Pyres of Vam » campaign

Frame Narrative in Roleplaying

Mockingbard — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:51:14 +0000

I just finished playing the demo for Dragon Age II and I found it had an interesting take on storytelling. Gameplay was sometimes cut with scenes of a character, in the future, talking about the hero. It was interesting because a) the storyteller was alluding to events that had yet to unfold, and b) the storyteller sometimes lied. What was cool, though, was that you played those lies and then played the truth. This technique is a kind of frame narrative (a story within a story), and twists on storytelling like this can be interesting in pen and paper roleplaying games too.

Imagine playing (or GMing) your regular campaign and the GM cuts to a scene of a character talking about the PCs’ exploits. This in itself is cool, but what if the character was talking about the PCs and how they ruined his life? What if he considered them to be the villains of the piece? What do other people think of the PCs, in the time and place this flashforward is happening in? The PC don’t know, so it’s a subjective retelling of events. Will the PCs become bad guys, or is this just one man’s opinion? When and where is this happening? Why is he telling this story?

Questions like these will arise for the players and I feel that it would create a sense of intrigue. Cutting back to this character from time to time will let the players discover a few more pieces of the puzzle, showing where they are heading. However, there’s a fine line between alluding to events and railroading. If it’s a one-shot you’re playing, or if your players are comfortable with railroading, it’s not so much of a problem. But this is often not the case.

If you’re describing events that haven’t happened yet in an open-ended interactive story like a roleplaying game, you need to make sure you only allude to what has happened, not citing specifics until the PCs have experienced those events or just before. Imagine the look on your players faces when they successfully negotiate a trade deal with a powerful warlord only to have the GM cut to the future storyteller saying how badly that deal ended. What if they entered a deserted castle only to cut to a flashforward describing an ambush at that location.

As I mentioned, subtly is the key. Have the storyteller talk about how there was a massacre, not which side won and how many survived. Talk about a plan going horribly wrong, but not for who or how. Give the players a little hint at the future but make it vague. It might not be that the storyteller is trying to be vague to their audience; maybe they are many, many years in the future and the storyteller is a great bard telling the legend of the heroes, which would obviously have become embellished over time and with differing perspectives on events.

Every so often through in something crazy like a pretty clear indication that one of the heroes will die. You can make this a lie from the storyteller, but that’s not a lot of fun. You could end up having one of the PCs faking their own death for story reasons, or maybe one of them does die in an unfortunate roll of the dice. Another possibility is that someone else, an NPC, joins them and the storyteller doesn’t differentiate between this person and the PCs when he says that “one of the party was killed”. What if he said, “I can’t believe that the most clever of the group was the one who died”? Now the players wonder who the cleverest PC is and they probably hope it isn’t theirs.

Separation of player and character knowledge could be a problem with this technique, but even if the characters sort of act on this “knowledge” of the future that they don’t really have, it is vague and not enough to go on. It could even lead towards a self-fulfilling prophecy when they make that trade deal go sour as they needlessly investigate the honest warlord who finds out about their meddling and now distrusts them, ending the deal in bloody combat, thus fulfilling the PCs’ worries that the deal would go poorly.

I’ve seen this technique in media other than Dragon Age II. A similar device is used when your character dies in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the prince says things like “Wait… no, that’s not how it happened” and it jumps back to before you died. I think the Witcher 2 does something very similar to Dragon Age II, judging from one of the trailers. How I Met Your Mother is another great example of frame narrative. We know certain things about the future of the story, but not how events lead up to that future. It’s a powerful technique and if pulled off correctly, it could really add something to a campaign.

I actually used this technique once as a short side adventure. The PCs arrived in a ruined and devastated town finding only one resident alive. They asked him what had happened and he started with something like “It all started three days ago…”. I then handed the players some character sheets and they played some lowly commoners in this flashback. They knew that something bad was going to happen in the next few days and that they were going to not be present after those events. It was an exciting way to start off the short adventure and in the end the players had great fun being part of the havoc that destroyed the town.

If you do try this technique, I’d recommend a one-shot or a side-trek so that if it doesn’t work out you haven’t lost anything really and you can just keep going. And if your players like it you can bring it back as a recurring event in your ongoing campaign.

Campaign Setting: Power of Youth

Mockingbard — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:15:26 +0000

Here’s an outline of another campaign setting I’ve been working on. Feel free to use and alter it as you wish. If you do use it or have some ideas about it, I’d love to hear them.

It is said that the spark is in all of us, yet by the end of puberty it is gone. It is not known why, but children have a strong connection to the power of the spark. It flows in them in ways still not fully understood by adults.

Very young children use the spark sporadically, for play and their own simple purposes, without thought. As children grow older, they begin to understand their powers better, using them consciously and with more control. Around age 10 for girls and 12 for boys, Transition begins.

Children undergo many physical and psychological changes during this stage and it is when their spark is at is peak, very powerful and unpredictable.

Transition is a stressful and strange time for children and many lose control of their magic as the power flares and fluctuates, burning brightly before it is snuffed out entirely. Girls usually complete the Transition by ages 15-17, while boys usually complete it by ages 16-18. After this, the spark is dead forever.

Because adults are unable to harness magic, children are highly valued for their abilities. Many children do not utilise the spark effectively and are more dangerous to themselves than others, or are merely an annoyance. However, children of particular talent and power are recruited into harsh military programs to perfect their control over the spark and harden them into tools of war. Children are taught from a young age that fighting for their faction is the highest honour and the greatest deed that one could hope for. Propaganda floods the schools, homes and streets, and armies recruit children as young as 8 to train to fight their horrendous battles.

Every year, new drugs are trialled in attempts to keep children young and keep their spark alive for as long as possible. Experiments are conducted upon children’s brains, leaving many permanently damaged or worse, in attempts to unlock the secrets of the spark. Some believe that it is the mental state of children that is the key to their power, and so they experiment on the mentally disabled as an alternative route to the answers they seek.

Schools are hotbeds of propaganda but some children catch on or have different ideas and sow the seeds of rebellion. Such children meet in secret after classes to discuss what the adults are really up to, what the war is all about, how they are developing in their talents, and what they will do to avoid being recruited. Groups of children roam adult cities and towns as rebels, vigilantes or criminals, using their powers however they see fit.

