Procgen in RPGs

Procgen is a hot new term for procedurally generated content.  It's used by computers to create a large number of varying experiences, such as the guns in Borderlands, radial quests in Skyrim, or the worlds of Minecraft. 

It can get repetitive:  With a large enough sample size, the end user can see the way the procgen content was created.  Skyrim's radial quests become repetitive after two or three.  Borderlands players quickly learn how to assess the guns they find, and while it takes hundreds of hours, you will eventually get used to the ways Minecraft worlds work.  But in tabletop RPGs, there's a human at the helm, customizing everything, so with good procgen in an RPG, there's literally infinite variety.

I wrote a procgen Fate quickstart for a light urban fantasy campaign that I will probably share on this blog eventually.  With just a few rolls on tables, I was able to generate some urban fantasy plots with subtle twists sufficient to drive an 18-month campaign.

Wandering Monsters

RPGs have always done procgen.  Take a look a the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide for procgen NPCs, plots, dungeons, and encounters.  Take a look at any D&D content, going back to the 1970s.  I recently ran the original, 1980s-era Ravenloft module in 4e D&D, and enjoyed its procgen -- it has random encounters with various monsters. 

But good procgen isn't just a wandering monster table.

The OSR and storygames communities have expanded on procgen content in exciting ways.  Forbidden Lands tells GMs not to prep anything for their first session, except perhaps to pre-roll a settlement or keep or legend, or choose a pre-made adventure site or artifact and use its legend. 

Blades in the Dark also urges GMs not to prep for their campaign.  It has nine pages of tables that let you procgen NPCs, a score, locations, and even demons.  Because a Blades in the Dark campaign starts in the pre-made setting of Doskvol and is meant to be driven by how the PCs interact with that setting, the GM really shouldn't prep anything ahead of the first session. 

Example of New Procgen

Here's an example of the new kind of procgen I'm talking about, from Blades in the Dark.  The setting built into the game is integral to the game -- a common feature of good procgen:  Mix a detailed setting rife with conflict  with procgen tables to create exciting conflicts, characters, and locations.  The type of details in the setting matter.  The details of trade routes and food production, long lists of noble houses, etc. aren't as important as conflict.  The setting has trade routes, but only the ones that push conflicts.  The setting has nobles, but only the ones involved in conflicts.  Et centera.

Because of that, I'm using the book heavily here.  It takes a lot of work to make Blades work for another setting -- to the point where, if you do that work, you should publish it. 

Blades also relies on the PCs' decisions to drive story, so we're going to make a few statements about our hypothetical PCs' actions.  Let's say our PCs already decided they're broke and need to pull a score.  They're skilled at heists, being Shadows, so they reach out to a contact from their crew sheet to set one up.  All the sheet says is "Fitz, a collector" -- the sort of person who might know of something valuable to steal, and might pay the crew to steal it. 

All I know at the start is that they're going to meet with their contact, "Fitz, a collector," and ask about opportunities to pull a heist.

So we procgen Fitz using the NPC chart. 

She's Akorosi, likely from Doskvol. She's a woman. She's old.  That's her look.  So we imagine an Akorosi woman with short-cropped grey hair and a wrinkled face. Her drive is Achievement.  That makes sense for a collector!  Her preferred method is subterfuge.  The sort of person who prefers to hire deniable assets and ask them not to make a lot of noise.  Perfect.  If I had rolled "Teamwork" she might want to come along on the job. 

Her profession is either Tanner (common) or Composer (rare).  She has to have enough Coin to pay crews to help her collect rare items, so I'd jump to Composer, except that Tanners can be successful, too, and our Crew is Tier 1, so they're not exactly hobnobbing with the rich and famous.  But they could be.  Hmm...  What would a tanner collect?  Probably not leather or chemicals -- they have access to that stuff all the time.  Maybe fine wines made with real fruits - a rare thing in the Dusk.  What would a composer collect?  Possibly rare music or instruments.  Maybe the imprisoned ghosts of skilled performers. 

Given those options, I get to decide what themes I want to push.  If Fitz wants the imprisoned ghost of a dead performer, I'm pushing the occult themes of Blades in the Dark -- the dead become ghosts unless their spirits are destroyed.  It's grim and bleak and spooky.  If Fitz wants fine wine, I'm highlighting the "punk" part of steampunk, with poor criminal scum (the PCs) helping a middle class person aspire to the trappings of the wealthy that are denied to poor people like them.  I like that better. 

I decide Fitz is a well-off tanner.  She's old and rich, so she owns and operates an established company known for quality work.  She employs many people in the PCs' neighborhood, and they get along because she's a relatively ethical employer. 

Fitz is brash.  Though she prefers Subterfuge, she isn't a coward.  She takes what she wants, and doesn't like to wait.  Her interests are architecture and furnishings.  She's proud of her well-furnished office and probably talks about the history of the Skovlander architecture of the old brick building she has her office in.  She probably snaps at people who get her cushions dirty or write on her desk without a blotter.  She's a drug or alcohol abuser, often impaired by her vice.  OK, her interest in fine wine isn't purely aesthetic.  She can get drunk on cheap swill, but now that she runs a powerful company, she wants to get drunk on the good stuff.  She probably drinks like Mallory Archer.

OK!  Now we know a lot about Fitz.  Let's roll up the score. 

The target... I have to decide between civilian, criminal, political, or strange.  I'll go with a civilian.  I get a doctor or alchemist.  A doctor has some fine wine.  So does an alchemist.  Let's figure out what that means as we go.

