[Game Idea] The Village

 Its Medieval-Fantasy, The World is in ruins once again after the great evil has attacked the world, and the heroes have defeated him, and his minions scramble for the pockets of power, or Escape from the wrath of the heroes. You and you 2 friends, tire of fleeing, you find a small lush valley and decide to settle, come what may.

Build your Village, Deckbuilder, Tableau

Expectation, 1- X players, engine builder, Deck Builder, 

You start by drawing 10 cards, discarding 2 and playing 3 basic cards. Basic cards are things like 'house' 'hunter' 'fisherman' they don't require any other cards on the table. You have a hand of 5 cards.

All cards have a 'cost' even basic cards, Basic cards usually have only 1 cost, the higher the cost, the less basic the cards

The Cards will have their own words of what they do. 90% of them will say "provides [symbol]"

You play the game by tapping a card, which provides a resource, then you use that resource to play a card from your hand.

Cards do not untap normally, instead you need to use your house card

 Basic [Wood], hut - Tap the House to untap 2 other cards (buildings?)
 Int [Wood, Nails, hut] - house - Tap the House to untap 3 other cards (buildings)
Basic [ Wood, Spear ] - Hunter - Tap the Hunter to untap 1 house, or draw basic cards. 

SO, you can see, houses untap buildings to show people have gone to sleep, Food untaps houses, to show people have eaten.

Now we can get into the interesting cards

Each round, everyone draws up to 5 cards (or refreshes and draws a full hand?)

Everyone plays a round of building, taping cards to gain resources to pay for new cards, building an engine of cards and card combos.

At the end of the round, everyone passes 1 card to the player on their left (or discards 1 card if solo)

Then must play a 'nighttime card', if they don't have a nighttime card to play, they pass that player a card. If Solo, play nighttime on self or discard 2 cards.

Nighttime cards are monsters or enemies from the surrounding lands, they come and destroy buildings, if there are no guards to block them. Players will need 1-2 guards early in the game, but later, when basic deck is exhausted, more dangerous monsters will come.

Basic Cards: 
Woodsman - wood
Mine - ore/stone
Wheat Farm - wheat
Town Square (early guards) - defend / draw new cards from basic/intermediate
Outpost - draw intermediate cards
Tower - defend +1 cards to draw phase
Animal Farm - animal hides

Intermediate Cards
Tanner, - 
Blacksmith - Draw int/Adv cards / turn ore into metal
Logging Camp
Carpenter - draw int/adv cards / turn wood into planks


Equipment cards, usually discarded or used for forced pass cards, eventually allows people to draw more cards in the draw phase. 

The End goal? Possibly to build a complete wall around the village, or, to survive until the end of the deck, or maybe points are awarded for certain buildings, and a score of 50 ends the game. (each building having score, if you build lots of smaller buildings, or just a few of the larger ones.  

NPC Lists

I have run a few campaigns that have gone on for years, and I return to them time and again, because I have a lot of data on NPCs, that just 'makes' the game more alive.. Players always comment when they find out, and I thought maybe I should share.

NPC LISTS.. 

A simple 'how to take your game up a notch'.

When we start Gamesmastering, we often have simple notes, names of towns on a map, dungeon locations, maps of the dungeon, but often when players arrive in a town, we have to quickly invent names of Taverns and N.P.C.s. Its so common, many game systems even have charts to help the GM come up with these, in the rules. Usually the Casual GM with a fly by night campaign, will end there.

But what about the consummate professional?

Fable II NPCs.

When players are arriving back in your city or town, weeks or months later, will they ever see your NPCs again? or worse, will they only ever see your NPCS?

If they frequent the same bars, sure, the bartender will likely still be there, but what of the staff? the patrons who frequent the place, might on certain nights of the week, but every single day?

Taverns

A simple approach is to have a page from a calendar, rip one out of an old calendar, re-write over the month with the name of the tavern, jot down the name of the bartender, and depending on your size, 2-3 bar wenches. 

Now, on the first row assign the bar wenches to days of the week, busy nights, get all 3, average get 2 and empty, one or maybe just the bartender. 

On the rows below.. roll on your favourite NPC generator and jot in regulars, each 'day' could cope with 3-6 names, in a social 'group' and on the very last row, non regular visitors.

Busy nights, should have 3-6 regulars per bar wench, so make sure you've got a bunch of names in those columns.. They aren't all going to be brawling 2nd-3rd ranked fighters, there should be some kind of hierarchy, choose 1 per 'group' as a leader, mark him as such. F2 or something. add some key 'visual' feature "broken tooth" or something..

