GitHack

Announcing GitHack, the update to StormHack.

GitHack is a setting-agnostic OSR sword-and-sorcery game system. This is the introduction:

This is my OSR game. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It’s a remix of familiar OSR system objects and names from the Worlds Favourite Fantasy Game (such as Ability Scores, monster stat blocks, etc.).

Things that are like a “typical OSR game”:

  • Six ability scores (STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA)
  • Ability checks involve roll-under with a d20
  • Saving throws are a kind of ability check
  • Monsters have hit dice, armour class, and damage (typical stat blocks can be used with little or no conversion)

Things which are a bit different compared to a typical OSR game:

  • freeform Backgrounds for the character’s life events
  • characters have “demons” (an actual dark side, supernatural patron, etc.)
  • demons are what provides the character’s magical powers, and grow as those powers are used, corrupting the character in turn
  • There are no levels, and the human side of the character doesn’t gain experience
  • On the other hand, all characters start off with a high level of competence and toughness

This should be the opposite of the “zero to hero” ethos in that the characters start strong and capable of taking risks, and all characters should be playable alongside each other whether they’re powerful sorcerers or the roguish hero who eschews magical aid. But otherwise it should play like any other fantasy RPG.

GitHack is hosted on GitHub.

Even though you can freely collaborate on some indie games the static pdf format isn’t optimal. This is a different approach to make it easier to collaborate by presenting it like a software project. The text is in markdown making it highly portable whilst supporting basic formatting and tables in a human readable way. You can then take the markdown text and convert it with pandoc or view it with your chosen markdown viewer.

Since this is a GitHub project you can clone or fork the repo and submit your own commits for the main branch. You can use Git from the command line and make edits with any text editor, see where your content differs from the main branch, and so on. However there are also graphical tools and plugins available. I recommend atom.io which integrates with GitHub nicely and has a lot of useful packages for writing and rendering markdown, and it’s cross-platform.

Of course, if you just want to read the content, it’s right there on GitHub and you can download it and even read it online. I’m adding chapters continuously. In addition there will be an Extras folder for alternative rules, settings (including StormHack) and more.

Any questions or comments, reach out here or on Twitter (@fictoplasm).

RPG first look: Dishonored

The Dishonored RPG from Modiphius is pretty much everything I don’t care for: a mainstream system, an established secondary world setting, and a commercial tie in. And yet this has captured my imagination sufficiently that I’m inclined to blog about a RPG for the first time in years…

This was an impulse purchase as I’ve been mainlining the Dishonored series of murder sims on the PC (I mentioned how I think Flesh and Steel is the best way to play here). One of the reasons the series shines is the consistency and continuity through the series, but I’ve only really gotten to that after several play-throughs (which is testament to its replay value). Over several plays the originally lacklustre Death of the Outsider has become one of my favourite episodes largely for the metaplot.

So… I don’t like other people’s secondary worlds in RPGs mostly because I like to write my own, but also because it takes some effort to absorb the world that I would rather spend thinking about the game. I also like emergent settings, i.e. players learn more about the world through play.

HOWEVER videogames are emergent stories. And maybe one of the reasons I’m happy to give the Dishonored RPG a go is because I’ve already gone through the background in play, so I don’t have the overhead of having to absorb the background. I can tell you if I had not played Dishonored I would not have the patience to go through the historical timeline or the descriptions of the different islands which is predictably dry.

Also I stress about trying to present a secondary world to the rest of the players might know. What if I get some detail wrong? All silly anxiety really, we’re all friends enjoying a game after all. But setting from a videogame franchise has a big advantage: all the players will have experienced the world in exactly the same way, so we probably already have pretty close agreement on what is canon.

The other advantage in a videogame setting is repetition, as discussed in one of the recent episodes of Writing Excuses (link). Dishonored doesn’t just repeat, it repeats a small number of very strong setting images (whales, Outsider, the factions, etc.). Add to that the way some players (ahem) just play the game over and over again and you have a really effective way of embedding the setting.

