I'm having a hard time paring down 3.5/OGL to get it to where I want it. Some things are hand-wave easy. Others...aren't.

For example, I'm trying to rework skills pretty much completely. I don't want a lot of mucking about with skill ranks, so we're leaning a little 4e here. Your class gives you certain skills in which you're "trained" and get a bonus. So far, so good, right?

Here's the issue. I'm looking at my simplified skill list, and all it does is exacerbate the fact that some stats are just "better" than others for general value.

Take a look at Intelligence. It would normally be my go-to stat for bonus languages, or extra 'pickup' skill points or whatever. There are a ton of d20 skills that work off of Intelligence. Compare with STR or CON, which both have more 'general' use (hit/damage, hit points/FORT), but aren't skill heavy. "But wait!" I hear you cry, "Strength gives you bonuses to Swim, Jump, Climb..." Yes, yes, I know. But I had intended to fold all of those into 'Athletics'.

So STR and CON look a little weak on the sheet. Hmm. I'm considering adding a 'Brawn' skill under STR that covers, quite simply, feats of strength - kicking in doors, lifting things, etc. Most characters wouldn't want or need to put extra points in such a thing, but some concepts might (Barbarian, any really brawny tank).

Oh, here's the other thing I realized...Saves are essentially Skills. Honestly. They progress much slower, but they work the same way, thanks to the unified d20 concept. So...why not make 'em Skills? Sort of skills. Kinda skills. Skills with a cap on how much you can drop in 'em or something. They sure do fit nice on the character sheet I sketched out, hanging out there with the skills next to each ability score (only with a square box instead of a circle to write the bonus in). *sigh*

I'm concerned that if I keep walking these roads in my mind, trying to simplify, I'll end up with the opposite.

At the moment, the character sheet looks decent (ie, "simple to the eye"). I've got the six ability scores (or the bonuses, rather) down the left-hand side. And then, next to each of them, four skills/saves that derive from them. (Except next to STR and CON, hence the visual problem). I know full well that some stats are more important than others in all versions of D&D. I wanted to downplay that somehow, but STR is what it is. Ditto CON.

Okay, so here are the stats and their four little buddies on the sheet:

STR
Athletics (skill) [Climb, Jump, et al]
Brawn (skill) [feats of STR]

CON
Fortitude (save)
Toughness (adds to hp/lvl)
Endurance? (skill)

DEX
Reflexes (save)
Acrobatics (skill) [Tumble, Balance]
Stealth (skill) [Hide, Move Silently]
Thievery (skill) [Open Lock, Pick Pocket, et al]

INT
Arcana (skill) [K:Arcana, Spellcraft]
Linguistics (skill) [Decipher Script, grants languages known]
History (skill) [History, Nobility, Heraldry]
Nature (skill)

WIS
Will (save)
Perception (skill) [Spot, Listen, Search]
Divinity (skill) [K:Religion, divine spellcraft]
Survival (skill) <-- looks weird here

CHA
Rapport (skill) [Sense Motive, Diplomacy]
Intimidate (skill) <-- not sure I even want this
Animal (skill) [Handle Animal, poss Ride??]
Perform (skill)

And I'm still missing the Craft/Profession spectrum.

But it sure does look pretty. Which, frankly, is what I want. Elegance of execution. I want the players to be able to look down at their sheet, and understand what they're looking at. Not messing with skill ranks every level. Not checking a skill against a stat. Just "I need a [whatever] check" and they look at it, and they roll it.

Maybe I'm overcomplicating this. Maybe I'm so accustomed to having skills that I think I _need_ them, when I don't. Should I just drop them completely and go old-school with ability checks? It's sorely tempting. The only real problem with doing that is that it raises a "thief abilities" issue.

Comments welcome. I'm banging my head against the wall here.

VectorSigma

Years ago, I ran a D&D campaign at the start of which we all sat down and designed nations and smushed them together on a map. It helped get the players involved at the start, and worked pretty well (even though some of 'em were slack-asses as time went on). That was my first dip into collaborative worldbuilding, and it was probably fifteen years ago.

The last long-term roleplaying campaign I ran was not D&D. It was a BESMd20 game, although that's neither here nor there. The campaign was called 'Low Disguises', and it was set in modern America.

