Corrupt + Evil = good? (factions)

A quick thought about factions.

In my current campaign, I have two "empires" fighting for a land that is divided into several unaligned clans. The PCs are within the eastern empire and assume these are the "good guys", despite my (too subtle) hints that they can be brutal invaders.

They heard tales about the western empire and it looks undeniably evil. But I didn't want to turn this into a "good versus evil" game. What am I missing?

One thing might be the absence of selfish, corrupt traitors in the OTHER side.

The PCs met several bad people on THEIR side (although they haven't always realized that). But the opposition seem too orderly; everyone is a zealot for their evil cause (well, most of them are undead...).

Against such a determined enemy, there is not much to do - except fighting.

Now, if we add some opportunists to the opposition... the PCs have someone to deal with. Evil, despicable maybe, but someone who can be reasoned with.

Not simple turncoats that "become" good like Han Solo or even Lando, but irredeemable foes that can still be USEFUL.

Come to think of it, adding some corruption and backstabbing to the "evil" side might be an important aspect of dark fantasy. In "epic" fantasy, it seems you only leave the "dark" side by joining the good guys.

Of course, making deals with mercenaries, opportunists and sadists has a price - and they are likely to turn on you later on.

In having a hard time coming up with examples other than Elric, who uses the help of the Lords of Chaos until they finally turn on him (or vice-versa).

In addition, dark fantasy may include people that ARE good fighting for the dark side BECAUSE they have an oath etc. to fulfill. But these are people the PCs are not likely to reason with, no matter how noble they are.

Amarod (I) - Creating a sandbox

I started my current sandbox campaign in late 2022. 

I'm using Dark Fantasy Basic with a few updates.

We play a bit more than a couple of hours every couple of weeks, so it went slowly... but the system is simple and I hand-wave some stuff, so things hopefully are not too slow.

As it approaches a (possible?) ending, I thought I'd make a brief recap - but this post also has some advice on how to build your own sandbox campaign, including sharing some of my mistakes.

The first thing you have to do is to draw a map. This is really easy - I do NOT recommend random generators here. 

I used (and recommend) Hextml. It allows you to expand the map as you go. The PC map currently looks like this:

MY map in Hextml is a bit bigger, but the PCs haven't explored much of it. Their map was even smaller when they first arrived in Belarte (the capitol) by boat, from a distant land that is NOT part of the campaign.

My advice here is start small and add more stuff as the PCs explore.

I wanted to try an hexcrawl, but I'm thinking maybe a pointcrawl would be better, with an old-looking map. 

In any case, as you can see I eventually wrote down the distances in the map (6d = 6 days, and so on) to make things easier. There are few roads beyond Aplos, so they are currently back to counting hexes.

I wrote a brief story of the region (Amarod), which is very simple: an ancient (western) empire fell, now the land is full of warring clans, but the (eastern) new empire is invading these lands. The PCs are mercenaries trying to make a buck, owning no allegiance to either "side", but taking advantage of the eastern invaders relative safety.

These are some important aspects of most D&D settings: ancient empires, ruins/dungeons, a social order that is between stable and flexible, factions and shades of gray.

The second step is scattering a few dungeons, caves, towers and villages around. In my case, I used various BFRPG modules plus Doom of the Savage Kings, The God That Crawls, etc. Mektlan is Tamoachan - the PC's latest exploit.

I did not have all these modules memorized, of course, which caused some issues. Read this post - it contains some important sandbox experience IMO.

Using mostly 1st-level modules was sub-optimal; when they got to level 3 or so, things quickly became too easy. In a future campaign I might start them at level 2 or 3 so the curve is less steep.

I assigned the area around Belarte as "safer", meaning encounters are less likely.

Now, I could say that PCs were free to roam around... but they'd be lost. So I offered them a few rumors and quests about nearby places, and several NPC expeditions they could join. 

It kinda worked. By level 3 or 4, they were planning their own expeditions and hiring their own guides without me having to offer anything.

I recommend starting with three suggestions per session. Some of them should be time-sensitive, but I haven't really implemented a system for that. This deserves further reflection, as the PCs have been treating time as an endless resource ("let's rest for three days to recover", "we will come for the goblins some other day", etc.).

NPC guides and hirelings are very useful, but RUNNING them was a hassle. Now I leave this mostly to the players.

So far, we have the PCs basically going around exploring rumors and places. As they went, I wrote down questions about the consequences of their actions:

1) What will happen in the village of Marval after the priest’s death?  A: A new priest (Father Ostid) has been appointed, you don’t know him well yet.

