Known World, Old World

1.    I like the combat system. This is no surprise, as it is basically the Elric! system, which is very smooth and quick to run, while at the same time retaining plenty of texture, mostly by way of a large number of 'spot rules' that handle things such as disarming or knockout blows, variable weapon length etc. Variable armour adds another dice roll when compared to most games, but it is a simple one that adds to the drama of combat, and using total hit points rather than hit locations allows for easy bookkeeping. The major wound system can provide plenty of specific and 'colourful' injuries, all the same.

2.    There are too many skills. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the 'physical' and 'perception' skills, groups of skills that, to my mind are so interrelated that skill in one should almost always accompany skill in (some of) the others. In terms of 'perception', Magic World has Insight, Listen, Sense, Search, and Track, plus other 'information' skills such as World Lore, Evaluate, etc. It is a weakness of my Refereeing style that I have a hard enough time running a game with a single 'perception' skill. If these kind of skills are going to mean anything in the game, the Referee must 'gate' important information not by player decisions but by character skill. If a PC has Sense at 90% (as was the case in our game), the Player must get the sense (ugh) that such a skill is as mechanically meaningful as having Sword at 90%. Whether a PC has Sword at 90% or 60% or 30% determines her chances of defeating the Baron's Champion. If we are going to have perception skills, the percentile rating should determine the chances of the Player being given information that will allow them to make better decisions. Oh, I know I am hashing out old territory here…

But it is not just the types of skills, but the granularity. The fact that competency in these closely related skills is not related, which leads me to…

3.    I like the way combat skills are handled (but…). In Magic World there are weapon groups, which encompass all weapons of a particular type. Skill with one weapon in a group = skill in all other weapons in that group. This skill is used for both attacks and parries. This is a nice middle ground between the extreme granularity of Chaosium RQ with skills for each individual weapon and separate parry skills, and the broad strokes 'styles' of  MRQII and RQ6 and the 'close combat / ranged combat / unarmed combat' split of OpenQuest. But then, if I’m going to enjoy this level of granularity for combat, for the sake of consistency shouldn't I accept a similar level of differentiation for 'perception skills', or for the eight (yes, 8!) physical skills? Perhaps, I should, and here you can see how my preferences waver between the granularity of Magic World and the condensed skill list of OQ.

4.    I don't like the fact that the equipment list is all out of whack. Who would. That's not a taste thing. The Bronze economy appears to make little sense. The weapon groups on the table are all over the place, but this is easily fixed by reference to the table describing what ought to be in each group. But this does cause one to lose confidence that the other numbers on the table reflect the intent of the designers. Should the STR/DEX requirements be that high? Should this weapon really do more damage than that one? Should a falchion really be that expensive? I own Elric!, and so could do a comparison, but actually, when I run Magic World again, and I shall, I will most likely dump the entire equipment section and replace it with a bespoke list, likely derived from Arms of Legend.

5.    Character creation is great! Quick and simple, but without losing the distinctive customizability of a BRP game. Players don’t simply have a pool of points to distribute as they see fit, which leads analysis paralysis as they pinch a percentage point here and there, tinkering with details that drag out character creation for little gain. Rather, they have blocks of points based on their culture and prior occupation, rather like Peter Maranci's Skill Pyramid. Players simply have to decide which of the listed occupational skills they want to be best at, which they want to be good at, and with which skills they want some competency. The, as default, limited magic helps speed up character creation, too. Which leads me to…

6.    Magic. By default, only characters with a POW of 16 or more can use magic. If Players are randomly rolling their characteristics, this means that magic using characters will be pretty rare, unless they make a grim bargain and begin trading away their other characteristics in the pursuit of magical power. I'm pretty happy with that – it matches the tone that my fantasy worlds, regardless of starting point, eventually take. And with magic as a power limited to just a handful of people it means that the assumptions of the game are roughly compatible with the assumptions behind most (D&Dish/’vanilla’) fantasy worlds.

There is only one type of magic in Magic World (barring Advanced Sorcery, or plugging in the Unknown East for Elric!, or the BRP Magic Book, or stuff from the BGB, or, or, or...). But, actually, that’s not quite true. There is only one mechanic for handling magic in Magic World. But that doesn’t stop a Referee creating a specialist spell lists for different types of magicians and magic users, changing the flavour text and so on. And it is certainly easier to do this than to grokk and incorporate the mechanically distinct magic systems in RQ6. 

This is not a review. But here’s something like the conclusion to a review: In a nutshell, the disappointments that I have with Magic World are largely a back-handed compliment; while I wanted a clean, revamped Elric!, Magic World appears a bit undercooked, perhaps because Chaosium haven’t backed the game with any great gusto. Which probably makes business sense – who wants to put too much of their resources into a competition with Legend (the $1 OGL D100 game!), RQ6 (a game of supreme polish), and OQ2 (the quickest and easiest system for running D100 fantasy, and it is OGL too!)? I don’t expect Chaosium to invest great resources into fighting a losing battle because it’ll please my idiosyncratic desires for a relatively low magic D100 game of medium crunch that uses the resistance table! But I’m glad that they let Ben Monroe resurrect the Elric! system, and hope that Magic World releases are part of the BRP catalogue for some time to come.

