Character Names

I've always thought, if you're going to roleplay, you shouldn't be choosing your character. You should play what you get, to that end...

Having your group, make your character

The Idea here is, as a group, you have needs and wants of your group, you want to help each other out, and play as a team. So why do we let players make their own character, often it results in some kind of loner, trying to be self centered, or an over achiever as the player is trying too hard to be the best group friendly character.

So Instead, I tried this for several years, often at conventions, because captive audiences will do new things, and go away telling friends how interesting it actually was to try something new.

So, First, your name. 

(Now as player, you can veto one thing, but only one thing, if you want to change your name, do so, but be aware you cannot veto anything else later)

Write down: The last two letters of your first name, the middle two letters of your last name, the first two letters of your mothers name and then the last letter of your fathers name.. sounds like a meme.. I know.. Now, read it to the group. don't show them, read it! and have them spell it for you. That's your name.

(GMs: Nominate your world to match known common earth like traits, this is purely an association game for your group, not fixed to any tropes, unless you want it that way)

Ask the group, what kind of culture does it sound like, matching what the group knows of current cultures, then Ask the GM, if it sounds like a name that matches part of their known world, and have your character come from there, if that place is a set race, that's your race, if there is a choice, have the group decide.

Now you can roll the dice for your characteristics, apply racial modifiers, cultural modifiers, and ask the group, what kind of character do they think it is, picking a primary (or secondary) lifestyle for you, and you choose the other.

Lastly, they pick your starting profession. You can always change, but this is what your parents chose for you.

Why do it like this? Is this un-fun?

As an artist, and author, I often balked at my teachers telling us to write / draw specifically in a genre or style that I didn't like. Yet, every time, I learnt something more of the genre, or the style and while I may have never done another piece like it, I am amazed at how much I got out of it in the long run.

My greatest piece of art, was life drawing of my own shoe, when I encountered it years later, I had forgotten how well I could draw, yet as a kid I distinctly remember how bored I was with the idea of drawing a shoe.

In this sense, I've often considered, roleplay is a form of art, its a learning experience, and we should use it as best as we can to tell stories, but not self-indulgent personal fantasy in the truer sense of the word, but instead the story emerges as we have our characters go on the arc of self discover, self loathing, and self acceptance. Which can be next to impossible if we build out own fantasy archtype as our character.

Lastly, I have had groups make their self indulgent fantasy character, and get bored of it, all to early. They've achieved their pinnacle and there is nothing more to do with them after, But players, saddled with this personal abomination, grow to like them, and over time, have claimed how, despite themselves, they have found it to be their favourite character.

So I say,..Give it go..  you might be surprised. 

 

Genres and Settings for Roleplay

Wikipedia lumps them together, and that's confusing as much as misleading, as I'll discuss below

What Genres x Settings Exist in Roleplay, and whats missing?

There are 24 genres listed in Wikipedia, Some we can discount instantly, for roleplay, and some, well, they're not genres, they're settings, I don't know why they're lumped together and I don't remember why I seem to have a very strong memory learning them as very separate structures. Maybe my High School teacher had strong, logical reasons and I agreed with him/her on the subject:

You can go to the Wiki List I'm working from:

Genres:

Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Paranoia, Political, Romance, and Thriller are all Genres, in the more truer definition. They have a distinct set of feelings, we could even cross reference feelings to come up with these.. Excitement, Discovery (location), Laughter,  Discovery(events of dubious nature), Extrinsic Emotion, Disgust , Discovery (events), Helplessness, Machinations? Love, Fear.

This suggests that while there are definitive lines in the sand, Thriller, Horror and Paranoia all stem from Fear of the Unknown, Violence and Control. And Crime, Mystery and Adventure are all subsets of Discovery.

Sagas seem to be a sub genre that, due to the title, historical nature of the story, are just included in genres, that said, Its possibly both a genre and a setting, as to qualify, it needs to be OP stories of Vikings doing heroic deeds. Personally that's just stylistic representation of Historical Adventure.

