tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post105375804657410714..comments2024-03-27T01:28:28.346-07:00Comments on False Machine: A World Without Violencepjamesstuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-2429823745435562222020-11-14T17:18:29.103-08:002020-11-14T17:18:29.103-08:00Thank you for the time and energy you put into mak...Thank you for the time and energy you put into making this series. It's really valuable for me presonally, because I'm similarly interested in a D&D-esque game that's not centered around violence.<br /><br />I think that you can include politics more than you think, or rather that you've already chosen to include politics in one mode (peace) and you can easily add others. The most socially complex challenges come from humans themselves (that's why you feel the need to anthropomorphize the seasons etc. to make them interesting). Revolutions occur when human beings transform the conditions under which they live technologically (agricultural, bronze - iron age, industrial revolutions) or politically (collapse of the roman empire, french revolution and ascendancy of liberalism, Bolshevik revolution and communism, etc) or ecologically (climate change, every myazaki film). Once you add magic, things get even more possible.<br /><br />What political movements, in the cities and country, arise from the plague? How do these broad societal shifts filter down to the children? I actually think the fact that the PCs are children makes this easier, since even the most committed revolutionaries will (in fiction if not irl), pause violence to hear the innocent voice of a child. So it could easily be that the characters set out to stop a war or economic crisis by resolving or transforming the underlying revolutionary situation that causes it. In that case, the players literally make history. Pathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13874405369099447507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-83368181269980236642020-07-08T12:00:33.534-07:002020-07-08T12:00:33.534-07:00I think team work is still a big aspect of combat ...I think team work is still a big aspect of combat as war, but definitely more prominent in a system mastery 5e context. Character creation in basic dnd still goes back to a combat roles. The rogue will try to sneak around and backstab, priests heal, mages hide at the back. <br /><br />I can see why you would resist this. To flesh out what I meant a bit more. Characters could specialise in dealing with spirits in different ways. Some could banish them forcefully, others could charm, empathise or communicate with them. In Mushi-shi, there are special cigarettes which paralyse or keep them at bay. Healers could cure psychic damage, remove insanity conditions, recover "esteem points". Spirits could require different approaches, suiting different player roles; e.g the stinking river spirit in Spirited Away just needs a clean. This sounds more like system building than you are going for though and possibly risks immersion breaking. Anton Paulissenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02681762778748554934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-45782177646606710162020-07-08T11:38:34.592-07:002020-07-08T11:38:34.592-07:00Brainstorming your takeaways. Politically quietis...Brainstorming your takeaways. Politically quietist sounds appropriate. I think there are further implications for the social and economic structure. Does anyone have a job or even need to work? The beggar scenario has implications. Courteousness in a noble maybe a virtue. But a courteous beggar or exploited serf is a mug. Perhaps they are poor through misfortune, but would friends not help them out. You could bite the bullet and make players nobles. Kind of like Gormenghast, where workers are an alien brutish other, but this is hard to stomach. Alternatively, a realm of superabundance, without exploitation, almost primitive communist. <br /><br />Also how are decisions made in society? I am imagining possibly within family structures or small scale communities. But some of your monsters imply an overarching state; the orc's lawyers, loan trolls and crime bird. Who enforces the laws? What even constitutes a crime? <br /><br />Mum sickness is great adventure hook. There is a 3 page Japanese Noh Theatre play “The Valley Hurling” which uses it. I have adapted this into an rpg adventure which went pretty well. (The play was also adapted by Brecht)Anton Paulissenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02681762778748554934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-87747392941368522612020-07-07T07:04:36.447-07:002020-07-07T07:04:36.447-07:00Generally in OSR-adjacent stuff the concepts of &#...Generally in OSR-adjacent stuff the concepts of 'Tank, Buffer, Healer' aren't anywhere near as defined and combats take place as much more random collisions of events, more combat as war than the combat as sport of something like 4e or high powered 5e, (which is what comes to my mind when you describe combat in those terms)<br /><br />Regarding a "replacement overarching activity that could apply consistently in the setting", probably not, or at least not to my purposes. Firstly because OSR combat is a lot less like that to begin with and secondly because anything that consistent introduced in a diagetic way (i.e. there are spirits and this is how you deal with them and this is always the way), means the game would essentially be 'about that' rather than about experiencing the imagined world.