But update the .pdf with the errata, already!  

No animal is half so vile as Crockywock the Crocodile...

A long time ago I read a news story which reported that a drunk Australian had tried to ride a 5m long crocodile weighing 800kg. He survived, if he was a little chewed. That prompted me to set about searching the internet for pictures to put that croc into context.

And, my... 

Imagine trying to take one of these on with a sword and shield while knee deep in swamp water?

Bring hirelings!

In classic D&D (Mentzer Expert, absolutely my favourite D&D book), a Normal Crocodile is a 2HD creature, averaging at 9HP, doing 1-8 damage per bite. A Large Crocodile, which I guess encompasses the maximum size we find in the real world, is a 6HD creature, averaging at 27HP, doing 2-16 damage per bite. There is also a Giant Crocodile of explicitly prehistoric proportions, but that is beyond what we're talking about here.

A D&D Fighter, remember, will have on average slightly more HP than a monster of equivalent HD to his level - he'll likely have a bonus from Constitution, some kind of minimum HP house rule, or outright fudged dice!

In Magic World (which takes its bestiary from the RuneQuest Monsters book for the third edition of the game, rogue Fatigue Points and all!), the Small Crocodile has 23HP and does 1D10+2D6 damage per bite, while a Large Crocodile has 40HP and does 1D10+5D6 damage per bite.

A Magic World warrior will have perhaps 15HP... full stop.

Big beasts are more frightening in d100 games. But then the play-style in D&D ought be at least a little different from BRP-derived games - certainly where combat is concerned. I was going to write a long post comparing chances to hit, calculating average damage by round, and then I realised that I would end up doing something as boring as the old Monstermark articles in White Dwarf!

So I will short cut all that. I like games in which big beasts are dangerous. But big beasts in D&D *are* dangerous - though I often have to remind myself of the fundamentally abstract nature of D&D combat (and I always need to hold in check my desire for realism and granularity in D&D combat) which means that comparisons with blow-by-blow systems are not always straightforward. But for all the Crockywoks in your game, FANTASY gaming needs DRAGONS. While we shouldn't forget the terrors of 'ordinary' animals (though in a world created, deliberately, by supernatural beings, even ordinary creatures are the product of a god's violent imagination), let's have some bright, primary-coloured fantasy to mix with our realistic shades of  green and brown.

Dave Morris has provided everyone with a Christmas present; a detailed, atmospheric, Yule-themed adventure - Silent Night. If possible, I plan to run it while we're away over the holiday. 

Yippee! It's Christmas! Let's Danse.

I'll have convert it - it is written up for GURPS, with which I have zero familiarity*[1]. But to what? To Dragon Warriors? The adventure is set in Legend, after all. And that is a possibility - I actually think that Dragon Warriors is a pretty nifty system for handling gritty D&Dish games. But unless you are going to populate the PC party with a bunch of magic using characters, or exotic Assassins, mechanically the PC Knights (and maybe a Barbarian or two) will be pretty much the same. That's fine in a game where character, personality, and history emerges through play. But for this one shot - that is not so much focused on combat - it is more likely I will try to run it in a d100 system, considering OpenQuest 2e, RuneQuest 6, and Magic World. 

As attracted as I am to RQ6 - it is a wonderful, elegant iteration of d100 fantasy - the players will be my wife, brother, sister, mother, and cousin. That's Christmas for you. While they all have played RPGs before, it'll need to be straightforward pick-up-and-play. When I started to stat-up some pregenerated characters in RQ6, I realised that the character sheet would likely baffle a player being handed the sheet ten minutes before the game begins. Plus, we'd have the confusion over Special Effects, which are a breeze... once you have been involved in combat as few times. So I decided that I'd run it using OpenQuest 2e, which won out over Magic World thanks to the rationalised skill list and the greater versatility of the magic system.*[2] 

The players will have the choice of the following pregenerated characters:

I bought (.pdf, have you seen the shipping costs that Chaosium quote for transatlantic shipping?!) the new version of Magic World, which is basically a reprint of Elric! stripped of it Moorcockisms. And very nice it looks too; a clean, relatively simple d100 fantasy game. The first supplement, Advanced Sorcery, is due soon - again it is largely a reprint of Elric! material, in this case The Bronze Grimoire. 

Chaosium should note* that they are selling .pdfs of Elric! on DriveThruRPG for a couple of quid cheaper, at current exchange rates, than Magic World. And, of course, that nothing short of free is quite a cheap as Legend, which itself is basically a reprint of Mongoose RuneQuest II stripped of its Gloranthaisms. And speaking of Elric, with Legend you could run the Mongoose version of everyone's favourite albino (outside the one played by Mel Smith in The Princess Bride), as all(?) their Elric of Melnibone stuff is on DriveThruRPG for less than £10 a book...

