Decks In Demon City

This is a round-up mostly for people who want more detail on the tarot rules because of the Demon City kickstarter. Straight from the current Demon City draft...

Previously...

Character Generation

Getting Things Done

Combat

The Players' Deck, The Horror’s Deck, and Significator Cards

Now that the basics are down, it’s time to go into a little more detail about the cards.

As we’ve already said, before each adventure, after the Host has decided what the ultimate creature or creatures will be lurking behind the events in the day’s adventure, the Host creates the Horror’s Deck. The Horror’s Deck should be used by the Host in every session until the Horror that formed that particular deck is defeated. Then a new one is created for the next session.

The Horror’s Deck should include:

-A few (typically 1-4) cards specifically associated with the major horrors that will ultimately feature in the course of the adventure—even if the Horror itself may not appear in this session. For example, if the adventure includes a werewolf, the deck would likely include The Moon (18) and possibly Strength (8). The associations of cards with specific horrors is detailed in the Horrors section.

-A few cards associated with specific places or NPCs that are important in the adventure. For example, if a rich woman features prominently in the adventure, the Queen of Pentacles would appear in The Horror’s Deck, if an abandoned factory was an important location, an 8 of Cups might be in the deck. The connections of cards with specific ideas, kinds of people and kinds of places are noted on the endpapers of this book.

-Enough other cards that the deck contains at least one card worth every number one through ten. So: One card worth One (any of the four Aces—Wands, Cups, Swords, or Pentacles, or the Magician—the card marked 1 at the top), a single card worth two (two of Wands, Cups, etc or the High Priestess, the card marked 2 at the top), a single card worth 3 (3 of Wands, Cups, etc or The Empress—the card marked 3) etc all the way up through ten—so, ten cards allowing a random throw of 1-10, plus some extras. These other cards should be chosen with an eye to making them as consonant with the ideas you want to include in the adventure as possible—if indulgence, passion and drunkenness feature heavily, feature the suit of Cups prominently, if violence and pain, then feature Swords, if money and power are important, use Pentacles, if magic or creativity—Wands. Again, these meanings are detailed in the Host’s section. Note “court” cards—Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings—are worth 10.

-The Horror’s Deck won’t inclde the current Significator Cards of any PC present.

-There’s an example of how to assemble a Horrors’ Deck in the Host section.

The Players’ Deck:

… is made from most of the cards left over after making The Horror’s Deck. As noted above, it should include The Fool unless the Host has decided to put it in the Horror’s Deck, as well as 3 number cards of each value 1-10. The only other cards in the Players’ Deck should be Significator Cards—discussed in a second.

-Even if any of the PC’s Significator Cards are worth 1-10, the Players’ Deck must still include 3 of each value in addition to these cards.

When used in resolving action, The Horror’s Deck has a few kinks:

-The Horror’s Deck will often be unbalanced—a deck including the Wheel of Fortune and the Knight of Swords has at least two tens in it. This is fine—sometimes horrors have an advantage, that’s why they’re horrors.

-The deck may also include cards worth more than 10. These powerful cards are worth face value and count as Critical Successes unless someone throws a higher card.

These cards represents something especally horrific and immediate happening. A blunt and immediate “sting” showing the power of the menace at hand.

Significator Cards:

-When a major challenge is defeated, shuffle the Horror’s Deck and fan it out face down and have each player choose a card. This is their PC’s Significator Card (see below).

-It is possible to meaningfully defeat a hostile NPC without combat (for example, discovering evidence of their guilt and making it public) or meaningfully defeat a foe that isn’t a creature as such (like, say, a complex trap). In both cases, if the achievement is significant, the group should be eligible for a Significator at this point.

-If any of the PCs have a Significator when the deck is fanned out, they lose the old one and it is replaced with the new one. The Players’ Deck must be remade.

-The player notes the new Significator Card on their character sheet and the new Significator Card will be placed in the Players’ Deck next time they play.

-Each Significator has three functions…

+First, as noted above, drawing your PC’s own current Significator counts as a Critical Success if that card also would normally win the contest it’s being drawn for.

+Second, a specific PC reward associated with each card is listed on the endpapers. Once they gain a given Significator, players do not have to wait to draw this card during a throw to use the reward—they can use the reward at any time when the situation described in the reward (“Gain a throw vs Calm loss at the sight of violence or death”) could happen, or, if a specific situation is not described, at any other time it would physically be possible for that thing to occur, including Downtime (see below). Once used this way, however, it’s gone. The connection between PC and Significator Card is no more, the card is crossed off the character sheet, and it’s removed from the Players’ Deck. “Burning” a Significator takes away a PCs chance of Critical Success until the next major menace is defeated, but is often worth it since it allows a PC to seize control of a situation in the moment. And the card will be changed out after the next menace is overcome anyway.

+Third, the Significator is, in occult terms, an actal tarot card that actually was chosen randomly on behalf of the PC. Outside of any mechanical restrictions, The Significators traditional divinatory meanings can guide the player in how they’re going to play their PC, and can guide the Host in what kind of situations they might derive for them. The traditional meanings are easy to find online.

-When it’s time to switching cards, an unusued held card is gone—a PC cannot use the reward from the old card immediately just to hog both benefits.

-The Significator Cards represent chance favoring a PC, not supernatural intervention—the card cannot make something otherwise physically impossible in the game world possible.

-The Host should note down who got what Significator.

Other Uses Of the Tarot Deck:

The Host can use the cards in many other ways:

-Some foes will have specific attacks or effects that activate when a given card or combination is thrown, noted in the Horrors section.

-Cards can be used to generate random NPCs and locations during the adventure, like any other random table. Using cards from the Horror’s Deck ensures a range of results in line with the ideas the Host wants to emphasize in that adventure—like a carefully built Random Encounter Table in a dungeon game that echoes the themes of that dungeon.

-The Host can create specific events that will be triggered when a given card or combination appears in a given situation.

-Supernatural abilities allowing precognition or divination can allow a character to read the Horror’s Deck to gain insight into what is to come—depending on the precise method used, this will allow a general reading (what the cards broadly can imply) or a specific one (what the cards signify in this particular adventure) or both.

