Quick & Dirty Guide to Creating Published Settings

As I mentioned in my previous post about Using Published settings Publish settings have a few problems. I could be wrong but I don't feel this is unique to me. They give the impression that you are using someone elses setting, which of course is true. But in the spirit of DIY gaming the GM needs to get over that and make the thing their own. There is no reason the setting can't use and work with this assumption.

Back in the late 80s there was a book called A Quick & Dirty Guide to War. The authors James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay went over all of the political flashpoints of the day (late 80s) and listed out the problems, the factions, and gave a number of likely outcomes (80% chance Iran attacks Iraq, 10% chance Israel bombs and diffuses the conflict, 5% status quo continues, etc). They gave a lot more detail on each one. The interesting thing is you could tell a lot about the factions by the possible outcomes.

Poetic Kaldor, map
used without permission

Now I imagine the same thing with a Published Setting. I'll use Hârn again. Instead of just saying it is 720 and go for it (which was sort of revolutionary in the day) they could have said:

Kaldor Possible Outcomes

• 60% by 725 increasing by 10% every year after.  Succession Crisis. The old King dies and the Earl of Pendath grabs for the throne. Having prepared for years his loyalists quickly take Tashal and Gardiren. The remaining nobles side against him. Mercenaris from all around flood into the Kingdom.
• 30% by 725 that Gargun raids (Hârnic Orcs) unit the nation behind the Earl of Olakane and the old King makes the Earl his heir prior to passing a few years later.
• 2% by 730 War with Dwarves of Azadmere. In order to fix national finances, and assuming the Dwarves would never leave their holes, the Royal Treasurer announces all debt to the Dwarves are nullified. The Dwarves do not take this well and march on Getha. 10% chance the Elves get involved on the side of the Dwarves.

Anyway, I'm not up on my Hârn stuff right now so the Earl might be conquering his own property in my example but hopefully you get the point. By providing jumping off points the Published setting would make it easier for a GM to make the setting their own, as well as provide lots of scenario ideas. Say the GM decides for the succession crisis, they could put the game right before it starts and play it out, or have it take place a decade later with a lot of new history that players wouldn't be able to Google.

This also gives an outlet for that little bit of novel writing that exists in every Publisher so that hopefully they can avoid putting that sort of garbage into their adventures.

Using Published Settings

Not long ago I'd considered starting up a campaign in the Hârn Setting. I was a huge fan of Hârn in the day. I even played HârnMaster for awhile before returning to my HouseRuled RuneQuest 2. I had everything published including the Ivínia and Shôrkýnè Regional modules. I never used those module and I may have only gotten the map of Shôrkýnè without any kind of Hârndex on the thing. My gaming ended about that time.

Poetic Players map
Used without Permission

So years later I got interested in gaming again and looked at the pile of Hârn stuff as a good place to jump in again. The place had beautiful maps of the environment, the kingdoms, every major city and a number of castles so it would save a lot of time staring there. 

But the vast amount of data to re-absorb was daunting. It wasn't so bad initially as it was provided in books that appeared all too seldom but now it was all there in one giant pile. A pile I was vaguely aware of but felt compelled to re-read to run Hârn right, but...

First I thought, although I wanted to run it right I kept thinking why? Hârn is like Anglo-Saxon England with no plate mail. Back in the day this was appealing, now I liked the idea of plate armor. They have plate on the mainland if I remember correctly but the Wizards in Melderyn wouldn't allow it on Hârn for some reason. But what is running it right? It's my game. I bought the stuff, I'd be the one running the game. I can do what I want.

Second I thought, players have access to all the info as well. This has benefits and negatives. It can take away surprises but also they can learn the background of the world using Google without my doling it out bite by bite. They don't even need to buy the thing. 

This is a problem that is not unique to Hârn. In fact it's thousands of times worse for some settings that have novels and far more backstory. Some even had cataclysm to temporarily fix the problem and get folks to buy everything again. And that's the fix I was looking for but the idea of a cataclysm? Well that wasn't right.

Why not just advance the timeline? Everything published for Hârn takes place in the year 720. After that the world is owned by the GM, so why not bump up the timeline to 820 or 1520 and invent some of my own history. Don't like the Elves, well they left. Yes they were there but now are myth. Want plate? Without the Elves the pressure to keep plate off the island disappeared and it came in naturally through trading and spread of knowledge. And the wars? Oh the wars. Western Hârn is a balance of three powers, that can be mixed up any which way. Don't like the Roman Republic aspect of Tharda, write a change into the new timeline.

I guess the point is the Publish setting is the GMs, so why not truly make it yours, including outright creating some additional history on top to ensure the place retains secrets and to cement the idea that it is yours now.

The funny thing is when I first got the Hârn setting I was far less slavish about following things. I imported characters from Greyhawk and used Gods from some Dragon Magazine article and ignored the plate restriction. It was only as I got a bit older that I got wound up in the purity of the location which became a straight jacket later.

