Monday, November 25, 2019

Finding My Way

"I've been gone so long, I've lost count of the years."
With the Gygax '75 Challenge complete, I'm left asking, "What Now?" This isn't my first time writing a blog so I have a few ideas cooking. As I launch into this latest endeavor I'm looking ahead into what I want write and share in this space.

Caress of Steel

First and foremost I'll be expanding upon the ideas captured during the Gygax '75 Challenge. Caress of Steel is the starting area for an old school fantasy campaign. The work done over the five weeks of the challenge created the framework for the campaign, but there is still a lot left to do.

Gary's advice was for crafting the elements needed to get a campaign off the ground. The expectation is that work would continue as the campaign progressed. I presume that Gary would be doing all the work for his setting and dungeon to stay ahead of his players. While that level of detail may have worked 1975 it doesn't work for me today. I need to flesh out some more details before letting players loose in the setting. Only then will the campaign come to life.

While the setting is connected by the threads of the themes and inspirational material, it still feels a little too loosely defined for me. I'd like to tighten it up by revisiting each of the steps for a second pass. For example, many of the names and NPCs detailed in Step 4 were quickly put together to check off the workbook tasks; a second pass will help identify any weak or missing aspects.

In addition to revisiting the work already accomplished I've identified more work yet to be done:
  1. Create player hand-outs
  2. Clean up the Pinterest board
  3. Finish the Equipment list availability and starting inventory
  4. Create random encounter matrix for wilderness and dungeon
  5. Roll random encounter numbers & hit points
  6. Roll for treasure values and magic items
Adhering to the Dungeon World principle of "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks", I will work to keep a light touch on filling in background for the setting. Room is needed for the players to contribute and for their characters to grow and evolve.

The Big Wheel

Another topic I want to explore here is the work of Joseph Campbell, specifically the cycle of the Hero's Journey. This cycle of stages have become the lingua franca of storytelling. I feel there is a lot of material to mine here for the RPG hobby.

No doubt other topics will pop up as inspired by play. For now, that's plenty to get started.

Illustration Credits

Wikimedia Commons - An illustrated dictionary of words used in art and archaeology (1883) by unknown artist

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Delving Deeper Setting: Step 5 - The World

"The world is the world is"
This is the final of five parts in The Gygax '75 Challenge in which I create a Delving Deeper campaign setting using the process set forth by Dungeon & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax. Gary first presented this process in the April 1975 issue of Europa fanzine.

The final week of this challenge is here! It feels like it's been a long time coming, but how sweet it is to finally be here. Let's wrap this up.

All the World's a Stage

When it comes to Step 5 - detailing the rest of the game world - Gary advises it is "something that you won't immediately have to worry about; but it is a good idea to have a general plan in mind immediately." With that in mind and Ray Otus' excellent workbook in hand, I set out to paint in the broad strokes of the world of Caress of Steel.

First I explore what lands may be found beyond the starting area. Going back to my inspirational material, I expand beyond the two core albums by Rush I chose for this exercise - Fly by Night & Caress of Steel - and explore the rest of the band's discography. It makes sense to me to work chronologically through the albums and map the 'lands' from nearest to furthest beyond the starting area.

2112 - this 1976 breakthrough album has one side devoted to the tale of world (and star system) under the rule of a totalitarian caste of priests who control all aspects of life because they know what's best for the citizens of the Solar Federation.

Hemispheres - from 1978, another album-side epic; this time we are treated to a world where the gods Apollo and Dionysus are at war over the fate of humans.

Clockwork Angels - from 2012, the band's final studio album deals with a steampunk world in which the Watchmaker works to keep the lands working with clockwork precision.

While each of these albums treat their stories as happening in different worlds - in fact, Clockwork Angels confirms that its story takes place in "this one of many possible worlds" - I like the idea of these settings all being in the same world. They can be separated by great distances or seemingly impassible barriers. This allows for some bleed between the lands. For example, near the edge of the realms of Caress of Steel, characters may encounters some Priests of Syrinx on a pilgrimage. This also allows players other options when creating their characters.

While these three albums are by far the most iconic at describing lands suitable for this world, there are other songs that can describe aspects of the world at large. Throughout their intervening albums there are numerous songs with references to locations: the Range of Light, the Wounded City, the Western Shore, the White Sands, the Canyonlands, and the Barren Lands, to name a few.

Different Stages

In addition to the many lands to which the characters may travel are the strange planes they may find themselves in. Travel here may be the result of a quest, a curse, or some combination of the two. 

Hades - the dark realm of the netherworld which Prince By-Tor, Centurion of Evil, calls home.

Olympus - the City of Immortals where Apollo and Dionysus scheme and plan.

Nocturne - the realm of dreams and its dangerous, monster-filled city, La Villa Strangiato.

Xanadu - the timeless land of the Pleasure Dome.

Ceiling Unlimited

While Gary tells us the five steps we've completed will "probably taking a week or so", Ray and I have spend five weeks completing these tasks. Having made it through this exercise,  I feel I've learned and grown as a result. The biggest take-away for me is that Gary's 5 steps to building a campaign works as intended. I also owe a big thanks to Ray Otus for traveling this road with me; I don't think I could have done it alone. Having a sounding board and someone to hold me accountable certainly is a key to my success.