But as Brian Butterfield would say, "that's not all". So, what do we have on the d100 fantasy scene at the moment? Well, we have OpenQuest 2e on the way (I backed the IndieGoGo campaign, and am looking forward to seeing the improvements/additions that Newt Newport has made to this system). Slightly more complex than that, we have Magic World from Chaosium. An extra level of complexity is added - mainly by virtue of its 'faction' system - by Renaissance (now available in a Deluxe form), built on OpenQuest and Legend. One level more complex again is Legend, with its Combat Action 'economy' and system of Combat Manoeuvers  And then we have the big boss of d100 fantasy gaming, RuneQuest 6, which I haven't had a chance to look at yet, though I expect it to be stunning, if I bit too much for my current tastes. 

I own OpenQuest (and soon will have a copy of 2e), Magic World, Mongoose RuneQuest II and Legend, and Renaissance (in the free SRD and hardback Clockwork and Chivalry 2e form). I also own the Basic Roleplaying 'big gold book', will probably buy RuneQuest 6 if it ever appears with a UK supplier, and have a number of out-of-print d100 fantasy systems (I particularly like my GW-produced RQ3 books). With all these extant systems, and given the fact that many of them are OGL (and those that are not appear keen to licence third parties to produce supplements), this is a vibrant, lively time for d100 fantasy gaming.

Well, if there are many other gamers are as daft as me, willing will buy umpteen different versions of d100 fantasy, of course the d100 scene is vibrant! I can't quite decide which is my favourite d100 engine for fantasy gaming (which is yours?). "No, really?", I hear you say, shocked. "I had no idea that you suffered from gamer ADHD", you gasp. However, the intercompatibility of these systems - and the nature of the d100 system itself - not only its modularity, but the simplicity and consistency of the mechanics - means that GMs can pick and choose the best bits from each of these systems. Sadly(?), between Magic World, OpenQuest, and Renaissance, there is little need for Hammerstein! as yet another d100 system. But hopefully this flowering of d100 fantasy systems will stimulate the production of d100 fantasy adventures and other supplements for use at the table. 

*Hopefully, if Chaosium did take note (though given that they don't even notice e-mails, it seems) I'd hope this would not mean an end to the sale of the classic Stormbringer/Elric! .pdfs - we wouldn't accept other kinds of books being deliberately kept out-of-print, and the resurrection of out-of-print gaming books is one of the great success stories of recent RPG history - or an increase in their price, but rather a more reasonable .pdf pricing structure at Chaosium.com.

[Extra: Of course, this is not the limit to d100 fantasy built on a BRP(ish) chassis. In the pipeline are both AEONS, built on the D100II SRD, and Classic Fantasy (originally a BRP supplement) is being rewritten as a 'Legend compatible' complete game.]

I've recently gone in on a few Indiegogo campaigns. I went in on James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess hardcover campaign, which was funded along with one stretch goal. However, by the appearences of Raggi's next campaign, he's failed his Sanity check. 19 inter-related campaigns, each needing $6,000 of funding to run, but with the perks for big pledges dependant on other campaigns being funded (i.e. pledge $20 for the print+pdf copy of the adventure = no risk // pledge $100 for the print+pdf of this adventure and up to five others = $120 of books, maximum, but very likely much less). Crazy. Nevertheless, it looks like some will fund, with Jeff Rients' Broodmother Sky Fortress currently just shy of the $6,000 mark.

Award-winning (it counts, doesn't it?) adventure designer Kelvin Green has an adventure in the crazy campaign - Horror Among Thieves. I've contributed to this campaign. And, remember, James Raggi has failed his Sanity check, so:

"Kelvin Green’s gone nuts and he’s infected LotFP Central! 

If Horror Among Thieves does NOT fund, LotFP will still be publishing the adventure. It won’t necessarily be on the same timetable as if it were to fund, but we’ll put it out. 

Anyone contributing $10+ to the campaign will get the adventure PDF, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS. Anyone contributing $20+ to the campaign will get the physical book, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS. 

That’s right, if the campaign doesn’t fund, you get your contributed money back at the close of the campaign, and you will get the stuff anyway when it’s published. (Note that if it doesn’t fund with this campaign, books will be shipped 2nd class and it does not include any of the campaign extras.) 

Spread the word. Now there really is no excuse not to fund this thing."
 

There's just 6 days to go on these campaigns.

But that's not all. Graeme Bottley, re-animator of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, has an Indiegogo campaign running, to fund not only the republication of the classic Blacksand book, but its expansion. With just a $3,000 target, and well over a month remaining, this looks like it is almost certain to meet its target. Now, I've gone for the softcover, but if you're a fan of big beautiful books, higher contribution levels might well get you something special.

And finally, the Indiegogo campaign for OpenQuest Remastered / OpenQuest 2 will go live very soon. Another campaign well worth funding.

All this is conditional on you having any money left after pre-ordering what is sure to be a (hefty) work of art - RuneQuest 6. You have just under a month...

Hammerstein! is [going to be] a d100 skills-based game. My first draft of the Hammerstein! 'Skills' chapter, obviously built on the equivalent OpenQuest and Renaissance chapters, renames 'common skills' as 'aptitudes' : "those skills in which everyone, by dint of natural capacity or commonality of human socialisation, has some ability."