The RPG

Let’s say Modiphius are leveraging not only the IP but the embedded nature of the world. There are going to be two kinds of audience:

  1. Non-roleplayers coming from the videogame
  2. Roleplayers who love Dishonored and/or 2d20 (and don’t get on with Blades in the Dark)

Both of these positions have problems. For the first this really isn’t a good introductory RPG, and no amount of “how do you roleplay” preamble will fix that. I have the same issue with this offering as I do with Trail of Cthulhu, which IMHO is not speaking to the beginner on how to run an investigation, it’s speaking to the CoC veteran on how to run an investigation “better”.

The second has the tackle the elephant in the room that is Blades, which has a couple of years’ head start and is, frankly, a much better written and presented game. I have my own misgivings about the actual system and I actually think 2d20 as presented in Dishonored is really exciting. Fair play, all I know about the other 2d20 games are anecdotes from other players and reading quickstart guides from other 2d20 games, but my quick take is a looser and less complex than other iterations like Conan, more FATE-like feel with “styles” rather than attributes (although this is functionally the same), and pretty faithful to the canon. It also focuses pretty well on the different ages to run a Dunwall or Karnaca game, although there are mentions of the other islands as well.

Combat is surprisingly de-emphasised, which is a good thing. I think other 2d20 games have a lot more to combat rounds but here there’s barely more than a single digest-sized page here. I like that the different tracks between combat, stealth and intrigue are given fairly equal weight. I also really like the concept of Truths as descriptors of locations and people, which can then be manipulated in play with the system currency (these feel a lot like Monsterhearts’ conditions).

Both Stress and Tracks have obvious PbtA and FitD roots. Dishonored kinds of rips off Blades here, but then Blades rips off Dishonored anyway so it’s sauce for goose and gander. Unfortunately you have to dig in the Dishonored rulebook to understand how long tracks are meant to be, as well as the rule about Momentum decreasing at the end of a scene. The index is poor. The lack of visual aids for tracks is just a missed opportunity and sloppy.

As for the protagonists, there are 13 “classes” which are all interesting, but would it have killed the layout artist to put a bit of art next to each one? The art for the Assassin, the Inventor and others is readily available from the source and they re-use the game art all over the place in the book, so I really don’t understand the logic here. They could have made each archetype a double page spread and it would really have popped, instead it’s a continuous scroll of text. Also I found that the different archetypes really don’t vary mechanically much, although I guess there’s the special talents which are so obviously influenced by PbtA/FitD playbook specials. Frankly if I were going to offer this game, I’d mock up a playbook style double spread for each one just to make it easier for the players to choose.

I think that’s the most annoying thing about this game. The system is competent and looks great, the description of the world is good, it leans on the existing canon which is what it should be doing, but then it kinda fails at being ready to go with at-the-table aids in the way Blades is. Almost like it’s embarrassed about how much it’s ripped off indie designs that it has to hide the actual useful stuff that should be front and centre in the game. Failing to visualise the game at the table is the original sin of mainstream RPGs, and experienced gamers give them a free pass because we leverage our past experience with other games. Think about it, doesn’t this make a mockery of any kind of “roleplaying 101” preamble?

Sigh. This is a good game, it gives me a strong feel of this particular fantasy world, and I do plan to bring it to the table. I even like the introductory adventure in the back. And the actual layout is lovely, even if the placement of art around the Protagonists chapter is a missed opportunity. But what annoys me is that this demands being read sequentially (at least for the rules part) when this should be a functional reference book to be dipped into as needed. It’s also not particularly strong on what the PCs should actually be doing, although to be fair it does have a lot of different hooks for bringing in factions and events… it’s just these are mostly GM facing rather than player facing.

Some other perspectives:

Metacity + Pocket Dimensions

The Melisonian Arts Council produced these really cool Pocket Dimension booklets. They’re sold out but I got mine from All Rolled Up (with my Dee Sanction reward plus a lovely purple koi facemask). I hope more are printed because they’re awesome.

I found a way to combine these booklets with the Metacity Primer, which is free on itch.io

OK, so in Metacity you design a city with freeform boundary drawing. You can use the template provided or create your own.