And the work?  I have to decide between skullduggery, violence, underworld, or unnatural.  Skullduggery for sure.  It seems obviously a burglary, but I roll anyway I get "sabotage or arson." 

Interesting!  I could just override that, but it offers a chance to take me away from the obvious.  So how does arson or sabotage get us a bottle of wine?  Procgen tables often lead us to these challenges. 

I brainstormed two ideas:  Sabotage a train so it breaks down, then sneak into a boxcar and steal a case of wine (and anything else you can carry!).  Or set fire to a poisonous night-tree in spooky-beautiful Jayan park (pulled from the book setting writeups) and steal the wine of picnicking rich people as they flee the toxic smoke.  I'm a sucker for a train job, but the deathlands are deadly for a Tier 1 group.  And we've established that this score's theme is all about economic disparities, so let's spoil the rich people's picnic!

Now for a twist or complication: The job furthers a city official's secret agenda. 

I remember seeing that the Ministry of Preservation wants to Seize Control of the Leviathan Hunters (a 12-tick project clock that I can use if I want).  To do that, they would benefit if a Leviathan Hunter died in a criminal arson at the park, right?  I think the Ministry of Preservation has an NPC following a wealthy Leviathan Hunter.  I choose Lady Clave (captain, daring, cruel, accomplished) from the Leviathan Hunters faction description and Captain Lannock (mercenary commander, shrewd, ruthless) from the Ministry of Preservation faction's description. 

The Ministry meddling will also involve the Leviathan Hunters' clocks: Discover New Hunting Grounds and Surplus Runs Dry, both 12-tick clocks.  I think I'll tick the Seize Control of the Leviathan Hunters three times if Lady Clave dies and once if she doesn't.  I'll tick Surplus Runs Dry once no matter what.  Once I start using that clock, I'll commit to ticking it at the start of every score.

Sometimes a procgen table sends you off to other stuff in the system or setting that brings in a lot of story, like this.  That one "job furthers a city official's secret agenda" result really colored in implications for this score. 

The next table tells me that the job is connected to a PC rival.  Every Blades PC has six NPCs they know, one of whom is a friend, another of whom is a rival.  The crew Lurk has pissed off Roslyn Kellis, a noble.  Roslyn Kellis will also be at the park and recognize the Lurk if any roll introduces a complication.

The last procgen table is what factions the score is connected to, but since I already have two factions involved, I'm cautious.  I have dice left that let me choose between Sparkwrights (26) or Sailors or Dockers (62). 

I think our Tier 1 crew setting off chaos between two Tier 5 factions is great, but it's going to need a lower-tier faction for them to deal with until for the time being, so I like Sailors or Dockers.  The Dockers support the Leviathan Hunters, according to their faction description; so they're going to be mad if a Leviathan Hunter gets killed.  I notice that the Ministry of Preservation has the Billhooks -- a Tier 2 faction -- as an ally.  So let's drag those in on their side on top of everything else.  Now the Tier 1 PCs can get involved in a proxy war between the Leviathan Hunters (via the Tier 3 Dockers) and Ministry of Preservation (via the Tier 2 Billhooks). 

OK, so here's what we've got! 

Fitz, a brash, wealthy, elderly woman invites them in and offers them some wine.  Nothing too valuable, but a rare treat for our Tier 1 crew.  She starts off with small talk about the history of the old building and fine furniture in her office.  Then she explains that she's a wine collector, and wants to get her hands on the fine wines that the rich and powerful drink.  At the end of each month, on the Moontide holiday (pulling this monthly holiday from the setting info in the book), wealthy folks congregate in Jayan park (also pulled from the book) to picnic and drink copious amounts of wine.  The most wealthy compete to show off the wines they drink, using it as a proxy for their wealth and power.  There will be cases and cases of wine.

Now, Jayan park is beautiful, but its trees are poison to touch -- and just as bad to inhale.  Burning just one tree will send the picnicking rich people scampering, and cases of wine are too heavy to carry off when fleeing toxic smoke.

"I don't want anyone dead," Fitz will say.  "That will bring too much heat.  They should run at the first whiff of smoke.  If you bring gas masks, you can walk right through the smoke, grab all the unopened wine you can, and conceal your faces all at once.  Don't put the masks on until the last minute, or you'll tip your hand."

She'll buy any wine from them that they bring back.

The engagement roll (how Blades cuts to the chase) will tell me how well it goes when the PCs start the fire.  It could go as easy as starting with them standing in the smoke, wearing masks, with the sounds of alarm bells in the distance... or as bad as Bluecoats catching them as they douse a tree with oil.  After that, we want to introduce:

• Lady Clave, who the PCs will discover unconscious and dying of the toxic smoke.  Captain Lannock hit her on the head with a wine bottle and dazed her so she couldn't get away in the chaos.  This is an opportunity for the PCs to intervene.  If they save her, she'll owe them a favor!  But they'll make powerful enemies, too.  Procgen details:  I rolled that she's a Dagger Islander, but they approach Leviathans in a unique way.  So I just went with Akorosi.  She's a woman, since the book calls her Lady Clave.  She has to wear glasses.  Her goal is revenge (or will be if she survives!).  She prefers brave methods (no roll -- this is what we know from her super brief NPC description from the book).  She's moody, she likes fine wine (lucky coincidence), and is fanatically loyal to a group, ideal, or tradition.  I think she's loyal to the ideal of free trade.  She's a fanatic libertarian.  Since she's technically the person who has wine to steal, we'll make her the doctor or alchemist we rolled earlier.  I think she's an alchemist, educated in the process of refining Leviathan blood.
• Captain Lannock, just at the edge of the smoke, tossing a cracked and bloody wine bottle into a fountain and looking back to wave a cruel-eyed "thank you" to the masked PCs.  He'll notice if the PCs rush to save Lady Clave, but without a gas mask, there's nothing he can do about it except try to track them down later.  His procgen details:  He's Akorosi and male.  He's disfigured or maimed.  I think he's a one-armed man.  His goal is wealth.  Mercenary captains tend to have that goal.  His preferred method is study, which makes sense since he's shrewd. He's suspicious. His interest is hunting and shooting. He's shooting pistols, since he has one arm.  Maybe he has a steampunk cyberarm?  That's badass.  I write that down.  He's also surrounded by toadies.  
• Roslyn Kellis, who I'm keeping in our back pocket for the first time the PCs get a complication while not wearing their masks.  I rolled "ambiguous or concealed" for gender.  I think she's mostly nonbinary, but she uses she/her pronouns given that she goes by Roslyn, a traditionally femme name.  She's a Skovlander.  Being a noble, she probably keeps that secret.  She's stooped.  Her goal is pleasure.  Like Lannock, her preferred method is study.  This is dangerous, as she's going to meddle if she catches on to what the Lurk is up to.  Her profession is noble, obviously.  She's dishonest.  That includes concealing her origins, pretending to be Akorosi when she's a Skovlander.  She's interested in antiques, artifacts, and curios. And she's a celebrity, popularized in print / song / theater.  That means the other PCs will know who she is.  I think she's beautiful and single, and the papers love gossip about who is courting her and who she's courting.  If this was more than hypothetical, I'd email my Lurk play about this and ask if maybe their rivalry is a bitter break-up or jilted lover.

I also want to think up a few conflicts, obstacles, or dangers that fit our procgen content.  You have to make it all fit together. 

I want to ask the PCs how they find the best wines to take.  Finding better wines might earn them more profit from the score, but it comes with risk -- I'll call for an action roll. 

I want to ask them if they'll sacrifice carrying wine for stealing other stuff.  I want to ask them if they're looking for other stuff, use Fortune rolls to see if it's around, and call for some other action roll for them to hunt it down without getting in trouble.  The fortune roll will be just one die, unless it's the kind of thing you'd bring on a picnic and easily leave behind.  Military equipment or dangerous / illegal items won't be available.

I need to look up bluecoats, since there's ample opportunity for bluecoats to catch them.  I'm also interested in Captain Lannock's mercenaries.  I decide they're not Tier 5 like the Ministry.  I'll make them Tier 3 -- still well above the PCs' tier, but low enough to drag them into any ongoing conflict that could brew. 

I want them to have to roll an action to save Lady Clave, but I decide ahead of time that if they roll a 1-3, I'll use a fail forward approach -- they can save her, but there will be a nasty complication. 

I also figure out how to reward them for the score:  They can make 10 Coin, but carrying Lady Clave instead of cases of wine will cost them 4 Coin worth of wine.  Stealing other stuff of any significant weight will cost them 1-2 Coin as well.  If they try to bring a cart, it will raise their take by 4 Coin, but raise their Heat by 2 as well, since the cart can't be hidden on the way in and out of the park, even though the gas masks can.  If they don't bring back at least 3 Coin worth of wine, Fitz will be annoyed.

Depending on what happens, the PCs could be blamed for killing Lady Clave or Captain Lannock could be mad at them for saving her.  Dockers or Billhooks or Lannock's mercenaries could be coming for them in Entanglements, later.  If Lady Clave dies, Fitz will be mad at them, too; in addition to the increased heat from a death during a score.  Fitz didn't want any deaths.  This may mean she withholds 2-3 Coin, paying them less for the wine than she might have.

Instead of drawing a map and deciding a lot of what the space is like, I'm going to lean on procgen tables as well.  I need to procgen the street upwind of the picnic -- where the PCs will escape to.  It's bright and lively (for now). lit with lots of spark lamps. It has crackling electricity, wires and mechanisms (for those spark lamps!). Sounds of laughter, song, and music (at first anyway).  Smells of the ocean carried in on the winds today.  Good thing there are winds!  The street's use is shops.  That's probably cafes and consumer goods.  It's a narrow lane.  There's an ancient ruin here - the columns of an enormous acropolis-style building, around which cafes and shops are built, their patrons and tables spilling into the cluttered, narrow lane.

When to Procgen

Could I do all this during a game session?  Yes, in a pinch, but not all at once. 

It took me an hour, including refining it and writing it up for a blog.  I'd say it would take 15-30 minutes to do all at once, which is too much time to make the players wait if you do it in the middle of a game session.  It would be really easy to do as prep for a session, though.

I could do it during a game session, but only if I didn't do it all at once.  I'd generate Fitz and the score when they went to meet her.  That would take 5-10 minutes, but that's an acceptable amount of time for a break.  This is also a good reason to learn the setting details for a game like Blades in the Dark or Forbidden Lands:  These games make procgen work by packing a lot of conflict into the setting, so if you learn the setting, you get a lot more out of these sorts of tables.  Because I studied the setting, I could remember details like "there's a park somewhere - let me look that up" and "there's this cool conflict between the Leviathan Hunters and Ministry of Preservation.  Let me go pull those details." 

