Five Inspirations, Issue 2

In no particular order, and with no cohesive fabric between them, here go five sources that have I have consumed, and provided great inspiration for roleplaying. Go read part 1's five inspirations if so inclined (heck, it's been how many YEARS already?!?!). Each in this new batch is probably worth a post of its own.

As my disclaimer usually goes, these are things that I personally like, paid with my own money, and nobody is pushing them my way. Other than the sophisticated advertisement apparatus of the tech giants, of course.

1. Thorgal

Thorgal is a great comic book read from the early 80s. If I were to describe it in a few simpleton words it would be "soft Conan, padded with historical curious and psychedelic dimension hopping". 

Art is tremendous.

There are enough planar adventures and science fantasy shenanigans. The titular Thorgal traveling to the land of the dead, discovering ruins that are not what they seem at first, etc.

2. Piranesi

The following is an excerpt that starts around pg 29 in the hardcover version:

I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.

What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much grater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to its spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was 'Come! Come! Come!'

The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I knew what it was! An albatross!

Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross's flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.

The moment he reached me - the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! - I gave out a sort of gasping cry - Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out ouf me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.
...

This book's setting is ripe for implementation as a depth-crawl, a la Gardens of Ynn.

3. Atlas Obscura

This website probably requires a dedicated post. A trove of inspiration that highlights the most bizarre corners of our planet and history. Temples, shop, sites, curios.

There is also a hardcover book which compiles a good selection of articles.

Because sometimes the most imaginative inspirations are right in front of our own noses.

4. Dead Cells

Not one for videogames, whilst everyone and their mother is raving about Elden Ring and their ilk, I decided to restart an old favorite of mine: Dead Cells. A roguelike metroidvania game, it is part of my holy trinity of essential masterpieces (Hollow Knight and Blasphemous being the other two, thanks for asking).

Once again, I remind myself of how much we can learn from it and others in this genre, when we think of elfgames. Moreso megadungeons.

5. Scavenger's Reign

The implied setting is imaginative to no stop. The planet is the main character, and I was taking copious notes. Will probably rewatch very soon, lots I missed for sure. Go watch!

The Once and Future King

I recently finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

A stitch up tome made out of four different novel, it has been my entry to the Arthurian Mythos. An unorthodox path, I'm sure. Not without its evident flaws, at least it has wet my appetite for more reading in this area.

D&D in general, and OSR enthusiasts in particular, really like to praise the infamous Appendix N. Myself included. Like Lord Dunsany, Lamb, and other works pre-dating the pulpy stories we all know and love, I found portions of The Once and Future King ripe for gaming ideas.

The first third of this 660 page tome is great. Merlin is a hoot, and sadly only present on that portion of the book (the rest of the book suffers for it). It is like a training camp on steroids for Wart (young Arthur). Ripe for ideas for your OSR games - read that part and steal them!

• Turning Wart into a fish by Poseidon, who is full of tattoos and reeks of cigars and the Seas.
• Meeting Robin Wood and his troops. Yes, the name is wrongly attributed in history.
  
• Queen Morgana le Fay being an overweight despicable witch, in her castle made of spoiled meats, lard, and general nasty foodstuff. Brilliant little twist.
• Wart turning into an owl by Archimedes: bieng fed a dead mouse by an owl, under the full moon (? that last bit is my addition)
• Turning into an ant: Wart lies flat between two ant nests
• Invisibility spell by one of the witches: cooking their black cat, and then trying out the resulting bones one by one by sticking them in the mouth. In front of a mirror. It is hard to know which bone is magical, and given their diminute size, the whole process takes a while.

The rest of the tome deals with a romance (between Lancelot and Guenever) which frankly I didn't care about. Many crucial and interesting events are told, not shown (battles and wars, the quest for the Grial, the war against Mordred, etc.). Surely there are many more interesting retellings of the Myth.

Five Inspirations, Issue 1

In no particular order, and with no cohesive fabric between them, here go five sources that have I have recently consumed, and provided great inspiration.

As my disclaimer usually goes, these are things that I personally like, paid with my own money, and nobody is pushing my way. Other than the sophisticated advertisement apparatus of the tech giants, of course.

1. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, by Ken Liu

Just finished this book, and my mind has been blown.