BUT since the mini hex grid in the Pocket Dimension is 37 hexes, you can place the Heart of the City in the middle and then assign the other 36 to the remaining hexes. Use one page to give the city overview, like this:

I used this to brainstorm Carchar-Lygaid, the City of Eyeless Princes with its temporal-sighted monarchy (the King) and propagandist Vizier (the Queen). I laid out five districts and left the other hexes blank.

Then use other pages to zoom into a district, e.g.

That’s the district of Shant, the Wyrmfelds where the dragon farmers cultivate dragons for scales, meat and venom. The whole place is a marsh with wooden walkways, lit by lanterns to penetrate the perpetual mist (District level tags). Then I made a few locations using the hex grid, like the Fane of Lupulold, the Decan of Shant, and Curlidge’s Gaff (the local Bishop).

So yeah, it looks like a great match of the notebooks with the tool. It works a bit like a Mandala Chart but with hexes. Also the regular hex pattern is a lot easier to scan than the random shapes I did for the graphic in the Metacity Primer, and a lot easier to visualise as a city map whilst still being basically topological.

Podcast listening March 16

I guess I should turn this into a weekly thing with a more defined release cycle. Anyway, here are 5 podcasts I consumed and enjoyed in recent days:

Plundergrounds 163 and 164

This is Ray Otus’ podcast. I like the schtick of taking listener questions and then randomly addressing them with a d20 roll. Both interesting as off-the-cuff takes on the various questions. I liked the concept of looking at fantasy logic. Hope the series continues.

Plundergrounds

It’s Good Except It Sucks ep 1: Iron Man

I really like Tim Worthington’s Looks Unfamiliar. This is apparently based on his live tweets of watching the MCU back to back, something which we’ve also started doing. I’ll be listening to these in sequence as we watch. Lots of references to Iron Man comic plotlines as well.

Ep 1: Iron Man

301 Permanently Moved eps 2107-2109

The weekly “personal podcast” of the The Jaymo. I listened to 3 episodes back to back and I really liked the Solarpunk, Stacktivism and Cold Texas episode 2107. The follow up 2108 was also relevant to recent listening however, comparing the amount of time it takes to consume the whole MCU suite of films vs. how much time is spent playing Call of Duty by consumers.

Solarpunk, Stacktivism and Cold Texas

+1 FWD: Wolfspell

Very nice to listen to another podcast mentioning Wolfspell. TBH I’m completely out of the loop with indie releases and I hadn’t even thought of this game since I heard about it in another podcast (may have been Another Question) interviewing Vincent Baker.

Wolfspell on +1FWD

Design Doc: Everything Old is New Again

I admit to only half listening to this podcast as I was frantically tidying the living room at the time in anticipation of two rampaging 4 year olds. But the bits I took away included how the authors are revisiting their original game and how new games sometime overshadow past achievements and how to celebrate and keep the momentum and interest in your previously published games.

Everything Old is New Again

Mystery vs Investigation

In the latest episode I talked about the difference between an investigation and a mystery game.

One: Investigation vs Mystery games

By “mystery game” I think of a very specific kind of minimal system game we played in the 90s (for example Over the Edge).

The basic argument (which I’m not sure I conveyed so well in the episode):

  1. an investigation is concerned with a group effort to uncover some truth that applies to everyone. It’s much more mission focused (which makes it better suited to one-shots).
  2. A mystery on the other hand is about a situation that a group of people find themselves in, and the single, unifying truth is secondary to (or at least not more important than) the individual personal goals.

This is totally artificial and real-world games exist somewhere on that spectrum. But there are a few general distinctions. First, the focus on getting to a single Truth in investigation game is underscored by the mechanics of investigation games, which often punish the investigators (through SAN or insight mechanics) for getting closer to the Truth. Mystery games don’t punish in this way, despite being just as weird and horrific.

Second, the investigation, being focused on getting to a fundamental truth, is often active in how it engages with PCs (e.g. it prompts their action and attention with narrative beats). Compare to the ambient weirdness of the mystery which is more passive, in that it comes to the front if the PCs want to engage with it.

