Flashman Friday is being delayed today by a total failure to complete the next chapter of Flashman and the Gods of Mars. However, the good news is that I'm going to plough straight through it, write as much as I can, and have several fridays worth of content starting next week!
(lame excuse, I know)
Ruminations on fiction, roleplaying, and assorted irritants.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Artifice
While we're on the subject of magic items, it would make sense to discuss artifacts a little bit. I've always just known about the category of artifacts from fantasy literature, games like D&D, and Magic the Gathering. Of course there are artifacts, my young mind said! The word itself came to mean a powerful magical device left behind by a transcendent ancestor-culture. It never occurred to me that the word had come from a different context. Yes, I knew that any relic could be an artifact, but Artifacts themselves, the fantasy ones, had a special semantic content. The word was (and still is, though I now recognize how strange that may be) charged with power. IT had meaning. Artifacts are things like the Rings of Power or the Tain (Myth) or the Tomb of the Forvalaka (Black Company) or even the Silmarils. They are dangerous, they are ancient, and they are beyond modern ken.
Of course, that's how AD&D described them as well. The Book of Artifacts, while filled with artifacts that I personally would never use, has at its heart the conception of these ancient devices. The guidelines for making artifacts are helpful (though the extra powers can sometimes seem a little silly—why should any artifact be able to produce magic missiles three times a day?) and have provided help in my own designs countless times. Not that I have used that many artifacts in play; sometimes I treat powerful magical items the way AD&D treats artifacts. Not that they're necessarily dangerous, but they are rare and strange and beautiful, relics of some process that the players don't have immediate access to, especially in the levels below 10.
There are certain things that make the notion of the artifact intensely appealing. The first is undoubtedly its prominence in the literary sources, though they take different tacks. Legend and Tolkien tend to coincide, with items of great power not often coming from vanished races or civilizations in these sources, but rather from potent alien smiths and wonderworkers that no mundane man could hope to emulate: Fëanor, dwarven craftsmen in the Norse myths, etc. It seems almost less important that they be actually ancient than simply inaccessible and unreplicable. YOU can't make an artifact, nor can anyone you know. They come from outside the normal sphere of experience.
Of course, there's always a danger of making artifacts simply another class, a highest capping class, of magical item. That danger exists with all magic in roleplaying games. As you codify and describe something that is meant to be ineffable and mystical, it invariably loses these qualities and becomes much more mundane. Artifacts must be handled carefully, sparingly, and with a great effort at making them more mysterious than other types of magical items. Remember, of course, that playing in the RAW even your every day magical swords become objects of mystery as you don't really know exactly what they do (since Identify is a singularly unhelpful spell when it comes to, say, determining exact powers of items). This helps to keep the cloak of magical wonderment in place. Still, artifacts require extra attention in this area.
Full and detailed histories, vague outlines of powers, magic that operates independently of players, and keeping tight wraps on exact mechanical effects can all add to this sense of wonder. The most powerful tool at your fingertips, however, is also the easiest: don't let artifacts become commonplace. I've used a handful of artifact level magics in my time as a DM, so when they show up players tend to go berserk. HOLY SHIT, they exclaim! THIS THING IS A GODSDAMN ARTIFACT! And that's exactly the response you want when someone finds an Earthtiller Staff.
Of course, that's how AD&D described them as well. The Book of Artifacts, while filled with artifacts that I personally would never use, has at its heart the conception of these ancient devices. The guidelines for making artifacts are helpful (though the extra powers can sometimes seem a little silly—why should any artifact be able to produce magic missiles three times a day?) and have provided help in my own designs countless times. Not that I have used that many artifacts in play; sometimes I treat powerful magical items the way AD&D treats artifacts. Not that they're necessarily dangerous, but they are rare and strange and beautiful, relics of some process that the players don't have immediate access to, especially in the levels below 10.
There are certain things that make the notion of the artifact intensely appealing. The first is undoubtedly its prominence in the literary sources, though they take different tacks. Legend and Tolkien tend to coincide, with items of great power not often coming from vanished races or civilizations in these sources, but rather from potent alien smiths and wonderworkers that no mundane man could hope to emulate: Fëanor, dwarven craftsmen in the Norse myths, etc. It seems almost less important that they be actually ancient than simply inaccessible and unreplicable. YOU can't make an artifact, nor can anyone you know. They come from outside the normal sphere of experience.
Of course, there's always a danger of making artifacts simply another class, a highest capping class, of magical item. That danger exists with all magic in roleplaying games. As you codify and describe something that is meant to be ineffable and mystical, it invariably loses these qualities and becomes much more mundane. Artifacts must be handled carefully, sparingly, and with a great effort at making them more mysterious than other types of magical items. Remember, of course, that playing in the RAW even your every day magical swords become objects of mystery as you don't really know exactly what they do (since Identify is a singularly unhelpful spell when it comes to, say, determining exact powers of items). This helps to keep the cloak of magical wonderment in place. Still, artifacts require extra attention in this area.
Full and detailed histories, vague outlines of powers, magic that operates independently of players, and keeping tight wraps on exact mechanical effects can all add to this sense of wonder. The most powerful tool at your fingertips, however, is also the easiest: don't let artifacts become commonplace. I've used a handful of artifact level magics in my time as a DM, so when they show up players tend to go berserk. HOLY SHIT, they exclaim! THIS THING IS A GODSDAMN ARTIFACT! And that's exactly the response you want when someone finds an Earthtiller Staff.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Huge Ego
The long-standing rivalry between MIT and Harvard blossomed in 2006 with this replacement of Harvard's VER-IT-AS logo at a Yale-Harvard sports event. But that's not what we're really here to talk about. Yes, MIT cleverly mocked the students of Harvard with their hack... but we're really interested today in Ego itself. Namely, ego weapons. Like, you know—Stormbringer or the other, less well known black sword, Anglachel, wielded by Turin Turambar.
Túrin: "Hail Gurthang! No lord or loyalty dost thou know, save the hand that wieldeth thee. From no blood wilt thou shrink. Wilt thou therefore take Túrin Turambar, wilt thou slay me swiftly?"
Gurthang: "Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly."
Gurthang: "Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly."
In regards to ego weapons there are two things I have a problem with. The first is the mechanic by which they take control of players and the second is the power suites presented in the DMG.
Ego Weapons Taking Control
As written, an ego blade will deal damage to anyone who's alignment doesn't match its alignment. It can take control as a character is injured. It's more likely to take control of a badly wounded high-level character than it is a badly wounded low-level character because high-level characters have more hp to lose.
Damaging non-alignment matches
This is an extremely limiting factor to an ego weapon. If a LE sword straight out cannot be used by a CG man, what's the point of weapon possession? I hate this rule and I'm not sure what it's meant to represent... if the weapon dealt a little damage over time so the wielder was always slightly wounded and ticking towards falling under the weapon's sway, maybe we'd have a neat rule.
In fact, that's the rule I'm going to instate.
Wounds being required for the take-over
Why? Any time you're in a mentally reduced state (drunk, charmed, etc.), the blade should have a chance to take over. In fact, even depression or anxiety should be enough to produce ominous whispers and attempts at gaining control.
Low-level disparity
Why is it so damned hard for an ego sword to take over a low-level character? I mean, I know why, mathematically... but I don't like it. I don't have a solution to this off the top of my head (except maybe to allow it to force a saving throw every once and a while, I suppose), but it's always irked me. Lower level PCs should be more susceptible to rapid conversion and control, not less.
Specific Goals and Weird Powers
This is probably most easily modified by drawing up new tables. I haven't done that yet, so I'll just air my gripes. The mighty powers of ego swords are weird. Know where gems are? Know where gold is? Does anyone know the origin of these powers? I can't think of any examples from literature. They seem to be exceedingly arbitrary. A weapon designed for a specific purpose should at least draw from a neater table.
So, yes, I have a lot of problems with ego swords as written. I feel like they are in grave need of a rewrite. Have I provided one here? Not yet. But you can wager I will. Soon.
Monday, January 27, 2014
D&D as Picaresque
I've often said that the problem with comparing the unfolding of the lives in D&D to a novel is that roleplaying the life and times of adventurers lacks the common cohesion of theme and structure that novels seek. If the progression of a D&D can be compared to any kind of novel, it is the picaresque alone. The more I considered that position, the more I realized how well it fit. Indeed, the term itself comes from the Spanish "picaro," meaning rogue.
Let us take some picaresques as consideration—Barry Lyndon, for example. Redmond Barry is a self-serving "adventurer" who fights in a duel, runs away from the law, joins the British army, deserts the British army, is press-ganged into the Prussian army, becomes a police spy in Berlin, turns into a gambler and cheat, and then marries wealthily enough to hope to obtain a Peerage back in England. Not bad for a man of humble country gentry means. What I'm interested here is the amount of deceit and underhandedness as well as the apparent social mobility of the picaro. These are adventurers in both senses of the term—the commonly accepted one and the one popularized by D&D. While there are plenty of upright and noble PCs, they are more often than not cast in the role of the picaro.