Thomas Schmall: The Inn Keeper : oxpal.com

Viola, Your players arrive in town, you pull out 2-3 'calendar' taverns and ask which one they want to visit, remind them of the day of the week (they should be able to tell based on market activity). Once they choose, glance at your days of the week to determine how busy or empty your tavern is, roll d6 more irregulars, space them out on separate tables.. based on the weather.. cold: put em all closer to the fire, warm? the windows.

If your players engage in conversation, it'd be likely the leader who'd address them, point out your visual feature.. because weeks later when they return to this tavern, they'll remember 'broken tooth' better than they'll remember "Bob Farnsworth"

Now.. heres the fun part..

If your players are using this town as a base of operations.. have your irregulars turn up in different taverns, maybe broken tooth might be brokering a deal in a different place when the players turn up. Players aren't playing this game 24/7 so they'll forget and blunder over to talk to him, remind them.. "You see the broken toothed man from the Boars head, but he's engaged in a private conversation, seems like a bad idea to draw any attention to yourselves", If they now decide to go talk to broken tooth, its their own fault that they've angered him and he's now against the players.. add a -1 friendly to his name.

Over time, you'll add notes to N.P.C.s that players engage with, events that may (or may not) be relevant to the game.. maybe they sold a magic dagger to Klint Korgush, so next time there was a brawl in the Boars head, he accidentally killed a guy, and he sits in jail, blaming the players, his friends in the tavern don't look kindly on the PCs from now on.. 

But how will you know this?

Each session your players are going through adventures.. at the end of the session, roll some dice, consult some charts, and modify some N.P.C.s. Maybe Two NPCS have fallen in love with each other, a regular and a bar wench, or some guy fell off a ladder at work, and has a broken foot..

Make up a chart of things that might happen, roll once per tavern, 3d10 to find which 'day' of the month it happens to, d4 or d6 for which one in your list. it takes all over 5 minutes, 

But when your players come back after a quest, and spy Lillian the bar wench being overtly friendly to Bob.. then after the next quest, Bob has a black eye and Lillian is with Steve, then next time, Lillian has stopped working at the tavern they might inquire and find that she's married Steve now..

Years later, the characters have traveled the world, and return to grab some stash.. and you've been making the rolls all this time, and they walk into the Boars head, and find that Steve is no longer around, Bob is, and he's talking to a 16yr old kid that looks a little like Lillian and Bob, and he's interested in being the players sidekick, learning the ropes to be an adventurer, because Steve used to tell the stores of the adventurers often, before he died defending the town against goblins, and Bob took over as dad, but turns out all along that its Bobs kid..

20 rolls on the chart got me that.. 20 adventures, taking between 3 months and 2 years to perform, 17 years of adventuring, in real life, maybe 2 years, and the players return and the look on their faces when they see Bob in the Tavern, with a kid that looks like Bob, That's the moment, as a Gamesmaster, that my players understand the level of depth my world 'potentially' has.

Not just taverns, but town halls, guilds, and market squares all have the same or similar regulars, and goings on..  Noble families, administrations, governments too.. just a few more rolls.. and now you have a whole continent of NPCs for players to interact with.

World Build October Part 28

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 28th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a common pet or companion animal"

I'm going to go with this from Players.

Typically you'd expect that players would go with a familiar or pet that matches something either easily accessable, OR something rare and exotic.. now while thats true for most players, a larger majority decided that declaring their horse as their pet/companion, was the best choice.

In that line of thread, it seems fair that at least amongst the more common folk, a riding beast or beast of burdern would be most likely as the commonest..

Which brings me to the Yakult. A six legged Oxen/beast of burden, quite friendly, mildly magical, and very strong when it comes to pulling heavy loads. They have tough skinned hands instead of hooves and have been known to grip trees and stones to pull themselves forward.

Since the wild Steppe of the Ashigaru plains have many nomdaic races, which use the Yakult for many reasons, statistically speaking, the Yakult is the most common animal companion.

World Build October Part 7

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Sunday the 7th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) the decorations used for a holiday"

The Coyn World has a very large number of humans from a large variety of times, as the time of the Cataclyzm was not fixed to a specific time point, more of a blurred seven dimensional mess.

As a result, many earth customs from many times and place ended up being part of human culture in the Coyn. You can find Holly wreaths, kissing under mistletoe, pumpkins on all Hallows Eve (though they tend to talk).

But whats interesting to us mere magicless mortals on earth is the decorations done by non humans.