The gist of the campaign goes like this: seven regular people get caught up in a weird government conspiracy, and along the way, get injected with crazy nano-retroviruses that reprogram their DNA and essentially give them superpowers. The viruses were designed based on the DNA of captured supernaturals, and each one was different (we find out later there's a certain amount of soul-snatching involved), so each PC morphed into a version of a different mythical creature (pixie, troll, ghoul, etc).

As the campaign continued, what began as a weird low-supers conspiracy game morphed into a more high-fantasy superhuman game, as the heroes took on the powers that be (both mortal and immortal), gathered armies, did all kinds of crazy stuff, and became 'baby' gods themselves. At the end of the campaign (three years later), the apocalypse has occurred and we leave our heroes as the new chief gods and goddesses of Earth, struggling to keep peace amongst the survivors (human and otherwise) and build a new civilization out of the old.

All well and good. Sometime right after the apotheosis of the PCs, we bandied about the idea of "how cool would it be to essentially push the timeline forward a bunch and run a D&D-style game in this world, where our old PCs - or interpretations thereof - would actually be the pantheon" etc. Everyone agreed it sounded awesome, and I agreed to eventually do it once we'd taken a break, played some other stuff, and enough time had passed to make everything feel fresh and wonderful again.

That time is almost here - it's just over the horizon. Our group played some one-shots, a couple of mini-campaigns, and we're getting ready to do a medium to long run of a Star Wars game. Once that's over, it's back to the world of 'Low Disguises' - five thousand years later.

That's a pretty long introduction to get to the meaty part...but the point is that, while we're doing Star Wars, we're going to do sort of a PBeM thing in the background. I want to let the players - as their old PCs-turned-gods - actually take the actions to shape this new world, a step at a time. Fifty centuries will pass in the interim, but we'll start at the beginning, when reality is pliable, and work our way to the end, as whole races are born, nations rise and fall, and the gods of the pantheon influence how magic-rich and/or technological the world will be. Naturally, the PC deities will sometimes be at cross purposes; and other lesser deities may challenge them as well, as time goes on.

I want this to be an opportunity for the whole group to take part in the worldbuilding aspect of our next D&D game, but do it in a way that feels organic. They can sponsor civilizations, create new species (which may end up being PC races when we do the D&D thing), shape the religion, rework the continents, all of that. A turn at a time.

I'm thinking the initial few turns will be closer together (in 'game-time'), a century or less apart. This will be the period in which they can do some serious mojo potentially, carving up continents and such. But, conversely, they're still inexperienced gods. They may find that by the time they know _how_ to do certain things, the world isn't as pliable as they'd thought. Later turns will be "further apart" as the gods grow more distant from the mortal minutiae, and they will have to act less directly.

Once we get rolling on this, and as things progress, I'll blog about it occasionally, and we'll see how things are going.

(NB: we did have a rule, by consensus, that when we get to the D&D portion of this, you're not allowed to play a cleric of yourself. Actually, several of them are pretty charged about character concepts that involve being a paladin of one of the other players' deities, etc)

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TODAY'S QUESTION:
Any experience with collaborative worldbuilding above and beyond the usual?

VectorSigma

I've been posting so far on the groundwork I'm doing for an upcoming three-player game. On top of that, it's looking like at some point (6-12 months from now?) I'll be running a separate D&D game for my current (larger) group.

Is this a problem? Heck, no. It's an opportunity, and on several levels.

Opportunity the First: The aforementioned larger group will be amenable to me running the game as a strongly-flavored, rule-tweaked 3.5, just as I intend to do with the smaller group. That means less work for me overall, and no need for the brain to shift gears dramatically in terms of ruleset.

Opportunity the Second: I'll use the same game-world. The exploits and additions of each group will help in building the world both for myself and for the other group. Plus, every ounce of thought or time I put into the setting gets double-payoff. And this leads into...

Opportunity the Third: Serious crossover potential. I've always wanted to do this - no doubt some of you have tried it - but I'd love to have the storylines from the two campaigns intertwine and lead up to a blowout crossover adventure where everyone from both groups shows up, teams up, and brings on the awesome. How cool would that be? Difficult to pull off, maybe. But the potential payoff is outstanding.

The campaign that will start first (the smaller one) will likely be playing far less often than the later-starting campaign; which might (with massaging) put everyone at around the same level come crossover time (this is a good thing).

