Sandbox Cthulhu

I've had a little time to brainstorm a little as we've skipped a session of our ACKS campaign with the start of the school year and the beginning of organized insanity as the kids and my wife go back to school.

One thing I've discovered in our ACKS campaign is how over time a non-plotted campaign begins to write itself. Right now our band of adventurers has two dungeons it has visited (and may return to either) as well as a third dungeon they are aware of. They've also developed two bases, one an outpost near the dungeons and the other the capital city of the region with better access to equipment, healers, and the like. Having put things in motion I can honestly say I really don't know where the adventurers will go in our next session. Will they finish cleaning out the kobold lair - with its rumored green dragon? Will they return to the dungeon beneath Skull Hill? Or will they venture to the Tomb of the Goblin King - now having a few magic items and possibly having a chance against the undead sure to be there.

All that said my favorite game is still Call of Cthulhu. As a huge fan of history I love the most common era of the 1920s - and had a blast with the Gaslight era. I like the heroism inherent in standing up to an uncaring universe. And I especially enjoy the cleverness it encourages - almost always overmatched I've seen players take some extremely clever and practical solutions, from dynamiting a mine to getting the hell out of the county upon gaining the enmity of a cult.

Joseph Morales, Lovecraft's fictional town Arkham

Thinking about this got me wondering if the lessons of sandbox style play could be applied to Call of Cthulhu? At first glance it seems unlikely - your typical Cthulhu adventure begins with the investigators being hired to take care of some problem or solve some mystery. With that in mind it occurs to me there are ways to combine the two forms of play - and indeed there are adventures which have done just that. The classic Masks of Nyarlathotep from 1984 and reprinted many times since then has a definite starting point but from there on the investigators have complete control how they handle their investigation. More recently The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man brings investigators to the Dreamlands with a need find a way out.

New York City, 1928. Fairchild Aerial Surveys

What about a more traditional sandbox? Well, the first thing that occurs to me is that our environment is not likely to be the wilderness of fantasy RPGs - rather we are looking at an urban environment - or at the very least, a suburban one. You'd want a base of operations where adventure isn't far away. You could set it in Lovecraft Country, based in Arkham with forays to Dunwich, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and the like. Or you could go more urban and go for a large city like New York City, Boston, etc. It's a bit like the difference between the two television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, set in beautiful suburban Sunnydale, California, vs. Angel set in the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles.

So how does one avoid the cliche of "your long lost cousin writes to you" or "a stranger shows up in your office?" To some extent, I don't think you do - but rather you make it part of a larger whole - and never rely on a need for the investigators to follow some lead.

How do we make it part of a larger whole? Here, I believe, one needs to lay the groundwork. Figure out just what is going on in the town or city. What cults are present? What monsters are loose (or might become loose)? What mundane forces can cause trouble? Are there any sorcerers, mad scientists, etc. who are up to no good? Do they have everything they need and if not, how will they get it? Any artifacts just waiting to cause trouble? Any forbidden tomes in the area?

With this sort of a setup we can more organically have those people show up in the investigators' office. Why is the client's brother missing? Well it turns out he has the Innsmouth Taint and we already established they have a colony in the area. Who robbed the university's collection of forbidden tomes? It was that sorcerer we already dreamed up, he needs that spell to summon Yuggoth - but its not the only thing. In the course of the adventure the sorcerer might make some sacrifices, kidnap some kids, etc. So even if the investigators turn down the first case the sorcerer still does his thing and might appear later in another case.

I'd likely also add a good place in the town or city where characters can begin adventures, meet with patrons, gather rumors, etc. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series has McAnally's Pub, a place in Chicago frequented by the supernatural but also a place which is guaranteed neutral ground. Angel featured Caritas, a nightclub which served a similar purpose. I could picture in a 1920s campaign a speakeasy which investigators frequent. There would likely be police and private investigators and gangsters who know about it as well and would visit it if they had problems of a supernatural nature which needed addressing. This would provide a place where investigators could pick their missions and also find out what is going on in the supernatural world. This need not be over the top - for example sinister sorcerers might frequent it as well with an uneasy peace - and it is unlikely insane cultists would respect it and the alien creatures of the Mythos most certainly would not. In a more modern game it needn't even be a physical site - picture a specialized sort of  Facebook or Twitter used by the supernatural community. Heck they could even use regular Twitter or Facebook with most people completely unaware of what they are talking about - hiding in plain view.