Visibility

I stumbled across the blog Cyborgs and Sorcerers and started poking around and found an interesting post. It was one of those, why don't we talk about that more? The post talked about Visibility in different conditions. It was called You're Doing Vision All Wrong and included a table from the 2E Players Handbook showing vision at different ranges. The table is sloppy. It didn't include alternate visions (Infravision, Ultravision at that time, or Torches burned into the table or something else useful) but had the seed of a really good idea, a seed that grew in my brain until I had to vomit something out.

First I felt Captain Caveman's advice about re-arranging the table by distances and dumping the Fog and mist rows was good. Second I wanted to reduce the number of columns so Spotted was out, and so was detail as that seemed irrelevant and something easily winged by the DM.

3E they had Darkvision for baddies and Dwarves and Low Light Vision for Elves. In 5E everyone got Darkvision. I wanted a compromise so I kept Low Light Vision and gave it to Elves and Dwarves. I also wanted Darkvision to work backwards so I had the ranges decrease the better the light.

Anyway it needs work, how does stealth work into this for example, but it's something.

Best of the Web - Interesting Rooms, Trailing Gouls, and Fiona's 122 Questions

Captain Caveman at Cyborgs and Sorcerers has a post called Making Dungeon Rooms More Tactically Interesting. It's a great idea, one I found while looking for exactly that sort of thing. I'm surprised there aren't more posts around the blogrealms about exactly this, especially from the 4E era. So he has a 1d20 table with useful results, some a bit sci-fi. Sooner or later I'll have to do one of my 6-packs if I can figure out 6 new items that don't step on the same territory.

Trollsmyth has a wonderful post called Trailing Ghouls in which he creates a quick system to disrupt long rests with ghouls drawn to the corpses Adventurers inevitably leave about. I can't see doing this all the time but in the right campaign it would create a wonderful since of horror and unease.

Fiona Geist made two lists on Twitter and Throne of Salt combined them in a blog post titled  Fiona's 122 Questions (Plus a Challenge).  The first entry on the list made me think it was unserious but further entries seemed like they might be useful in defining a lot of little things in a campaign world. I'm sure I'll use it, and I'm also sure I'll trim the list down significantly when I do. Still I like this sort of thing because each entry forces a bit of thinking about how this campaign world works and even if you only provide the most basic answer it will send you in the right direction when that event comes up.

Found in a Box Part 11: Finish Him! Critical Hits in Grappling

Again, not actually in a Box, but more of a computer folder.

I don't think the D&D rules make grappling very interesting. That's where this idea began. My players never really got into fist fights. They prefer to slice and dice, so this isn't really tested stuff but it's been on my mind a lot so I thought I'd post it.

I'm not sure if these tables could be used as the finishing move in unarmed combat, or they could be used anytime a Critical Hit occurs, in addition to extra damage or whatever. Anyway here are tables for Chops/Punches and Kicks, and Unique... Depending upon how these tables are used the blow could stun the target for a round or drop them to the ground.

1d6	Chops/Punches
1	Backhand - the attacker strikes with a powerful backhand blow to the head.
2	Cross-chop - The attacker uses two hands to hit the defender on both sides of their neck.
3	Headbutt - The attacker strikes the defenders in the head using it's own forehead.
4	Overhead Strike - The attacker chops their hand down on the top of the defenders head.
5	Spinning Blow - Attacker spins and strikes the defender with a roundhouse punch.
6	Throat thrust - The attacker stabs with their fingres into the defenders throat.

1d6	Kicks
1	Bicycle Kick - The attacker jumps and kicks with one foot to the defenders body, and then the second into the defenders face.
2	Dropkick - Attacker jumps up and kicks the defender with the soles of both feet.
3	Legsweep - The attacker goes low and sweeps the legs of the defender, knocking them to the ground.
4	Roundhouse Kick - The attacker spins and kicks the defender with a lot of power.
5	Spin Kick - The attacker spins and kicks the defender.
6	Superkick - Attacker delivers a kick to the defender's face or chest.

1d6	Unique
1	Battering Ram - The attacker uses their head to spear the defender in the chest or stomach.
2	Body avalanche - The attacker just runs up and runs into a defender standing near a wall, slamming them against the wall.
3	Bodyslam - The attacker lifts the defender above their head and slams them to the ground.
4	Lariat Takedown - Attacker runs forward, wraps their arm around defender's kneck and pulls the defender backwards to the ground.
5	Living Shield - Attacker grabs the defender and uses them as a shield to defend against others
6	Piledriver - Attacker grabs the defender, turns them upside-down, and drops into a sitting or kneeling position, driving the defender head-first into the ground.

