Designing for the Cauldron

 WHATS GOING ON HERE

I have been invited to a Con in Germany called 'Cauldron' 

https://cauldron.pesa-nexus.de/en/home/

and my mum said I should go so I am going. I will be picked up in Frankfurt and driven to a castle in the middle of Bavaria.... For several days.. I am sure everything will be fine...

Anyway they asked me to run something;

"the general idea is to play mostly FLAILSNAILS compatible sessions, so that a player can play his character across the convention. .... The minimum requirement for any game system during the weekend is to award gold & treasure in the adventure commensurate with the challenges & dangers, i. e. an  "XP for gold"-standard, roughly following B/X, 1e or OD&D tables in value."

So, now I must dig through my mental 'bits box' to put together... something. A four-hour FLAILSNAILS session at least.. 

Lets think about some possible concepts;

1. GIANTS IN THE ACID SEA

A dungeon, or a series of dungeons, set 'on' the bodies of some enormous stony giants who are wading across a sea of acid. (So you can't just jump off).

Though, the problem of what to do if or when someone fals off a giant, and if or how they might get back on, would be tricky.

Mapping would also be tricky; the backs and top of the heads would be relatively easy 

but climbing around the torsos and faces and under the chins would be hard to depict

and YES its just 'Shadow of the Colossus' or whatever was going on with those Zelda dungeons.

If its for a Con, the time factor of the giants wading the acid sea could be a neat limit. Say you leap onto a Giant as they enter the Acid Sea and have until they wade across to complete your mission. We could just say there is a real-time time limit. 

Maybe they are gradually wading so deep that only the tops of their heads are exposed and you need to jump back on the airship before they go completely underwater, or they reach the deep part of the sea precisely half-way through the session, with parts of the giants becoming un-navigable up to that point, with all the surviving creatures on the giants gradually forced up to the crown of their giant heads, then after the middle of the session the 'maps' slowly open up again until they reach the shore, then you can climb down a leg and exit via the heel.

You can jump from giant to giant. They have treasure on them, like earrings or crumbs of gold in their hair. Or you have a mission of some kind to find something.

Probably they have small temples or castles on the tops of each head and you can fire catapults or cannons from crown to crown.

For some reason I was imagining this as a knock-out 'vs' game with rival teams of adventurers clambering over the giants and trying to take each other out. Or maybe a rival tomb, or crown-robbing expedition where you leap onto the giants feet right at the start and everyone is racing to make it to the top, but also you can 'board' or jump onto other giants who are also stumbling along.

2. THE ROPE BRIDGE BROKE

An adventure starts mis-en scene with the party in the middle of a rope bridge, they are in the middle of a fight or adventure, the bridge snaps and two half's of the group are flung to either side of the ravine.

Its entirely random who ends up on which side of the ravine. Though the groups are relatively equal in number.

From that point on its a journey up along the river/ravine. The aim of the party is to get back together (maybe each half of the party has half of a magical McGuffin

There is a group of bad guys, a specific group, with their own identity and rituals. Presumably they also want the McGuffin (both halves). 

Probably the cliffs to both sides have various tombs, statues and complexes worked into the stone, so you can run along the cliff top, or if threatened, or that becomes impassable, climb across the statues and run through the tunnels of the cliffside.

(Maybe there are giants or trolls up there throwing boulders for fun so you don't want to skyline). 

The main challenge in this case is not getting past any particular problem but getting past it *quickly* and without burning a lot of resources.

Probably the enemy group is pursuing you and, since the terrain on each side of the ravine is very lumpy, the PCs on the *opposite* side can see the people pursuing you, and even shoot at them, while you can't see them yourself, and visa-versa. So part of the game might be combining your efforts to aid each other.

The end-game is you need to get to the stone bridge further upstream, but when you get there there is a big monster or something waiting and you will need to work together and hopefully use the stuff you grabbed as you ran through the tombs to fight it.

3. A RACING GAME....

this is kind of blissfully dumb but could stripmine Gaslands for rules, instead of cars, use magic animals. Players can pick toys to choose which animal their PC is riding. All PCs retain their powers and skills. 

Now their job is to win a race. Maybe they are racing for the hand of the Infinite Princess. But its an apocalyptic deathrace 2000 pod race kind of thing, with lots of encounters and strange terrain, treasure and tools hanging around plus problems its really hard to overcome without teaming up with other players, plus orc racer gang on pigs.

Will the PCs work together or try to beat each other to the finish line? Coolness of prizes goes in order of finishing so being ahead of someone might get you more XP or fun magical stuff for the next adventure.

4. LOOT THE SINKING SHIP

A ship is a nice, contained and explicable shape. A sinking ship having four real-time hours before it fully sinks and you need to get away from it to escape being dragged down. Advancing fish-creatures or mer-people. Interesting time-sensitive choices between things i.e. do you release prisoners or search for treasure. 

You might have to fight the crew, or choose between fighting or saving the crew.

5. STOP THE MEMETIC PLAGUE

This is one, really designed specifically to be a nightmare for EVERY OTHER DM AT THE CON. 

I don't know exactly how it works but there is some kind of memetic plague, maybe something that trades power for slow degradation and transmittabillaty. Like Vampirism except faster and more fun, like Fireball Vamparism where someone gets the ability to cast 'Fireball' but its transmissible and wants to keep being cast. (Also its slowly killing you).

Maybe the fire itself is the medium of transmission. 

But if the PCs screw up and the 'infection' gets out of this particular game (like the Zombie survivor who gets bitten but doesn't tell anyone), then it can 'infect' every other game at the CON that those survivors get to, and then pass on, and on, absolutely destroying Germanies FLAILSNAILS scene, if such a think exists.

I suppose a good basis for this would be the 'Fire at the Laboratory' adventure. Maybe a wizards black tower, or worse, an interdimensional TARDIS-like lair, but its burning down. (A fire burning in an interdimensional place might be fascinating). The PCs have to make choices about fighting the fire, looting the place, not getting infected by the Fireball plague, (or 'getting' infected if they are sneaky). 

The Wizards wierd mutant experiments getting out, or maybe you want to let them out, they are just experimental animals after all, its not their fault they are locked in a burning TARDIS. 

The interdimensional nature of the space makes incorporation into a FLAILSNAILS setting pretty simple since PCs could easily be vomited out wherever. It also means creatures and NPCs could 'escape' into other games, or that people or things from other games could show up in this one, having accidentally wandered in, or having been captured or whatever.

6 - One of these OLD POSTS turned into an adventure somehow;

THE WATCHMAKERS WIFE 

WHO CAN STOP THE WORLDS MOST EVIL DOG?

AN ADVENTURE IN XOPHT

THE STOLEN SKIN OF SUN

YOU MAY VOTE OR COMMENT IF YOU WISH

The Soothsayer Class

 Gazing into balls In a haze of misty weirdness, chuckling through pipe smoke, observing, and sometimes gutting, birds, brewing tea and being vague, do they even have powers at all? They don't look like they do much, yet things seem to go their way....

......

This is an experimental, somewhat conceptual class, based on an idea I had on the blog aaages ago; narrative wizard/old school fighter. A class in an old school bx-commons game where everyone else runs by normal old-school logic but one, a wizard, works via rules and patterns more familiar with what used to be called(?) 'story games'.

