The Campaign Builder's Guild

Here's a bit of positive feedback, which is rarely as useful as negative, but it's what I've got.

First, that's a wonderful piece of prose for an introduction. As an avid reader, that rates high. You've got a talent, my friend, and I hope to see more works.

Second, these two sentences sparked my interest sincere, because it smacks that the setting will feature social commentary on urbanization and economy, which indicates all kinds of good things about it.

Quote from: MysterMeBut anyway, it wasn't like he had a choice: the City was where the real money was. It was the land of Opportunity.

Time for sleep! But I will keep reading.

Ren and Stimpy
Batman: The Animated Series
X-Men
Exosquad (toys mainly - the show was on too early to be enjoyed)
Rockos Modern Life
Reboot
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters
Spider-Man (1994)
Hey Arnold!
Dexter's Lab
Samurai Jack
Road Rovers (the cartoon about Coalition dog boys from Rifts, more or less)
Angry Beavers
CatDog

Quote from: NomadicThe more you inject the harder it gets to deal with the side effects (either some sort of increasing DC or stacking penalties which wear off over time; I'm not familiar with the system you're using unfortunately so I couldn't say exactly).

Right, I was thinking of a simple system to that effect. Some sort of a custom metric for addiction. DungeonWorld is one of the new, "indie", rules-light games; but it is, in fact, a game that encourages and helps you to make your own rules when needed - rules like addiction.

Hellote! I'm running a solo DungeonWorld game for my favorite player this week, and one thing I want to include as a major theme in the game is gritty magic. Not quite low-magic, because every session will likely feature at least one magical thing, but I'd like the magic to be frightening, risky, and edgy.

One idea I had to show this was by making healing potions into dangerous intravenous drugs. Here's what I've got so far, and although it's pretty cool, it seems a bit cliche or crass. What do you think?

Healing Solution

• Made from a bioluminescent, toxic mushroom called a "corpselight."
• Graveyard Flora: Mushroom grows only in the presence of deceased sentient creatures (humans, elves).
• Undeath: Large clusters of the mushroom cause the dead to rise as mindless, hungry zombies if allowed to grow unchecked for weeks.
• Making the Solution: If harvested, can be carefully distilled into an expensive, non-toxic luminescent solution which acts a healing potion, bolsters flesh against decay and rot, rejuvenates dying flesh, fights infection, accelerates healing, and kills pain.
• Using the Solution: The solution can be administered orally (by drinking) or intravenously with a brass syringe and needle. The latter is most effective (halve all effects if imbibed).
• Addictive: The painkilling effect of the substance makes it physically addictive.
• Overdoses can be fatal.
• Glows in veins: The luminescence rapidly fades upon exposure to moisture (including that found in blood). Upon injection the luminescence is still visible, but soon fades.
• Blacklines: Stains user's veins black. The solution leaves a persistent black stain upon any porous substance, including flesh. Repeated use will stain the user's veins black (like a cool tattoo).
• Undeath: Users occasionally rise as the undead. Enough use of the substance can cause a build-up in the system; occasionally a spore from the original fungus can be present in the solution. Care must be taken or users may experience undeath.

Game Effects

• Restores HP
• Temporary bonus to constitution
• Immunity to pain

Very cool! As one who was not sold at "Steampunk Incas" :D, I am becoming more interested the more I read about this setting. Good stuff.

QuoteThere would also be airships/dirigibles of some design, and possibly even some form of motorized ground transportation, like a motorcycle. I can't imagine anything as large as a car coming about just based on the restrictions of living in a heavily mountainous realm, but something narrow, agile, and more maneuverable like a bike could definitely exist in my eyes.

Airships are a good call for mountain people. Between narrow winding trails, tall cliffs, and deep ravines, travel by ground would be a nightmare. Going by air (or by some sort of gondola-like cable-suspended trolley system, a sort of 'train in the sky') would be the easiest way.

I agree with SA. Reason comes second, conflict (which is essential for a good story, and is a generator of fun and interest) comes first. Figure out what you and your players would find fun or interesting, and then make that happen. It's the best way to make a game fun and interesting. That can create illogical situations that don't seem reasonable, but that happens in reality all the time, right? Unreasonable and bizarre situations are part of life, and are usually the result of unconsidered factors. If one of my players is an insane Marvel fan who loves Dr. Doom, I'm going to do what it takes to put him front and center.