BUT, you can mix these.

Yes, Its very easy to mix many of these, because they are emotional, Start with some discovery, that leads to fear, causes problems with sickness and is conquered with laughter. But your audience will come out at the end, unable to pinpoint why it was good, IF it was good, Which is why movies stick to one or two of them, and books two or three.

Also, some of them destroy each other if not done right. Comedy done as laughter will bring down the Horror, Paranoia, Thriller and even Mystery. Yet releasing tension with the right dark humour can control the audience.

Settings

So, our Settings are, Fantasy, Historical, Western, Urban/Modern, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy. Even said, Western is technically just Historical,, else should we break out Classical, Medieval?

So, Non realistic and Realistic events before now, now, and in the future? The problem with this, is the purpose of the setting is to evoke an understanding of the culture, timeline, technology and way of thinking of a given people. Fantasy is commonly Tolkienised, with Elves, Fairies, Dwarves and Orcs. While Magical effects added to Medieval History would be Merlin and King Arthur. Which is why Historical Fiction exists as a Genre, too many styles of Fantasy, means the Setting needs to be split to understand which Audience you're trying to connect to.

Magical Realism, refers to magic existing, yet not changing the very underlying world. Harry Potter may have influenced this break away. The Muggle world is our world, and we are unaware of the magic going on. This can also include the Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Modern Witches, maybe even Cthulhu style games (though, typically Cthulhu is more Late Victorian era)
 
Its Curious, that while Historical fiction, Magical Realism and Sagas are separated out, Punk, Space Opera, Science fantasy and Apocalyptic settings all come under the "science fiction" Setting, Yet, when you say Science fiction, several people will not think any of those genres, instead jumping to Star Wars Styled settings as the 'default.

So, for the purposes of this post, Our Real settings are , Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western,  Modern, Post Modern,  and Science Fiction.

How are these not Genres?  

First, we defined that Genres are constructs of Feelings you get from watching a movie, You can have multiple feelings, but to get a real sense of a specific feeling you don't invoke more than a few.

Settings are different, its a set of background rules, an understanding of what kind of people will be in the world, how they act and react, and most importantly, No Cross Over. You cannot have High Fantasy and Western, You can add off world races to western for spice, or you can add gunslingers to Merlin's Castle, but the underlying core is defined, When you say western to 50 people, you'll get several identical key points. Sure Science Fantasy and Science Fiction are well defined, Star wars vs Star Trek, explainable science vs hand-waved science. Yet at the end of the day, spaceships, laser guns, alien races, in space, all say science fiction.

I have heard the argument, but wait, Sailing ships, Blunderbusses, Island Races on the High Sea, all match the underlying theme, which is why Treasure Island so easily ported over to Treasure Planet. Yet state those 4 elements to 50 people, and I doubt anyone will say Post Modern, or Classic.

What of Philosophical? and Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical, Satire, Social or Speculative?

Speculative, IS roleplay, we are speculating, if a person existed, in a defined world, what would happen if they chose to make a given action, such as explore a dungeon, with a sword. Not to say, that the game can't involve speculation within itself, like a meta inception. See more on this below.

The Same 'could' be said of Philosophical? Are we exploring possible Utopian or Distopian societies to understand ourselves better?

Satire exists as a form which is referenced by real life events, or in some cases, recognized events from an existing story, bent in a way to be different. Yet it cannot exist as a genre unto itself, So its more a modifier of an existing genre. Also In roleplay, since we use memes, references to existing works, understandings of the world through other mediums, such as movies, books, then all roleplay is a form of Satire.

I can speculate, that playing a Surreal Setting, might be fun for a session, a dream sequence, it'll be hard to pull off, explaining to players that they swim through colours, and experience smells as experience points, yet the underlying problem is that a setting evokes an understanding of the world, to make decisions, but a surreal world would be so without proper understanding, it would destroy the fabric of what makes the roleplay game work, and be fun.