So investigation games are really good for pacing whereas mystery games can be really unreliable for pacing and one-shots and hit their stride only after a number of sessions. Also (something I didn’t consider in the episode) they can be more at the mercy of the dynamic in the play group (great if you’re all on the same page; possibly disastrous if you’re not).

But… why?

Two: Sorcerer

I looked into Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer, where he discusses four ways to organise play (in Chapter 4, under Organising a Game).

  1. the “dungeon” way, where a bunch of characters come together to overcome evil, find treasure, etc.
    • the characters are all there for their own reasons
    • after the initial success, for some reason they stay together
  2. the “squad” way, where a bunch of characters are bound together by an organisation (like the FBI) and do the kinds of
    • Edwards says this format is boring, and I sort of see why if your players choose to limit the PCs’ curiosity and proactiveness to whatever the organisation does and otherwise says “not my circus, not my monkeys”
    • OTOH I would be inclined to treat this as a sandbox, and I’ve played plenty of games (like Department V, the Men in Brown corduroy) where diversity wasn’t a problem. I think this is only an issue if you view the game as exclusively a mission and nothing else
  3. the “dumb” way
    • a game where the characters have nothing in common, no shared backstory and their interactions with the plot and with each other are coincidental; for this reason they fall apart
    • Edwards called it dumb back in the original Sorcerer, but in the annotations he’s changed his position and he acknowledges that many games that look like this are actually way more subtle and not as unfocused as they seem. In fact he says that Sorcerer actually works fine like this
    • this is my template for the mystery game. Follow the PCs around and go where they take you. This is how we played OtE, and Mage and other WoD games
    • it’s also a standard of session zero PbtA (the Forge-made-good poster child) to follow the PCs around.
  4. the “hard” way
    • this is a way of linking the characters together with no shared background
    • the GM subtly includes everyone in the overarching plot and draws them together through manipulation of individual plots and backstories
    • Edwards’ annotations make it clear that what was written isn’t what he really meant, which was that backstory is all well and good but expecting everyone to come together isn’t.

I recommend reading Sorcerer if you can get a copy. Everything is worthy of criticism but this section on why players play and how they’re organised is not something you see in many RPGs at all… in fact I’d go so far as to say it’s slightly risky for an author to write down because it goes beyond options and into the realm of opinion. But it’s much more concise than the essays I used to wade through in the early Vampire supplements (well meant as they were).

Anyway… I put these four ways into a diagram

  • On the East-West axis you have Mode, which is either Pack or Solitary1
    • Pack means everyone focused on the same goal; usually these are tackled sequentially as missions. This is typical of Dungeon and Squad games.
    • Solitary means parallel individual/personal arcs, that may or may not be tied into the Threat. The Dumb and Hard games are focused on individuals rather than the pack.
  • For North-South you have Threat which runs from Explicit to Absent
    • Explicit = there is a problem, an enemy, something to expose or investigate
    • Absent = there is no obvious over-arching problem (although there may be session-to-session trials)
    • This variable passes through “implied” which sits between no Threat and a known Threat.

So in this context, I’d say the ur-Investigation game is North-West; it’s about Pack organisation and explicit Threat. The Mystery game is South-East, concerned with individual arcs with no obvious Threat. The North-East and South-West quadrants are variations on those two poles (the Squad is more about an organisation investigating a thing, and the Hard Way is about the GM doing all the hard work in bringing disparate characters together to a single narrative).

All of these modes are fine, preference, and games will probably drift around the diagram during play over sessions (like alignment). This is not really how Ron Edwards writes in Sorcerer; he’s implying some kind of exclusive choice. But mostly the point I’m making is that the structure in the OA is mystery rather than investigation, and it’s a play style I have a lot of love for.


  1. I took these terms from Jaron Lanier’s book Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now 

Podcast listening Sat 13th Feb 2021

Wow, I am burning through episodes — at this rate this is going to be a weekly post:

Mean by Scene ep 11 “In the Projection Room”

Sharanya and Tom discuss and break down Mean Girls, scene by scene. So fetch.

(but I have to say, Tom, how can you mention Parallel Lines and forget Heart of Glass?)

