World Building 101: That Time of Year

Time in campaign worlds is often overlooked. I am referring to calendars and yearly cycles. It rarely seems important. But every now and then someone decides it will give there fantasy world more depth and they create their own fantasy calendar. The GM promptly stops using it after a while since it only confuses the players more.

"So what day is it?"

GM: It's the twelfth of Grune.

"When is that?"

So why bother? Well, the GM was right. Adding an actual fantasy calendar does help in breathing life to the world but the information that calendar conveys has to be useful/translatable to the players. So how do you do that?

Well step right up my friends because I have the only calendar you will ever need for your Fantasy Realm. It's suitably foreign yet strangely natural to understand. First let's take a jaunt back into our own history and the creation of our modern calendar. Suffice to say what we use today was heavily developed by the romans (July for Julius and August for Augustus Caesar). Before that, the year was marked by two things: Seasons and Astrology. Months are a product of our world that may never have been adopted by yours.

So how about Astrology? You could tell your players what stars are in which constellations, but unless they have your night sky memorized, this will be information the won't digest.

So how about Seasons? Yup. Let's say my world convenient has a 360 day year (close to our year). Divide that by four seasons and you get 90 days a season. Since most common folk can tell what season it is, and it's primary importance to farming (astrology was more for kings), that will likely be how they mark their calendar.

So the next time your player asks "What day is it?", you can tell them it's the 45th day of spring. They now know what season it is, what the climate will be like, and that spring is on the way out. No months necessary.

Okay so what about sci-fi? If your heroes are visiting alien worlds, then time matters less to them. The players will be visiting different weather biomes and time zones so seasons will be whatever they are at the location. If you want, just keep a generic Stardate like 202110.12 (that's todays post date: Oct 12, 2021) and just update each game day to the current date.

Campaign 101: Villainy is Afoot!

People have different interpretations of what makes a campaign. Is it the entire story arch of the characters, or is it the 5 or more adventures needed to solve one major problem? Well, it's both actually. One campaign is about the character's growth and dealing with the trauma that made them an adventurer, but sometimes "THAR'S VILLAINY AFOOT!"

For this example, we'll focus on the "villainy afoot" campaign. Examples of this are every 5th Edition D&D campaign book.

As The Great GM would say, "It begins with a villain. He want something. But something is keeping him from getting it."

So our first building block is who the villain is, what's their plan, what's prevented him/her thus far from achieving it, and how long will the heroes have to stop them (Timers build suspense). 

Once you've got that, you've got the plot. Now, how do you dole it out. How to you stretch this plot into multiple adventures. First, let me suggest that you don't plan on 3 years of epic adventures. Your players' attention spans may not last that long. Here's my recipe:

The First Adventure - The HEROES get hired to do SOMETHING. While doing this thing, they find another group at work. By the end of the first adventure, the player's should know that there is a shadowy group out there doing bad things. And most importantly - the players should hate these guys! I'm not saying tell the players to act like that. I mean get the players to hate these guys. You might have a good idea about the things that would upset your players: Terrorists, cowardly hostage takers, villains that kill puppies, bullies are always in fashion, stealing your player's spaceship is always a sure-fire rage-a-thon. Make your VILLAINs do the things your players despise. That makes your players invested in the story enough to actually care about the details.

The Second Adventure -  The HEROES get hired to SOMETHING that once again crosses paths with the VILLAINS plans, or the players choose to take control to find out more about these VILLAINs. Maybe something leads them to another encounter with the bad guys doing SOMETHING the HEROES must stop. Again, take another opportunity to have the VILLAINs do something to make your players hate these guys. At the end of the second adventure, the heroes should have a name for this evil VILLAIN group, and a clue where to get more information about them.

Adventures Three and Four - The HEROES are following their clue. At the end of each adventure, they should have more knowledge about the villainous group. Mainly who they are, what they are after, and that the heroes are going to need to gather a couple of THINGS to get at the VILLAIN, either information that locates them, security keys to get at them, vehicles or an army to help them get passed the VILLAIN's forces, stuff like that.

