From Whence Did This Come?

There are few ways for PCs to suddenly end up with magic items, chiefly the Sun and Key cards from the Deck of Many Things, as well as Wishes.

On occasion, magic items come from watery tarts.

Between my game world's lazy magic and my desire for interesting lives for the PCs through unintended consequences, I came up with this short table to determine who most recently laid claim to the shiny new magic item now magically appearing in PC hands - if only to have a rough idea of what, if anything, will be coming to take it back.  

So a table for recovery team is due, as well.

1. A ruler: local, regional, continental, world.  Friendly, Neutral, or Enemy to PCs.

2. An adventurer: local, regional, world-known, planar; paladin, wizard, cleric, bard

3. A monster: dragon, manticore, beholder, sphinx, rakshasa, giant clan

4. A tomb: recent (1-100 years), old (100-400 years), ancient (401+ years); vampire, mummy lord, lich, ghost

5. A temple: the PC's faith, the PC cleric's faith, an outlawed faith, a cult, opposing faith of PC, allied faith of PC

6. A private citizen: merchant, noble (landless and/or nonruling), guild, other organization

Recovery Team

1. Professional adventurers: lower level than PC, same level as PC, high level than PC

2. Bounty Hunters: any number of single and mixed groups that are as likely to work together as against one another.

3. Personal Guards: professionals of the PC's level, under a competent leader (and trusted henchman) of higher than PC level.

4. Otherworldly Minions: fiend, invisible stalker, celestial, or something in-between

5. Monstrous Minions: gargoyles, humanoid war party, lycanthropes, living spell (bigby's hand, most likely).

6. The Owner Themselves: alone or with retinue

It goes without saying that most, if not all, such items gained through magic are unique, so are easily scryed and perhaps recognized.  With that in mind, how will the PCs react when the Wish spell brings them a weapon they not only can use, but need for their current quest - a weapon that the PCs recognize as the Sword of the King's Champion?  

Building Skara Brae

Being generally behind the power-curve, yet now having this blog to spur me creatively, I have started populating Skara Brae with a variety of people, places, and perhaps, plots.    This, plus a few weeks off leave me with an end-of-year project.

Island, Richard Wright, 2012

For many NPCs, I hope for the players to take advantage of the 'I know a guy' rule, but failing that, some standard sorts and types are necessary to fill in the spaces.  If nothing else, Garth and Roscoe will be around.

Happily, I recently purchased the d30 Sandbox Companion from New Big Dragon Games and I want to use it alongside my hard copies of Midkemia's Cities, Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, Atlas Games' Crime and Punishment, and Mystic Eye Games' Foul Locales: Urban Blight and Behind the Gates.  In addition are the pdfs of all the Catalyst Citybooks, to go with my hardcopy of Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker and Atlas Games' Backdrops.

This is all in addition to several fantasy city books of varying sizes, in both print and pdf (Hollowfaust is hands down my favorite): The Town of Kalas, the Citystate of the Invincible Overlord, Bluffside, Liberty from the City Quarters Series (a shame they never finished it), Waterdeep: City of Splendors, Raven's Bluff, Lankhmar, Mithril, Minas Tirith, Laketown, Freeport, Marchion, and the Free City of Greyhawk, among others.

City of Shadows, Tom Wanerstrand, 1993

Despite all of these resources (and more), I have yet to sit down and hammer out most details of my own Skara Brae.

No longer. 

A city map, if only for a rough visual overview, will be a necessity.  While in the end, I might just use a published map, I feel compelled to at least try and draw out a city on my own.  Inkarnate lends itself to this, as does a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.  But it doesn't need to be the first step.

And it certainly won't be in this post.

All I really know is that Skara Brae is a port city located in a temperate climate.  

Dipping into the earlier-mentioned sources, I know that my city will include:

From the various Catalyst citybooks: Diamond Spider Tavern (I), The Grey Minstrel Inn (I), Skywhite's House of Lavation (I), Larkspur the Leech (I), Kolat's Emporium of Miracles (I), the House of Thelesha Moonscry (I), Bron Arvo's Armory (I), Blades by Tor (I), Trueshaft's Bowyery (I), Red Earth Leatherworks (I), Crunge's Clocktower (I), the Temple of Putrexia (I), Palace of Peaceful Repose (I), the Brass Orchid Tavern (II), the Longtooth Lounge (II), the Gateway (II), the Everpresent Journeywind (II), Ew's Wood and Bone Works (II), the Customs House (II), the Temple of Aroshnavaraparta (II), the Blue Light Gang (II), Artemus the Lucky Sea Captain (II), the Singing Frog Sanctuary (III), Karig the Stalker (III), the Bloodmoon School (III),  the Well of Justice (III),  the Undercity (III), the House of Infinite Dreams (III), Domdaniel's Gate (III), the Bottomless Keg (V), Amarathine's Rest (VI), Greenhargon's Museum (VI), the Reliquarium (VI), the Lost Inn (VI), the Gloriana Theater (VI), Cidryn's Aerial Palladium (VI), Exeter's Antiques Emporium (VI), Feats of Clay (VI), Jasmine's Fine Jewelry (VI), and maybe more, but my eyes hurt from skim-reading.