Rumour has it that there are hidden towns out in the wilderness populated entirely by children. Gangs of teenagers rule these child towns and the children live however they can free from the control of adults, but left to their own devices to learn about the radical changes they are going through. All the while, they must deal with the normal trials and tribulations of puberty – sexuality, friendship, bullying, and growing up – as well as the great unstable power that they wield, its consequences and the reality of life after the Transition, when their power fades and they find themselves as young adults in a world that considers them past their use-by-date.

Inspiration: Ender’s Game, Lord of the Flies, Dark Angel, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Campaign Setting: Hang Ups

Mockingbard — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:21:22 +0000

Hang Ups is a random idea I had for a campaign setting. I haven’t played any or read much of InSpectres, but I have the feeling that Hang Ups could serve as an alternate setting for that system. Primetime Adventures, Spirit of the Century, Savage Worlds, or Otherkind Dice would work really well too. I’m looking forward to playing this one with my group this year for a few sessions.

Here’s the elevator pitch:

Emergency services are inundated with calls that they terminate because they appear to be pranks or non-emergencies. Stuff about aliens and werewolves. That kind of thing.

That’s where Hang Ups comes in.

They’re an independent (and not technically legal) group that intercepts these abandoned calls and sifts through them for seeds of truth. Armed with their knowledge of the paranormal, they respond to potentially legitimate calls to help those that the authorities ignore.

Hang Ups is a rag-tag group of people with various reasons for chasing after crazy-sounding emergency calls. Some might be bored, some might be slackers in this for a quick buck, others might be UFO nuts, disgraced scientists, or former law enforcers or agents who got kicked to the curb for looking too deep. I imagine that you’d have a very diverse group of people at Hang Ups. Also, they probably just work out of a warehouse, apartment or basement.

Getting the Call

I see this game as a good one for getting players involved in building the story. I plan to begin sessions like this: first, I’ll ask who’s the Operator for this game. This position will rotate through all the players. The Operator roleplays listening in on the emergency calls. In-game, it’s a pretty boring job and they character will probably be sitting there for hours on end until they find a call that might be true. But out of game, it should be a lot of fun.

What happens is, each player roleplays some NPC placing a call to emergency services. As the GM, it’s your job to ask a few questions to dig for a little information, and then brush them off as a prank caller. It’s the privilege of the Operator to select which call to take. Get a few calls from the players, and then when the Operator has heard them all, or hears one she really likes, she should jump in and “pick up” the call.

After this, the player who placed the call gets to fill in some sketchy details from the NPC, who is likely frightened/drunk/dishevelled/etc. The Operator gets to ask questions. Other players can offer questions, but it’s up to the Operator whether she asks them now or not.

Here’s an example of Getting the Call:

GM: “Okay, so it’s Joe’s turn to be the Operator this week”

Joe: “Sweet! Okay, I’m on the couch, kicking back with the headphones on”

GM: “Alright. Montage time. The calls are rolling in. There’s the usually junk, but a few perk your interest…”

[GM looks around the table for anyone with an idea. Clara puts her fingers to the side of her head like she's on a phone.]

GM: “Emergency services. What is your emergency?”

Clara: “Uh… hi. Um… there’s something outside my house making these weird noises”.

GM: “Could you describe the noises?”

Clara: “Yeah… like, um… growls. But they don’t sound right.”

GM: “What do they sound like?”

Clara: “I don’t know… it’s not a dog, I don’t think. Maybe a bear? But it sounds sick or something. I can hear it moving in the bushes! My neighbour, he’s been working late nights on something in his garage. I see smoke and light and stuff coming from there and sometimes I hear animal noises. Wait… there it is again! Please send someone, quick!”

GM: *click* [Hangs up]

Joe: “Ooh, is he making a monster? Hmm…”

GM: “Emergency services. What is your emergency?”

Gavin: “Yo, dude. Dude! They’re, like… everywhere, man! Seriously!”

GM: “Sir, could you please explain the nature of your emergency”

Gavin: “Everywhere, man. All these… like… cocoon things, you know? Some nights they’re there. Some night’s they’re not. They’re there now, though. They glow and stuff. Oh… no way! No way! Some of them are hatching or something! What the hell is that!? Dude, you gotta get someone over here! Hello?”

GM: *click* [Hangs up]

Joe: “Haha, these are great!”

GM: “Emergency services. What is your emergency?”

Beth: “They’re in the computer!”

GM: “Madam, could you please explain the nature of your emergency”

Beth: “Beings… of electricity. I see them, crackling. It’s stormy tonight. That’s when they come out. It’s like… glitches in the computer screen. But also, my lights go on and off. Uncle Mort says it reminds him of something, the way it flickers. He’s been having dreams, he says, in the storms. My phone rings and I hear crackling. I feel like they’re watching me. I just got home and saw my lights flicking on and off. I can’t find Mr. Fluffy… what’s that burning smell?”

GM: *click* [Hangs up]

Joe: “Awesome, guys. I think I’m gonna go with cocoons. I wanna know what’s hatching out of there!”

Gavin: “Yes!”

Clara: “Cool. I liked that one too!”

Beth: “Aww, we’ll have to wait till some other time to find out if Mr. Fluffy is okay. I’m in though. Sounds good!”

GM: “Please hold, you are being transferred to Special Priority Emergency Services Unit”

Joe: “Special Priority Emergency Services Unit. Sir, could you tell us more about these cocoons?”

Gavin: “Yeah, no worries, man. You really gotta see this…”

[Here, we 'fade to black'. It's assumed that the caller keeps explaining what little he knows about the situation, but it's the GM's job to come up with these details on the fly to keep the players excited and guessing. That's half the fun for everyone: players make the seed of the story and the GM improvises as the game progress.]

Answering the Call

After you get the call, you respond. Here is where the real fun begins. Who knows how legitimate the call is? Can it be explained with science? Is it really something supernatural? Will the real authorities end up on the scene too, having never heard of this ‘Special Priority Emergency Services Unit’? Is the threat a physical danger? Can the Hang Ups take it down with whatever weapons and tools they legally (or not) have managed to get their hands on?

Most importantly, how are they going to get paid, this time? Are they going to ask for a ‘call out fee’? Will they take something valuable as ‘evidence’? Will they admit that they’re a group of vigilantes who need to keep food on their table?