I wouldn't generate my details for Lady Clave, Captain Lannock, and Roslyn Kellis until the first time the PCs met each of them, taking about 1-2 minutes each.  And I'd generate the street when they came to scope out the area.  That would take about 1-2 minutes, too.  So it's doable.

But it would be better to generate it all before the session.  Doing this much prep before a session, especially in a game like Blades in the Dark, can be dangerous.  But here again, procedural generation comes to our rescue:  Because this is all just junk I rolled on random tables, if the PCs hare off in an unexpected direction, I'm happy to toss it and roll up some new stuff.  It just makes me pause the game for 5-10 minutes to roll a new score or new details.

Let's say the PCs decide not to set fire to the trees, but instead disguise themselves as bluecoats and seize some of the wine in a fake raid.  That's fine!  I just have to think up if and how that action "furthers a city official's secret agenda."  Maybe nobody attempts murder here, but instead Captain Lannock drops a murder weapon into Lady Clave's wine case, framing her for a murder his men did.  Only, the PCs aren't actual bluecoats, so the twist is that they find a bloody knife in one of the boxes of wine!  It's a mystery they can follow up on or not.  If they don't, I don't mind dropping all that story potential, because, again, I didn't spend hours on it.  It's just random die rolls!

Benefits of Procgen

• Less Predictable:  It forces you to make choices you wouldn't normally make, pulling you away from patterns you may not even know you have.  When I had to make the score about arson or sabotage instead of my first instinct of burglary, it took me out of the obvious and in an exciting direction.
• Inspiring:  Table results jump-start your creativity by giving you neat prompts to expand on.
• Use Setting:  It hooks you into setting details, especially for games where the setting is ripe with conflicts to hook the PCs into
• Flexible:  It's easy to throw out procedurally generated prep, because you can just generate all new stuff in a few minutes if the PCs do something unexpected.
• Efficient:  The biggest benefit of this stuff is how time-efficient it is.  There's an initial investment of time to learn the setting and all its conflicts.  Once you have that, the tables are quick to use, and bring in a lot of content with a single die roll.
• Improv, without Having to Improv so Much:  Procgen has many of the benefits of fully improvised GMing (flexible, efficient, leans on setting) without forcing you to come up with everything on your own, without prompts or aid.  Improv GMing also tends to lean on disclaiming decision making, but some groups of players aren't very comfortable being asked to improvise setting details, just like some GMs aren't.  Procgen helps there, too:  You can still ask the players to contribute, but it's easier for a player to answer, "Fitz is an old and runs a successful tannery.  What does an old, wealthy tanner look like?" than "What does Fitz look like and what is her profession?"

The Mood for Fantasy Religion

Today, let's look at fantasy religion and your game's mood.  I've created a rubric for classifying the mood of an RPG, called the Horror-Hunter ladder.  The bottom of the ladder are horror games, and the top are superhero and monster hunter games.  Consistent, clearly communicated mood is important for expectation management in tabletop RPGs.  See that post for more details.

How religion works in a fantasy RPG is strongly informed by the game's mood.

Superhero:  In a fantasy RPG in the "superhero" mood, there will be good gods and bad gods, and they are in a constant struggle, suspiciously similar to Christian dualism.  The god(s) of good versus the god(s) of evil.  The PCs worship and may be aided by the good gods.  Their enemies are those who serve or are aided by the gods of evil.  Even superhero games can have some nuance.  Consider Sauron's insidious corruption of Theoden through Saruman and Grima in The Lord of the Rings.  Here we have elves (light, order, goodness, peace) and Sauron (evil, darkness, chaos, corruption, war) in contention - the classic good versus evil fantasy epic.  And yet we have two layers of subtlety -- Saruman's secret treason to serve Sauron; and his servant Grima's subtle corruption of Theoden.

In this sort of game, a cleric is a main driver of the story.  She carries the word and the power of the Gods of Good in her struggle to defeat the Great Evil.  Such a cleric might be too powerful for an adventuring party -- imagine if Galadriel came with the Fellowship.  This is also why, when you say you're going to run Star Wars, everyone wants to play a Jedi.

Hunter:  There are a mix of gods of good and evil; and some in between in a fantasy game at the monster hunter level.  Some gods are mysterious.  Others are authoritarian and support tradition and stability.  Others have a progressive, revolutionary justice philosophy.  Most D&D and Pathfinder games are run in the monster hunter mood.  The bad guys are bad by dint of their being monsters, or measurably evil -- Detect Evil is a first level spell!  Occasionally, the PCs run afoul of Neutral or Good aligned NPCs or monsters because they find themselves at cross purposes, but these conflicts are obstacles toward resolving a "defeat the monsters" plot, rather than the focus of the story.

In this sort of game, a cleric is a major character.  Many plots involve Evil Priests and Dark Gods to be defeated with the Power of Good.  Paladins deserve special note, too.  They're pretty much the embodiment of the Hunter mode of play.

Heroes:  In fantasy at this level, we shirk the pure black-and-white morality of good versus evil gods, but the PCs are still heroes.  Gods tend to be aloof and distant, not interfering with the mortal realm.  This allows bad guys to prove that they're bad with deeds, rather than just by wearing a skull-and-dagger holy symbol and a black cloak.  The Eberron campaign setting shifts D&D down a rung from monster hunter fantasy to a heroic mood, in part by including measurably-Good NPCs who are nonetheless quite villainous; and measurably-Evil NPCs who are actually pretty helpful; but also by moving the gods from meddling chessmasters to distant forces.  Even prophecy in Eberron comes from a mysterious force the gods themselves don't fully understand.