Demon City Tarot

Interpreters of the tarot always tell you two things: (1) A discoverable and apparently historically-justified meaning attaches to each card and its placement in the interpretive matrix and it took me years to figure it out, but also (2) interpreting the cards is more art than science so hey whatever. Below is a piece of what the cards mean in Demon City—which has its own uses for meaning.

There are many uses for the cards, including:

1. As throws from the Horror’s and Players’ Decks as well as rewards for PCs resulting defeating horrors (as described in the first section of the book).

2. To create fortunes or precognitive flashes (By showing a PC cards associated with the menace they are currently facing and, in some cases, telling them the significance of it.)

3. To randomly determine characteristics of Contacts or other NPCs (Each card has at least one kind of person associated with it or characteristics of a person).

4. To randomly determine buildings or locations (Each card has at least one kind of location associated with it).

5. To improvise any other situations needed during a session (Once the Host is comfortable with the meanings in their current Horror’s Deck.)

In the case of 4 and 5, you can pull multiple cards to describe something in more detail—The Hierophant and the 8 of Cups together would be a retired priest or an abandoned church.

Additional numbers are provided in parenthesis so that, if necessary, card effects can be rolled up with dice—roll D100 and reroll anything too high.

The information is provided in the order: Character. Location. (Possible other interpretation.) Significator Card reward.

(GRAPHIC DESIGNER: THIS TAROT STUFF BELOW SHOULD GO ON THE FRONT ENDPAPERS ALSO)

(00) The Fool—A moron, but likable. A small and pale puppy. A sheer drop. A stranger will be kind to you, despite your mistakes.

(1) The Magician—A wizard or liar. A deceptive performance, before a large audience. Avoid a spell, or cast one unerringly.

(2) The High Priestess—A cagey and intuitive woman in a hat. A nurse. A religious hospital. A 12 to perceive unholy forces.

(3) The Empress—A blonde, imperious, dishy. Beauty. A bend in the river. Gain a point of Appeal if you throw a 10 exercising or give up a point of Cash on plastic surgery.

(4) The Emperor—A father, bearded. Entrenched authority. A public building in white marble. Someone will assume you’re an authority figure.

(5) The Hierophant—A religious leader. A grey church. Traditions. A 15 to drive off unholy forces.

(6) The Lovers—An erotically charged relationship. Touching. A good place for hook-ups. An existing Contact finds you irresistible—or add a new one who does, free.

(7) The Chariot—A racer or a driver. A ride, pimped. Any vehicle. A showroom. A 10 to drive well.

(8) Strength—Someone tough. A fierce animal. A place for athletes. A boxing gym. Throw an extra time (just you) when exercising during Downtime and pick the highest.

(9) The Hermit—Isolation and the perspective that comes from isolation. A desolate place. A brutalist parking garage. Led Zeppelin IV. A 10 on a Perception check while alone.

(10) The Wheel of Fortune—A gamble or gambler. A casino, a track or a card game. Cause anyone to rethrow their last throw.

(11) Justice—Someone inclined to fairness. Possibly blind. A police station, a protest, a courtroom, a place where activists meet. An 11 to hit someone who has hurt a friend.

(12) The Hanged Man—Reversal. Inversion. A contrarian or iconoclast. Punished but not punished. A place of execution. A 12 to hit a captor.

(13) Death—Someone who is old and knows it, or something. A graveyard, an ICU, a home for dying people. Double damage on an already damaged foe—won’t work on what’s already dead.

(14) Temperance—A moderate or teetotaler. A bad haircut. Wherever middle-aged couples relax. A vegan restaurant. Throw an extra time if detoxing and pick the best.

(15) The Devil—Undeniably wicked. Any place of enslavement, calculated iniquity or accumulated power. A 15 to hit an enemy, but your friend is hit, too.

(16) The Tower—One who overthrows. A building that is mazelike, high-security, or haunted. A 16 to successfully trespass.

(17) The Star—A celebrity of some kind. Someone or something uncanny, distant. A celebrated place. An alien place. Acquire renown for your work.

(18) The Moon—Someone given to passions. Dark or pale. Animals. Cause a round of panic in an enemy that is hurt or surprised.

(19) The Sun—Very young, but wise. Skin prematurely worn. Leathery. A rooftop in daylight. A greenhouse.  Illumination. A 19 to a Research check.

(20) Judgement—Someone on a panel, or a board, or any judge. A room where great decisions are made. A neutral party with power will agree to help you. 

(21) The World—A foreigner. A global perspective: Little Armenia, Little Jamaica, the airport, Chinatown. Add a free Contact overseas.

(22) Ace of Wands—A beginner, capable.  A redhead. A startup’s office. Throw an extra throw if Working/Training during Downtime and pick the highest.

(23) Two of Wands—Someone with concerns abroad. A waterfront or beach, rapidly developing. Add an extra throw during an Action round when executing a plan you made.

(24) Three of Wands—A brown-haired man. A room with blueprints.The Department of Regional Planning. Gain a point next time you add a new Knowledge-based skill.

(25) Four of Wands—A family member. Normality. A place unchanged for a very long time. Add a throw and pick the highest when visiting family during Downtime.

(26) Five of Wands—An arguer, surrounded by chaos. A fighting ring or debate hall. Lose 1 less damage than you would otherwise in a fight.

(27) Six of Wands—Someone black-haired and proud. A parade or award ceremony. Gain a throw when speaking to a crowd.

(28) Seven of Wands—A fugitive or desperate person.  A small business. A drug front. Gain a throw when facing multiple opponents.

(29) Eight of Wands—Online a lot. A hydro-electric plant. Impersonal forces. Gain a throw working with a machine.

(30) Nine of Wands—A disabled person. An exhaustive collection—archive, museum—nearly complete. Gain a throw during the Action Round after awaking from an injury.

(31) Ten of Wands—A bureaucrat, working too hard. An overburdened government or administrative service. Gain a free government Contact with a 9 in Research.