 Imagine if you will, Humans use plants, berries, inks, gemstones to create decorations, yet to some cultures, some races are made of plants, berries, inks or gemstones.. Imagine if they used humans and or human parts to decorate their houses.. urgh.

Luckily, its more common to use magical illusions to decorate, its easier to 'put up' and 'take down'. Some small hedge wizards might manufacture trinkets that create the illusions for people who have little to no access to magic.

Typically, symbols of the holiday, steamers of light or colour, maybe sounds or even a taste in the air, are the most common... that said..

There is a small cult, that celebrates the seventh day of the eleventh month with a strange set of decorations made of paper (with permissions of the dryads, its bark shavings, not wood). They decorate their main hall with furniture, covered with this paper, some represent goods, such as bags of wheat or a small sheep, but some, go a step further, including meat sausage to be eaten in a bread log, cold snow with coloured sugar. people of the cult, travel to each others homes, and purchase the items from one another, decorating the next house with those goods. All sending them off with the greeting "Come again".

The Gorgon: DD12 Cataclysm & Beyond

Backstory: DD12:Cataclyzm is the survival horror scenario for Dungeon Delvers Twelve world/system. Your group has 'arrived' on this world, and before they have time to even think, something in the shadows and darkness has decided that you are its next meal.

The Male Gorgon.. minus snake hair...

The Gorgon:

So what is a Gorgon?

According to several mythological stories, the gorgon gets a wide variety of descriptions, from snakes, snake haired, bulls with volcanic or metallic flesh, other things with scales, wings, claws, tusks, mixtures of all the above, even the sphinx, satyr, hippocampus and mermaid are considered a gorgon.

All of the above.. maybe

So likely gorgon means demon, more than specifically Medusa and her sisters, of which they are likely demons.

So what is a demon? well, for a medieval peasant, anything that's scary enough to have come up from the depths of hell (if that's their local religion).

So Gorgons are just labels for demons.. but more commonly, demons that are mashed together bits of other animals. So, a hybrid right?

More like the Colchis Bull or the D&D gorgon here

Except, not theriocephalic, because that's just head of an animal, body of a human. and we're not talking humanoid, because that's a whole nother set of monsters.

So Gorgons, are hybrids, Heads like humans, or at least faces like humans, and then a whole mixed bag of what the rest of it is..

Except also, that any of those body parts, could be parts of humanoids, or theriocephaloids?

Whoa, where is this going?

So In Cataclyzm, the idea is that anything could come from anywhere, and as such, alot of it, might not so do well on a world with gravity, or air, or sunlight or a lack of sunlight (like nighttime) and so, a Gorgon, in this context, is any creature of anything that the GM comes up with, a mishmash of bits and peices, resulting in something the players might run away from, get eaten by or manage to hack apart and use.

Cataclysm was about lack of resources, cave-people of the Coyn World, you start with nothing and you build something, on a wider scale than a standard RPG where you start in an existing culture, and rise a little bit in comparison to all that is around you, to a well known hero.

Catacylsm won't have grand overarching bag guy plots, or heroic status when visiting nearby towns, not instead people will probably just have a general Awe and Fear for someone who managed to travel from one location to the next, and not get eaten.

Googling Gorgon can produce many varied results

So, The Gorgon is a multi-roll (or choice) on a chart that gives the GM a thing that he can describe, maybe its a bull body, a fish tail, arms of a rhino and the face of a chicken, it breathes air, but lives in a 0.5x gravity. As a result the GM can double the creatures Initiative costs, making it slow, it has a peck attack, and horns, it stomp around on two legs and maybe has a slap attack with its tailfin.

More interestingly, when you defeat it (if you do) you've gained access to cow leather, fish scales, large fore-arm bones, horns and probably a strange beefy-fish meat, with intestines, organs and the like.

Surprisingly, no Heart as Meat Potion images exist in google

While Early DD12 Cataclyzm notes had leather, horns and bones, more recently I've added in the organs, intestines and such so you can play as a shaman who gathers strange exotic liquids and meat sacks to attempt to brew up some very weird things indeed.

The Gorgon, gives us the ability to create some truely weird things, without the need for the exotic locations and the plot on how your group got you there.

Cataclyzm works well as a "westmarches" style game, each week you can have a whole new set of players, make up characters based on the villagers that still exist. They go out into the wilds to discover whats around, maybe they survive, maybe they don't, they bring back information, resources and new skills, so that hopefully, an established location can be added to the historical maps.

Gorgons should be used somewhat sparingly, once a month if you're playing weekly, its a freak of ... well not of nature.. it might be defeatable, it might be able to live in the world and become a re-occuring nightmare.