My intent had always been to set the small campaign in the same game world as the one I would eventually run for the big group, but it didn't occur to me (who knows why) that I might end up doing both at the same time. But this could generate a lot of kickass. What if, even pre-teamup, the two groups are in communication with one another, and could send messages, hints, and plot hooks back and forth? That might be fun. The weaponsmith from group A could use downtime to forge a sword (or whatever) for the paladin of group B. Heck, we could even go cliche-classic and make a PC from each group into siblings or something.

One tidbit that's terribly interesting to me is that the game-world I'm working on is based on the last campaign I ran for the larger group; wait, that didn't explain it at all. This will require a separate post, no doubt.

Curses, I'm going to have to start categorizing blog entries now. *sigh*

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TODAY'S QUESTION:

Have you ever run multiple campaigns simultaneously for different player-groups, which intertwined or interacted? How deep did it go? And did it work?

VectorSigma

The dunewalker is intended to be a hybrid class that really exemplifies the Babylonian/Arabian/desert setting of the campaign. He's 70% Ranger, 30% Barbarian, and 10% Fremen. Yes, that's 110%, because he's a hard worker.

I know I want him to have d8s rather than d12s. Let's take a look at the special class features of our donating classes, and which ones should have a place in the first ten levels of dunewalker.

BARBARIAN

First things first - rage is right out. Doesn't fit the concept. The whole berserker thing just screams "Norse" to me (or at least "Conan") and that's not what I want. Dropping rage from the build also saves some headaches.

Illiteracy. Dropped. Even outside the cosmopolitan areas of the setting, the religion pushes literacy. Everyone can read and write their native tongue.

Fast Movement. Absolutely kept, and it needs to be early in the progression.

Uncanny Dodge and Trap-Sense. Maybe. Trap-sense is a little "thiefy" for me.

Damage Reduction. It's intended as an outgrowth of rage - so no go on the DR. Doesn't make sense, either.

Indomitable Will. I actually kind of like this one, but normally it's for 14th level Barbarians, and we're only worried about the first ten levels right now. Maybe we can dial it down and give it earlier in the progression - with all the mirages and genies and stuff, resistance to enchantment makes some sense for this guy.

RANGER

Favored enemy. Aside from tracking, perhaps the most rangery of ranger powers. I'd like to keep this, but maybe loosen it a little.

Tracking. No-brainer - tracking stays. Ditto Swift Tracking later on.

Wild Empathy. Well, it's certainly rangery.

Endurance. Well, it's a feat in the first place.

Combat style. The two combat styles, as presented, still make sense. Twin scimitars? Booya! Turbaned dunewalkers plunking away with bows feels right, too. (see, I told you it'd end up 70% ranger)

Animal Companion. Sort of fits, maybe make it optional? A tradeoff for something else?

Woodland Stride. This would fit if it were desert-tweaked...I need to dig Sandstorm out, I know there's an equivalent in there.

Evasion. At ninth level in the standard progression, this makes some sense.

Ranger spells. Right out! This is not an inherently magical class. If you want your desert spells, take some cleric levels.

WHAT ELSE IS NEEDED?

We may need to leave room for some more desert-focused stuff (if there even IS room left).

Should I be doing something with totems here? I always liked the totem-barbarian stuff in PH2. Hmm.

(don't mind me...thinking aloud)

VectorSigma

In an effort to simultaneously simplify the rules (tailoring them to the audience) and tweak their flavor (tailoring them to the campaign), I'm taking a hard look at the 3.x classes.

At a bare minimum, we need four: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Mage (Wizard).

Ranger and Barbarian are going to get smushed together into the Dunewalker, an all-around desert guy who's 70% ranger and 30% barbarian. (More on him in a later post, of course). No inherent spells for the dunewalker, although they could multiclass a few levels of cleric to easily get the same feel. Now, I could certainly leave this guy out completely, if I wanted to go super bare-bones. But it's themey, and the two donating classes have their own special abilities which aren't replicated elsewhere.

Speaking of replicated elsewhere, what's a paladin? A fighter/cleric, or a cleric with certain feat and thematic choices. So that's that - no separate paladin necessary. Plus, this eliminates that pesky lingering alignment issue.

Bards, as written, don't go well with the setting. I'm leaving them out completely for now.

Same is true for Monks, I'm afraid. Plus...that class has some issues as written.