Once the mission is done, the Hang Ups head back to base, swap Operators and do it all again.

When I present this to my players, I’ll explain most of this as we go. But to get them excited for, it I made this one-page PDF flyer. Feel free to use it with your own group.

If you know of a system that’d be good for Hang Ups, or if you give it a shot, feel free to chime in below. I’d love to hear any other comments too or potential calls. I think I hear the phone ringing…

Worldbuilding using TiddlyWiki

Mockingbard — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:00:59 +0000

I’ve just started using TiddlyWiki for worldbuilding and it is such an excellent tool that I just had to post about it. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a free downloadable and portable personal wiki that can be used offline.

I love worldbuilding, but the problem with that is that I just want to keep on building. I get an idea and make a setting, then I have another idea that doesn’t fit with the setting we’re now using, or a sci-fi device while we’re playing fantasy, or something else that just doesn’t fit. So, I write it down for later. Using a basic Word document is fine, but it is static. Using a wiki allows you to link anything to anything else.

Take the following sentence, for example: “The crag giants of the Marratora Peaks are rumoured to be the original creators of rune magic, though they also worship ancestor spirits and practice blood rites”. In a wiki, you can turn the terms “crag giants”, “Marratora Peaks”, “rune magic”, “ancestor spirits” and “blood rites” into links to the relevant pages on those topics.

TiddlyWiki allows you to make these pages and links, which all pop-up on the same page in a nice fluid manner. You can also use it to create dated journals. For any of these options – which can all be used together – you can tag your tiddlers (the name for TiddlyWiki posts). I love this feature, as it makes it like a mini-blog or website and lets you easily find and arrange your tiddlers much more easily than regular documents. Even if you don’t tag your tiddlers, the TiddlyWiki is fully searchable, so if you remember the title or some key words from what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find it.

You could use TiddlyWiki to organise a single campaign or an entire campaign setting. I’m currently using it not just for one world, but for any worldbuilding I can think of. Because of the tags, this isn’t a problem and doesn’t clutter the wiki. I can write an article about a fantasy campaign setting, another about a sci-fi monster, another about a NPC supervillain, and so on. None of this gets mixed up, thanks to tagging the posts with genres, and if I use it to develop a campaign setting, I can just tag those posts with the campaign setting’s name.

You can download TiddlyWiki here and give it a go yourself. I’m finding it very useful and if you’re a GM with a penchant for worldbuilding, I think you will too.

Mini-Flashbacks: Linking Characters Into the World Through Play

Mockingbard — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:54:54 +0000

Let’s face it, some players don’t like writing backgrounds for their characters. Parents? Dead. Friends? None. Hobbies? Fighting. What if you could flesh out their backgrounds through play instead of having them write it all down at the start? Well, with mini-flashbacks you can! And they’re not just a good tool for background-phobic players. Players who are into writing pages and pages of background can still benefit from this technique. It can also help link the players into the world and the immediate situation.

Remember That Time…

How do these mini-flashbacks work? It’s pretty simple, but effective. Look for points in the story where some uncertain partially undefined element could be linked to a PC. Just make it one PC unless your have a few who have linked backgrounds (siblings for example). Mini-flashbacks work best when they are quick, and the less PCs involved, the better. Maybe the PCs hear about a priest accused of consorting with demons. Does the party’s paladin or cleric know the accused NPC? Rather than just telling the PCs “you know this guy”, initiate a mini-flashback.

Quickly set a scene full of tension. It doesn’t matter how the situation started, all that matters is what happens next. Using the above example, you could set the flashback with the party’s cleric alone late at night in the temple. During his prayers he hears muffled chanting coming from behind a bookcase. The cleric recognises some of the words as demonic and one of the voices sounds familiar.

Ask: “What do you do?” Does the PC investigate? If so, they see the NPC priest involved in a demonic ritual. You could add a twist here by having them make a perception check (more on checks and stats later). If they roll high enough perhaps they see that the priest appears to be involved under duress. If they fail, they believe he is complicit in the ritual.

From there, ask what the PC does now. Do they inform the authorities? Are they willing to testify in court? Maybe they take on the cultists themselves? Do they decide to walk away and ignore the ritual? Don’t worry about roleplaying any of this bit, just ask for the general direction they take.

Now, to reap the reward of the mini-flashback! Return to the present time and now the PC hasn’t just been told “you know this guy” or “you ousted him after you found him involved in a demonic ritual”. The PC has played it out and interacted with the NPC in a tense situation that would have made big changes in both the PC and NPC’s lives.

Suddenly, this isn’t a faceless NPC any more. He’s now linked to the PC and whatever actions they took in the mini-flashback will come back straight away to affect the present-day interactions with the NPC and related NPCs. If the PC dobbed the priest in, maybe he’s considered a hero to some and a snitch to others. If the PC vouched that the priest was involved against his will, maybe the cultists are after the PC or people consider the PC a liar or cultist sympathiser.

All this from a few minutes of flashback! During this, one PC has been in the spotlight. You could have had the other players play NPCs if desired, but even if they didn’t, they probably enjoyed watching the other PC and learning about their history. You should encourage input from the other players, offering suggestions from the spotlight PC.

Quick As A Flash

You should use mini-flashbacks in moderation and always, always make them quick, a few minutes at most. Once you get into the swing of them you can rapidly frame and resolve while still adding a lot to the present-day adventure. My favourite example of this is a forest-dwelling or elven PC returning with the party to her home town as part of the current adventure. As they near the village, she spots the stables. Initiate mini-flashback! She is on her first hunt for the rare white elks of the forest. Frame it with some tense imagery. After hours of stalking the mighty elk the hunters have finally found it. The PC gets the chance for to hurl her bolas and capture the creature! Have her make a roll. No damage is needed, simply a hit or miss.

Present day: if the PC hit with her shot, the majestic white elk is waiting for her in the stable (kept safe by her elders after she left the village). If she missed, she sees the empty stable and the memory of her loss that day hits her. Or even better, if she missed the shot maybe her rival captured the elk instead and she sees it there in the stable, a reminder of her loss and something for her rival to lord over her. It gives the player a big reward for a single roll if she succeeds, but if she fails, the commitment on the player’s part was small, so the loss doesn’t sting so much.