Essentially this would make the wizard character a kind of sub, or alter or co-DM for the game, able to introduce elements, shape the course of events, make some events more or less likely, or even certain or impossible.

Their spells, controlled by level and slot as the old Gygaxian master set down affect not the tactical situation, tactically they have the same options as an ordinary human, or a thief without skills, but are meant to interlace with the structure of the story of the game as it evolves. Quite literally changing fate

Some Basic Concepts;

Secrecy

Soothsayers, Haruspex and Fatemasters in general work to keep the nature of their powers secret and obscure. In many cases these powers can lose their effect if their nature is known. In others full knowledge of what they can do creates dangerous moral problems and difficult prophetic feedback effects.

As a general rule, consider this as a possibility; If the Soothsayer can cast the spell without either PCs or NPCs noticing, if takes effect. If anyone directly perceives the spell as a spell, then the targets must save vs spells against it.

Limiters

Soothsayers start off knowing only one method of prediction. Roll randomly below. On each level gained roll again and if the result is already chosen, pick the closet adjacent available.

1. Examining Smoke from your own Pipe

2. Playing a Silver-Wired Guitar.

3. Casting Tarot Cards

4. Observing the flights of birds.

5. Reading the entrails of animals.

6. Reading Tea Leaves.

7. Observing the stars.

8. Reading palms.

Obviously if a Soothsayer can't obsere the stars or light their pipe they can't do their thing, and if they are known to be casting spells or reading fates then they might not work.

LOW-LEVEL SPELLS

(these should be actually useful in low level adventures)

'Recall' the way - the Player can look at the DMs map for ten seconds.

"Seems like Troll country" - Player can look at the current encounter chart for ten seconds.

"You were meant to find it" - cast on a particular PC, the next time they search for a hidden thing that is present, they will find it, they need only look.

"Foolishly left unlocked" the next lock the Soothsayer tries will have been left unlocked.

"Curious Clouds today.." - the Soothsayer examines the clouds. The DM must roll or decide an extreme weather event, and how long it will last and communicate it secretly to the Soothsayer. This event will take place in d6 hours.

"Some suffer dark dreams" - Last night a single named individual whose name the PCs know, suffered painful nightmares in which the lowest-level PC figured strongly. Though they don't remember everything this individual will be troubled and frightened by this PC till they sleep again.

"A Message is on its Way" - For the next encounter. The next potential or actual foe of the PCs will receive a message which will radically change their behaviour. This will take place after 1 minutes of observation or conversation. If a fight breaks out the message will not reach them.

MID-LEVEL SPELLS

(what's the fatemaster equivalent to 'Fireball'?)

"The time is now" - Cast upon the PCs as a whole. When they next encounter an enemy, that enemies morale has already been damaged by previous events unknown to the PCs, in this case if forced to test morale, this foe will break automatically without a roll.

"Not by the hand... of man..." - The Soothsayer prophecies that, before the next dawn, one named individual known to them, shall not die, by one specific physical means. i.e. not by the blade, not by the 'hand of man', not by poison, not by spellcraft'. This prediction becomes true though it refers only to death and not any similar status like mutilation, petrification, madness, etc. The Soothplayer must use the simplest possible descriptor for that physical means. The DM can ask for a more specific wording if the Soothplayer uses "by violence" or something like that.

Unholy Knowledge - Through a foul and disturbing ritual which must not be observed, the  Soothsayer discovers a hidden truth. The Soothplayer can write a single question on a note and pass it to the DM. The DM writes a note back and MUST answer honestly, though they are free to be terse. If the  character OR Soothplayer ever directly or specifically mentions what they have learned from that answer the DM is allowed to change the truth of it. 

"it carries a shared doom" - Can be cast a weapon, arrow, tool etc when 'found'. It cannot be cast on a weapon the party already holds. This weapon is fated to kill a particular, named opponent whom the party has encountered already. IF they fight using this weapon then it will always hit and always wound to the greatest damage possible against this one, singular opponent. However, if lost, dropped, fumbled or in any way turned against the wielder, it will do the same to them.

HIGH LEVEL SPELLS

Their Fate is Set - during the NEXT encounter one named enemy will suffer the maximum damage from any successful attack.

"They shall not prevail" - during the next combat encounter, the enemies of the PCs will not win. If the PCs prevail 'normally', no action need be taken. However, if the PCs are 'losing' this encounter, the DM may intercede to make sure the enemy of the PCs does not "win". The means and method by which they do this are entirely up to the pleasure of the DM.

"Your goal is near" - Is 'cast' upon a single PC with the focus of one single, particular physical goal of that PC. The DM must inform the Soothplayer exactly where it is and what stands between the PC and their goal. The Soothsayer, and Soothplayer, may communicate this to the PC once, verbally, and ONLY in the form of poetic rhyme. If the Soothsayer or Soothplayer communicates the same information in any other way at any time, the DM may change the details referred to.

Prophecy - the Soothsayer makes a Nostrodamus-style prophecy. A prophecy is made up of an object or identity, an action or situation and a result and reads something like; "when the king of crows swims in wine, the mage shall fall". the Soothplayer takes three pieces of paper. They keep one for themselves, give one to the DM and one to another player. The Soothplayer can decide who writes which element, i.e. "I will write the result, you Jack write the object or person and you DM write the action or incident", but they cannot control _what_ each individual writes, and none of them can reveal what they are writing to each other during this process. Each individual then hands back thier slip to the Soothplayer who reveals them. The Soothplayer then may combine each of these elements in a single sentence with no punctuation - this sentence is then TRUE for this campaign until its prophecy is fulfilled.

What Pops an NPC?

 I am putting together some NPCs for a thing and am having the usual problems: limited space, lots of information to deliver etc, etc.

So I come to you, the sacred few, and subtly, silently, sneakily, I hook up my brain-hose to your skulls.

When you read an NPC - what is it that makes them POP off the page, and you think "Yes I can run this, I know immediately how to do it"?


A few axis of investigation;

- Looks, vividness/simplicity of description.

- How many signifiers is too many?

- Behavioural quirks; too heavy, too loose and vague?

- What's useful for imagining them, for helping players imagine and remember them, and for portraying them, which might be a slightly different axis.

- Motivations, the want/don't want lines. How simple do we want their wants to be?  Like specific objects = like "a pie", personal qualities like "to be complimented", very general social motivators like "high position, dominance"? and how quickly do we want these wants and don't wants to be integrated into play?

It depends a lot, doesn't it, on how long we expect that NPC to stick around.

Right now I'm trying to put together a kind of 'night market', or something like a fey market
with lots and lots of potential contacts to create a sense of overflowing possibilities but also many possible sources of information about a complex world to which the PCs are being introduced. But at the same time, I don't have a lot of space to hang about and probably few to none of these people will be sticking around later.

Many should be possible sources of information but I don't want them to be like vending machines, where they give "as you know your father, the king" speeches, neither do I want them to be too hard to deal with, as I want the PCs to be able to soak up a lot of info about the setting, and for people to feel particular, yet not to have any heavy drama this early on.

Its a lot of demands on the idea and then when I come to it I will probably end up just eyeballing it. 