(32) Page of Wands—An apprentice or enthusiast. A grand opening. A 10 when dealing with any kind of supernatural thing for the first time.

(33) Knight of Wands—A genius in their field. A sentient spell. A place of unharnessed power. Gain 2 points of Paranormal/Occult or gain Paranormal/Occult at Knowledge+1 if you don’t already have it.

(34) Queen of Wands—Voracious, and a total babe. A black cat. A disguised witch. An excellent restaurant. Add a throw when spending Downtime reading—the benefit goes to the entire group.

(35) King of Wands—Successful and admired. A lizard. A necromancer. A source of impeccable, if flamboyant, menswear. Uncover a work of occult knowledge.

(36) Ace of Cups—Acutely sensitive. Preternaturally aware. An impressive fountain. Gain a Contact free.

(37) Two of Cups—Warm and reasonable. A mutual beneficial relationship. A kind woman’s home. An extra throw when spending Downtime with an ally, apply it to everyone.

(38) Three of Cups—Charismatic and not drunk yet. A friendly dive under a place where no-one eats. Succeed on an Appeal throw to meet a stranger.

(39) Four of Cups—Hungover and apathetic. Where people are sleeping off a party—or a bad clinic. Gain a throw vs inebriation.

(40) Five of Cups—A gaunt soul, dark of aspect. A ruin or ruined place. Gain a throw vs Calm Loss at the sight of violence or death.

(41) Six of Cups—A natural victim, paying no attention. An unsuspecting and idyllic place. A carnival. Throw an extra Downtime throw when Being Social.

(42) Seven of Cups—Someone misshapen and delusional. A district of retail luxury. A theme park or retro diner. A 17 on a Deception throw.

(43) Eight of Cups—A retiree or once who has renounced the past. An abandoned place. An 18 to escape.

(44) Nine of Cups—A jerk, smug of aspect. A vast, proud venture, long in the making. A 19 to impress someone.

(45) Ten of Cups—Someone pleased to help. Generosity. A center of LGIB or T life. Receive an unexpected gift that helps with a case.

(46) Page of Cups—A sentimental weirdo. A fondness for seafood. A pleasant wharf. If you get them drunk they’ll tell you everything.

(47) Knight of Cups—A romantic with full lips. A library without windows. A place of breaking glass. A 10 to seduce.

(48) Queen of Cups—A ginger woman with strange possessions. A psychic. An antique shop or prop house. A 10 to discover a rare object.

(49) King of Cups—A wise and wealthy man in elegant footwear. A houseboat or yacht. A 10 to persuade.

(50) Ace of Swords—A tattooed man. A decapitation strike. A busy corner in the center of the city. An 11 to a called shot.

(51) Two of Swords—Dangerously obstinate. Defensiveness. Manslaughter. Deadly ground. A 12 to defend.

(52) Three of Swords—One who complains. A bad tattoo shop. A 13 to a backstab.

(53) Four of Swords—A quiet thinker. A prepared assassin. A mausoleum. An extra throw if attempting to work through Downtime.

(54) Five of Swords—A gloating fiend. A thief and orchestrator of violence. A hub of iniquity. A 15 to commit an unjust act.

(55) Six of Swords—An exhausted traveler. A crossroads. A 15 to negotiate with hostile powers.

(56) Seven of Swords—A petty schemer. A spiteful failure. A business operated as a front. A 17 to steal from someone who likes you.

(57) Eight of Swords—The perfect victim. Kidnapped or compelled. A support group or center for the afflicted. An 18 to convince someone you are sinned against.

(58) Nine of Swords—An insomniac. Shopping from home. A guilty conscience. A bachelor pad with a hand-me-down quilt. A 9 to inflict a head wound.

(59) Ten of Swords—A soon-to-be-corpse—or a corpse. The murder card. The worst neighborhood. A 10 to afflict the already-afflicted.

(60) Page of Swords—Someone playing with fire. A gun shop with inadequate security. Learn a new weapon skill or +2 to an existing one.

(61) Knight of Swords—Quite intentionally an absolute menace. A stabber. A themed pub. A 10 in a fight.

(62) Queen of Swords—A formidable woman. A home with a high fence. A 10 to damage, don’t throw normally.

(63) King of Swords—A very dangerous man. Closed rooms where crimelords meet. A 10 to intimidate.

(64) Ace of Pentacles—Efficient and practical. A place with a strange door. A vacant lot. Establish a new business.

(65) Two of Pentacles—A juggler or a chancer. A playground or ball field. Rethrow a failed Cash check.

(66) Three of Pentacles—A team player. A cathedral or place made of stone. A 13 to a group effort, devoid of violence.

(67) Four of Pentacles—An absurd miser. A roof with a fine view. Greed revealed as only greed. A 14 to grab someone or something.

(68) Five of Pentacles—A battered beggar. A terrible charity. Refusal. A 15 to a Calm Check in the face of suffering.

(69) Six of Pentacles—A charity worker. A distributor of gifts. A Goodwill or Salvation Army. A 16 to persuade a skeptic of good intentions.

(70) Seven of Pentacles—Straightforward and hard working. A quality control officer. A growing business. A 17 to notice financial irregularities.

(71) Eight of Pentacles—One practiced in their craft. A place with a prominent public sign. An 18 to apply an Occupational skill.

(72) Nine of Pentacles—A prospering dork. A golden garden. A bird of prey. Leisure. Gain the trust of an ordinary animal.

(73) Ten of Pentacles—A member of a powerful family. Thin white hounds. A vast estate. Undo a Cash loss.

(74) Page of Pentacles—A neophyte schemer. A university campus. Gain a point of Cash.

(75) Knight of Pentacles—A hustler. A summoned thing. A sketchy lawyer. A club with a dark reputation. Gain a Criminal contact with a 9 in Streetwise and Local Knowledge.

(76) Queen of Pentacles—A woman, rich and slow-moving. A sad stone monument. Regain a point of Calm.

(77) King of Pentacles—A man of ill-gotten wealth and dubious taste. An enormous mall. Move to an amazing apartment downtown, above your means.

