• What’s necessary for combat in Oracle

    In previous instalments of Fixing the Fifth Age, I pondered which form the Oracle would take, and conjured a very different Action Resolution system. In this one, I will be disgruntled regarding combat, because for me, combat shouldn’t be special in a story about dramatic fantasy heroes. It’s not tactical, it’s a reflection of the heroes conflicts and psychological states as much as anything. 

    I don’t like combat being unique. Does Oracle need to make combat special? I don’t think Fifth Age does, it just makes it feel like 2nd Edition. So I have to make a choice: 

    1. Don’t develop combat rules, utilise the action resolution system, and simply add in an armour and a damage rule to leverage combat through that system.
    2. Develop combat rules that make the combat feel weighty and heroic, like a superhero movie.

    The first is easy, although it could use a polish:

    • A PC has wounds equal to the cards in their hand, a foe has wounds listed in their stat block.
    • PCs or foes have armour. Armour is expendable (“1 Armour”), but also has special conditions (“Negates all damage from arrows”, or “Absorbs all magic attacks to increase armour by 1”) in addition to any expense.
    • When a PC suffers a wound, they ‘tap’ a card face-up on the table. It can still be played, and any card replacing it is tapped as well.
    • When a PC’s hand is entirely tapped, they are defeated. Defeat can mean disabled, taken hostage, killed, or retreated. This is a negotiation between the players based on context, but death can never be forced on a PC.
    • A PC can heroically sacrifice their life in combat during any action, in exchange for a significant success. While the goal is agreed upon by all players prior to the sacrifice, the nature of the success will be interpreted by the GM through an interpretative draw (of a nature to be determined later, when I write more interpretive Oracle rules).

    The second…doesn’t feel like it suits the original game’s goals or the rules of Oracle developed thus far. Reading through Fifth Age, you can see what the authors think is important: Surprise, moving between Ranges, heroes Attack, enemies Counterattack, Wounds (in damage points), Armour (directly decrease damage points), Death Spiral (wounds decrease hand size), and Death (if you’re attacked after you’ve lost your last cards, you die). 

    The major issues I can identify:

    • Range is boring. Heroes who wield bows or guns still fight at close range.
    • Armour is boring. Heroes dodge, parry and brace shields.
    • Death Spirals are not fun for Heroes. Hand size corresponding to experience level corresponding to resistance to attack is neat, but it’s not fun that a hero becomes less effective as they are wounded.
    • Heroes only die in a blaze of glory.

    Honestly, I can see a fun little tactical system in the corrections to these major issues, but I’ve been sitting on these for days and I can’t see a solution that wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb in the context of the design so far.

    Next, I think we’ll dive into the GM section, and think about position, effect, consequences, and how to interpret the cards to assist decision making. I’ll take a break next week to read something a little denser then come back to this in a fortnight.

    What do you think about this very simplified combat system? Sufficient, or insufficient for combat to feel heroic? If it’s lacking, what is it lacking? What do you think should reside in the Heroic Sacrifice Oracle draw? Are you interested in me developing out this Oracle Tactical System that is floating around in response to this analysis, but doesn’t fit the Oracle that is forming? Comment and let me know!

    9th February 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

  • Oath Souls

    So, lots of talk about Dark Souls lately. This is my Dismal Combat Game, unplaytested. Released under CC BY license: Do what you want with it so long as you say “Based on Oath Souls by Idle Cartulary at playfulvoid.game.blog.” I hope you hack it, fix it, enjoy it.

    You are honorable souls are struggling to fulfil your oaths in a world that they barely remember.

    The GM is a decaying world and the furious and despairing creatures in it.

    Build the world recklessly together. It is dark and terrible and full of horror. Light inevitably fades.

    When in combat, battle foes to the death. Between battles, wander the world seeking desperately to fulfil your oaths.

    Your Soul

    Your name is grim or terse.

    Your honour calls you to fufil two conflicting oaths. Record them.

    You have but six memories. Write a sentence or a three line poem for each of them.

    Stance and Health

    Your Stance (SP) is 5 and your Health (HP) is 5. When your HP is reduced to 0, you die. When your SP is reduced to 0, you’re susceptible to a Death Blow. SP can be increased to greater than 5.

    Initiative

    Each opponent puts three tokens of a unique colour into a bag: A potent attack, a quick attack, and a move. As tokens are pulled at random, it is that opponent’s turn.

    When your token is pulled, choose to set it aside or play it immediately.

    When you set aside a token, you can play it before any other pulls a token, or it is played when you are attacked.

    When you are attacked, you must play a token set aside, and you substitute a quick attack for a parry, a potent attack for a block, or a dodge for a move.

    The turn finishes when all either all have acted or all remaining tokens have been set aside. Draw again.

    Arena

    The arena is 10 x 10 squares. Any terrain within the arena should be dangerous or useful, and should occur only once.

    Intimate weapons can attack only if foes are in the same space. Melee weapons can attack only if foes are in an adjacent space. Long weapons can attack only if foes are two spaces away. Ranged weapons can attack only if foes are more than two spaces away.

    If you take the move action, you can advance or retreat one space. You can substitute any attack action for a move action.

    Weapons

    A weapon can make a quick or potent attack. Potent attacks cause 2 damage and quick attacks cause 1 damage.

    Example Weapons:

    Dagger. Intimate. Quick. Potent against unaware opponents.

    Glaive. Long. Slow. Perilous Sweep.

    Bear Hug. Melee. Slow. Perilous Grab.

    Soul Arrow. Ranged. Quick. Deplete.