Here's my first attempt to describe 'Advanced Skills':

Bandits and Farmers... might have high % skills but they're not the 'rock star' adventurers of Hammerstein!

Of course, the chapter then continues for [too] many thousands of words describing just the kind of skills that I consider are appropriate for fantasy adventure roleplaying. Lately, though, I've been thinking about collapsing these skills further still. First, Languages, Lores, and Crafts are all the same kind of thing - bodies of knowledge and capacities for action that require some specific training or experience not covered by basic human socialisation.

Second, I've been thinking of adopting the ideas that I'd been using to deal with 'advanced' combat abilities to cover 'advanced' or granulated forms of the basic aptitudes. Here's what I mean: I've always been disatisfied with the tendency in d100 games to allow a character to have 100% skill using a sword but only 20% skill using a dagger, or 80% in Influence but just 15% in Seduction (or whatever). So OpenQuest, with its collapsed skill list, really appeals (as does Legend / 'new' Runequest with its combat styles). Nevertheless, I like the individualisation and characterfulness of the differentiated skill system, as an idea, even if I don't like it in play.

So, with regard to combat I have been taking my lead from WFRP1e - most weapons are covered by the Close Combat or Ranged Combat skills, and basic unarmed combat is covered by the Unarmed Combat skill. Some weapons or advanced techniques, however, need more training. In Renaissance, these are given their own % skill rating. In Hammerstein!, these will be learned as 'proficiencies' - if you have been trained to use a polearm in combat, you can use it at your Close Combat skill %. If you have not, it is going to be Hard (-40%). As well as specialist weapons, there are also advanced techniques such as two weapon fighting - including sword and shield - and unarmed combat techniques. Most of these weapons and techniques provide those skilled in their use with options in combat that go beyond simply 'add X% points'. Learning one of these proficiencies, if not provided in the archetype, requires training and improvment rolls (two, three, more? I've not decided) and a roll against the relevant skill, with rolling under being a success - it is easier to learn new techniques the more advanced your ability in the basic skill.

I have already adopted this system to deal with literacy (related to the appropriate Language skill , but a high % does not necessarily = literacy), and the ability to swim (related to the Athletics skill). I had been musing over just where to draw the line with other skills. As with advanced combat techniques falling under the umbrella of the three combat skills, so do many advanced skills seem to be subdivisions of other aptitudes - particularly, but not limited to, Influence and specific Regional Lores. Does Hammerstein! need an Etiquette / Courtesy advanced skill, for example? I am leaning towards treating all those advanced skills for which an aptitude could be used as substitute as 'proficiences'. This allows two characters, both with Influence 80%, to have very different ways of putting the skill to use; one could have the Seduction proficiency, the other the Leadership proficiency. These would have the effect of altering the difficulty of tasks by one(?) step - i.e. a 20% bonus - for skill use in those narrow areas. This prevents skills such as Influence being an undifferentiated mixed bag, while also avoiding the sitiuation in which high Influence is for nought as advanced skills eat away at its niche, producing a skill proliferation that breaks the advancement system.
In short:

Aptititudes - everyone has got 'em, ability = %.

Languages, Lores and Crafts - skills for which an aptitude cannot act as a substitute, which need training or experience to learn, ability = %.

Proficiencies - the ability to use the above skills in specific ways, which need training or experience to learn, ability = you've either got it or you don't.

Yet more complications to a wonderfully elegant system. Why do I persist in breaking OpenQuest?

It is too easy to allow magic in D&D become bland. There is no casting roll, no consequences for magic use, and spells occur instantly (if you win the initiative roll). I did like AD&D2e's casting times and material components, but never actually used them in play. The 2e schools of magic and specialist wizards were a good idea, even if they didn't work that well [to my mind, Brendan at Untimately has a much better way of handling 'specialist' magic in D&D]. RuneQuest magic can play pretty vanilla too, especially Common Magic, though the attempt by RuneQuest to embed magic in the cultures of the fantasy world - into the very fabric of the world, in the case of Glorantha - sets it apart. WFRP1e gives you magic with material components, and promises a world in which magic is a dangerous force, but unless a character opts for the dead-ends of Necromancy or Demonology, it is actually quite a low risk pursuit. What I am attempting to do with Hammerstein! is to tinker with the OpenQuest magic systems to produce some appropriately flavourful effects. First, by way of the RuneQuest lineage, magic is easily tied to the social organisation of the world - cultures and cults, guilds and grimoires, etc. Second, while magic will be ubiquitous, most people will have little magical power - Folk Magic (Common Magic/Battle Magic in Hammerstein!) is increasingly harder to learn at higher magnitudes. It is the magic of simple charms and curses, ritualised gestures and chants, echoes of lost knowledge. Third, other, more powerful forms of magic - supernatural intercession and thaumaturgic sorcery - carry risks. Communing with the supernatural is exhausting - so we're talking Resilience tests with Fatigue and even Hit Point penalties. Understanding the magical nature or reality is mindbending - so we're talking Persistence tests with Insanity Points. Or somesuch - I've yet to decide whether to use OpenQuest's elegantly simple rules, or build something pointlessly complex on top...