Mini-flashbacks used like this can fuel the game and provide hooks to pull players in. It also lets them make decisions on the spot about, during the mini-flashback, about how they want the current adventure to continue. They get some control over the world and NPCs and it makes them like mini-GMs for just a little while.

Better With Age

One of the snags with mini-flashbacks is that you’ll be jumping back to different parts of the PCs’ lives. Ten years ago, one year ago, two weeks ago. What were the PCs’ stats like back then? Mini-flashbacks are meant to be a quick, fun way to expand PC backgrounds. If we start writing up character sheets for each different stage of the PCs’ lives, it defeats the purpose.

Instead, just eyeball it. You’ll be skipping over a lot of things and placing the PC in the middle of the action. It shouldn’t be a combat scene or a lengthy diplomatic debate. Mini-flashbacks should contain a couple of skill checks at most. One is usually fine (see the elk example above) and three should really be all you need (sneak up on the cultists, check out what they’re doing and hmm… see, that’s only two!).

Sometimes you’ll be flashing back to before the PC became what they are: the young girl in training to be a paladin, the wizardling who has never cast a spell, the young rogue who is just a grabby urchin, the lanky blacksmith’s apprentice who will go on to become a great warrior.

In these cases, if they would not have had such high skills as they do now, just modify their roll. Give a -4 penalty for a few levels ago, or a -10 for childhood things. You’ll have to judge these based on the situation at hand. Perhaps the young rogue was also very dexterous and has developed a lot more in other areas as she’s grown, but not so much in her reflexes and agility. In that case, a lesser penalty could be applied.

Some skills, too, wouldn’t change very much because they aren’t often used, or training does not alter them a great deal. Perception could be one of these skills, and depending on how much your PCs use their Craft or Profession skills, they might not have gotten any better in the last fifteen years. As I said, just eyeball it, go with your gut and discuss briefly with the spotlight player what you think is fair. Agree and move on. Make the rolls, get back to the present.

Once you do decide on a fair penalty, have the player jot it down (Age 14: Agility 6) on an index card or their character sheet for later, especially if you plan to flash back to this age bracket a fair bit. Doing so is not a bad idea, actually, as you can have stories going in tandem, present and past. If you’re all into it have some more mini-flashbacks during or after you resolve the adventure that the first mini-flashback was related to.What does the PC cleric do after dobbing in the demon-worshipping priest?

Wrapping Up

This technique can end up creating the present-day adventures and stories for you, and by the end of things the characters are much more fleshed out than they might otherwise be, and the players are much more likely to remember their PCs’ backgrounds after having played through them, rather than just writing them or being told them.

If you have a shot at using this technique, I’d love to hear about it. Just remember that the mini-flashbacks should be quick, fun for everyone, create hooks into the current adventure and give a bit of info about a PC’s background. If all of these aren’t being achieved, rethink how you’re using mini-flashbacks, or maybe just use them less frequently.

Tweets of Doom for the week ending 2010-09-19

Mockingbard — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 10:46:03 +0000

This is a compilation of this week’s Tweets of Doom. For more, check us out and follow us on Twitter.

#FreeMarket just arrived! Here’s a photo of the unboxing http://twitpic.com/2nxdkd
My limited edition copy of #FreeMarket is no. 171. Haha, check out the tech malfunction! Thanks @projectdonut http://twitpic.com/2nxftp
Barring a door from flaming zombie horde, the sorcerer rolled a… ZERO! (Critical miss with -1 to Strength). Lucky he’s got Action Points!
Players opened *another* door to zombie horde. Both times, the paladin has been absent. Who needs railroading when you have curious players.
#Pathfinder craziness: killed zombies in cave-in using an earthquake machine on a land-boat; monk is in a coma, her mind is in a monkey now.
New Pyres Post: Using Flashbacks for Expositionhttp://www.pyresofvam.com/advice-tools/using-flashbacks-for-exposition/
I once ran a campaign based around objects like in #Warehouse13and #TheLostRoom. Players love discovering object powers. Try it sometime
New Pyres Post: Victorianasaurushttp://www.pyresofvam.com/concoctions/campaign-settings/victorianasaurus/
Woah, no way! Must be casual Friday in the Matrix: I was followed to work by 3 nearly identical expressionless guys in sunnies and jumpers.
#ebz Nasty, shimmering patches of air float along the streets in the false summers of the Neath. … http://fallenlondon.com/c/273499
Hell’s bells… Just finishing listening to Changes. Wow! Fast, intense, certainly full of changes. Can’t wait for Ghost Story #dresdenfiles
Playing #Demonsea campaign with my wife http://bit.ly/cl5f0E. Her char is host to a demon, pregnant and a love-interest has been kidnapped.
Playing #Demonsea: wife is deciding between being host to current destructive fire demon or new demon of shadows and secrets#savageworlds
Wife chose shadow demon! That’s a game changer! Should help in rescuing her kidnapped love-interest from rival heirs to his throne #demonsea
Avast! Talk Like a Pirate Day has landed in Terra Australis. Full sail ahead to ye bilge rats not yet celebratin’. Join us smartly, maties!
Wife playing with mini http://bit.ly/bAztFY speaking as the rider, says “I have a mullet…. and a dragon!” D&D needs more mulletmancers.
RT @chrishanrahan RT @cw: Best photo of a t-shirt worn by anyone ever. http://twitpic.com/2pq44x (via @the_meghatron)
Arrr! I be listenin’ ta Great Big Sea, wearin’ this http://bit.ly/dtWsaj an’ bloggin’ ’bout pirates! Tis a grand ol’ day me hearties! #tlapd
New Pyres Post: Ships of the Demonsea http://www.pyresofvam.com/concoctions/adventure-locations/demonsea-ships-of-the-demonsea/ #demonsea
#TLAPD Booty: Campaign seed plus five rival pirate captains/ships/crews (w/plot hooks) for PCs to join http://bit.ly/bgrvqx #rpg #demonsea
Wow, the bucket in #minecraft is awesome! Just climbed the highest thing in sight, created a massive waterfall and marked it with a torch

Demonsea: Ships of the Demonsea

Mockingbard — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 08:02:45 +0000

Avast maties! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day! To celebrate we be postin’ a piratical article about the colourful characters ye be likely to meet if ye be so bold as to venture into Haulshore: a treasure-hunter’s paradise in the Demonsea campaign settin’. We’ve even got a big campaign seed for ye, and hooks for each o’ the captains. Ye could also use this here article for some other world, but if ye arrren’t privy to the secrets o’ the Demonsea, cast ya eyes yonder to read of a world of demons, pirates and adventure on the high seas!

