Shadow Of The Screen

I've got a problem. I haven't run anything in almost a year, and I miss it.

When D&D 4th edition came out last year, I was excited as hell, and appointed myself the DM for the first module, Keep on the Shadowfell. I think I did a mediocre job running it, but everybody seemed to have a good time learning the new rules. I liked the game, yet felt like I wasn't really challenging the players - though a lot of that was probably just part of dealing with a fairly bland module and a new ruleset.

At any rate, I decided I'd probably have more fun as a player than as a DM, and handed off the reins to a more interested member of the group. (Since then, the guy who took over has handed it over to yet another member of the group. Both of them did a great job.) I am still having a lot of fun playing D&D, but the urge to run a game has only gotten stronger as time goes on.

My problem is that almost every time I start running something, I quickly get burnt out. I feel like I'm not doing my best at every session. Basically, I think I'm a pretty clumsy DM/GM/Referee/what have you, even though I've been gaming since I was but a wee tyke. But I love RPGs and want to get better at running them and writing for them... and I can't do that if I'm just playing them.

(Another problem is that I feel like I'm unprepared if I'm not using some sort of published adventure, yet I am almost always dissatisfied with my game when I do - even if I really liked the module when I read it. Obviously, that's something I need to figure out for myself.)

My current gaming group is cool as hell. I have absolutely no desire to scrap my participation in our exciting 4th edition D&D campaign in favor of my trying my hand at running something and very possibly having it not work out. Gaming twice a week with the same group is unlikely at best, especially given my shaky GMing track record, and I don't want to suggest alternating games week to week. So what I'm left with is starting a second group playing a game of my choice, with as many of the same people as are interested and able, and finding someplace to do it.

I guess this is where I figure out what to run, make a cheesy flyer, and post it at the local comic shop?

You Will Come Out No More

Maybe this isn't a revelation to everybody, but it just hit me the other day: Big Trouble In Little China is an old-school dungeon crawl.

You've got a couple of fighting types, a magic-user, and a bunch of nameless cannon fodder making repeated trips into a bizarre subterranean complex with the eventual goal of saving the girl(s) and slaying an evil wizard. Don't even get me started on the beholder-thingy, the "black blood of the earth", and the big centipede-creature that pops out and instantly wastes a bunch of the henchmen. I could go on and on - it's all there.

Even the attitudes of the characters, especially Jack Burton, are pretty gamer-ish:



"Hollow? Fuck it."

(I still have an overwhelming desire to play an Egg Shen-style adventuring alchemist.)

I doubt there are many people following this blog who haven't already seen the movie, but if you haven't, you owe it to yourself to check it out. And if you have seen it, try giving it another viewing through the lens of the dungeon crawl.

Keith Parkinson Was Awesome

Exhibit 1.

Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 3.

Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I rest my case.

Another Master

Over the past year or so, too many of the RPG hobby's greats have passed away. The likes of Gary Gygax, Bob Bledsaw, Erick Wujcik, and N. Robin Crossby are now joined by Dave Arneson.

Others have written eloquently about Arneson and his massive contributions to fantasy gaming, and I honestly have nothing to add other than to say that I regret that those contributions were not better recognized during his lifetime.

Non-Humans In The Freed Lands

One of the things I like about Chaosium's games is that they're human-centric, but that the way monsters are written up makes it easy to use them as player characters. It's a strength of the BRP system, and it reminds me a lot of the one which, for better or worse, I still know best: the Palladium system. 10 years at least since I played a Palladium game, and I can still eyeball the stats and instantly tell what's hideously overpowered and what's even more hideously overpowered.

Anyway, before I go off an a tangent about Palladium games, the point I'm trying to make is that BRP's default treatment of non-human player characters dovetails nicely with what I intend to do in my Freed Lands campaign: start with human characters only, but keep open the option of introducing non-humans as the campaign progresses. My plan is for the initial setup to involve a group of human outlanders, probably all Brinthine, entering and exploring the newly accessible region of Morbenhann for the first time.

Part of my intent with Freed Lands is to avoid making it "D&D in another system", so I try to make setting elements at least somewhat plausible. More accurately, I don't want at any point to say "a wizard did it" to explain anything unusual present in the setting. Still, I can't shake my Palladium-bred love of having lots of intelligent species running around in a fantasy campaign. The compromise I came up with was to indulge my own tendencies towards quasi-scientific speculation, so I try to come up with ecologically and evolutionarily plausible explanations for things.

For example, instead of having your usual orcs created by an evil god rampaging across the landscape because they were born that way, I've got wheruls, a sapient, reptilian race descended from tree monitors that were forced onto the ground when a climate shift changed their habitat from forests to savannahs. Seeing over the tall grasses that subsquently covered the plains meant that they began to stand upright, freeing their front legs for other uses, and eventually you've got an exploding population of lizard men who need more food. My goal is to create similar backgrounds for the other "races" of the Freed Lands setting - dwarves, ogres, and hulderfolk. (Elves don't count, because they're magic. Yes, I realize that contradicts the whole point of this entry.)

Ultimately, I realize that this approach doesn't produce results that are especially realistic, from a scientific point of view, but I find it a satisfyingly different angle from which to attack a "classic fantasy" setup. Since worldbuilding is something personal, that's enough for me.

