back, they'll find the door missing. There is no way to break the walls. (Actually, they can demolish the entire building, but if they see a wall, they will think they've touched a wall, and cannot pass through the illusion. For thematic purposes, it's impossible to disbelieve the illusion. You might want to watch the original Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie.")

Within the hall is an image of the mage, with a cage of four children from the local village. Have him make an impossible demand of the party that would also benefit the villains, in exchange for the children, with the threat that they may answer only once. Upon pleading, refusing or attacking, darkness falls upon the hall, the children scream, and the party splits up.

Missing Keep Interior: Individual Cells
Each character will awaken, separately, to four chained goblin minions (they can be kobolds or gibberlings or whatever small monsters you like, but stick to one type, and make them extremely easy to kill). Breaking free of their bonds, they will attack the character. Once slain, reveal secretly to each player that instead of the corpses of goblins on the ground, they see the corpses of children. ("They" being used for gender neutrality, not plurality. Each player will be secretly told this.) When describing the bodies before the entire group or party, they are called goblin corpses. If they interact with or ask more details about the bodies, they're secretly told that they're child corpses.

The doors to the cells are unlocked by keys in the childrens' pockets. They can return to the main hall, where they find the cage open and the children slain; the cells they came from become empty once they leave. After they've discussed what's happened, the image of the mage will appear before them and declare that one of them is a murderer, and that only their death can help them see the way out of his keep. (Emphasis on see! Heh.) The mage isn't lying - an exit will appear if one of them dies. However, it's unlikely anyone will be willing to volunteer, and the players should be clever enough to learn that they all have basically the same information to act on. While the players deliberate, anyone who stands apart or wanders off should be visited by the voice of the mage, offering help. He'll point out tell-tale signs of gore or distress on one of the other characters. Try to do this in a way that factionalizes the party. If you want to throw something vaguely disturbing at them, have the children come back as zombies, singling someone out, perhaps with non-violent moaning and pointing/groping.

Spoiler! The Good Ending
Death isn't the only way out. Even with the mage playing on the party's doubts and fears, it should be possible to reach the conclusion that they killed illusions, or goblins. If they can all agree and declare that none of them killed the children, the mage's image will bow to them and release them. If the mage didn't considerably delay the party from continuing on the main plot, perhaps he made some useful observations.

Alternative: Pairs
If good secrecy can be maintained, you might want to have characters wake up in pairs in the cells, adding a Clue-like alibi dimension to the Missing Keep. If you have an odd-sized group, putting one of them alone could be amusing. Even with an even-sized group, have two people not in a pair could also lead to interesting debate.

Hopefully this little adventure template will add an enjoyably distressing page to their character's lives, but your delivery is key. You could make it feel like a psychological thriller, a suspenseful drama, or even a a wacky comedy like Murder by Death.

However you do it, have fun.

House-ruling

"The D&D game has neither losers nor winners, it has only gamers who relish exercising their imagination... In a sense, the D&D game has no rules, only rule suggestions. No rule is inviolate, particularly if a new or altered rule will encourage creativity and imagination. The important thing is to enjoy the adventure."

Tom Moldvay, 3 December 1980

Tom's words were in the foreward of the second printing of the Basic Set of the D&D game, over 25 years ago. Five years ago, neither they nor words like them graced the Player's Handbook for v3.5 of the game. The rules were introduced as just that: rules. When official sources offered alternatives to the rules they weren't given a separate chapter, they were put in a sidebar and called "variant."

That didn't stop anyone from making "house rules," and that's a testament to the adaptability of the system and the quality of the player base. In fact, with the d20 System Trademark License, generously released by Wizards of the Coast for use by third-party publishers, people published their own "variants," replacing whole systems and offering additional content.

But still, there are people who stubbornly refer to books as the holy word on gaming, and we call those people Rules Lawyers. They don't appreciate Tom's words, or the DM's ability to change rules and rely on a verbal understanding with the players. Their whole world seems to be dependent on the source - the books. Dealing with them is like dealing with a mad cultist; they'd sooner die than look at things in a different light, unless they find their own gaming path to follow.