    Weapons have features:

    • Range is the band they operate in (intimate, melee, long or ranged)
    • Slow weapons limit the weirder to only one attack token per initiative round.
    • Quick Weapons get a free attack if a foe dodges within range.
    • Potency or ineffectiveness grants +1 or -1 damage in those cases.
    • Depleting weapons roll 1d6 when used use it. On a 1, you cannot use it again until you rest.
    • Heavy weapons take two inventory slots, but have a bonus special effect.
    • Unique actions are described with brevity. Be consistent in your world.
    • Spells are found imbued into items, so are effectively a weapon.

    There can be many other weapons. Imagine them yourself.

    Perilous Attacks

    Certain weapons have perilous attacks. They cause 3 damage to HP unless countered. If they are countered, you are vulnerable to attack.

    There are three perilous attacks:

    • Grab: Until the attacker takes their next action, the target cannot change band.
    • Thrust: An opponent one band further away than your range is attacked.
    • Sweep: All opponents within a band are attacked.

    Avoiding Attacks

    You can always block your enemies attacks, but risk consequence. Roll 1d6. On 1-2, the weapon or shield you block with, breaks and cannot be used until repaired. On 3-5, you take damage to SP. On 6, you take no damage.

    If you parry an enemies attack, heal SP by the parried damage.

    If you dodge, but a foe with a quick weapon can take a free attack if you are within range.

    If you counter a perilous attack, cause 2 damage to SP. Your token is wasted if your opponent does not use a perilous attack.

    If you wear armour, you do not take damage to HP the first time you are hit, but after that your armour is disabled until you rest.

    Death Blow

    When your SP is reduced to 0, any attack will kill you. This is called a Death Blow.

    Death

    Each time you die, roll 1d6. If you roll under your remaining memories, you rise again, and choose a memory that you forget. If you roll over your remaining memories, your soul is lost. When you die, have two health points and choose how teo distribute them between your HP and SP.

    When you die, your shade travels invisibly with your companions. When all your allies have died you rise with them at the last place you rested together. When your allies rest, you rise again as the dying sun rises.

    Rest

    When you rest, things that need repair are repaired, and HP and SP reset back to their base values.

    Inventory

    You have five slots for armament. Armour, shield, and all weapons including spells take up one slot. Heavy weapons take up two slots.

    You have five slots for other items. Empty slots can contain anything interesting and relevant to your character’s memories. Decide when it becomes relevant.

    Non-combat Actions

    When you want to do something not everyone can do, refer to your memories. If a memory would suggest you could do it, you succeed if it is straight forward.

    If a memory would suggest you could do it, but it places you or others at risk, roll 1d6. If you roll equal to or above the number of your memories remaining, you succeed.

    Running the Game

    Spit cryptic sentences between bloody lips. Answer with laughter or despair. Never straight answers or monologues.

    Reward victory with unique items, that have unique stories. When you write a story for an item, always have one thing in common with another story. Weave a grand narrative with the rewards you hand out, because the world itself is decaying and hopeless.

    Reward failure with clues on how to succeed next time. Show through violence and description, not through speech or explication.

    Balance is for fools. Surprise, trick, murder.

    You play the world, but it is not yours. When souls are faced with a challenge, and they choose to seek a weapon that kills memories, riddle them what decrepit tower or dark pit it is hidden in and let them find it if they defeat it’s guardian.

    Foes

    Make foes weird. Invent descriptions that must be overcome through collaborative world building.

    Phases each have their own attacks. When a foe dies, enter their next phase.

    Foes have three initiative tokens, or as many initiative tokens as the Souls do. They are all interchangeably attack or move.

    Name. Cryptic description. Move X. SP X. HP X. Armour description. Phase X: Attack X, Attack X+1. Loot.

    Skeleton Warrior. Bodies bereft of souls, remembering enough to spur violence, flesh dripping like rags from their bones. Move 1. SP 3. HP 7. Scimitar (Melee, 2 Damage). Perilous Thrust. Whirling Attack (Advance 2, Area of Effect 1, 1 Damage). Will rise again if slain with a non-divine weapon.

    Cannon Bearer. Scarred and trembling, cassettes of black powder on their belts. Move 1. SP 2. HP 8. Cannon (Melee, Slow, 1 Damage). Canon (Ranged, Slow, Heavy, Push 2, 2 Damage). When killed explodes Area of Effect 1).

    Undying Ape with Giant Swords. White and scarred, mouth burnt, swords like trees, blazing eyes. Phase 1: Move 2 (Leap). SP 10. HP20. Perilous Sweep. Perilous Grab. Swords (Long, Quick, 1 Damage). Charge (Advance 5, 3 Damage). Phase 2: Headless, moves like a centipede. Move 5. SP 5, HP 15. Perilous grab. Swipe (Push 3, 2 Damage). Roar (Area of Effect 2, Push Away 1, 1 Damage).

    Aggregated Memory Slug: Bloated, luminous, hungry. Move 1. Size 3. SP 0, HP 30. Crush (Move sideways 3, 2 Damage to all in path). Vomit (Ranged, Quick, Potent against Flesh, 1 Damage). Eat (Slow, all wielded weapons and armour broken. Spat out with 1 damage).

    There are many other foes. Imagine them.

  • The fractal dungeon

    For real, this is how I prepare places and people, often while play goes on, on scratch paper.

    “Dungeons and Dragons, but there are ONLY Dungeons and Dragons. Every place is some variety of Dungeon. Every creature is some variety of Dragon.”

    The Fractal Dungeon is my version of the the five-room dungeon (1), but I’ve largely scrapped the granularity of the original version. Instead, I have a [first] Impression and around four Features. The key thing is that these rooms need three things each: Description, hook, and twist. I try to keep them to a sentence each.

