When creating the setting for a scenario or campaign, it can be helpful to come up with a list of people or factions in the settling, as the powerful movers and shakers the the PCs will be interacting with. Fate would call these "Faces", and 13th Age calls them "Icons".
Half a dozen of these major NPCs/GMCs (Non-Player Characters, also know as Game Master Characters in some circles) are ample for most short campaigns, whilst a dozen is a good number for a longer campaign with deeper setting detail.
The default Icons list from 13th age (more info here: http://www.13thagesrd.com/icons/) is:
The Archmage
The Crusader
The Diabolist
The Dwarf King
The Elf Queen
The Emperor
The Great Gold Wyrm
The High Druid
The Lich King
The Orc Lord
The Priestess
The Prince of Shadows
The Three
So, I got to thinking about who the Icons/Faces would be in various stories/settings -
Star Wars:
The Empire (The Emperor, Darth Vader, Moff Tarkin)
Rebels (Mon Mothma, Organa, Admiral Ackbar)
The Hutts (Jabba the Hutt)
Separatists (Count Dooku, Nate Gunray, General Grievous)
Jedi Council (Yoda, Mace Windu)
Others, such as Mandalorians, Chiss, Dark Sun, Nightsisters, can be added to suit the needs of the campaign.
Arthurian Legends:
Arthur
Merlin
Guinevere
Lancelot
Mordred
Morgana Le Fay
Lady of the Lake/Niviane
Other Knights: Gawain, Galahad, Tristan, Bors, Percival, Bedivere, Ector, Kay, etc.
Robin Hood:
Robin of Locksley
Sheriff of Nottingham
Maid Marion
Guy of Gisbourne
King John
King Richard
Three Musketeers:
Cardinal Richelieu
Milady de Winter
Compe de Rochefort
King Louis XIII
Queen Ann
Captain Treville
Duke of Buckingham
Elder Scrolls - Morrowind:
House Dagoth (Dagoth Ur)
The Tribunal (Vivec, Almalexia, Sotha Sil)
House Hlaalu (Duke Vedam Dren)
House Redoran (Bolvyn Venim)
House Telvanni (Gothren)
Camonna Tong (Orvas Dren)
Morag Tong (Eno Hlaalu)
Ashlanders (various Ashkahns)
Twin Lamps (Ilmeni Dren)
Blades (Caius Cosades)
Imperial Legion (Varus Vantinius)
East Empire Company (Carnius Magius, Falco Galenus)
Elder Scrolls - Oblivion:
The Blades (Jauffre)
Mythic Dawn (Mankar Camoran)
Fighters Guild (Vilena Donton/Modryn Oreyn)
Mages Guild (Hannibal Traven)
Thieves Guild (Gray Fox)
Imperial City Watch (Hieronymus Lex)
Dark Brotherhood (Ungolim, Lucien Lachance)
Countess Umbranox (Anvil)
Count Terentius (Bravil)
Countess Carvain (Bruma)
Count Indarys (Cheydinhal)
Countess Valga (Chorrol)
Count Goldwine (Kvatch)
Count Caro (Leyawiin)
Count Hassildor (Skingrad)
Elder Council (Chancellor Ocato)
Elder Scrolls - Skyrim:
Stormcloaks (Ulfric Stormcloak)
Imperial Legion (General Tullius)
Companions (Kodlak Whitemane)
College of Winterhold (Savos Aren)
Thieves Guild (Karliah, Maven Black-Briar)
Dark Brotherhood (Astrid)
Bards College of Solitude (Viarmo)
Blades (Delphine)
Thalmor (Elenwen)
Dawnguard (Isran)
Silver Hand (Krev the Skinner)
Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun
Jarl Elisif of Solitude
Jarl Skald of Dawnstar
Jarl Siddgeir of Falkreath
Jarl Igmund of Markarth
Jarl Idgod Ravencrone of Morthal
Jarl Laila Law-Giver of Riften
Jarl Korir of Winterhold
Thursday 28 December 2017
Wednesday 27 December 2017
Random Openings
Inspired by Rob Donoghue's great "Getting into Trouble" tables for his quick Fritz Leiber-esque "Two Guys with Swords" game at http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2010/12/14/two-guys-with-swords/ I offer:
Where you Are Now
What Brought You to This
How It Is About To Get Worse
Where you Are Now
- On the roof of the tower
- A mountain pass, during a storm
- Busy marketplace, with suspicious figures in the shadows
- The duke's wine cellar
- Wilderness shrine to one of those unusual gods
- Bandit country
- Burning building
- Volcano, which is starting to rumble
- Edge of a dark lake, where ripples have disturbed the surface
- Backstreets of the city, surrounded by fog
What Brought You to This
- A series of poor life choices in the recent past, regarding who to trust
- A job went sideways
- The captain of the Guard didn't have a sense of humour
- How were you to know that the painting was a counterfeit?