2) Did Polgrim and  Wolson - the NPCs who went with you to the church in Marval - talk to anyone about what happened? Remember they left when you planned to attack the evil priest.

3) Who sent a letter to the priest saying “the Lord suspects nothing”, signed only with the letter S?

4) Are the kobold ruins empty now the PCs have cleared most of them?

5) What will happen to the Jarl of Savakir (and his seer) now that the beast is dead?

Also some notes, such as "The PCs became heroes in Peranegra after defeating the local elves", etc.

One mistake is that I should have written MORE notes. Maybe every session. It would help me to get a clear picture of the events potentially unfolding.

I've been answering this questions as the adventure advances. Again, the question of TIME deserves reflection. The answer may be different depending of how long it takes for the PCs to go back to any location.

I organize ALL of this in discord channels. The players have access to maps, NPCs, questions, etc. One channel is exclusively for momentary concerns (monsters, dungeons, etc.), other channel is for dice rolls. The list of text channels goes more or less like this:

# general

# rules

# setting maps

# local maps

# adventures (momentary concerns)

# PCs and NPCs

# rolls

# questions

The map channel contains a summary of known cities and events. Each entry after the first was added as they visited new places.

Belarte: the largest port, where you arrived. Lord Belarte. 

Peranegra: famous for its pigs. You expelled the elf king who kidnapped children, and you are well-liked there. Lord Figworth (count). 

Marval: a small town with a church that has a giant slime underneath. You threw an evil priest down there. 

Savakir: a town surrounded by palisades. You killed the local monster but fled because the Jarl was chasing you. Bernier (the Jarl) and Sylle Ru (seer). 

Ilmare: a swampy city with rumors of monsters and bandits roaming the area, as well as abandoned mines. Lord Montegel. 

Mektlan: a cursed place with ruins of an ancient buried pyramid. 

Glani: a prosperous city in the region, but occasionally attacked by native clans. Duke Darvon. 

Aplos: the largest city in the region, famous for its large cathedral, with somewhat labyrinthine streets. Cardinal Godebert lifted Pete’s curse and spoke about the Heretic. You rescued the Cardinal during the siege of Glani.

To sum it up, if you want more advice: TAKE NOTES and KEEP THINGS ORGANIZED.

Anyway, that is what I've got for now. Let me know if you have any questions so I can expand this further in an eventual part II!

UPDATE: I just realized I was missing one important channel: #calendar. KEEPING TIME is extremely important. See here:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/09/random-ticking-clocks-simplified.html

More minimalist classes (OSR) - Thieves

In my endless quest for minimalist OSR systems, I've been thinking of minimalist classes lately. At the risk of repeating myself, here is how it goes:

- Mages get ONE new spell per level, and get +1 to spellcasting.

- Fighters get +1 to attack per level, but they also get extra attacks and, indirectly, more damage.

- Thieves get ONE new skill per level.

The LotFP method of using "skill points" works well, but this is even more minimalist and simple. I think I got the idea from a Brazilian YouTuber, DM Quiral.

Now, you either have a skill or you don't. If you do, you will occasionally succeed automatically. If numbers are necessary, you get a +10 bonus. But, mostly, you don't roll: you can simply be able to do ventriloquism, juggling, appraising, etc.

E.g., B/X suggests an ability check for climbing a rope (which RAW indicates the thief has better chance climbing sheer walls...). If you have "climbing", you get a +10 bonus, which often means automatic success.

If you prefer X-in-6 chances, +10 translates to +3. E.g., the thief has 4-in-6 instead of 1-in-6 chances of hearing noises.

For challenging stuff (climb "sheer walls"), the GM may require a skill check... Other PCs get a -10 penalty, but you roll your ability as usual, since your +10 bonus compensates that.

This simple system addresses some of the common problems I have with skills:

- How can a 1st-level PC be really good in a given skill.

- How non-thief characters can try to do thief stuff.

- You do not have to write a bunch of skills into every thieves' sheet, let alone other PCs.

HOWEVER it loses some of the compatibility with the original thief.

One alternative is, instead of giving ONE +10 skill, you give the thief TEN +1 skills. The usual ones: hear, climb, hide, traps, read languages, scrolls, back-stab, etc. By level 2, you get a +2 bonus and so on, until level 10.

This still leaves the thief behind the mage. Remember, the mage gets:

- More spells (i.e., variety).

- New spells that ARE BETTER.

- Old spells GET BETTER.

So, maybe the thief deserves some equivalent to "critical hits". Not only he is more likely to succeed, he succeeds BETTER than an untrained PC.