    For the town of Valley Quay (I’ve been running a gender-bent Loft of Ravens for the past six months), the town is the first ‘layer’ of the fractal and my ‘rooms’ are the most important places and people in the town. I won’t write the whole town, but rather an example of an Impression:

    The Gate

    Description: A pale rictus grin with dull eyes is revealed through a hatch in a claustrophobic and mouldy gate.

    Hook: Guards annotate and sketch your weapons, indicating attendance to festivals is mandatory.

    Twist: Captain Claw has a bargain with Lady Danbury to trade unique weaponry for information; Burgomaster Vallison thinks it’s to track violence.

    And an example of a Feature:

    Winking Raven Inn 

    One of two older gentlemen welcome you to a warm space where a rangy bard sings unusual ballads and two children under ten bring sweet-smelling stew and mulled wine to customers.

    Wynn the Barkeep knows and tells secrets to lead heroes to their goal; Danyeel shushes him with a frown.

    Wynn and Danyeel are shapeshifting spies allied against the Devil; they know everything about the people of Valley Key and nothing about upcoming dooms.

    Now, we fractal Winking Raven if it becomes more important into Entry and four or so Features. We’ve already written the Impression, so we just need the rooms, each with their own description, hook and secret:

    Zeno Vallison’s Room

    Do not disturb hangs on the door. Musty and unkempt. Tomes are stacked high beside a makeshift desk, thick with dust. A white cat feeds from a bowl on the floor.

    Zeno’s notes and books focus on demonology and breaking trapping curses. A locket hangs by the bed with a picture of Eleanor Danbury, Lady Danbury’s daughter.

    Eleanor was body-swapped with the white cat when Zeno attempted to escape Valley Key. The Eleanor kept isolated in Danbury Tower is isolated because Danbury believes she was driven insane by Zeno.

    Combine this with Zeno’s presence in a Taproom feature, and multiply it by four, we have a solid tavern. And it’s probably important to note that I’ve written it out more than I would have for myself. Mine would be more like this:

    Zeno’s Room. Do not disturb. Tome with the face of a demon caps a stack concealed by dust. White cat. Locket of Eleanor Danbury, body swapped with cat. Body is in Danbury Tower. Danbury thinks Zeno drove Eleanor insane.

    Conjured from nothing, in the margins, as it were. Which means the entire Winking Raven is five paragraphs, each paragraph an adventure.

    Anyway, I think it’s a neat way to write locations. What do you think? Comment and subscribe! Next I’ll write a little more about the Everyone’s a Dragon method of characterisation that I use for similar, keep it simple stupid reasons. I mentioned it in Challenge of the Week #1.

    1 I can’t find the original blog post for the five-room dungeon, actually, or I’d link to it.

  • Resolving acts in Oracle

    Previously we focused on the Oracle system, what we can use it for, what potential it has, and then we put a pin in it and decided to finish later after we have a better sense for what the rest of the system looks like.

    Let’s begin with the action resolution system. The system as it stands:

    1. Player declares the action or GM declares an action is required (equivalent to a save).
    2. GM names relevant ability.
    3. GM chooses difficulty score and doesn’t tell the Players.
    4. Player selects a card (for opposed actions, GM chooses a value to oppose)
    5. If Player Card + Ability is greater than Difficulty + Opposition Value, Success.

    The major issues I can identify:

    • Doesn’t leverage the Oracle very well. This procedure might as well just have dice.
    • The difficulty score not being shared negates the ability for negotiation around position and effect, which compromises the heroic feel the game is going for.
    • Failure does not introduce excitement. It’s a ‘No.’, not a ‘Yes, and…’
    • Difficulty scores are boring. I know, I know, that’s a personal preference not a major issue.

    My goals then:

    • Leverage the Oracle
    • Negotiation around position and effect
    • Failure results in a ‘Yes, and…’

    To achieve this, I’ll define some terms:

    • Skill Level: Each Action has a Skill Level, and they are Unskilled (o), Skilled (1), Expert (2) or Master (3). If you are Unskilled you have Disadvantage, if you are not, you have 1, 2 or 3 Advantages respectively.
    • Disadvantage: When you choose a card from your hand, draw a card from the deck in addition to it and play the lowest card.
    • Advantage: When you choose a card from your hand, draw a card from the deck in addition to it for each advantage you have and choose which one to play.
    • Trump: The suit of a card matches the suit of the Action being used. If two Trump cards oppose, neither count as Trump.
    • Playing Cards: After a card is played or drawn, it is discarded and a new card is drawn from the deck to replace it.

    The Procedure:

    1. Declaration:Declare your goal and propose an Action. The GM should negotiate and explain logical consequences of using that Action to achieve that Goal.“I want to use Wreck to wedge the door open, so that I can hear the conversation.” “If you use Wreck, they’ll probably hear you regardless of how careful you are, and the door won’t be able to be closed again. If you use Tinker instead to listen at the keyhole using a makeshift ear horn, the door won’t be damage and they won’t be able to hear you, but you mightn’t get the information you want.”
    2. The Play: Choose a card from your hand (and any additional cards according to your Skill Level), and play one (and only one) of these cards onto the table.
    3. The Draw:The GM draws a card from the deck and places it on the table. If your position is desperate, they have Advantage. If your position is controlled, they have Disadvantage.
    4. Compare:
      • If the Play beats the Draw and the Play is Trump, you succeed without consequence.
      • If the Play beats the Draw, you achieve your goal and suffer a consequence.
      • If the Play beats the Draw and the Draw is Trump, you succeed but your effect is reduced or you suffer an additional consequence.
      • If The Play does not beat the Draw, you do not succeed and suffer a consequence.
      • If the Play does not beat the Draw and the Draw is Trump, you do not succeed, and you suffer a additional or more severe consequence.
    5. The GM describes what happens in line with your negotiation. 