Sorcerors? I've always had a bit of a problem with 'em. I like my magicians old-school, I suppose, and that flavor suits the setting better. No sorcerors, either. (see, that was easy...)

Druids? These might be better reworked into either a) a beast-talking shapeshifter, b) an elemental spellcaster, or c) a leafshaping plant guy. As they stand, they're a bit of all three, and that's the problem I have with them. I think I can safely set druids aside for now...remember, I'm plotting a campaign for only three players.

And with only three players, what we're probably going to be looking at is a fighter-type, a rogue-type, and a caster. This isn't guaranteed, but it's a likely spread. If the players decide they want a fighter, a cleric, and a dunewalker, that's okay, too - the adventures will be tailored to them. Two clerics and a mage? Sure, why not. We might see some multiclassing along the way (I'm allowing multiclassing freely for this game), I don't expect to see it the first couple of levels.

Spreading all those thoughts out in front of us, we're looking at five classes. That's all. And isn't that enough for three players? I think so.

Now, looking at those five, there are some across-the-board tweaks that will have to apply. The first is the simplified skill system, and adjustments for that. Secondly, the cleric domain system needs work. I want the clerics in this setting to be different from each other, but I don't want the cleric player to have to keep separate track of domain spells, regular spells, and what have you. I'm thinking I'll prep a list of 'universal' spells, and then some lists of 'domain' spells - which will have a lot in common with the 2e 'spheres' system. Every cleric (PC or NPC) will have access to the universal spells, plus those of probably three spheres. This will keep them limited, but still different from one another. I'm all about handing the players what they need to play - and if that means I spend a little time compiling a "spells you can cast" document, so be it - I'm okay with that. I'd rather spend the time now than waste it later as a player desperately flips through several books looking for 'just the right spell'. Plus, if we end up with two cleric-casters at some point, I can easily mandate that their spheres not overlap, which will keep them differentiated.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with the mage end of magic as far as 'schools' or 'elements' or 'astrology' or whatever. I know one thing: item creation feats are gone, gone, gone. I'm the DM - I can ad-hoc decide what the mage can and can't craft, and how long it takes him, and what weird ingredients he'll need (I smell a plot hook there). Just like we did back in the day. And, again, with only three players, we're looking at one, one and a half arcane casters max.

Mages, will, of course, still get the ability to scribe scrolls at first level - I'll just have to keep it reasonable as we go. Specialist wizards have gone the way of the dodo...if the player of the mage wants to 'specialize', then we'll do it via feat selection, roleplay, and questing for unusual spells.

Mages will also have the option at first level of either having a familiar, or having a staff (or other focus item) that can serve as an 'item familiar' and grow in power as they increase level.

Other than the skill system and the above-mentioned stuff, these four classes basically look like their PH/SRD equivalent. The rules & setting handout will have the first ten levels of each of these classes (plus the dunewalker and possible druid-substitution, when complete) printed in 'em, so the players have everything at hand when creating their characters, levelling up, or thinking about multiclassing.

I know that between reworked rules and all the setting fluff, it seems like a lot of stuff to be handing to the players, perhaps. But this isn't supplemental - it replaces their (nonexistent) Player's Handbook. Call me old-school, but I'm the DM - I'm the only one who needs the full byzantine rules at hand. They just need the basics and their sheets, period. No clutter!

VectorSigma

It's totally normal for anyone designing a D&D setting to want to do 'the Egyptian thing'. And I've never really done it, til now.

Although Ashar will be the starting-point for the campaign, we've dropped a rival nation of comparable power on the other side of the desert. That nation is Qem, the land of the dead. Basically a repository for Egyptian tropes cranked up and mixed with D&D-isms. That sounds pretty simple (pyramids, mummies, pharaoh, a river), but there's a lot that can be done with it. Lots of gamers are familiar with the Forgotten Realms version of Egypt, and some know of the Hamunaptra supplement (which I want desperately and may steal from, but haven't read yet)... my players aren't familiar with either of these. That's a good thing.

So our faux Egypt, Qem, doesn't just have mummies in pyramids. Qem is run by several noble families, each of which has a number of members who, themselves, are undead. When you've got a family full of necromancers, it's probably not a big deal to turn Grandpa Joe into a mummy. That's the shtick - houses of necromancers rule this land, and as they get older, the most powerful amongst them become mummies, liches, what-have-you. Add in zombie slave labor as a common occurrence, and you've got some different flavor.

