Indie RPG Newsletter: Cities in RPGs

[hawkeyefan]

Part 3 came out today:

Cities in RPGs 3

This is the first entry that I don’t already own. It’s Endon from the OSR book Magical Industrial Revolution by Skerples.

It seems a different take than both Doskvol and Spire, but that’s probably a good thing. It also seems to have a slightly different focus than the city itself. It’s more about how magic can change the way a city develops and functions. And of course, how that changes the setting for a game.

I was aware of this product before and almost picked it up, and now I think I will. It seems like it’s got ideas and material that’d be applicable in any game.

If there’s anyone more familiar with the book who’d like to comment, that would be great. Otherwise, I’ll revisit this once I’ve had some time to look it over.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Magical Industrial Revolution is, as usual for Skerples, a damned delight. So many excellent tables, and sections like this that cut to the chase while providing clear social commentary:


GETTING ELECTED

Only men can be elected to Parliament. In a fine and well documented tradition, any women who wishes to exercise political power selects a dull, pliable, or unscrupulous person and uses them as a proxy. Everyone knows who actually holds the reigns.

Only members of the Upper Class can stand for election. A campaign costs 1,000gp and has a 50% chance of succeeding. Making friends with a Minister increases the chance to 80%. Well-documented public heroism may guarantee election at the GM’s discretion. Campaigning takes place during the Off- Season and requires no particular skills or talents. Giving a speech or two is traditional. Elections are held once every 2 years, just before the start of the Season.

Only men who own more than 1,000gp of property can vote. In some districts (known as Rotten Buroughs or Pocket Boroughs), one wealthy property owner has the one vote and can elect themselves, a relative, or a suitably eccentric or obedient friend. Endon is essentially an oligarchy.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Magical Industrial Revolution is, as usual for Skerples, a damned delight. So many excellent tables, and sections like this that cut to the chase while providing clear social commentary:

Yup. I grabbed a copy yesterday and even with only a brief look, I realized the setting is more specific than I originally expected. I should have known that’d be the case.

 

[pemerton]

@Grendel_Khan

Isn't that just a loose paraphrase of an encyclopaedia entry on British parliamentary elections prior to the Reform Acts? (Except that it is for a short parliament - the only real difference that I noticed.)

 

[Grendel_Khan]

@Grendel_Khan

Isn't that just a loose paraphrase of an encyclopaedia entry on British parliamentary elections prior to the Reform Acts? (Except that it is for a short parliament - the only real difference that I noticed.)

I meant that it gives clear guidelines for how players can interact with the process, if they want to, which also reinforce how corrupt and sexist it is.

It's not a riveting or original section, necessarily, but there's neat stuff throughout the book. If you avert an apocalypse you roll a d20 to see what the Monarch rewards you with.

Those could be good:

14. Sinecure
A post, such as “Master of the Royal Mint Plantations” or “Trustee of the Monarch’s Hound’s Pensions” is found for a deserving group member. It pays 200gp per Season and requires perhaps two hours of work a week.



Or more likely meaningless:

3. Honorary Doctorates

Presented in a ceremony at Loxdon College (19, pg. 12). Stuffy old deans snoring, spotty undergraduates picking their noses and playing cards in the back, slightly tinny brass band. Bearers gain the right to wear comically floppy hats, red robes trimmed with ermine, and carry a sword on Sundays without a permit. They are officially Doctors of Philosophy and are expected to turn up to one ceremonial dinner a year.


Or really meaningless:

1. Hearty Hand-Clasp
The group is presented with a laurel and hearty hand-clasp from the Monarch.

 

[pemerton]

@Grendel_Khan

My post might have come across a bit differently from intended. I agree that it's clear. I think it's also kind-of amusing (likewise the random monarchical rewards examples in your reply to me).

I don't think I find it to be social commentary. Which still probably comes across as more disagreeable than I want it to. I guess what I mean is that I don't feel it's commentary until it shows the social situation in a certain light. Most RPGs present oligarchies as a normal mode of government, and the players aren't expected to have their PCs do anything about it. Is this one different?

 

[Hand of Evil]

For me, a good power structure chart and flow charts for events. There are five elements (for lack of a better term) that I break power into:

• Food - it's production and transportation.
• Military - Guards, army, navy, watchmen, weapon makers.
• Guilds & Churches - legal or illegal, your wizards, your thieves (or do we call the rogues), adventurers, clerics.
• Human Trafficking - control of work forces, your unions or slavers, just lots of labors.
• Energy - Oil, wood, elemental fire, steam, etc. It is supplied by someone and comes from someplace.

Each play a role in the running of a city, each or at least members of each hold some form of power and a few will work against others to get more power or take control of them. Having a good idea of this can create all sort of hooks within a city.

Flow charts can help with general daily task. Cheap and easy way to generate hooks and a living city.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I don't think I find it to be social commentary. Which still probably comes across as more disagreeable than I want it to. I guess what I mean is that I don't feel it's commentary until it shows the social situation in a certain light. Most RPGs present oligarchies as a normal mode of government, and the players aren't expected to have their PCs do anything about it. Is this one different?

True, Industrial Magical Revolution doesn't give you much in the way of opportunities to overthrow the oligarchy. But that's more related to your thread about game mechanics for social realism, right?

