Dark Moscow

Unsure if I wrote about it elsewhere, I want to document it before I forget, my epic.

The Streets and Lives of Dark Moscow.

The City, Built of Wood, sometimes with basements of stone, to house the furnaces, or shore up the property against fires, or in rarer cases, whole buildings of stone and a crude form of cement, was a great place of commerce and trade, but also poetry and crime.

Sometimes both.

1812, Smirnovs 'Moscow Fires' a great setting for Roleplay

Players were the street kids of the city, born and raised in the backalleys to illegitimate women or worse, they were raised to fend for themselves, and their gang.

Over the first session, players are instructed as to their gang, they participate in the naming of their gang and their rivals. They form an understanding of their world, through its creation. Once its established, then, they are unleashed unto the world.

The Concept was getting players used to playing Rogues, either as primary or secondary classes. They sneak through the streets, half at night, they run across rooftops, they shimmy down gutters or climb into wells, sometimes, slithering up latrines at gain access to the buildings, so their brethern can steal in, and clean out the silverware.

Players soon learn, that, its all well and good to playing theives, but then there are things like dues to the guilds, other gangs, rivals, rogue rogues, all on top of living in a city that just doesn't quit, suburbian nightmares, all manner of people just trying to get by.

Then, there is the politics. gangs and rival gangs, follow the rule of the king and queen of the theives. Rivals unto each other.

Do players try to gather enough wealth to get out? or enough clout to hold their own? or push forward into other ganglands to claim a large chunk of pie? or worse/better attempt the long gamg and try to take down the king.. or the queen? Or some weirder wilder game of cat and mouse with the militia?

Some say, the longest game of all, is to rise above it all and become a politician, the highest rank of theif there ever was.!

Then, throw in a handful of mages, a bucketload of priests and thier whole gang/rivalry system, the flow of heroes coming and going from the city, soldiers pushing on to the war. Its all happening in Moscow.. and underneath too.

The City-underneath (expansion)

At one point, some mage discovered the city was built on some of the most powerful leylines of travel magic, and they harnessed the magics to create a passageway for the nobles, well it didn't take long for the nobles to realise they could profit from the transport of goods and people, and the whole thing became a freeforall, Now the 'City-Underneath' is used by the common folk

Now, your intrepid gangs have to deal with, not only the gangs in the standard four directions, but also with gangs that can rise up from underneath. BUT, that also means, with a little reconnaissance, the players can find smaller weaker gangs, and take their territory faster, or, just as easily, sneak into a territory, shake down a merchants house, and be gone before the nobbies or the bullies have even blinked, worse for them, any number of hundreds of gangs could have been responsible.

This also means, low hanging fruit in your own territory could be raided before you know it, worse, big hauls, which might have taken weeks to plan for, get pulled out from under your players feet..

On the other hand, there is a greater number of ways of making a legitimate path work, in a number of emerging busineses, logistics, courier work.

And, as a last resort, players wanting 'out' might accidentally be standing at a travel portal, on the wrong day of the month, in the wrong season, when a layline passes over, and get teleported to a whole different continent, or worse.. whole different world.

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. 

 

Game Design: Roll to Move

I was watching some game design videos and how they complained about 'roll to move' and I just felt like, hang on, where they dissing it because they don't understand it? or just because everyone says that its bad?

Why and When Roll to Move is the correct way to go.

If we look at the mechanics of a roll to move, for example, we'll use a single d6. if both players tokens are standing at the beginning of a 6 spot track. then yes, roll to move is a poor mechanic. The likelyhood of one player rolling a 5 and the other a 1, means that neither player had any influence over the event and so its not fun. 

Sure, Odds are, the 2nd roll might be the opposite, and they both win. And yes, you can extrapolate out, if most people are playing a somewhat fair game, then over the course of 10 rolls, with a roll average of 3.5, the two players, on average will get to the finish line around the same time.

Here we have red, rolling poorly, and blue rolling well. Blue has a lead of 5 squares

Three turns Later, and Blue is even further ahead by 9 squares, so blue feels like he's winning.