The human population of Qem - the peasantry - are quite familiar with the sight of a veiled palanquin being carried down the street by a dozen zombies. Such is the life of a nobleman! Necromancy, backstabbing, rival families...if you're familiar with Vampire: the Masquerade, I'm going for in essence a whole kingdom of Egyptian-themed Giovanni.

With all this necromantic power and potentially limitless population, why doesn't Qem rule the world? This needs to be explainable. Part of it is the incessant scheming of one noble family against another - that helps to cripple the nation as a whole. Secondly, the noble class guards necromancy jealously, so only a minority has access to these powers, and that minority is wholly endogamous. Third, zombies don't last forever - you can't raise the same cadaver over and over again. So there's a resource issue. These things combine to keep Qem as a threat to Ashar, but not the obvious winner in a hot war.

Are they the bad guys? Well, politically, yes - Qem will be the rival nation. But are they evil? Possibly not. I'm going to have the Qemites be primarily worshippers of the Sun God, but particularly in his (very Egyptian-feeling) aspect as the god who conquered death. Hence the necromancy focus. (It just occurred to me that Egyptian necromancers as a threat will certainly contribute to the 'Conan-style' feel - huzzah for Stygians!)

You can't have faux Egypt without a faux Nile (or two!), so that'll be in there, along with a (lesser) river god or goddess, to be detailed later. Is it wrong of me to love Giff? You know, the hippo guys from Spelljammer. I'm declaring right now that the Qemites drove the giff-equivalent out of the river basin generations ago, and scattered them to the four winds, toppling their shrines and replacing them with monuments to their own river god. Which explains why there are hippo-men here and there throughout the world, working as mercenaries and worshipping their (old) hippo-headed goddess (again, see also: Sandstorm). Further thought: said giff goddess may be weak in the scheme of things, but she has given her children one definite blessing...giff cannot be raised as undead (which helps explain why the Qemites had to get rid of them instead of just co-opting them).

Qem is primarily a human nation, discounting the undead of course. Traders of various nations ply the rivers and the coast, but I'm looking at mainly humans here. Dwarves would work (building pyramids, etc), but I have the dwarves saved for something else on another fringe of the region (a faux Afghanistan, complete with matchlock-wielding dwarves sniping down from the crags).

VectorSigma

Although I've rarely had any qualms about wholesale changing rules around or generally homebrewing the crap out of a game, my upcoming campaign provides a slightly different opportunity. I have only three players at this point (which is great), and all of them have limited D&D experience in various ways, although they've all played rpgs before.

One player (my wife) is generally familiar with d20 by way of Star Wars d20, and BESM d20. But she's not a rules-hound at all. My other two players - if I'm understanding them correctly - haven't played anything after Second Edition. This is a huge advantage, as the only thing they're "expecting" from 3.x is the THAC0 flip (which makes total sense to pretty much everyone who's heard of it). Nor do they own any of the books. Also awesome. Why? Because they won't be asking me about crap from 'Complete Splatmaster' or variant feats from 'Quintessential Powercreep' or anything else.

All three players are coming into the game knowing, in essence, only what I tell them about the game. So we're going 'back to basics', as it were, as far as mechanics. The SRD is our friend, and that'll be our basis. SRD plus setting-appropriate tweaks. I can even completely redo some of the classes to better fit the setting (and I will), without fear of shaking up any expectations ("Wait, this isn't a standard sorceror!").

Okay, so I need to take a look at what ought to change, or rather, what can be simiplified and tailored to this audience.

First change? Skills. The skill system in 3.x is a little wonky. In the past, I've had players have a hard time with it, and waste time agonizing over skill point expenditures. So the first thing I want to do is simplify the skill system, and get rid of skill points. This has been done nicely in several other d20-based games in the past, and I'll take a look at them for inspiration. Ideally I'd like to get down to maybe fifteen skills tops, combining some of them, and tweaking the system so the players don't have to worry so much about ranks, cross-class this and that, and maximums.

Second change? Classes. A few of the SRD-standard classes don't fit. I'm less worried about balance issues (which I can ad hoc) than I am about tone. For the setting I'm envisioning, Barbarians as written don't quite fit. I'm thinking Barbarians and Rangers are going to get mushed together into a single 'desert badass' class. Druids will need tweaking, if I even include them - I need to take another look at some of the fun stuff in Sandstorm, but I'm thinking I want my druid (or druid-equivalent) to be a lot more 'elemental' and a lot less 'animal/plant'. Paladins will get tweaked as well, and opened up with some options. Which leads nicely into...