    This achieves my goals: Negotiation is present, mixed success turns failure into ‘Yes, and…’, Trump tying into consequences directly and effecting both Play and Draw is very neat and couldn’t be done with dice (as elegantly, at least). Difficulty on the GM side being Advantage and Disadvantage is a neat re-use of a mechanic and symmetrical in a way I like.

    We can leverage the Oracle further by adding to our final implementation of it a clear indication (or an interpretative technique) that can use the Draw to help improvise the nature of Consequences. We’ll have to look at that when we come back to the Oracle.

    Trump, Advantage and Disadvantage are levers that can be pulled by spells, special abilities and for more powerful foes, if we’re in need of levers down the line.

    Ok, we’ll put a pin in that, and see what else comes up down the line. Next we’ll move into Combat and see how we can reduce the pointless complexity of combat in Fifth Age into something more pointed, simple and heroic. This might also require a diversion into the GM section of Effect, Position and Consequences, I’m not sure yet. I’ll take a break next week, though, to review and talk about Spire, taking a similar approach to it as I took to Troika, looking at it’s anti-text, mecha-text, canon-text and layout to see what I could learn from it to apply to Infinite Hack and Gaoltown.

    What do you think about these quick development of an action resolution system? Is it interesting enough to want to act? Does it balance randomness and tactical choices sufficiently for interest? Does it take advantage of the Oracle in a way that justifies the lack of dice? Would you change anything, or have I forgotten anything? Comment below!

    27th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

  • Any rainboblin

    This is the first Challenge of the Week. The rest will be paid subscriber only, and this one serves as a taster for what will serve as tiny morsels of character, encounter or game design.

    Challenges (1) are meant to be easy to read and to scale easily. Consider Luke Gearings tweet:

    “i used to care a lot about each class and monster having mechanical differentiation now i spend like 4 hours making 6 1HD monsters with AC as Leather and Damage as Sword”

    For challenges, I want even less. I don’t need or want all of threats, conditions, effects and triggers. We want the minimum to describe the challenge and to provide a launching pad for roleplay. The parts of a challenge aren’t necessary, they’re tools to cover our options.

    A rainboboblin is a mook, and they should be weak and easy to defeat alone, but as a group unique interesting and varied.

    any rainboblin

    small and pale, ragged clothes, broad hat concealing chromatic hair, crooked wand hip-holstered

    prismatic pistolet: will it be flame, concussion, lightning chain, acid contagion, frozen, or bone-jellifying?

    cowardly but persistent, true believer in the Caged Dragon, follower of the great Prismot

    That’s any rainboblin. Not bigger than a Ludicrous Compendium entry (and, as intended, you could easily use an LC entry as a challenge). What makes our individual rainboblin unique is how the vary.

    I can change a line to do this, adding a mien to any rainboblin:

    true believer in the Caged Dragon, follower of the great Prismot: cowardly but persistent, jealous evangelist, grovelling snitch, incongruously proud

    Or, I can sketch out a personality for the rainboblin

    Samyul, the Rainboblin

    dogged evangelist, dragging handcart of idols and prayers, protect them at all costs

    bitter and vengeful and full of spite, masked in grins and kindness and colourful pastries as a mask

    This little personality sketch, by the way, is my the Dragon technique of sketching personalities: Everyone in a fantasy world is a dragon: They have an obsession, a horde, a weakness, a mask and a true self. There are a bunch of techniques for sketching personalities, but I find this one evocative.

    There! Our first challenge, despite the fact that I’ve decided to tear Infinite Hack from the seams. Thoughts and comments?! Is this something valuable to you as a paid subscriber, or should I make all future challenges free?

    1 To recap, a challenge consists some number of:

    • Threats that oppose the heroes
    • Conditions that prevent, punish, or encourage certain courses of action
    • Effects that impacts the heroes’ choices
    • Triggers for new challenges, consequences or conditions

    A short description, context, history, mien, character traits, or whatever else you choose might be included as well.

  • Dancing around the rules

    This week, I’m going to read all eight Anti-Sisyphus zines by Jared Sinclair (1).

    Disclaimers: I like and respect Sinclair and considered him a friend, although our interactions have been limited since he departed Twitter. We engaged around AS and the philosophy of roleplaying a lot in good faith. My discussions with Sinclair informed a lot of my approaches to writing, best exemplified in Ludicrous Compendium and Blow Up Hamlet, two of my best works. Ludicrous Compendium #3 was released through Spear Witch. I shall venture forth regardless of my biases, also saying that you should probably buy these zines and read along because, as they are designed to be played, this may not make sense without them.

    It appears I understood AS largely through conversation with Sinclair and a few other friends, rather than through successfully reading them. I have trouble with attention, and until recently wasn’t medicated, and as I read through AS for this post, I realised that I recall reading AS3 and AS4 clearly, though not the others. My memory isn’t what it used to be, or at least as far as I remember it. This then, despite previous beliefs, could be considered my first read of AS as a whole.

    In the foreword to AS1, Sinclair presents a thesis that he then attempts to develop in each proceeding issue. In AS1 he is concerned that the procedures in our games do little to facilitate meaning, despite the ‘universal human desire’ to find meaning in story. Any meaning, Sinclair says, is imported by us, smuggled through the space between the rules, rather than being provided through procedures by the designer. By providing procedures for an activity, we render it meaningless, and so procedures are best chosen for unimportant activities.

    I’m not convinced by the argument developed by the rules included in AS1 (2). My immediate thought is to look beyond TRPGS: Monopoly. Monopoly is a game where meaning lies largely in long-held house rules, previous experiences and trauma, long-held feuds and relationship. Monopoly sucks, but it is such a vacuous game that it holds meaning well.