The adventurers of the picaro tend to look something like those of the average D&D group as well. They get into episodes of trouble and either by luck or cleverness they weasel their way out. They search for money and status, cross class boundaries with more ease than the other members of their society. They're generally social outsiders, as adventurers are bound to be.
The main reason that picaresque comes to mind when talking about D&D (or many other roleplaying games of the same type) is because it's generally episodic. One episode occurs and then is followed by another but they aren't connected by a larger set of themes, much like one adventure and another. Certainly there are causal relationships between adventures, but they make a very loose tapestry of cause and effect. Yet somehow, the picaro and the adventurer share more than just this narrative structure, this "episode of life" storytelling. Perhaps it's because of the way The Dying Earth was written (particularly Cugel's Saga) or perhaps it's just a result of the structure, but I'm of a mind to think that it has something to do with the relationship between pulp fantasy and picaresque.
Many picaresques are in first person (like a roleplaying experience), about devious or cunning characters, deal with those who are forced to survive on luck and wits alone, who get into and out of trouble frequently, who break social conventions and boundaries, and whose lives are eventually about adding up individual episodes together. Is D&D not the perfect picaresque? It's hard to say if it was designed to be, but it certainly appears to be made for it.
Let us take some picaresques as consideration—Barry Lyndon, for example. Redmond Barry is a self-serving "adventurer" who fights in a duel, runs away from the law, joins the British army, deserts the British army, is press-ganged into the Prussian army, becomes a police spy in Berlin, turns into a gambler and cheat, and then marries wealthily enough to hope to obtain a Peerage back in England. Not bad for a man of humble country gentry means. What I'm interested here is the amount of deceit and underhandedness as well as the apparent social mobility of the picaro. These are adventurers in both senses of the term—the commonly accepted one and the one popularized by D&D. While there are plenty of upright and noble PCs, they are more often than not cast in the role of the picaro.
The adventurers of the picaro tend to look something like those of the average D&D group as well. They get into episodes of trouble and either by luck or cleverness they weasel their way out. They search for money and status, cross class boundaries with more ease than the other members of their society. They're generally social outsiders, as adventurers are bound to be.
The main reason that picaresque comes to mind when talking about D&D (or many other roleplaying games of the same type) is because it's generally episodic. One episode occurs and then is followed by another but they aren't connected by a larger set of themes, much like one adventure and another. Certainly there are causal relationships between adventures, but they make a very loose tapestry of cause and effect. Yet somehow, the picaro and the adventurer share more than just this narrative structure, this "episode of life" storytelling. Perhaps it's because of the way The Dying Earth was written (particularly Cugel's Saga) or perhaps it's just a result of the structure, but I'm of a mind to think that it has something to do with the relationship between pulp fantasy and picaresque.
Many picaresques are in first person (like a roleplaying experience), about devious or cunning characters, deal with those who are forced to survive on luck and wits alone, who get into and out of trouble frequently, who break social conventions and boundaries, and whose lives are eventually about adding up individual episodes together. Is D&D not the perfect picaresque? It's hard to say if it was designed to be, but it certainly appears to be made for it.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Flashman and the Gods of Mars
Explanatory Note: Flashman is an excellent series of novels. It's certainly amongst my favorites. Space 1889 is a great setting. The problem with combining Flashman and Space 1889 is that Flashman has a powerful, cynical, barbed tone that makes real social commentary and carries with it an amazing power... and Space 1889 is essentially a science fiction setting. The power of Flashman would undoubtedly be diluted by taking the real dark places of imperialism and converting them into sci-fi metaphors... but I love Flashman and I love Space 1889, so I'm gonna do it anyway, and damn the results. I hope to do George MacDonald Fraser proud.
Further Explanation: I have attempted to replicate Flashman's diction as best I can. I apologize for any offense it causes; suffice to say that the words emerge from the 19th century and are not my own.
If you can believe it, I was already sixty seven when I was called to serve the Queen for the last time. It was mostly the fault of that splendid idiot Chamberlain, of course, who felt that I was quite fit for service, what, and just the chap for the job. If I never see the inside of a Colonial Office dinner again it'll be too soon, I can tell you. When you reach a certain respectable age having seen the things I've seen—a badmash blown across a bazaar by a cannon or the cantonment at Meerut turned into a charnel house—you start to think you've already seen the worst the world and its pious fools have to offer. Then there comes along some insane American to do what they're best at: finding a whole new vista of horror. I don't know what Chamberlain thought he was going to get from Mars, by God, but he set his sights on it as soon as Edison's discovery was made public. There was liftwood, I suppose, and we had to get our hands on that so some dirty foreigner didn't, but it was more than that. The whole country was mad for "civilizing the natives" and "doing their Christian duty." You'd have thought Calvary was next to Olympus Mons for all the carping in the public squares and the pulpits. But if there's one place you should never stick your nose, it's into nigger religion.
You see, those gold-skinned niggers of Mars weren't keen on our preachers, can't think why. You've heard all about Edison and his stolen machinery, the crash-landing, the liftwood, Mars, the whole thing. Well, in '72 we landed an expedition on the Parhoon Plateau, which was fine by me. After all, I could sit back in Leicestershire and watch the fireworks as well as anyone. What was it to me if the Empire was expanding and marching into all kinds of places it shouldn't be? If I'd known what a load of trouble Mars was going to land me in, I'd have said dammit all to the Raamtabis and Wormis. Let 'em have their deserts and frozen wastelands, I don't care if they make the finest narcotics in the whole solar system. But I didn't know all that then, you see, so I clapped my hands and warmed my feet by the fire and cheered on that villain Chamberlain and all his machinations. Gladstone probably never would've let things get that far but he and Lawrence punched it out for a few years. It was standing for Home Rule in Ireland, I reckon, that did Gladstone in and gave Lawrence and Chamberlain time to do the dirty and get us insinuated in Syrtis Major.
I remember the first time I saw those god-awful Parhoon Rifles in The Times. They were the toast of the town then, but it was a little rich to see the Horse Guards saluting them as equals. Anyway, by '80 we'd gotten control of Syrtis Major and ousted Amraamtabi and all his little native weasels that'd been bleeding the common Martians dry. He was shut up in the Emerald Palace and who but Chamberlain oversaw the construction of the new British Residency. Officially, we were acting in the interests of the little boy-king of Parhoon, but everyone knew it for what it was: naked aggression, and why the hell not? We had the troops and the machinery, so why shouldn't the old beldame of Mars be under colonial rule? All the pretenses were dropped that winter when Syrtis Major was made an official Crown Colony and there was Vicky, pleased as you like, wishing the Raamtabis goodwill from her porch at Buckingham.
You all already know that the whole enterprise went belly-up in '89 when the Oenetrians did their best to kick us off the planet. There were Wormi priests everywhere, stabbing honest merchants in the dark and blackhearted colonels alike for their lunatic religion. At the time, though, everything looked stable as can be; we'd secured Syrtis Major without much in the way of a fight, locked up old Amraamtabi, and gotten our hands on the spice trade and most of the liftwood coming off Mars. Around that time the Germans were playing heavily into Venus, but I'll be damned if some big lizards and swamp gas were worth their time. So we came out handily at the top of the heap and things looked set to continue on right as rain for the empire. I didn't keep more than half an eye on the news then, but I knew things were turning out well and everyone was always going around saying what damned good work we were doing up there, turning the gold man red as the saying goes.
It was the summer of '87 when I got word that Sir Harold Paget Flashman was requested by Her Majesty's Government to come and deliver a speech to the Colonial Office clerks by way of a special entertainment for an evening. I was flattered they remembered Flashy because, to be quite honest, I felt I'd begun to fall out of vogue. Even with a VC you can only sail on without wind for so long before people begin to get tired of you and by then my fine cavalry whiskers were grey. There were always the impressionable young chaps who liked to hear all the nonsense about Jalalabad and Balaclava—it comes in handy having survived the worst and most distressing tragedies of your day—but they weren't the smart set, just the sons of wealthy grocers and things who had ideas about being in the army. They'd reformed all that purchasing of commissions that went on so much in my time, so there was a shot for a good lad to work his way into positions of real power. Not that you'd ever see a tradesman as Regent-Commissioner—except for Disraeli, and everyone has to admit that there was something not quite right about that sheeny.
I was all puffed up to think I was being called back into Society but even more excited for the little pension they were offering. Hell, thinks I, if I can land an honorary post in the Colonial Office so much the better! Let 'em pay for my port and cheroots and I'll give speeches 'till I'm blue in the face! As soon as I got off the train it became clear that I wasn't meant to be the main attraction. No, an abominable little Raamtabi named Arahshook was the big speaker of the night and I'd simply been selected from a register of noble but retired war heroes to help pad the bill! Well, another man might have been angry at that, but I don't care where my meal tickets come from. If they didn't think much of Flashman they could go straight to hell, and damn their impudence at the same time! And if they'd rather listen to the lisping lilt of a gold man, let 'em do that to their heart's content. Flashy'd be there drinking their liquor and gorging on their food all the same.