- Wandered off the path, whilst drunk
- That wizard was quick to anger
- Blackmailed with an antidote to a slow poison
- A spell backfired, spectacularly
- That drunken boast may have been unwise
- Misunderstanding regarding the ownership of an idol
How It Is About To Get Worse
- Someone delved too greedily and too deep
- That ritual chanting probably isn't a good sign
- The creature has your scent
- Rising water/gas/lava
- That supposedly sure-fire spell you just cast didn't work as intended
- The people surrounding you are holding sharp objects
- The dead have risen. Again.
- The sun is about to set
- Those druids are rather touchy
- Huh. Aren't those things immune to swords?
Links to RPG Resources
I'm going to regularly update this post as I add links
Resources
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2010/12/14/two-guys-with-swords/
https://fate-srd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/pirates-arrr-us
http://www.13thagesrd.com/
http://gumshoesrd.opengamingnetwork.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpgtables/
http://tvtropes.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
http://inkwellideas.com/free-tools/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitIndex
Resources
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2010/12/14/two-guys-with-swords/
https://fate-srd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/pirates-arrr-us
http://www.13thagesrd.com/
http://gumshoesrd.opengamingnetwork.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpgtables/
http://tvtropes.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
http://inkwellideas.com/free-tools/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitIndex
RPG ideas, resources, and projects
I'll start this blog off with a summary of the RPG ideas, links and notes that are currently floating around my mind and notepads.
Systems of Interest
I have broad interest in the RPG hobby, but my interests are primarily in:
Pathfinder/D&D: This is the game that my group play the most, and that we have by far the most experience with, first as D&D 3.5, and then as Pathfinder. It is the go-to system for most of my regular players, largely because we invested the time and energy to grok it when our brains were young and plastic.
Fate: This toolkit system has captured my imagination, it is supremely flexible, and its design is elegant, simple, and powerful. Probably my favourite system.
GUMSHOE: Designed for mysteries, I enjoy the way that this system handles the competence and characters, and has a simple mechanic which controls the spotlight focus in the game with regards to character skills, by liking it to a resource management system. In particular, I find NBA (Night's Black Agents) to be a masterpiece.
13th Age: This is a game that takes the core ideas of D&D 3rd and 4th edition, and then strips away the complexity and turns up the dials for combat speed, narrative flexibility, and fun.
Cortex: In its CortexPlus and CortexPrime incarnations. This is reminiscent of Fate, but with pools of various polyhedral dice.
We also have plenty of play experience with nWoD (new World of Darkness) and Warhammer 40K; but for various reasons those systems don't grab my imagination as much. World of Darkness nicely simple and fairly flexible, but is a bit bland for my taste since I started tinkering with Fate.
Warhammer 40K (Dark Heresey, Rogue Trader, Only War etc) are too prone to randomness and PC failure for my taste (which I appreciate may be a intentional feature rather than a bug, for the 40K setting), so a character will frequently fail at even things that they are supposed to be good at, until a great deal of XP has been spend. Much hilarity ensues from the clownish flailing, but that doesn't suit most genres/stories that I want to run a campaign of.
Settings
Whilst I'm making lists, here are the settings that I tend to gravitate to frequently:
Eberron
Star Wars
Warhammer 40K
Dresden Files (and other urban fantasy, including the World of Darkness)
The Elder Scrolls (from games such as Morrowing, Obilivion, and Skyrim)
D&D's generic setting (a weird European Medieval Fantasy, with inspiration from Greyhawk etc)
I rarely run by the book, I tend to play fast and lose with default settings, allowing for a healthy dose of artistic licence.
Projects
The ideas that are floating around my head currently, most of whilst are unlikely to reach fruition:
Become better at creating story/scenario ideas.
Tweak a game to focus on the area that gives my group the most enjoyment, which I believe is solving challenges with cunning; particularly in finding innovative ways to solve/bypass problems with spells.
Create a scenario with pre-made characters that have good dramatic character traits for a team/ensemble, e.g. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
Create a short campaign, focusing on heists, cons, intrigue, and covert opps.
Crate a short swashbuckling campaign, focusing on mysteries, honour, and daring deeds.
Run an Elder Scrolls Game.