Episode 11

Anchor.fm

Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes ep 11: interview with Paul Mitchener

I liked Paul’s interview (and he sounds much better than in the episodes we recorded together) and also I don’t much care for actual play but the editing of this episode to focus on the hilights really works.

Episode 11

Anchor.fm

Weekly Typographic 48

Inevitably I’ll go back to some favourite shows. This one from the League of Moveable Type is great both for uniwidth fonts, and for the legibility vs. readibility discussion.

Episode 48

Weekly Typographic

Welcome to Night Vale 181: C****s

Love Night Vale. This episode has a fantastic world’s first audio crossword.

Ep 181 (and uncommon for a podcast, a transcript)

+1 FWD: Moonpunk

+1 FWD the PbtA Podcast discusses Moonpunk with its creators Wannabe Games. The game is apparently inspired by Robert A Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

BUT the most interesting part is the discusson on the use of PbtA in the classroom, including moves and playbooks.

Moonpunk on +1 FWD

WaRP Dark Masquerade

Some time ago I ran Cthulhu Dark Annihilation, and I mashed up the WaRP system with Cthulhu Dark for just a little more granularity in the game. That turned out not to be needed for that system or the scenario; but at the same time I thought about using it for a completely different game, revisiting Vampire: the Masquerade. It struck me that Cthulhu Dark’s ultra-minimalist approach to using Insight for madness could be turned to the rising hunger of the Beast in Vampire.

WaRP Dark Masquerade mashes up Cthulhu Dark with a bit of WaRP (Over the Edge) and applies it to Vampire. This is very much on the 1st edition side of Vampire. At the risk of being really pretentious quoting my own damn self:

something changed between VtM 1st and 2nd editions that the game transitioned from being a game about outsiders to humanity (Near Dark, The Hunger) to one about insiders to a secret society (Underworld, Blade). From there it degenerated to fanged superheroes. This was inevitable given the live action scene being focused around conclaves.

This is a fan project written by a fan of the very first Vampire, before the whole thing got homogenised into one World of Darkness, before the distinctions between games dissolved, before what was known about the World of Darkness exceeded what was not known thanks to the splatbooks.

Here it is on itch.

86: StormHack!

fictoplasm
fictoplasm
86: StormHack!
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In this short episode I’ll pitch the game StormHack!, available for download.

Links

fictoplasm.itch.io

Other games:

Whitehack
The Black Hack
Beyond the Wall

Music Credits

Music is by Chris Zabriskie: chriszabriskie.com // bandcamp // free music archive

Samples: “Is that you or are you you?” from Reappear // “Another version of you” from Thoughtless

StormHack Public Beta v1

Well… it’s taken long enough, but here is the first, final version of StormHack!. I’ve written several posts and gone through a number of iterations.

From the Introduction:

This is my OSR game. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It’s supposed to emulate a classic 1980s RPG based on the multiversal fantasy of a British fantasy author.

It’s also a remix of familiar OSR system objects and names from the Worlds Favourite Fantasy Game (such as Ability Scores, monster stat blocks, etc.). That should make it easy to use other OSR resources while repurposing some game elements.

The project as a whole is more generic but this version is specifically intented to be run with old Stormbringer scenarios.

Grab the pdf here. The current document was produced for screen reading rather than print (the font sizes may be a bit large), using iA Writer and the in-built GitHub template. I’ll look into printable versions in the future.

This Damned Nation: Player Notes

see this post

Apocalypse World: Burned Over (like most PbtA) has its own lexicon regarding playbooks which may affect impressions of what that character does.

This is further complicated by this scenario, which is very prescriptive in what the PCs do.

Players are expected to pick playbooks and work to fit them into the scenario and potential situations. Some playbooks will be a drop in, but others will take a bit of creative thinking to make work. There are some comments below on how to make the different playbooks work.

Managing Expectations

This game is slightly different from (my experience of) typical AW games, which are usually centred around a stronghold or other central location. In Burned Over this would be the game’s Hard Zone.