It's enough to drive you mad!

Anyway, there's more to it than that. With Folk Magic, I'm adding in 'material foci'. Below, I try to explain what these are, and suggest material foci for the OpenQuest spells that I'm including in Folk Magic. Of course, players will be free to suggest that their character comes from a tradition in which object X is used to cast folk magic spell Y. But the examples will set the tone. Unfortunately, the material foci that I've come up with are boringly literal. Suggestions for other material foci are welcome. Very welcome.

[6.2.3.1] Material Foci

Casting folk magic spells usually involves the use of a material focus. These foci are as variable as the traditions through which this form of magic is passed from generation to generation. More often than not, the material focus of a spell is not consumed by its casting; it is simply a prop around which the ritual has been taught. A character casting a folk magic spell without the material focus used in the tradition he was taught does so with a Difficult (-20%) modifier to his Folk Magic skill score. Characters with very high Folk Magic skill scores are able to dispense with material foci as their mastery of the ritual is sufficient, but for the day-to-day practitioners, holy symbols, pinches of salt, feathers and the like are essential elements of magic. 

[…]

Befuddle 

A small pouch of tiles or pebbles painted or carved with letters. 

Clear Path 

An ordinary knife.  

Co-ordination 

A toy top, a feather, an accurate set of weights, or extract of monkey brains.

Countermagic 

A necklace, a bracelet, or a ring of other warding charm.  

Darkwall 

A pot of tar, a falconry hood, or a candle snuffer. 

Demoralise 

A toy mask with exaggeratedly fearful facial features or a small bag of live spiders. 

Detect (X) 

A small piece of the substance to be detected, a compass with the needle removed, or a dowsing rod. 

Dispel Magic 

A bag of salt, a pinch of which is tossed into the air when the spell is cast. 

Disruption 

A strip of leather, squeezed or pulled, as the spell is cast.

Dull Weapon

Two pebbles, ground together in the hand as the spell is cast.

Enhance (Skill)

The material foci for these spells are highly variable, ranging from trade tools to guild symbols, to material with a symbolic of mythic resonance with the skill being enhanced.

Extinguish 

An ordinary container of water.

Fanaticism 

The teeth or claws of a vicious beast.

Firearrow

A piece of amber, touched against the missile.

Fireblade 

A piece of amber, slid against the blade. 

Heal 

Heal spells are unusual in that they often do not require a material foci, though some traditions build their rituals around the use of a holy symbol.

Hinder (Skill)

The material foci for these spells are highly variable. Guild symbols are often used, though many guilds deny that they teach such magic to their members.   

Examples:

Hinder Perception – a pinch of dust blown in the direction of the target.

Hinder Trade – common material foci include counterfeit coins, rigged weights, and other symbolically fraudulent measures.

Hinder Persistence – spilling strong drink or a sedative drug onto the floor often serves as the material focus.

Ignite 

Pieces of flint or a small pouch of ashes.

Light 

This spell needs no other material foci other than the object to be illuminated. 

Mindspeech 

A small piece of paper covered in writing, which the caster swallows. 

Mobility 

A feather.

Multimissile 

Archers using this spell often use a bag of down as the material focus of this spell. Cultures that use slings often use a handful of sand. The javelin wielding tribesmen of Inner Pogotania use a small bundle of reeds. Interestingly, though these traditions reflect the missile weapons of the culture, a Pogotanian tribesman can cast Multimissile on the crossbow bolt used by a Genezian mercenary perfectly well.   

Pierce 

A steel or bone needle.

Protection 

The material foci of these spells are often simply the clothing, armour, weapon or shield of the target. The Allmeny barbarians, who eschew armour, often smear themselves in Frazetta oil when casting this spell.  

Second Sight 

The material focus of this spell is often a ring, to be looked through when casting the spell. 

Slow 

A pouch of stones or lead shot, or a jar or treacle.

Speedart 

Tools for measuring distance, such a ruler or a knotted string. 

Strength 

The knuckle bones of Trolls and other large humanoids or a mouthful of bull’s blood. In some barbarian tribes, the passage to manhood involves receiving a thick leather belt that acts as the focus of this spell.

Vigour 

Strong liquor or hot spices.

Water Breath 

Traditional material foci among the fishing villages along the Dragon’s Back include swallowing dried fish gills, while the Pearl Islanders take a small breath from a pouch made out of a swim bladder.  

Weapon Enhance

Blood from a man or woman who died in combat. Soldiers in the armies of Genezia are trained to use the gold doubloon that they received when being commissioned or conscripted.

Perhaps in order to demonstrate my gamer ADD, I'll keep posting my archetypes for Hammerstein! The purpose of these is to not only add flavour to the character creation process, but also to speed up character creation by assigning all skill points and equipment at the roll of a dice. When we recently played classic D&D - which we'll be playing even as Hammerstein! is rumbling away in the background - reminded me just how important it is that the players are able to roll up characters and have an adventure (and roll up replacement characters) in a single, short session. I'll probably post on player character mortality later this week, but as far as the last session of D&D goes, if 6 starting PCs can kill 11 goblins in a stand up fight without any fatalities, then combat isn't risky enough to be perilous. Never mind grim. And adventure without real risk may as well be a ride on a ghost train.