    I don’t think AS2 provides a stronger argument either, however, a pattern begins to emerge more strongly regarding what Sinclair believes creates “inducement to meaning” at this point in the development of his thesis: Vagueness. So, ‘The Buying and Selling of Goods’ and ‘The Tracking of Light Sources’ of AS1 fail because they are certain, elegant subsystems. You know when they occur, you know how to modify them. They have depth and clear aims. ‘Dice Pool Skills’ and ‘Treacherous Weather’, however are vague: ‘and so on.’, they say, ‘based on their class/background’, ‘appropriate tools’, ‘especially dangerous weather’, ‘stands until the GM decides’. The vagueness in these two tools feel like the “vacuum into which meaning flows” Sinclair seeks in AS1. To a degree AS2 asks the question, if unclear rules provide inducement to meaning, then are clear rules more, or less meaningful?

    […] we can listen to our dungeons and the dreams they have together [..]they are perfect already, and full of the terrible things we gave them. (3)

    In AS3, Sinclair goes farther afield. The rules here are planted deeply and directly in the surreal. For me, the seed of anti-text is not just present in AS3, but blooming. It takes AS2’s question and applies it even more directly, and in my opinion this further proves that by placing vacuities into procedures, they become more meaningful. 

    Sinclair continues in this direction from here: AS4 is an adventure, where there is nothing to interact with but rumours and an imagination. Here, it seem to me that Sinclair’s sense of where his proof lies has moved away from procedures – “often those things that are least interesting about [the game]” as he says in AS1, and instead anti-text is in full bloom (4): Enigmatic (not just vague) rules and lore that may or may not be true, and may or may not be written in the text at all.

    AS5 is a case for Game Masters turning over their sovereignty to their players, and lays out a kind of hierarchy of agency that speaks to the primacy of the players that create the meaning, and by implication the insignificant of the procedures which are simply channels through which players to induce meaning. It is the most didactic issue; maybe for that reason I feel it is not the strongest in the sequence, despite it’s relevance, particularly looking forward to AS8.

    The eight procedures of AS6 are the most enigmatic yet. Even the foreword is a poem attributed to a anachronistic Antiphon, “From behind the screen where I hid, I advance personally solely to you”. Here Sinclair might be considered his most self-indulgent, but I think his argument is to show how far text can be pushed in terms of procedure and of world-building.

    I’m not convinced that AS7 is the same step forward in strengths and development of the theses that the previous issues are. The questionnaire format brings character sheets to mind, implying to me that here Sinclair is coming to character creation as he did Adventure and System. My approach to anti-text character descriptions as you can see in Tattoopunk Antebible, is basically Sinclair’s here, so it feels less absurd than intended? But regardless, while Sinclair is famed for a shitpost on Twitter, this is the first issue of AS where the content veered towards that, largely because it’s so game-designer centric.

    AS8 is clearly Sinclair’s conclusion to the AS thesis. It is, for the first time, an entire game, in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, in one page. It hails back to AS1’s original thesis, departing from the anti-text direction he has taken since AS3, and instead providing an example of what a full anti-Sisyphean procedure would look like. Opening with intentionally mundane OSR (5) procedures, I think to emphasise that they are the least interesting part of the game, Sinclair sets the scene for ‘Playing the Game’, which nihilates all resource management in all environments, and does not further define either resources or environment. This takes the familiar structure, and turns it completely on it’s head. Without internalising AS5 and 7, I suspect it’s unplayable. Leaning on the system will result in no play. Allowing play to flow around environments and resources will result in play. AS8 is a solid conclusion to AS, brings it full circle back to AS1 in a satisfying way. As Sinclair says in the foreword to AS8: “invent the rest: a past that lives only in the spaces between neurons, a future that is blank.“

    Having finished Anti-Sisyphus, I’m satisfied with Sinclair’s thesis, and it was fascinating watching it develop in different directions, back tracking and re-forming arguments over six months and eight issues. It’s also fascinating to see how much impact it’s had on my philosophy, reflected in the principles I laid out earlier this month in Four Challenges. I think re-reading it right now provides me more guidance regarding system development than I remember it providing when it was first released.

    There are, however, gaps that I can’t see are addressed (perhaps intentionally). On face value, it seems Sinclair would prefer a a blank page; however that is clearly not the case. Procedures are a necessary channel, but how do they channel, How do you choose your procedures? Is it relevant? Chosen procedures often imply what the author regards as important or implicit (see Four Challenges), so what is the interaction between saliences and vacuous procedures? This could be paraphrased as ‘Do all rules nihilate, or just some?’ This relationship feels worthy of discussion to me, and if the conclusion is ‘just some’, why? And how?.

    I cannot discuss Esoteric (a salient consideration worth reading and considering in this context), but instead consider the Invitation, a lyric game that is largely procedure (technically) but is also aggressively enigmatic and collaborative. Is the shallow bowl mundane, or the instruction, Does it simply create space for meaning? Do we fill all rituals with meaning by and disregard their procedures? Are lyric games anti-text brought to bear on our own psyches? My feeling is yes, but it’s something unaddressed by these zines despite abutting against it.

    Finally, consider Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e. With rules covering every contingency, is this text the best example of inducement to meaning? Sinclair could have developed this argument based on AS1: If everything is procedure, a game is all vacuum through which meaning flows. If this us the case, are D&D players truly playing unintentional homebrew or simply creating meaning in a way more obvious than in games with less vacuity?

    I don’t know the answers to these questions, but they seem worth answering. What are your thoughts regarding Anti-Sisyphus? Have you read them? Do we agree with our conclusions? Did I misunderstand anything in your opinion? Would it be valuable to continue this series by reading Anti-Gorgias as well? Let me know in the comments. 