Resources
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2010/12/14/two-guys-with-swords/
https://fate-srd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/pirates-arrr-us
http://www.13thagesrd.com/
http://gumshoesrd.opengamingnetwork.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpgtables/
http://tvtropes.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
http://inkwellideas.com/free-tools/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitIndex
Also, I'm cross posting here and https://rjdaines.wordpress.com/
Systems of Interest
I have broad interest in the RPG hobby, but my interests are primarily in:
Pathfinder/D&D: This is the game that my group play the most, and that we have by far the most experience with, first as D&D 3.5, and then as Pathfinder. It is the go-to system for most of my regular players, largely because we invested the time and energy to grok it when our brains were young and plastic.
Fate: This toolkit system has captured my imagination, it is supremely flexible, and its design is elegant, simple, and powerful. Probably my favourite system.
GUMSHOE: Designed for mysteries, I enjoy the way that this system handles the competence and characters, and has a simple mechanic which controls the spotlight focus in the game with regards to character skills, by liking it to a resource management system. In particular, I find NBA (Night's Black Agents) to be a masterpiece.
13th Age: This is a game that takes the core ideas of D&D 3rd and 4th edition, and then strips away the complexity and turns up the dials for combat speed, narrative flexibility, and fun.
Cortex: In its CortexPlus and CortexPrime incarnations. This is reminiscent of Fate, but with pools of various polyhedral dice.
We also have plenty of play experience with nWoD (new World of Darkness) and Warhammer 40K; but for various reasons those systems don't grab my imagination as much. World of Darkness nicely simple and fairly flexible, but is a bit bland for my taste since I started tinkering with Fate.
Warhammer 40K (Dark Heresey, Rogue Trader, Only War etc) are too prone to randomness and PC failure for my taste (which I appreciate may be a intentional feature rather than a bug, for the 40K setting), so a character will frequently fail at even things that they are supposed to be good at, until a great deal of XP has been spend. Much hilarity ensues from the clownish flailing, but that doesn't suit most genres/stories that I want to run a campaign of.
Settings
Whilst I'm making lists, here are the settings that I tend to gravitate to frequently:
Eberron
Star Wars
Warhammer 40K
Dresden Files (and other urban fantasy, including the World of Darkness)
The Elder Scrolls (from games such as Morrowing, Obilivion, and Skyrim)
D&D's generic setting (a weird European Medieval Fantasy, with inspiration from Greyhawk etc)
I rarely run by the book, I tend to play fast and lose with default settings, allowing for a healthy dose of artistic licence.
Projects
The ideas that are floating around my head currently, most of whilst are unlikely to reach fruition:
Become better at creating story/scenario ideas.
Tweak a game to focus on the area that gives my group the most enjoyment, which I believe is solving challenges with cunning; particularly in finding innovative ways to solve/bypass problems with spells.
Create a scenario with pre-made characters that have good dramatic character traits for a team/ensemble, e.g. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
Create a short campaign, focusing on heists, cons, intrigue, and covert opps.
Crate a short swashbuckling campaign, focusing on mysteries, honour, and daring deeds.
Run an Elder Scrolls Game.
Resources
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/
http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2010/12/14/two-guys-with-swords/
https://fate-srd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/pirates-arrr-us
http://www.13thagesrd.com/
http://gumshoesrd.opengamingnetwork.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpgtables/
http://tvtropes.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ensembles
http://inkwellideas.com/free-tools/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitIndex
Also, I'm cross posting here and https://rjdaines.wordpress.com/
New Year, New Blog - Meanderings Around Games (and other geeky topics)
I've been meaning to start keeping a blog for a while, and now that I'm sitting here on Christmas holiday with nothing urgent to do, it seems like a good time to start.
I'm thinking that I will probably use this space to record my thoughts on whatever random topics I'm dwelling on, which will probably mostly be tabletop RPGs.1
I'm going to try to post at least once a fortnight2, I think, and hopefully more often than that. I'm probably going to mostly use it as a place for organise my RPG-related ideas in a chronological and semi-coherent fashion. I'll possibly record thoughts about other topics here as well, and maybe use it as a journal of interesting facts etc.
I'm thinking that I will probably use this space to record my thoughts on whatever random topics I'm dwelling on, which will probably mostly be tabletop RPGs.1
I'm going to try to post at least once a fortnight2, I think, and hopefully more often than that. I'm probably going to mostly use it as a place for organise my RPG-related ideas in a chronological and semi-coherent fashion. I'll possibly record thoughts about other topics here as well, and maybe use it as a journal of interesting facts etc.
1 There will be footnotes.↩
2 Interesting fact: Apparently the word fortnight comes from the Old English fēowertyne niht meaning fourteen nights, according to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnight ↩
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