In a Heroic game, a cleric is a major character.  Every fantasy hero gets their power from somewhere, and her source is the God of Valor or Healing or Freedom, as she sees fit.

Gritty:  The gods of a gritty fantasy world are neither good nor evil, but forces of nature.  Gritty games tend to live in moral grey areas.  Gods embody both the good aspect (health) and bad aspect (sickness) of their domain.  You can sacrifice cattle to the hearth god to bring a blight on your enemy's crops.  You must beg the storm goddess to protect your ship from storms, but if you do so in the right way, your voyage will be blessed.  The gods tend to have internal conflicts, too, and the PCs might get swept up in these conflicts, which tend to cost countless human lives.  Old school D&D often ran on a more gritty Robert E. Howard mood; and a lot of the new OSR material highlights this tendency and amplifies it.  From Lamentations of the Flame Princess to the Fourthcore movement, there's a new interest in gritty fantasy.

In a gritty game, a cleric is an interesting character.  She commands the power of an ancient and ineffable extra-planar being to serve her in battle.

Dark:  The gods of a dark fantasy world are generally selfish and human in their personalities.  They may bring power and blessings, but only to those who are devoted worshipers who propitiate them with enough sacrifices.  Those who cannot sacrifice or refuse to sacrifice suffer curses and plagues.  People tend to be more afraid of gods than worshipful of them.  Gods are not forces of love and grace, but rather divine extortionists running a protection racket.  Priests tend to reflect or compliment their gods' personalities, either groveling in constant maddening fear or bleeding the populace so they can live richly.  Truly dark fantasy is actually pretty rare.  Even "horror" fantasy tends to have only the trappings of horror.  In Ravenloft or Pathfinder's Carrion Crown adventure path, the PCs still fight against evil using the often-literal power of good.

In a dark game, a cleric is an unlikely choice.  She discovered ancient tablets in the wasteland and learned the names of six Great Ones.  By making sacrifice to the Great Ones, she can call on their aid, but they send her disturbing dreams and she feels compelled to seek the jade tower...

Horror:  In a horror RPG, the good gods are gone, and the ancient gods are mostly forgotten, except by isolated tribes worshiping a poorly-understood snake-demon at the top of a crumbling ziggurat, or cults placating a mysterious, cloven-hoofed prophet in hidden chambers beneath the great city.  The general population may worship their ancestors' spirits, thus bringing eerie hints of hauntings and an unknown afterlife full of unknown punishments into the cultural zeitgeist.  There's some new interest in fantasy horror.  A major impediment to fantasy horror in modern D&D (5e) and Pathfinder is the mechanical need for a divine healer.  DMs who try to run these games for parties without a "healer" tend to get frustrated by their players' increasing defensive turtling as they have to retreat for days or weeks to heal up after combat.  More, most fantasy RPGs don't have mechanics for powerlessness and loss (other than loss of hit points).  Luckily, other fantasy RPGs exist, and have systems that support horror better, from Gumshoe to Dungeon World to Torchbearer.

Horror games make contacting Old Gods a dangerous proposition.  There is never a specific cleric PC, or if there is, she's like Father Callahan in 'Salem's Lot who serves a church without the classic D&D cleric's magical power; and is surprised and challenged when her faith is called for, even in the smallest way.  Or maybe all the PCs can, if they choose, learn ways to contact the minds of the Ancient Ones from bizarre ancient tomes that crack the edges of their sanity but teach them spells, like in the Call of Cthulhu RPG.

Example a Gritty/Dark/Horror Fantasy Pantheon

The pantheon, below, can be used straight for a "gritty" mood fantasy RPG.  PC clerics would see Checkal as the goddess of healing, Arufu as the god of light, Marku as the god of funerary rites, Mar Dat as the god of valor, Han Dat as the goddess of law, and Grugri as the goddess of nature.  They would see Yull as the adversary.  The gods would be revered, but also sacrificed to to attack the people's enemies.  An example adventure would be negotiating a peace between two tribes that had nearly wiped each other out by sending plagues and blights to hex each other for years.  As a reward, the people of the two tribes will give them land and honors, though if one tribe feels that they got a bad bargain, the PCs could receive a poisoned gift.  And it is possible for both tribes to feel like they got the bad end of the deal.

For a "dark" fantasy game, these gods would be propitiated, rather than revered.  They would sacrifice to the gods to prevent plagues, blights, droughts, curses, etc.  There would be no PC clerics in this sort of game, because the gods would never be that unilaterally helpful.  An example adventure would be robbing the Moon Temple in the capital city, on the dark of the moon, where the Checkal priestesses are praying for plagues and death, to steal the great moon opal for pay, for a wealthy wizard to use to gain immortality.  The wizard has given the PCs amulets inscribed with the name of Ya'Uul to hide them from Checkal's eye so that she will never know it was them who stole her opal.  As part of their pay, they get to keep the amulets, and can become invisible to Checkal's shadow demons (as long as they do not interact with them) by wearing them.