Meaning: if you succeed by 10 or more, your results are particularly impressive. Maybe you can "climb silently" or help your allies. Maybe you sneak so proficiently that you get a bonus on top of your back-stab. Etc.

Still, the thief should maybe get both more skills and better chances - especially if using the same XP table. 

Anyway, its a start.

Random Wilderness is too random

Last post, I briefly mentioned some reasons why I dislike randomly generated dungeons. I think they can be fun, just not my favorite.

I feel random wilderness is a lot worse.

Theoretically, you could run a "no prep"* hexcrawl, deciding randomly upon entering an hex if you're in a forest or desert, and if you see ruins or nothing.

BTW, "no prep" is the idea that you can run adventures with no preparation - by using random tables, improvising on the spot, using other procedures to generate adventures/situations, etc. This issue deserves a post of its own in the future, but I think this "random wilderness" idea illustrates why I think "no prep" is a bad idea if it requires random terrains.

One problem with random terrain is that even the best tables I've seen (the ones who default to a "next hex is similar to this one" rule) cannot create a simple, coherent map like this:

Now, think of how many random hexes you need to run a campaign. Sure, you could set the entire campaign in a single hex, but Outdoor Survival - the original hex map - uses more than a thousand and is representative of an area much smaller than the US.

If you draw a big mountain range, and maybe add another small mountain range, and decide for yourself which way is the ocean... you have created a map that looks more believable and saved yourself more than a thousand rolls.

There are other reasons to set the mountains and the ocean before the PCs start travelling:

- Mountains can usually be seem from several hexes away. It would be absurd to walk from a plain to a "sudden" mountain in a clear day.

- Most people in history have at least a vague idea to which way is the sea.

- Mountains and seas function as natural barriers to your sandbox - crossing them requires more preparation than walking over plains.

- Once you have mountains and seas, rivers are very easy to figure out. Draw rivers like trees, with a trunk that ends in the ocean and several branches (tributaries) towards mountains.

The red lines represent the tallest mountains: rivers do not cross them.

Notice that the presence of a second, significantly smaller mountain range to the east makes the map more interesting.

You might say that US topography is too simple, but it is like that over most of the world. 

South America is similar. Russia has basically sea to the north, mountains to the south and east. Asia has many mountains but the Himalayas can be used as the primary delimitation between various regions (and the source of many rivers). 

Etc.

I'm not saying you need to establish every hill and every trade route. Maybe you can even generate vegetation randomly as you go (although forests and deserts are related to rivers and mountains). I'm just saying having a good outline is incredibly useful - and easy.

Letting PCs wander around with no preexisting terrain has other problems. For example, why there are no map in this land - and what happens when the PCs find a map in random treasure? How can there be significant rumors of goblins "in the North" if the DM doesn't know what lies in the north?

But anyway, this is about drawing maps - and I reckon the easiest way to do that is simply:

- Separate land from sea.

- Put a big range of tall mountains to a random direction.

- Add a smaller mountain range, with hills etc.

- Rivers are easy to draw once you have that.

- Most cities are near the water (rivers or seas).

Additional reading:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mythic-underworld-controversy-and.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/08/easy-worldbuilding-with-pareto-price.html

The Mythic Underworld "controversy" and other X/Twitter debates

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong, THAT FITS IN A TWEET.

- Eric Diaz, paraphrasing H. L. Mencken and probably repeating someone else.

If you don't use Twitter/X, you might have missed this (count yourself lucky), but there has been a Mythic Underworld "controversy" lately, with people pointing out that whoever doesn't understand the concept is a fool, lacks imagination or worse.

Conversely, there might have been people who claimed the opposite - dungeons that make no sense are dumb and people are dumb to use them - although I haven't seem many.

Obliviously, I disagree with both viewpoints.

But what is "The Mythic Underworld"?

I talked briefly about this when I was discussing Darkest Dungeon:

Since the beginning of RPGs, dungeons have been built in two different (and somewhat antagonistic) structures. 

In the first, the dungeon is a dreamlike and almost inexplicable place, containing dragons bigger than the tunnels would allow and creatures that have no obvious ways to feed themselves - as if they came from a nightmare. [This is what people call "The Mythic Underworld"] 

In the second structure, the dungeon was created for a reason, and the creatures that live there are part of a (somewhat) coherent ecosystem ("Gygaxian naturalism").

In DD, the dungeons fit into the first model, but the game makes some concessions to the second, with aquatic creatures in the most flooded environments and mushroom-men living in the caverns. 