While the name Gorgon, brings up images of snake headed women, or metallic bulls for some, I do wonder if the controversy of keeping the generic "abomination" called a Gorgon would be a good idea or maybe the old adage, "All publicity is good publicity", if they're talking about my game, who cares if its trash talk?

Number Crunch - The Fall of Fort-town

Here I will simple write out the actions taken by two players on a game untitled, the basic rules are in my previous post here. I'll try and post a small brief on how each turn played out, but I'm going to leave the conjecture on the history for the next post.

Number Crunch - The Fall of Fort-town

Firstly Maps: I took this randomly created map (left) that had a fort & walls and a river between, to make it two halves of a city. Then Myself and my Player, plotted relevant points to a hex grid and counted out areas that were 'population' vs 'anything not population'

It worked out well enough.

Introduction to Structure:

Turn #1 - isn't it obvious?

CITY NAME: Since this is a tale of two cities, I'll separate them until later when they re-merge.

ADV - Each turn in the beginning, a significant adventurer arrives in the town (fleeing from the zombie horde), They have an influence on the city, before settling in

Actions: typically It'll be like this "3 x Action name - results if imporant

Lastly, Changes to the game, 

-------------- Then a separator

Turn #0 Roll for Population increases, due to influx of refugess. North side poor = total Pop 11, South side Pop 17, Gathered food roll d6: 2 = population.. dang it.. well better than a 1 = half the population, would have gone cannibal on us.

BOTH Cities still joined: Jsemeby Fort-town it remains.

ADV - None from the Chaos.. starts next turn.

Major Changes.. All Zombies active attack this turn, Zombies co-ordinated attacks against the wells to check for initial breaches, wow.. none.. Wall spell happens, all Walls are now 2x health + 2x AF. Ok, secured.. no more external zombie problems.. oh wait, they can climb on their backs like ants? Nope, thats not in the Number crunch.. leave that for the Write up..lol. ok..

Lastly, Bridges are destroyed to ensure safety of north, as south seems to be overrun.. so the north panics.. Kaboom. two cities

-----------------

Turn #1

CITY: South JFT (Jsemby Fort Town)

ADV - - Mage Arrives, Offers Spells: Earth Elementalist - Shore Up the Water against river flood zombies.

9 people assigned to shore up the river bank

2 assigned as guards

3 assigned to tear out the houses on the west bank.. (My world doesn't have west, but I'm using it for ease of translation)

3 assigned to turn land (the west bank) into Farmland.

ZOMBIES: 6 Zombie hordes emerge from the river into the south side, as the embankment is being made.. argh! 2 guards are not enough.. 1 death.

RESULTS: 3 food added, total 20 food, 16 consumed (guard loss) = 4 food remains.

BONUS: Hero MAX destroys Zombies on river bank.

BONUS: Hero RILEY Overseas construction of river embankment +1 wall

--

CITY: North JFT

ADV - Merchant, Bonus 25% food covered for turn.

3 x tear down the rich apartments on most ariable land.

1 standard Village destroyed

2 x build Farm on that land.

4x Guards to defend walls (I have no idea of what to expect)

ZOMBIES: Emerge at my Pyre location.. crap -1 happiness

RESULTS: only need 75% food = 7, 3 food remains.

==========
Turn #2

CITY: South JFT

ADV - Entertainer - decreases unhappiness for turn.
Due to Overwhealming attacks by Zombies: 13 Guards
3 x destroy buildings
1 x Build Farm
ZOMBIES: Attack Pyre & Farm
RESULT: 7 population loss from starvation, 3 population unhappy
BONUS: Hero Max, destroys Zombies at River Bank
BONUS II: Hero Riley oversees construction of river embankment +1 wall.
-----
CITY: North JFT
ADV- Doctor, Sets up Medical Practice -10% disease
2 x build embankments
6 Guards
1 x Destroy buildings,
1x Build Farms
ZOMBIES: Invade Pyre Land, Take over Village in region.
RESULT: 1 Loss to Zombies, 4 Loss to Starvation, 2 Unhappiness
==========
Turn #3
CITY: South JFT
ADV - Entertainers, Once again clear unhappiness (what luck)
3x destroy Town
3x Build Farms
2 Guards
ZOMBIES: destroyed, Town Cleared.
RESULTS: 2 pop loss from starvation, 3 unhappy
BONUS: Hero Max purges the Pyre
BONUS: Hero Riley, Shores up the Pyre against attacks.
-----
CITY: North JFT
ADV: Academic - Helps town to Build Walls
5 x Guards, to clear town, but fail.. pyre still zombie infested.
ZOMBIES: Pyre is Zombie shanty town now..
RESULTS: no deaths, population food stable
===========

So, 15 years, ( 5 years per turn) Our populations stabilized from Farm income vs pop requirements.