And Social is just the Indian term for Modern.

 So the verdict?

Two Genres and One Setting. This would be the most likely definition for a roleplay system. Not to say elements of others are absent, just that to be easily identified to an Audience.

This gives us Seven genres, (Action, Comedy, Discovery, Drama, Political, Romance, and Thriller) with 8 Settings, (Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western,  Modern, Post Modern,  and Science Fiction.) giving us a final 64 possible "categories" defined. With the Two Genre Possible structure, and given that not all Genres can go together, it looks like we can have around 500 odd Slightly broader categories.

Some of them, we know exist, Action Adventure High Fantasy = D&D. (Paranoia based) Thriller 1950s Modern = Cthulhu, Action Comedy Science-Fiction = Alpha XXX Blue.

If we went through all 500 Categories, would we find an obvious choice for all? or would it be hard? Would we start reaching empty gaps? and would those gaps be interesting to make a campaign for?

As a random example (as I roll d8s), Discovery Romance Western, gives me Indiana Jones,

So I chucked up a spreadsheet, I got these:

Comedy	Thriller	Post Modern
Discovery	Action	Post Modern
Drama	Romance	Science Fiction
Romance	Comedy	Pirates
Action	Discovery	Western
Thriller	Action	High Fantasy
Political	Romance	High Fantasy

• As discussed, Comedy Thriller is going to be hard to do as a roleplay.. Movies, such as, Evil Dead 2 is a tad more comedic, as is Shaun of the Dead, so its plausible some good players and GMs could pull this off. The Comedy aspect, suggests a light system. 
• Discovery Action, Post modern, might be game plots based on National Treasure, Maybe FATE or Gumshoe could work as a system for this.
• Drama Romance Sci Fi makes me think of Battlestar Gallactica.
• Unsure what Romance Comedy Pirates would be as a game, like roleplaying in Pirates of Penzance. Could be fun for a session, but not long term.
• Action Discovery Western, a very likely scenario. I've run one of these with my system, yet I know there are western style RPGs that do this already.
• Thriller Action High Fantasy, well, I'm running one of them right now.. so that's obvious.
• and lastly, Political Romance High Fantasy. I get the impression that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is like this. but I'm probably very wrong. This does like it would be difficult to find such a game focussed on it. 

So, it does indeed seem like there are holes, and the question is.. Is it interesting to explore the gaps

-----==========-----

Final Notes

From that quick little attempt, Its obvious to me that Action + adventure, and Action + Discovery is going to have a roleplay game out there for each possible genre, and likely each sub-genre.

Thriller is also a genre that will likely have a decent amount of games, even if they are all Cthulhu rip-offs.

Comedy, while it happens in roleplay often, because strange things happen, and there are gonzo styled games that try to evoke comedic moments, I think its harder to 'make' a comedic roleplay game.

What might be the genres we find gaps are going to be Drama, Romance and Political, and maybe that's because they don't lend themselves to roleplay as much as we like, or they're tacked on...poorly, by the rule-set being used.

When two combatants go against each other, several factors, such as weapon, skill, armour, and timing come into a turn by turn structure of combat. The outcome are wounds, dismemberment or death, so its vital to understand this and make it as fair as possible.

Yet many RPG system treat the nuances of politics, diplomacy, romance, persuasion, charm, conflict, lies, deception and perception as a single die roll. An entire campaign, hinged on the single arbitrary roll.

This is one of the reasons, I decided that all aspects of roleplay should, if players want it, have a play by play rules for each of the common aspects of roleplay.

I've blogged a little about this, but I think its time to take it further..         

KICKSTARTED!

So, I was umming and ahhing about what to do as my first Kickstarter..

Something small, easy to deal with, easy to produce, just enough to cut my teeth but not too much if it got a bit crazy

Then I saw the Make 100 Challenge.. only make 100 of something..

Well I said.. I can do that!