Anyway - Hammerstein! archetype number two (there's another 28 posts in this, sorry):

1.4.1.2Bounty Hunter

Bounty hunters make their living tracking down criminals, outlaws, and other wanted men. In the world of Hammerstein!, bounty hunters will never be out of work. Some bounty hunters specialise in tracking their targets through the underworld of the wretched cities of Hammerstein!, while others can track an escaped criminal across hundreds of leagues of twisted weirderland.

A self-written legend in his own lifetime, Canis Olahu is the most feared bounty hunter in the world of Hammerstein! Hailing from the Pearl Islands of the Boiling Sea, his leering, sun-browned face is the stuff of outlaws’ nightmares. He wears several necklaces of teeth, reputedly one from each bounty collected. His wealth means that he has no need for the petty rewards of bounty hunting, but his extraordinary vanity keeps him at the heels of wanted men, so long as fame might be the reward.

Bounty Hunter Aptitudes

Combat Skills

Brawl +20

Close Combat +30 

Ranged Combat +10 

Resistances

Dodge +30 

Resilience +20 

Common Skills

Athletics +10

Influence +20 

Insight +20 

Perception +20 

Stealth +10 

Bounty Hunter Languages, Lores, and Crafts

Craft (Track) +10

Lore (Law)

Lore (Streetwise) +10

Bounty Hunter Advanced Techniques

Combat Proficiency – Net 

Bounty Hunter Folk Magic

Bearing Witness 2

Demoralise 2

Endurance 2

Bounty Hunter Equipment

Armour: Hard Leather Jack (2pts)

Weapons: War Sword, Dagger, Crossbow

10 Quarrels

Well Worn Travelling Clothes and Riding Boots

Poor Quality Riding Horse and Tack

Face Black

Rope

3 Pairs of Leg Irons

3 Hoods and Gags

Purse (XZ silver shillings) [Poor Wealth]

[These archetypes obviously need a bit more tweaking.  For one, their starting money - XZ is not some strange numerical system found in the world of Hammerstein! In addition, as I work through the 'Thinkers', I'm thinking of cutting the levels of magic - even folk magic/cantrips - for the archetypes for whom magic is not a central aspect. So rather than every character starting with 6 points of magnitude in folk magic, as now, the base level would be 2 or 3 points of magnitude, with extra points of magnitude eating into the points that are spent on skills and so on. There also needs to be a bit of fiddling with the resistances - as I'm thinking of capping Resilience and Persistence at CONx5 and POWx5, the number of points that can be automatically allocated to these 'skills' could take some starting characters right up to, and beyond these caps.]

What with the football and the rugby, I haven't done much Hammerstein! work (much less played) during the past few weeks. Luckily, I couldn't care less about Wimbledon or the Olympics, so...

In the meantime, I'll post up a short snippet from the world of Hammerstein! This was inspired by 1) a misreading of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, 2) Torquemada and Termight from Nemesis the Warlock in 2000AD, 4) a miserable melange of real bigotry throughout history, mostly via fiction such as Q (by 'Luther Blisset', which deals with the horrors of the Reformation), and, unashamedly, Horrible Histories on CBBC, and 4) the lost opportunity in WFRP1e to make the Gods of Law  as big a threat to humanity as the Gods of Chaos (mixed in, of course, with traces of Moorcockian fantasy - I'm currently [re]reading the Elric stories in the 'ultimate fantasy' collection).

Not quite a Dyson Logos dungeon... but maybe location in a heroquest-style journey into the otherworld for PC bigots.

The Arch Bigot and the Cult of Divine Form

Opalt Kakanka is the current Arch-Bigot, head of the Cult of Divine Form. The Cult of Divine Form believes that the Gods of Law created every object in its perfect form, and that all actually existing forms are deviations from this perfection. They seek to eradicate these imperfections, beginning with the most grievous and offensive. In their eschatology, those who have been ‘true servants’ to the Gods of Law will regain their perfection at the Ordering. Being a ‘true servant’ requires good works. Which tend to involve a lot of killing.

The Cult of Divine Form is based in the Citadel of Utherland. Utherland was once a lively metropolis, and the Arch-Bigot was just one of several theological viziers to the Duke. However, the fallout from the explosive destruction of the magical Tower of Heroes allowed the Arch-Bigot to seize power. The people of Utherland suddenly found themselves on the edge of the newly formed Weirderlands, and the zeal with which the Bigots opposed the mutants and monsters won much support. The people of Utherland were perhaps not expecting the city to be razed to the ground and reorganised in a perfect geometric form, nor to the harsh laws that limit men and women to one mode of dress – a bare cassock – or one hairstyle – a bowl cut. But such is life and survival on the edge of the Weirderlands.