While we were a bit lax on rules, and making stuff up on the fly, we had fun. We played 20 turns and around turn 16 managed to rebuild wharfs so we could transport goods and services from town to town, effectively reforming into one town, but by then, political upheaval caused the two to remain semi-seperate. I don't want to give too much away at this point, because the players might read it and also I'm not sure how interesting it is to read a turn by turn of a unfinished game. If there is any interest, I could later post it up.

If I did it again, I'd have thought out the turn by turn, destruction of peoples houses causing unhappiness, but maybe destruction of zombies causing calm, our food system was broken, and in effect we cheated to get as much population as we did, but maybe there were hidden stores that were unaccounted for, and we didn't include more food abilities in adventurers, Turn 6, a Mage Adventurer turns up south side, so maybe a few banquet spells weekly, and north side had some merchant adventurers, somehow get through from another town..


So, For I'll write up the 'history, as known by the players, as their characters who grew up in the city would have learnt from their parents and grandparents.

Coins Part Two:, Currencies and Culture

In Part One, I wrote about How Coins should affect your pickpocketing, Less common for many campaigns is the travel aspect of currency, crossing borders, finding that the shop keepers will look suspiciously at your coins, bite them, probably refuse them even, or in some cases, recognizing that you are a foreigner, take advantage of the fact and give you far less worth for them.

$18.50 for a cup of coffee, seems a bit steep? 

Yes but sir, this is New York, Starbucks New York 

Welcome to America!

Currencies & Culture

The second part of my post/blog is about different cultures & currencies. Quite frankly, I don't think the average GM is going to go to the lengths needed to get something realistic. So I'll chop this into two parts, Casual gaming, and Hard Gore GMing.

Standard RPG start location: Corner Tavern
Art by Duran3d

The Idea here is to give players a bit more understanding that they're not in Kansas anymore, having players go to a shop, buy gear, stay in a tavern/Inn, hear about the latest quest by the fire, after buying an old man a drink is ok for your starting shtick, but if you cross the border into another country, teleport into other continents, or different worlds, then it should only be used as a joke that the players walk into a bazaar, buy some gear, stay in a motel and hear about the latest quest by the cooler, after buying the old lizardwoman a drink.

To get the players to feel like they are in strange lands, its the little things that really get under their skin, and make it seem like they have traveled.

Currency is the first thing they should notice when trying to do anything. Different currencies, different rates of exchange, different ways of buying, selling, stacking.

In China, I went to the museum of Currency, the reason why the Chinese coin looks the way it does, is because its not the whole coin, its the handle of a small blade of metal.

The Little Ring on the end? Became the Coin you know.

So whats to say this practice isn't more widespread? Why does a coin need to be the standard? In a fantasy world, where a knife is probably something everyone has, and possibly two or three of, maybe the common dagger becomes the 'standard' by which all wealth is measured?

For my own players, I tried out the idea of metal rings, players noticed the locals wore a large number of rings, smaller bronze looking metals on their pinkies, and larger flatter engraved rings on their indexes, soon enough when they went to buy something, the shop keeper wouldn't sell them anything, kept treating them like lower class citizens, why? because they obviously had no money to spend, their hands were bare. Sure they may be dressed in some nice gear, but if they don't have coin to spend, their just there to waste time.

Exchange rates, and I don't mean between the players own currency, and the new country, but the rate of coinage in the new country. Sure its a little easier to just 10:1 exchange all coins, but its also very stale. Historically, most counties had far different rates, 12:1, 15:1 or 24:1 were common enough, Look at our own coins, 10p, American 25c, Australian 50c, Dollars and Pounds? Names are different, coinage is different, that's just the generic English speaking ones, Why are fantasy coins always 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 copper? And if your in some kind of place where the race is different enough, lizardmen don't necessarily have 4 fingers and a thumb, so why would they even count in sets of 5 and 10? surely their entire culture would count in 4 and 8, make them much better programmers.

Historically, The English Traded with Florence, who manufactured the gold coin then known as the British florin, but prior to that, they still used all the Egyptian, Greek and Roman coins that were still floating around. So Shouldn't the coins from your worlds be a mixture of previous cultures, other cities who manufacture coins, and the like?

Have a look at this: Medieval Money document for a better understanding.

