You Meet at an Inn - Vancian Style

This Wednesday I'm playing a test play of a home-brewed RPG inspired heavily by Avalon Hill's board game, Magic Realm. The set up for the adventure is the classic: "you all meet at a tavern". The world, however, is Vance's beloved Dying Earth. Here's the write up sent to the players:

Fiarazio's Walled Garden


The husky red sun loomed over a world grown old. Mankind had lived since long before the gentle hills of Agravaine were jagged peaks newly sprung from the ground. So many eons passed that man forgot his birth and conquering of the globe. Civilizations were swallowed by the slow grind of Earth's rocky core. Great empires perished and new ones born afresh in countless repetition. Over millennia the weft of mankind warped - his mind burnt with knowledge and his soul steeped in quavering ether - 'til now, when humanity is a half-dozen different beings of various shape and perspective.

Beings of a darker sort inhabited Agravaine's wastes. In the hills stretched between the decaying city of Majaethit and Kirmo's Sparkling Eminence came presences from otherwhere, who trapped the unwary and carved their bones into twirling fetishes. Along the route to Majaethit were caravansarai, strongholds built to protect sojourners. Blessed by the Priests of Radiant Devolution, wells of the caravansarai caused an odious aroma about persons who drank from them. These noxious vapors repelled the presences, who claimed it spoiled their bone fetishes.

And so it was you found yourselves at the caravansarai of Jaredd, along the headwaters of River Somn. Here people sowed the ground with a dark purple rye. Its curiously strong drink, Hassad, proved fortifying. Over time a brisk Hassad trade developed among the merchants along the Majaethit road and Jeredd became a trading post in its own right. It is here, at Amereth's tavern, that a Prudhite in red turban and gold filigree asked you to join him for a frothy mug, for he wishes to ask a boon of you.

Sharing Dreams

Leia came to me this morning to tell me a dream. Her dream, it seems, was very vivid and memorable. In my words (Leia's were half in Japanese and half in English):

A baby raccoon came to our bedroom at night and flew out the window hand-in-hand with Leia. They met the mama and papa raccoon, who only understood English (not Japanese) but couldn't talk at all since they were just raccoons. They all flew together to school and had chocolate birthday cake.

I thought it was a rather cool dream and maybe will embellish it a little bit in the next make-believe play session with the girls.

Could It Be More Plain

"Religious groups that oppose the regulation say it forces people of faith to choose between upholding church doctrine and serving the broader society."

Ah, religious people make the truth plain for all to see. It must be divine inspiration revealing the Truth. Abandon your faith and you're free to be a better citizen.

Magic in Stormbringer 1e

Magic in Stormbringer 1e requires a significant investment in mental energy from both the player and referee to work. There are no spells in the normal sense, no set of predefined effects from a given in-game action. Instead, magic revolves around summoning elementals or demons and getting these creatures to do the sorcerer's bidding.

The best way to get a summoned demon to do one's bidding is to bind it. Binding is a dangerous proposition for any would-be sorcerer and it cannot be taken lightly in the game. This makes for a dramatic build up to the binding roll and a great deal of forethought by the player to summon exactly the right type of demon.

Almost by necessity, these factors bring about a more narrative approach to using magic than most games I've played. A good example from last weekend's Kato, a Demon of Knowledge summoned and bound by one player's character, Prefect Thule. Thule had a 95% chance of summoning such a demon. The summoning is a straightforward roll of d100, though I allow up to +/- 10 for circumstances and special preparation. So Thule had a very easy time summing the demon. Next, however, the player had to define who and what is this demon so it can be bound and put to use.

Thule's player decided he wanted a demon who heard and understood court gossip from a multitude of planes and kingdoms. So his character cast his gaze through the Hells until he found Kato, the demonic curator of Duke Arioch's morbid museum. Kato is refined and dignified; but, a terrible gossip. His vast intellect stretches across 47 prime planes and through 9 Hells. He hears all that any courtier whispers on each of these levels of existence. Through such keen hearing he is able to learn, or guess at, most anything that transpires in courts great and small. Kato takes the form of a thespian mask; but, as Chaos is his very nature, the details of the mask are constantly changing to reflect the focus of whatever he might be overhearing at the time. When asking Kato a question, Thule dons the mask and then, should Kato know the answer, hears a distant whispering answer to his question.

Mechanically, the character just summoned this demon of knowledge and determined its statistics. The sum of all the demon's statistics had to exactly equal the sum of all the summoner's statistics, with some restrictions thrown in around minimum levels of magical power. The demon is then bound to an object, in this case the thespian mask.

Demons of Knowledge have a good chance of knowing the correct answer to just about any question asked of it. After all is said and done, Kato had a straight 47% chance of knowing any answer. Its a simple as that. However, because of the color added to Kato by Thule's player, all of Kato's answers were couched as gossip and gleanings overheard at the various noble courts and posh bathhouses throughout the multiverse. It made each question and answer, while mechanically a very simple d100 throw, a colorful and imaginative narrative.