 

This book contained, by a wide margin, the best writing I've had the privilege to read in all of 2021. And possibly including 2020 as well. My reading habit is certainly not what it once was, so take that statement as you will.

The collection of short stories is insightful, paced, and thought provoking. Evocative writing flows from the page. There is so much sentiment and soul embedded in every single sentence. Fantastical elements, science-fiction and alternate history are blended with gusto. Doesn't really matter.

The titular "Paper Menagerie" story had me literally crying, its themes of migration, culture, and heritage strongly resonating.

"Good Hunting" was adapted for the brilliant Netflix show "Love Death + Robots", and deserves high praise. Industrialization, and our land and culture losing its magic.

"The Perfect Match" could change its entity to Facebook, Alphabet or Amazon, appear on a newspaper, and I would strongly believe it true.

"The Literomancer" is a gorgeously saddening story on the magic of words and language.

"The Regular" tells in 50 pages a credible and engaging neo detective story.

I could go on and on. Stories range from great to brilliant. There are repeating themes, heritage, language, communication, history, industrialization fantasy and futurism.

This book is a must read. Broadened my view and mindset. Pick it up, and thank me later.

2. NOD magazine, by John Stater

Ran into this series of zines in the OSR space, where John Stater has consistently been throwing together very complete material. Mainly centered around his land of NOD, they include robust hexcrawls for OD&D, with interesting flavor, including bestiaries and interspersed articles. They are a tour of the world in terms of flavor and influences. You have your pseudo-european setting (issues #4-#7), but also one based on african mythology, another with east asian roots, and even a tour of Hell!

The PDF pricing is extremely fair for the amount and quality of the content. I would highlight issues #7 and #34 from the dozen or so I purchased thus far.

In all likelihood one of these will form the basis of what we do in The Calaveras campaign. I'm thinking of issues #19-#21. After we rebooted our game with 1 less player, we should be done with Magical Murder Mansion in a bit (it's taking us a while, but we're getting there...).

3. Watchmen, the 2019 TV mini-series

Swinging in quality from episode to episode, and very derivative from the graphic novel, I still enjoyed the first six episodes of this mini-series. The last third is a bit of a hot mess, losing its grounded reality, and going into realms that made my eyes roll... I would have dropped it if it wasn't for Jeremy Irons' performance. The original Watchmen graphic novel was a favorite of mine, so take that as you want.

The topics are ominous and worryingly prophetic, given its release was end of 2019. Before the mask reality. Before the BLM movement exploded.

Other than the great portrayal by Irons, I felt the secondary characters also had strong performances.

4. A series of Bloomberg Quicktakes

My failure to latch to the Expanse hype train has not prevented me from enjoying and consuming more quality science-fiction than in recent years. Books, serials and movies. I ran into this series of videos with interesting cutting edge technologies. Interesting topics.

5. James Bond Movies

Slowly making my way through the Bond movies of old, with Connery and Roger Moore on display. Man, pacing in these movies was completely different experience back then. Cheeky, campy, and a good deal of relaxed fun. Sometimes my pandemic brain can only take this amount of complexity, and I'm ok with that.

Game Mechanic Ideas 1

At any given point, I must confess, I have at least 2-4 half finished game hacks in my drafts folder. On top of that, I've purchased plenty of systems which I never intend to play wholesale, but instead get a kick of the brilliant mechanic here and there. Let's say pilfering material.

I guess this is one thing that draws me to the OSR and its DIY attitude.

In reality these half baked system ideas never get to be finished, or not fully. Least of all played. There are some exceptions like Knave++ (a messy collection of house rules), and the ugly Into the Dungeon+GLOG mash I had to concoct for a game. But the things further down in this article are pretty much in raw form.

Even if I say I'm running a Macchiato Monsters game (or Knave, B/X or something else), I change the rules left and right all the time. Surely everyone I know in our space does this. The day players start quoting Kevin Crawford's tweets in my Scarlet Heroes/SWN/Silent Legions game I'll skin myself with a butter knife.

Anyways, find below a list of the game mechanic ideas & concepts I've been considering lately, in no particular order. Nothing novel here. Lots pilfered and regurgitated from several places. They will be of more use here than in my draft folder. Maybe someone takes inspiration and fleshes things out.

varguyart

1. Keep Knave classless, and add extra slot systems

What is this?

Outlined here

Comments

-I still think this idea has some merit. I really, really want to develop this further.