At this point I'd like to consider what game engine to use for this. Being a fan of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu  RPG that seems an obvious choice. And I am certain it would work well for such a game. Gumeshoe would work well though it might need a little tweaking to make certain investigative abilities refresh properly if a case is ever abandoned or multiple cases are pursued simultaneously.

As I wrote the premise above, it occurred to me I this would also be a perfect match for Fate - whether a general incarnation of it or for a Dresden Files game. Fate Core discusses generating the background and Dresden Files details city creation in great detail. There is no reason that all the work I described up above needs to be done solely by the GM. The players being involved in the process assures that there will be hooks they find interesting. Have a player who loves the Deep Ones? Of course he'll want them to have a colony in the city. While Fate's assumption of heroic, competent characters may seem at odds with Call of Cthulhu (and I'm by no means a purist - I'm still waiting for Pulp Cthulhu) it need not be. Fate's concept of consequences fits in well with the insanity that befalls Cthulhu characters all too often. Just add a Sanity Track with the option to take sanity-based consequences and you've ported a classic aspect of the genre.

In the event of a total party kill in the future I can see our next game...



Copyright Note:

Joseph Morales, Lovecraft's fictional town Arkham, Massachusetts 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arkham,_Massachusetts.gif

Copyleft: This is a free work, you can copy, distribute, and modify it under the terms of the Free Art License http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/

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Queen - A Kind of Magic

Here we are, Born to be kings,
We're the princes of the universe,
Here we belong, Fighting to survive,
In a world with the darkest powers,

"Princes of the Universe" from the Queen album A Kind of Magic

Initially I was going to write about the 1986 film Highlander, for which A Kind of Magic is essentially the soundtrack. But my thoughts kept focusing on the music and thus, here we are.

One of my musical regrets is I never got to see Queen live in concert. I have some memories of seeing them perform on television from the 1985 Live Aid concert with my uncle. But my young musical tastes at the time shifted to more trendy/pop music, something that shifted when I started college in 1989. The early 1990s had me discovering Queen for myself, sadly months prior to Freddie Mercury's death.

Anyways.... A Kind of Magic is an album that just screams fantasy. Epic, ass-kicking fantasy with tracks like "Princes of the Universe" and "Gimme the Prize". A touch of goofiness in a heavy song like "One Vision" - like you'll find from your typical gaming group:

One man, one man,
One bar, one night,
One day, hey, hey.
Just gimme gimme, gimme, gimme
Fried chicken.
Vision 

For me, when I'm looking for inspirational music for prepping for a game - or just inspirational music in general - A Kind of Magic is one of the first albums I'll reach for.

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RPG Mini-Review - FATE Core

FATE is one of those games in my collection that I really, really want to play some day but haven't had the chance to.

FATE is the game engine that powers games like Spirit of the Century, The Dresden Files, and Diaspora. Relics like me remember the original FUDGE RPG from the 1990s from which FATE spun off of.

Mechanically, FATE isn't too complicated - there is an Accelerated Edition of it which is a rather tiny book. The idea is you role 4DF (FUGE/FATE dice). These are six side dice with 2 pluses, 2 minuses, and 2 blank sides, You add the total together (-4 to 4), add your appropriate skill and other modifiers, and compare to a difficulty number.