Give to the Demon City Kickstarter here

A Bad Baby

Several of the Demon City stretch goals have been unlocked, including a whole handful of horrible Filipino monsters from new OSR hotness Mabel Harper, here's one hot off the press, not yet edited or illustrated:

There are quiet parts of a city, far from the commercial zoning, expensive shops, and tourist traps, where the sounds of construction and honking cars and spitting, sneering people are distant echoes--those neighborhoods with abandoned pharmacies, rundown churches on every corner, and colorful graffiti decorating condemned architecture. Sometimes in these places, a baby cries in a dark alleyway. The cries naturally beckon gentle souls to the source; when they arrive, they find a child, small and terrified and alone.

The infant often looks a lot like the person who comes to the rescue. Same skin color and color of the eyes. Sometimes even facial features. The familiarity breeds further goodwill. It’s by design.

When the Good Samaritan picks up the child, the illusion dissipates. The child--no, no, the thing--transforms. The metamorphosis is sickening: bones lengthen and pop into place, flesh grows taut over a bestial visage, and pale, bloodstained fur sprouts over the soft baby skin. The resulting monster is much larger than the victim, and it will devour them.

This is the Tiyanak, a corrupted dead infant who seeks to destroy the good and caring people in this world. Despite what some say, abortions do not give rise to the Tiyanak; rather, its fate is woven by cruelty and carelessness, especially of the ones who should have shown the child care. The infant died young and violently, without a name or a proper burial. Feeling embittered at their fate, without an identity to anchor them, their ghost is reborn as a monstrous spirit to enact petty, violent vengeance against those who would show them kindness. Transference at its bloodiest.

There is only one thing that can end the Tiyanak’s reign of terror: the original infant corpse must be located, correctly identified and named by the closest living relative, and finally given a burial. Only then will the restless, vengeful spirit transform back into a mournful little ghost and continue on its way to peaceful oblivion.

Design Notes:

An adventure featuring a Tiyanak is about identification. During the PCs’ investigation, the story of its violent past must be discovered, and either the original perpetrator of the abuse that killed it or a relative of theirs must be tracked down and forced to confront the truth of their transgression. Given that humans are not often willing to confront their own wrongs (the power of denial is strong), this usually isn’t as easy as just tracking down whoever can put the baby to rest. The PCs must also convince them that it’s their responsibility to do penance. This will be difficult, especially if the parent directly responsible for the infant’s death is still alive and is therefore the only person able to stop the Tiyanak.

Calm: 3
Agility: 5
Toughness: 8
Perception: 4
Appeal: 4
Cash: 0
Knowledge: 0

Calm Check: 8
Cards: The Fool, Ten of Cups

Special abilities:

Devouring Maw: In its true form, the Tiyanak’s maw is filled with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth and can open wide enough to swallow most humans. A successful attack inflicts standard damage and grapples the target. A creature of any size may be eventually swallowed this way.

Infant Cry: When in infant form, the Tiyanak’s cry beckons kind-hearted souls to it. NPCs cannot resist, but PCs aware of the vengeance spirit’s ways may resist by making a Calm check against an intensity equal to the Tiyanak’s Appeal.

Invulnerability: The Tiyanak can be harmed by ordinary weapons, but it cannot be slain by them. If defeated, it will simply dematerialize until the next night, when it will return in perfect health.

Manifestation: The Tiyanak appears near potential victims after the sun goes down, often in lonely alleyways, but really in any place in the dark far away from crowds and a lot of noise. After manifesting, it must move normally and will disappear before sunrise.

Shapeshift: The Tiyanak may take the form of an infant no older than twelve months old. The infant’s appearance may reflect similarities such as skin, hair, eye color, or even facial structure to the approaching victim. The Tiyanak may also take the form of a black bird. It may use this ability to flee or locate potential victims.

Weaknesses:

The holy symbols of any faith cause the Tiyanak to make a Calm check or flee until said symbols are out of sight. The intensity of the Calm check is equal to the degree of fervor of whoever is wielding it (1-9). In the case of an incidentally encountered symbol (a glimpsed church steeple, for instance), the intensity is 2.

Touching a holy symbol, including holy water, does damage to the Tiyanak as an ordinary physical attack.

If one wears their clothes inside out, the Tiyanak’s cursed infant cry will not attract them.

After the Tiyanak is given a name, but before its original corpse is buried (and therefore laid to rest), the Tiyanak becomes frightened when its true name is used. The monster must make a successful Calm check against the speaker’s Calm each round, or flee.

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You might wanna get in on the Demon City Kickstarter before it ends.

Relevant Retropost Sunday: "A" Monsters Suck

Newer readers may not know that I went through every single page of the Monster Manual and talked about the creatures in order. They're under this tag. Here's the first one:

I was looking through the AD&D Monster Manual and was struck forcefully with the following insight: monsters that start with "A" suck.

Aerial servant

Invisible? Boring.
Air elemental? Boring.
Summoned by clerics? Boring.
Here's the only good part: "If the aerial servant is frustrated from completion ["frustrated from completion"?] of its assigned mission it becomes insane, returns to the cleric which sent it forth, and attacks as a double strength invisible stalker."
Let's not mention how invisible stalkers are also boring.

Ankheg

This is one of those rare Gygax-invented monsters that gets absolutely no love from anyone. Nobody likes them, nobody hates them, nobody thinks they're funny, they're just one more giant bug. Being a big M John Harrison fan I have a soft spot for insects in medieval settings and still just can't bring myself to write "d4 ankhegs here" on a map. I think it's the name. Sounds like a verification word.

Ant, Giant

Within the insect-and-arthropod community, I'm pretty sure "ant" is synonymous with "square". As in, there's a bunch of wasps, spiders, flies, and cockroaches hanging out and they're like "Come onnnn, man, roooadtrip!"
"Awww, I don't know, Jimmy."
"Ok, man, look: you can crawl up into the van and come with us and have a blast seeing the world, or you can put on your tie, and go to work, and do whatever the Queen says, like some fucking ant."
"Awww, Jimmy..."