Adventures Five and Six - The HEROES gather the THINGS they need to reach the VILLAIN and his base. These could be done in either order.

Adventure Seven - The HEROES face TRIALS getting to the VILLAIN's base.

Adventure Eight - The HEROES face the VILLAIN, but the villain has a new back plan to cause harm to the heroes or to the worlds at large. A new timer begins as the heroes must not only navigate the terrors of the VILLAIN's base, they must defeat the VILLAIN before time runs out!

And that my friends is a great campaign formula. It's not the only one, but it has never failed me yet. 

One Room DC and Why I Can Lock Myself Up In It (ICRPG)

GMs spend a lot of time working with finicky Difficulty Target Numbers. Searching the desk is this difficult, hitting the goblin is this difficult. But in that work is a Meta-thought, "this encounter is a bit easy, let's move those difficulties up a bit".

Yup, as a GM you have probably tweaked an encounter upward in difficulty so your players don't walk easily through it.

One Room DC doesn't bother itself with individual difficulties. Why should they matter? What you really want is to make the entire encounter difficult, or easy, or whatever. So why not just stick with one difficulty for the whole encounter? If someone is good at one of the tasks, they get to roll against the EASY difficulty, 3 less than the average difficulty. It's elegant.

Wait, but he shows the players what the difficulty number is. Now there's no mystery.

There never was, really. Hiding the difficulty number has never added suspense to a roll. 

But if the players know the difficulty, they may try to avoid the encounter!

Good! Violence shouldn't be the catch-all solution. The heroes that spot the the trouble inside should have an idea whether or not this is a battle they can handle. The GM shouldn't make every encounter "balanced" to the party's ability. And maybe, maybe they will still try the challenge, but they are going in there with a plan. Making plans and seeing them come together is more fun than rolling to hit a monster whenever your turn comes around.

Character Background - What Do You Really Need?

This particular post holds an idea that can be added to any RPG.

Character Background, sometimes there's pages and pages of it, and other times there is nothing at all. How do you get those pesky players to give you something to work with without burying you in homework? Easy. There is only one question the player and the GM should know about the hero:

Why did your hero become an Adventurer?

Adventuring is a dangerous business. There are more comfortable ways to live, so what drove your character to this? I wracked my brain and came up with four basic motivations for heroes: They are ESCAPING something, They are DUTY BOUND to do something, they CRAVE something, or they are SEEKING VENGEANCE for something. From there, I created a list for what those Somethings are. A player can pick one or draw a random card if they like. (I like using cards for tables, it makes them feel like a tarot reading).

The list should help to jog the player's creativity to at least give the GM a plot thread he can work with. It can also be a spring-board for the writer's in your group. But you've got an elevator pitch for their character, and that's all that you need.

Wait, why is that all the GM needs? My character's have a lot of childhood trauma. They're well rounded characters!

Yes, but this is the Movie-verse! We won't be spending an entire lifetime with your hero. We only have time to explore the facets of one trauma, if that. Since the Movie-verse is focusing on your life as an Adventurer, your motivation is of paramount importance to the audience. We see why Conan sought revenge against Thulsa Doom, how and why Luke Skywalker became the hero of the Rebellion. We connect with these characters because they remain focused on what is important to the story (Conan's Revenge, Luke's ending the Empire).

Here's a link to my Character Background Generator (FREE!)

Edit: Sorry for being Late. Here's the link. It's also in "Free Stuff".

How to Run a Heist in Any System

This blog is in response to Zee Bashew and Matt Coleville's youtube channels, regarding running a heist. 

You want to run a heist, or your players are about to storm a heavily defended outpost. Preplanning is key, but how do your players know what to plan. I doubt any of them has real-life experience in these areas, but the characters probably do. So how do you cover for your player's lack of foresight?

The following method is a combination of the Leverage RPG system for heists and some suggestions made for Savage Worlds, but they will work for any system. You may have to add the meta-currency (bennies, tokens, fate points, hero points, most games already have one).