The other modifiers I mentioned above is where FATE gets interesting. FATE uses a mechanic known as "aspects". Anything can have an aspect - a location, a person, a PC, a scene, a city. They are basically an interesting description that can drive the action. "Last son of Krypton" would make for a good aspect. So would "with great power comes great responsibility" or "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father".. As would "fraying ladder" or "precariously balanced candle". The best aspects for PCs are both positive and negative. When positive you can spend a FATE point (one of the main resources of the game) to use that aspect and gain a bonus to your die roll. You can create an aspect - like taking an action to knock over that candle and set the room on fire - creating a "room on fire" aspect that can be used by anyone and has an initial free use. And those negative aspects can be used to drive PCs - the player is offered a FATE point to take some negative consequence. For example, Peter Parker might be compelled to abandon his date to rescue someone from a fire as he is haunted by the memory of failing his Uncle Ben. To avoid giving into the compel he might have to spend a FATE point, though these sorts of things tend to involve negotiation between player and GM. Essentially, as a player you want these compels as they give you FATE points which come in super-handy when facing a big-bad..

Another neat thing about FATE is when players suffer damage (whether social, physical, economic, or whatever), to prevent their main resistance from being overwhelmed they can agree to take consequences. If your main resistance is overwhelmed you are pretty much at the mercy of whomever you are facing. A good example of taking a consequence would be Luke Skywalker losing his hand at the end of The Empire Strikes Back - essentially, when losing, the player is encouraged to describe how they lose. 

What I like about FATE is it is geared to tell interesting stories but it has tons of mechanisms to make the players be at the center of those stories - it avoids the dreaded problem of players getting to watch the GM tell an interesting story. 

FATE Core is available from RPGNow for free - or whatever you want to pay. I'd encourage you to check it out for free and if you find it worth it - and I think you will - go back and pay what you think it is worth.

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RPG Mini-Review - Stars Without Number

One thing I've liked about Sine Nomine Publishing is they take the adage that old school RPGs should be all about the "sandbox" (i.e. players go wherever they'd like on the map with no predefined plot) and make games and supplements that actually help you do that. As I've built up a modest collection of 1970s and early 80s RPG products I have seen there were a ton of products designed to help GMs do just that.

System-wide, Stars Without Number is pretty similar to early D&D incarnations. It has three classes - Expert, Psychic, and Warrior. It has a simple, yet effective, skill system of which, not surprisingly, the Expert is the best at.

Where it really shines is a default setting which is really made for adventure. The idea is there were two waves of human expansion. The first of which made use of spike drives which allowed faster than light travel in bursts - basically you had to start it from the edge of a solar system and had to turn it off at the edge of another - and if you can't reach a destination in about six days or so - well, that would be bad as the protective field around your ship breaks down. The second wave involved psychics - basically over time humanity began understanding psychic powers and were able to channel psychic ability so it didn't drive its practitioners insane or dead. Eventually these abilities were used to create and maintain jump gates which allowed far easier travel. Who wouldn't want to use a jump gate? Spike drives became obsolete and were relegated to the far frontier. (Anyone who has seen the Doctor Who serial The Seeds of Death has an idea this was probably not the best decision.)

All was well in this golden age (aside from suggestions in the game that it had its own problems what with Terra futilely trying to maintain control) until one day some psychic wave came across all of known space and every psychic was either killed or driven insane. Say goodbye to your jump gates. That is bad news for most planets, with the small number of spike drive ships unable to supply  important planets like Earth. Civilization pretty much breaks down for a few centuries.

The game takes place at the end of this dark age, with civilization becoming re-established - but not united. This is a perfect time for adventurers - whether they are explorers, traders, conquerors, peacekeepers, or whatever. It clearly has a lot of debt to the classic Traveller RPG as well as the Rebellion-era of MegaTraveller and the aftermath of the fall of civilization in Traveller: The New Era. The game really shines with its random tables, something I usually ignore in most games. Instead of just generating pure stats its designed to also give you tons of adventure ideas. And the civilizations feel real. Why yes, this planet is a theocracy. But wait, let us also roll for what sort of heresies and splinter groups the religion has to deal with. 

After my ACKS game this is a super-strong candidate for a follow-up game.