Ape, Gorilla, and Carnivorous

My theory is: there are Ape People and there are Monkey People. Monkey people like monkeys because they are funny. Also, they are creepy, clever, and decadent. The perverted elf princess in the silk-swathed tower made of jasmine and murder has a pet monkey--for sure.

Ape People are different: ape people tend to be fans of what I call "hairy" entertainment: Conan movies, Jack Kirby Comics, Zardoz, Planet of the Apes (naturally), these:

For these people, King Kong actually had a shot against Godzilla, and the giant ape is the finest monster of which one could ever hope to dream.

I confess to being more of a pretentious, scheming Monkey Person than a fun-loving, good-hearted Ape Guy, so the idea of asking a wizard to take time out of his or her busy schedule just to deal with some fucking gorilla just seems basically disrespectful. Though I will say that this thing is awesome:

Axe Beak

Does anyone care about the axe beak? Ok, didn't think so...

Ok, so, see? The A's are hopeless. If you go beyond the Monster Manual, the only other "A" monster that ever got any traction is the Aboleth.

Aboleth

These were supposed to be sort of creepy Lovecraftian menaces from the deep. But if you never read Lovecraft when you first got ahold of the Monster Manual 2 because you were a little kid at the time then this is just like a really fucked up whale that hates you.

If it wasn't a classic, like a dragon or a hydra, then you pretty much had only the illustration to go by to figure out what the fuck is the idea with a monster.

Strangely enough, I am right back in this position with my players now. This is how meeting an aboleth would go with my group:

Me: "...and it looks...like...this!"
KK: "What the fuck is that?"
Me: "It's an aboleth, an ancient and inscrutable race that lives deep beneath the sea, older than man, older than the tides, older than the gods, older than...."
Mandy: "So it's like a Lovecraft thing?"
Frankie: "What's a Lovecraft thing?"
Daniel: "He was like this science fiction writer who wrote about, like, big monsters that looked like that."
KK: "So it's like a space fish that's old?"
Connie: "Can I pickpocket it?"
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Relevant Retropost Saturday: Ideas vs Tools

Ok, in looking at RPG stuffs: there's ideas and there's tools.

Ideas are like "Ok, it's like a sphere with a big eye and an evil little mouth and a bunch of eyestalks and all the eyes have different magic powers and I call it a Beholder".

Tools are like "Here's a way to generate 18 dungeon rooms complete with contents at once".

You judge ideas on whether you could have thought of them yourself and like them.

Tools don't have to have things you wouldn't have thought of yourself, they just have to organize and present lots of ideas (original or old) quickly and/or conveniently so you can build other things with them.

Both are great, naturally. But when people talk about RPG stuff they often talk past each other because one person's judging a thing's ideas and another person is judging the tools.

Some examples:

The AD&D DMG is fantastic for ideas. But while it has a lot of tools in it, they're hard to find and have been superceded by other stuff.

Retroclones, as tools, are frequently better than the original D&Ds they clone.

Products detailing tons of hexes, like the Wilderlands and Carcosa, are pretty sparse in the ratio of ideas-to-pages, but they're meant to be, they're tools for endlessly recombining a relatively short list of moving parts to create an environment.

Published modules have always kinda disappointed me on the idea front but people often defend them as tools. I find they often take longer to prep than it'd take me to write my own thing, so they fall down as tools as well.

The Monster Manual was fantastic as both. Deities and Demigods was all ideas and no tools (at least until now).

Rifts is better than most games for ideas, it's a disaster for tools.

My favorite RPG books, Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned, are mediocre tools (I rarely consult them) but bursting with ideas.

Ideas are more glamorous, but once you get them you don't need the book they came in any more. Tools are no fun to read but you can use them forever.

Random tables can be either....
You can have a Random Weather Table which is all weird stuff (rain of frogs, etc) or just interesting mechanical ways to express the effects of rain, wind, etc.--that is, a table of ideas, or you can have a Random Weather Table that's just totally realistic for a given place--that's a tool. Or, of course, you can have one with both.
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What's a Game Text Do? Why are we playing? What went wrong? PIG-PIP 2

Part two of a theory of RPGs.

Part one here.
Part three here.

Also:
Tactical Transparency

20. What Does A Game Text Do?

A game text is a nonliving and static participant in play.

("Static" barring releases of errata and, like, answers from the author in venues like Dragon mag back in the day or Twitter now. The text has some dynamism, it's still way slower than a player or GM.)

The text consists of a series of suggestions about goals to be pursued and procedures to be followed in the game session, usually along with an argument for pursuing those goals and following those procedures.

For example, if the art in a game shows someone in chainmail cutting up an owlbear that's both a suggestion (try to set up situations like this when you run your game) and an argument (it'll be fun if you set up this situation, following the rules here will help you set up this situation, etc).


21. About Fun

"Fun" is a shorthand expression. Really what we usually mean is "an experience the living participant finds desirable" which covers slightly more territory, including the possibility of cathartic experiences.

For example, everything we're talking about should apply to the person who left this comment on the last entry:
"

I think you'll need to say a lot about what you mean by fun. Depending on what you figure out you might need to justify it as the focus of your investigation. Because you need to accommodate some really diverse roleplaying experiences that we should deem successful, but don't seem to involve fun as we normally think about it.

For example: I normally play pretty standard dnd, but my favorite rpg experience was in a really constrained story game (A Walk in Winter Wood) and it was genuinely terrifying. There was no part of it that was pleasant---no jokes, moments of low tension, nothing. Just stress. I was terribly uncomfortable (but of course I was at least comfortable with the level of discomfort I was in. Or I was willing to undergo that much discomfort for the experience. Dunno how to phrase it.).

Anyway that experience was great because it touched on true horror and evoked real feeling. I don't know where fun enters in this analysis.

"

More narrowly, fun is sometimes used casually to refer to light-hearted kinds of desired experiences ("It's just a fun movie" etc) often connoting, in a game context, a relatively permissive game ("It was Pendragon but I broke the rules and played a horse because, hey, fun's fun"). Just noting that here because sometimes discussion gets confused because people are using different definitions.