Yes, If the Law of Averages comes in.. 

While Contrived, Blue and Red have 12 turns each, and arrive at the end, in the same round.

In such a game, going first, has higher odds of winning, because he's cross the line first.

Yet, there is no point to this.. regardless if you roll once or a hundred times.. you're not making any choices. So there is no game here, its just an exercise in dice and math, which is why its for kids.. to teach them dice and math, and that's all.

NEXT.. If we look at the squares themselves as opportunities.

In many games, a roll of a dice, gives you a table of opportunities, Lets say 1 to 6. You roll, consult the table, then I roll and consult the table. The table, and its choices are the game.

Roll	Results
1	Take a Coin
2	Take a Shoe
3	Take a Bag
4	Take a stone
5	Give an Item to another player
5	Swap an Item with another player

Now this game is just about collecting objects, You take turns for a set number of turns, say 12, and you want to get a complete set of all 4 items, which earns you a point.

But it can be a little boring to just roll a d6, and look at a chart.. if instead the chart was on the table, like a board.. we can see it..

Hence why many roll and move games have the 'chart' as the next 6 steps you can land on:

Now we see that while red landed on a 2, and took a shoe, blue landed on a 6, and would need to swap an item (to ensure this works, we need rules about what happens if you can't give/swap)

In Blues Next roll, 1->6 will still equate directly to the chart, but for Red, the order has been mixed up, where a roll of a 1 will give them a score of 3. because there is no modification to the dice rolled, the odds are still the same. (see more below)

Now, we have 12 rolls, resulting on 12 checks on the chart, and the roll->move structure is actually just a timer for how long the game lasts for.

In essence, provided there is enough rounds.. 12 or more, statistically, most players are going to have a fairly even chance of getting each roll once, and as long as you design in the rule to allow some exchange with a player who didn't roll often enough, or rolled too much of, it balances out.

This actually is pretty much exactly how Catan works. just the 'movement' track is in your head, for how many plausible turns until you hit the end of the game.

Roll modifiers.

IF you could modify the roll made.. then we unlock a whole gamut of possibly interesting choices. Since the roll of a 1 in that second turn, equates to a 3 for red, if red had a +1 token that could be used. Red can choose either a bag or a stone as their 'gain' allowing them more strategic choices.

Conclusion

So, when we look at older games, and think, Oh, Roll and move, how wrong. We fail to realise some of the very complex decisions that are likely to have been made to ensure that the 'track' has equidistant effects and choices for players, to ensure a balanced end game.

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..         

Burning Through the Luck.. Why it will always fail long term

A Strange New issue occurred when We started playing Blood Rain & Cataclyzm. At first I was worried that I'd forgotten a rule and broke things..

Luck, Burning stats, and Health.

If you're unaware, players can choose to 'burn' a stat in DD12, to gain an instant advantage, The most common of which are Reflexes, Strength and of course Luck.

Reflexes
With an instant burst of speed, a character increases their Combat Initiative by their reflexes, besides the reflexes going down 1 point (after the bonus is applied) the player gains exhaustion equal to their new reflexes score. Typically players use this to get in an extra final hit, or perform an extra action, just in time before something happens beyond normal control.

Strength
With an instant burst of strength, a character increases their Damage by their strength score, or a bonus +3 to a strength roll, besides the strength going down 1 point (after the bonus is applied) the player gains exhaustion equal to their new strength score. Typically players use this to get in extra damage for a killing blow, or perform an feat of extraordinary strength.

Note, the similarities in description. Both are physical stats, and as such, gain physical exhaustion, Mental stats gain mental Exhaustion, but are the same, either a +3 to the same stat, or plus its score to a value related.. they are listed in the rulebook.

But Luck, is a stranger one. Coming from Dragon Warriors, and Warhammers Fate, The idea was to allow players the chance to avoid that blow, that telling deadly blow, or vice versa, to push for a hit. In any case, luck allows a player the ability to modify a die roll, 1 single die, to be rolled differently. If the player NEEDS this next roll to pass, they can spend a luck to change the results of the die, after it has rolled. If, they just wish the whole roll to change (i.e. attack roll + extra dice) they can 'roll' their luck, and if they pass, spend 1 luck, and if failed, spend 2 luck, to negate the entire roll against them.