Cult of Divine Form
Virtues: Intolerant, Vengeful, Chaste, Suspicious 
Cult Skills: Lore (Divine Form), Insight, Perception
Folk Magic: Detect Mutant, Fanaticism, Light
Divine Magic: Call Angel, and all the common spells: Consecrate, Create Blessed Item, Dismiss Magic, Divination, Excommunicate, Exorcism, Extension, Find Mutant, Mindlink, Soul Sight, Spirit Block, Spiritual Journey.

Call Angel
Magnitude 1, Permanent, Progressive
This spell summons and binds to the service of the caster an Angel from the Courts of the Gods of Law, of a power dependant on the Magnitude of the spell.
1 = Cherub, 2 = Lawspeaker, 3 = Lawbringer, and 4 = Demon of Law (for more details on Angels see Chapter XZ Bestiary).
The Angel stays under the control of the priest until it is killed or the Call Angel spell is dispelled.
To be successfully cast, this spell requires that the priest has the means to create a channel to the Courts of the Gods of Law. The body of an executed criminal is the usual focus for this channel. Cherubs can be summoned with nothing more than the teeth of a condemned man. Summoning a Lawspeaker requires a severed hand, while a severed head is needed to call a Lawbringer. Demons of Law require that the whole body of a recently executed criminal is available as a doorway between the planes, while at higher magnitudes ever larger Demons of Law, even the Named Ones, can be called (and bound) with the use of exponentially greater numbers of the condemned.

The spell Call Angel is simply the OpenQuest Call Elemental spell reskinned ever so slightly.

Rather than simply putting up pictures of whatever I have managed to paint, I thought it a good idea to write them into my campaign as NPCs or encounters, even if the miniatures themselves won’t necessarily be used in play. I've statted them out for Hammerstein!, which is simply OpenQuest/Renaissance/Legend with a few tweaks.

Lenk the Sour is a Captain in the forces of the 2nd Centurion of the Half Clock*. 

Lenk the Sour [Brugelburg Miniature]

The 2nd Centurion is a brutal overlord. Refugees from his underpopulated Shadow can be found in Wilderhaven, living in crowded Docktown tenements. The 2nd Centurion will burn villages in reprisal for some slight, or simply to clear land for his great passions, the noble pursuits of hunting and tournament. The 2nd Shadow abounds with ruined villages and overgrown copses, providing a home for Faerie and worse. 

The 2nd Centurion has little need to maintain a population of agricultural peasants, and has even less inclination to meet his feudal obligations to them. He controls the Fort-agin-the-Moors. The Fort is a staging post for Adventurers into the Craggen Moors, and as such is home to trade in exotic pre-Cataclysm artefacts and relics, with ‘liberated’ abhuman treasure hordes inflating the prices of everything from ordinary provisions to weapons and armour. There is also a woollen mill and monthly textile market, as the luxuriously fine wool from the Ogre shepherds enters civilised lands through the Fort. 

Lenk is the 2nd Centurion’s prime thug. The 2nd Centurion despises Lenk for his crude manners and low birth, and Lenk responds with ever greater servility and renewed attempts at ingratiation. Lenk, therefore, has erased any conscience that he may once have had. He feels no doubt or remorse when he dispossess peasants, mutilates poachers, or cuts off the thumbs of militant wool workers. There is nothing Lenk will not do to his own people, if he thinks it will win favour from his ‘betters’.

Lenk is a tall, powerful man in his 40s. His small, alert eyes are set in angular features. Even as his face is mean, it takes on a pathetic cast when interacting with those of noble birth, or who otherwise hold power; from weasel-cruel to grovelling-mouse. 

Lenk the Cruel

STR: 15 CON: 14 SIZ: 15 INT: 11 POW: 8 DEX: 9 CHA: 6

Damage Modifier: +1d2


Weapons: Coward's Falchion (1d6+2, M), many daggers (1d4+1, S)

Armour: Breastplate and backplate, helmet (4 AP)

Combat Skills: Close Combat 70%, Ranged Combat 50%, Unarmed Combat 50%

Notable Skills: Athletics 60%, Dodge 50%, Influence 70%, Insight 50%, Perception 40%, Persistence 40%, Resilience 50%, Ride 40%, Stealth 30%.

Magic Points: 8

Cantrips: Demoralise (2), Ignite 2, Strength 1, Weapon Enhance 1 

Cantrip Casting: 30%

Among Lenk’s weapons is a COWARD’S FALCHION. Lenk knows that it is a powerful magical weapon, but he does not know its true nature. Forged by a sorcerer for his orc general, the brutal looking weapon has a vestigial intelligence, and seeks to be in the possession of the strongest warrior it can. When fighting an opponent with an inferior combat skill (use the opponent’s highest skill, even if it is not the one being used), the Coward’s Falchion grants a two step increase in the wielder’s Damage Modifier. This means that Lenk often has a +1d6 Damage Modifier. However, when the Coward’s Falchion is used to attack someone with a superior combat skill it betrays its wielder inflicting a -20% penalty to both attacks and parries.