I am a strong proponent of flexible rules and streamlined gameplay. Complex systems should be abstracted enough that they make sense but aren't unnecessarily involved; I don't mix roleplaying and simulation, and that might show through with some of my future emphasis on theatrics, and fostering conflict for the enrichment of the spirit over pedantic setting knowledge.

Later this week I'll have a promised Conflict or Drama post, but I thought I'd do some DM posturing in the mean time.

Good vs. Good

We see it all the time in our television dramas: the heroes (or at least, the typically well-intentioned characters) have a falling out over sometimes petty incidents. Characters may disagree on how to go about doing the right thing (or whatever it is they mean to accomplish). But, by the end of the season, if not the end of the episode, the characters have either reconciled their differences or changed sides. Very little lasting conflict, very few epic story arcs, are centered around the good guys fighting amongst themselves.

In today's post I want to give you the Twin Nations. (Rename and restructure them however you like, as they'll have very generic names and fairly basic themes.) Both face common foes, be they military dictators from other neighboring nations, monsters, or aliens. Neither of these nations is particularly corrupt or unstable. And yet, they inevitably come into conflict with one another (when greater threats are not looming).

The first of the Twins is the Kingdom. Led by the firm but well-meaning King, the Kingdom's people live regimented lives. Military training is mandated for all boys of age (about 13), and women (about 18). Few common folk need to be called into service at any point following their training, as either their home becomes threatened or they volunteer their services to the King indefinitely. Crime is simply not tolerated. The laws are few, but harsh, and the law cares nothing for woes which are not crimes. While there is crime, it's rarely publicised and always dealt with swiftly. Ranking military officers, rather than nobility, govern towns and districts of large cities, the reasoning being that they have proven their leadership. People live simple lives where they look after themselves and their families and aspire to glory.

The second nation is the Republic, quite obviously governed as a republic. Most people (if not all) take part in regional politics, electing their leaders who in turn elect a national leader. Threats of secession and alliances of militia (especially on the border of the Kingdom) keeps the Republic dynamic. Cities tend to be smaller, but more numerous, and laws can change from town to town and even road to road (and local laws take priority over national ones). Juries tend to pass judgement on all crimes, while wardens collect suspects and manage prisoners who are to await trial; wardens aren't often thought highly of in the Republic due to their authoritarian image, despite their lack of real power in most regions. There is crime, and serving on a jury is looked at almost with the same anticipation as being picked for a team in a sport. Watching trials is done almost as much for entertainment as it is out of a sense of civil duty. While there isn't a significant difference in the amount of crime in the Republic when compared to the Kingdom, it is highly sensationalized. People live simple lives where they look after themselves and their neighbors and always keep an eye out for something interesting.

The root of the conflict between the Kingdom and the Republic goes back several generations, and few people really remember why they view the other nation in such a harsh light. Really, though, the root isn't terribly different from the types of events that renew the conflict regularly: a criminal commits an act in one nation and crosses the border, where they commit another act, becomes captured, and is sent through the legal system of that nation. The other also wants to process the criminal, and their ideological differences on "due process" prevent this from happening. Duty-bound soldiers from the Kingdom or freedom fighters from the Republic then cross the border in an attempt to apply the "right" justice, and someone gets hurt. The unsanctioned extradition of a prisoner, or the quagmire that follows, can make for an excellent plot for your group.

Very rarely does the conflict stem from a desire to spread their beliefs; rather, it's simply a desire to handle personal grievances personally. In fact, during times of peace, the Republic's regions bordering the Kingdom may tend to demonstrate a more systematic approach to decision-making, while officers in Kingdom towns bordering the Republic tend to act under advisement from counsel or community leaders. This is made possible (during times of peace!) by the free exchange of ideas as people visit the other nation for trade or out of wanderlust, and return having seen how the other side does it.