So I DID!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1203688183/make-100-fantasy-locations

Its Simple Enough, I'm going to draw 100 locations on a map, so fellow GMs and Authors and Artists and anyone interested, can just have a cool little map for their own.

I draw these kinds of maps for people from time to time as commissions, I've charged as much as $200 for them, its usually 10 hours of drawing after 25+ hours of preparation and discussion with the author / games designer. So its not too far off what I've done before.

The Interesting part (for me) is getting 100 different locations into the map, I'll have to sort them out, structure them, get a feel for what goes where, interpret them from some backers it might be confusing mess..

So lets see where this goes. I'll post some thoughts on Kickstarting a project and How it all works out in the coming weeks.

Heres the Kicktraq for it

[worldbuilding] Discovering old maps part 2

Having discovered my old maps and deciding to rework them, I continue on my path to create a new.. old world

Part One

The Canvas

To really get a feel for what I was doing, I gathered all my maps and looked over them, drew out sketches of things, very very general sketches.. making sure certain issues were dealt with..

The first was simple world physics. The Original Coyn World was far smaller, the sun would pass overhead which would mean very long days, very hot days.. or the sun would need to move so fast you could watch it shift shadows. So I needed to 'set' the sun to match the more current world maps which I worked on the physics for months before I got it all right.

So the sun rises and falls on the rim of the coyn, but now a new problem.. in the centre of the world is a spire (because remember, that this world was more directly a copy of Terry Pratchett's Discworld). So with only a 30. degree rise, the spire would blot out the sun on the other side of the world, making winter in some areas deadly.. while interesting.. was going to break too many maps..

Zoom in to see details.

So I adjusted the rules of the sun, 40. degree, sped it up slightly to ensure an earth approximate temperature, checked the maths, then started measuring the spire. (see the little image below.. it had to get shrunk..60%)

As you can see from the image, the spire shadow would (from the 16 different months) only cover half of the world in winters shadow.

Now, since I was going to use the zoomed in section, I needed to ensure that any nearby mountain ranges might not interfere with the suns rays.. there was.. you can see the mountain with the green sun lines to determine its midday ranges..

Next, I plotted out the suns direction to give me some workable lines. I no longer had the cad program I used before and I calculated the time it would take to make a new program to work the maths, would exceed the time I would take to simply draw lines on a map myself. So I drew the lines myself.

One Shadow Map

I'm not going to bore you with 16 variants of map, just one. What I did was work out the distances the sun was from the local hills, and the height of the sun at 9am, midday and 3pm, and "shifted" the mountain peaks lines in an art program and filled in the shadows with a darker colour.

Shadow Lines, Shadow Months & Sun Levels

Then I blended all images together to give me a colour coded map for the 4 months of summer, winter, spring and autumn so I could determine biomes. If an area got 2-3 hours of sun, mid-autumn, but remained in the shadow of the local mountains, its going to be a colder region, and will less likely to have temperate forests, so I'd colour those zones with a light green/blue, if it got sun all 18 hours of the day, all times of the year, its going to be a desert.

Rainfall Levels

Next I started adding Water. Simple google searches explain how water evaporates off the ocean, flows across the land, then when it hits mountains it becomes rain and produces forests and rivers and the like. So I mapped out the general flow of the clouds and map a map of that.

Forests in Green, Deserts in Yellow

Next I made sure my river beds on the original maps matched the flow of water coming from the mountains. I had made some mistakes, but mostly it was ok, so I matched the rivers to the shadows to the biomes and drew in the spots where forests could grow (not would.. just could).

Then I scanned all these, and overlayed them in the art program, and this gave me the 'concept' of where the forests 'would be' before humans started chopping them down and building places.

Not that its easy, but you might be able to see that my original 1991 maps have quite different forest lines to the new more legit maps

Lots of little trees, all those green dots.. (yes I'm using copics)

So far so good.