Haulshore is a sunny bustling seaside town in Darbrin. It has auction houses aplenty that pay good coin for all manner of exotic artefacts brought in from the sea and far away lands. Pirates, explorers and adventurers consult maps at taverns such as the Jolly Dagger and recruit crew members here for daring expeditions. Such crews often bid on items at the auction houses too, as many of these artefacts – be they engraved shields, horned skulls, battered journals or what have you – also serve as maps to even greater treasure for those who know what to look for. You won’t always find the same ships at Haulshore – they’re usually off on adventures – but it is a frequent port of pirates.

Right now, some very notable captains have docked in Haulshore and are looking for new crew members. Everyone seems interested in a secret auction in the back rooms of the Jolly Dagger – something too precious to be shown in the auction houses. It is an ornate shield known as Sarrek’s Voyage. Engravings and threads of gold depict the ancient hero Sarrek at various stages in his epic voyage: the Battle of One, the Battle of Many, Respite, the Ascendancy, the Stranded and so on.

Exact locations of the events depicted on Sarrek’s Voyage are unknown, but it is said the ancients built a temple at each point. Rumour has it that taking the shield to each temple will show the way to the next location and ultimately, the final resting place of Sarrek: a mythical holy city of treasure and wonder lost for thousands of years!

Broken Shackle

Captain Hodric ‘Red’ Bragg is a ragged portrait of a cutthroat pirate. His gut is heavy with grog, his thick black beard full of lice, his teeth yellowed or replaced with gold and his reddened skin leathery from sun. His crew is a bunch of murderous criminals with nowhere else to go and no moral compass to guide them.

Very few women ever join his crew and those that do have to be tough as nails to survive, and even then the Broken Shackle is not an inviting place for females – or for civilised males. Below deck, the three-masted black and brown galleon smells like grog, piss, blood and sweat. It has a large filthy brig for any foe who survives an onslaught from the ship. On deck there perches a black cannon that has obliterated more than a few enemy ships.

Bragg’s crew has some good divers who quickly loot their sinking foes. The crew also contains one incongruous man named Lorne. He is well-dressed, well-spoken and seems very out of place here. Whispers say that he may have once sailed with the Fierce Sharai, but there is bad blood between them now and Lorne is the recruiting officer for the Broken Shackle.

The Broken Shackle’s crew pillage and plunder. Their average missions include raiding unfortified towns, scuttling or capturing courier and merchant ships and generally causing havoc that reaps rewards of gold, grog or women. Lately, though, Bragg has been sending his crew on more and more raids against smugglers. What do they have that he wants so badly? The Red Captain has been getting redder recently, it seems – some say it’s not the sun at all, but that Bragg has been hiding an addiction to Ambrosia – the red liquid rumoured to be made of demon blood – and has fallen off the wagon. Perhaps now is the perfect time for mutiny?

Seventh Chance

Captain Jenny ‘Fishnet’ Shemmer is a strikingly beautiful woman. Her lustrous red hair, long legs and good looks are the talk of the town whenever she comes ashore. However, she is as dangerous as she is pretty. It is said that Fishnet got her nickname when she strangled to death the former lascivious male captain of the Seventh Chance with her stockings.

It is well known that Shemmer sails both ways and seems to only recruit attractive and alluring people. Because of this, her entire crew consists of beautiful men and women who are also deadly in combat – if they weren’t before joining the crew, they quickly learn to be under Shemmer’s harsh and domineering rule.

Shemmer likes control and hates being showed up. She holds a grudge like no other and will commit considerable resources towards vengeance. She loves her ship, the Seventh Chance, and since winning it from the previous captain she has made the two-masted galleon into a work of beauty. Polishing and painting the ship are common chores for the crew and the vessel is flawless, save for one massive scar down the side of the ship that reaches so high it mars the railing on the bow itself. Shemmer sometimes sits and strokes the splintered wound on the railing, thoughts of revenge dancing behind her eyes.

The Seventh Chance favours bounties of jewellery, artwork and other beautiful things. Whenever they can, these are the prizes they seek. Beautiful new crew members are also sought out and any ships or even towns that strike Fishnet’s fancy will often become the target of ruthless and relentless attacks until she has what she wants. Most of the rest of the crew’s time is spent tending to the ship and tracking down those who have wronged the crew and captain.

Freerunner

Captain Seth ‘Breezer’ Tallow is a lanky young man, spry and full of wit and good humour. He is incredibly laid back for a pirate captain and other crews sometimes call the Freerunner the ‘Party Ship’. His people are relaxed and spontaneous, making them unpredictable in combat and allowing them to excel in unexpected situations. However, their attitude means that they don’t plan ahead a whole lot and just ‘breeze’ through life taking advantage of opportunities that come their way.

Breezer’s crew could probably achieve great things if they put their minds to it, but few of them ever bother. Most are highly intelligent, but bored with lives of discipline. Breezer offers a life with hammocks on deck and tropical drinks and card games most of the day. Because of Breezer’s lax policies, his ship is a haphazard vessel patched together and barely staying afloat. It is one of the fastest ships on the waves due to it’s design, but after even a short skirmish there is a chance of sinking.

Being an opportunistic captain, Breezer has made a lot of enemies. He’s avoided many more thanks to the quick thinking and glib tongues of his crew during short cons. Breezer’s even pulled one over on Shemmer a few times – he doesn’t think she’s on to him, but he can’t be sure. Whether Shemmer is involved or not, one particular mark Breezer struck at long ago has teamed up with a more recent mark, tracked him down and is about to start some trouble. Meanwhile, the ship is in desperate need of repairs.

Fierce Sharai

Captain Dasharah ‘Ransom’ Kalkaran is a fit, bald Kalrashi man in his mid-thirties, lean, tall and looming. Dasharah is a serious but friendly and reasonable man who understands the importance of structure and discipline, but also knows that people need to cut loose every now and then – especially when hunting demons. The Fierce Sharai – meaning Fierce Queen in Kalarashi – is dedicated to protecting the world by hunting down demons, cultists and artefacts that could be used to strike back against the demons in the Burning War back in Kalarash – or securing those that could be used by demons.