NEVERTHELESS.

I am interested in what worked for you, books and adventures you thought were good, blog posts you thought were good, personal experiences etc.

PICTURE!

Got nothing to do with this post, pretty great though!

Swordthrust - a Beautiful Curiosity

 This is about the Mayfair Games 'Role Aids' adventure by Sam Shirley and Daniel Greenberg

here

Hard to get a good high-re image of this, sorry!

First thing, why on earth is it called 'Swordthrust'?

The core dungeon is the frozen head of a giant ice titan which is in fact a mountain, (called the 'Titans Crown'), populated by the imagined memories of its ancient life, which is also a field of combat between good and bad thoughts given shape, and if you wake up the Titan then the proportion of good to bad thoughts decides its future character. Plus there is a backstabbing Wizard with a decent name; Morlean. The Mountain is guarded by a guy calling himself 'The King of the Mountain' who has a really fucking cool Boris Vallejo picture for the cover... There is also some silver Mithril armour and a crystal throne....

"Titans Crown."  "The Crystal Throne."  "The King of the Mountain."  "Flamehairs Quest.."

Almost every single one of these ideas and referents makes a better title than 'Swordthrust'.

Ok, I'm done with complaining about this strange thing now.

STRANGE SIMILTUDES

They re-used the image for a pulp sci fi novel

This is the highest res I could find online

This adventure has bizarre pre-echoes of many ideas which I or my contemporaries have considered in our modern age. It strikes me strange. Most strange..

So firstly, its about diving into the mind of a sleeping Titan, which is the dungeon you are in. I did something like that in Silent Titans.

Secondly - the dungeon is semi-transparent - meaning you can sometimes see between rooms. Something we tried to do in the maze of glass rooks in Silent Titans and first conceptualised (by me at least) herehttp://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-glass-dungeon.html. 

(Link strangely not working though the post is there when you visit it separately? 

http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-glass-dungeon.html )

Thirdly - the Titans mind has a pseudo-cognitive layout, like an idea I talked about here.

(Same problem again http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-ogre-and-golden-bird.html )

"There are two Palaces locked onto the dark rock, mirrors of each other. The sides that face each other are nearly sheer. The sides that face away are crenelated, towered, encrusted with keeps and details, bridges and roof's, multi-levelled, staggering and slipping down to the walls and the glinting hematite on which the palaces reside.

The two sides match each other almost perfectly, the divide observable only from a narrow axis.

Stand here and you can see the gap between the palaces, like the gap between close skyscrapers, and the slender bridge of white that forms their only visible link, hanging high in the air in the near-centre of the buildings shape.

There are no gates to the Palace of the Ogre King, you have to climb in through a window, or sneak in through  hematite caves down below where the Onyx river gushes from the rocks."

And fourthly - this wasn't me but Noisms has a whole series of development posts about a project called 'behind Gently Smiling Jaws'   which is a sandbox of a sort made from the memories of an ancient crocodile  -the empires and peoples it witnessed in its life are the beings you encounter, somewhat altered by their recollection.

What does this similitude mean?

Well most importantly it means I am less special than I like to think I am...

fucking hurts dude

What else - is there some hidden enochian mind script that the fancy boy section of the OSR is destined to follow? NEED TO TRY ANSWERING THAT QUESTION.

THE FROGNARDS

Or whatever we are calling Prince/Bryce/Melan axis now, that particular adventure-design paradigm have a high opinion of Swordthrust. Is it justified?

It seems Well Engineered - I am not in 2nd Ed or whatever this is keyed for to speak with an experts tongue but this feels like an adventure well organised and arranged in terms of resources, opportunity and both rewards and punishment for risk taking. 

There is an economy of +1 rings of bracing and "gloves of smell vision (3 charges left)" or whatever that underpins a lot of this 2e-ish extended playstyle - you are meant to be continually getting, losing, trading etc magical stuff which may or may not be useful to you and this is like an 'extra' layer of floating mechanics on top of levelling and xp which adventure designers have to take account of (and which the Artpunkish wing of the OSR has VERY RIGHTLY DITCHED WHOLESALE). I'm not a frognard but so far as I can see all this stuff looks to be in place and whatever.

It is made of classic Fantasy Stuff Presented Well. We got Goblins, ratmen, Dwarves who mine things.

These are not literally the Dwarves from Swordthrust (though they are from mayfair games), 

but aesthetically they are very much the Dwarves from Swordthrust.

 DWARVES!

A Wizard who, if they don't live in a tower they at least have a nice house. 

There are only two totally new races and they fit neatly within fantasy archetypes of this genre, no fear golems or whatever. Not a bug, just a feature, playability and ease of apprehension versus fancy bullshit, nothing wrong with that. (Though this is also part of the reason I am not as 100% enamoured with it as the Frognards - turns out that when you delve into the mind of an ancient titan it was largely thinking about creatures from the Monster Manual) - So despite having a high concept idea is definitely not 'Artpunk' (not fancy or pretentious enough) and while it has deepish themes it's not an elaborate commentary on anything, simply a very good adventure.

Pre-made PCs are given and they are high-normie; Merrie Flamehair, Yosannah the human thief, Grim Ben the skill 4 fighter, Hogan Iron Shield, Icarus Whitebeard! 

The makeup of this assumed or imagined adventuring party is very 'classical D&D', a bunch of largely good(ish) characters with enough flaws, specialisations and differences in motivation to provide _light_ drama, plus one outright baddy who no doubt proves useful in the end and likely isn't that bad in play anyway.

The town is just really neat. An old mining town, decayed, maybe slightly unnaturally packed with factions considering the low population but that's hardly a hanging offence. 

Yes you will probably end up spending more time in the town than the dungeon and may actually be more likely to die there. Mild complaint - the Town could possibly have done with a little more space and clarity since it is almost certain to become a tactical area in play.

Non-Stupidity of plans - the main wizard quest giver has thought things through at least as well I did reading the adventure, which is all I ask really of something I spend money on. 

That only took a sentence to describe but its actually a vanishingly rare and almost golden quality in any media - that the characters in it have thought through their circumstances and do things that make sense to them.

Does Swordthrust introduce (as a CORE element) that most-loathed of all design tropes, the backstabbing questgiver? And does it somehow GET AWAY WITH THIS????

Yyyyyes. yes it does.

The backstabbing wizard situation is set up with enough skill and has enough thought put into the circumstances; the slow reveal of information, the build up of knowledge, the likely result of interactions, and most importantly - the paradoxical no-win situation for the dungeon which will misfire on the wizard if they do actually win, that it carries off this most laborious of concepts with a degree of elegance and grace. Like watching someone dance with a barbell.

(Also it's from the past, presumably from before the trope was actually a trope, so it can't be blamed really.)

An elegant piece of thinking - it avoids the avoided the 'weird dungeon' conceptual brick wall problem by having the wizard give an (fake and/or incorrect) explanation of what's going on before the PCs go in. 

So instead of players meeting inexplicable shit and getting confused and upset, they meet stuff they think they understand, and then slowly (hopefully) work out that the context is not what they thought, and then the inconsistencies build up and slowly the PCs and players work out more and more of what is going on.