So my new map now has a very cool desert like terrain, not exactly Sahara, but more Australia/Arabia/Egypt, so that unlocks some opportunities. Also the larger expanses of plains on the east, could be used for some battles.. European style.. and now the central valleys are all cold.. snowy cold.. so I can also make some cool little Russian/Mongolian Taiga locations.

Plot-hooks

The Main draw card for this island, is the History. 12 gigantic Ziggurats from an ancient civilization of 9ft tall crocodile people, built of gold, (based on the 'cities of gold t.v. series when I was a kid). Heroes across the world catch boats here, travel through the cities, spend their money, and some return from the ziggurats with a gold brick the size of a dog, enough to retire the entire group, if they so wish.
My notes are sketchy as to what they contain, but I have some maps and a few pages of notes, so I just need to piece it together (and re-watch the t.v. series to see if it sparks any memories). the main point comes from one line at the top of the page:

"The Ziggurats are heavily guarded, not by living creatures, as they would have died eons ago, no but by traps, ingenious deadly traps, that are designed for 9ft tall priests, who know the correct path, to be able to traverse safely, at the right time, in the right season."

My notes only included traps that players came across, (I used to make everything up as I went). Chessboard battles, Illusionary chasms, a Cart-Voodoo puzzle and some giant cat statues that shoot lazers? So now I just need some ingenious traps to flesh out the rest of the rooms..

Lastly, because I never got around to finishing it, I'm putting the dead remains of one of my old roleplay groups, in a set of Crypts that guard ancient treasures that they collected

[Worldbuilding] Discovering Old Maps Part 1.

Have you ever packed up all your stuff, moved, and then forgotten to unpack one box, stuck in storage, back room or shed or some place, then you open it years later and say "oh wow, I forgot I had all this?" Tag that emotion..

The Discovery

I left my mums place when I was 19, packed a lot of things in boxes to move, but my new place was big enough to expand into. I wrote a lot of notes into old books. At the start of a new year, around  February / March, Diaries become cheaper, so I picked up what was $20 hard cover, leather bound business diaries for maybe $2.

In these I would write my game rules, notes, adventures, everything. I even have old receipts and budgets for my lifestyle..

When I moved from that place, I had to go home for 6 months to sort out my finances, so most of my stuff, unable to fit into my small room, had to get put in boxes.

Digital Version of my world and how I made it

When I moved from there to my next place, I had the room, but I sorta maybe forgot about the older stuff, I maybe felt like my old notes were not as good as my newer notes, I was more grown up.

Also I had decided to make things digital, I could map things in the Civilisation game, sort out what was where and structure things more systematically.. so why would I ever use all my old maps again?

So they stayed in their boxes and I made all new maps.

Fast forward >> I GMd for several years, made a whole new version of my rules, shelved the old version, and with it, made all new maps >> Then I left Australia, travelled Europe to understand more of what makes roleplay interesting and returned to start the whole next version of my rules to match the growing and changing landscape that is the roleplay community >>

So 2013, I move into a new place, and take all my boxes stored in my mothers roof and put them on my shelves.. but I'm studying so hard, I have no time to actually check them

The Orginal (Upper Right) Albius, Drawn 1991

And now its 2015, a month ago I opened up a few boxes and started to sift through.. Cue tagged emotion.. WOW!

What to do with it all? a lot of it was almost useless.. maps we never got around to using, places that had no names.. is it worth it to bother to use a map because I made it 25 years ago?

Is it any different to making a new one?

Well I decided to stick to my original plans.. History is written by those who survive, so whose to say that the world map I had was 'legit' It could be a map that someone could have drawn based on theory and conjecture, rather than the actual world map.. that allowed for some 'adjustments for reality'

Then also, we had stories about characters from ages ago.. players who played in our games and I could ask them to recall their events and write them in this blog or put some together as 'histories' all manner of creative ideas can come from it.