If neither me nor my players particularly cares which way it goes, I let a die roll decide. Maybe roll a d6 for each villain, whoever gets higher wins. I might give Dr. Doom a bonus to the roll, because I consider him the more likely victor or just because I like him.

Quote from: GhostmanOrcs in Lord of the Rings don't seem to be struggling. They probably couldn't care less what humans elves and dwarves think about them; it's not like they need to...I find it interesting that people seem so quick to cast orcs in the role of the oppressed minority, when to me, they seem to be far better fit as the oppressive majority.

That's a good point, and also makes for a good setting or story. The orcs in LotR are employed by Sauron as thieves and murderers, and ostensibly they find that employment to be to their liking (although I am reminded of the scene in the cartoon where Sauron's orcs and Sauron's humans crossed paths and fought for supremacy - was that in the books? Because that's the same shit I'm talking about).

I suppose the setting I envision, wherein orcs are part of an oppressed minority, the real caricature is the racist human jerk. I just assume that there will always be a kind of human who finds differences in other sentient peers as a reason to treat them like crap. That's definitely not the best or only way to portray humanity; it's just what I usually do and what you see in games like Shadowrun.

In any case, this thread has been severely derailed; maybe it should be split into another thread about racism and non-human races in RPGs? Maybe even three threads: one about Orcs/Greenskins, another about Racism in RPGs, and another about whether or not to use non-humans in an RPG at all (because that comes up often). Is thread splitting something we do in the CBG?

To address again the preachy and condescending tone I fear might be present in my previous post, let me say it's also true that I have trouble envisioning a world where orcs wouldn't struggle with racism. As a resident and worker of the south-side of Chicago, racism is something I encounter and fight against on a near-daily basis. When something is part of a daily struggle for you and your social group, excluding it from the shared narrative is more disconcerting than including it.

I can respect a gamer and their game if it's run in another fashion.

I've never intended to nor have I seen orcs used as an allegory to any specific real-world racism. Okay, here's where I get preachy. If you don't want to read about me standing up on my soap-box, skip the spoiler.
[spoiler]I, personally, just can't get away from the idea that orcs can experience racism just like humans. Orcs are not an allegory for african people, native americans, or any other group of humans who have suffered from racism; they're orcs. They're not exactly human, but they're practically the same. They're alive and they make choices just like people.

I can't believe in an entire species that inherently does wrong. It can happen in an RPG setting, of course, and those settings can be great; it's just something I can't wrap my head around. To me, orcs are alive, and living things make choices, and those choices determine how they deserve to be treated in a just world.

To a guy like me, giving orcs a chance is not about challenging my friends with edgy slam-gamemastering about racism; it's just a fact of any world I imagine. There's no such thing as an evil living thing; there are only living things which make choices that cause others to view them as evil.

I'm not recommending the use of orcs as an allegory for real-world racism; orcs are often an example of fantasy-setting racism. If you persecute and attack a sentient living thing because of their appearance and not because of their actions, that's racist. If the orc didn't do anything wrong, he shouldn't punished or harmed. Assuming that an orc did wrong and deserves to be harmed on the sole basis that he's an orc is racist.

Unless, of course, the setting assumes that orcs are completely inherently evil (although I'd always be dubious of the method by which this is determined). In that case they don't get the same benefit of the doubt that most other living things do.
[/spoiler]
The short version is that orcs need not be an allegory for real racism; if they're truly inherently evil, like a demon, than it's okay to behead them on sight. However, if they're not inherently evil, and one orc gets hacked and/or slashed for what some other orc did, that's racist.

Quote from: PolycarpPersonally, I just don't feel that "orcs are people too" is meaningful in the present cultural moment.

I can see it as being an overused convention, but it's still relevant. Have you ever heard an American refer to a resident of Iraq as a "Hadji"? Dehumanization isn't a 20th century problem, is a human problem.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon
I get more and more uncomfortable the more orcs are used to explore issues of racism.

You gotta do what you feel comfortable with, for certain; but: http://badgods.com/view/orc/

One thing I appreciate about your specific design, Fortunato, is that it's similar to what actual ancient humans would have done to represent such ideas. Part of the fun of such a representation is trying to figure it out, and having it explained to you by a wizened old sage.