They even through in a reasonable little section at the end for what to do if the Titan actually does wake up - well done

Beyond the aesthetic and my indifference to adventure economics, another difference between I and the Frognards, or at least Bryce and Prince, is that I have had to read waaaay less shit D&D adventures that they have, so I am generally less relentlessly traumatised by the horror of it. For them this is an Oasis in the desert, for me, a nice pint at the pub.

HOW MANY STARS IN THE SKY FOR SWORDTHRUST?

I intuit that it would play well.

This could be a beautiful experience. I don't know if I'm ready to call it a masterwork. 

Being made of standard materials is less fun for  me than the Frognards. 

You can't reconstruct (or at least I don't think you can reconstruct) a pseudohistory of prelapsarian reality from the visions in the Titans mind. (Admittedly you have to be operating way above average quality for that level of criticism to even be levelled.)

Also there are some unclear sections and you are still going to need to transpose a lot into your own notes, especially the town stuff, plus there are definitely some description elements that were slightly unclear.

But I will call it a beautiful curiosity. Perhaps more beautiful for being unexpected.

Four stars for the meat of it. Another half star for going above and beyond the call of duty and a final half star for those of you who like the aesthetic.

THE SIMILTUDE

Ice, glass and the mind.

Is there some kind of homunculus-theory-inevitability thing going on here with people of my neurotype? Some deal where people with a particular quirk of character and who assign themselves the 'god position' in the creation of worlds. Not just worlds but realties. And not just the creation but this uniquely physicalised D&D-ish type of interaction, based around objects and people and tangible systems, do we all, or do many of us end up building an image of the mind inside the world created by it?

(I'm reminded here of the themes of watching eyes in many paintings created by schizophrenics. McGilchrist thinks this is a brain-hemisphere thing with one part of the brain unable to recognise the nature of the other and so interpreting its signals as 'alien' - an unfriendly observer..)

The ice-brain dungeon in swordthrust.

Davids memory sandbox.

My glass dungeons, brain dungeon and Titan minds?

I guess if you are thinking about D&D like this you have the job of thinking about 'everything', to no particular purpose, but just to regard, understand a little and create yourself, and for people in those circumstances - maybe the idea of a crystal dungeon inside the mind of an ancient being, populated by memories, its processes mimicking or simulating the mind itself.

The mind inside the world created by the mind. 

Maybe that idea is just a stone on the road, which many will pass by and a few will pick up. A ripple of creation.

The Auction of the first Hundred Words

Text prioritisation in encounter, monster and room design. We know it when it's bad,- we are reading a dungeon and we think; "Oh fuck, time to get out the highlighter, time to underline things, or pull a pen out and essentially re-write this deal".

And probably we have had the opposite experience, of reading something and thinking; "Ah yes this feels like it would work, feels like it would be easy and immediate to run."

But how much have we thought consciously about how it *works*? (Probably someone has yes, but *I* haven't, (much).)

STRIPPING IT DOWN

For reasons of clarity I want to remove many of the layout methods we used in real situations to help differentiate and prioritise text in books. So, for instance, no talk of titling, bolding, italics, parenthesis, visually transmitted levels of the information hierarchy, no bullet points, coloured inks etc.

There is nothing wrong with these methods, but I hope that by excluding them from discussion we can focus almost entirely on the procession of concepts as written in the text. 

For, an encounter or room, when we consider it from the point of view of people within the imagined world, is a whole thing, apprehended, if not at once, then at least, in a global sense, with later details more filled in as time goes on. But a sentence, paragraph or string of text is entirely linear, and may only proceed one after the other, with the first thing made clear first and the second after that etc.
So when we convert from perception, or even imagined perception into text, and then back again, we are simulating a more global awareness with a more linear one, and then unpacking that text, and transmitting it, into voice and performance.

THE AUCTION FOR PRIORITISATION

One way to think about this is that every part or aspect of a scene, a room, an encounter or an adventure element, is in a kind of competition, a sort of bidding war within the paragraph, or the block of text, as to which should have priority and become the dominant element, preceding the others and shaping perception before them, so that they are integrated into an idea shaped by it, rather than the other way round.

But the 'bids' or the arguments each idea puts forth are complex, not just about how important they are 'in abstract', but about the relations they have with each other and with the game as a whole.

To explain this to myself and help make sense of it, I put forth these 'bids' or arguments, as if they came themselves from the different forms and types of information, each making a request or argument that *they*, themselves, should be at the front of the first sentence describing a room or encounter in an adventure.

I AM AS CLEAR AS THE NOSE ON YOUR FACE!

"I am very extremely obvious on entering this room, I will be noticed immediately by the PC and therefore I should be at the front. It would be perceptually and logically incoherent NOT to include me. I am so big and obvious that not putting me at the front is 'burying the lede' in a way that makes the whole experience silly."

So - "This room is hung with hundreds of brightly coloured flags" or "This room has a BRASS BAND playing in it, and they are WAVING brightly coloured flags"

A counter-argument to this might be about the necessity of prioritising 'hidden' or less obvious information which might be vital to the running of the 'room' or its integration in the larger adventure
So "This room contains an illusion cast by a small goblin, that of a large brass band."

(Though this intuitively seems slightly or very wrong or stupid. I would write it more like; "This room seems to contain a large brass band parping and stamping. (Actually the illusion of a small goblin hiding in the room.)"

....

The very question of 'obviousness' vs 'hiddenness' differentiates information between that directly for the Players, and the PCs, and that which the DM must know perhaps separate to the players and PCs. 
That leads us to;

I AM HIDDEN, BUT IMPORTANT!

"The PCs won't notice me immediately, and might not even interact with me directly, but the fact that I am present has a meaningful effect on the context and procession of other actions. The DM needs to know about me immediately, even if the Players and PCs don't."

A situation in which a hidden element might claim higher priority could be if the room or encounter has a certain overarching trick or concept, not obvious to the PCs but vital to the DM in order to run the encounter. 

In which case it needs to be moved to the front, perhaps with an encompassing over-statement.

The alternate version to this, or the counter-argument is; "yes this room has a trick or deception in it BUT

- it only becomes evident if PCs prod or investigate it

- this prodding or investigation is locked some 'layers deep' in the interaction with the room (i.e. its unlikely to happen immediately as they walk in)

- it doesn't deeply affect the way the DM would run the room as a whole, there is no secret intentionality which must be considered 'up front' as even the preliminary interactions take place"

I AM ALIVE AND THINK FOR MYSELF!

Does it have a Goblin in it? How about a Goblin assassin waiting to strike? how about a Goblin jamboree?

"I am an active living thing with intentionality and my own perceptions" - this is a strong argument for being moved up in priority, or at least it seems so to me.

Why though?

- Both PCs and Players are strongly coded to think about living things first.

- Its a deeper and maybe more attractive challenge in mental modelling for the DM as well, there is a lot of complex information in thinking about the actions of living beings but it tends to be the kind of info human minds are good at processing and therefore is "pleasurable work"

- Consequentiality, interactions with a living agent will have possibly stronger, more immediate and more long term consequences?

Some Questions - 

- Is it a potential threat maybe even waiting for the PCs?

- Is it something that might notice the PCs and will respond if it does.