Also, Crypts and Dungeons that are hundreds of years old, shouldn't have a currency that matches modern currency. In some of the better 'published dungeons' I've read, have larger than normal coins (1.5 times size, but lower grade, so possibly worth less to the average person, but maybe more to collectors (mages who might perform magics on old coins for information). Old coins might have wording on who they belonged to, leading to the discovery of an ancient king, and hopefully his tomb.


Ok, so I did point out that I'd dabble in some Hard Core WorldBuilding, This isn't for the feint of heart, but this is what I did for my own game world:  

An Early Gamesmaster Screenshot, depicts the territory of 6 players

Firstly, I designed and ran an 80+ player game of fantasy/civ that I wrote, to get an idea of what kinds of places would exist, what metals they mined and how much trade existed between players to get a proper set of stats to work with. I Asked players to nominate their coins from the metals that they mined, and as the game progressed they added a second and third coinage.

If a player was trading with another, they were given the choice to 'exchange at the border' or 'allow the use of other currency', the former had a more strict control over internal wealth, but also travel and spies.

The Image shows the 'route' of spies from the Necromancers Caravan to the town just south of the capital.

So, with several different metals, useful as coinage, several different countries, some trading and some not, I ended up with over 300 different coins, names and exchange rates. The Games setting duration was over 120 years, so this also left me with some awesome interest pieces.

The Above map, gave me 2 major Crypts, 4 adventure hooks, 6 races, 36 cultural issues amongst 4 races, encounter maps for each hex, and basic stats of 13 large towns/cities.

Apparently, these guys at Fantasy Coin can make your worlds
coins for you, might consider an investment.

As time went on, The Mining Races obviously became the producers of coinage, if not the raw materials, So their coin ratios become more common for the bulk of the kingdoms to whom they dealt with. My Main 'homebase' for my current roleplay team, deal with the rare Hearth Elven Platinum Brindir, High Dwarven Gold BeardClips (rings that can be worn on the pinky by humans), North Human Golden Crowns, Forest Elven Zircon Rounds, North Human Pewter Guilders, Deep Dwarven Silver Curls, Coastal Lizardmens Silver Claws (thimbles, that stack), The High Kings Silver Coin and His Brothers, High Lords Silver coin, (Interchangeable to other races, but illegal to own in opposite countries) Copper and Bronze coins, seem to be interchangeable at this point between most cultures, as long as they weigh the right amount, peasants and locals will trade in weight of copper coins, because its too easy to re-mint your own, and each local lord re-mints them with his own face on one side, and the kings face on the other side.

For Simplicity, Beards and Crowns, Rounds and Guilders, Kings Silver or Lords Silver, and Copper Coins are the currencies most players dealt with in this region. Yet, only 100km to the south east, They deal in Crowns, Guilders, Florins, Pennies and Bitz.

So whiles the Dwarven Crowns and Curls can be used interchangeably between the two major cultures, none of the other coins are legit currencies, requiring traders to visit 'merchant banks' or jewelers to make exchanges, often losing a percentage of the real worth, or resorting to barter, if they don't intend on staying and value their own currency.

Real gold you say? Hmm, lemme just bite it

My players have attempted to thwart the system, finding the right exchanger and making a small profit on the exchange, using their high charisma character for the deal, but after getting their high intelligence guy to do the maths first. With the lack of real travelers, the real worth wont be found out, and likely the exchanger will pass on the cost to 'collectors' at a later point.
    

Portal to where sir? sure.. have you had your Cleric bless you against Troll-pox?

I've recently left on holiday, visiting my wifes home country and loving it, and besides the standard stuff to deal with, there can be many other complications.. so here are a few that you might want to use on your players.. oh and at the end.. some observations about medieval villages

Long Distance Travelling, Pitfalls for your players 

Lets start with the basics: Travelling across territorial borders.. Is there a border? is it guarded? do you need some kind of permission from the king of the land to travel to this land? how much will it cost and how effective will the letter be while IN the land? will you be harrassed at every location because you have an accent? 

Now this might sound a bit archaic, but having now 30+ countries in my passport stamps, and 44 countries that I've been in (airports.. they count right?) I've developed a bit of a mental blindfold to the corruption, bribes, speaking to 'the right people' to get things done.. 

Signed, Sealed, Leather strap, viola!

In fact, When I ran a Modern cyberpunk game a few years back, I included all the aspects of travel, my players were shocked at how difficult it was to sneak out of the country on a fake passport. Thought I was being too harsh.. but that was the reality.. the paper may LOOK correct, but it still needs to be in a computer somewhere.. 

Medieval paperwork, just needs to look right.. so maybe a few payments to the local rogues gallery might do the trick.. What next?