The Lands of Albius, Drawn June 2015

So, I decided.. since my blog has been a bit sparse of late, that I would document the 're-creation' of my game world, using original maps, updated maps, notes, structures of ideas and things from 1989-1996, prior to the Civ Maps, and use them as my "original world" series.

My endevour, to 'match' enough of the maps and map notes together to make one cohesive world, without breaking any of the history, (but maybe breaking a tiny bit of continuity, but creatively) and document the process.

Link to be Added:

Veterans Day in your world

After seeing so many of the 11/11/11:11 posts, I was reminded of an old TV-show that had rigged up a trap to go off and shoot anyone trying to access a treasure chest. It was such a moment in my childhood that I never forgot, So I was going to write about that..

But then I saw a photo-shoot of returned, healed veterans, missing arms, legs, both, faces from burns.. and for a moment I thought.. no-one in a fantasy world would be coming back like that, they'd either die.. or get miracle cures / limited wish back to full health.. but I asked myself again..

What would happen to veterans in our fantasy worlds

Our lives are affected by events around us, what we see, how other people explain what they see, and the cumulative effect it has upon us.

So When roleplay characters have events around them, their lives will be affected as much.. yet I get the feeling that maybe some GMs forget to add that to their games and worlds.

How Often have you had NPCs in taverns talk about the last great war, how it affected them, what they did, their stories. More interestingly, how did the non-worldly events change things. Magic can be both napalm and airstrikes, tactical strikes and reconnaissance, so would a medieval war be like we think of a medieval war? or would it be more on par with WWI & II, even some of the skirmishes being played out now.

What of Healing? If a cleric or three exist on the battlefield, wouldn't they be the no.1 target for all strikes? Mass heals, miracle cures, Resurrection for the top brass or greatest heroes? Surely the local kings would be half decent warriors, and would go into battle daily, with the knowledge that no matter what, they'll be alive again the next day.

I don't know about many systems, but my Clerics gain XP for healing, based on the wound and how much healing took place. After a week of constant, regular healing, plus surgery, they'd gain a level or maybe two, sure the diminishing returns would take out some of the smaller HP heals, but any mid level Cleric/Priest with a minor in healing, is going to get more than half a dozen levels from just being on call.. 

and if they were running M.A.S.H. I'd have some epic level doctors by the end of the campaign.

What of the wounded? the dying? ok guys, rush them all into this 10x10m room, and I'll mass heal everyone to stop bleeding and close severe wounds.. then the junior clerics can take over and do some extra healing on the severely wounded, and within a few days the entire platoon would be back on their feet, right as rain.

Only the dead would be the limiter, so get those clerics in some arrow resistant armour, out on the battlefield, and heal them before they die, not much, just enough to survive the trip back to hospital.

Wars would go on for much longer. Soldiers would gain enough XP to level up, by the end of a campaign, you'd have an army of 3rd or 4th levels.. that's a scary thought.. maybe that's why they go fighting, for massive XP boosts.

Sieges might be the same, except a few mages that summon up food would counter the main problem, and the sight buff spells would take care of sappers and other tricks from the enemy..

Again Mages, they could do all the fighting, summon up creatures, back him up with a cleric to cover the possible backlash and damage.. (Magic the Gathering?)

begs the Question.. why hire, train and pay an army, if a few mages and clerics would do.

Would War even exist in such a fantasy world? could it still exist? The enemy declares war on your kingdom, so you send over an assassin, kills the opposition king, then maybe a bard, disguised using voice and illusion spells, pretends he's king for a bit, strikes up a treaty, then retires, to allow his 'friend' (you) to rule his lands too.

But the question in the beginning is, if wars are changed, people arn't coming back missing parts, burnt faces, and the greater populace doesn't see this, how will they be affected.. how will they think about wars.. just some crazy game played by kings? go off, have a good fight, don't get killed and you'll be right? return all levelled up? ready to be a hero?

Doesn't feel ok to talk about it in such glib terms, but I think that's the survival mechanism kicking in, so would a medieval person feel the same way about it, not having yearly reminders?