For a "horror" fatnasy game, these gods would be long forgotten, and the GM would keep their nature secret, revealing its true horror in ruins of a civilization that destroyed itself.  They would discover ways to contact the Shadow Goddess, the Lord of the Archon Host, the God of Death, the Killing God, the Binding Goddess, the Storm Queen, and the Fire Demon and call on their aid (for a price).  They would also witness the horrors done in each of these gods' names.  An example adventure would be exploring a lost city destroyed by the Archon Host a thousand years ago.  It is infested with Ents and surrounded by fey, but full of treasures.  Inside, there are tablets that teach the Han Dat Lesser Rites of Binding - spells that bind people to oaths, even unwillingly; but in return, require the caster to never utter a word that is technically false.

Checkal, the Moon Goddess:  Men and women pray to the goddess of fertility, but her priesthood is all women.  Checkal's cyclic nature makes her suspicious and subtle during the dark of the moon, and bright and generous in her fullness.  During the dark of the moon, it is said she walks the earth in mortal guise and her priestesses can call on her to smite their enemies with disease or infertility.  During the fullness, they can call on her to strengthen the herds or cure the sick.  Her demons are shadow demons, and some of the undead are willing to serve her, especially on the dark of the moon, because Marku still loves her.

Arufu, the Sun God; the Sky King; Warlord of the Archon Host:  The chief god of the pantheon, Arufu is a distant and authoritarian lord.  He commands the sky, and brings sun and rain for the crops.  He is also god of all the things that come out in the rain and live under the sun.  Unlike the other gods, Arufu has three hosts that serve him:  His angels appear as gigantic men with the wings and crowns of colorful birds of paradise surrounded by clouds of carnivorous butterflies that feed on the corpses of Arufu's enemies.  He casts plagues of insects on those who displease him, and commands a legion of demons called Ents, monstrous plants and insects animated to serve him.  And lastly, he commands the Archons, soldiers who come to Earth to eradicate entire tribes and nations who have angered the gods, leaving nothing but ruin behind.  The Archons are also the host that will come to Earth and bring about the End of Days.

Marku, God of Death; the First Vampire:  Arufu's brother was the first death, slain by Arufu in a fight over Checkal.  The first death defined what it meant to be dead:  Hidden underground, away from the sky and sun for eternity.  The dead live underground.  They are buried or burned and seeded into the soil, where they sink down into Marku's realm.  This being a fantasy game, the underworld is a place you can go visit without any magic.  And the dead can come back from the underworld, too, if Marku has been neglected or funerary rites have been done improperly.  Corpses can rise as zombies and skeletons, though they always hide under soil, in basements, or in caves when the sun comes up.  Marku is also the First Vampire, for after his death, he could only see his cherished Checkal at night, in her fullness.

Checkal and Arufu had two children, the lesser gods:

Mar Dat, God of War:  The son of Checkal and Arufu is Mar, god of war.  He is the god of might and power, killing and honor, glory and weapons.  Mar Dat blesses conflict and killing.  Those who displease Mar will suffer ill fortune in battle, or be set upon by hidden enemies.  Those who please Mar will have fortune in battle or have their enemies revealed to them.  Mar is close with his mother, Checkal, and together they are the gods of vengeance and strength.  He is the God of vengeance of peoples and she is the god of personal vendetta.  He is the God of strength of arms, and she is the god of physical might.  Mar's demons are burly, masculine monsters with horns, spikes, chains, armor and blades.

Han Dat, Goddess of Law:  The daughter of Arufu and Checkal is the mother of lies and queen of truth, for without one, the other cannot be.  Han Dat is prideful, and those who speak oaths in her name must abide by them or risk her curse.  Sacrifices made in Han's name have subtle results.  Those who neglect to sacrifice to Han suffer bad fortune in business and law.  Those who please Han have good fortune in business and law.  Oaths and contracts are made in the name of Han Dat, and those who break their oaths offend Han, and are cursed.  Justice is a mortal concept -- Han cares only for law.  The Clerics of Han Dat, it is said, never tell an outright lie; but they always withhold some of the truth, so that you are deceived anyway.  Han is the mother of men, and Mar is the father of men.  The twin siblings birthed all the civilized humanoid races.  Han's devils are subtle, offering bargains and trades.  They trick fools into bargains for their souls, to feed Han's magic.

Outsiders:

Grugri, Goddess of Storms:  The mother of the uncivilized humanoids, Grugri is an interloper goddess from across the great sea.  She is the bringer of storms and stands as powerful as Arufu when weather is concerned.  But Arufu hates Grugri for reasons only the mystery cults of Grugri claim to know.  The Storm Goddess is always portrayed wearing a hood and cloak, hiding her form, no matter who paints the image:  The fey, dark folk, and men all portray her thusly.  She is also the Queen of Tooth and Claw and Caster of Faeries, to the men of the Southlands.  Grugri's demons are the Sovereign Host of the fey.  They are called the Others because, as they are not of Arufu's line, they are true outsiders.  Goblins and orcs and ogres and the like are called mongrelmen or darkfolk.  Most of them hide from Arufu's light.  Still, people sacrifice to Grugri and even join mystery cults to her, because her fury can swamp crops, sink ships, flood towns, and bring tornadoes.  Best to send her after your enemies, then.  Grugri is so greedy she will accept sacrifices from men to destroy her own dark folk or fey demons.  The Fey see Grugri under the name "Walker-in-Twilight, Queen of the Sun and Moon," but of course Arufu and Checkal's priests can't have that.  The dark folk worship Grugri under that name, calling her the Mother Goddess, She Who Birthed the World, which is also a heresy to the priests of the tribes of the Southlands.