Accents, and Languages.. well many system have comprehand languages.. but do they have disguise accents? A common factoid of the tourist, both medieval and modern. Accent = price hike. There are so many place I've seen with three or four price labels on things.. one is euro, one is local currency, one is American, and the last, a PLU? (Price look up for register?) well as often as not, the exchange rate was done weeks ago on those, they say.. and whats written is whats written, but if you do the math, you're getting ripped off another 30% if you trade in anything but local.. then it turned out the local price is the PLU and the others are all fake..

"Offendi, Offendi, where are you from? ahh such a long way you have travelled? would you like some sugared dates? only 1 gold coin each!!"

Even if you have the language and the accent.. speaking with any colloquialisms would give you away., especially if its well known that language and accent spells are common enough.. get your players to be careful with their words.. that's half the point of roleplay, speaking the right way to the right(or wrong) people.

Ok, so what about diseases? Ok sure, I'm sure 99% of you don't bother to use diseases in any way.. how boring.. Is Steve not at todays roleplay session? easy.. he caught a local flue, the team are asked by the apothecary to pop over to the local forest and procure some wilkweed from the edges of dark swamp. On the way, the encounter a bug bear, a wild boar, some tangle-weed, The Dark swamp is home to a mere-gaunt, they fight it, find the wilkweed, gather enough for their befallen friend and a bit more for bonus, then a quick battle with some swamp skeletons (slain by the mere-gaunt, and risen by Dark swamp natural magic) and home again in time for Steve next week session.

Players getting a little too powerful for your campaign? are you the type of GM to modify encounters for plot? why not modify characters for plot? The Paladin contracts a virus immune to healing spells/effect, and requires a special cure at a temple far away, but first the evil BBG must be defeated.. and its only a -1 to con saves & -1 to hit..

Normally, a character travelling across lands would encounter diseases from time to time, deal with one, get on with their life.. its considered part of the down-time, many players skip (or DMs don't bother to run)

yep, worse than this..

But what if your players have access to some kind of quick transportation?

Changing time zones, entering new climates, whole slew of diseases and viruses all at once? the average person might fight off one or two.. but 7 or 10? plus jet-lag? I'm a fairly healthy person (con 16), but one trip through Abi Dabi, and I was out for 4 days with sweats, coughs, headaches, joint pain, and it was 3 different things all taking advantage of my jet-lag.

So if you walked through a portal from one city to another.. I think it'd be a good idea to cast a few greater heals or cure diseases on yourself withing 24 hours, else suffer the wrath of the GM who knows better.

"Oh Offendi, you are sick? please please? come stay with my family, you won't have to pay the hospital, my wife is a nurse, we can cure you, the ingredients will be a mere trifle for you.. 1000 gold" 

Expect different kinds of treatment, different styles of preventative measures, don't sit next to a window, don't drink cold water, let me rub cognac on your legs, here, wear these were-rabbits on your feet as boots, yes, freshly killed, what you don't think the blood will cure you?

Medi Eval Travels

I'll get a Photo to replace this..

Just an Additional Note, while I'm travelling I notice the things that have not stopped from 1000 years of technology and improvements.. On the side of the road, in front of a person house.. a stall.. a set up of their extra produce, in carry-able bags/sacks/jars ready for sale. usually a small child will mind it, playing with a cat or dog, will call out for a parent or even sell you things themselves if you make an approach, Players can get travel rations up to a days travel from a village like this, saving on rations, scurvy from rations, and possibly even get latest news..

News! People don't travel far and wide.. always have friendly villages ask you players about the news from other towns, be disappointed when they have none.. what sort of good for nothing person travels without finding out the local news first.. a pox to you.. Or, if they have news.. well done good sir, have a free ale and 10% off all goods. Players love little things that really gets them feeling like the world exists beyond the game table..

Hope it all helps.. good gaming to all, I'm back to my sick bed. should have cast Cure All on my self when I arrived.. too sick to cast spells now.. (does any system have magic restrictions like that?)

World Rules vs Known Rules

For quite some time I've been delving into sites about faith, gods, physics and maths and the history of these, because I felt that often writers give the readers/players too much.Just wanted to share some thoughts

Historically, we're ignorant

Humans, on earth, have frequently been wrong. Ignorant of the world around us. But we're also creative. so far more often than not, when someone didn't understand something, but couldn't be seen/known to 'not' know the answer, they invented the most plausible answer they could think of, and, until someone thought of something better, it was given.

So why do writers assume anything different?