Alignment. I've run plenty of 'nine-alignment' D&D games through every edition. For this one, I'm either going to toss alignment entirely (hence more Paladin tweaking) or give the 4e axis a shot, with 'Unaligned' a possibility. Still undecided there.

Combat. 3.x combat is a mess sometimes, and it drives me crazy - probably mostly because I'm not a combat-focused storyteller. Attacks of Opportunity are messy, and I've run perfectly good games with AoO completely stripped out, and I will do so here. Which means trimming the feat list. Also, we'll be simplifying (mostly ad libbing) all that grapple, trip, sunder stuff.

Magic. I'm REALLY tempted to screw with magic - especially divine magic, to make it more 'themey' with the setting. I'm not sure what I want to do with this exactly, but I know that stapling D&D RAW onto my setting is going to feel weird to me.

VectorSigma

Along with some mechanical bits and geographical/cultural fluff, I want to make sure there are some legends and myths in the player packet for my next campaign. A mandatory inclusion will be the myth of Zakut, called the White Bull, who is the patron god of the Empire of Ashar, and all the Ashari people. We'll do the purple prose bit later, but here's the short version.

Zakut, son of Ulosh, son of Aram (there'll be plenty of this - remember the Bronze Age feel) is the legendary progenitor/chieftain of the original Ashari tribe, several centuries back. Descended from the sun god (guess that makes him an aasimar, not that it matters), Zakut was the young hope and mighty champion of his people. The crux of his myth is his battle with Gurgath, the Black Bull. Gurgath was essentially an immense minotaur-demon with obsidian skin (and he may turn out to be this setting's analog of Baphomet, but that's purely behind-the-screen stuff).

Gurgath, the Black Bull of Hell, slew a hundred tribes of the plain before the Ashari could see that they were next, and Zakut volunteered to face the beast. Challenging the demon-god, Zakut lunged into battle with spear and shield, and slew Gurgath. (The spear and shield will likely eventually get names, as weapons of legend, of course). Standing over the demon's corpse, Zakut held aloft the bull-god's severed head, and drank of his blood. (This seems weird to us in the 21st century, but helps to reinforce the harsher Bronze/Conan vibe I'm going for). Thus did Zakut, having destroyed the menace, also take the bull-god's power. The image of Zakut slaying Gurgath, or holding the head aloft, will be a common motif in Ashari religious art.

Zakut returned to his tribe with all the strength that once coursed in Gurgath's veins. (At this point in the myth, Zakut might be portrayed as an alabaster-skinned minotaur). Zakut was hailed as a hero, of course, but then the tribe of the bull (minotaurs) arrived and found their own god destroyed. Angered, they marched on the Ashari, who were ready to defend their lands to the last man - but this would not be necessary. Zakut demonstrated wisdom in addition to his valor by negotiating peace. Yes, he said, he had taken the bull-men's deity from them - but so, too, could he replace Gurgath, and rule them wisely, teaching them to live in harmony with Zakut's own tribe, to the benefit of all. (This is the mythical basis of the Ashari-minotaur relationship). Working in tandem, the Ashari and the minotaurs prospered, and Zakut founded a mighty city there on the plain, where the blood of fallen Gurgath stained the clay red.

As a side-myth, we'll also throw in another demon-deity (we'll call him the Crimson Bull for now - no energy drink jokes, please) who is Gurgath's son and legitimate heir, and will stop at nothing to tear down what Zakut has built. This is relatively minor, of course, as he's not intended as a major theme of the campaign, but it gives us an easy opportunity to have evil minotaur barbarian cultists out there somewhere.

So that gives us the mythological basis for the state religion in Ashar, as well as a reason for all the minotaur stuff. We've also linked the Zakut cult to the Sun God. It's easy to imagine white marble statues of a large bull-headed warrior (perhaps with gilded horns or brazen hooves) in front of a columned temple, or - even better - a massive minotaur colossus astride an immense ziggurat.

VectorSigma

In my upcoming campaign, we'll be starting the action in a pseudo-Babylonian area we'll be calling Ashar. As a fairly large empire composed of multiple kingdoms and city-states, this single region should give us plenty of room to move around while keeping the majority of the setting the same (at least, at the beginning).

