Wasting My Time

The other part of yesterday's rant concerns another thing that is frequently said about RPG products: that they're just a bunch of tools for the GM to make of what he wishes.

Well, that's just crap.

Here's the thing: I have the ability to create my own adventures, or settings, or even rules if need be. That is, I have the ability to do all these things. What I am lacking in is time.

That being the case, I don't want products that I can take and fold, spindle, mutilate, and otherwise turn into something great. That's just taking all the fun bits of running a game and outsourcing them to someone else. What I want to outsource is all of the work, so that I get those fun bits.

What I expect from an RPG product is that it works for its stated purpose out of the box. If it can then be stripped for parts and used elsewhere then that's a bonus, I suppose, but it's secondary to the main thing. But whatever you state as the purpose of your product is what I expect it to do. (And for that reason I was extremely negative about "Storm King's Thunder" - that was actually a pretty good setting guide, wrapped up in a pretty dire adventure.)

Likewise, if I'm looking for short adventures, pointing me towards one of the storyline books saying that they can be pulled apart chapter by chapter is not helpful. Yes, I know it's possible to do that thing, but that's work I don't want to have to do. (Not to mention that those chapters, taken individually, often make for pretty poor adventures. For the same reason that you wouldn't tend to just read a random chapter from somewhere in the middle of a novel - losing the context of everything that has gone before, and everything that happens thereafter means you miss out on a huge amount.)

So, what I'm saying is this:

If you publish a game with significant rules problems out of the gate, for which the solution is "well, you can house-rule it", you are wasting my time and I'm not interested.

If you publish a rules supplement that I can't just drop into my game as-is and have it work, you're wasting my time and I'm not interested.

If you publish an adventure with significant story problems, or one with serious balance issues, or other problems that you expect me to fix, you are wasting my time, and I'm not interested.

Also, if all you're offering is D&D/Star Wars/Warhammer/whatever with some small fix to some small issue, you're still wasting my time, and I'm not interested. I'm in the market for something new... but it really does need to be something new.

And I'm not buying any new editions of any games I own... at least for a very long time, possibly ever.

And I think that's enough ranting for the time being!

"This is a Cheap Hobby"

Yesterday was the point where I came to unpack and sort all my RPG materials for shelving. And it was the point where I was, once again, reminded of one of the pernicious lies that is told about the RPG hobby: that it is a cheap one.

Now the thing is that RPGs can be a cheap hobby - provided you buy the core rulebooks for games you actually play regularly, and nothing else.

But the moment you move beyond that your price-per-use drops way off. Core rulebooks (for games you actually play) are used very extensively, and thus justify just about any price point. But supplements, settings, adventures? No, no, and no.

Worse than that, it would be nice to think that making the additional investment in any of these things would result in a better at-table experience. But for the most part this simply isn't true: rules supplements tend to complicate what should be a pretty simple game, often with very little pay-off. Added character guides provide more character-building options... but the ones that will see use at the table are the ones most likely to break your game.

Which leaves settings and adventures, which should be safer ground. But good luck finding the good ones - buying sight-unseen gives you very little chance of hitting on anything worthwhile, while good RPG reviews are nigh-on impossible to find, especially now that the edition wars have turned review sites into a terminal battleground between fanbois and h8rs.

(For their part, publishers of course advertise their latest wares as "must have" items. Of course they do! But for the most part, a fairer labelling would be "avoid!")

And so I once again found myself unpacking hundreds of books, many of which have never seen at-table usage, most of which will never again see any at-table usage, and I found myself marvelling at the waste of it all. I've spent many thousands of pounds on books over the years, including more than £1,000 on Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes alone (and many people have spent way more than I have), and most of what I have to show for it is back-breaking piles of paper of no residual value.

But, hey, it's a cheap hobby, yeah?

Coming Out of Storage

We're getting towards the end of the unpacking, which means we're also getting towards the point where my RPG books will be coming out of their boxes and going back onto their shelves. In amongst everything, I've taken the opportunity to repurpose our DVD shelves for RPG books (we'll get new DVD shelves soon), which means I'm not just back up to two sets of shelves, but actually up to three for the first time! (Hopefully, this will mean they're less overloaded, and therefore last longer.)

My plan for the organisation is slightly different from previously: I intend to split them into 28 piles - one for each letter of the alphabet, a catch-all for things that otherwise don't fit, and a special pile for those games I'm particularly likely to use soon (notably D&D 3e and 5e, Firefly, and the W.O.I.N. pair). My plan, then, is for the first 27 of these piles to be fitted onto two of the sets of shelves, with the 'current' games and also our boardgames going onto the third set.

Of course, the other great advantage of this change is that I can get back to some gaming! Maybe. Hopefully. For a while...

Stone Circles - a thought on cultural appropriation in D&D

I was thinking about stone circles the other day, as you do. And, in particular, I was thinking about finding a role for them in Terafa. And while thinking on this, my thoughts proceeded to stay in an entirely different direction, as they are sometimes wont to do.