Well, most likely because its easier to just have the rules of the world match the understanding of the reader, and I'm going to do it right now: I'll invent a plausible answer because I don't have enough research of the subject matter, because most likely the reader needs to either identify with the subject material, or they need to plausibly believe the difference between their own understanding and this 'fictional reality'.

Some of the best writing I've read, the authour has created a set of rules for his universe, but had the characters in the story, not understand that set of rules.. instead the rules of the character were something less than correct. It wasn't the premise of the story, but was critical to the structure of the plot.

But its not often (maybe I'm just not reading the right people)

Now I'm not talking about authours who use the same logic structure on an earth setting, (IMHO) its not so creative to use an already established scientific misdemeanor, such as a group of people that believe the world is flat, such a common and dis-proven that anyone actually thought this post-greek maths.

Nor am I talking about using theories about our world about the rules of our universe, and using one theory to write a nice novel about. 

I'm talking about world building here. When you build your own world, with your own set of logic and rules that govern the world, and then.. you build another set of rules that the inhabitants of the world have come to believe.

Then we take it further

 So we create a world, and its different in some way, that makes it interesting to write about. We add inhabitants, being a complex and dynamic world, for the existence of plot, we need different races maybe, or different species someone to antagonize the other. and they have their own beliefs, to break the egg at one end or the other or what have you. How 'right' are they? 

The conflict of different people over any given difference, is 99% of history, be it peaceful or bloody conflict. The culture and learnings of races, the fall and demise of the ones that backed the wrong belief or sometimes the right one, leaving a culture to struggle with itself until an inevitable reversal of ideals to match with the scientific research of the day.

While this may be a small aspect of the plot, its usually this kind of backstory that shows me the reader, that this world is not just a fly by night construct, that your book/world is going to exist for a a long time to come, and if I invest my money and time in your product, I'm going to get a return on that investment. i.e. more future enjoyment as you publish several books/products

World Development: Civilization 2, 3 and 4

There's one thing I seem to be very good at, figuring out how to be lazy and yet still get good results.

Civs Tech Tree, Mine Tripled it, for just the Middle Ages

So Way back in '96 I got Civilisation II, and while I played it probably non stop for a year, I got bored enough with its generic, simplification of technologies and the early years of the game.. so like many Civ players, I learn how to Mod the game.

But I had more purpose than that.

Civ created a Map for you, Major cities, borders, races and politics, within the Cities you could list the basic buildings available to its citizens, you had access to a wide variety of information, did they have access to resources, what kind of population was happy (rich) vs unhappy (poor, criminals)

You could create an entire roleplay world in a matter of hours, what would take an average writer months and months..

So I did... but it wasn't good enough,

Lord of the Rings Icons suits many a fantasy setting!

So I edited CivII, Added in more relevant techs for a historical setting, high fantasy but low magic world, I joined Civ Fanatics, I wrote about changes, I uploaded and downloaded images, shared ideas and developed a Fantasy Themed Civ game..

Then I inflicted it upon my friends and roleplay group.. Civ II only allowed 4 human players. so we had to replay the map in sections to create a decent enough history & backstory..

My group liked it well enough to want to do it again, So I decided to create some 'back story' maps too.

Tyranosaurus Rexicus Maxiumus Invades Cairo

 There was a Mod for Civ II something to do with dinosaurs, they 'ate' forests to increase their size, nested for created baby dinosaurs, some could chew up the land to create lakes & if nearby sea beds..

This was like a terraforming Mod (I went on to make this into 3 games) which worked brilliantly.. It got my players interested in making the land masses, shaping the world, choosing if a region should be forested, or chewed up by the dinosaurs to become grasslands (or when a dinosaur died, become oil fields)

My team, inflicted once again, played out 3 rounds of this.. I amalgamated the maps into one, and this determined some 'ancient structures' as well as some 'interesting landscapes'.

Around 1998-1999, Civ III came out... with a far easier editor.. but better yet 16 players! I took a year to create a Mod for this, all new graphics, all new designs, new Units, new tech tree..

Dragons, Magicians, Knights, Castles. Civ IV has enough models, I could do it all again!!

and we never played it. Real life took everyone in new paths..

But, it did give me the impetus for Fantasy Kingdoms, years later, I would discover, this idea that players are very willing to participate in world generation.. if you give them the right tools.

So, if you're looking at this great big world you're thinking of creating, and it seems like such a huge job.. why not do the same.. Start one of the many Map ownership games that exist out there, with some friends (maybe even your gaming group) and build the back story of your world together.. share the workload in a fun manner

Your play team will often surprise you and include things you could have never thought of.....