I think Lawrence wanted to do it to drum up some fervor in Russia, to be quite honest. He must've passed the buck down to Chamberlain, asking him to find the best way to make the Russians think we were moving on Mars. So with his usual Whitechapel cunning, Chamberlain up and comes up with this plan to fête a native rifleman all over London as though some grand new Parhoonian treaty was coming through. Here's Flashman in the back of the room getting nicely topped off, watching the whole thing spin out. I thought it was grand fun, even if Arahshook seemed to have had some training in the Tom Brown holiness school himself. He was an ugly Martian lad with long moustaches and a tremulous little voice that would've had him hung from the highest window back at Rugby. He droned on about what an honor it all was, and how much he loved Queen and Country, and all the same rot you'd expect. He didn't say a single thing to make me sit up, that much I remember. Which is too bad, because before you know it I'm asleep at my table and snoring fit to wake the dead. I must've knocked over my drink, for when someone shook me awake to take the podium I was half covered in it.
I must've done something right, because they laughed and cheered like all hell. I made some patriotic noises about the Queen and the superior English way of life and then staggered out to the gents to be properly sick. I hadn't taken so much on board in years and it was a damn strain on the body. They put me up somewhere that I can't recall (except for the fact that the sheets were nice and you couldn't seem to get a good tumble anywhere nearby) and then left me for the night. Things'd changed in London since the last time I'd been there and they were still changing all over the country. It hadn't seemed possible, but it seemed like everywhere was becoming even more hypocritical and tight, filled with that stupid holiness that had so permeated my youth. I suspect it was because the country was being run by bankers and store-clerks. I've never yet trusted a man who didn't drink and they seemed to be all the rage.
Still, it could've been worse. For one thing, they really did want me around to serve as a sop to the army croakers so they could be shown to have experience on their side. And Chamberlain assured me personally, his hands folded on mine, that I would have to do "No work whatsoever, what? Just show your face around London, come to the dinners, and make sure everyone knows the hero Flashman supports our venture." Well, with five guineas a week and nothing waiting for me back home, I decided there was no reason why not. After all, I could always find a good whorehouse in town. What Chamberlain's venture was I had no idea, nor did I want any. It'd never done me good to pry and in some cases I'd found actual harm in it.
There were still a few good places to get properly drunk in London. Luckily, when you're a grey-haired hero most of the bars will let you get a few off for free before they seriously look to the tab. The Cavalry Club, for instance, was excellent and I passed a good deal of time there. It helped get out the word that Flashman backed the colonial expansion on Mars, too, for on the third night of my stay Chamberlain foisted that blockhead Arahshook on me. He swore up and down that he'd never seen anything as fancy as the Crystal Palace and generally clung about me like a limpet. At first he was shocked to see British officers drinking and carousing, but he got into the swing of it damned fast. He was a natural toady, pleased as hell to tell you how fine you looked and how well your rig fit even if you were sagging at the belly. The first night I brought him out I thought to shock him with my impropriety, but he took it all in stride smiling and laughing and drinking with the best of 'em.
That was how we became friends because, of course, I can't resist the charm of someone willing to toad-eat to me. I know what it feels like to fawn to imbeciles, so there's a kind of kinship there that goes a long way for me. As I showed him the sights he described Mars to me. A damned uncomfortable place it sounded, and I loudly told him that I'd take Cambridge over Parhoon any day, just see if I wouldn't. Didn't rile him, though, didn't even so much as shake him. He just laughed and had our glasses refilled and then asked me if there were any red women he could try.
I don't generally care who sticks what in whom but there's some decorum to be observed. Not for the sake of the participants. I say let 'em at it, but when there's the chance of some public blowback I'd rather be well clear of the blast, if you get my meaning. So I told Arahshook no and no again until one night he got me quite deep into a third bottle of claret. We'd been playing a hand of cards somewhere on Pall Mall and I was up a good deal. "Come now, Flashman my friend. Certainly there is somewhere, ah, discreet...?"
"No, damn ye, and give me that back," says I, swiping for the bottle. But Arahshook dangled it overhead and waggled his big Martian eyebrows at me.
"I could, Flashman sorbash* (*Parhooni, meaning ally or companion), but I fear you are as bad with it as I am with bhutan." He reached into the pocket of those ridiculously large Martian trousers all the Parhoon Rifles wore and took out a pinch of the stuff. Bhutan spice is uncommonly powerful and I'd never tried it—nor did I ever want to, remembering what the bhang of Ko Dali's daughter had done to me (*see Flashman at the Charge). "But perhaps if you assist me on my own arlahk* (*quest, mission, holy duty) then I can help you on yours."
"Damn yer sacred oaths!" I said. I've a few true gifts in this world, and language is one of 'em. I'd been picking up bits and pieces of Parhooni since we met. "Just pass my drink back and we'll talk it over, eh?"
I had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Arahshook didn't know me well enough to know that. Or maybe he did, for I am certain that when I swigged it again I tasted some of that damned bhutan mixed in there. It has a sort of raw cinnamon-y flavor, not unpleasant at all. Before I know it I'm watching myself stand up at the table and shouting, "We'll find you some good English quim if we have to march on the palace!" And that was how all the trouble began.
Further Explanation: I have attempted to replicate Flashman's diction as best I can. I apologize for any offense it causes; suffice to say that the words emerge from the 19th century and are not my own.
If you can believe it, I was already sixty seven when I was called to serve the Queen for the last time. It was mostly the fault of that splendid idiot Chamberlain, of course, who felt that I was quite fit for service, what, and just the chap for the job. If I never see the inside of a Colonial Office dinner again it'll be too soon, I can tell you. When you reach a certain respectable age having seen the things I've seen—a badmash blown across a bazaar by a cannon or the cantonment at Meerut turned into a charnel house—you start to think you've already seen the worst the world and its pious fools have to offer. Then there comes along some insane American to do what they're best at: finding a whole new vista of horror. I don't know what Chamberlain thought he was going to get from Mars, by God, but he set his sights on it as soon as Edison's discovery was made public. There was liftwood, I suppose, and we had to get our hands on that so some dirty foreigner didn't, but it was more than that. The whole country was mad for "civilizing the natives" and "doing their Christian duty." You'd have thought Calvary was next to Olympus Mons for all the carping in the public squares and the pulpits. But if there's one place you should never stick your nose, it's into nigger religion.
You see, those gold-skinned niggers of Mars weren't keen on our preachers, can't think why. You've heard all about Edison and his stolen machinery, the crash-landing, the liftwood, Mars, the whole thing. Well, in '72 we landed an expedition on the Parhoon Plateau, which was fine by me. After all, I could sit back in Leicestershire and watch the fireworks as well as anyone. What was it to me if the Empire was expanding and marching into all kinds of places it shouldn't be? If I'd known what a load of trouble Mars was going to land me in, I'd have said dammit all to the Raamtabis and Wormis. Let 'em have their deserts and frozen wastelands, I don't care if they make the finest narcotics in the whole solar system. But I didn't know all that then, you see, so I clapped my hands and warmed my feet by the fire and cheered on that villain Chamberlain and all his machinations. Gladstone probably never would've let things get that far but he and Lawrence punched it out for a few years. It was standing for Home Rule in Ireland, I reckon, that did Gladstone in and gave Lawrence and Chamberlain time to do the dirty and get us insinuated in Syrtis Major.
I remember the first time I saw those god-awful Parhoon Rifles in The Times. They were the toast of the town then, but it was a little rich to see the Horse Guards saluting them as equals. Anyway, by '80 we'd gotten control of Syrtis Major and ousted Amraamtabi and all his little native weasels that'd been bleeding the common Martians dry. He was shut up in the Emerald Palace and who but Chamberlain oversaw the construction of the new British Residency. Officially, we were acting in the interests of the little boy-king of Parhoon, but everyone knew it for what it was: naked aggression, and why the hell not? We had the troops and the machinery, so why shouldn't the old beldame of Mars be under colonial rule? All the pretenses were dropped that winter when Syrtis Major was made an official Crown Colony and there was Vicky, pleased as you like, wishing the Raamtabis goodwill from her porch at Buckingham.
You all already know that the whole enterprise went belly-up in '89 when the Oenetrians did their best to kick us off the planet. There were Wormi priests everywhere, stabbing honest merchants in the dark and blackhearted colonels alike for their lunatic religion. At the time, though, everything looked stable as can be; we'd secured Syrtis Major without much in the way of a fight, locked up old Amraamtabi, and gotten our hands on the spice trade and most of the liftwood coming off Mars. Around that time the Germans were playing heavily into Venus, but I'll be damned if some big lizards and swamp gas were worth their time. So we came out handily at the top of the heap and things looked set to continue on right as rain for the empire. I didn't keep more than half an eye on the news then, but I knew things were turning out well and everyone was always going around saying what damned good work we were doing up there, turning the gold man red as the saying goes.