Because players spend these more often, sometimes 2-3 in a given combat, having some kind of exhaustion, really slows down the game.. the STR or REF ones above are so rare, players will understand the cost, but with luck, we have to think a different way.

This was more obvious in Cataclyzm, and Blood Rain, where players would spent 5-10 luck in their first session, just to survive.. players literally were running out of luck.

And Luck isn't fixed to your own rolls, anyone can luck any roll.

But, Younger, Wiser, well rested me, was smart enough to put in an interesting rule about luck. Its relevant to your ability to take wounds, and your healing.

When a Character has taken damage, A lot of people consider their Health Max to be the value to check against. If Damage > Health, do I die.. well, yes but no..

First, we check if the individual blow is greater than your health + pain threshold bonuses, if not.. you shrug it off, if it IS, then we check your luck, If you pass, lucky you.. proceed, else, suffer consequences (see below)

BUT if the individual blow is above your Luck score.. you're out of luck.. no roll (except now, you'll probably spend a luck, to change the damage die roll to its minimum)

Next, lets see if your total damage so far, is above your ability to cope,

The quick rule is, if Total Damage > Luck + Health + Constitution, then you're going to make a luck check to see if you might die or not. For most people, this will be in the range of 30-50.

Furthermore, Your luck score ties directly to your healing rate, luck is added to the healing rate WHEN its calculated, (not before) so a person travelling with a healing rate of 27% and a luck of 16, gets a 43% chance to heal per day, When rested, they double this to 86%, when under care of a physician, they add their luck again to 102%, Even with a 10 point wound (-81%) they'd have a 1% chance to heal, but a player having reduced luck to 10, this would be -16%, unless their friends can come up with some cash to the local temple, this character is done for.

Given Base healing, Rested Healing and Physicians Luck, maintaining your luck above 10 is worth 30% but, in the moment, burning your luck, and avoiding the damage in the first place.. well, damned if you do, damned if you don't?

Impulse and Dignity

An Interesting Discussion on this concept here:

http://geekxgirls.com/article.php?ID=12617

A lot of pushback by people, as it takes away player agency, along the lines of Alignment, yet it did raise some interesting thoughts..

Is this a stat?

Impulse and Dignity Stats

Alignment in games, sets a set of 'actions' which are requirements, and limitations for players. Most players ignore the stat, they want to do whats right for the moment, regardless of what their "character" would do, and for a lot of gung-ho gonzo new players, this is perfectly fine. Finding your 'role-play feet' takes time, and some people never get them, their characters are always a chaotic mishmash of tropes, funny things to entertain(and annoy) the table rather than a coherent set of actions by a real person in a real world.

The Idea of Alignment may have been one way to 'control' this by GMs and games designers, you can't go killing that peasant, your god won't like it.

A lot of people rile against this form of control, they don't understand that they are ruining the world, the game, the fun of others at the table, as that peasant was crucial to the plot. Games-master don't like to upset players, because a lot of work an effort has gone into creating the campaign, as much for these specific set of players, so the small actions of one player can mostly be worked around.

Impulse, on the other hand, seems instead to be a gung-ho, zany, gonzo GM, trying to get players who are paying their characters more stoicly, to break out of their shell and do zany things.

(Maybe this Zany GM, has had alot of the gonzo players, and thinks this is the norm?)

Dignity, is more or less a way for the players to be able to resist this, provided they stick to their dignity score themselves.. which is what raises the point.

The player, setting a value, that says to the GM, here, this is a self defined value, I will agree to stick to this value in role-play, and the reward for this, is... you can't make me go outside that boundary.

Mind control in games is... tentative. You railroad a player to do something, because a spell says they have to, as often as not its a pass/fail situation. Players don't usually have much control over this, yet in the movies and books, we see a character who goes along with the spell, until such time the spell crosses a line and the character resists.. where is that line..