22. Broad Goal of Play

To distribute the maximum experiences-found-desirable to the living players.

Jargon notes: If you just go "desirable experiences" then you have the silly problem where someone undergoes an experience someone else desires but doesn't like it. Like a vegetarian eating a cheeseburger is having an experience that is "able to be desired", so "desirable" (I like cheeseburgers) but not by them. That's the important part: the person gets a thing they liked.

Also note it's not necessarily desired experience past tense: the person doesn't have to get what they expected to get, only something that, once gotten, was liked.


23. Narrow Goal of Play

While it's all fine and good to say the goal of play is to distribute maximum fun (etc) experiences, practically speaking, planned leisure experiences always involve imagining a specific kind of desired experience ("let's go bowling it will be loud and convivial and there'll be melted cheese" "let's curl up on the couch and watch Antiques Roadshow it'll be cozy and chill")  and then, as it were, carving life down until it is sharp enough to penetrate the force field of boredom or the other foes of leisure from a very specific angle. One does not just throw unrelated fun-suggestions against the wall of Fort Boredom and hope one makes it through.

The game text argues not just for the desirability of experiences but for a specific kind of experience. This is where we can talk about the "desired experience": What you went in expecting and wanting.

For example: Procedures and advice for a horror game and for a comedy game have the same broad goal (22) and very different narrow goals.


24. Observation on Evaluating Game Texts

A lot of digital ink has gotten spilled over whether a game is "well-designed" or "poorly-designed" in arguments between people who are talking past each other because one is describing a failure to hit a purported Narrow Goal of Play (common phrases you'll hear: "but it failed because it was advertised as...", "but it failed because the author's intent was..." etc) and the other is describing a success in hitting the Broad Goal of Play.

A common iteration of this argument is about whether D&D or a version of it succeeds because people like it (often over all other experienced options) or a failure because the illustrations and ads suggest the Narrow Goal of Play is epic fantasy but actual play can be more like serial pulp or picaresque fantasy or just bathetic.


25. Observation on Game Communities

People (the game's living participants) are influenced by-, and in some cases arguably products of-, communities. Communities have norms, ranging from use of language ("dual-wield" is a gamerism, not a military-historical way of referring to two-handed weapon fighting) to procedural assumptions ("GM is always right"). As soon as a game involves more than one person, gaming can never exist outside of some kind of cultural assumptions (even if they are so limited as "What language do we use when we play?").

Cultural assumptions are thus very close to a "participant" (though technically: "a characteristic that participants have in common") and can and should be analyzed with the same scrutiny one analyzes the game text or individual player behavior when asking what went wrong or what went right in a game.


26. Practical Consideration for Game Texts About Community Assumptions

Since:

a) There are far fewer game communities than gamers
b) The author of a game text is far more likely to be familiar with the assumptions of game communities than individual gamers,
c) Assumptions in these communities vary widely, and
d) These assumptions can affect how the text's suggestions are interpreted

...it is desirable for a game text to, all other considerations being equal, communicate as much about how the suggestions inside interact with different communal assumptions as possible.


27. Limit on 26

There are few assumptions so bizarre that some gamer community on the internet somewhere does not hold them (including: you don't have to read the text to run the game and then decide it doesn't work), therefore there is a practical limit on the ability of any text to communicate every single aspect of how it interacts with communal assumptions.

A game text that spends time addressing each of the infinite ways communities could misconstrue it will eventually become so difficult to read (ie uncharismatic) that it works against its purpose of effectively providing suggestions for play.


28. Post-Game Analysis

A PIG-PIP analysis of a game session would consist of:

-Listing the participants (including players, texts, and other paraphernalia used)
-Describing specific contributions made by specific participants, with an eye specifically toward contributions that were atypical or different from contributions made in a game session that had a different outcome--like if trying to figure out why a session failed, look at how it was different than a similar one that succeeded and vice versa.
-Looking for "chemistry effects"--that is, interactions between participants whose result was complex or unusual. This is by far the most difficult part.

A good analysis might examine things like the interaction between GM and text (how many of the text's suggestions were thrown out or altered, which ones were used) player and text (which of the rules did the players engage especially, including spells, items, feats, etc) player and player (were they interpersonally helpful or disruptive to some players more than others) etc.

One tool would be a Punnet-squarish matrix like this: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/03/zaks-ez-adventure-making-chart_30.html

Part three is here.
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PIG-PIP Theory of RPGs

So this the first of maybe several posts attempting to create a new comprehensive theory of tabletop RPGs.

Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
-
Specific Ideas:
Tactical Transparency

It'll need your help.

Here goes:

PIG-PIP Theory

Participants Invent Games-"Participants" Includes Paraphernalia

1. Meta-note on Development:

I'm Zak and I started this theory, but there are several areas here which could use development, and likely technicalities I've missed so: I welcome commentary and contributions based on your own observations and with any luck this gets both expanded and tightened up.

2. Meta-note on Format:

Theory and assertions of fact like this, extra commentary and context like this.

3. Meta-note on Goal:

The purpose of the theory is to help match participants and potential participants in tabletop RPGs with game experiences they enjoy as much as possible.

This should be applicable to recommending games, altering games, designing games, matching players, running games (GMing), etc.

4. Meta-note: Justifications Negative & Positive

Negative: Other extant theories of tabletop RPGs are vaguer than they need to be and/or make inaccurate predictions.

Negative: Bad theories exist now and continue to be used. This has had disastrous effects, leading to genuine real-world abuses. Replacing them might ameliorate that.

Positive: It saves time to have a vocabulary with which to describe games, players, play practices etc.


5. Meta-Note on Jargon:

Under current conditions, the main immediate impact of a theory of tabletop RPGs is likely to be use and re-use of its vocabulary, including by people who haven't read the theory.

On the one hand: in that case, there's little point in even having a theory unless it has words and phrases that are locally defined in a special way that allows them to stand in for common complex concepts. A theory or at least a common language should mean we all have to type less.