It was the summer of '87 when I got word that Sir Harold Paget Flashman was requested by Her Majesty's Government to come and deliver a speech to the Colonial Office clerks by way of a special entertainment for an evening. I was flattered they remembered Flashy because, to be quite honest, I felt I'd begun to fall out of vogue. Even with a VC you can only sail on without wind for so long before people begin to get tired of you and by then my fine cavalry whiskers were grey. There were always the impressionable young chaps who liked to hear all the nonsense about Jalalabad and Balaclava—it comes in handy having survived the worst and most distressing tragedies of your day—but they weren't the smart set, just the sons of wealthy grocers and things who had ideas about being in the army. They'd reformed all that purchasing of commissions that went on so much in my time, so there was a shot for a good lad to work his way into positions of real power. Not that you'd ever see a tradesman as Regent-Commissioner—except for Disraeli, and everyone has to admit that there was something not quite right about that sheeny.
I was all puffed up to think I was being called back into Society but even more excited for the little pension they were offering. Hell, thinks I, if I can land an honorary post in the Colonial Office so much the better! Let 'em pay for my port and cheroots and I'll give speeches 'till I'm blue in the face! As soon as I got off the train it became clear that I wasn't meant to be the main attraction. No, an abominable little Raamtabi named Arahshook was the big speaker of the night and I'd simply been selected from a register of noble but retired war heroes to help pad the bill! Well, another man might have been angry at that, but I don't care where my meal tickets come from. If they didn't think much of Flashman they could go straight to hell, and damn their impudence at the same time! And if they'd rather listen to the lisping lilt of a gold man, let 'em do that to their heart's content. Flashy'd be there drinking their liquor and gorging on their food all the same.
I think Lawrence wanted to do it to drum up some fervor in Russia, to be quite honest. He must've passed the buck down to Chamberlain, asking him to find the best way to make the Russians think we were moving on Mars. So with his usual Whitechapel cunning, Chamberlain up and comes up with this plan to fête a native rifleman all over London as though some grand new Parhoonian treaty was coming through. Here's Flashman in the back of the room getting nicely topped off, watching the whole thing spin out. I thought it was grand fun, even if Arahshook seemed to have had some training in the Tom Brown holiness school himself. He was an ugly Martian lad with long moustaches and a tremulous little voice that would've had him hung from the highest window back at Rugby. He droned on about what an honor it all was, and how much he loved Queen and Country, and all the same rot you'd expect. He didn't say a single thing to make me sit up, that much I remember. Which is too bad, because before you know it I'm asleep at my table and snoring fit to wake the dead. I must've knocked over my drink, for when someone shook me awake to take the podium I was half covered in it.
I must've done something right, because they laughed and cheered like all hell. I made some patriotic noises about the Queen and the superior English way of life and then staggered out to the gents to be properly sick. I hadn't taken so much on board in years and it was a damn strain on the body. They put me up somewhere that I can't recall (except for the fact that the sheets were nice and you couldn't seem to get a good tumble anywhere nearby) and then left me for the night. Things'd changed in London since the last time I'd been there and they were still changing all over the country. It hadn't seemed possible, but it seemed like everywhere was becoming even more hypocritical and tight, filled with that stupid holiness that had so permeated my youth. I suspect it was because the country was being run by bankers and store-clerks. I've never yet trusted a man who didn't drink and they seemed to be all the rage.
Still, it could've been worse. For one thing, they really did want me around to serve as a sop to the army croakers so they could be shown to have experience on their side. And Chamberlain assured me personally, his hands folded on mine, that I would have to do "No work whatsoever, what? Just show your face around London, come to the dinners, and make sure everyone knows the hero Flashman supports our venture." Well, with five guineas a week and nothing waiting for me back home, I decided there was no reason why not. After all, I could always find a good whorehouse in town. What Chamberlain's venture was I had no idea, nor did I want any. It'd never done me good to pry and in some cases I'd found actual harm in it.
There were still a few good places to get properly drunk in London. Luckily, when you're a grey-haired hero most of the bars will let you get a few off for free before they seriously look to the tab. The Cavalry Club, for instance, was excellent and I passed a good deal of time there. It helped get out the word that Flashman backed the colonial expansion on Mars, too, for on the third night of my stay Chamberlain foisted that blockhead Arahshook on me. He swore up and down that he'd never seen anything as fancy as the Crystal Palace and generally clung about me like a limpet. At first he was shocked to see British officers drinking and carousing, but he got into the swing of it damned fast. He was a natural toady, pleased as hell to tell you how fine you looked and how well your rig fit even if you were sagging at the belly. The first night I brought him out I thought to shock him with my impropriety, but he took it all in stride smiling and laughing and drinking with the best of 'em.
That was how we became friends because, of course, I can't resist the charm of someone willing to toad-eat to me. I know what it feels like to fawn to imbeciles, so there's a kind of kinship there that goes a long way for me. As I showed him the sights he described Mars to me. A damned uncomfortable place it sounded, and I loudly told him that I'd take Cambridge over Parhoon any day, just see if I wouldn't. Didn't rile him, though, didn't even so much as shake him. He just laughed and had our glasses refilled and then asked me if there were any red women he could try.
I don't generally care who sticks what in whom but there's some decorum to be observed. Not for the sake of the participants. I say let 'em at it, but when there's the chance of some public blowback I'd rather be well clear of the blast, if you get my meaning. So I told Arahshook no and no again until one night he got me quite deep into a third bottle of claret. We'd been playing a hand of cards somewhere on Pall Mall and I was up a good deal. "Come now, Flashman my friend. Certainly there is somewhere, ah, discreet...?"
"No, damn ye, and give me that back," says I, swiping for the bottle. But Arahshook dangled it overhead and waggled his big Martian eyebrows at me.
"I could, Flashman sorbash* (*Parhooni, meaning ally or companion), but I fear you are as bad with it as I am with bhutan." He reached into the pocket of those ridiculously large Martian trousers all the Parhoon Rifles wore and took out a pinch of the stuff. Bhutan spice is uncommonly powerful and I'd never tried it—nor did I ever want to, remembering what the bhang of Ko Dali's daughter had done to me (*see Flashman at the Charge). "But perhaps if you assist me on my own arlahk* (*quest, mission, holy duty) then I can help you on yours."
"Damn yer sacred oaths!" I said. I've a few true gifts in this world, and language is one of 'em. I'd been picking up bits and pieces of Parhooni since we met. "Just pass my drink back and we'll talk it over, eh?"
I had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Arahshook didn't know me well enough to know that. Or maybe he did, for I am certain that when I swigged it again I tasted some of that damned bhutan mixed in there. It has a sort of raw cinnamon-y flavor, not unpleasant at all. Before I know it I'm watching myself stand up at the table and shouting, "We'll find you some good English quim if we have to march on the palace!" And that was how all the trouble began.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Hot damn!
So, the Libram Mysterium is finally out! Get it now, and read some works of pulp fantasy, will ya?
Friday, January 17, 2014
The Starbund
Been sick lately, so things are backed up.
So, in the absence of regular gaming a lot of folks from my IRC channel have been playing Starbound, myself included. For those of you who don't know, Starbound is a sort of sandbox sidescroller in which you play one of a myriad of weird and intriguing races out to build your place in the galaxy. It has the same sort of editing as Terraria does, enabling you to build houses, barns, towers, complexes of techno-wizardry, and that sort of thing. IT has a huge procedurally generated universe, a wiring system of logic gates (which is a sort of analog to the redstone capacitor system of Minecraft) and a strange but compelling pixel-art aesthetic.
I was going to write an extremely detailed review, but the new patch is coming out in a few days plus I'm sick and whatnot. Consider this a warning that a review is coming (with the new patch probably) and some day next week may be taken up by my ranting on how great a game Starbound is.
So, in the absence of regular gaming a lot of folks from my IRC channel have been playing Starbound, myself included. For those of you who don't know, Starbound is a sort of sandbox sidescroller in which you play one of a myriad of weird and intriguing races out to build your place in the galaxy. It has the same sort of editing as Terraria does, enabling you to build houses, barns, towers, complexes of techno-wizardry, and that sort of thing. IT has a huge procedurally generated universe, a wiring system of logic gates (which is a sort of analog to the redstone capacitor system of Minecraft) and a strange but compelling pixel-art aesthetic.
I was going to write an extremely detailed review, but the new patch is coming out in a few days plus I'm sick and whatnot. Consider this a warning that a review is coming (with the new patch probably) and some day next week may be taken up by my ranting on how great a game Starbound is.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Realing the Unreal
Part of the joy of playing a fantasy game or a science fiction game (as opposed, I guess, to playing a real-life game where you work at an office or till a farm) is that, depending on the game, from time to time you'll be left with your characters staring at a vista that simply could not or does not exist in the everyday reality of the players. There's a certain danger to this; the more unreal the landscape, the harder it becomes to keep everyone grounded and imagining the same thing. This can lead to disconnection, video-game syndrome (Oh AWESOME an entire LAND of SMOKING CRATERS and STUFF!), and to a general inability to convey the scenery in a way that is meaningful and weighty.
There are a few ways to approach this. One is, of course, to ignore it. There are plenty of games were weird landscapes are the norm. There are plenty of DMs that can pull them off without sending players spiraling into a deadly verisimilitude drain. I don't think I'm one of them, and because the games I run tend to be more "realistic" (to resemble the real world in their details) I don't ignore this danger. I pay very close attention to it.
