The Anarchy Burner

Roughly a year ago, during a time of lonely fun, I wrote this document for Burning Wheel. It was inspired by “The Anarchy” period in English History, and partially inspired by the first episode of “The Pillars of the Earth” (didn’t like it, waaay to melodramatic).

This is a reworking of the Clan Burner from the Blossoms are Falling supplement. I do want to play this someday. Anyway, I’ve done some touch ups and reposted it here. Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fezyguk_4d9gcGvIyiJAXmQjcE6CIpwdIL5QlDZcd24/edit?authkey=CJy1ofQM

Campaign for Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Yep, there it is. The island for the upcoming +Lamentations of the Flame Princess game! I’ll spill more beans as well play. Basic idea…

The island used to be a Roman colony, and has only recently been rediscovered. The world is Earth, in the 1500s. There are no elves, dwarves, or halflings beyond those in legend. Real magic is viewed with disbelief, prejudice, and skepticism. Whether its divine or arcane, it does not exist in the day to day lives of most people.

The island has a bizarre culture, descended from the native inhabitants and Roman conquerors. They worship “The Dark Man”, a warrior hero who drove out the Roman empire by making a vile deal with “The Worms of the Earth”, yep…its true, and yes those are both Robert E. Howard stories.

Currently, the Holy Roman Empire has rediscovered the content and is plundering the mountains rich in ore. However, due to the “dangerous” journey the HRE military presence is minimal, mostly they control the mines and watch the port.

The initial setup is a shipwreck, and the player having to find their way to civilization.

There are no names on this version of the map, I’m still figuring out good place names other than bad pseudo-latin mixed with the German.

Setting Matters: Rules representing setting

Recently, how a games rules represent the setting, has been on my mind. It isn’t a matter of whether the rules do or do not, but in how?

An example, Heroquest 2e. The game is powered by Keywords which are from the setting. Difficulties are assigned by the Narrator in relation to how they want to sway success/failure, or by how often the player rolling has succeed or failed. What does this say to me? Setting is important for setup, and color. But in play, has very little substance. Climbing the Mountain of Fire could be “easy” if the Narrator wants it to be, or really hard because you (the player) has succeed their last few rolls.

Contrast this to HeroWars, where that Mountain would be judged relative to other difficulties in the setting. Thus the Narrator would look at the list of “climbing” difficulties and decide, this would then “set” that part of the setting.

Two different ways in how a game interacts with setting. Now, if I was running Heroquest 2e, you’d bet your ass I’d be using the HeroWars method, just with the cleaned up mechanics of 2e. Why? Well…if I was running HQ in Glorantha (or Mythic Russia), I want exploration to be a facet of play, also having Heroes quest (hahahaha) to overcome challenges. Thus I’d set the mountain early on, the Heroes are not strong enough yet to retrieve the secret of Fire. Later, they gain more power and can overcome the challenge. That is cool, but its only one way to do it.

Hell, I know some people don’t give a shit about setting. To them, its all about the character conflict, or for some the plot (feh). Me, I can swing towards setting or character (fuck plots hard), I see how both can be fun. However…my dirty secret is, I like the former better. I fucking love settings, despite most sucking hard. But that is for a later post.

New Years Resolutions –

Blog more, even short stuff.

Not be such a negative nancy, and promote things I like.

Finish my various adventures, modules, and hacks for games. (Burning Wheel, I’m looking at you with a greedy eye)/

Maybe…design a game, if I’m actually compelled to. I am so happy with what games I have, I don’t really feel the need to design anything. There are two games I would make though, but I feel I need to play a larger variety of games to get a feel for it.

One, would be a game based on small stories of drug using social circles. Not a game based on larger than life stories, but the every day events that make their lives fascinating. Inspired by this quote*, and personal experience.

*The pain, so unexpected and undeserved had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. I realized I didn’t hate the cabinet door, I hated my life… My house, my family, my backyard, my power mower. Nothing would ever change; nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did. now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and surprising things, and sometimes little wondrous things, spill out in me constantly, and I can count on nothing. – A Scanner Darkly
Two, a game about sense of wonder science fiction, inspired by adventure games like Myst, The Dig, Out of this World, and Outcast. A game about a lone (usually lost) traveler, exploring dying/dead worlds, interacting with decaying civilizations, and somehow trying to make it home, but usually faced with hard choices about these strange alien people.

Okay 2012! I’m coming for you!