- Is it a big active thing (the jamboree) which will be very obviously noticed, but might not notice or react to the PCs even if they just straight-up walk in there.

Obviously the active nature of any element makes it 'more obvious' which brings in a different argument. It might benefit us to consider the following idea which, though rare in practice, does neatly separate 'livingness' from 'obviousness'.

- Is it an invisible being, which will obviously not be noticed by the PCs, but which will may notice and react to them?

I AM NOVEL!

"I am a piece of information very different to what the Players, PCs and DM have encountered and described so far, so much is this the case that I should be moved to the front, my novelty should precede all other elements"

How "different to expected" does a situation have to be to move it up the priority list?

Like if its clearings in a forest, and a storm has been raging anyway, then you don't need to know - "hey the storm is still raging here". And if its a 'standard dungeon' with stone walls, 1 foot corridors etc, sconces with flaming torches every so often, then there being another 30ft by 30ft stone room is not a big deal

But if the weather is very different in this one place, or if the rooms shape, substance etc is very different than expected, then that should be a bid.

A key concept here being the difference to the already-running set of assumptions between the players, PCs and DM.

Interesting - every adventure and series of play ends up creating its own structure of assumptions about the environment and situation being simulated or talked about, and these assumptions grow and deepen in depth as play goes on. 

So for the start of an adventure or dungeon, everything is novel to some extent, but as play proceeds, we would expect everything new to make some kind of sense with what went before, if it comes from the same 'adventure'. Even a 'funhouse dungeon' has the built-up logic of 'ok this is a funhouse dungeon, expect everything to be unique, bounded by place, puzzely and a bit gonzo." So if it suddenly started 'making sense', i.e. being contiguous and more like a coherent story or environment, then it would make less sense...

I AM A GLOBAL PHENOMENA!

"I am a global phenomena, like light, or weather, or a sticky sweaty cloud, I reach out and I affect a lot of things, and everything I effect shows some result of this, to the extent that both the DM and the Players and the PCs should know about this soon, sooner than anything else"

The range and 'wideness' of the phenomena’s interactions, the more 'global' it is, the more things is touches upon, affects or changes, then the further up the list it goes.

Difficult to separate this from 'obviousness' and 'consequentiality'.

AND - such global phenomena are much more likely to be familiar- non-novel. Things like light, weather, smells, gasses, gravity effects, all seem likely to 'spread' and therefore to be more common in the adventure.

All of these arguments gain in strength from mutual combination but this one perhaps has one of the weakest 'bids' when considered in a singular sense.

I AM IN MY TRADITIONAL AND CUSTOMARY POSITION

"I am where I always am! The DM knows where to find me quickly and if you move me from this position I will be harder to locate, slowing down comprehension and even  disordering all other information, making the whole section harder to understand!"

This is an important argument!

It is the similitude, place and placement of information *within a block of text* that allows the reader to rapidly scan and know ahead of time, what information will be where.

So that, if the *sequence* of information is always the same, even if the information ahead of the vital text is boring, repetitive or irrelevant, as in; "a square stone room, 50ft each side", then so long as this information is *always* at the start then the eye may scan rapidly over it and therefore latch onto the part of the description which is novel, active, consequential or necessary.

It seems to me that this is a much more potent argument when applied  to titling and information hierarchies as a whole rather than *within* the short initial text blocks I'm considering here.
It may matter more where something is on a page than where it is in a paragraph.

A danger is the 'numbing' effect of regularly repeated identical or very similar low-consequence information which the DM must read through to get to the important stuff.

The two negative possibilities that spring to mind are firstly, that the DM might just miss something important because the text has trained them to 'skip over' or scan certain sections, and secondly the more subtle danger that the similitude of 'dead' or repetitive text disconnects the DM from the imagined world, quenches their inspiration and engagement, to put it simply; it bores them. 

And if text is boring the DM it must therefore have a negative effect on the game.

There should be room here, a necessity even, for *some* flexibility regarding the customary and regular arrangement of a piece of work, absolute regularity, at all times, regardless of consequence or circumstance, is stultifying, deadening, and perhaps ultimately, not useful.

In fact its necessary to hold in mind at all times; "Is this actually interesting to read?"

Not everything on an adventure page or spread can be interesting all the time, and if *everything* is interesting, then that might be too much for the DM to handle and have another, different, negative effect.

But, there must be interest, even if it comes at the price of ease of comprehension, because that interest, engagement and enlivening of the imagination is the absolute core of the experience, much more than any simply procession of techniques.

nevertheless, this argument of 'accustomed position' should perhaps form the initial strongest bid, against which the others might perhaps combine their values, overwhelming it if enough of them have a strong enough argument,

And of course, there is a meta-element here, because if there is a common structure to the ordering of text in a piece of work, then that very initial structure is subject to exactly the same bidding war as any specific paragraph

Sticky Goblins

Yes, the title was a lie to draw you in. This is actually a game-design post. As an apology, have this thematically-correct image;

WHAT LEAD ME DOWN THIS TRAIN OF THOUGHT

For different books I've been working on I've been putting together different monsters, groups, characters and situations. One problem or difficulty I've come up against  is producing large numbers of encounters that are what I came to think of as 'sticky'.

What happened is that I found myself often repeating or cycling through similar patterns of encounter.

Originally I wanted encounters that were somewhat dramatic, or at least interesting within themselves, expressive of the character of different individuals and groups, had world-texture to them so experiencing them taught you about the world of the game or adventure, but were also not necessarily violent, though they might have the potential for violence within them, yet were also consequential.

That's a lot really, the density of concepts of what I was looking for maybe explains some of why I have found it so challenging.

After thinking about it a bit more I have broken it down into different kinds of 'stickiness' which, though actually pretty different, seem to mesh quite intuitively in play and design.

OPENESS - short term stickiness

The first is the openness, or the embracing nature of the encounter - how much its elements allow interaction, and how much they would *actually want* the PCs to interact.

Low openness would be; 

- You hear the sound of hoofbeats and enter a clearing to see two fully armoured knights encountered in the act of directly charging towards each other, lances levelled.

The Knights are presumably higher status than the PCs and they won't be happy if the PCs get in the way. Physically if the PCs do intervene then it will likely only lead to injury for them and the Knights as well. Afterwards, no-one will be happy with the PCs. So socially, politically and physically this is a situation that is very 'closed'. More like a scene from a film. You *could* push yourselves to interact but most of the logic of the situation is against it.

Very high openness might be; 

- A plump halfling screams as a greasy, naked goblin holds it down and tries to force cheese into its mouth. The Halfling is crying "The CHEESE! No! Not the CHEEEESE!" while the Goblin cackles madly.

So physically and socially both parties are much weaker than the PCs. It shouldn't be too hard to overpower them and stop this from happening. (Apart from the greasiness of the goblin). There are no weapons involved that you can see so its non-lethal. As opposed to the Knights, its seemingly unequal - the Goblin looks to be in the wrong and the Halfling looks like a victim. Also its over something ridiculous like cheese, which lowers the status of the encounter and so perhaps the fear of intervention.

I mean, very few D&D parties are going to just walk past the Cheese encounter. They will want to do something, even if its just to encourage the Goblin.