Another thing I learned is that using the albums and songs of Rush hold a wealth of material for inspiring an old school fantasy RPG world. I was concerned at the start of this exercise that there would only be a few key elements to draw from while developing this campaign. What I found was that with 20 studio albums, virtually every album had songs from which material would make its way into the world.

With the exercise done, this begs the question, what's next?

Links

Ray Otus' The Viridian Scroll

The Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 5

Ray Otus' Plundergrounds Podcast

Gygax 1975 Challenge Week 5

Illustration Credits

Wikimedia Commons - The World, a major arcana card in Visconti Sforza tarot deck by artist Bonifacio Bembo

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Delving Deeper Setting: Step 4 - The Home Base

The Town of Willow Dale
This is the forth of five parts in The Gygax '75 Challenge in which I create a Delving Deeper campaign setting using the process set forth by Dungeon & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax. Gary first presented this process in the April 1975 issue of Europa fanzine.

With the first three levels of the dungeon outlined, it's time to turn my attention to the starting town for this campaign. This will probably be the locale the characters will come to rest and recuperate between dungeon delves; a place to hang their cloak and spend some of that coin they fought so hard to gain.

There's No Place Like Home Base

Gary starts us off with a note on when to do this step and what players will most likely do in town.
"Step 4 should be handled concurrently with designing the first three or four dungeon levels. Here your players will find lodgings, buy equipment, hire mercenaries, seek magical and clerical aid, drink, gamble and wench."
He goes on to say that there are many towns in fantasy literature that can be used as examples to build upon:
"The town would do well to resemble some of those in Howard's "Conan" series or Leiber's city of “Lankhmar”."
The above statement is telling of what source material Gary considered core to the flavor of D&D.

Finally he goes into a laundry list of things the town could include or events that could transpire there, but, in my opinion, his best bit of advice is the final sentence in this section:
"In any event be sure and leave room for additional things and expansion."
For those to familiar with Dungeon World, this should sound familiar: "Draw Maps, leave blanks". This is the number one principle for GMs in DW. For me, it is also one of the toughest ones to adhere to.

As a self-proclaimed creative individual, I like to let my imagination run unfettered and fill in as many of the blanks as possible. Partly because I strive for a certain richness in the tapestry of the world. I'm more than a little enamored with world building thanks to reading such excellent treatises on the subject as The Lord of the Rings and the Dragonlance Chronicles.

Play experience, especially playing Dungeon World, has shown me that there is great value in filling in elements at the table. First and foremost, the practice fosters a sense of collaboration and shared ownership over the setting. This buy-in helps invest players in their character and the world in which they adventure. A close second is that this practice helps to reduce GM prep time.

With Ray Otus' handy workbook to help guide me through this step, I set to work laying out the town of Willow Dale. Let's see what I came up with.

The Town of Willow Dale

"As grey traces of dawn tinge the eastern sky, the three travelers, men of Willow Dale, emerge from the forest shadow. Fording the River Dawn, they turn south, journeying into the dark and forbidding lands of the Necromancer."
The above lyrics, from the Rush song The Necromancer on their album Caress of Steel, formed the starting point for the town of Willow Dale. They were also helpful back in Step 1 when I was sketching in the landscape of the lands around the Necromancer's ruined tower.

I started with a randomly generated city (map at the top of this post). Willow Dale is a medium sized town. The generator gave me some evocative names of the various districts which made it easy to start placing businesses and locales the characters might frequent. Beginning with the equipment lists I began assigning names to the different proprietors of all the goods adventurers need.

Next I outlined three factions that are active in the town: the Trades Guild, the governor and his council, and a clandestine group working toward a secret agenda. From these and the shops I was able to start with a rich list of NPCs with whom the characters engage and interact. The finishing touch was a list of rumors that will hopefully lead the characters to the adventures they seek.

A couple of the town details came out of my early daydreaming about Willow Dale back in Step 1. When thinking about about the name of the town, I wondered as to it's origin. Looking at some of it's uses, I decided on the following points:

  • Willows are prominent in the area around the town
  • The willows are used in the production of furniture and baskets
  • The leaves are used by apothecaries of a variety of medicines
  • Bees drawn to the willows are farmed for their honey
  • Mead is produced as a by product of the honey
  • Being situated on a river-fed lake, the town is a center of trade for the trappers and furriers of the north

Room to Grow

Looking back I have a lot of details about the town. I wondered if I went too far with the number of locales and NPCs. My goal was to cover the characters' needs, but without having a gaming group to plan for I end up trying to anticipate every eventuality.

This week's exercise was a lot of work due to the number of details that were needed. I am left wondering the value of this effort. The town certainly adds a lot of flavor and underscores the themes set out in Step 1. Likewise, it was fun to name people and places based on elements from the two inspirational albums. But what value is there in doing this?

I'm a little hesitant to put too much time into a home base after my last campaign. In that effort, I worked to bring to life the various NPCs of a well known frontier lands' Keep only to have the characters spend all their time in the dungeon.

Based on the outline in Ray's workbook, I can call this section done and move on to the final step: fleshing out the rest of the world.

Links

Ray Otus' The Viridian Scroll

The Gygax 75 Challenge: Week 4

Ray Otus' Plundergrounds Podcast

Gygax 1975 Challenge Week 4

Illustration Credits

Willow Dale Map created using the Medieval Fantasy City Generator by watabou

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Score!! Playtesters Needed

Being a game designer is hard. I've always been fascinated by games; all kinds of games - especially tabletop role-playing (roleplaying?...