Initially, I was considering whether a stone circle could just perform much the same role as they did in the real world - essentially as a very ornate clock. But that seemed rather bland - what about casting them instead as a count down to some event. That struck me as being better. But...

Then it occurred to me that actually the stone circles in the real world were never just a clock. They also served as a centre for religious worship, as a focal point for communities, as a market place... oh, and there's at least some evidence of their being used for ritual slaughter (or, perhaps, just a great big barbeque).

Of course, it's also worth considering that many of these uses were not the ones the original builders intended - the site would have been taken by others, who modified it for their own use and claimed it as their own (that is, cultural appropriation).

All of which got me to thinking that perhaps a stone circle should be a fairly detailed adventure site, with no fewer than four layers of uses about the place, two of them known about and two of them being secrets to be learned by the heroes:

Layer One: My first layer of usage would be that of the current inhabitants of the place, who use the stone circle as a community focus point - they have annual harvest festivals within the great ring.

Layer Two: The previous owners of the site were a tribe of bugbears who were driven out about a century ago. They used the site for burials, with many of their champions buried in barrows around the area. Much treasure can be found here, but much danger also, for the spirits of those champions linger here still. Of course, this usage is known to the locals, as their history records the presence of the bugbears, and the burial mounds are likewise known.

Layer Three (secret): Some time prior to the bugbears arriving and claiming the site, the stone circle was home to a cult of demon-worshippers. Their lord was a dark and fell creature who demanded ritual sacrifices from his followers in the depths of the winter solstice. The stones are thus saturated with the blood of those sacrifices, and indeed tainted by the spiritual energies thus released.

Layer Four (secret): Finally, we come to the original purpose of the stone circle. In the distant past, a dark and terrible faerie lord was imprisoned here by lizardfolk in the area. These lizardfolk were servants, and some say worshippers, of an ancient black dragon, who fought the faerie lord to a standstill while his followers enacted his capture. However, the ritual was imperfect, and so the circle counts down to the release of this captured lord - every year the shadows of the stones grows just a little shorter, and when the shadows are gone entirely, the imprisoned lord will once again be freed. (Of course, the truth of this is known only to the draconic spawn of the ancient black dragon... and she's not for sharing.)

The notion here, then, would be that the PCs initially arrive for the harvest festival on the site, and gradually become embroiled in strange goings on surrounding the location. Naturally, they may find themselves enticed by the prospect of fortune and glory in the burial mounds, but as the psychic energies around the place swell, and as the release of the faerie lord becomes nearer, they would have more to deal with.

Right now, it's only a half-formed idea... but there's some promise there, I think.

About Phantasmal Force

I must confess that I've had a number of issues with the phantasmal force spell over the year, largely due to the mental and linguistic contortions I've gone through to try to understand exactly what the spell name means: what exactly is a "phantasmal force"?

I've been somewhat embarrassed recently to learn the answer, which is stunningly obvious in hindsight and which also eliminates all such issues.

Phantasmal Force is a spell that came right out of D&D's wargaming roots, going back as far as "Chainmail". And what it creates is the illusion of a force - that is, a body of troops. So a "phantasmal force" would be an illusionary unit of pikemen, or of archers, or whatever.

D'oh!

My Fix for Silence

As I've mentioned before, the silence spell has been one of my pet peeves for a very long time. It was intended as an easy, low-level stealth spell for wizards, but very rapidly morphed as a loophole was discovered - because the spell didn't allow any other spells with Verbal components to be cast while in the area of effect, it because a very quick and easy way to shut down enemy spellcasters.

Pretty much ever since, there have been efforts put in place to get around this issue - the vocalise spell, the Silent Spell metamagic feat, and so on. The problem being that these have tended to be either very situational, or too high cost, or otherwise of limited usefulness.

My fix for the issue is rather simpler - the silence spell negates any unintentional or incidental noise in the area. So, a character under the effect of the spell won't have to worry about their armour clanking, and won't cause a massive cascade of noise as he falls over the drum kit someone left lying around.

But the spell is easily cancelled by anyone in the area - simply clapping one's hands, or speaking clearly, or giving a shout will end the spell. (Or, indeed, kicking over that drum kit. The key bit is that the noise being made is intentional.)

This, of course, massively reduces the power level of the silence spell. But that's probably a good thing - it makes it rather closer in scope to invisibility, which likewise masks the caster from one detection by one of the senses, and which is also second level. (There's also an argument for a higher-level improved silence which retains the offensive applications now removed from silence itself. But that's a discussion for another time...)

An Epiphany: Ritual Magic

A very quick post today, because I've had a realisation that I can't believe didn't come to me sooner but which I'm still working out the details of...

Ritual magic should be modelled basically as the crafting of a single-use magic item, probably with immediate activation.

And that's all, for now. More to come, if and when I can sort out some detail.