Devils Advocate to RPG-think

An interesting read at the ConTessa blog, about worldbuilding and how 'trope-heavy' RPG worlds are broken:

When Game Mechanics Drive World-Building, part 1.

and

When Game Mechanics Drive World-Building, part 2

Got me thinking about how this is a very simulationist way of thinking (I use the term only because I have yet to find/invent something better), but I wanted to address the many points, and posting heavy text blocks in someone elses blog seems.. excessive.. or even rude.

So I'm going to play:

Devils Advocate to RPG-think

I won't assume you've read the article, instead I'll sum up the points and address them from the narrative perspective. 

1. Magic Shops: The Premise

So, the idea is, that in each and every town is a supposed magic shop full of ingredients and components, spell books and scrolls, potions and the like. The likelyhood of this happening is next to zero, so why does every fantasy RPG do it?

Lets set up some understandings. to be an RPG world, you can't have just one set of heroes. Its not a 'these are the only heroes there are' story, because if it was, the entire premise of anyone having magical potions available for heroes is preposterous. Every single potion, scroll or magical weapon would be unique items, made by unique people, for unique reasons.

Ye Olde Madgick Shop

So then we are left with two possibilities: The world has a fair number of heroes, or the world is filled with heroes.

With a filled with heroes concept, then its obvious that every town or village should have a magic shop. They become the 7-11 of the fantasy world. This in itself should require the simulationist GM to need to label the bottles 'McDonalds Healing Potion" or "Healthy Meal" with 1 potion, 1 ration and 1 charm (one use) resist all.

The 'fair number of heroes' premise, would be something more akin to a car salesman. you're not going to make sales often, but when you do, you pay all your bills for the year.

Personally I like this idea.. little old man, alchemist, retires, has a little shop front, makes salves for the locals, in case they scratch their knee, but need to dance that evening. but once in a while, he breaks out the expensive stuff for the heroes that pass through, the gold they dump on him, buys the next 2-3 sets of ingredients to brew them up again, pay off any debts/tabs built up since the last time, plus some change to buy Christmas gifts for the next 10 years.

For Narrative GMs:

Players are not really taking note of the reasons for the magic shop to exist. There doesn't need to be a magic shop in every single town, it just so happens, there is in every town the players happen to go in.

2. Thieves Guilds: The Premise.

 

Suprisingly (or not) finding images of a Theives Guild was hard
Mostly just in game images. Art by Isriana

Here, the idea is that, since earth has very little proof of guilds of thieves existing, therefore, they didn't exist. This suggests that they were just good at what they're supposed to do. Remain hidden from public. The Mafia always seemed like a thieves guild to me.

Moreover, the concept is that any kind of 'guild for one class' would have far reaching effects upon the world at large, heirachy, dues to the city council, power play, etc.

Now, the effect would be far more prominent if we have a filled heroes world because almost every hero would belong to a guild, and there would be some kind of guild in-fighting.

A fair heroes world, would be more likely to have singular guild halls, with affiliations to other guilds. Asian fighting schools had this, students could travel to a nearby town and talk to the dojo master about his own master, and if they were friends.. he could stay for the night, maybe even train somewhat.

For Narrative GMs

Unless your plot involves or revolves around the interplay between guilds, there is no reason for the players to see any. Ignore this and include them as you will.

3. Temples for each god: The premise

 

City of Churches You'd need a city just to fit one of every church - Art by Chao Yuan Xu

For each Cleric/Paladin/Priest to access their spells, they need to pray to their god in a specific temple? I was not aware of the rule myself, but even if we disclude(yes, the taking out of an included item) the requirement, pretty much most villages have a local temple to the local pantheon.

I'm not really at all sure why this is considered strange. All across Europe I saw temples and churches to multiple religions, if the town was big enough. Cities would have hundreds of them. Not one temple would turn away a person who wanted to pray, regardless of religion.