My first time

‘Twas the final Christmas of the twentieth century, I received the gift of the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game from my father. My Dad played D&D, while in the Coast Guard, up until the early 90s. I have vague memories of him absconding with my blocks for “terrain”, and having these tiny pewter figures (which later were eaten by a dog) while I was in but a wee lad.  Anyway, fast forward to the end of the decade, I receive this glistening black box with a dragon on the lid for Christmas. Excited, I open up the game I begin to look over the prebuilt characters. I chose Thaddeus, the Wizard.

The adventure was something to do with the ancient sewers underneath the city of Haven!  Thaddeus boldly went into the sewers, narrowly avoided falling into a trap, slew a Xvarg, ran out of spells, and was killed by rats! I mustered resolved, then chose Darkblade the Fighter! Sweet vengeance was mine as I slew the rats, the bugbears, and warned the town of an impending attack by an EVIL BUGBEAR SHAMAN!

• My memories are vague, this was 13 years ago (making me 10), but I had a lot of fun. Whats funny, is thinking back I realize some patterns:
• I never was a risk-adverse player, ever.  I’ve been risk-adverse  a few times, but that was more by group osmosis than anything else.
• Death, brutality? Whatever, its part of the game. I don’t understand the scared “ooooh my character can DIE!” behaviors from gamer. Seriously, get a grip, death makes for interesting stories.
• It never bothered me playing a “non-awesome!” character, i.e. level 1 pansies.
• Weird creatures I’ve never heard of? AWESOME! If only the magic was not lost with exposure, edition neuterization, conservative gamer mindsets, and the influences of video-games.

I still have the adventures for the village of Haven, with its Vampire island, and Young Red Dragon horde. I want to revisit this, but using Burning Wheel and creating something a bit more interesting. I remember staring at the map, seeing the named spaces with no descriptions in the book. I never made it beyond the second adventure, usually the party was killed by slimes in the Vampire island. Hey, PDX people? Wanna play some Burning THACO? *nudge nudge*

Unfinished Fantasy Heartbreaker

In the days of yore, I vowed to make my perfect fantasy RPG! It was going to be the bestest evar! Then I got a copy of Burning Wheel for Christmas and quickly set this game aside.

What little I found of the game…

Things I noticed/thought of  while reading-

I have a very pervasive, blustery authorial tone.  I’m not sure the tone  fits the game, which was supposed to be the Ultimate Conan RPG. Though the tone is fitting for a hair-metal barbarian game.

The doc is basically the core mechanic, Roll 3d6+stat+skill > Target Number, with a lot of commentary. Also I  put in a lot of “optional rules”, which is my main flaw when I design/hack a game, I go on design tangents. Probably why I’ve never finished anything, aside from, you know, laziness.

My hatred for traditional initiative systems is briefly touched on. You folks have NO IDEA how  frustrated I was with nothing but the D&D/Pallidum/Shadowrun model.   Nothing…NOTHING bores me more than “you-go, I-go, lets take turns”,  No fight I’ve been in has been that dignified. Damn it, game designers get less lazy. Yes, this is part of the reason I love Burning Wheel so much, scripting is my favorite turn ordering I’ve encountered in Adventure Roleplaying Games.

I remember creating a separate document for Races/Cultures. Each race had a different die pool for determining stats (like Stormbringer), and each race had a variety of cultures available to it. I, literally, took every culture from Conan, Elric, and D&D. Talk about a Kitchen Sink.  Also each different race would have access to different spheres of magic. While different cultures would practices different school of magic within a sphere…though everyone could summon Others (Cthulhu beings).

There you folks go, a look into how I viewed RPGs circa 2009, days before I really got into Burning Wheel.

I got some opinions…

Characterizing/Acting is not roleplaying, but a tool that can be used in roleplaying.

Immersion is a by-product of emotional investment in the moment. It does not work as an end goal. How many frustrated “immersionist” have I meet? All of them.

D&D is like the James Bond movie franchise. Only playing D&D (and its ilk) and calling yourself a gamer is akin to only watching James Bond (and its ilk) and calling yourself a movie buff.

Ya, don’t expect all games to play like what your used to.

Balance has everything to do with screen time and player agency.

Losing agency can be fun, if its done in a fair impartial matter (see Pendragon).

The role of violence in a games rules should suggest how characters approach it outside of combat, as well as in the midst of the chaos of battle.

Turned-based cyclical initiative is very safe, very tactical, and extremely uninteresting.