NEUTRALITY

A second quality is the non-neutral nature of the encounter. This something where if you leave it, there will be no big change. Like walking past a beggar in the street, you are technically guilty of ignoring every beggar you don't help but its probably not going to stick to you or turn up again in your life, or the world, in a noticeable way.

What’s a highly neutral encounter? Maybe something like;

- You see a group of destitute Orcs in the distance. In this game all Orcs are violent and bad, they never negotiate and always attack. This group is large. They are clearly migrating across an empty plain in the distance, from one land you don't know to another you also don't know. You have seen them and they haven't seen you. To avoid them, just stay still for a while then move on.

The Orcs are (in this setting) simply bad and always aggressive. You know exactly what they are going to do if they meet you and its always the same thing. There are a lot of them, so they might win a fight between you. They have no wealth so no immediate material award. They are going from a place you have no connection to, to another place you have no connection to across an empty place you have a slight connection to. They are interacting with nothing and dealing with them will probably change nothing you will ever learn about.

What’s and extremely non-neutral encounter? A 'polar' encounter?

- You are in a city in lockdown due to plague and overhear, then directly visually witness, a sexual assault between two relatively high-status individuals with their own networks. Say the son of the citys Guard captain and the daughter of the cities minority-ethnicity crime gang. Both individuals see that you have seen them.

So, this is going to be a thing whether you like it or not. Firstly it’s an immediate interaction happening right in front of you, in your personal space (so that’s more openness, but it also means 'you could have done something). It’s between two individuals who are connected to two groups who will definitely side with those individuals. Both of those groups have a major ability to affect your life in different ways. The city is locked-down and you can't leave. Even if you pretend you saw nothing neither individual will accept this and neither will their prospective groups. They NEED you on their side and will not accept a neutral position. neutrality will be considered opposition to them. Not only that but its a hot-button cultural issue in a contained, dangerous and resource-poor environment so your relationship with the various factions more-directly affects your ability to survive.

I have slipped over here into describing 'Consequences', the last part of my division, which illustrates either the difficulty and possible futility of taking a cartesian approach to the most human of games or just my own ill-discipline and stupidity.

Really in a 'lived reality' openness, neutrality and consequences will all interact and amplify/neutralise each other. If there was nothing you could *physically* have done, then there will be less polarity and less consequences;

"Hey you saw the two mega-giants fighting and did nothing."

"Aye, for they are fucking massive and I am but small."

"A reasonable response."

CONSEQUENCES - encounter tail or long term stickiness

The last is the tail of the encounter. The degree to which your action or inaction will affect the players and PCs afterwards.

This seems to relate most deeply to the containedness of the environment and social situation. The more tied the PCs are to a certain social and political milieux, and the more deeply connected the agents of the milieux are, or perhaps simply the greater their ability to project power, then the deeper the consequences.

Murder-Hobo PCs traipsing across an infinite world populated by atomised and individually weak groups will experience few consequences while relatively weak PCs trapped in a complex and closely connected world of powerful actors will experience deep consequences.

There is also the moral nature of the encounter itself of course.. Lets see what I can come up with for a very consequential encounter;

- You are in disguise as the missing Duke and his entourage. The city/castle is under siege. You see the Queen about to push the King down some stairs from behind. 

Hmm. What’s a super low-consequence encounter?

- You are marching along the Kings highway as night comes on. You are in the middle of a big host of travelling people. In the dirt by the side of the road you see a leprous peasant fighting a blind dog for a bone with a scrap of meat still attached.

Its night, or evening so you are nearly visually anonymous. There is a crowd so you have crowd/group anonymity. Its a road so everyone there is atomised somewhat from their usually social networks. The peasant and dog are both very low status, probably far below your own, which might increase the 'openness' of the encounter, it would be physically and socially easy to intervene, but means that neither are likely to have a consequential effect on your future. The diseased nature of the peasant and the fact that the dog is blind mean neither are likely to be useful or effectual in any way.

QUESTIONS

- What do you think of my division of concepts into openness, neutrality and consequences?

- Are neutrality/polarity [whether you interact or not has a big effect] and Consequences [the results of your interactions will stick to you long-term, even useful concepts, considering how bad and blurred my examples were?

- if not, why not?

- what tools of thought would you use to make encounters like this?

- what notable 'sticky' encounters do you remember from your own games?

- how much of each quality do you prefer in your own adventures and campaigns, and how does that relate to the kind of campaign or adventure? as in more naturalistic and long term, short punchy ones, city or rural based?

- Any novel, innovate or interesting ideas for generating different kinds of stickiness?

- I’m interesting in what differently-minded people might do with the same problem. What would an Arnoldish approach to stickyness be? Literal organic stickiness, mutation, some game-rule or diagetic artefact? I'm not a very 'D&D' D&D creator, so there should be many ways of applying consequences in particular that spring from magic or high-fantasy elements...

Old POWERS!

 Bois, it’s time to get old. Old as bones.

Varguy

If I remember my own game correctly, one of the options for a starting character in Goose-Gold & Goblins is simply to be Old.

And by Old I mean 'Grandma' old; walking stick, slow pace, maybe a wheelchair, wrinkly, grey haired, maybe some thick glasses. Like Witch or Wizard old.

I don't really want medium-aged people in GG&G. Those of a common 'adventuring age'. Their social presence, physical capacity and general power and usefulness would really mess with the intended feel of play. I just want Children, Old people and pets. All beings with limited physical capacities, not much immediate social capital, and with lots of free time. People who are in society but for whom doing ordinary stuff might still be an "adventure".

My originating concept is that Old People have magic, as in standard D&D magic, or an Goosified equivalent of it. This fits the bill in a number of ways; like Wizards, OP's are weak, fragile and strange, with unknown powers and mysterious motivations. They have to think ahead to be useful and are a little cracked in the head.

If we try to imagine true multi-generational play, playing an 'Old Person' would be best for older children and parents.

Of course if we have a game with very young children in it, there will effectively be 'magic' or a form of it, as their grasp on and interaction with the simulated reality will likely be somewhat off its tits. Any young child is likely going to be playing some surreal, cartoonish strange figure, no matter what they think they are playing, and likely in GG&G, the Youngest-Sets-the-Tempo rule will be in effect.

So here is my development for being Old;

.....................................................................

Even Mehl Amundsen

Old People are very wise and cunning. They are also slow, fragile, forgetful, often grumpy and sometimes smelly. If you find one, try not to break it. If you ARE one, be careful on those stairs!

THE WEAKNESSES OF THE OLD

Literally fucking everything. 

Moving too fast. Sitting too long. Getting worried. Heat. Cold. Rain. Pollen. Literally any and any event or situation that might exist. 

Think this is Stepan Alekseev

THE POWERS OF THE OLD

Honestly, just bits of the BX/OSE spell list but re-contextualised as weird stuff and old person might do
From the perspective of a child, the difference between superior knowledge of the world, unknown techniques and contextual information, clever tricks, unlikely intuitions, 'soft' magical stuff like tarot and hand-reading and low level 'hard' magic like disappearing, is not that great

Like if you are five and your grandma tells you she can disappear and reappear in the post office by wearing a special hat then you are gonna be like hmm there is a 50/50 here that granny is fucking with me...