At the very least, though, I like that IMR doesn't beat around the bush or glorify the wealthy and the powerful. And by shifting things into an urban, industrial revolution framework, it makes the wealthy seem even more foolish than lords and ladies of typical fantasy settings. Like this is how you maintain an upper class lifestyle:

Costs of the Upper Class

At a minimum, a PC must support:

• a Steak Dinner per day
• two Servants per Season
• a Luxurious Apartment per Season
• a new set of Extravagant Clothing per Season

They must also own:

• a Carriage
• a Riding Horse
• a Country House

Cost per day: 8sp
Total Cost per Season: 138 gp

 

[Campbell]

@Grendel_Khan

My post might have come across a bit differently from intended. I agree that it's clear. I think it's also kind-of amusing (likewise the random monarchical rewards examples in your reply to me).

I don't think I find it to be social commentary. Which still probably comes across as more disagreeable than I want it to. I guess what I mean is that I don't feel it's commentary until it shows the social situation in a certain light. Most RPGs present oligarchies as a normal mode of government, and the players aren't expected to have their PCs do anything about it. Is this one different?

I don't think player characters necessarily have to be acting to undermine the system for it to count as social commentary if we leave room for protagonists that are not meant to be seen as heroic, but just as people surviving within it. I think highlighting the suffering is enough. Media like Sons of Anarchy, The Wire and Breaking Bad all count on that score. As does most crime fiction.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think player characters necessarily have to be acting to undermine the system for it to count as social commentary if we leave room for protagonists that are not meant to be seen as heroic, but just as people surviving within it.

If the game generates the pressure to survive, yes. And presents it as in some sense an artefact of social arrangements.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Grendel_Khan


I don't think I find it to be social commentary. Which still probably comes across as more disagreeable than I want it to. I guess what I mean is that I don't feel it's commentary until it shows the social situation in a certain light. Most RPGs present oligarchies as a normal mode of government, and the players aren't expected to have their PCs do anything about it. Is this one different?

This is an interesting question. Does commentary need to be explicit in this case? And can being explicit in the commentary weaken it?

As an example, I used to read a lot of Roman Murder Mysteries. And Rome was powered by human slavery. Some books emphasized this more than others. Personally the ones I found most impactful were ones where it was just depicted as the norm, and the characters didn't react to it (it is just a little more horrifying to think of something like that as the normal every day part of life: how they powered their society). Whereas one of my favorite series, the Roma Sub Rosa, which I highly recommend because its great overall, highlighted the use of slavery and had the character react to it strongly. He wasn't in a position of enough power to change anything, but as a reader you understood the author's position through the character. However I felt this was less impactful on me than stories where it's just the norm. I'm not sure there is a best way to do things as people probably will have very different reactions, and some of this might be my history background where just showing how something functions and leaving me to form my own conclusions is enough (and the fact that it is being presented as a normal, everyday, way of life, is itself commentary I think, even if it doesn't spell out the message for the reader).

If I were in a game where oligarchies are just the norm, to the extent that we are immersing in living in an oligarchy. I don't think I need the GM to have us waging war against it, for me to get the commentary on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Cities in RPGs 1- Doskvol

I subscribe to the Indie RPG Newsletter. It’s a good weekly read, with links to other interesting articles, podcasts, and so on.

The author, Thomas Manuel, has decided to do a series that focuses on cities in RPGs. The first (determined by votes from his readers) is about the city of Doskvol, the setting of Blades in the Dark.

I figured I’d post it here to get peoples’ thoughts, and also to discuss useful ways to use cities in games, and good methods/processes for doing so.

So… what kinds of material do folks find useful for urban-based RPGs? Does anyone have best practices to share?

Looking at the newsletter now.

For Urban Adventures a lot of the stuff in the link is what I look for: factions, key cultural features, the setting 'physics' (i.e. all the stuff related to the thought experiment that makes this place different from a place on earth), an overview of districts, etc.).

I find for me I need a bit of granularity on important institutional elements (i.e. who is charge of what, how is crime in the city organized, how is law in the city organized, etc). Living in a city I often use the city I live in as a reference point for the kind of information I need. For example, I have a ward councilor I can contact if there are any immediate problems in my neighborhood, but I can also contact police or fire department (in an RPG this may be swinging in the direction of the players rather than be a resource they are themselves drawing on). In cities for RPGs I like to know those kinds of details (for instance in my wuxia campaign I include a baojia system, which is like a civilian law enforcement system, but that exists alongside a standard constabulary system and a military system. And each section of a town might have a Bao Chief who organizes local patrols of residents and resolves local disputes (it is also a system the government can draw on to recruit manpower for law enforcement or other projects). When it comes to criminal stuff, I like to know what groups are active and what they control, who they protect, who protects them, etc. This doesn't all have to be spelled out, it can be a general guideline so I can sharpen the focus when the players go to 'that shop over there' to try to extort them or something.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I almost missed the most recent one.

Cities in RPGs 4

This one is about Infinigrad, which is from Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit by Michael Raston.

I was entirely unfamiliar with this product until reading this article. I've picked up a copy of the previous entry's focus, Magical Industrial Recolution, but I don't know if I'll pick up Infinigrad. It seems to be mostly a collection of random tables to create a kind of multiversal city (which immediately brings to mind, for me, Sigil from Planescape).

I don't mind random tables... in fact, they can be very useful... but I don't know how much I'd like a product that is essentially nothing but. I could be wrong on this, however; perhaps the book goes into great detail about Infinigrad and is an interesting setting on its own. The way this article is written, it's hard to say.

Is anyone familiar with this product? If so, do you find it useful?