Here.. this stat, is that line.

The Player can be Dignified, Regal, and very un-impulsive, so if they are 'taken over' by a mind control spell, anything a few points below their Dignity score, the character can make further resistance checks, and possibly even break free of the spell.. giving players more agency in the region of mind control spells, they take careful note of what is being asked of them, and if at any time it seems to go outside the boundaries, they can call it, and make a subsequent roll to escape the spell.

Moreso, with Alignment, if a player has aligned as a good character, they are unlikely to steal if mind controlled, even less likely to attack a friends and would likely break free if commanded to kill. The player is free to play his/her character as they wish, their alignment score moves to match this, but the lower it goes, the more choices the GM has when mind control is in play.

Its already there with Clerics, Gods and their rules.. but with this addition, its now there for all classes.   

Current Projects

Hey, now that I have 3 readers instead of 50, I can probably cope with more intricate topics that previously would get people riled up and posting negative comments right? Lolz

Heres what I'm working On:

1. Top of the List, The Map 100 Project that I kick started, rasied 1020% of my goal of $250, to sit down and draw a map for 6 weekends.. well 1000% of 6 weekends is 60 weekends.. and I'm around 30 into it. Gotten into a good groove, 6 tiles a weekend, around 160 more to go.. so.. yeah.. 30 more weekends should do it.. lolz..
2. Kingdom Death Monster - Playthroughs. Running some events for people, trying to get some gig work doing that. slowly, but surely.
3. Cataclyzm, Related, I have a map for this too, will flesh it out for the book. Equipment Lists, Construction & Gear Manufacture rules, What Character Archtypes are used for the booklet, and testing it as I go of course.
4. Base Rules.. Is that Back to Front? Catacylzm before basic rules? well maybe.. but I'm sorta doing them in tandem. Wondering if I'll do them both as one KS later or two.
5. Combo Dungeon Crawler Rules. This is a Biig project that I really wanna do, partly as a way of making my name bigger before releasing the RPG rules.. everyone does RPG rules, so maybe instead I do these Combo Rules.
The Combo Rules are: A way for people who have backed 2 or more Dungeon Crawler Rules, to bring Minis from one, to the Other. Its not Hard, its just number crunching, but at the end of the day, who better to do it than someone who loves to crunch numbers, play Dungeon Crawls, Run KS projects and be a big data nerd about it.
6. Painting Minis.. comes in last place.. but maybe if I reorganise my life better?

p.s. more realistically in place 0, kids and wife. Has to be said, she doesn't read this blog, but still.   

You should write a book!

I have, it seems, an interesting life.

When someone takes 5 minutes interest, I invariably those words:

You should write a book!

Well, Maybe I should.. but maybe I'll start small with a single blog.. and if I get enough interest, I'll take it further, maybe a blog diary, then maybe a book.

Who I was before:

I was born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s and 90s, but, because Australia was behind American in consumer commercialism, I tend to relate to Americans born in the early 70s, rather than the late 70s.

I listened to The Beetles, Wings and a little of the Eagles and ELO growing up. I was aware of the other music, yet, other than a single song by U2, I can't remember the rest.

I got my first proper interest at 12, with a choose your own Adventure Book. Appointment with F.E.A.R. I think it was. Then later I got Heroquest, Dragon Warriors the board game and one of those 50 in 1 electronic kits.

I got a job looking after kids in After school care, but career wise, I had no interests. I didn't even get the job myself, At a Teachers Social gathering at my house, my mum talking to the woman in charge, understood she was looking for staff replacement of a junior, she talked to me and I politely talked to this 'adult' at this 'party' not knowing it was an interview.

I started a club, invited all the kids I was looking after, from after school party, to a weekend club to play games, entry fee $2.. $6.50 in today's currency. lasted 2 years, til some kids stole a lot of my inventory and I went out of business. Lessons Learned, even kids can be thieves.