So I'm quite pleased with this Stormbringer magic system. It forces a creative narrative just to be able to effect magic, which pushes the game in a very different direction than if the system were more like the Vancian magic of Dungeons & Dragons or the point-and-level-based system of Rolemaster.

A Beautiful Sentiment

Cartoon by Natalie Dee

It should be part of our intellectual, Enlightenment culture that every idea — atheist or religious — should be open to argument and criticism, with no exceptions. And if your culture demands obedience to dogma, violent reprisals to criticism, and murder of any opponent of your views, then I’m going to recognize the fundamental conflict between your views and the goals of a civilized, forward-thinking society, and dismiss your culture as an enemy of reason, and oppose you by committing our version of your hateful acts: by promoting the health, welfare, and education of your children, and mocking the stupidity of your beliefs.


PZ puts it more eloquently than I could, even if it is a run-on sentence.

Playtest Report - Stormbringer 1e Combat System

So we finished our first playtest of Stormbringer 1e rules tonight. Although there's plenty to say about the session, and the story was great fun, my main take away about the rules are that the magic system is great but the combat system blows chunks.

Combat in Stormbringer is a d100 dice throw where a seasoned warrior has about 50% chance or so of hitting. Then the target gets to roll d100 to see if they parry the blow. Then, if its still a hit, the attacker throws damage (which can be a mix of a couple of different dice, depending on the circumstances.) Finally, if the defender has armor there is a dice throw to see how much soak the damage does. Thus, a single attack can take four different dice throws, one with an obtuse addition of heterogeneous dice.

This takes entirely too long to work through and slows down combat significantly. It also turned out that many times the combat would go a few rounds where nobody was hurt and then, blam, somebody gets a crit and a combatant is killed. It definitely produced some of the tension and feel of old-time Swords and Sorcery novels; but, it just creeped along at a snails pace at the table.

An example:
Pangaarl Krin, corsair of Pan Tang, wields Odo, a Fire Elemental bound in the form of a battle ax. Pangaarl and his band of ne'er-do-wells have trapped a clan of Kronks (think orcs that look a bit like orangutans) in a room at the top of a staircase. Pangaarl takes his flaming ax and sets into the door, hacking it to smoldering pieces. He then bursts through the doorway, ax swinging at two Kronks trying to stop the onrush. The Kronks bear puglunks, iron shod staves that allow two attacks per round.

Pangaarl closes; but, the Kronks are ready for him. They attack first, twice each, followed by Pangaarl's battle ax attack on them. In addition, Pangaarl calls for Odo to belch forth a burst of flame at a Kronk. This one round of attack ends up requiring 14 separate rolls - far too many for a smooth and speedy combat round.

1. Kronk 1 rolls first attack (d100) and misses.
2. Kronk 1 rolls second attack (d100 at -20) and hits.
3. Pangaarl rolls first parry (d100) and succeeds, blocking Kronk 1's second attack.
4. Kronk 2 rolls first attack (d100) and hits.
5. Pangaarl rolls second parry (d100 at -20) and fails.
6. Kronk 2 rolls damage (1d8).
7. Pangaarl rolls armor soak (1d8-1) and ends up taking one point of damage
8. Kronk 2 rolls second second attack (d100 at -20) and misses.
9. Pangaarl rolls attack (d100) and hits Kronk 2.
10. Kronk 2 rolls parry (d100) and fails.
11. Pangaarl rolls damage (1d8 + 1d6 + 2).
12. Kronk 2 rolls soak (1d6-1) and ends up taking 11 points of damage.
13. 11 points in one hit is a major wound, so Kronk 2 rolls a major wound (d100) throw and we find his jaw is broken.
14. Odo bursts into flames, catching Kronk 2's hair afire and rolls damage (2d10) for another 7 points of damage.

Fourteen dice rolls! Count 'em, fourteen. For one combat round with three contestants. It took a fair bit of time and description to get through that round. The rolls help make a tense series of steps and add color to the description; but, it took 14 rolls for Pangaarl to take 1 point of damage and deal 18 points of damage and a major wound to Kronk 2.

I tried doing things like rolling multiple dice at once; but, trying to keep 3d100 separated and straight when dealing with a Kronk's roll was just too much in the heat of a session.

The magic system rocked and clearly fit the ambiance of the Elric novels. I'll have to do a post on my impression of the magic system in a couple of days. Today, however, I can say that before the next time I play Stormbringer I'm going to give the combat system a complete overhaul.

Lonely Tower of Throng Keel Player Map

1 hex = 1 km

3. Unnamed village at castle

4. Fan Ha Well

5. Ol' Crabbies

6. Wetlans Village

7. Nyor Ten Village

9. Sunken Ribs' Graveyard

10. The Castle of Tumbling Lotus

Yes, I know I skipped some numbers. On the referee's map the numbers go up past 10, too. Apart from the eponymous adventure site, I don't have anything pre-generated for each possible area of interest on the player's map. Just names.

The Castle of Tumbling Lotus is home base for the crew tonight. They decided to play a sorcerer and pirate captain duo from Pan Tang, dipping into the darker side of story telling.