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-34202442301306107802020-07-05T12:53:38.616-07:002020-07-05T12:53:38.616-07:00The idea of preserving an existing, benevolent ord...The idea of preserving an existing, benevolent order that is threatened by outside forces is sort of the definition of the word conservative.Matt Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03301070414722134097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-62736543322230040062020-07-03T10:37:18.322-07:002020-07-03T10:37:18.322-07:00Super interesting idea, and one I'm going to f...Super interesting idea, and one I'm going to follow. One thing that comes to mind (mostly because I've been watching it recently) as a fantastic example for this aesthetic is the Avatar: The Last Airbender series. In that series, there *is* fighting, but almost always as a last resort and (importantly) never as the means of solving problems "for good". In the original show particularly (jury's still out on Korra, I'm only partway through it) the characters will do battle when forced to, but almost as often they will befriend their former foes, or discover some way of convincing them to leave or stand down. It's been really refreshing to watch.Matt Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03301070414722134097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-29923826092045076082020-07-02T14:40:18.005-07:002020-07-02T14:40:18.005-07:00Those would work well for disparate occasional tea...Those would work well for disparate occasional team challenges. I was wondering if there is a replacement overarching activity that could apply consistently in the setting. Eg. Using magic to repel troublesome spirits in imaginative non violent ways. Anton Paulissenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02681762778748554934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-27642904749861192392020-07-02T12:02:08.219-07:002020-07-02T12:02:08.219-07:00Performance is the first thing which comes to mind...Performance is the first thing which comes to mind. Like a play or something similar. A heist might do it too. Also sailing a ship possibly.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-2817001481476280392020-07-02T10:48:24.983-07:002020-07-02T10:48:24.983-07:00I wonder if the hardest element of combat to repla...I wonder if the hardest element of combat to replace might be the team work. The clearly defined nature of roles (tank, buffer, healer) and potential to combine strategies is difficult to replicate. I sometimes think of D&D combat as offering an idealised experience of teamwork we lack in our modern alienated workplaces. It is possibly this, and not the killing things which players gain most fulfilment from. <br /><br />The "fire as enemy" type idea seems like it could offer this. It got me thinking of the Never Ending Story, where the nothingness is a ubiquitous enemy and character interactions are almost something separate and distinct from it. The nothingness is the film cannot be overcome through teamwork. But what about a similarly ubiquitous shadow enemy or something. I mean something which scratches the combat itch, but is treated distinctly from the roleplaying and other soft D&D elements you want to introduce. <br />Anton Paulissenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02681762778748554934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-62747981353612504172020-07-01T07:48:44.977-07:002020-07-01T07:48:44.977-07:00I’m not sure why you assume the game would be cons...I’m not sure why you assume the game would be conservative (small c or not). If anything, it sounds like you’re building a game about utopian anarchism. The distant authorities and emphasis on non-violent cooperation in particular sounds very anarchist and not very conservative at all.tveirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04034443799674796540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-45872311296278832252020-06-27T22:10:37.420-07:002020-06-27T22:10:37.420-07:00Another idea for a child-friendly, non-combat-dung...Another idea for a child-friendly, non-combat-dungeon: Climb a really big tree. Perhaps a huge oak. Up there is the nest of the bird that stole the key to your grandfather's old steamer trunk and that is probably full of adventures itself. On the thicker branches on the way up there are fairy-creatures but also a murder of crows you may need to placate and a family of squirrels to befriend and and and ...Martenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12978941864880013486noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-34104696521997402782020-06-27T16:46:15.796-07:002020-06-27T16:46:15.796-07:00Feel free to use it, or parts of it.