A few years of unemployment, I started work as a bartender apprentice in a country pub, that doubled as a bikers pub on Sundays. that was an experience. I could probably write a chapter about that, what people do when they are drunk, in the country, what people tell bartenders.. wow.. half of those people were in their 50s then.. so they're in their 80s now.. if at all.

On to Nightclubs in town, dancing on bars, throwing bottles in the air trying to juggle them, being a bouncer, a stage dancer in "Heaven" nightclub, even a stripper for a small time.

Come my mid twenties, time to "grow up" I worked in finance, restructuring home and business loans, as new bank systems were being put into place, and some deregulation allowed small vendors to sell their own banking products, bought my own house.

Then a turn for the worse, parents divorced, since they were my guarantors for my house, that went belly up, and I was out. $10k in my hand, since my best friend had left for a wild adventure in The Islands, I too decided to go.. the Internet was new, so I went to visit all my new friends internationally. I drew a map, and left Australia just after the Y2K scares all calmed down and plane prices were low enough again.

Country after country, Hong Kong living in apartments smaller than my bedroom back in Oz, Philippines, travelling around and almost, without knowing it, getting married. China, being dragged around as a 'show and tell' toy for some executives, and the black-market-nightlife, without alcohol!

The Trans Siberian Railway.. 9 days on a train.. Moscow.. for 2 weeks, being lost, confused and falling in love, then forced to retreat, again 9 days on the train back to China.

Getting a job OS, as an English teacher, trying to maintain a long distance relationship, with cultural barriers, getting new visas, getting a 2nd job, bar-tending, renting an servants quarters in old France city mansions region of Shanghai.. wow.. losing my keys, and having to climb the fence and getting arrested, but talking my way out of it.

Back on the train, Back to Moscow, being a teacher, and not knowing what to do..

Travelling to South Russia, and starting a school, then my boss is fired, then my new boss is fired, then my new boss fires me, then the students revolt, the school rehires me to finish the term, and I lose my visa, and have to flee the country. Actually that was a lot, more than a chapter there, should have included the meeting of my clone, the boat in the lake, which was a restaurant/strip club for families, getting robbed? meeting strangers on the street. learning Russian phrases so i can buy milk.

Back to Moscow, Fall in Love, Lose her contact details, flight details lost, need new flight, emergency, panic, borrow money, on the plane back to Australia. 11 months I worked to pay back my borrowed money, started University, getting back into the swing of Australia.. no.. can't do it. get involved in a scam, manage to wheedle my way out of it, use the money to go to Russia.

Start working for a Business School, as an English teacher, early morning, late nights, visit old friends in the south, can't find clone, back to Moscow, 'lend' money to a guy, who runs off, get ripped off, get robbed, get beaten up, sleep on bench in snow, drugged by prostitutes and robbed, renting rooms from people who want to practice English, Fighting Russians who just won't stay down. getting a side gig as a stand up comedian, teaching English to people in positions of power, high level singers, actresses, going on TV shows, witnessing all manner of debauchery from people I would never have guessed. falling in love, witnessing the recreation of a nightmare I had as a child and start wondering if there is any truth in clairvoyancy.

Travelling Europe to visit castles, Staying in Backpacking hostels and Couchsurfing, Meeting people from around the world, Starting world wide Roleplay games with interactions.. Being a Professional gamesmaster, highly paid, still now in 2000, I'm still in the top 10, and I haven't been paid as GM in 8 years.

Getting Married, Meeting the President, Being warned to leave the country, returning to Australia, Having Kids while Studying in Uni, getting a job in IT.. all is quiet.. is it over?.. or was that the eye of the storm.....

WaterMelon

If Water Melon is Green, surely the other melons shouldn't be classic Elemental Colours too.. Blue + Yellow = Green, and Blue is Classic, While Yellow is 1 primary shift to the left.

If Fire is Red, then Firemelon should be purple or Orange.

Brown, is a mix of all three, so EarthMelon should probably be Grey instead. (But then, would SteelMelon be Brown or something else?)

And Air was classically Yellow, So If FireMelon was Purple, AirMelon would be Orange, and vice versa (maybe purple suits air better?)