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RPG Mini-Review - 13th Age

This is a game I preordered but didn't really look at much as I received the preliminary materials. It's a bit of a hybrid of D&D 3.x and 4th editions as well as taking a lot of elements from more narrative based games.

13th Age takes a nod from 4e D&D by giving each class its own set of neat powers but it avoids 4e's tendency to make everything balance out perfectly. It also makes the classes more distinctive from one another, evoking much of their feel from 3.x D&D.

While it has a nice set of customization options for your characters it avoids the tendency of D&D 3.x to punish those who do not have every detail of their character planned and avoids the need to hyper-optimize your character.

It also avoids the dreaded "grind" I experienced when I played 4e, as the game has an "escalation die" which gives bonuses to characters as combats last longer. It also has a number of mechanical tweaks to allow failures to be interesting. Perhaps best from my perspective is the removal of a full grid-based combat while at the same time having rules that nevertheless encourage motion and variety in combat.

13th Age is clearly not an "old school" game - beyond taking much of D&D 3.x and 4e it is clearly influenced by games like FATE and Sorcerer. It is also a far less cruel world to PCs than one would find in old school games - in my ACKS campaign 1st level characters are very fragile. 

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Saving Throw vs. GMADD - Some Mini-Reviews

Right now I've got an ACKS campaign that is beginning to pick up some steam. So I'm trying hard not to give into my GM ADD - that urge to switch to a shiny new system.

Nevertheless I have checked out a few new systems, some of which I can definitely see wanting to try out at some point. Well all of them really, if I ever had the time... And truthfully they're not really all particularly new, though they are to me. What follows are a series of min-review posts that I may later expand into a more fleshed out review, especially if I get to play or run one or more of them..

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Elves and Geology

Niagara Gorge Whirlpool, Downstream of Niagara Falls

I used to think it would take six-hundred years to tunnel under the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved Geology, I guess it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. 

- Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redepmption

I want to see mountains again, Gandalf, mountains, and then find somewhere where I can rest.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

White Mountains of New Hampshire

I'm with Bilbo Baggins. I love mountains. Before we had kids my wife and I would often spend summer weekends hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It's certainly had an impact of the campaign settings I've used and created - forested mountains of moderate height, settlements in the notches between them. Lots of rivers and lakes. I look at pictures of the Basin and Range terrain that can be found at west and it is a very alien landscape to my New Englander's eyes.

Geological time is slow time. The Rocky Mountains are a young mountain range, over well over fifty million years old, though shaped into their current appearance by glaciers.The Appalachian Mountains, of which my beloved White Mountains are a part of, are, by comparison, elder statesmen of mountains - close to 500 million years in age.

My family recently returned from a vacation in Niagara Falls, Canada. It is hard not to look at the Falls and not come away awestruck. Geologically, the water of the Niagara River is carving its gorge in lightning speed: according to Wikipedia, Niagara Falls were formed only 10,000 years ago and erosion has carved out the Niagara Gorge and moved the Falls 6.8 miles southward from their starting position. A film at the Falls discussed how quickly the Falls were formed - likely over a span of days or even hours.

There are other notable features of our world that happened within the blink of an eye, geologically speaking. For example the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis posits that around 5600 BC the Mediterranean flooded over the Bosporus, connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and possibly accounting for numerous flood myths. Though further back in time, Zanclean Flood Hypothesis posits that the Mediterranean itself was filled rather quickly as the Gibraltar Strait was flooded.

Returning from our trip I reflected on how in many fantasy settings there are beings whose lifespan is a noticeable fraction of that or could even potentially exceed that - various forms of intelligent undead, elves, and dragons being the obvious candidates. This has me considering the possibility that such beings might shape their world certain ways - diverting a river to create a deep gorge to create a natural border, linking a lake to the oceans, etc. It could also lead to some interesting ruins like coastal cities where the sea has receded several miles away (or gone on to cover it), And at the very least it presents a reminder as to how different the perception of a long-lived race would be.

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