I am startin...Feel free to use it, or parts of it.<br /><br />I am starting to think that the only definition of a true OSR game is that it is titled (something) & (something), though there are exceptions.Matthew Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06954050440829792514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-53967211416736134022020-06-27T08:22:08.476-07:002020-06-27T08:22:08.476-07:00The emphasis on non-violent problem solving remind...The emphasis on non-violent problem solving reminds me of Steven Universe.Goblinisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05128414529043405261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-88707151766199893102020-06-26T13:45:44.014-07:002020-06-26T13:45:44.014-07:00More good stuff. Oddly, treating hazards as creatu...More good stuff. Oddly, treating hazards as creatures is a bit like the approach in 2nd ed. Pathfinder, where *everything* gets a level and a set of moves etc. I've been doing something similar for a game I'm working on, writing up stat blocks for storms, flash floods, insect plagues, etc. I'm simultaneously inspired and a bit jealous of your fire, which is great (and, to an Australian, scarier than most monsters).Lukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519217676714582111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-60500761153302022892020-06-26T10:24:22.098-07:002020-06-26T10:24:22.098-07:00Some more ideas:
There is a parallel place to th...Some more ideas: <br /><br />There is a parallel place to the kids school called The Unknown. Most have heard of it; some of them are scared by it, but not many know how to access it. It is possible to get a word on which path on the forest will lead you there, or which abandoned house has an entry to those deep tunnels in its basement (the unknown is always way bigger than what it seems from the entrance, and the paths in there seem to interconnect)<br /><br />Not everyone needs a motivation to get in: most of the time kids get lost in there, and for the most part they get out after witnessing the Weird without knowing exactly where they were. <br /><br />There are others who, led by the temerary foolishness of that age, tirelessly sought to get in in order to pursue their own interests, as it is said, and it is "somehow" true, that anything that you really desire and the solution of all your troubles might be found there.<br /><br />The place where the monsters that haunt you sleep, the love you never met. The chance of meeting someone who departed, the witch who will grant your wish. The treasure of a Sphinx; the power to beat those who harmed you. The way to change your body or becoming who you'd like to be. The cure for your mom's illness, and the bear-trap which caught the spirit of the rain <br />by his foot and has been preventing him to put out the draught all this late years.<br /><br />All of this and more can be found there, even if those might not be what they seem at first, or entail horrific risks or costs.<br /><br />Who would dare not to sneak a peek into it, given the chance?<br /><br />That is for motivation. Now I go for the Lethality part.<br /><br />There is an easy fix that should work well: Just make it so at 0 HP monsters are debilitated and must retreat to rest, or just to accept whatever the PCs require of it. <br />Debilitated PCs must also go back to rest somewhere safe if the situation allows. A PC at 0 hp cannot help that a troll catches him prisoner, it just happens automatically. If they are lucky and it suits the monster's motivations, it will just retire triumphant and the PC might come back for the revenge someday. This way they act as zone-blockers (PCs that cannot defeat a monster cannot access a zone, but PCs can try as many times they want providing they make all the way again). To put it plainly in rules, you don't want to reach 0 hp because you either lose a lot of work and time, or you lose agency over your character (if the character becomes imprisoned, charmed, polymorphed, etc it happens at 0 hp only, and it might have you rolling a new character while the GM uses yours as an NPC)<br /><br />The task should be giving every monster in the bestiary a way in which they violence-less-ly deals with their victims.<br /><br />The beast in Over the Garden wall polymorphs you into a tree and saps your oil. Medusas turn you to stone. Vampires turn you into a vampire, etc. But who knows, all can be reversible by a party determined to bring you back. Or at least, becoming a vampire is a slightly less graphicly violent way to end than chopped by an ogre.<br /><br />Jack Tremainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12906068267967864239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-73814013337108063932020-06-26T10:02:52.797-07:002020-06-26T10:02:52.797-07:00Oh, and in case you want some books on real-life f...Oh, and in case you want some books on real-life farming, not for games, here are a couple that might be useful for a more homesteady/community type of farming, rather than the large collective farming of Western European manors:<br />- "The Power of Duck" is by a Japanese guy who invented a system where you grow rice, but you also have ducks and fish in the paddies, and they create a little ecosystem, so you get a lot more food out of the same square footage and don't need chemical fertilizers (the book is hard to come by, but you can read about him and his stuff in a lot of places online): https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0908228120/?coliid=I1HQXQBSD5JU0D&colid=2IRT71IE0AGY0&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it<br />- Joel Salatin is an American farmer who raises cattle, chicken, and pigs, and he's worked out a similar mini-ecosystem approach where he mimics more natural behavior (like bringing the chickens in a day or two after the cattle to eat the maggots in the cow paddies, just like wild birds do with wild grazers). He comes with a heaping side dish of libertarian-ish politics, so if that's not your thing, be prepared: https://polyfaceyum.com/product-cat/merchandise/#!