I approach it with a two-fold attitude. The first is that the blatantly unreal should be rare (at least in the 10th Age; when we're talking Spelljammer, it just comes with the property). The second is that it should be as palpable as possible and resemble something true as much as I can make it do so. My example here is the Boiling River of Elnuril, which has been poisoned by the presence of dragons. It is a large watercourse that now has the appearance of a geothermal spring. There is a stink of sulfur that accompanies it and steam wafts from its surface. However, I resisted the urge to make things like steam monsters since they seemed too video-gamey. A vampiric mist rising off the river doesn't make a whole lot of sense without a good deal of mental gymnastics.
However, it can also help ground the players for strange unrealities to have palpable effects. For example, spending too long in the sauna-like conditions near the Boiling River is bound to exhaust PCs as well as to leave them covered in a sheen of sweat and steam. Falling into the river is bad juju, of course, and even lingering too close to its banks can cause extreme heat fatigue.
Senses other than sight are good to engage when realing the unreal; sometimes, it takes a moment of dwelling on something that you might otherwise gloss over in order to really get across what being in the presence of it is like.
Sometimes, you don't have to spend that much time on it. Sometimes it's just ok without a lot of thought—yet I can't help but analyze these things and attempt to make a sort of logic out of them. So whether I am describing the strange sensation of flying through starfields in Spelljammer or witnessing the terrifying bodily glory of a dragon for the first time, I will often take extra attention to describe things that don't exist in reality with more detail than your every day wall or chair. I'm sure other people hit on this as well, longer ago and with much more alacrity and eloquence than I... but I offer it to you as a thought.
There are a few ways to approach this. One is, of course, to ignore it. There are plenty of games were weird landscapes are the norm. There are plenty of DMs that can pull them off without sending players spiraling into a deadly verisimilitude drain. I don't think I'm one of them, and because the games I run tend to be more "realistic" (to resemble the real world in their details) I don't ignore this danger. I pay very close attention to it.
I approach it with a two-fold attitude. The first is that the blatantly unreal should be rare (at least in the 10th Age; when we're talking Spelljammer, it just comes with the property). The second is that it should be as palpable as possible and resemble something true as much as I can make it do so. My example here is the Boiling River of Elnuril, which has been poisoned by the presence of dragons. It is a large watercourse that now has the appearance of a geothermal spring. There is a stink of sulfur that accompanies it and steam wafts from its surface. However, I resisted the urge to make things like steam monsters since they seemed too video-gamey. A vampiric mist rising off the river doesn't make a whole lot of sense without a good deal of mental gymnastics.
However, it can also help ground the players for strange unrealities to have palpable effects. For example, spending too long in the sauna-like conditions near the Boiling River is bound to exhaust PCs as well as to leave them covered in a sheen of sweat and steam. Falling into the river is bad juju, of course, and even lingering too close to its banks can cause extreme heat fatigue.
Senses other than sight are good to engage when realing the unreal; sometimes, it takes a moment of dwelling on something that you might otherwise gloss over in order to really get across what being in the presence of it is like.
Sometimes, you don't have to spend that much time on it. Sometimes it's just ok without a lot of thought—yet I can't help but analyze these things and attempt to make a sort of logic out of them. So whether I am describing the strange sensation of flying through starfields in Spelljammer or witnessing the terrifying bodily glory of a dragon for the first time, I will often take extra attention to describe things that don't exist in reality with more detail than your every day wall or chair. I'm sure other people hit on this as well, longer ago and with much more alacrity and eloquence than I... but I offer it to you as a thought.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
But What About Water?
Journeying in the wilderness is tough. You have to carry food on your back, and at least a little water or wine with you. Yet there's no way to carry enough water on your person to make certain you aren't going to run out. Indeed, you probably aren't going to carry more than two days of water at any given time. Three, if you're careful. Now, you can always get a wagon and fill with wine tuns or ale casks... but then what if you need to go off the beaten path? Wagons and carts are notoriously bad at moving along unpaved wilderness; they need at least a little cart path to follow, else they risk breaking an axle and become very heavy and expensive containers.
What's to say, then, that PCs find enough water to refill their wineskins every few days? The most logical (really?) answer is that you have a map granular enough to cover the position of every small rill, stream, and pond. Of course, in reality you could never be expected to map with such delicate detail to every meter of crossed terrain. You could handwave and say it's fine; to me, that's a very unsatisfying option. You could just arbitrarily determine it (almost as bad, but what I tend to do) or you could make a table. Guess where there's a good table?
The Wilderness Survival Guide.
I was going to make a table myself for this post, but then I was suddenly struck with the inspiration to check there. I found one almost instantly. So, for the benefit of everyone who forgot or never new that this table existed...
What's to say, then, that PCs find enough water to refill their wineskins every few days? The most logical (really?) answer is that you have a map granular enough to cover the position of every small rill, stream, and pond. Of course, in reality you could never be expected to map with such delicate detail to every meter of crossed terrain. You could handwave and say it's fine; to me, that's a very unsatisfying option. You could just arbitrarily determine it (almost as bad, but what I tend to do) or you could make a table. Guess where there's a good table?
The Wilderness Survival Guide.
I was going to make a table myself for this post, but then I was suddenly struck with the inspiration to check there. I found one almost instantly. So, for the benefit of everyone who forgot or never new that this table existed...
I can only assume those abbreviations are Desert, Forest, Hills, Mountains, Plains and Swamps.
Monday, January 13, 2014
The DM as con-artist
DMs (and GMs, by extension) have been compared to many different things by a thousand blogs and books and guides. I'm fairly certain I've never heard anyone make this comparison, so its time for me to do it. It seems extremely apt to me; the DM must create the illusion of an extremely deep world out of something that is in actuality very shallow. Performing this trick successfully is, itself, a con. You need to have the mental dexterity and the foresight of a someone pulling a long, continuous con whereby the players begin to get the feeling that the world they're interacting with really exists. You are the conduit through which it can be accessed. No one is capable of that much detail, no matter how much of their time they put into it... and yet, good DMs are capable of at least providing their players enough to suspend their disbelief.
What does a good con-artist require? Attention to detail. The same thing that a good film requires. If you can see the boom mike, or your clothes look too cheap for who you're supposed to be, then your audience (an actual audience and the people you're trying to con, respectively) will know that you're full of shit. If players see a flaccid world that has no details, if they dig and find that its only cardboard-thin, they'll likewise realize that they're playing a game without depth. The best compliment anyone has ever given me was that the world they played in "felt real." Not that the pacing of the session was great, or that the combat was exciting (though they often comment that they feel like there's ice in their bowels every time combat starts, which to me is another kind of victory) but that the world feels like a real place.
This ties in to the unique encounter tables that I talked about on Friday—they help to give the appearance of realism by featuring individual events that are more properly tailored to their environment than the standard d100 roll resulting in goblins. Of course, even when I roll a group of 4d6 goblins there are some mental gymnastics required to figure out what they're up to when the PCs meet them, if they have prisoners, etc. So even there, on a normal, standard encounter check, there are chances to show off the set. Let the players thump the facades and pry into the back rooms—just be sure you're either fast enough to fill in what's back there or have planned in advance.
This is why maps, histories, NPCs, encounter tables, and other such things are best planned out in advance. They reduce the amount of shilly-shallying the DM needs to do at the table to provide a "living" world. This is also why notes that never get used are important—those dungeons the PCs never went into? They were real dungeons that existed for them, that they knew where legitimate options. Of course, you can always stop the game and say that you don't have enough notes to continue... but that's admission that the con is breaking down. The best thing to do is have the notes prepared. The worst thing to do is to try to bar them access from places you aren't ready to display. Even stopping the game is better than that.
Remember: your players want to be fooled. They want you to be the best DM they've ever had. Just convince them that they're right.
What does a good con-artist require? Attention to detail. The same thing that a good film requires. If you can see the boom mike, or your clothes look too cheap for who you're supposed to be, then your audience (an actual audience and the people you're trying to con, respectively) will know that you're full of shit. If players see a flaccid world that has no details, if they dig and find that its only cardboard-thin, they'll likewise realize that they're playing a game without depth. The best compliment anyone has ever given me was that the world they played in "felt real." Not that the pacing of the session was great, or that the combat was exciting (though they often comment that they feel like there's ice in their bowels every time combat starts, which to me is another kind of victory) but that the world feels like a real place.
This ties in to the unique encounter tables that I talked about on Friday—they help to give the appearance of realism by featuring individual events that are more properly tailored to their environment than the standard d100 roll resulting in goblins. Of course, even when I roll a group of 4d6 goblins there are some mental gymnastics required to figure out what they're up to when the PCs meet them, if they have prisoners, etc. So even there, on a normal, standard encounter check, there are chances to show off the set. Let the players thump the facades and pry into the back rooms—just be sure you're either fast enough to fill in what's back there or have planned in advance.