What holds the empire together? Two things working in concert.

The first is commerce - trade goods (and workers) moving between the city-states make Ashar fairly self-sufficient and strong economically. Central authority + commerce = infrastructure...so we'll have aqueducts where appropriate, a system of roads (some paved with stone), barges on the rivers, caravans (always good for adventurers), and a few powerful merchant houses (also good for adventures). Although Ashar will have a strong military (including a standing military in the form of janissaries), the empire stands out as an economic powerhouse compared to its regional rivals, and that will be one of the traits which sets it apart.

The other binding factor is religion - or, more specifically, the state religion. In this campaign world, the gods are very real and 'near' (remember, we're going for a Bronze Age feel to most of this). Although several major deities will be represented throughout Ashar, and some city-states will have patron gods or tutelary spirits, the centralizing factor will be a single deity, the mythical (?) founder of the nation, whose wisdom and blessings have made Ashar great. This will be Zakut, the White Bull (more on his mythology later). I'm really looking forward to this aspect of the campaign setting - a lot of D&D games have an "everywhere polytheism" outlook, or, as a counterpoint, one or two "evil theocracy" kingdoms. A cosmopolitan empire which is tolerant to major churches, yet favors its own state religion, ought to feel a little different.

So what 'features' will we be seeing in Ashar that make it feel like Ashar, beyond the above? As previously mentioned: ziggurats (I just love saying that word) and chariots! We'll put an astrology-focused wizardry school in one of the city-states (I'm tempted to do all kinds of zodiac-related stuff throughout the campaign, but one step at a time). And, the topper: minotaurs. I want minotaurs as a minority in Ashar, who work hand in hand with the human population. They don't run the show, but they worship Zakut like everybody else and can rise to fairly high positions (especially in the military). I look forward to having the PCs pass sights like a crew of minotaurs with mauls repairing a road, or a cadre of minotaur janissaries in full armor marching down the street with pole arms. I think I'll stop short of minotaurs-as-PCs, but one might make sense as a cohort or recurring ally.

The Ashari are, for lack of a better term, the default 'good guys' in the setting. Okay, they're not perfect, but this is the region that the PCs know best at the start of the game, and they'll begin everything seeing Ashari culture as probably superior to their neighbors, what with the cosmopolitan tolerance, the advanced engineering, and all of that.

COMING UP:
Zakut - state religion and myth
Qem - the rival nation, ruled by mummies (aka all the pulpiest bits of Egypt turned up to eleven)

VectorSigma

Every campaign needs a setting, naturally, and there are a few things I'm hoping to riff on for the campaign I'm working on.

I want a bit of a pseudo-Bronze Age feel, without Bronze Age tech. What I mean by this is that I want empires, kingdoms, and city-states, along with political and cultural structures that are absolutely not 'medieval Europe'. Specifically, I'm looking at doing a fairly Babylonian feel with a bit of a Roman injection (not Bronze, I know).

So when I say "Babylonian" (or, more generally, Mesopotamian), what are we talking about? Mandatory ziggurats, that's what. A priestly caste with an astronomy fetish. Beards, over-the-top hats, and robes with tassels on 'em. Some pretty big cities with aqueducts and hanging gardens. No plate mail, and cataphracts instead of knights. Chariots. Large standing armies supplemented by warriors from other cultures (and species). Cosmopolitan feel in the city-centers, and barbarism on the fringes. Patron gods of cities and of nations, some of them theriomorphic.

Now, once we put all this together and give the impression - however tweaked - of a Mesopotamian feel to the setting, we have a great excuse to use certain monsters: lammasu, shedu, etc. If we push outward in geography and time for a general Bronze feel, we toss in minotaurs (with which I've always wanted to do something - Taladas put a serious minotaur meme deep in my brain, and it'll see expression here).

Aiming for Babylon-ish as our initial setting, I need to toss some other stuff on the 'map', as it were - not for initial exploration, but for background purposes. So since we have pseudo-Mesopotamia on the map (*plop*), let's continue the easily-compatible memes and throw down some vaguely Arabian stuff (*plop*) followed by some vaguely Egyptian stuff (*plop*). In the minds of the average citizen of the first empire (Babylon-ish), the Egyptian types are the rivals/enemies. I'm thinking I want a 'cold war' type situation between these two, with the (smaller) Arabian-flavored city states and desert nomads stuck (geographically and politically) in the middle. I'm figuring a cold war background will provide plenty of adventure opportunity, and we've got a pre-made 'bad guy' the players can make assumptions about.

