Lord Mhoram
Hero
This one was delayed due to technical difficulties.
In this installment we will explore one of the simplest and easiest ways a GM can make changes to the world and campaign without worrying very much about mechanical implications: changing Special Effects - also known as re-fluffing.
This concept is the basis of a number of game systems; HERO and Mutants and Masterminds being two of the better known. The idea of special effects in these systems is that the actual mechanics of combat and abilities in combat are generic, and the player makes the decisions of what that is. So, in HERO, a character might have a 12d6 attack. It could be defined as fire, lightning, eye-beams, a telekinetic punch or just about anything else. The benefit is that you are not held hostage to the game's designers when making a character - in the old DC Hero game there wasn't an “eye-beam” power - so you couldn't really have one. The drawback is that many people expect mechanical differentiation between one type of effect and another. It causes issues when the fire and electric attacks are mechanically the same. This is one of the common complaints about D&D 4E - that the mechanics were very similar - with only the fluff, or special effects, to differentiate them.
So before you use this approach you need to think - are you or your players the kind of people that mechanical similarity would be an issue with. If not then changing special effects can be a great tool in your arsenal for fine tuning your game and world without the worries of mechanical ripples (as discussed in the last column).
One simple way re-fluffing can be of great value for a GM is a really simple one - Monsters. I'll let Jeff Grubb take this one - from Lorebook of the Void for Spelljammer:
“An example form the writer's own campaign: The Grimlock from the FIEND FOLIO...appears as a gray-skinned humanoids with sharp teeth and blank eyes, and are particularly vulnerable to audible glamer spells while being invulnerable to illusions. Most of my players knew this description and brought out the needed spells when they appeared. They traveled to another world and found more Grimlocks, but this time I changed them in appearance only to resemble land-walking squids with weapons in their tentacles. Confronted with the “land-squids” the players fought as if they were encountering the beasts for the first time (which they were), all the time while trying to figure out why I was reading from the Fiend Folio.”
There is a great change that took almost no work. A nice niche monster is re-invigorated by just changing the look.
Say you have a player who wants to play a class that doesn't exist in the game. This happened to me - I got the core rules for 4E D&D and wanted to play a Monk - and there was no Monk in the Player's Handbook. No worries, the GM and I spoke about it and solved the problem; it was fixed by 2 very minor houserules and a great bit of changing special effects. First we defined what I wanted to get out of playing monk - a unarmored character that dished out a bunch of damage barehanded, was somewhat mobile and could do tricks in unarmed combat. Thinking of Flurry of Blows from the previous edition, and decided that extra attacks would fulfill the need of extra damage. Looking over the book Two Blade Ranger jumped out at us.
So we took that basic class - and made this small changes. The character had a weapon defined as “Martial Arts” that did 1d6 damage and had a proficiency of +2 (a short sword with a -1 to hit, basically) and instead of armor the character would receive a bonus to AC every few levels. The thing that made it really fly though was the change in special effects - Evasive Strike was pretty much good as written, Dire Wolverine Strike became Mighty Spinning Kick and the description was the character did a hook kick in a complete circle around him. Hunter's Bear Trap became a Ch'i enhanced pressure point strike to the leg. So in about half an hour of discussion and the GM making a couple of small house rules, and a major change in special effects, I had the Monk I wanted.
Other things that can add huge flavor to a world can be done with simple changes to the way things look and feel. In any campaign that has any kind of a standard magic system all mages use - D&D, Rolemaster or others - can use the following trick to really make mages stand out and become individuals. Each mage has a visual effect that only they have and while it has no impact on spells it makes a character memorable. For example a D&D Wizard (or a Rolemaster Mage) who is designed to be a major evil wizard; the GM decides that most every spell he casts has something to do with screaming blazing skulls. He casts magic missile, and an image of a flaming skull appears before him and the missile become darts out of the eyes of the skull that rotates to each target. His Fireball become a flaming skull that flies from his hand and detonates. Now you have a very memorable character for the PCs to have to deal with. Other simple changes - a cleric of god of healing creates a small sense of comfort whenever he casts a spell; no mechanical effects, but again great color. If the bard has spells that are not actually sung, but cast normally as per the system - when he has verbalization that is required by the music the character whistles or hums a little tone instead of recites words of power or incantations.
The same kind of things can be applied in a large scale. I've actually seen the following examples in play. In one case the GM wanted a scary underground race, but didn't like the visuals of the Drow; so he took the mechanics, but made them pale - as might happen in a race that never sees the sun. The eyes were larger to gather light better, but reacted badly in bright light. The GM kept the spider motif, and everything else about the Drow, but made them pale and eerie.
Another case was less a change of special effect then a break from traditional roles that used re-flavored mechanics to back it up. I used this in a campaign - I wanted something that felt fairly different than normal Tolkien-esque fantasy but I didn't want to do a huge amount of work. This was in 1st edition D&D fairly far into it's life. The change I made was simple, but made for a huge change in feel - I made the Elves the “oriental” races and classes - specifically psuedo-medieval Japanese. The standard Elvish longsword became a katana. Wood Elves were a little more prolific, and were the peasant classes that a High Elf Samurai could kill for an insult. The elvish ties to nature fit well with Wu Jen and Shukenja ties to elements and nature spirits. Monkish monasteries were traditionally started by someone that trained in ancient elvish unarmed combat styles - especially the animal style Kung Fu approach.
So that took a bit more than just re-flavoring, but no new rules had to be invented, or changed, just adopting rules already created for an approach that was not traditional.
With just these few example I hope I have shown just how much change can be made for a character, or the world itself, with nothing but changes to the look and feel of the game instead of major mechanical overhaul. Next installment we will move a step back and look at choosing systems.
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