I depict orcs/orks the same way criminals or mobsters are often depicted in movies. They're thuggish, crude, and sort of stupid; they're fun to interact with, having wacky accents, colloquialisms, and conventions, but being stupid thugs, nobody feels *too bad* about seeing bad things happen to them. After all, live by the sword, die by the sword, all that stuff. If they didn't want to catch an arrow to the neck, they'd have stayed home and farmed.

That said, I don't make them automatic "bad guys," I just make them a disenfranchised race that struggles against bigotry. If an elf walks into a town to sell his hand-crafted wares, he'll probably be welcome. If an ork tries the same thing, he might catch a crossbow bolt to the gut for his trouble. It's not very different from real-world racism. Most orcs, rather than supplicate and beg for acceptance from people who cruelly discriminate against them, would take the low road and become the tormentors rather than the victims. It's up to the players how they want to deal with that. As such, orcs and human bandits are often found in the same roles, although human bandits would rarely fraternize with the orcs; after all, they may be bandits and criminals, but they're not Savages!

Also see Shadowrun's portrayal of orcs; that's the game that most informed my outlook on the green-skinned menace.

Quote from: FortunatoIt's just as friend Computer has always said, "Happiness is mandatory, are you happy?"

I am happy, Friend computer, because I have discovered the identity of a communist traitor who I'd like to recommend for immediate termination!

Will I run a Halloween game? Probably not, but I made one years ago I'd love to run.

Penny Dreadfuls: Daughters of Rán, is a Savage Worlds one-shot I wrote in which the players choose from pregenerated monster detectives working for the British Empire, solving mysteries in the late 19th century. Characters included:

• A civil-war veteran American Confederate Vampire. Illiterate, erudite, and careless, like a Mark Twain character.
  
• A medical doctor-turned lycanthrope, very Bruce Banner/Hulk-like. The character included a system in which transformation into the beast incurred "corruption points"; too many points and the player loses control for the rest of the scene.
  
• An ancient Egyptian mummy resurrected by the Royal Geographical Society and made a celebrity by newspapers and novels. His background as a great leader, a Pharoh, made him very persuasive and charismatic.
  
• A Frankenstein monster created by Napoleon's Empire as a prototype for a new solider to serve the French Emperor. Dim-witted but strong, Napoleon hadn't the heart to send him into battle, and instead kept him as a personal servant. Devastated at the death of Emperor, one of the character's prized possessions is a small doll of Napoleon which he refers to as his "bon ami".

All together the group would be part of the Office of Esoteric Services, specifically what the men jovially refer to as Department PD, which is short for penny dreadfuls, the cheap comics which predicted such horrible monsters would walk the streets of London.

They'd go around beating up German spies and Cockney thugs, discovering Mignola-esque conspiracies to resurrect ancient monsters, and use an equal mix of science, violence, and pluck to save the Empire. Written and intended to be like a Gen-Con game, fast and easy to jump into.

Wish I could have thought of a female character, but I've always drawn a blank for that... maybe a female Ichtyosapien arose from the cold depths? Then again, I guess any of the characters could plausibly be female.

Quote from: XeviatSo almost 1% of the population can cast spells. What are the ramifications of this? Will disease have been wiped out (Remove Disease is a 3rd level spell to Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Adepts, and Paladins can do it on a weekly basis; it's also a free spell to cast; there are about 40 people who can cast it at least once per day)? Also, it seems, with those percentages, not everyone with an Int of 12 goes out and becomes a Wizard (or even not everyone with an Int of 10 picks up a cantrip feat), so obviously something else limits one's ability to learn magic; heck, not everyone with a Cha of 12 becomes a Bard or Sorcerer ..

I would take into account the nature of people as evidenced in the real world. The ability to magically remove disease is an incredible boon and therefore a resource; there always seem to be, throughout history, certain people that make it their business to control and leverage resources. Unless there were some "humanoiditarian", not-for-profit organizations doing charity healing, I imagine that spellcasters would be employed by the ruling class as a means to generate income. I mean, how much would you pay to remove any disease? Especially a debilitating, disfiguring, or fatal one? That's a cash cow.

NOTE: Edits/additions are in italics. Lofty ideas need some editing, neh?