Start with some skill rolls. Every player needs to decide what their contribution will be to the plan: The hacker my crack the security systems, the Mastermind might get the layout, the hitter may keep tabs on the security guards, etc. Then everyone gets a skill roll. If the roll succeeds, add a Meta-Token into a pot. If it's a critical success, add two or three.

During the actual heist, any player may take a Meta-Token from the pot and spend it to reroll a failed roll or to conveniently have a tool for a job that wasn't listed on their character sheet. The Meta-Token might also follow the rules of whatever game system you are using. The player should explain how their fore-planning allowed them the advantage on the roll. Keep in mind also, the pot doesn't refill. Once it is empty, the heroes have reached the limit of what their pre-planning can do to help.

That's it. It should be easy to bolt into your game system.

Effort and Why I Dig It (ICRPG)

ICRPG uses a system called Effort, as in "this task requires more than the flip of the switch so let's see how far you get this round". Damage is effort, each round you see how much closer you've pushed the enemy toward Deadsville. Well Runehammer thought that such an interesting system should get used more often. Now, all complicated tasks have "Hit Points", and you must defeat them using the relevant skill and Effort. Now, the lock on the doorknob isn't going to be attacking you back so "where is the drama" you ask? It's in the form of a TIMER. 

A Timer is usually a d4, but it could be a d6. The GM rolls it and the players then have that many rounds to do the task before SOMETHING HAPPENS. What is it? Only the GM knows for sure and it's enough to make you pee your britches.

You don't have to use a Timer all of the... er... time, either. Suspense has to be a roller-coaster, with ups and downs for contrast. If every moment has suspense, players will become numb to it. Just pull it out every time you want the players to get worried.

Now Effort is rated by a specific die type: d4 for Basic Effort, d6 for Weapons or Tool Effort, d8 for Magic or Super-Tech Effort, d10s are skipped as they are used solely for Loot Tables, and d12s as ULTIMATE EFFORT!

Wait, all weapons deal d6 damage?

Yup.

But That's NOT REALISTIC?

What is? Take D&D for example and the humble spear. In reality, the spear was one of the most common weapons on the battlefield. It was easy to make, cheap, keeps your opponents out of reach, and could be mastered by an unskilled user. But in D&D, those extra attributes aren't calculated. As a result, every player (that I have witnessed) picks a Longsword, a Rapier, or a Two-Handed weapon because they deal the most damage for the character type. Using a spear is a detriment to the character.

Well ICRPG says "It doesn't matter anymore, use what you like". I LOVE this. My players can now use whatever type of weapon that makes them look cool (Rule of Cool) and all I have to do is add a few tags. They can even make up weapons. Putting them in ICRPG is a snap. What's that? You want fold-away short-swords that can unfold into climbing picks like Rayla's in The Dragon Prince?

Okay so that's Shadow Elf Butterfly Swords: d6 Effort; Tags: Alien, Climbing, Concealed, Fast, Light, and Sturdy.

That took me about 30 seconds and I don't have to worry about weapon balance.

So Effort shouldn't be looked at as Damage. It's a measure of progression to a specific goal this round. Hit points are the length of the track and Effort is the speed at which you run it. And the Hit Points say a weapon should complete it's task against an single-heart opponent in two rounds with two solid hits, maybe a little longer. Picking the lock on a one-heart chest is going to take 3 rounds minimum unless you score a crit.

Also, in the Movie-verse, is there a visible difference in damage between Subotai's sword and Conan's? How about the German Machine Guns, versus the American Machine Guns? When there was a difference, it was specifically called out. Guns deal the same damage but when Arnold grabs the Bazooka... The Movie-verse doesn't care that a .45 caliber bullet does more damage than a 9mm. You go bang, they fall down. While debating the merits of weapon details can be fun, it really has no place in fiction. The objects aren't the point of the tale, the characters are. 

Note: Hankerin hates the idea of balance. But there is such a thing as good game balance: The balance of player's options so they don't feel that their decisions in character creation led them to make a boring, useless, or inept character, unless that's what they intended. No one should be penalized for wanting to look cool. 