For example: People continue to use the word "simulationist" because they need a word to describe games that have rules which extensively distinguish imaginary in-game objects and actions from each other from similar in-game objects and actions (like say, spear vs halberd) despite the fact that word "simulationist" is ill-defined and part of a whole theory they may not believe. But they still want and should be able to talk about the difference between like The Pool and GURPS and it'd be nice to have a way.

On the other hand: under these same conditions, words with misleading connotations or whose meaning is more difficult to intuit than necessary are undesirable. To the degree possible, we'll want to have words that mean, in the context of game design, as much like what it sounds like they mean to the average native english speaker in a native english-speaking country as possible.

PIG-PIP is obviously not a word that explains a lot, so someone encountering it for the first time somewhere else will go "What's PIG-PIP?" and the other person goes "It stands for Participants Invent Games-Participants Includes Paraphernalia". Which should at least get them asking the right questions.


6. Scope: What Is A Role-Playing Game?

This is a descriptive, not a prescriptive definition.

"Role-playing game" is a category used usually informally in discussion and used more formally commercially (like when deciding what to order for a game store, f'rinstance, a pie is not a role-playing game so you don't order a pie and put it on the shelf next to Star Frontiers).

The category basically covers a variety of activities that lie between wargames, therapeutic role-play and improv-theatre exercises. That is: all things currently discussed as role-playing games share characteristics with at least one of those three activities, usually all three, yet have elements none of them have.

Unlike therapeutic and some improv exercises they do not tend to have a specific personal-development goal (ie psychological wellness or improved acting ability). Unlike some improv exercises they aren't primarily meant for entertaining spectators (though actual-play vids are an interesting overlap, especially high-improv versions of RPG play like HarmonQuest), and unlike wargames they do not usually focus on competitive play between players in control of large forces of multiple units (though this kind of play is wholly subsumed within the possibilities of many RPG games).

Note: These are lines drawn that describe different histories and commercial spaces--therapeutic games, wargames and improv games have separate histories, all predating modern RPGs. One could alternately imagine a less historically-based definition where all three of these activities (as well as computer RPGs and the kinds of tabletop games this theory is mostly about) exist within a larger circle called "RPGs" which would simply be defined as "any at-least-partially unscripted activity, with defined rules, where people take on imagined roles". The "with defined rules" is the hair that splits it away from any theatrical performance that is improvised. So in this definition commedia del'arte is an RPG but that line in Star Wars where Leia goes "I love you" and Han Solo goes "I know" isn't.

We could go on to list elements RPGs usually have but this isn't necessary--there are always outliers that don't have them (some like Amber don't use dice, some like DCC have players controlling more than one character, some don't have game masters, etc). What we want here is to make true statements about "RPGs" whatever that is, so these statements should apply to the outliers as well. This definition therefore includes not just tabletop games but LARPS etc.)


7. The Basic PIG-PIP Claim: Participants determine the character and quality of a game experience.

In addition to the players and GM, "participants" includes paraphernalia used during the game and preparation for the game--game texts, house rules, miniatures, tables, chairs, the physical or virtual space the game is played in, snacks, etc.

8. Predictions based on The Basic PIG-PIP Claim:

More often than not, replacing a major participant with one all the people playing have previously experienced and would agree to call "substantially worse" while keeping every other variable the same should result in what most of the people involved would agree is a "worse" play experience.

More often than not, replacing a major participant with one all the people playing have previously experienced and would agree is "substantially better" while keeping every other variable the same should result in what most of the people involved would agree is a better play experience.

These are testable predictions. They haven't been rigorously tested.

9. The Chemistry Principle (Possible exceptions to 8):

It's possible that one or more participants of (what everyone experienced involved would agree to call) inferior quality might be more compatible than participants filling similar roles that  (what everyone experienced involved would agree to call) superior quality.

Thus replacing specific high-quality participants with lower-quality but more compatible participants might improve the game for everyone present.

Like: maybe everyone playing likes Rolemaster better than Tunnels and Trolls but they all know the rules to T&T better that day so they actually have more fun that day than they would had they played Rolemaster that day.

10. The Asymmetry Principle: Not all participants' contributions are equal in terms of deciding the quality of the game experience. 

Living participants have a choice about how active or passive to be, (with some--but less--latitude given to the GM, if there is a GM) and about how faithful to be to the suggestions of rules texts and other paraphernalia. Texts and paraphernalia can't make adaptive choices about the living participants or their contributions.

11. Prediction based on The Asymmetry Principle:

More often than not, if a living participant moves from a passive to an active role they will have more influence over the quality of the play experience and vice versa. If a player all living participants judge as "better" is more active in a group of average players then they will judge the play experience as having being better than if that participant was passive, all other variables being equal. Same goes for "worse"--etc.

12. Evaluated vs Unevaluated Challenges:

Nearly any task a live participant might perform during a game could be considered a challenge  ("it was challenging to think up a good name for my PC" etc) but there is a distinction between evaluated and unevaluated challenges. Evaluated challenges are linked to specific mechanically relevant in-game consequences.

Even if making up a name for a PC is a challenge for a given player, there are few games where the attempt to meet that challenge is evaluated--that is, a game procedure changes in a way that could be considered by those engaged as "towards" or "away from" a win condition.

Killing a monster in the game is usually an evaluated challenge. If, under no time pressure. you use only missile weapons at a distance against a very powerful but slow moving foe which itself has no missile weapons you have probably thought up a good strategy and are less likely to die before the monster. That is: it's evaluated.

"Evaluated challenges" are the core of what can, in some contexts. be called competition or competitive games.

Evaluated challenges are linked to in-game consequences though not necessarily in-the-game-world consequences, like successfully completing an evaluated challenge might get you a "hero point" which doesn't represent a specific in-world thing but is useful in the game.

13. Limits of Evaluated and Unevaluated Challenge

Evaluated challenges attempt to mechanically force responses to have more of a quality of "exercise" (doing something hard which theoretically involves learning or improvement. The analogy to physical exercise is literal.)