Because the captain is Kalarashi and the ship’s cause is close to his people’s hearts, many other Kalarashi are drawn to this multicultural crew. Dabrish are the minority aboard the ship, but not by much. Generally, the crew is very accepting and there is little racial tension as everyone has much greater threats to contend with, in the form of demons. Criminals find their way onto the Broken Shackle, but many outcasts have a home on the Fierce Sharai, as the captain has a soft spot for these people, being an outcast himself.

Dasharah’s nickname, ‘Ransom’, comes from the fact that he is more likely to ransom prisoners back than kill them. Some say, however, that the true origins of his nickname are much more intriguing. The Fierece Sharai, golden in colour, was originally a royal Kalarashi treasure ship and rumour has it that Dasharah stole the large swift vessel – laden with a sharai’s ransom in valuables – and fled his homeland. It is unclear what drove Dasharah to this course of action.

Perhaps he was banished for committing some horrible crime or maybe he discovered a dark secret during his time as a royal guard and could no longer bear to serve his sharai. Whatever happened, everyone – especially rival captains – have their own opinions of the event and scandal surrounds his departure. Regarding nicknames, it is said that Shemmer finds Dasharah quite appealing and has given him a second nickname: ‘Handsome Ransom’.

The Fierce Sharai’s missions are much more dangerous and exotic than some of the other crews, due to their frequent encounters with the demonic. In Darbrish waters, they are more likely to come across cultists or demonic artefacts than true demons, but they have sighted a hellship or two in their time.

One member of the crew, a waif of a woman named Esmala is demon-touched and receives prophetic visions, though some say the demons can see through her eyes. Sarrek’s Voyage supposedly leads to a place that holds a mighty weapon that could be used for or against demons. Dasharah wants to get there first to use the weapon to fight against the demons, but he knows the other captains have their eyes on Sarrek’s Voyage too.

Bloodwave

Captain ‘Bloody’ Bertha Harding is a hardbitten fearsome woman who makes Shemmer look like a kitten. Bloody Bertha is burly, battleworn and stout. She is not short, but not towering. She is middle-aged at least, but her exact age is hard to determine and anyone who has dared ask is now dead. Bertha is widely known to be heartless and ruthless. Her crew are crazy, bloodthirsty monsters too, and she is the only one who can control them. Nobody messes with Bloody Bertha.

Her ship is a massive cannon-laden heavily-armoured vessel, painted red – rumours say that the paint is the blood of her enemies and “Bertha will paint the ship with you!” is a common warning to fellow crew mates or a threat to enemies. The Bloodwave is so well armed and armoured that ramming other ships is definitely an option and the scars on its hull are testament to the battles it has won.

Nobody knows how new recruits are chosen for the Bloodwave, but what is common knowledge is that the ship’s recruiter is also an infamous and effective torturer, possibly an outlaw inquisitor wanted for treason. Rumours told by men now dead at Bertha’s hand proposed that one of her rival captains was actually her child. Dasharah is out of the question, but could Bragg, Shemmer or Breezer really be related to Bloody Bertha? If so, nobody is letting the secret out and they all seem just as terrified of her as anyone else. Or is that just a show? Could one of them be working with her? Or is their relationship even more fuel for the fires of rivalry?

Bloody Bertha is a woman obsessed, it seems. Her ship, the Bloodwave is the toughest ruddy ship on the sea, but she isn’t satisfied. Word has it that Bloody Bertha is looking to capture herself a Hellship. Only she would be crazy and ballsy enough to try to board and take a hellship: these ships sailed straight out of Hell, lashed together from flesh and bone, leaving a trail of sulphur-smelling steam in their wakes.

Some believe the hellships are colossal demons themselves, and more than one half-drunk half-insane sailor has told tales of catching a fleeting glimpse of a hellship through a thick blanket of steam and swearing that a huge yellow eye peered back from the bow. How much of this is true is unclear, but it’s all damn scary and Bloody Bertha doesn’t seem phased in the least.

Casting Off

PCs starting off in Haulshore have plenty of opportunities for adventure. Which crew will they join? Do they admire the ship’s captain or share his or her goals and desires, are they just there for the riches, or are they joining as spies or so they can mutiny? Do they have any ties with the other ships’ crews? What trouble and advantages will this lead to? How interested are they in Sarrek’s Voyage? Do any of them have connections to demons? Maybe one has seen a hellship before or perhaps they are inquisitors or demon-touched.

You should make sure to let PCs make knowledge checks and talk to the ships’ recruiters, because whichever ship they end up on, it will make quite a difference – even if all the captains are after Sarrek’s Voyage. Pirate ships are great, because they are mobile adventure locations. Don’t think of them just as a means of transport from one adventure to another. Lots of exciting things can happen in the middle of the ocean, thanks to the variety of interesting NPCs stuck together in a relatively small area.

The descriptions above talk about the crews in general, but there are always crew members who break the mould - there might be some nice people, like Lorne, aboard the Broken Shackle, surely Shemmer can’t be a task master all the time (right?), maybe there are a few really dedicated long con grifters on the Freerunner, there are definitely some nasty people on the Fierce Sharai amongst all the other accepting crew, and who knows what really goes on behind the fortified hull of the Bloodwave?

Remember, too, that pirate crews are large and the PCs might not meet everyone straight away. That allows you to introduce new NPCs later, even in the middle of a voyage. Pirates die too – especially in Savage Worlds – and recruiters will need to gather more crew, meaning new NPCs – good and bad – will be joining the established crew from time to time. Connections with other ships also make for interesting hooks when you inevitably run into a rival pirate crew.

Whatever you do, make it fun and exciting! That’s the spirit of adventures on the Demonsea!

Victorianasaurus

Mockingbard — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:06:51 +0000

I don’t know how it happened, but I got this idea for a campaign setting in my head recently that wouldn’t go away. The basic premise was Pride and Prejudice meets Jurassic Park. I just had this image of a parasaurolophus pulling a slightly steampunk carriage through Victorian London. This is a London where regular animals have died out and genetically resurrected dinosaurs have taken their place, both as pets and in the wild.