Off-topic: 4th Edition Playtests

I'd like to stray from the intended path with a second post this week, about 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. There are forums out there full of criticism (as well as praise) for the upcoming rules change. I was decidedly opposed to 4E, at first. I bandwagoned with the cries that roleplay was being undermined, that the gameworld was being made unbelievable and non-conducive to deep storytelling.

And then to see if my points were valid, I ran a 4E playtest using what we know about the rules so far.

It's not so bad. As a ruleset for managing the world on your game table, Dungeons & Dragons still works. It's not a perfect system - some powers have damage outputs too high or too low for the situation, although that's the only problem I've seen so far. I know I'd rather be playing Shadowrun or Ars Magica, if anyone around here was willing to give it a chance. But that's not the case, and D&D (regardless of edition) seems to attract both experienced and first-time gamers like moths to a lamp. So, we use D&D.

I almost exclusively use homebrew materials at my gametable, blending campaign settings together like smoothies and taste-testing the combination with my players, but for 4E I'm using adventures released by fans on ENWorld.org. Despite this, I've been able to put my own spin on the game. It's also taught me that the story that the GM and their players tell is more important than whether or not there are rules for Tieflings in the PHB, or what the specific traps and monsters in room D4 are supposed to be.

So, I like at-will and per-encounter powers. I like the ability to throw hordes of level 1 to 3 enemies at my 1st-level party without utterly crushing them. I don't like Tieflings, I do like gnomes. I'll probably write a lot of rituals for the casters in my party, if the PHB doesn't have a good enough selection.

Yes, I'll take up 4E. I don't care if you do, too, or not. Play whatever edition (or game) you think helps you tell the most interesting stories. Save or Die will continue to focus on weekly, setting- and game- free thoughts on roleplaying in general: it isn't the rules that make the game, it's the people, and how they play it.

Resources!

Nothing makes it easier to spark conflict than to have something someone else needs, or to need something someone else has. Opposing ideologies can also spark conflict, but rational thought and a player's understandable desire not to lose their character, if it can be helped, can make it more subdued than desired.

Sure, you can negotiate for resources. You can try to play nice and share if it's not a single artifact of great power or the services of a master of the arcane. But other forms of constraints - time, orders from superiors, personal grievances - can make typically peaceful approaches just as intense as all-out war.

Does your game need to pit two factions against each other, but you're still not settled on why they should be fighting? Here's a few suggestions:

• Both sides claim an artifact (however powerful or mundane as you want) has religious or historical significance to their people.
  
• One side holds a monopoly on a certain art, substance or technology that has the potential to dramatically alter the other's quality of life.
  
• Both sides want the political, religious or social clout to accomplish some goal, and must compete for support from a number of prominent figures.
  
• Both sides have a common foe, and their leaders have agreed to work together, but neither side approves of the distribution of power, food, knowledge or shelter, feeling the other side "has it better."

While you can certainly assign alignments to sides - good vs. evil or law vs. chaos - it might provide more depth and intrigue to break the mold. Next week I'll tackle Good vs. Good.

And so it begins.

(And it'll continue each week. Wednesday I'll get up the first taste of what this blog is about.)

But before that's up, I'd like to touch on the themes of the blog, the things that make roleplaying games fun. That usually isn't the rules, although bad rules can make a game less fun. The two main themes for any roleplaying session should be conflict and drama, be it heroic combat or political scheming, and the tone of how each is carried out.

To make things easier, posts will specifically cover one or both of these things, identifying my ideas as "Character-Conflict Driven" or "Dramatic-Development Play." They'll focus on good (or bad) ways to introduce and sustain conflict, or stylistically present the game in your session.

Your comments are welcome! The reasons why you agree (or disagree!) could shape future posts. While this isn't an open forum (I'll admit, I hope to convince people my way is right) we'll all benefit from a greater understanding of what we like and how we want to like it.