    18th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

    1 Anti-Sisyphus #1 is shortened to AS1, #2 to AS2, etc.

    2 Probably because Sinclair is good at game design, and so these procedures are interesting, and my designer’s mind cannot divorce from the meaning that is supposed to flow around it.

    3 Honestly I’m truncating these quotes because AS is so brief I fear quoting everything Sinclair writes, but also occasionally he says things in a way that doesn’t benefit from paraphrase.

    4 My gut feeling regarding why AS4 is such a success is because in the type of game Sinclair is referencing, the adventure or module is the game, and the rules are largely immaterial and interchangeable. Sinclair accidentally took aim against the wrong target, and has finally found.

    5 I know I’m not supposed to use the term, but seriously look at these procedures you know what I mean.

  • Challenges!

    In the current draft of Infinite Hack, a challenge is what any encounter is called, be it social, combat, environmental, or fluid. It has a rough framework to it, and is designed to be very flexible in the way it’s presented.

    A challenge consists some number of:

    • Threats that oppose the heroes
    • Conditions that prevent, punish, or encourage certain courses of action
    • Effects that impacts the heroes’ choices
    • Triggers for new challenges, consequences or conditions

    In addition, a short description and context that helps place the challenge in the narrative. If a challenge consists some people, it might have details on their characters included.

    Within the game, repercussions and goals for a challenge are set during play by the players, and how to succeed is set by narrative position and so won’t be addressed in anything I write here.

    I’m looking to to test out the viability of some of these anti-canon procedures I’m developing for Infinite Hack and to see if this challenge framework is able to be pushed as far in strange directions as I hope it can be.

    So, I’m going to start working towards posting a challenge each weekend, if I can. I hope you enjoy them and can implement the ideas into your play as well!

    15th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

  • The Oracle

    Recently I tweetstormed through Dragonlance: The Fifth Age, a ‘Dramatic Adventure Game’ from the AD&D 2e era. I found a lot of mistrust in its audience and a lot of legacy pulled across from 2e that weighed down a system with a lot of potential. I thought it might be interesting to redesign it here, with commentary. First up, a tension: Do I reproduce the system and ‘fix’ the problems, or do I design something inspired by the system? I think I’ll explore both and weigh my feelings.

    To begin with: There is nothing about this system that merits or scaffolds the Dragonlance themes or setting specifically. So I’m going to go generic fantasy. Let’s call it Oracle, because it revolves around this custom deck of 82 oracle cards. Baseline assumptions: Not tactical combat, GMs, PCs, an Oracle Deck instead of dice. If what I come up with is interesting and solid enough, I’ll refine it, polish it a little and release it for free as a system reference document with a Creative Commons license.

    The Oracle is 8 suits of 9 cards, and 1 suit of 10, each with a colour palette, an associated character and and associated moon. So a card might be “Lord Knight of the Dark Serpents, Five of Swords, Crimson Blue, White Moon Rising”, which is a HUGE amount of interpretive information at your fingertips. 

    With nine suits, we can make our characters more specific if they correspond with skills and not generic abilities. As an interim solution, I’m going to throw some FiTD actions into here for now:

    1. Hammers – Wreck
    2. Swords – Skirmish
    3. Anvils – Tinker
    4. Wands – Finesse
    5. Eyes – Survey 
    6. Moons – Prowl
    7. Hearts – Sway
    8. Crowns – Command
    9. Dragons – Attune

    For a colour scheme, relating it to the six emotions of the emotional colour wheel gives us the opportunity to bring specific emotional content to the deck if we choose. This gives us six colours, and thirty emotions to play with, with 21 ‘remaining cards’ cards that I’m sure we can fill from a thesaurus or another emotion wheel. This gives us a flexible way to improvise reactions, demeanours, natures, or relationships.

    For the astrology scheme, using it to differentiate positive, uncertain and negative is useful, but a five way differentiation would give us degree: enthusiastic, positive, uncertain, negative and hostile. My favourite option: Simplified moon phases – new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, and full. That way, if we included waxing and waning, we could have a system that allows five or eight phases, as we choose to interpret it, and a little weight if we need it (full and new occur less than crescent, quarter and gibbous). 

    I’ll put a pin in that then we’ll come back to creating it once we’ve seen what we need from the rest of the system. Next week I’m re-reading and reviewing the Anti-Sisyphus zines by Jared Sinclair, and after that, we’ll look at action resolution.

    How do you feel about Oracle decks as basis for TRPG systems? Have I chosen useful categories or sufficient ones? Are there better ways to utilise the categories than I’ve considered? I’d also like to know if this is content that’s interesting, and if you’d like me to continue this series more often than fortnightly? Please suggest, comment or post any thoughts in the comments, or tag me on Twitter!

    14th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

  • The four challenges of the anti-canon system

    Troika! (1), in my opinion, is an example of movement towards the theoretical anti-canon system. It feels in memory like it is more or less mech-text free. I suspect – intentionally or not – that I have similar goals in writing Infinite Hack to what Daniel Sell had in writing Troika. This post is going to be a review through my recently invented lenses of canon-text, mech-text, and anti-text, hoping to gain insight into the challenges a system that avoids canon-text, minimises mech-text, and maximises anti-text might face.

    I open the beautiful front cover and ugh! A wall of meaningless numbers overwhelms me. The Damage Table. I understand the point, here: Troika uses only one set of dice, so for diverse effects and damages, a table is required. One type of dice is adds simplicity. Diverse effects adds interest. But for me, in practice, the wall of numbers accompanied by asterisks and daggers is overwhelming. I have found my first challenge: Specific rules impede understanding.