I envision prim and proper ladies drinking tea with “fancy dinosaurs” on their laps, and gentlemen having a flutter at the gallimimus track. I imagine a tyrannosaurus rex or spinosaurus or some huge predator stalking an English wood nearby the upscale mansions.

I don’t know how much traction the concept has, but I wrote a few snippets of conversations overheard in this world. If this inspires you to run a Victorianasaurus game I’d love to hear about it.

“Did you hear the news regarding, Mr. Jameson’s cousin, Mr. Boothridge? Terrible news, just terrible. Word is that Mr. Boothridge is involved with some rather unsavoury business. It turns out that he has a most loathsome taste for deinonychus pit fights. Reprehensible! Some say he even organises the wretched events!”

“Petunia has won best in show for the last two years running. She is quite the specimen. New breeders often believe that the crest is the key to success. Now, while Petunia has a magnificent crest, I must say that it takes more than that to make a champion parasaurolophus. Grooming is important and training must begin straight out of the shell if one is to be truly successful. But colour, colour is the real secret. It takes years of careful selective breeding to get just the right texture and a dignified yet striking complexion of greens and browns punctuated with brighter spots of orange. Petunia’s pink stripe is particularly special and there are more than a few competitors of mine who would pay dearly for one of her eggs”.

“I spent my childhood on a farm, you know? It was quite a different life, but a good one. Crisp air and rolling hills. I remember feeding the compsagnathus flocks each morning. Dozens of the little things would gather around the edge of their run, leaping and slashing at the wire fence. I would throw scraps of meat from the feed bucket and laugh as they scrabbled amongst themselves eagerly eating up their breakfast. Sometimes after a storm the run would be tipped over and they would escape into the triceratops paddocks. We lost more than one calf from the herd to starved flocks of escaped compsagnathus. Still, it was a good life and I do miss those times.”

“Velociraptor hunting is the quintessential coming-of-age activity for any young man of note. It allows one to bond with other men, for one thing. But the thrill of racing off after the deinonychus as they pick up the scent of the quarry, leaping fallen trees and pounding through the forest astride your own utahraptor – nothing matches that. It is exhilarating!”

Using Flashbacks for Exposition

Mockingbard — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:00:35 +0000

When the PCs eventually encounter a monologue-spewing villain or a weighty Tome of Exposition, instead of them sitting there listening to you – the all-knowing GM – reading it, why not have them play out the events through flashbacks? It’s not something you want to be doing all the time, but every once in a while it can really make an impact, highlight the importance of the information, and even give players a chance to play a different character. It gives a different perspective and allows for unusual outcomes and situations.

Living the Past

GMs often use journals and other written texts in the game world for exposition. Everything isn’t always clear to the PCs, even if it is for the GM, so you need to give them enough information to satisfy them. Flashbacks allow the PCs to play as the characters mentioned in the text. If your PCs discover a tome that tells them all about a doomed expedition, you can let one of them be the expedition leader slowly going insane, another a prisoner with information the explorers need, another a witch to be sacrificed at the end of the expedition, and another the researcher in love with the witch.

You can hand out pre-gen character sheets with these characters on them and let the players decide amongst themselves which characters they want to play. It can be fun for the player who normally plays the paladin to play as an insane leader, dark mage or murderous thief every so often. Vice versa, too – maybe the guy who normally plays roguish characters all the time would have a blast playing a chivalrous knight for one game (and if he doesn’t, he hasn’t really lost anything).

When planning and running these flashbacks, it’s important to get things moving and frame scenes well when one of the goals is exposition. I usually run flashbacks like this as one-shots, so you’ve got limited time too. It’s often a good idea to give a little bit of information at the start of the flashback and start in the middle of the action. Seeing as you’ve created the pre-gen characters, you can give them strong motivations for completing whatever goals you wish them to and also give them strong interconnected relations with each other (and NPCs, if you like). Main point is: set things up to get the action going quickly and building to a satisfying and memorable conclusion.

If you want to show the formula for a dark ritual, have the players play as some unfortunate souls uncovering these ingredients in a series of grisly rituals and discoveries after years of research then attempting the ritual (possibly failing; more on this later). This works well too, for other deadly experiments – like a doomsday device with a far too complicated panel of buttons, or two big levers (giving a 50% chance of ultimate failure). Giving the PCs a chance to find out in a flashback how other people have previously succeeded or failed gives them the answer in the present.

If you want to show them the correct path through a deadly jungle, have the flashback characters make the expedition with a handful of red shirts and have them make decisions at crossroads and puzzles as they go, dishing out brutal death for incorrect choices. When the PCs make the same journey in the present day, they will encounter the same puzzles and crossroads but will know the solutions. Throw a curve ball in there too, just to make it interesting (and to show that time has past, other creatures have set traps, and so on).

If your goal is instead to show them the setting up of the villain’s plan, maybe you can have a series of flashbacks. One player gets the dubious honour of playing the villain, another his best friend, another his lover and another his rival. Play through various stages of the villain’s life, any characters that die can be replaced by other characters in later stages. By the end of the flashback the PCs will have seen – and, in some way, lived – the events of the villain’s life and may even have developed sympathy for him. It will make the final encounter much more memorable.

All of these methods also have the added benefit of making your world seem more believable. It shows that the PCs aren’t the only people in the world who have adventures and get involved in dangerous events. If some of the PCs from the flashback manage to survive, too, then they can be brought back into the ongoing game in the present as NPCs. It can be very interesting to see what’s happened to them since the flashback and how they’ve changed. It also gives the players a kick to see the character they played come back as an ally or threat.

Flashback Example

Here’s an example of the above from my ongoing Pathfinder game. We played a series of flashbacks each starring one of the PCs. In the paladin’s flashback we played an important, formative scene from her childhood – the zombie invasion of her home town. The paladin was a beautiful noble girl, fifteen years of age. The other characters in the flashback were a squat young boy obsessed with the paladin, and a street-sweeper urchin who looked down on ‘nobs’ as he called them.

By the end of the flashback the paladin-to-be and the two boys had saved the town. The paladin’s family manor was trashed and her parents were missing. In the present day of the campaign the paladin has still not truly discovered what happened to her parents. Now though, we’re back in her home town – which she hasn’t visited since that fateful day.