Yull, the Fire Demon, the Summer Balor:  Some say Arufu once had the aspect of heat and fire, and he commanded a demon called Yull, a gigantic fire-shrouded sexless human form cast from molten brass.  Yull brought wildfires, lightning, drought, and heat sickness.  They say he rebelled, though, and was banished.  But the Tribes of the North worship a fire god, and some say that in ancient days, Arufu's priests declared the worship of fire to be evil, to keep the men of these lands from heathen practices.  Yull brings visions of prophecy.  Sacrifices to Yull always bring prophetic dreams and even omens in the waking world.  Yull's imps can be summoned to help interpret these signs, but they demand favors in return for their service, and if they are betrayed, Han Dat becomes angry and Yull sends confusing, mad visions and nightmares; so it is best not to summon them at all.  Yull rules on another plane of existence, in a city of brass full of fire demons from the North (or who rebelled against Arufu, depending on who you believe).  The men of the North believe that the fire god Ya'Uul is their protector, as fire brings warmth and light.  They call the Southern tribes the "children of the air god."

Dungeons

It's been a while since I posted.  Things have been very busy in my life!  Here's the Friday post for this week.  I'll be back on the weekly schedule for a while now.

Dungeons

The word "dungeons" is so common in D&D that it's almost comic.  Yet it's important to look at what it really means and what makes a "dungeon" a unique play element in the most iconic of tabletop RPGs.

A dungeon is isolated so that it can have monsters and treasure.

The dungeon is isolated by some factor of its design.  Either it is geographically remote ("two days North of here") or hidden ("somewhere beneath the city sewers") or alien ("through the portal to the Shadowfell") or sealed up ("in the vaults beneath the Great Library").  Its isolation causes it to be mysterious, and allows it to be full of treasure and monsters.  If it were not remote, the treasure would have been looted by now, and the monsters would either be killed or escape and destroy the nearby civilized lands... and that would mean it's remote and isolated.

The ogres that are raiding our village seem to be coming from the old cliffside temple, but we thought the Paladins of the Silver Flame sealed that up generations ago...

A dungeon is full of discrete areas so that the encounters are distinct.

Every encounter in a dungeon is distinct from the one before.  The roleplaying encounters, exploration challenges, and combat encounters are all isolated from one another.  For whatever reason, the enemies in the dungeon don't all band together to mob the protagonists.  It's not a mystery -- the dungeon's layout determines this fact.  It's full of remote areas and sealed rooms, secret tunnels and long passageways, locked doors and cave-ins.  If the areas in the dungeon were close together, all of the monsters and foes inside would hear the sounds of combat and come rushing to one another's aid.

The ancient temple is carved into the cliffside, with long passages connecting distant rooms that were once used for some dark purpose...

A dungeon is old so that it can have an A plot and a B plot.

In TV terms, the "A plot" is the main story of the episode, which resolves at the end of the episode, but may be connected to an "arc plot."  The "B plot" is a subplot that also resolves at the end of the episode and also may be connected to an arc plot.  Most of the on screen action revolves around the A plot.  In a dungeon, the A plot is usually "what's happening lately" and the B plot is usually "what happened centuries ago when this ruin was first built."  

Ogres have moved into an ancient hidden temple that was made by cannibalistic werewolf cultists of The Fury, but 90 years ago, Paladins of the Silver Flame came and killed them all and sealed the temple.  But a few years ago, there was an earthquake and the bricked-over entrance collapsed inward, and a few months ago, ogres moved in and used the temple to stage raids on the local village.

The B plot has mysterious effects on the A plot

The B plot colors the dungeon.  Most dungeons are re-purposed structures in remote areas being used as a base or home by criminals, cultists, or monsters.  They have moved in and taken the space as their own, but the space doesn't fit them perfectly.  It leaves them too spaced out to come to each other's aid if they get raided (by the PCs!) and has some lingering shadows of the past.  Those lingering shadows color the treasure found there (magic items and works of art from the B-plot time), monsters themselves (some lingering monsters from the B-plot time) and secrets (passages, puzzles, traps, etc.).

The ghosts of the slain werewolves have possessed the Ogre Tyrant and his two brothers.  They have started acting strange.  They have ordered that the band capture and imprison villagers in the old cages beneath the temple, and they seem to be sleepy and quiescent as the full moon approaches, in three nights' time...  

But there is hope...  In an old situation report found in one of the first rooms, you learn that four of the paladins were lost and never accounted for.  They explored deep in the temple's East wing, and disappeared.  It was assumed they fell into a trap or were killed in a secret passage.  If you can find their bodies and appease their restless spirits, you may be able to take their silver weapons, which are the only way you can defeat the possessed Ogre Tyrant and his brothers.

More, some of the ogres are disturbed by the Tyrant's strange behavior.  Just after the PCs find the situation report, they encounter Rashga Grey-Beard, the band's elder, who will actually converse with the heroes instead of attacking them, asking them if they know any ghost stories about this temple.  If they are honest with him, he will take several of the ogres out "raiding" for a while, clearing the way for them to get to the inner sanctum, where the Tyrant's brothers guard the passageway into the Killing Rooms downstairs, where the Tyrant stands silent watch over the terrified soon-to-be-victims.

A dungeon is a discrete unit of arc plot.

An arc plot is the plot of a season of television - a story with a beginning, middle and end.  Serial TV shows have several arc plots over the seasons, and some arc plots span multiple seasons (that's why some things aren't resolved in the season finale).  The plot of the campaign, in D&D, is designed to link a string of dungeons together, so that it keeps giving the protagonists a reason to explore a new isolated area composed of discrete zones filled with challenges.  Each dungeon has a clue, item, or objective that unlocks the next step in the arc plot.  The next step inevitably leads to a new dungeon.  