    The second thing I see: A spell randomiser that doubles as an index. If I want A Thousand Thousand Islands the system, indexes are walls of words similar to walls of numbers. The blank space in A Thousand Thousand Islands and in Ludicrous Compendium are meaningful in my opinion. They are text, void-text if you well: Speech that states: Only you can fill this space. The second challenge of the anti-canon system: Focusing on text usability can impede textual void.

    To me, the one page introduction to Troika, describing both RPGs and Troika’s setting in under a page, powerfully communicates the the infinite variety and possibility available to players. It does this through minimising any definition of either role-playing games or of Troika the city or the adventures to be had in it or embarking from it. Troika here rises to a third challenge, where in my opinion it did not the first two: Over-defining lore impedes possibility.

    Character generation in Troika appears as simple as choosing a background. As much time is devoted to making your own background as to explaining them. No mech-text on advancement and otherwise mech-text is limited to single numbers with uncertain meaning assigned to advanced skills and spells. More importantly, this section effectively opens the game with a pitch to the non-GM players:

    Notice that [backgrounds] only touch the edge of specificity: it is up to you to tailor them to the worlds you play in. Rework them or remove them entirely and replace them with your own unique vision of the Spheres. Boldly lay claim to the games you play, create content recklessly, and always write in pen.

    Indicating that in fact, character generation is not as simple as choosing a background, but rather a constant and active engagement of reckless collaboration. This prompts a re-phrasing of the third challenge: Any defined lore or rule can impede the reckless approach to creation.

    The Rules, which are next, are about 14 pages in total (2), half of which are devoted to combat. The mech-text isn’t too heavy, but is clumsy in a way that makes it feel heavier than it is. That clumsiness (mainly around combat, henchmen and encumbrance) implies that combat will be half your play time and that a significant portion of the rest of your time will be treasure-hunting (3). This prompts a modification of the first challenge: Specific rulings impede understanding and reveal intent.

    For me, with a background in AD&D 2E and it’s Complete Handbooks, through 3.5E and 5E, rather than earlier editions or Advanced Fighting Fantasy, there is more to learn in Troika’s advancement rule, which amounts to ‘skills you succeed at get better’. Because of my assumed (4) different background in terms of playstyle, I value advancement significantly more than many authors interested in traditional fantasy roleplaying. To me, opportunities for lonely play and interesting character options evolving with mechanical prompting and support are meaningful. But Troika avoids this. Why? I think one implication is that advancement is expected to be diagetic and not mechanical (5). But also because if backgrounds all have unique mechanics with novel advancement options, it adds a significant mech-textual load. Troika’s decision not to do this confirms our first challenge: Specific rules impede understanding and reveal intent.

    The bulk of Troika are lists of Backgrounds, Advanced Skills, Items, Spells and Enemies. The lists in Troika range from perfect examples of anti-text to utter wastes of space. Backgrounds are universally spectacular, particularly when they leverage Advanced Skills as anti-text; the Advanced Skills section itself however is full of largely pointless definitions and rules, with occasional anti-text like “Test this to navigate between the stars on a ship with golden mirror sails”. The potential is there, but the third challenge is again confirmed: Any defined lore or rule can impede the reckless approach to creation.

    Items are either anti-text in title (why is an energy weapon a pistolet?) or in content (“whisper a secret to a pocket and throw it away for luck”). Between their Mien tables and their descriptions, most every enemy is anti-text, even the few that are rote, like dragons. Spells are simply evocative, as is the OOPS! Table in the back cover spread, with a few examples of anti-text. The spells in Troika prompt a fourth challenge: Anti-text is not only evocative, but both evocative and cryptic.

    The Blancmange and Thistle is an introductory adventure included with Troika. It’s full of exciting and interesting, unique opportunities, and very evocative and anti-textual of the city of Troika. But the formatting (small caps bold, small caps, italics, and bold italics all having different meanings) is distracting and that formatting is hidden in novel-like paragraphs of text. There are about 10 encounters and 10 characters all of whom are detailed and interesting and all of which I would struggle to apply at the table without studying first for as long as it would take to run. A confirmation to the second challenge, then: Focusing on text usability can impede textual void.

    I think this Troika review yields fruit. Four (preliminary) principles to challenge my approach to anti-canon systems, each of which, I think, stand on their own, and all of which might be applicable to my development of Infinite Hack:

    1. Specific rules impede understanding and reveal intent.
    2. Focusing on text usability can impede textual void.
    3. Any defined lore or rule can impede the reckless approach to creation. 
    4. Anti-text is not only evocative, but both evocative and cryptic.

    Questions for readers: How do you feel about these principles? Are they useful for someone other than me? Are there other systems like Troika that take anti-canon approaches to traditional categories that I could look at next, to see if the principles hold or need revision? Does this line of thought raise any tangents worth exploring, that I missed?

    8th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary

    1 For the sake of simplified punctuation, I’m going to leave the exclamation mark out of Troika! for the rest of this post.

    2 I’m taking into account odd paragraphs here and there throughout the lists in my count.

    3 I’m aware that this is reflective of specific traditional modes of play. It’s just not interesting to me in that context, just in the context of Troika supporting these modes of play without ever speaking of them. It reveals a tension between Troika’s stated intention and it’s legacy.

    4 I say assumed because Planescape and Spelljammer, which appear to be inspirations for the world of Troika, were not particularly enamoured of traditional modes of play. So the tension is further interesting because of that.

    5 Tying back into the above sub-discussion about specific traditional modes of play.

  • Canon is not for the idle

    I struggle with traditionally written roleplaying game settings and adventures. They feel like university textbooks, full of hidden salient points unclearly flagged, information not directly relevant to the examination at hand, an opportunity for the writer to flex their literary muscles rather than for me to be provided tools to experience the world or invite my friends to experience it.