This is why maps, histories, NPCs, encounter tables, and other such things are best planned out in advance. They reduce the amount of shilly-shallying the DM needs to do at the table to provide a "living" world. This is also why notes that never get used are important—those dungeons the PCs never went into? They were real dungeons that existed for them, that they knew where legitimate options. Of course, you can always stop the game and say that you don't have enough notes to continue... but that's admission that the con is breaking down. The best thing to do is have the notes prepared. The worst thing to do is to try to bar them access from places you aren't ready to display. Even stopping the game is better than that.
Remember: your players want to be fooled. They want you to be the best DM they've ever had. Just convince them that they're right.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Encounter Tables: Unique Entries
Something that I gather people have been doing for as long as there has been roleplaying but that I've only picked up semi-recently is the inclusion of a subtable of unique entries for encounters. The first I saw of it was over at Middenmurk, and I've been studiously including them ever since. Why? Well, they represent an added level of flavor as well as the possibility for what –C calls "red herrings," new adventure hooks, and myriad layers of surprises and scenarios which the players can use to their advantage (or bungle and get used by, howsoever the case may be).
I suppose first of all I should be clear what I mean by unique entries. These are one-time encounters that are removed from the table after they are experienced. Thus a main encounter table might draw to a subtable called "Local Flavor," which includes...
1. Three goblins picking over the remains of a halfling slain on the road
2. Two men swinging as thieves from a nearby bough
3. A rainstorm (do not remove)
4. 2d6 royal messengers fleeing from 2d8+4 orcs
These events (other than the rainstorm) do not happen often enough in the lifetime of a single character, or perhaps even multiple characters, to merit a full entry on an encounter table. However, they are interesting and conceivably players should be able to stumble upon scenes of this nature. Well, you say, why not just show them the scene when you are ready? Because that robs me of my fun, as well as the opportunity to let the world feel like its natural and organic. If players don't see everything when they play (ie, if I don't unfurl my planned scenes like a carpet) they will be much more excited about the things they do see. I know this from the rare entries in my encounter charts. Only one group ever encountered a Cloud Giant bard wandering the hills looking for tales... but it was one of the most memorable encounters of all time, because it didn't happen very often. So it goes with unique encounters, but even more so.
Having used them for a little while now, I can heartily say that they provide great roleplaying opportunities as well as new tools with which to think about the dungeon/city/whatever. Like everything that happens, they can serve as adventure hooks if the PCs are interested in finding out more about them, they add real flavor and the sense of a living environment, and they really aren't that hard to make. I'm sure this is old news to everyone, but for me, it is a startling revelation of immense proportions. I suppose that's what I get for never having read Dragon or really purchased modules or anything: the best tricks I'm left to stumble on myself!
I suppose first of all I should be clear what I mean by unique entries. These are one-time encounters that are removed from the table after they are experienced. Thus a main encounter table might draw to a subtable called "Local Flavor," which includes...
1. Three goblins picking over the remains of a halfling slain on the road
2. Two men swinging as thieves from a nearby bough
3. A rainstorm (do not remove)
4. 2d6 royal messengers fleeing from 2d8+4 orcs
These events (other than the rainstorm) do not happen often enough in the lifetime of a single character, or perhaps even multiple characters, to merit a full entry on an encounter table. However, they are interesting and conceivably players should be able to stumble upon scenes of this nature. Well, you say, why not just show them the scene when you are ready? Because that robs me of my fun, as well as the opportunity to let the world feel like its natural and organic. If players don't see everything when they play (ie, if I don't unfurl my planned scenes like a carpet) they will be much more excited about the things they do see. I know this from the rare entries in my encounter charts. Only one group ever encountered a Cloud Giant bard wandering the hills looking for tales... but it was one of the most memorable encounters of all time, because it didn't happen very often. So it goes with unique encounters, but even more so.
Having used them for a little while now, I can heartily say that they provide great roleplaying opportunities as well as new tools with which to think about the dungeon/city/whatever. Like everything that happens, they can serve as adventure hooks if the PCs are interested in finding out more about them, they add real flavor and the sense of a living environment, and they really aren't that hard to make. I'm sure this is old news to everyone, but for me, it is a startling revelation of immense proportions. I suppose that's what I get for never having read Dragon or really purchased modules or anything: the best tricks I'm left to stumble on myself!
Thursday, January 9, 2014
A Board Game of Thrones
Having gotten this game for a friend and subsequently discovered that it also works on Vassal thanks to some modules designed by a few clever-boots, I've played it a few times recently. The connection with the old favorite Diplomacy is not to be denied. Like Diplomacy, it's primarily about lying and manipulating, with the actual mechanics of the game being secondary to these tricks, temporary alliances, and other such friendship-ruining agreements.
The game reminds one of Birthright though of course with less detail on the actual ruling of places and more emphasis on warfare. Its alternate-history Westeros is one in which the families of the land more or less stay together and don't fight each other (Renly and Stannis, for example, are both commander cards in the Baratheon deck regardless of their disputes in the books) and in which Eddard Stark was never beheaded. That's ok, though, because the game is FUN AS HELL. Instead of writing your orders down on a slip of paper like Diplomacy, you put face-down markers on the table and then everyone flips them over at once. Even once you've declared your orders, you can still choose WHERE exactly you want to march that dangerous army, eliciting the possibility of further diplomatic talks before your troops shred the much-needed provinces of a neighbor.
Also interesting (and by interesting I mean great) are the uneven starting positions of the great houses. The Starks, for example, have the vast and unpleasant wasteland of the north at the beginning of the game. On balance, however, they are only adjacent to one house. The Lannisters, on the other hand, have a clear road to the heart of the kingdom where all the finery of the realm awaits them... but they are surrounded by other Houses and an alliance against them is likely to form early. The play styles of each house are markedly different, as are the abilities their various cards give (Kevin Lannister makes footmen as valuable as knights, meaning Lannister armies will tend to allow more footmen in their ranks).
Rarely is the game measured as a slugfest between armies. Victories or defeats on the battlefield must be followed by sound strategy on the rest of the board else you will be certain to lose. I was playing the Lannisters and the Baratheon and Stark players (there were three of us) pushed me back to Lannisport and then took it... and meanwhile, the rest of my armies were sacking the central kingdoms and the Bay of the Ironmen and I won by taking my 7th castle with Stark wolves baying for blood at my very doorstep.
The influence tracker is a great way to represent complex political realities within the simple world of the game. It shows how close each house is to controlling the "legitimate king," which presumably changes as the influence changes, to controlling the most important and warlike fiefdoms of Westeros, and to commanding the court of the king. Each of these things alter the way the game is played. Holding the Iron Throne allows you to break ties and go first. The Valyrian Steel Blade (fiefdoms) grants you bonuses in war, and the Messenger Raven (king's court) allows you to change some of your orders AFTER everyone has committed.
The wheeling and dealing necessary to win the game is a cold business. As players fall behind, it behoves the smart and right devious lord to recruit them into his cause and promise to shield them as they rebuild. In this way, their meager remaining forces can be put to good use. In one game I forced a shattered army out of the Eyrie and southwards towards King's Landing... thus infuriating the Baratheon player and causing her to turn, not on me, but on the Lannister player who's forces were moved by treaty.
Well, when you play the boardgame of thrones, you win or you die.
The game reminds one of Birthright though of course with less detail on the actual ruling of places and more emphasis on warfare. Its alternate-history Westeros is one in which the families of the land more or less stay together and don't fight each other (Renly and Stannis, for example, are both commander cards in the Baratheon deck regardless of their disputes in the books) and in which Eddard Stark was never beheaded. That's ok, though, because the game is FUN AS HELL. Instead of writing your orders down on a slip of paper like Diplomacy, you put face-down markers on the table and then everyone flips them over at once. Even once you've declared your orders, you can still choose WHERE exactly you want to march that dangerous army, eliciting the possibility of further diplomatic talks before your troops shred the much-needed provinces of a neighbor.
Also interesting (and by interesting I mean great) are the uneven starting positions of the great houses. The Starks, for example, have the vast and unpleasant wasteland of the north at the beginning of the game. On balance, however, they are only adjacent to one house. The Lannisters, on the other hand, have a clear road to the heart of the kingdom where all the finery of the realm awaits them... but they are surrounded by other Houses and an alliance against them is likely to form early. The play styles of each house are markedly different, as are the abilities their various cards give (Kevin Lannister makes footmen as valuable as knights, meaning Lannister armies will tend to allow more footmen in their ranks).
Rarely is the game measured as a slugfest between armies. Victories or defeats on the battlefield must be followed by sound strategy on the rest of the board else you will be certain to lose. I was playing the Lannisters and the Baratheon and Stark players (there were three of us) pushed me back to Lannisport and then took it... and meanwhile, the rest of my armies were sacking the central kingdoms and the Bay of the Ironmen and I won by taking my 7th castle with Stark wolves baying for blood at my very doorstep.
The influence tracker is a great way to represent complex political realities within the simple world of the game. It shows how close each house is to controlling the "legitimate king," which presumably changes as the influence changes, to controlling the most important and warlike fiefdoms of Westeros, and to commanding the court of the king. Each of these things alter the way the game is played. Holding the Iron Throne allows you to break ties and go first. The Valyrian Steel Blade (fiefdoms) grants you bonuses in war, and the Messenger Raven (king's court) allows you to change some of your orders AFTER everyone has committed.