Probably no 'hard' highly physical powers like fireball but, well lets see the lvl 1 lists for Magic Users

• Charm Person
• Detect Magic
• Floating Disc
• Hold Portal
• Light (darkness)
• Magic Missile
• Protection from Evil
• Read Languages
• Read Magic
• Shield
• Sleep
• Ventriloquism

Really a substantial amount of this is stuff a five or six year old would not be surprised to find out their Grandma can do;

I have added in the Lvl 1 Cleric Spells which don't have duplicates in the MU list

Charm Person - persuasion, nagging, "I know your father young man"

Detect Magic - "Something funny going on here...."

Floating Disc - probably no, unless they know a special sausage dog they can summon at will & strap things to.

Hold Portal - Obv Grandmas can "double-lock" things. Doors can be locked once  so why not extend the concept.

Light (darkness) - Bit of a challenge. Think I will remove this as I want production of light locked to objects. Might have OPs capable of moving in the dark though.

Magic Missile - Nope.

Protection from Evil - Grandma draws a salt circle on the ground that keeps bad things out. Makes perfect sense.

Read Languages - Simple. If you find a strange musty book in an unknown language of course Granny can read it.

Read Magic - As above. Not much of a difference between them.

Shield - Hmmm, not that appropriate. Will probably remove.

Sleep - An edge case. probably too powerful a spell to be easily used. Will limit it by diegetic elements like special ingredients, circumstances, possibly blowback etc.

Ventriloquism - Obviously.

Cure Light Wounds - Simple. "Let me put a plaster on it then..."

Detect Evil - "Strange smell in the air...". Could easily combine with detect Magic.

Purify Food and Water - Hmm, this links with cooking which should really be its own section.

Remove Fear (cause Fear) - Removing Fear affects from PCs should be simple, give them a magic hug and dry their eyes. Causing fear, that would need some context to it. I mean Gandalf pulled it off when he went into goth-mode so probably.

Resist Cold - "Better wrap up warm dear" From whence do they draw endless supplies of scarfs and mittens? Who knows.

So, limit 'Spells' (which aren't really spells) by thematic groupings during character generation, then during gameplay through diegetic requirements ("Well of course I can send Goblins to sleep, if I had the feather of a Bomblenowl to burn..."), limited access to new spells and sources of knowledge, and through a magic points system.

Yes magic points, everyone’s favourite mechanic. BUT; Old-person magic charges up in old-person ways.

Kim Sokol

CHARGEUPS

You have to be careful charging your Old Person -  if you fill them with too much OP energy things can go HORRIBLY wrong..

Here are some charging methods, of course all have to be acted-out;


> "Things are "NICE"

"NICE, ISN'T THAT NICE" - every time an oldster can say "that's nice dear" or "isn't that nice" or "nice weather we're having isn't it" or any contextual comment on the world which uses the word NICE, that’s one twentieth of a chargeup. Or maybe each time you can roll a d20 and if you get a 20 you charge up, but you can't say it more than once a minute.

> Recollect

"What's going on?" - The other PCs have to remind their OP who they are, what they are doing, who you are, who everyone else is and what is going on. This all being done, a spell is charged.


> Fated Meeting

"Oh there's Gladys HELLO GLADYS" - If an old person sees another old person and starts a long long long conversation with them about what they have been up to and whatever health problems they have, and if it goes on for a significant segment of time, then that's a chargeup. This has the benefit of being a mutual chargeup for both OPs. A lot of OPs will just wander around charging each other up all day.


> Trowel

"Just need to prune these hedges dear, won't take a moments..." - Fixing shit in the garden can create powerups, with each task accomplished adding to the charge. The situational nature of this makes it good for a possibly-dangerous multi-charge powerup; start gardening, fall asleep, (BRIEF SIT DOWN), then forgetting what they are doing and having to be reminded (RECOLLECT), then finally finishing the task (TROWEL), before complaining about how everything is worse these days (TALES). A powerful, perhaps too-powerful multi-stage chargeup, with the downsides being the time and resources taken and the dangers of an overcharge.


> TEA

"Time for tea and biscuits.." - It can't just be tea from a thermos outside, it has to be indoors, with everyone sitting down, using the good china, with each teacup filled RIGHT TO THE FUCKING BRIM GOD DAMN IT, and everyone has to keep drinking the tea until they feel a bit sick NO-ONE CAN STOP. The darker version of this power-up involves forcing Tea upon an unwilling victim, with the strength of the charge being related to how unwilling they are.


>Tales

"This was all fields you know..." - maybe its still fields, but not the SAME fields. These new fields are somehow worse. Time for your OP to go on a long long long digression about how things were different and better back in the past and how things have changed and therefore become somewhat crappy. There’s a charge for you.


> Stairs

"Oh dear are these steeper than they were?" Successfully getting up or down a long flight of stairs can trigger a chargeup. Though it can also cause slips, trips and falls.



> Acquisition

Many OPs obsessively hoard particular types of object, these are always rare, specific, relatively cheap, perhaps even valueless, and ugly. They are always particular to an OP and the category never changes. Could be toby jugs, horse sculptures, silk doyleys, commemorative tea towels, spoons. If your OP finds and acquires one of these for their Hoard, mark a power-up.

> A Brief Sit Down

"My my what a morning, give me a moment dear and I'll take some weight off my legs" - The OP must sit down and pass out for a  randomly determined and perhaps lengthy period of time, on awaking they will not recognise, recall or admit how long they have been asleep.

> Annihilation

Defeating an opponent in games of bowls, card games, table games like backgammon or similar situations causes an instant power up as the OP consumes the shame of their opponent and transmutes it into raw magical energy. This goes both ways; they can also be drained of the same energy. So if you need some OP magic then challenging the boss goblin to a game of chess might give you the power to cast it.


Fuck I forgot Knitting. Have to add that in later.

Andrei Pervukhin

OVERCHARGE..

What happens if you do actually overcharge your OP? Its difficult to think of things that make diegetic sense but which also aren't potentially massively traumatic for children playing.

Freaking the Fuck Out - having a complete memory and identity collapse is diegetically appropriate but also pretty disturbing.

Falling Over - OPs don't have many Escapes to begin with, you don't want to risk them losing one of the few on an  overcharge. Will they even be able to get up? 

Asleep for a Day - the least troubling and traumatic option but also takes them out of the game and slows it down for everyone else.

Getting Racist - Yeah probably can't put this one in. COWARDS.

Getting Lost - Like some interdimensional power that just lifts OPs out of place and strands them somewhere else if they overcharge. Probably brings the rest of the group with them. (This actually explains why old people are always getting lost.)

Incapacitation - "ohhhh me lumbago.." Not passed out like the falling asleep option and could be amended by the right medicines or specific sweets or biscuits

Obsession - Maybe they follow a duck or something or just have to look up an old friend.

Grump-Out - They have HAD ENOUGH I TELL YOU and refuse to co-operate with either instruction or request. Again can be ameliorated by time and sufficient biscuits.

Burnt Bridge - "She's only gone and done it again for gods sake!" - The OP grumps out in a more permanent way, this time aimed at a former friend, colleague or adult NPC with whom they will no-longer co-operate or communicate. The reasons behind this may be obscure, and even imaginary but its going to be a nightmare talking them out of it. "Gladys KNOWS I shave my duck-boards and she sang that song ANYWAY!" (what the fuck?)