Now, jotting stuff down on a map and making up names is no big deal, and will certainly come as one of the next steps. But, before I even bother with that, I need to take a look at rules changes and genre assumptions which will be necessary to support the flavor of this setting we're whipping up; to wit:

1) Equipment changes. I'll need to take a look at the general lists and be able to say things like "no plate mail" and "okay, so this is Babylon with crossbows" and get a good idea of where things stand technologically. This being a fantasy game, it's okay for me to declare that I want my Babylon to have galleons, but I need to decide that early on and make it fit.

2) Class changes. Some details (cleric, paladin) will have to wait til after we have some religion sketched out. But it's easy at this stage to look at what we have so far and decide that, say, Barbarians need tweaked to look more like dervishes, or that Bards-as-written don't quite fit. Although this will be essentially a 3.5 game (with some simplifications - more on that later), I'm not even going to worry about what Prestige Classes fit or don't right now - by the time players get to that point, we'll all have a good idea of what 'feels right'.

3) Magic/cosmological changes. This will be it's own little project, and will have to wait until some of the religion stuff is sketched out most likely. But it's important to me that in this Babylon/Arabia/Egypt (plus a little Rome/Greece) mashup, the magic feels like it belongs in said mashup of cultures. This will mean some spell-list trimming, perhaps, but more likely adding some things to add and reinforce flavor.

4) Feat changes. Although I'll be throwing out some feats, that's more of a general mechanical choice than a setting choice. I want to add setting-related feats (or rename some) that will support the flavor we're going for.

In the coming posts, we'll be looking at:
Creating the Culture
Simplifying Some Rules

VectorSigma

Well, this is different. After rolling with one gaming group for over a decade, and while still running (non-D&D) for my current group for over three years, it looks like I've just talked myself into running D&D for a small (three-player) group in the very near future.

Here's the catch: I've never played with two of these players before. Some days this is more frightening to me than others. I know I can adapt to playstyles over time - the question is, can I adapt fast enough to keep the group moving forward, and generally satisfied?

First off, I'm totally content with only three players. I'd rather have a smaller-than-usual group than an immense one any day. That time I ran for nine people? Yeah, never again. So three works. In fact, it allows us to do things you could never do with five or six players - at least, not easily.

I'm a tad wary of Player #1, for only one real reason: he's a bright, creative guy who swears up and down that the 'roleplay' aspect of RPGs is 'not his thing'. This is a guy who switched from D&D to Warhammer because 'it was all combat'. (Fair enough, I suppose). So I know ahead of time that this player is going to need an action-movie feel. Despite stories he's told me about his previous group (and I get the impression that, even with filtering, that group had issues), I'm convinced that he'll put up with a modicum of 'roleplay' provided that the 'talky bits' are interesting and propel the plot. This can't be a campaign where I let players chat with every random fishmonger they pass, or I'll lose Player #1's attention. However, if I provide him with plenty of opportunity for badassery, he should float fine.

Player #2 is the wife of the previous - I've never played with her either. All I know about her potential playstyle is that the last time this husband and wife played together, she got miffed at his tendency to play the Random Stabbing Game when bored. (and, again, fair enough). The impression I'm getting is that she's onboard for some drama, some thick story with interweaving subplots, and interesting NPCs that stick around (which is fine, and the way I normally run things). I also get the impression that she comes pre-equipped with the idea that the heroes are supposed to be 'the good guys', which is also useful.

Player #3 will be my lovely wife. I know her playstyle in and out by now, and in a way, she's halfway between the mental caricatures I have of my other two players -- story, intrigue, politics are fine, so long as she gets to be sneaky and kick some arse at appropriate intervals.

The next step will be to get an idea from the players as to what they're looking for with regard to tone. King Arthur is a long way from Conan, obviously, and right now I'm leaning closer to the Conan end of the spectrum as far as what I'm jonesing to run. But, again, I'll adapt.

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TODAY'S QUESTION:

How much do you change your GM style or meta-level campaign plans to accommodate the various/evolving/bipolar playstyles of your players?

VectorSigma