Of course if you use them for a Critical Hit that causes problems for similar tables for weapons as the results would be so different. Oh, and I don't particularly like wrestling, I just imagined it would be fun to have an Ogre pull a pile-driver on a character.

Best of the Web - Drow Agriculture, and Adding Adventures to Dread

In his post The Drow Have Discovered Agriculture! Martin 0 of Goodberry Monthly talks about post apocolypse Drow society and how the invention of agriculture changed them. It's an interesting post that got me thinking. I've always thought of the Elves as being Herbivores. Not vegetarians but outright herbivores but I never really thought of what this would mean for Drow. I don't like the idea of them eating mushrooms all the time so I started to think about hydroponics and folks I knew in college that grew plants in their dark closet.  So if you had water, and a continual light spell above, you could have an interesting crop cave. Probably with tiered walls of some kind to maximize the growing space. Although Drow dung probably works as decent fertilizer I'd like something else that might create better fertilizer, maybe something left behind by Xorn or even Purple Worms that the Drow collect or pay others for.

The 3 Toadstools had a post called Adding a few basic adventures to the Isle Of Dread which is an idea I think TSR should have embraced long ago. Take a sandbox adventure such as Isle of Dread and then use that as a location for following modules, populating out the sand box. The post suggests Forbidden City and B4, both of which work nicely as jungle ruins.

In the comment section of a blog I found a link by Lich Van Winkle to a post by Detect Magic titled Describing Terrain Features, Illustrated. This post has a nice set of examples of features on topo maps with photos of those same features. Less useful now that I'm older and have seen all this stuff and worked for a few years at a mapping company but this would have been gold when I was younger. Still a good post that most people should check out.

Beastiary

Backgrounds

If you read my old post Thoughts on 5E Backgrounds you'll note that I like the Backgrounds but think they should be by race and not job. Backgrounds, customized for a campaign world, provide nice insight into the world, yada, yada, yada. So I was thinking that might be useful for the nasties as well. I'm not suggesting a DM should roll up an Ideal/Bond/Flaw for every encounter but if the players start to have a conversation the DM can roll them up and have the basics of the humanoids personality.

Reactions

I haven't really worked on this one yet but I'd like to have an old school 2d6 Reaction table with run away on the low end, and fight to the death on the high end, with talk it out in the middle. Then each humanoid, or possibly each 'type' could have a modifier. Ogres might be +4 to ensure they are more likely to fight, Goblins could be -4 as they are more likely to run away. Then have the rule that the highest modifier in a group is used for that group. If that 'leader' dies the next highest rolls. Could also have each number more or less than the opposing group act as a modifier. So if the Adventurers have 5 people and the Goblins have 6 the Goblins get +1 on their reaction roll, something like that.

Anyway I'm still thinking this out.

Statblocks

One of the big improvements that 4E added to the game (in my humble opinion) was the introduction of various types of each monster. Each with a slightly different statblock. So you'd have Goblin Cutters, Goblin Blackblade, Goblin Warrior, Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Hexer, Goblin Skullcleaver, and Goblin Underboss. It reminded me of the Warhammer Armies book which I adore even though I've never played Warhammer Battles. These types makes it easy for a DM to add variety to their Goblin encounter. 5E took a step back with just Goblin and Goblin Boss (and the SRD didn't even include the Boss). Anyway, I think a truly useful Bestiary should include multiple 'types'. You might have only three types of dogs, but you should have more than a few for each humanoid and they should have a variety of weapons/armor to help differentiate them from their fellows.

Also the statblocks in the srd are overly complex. Dice required to roll Hit Points, multiple weapon options, and a blurb saying how to work out proficiencies but not actually saying what they are proficient in (we can assume the provided weapons but really). I decided I'd create stats for the four humanoid races of the Horde and I'd give the different Armor and weapon proficiencies to make each feel different.

Also the statblock should be made easy for a GM to copy/paste.

Best of the Web - High Lethality Role Playing

Found an old post by Jeff Rients about the D&D Next playtest being overpowered called Dude, where's my first level?. The post was interesting, the comments more so. He followed up with another one called Why low level, high lethality?

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Lapidary Ossuary's post High Lethality as Game Balance directed me to Jeff Reint's old posts. That sort of thing is one of the great things about the internet and why I prefer everyone blogging instead of forums and/or the vile Twitter.

Best of the Web - Barfights, Flashpoints, & Shoots & Ladders

Land of Nod has a post called Bar Fights Updated.  This post is a work of beauty. It's a series of tables that model a saloon fight and reading through it I'm gobsmacked. The different results are right out of the movies, and tv westerns. It really gives a feel for a bar brawl with innocent bystanders, being thrown out windows or dragged across the bar. This is great stuff and adds chaos to larger combats. This is what a mass combat should be (from the character level, possibly combined with the Camlan Battle info in Pendragon). Even large battles could be this way. Brilliant.