Situational Deafness - They are not going to hear anything they don't want to hear.

Optical Breakdown - "My eyes aren't what they used to be dear..."

Situational Incoherent Perception - They can 'hear' you, but whatever words are coming out of your mouth don't seem to have much effect on the ones going into their ears. "Well you said EASE the SWAN dear! You can't blame me for greasing the poor thing! Don't give me that I know what I heard!"

Goose-Gold & Goblins

My 'Soft D&D' OSR-alike has a provisional name; (see above)

Intro 
Char Gen
Crappy 1st attempt at Shinto
Shinto in Cumbria
A World Without Violence
Monster Brainstorm

Looking for a Mechanic 

Anne-Lise and The Goose Witch SFA Drawing Illustration Canvas _ Etsy

Reasoning On The Name

Opening structure is that of course it has to be a "This" ampersand "This" name, and it has to alliterate. Preferably it has the same number of syllables, so that's accomplished.

It’s not a double trochee though. GOOSE GOLD & GOBlins vs DUNgeons & DRAGons. There is just no way that either of the single syllable words of GOOSE or GOLD could ever be pronounced without the magnificence of a hard stress.

The Goblins are the easiest part to explain. I wanted something emblematic of D&D (see my previous post) and Goblins are a perfect fit for my idea of this game. They are non-trademarked so I can't get sued. Everyone has an idea of what they are, so no problems with recognition. And they fit real nicely into a non or less violent OSR style game as they are famously full of tricks, deceptions, mischief and hammery. They also make relatively good opponents for child PCs.

But GOOSE-GOLD? That will take some explaining.

Firstly, imagining the game to start with being based around a static community (if PCs "grow up" somewhere and have to deal with the same people and relationships over time they are more likely to invest in them and a lot less likely to be sociopaths as they can't just move on and escape the results of negative actions), I want there to be a pastoral or farming-esque Honobono element. Something from the home or the farm.

However, I also want it to be interesting and fun, and to sound cool. Which, unless you know a lot about farming, it’s hard to find that. Plus it also need to start with a "G" and have no more than two syllables.

I settled upon Geese, and as "GOOSE" has a stronger sound, and matches well with "GOLD", I picked that.

Geese As Nuclear Weapons

In Goose-Gold & Goblins, Geese themselves are both the primary treasure, the sought-for item of the early game, and also poses a monopoly on the use of force.

I will explain all this later on.

The geese of the Capitol by Henri-Paul Motte, 1889

Family, The Honobono Thing

Game starts, your Mum is sick and the Geese are missing.

(Oh and Dad is busy, missing, drunk or dead).

Lets assume you are all from the same family, or are close friends of the family. rothers and sisters likely.

Why?

I imagine the game being played including children, and maybe including parents and children. All being siblings in a family solves a lot of the decision paralysis and 'why are we doing this' stuff from sandbox games, or from people experiencing sandboxes for the first time and gives you a solid relationship in a way immediately intelligible to children, or anyone.

In a wider sense it embeds you in the village/community and gives you something to defend (your mum) and a place to adventure from.

Probably not the only way to play the game but a good opener.

(Could steal from Chris McDowall and say the family is in debt to the Vampire Bank).

Arthur Rackham

Freedom And Violence

is it even really possible to create a game with the levels of freedom, challenge and object orientation, with a genuine risk of loss or death, and not have it turn into violence?

Probably, maybe it is.

The means I am using to do this are;

> 'Set and Setting' (like Ryuutama) - the art, background, aesthetic, the way the world is described. Like in storygames this would also have a meta-effect as Goose-Gold & Goblins would be known as the 'less or non-violent' OSR-like game, and that would affect the people who bought and ran it and the kind of culture they created around themselves.

> Options available - so no specific weapons even allowed for starting characters, or accessible in the early game.

> Nature of opponents - they will almost never default to violence, using tricks and bullshit first.

> Any possible violence is clearly 'warning ringed' or 'escalation ringed', its very hard to get close to anything that might kill you without being warned multiple times. Hopefully three times at least, by diegetic elements in the campaign world. Warnings from Loregivers, the environment, the element itself and whatever else I can come up with.

> Your mum explicitly tells you "don't hurt anyone", and she's SICK and in BED. She NEEDS YOU MAN.

> A more high-level Diegetic reason perhaps? Like a Old king who is beloved but dying and doesn't want any violence, or the spirits of the land or something? Not sure yet. (More negative version, maybe there's a dark god or plague god who feeds off bloodshed?)

> THE GEESE - This is the key point. Nothing is more dangerous, frightening or terrible or upsetting than a violent Goose. All beings and spirits fear their wrath.

Geese become angry when they see or sense violence.

So if you are violent around a Goose, you are about to unleash a demon of Berserker rage. (Possibly they also grow in size in a Slaine-Like fashion during this).

(Otherwise, unlike in our world, the Geese are quite tractable.)

I want to avoid placing lots of explicit rules about 'do or don't do this' onto the players so only one element is an actual rule, and that a request from your sick mum, in the game, rather than from the DM

Set and setting is tacit, lack of weapons is a void rather than a rule, warning rings are part of the process of play, if there's an old king, or spirits who sicken from violence then.. still not sure about that. Could actually leave it up to the process of long-term play.

And of course, the Geese. And what could be more natural or reasonable than being unwilling to enrage a Goose?

Geese As Treasure

I don't yet know why geese are so valuable to this society/reality. it might have something to do with Golden Eggs. maybe each Goose is like a Lottery Ticket and will occasionally bang one out, maybe one in every 100 eggs is a golden egg, and maybe golden eggs (or slices of them) are the main currency of the Realm.

Or maybe these eggs have some magical property, which is why Goblins want them. OR - maybe there is a one in so many chance each time of a Magic Egg or something, so eggs are spells?

so obviously, everyone wants to get each others Geese, and having a Goose, or Geese is a big deal for anyone - if someone gets a special egg, that’s a big deal for the village.

BUT - because Geese have a monopoly on the use of force, you can't just murder someone and take their geese (at least not directly), you have to be subtle and use crime, trickery, persuasion and misdirection.


> Geese as ambulatory treasure/threats/problems.

As well as this, Geese can move around on their own, and they can co-operate or not with whoever wants to move them.

Maybe you need to calm or seduce them with an unguent or flute or something. Likely there are multiple ways to do this and you can find them out in-setting.

Thing is, within reason you can have Geese be a settled thing or you can have them breaking out and wandering etc

PLUS -I really like the idea of some child-sized chibi hero picking up a GOOSE in both arms, like a huge bag of shopping, and fucking running for it while being chased by Goblins.

I also like the idea of Geese in Goose-Gold and Goblins being really big though. Maybe they grow in response to violence, like magically, instantly.

Idea for cover is a bunch of adventurers and goblins running like fuck from a giant goose. Goose is in back field of image, people sprinting like hell in burst pattern towards the p.o.v. Goblins and adventurers intermixed. They were formerly scheming against each other but someone punched another in the nose. Maybe one Gob has a black eye and hero has a broken nose, and now the titan goose hurls itself upon them, their schemes shattered.

Audubon