The wheeling and dealing necessary to win the game is a cold business. As players fall behind, it behoves the smart and right devious lord to recruit them into his cause and promise to shield them as they rebuild. In this way, their meager remaining forces can be put to good use. In one game I forced a shattered army out of the Eyrie and southwards towards King's Landing... thus infuriating the Baratheon player and causing her to turn, not on me, but on the Lannister player who's forces were moved by treaty.
Well, when you play the boardgame of thrones, you win or you die.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Where have all the flowers gone?
Back when I first founded the IRC channel over at suptg, we played nonstop. Games were happening several times a week; I was running 2-5 parties in the 10th Age at any given time, most of them permutations and combinations of the available people in the channel. That hasn't happened in a long time. Since writing my play (and having a rather brutal falling out with one of my longtime players and friends), the well of games has stopped, dried up; the fields seem fallow.
The Hounds wait perched upon the throat of victory or ignominious defeat at the Troll Crags. Ideas rattle around in my skull about mythic D&D settings, more like the D&D of the inestimable Middenmurk or Hill Cantons than the slavishly medieval/late classical D&D of the 10th Age. Wild harebrained schemes about Space 1889 and procedurally generated sandboxes flit through my vision as the lack of D&D slowly takes hold in my brainstem.
There was a period of four or five years when I didn't play at all. That was a black time, a time of shadows and doubt, when the very future of the 10th Age was in question. It was the 8th Age then, and abandoned it lied in the corners of my mind. It was only with a new rebirth that it was permitted to become the 10th Age at all.
I suppose what I'm saying is: play is important.
Theorizing, at least for me, rarely happens extemporaneously. It is a result of very real play sessions. The gears which turn to make D&D make sense turn only when I have a current game running. That's one of the reasons that the blog went dark for so long: we literally did not play a single session of D&D in all that time. Not to say we played nothing—once we played Paranoia.
However, more than anything, key to the hobby is actually engaging in play. Without it, there's no groundwork upon which to comment. So you may find that the blog wanders far afield until my games return. I'll be talking more about fantasy literature, science fiction, and other amusing topics and less about Dungeons and Dragons in specific.
The Hounds wait perched upon the throat of victory or ignominious defeat at the Troll Crags. Ideas rattle around in my skull about mythic D&D settings, more like the D&D of the inestimable Middenmurk or Hill Cantons than the slavishly medieval/late classical D&D of the 10th Age. Wild harebrained schemes about Space 1889 and procedurally generated sandboxes flit through my vision as the lack of D&D slowly takes hold in my brainstem.
There was a period of four or five years when I didn't play at all. That was a black time, a time of shadows and doubt, when the very future of the 10th Age was in question. It was the 8th Age then, and abandoned it lied in the corners of my mind. It was only with a new rebirth that it was permitted to become the 10th Age at all.
I suppose what I'm saying is: play is important.
Theorizing, at least for me, rarely happens extemporaneously. It is a result of very real play sessions. The gears which turn to make D&D make sense turn only when I have a current game running. That's one of the reasons that the blog went dark for so long: we literally did not play a single session of D&D in all that time. Not to say we played nothing—once we played Paranoia.
However, more than anything, key to the hobby is actually engaging in play. Without it, there's no groundwork upon which to comment. So you may find that the blog wanders far afield until my games return. I'll be talking more about fantasy literature, science fiction, and other amusing topics and less about Dungeons and Dragons in specific.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
The New Fantasy
It's an undeniable fact that "realism" in the form of verisimilitude seems to fall under the governance of the pendulum of popularity. I would argue that, at least in terms of literature, the most "realistic" of fantasy is actually historical fiction. This strains verisimilitude not at all—there is no need to accept a premise other than that the author is presenting a more-or-less accurate depiction of historical record. The further from historical fiction one strays, the more precepts must be taken for granted.
Hewing close to verisimilitude tends to produce the range of naturalistic works, such as those Gygax championed. Understanding the ecosystem of foreign and unbelievable lands makes them less unbelievable and grounds them in fact. It's no secret that I'm a champion of the Fewer Precepts model; the less an audience is asked to swallow, the easier it is to enjoy the story and forget that its a story. Character motivation, for me, is one of the worst things to bungle and the easiest way out of a tale. I'm more than willing to accept the existence of magic, of trolls, of whatever else. Of course, I'd rather not have to also take it for granted that those things don't follow rules, but I'm allowing myself to be sidetracked by one of my favorite subjects to harp on.
The driving point of all this is that I feel that the Song of Ice and Fire series represents a step in a different direction for fantasy literature. Steps of a similar ilk were taken with the Black Company (though these focused on verisimilitude of character and warfare rather than setting) and then much much further with Cook's second series, The Instrumentalities of the Night. I guess what I'm saying is maybe there's a place for a new kind of fantasy. I don't really know. I'm exploring the idea right now, as I'm sure you are now that I've mentioned it (or perhaps you're secretly fuming that I would suggest it).
I love Tolkien. He is the archetype, the universal model upon which I base my decisions. I love his writing. But it doesn't fit this idea of the New Fantasy. It's a mythic fantasy that he's writing, one informed by the mythology of Europe and the ideology of a particular time and a particular place and one slightly idiosyncratic man. Perhaps there can exist, alongside this, a clutch of secondary world literature that is less mythic in scope. Perhaps books about secondary worlds need not include wizards and wars without end, brutal night or the pinnacle of human achievement. Perhaps perhaps perhaps a new type of fantasy is dawning.
Or perhaps not.
Hewing close to verisimilitude tends to produce the range of naturalistic works, such as those Gygax championed. Understanding the ecosystem of foreign and unbelievable lands makes them less unbelievable and grounds them in fact. It's no secret that I'm a champion of the Fewer Precepts model; the less an audience is asked to swallow, the easier it is to enjoy the story and forget that its a story. Character motivation, for me, is one of the worst things to bungle and the easiest way out of a tale. I'm more than willing to accept the existence of magic, of trolls, of whatever else. Of course, I'd rather not have to also take it for granted that those things don't follow rules, but I'm allowing myself to be sidetracked by one of my favorite subjects to harp on.
The driving point of all this is that I feel that the Song of Ice and Fire series represents a step in a different direction for fantasy literature. Steps of a similar ilk were taken with the Black Company (though these focused on verisimilitude of character and warfare rather than setting) and then much much further with Cook's second series, The Instrumentalities of the Night. I guess what I'm saying is maybe there's a place for a new kind of fantasy. I don't really know. I'm exploring the idea right now, as I'm sure you are now that I've mentioned it (or perhaps you're secretly fuming that I would suggest it).
I love Tolkien. He is the archetype, the universal model upon which I base my decisions. I love his writing. But it doesn't fit this idea of the New Fantasy. It's a mythic fantasy that he's writing, one informed by the mythology of Europe and the ideology of a particular time and a particular place and one slightly idiosyncratic man. Perhaps there can exist, alongside this, a clutch of secondary world literature that is less mythic in scope. Perhaps books about secondary worlds need not include wizards and wars without end, brutal night or the pinnacle of human achievement. Perhaps perhaps perhaps a new type of fantasy is dawning.
Or perhaps not.
Monday, January 6, 2014
There is Malice
'There is malice in this sword. The heart of the smith still dwells in it, and that heart was dark. It will not love the hand it serves; neither will it abide with you long."
—The Children of Húrin, J.R.R. TolkienThe father of modern fantasy fiction (is Dunsany the grandfather?) has addressed this issue at length throughout his works and it stands amongst the other statements he's made about craftsmanship and its relation to magic; the heart of the smith still dwells in it, warns Melian. Beleg Longbow knows, but takes the sword anyway. Unlike Stormbringer, say, the malice in Tolkien's blade is not inborn to the nature of the thing, but rather the effect of its creation. The sword Anglachel is literally cast with the intention of its craftsman embedded in it, permanently marred by the thoughts of its creator. I should add that, at the very end of the Children of Húrin, the sword does indeed speak, to urge Túrin to his death and cleanse it (and thus him) of the murders he's committed with it.
Thoughts are powerful in the legendarium. Elrond can cast his thought wide over the earth and Melkor's very thought hounds the children of Húrin and leads them to their doom. The world of Arda is itself a physical manifestation of thought (as embodied in the music of the Ainur). "Spells" and "magic" are songs sung with a particular intention. Thus, the bending of intention and thought is the primary magical agent in Arda—not that those who understand it even make the distinction between natural processes and so-called magical processes.
What's my point here? I'm not certain, save that the malice in the sword is great. I've generally explained cursed items in D&D this way—for example, the Sword of Orne, borne by generations of goblin-killers, which cannot now be sheathed in the presence of goblins and will never allow the wielder to retreat when fighting its hated foe was not originally so cursed. Centuries of war and hate poured into it, and the intention of its wielders shaped it into the weapon it is today.