Of course, names will be changed, but the personalities, maps, and hooks can drive an entire campaign's worth of adventures, without ever leaving the city - so then again, maybe I need to watch how just how much I add or expose to the players. Having a solid depth of names and places allows for an easy(ish) rumor table; Citybook III even has a 'rumor price construction table' on p21 that boils down to how much a person's appearance gets them charged for rumors, but it can be easily ported to other charges.

As the series name suggests, Foul Locales are small set pieces of a sinister nature, which I can connect to the megadungeon and feed through the rumor table.  There are quite a few options I look forward to sprinkling through the city's wards.  Backdrops provides the same, with a less sinister bent.  Between these books, I have adventure-ready locations and scenarios.

I am not a fan of magic item stores, certainly not one-stop-shops, like Wal-Marts for mages.  Instead, in my world, there are item brokers that can both find items for interested parties, as well as gladly take unwanted items off PC hands. Ideally, some such brokers are revealed through players using the I Know a Guy houserule. The chief brokers are the Favarro family, but there are a variety of others that specialize in various types of items:  

Kargreave the Armorer (p23), Dallo the Clothier (p31), Blaatchep the Cursemonger (p38), Berlow the Healer (p47), Renaida the Jeweler (p52), Zebulon (p59), Blind Bartolomeus the Fence (p70), Zyle the Transporter (p81), Arlon the Armsman (p87), and Eliaz the Necromancer (p102) from GURPS Magic Items I.  

Wat Oakenson the Ranger (p12), Nangres Thornbeard the Armorer (p20), Tuneful Loquinon the Bard (p27), Hieronymous Bibliophilus the Bookseller (p34), Madame Fleuria d'Estille the Socialite (p43), Poponax the Vile Clown (p51), Lazy Nambo the Somnambulent (p58), Lianril Healthgiver (p67), Theron the Hierophant (p72), Somber Thul the Gaunt (p79), Lalonica the Huntress (p82), Holdarion the Sage (p88),  Loughlin Keymaker the Locksmith (p94), Old Friedrich the Puppeteer  (p99), Journeymaster Warnow the Wanderer (p106), Krolt the Swordsmith (p112), and Archimagus Ulrikh (p120) from GURPS Magic Items II.  

Knowing these sorts of brokers are in Skara Brae helps dictates the city quarters, or wards, as there will assuredly be more than four themed areas.  Just reading through the names makes me realize that Skara Brae will have at least a few humanoids dwelling among the mostly human population.  I'm looking forward to my final city.  

 

That Wasn't Supposed to Happen!

There is an adage in fiction writing, about how every solution should be the start (or aggravation) of one or more other problems for the protagonist.

This is also a key takeaway from the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - every solution is another beginning of a new problem for regular folks like you and I.

Or a challenge, depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you might be. 

Now, some folks may be worried that this isn't realistic, or that it is somehow unfair for the PCs to be able to rest on their laurels and reap the rewards of their heroics (or homicidal tendencies or both).

Given that DnD, and other RPGs, are all about pretending to be other people with more ... interesting ... lives, this adage works for these games as well.  After all, challenges and misfortunes propel adventurers into additional adventures, which is what defines their job descriptions, so it works.

Nobody wants to roleplay this game.  Will McLean, AD&D DMG, 1979.

There are several ways to approach or address this method of DMing, highlighted here:

Embrace the pillar of improv known as 'yes, and...' and adding this phrase to your DMing toolkit will serve well in demonstrating how player choices impact the world.

Monkeypawing (from here) wishes is perhaps the most commonly seen form of this advice, and as such, is often ridiculed as being 'adversarial DMing.'  Yet it isn't, or shouldn't be - unless the wish comes from some sort of fiendish or other ill-natured source, and then the PC (and player!) should know better.

My wife's favorite idiom, 'The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions' applies to the do-gooding PCs out saving the world, rescuing the helpless, and generally making life better for those less fortunate.  Don't let this stop you (or PCs) from doing Good and Right things, just be aware that the next rule will rear its head, more often than not.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is an economic theory that also applies to everything else that humans (and the other races/species commonly encountered in RPGs) do, to include doing nothing, but especially actions committed and words spoken in the heat of the moment.

I first learned the acronym TANSTAAFL from Robert A. Heinlein's Notebooks of Lazarus Long (a character that is not exactly an immortal, just quite long-lived).  It turns out that this is another economics theory (based around opportunity costs) that pertains to all other human (and other) activities.  

Will McLean, AD&D DMG 1979

All this talk of economics has me thinking of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand and how it might rival the various Bigby's Hand spells, given how it impacts the local economies.

Then again, instead of a spell, perhaps the Invisible Hand might be better as a monster of some sort.

Just not the kind of Invisible Hand that fudges dice rolls.

What is your favorite game-related unintended consequence?