In your plot outline, you may have "track down the surviving witness and find out what really happened to the Duke."  So you create a dungeon and put the surviving witness in it.  You can have the witness be a villain in the dungeon, or an innocent victim of the villains in there.  You can have the villains there connected with the arc plot, or not.

...a secret known only to the three witnesses who saw the Duke's murder.  Two of them were found dead within a day.  The third, a priestess of the Silver Flame, fled to the North.  She was last seen on the road to Morda, a small mining town along the mountains...

...Yes, the priestess was here.  But some ogres raided the town, and she was kidnapped along with the innkeeper and his family when they burned the inn to the ground.  Please, adventurers, will you go to the old cliffside temple, slay the ogres, and rescue the kidnapped villagers?  Your priestess may be among them.  If you do not, they will surely come back and kill the rest of us...

A dungeon is full of choices.

A linear dungeon is boring.  Give the PCs forks.  Remember that the decisions they have must have consequences.  Do we go left or right?  That decision is boring.  Give them some information about what lies each way, even if it's incomplete or confusing.  Give them tactical and strategic options.  Give them roleplay choices.

Do we go left, through the underwater section, where the ogres can't be standing guard, but other dangers may be present (like drowning)?  Or do we go right, where we know ogres patrol regularly?  Do we sneak past the patrols or fight them?  Do we disarm the trap or try to lure ogres into it?  Do we take the secret passage, leaving monsters behind us, or kill them first?  Rashga proposes to take some of the evil ogres out to raid the town to get them out of our way while we deal with the Tyrant.  Do we accept his offer and hope the town militia can handle a smaller ogre band?  Do we let him go, but plan to press on the rest of the way without rest, hoping to finish up here then race back to town in time to chase him off?  Or do we kill him, even though that means we will be forced to camp the night to recover from our wounds?  Does one of us swear an oath to convert to the religion of the Silver Flame to satisfy the paladins' ghosts, or do we destroy them as abominations, as their own religion would have us do?  The innkeeper has been possessed by a werewolf ghost as well.  The full moon is coming very soon.  Do we kill him out of mercy and compassion for his family as the priestess suggested, or do we chain him up and hope to find a cure?

Hot Topic: The Strange Frame

After posting my last piece on Telling Frame Stories I looked at this kickstarter for The Strange.  By Monte Cook Games, The Strange is an RPG about interdimensional adventures.  It's like a "Fringe" or Dark Tower RPG meets TORG or RIFTS.  There really hasn't been an RPG like this for a while.

In my Frame Stories piece, I talked about the players taking the roles of different characters across time and space.  The Strange will allow you to do that across dimensions and sci-fi and fantasy genre tropes without leaving the singular narrative of your campaign.

I think the Frame Story is the ideal setup for The Strange, because while dimension hopping is fun, it doesn't have to be the only way to tell stories across different recursions.  You can even tell stories that jump back in time in the current narrative, describing recursions that have ended.

So now an example campaign idea...  You know I'm addicted to examples!

You could start with hard boiled New York organized crime task force detectives.  Your first adventure would be investigating several new gangs in Brooklyn.  You make an arrest a strange figure who seems to be key to one new gang of assassins, transition to sword and sorcery as he gives a Usual Suspects story -- but set in fantasyland -- about the awakening of a dark god and a religious conflict spilling out across the Strange into Brooklyn.  You would play through the suspect's story, which would be a series of two fantasy world sword and sorcery "good guys vs. evil cult" adventures, except that you're doomed to fail and eventually flee across the Strange to Brooklyn.  And because you're starting with the frame story (NYC detectives) the players will accept this premise!

After the fantasy story, we return to the NYC cop drama to investigate more gangs (now identified as warring refugee groups from other dimensions).  We meet a character from a sci-fi universe who's a refugee from a new war against mysterious aliens, and play through his story...  Only to discover that an infectious psionic disease awoke across several races across the galaxy in that recursion, and those people started working as a hive mind with a dark purpose...

Ultimately the players will discover a narrative about a dark god awakening in multiple recursions of Earth, threatening to come to Brooklyn and infect the people of New York (and eventually all of Earth).  And they eventually learn why the evil god can't get to Brooklyn yet.  But he's sent his minions there to destroy the one thing holding him back...

So if you want to get Strange, go to the kickstarter page.  I think the All the eBooks package is the best value, but that may be because my dance card is full.  If your group is looking for a cool new game right now, then you might want to spring for a print core book, or maybe the pricey (but fair) All the Print Books option.

If you're reading this after 11/22/13, go to Monte Cook Games or your local game store to find The Strange.

(I was not paid or any way compensated to write this by the way)

Conceptual White Space

So you're trying to flesh out the setting of your game.  Maybe you're just trying to describe a sleek, futuristic office building that your Shadowrunners are breaking into.  Maybe you're trying to describe the barony that your medieval fantasy heroes are travelling through to stop some bandits.  Maybe you're describing a ruin that your pulp heroes have discovered in Axis-fortified North Africa.

I'm going to give you some quick tools to build verisimilitude with a high degree of efficiency.  That is, with these tips, you can make the setting feel rich and real without writing volumes; or if you're inclined to write volumes, you can still use these tips to make every word tell a story.