The lesson here is that even in the unexplained environments of a nightmare, having some thread of rationality is useful in giving players some chance to prepare themselves adequately to face the challenges that lie ahead. If there was no predictability, a huge part of the "preparation of resources" phase would be lost, since there is no way to choose the best tools if there is no clue as to what is to come.

As you can see, despite the tension between two ideas, both can be used in most campaigns, and there is even some middle ground to be found (maybe we could call this "thematic dungeons").

The problem with some of these X posts is people tend to repeat talking points without explanation, reflection or nuance. Sometimes I see the same user say the same thing (with different phrasing, memes, etc.) ten times in the same day rather than addressing any issues, questions or nuance.

The same reasoning applies to other twitter "controversies", BTW: Tolkien x Howard, Overprep x Zero prep, Homebrew x RAW, 1:1 time, etc. I might address some in the future, but "you can have both" or "it has pros and cons" would suit most "debates".

I believe the algorithm encourages this behavior. 

In addition, X is sub-optimal for long conversations. Any blog, forum or chat allows for more back and forth with fewer clicks.

The Mythic Underworld is not a black and white issue. It is an interesting concept/tool to build your dungeons.

One big problem nobody addresses is that many people in X use the "mythic underworld" as a justification for nonsensical dungeons that are randomly generated.

And, while there is nothing wrong with that, in my own experience I have found that random rooms with skeletons then goblins then giant bats are not "mythic" but boring and cliched. It is fine if you like them, but I don't think my preference for things a that make a little more sense - ecologically, architecturally, or at least thematically - signifies a lack of imagination.

In fact, randomly generated dungeons are a SEPARATE issue. You can certainly have "mythic underworld" dungeons that aren't generate randomly. 

In other words: why it's such a hotly debated topic lately? Only because people like to debate over X. 

My opinion? 

There are no "sides" of this issue, one can have either or both, and it is ultimately a matter of taste.

There are lot of other interesting aspects BOTH to mythic underworld and dungeon ecologies (probably deserving a much longer post in each case), and most D&D campaigns need both the explained and the unexplained to function.

Time scales: rounds, days, weeks, expeditions

"For want of a nail the kingdom was lost"

Time keeping is extremely important in D&D. 

Everyone knows that since Gary Gygax said in the AD&D 1e DMG, in all caps, that YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

But I think few RPGs - and maybe not even AD&D - has got this exactly right.

One concern I've shared here before is how spellcasters recover all of their spells OVERNIGHT. This becomes a problem because fighter can take up to four weeks to recover lost HP. And, while spells must be chosen every day, equipment is usually chosen once per expedition.

These things are operating in different time scales.

- Losing some HP may "cost" you a month (resurrection also costs you a few weeks).

- Losing all your rations might ruin your entire expedition*.

- Losing spell slots costs you a day at most.

(*An "expedition" is the travel from a safe city to a nearby dungeon or other challenge. In other genres, we could have a "job", "mission", "heist", etc).

If you have spells that produce HP or rations, the rhythm of the HP and ration recovery is broken. Which is not a problem "per se", if you are conscious of the effects.

For example, if a PC takes weeks to recover HP, this could encourage players to "rotate" between multiple characters. A cleric with "cure light wounds" can basically avoid this process, except when there is need for resurrection.

There is a certain rhythm to D&D - each RPG has its own.

In Pendragon, there are "time skips" that take years, and rule for how you can play with your heirs. Likewise (IIRC), wounds can take a lot of time to heal.

In DCC RPG, there are lasting consequences for magic - you can get mutations, spell mishaps, etc. Some of these are permanent (IIRC). This is not a problem, but I think other classes should also be subject to permanent consequences - say, scars and losing limbs (which is a thing in DCC, IIRC, but not usually in D&D).

Runequest suggests "one adventure per season" and - AFAICT - this interacts with income and experience rules.

In 4e D&D, there are daily, encounter and "at will" powers for ALL classes, so everybody in playing in the same tempo. It might have been too radical, making classes feel a bit "samey".

In 5e D&D, there are few consequences that can last more than a day. All spell slots are recovered, yes, but so are all HP and other powers. Even "raise dead" only takes four days to recover. There are also "short rests" that allow you to recover some HP, slots, etc. during the day.

The tricky part in 5e is keeping the short rest:long rest ratio. 

You see, some classes are better with long rests, others with short rests. If you mess up the ratio, 5e's supposed "balance" goes out the window. That is why 5e attracts bizarre concepts such as "seven encounters per day", which sounds good in a dungeon but silly in the wilderness, city, etc.

Old school D&D has a similar problem (well, like all RPGs).

