cyberopossumgames

[cyberopossumgames]

One of the bigger reasons I think "trad RPGs versus storygames" is a false dichotomy is that this sort of categorisation – whether external or self-applied – tells you nothing in particular about how much a game actually cares about narrative-as-such.

The trick is that games in the former category which care about the game's story are usually coming at it from the angle that interpreting the outputs of the game's rules is what produces its story, while the latter often think of the game's story as this pre-existing thing, toward which the rules' primary obligation is to refrain from interfering (hence all those awkward disclaimers about how "story comes first").

The upshot of this difference in opinion regarding where a game's story comes from is that many self-labelled trad RPGs end up thinking deeply about what player-facing behavioural incentives their rules expose, and if the players respond to these incentives, what narrative this produces, while many self-labelled storygames have never moved beyond 1990s "roleplaying XP" style incentive frameworks which attempt to bypass the game's own mechanical procedures of play and directly bribe players into playing the game "correctly".

This is not, of course, to say that there aren't self-identified storygames which think deeply about the narrative structures implied by their rules' player-facing incentives, or that there aren't self-identified trad RPGs which try to simply bludgeon players into the "correct" narrative with extrinsic rewards and punishments, but which of those labels has been applied reveals nothing at all about which of these approaches a given game actually adopts.

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If there was one thing I could retroactively erase from existence in the entire history of the tabletop RPG medium it would be the concept of using "perception checks" or "investigation rolls" or any similar mechanics in dungeon-crawling RPGs to determine if the PCs can see a detail in their environment.

"A DC 15 Perception roll is required to see..." "A DC 20 Investigation roll will reveal..." no. Shut up. If the thing is in plain sight or can be perceived with the senses by simply existing in this space and taking a look around then the PCs are perceiving it and describing it to the players is part of your role because you are their source of sensory information about the in-game world.

And if it's not in plain sight or deliberately concealed in some way then they simply DON'T perceive it but can reveal it by narratively interacting with their environment until one of their actions undoes whatever's concealing it, not rolling a die to see if they can Perceive Hard Enough to reveal it.

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'Dragonflight', by Anne McCaffrey, 1973 (Gino D'Achille)

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Vegepygmies with their dog-creature, or "thorny" (Erol Otus, AD&D module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, TSR, 1980)

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Not sure how the OSR/ Zero Edition Dungeons & Dragons fans and Tumblr crossover, but here goes.

There is an infectious misunderstanding regarding how OD&D deserts work, and I believe it’s because Gygax and Arneson were terrible at communicating their creative intentions without editors.

As you can see, there are twelve entries in the Random Encounter table for Deserts, 1-6 being the sort of encounters you might expect, with nomads, wizards, and even Islamic Dervishes, apparently. It’s where the (Martian) encounters come in that people get confused.

Because Zero Edition’s flavor tastes the most of Sword and Sorcery, and even Sword and Planet, out of all (“official”) D&D editions, and the foreword insists you must be familiar with Conan, John Carter of Mars, etc., and these encounters include Tharks and other Martians of Barsoom, the common assumption I’ve seen among Zero Edition scholars is that this is meant to be an optional rule where you can basically turn your deserts into Mars!

This is not the case. RAW in Zero Edition, your deserts are not Mars.

Let’s scroll down a page to other random encounters:

As we can see here, we are provided with random encounter tables that are explicitly optional- it is optional to turn your swamps and mountains into Lost World type havens of prehistoric life, and your forests into fae realms of Greek myth.

What you may also notice is that the Martian-Desert encounter tables are not listed as optional at all. They are mandatory. And yet, the Mars part of the table is in parenthesis. Why?

I do not claim to have access to Gygax and Arnesons’ ghosts (and forced them to get along for an interview together), but I think I have an idea.

This bad boy was published by TSR in 1974, the same year as the Brown Books. You probably don’t hear about it as much because of how tragically low the number of Barsoom fans are, and because the Burroughs estate hammered down hard on TSR, harder than Tolkien’s. Any future references to Barsoom in D&D were eliminated.

Here are the random encounter tables from this book:

Something we notice is that these tables are ALL d6 tables, and that they lack the most common environment in Barsoom- deserts! What gives?!

Wait a minute…

There are only 6 (Mars) encounters provided in Zero Edition! Could it have been TSR’s intention that you cross reference this encounter table with their Barsoom setting book?

It wouldn’t be the first time early TSR would do something like this. Recall that in the Brown Books, they constantly reference the combat system of Chainmail, but never reexplain it in case 13 year old Timmy who never played that game in his life picked up the cool dragon book. Of course, they go into more detail explaining the alternative combat system based on d20 rolls, and that since has become the favorite core combat system of Dungeons & Dragons.

So that’s it? My deserts aren’t Barsoom and Gygax and Arneson couldn’t just tell me that themselves? Yes, but don’t weep yet my friend, because I’ve made an inference from the fact we have the Barsoom supplements at all, and because of the optional Arid Plains table.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom series is about a man named John Carter, a veteran of the American Civil War, who is magically transported to Mars, referred to by the natives as Barsoom, its lower gravity granting him superior strength and dexterity, including very high jumps. He randomly encounters monsters, makes allies with the big green men he encounters, and marries a princess after helping her city state win a war with its rival. Classic sword and planet/ sorcery stuff.

This series is highly important to the genre of fantasy and science fiction. Superman was directly inspired by John Carter’s physical feats, Star Wars’s plot of rescuing a princess from an evil space empire is ripped right from A Princess of Mars, and Avatar is literally just a knock off of John Carter of Mars. It’s no wonder Gygax and Arneson wanted to pay it homage in their game.

I think it’s more than homage though. Gygax NEVER wanted to introduce an official setting for D&D, only ever alluding to his home Greyhawk campaign early on; he figured people would be more interested in making their own worlds. But he provided maps for Barsoom.

If we look back at the optional Arid Plains, it’s full of Barsoomian animals, even Tharks, those angry Green men who love John Carter, whom they call “Virginia”. As John Carter himself was first teleported to Barsoom from a cave in a plain, we have to ask ourselves: does this imply that this arid plain is in fact a gateway to and from Barsoom?

So don’t cry because your desert isn’t the realm of Dejah Thoris and Tara Tarkas. Gygax and Arneson had a really shitty way of explaining it, but you have the option of making an arid plain in your world a connection to John Carter’s world, just like how you have the option of making your forests something out of Homer, or your mountains like Journey To The Center of The Earth. And that’s magical.

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human x demon realm au

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the sexual market with iconic shooter protags is surprisingly slim. you cant fuck duke cuz he doesnt get any action. you cant fuck doomguy cuz he doesnt know what sex is. you cant fuck master chief cuz they neutered him. you cant fuck samus cuz shes out of your league

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something i keep experiencing

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Some Temerities from my sketchbook

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I haven't even read @bowelfly's big post of wuxia films yet but this is one of those poster and title combinations where the movie could be terrible or there could even be no movie at all and you still feel like you need whatever this is advertising to you or you'll die

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classy weevil

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~ Helmet of Gladiator.

Date: A.D. 1st century

Medium: Bronze

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The Sorcerer

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The many faces of the demonic world.

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robot girl bouncing on it but it keeps making the connect/disconnect jingle and it's really distracting

[cyberopossumgames]

The evil part of my brain has demanded I change the setting of my ttrpg from "dark fantasy and everything sucks" to a "what if dune's setting was written for a story about cool action and adventure instead of political intrigue and other smart person stuff"-esque sword and planet thing. And so I did.