This is almost a form of animism; things acquire anthropomorphic traits (like emotion) by being dwelt upon by thinking beings, by being used with intention. The idea that people cast their intention into the world itself is a powerful one, and serves Tolkien well.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Royal Flash vs. Flashman and the Meaning Thereof
A digression.
George Macdonald Fraiser created one of the greatest characters of the 20th Century, even though Harry Piaget Flashman is from the 19th. The Flashman series is an unending delight of English bigotry, misogyny, and cowardice, the curtain drawn back on the Imperial experiment to get a look at the pulsing muscles underneath. You can't help but love Flashy, even though he is literally the worst. In the 70s, a movie was made out of the second Flashman book. It wasn't great.
Though it was written by George Macdonald Fraiser and acted by the inestimable Malcolm McDowell, it failed to capture the spirit of old Flashy. I've a litany of problems with it, starting the common adaptation blues (Rudi is too old, Flashman too weedy, Bismarck not scary enough, Krafstein turned into a Bond villain, de Gautet barely present, Lola not young enough, etc., etc.)
Let us cut right to the most damning change at the heart of the matter: nothing is serious. The Flashman novels are undoubtedly comedy. There's no denying that they are meant to be a cruel and biting satire. We are encouraged to laugh with and at Harry and his contemporaries without mercy. But, at the end of the day, the Flashman books contain real human emotion and tragically moving segments. When the Residency is overwhelmed in Kabul or Flashman is languishing at Piper's Fort, when he's upside-down in the pipe under the Jotunberg or Carl Gustav is learning that his best and oldest friend has been casually slaughtered by the grinning Rudi—these are real, human, and heartbreaking. Flashman's tales are built on heartbreak: he's an arm of the Imperial government, and he witnesses the darkest parts of the 19th century first hand.
Royal Flash (the film) has none of that. The tone is more like Dumb and Dumber. Flashman, far from being a cunning evil coward, is portrayed as a bumbling fool. Things happen to Flashman, not because of him. Tellingly, in the Jotunberg when Rudi is outlining a plan for Flashy to go back into the fire for the sake of money and good ole Harry decides the safer thing to do is hit Rudi with a bottle and run away (later lamenting that he didn't kill the bastard when he was down and he had the chance), McDowell's Flashy accidentally brains him and then actively decides not to hit him again. Who's this Harry? A dope, not a coward and murderer.
It seems that Fraiser (who wrote the screenplay) tried to steer away from the darker parts of his novel: the torture Harry inflicts on de Gautet, the accusations of rape, the true baseness of Henry Piaget Flashman's character. He's a hapless dope, not a murderer! the movie screams. Because of that, the true spirit of Harry Flashman is lost. It's a fun enough movie, and it fills a few hours, but it has none of the lasting impact of reading a Flashman novel.
Ah well. Maybe HBO and the BBC will team up to make a miniseries.
George Macdonald Fraiser created one of the greatest characters of the 20th Century, even though Harry Piaget Flashman is from the 19th. The Flashman series is an unending delight of English bigotry, misogyny, and cowardice, the curtain drawn back on the Imperial experiment to get a look at the pulsing muscles underneath. You can't help but love Flashy, even though he is literally the worst. In the 70s, a movie was made out of the second Flashman book. It wasn't great.
Though it was written by George Macdonald Fraiser and acted by the inestimable Malcolm McDowell, it failed to capture the spirit of old Flashy. I've a litany of problems with it, starting the common adaptation blues (Rudi is too old, Flashman too weedy, Bismarck not scary enough, Krafstein turned into a Bond villain, de Gautet barely present, Lola not young enough, etc., etc.)
Let us cut right to the most damning change at the heart of the matter: nothing is serious. The Flashman novels are undoubtedly comedy. There's no denying that they are meant to be a cruel and biting satire. We are encouraged to laugh with and at Harry and his contemporaries without mercy. But, at the end of the day, the Flashman books contain real human emotion and tragically moving segments. When the Residency is overwhelmed in Kabul or Flashman is languishing at Piper's Fort, when he's upside-down in the pipe under the Jotunberg or Carl Gustav is learning that his best and oldest friend has been casually slaughtered by the grinning Rudi—these are real, human, and heartbreaking. Flashman's tales are built on heartbreak: he's an arm of the Imperial government, and he witnesses the darkest parts of the 19th century first hand.
Royal Flash (the film) has none of that. The tone is more like Dumb and Dumber. Flashman, far from being a cunning evil coward, is portrayed as a bumbling fool. Things happen to Flashman, not because of him. Tellingly, in the Jotunberg when Rudi is outlining a plan for Flashy to go back into the fire for the sake of money and good ole Harry decides the safer thing to do is hit Rudi with a bottle and run away (later lamenting that he didn't kill the bastard when he was down and he had the chance), McDowell's Flashy accidentally brains him and then actively decides not to hit him again. Who's this Harry? A dope, not a coward and murderer.
It seems that Fraiser (who wrote the screenplay) tried to steer away from the darker parts of his novel: the torture Harry inflicts on de Gautet, the accusations of rape, the true baseness of Henry Piaget Flashman's character. He's a hapless dope, not a murderer! the movie screams. Because of that, the true spirit of Harry Flashman is lost. It's a fun enough movie, and it fills a few hours, but it has none of the lasting impact of reading a Flashman novel.
Ah well. Maybe HBO and the BBC will team up to make a miniseries.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
The Flowers of Summer and the World of Tarsus
I've found that the most important thing about writing is just to continue doing it.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The Amazing Journey
This is a brief exploration of an idea Jocelyn and I had in the Galapagos and presents the basic outline as well as some of the PnP world generation stuff. There should clearly be more options in the generation section and the ultimate plan is to have procedurally generated creatures to encounter as well.
The year is 1863. Deep in the Mojave Desert, a platoon of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers have discovered a long dormant artifact that was presumably left behind by the fading Amerindian culture. However, upon depositing it in Cambridge for study at Harvard, it has become clear that the bizarre red pyramid with the glimmering green rods in its heart was no work of man. Five rods, there were, when the experiments began.
Once those eggheads at Harvard discovered how to turn the machine on, only four rods remained. A gateway was made, a gateway that flickered into and out of being with astonishing rapidity, bathing the quadrangle in ghostly unhallowed light. Nothing like that circle of otherness had ever been seen. Three expeditions have been sent through, three expeditions mounted by the United States government and private investors. There are high hopes: hopes of alien life, of a weapon that can end the war wracking the nation, hopes of discovering where mankind came from and where it is going...
But none of the three expeditionary teams have ever returned. You comprise the fourth.
Procedurally Generated Destination of Amazing Vernian Adventure...
Biosphere (d6):
1. Barren, dead world
2. Deserted, little life
3. Savannah
4. Earth-like
5. Lush
6. Ultra-lush
Rainfall (d6):
1. None, desert world
2. Low rainfall
3. Moderate rainfall, arid
4. Earth-like
5. High rainfall, monsoon
6. Oceanic, Thalassian
Amazing! Qualities (d20, roll multiple times for a weirder world):
1. Crystalline World
2. Metallic World
3. Acid Rain
4. Seas of Acid
5. Toxic World
6. Intelligent Life (non-hostile, advanced, native)
7. Intelligent Life (hostile, advanced, native)
8. Intelligent Life (non-hostile, tribal, native)
9. Intelligent Life (hostile, tribal, native)
10. Intelligent Life (starfaring, hostile)
11. Intelligent Life (starfaring, nonhostile)
12. Hollow World (roll again for interior biosphere and rainfall)
13. Two Suns (reduce rainfall by 2 categories, min. 1)
14. Apex Predator
15. Shattered World/Floating islands
16. Low gravity world
17. Ruins (extinct advanced natives)
18. Degraded natives (from advanced to tribal, hostile)
19. Degraded natives (from advanced to tribal, non-hostile)
20. Gigantic Organisms
Procedurally Generated Destination of Amazing Vernian Adventure...
Biosphere (d6):
1. Barren, dead world
2. Deserted, little life
3. Savannah
4. Earth-like
5. Lush
6. Ultra-lush
Rainfall (d6):
1. None, desert world
2. Low rainfall
3. Moderate rainfall, arid
4. Earth-like
5. High rainfall, monsoon
6. Oceanic, Thalassian
Amazing! Qualities (d20, roll multiple times for a weirder world):
1. Crystalline World
2. Metallic World
3. Acid Rain
4. Seas of Acid
5. Toxic World
6. Intelligent Life (non-hostile, advanced, native)
7. Intelligent Life (hostile, advanced, native)
8. Intelligent Life (non-hostile, tribal, native)
9. Intelligent Life (hostile, tribal, native)
10. Intelligent Life (starfaring, hostile)
11. Intelligent Life (starfaring, nonhostile)
12. Hollow World (roll again for interior biosphere and rainfall)
13. Two Suns (reduce rainfall by 2 categories, min. 1)
14. Apex Predator
15. Shattered World/Floating islands
16. Low gravity world
17. Ruins (extinct advanced natives)
18. Degraded natives (from advanced to tribal, hostile)
19. Degraded natives (from advanced to tribal, non-hostile)
20. Gigantic Organisms
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