/Books/c/43780190/offset=0&sort=normalJeff Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14017877412359840010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-29451948216695400402020-06-26T09:20:50.984-07:002020-06-26T09:20:50.984-07:00I'm really enjoying this series so far, not on...I'm really enjoying this series so far, not only because the concept itself is appealing, but also for the insights you're sharing based on the constraints you're imposing, so please keep on sharing.<br /><br />I really like Jack Tremain's point above about having a mythic otherworld as a place to do weird, sometimes scary things where fighting isn't the answer, but I can see how that might be detached from the social grounding you're looking for. One solution might be to make everything outside of town explicitly otherworldly - it's not just that the woods have spirits, it's the woods from Mononoke where the spirits and animals rule and men dare not go but for the gravest reasons.<br /><br />You touched on it with farming, but the other broad class of challenge that came to my mind as I was reading was investing in the community physically - you need tools, materials, and master artisans from elsewhere to build a new temple, or an inn that will make your town a trade hub, or a new terrace for farming so that new families don't have to move away.<br /><br />A few resources you might be familiar with, but might be helpful:<br /><br />- "Playing Cute" by Mateo (formerly of gloomtrain) is a closser to normal D&D take on doing some Miyazaki inspired stuff, see especially the different village institutions you can improve, which is how you gain experience: https://hexculture.com/2016/06/playing-cute.html<br />- Beyond the Wall is a D&D clone that borrows some world-building from AW style games by grounding character creation in playbooks that ask specific questions to link the characters to each other, but they're all from the same village and it creates a lot of small town social ties: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113405/Beyond-the-Wall-and-Other-Adventures<br />- Book of the Manor for Pendragon is another option for a system for running a medieval farming community based on real practices: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/94690/Book-of-the-Manor<br />- The Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is a painstakingly detailed take on medieval society with standard D&D assumptions (but it lays out the real world stuff before commenting on how magic might affect it). The link is to the most recent edition (3rd), which is $30, so if you're not sure about dropping that kind of money on the product, there is a first and second edition which are both cheaper and likely have most of the same fundamentals (I have the second edition from years back): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/192370/A-Magical-Medieval-Society-Western-Europe-Third-Edition?manufacturers_id=69<br />- Stonetop is a dungeon world hack where the characters are from a tightly knit bronze age town - so, not so much for kids or lack of violence, but it does have some interesting stuff on how the fortunes of the town affect the characters (and vice versa), how to create the town with player input, link the characters together with relationships, and so forth: https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2018/07/stonetop.htmlJeff Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14017877412359840010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-89383808896008222062020-06-26T08:48:17.858-07:002020-06-26T08:48:17.858-07:00Troll-Bone Teapot
Trollbones and Teapots is actua...Troll-Bone Teapot<br /><br />Trollbones and Teapots is actually pretty good.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-47068872823823174852020-06-26T08:47:47.793-07:002020-06-26T08:47:47.793-07:00NONOpjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-35882796163954651292020-06-26T08:47:39.201-07:002020-06-26T08:47:39.201-07:00I an't softening shit, if they want bacon then...I an't softening shit, if they want bacon then they will pay the price.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-80898842210743994912020-06-26T08:46:59.025-07:002020-06-26T08:46:59.025-07:00NiceNicepjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-91583867070551651572020-06-26T08:44:32.749-07:002020-06-26T08:44:32.749-07:00mmmmaybemmmmaybepjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-61048572467970122662020-06-26T08:44:14.988-07:002020-06-26T08:44:14.988-07:00I have not but I will add it to my listI have not but I will add it to my listpjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-2840930227410680862020-06-26T08:43:25.512-07:002020-06-26T08:43:25.512-07:00Thanks Matthew, amended.Thanks Matthew, amended.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-76385879436233789132020-06-26T08:43:04.165-07:002020-06-26T08:43:04.165-07:00Hmm, 'Going Home' is a good idea, almost t...Hmm, 'Going Home' is a good idea, almost the opposite of the something-threatens-the-village story I was considering. pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.com