Now, sure, maybe some gods hate other gods, so praying in a rival gods temple might be considered rude or worse. But surely the gods wouldn't require their followers only worship in a temple. They'd lose half their followers (I was mid adventure, but my god didn't answer me, so we called off the quest)

For Narrative GMs

Again, your players are traveling to places where your god has sway, unless the plot requires that your cleric has limited access in these lands, creating a power sink for the group, to make the next scene more dangerous (and the players have to think more with a low/no powered cleric).

Conclusion

Worldbuilding, can be in many ways, the opposite to Plot building. Maybe instead of Narrartive vs Simulation, it should be called world-built or plot-driven styles of play.

For Narrative/Plot driven play, there is no need to care if your world 'works' or not, the shop keeper is surly because the story works best that way, not because he had a bad argument with his wife the night before, about the lack of flowers for her anniversary.

But for World Builders, these things are critical. You can't have magic shops, thieves and fighters guilds and player specific temples in every town, you need to map out the influences of each of these forces, and how they came about in the world, to ensure that they are robust. 

More to come on this train of thought.   

Humans, meet the Octopodi

Based on the recent set or articles about Octopodes, This article seems to me more realistic amongst the myriad of link-bait "Octopuses are Aliens". I had a thought.. and so I wrote this:

They Came from the Stars

In a time, long forgotten, as records have been destroyed since. The Inhabitants of Earth watched as the creatures came in a vessel. A giant strange vessel. Rock Like, A Smooth outerworld rock, one shaped by the crashing of the waves upon its surface, outwerworld waves upon an outerworld rock. 

space-octopus by skumpf

Shev and Marsh looked upon this strange shape in the sky with wonder, as it descended.

Gathering fish for the future family, they slowed as the shape began to land. They quickly retreated to their homes, watching from the entranceways.

The Ship descended, steam like vents burst forth from the underside, then with a great thud, it landed.

Dust and Steam mixed in the air, settling quickly upon the surface of the outerworld craft, Shev pushed Marsh to go, have a closer look.. dared him to enter this hostile place and see what is what.

Shev moved cautiously, slowly, conscious of the slight pain as he grabbed rocks too tightly,He moved along the path that led up to this, outerworld phenomenon. 

A Crack, a Boom, and a strange shape opened in the craft. It separated from the craft, like a limb. Then the creatures emerged. They did not move like shev, they seemed to glide, but in a strange jalting manner.. but their legs.. Shev was in shock, awe, confusion.. the number of legs.. it was wrong.. all wrong.. how could a creature exist with this many legs, and the way it used them.. and on the ends of the legs.. little.. things? suckers? tongues? It was grotesque.

There were eight of them.

Shev quickly ran back to Marsh and explained what he saw.. Marsh was hiding, her arms wrapped around her head, scared. When he began to explain about the legs, and how there were eight of them, Marsh yelped and spilt ink on the floor. What would happen to them, would these 'things' eat them?

Shev told Marsh to gather their things, they would leave, but first Shev wanted to see what the Aliens would do, to get a better explanation of them for the place they went to, to explain to an elder, what these beings looked like.

Eight.. he kept thinking this strange number, Eight.. 

He crawled again out of the innerworld, poking his head into the outerworld, mindful to take a breath of air. 

His own tribe of two, made sense.. Sometimes there were three or in extreme cases four, but eight.. no-one travelled in packs of eight, 

Yet these creatures, Two Older, and Six younger,  some yellow topped with long strands of golden seaweed, some brown topped with fuzzy coral on their faces. They were constructing a home, an entrance and gaps to see, for eight! In this outerworld.. they were staying.. 

Shev took note, to explain to the elders: They walk upright with two legs, and two legs to grasp tools. It was Alien! 

Shev quickly grabbed at the rocks with his eight arms, and slithered his way through to the innerworld as quickly as possible. Marsh and Shev would leave tonight.

They Packed their things and moved.. far away.