[The Coward’s Falchion impresses its own primal personality onto the wielder. You might want to resolve this by using ‘experience’ checks against Pendragon-like personality traits. The owner of the Coward’s Falchion gains a check against Cruel, Arbitrary, and Cowardly at the end of each game year. This is IN ADDITION to any checks against these traits that may have been gained for the cruel, arbitrary, and cowardly acts that the character might have performed using the weapon. If the character hasn’t carried or handled the Coward’s Falchion for any significant period of time during that year – for example, if it has been locked in an armoury, no checks are necessary. However, even if the character primarily fights with another weapon, or does little fighting at all, so long as he or she carries the Coward’s Falchion it will warp their personality. A simpler option is to impose Persistence tests that increase in difficulty over the years, each time the wielder is presented with an opportunity to be cruel, and especially to cut down the weak. If the test is failed, the personality of the Coward's Falchion will assert itself.] 

*Wilderhaven is built on the site of the Classical city of Kallipolis. During the Cataclysm, Kallipolis burned, its buildings fell, and much sank into the bubbling tar of the Belch. During the Classical Era, the countryside was controlled by six forts arranged in an even semi-circle – a half-clock – to the east. Each of these controlled a ‘Shadow’ of Kallipolis, with the city itself conceived of as the hand of a sundial. After the Cataclysm, the commanders of these six forts used what was left of the legions under their command to carve out hereditary baronies. They have retained some of the Kallipolian stylings – Classical history is the source of their legitimacy – so tin-pot barons call themselves centurions and their brute squads are their legions. They currently owe their feudal loyalty to the Pirate King, their power inextricably tied to the economy of Wilderhaven.     

Hammerstein!, is my OpenQuest/Renaissance/Legend work-in-very-early-progress hack that attempts to build a simple(ish) OGL d100 game that evokes WFRP1e with the 'adventuresome' turned up and the 'grimdark' turned down (but not off). Basically, WFRP1e in Fighting Fantasy's Titan... hmm, perhaps I should just do that rather than write my own game... No, I need my own 'heartbreaker'.

Anyhow, when I think about running WFRP1e in Titan, I think about stripping out all the non-adventuring professions, to ensure everyone has combat, magic, or other specialist skills that would help them adventure rather than scrabble in the mud, pushing their own guts back inside. WFRP1e does adventuring well, if everyone rolls a combat profession (which tend to come well equipped and highly skilled) and someone rolls a wizard's apprentice. If, as has happened when we've played, everyone rolls characters whose chief skill is the ability to dance, you have a troupe of poor, ill-equipped buskers*, and any dungeoneering will get grimdark indeed. However, I play RPGs with people who have no intention of poring over lists of skills or equipment. Even OpenQuest character generation turns my players off the game, as they take a long time to assign skill points and buy equipment, have little fun doing so, but then have invested so much time into the character that killing them off early would be a real enthusiasm drainer. WFRP character generation was easy. Players chose three things; their race, their career category, and their name. Everything else was settled by random rolls, but nevertheless produced interestingly shaped bones on which to build a character. The oracular power of the dice demonstrated right at the outset.

With Hammerstein!, one thing that I've been doing is building archetypes that assign all the skill points and select the equipment of starting characters in order to make d100 character generation a quick, easy process. It's one step up from using pre-generated characters, as the players still get a feel of the system in character creation, and get to roll dice even if they don't make too many choices. Here's part of the work-in-progress, from the chapter on character creation. Why the bombardier archetype? Because it is alphabetically the first of the fighter archetypes.     

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I've pretty much finished my first draft rewrites of the character creation, skills, and combat chapters, taking the best bits from OpenQuest, Renaissance, and Legend. There won't be many changes for the examples set in these (related) rulesets. Some skills have been merged or rationalised, I've adopted large parts of the Renaissance Serious/Grave Wound system, there'll be some changes to the magic systems, but not much. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I do believe in tweaking what ain't broke, so bits here and bits there have minor changes. Hammerstein! will be using the OpenQuest/Renaissance combat system rather than Legend's beautiful system simply, because that much complexity is wrong for our group. Rather than have specialist combat skills, as Renaissance does, unusual weapons or advanced styles are dealt with by 'combat proficiencies' - the core skill remains Unarmed Combat, Close Combat or Ranged Combat, but the combat proficiency allows them to use the weapon without penalty and/or use it in mechanically distinct ways. There will be madness rules, and while I always want to add in Pendragon-esque personality traits and passions, I think I might be able to stay my hand this time.


*Actually, by the rules, busking is one of the best ways to make money in the cities of the Old World. It's certainly better than much low-skilled labouring, which barely pays well enough to keep a character fed and housed. 42 shillings to support a character for an 8 day week. That's just over 5/- per day. It's 2/- per night to sleep on the floor in a common room of an inn, and 3/- is the minimum a character can spend on (pre-prepared) food and remain healthy. Okay, so you might be able to live even more cheaply than that, of you are not renting a patch of floor and have the space and equipment to prepare your own food. But still, it is realistically (for a grimdark game) hand to mouth. Buskers, however, so long as they make a Fel test, make 1d4+1 GOLD CROWNS every hour. If they fail, they still make 1d6 pennies. Why, in the name of Sigmar, would our characters even think of battling Chaos when they could prance in the street and live like dancing kings?