The street-sweeper urchin is now running for mayor. The obsessed little boy, on the other hand, has grown up to be an obsessed stalker. He still holds a disturbing flame for the paladin and it looks like he has been living in her mansion, stringing up preserved dead bodies on the ceiling and basically making the place so spooky as to scare off the kids who like to trash the place. He seems to be living in her room and doing creepy things like grooming the dolls in the paladin’s old room to look like her. He is a suspected serial killer.

This has a lot more impact when you’ve seen this person as a child and know that he has saved the paladin’s life. It also shows that people react differently to bad situations: some end up like him, some become paladins.

Wrapping Up

Failure in flashbacks can be really fun. Hearing about a sacrifice to a summon an ancient god is cool, playing through that sacrifice is even better, but being the sacrifice for the ritual isn’t something awesome you don’t get to do every day! Equally, if the ritual doesn’t succeed and goes horribly wrong, it can be cool to fight against a massively overpowered foe, like an accidentally freed demon, and shows the players just how tough a situation they’re getting involved with.

Just try to make sure when planning the flashback that failure will make sense, if it occurs – for example, if the flashback is in the recent past and is being played in a town the PCs have recently visited, put a bit of thought into it. Be careful about the flashback PCs destroying a building or killing a person the PCs have interacted with in the present. It could make things interesting – was the person resurrected or the building rebuilt? – but it could create a lot of trouble, too.

I’m not done with this topic yet, so look out for further articles about flashbacks (including using mini-flashbacks), alternate realities and even time travel! As you can see, there is a lot of potential for this sort of thing. Stay tuned!

Fantasy Playing Cards for Your Game

Mockingbard — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:00:53 +0000

In fantasy games, taverns are often full of patrons drinking and playing cards. It strains our suspension of disbelief when we hear them draw the King of Hearts or play a game of Spades or Blackjack.

While it would be nice to have a fully developed deck quite different than our standard 52-card deck, it would not be compatible with most of the games we know, so we would also have to come up with new games. Some have the time (or money) for that, but most of us don’t.

Instead, a simple re-skinning let us draw the Empress of Arrows or play a game of Shields or Black Knight, adding a little bit of fantasy flair while still keeping the real-world cards and allowing us to play the games we know.

The inspiration for doing this came when the player in my current City of Steel campaign started running card games where patrons had to guess the suit. It was jarring to me when real world cards were drawn and announced by this character who is clearly from a fantasy – not pseudo-historical – world. So, I’ve made some simply changes to the 52-card deck, basically just changing the face cards, the ace, the joker and the suits. I hope you enjoy them.

Face Cards

If you want to personalise the card deck and use it as a plot device, then in your world, like in the real world, you could have the face cards of different suits represent figures from in-game myth or history.

Empress replaces the King. I liked the idea of female royalty being the highest card. I think it lends a little history to the deck, especially if there are no empires in your game. It alludes to a former Empire ruled – openly or in secret truth – by women. Empress cards would be strong and powerful looking women atop a throne in royal attire with a sceptre.

Priest replaces the Queen. Religion is often at the forefront of fantasy games, whether there is one god or hundreds. Including a priest as a face card indicates the importance of religion in the society that uses the deck or the one that invented it. Priest cards would be men (and/or women, depending what you want to go for in your world) dressed in robes and holding holy symbols matching their suits or perhaps even matching those of deities in your world.

Knight replaces the Jack. Knight is an actual French Tarot playing card with a picture of a young man riding a horse, with a value between Jack and Queen. Knights are usually an important part of Medieval-style fantasy worlds. If your game world skews more towards Renaissance than Medieval, perhaps the Knight could be called the cavalier or chevalier instead. Depending on the importance of horses in your world, this card could have a man (or woman, if women are or formerly were knights in your world) on a horse, or more a swashbuckling sort of figure for the chevalier.

Fool replaces the Joker. It is a common trope that the fool or court jester is actually extremely intelligent. Replacing the Joker with the Fool was an obvious choice and the card being variously low, high, wild or simply ignored speaks to the Fool’s adaptability and the way they are perceived by others. Fools would look a lot like the Jokers we use now, though some areas might depict them with a donkey’s head or some similar bizarre and foolish representation or even depict them in the colours or clothing of a rival nation.

Dog replaces the Ace. Not really a face card, but I like it because it adds another little change to things, rather than just sticking with a large single representation of the suit. Dogs can be seen as useless strays and dangerous mongrels or as loyal guards and man’s best friends. Because of these varying perceptions, I though it would be interesting to replace the Ace with the Dog, seeing as Ace can be high or low (or both) depending on the game you’re playing. Dog cards would have a simple picture of a dog coloured either black or red, depending on suit. Perhaps various regions depict the dogs differently – scruffy where dogs are disliked and strong and noble where they are favoured companions. If you’re using the goddess Tarsis, this card could be linked with her faith.

Suits

I wanted the suits to seem appropriate to fantasy worlds, but not covered in dragons and wizard hats. I ended up deciding that the black suits would be defensive representations and the red suits would be offensive representations.

For the Black suits, Shields replace Spades and Helms replace Clubs.

For the Red suits, Maces replace diamonds and Arrows replace Hearts.

I thought about using Swords instead of Maces, but the latter is a little non-standard and again adds a bit of flair to the deck (perhaps Maces were a common weapon in the ancient Empire where Dogs were also common). Mainly though, Mace heads are a lot easier to draw than Swords and still keep them around the same size as the other suits.

As mentioned, the deck is usable for any 52-card game you know, but the offensive/defensive dichotomy also presents hints of other games. Maybe there’s a rock-paper-scissors sort of card game where:

Shields beat Arrows
Arrows beat Helms
Helms beat Maces
Maces beat Shields

Not sure about the other combinations, like Shields vs. Helms and Arrows vs. Maces. Maybe suits of the same colours can’t hurt each other? I haven’t thought it out thoroughly, but I think there’s something there.

Full House

So, to wrap up, here’s our real-world card annotation compared to this new fantasy deck from lowest to highest, without Jokers or Fools:

A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 J Q K

D 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 K P E

If you’d like to use these suits in your home game, click here to download a zip of each suit with a transparent background. Enjoy!