So in short, if I want to play a wandering Spear Master, in ICRPG I have the same shot in the spotlight as Grunter the Unwashed and his Clobberrock mk Many. In D&D, not so much.

Worldbuilding 101: The Three Zones

So you feel ready to build your world but you don't know where to start. Suddenly the enormity of your task dawns on you and you panic! Do I have to script out every town and city, their populace, points of interest, and ruling bodies? Do I need to know how the toilets flush? And so you searched online for assistance. So did I.

Sadly I gleaned very little about a process for actually building a world. It all felt like that old cartoon joke:

I've made a few observations on the subject that might assist you in this endeavor. First, we will zoom out to view your entire blank world. What is your world? It's the playground for your players. But we need to know how they want to play. How do we find out? Well, there are typically three playground zones in any setting. They are:

1. Civilization: This zone is all about the inner cities, the core worlds, mega-city 1. If your players want adventures in the city, they are telling you they want a game about intrigue. The villain's are primarily other people. The heroes must navigate their way through political pressure, corruption, all while making the right allies to help keep them alive. Cyberpunk is exclusively a civilization game. 
2. The Fringe: The fringe is where civilization has a tentative hold over the wilderness. It's a popular starting location as it offers both intrigue and exploration storylines. It's also a quick hop back into a city if the heroes want, or into the wilderness. Fringe stories involve societal breakdowns like raiders, rising warlords, and corruption but also include stories about natural disasters, plagues, pestilence, rampaging creatures, and forbidden things lurking in the shadows. Players will often be hired to deal with local problems since on the fringe, there aren't a lot of peace-keepers. Almost the entirety of the original Star Wars trilogy occurred in the fringe of the Empire. We only ever saw one civilized world... briefly, Alderaan.
3. The Wild: If your players choose to play in the wild, they are telling you they want survival to be important. In the wild, there is no resupply or comfy taverns. In the wild, anything strange can and should happen. The players are out here to explore. The locations should be awe inspiring. The threats should be unique and terrifying. This is the home of lost civilizations, ruined tombs, and undiscovered countries. Give it to them.

D&D tends to place its lost tombs conveniently in the fringe so that adventurers can investigate a sunken temple at noon and be back at the pub by nightfall for fried chicken. Well the fringe is a good place for it but might I suggest treating the search for the sunken temple as a transition between the fringe and the wild? You'll get more adventures out of it and survival without support will ratchet up the suspense.

So now that you know the three zones, what do you do with them?

If the players choose to play in civilization, then you know you need to pour your efforts into a city. That's just ONE city. Where do I put it on the map? It doesn't matter. There ought to be plenty of adventure there and it doesn't sound like your players are in the mood for cross-country travel.

If the player's choose the fringe, then you know you need a town. Your players may not like the town you have made but they won't know that until after the first adventure. Once you have an idea for a town, come up with three things that are troubling the town: Frequent orc raids, a mysterious blight on the crops, and a band of thieves are harassing the townsfolk. Your players will choose to tackle one of these issues, and if they hate the town by the end of the adventure they can go to a different town. In which case make a town more to their liking and come up with three things that are troubling the new town: Well those orc raiders are striking here as well, children are suffering from a strange "sleeping sickness", and there's rumor of a sunken temple in the nearby swamp. Build the towns as they are needed.

What if the heroes choose the wild? Then build an amazing location that holds a terrible secret, don't forget the keeper(s) of that secret. Also focus on how the heroes are able to survive the wilderness trek. What problems might they face? What random creatures might they encounter? Each adventure the heroes should: experience an amazing locale, fight something they've never encountered before, and learn a secret that the forgotten place holds. Here's an example: My heroes are trekking in the wilderness, survivors of a shipwreck, cast away on an unexplored shore. They strive to survive the wilderness when they come across an inland grotto decorated with the remains of torn-apart ships. What are they doing this far inland? The water in the grotto links to the ocean and the grotto is the lair of a kraken! The same kraken that destroyed the heroes' ship! That's not all. A local tribe of beast-men worship the kraken and view the pillaged vessels as gifts. As far as they are concerned, the heroes have violated their holy ground.