First, there is this wilderness/dungeon divide. B/X recommends at one encounter check per day in the wilderness. But even if you're making three or four (which is optional), it is unlikely that will lead to more than a couple of actual combats if you're using the reaction table and evasion rules. 

But in the dungeon you check for encounters every TWENTY MINUTES. This changes the game completely. Now spell slots are precious few - at least for the first few levels.

However, PCs are not supposed to go to the wilderness until level 4. By level 5, a MU might have a 5d6 fireball that can destroy many wilderness encounters. 

On the other hand, if you "nerf" the MU too much, he is helpless in the dungeon after casting a couple of spells.

I think this is why a first level MU feels too weak and a 10th-level one feels too strong. Nerfing the MU requires giving him cantrips or at least a sword to compensate.

AD&D has aging rules. Unless you get cursed by a spell, these do not really matter, because no game mechanic interacts meaningfully with "years" (unless, maybe, building a castle or similar). Similarly, weapons have different speeds, which can interact with spell interruption and so on.

Then we have rounds, turns, hours, days, etc. Torches burn for an hour, which is 6 turns, or 360 rounds. Running out of torches might force you to spend days to go back to town, or, worse, can leave you lost in the dark.

I'm not suggesting a simple fix; instead, I'm encouraging you to reflect about which time scale your games are about, and how scales interact.

And, of course, keep strict time records and let your players know about it. 

The "5 minute workday" problem happens because there is no cost to wasting a day. If there is also no cost to wasting a few weeks, the PCs will start every encounter fully rested and healed regardless of healing spells and potions. And so on.

I have to reflect on how to implement this myself. In my current campaign, the PCs decided to leave a mission against certain goblin tribes that were harassing a nearby village. 

What happens when then go back? 

The answer should certainly be affected by how long they take to go back. If I just hand-wave time, we go back to "time railroading" and decisions about time become meaningless.

I've said before that "Time seems to be the glue that holds many rules together: Healing, researching, building, random encounters, searching, torches, diseases, etc. 

Once you ignore it, everything seems to come crashing down. Maybe this is one of the fundamental ideas of old school play."

Come to think of it, this is much bigger than "old school play" - or even RPGs. 

The interaction between different time scales is an existential question.

If I eat a chocolate now, I will feel good for seconds, and it might take weeks of chocolate to get fat, and months to lose that fat.

To write a book, I have to put an effort for hours and days, and then I'll have it forever (or until the next revision).

A kind word to a loved one might make little difference now, but every moment can eventually add up to me looking differently to the past twenty years.

And ultimately, maybe we have to consider time scales that include more than a lifetime. Maybe PC death is necessary for PC lives to be meaningful; if everything (i.e., the campaign) ends because of a TPK, what difference did the PCs make?

But that is probably a subject for another post.

INSANE MAGE NERF - one spell per day!

In my endless quest to nerf B/X magic-users, this might be my most radical idea:

Magic-users (MU) and clerics get to memorize ONE spell per day.

A 10-th level MU 10 still has 14 spells or so, but it takes a couple of weeks to memorize all.

This makes spell slots a more "time sensitive" resource like HP, rations, and everything else.

When the party is planning an expedition, spell choice becomes part of the planning - do we have enough torches? Should I memorize "light" instead? What about cure potions and "cure light wounds"? We are not taking the thief this time... should we get "Knock"? Etc.

BTW, CHANGING your selection of spell has the same cost. You cannot rewrite your selection of spells overnight.

If that's too harsh, let the MU recover a number of spell levels equal to their level (e.g., a 10th level MU can recover 3 fireballs and 1 magic missile) or any other solution you find adequate. 

I'm tempted to say "one day per spell level" so you'd need three days to recover fireball. 

Again, it sounds too harsh - but the fireball causes at least 5d6 damage. A fighter would need one to two weeks to recover from one.

MUs would need to be more careful about their spells, which I like. OTOH, they need to be able to do something else while hoarding spells, so I'd probably let them have swords, cantrips, or something similar.

In practice, this is just a random idea - I don't really use spell slots in my games.

But I've seem this happen again and again in my BXish games: the fighter needs at least a week to recover, while the cleric and MU just recover all the spells overnight. Fortunately, the cleric can just cure everyone in a day, which makes him an obligatory character in any party.

I think I'm always nerfing the spellcasters because most of my campaigns happen in the wilderness - on average, there is less than one combat encounter per day and the MU fireballs everything. 

Dungeons help, but PCs fall into the "5 minutes workday" pattern, which is a whole issue...