This scenario uses the variant play of Burned Over with two Hard Zones, which are North and South of the Road that the players will be travelling on. Furthermore the characters will be constantly in motion, travelling from location to location and not returning to static locations. The characters are also on a mission to deliver serum to Boston; this means that they are against the clock, and every stop and diversion means lives lost.

I can see these consequences:

  1. Less opportunity for pursuing social interactions.
  2. A character with a big following will be difficult to make work, unless they’re travelling with them. An entourage that slows the convoy down could be disastrous.
  3. Similarly resources or wealth concentrated in a place won’t work, unless that place is mobile.

That leaves three ways of managing characters with people and other resources on their playbook.

The first is to have those resources in a vehicle.

The second option is to have the resources in caches along the road. If they’re people, they’re settlements that display some kind of affiliation to the character. If they’re resources, they’re dead drops, strongboxes, bunkers or other caches that the character can gain access to. In that case the character should use those to expand on their own affiliations and how these resources illustrate them — are they part of a secret society, federation, pre-collapse nation?

The third is to make use of the two Hard Zones. This is trickier but these may still be accessed along the Road via Off-Ramps. They represent different states of reality, two opposing forces, competing timelines and ethereal states; it’s effectively a ghost or spirit world, a representation of the psychic maelstrom. Specific characters are more likely to interact with them briefly (e.g. the Gearcutter) but they could serve as static places “owned” by those characters with such resources, to be visited on occasion. However this may still present a logistical problem because the time any character can spend in these places will still be limited owing to the mission constraints. If the playgroup and player can make this work then go for it; otherwise I’d limit the concept to the other two options above.

Vehicles and Driving

The Nation of California provides a vehicle suitable for transporting the serum called a Landmaster. This is an eight-wheeled all terrain vehicle with radiation cladding, armour and various armaments. It’s assumed all characters can drive the vehicle, especially if there are no environmental challenges (and they will need to share the burden of driving).

Some playbooks own vehicles, or have abilities that could be interpreted as a vehicle. If the players agree, the Landmaster could be “owned” by one character. If the Medic is in play for example, the Landmaster could be their Refuge. If there’s a Weaponized, they could be the Landmaster.

Otherwise, the other vehicles can be outriders or support vehicles doing duty to protect the Landmaster, which is carrying the vital serum to Boston.

The Hard Zones

AW: Burned Over assumes 1 or at most 2 Hard Zones. If there’s a single Zone it’s where the PCs are; if there are 2, the PCs walk the border between the two.

By default The Road is the game’s Hard Zone. It’s the physical landscape the characters are going to cross on their journey between the Nation of California and Boston. Locations include:

  • Wells, places that can provide resources essential to the journey
  • Off-ramps, deviations from the Road into the Other places
  • Storm ranges, natural threats that will affect progress

There are some notes below on how each Playbook fits into the setting, but in general interactions with a Hard Zone will be spots along the Road, and the party will only visit these spaces once.

If you want to run with 2 Hard Zones instead, make the Road the border between the two. This could be a physical border (for example between warring groups North and South of the Road) or a metaphysical one (the Road connects the Now with the Past, other timelines or dimensions).

Fitting the Playbooks

Brain Picker

This character tends to be a loner and can probably slot in as-is.

Note that this character is potentially very disruptive to both communities and the environment; also they need time up close to use their powers, even if that time is short, which will be limited to when people are outside their vehicles. But otherwise no real restrictions and no tweaking needed for play.

Gearcutter

A great playbook for a mechanic type, and really good fit for the game. Does some interesting psychic stuff.

Note their Salvage Grounds. Assume that they have a collection of stuff in the Landmaster or their personal vehicle.

When they’re going into dangerous territory to salvage, they’re probably going Off Ramp into one of the Hard Zones, which are weird alternate spaces where they can find things not normally found in the primary world.

Lawmaker

This is probably the hardest playbook to integrate as it often revolves around a Holding which is by default static and has NPCs coming to it.

One way to make the Lawmaker fit is to make them an extension of either the Nation of California, or the old pre-collapse USA. In this case their law is synonymous with THE law. This would make them more like a Judge crossing the Cursed Earth, but it could work. This would still allow them to proclaim their Laws. Their 20-strong Gang might be other lawmakers roving the wilds and similarly dispensing justice, and their Holding could be stations along the way that still uphold the Old Laws.