He didn't link directly to his original so I dug it up myself. The Bar Fight Matrix - A Way to Handle Fantasy Slugfests. This one is fantasy oriented which isn't as dominated with bar scenes so it's less evocative but still brilliant.

Somewhat related is a post by James Young at Ten Foot Polemic called Flashpoints - PCs in Mass Combat which suggests giving goals instead of just kill the enemy. He has a lot more but thats the part that really interests me. He has a handful of suggestions for actual Flashpoints in the battle but it makes more cry out for more. At some point I'll have to compile a list of some kind because I really like this idea.

While reading over the last post I noticed an interesting post in the Ten Foot Polemic history called FLEE!! Snakes & Ladders chase mechanics. I don't really know what I feel about this one. It is probably the best chase mechanic I've seen, but it means another mini-game. I really like this but have to divorce it from the Snakes & Ladders board so that it runs more like the other systems in the games I use. Say have armor weight act as a difficulty level as well as control speed. Then the slowest member of the group has to make a DEX test against that difficulty level to determine who is catching who, maybe some kind of table at each turn and a fumble table.

The Horde

Back in the day, when I was in University, I made lots of notes that never made it into a game (it was easier to continue to use Harn back then). Anyway I still have lots of the notes and so I thought I'd expand on them some and get them out of that digital pile where they've languished.

So the Horde, the Horde is the army of greenskins. I was reading White Dwarf a lot back then. I owned but never played Warhammer or Warhammer 40K but the books and the bits and pieces they put out in White Dwarf were a shot of adrenaline to my creativity. So I created the Horde.

The Horde is an Army of Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs and Ogres. These different races might have their tribes with children and all but the horde is an army. An Army of draftees. A marauding army of destruction. An army lead (or more properly unleashed) by the Dark Elves in their war against High Elves and Dwarves.

The Horde are vikings. They are marauders. The Horde is about War and destruction. They really don't know anything else.

The Horde worships Chaos Gods, think Carcosa. They conquer and destroy for their Gods. If they don't worship Chaos they keep their trap shut to avoid being grabbed by the zealots and sacrificed to those chaos gods. Realistically almost all worship Chaos to some extent because it justifies the horrors they commit.

The Horde is filled with Carnivores. Technically they are Omnivores but they prefer meat and have no problem eating their own. This is in contrast with their Dark Elf leaders who are vegetarians and Chaos Dwarves that eat anything.

This war between the Dwarves and allies and the Horde has been going on for centuries across a hundred worlds. Centuries ago the High Elves cut the gates between world, sacrificing some worlds in order to give others a chance. This means that on a number of worlds the Horde is trapped.

Warbands

The Horde is comprised of Warbands. Warbands are mixed-race bands with Ogres, Goblins, Hobgoblins and Orcs led by Warbosses. Anyone smart, strong, or treacherous enough can be a warboss. Typically they are made up of Goblin Shamans or Ogre Warriors. They use divide and conquer to keep their troops paranoid and in-line. The different Warbands fight each other constantly when they aren't fighting the Dwarves and allies.

Aelfhem

Aelfhem is the campaign area. The area is one of wilderness with semi-nomadic Wood Elves ranging around between Dwarven and High Elven settlements and Horde occupied ruins. Most of the Dwarven and High Elven settlements have been occupied by the Horde by now, and the few remaining are huddled masses of refugees waiting for the next ship out, and adventurers from around the world that have arrived to fight back (and retrieve ancient Dwarf treasures).

Horde Rules

The Horde is chaotic dog-eat-dog back-stabbing mess of psychotic murdering monsters, except they have some rules they will not break.

• Do not kill Elves. If at all possible anyone with Elven blood should be taken alive and passed along to the Dark Elves. Never break this rule, except Elves will occasionally ransom their own, so if nobody knows, well maybe give that a chance before handing them over. Elves taste like dried weeds soiled by a drunk ogre anyway so they aren't worth eating.
• Do not kill Halflings. They should be taken alive to serve as cooks. Even if they refuse to cook humanoid flesh their sauces and spices are amazing, and worst case scenario they can be sold to the Dark Elves. Also they are too fatty and will make your stomach sick.
• Regarding Dwarves. They can't be broken, they can't be made slaves, but they taste like bacon. That's figurative of course, they probably don't taste like bacon but think of the over-the-top worshipful way people speak of bacon and you'll have the right tone. Horde members are willing to take some risks for Dwarf flesh.
• Regarding Humans. They taste terrible but make decent emergency rations. Because of fear of being eaten they will avoid surrendering and make terrible slaves.

That's it for now. The Horde provides the bulk of the bad guys in the campaign area. They provide an excuse for why there are dungeons (captured Dwarf settlements) filled with monsters and treasure. They provide factions a clever group of players to exploit these differences and screw with the Horde. And all of this means there are no Orc babies to worry about.