    Then there are the numbers. Pages of ACs and HDs, like a samurai sudoku hidden in a full page search. Overwhelming for me! There is poetry, no doubt, hidden between the numbers — at least in the best written of them — but I cannot auger these mysteries.

    It’s physically overwhelming. I open the book and my brain screams out in I Can’t Deal.

    A big chunk of OSR-adjacent mutuals talk about the concept of anti-canon, notably Luka Rejec (Ultraviolet Grasslands) and Zedeck Siew (A Thousand, Thousand Islands). Rejec writes that his anticanon formed from play at Wizard Thief Fighter:

    One part the bricolage of found modules, another our ideas as players (including my refereeing self as a player), a third the random play of dice and tables.

    And became this in the practice of creating Ultraviolet Grasslands.

    […] games that revolve around the dynamic interaction of players and referees and texts, and where the world is a unique and ephemeral creation that appears for a moment in the collective imagination of the group, before dissipating again, falling to the subconscious to fertilize new ideas, new worlds, new stories […]

    So, how does this take shape in Ultraviolet Grasslands, which I’m unabashedly a fan of? To talk about that, I need to separate out three things: The first two are what I complained about being overwhelming for me in the first two paragraphs. I’ll call these canon-text and mech-text (short for mechanics-texts). These are the things I find hard to process, albeit for different reasons. Luka doesn’t name his solution, but I’ll call it anti-text because I think that’s funny. It’s text that may or may not be true in the game world, but rather serves as seed for spontaneous collaborative worldbuilding.

    The anti-text of Ultraviolet Grasslands is a glorious garden, full of remarkably coloured fruit and vegetables the likes of which I haven’t seen, weird and wonderful and flavourful, and every time I flick through it I’m excited to choose with my friends what dish to cook with it. But what struck me as I read through it is that SeaCat – Luka’s heartbreaker system – saturates the book, draws me out of it, and clogs the text up for me with mech-text that is a significant barrer to running it. That said, it was the first play-text I’d read that was a step in the right direction. One hurdle down, one to go.

    Let’s digress and talk about Troika!. You’ve probably heard of it. Troika has rules, as most roleplaying games do, but Troika! is remarkable to me because a Troika! supplement doesn’t feel to me like it has mechanics, even when it does. A creature stat block is 4 numbers, a mien and a description. Pretty minimal. A character background is simply a description, a few possessions and some skills that are not from a list and can run the gamut from mundane to absurd. Because of this, it’s become a favourite for a specific (and significant) portion of the community. Troika’s mech-text, while extant, fades into the background when it comes to playing the game itself. Most of the Troika Numinous Edition is anti-text, with mech-text cunningly hidden as single numbers amongst it. Troika is evidence to me that a game can exist that has mech-text but that doesn’t overwhelm me with numbers and rules. Troika isn’t a game to be studied in the sense that you must sit an exam to play.

    Ok, back to anti-canon. So, after the half-revelation and half-disappointment that was Ultraviolet Grasslands (don’t get me wrong, I still adore everything Luka creates and Wizard Thief Fighter is a something I read as it’s published), the next text I found inspiration in was A Thousand Thousand Islands. This series of zines by Zedeck Siew and Munkao (Munkao, the artist, genuinely deserves equal footing in the project that is A Thousand Thousand Islands), is truly systemless, and in a way that I find inspiring, lacks instruction in how to use it. You simply read it, and sense how to use it. It is sparse, allowing for notes on how it evolves, and it is inspired by the mythology of south east Asia, and so is unique in many of it’s anti-text approaches. It is simply there, if you wish. It is genius. I didn’t read it before I wrote Ludicrous Compendium(and it predates it by about three years), but Ludicrous Compendium was a similar approach, with minimising instruction and maximising space.

    So, for me, I have before me two challenges: I want more game-texts like A Thousand Thousand Islands. Anti-canon, settings the lie in gaps, voids at their heart. I want to write them, bring them into existence. Reach of the Roach God, A Thousand Thousand Island’s first full-sized book, raised almost $150 000 on Kickstarter. I am not alone. But also, I want more game-texts like Troika. Troika is a unique setting: It’s eclectic and gonzo in a way that is reminiscent of the AD&D 2e settings of Spelljammer and Planescape – both things that I adore. But my heart lies in the traditional, heroic, low-magic sword-and-sorcery settings of AD&D 2e. I adored Dragonlance as a child, dabbled in Forgotten Realms novels. Troika doesn’t want to be those things. And I wish that Troika had less numbers, if that is at all possible.

    My anti canon, my playful voids, people are reaching for them, breaking ground, but I must write them myself. I must write them myself because I want to run a game with no mech-text if I play as a GM, I want to play in a game with as little mech-text as possible whilst maintaining complexity and interest if playing as a character.

    That is my goal. This was a long-winded way to talk about how canon, as much as it can be beautiful, as much as it takes skill and loving care and attention to detail, is not for me, and not because I’m lazy or don’t care, but because it canon and mechanics are a barrier to play for me, and they are barriers I want to innovate and eliminate from my play if I can.

    6th January 2022,

    Idle Cartulary.

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Threshold of Evil – Dungeon Regular

Dungeon Regular is a show about modules, adventures and dungeons. I’m Nova, also known as Idle Cartulary and I’m reading through Dungeon magazine, one module at a time, picking a few favourite things in that adventure module, and talking about them. On this episode I talk about Threshold of Evil, in Issue #10, March 1988! You can find my famous Bathtub Reviews at my blog, https://playfulvoid.game.blog/, you can buy my supplements for elfgames and Mothership at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/, check out my game Advanced Fantasy Dungeons at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/advanced-fantasy-dungeons and you can support Dungeon Regular on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/idlecartulary.
  1. Threshold of Evil
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