An alternative way to play could be to make this character an antagonist pursuing the convoy with bikes and other vehicles, for whatever reason. This is the role of the biker gang lead by Big Brother in the final pages of Damnation Alley. Managing this would mean you have to cut between the Convoy and their stronghold, but in this case it could work. One of their Laws should be something that directly opposes the Mission. Their Holding might be a roving gang, or it could be one of the two Hard Zones accessed by Off-Ramps.

Medic

If the Medic is in play, suggest that their Refuge is the Landmaster.

Monarch

Like the Lawmaker, this playbook implies some kind of static group of people, but it’s a bit more flexible. If the Monarch’s People are choppers it’s easy to make them a support group riding with the Landmaster.

Another interpretation could focus on the affiliation the character has, rather than assuming an entourage that’s always there. Like the Lawmaker variant, their people might be found in pockets of civilisation along the way, connected to this character by fame, a shared ideal, a national identity, etc. In this way the Monarch may be some kind of navigator or official that facilitates the convoy’s journey. Perhaps there are numerous checkpoints, tolls, or ports along the way and the Monarch is not just useful, but essential in getting safe passage through or resources. That would make them a kind of “fixer”.

If you’re taking this alternate option, be careful that you don’t overlap too strongly with the Operator and make one or the other redundant.

Operator

A pretty good fit with the scenario as-is. The Operator’s Ports of Call will be places along the Road, and their Ear to the Ground move should similarly be focused on places they’re going to travel through on the Road. They have their own vehicle.

Undaunted

Really interesting character focused on Aggro, with links to the Maelstrom.

The Children should be encountered along the Road. Some of them are created as Threats (I guess either antagonists or causing trouble).

Rather than have these turn up as recurring characters (not really possible) consider foreshadowing these characters with some inevitable meeting happeing somewhere down the Road.

Vigilant

This is actually a pretty good fit already as the character isn’t tied down to a location. The exception is the Bolthole move. This could be a vehicle, or it could be a network of bunkers that the character somehow has access to, or other safe locations. Perhaps they have a secret map of the Old Nation. Hiding out for any length of time won’t work with the setting, so it may be simpler to prohibit this move.

Volatile

Not a particularly subtle character, but should be no problem to integrate into the setting with no ties to any location.

Weaponised

Similar to the Volatile, a no-nonsense character that should be straightforward to integrate.

One option for this character could be to make them one of the vehicles, possibly the Landmaster itself. This could be tricky to build into the narrative with constraints on where the character can go, but it could be a fun option.

Summer Special: Beyond the Wall

fictoplasm
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Summer Special: Beyond the Wall
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In this seasonal special, Ralph interviews John Cocking and Peter Williams, authors of Beyond the Wall.

Show Notes

Ralph Lovegrove with John Cocking and Peter Williams of Flatland Games.

About Flatland Games 00:30 // Reading background 01:35 // Fantasy and D&D 04:40 // Swallows and Amazons 05:40 // Aiming for a roleplaying experience 07:05 // The lone wolf hero in fiction and RPGs 08:30 // The World of Darkness 10:45 // A shout out for Dragon Warriors 18:35 // How Beyond the Wall came to be 20:45 // What is the “D&D experience”? 24:30 // A four year-old’s perspective on system matching 25:55 // The lingua franca 29:30 // The playbooks and layers for other D&D 31:05 // BtW’s spells (and Ars Magica) 33:10 // Design — what came first? 36:25 // BtW and Appendix N 41:40 // Other fiction properties that should be RPGs 43:00 // Your favourite Eternal Champion (Ralph blathers a bit here…) 44:50 // Stormbringer RPG 48:30 // US-UK cross-cultural 49:20 // Flatland Games’ other offerings (Action Movie World, Wizard’s Museum Construction Kit) 52:20

Music credits

“Cylinder Eight“ and “Cylinder Nine” from Cylinders by Chris Zabriskie

chriszabriskie.com // bandcamp // free music archive