What about the insides? Red (fire) inside its opposite (water)Melon...

So, Firemelon should be blue, Airmelon should be brown, and Earthmelon should be Pale/Pastel.

Seems Legit.. (Is FireMelon Spicy? does Airmelon give you gas? and would Earthmelon be forgable into weapons?)

This, is the way my brain works when I see images like this..

Karma and you in DD12/Dungeonworld

I've seen this question thrown around in forums & social media:

Is a DM who bans a playable race because they do not exist in their home brew world in the wrong?

The general answer is No, of course not, yet goes against the whole movement that the GM should always say Yes. Yet that in turn breaks half of the point of role-playing, trying out a new role.

The Issue:

In general we're all there to have fun, and role-play is very open to a variety of fun, so when anything seems to shut down that fun, there is a push-back.

If we played a board game about vikings, lets say blood rage, and someone wanted to use space marines on the board, the rest of the table might allow the miniatures to be replaced, but they're not going to agree to any rule changes. Board games have rules to establish a fair even start. 

If we played a role-play game about vikings, and someone wanted to bring in a space marine, the rest of the table is going to shut that down straight away, its established that the game is about vikings, medieval historical vikings, because the rule changes to include a space marine would break the game for everyone.

Yet, If we role-played a game about vikings, medieval, historical, vikings and someone wanted to play a dark elf (the viking equivalent), now we're in a grey zone, If the GM wants to introduce any possible fantastical elements later, then world-build wise, there must be an opportunity to allow dark elves. So the GM is stuck, allow something possible, and ruin the surprise later that fantastical elements do exist, or disallow it, and have a belligerent player later.

My Answer: A Rule System

Players can complain that the GM is making life hard, but they general don't complain that the rules are hard on them, and the GM can ease back on a rule to be the good guy. So I created a Karma system to help GMs in character creation.

The Idea is that all things are equal, so players have a common starting point. Players who drop a character, so they can play something else, are not upsetting the campaign and group by doing so, GMs who need to restrict the races or classes can allow players to still choose outside the set standards, but for balance issues, they'll cost some karma.

Also, GMs can start players at higher levels, without just giving them a set level, which is also a whole set of unrealism.

The Karma System

So, Firstly, a GM who has new players can set Karma at 0, all players make up raw, plain, heroic average characters, so they get the feel for the game. Once they finish the first storyline and retire their characters, they earn karma based on the rank they achieved and the number of sessions they took to get there.

The next campaign they play, they have Karma to use for character creation, This will typically give them either a higher leveled character of raw plain, heroic average stats, or they can forgo the starting levels, so they can choose something from the lists that GMs provide.

The GM decides before hand, (or uses some of the pre-made lists) that certain races are rarer to play. Elves are rare as are sprites and fairies, and while you can play as a goblin, you'd need to be accepted in your community, else you'll be run out of town. Players can look over the world-build lists and choose, Do I want to give up 10 karma to play an elf, or 5 karma to gain 'acceptance of race' in the local town.

The Traits and Flaws list, are built with Karma, typically players can only 'buy' 2 traits and or flaws per 5 ranks, or even with extra karma, can buy more traits and flaws and break these rules too.

The idea is to say "Yes, but at a price"

Now, The GM running a historical medieval viking setting can begrudgingly allow the player their dark elf, and "write them into the plot", but the group might all start at level 8, while the dark elf, starts at level 2, to allow for balance in the world.

More unbalanced balance

Its unlikely that any given group of people are all equally experienced, Even people of the same age, and interests, have differing levels of knowledge, usage of skills and talents. Yet In role-play games, there is this strange need for everyone to be the same level.

But, if you give your group differing levels, people will be unhappy that they are 'disadvantaged'

Karma allows a balance, where the group may have different levels, but they have other traits and flaws that balance out those differences. Players are more aware that they are similar, yet different than just a block of stats of equal value.

Then when one player gains a tad more XP than you, because they played the more pivotal role in the adventure last week, your character isn't worse off, you know you have some traits that work well for your character giving you the edge.