Time Out For Fun

A good friend of mine, Jeff K., told me I have been a bit too serious in my posts here. Ha Ha! As he is my first follower of this blog, I'll try to relax and have fun with this one. ;-)

At the same excellent gathering, Eric G. mentioned several ideas that got my mind moving. Unfortunately, I have a horribly poor power of recollection, so I'm going with what little I have this morning. Eric mentioned a few different games he had played that approached skill cost and progressions differently. One particular issue that I have been trying to nail down is starting skills, and how they are determined. Reflecting on Eric's comments, I think it might be best if we kept everything based on the culture the character comes from. With a little work, the skills could be marked in a table as to which and how high they can get complete training assistance with in their culture. Most cultures would have a blacksmith, for instance. Getting a basic level of training would not be an issue, but the quality of the training might vary greatly. Based on the culture, the highest level of 1DP per die advancement (due to training facilities/teachers), might only be 3, 4, or 5 in a human culture, but might be 6, 7, or 8 in a dwarven culture where metalsmithing is much more advanced. As we define which cultures exist in our fantasy system, we can define what training opportunities are available in each. Beyond that, exceptions can be handled on a case-by-case basis during character creation.

While defining the adventure world, it would fall on the Game Master (GM) to have a clear idea of what organizations and individual teachers the characters can reach out to for future training. Role-playing being a member of an organization (Church of Odin, Knights of Doom, Five Finger Discount Club, etc) could be an important resource for story development. Certainly, the higher lethality of general combat makes traveling in larger groups advisable, and as characters gain rising reputations, they will attack followers.
Followers would be controlled by the GM until the character had developed a bond of loyalty with the follower, then the player would control their actions. Followers would train and advance as regular characters.

It has not really been emphasized before now, but the intent is to have rules that make sense, then let the story take center stage during play. The goal is to make rules that reinforce the social interactions that drive the story. In medieval societies, power, wealth, knowledge, training are all reserved and dispensed after commitments are made to those who hold the power. This is how society works. You are only as powerful as the amount of such things you can keep from all the greedy cutthroats who would relieve you of them. Most games try to trivialize such realities to facilitate game simplicity, but I say rising to greatness is in no small part achieved by how one manages people and relationships. While slavery of different types will be in play in this fantasy world, treating followers that way might not endear them to you.

So, rather than a open village in the peaceful kingdom, characters will most likely come from armed camps that fight off predators with regularity. Though few actually succeeded in stopping the Viking hoards, every village they sought to raid had defenses. These defenses only got more elaborate as the reputation of the Vikings spread before them. In this world, what your human neighbors will not take from you, orcs, golbins, dragons, and every other beast will. Orcs will gladly enslave the weak humans. Human slavers will gladly sell you to the orcs, or as food to be offered to a dragon. This world is too competitive to allow unchallenged advancement. There are no public libraries...

Before the dark world I envision comes to be, I welcome discussion as to how the wolves are held at bay. Magic is a wonderful equalizer, but the enemy has those tools also. While there will certainly be powerful cultures who can beat back all challengers (Romans might have secured much of the Italian peninsula, for instance), it may not be that simple. Early human societies will revolve around Priest-Kings and religious wars, as raw spiritual power generated my masses are unleashed by despots. But this is dependent of what races reach this level of society first. Could the elves, dwarves, orcs, or other become overlords of the humans for some dark period? Could dragons or some other group control larges parts of the globe?

Given that humans have been the dominant species on our earth throughout recorded history, we have to be careful in how we design fantasy beings and their cultures on earth. Some writers and video game designers would simply divide the races in to two factions (usually good and evil). While humans have a long history of allying themselves with whatever group best offers survival or success in conflict, good and bad or right and wrong are not always clearly defined.

Defining how developed cultures are is important in determining roles and skills available to characters.

Multiracial adventuring is not likely unless the races involved have a long-standing alliance, so this might be a humans only style to start.

Darn it! I meant to keep this light...