-Could force filling these new slots through in-game training or items collected.
-Keeps Knave classless, as it should be! I have grown disenchanted of Knacks at character creation. Instead I would give players more item tables to roll at start. And the option Wizard/Thief/Fighter -> 1x Magic/Faith die, 2x Areas of knowledge, or 1x Martial die.

-Could make for a tactile experience with a well-designed character sheet where players can place the different dice, cards for the hirelings, magic items, etc on it. See Mausritter.

2. Track Wounds/Hearts instead of HP

What is this?

Instead of tracking HP, count Hearts (if you like descending/subtracting) or Wounds (if you like ascending/adding). Personally, I prefer the latter. Each is roughly 5 HP in B/X terms. A Wizard gets with 4, Thief with 6, and Fighters with 8. No levels, rock&roll.

Get hit by a weapon? That is 1 Wound. Was it a polearm? 2 Wounds.

Has the benefit that it can be represented on the character sheet with a placed die.

Comments

-A la Index Card RPG. Goal is to simplify math and speed up play.
-Nothing innovative here. Really the same as treating HD=Hearts, and giving the Fighter types one extra HD on even levels.

3. HP are Relationships

What is this?

HP doesn't represent your character's stamina, attainable wounds, or health. Instead, each point represents a cultivated, nurtured relationship.

 

When reaching 0 HP, your PC turns an outcast, barren of any relevance in the social and political landscape. Create a new character.

Comments

-Read this as a conversation in a Discord server recently, and thought it a clever idea.

-Probably too detached from my usual gaming preferences. But for a highly political game systems this could be promising. Or for a PbtA game. Does Monsterhearts do this... ? goes check PDF

4. Deck of cards for the Magic-User

What is this?

M-Us and Clerics don't get to choose or roll for their starting spells. Instead, the player gets handed a regular deck of 52 cards. Starting spells are determined by drawing a number of cards equal to 1 + their Intelligence bonus or Wisdom bonus, whatever is highest. Minimum starting spells is one.

Each suit of the deck is mapped to a set of spells (hearts are clericy-, diamonds are wizardy-, clubs are druidy-, and spades are witchy spells). Draw one card for each starting spell and note those cards as your starting spells.

 

I imagine these spells pretty much working a la Wonders & Wickedness. With DCC scalability perhaps to account for card number drawn.

 

When casting a spell, draw a card from the deck to see its effect (number is damage, or scales the effect). Red has a backfiring effect (no miscast, spell still works, just... chaos comes into play, a setback or side-effect), black means things work as expected.

Rings/wands/staffs mess up with the drawing of cards, and how interacting with the deck works. For instance a wand can reduce miscasts to only hearts, a ring lets you store a card, and a staff lets you draw two cards and keep the one you prefer when casting a spell.

Comments

-Leans into some isometric play at the table between players, they can interact with different systems depending on their class. Neat make for an interesting dice-less system for M-Us.
-Needs a lot of fleshing out, in terms of random tables for the spells, chaos/backfiring effects and similar systems.

-I also like the idea of M-U players having a physical prop at the table.

 

5. One roll combat resolution

What is this?

Exactly what it says in the tin.

Replace round by round combat with just a single opposed roll to resolve conflict. Account for surprise, bigger numbers, environmental advantages, better weapons, etc as part of that roll.

Comments

-Combat is very streamlined in most OSR games, and seen as a failure state for the players, better avoided.
-Some combats can be puzzles in and off themselves, so there is a cost to this. But arranging free-form combat (which I really like) is complicated, and in my limited experience some players can tune out.
-Avoid wasting everyone's time at the table by just doing a quick resolution roll and move on. Tax resources (HP, equipment, food) on outcome.

 

6. Clerics are Godbinders

What is this?

Turn religion into a facet for the entire party to contribute to, not just a dedicated class. As per Arnold K. Godbinders replace Clerics in a B/X like game.

 

Now, the difference between a spirit, ghost, demon, or god are just technicalities. Semantics. Point being, the Godbinder can summon such an entity to ask for owed favors. Or be asked to pay the bill.

I envision this working similar to the 5e Warlock, flavor-wise. Involved entities. But I lack a defined mechanic to track the favors, and (randomly) generate the bound gods. Probably the Godbinder can only keep up to Wisdom modifier # of gods in their pocket.

Comments

From Die Issue #2