Unevaluated challenges admit a larger variety of outcomes into the game.

HOWEVER, participants who hold themselves to high standards of creativity--that is, try to think of solutions they normally would not--can experience as much exercise with unevaluated challenges.

14. Challenges and the Definition of RPGs

All RPGs have unevaluated challenges--or at least unevaluated activities. Even in Final Fantasy you can walk in a circle 90 times if you feel like it and it has no effect on the mechanics. Not so in a wargame.

Not all RPGs have evaluated challenges. These tend to be the games people claim "aren't games" or "aren't RPGs".

15. System-Specific Vs System-Agnostic Evaluated Challenges

Some evaluated challenges are tests of a players' mastery of the game system, and some are simply general problem-solving challenges.

If, under no time pressure, you use only missile weapons at a distance against a very powerful but slow moving foe which itself has no missile weapons you have probably thought up a good strategy and are less likely to die before the monster--that's a system-agnostic choice, because it would still be a good idea if the situation we're really happening.

If you use a Wand of Fireballs instead of a Rod of Fireballs because in that system the Wand is mechanically superior (does more damage, etc), that's a system-specific challenge.  Or, rather it's meeting a challenge in a system-specific way.

System-mastery is the quality of being good at system-specific challenges. System-specific challenges reward participants who've read the books carefully.

16. Simulation and System-Agnostic Evaluated Challenges

In order for system-agnostic evaluated challenges to occur in a game, the game must mechanically describe the relevant in-game objects to such a degree (and with such a fidelity to if-it-were-real) that the factors that make the tactic a good idea in real life are also factors which matter in the game.

For example, if combat is only resolved by comparing Fight scores of two opponents and then adding a d6 roll to each, the challenge of  knowing, under no time pressure, to use only missile weapons at a distance against a very powerful but slow moving foe which itself has no missile weapons, is negated, as none of the factors that make that a good tactical choice are in the game.

17. Note On Participant Preference and Options

Since many activities which include only unevaluated challenges or only evaluated challenges exist, most people who choose to play RPGs like both unevaluated and evaluated challenges.

Not all though, individual RPGs have enough distinctive characteristics and a distinctive enough audience that a person might like only one of those kinds of challenges but put up with the occasional call to engage the other in order to experience the other benefits.

18. Tom Sawyer Principle

Living participants' interests aren't static. Even players deeply-invested in one aspect of play might become interested in another if other participants make it look fun.


19. Participant Butterfly Effect

Many role-playing games allow for a wide variety of scenarios that are not only non-overlapping in terms of content but also in terms of the mechanics engaged. As participants invent games over and over, the character of two game sessions derived from the same text (ie "two groups playing the same game")  can be completely different even if the participants are the same. This is merely because of choices they make.

For example: if an Apocalypse World player decides to deal with a siege against their hardhold like this, the entire session might very well be both in terms of mechanics and fictional content basically non-overlapping with another session of Apocalypse World. The two groups have played a pair of "games" so different as to be as-different as if they had used different game texts (ie two games of Apocalypse World as different from each other as they would be from a game of Mutant Future).


more tomorrow...
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Maze of the Blue Medusa is back in print

He Knows Where To Stick Things

Art's one thing:

Design is another:

Click to enlarge

Those of you who've been paying attention to the blog recently may have noticed the one-man-force-multiplier named Shawn Cheng dropping layouts for the new project.

Like all the designers I've worked with--Jez Gordon (Red & Pleasant Land), Luka Rejec (Frostbitten & Mutilated)--Shawn is also an artist:

from Shawn's site

That mix of detail and dreaminess is just. I don't know. Cheng does things I can't and I love it.

This is Shawn's D&D character sheet, I'm pretty sure Nemo's been around since like 2009...

...he kicked some ass in Frostbitten & Mutilated last time I was in NYC. Shawn has a ton of these character sheets and the instinctive design sense even in these casual little things is depressing for a "fuck where do I cram this in?"guy like me. He even gets the horse in there. Like porn, it's a lot about knowing where to put things.

It's weird to think how long we've been working together, he did my very first coffee table book...

Even though I usually have some real specific ideas about how I want my projects to look, its those moments where we click together and he goes above and beyond that make design go from good to great. You find where the overlap of your sensibilities matches the projects own energy, you can give fewer and fewer directions and just let them go nuts. I sent a lot of reference images for Demon City--japanese and 80s horror posters mostly--but, oddly, I think when the design for Demon City really took off is when I started sending Shawn old Atari ads...

...the stuff coming back stopped being "Hmm, but can we do..." and started being "Oh holy fuck yeah".

There's some kind of aesthetic of panic in there--and also Atari and early video games in general involved graphic designers in trying really hard to use every tool of the trade, largely because they were trying to sell green squares on a black screen.

I've probably collaborated with Shawn more than anyone else over the years, and I know when we get in the zone, he delivers something and you "Oh, beautiful, perfect.."

...and you show it to people and they're like "Oh cool!" then a few weeks later he goes "Nah wait I think I can do better...."

Demon City is a modern world and the modern world, much more than the D&D one is designed, every inch...

So on this project, the design is as- or nearly as- important to the world-building as the art. Once they feel like you're inside the the world, a GM can start to spin things out of it on their own. And I knew Demon City needed someone who wasn't afraid to make the book's total package into a little brain-bomb.

Although he may not be a familiar name to some of you, he's actually been OSR-adjacent for quite a while. One of the first things gamelike projects I ever did was the collaborative "battle blog" Road of Knives with Shawn and Nick DiGenova.  In RoK, Shawn would draw a thing...

And then I'd draw something punching it...

...and then he'd draw someone punching them..

..and back and forth forever...

It was advertised in an early OSR zine, I think it was Matt Finch's? Anyway a lot of the game-like thinking that turned into this blog started there.

Anyway, part of what makes a big project cool is pointing the spotlight at other talented people, and getting to work with them, and as soon as Demon City was funded monday that me and Cheng got to work together again on something like nobody's ever seen before, I hope you have as much fun with it as we're going to.

Throw down for the Demon City Kickstarter here