The Lay Of The Freed Lands

Thanks to the old and clunky Arr-Kelaan Hexmapper program, I have a (very) rough map of the region I plan on covering in my Freed Lands campaign.

Obviously, this is vastly simplified. The pass through the Black Peaks is not that big. Also, the terrain types displayed here don't really correspond to those I envision for the various realms. Hexmapper doesn't offer a huge variety of terrain hexes - here, they're chosen mostly to differentiate them visually.

Morbenhann is the "Freed Lands" region for which the setting is named, and the focus of the vast majority of what I have planned. As discussed in my earlier post, it's inaccessible from the rest of the continent of Bridion because of the massive Black Peaks mountain range to its south and east. There are a scant few eastern mountain passes, all clustered into one small area, and all under the strict control of various temperamental dwarven clans. Passage is technically possible to the south of Genthi, but that way lie the plains of Hafe, homeland of the savage, reptilian wheruls. Once a frontier province of Ghannem, Morbenhann was conquered by the elves of Immovenst several centuries ago, which has had major and lasting effects on the language, culture, and customs of its human population. It is predominantly a heavily forested region with a cool, temperate climate, though the southern reaches bordering Hafe are somewhat hotter and drier. The people of Morbenhann are known as the Hannese, and are left in confusion and turmoil now that their elven masters have inexplicably fled back to Immovenst in what is known as the Retreat, or the Ebbing of the Tide.

Ghannem is a large, landlocked empire beyond the Black Peaks. It is one of the oldest human civilizations in Bridion, and it reached its apex long ago. Ghannem has been in decline for centuries now, yet its Empress still marshals the largest and most powerful armies on the continent. Recent slave uprisings, peasant rebellions, radical schisms within their once-monolithic church, and border raids from her Genthaine rivals have thus far prevented her from retaking Morbenhann. Ghannemites often seem rigid, stodgy and out-of-touch to foreigners.

Genthi is not a nation proper, but a collection of squabbling city-states to the southeast of Morbenhann. Most have ancient rivalries against the others, but all still identify themselves as Genthaine, and there are certain unifying cultural characteristics between all of them. The Genthaine cosmology includes a bewildering array of spirits, with new ones seemingly being invented by the day. Most citizens can't be bothered to keep track of all the rites and sacrifices required by each of these small gods, so people of all cities pay their respects to the wandering recondite ascetics that do it for them. Notable city-states include Chrand, the so-called City of Companies (home to the best-trained mercenaries in Genthaine); Saughor, the City of Colleges (a place famed for its libraries, learned men, and lechery); and Reyaeri, the Kingdom City, which controls an unusually large portion of Genthi and whose ruling family has been struggling for generations to unite the region.

(Apologies to those who read a lot of this information on the old Livejournal setup.)

My Homebrew (Let Me Show You It)

Like a lot of RPG enthusiasts, I have a homebrew setting I've been working on for quite a while. Like many of those settings, it's "not done yet", which often feels like a euphemism for "never going to be finished". I call it Freed Lands, and I'm currently planning on using the BRP ruleset - if I ever get around to running it. I occasionally feel the urge to write about my setting, but not enough to devote an entire blog to it. (I tried that in the past, and didn't get far.) However, Max's recent post asking about people's personal settings got me thinking about it again, and so, here's a quick primer.

The realm that would become known as the Freed Lands lies to the west of the homelands of humanity, beyond the Black Peaks, a mountain range that is practically impassable. The first humans to settle there came from Ghannem, a nation young by the standards of the dwarves that controlled the mountain passes. Ghannem was rich in coin but overpopulated, so, they paid the dwarves for right of passage and settled in the lands beyond the mountains, which they named Morven Ghannem, or "Western Ghannem".

Humanity's development and refinement of agriculture - and their subsequent rise to supremacy - soon began to disturb the natural balance of the newly settled region. Eventually, it caused a schism in elven culture. Many elves argued that if they did not take up the new ways, they would be destroyed. Traditionalists scorned the subjugation of nature as an abomination and drove these elves to the islands of Immovenst, but were themselves soon forced into hiding by rampant human expansion, along with numerous other indigenous races. The dwarf clans sealed their mountain passes against humankind, and as decades passed, the men of Ghannem learned to forget about their western brethren beyond the Black Peaks, and instead turned to squabbling with their human neighbors - the newly ascendant Genthaine people - and each other.

Centuries later, the elves of Immovenst returned, armed and armored with steel and riding massive elk bred for war. After a brutal struggle, they conquered Morven Ghannem, and ruled for hundreds of years, reshaping it into the elf-ruled territory of Morbenhann. Eventually, a force they were unable or unwilling to identify to their subjects attacked their homelands and forced them into the Retreat. The vast majority of the elves returned to Immovenst, leaving the conquered to fend for themselves.

Now, Morbenhann has fallen into chaos - bandits and mercenaries alike declare themselves princes and prey on the weak, cults driven underground centuries ago practice their rites in the open, unknown horrors prey on travelers, and old races forced into hiding emerge once more. Ancient spirits are angered, plague sweeps across the settlements of men, elves, and even dwarves, and rumor says the once-impregnable pass is unguarded. Now, the rulers of Ghannem - and their Genthaine rivals to the south - turn their gaze to these newly Freed Lands, hoping to add them to their own.

I hope that sounds at least potentially interesting, because I intend to revisit it here on Dungeonskull Mountain.