Catching up after Moving!

Moving: Why it seems so much easier in RPGs!

One thing I will say about RPGs: they make moving and packing look easy. Sure you can ransack that ancient castle with 100 rooms - let's just say you make off with 10,000gp and all the loot. In reality, a two bedroom apartment takes 16 hours and the weather gods decide that - despite the fall month - you will also have to deal with a temperature of 106F. Isn't that great? Obviously my sacrifices and prayers were in vain.

Le sigh!

But let's talk for a minute about encumbrance. As that's what I've been spending the past few weeks thinking about!

Encumbrance and Transportation

This is very much an optional set of rules, and one that is often not focused on in the game - which is a shame, because this is the kind of rule that would address those concerns of fighters and thieves that magic users are overpowered. Even if you are playing a high magic game with tons of magical options to transport things, you do hit a cap - and nothing helps clear out a dungeon like the follower table for the fighter. But that will be addressed later.

For now, let's focus on encumbrance itself. I would say that out of every ten readers, only one will have used encumbrance (Please feel free to comment below if you are that one person - I'd love to know your experience with the rules). Encumbrance adds an additional layer of complexity to the rules that many players and DMs do not like. They don't want to record gold coin weights, nor do they want to stop being able to seed the dungeon with useful items.

And that's fair. There is nothing wrong with saying "we're going to hand wave our way around this." This is a game after all, and though I couldn't hand wave myself through my wife's closet (seriously: four hours in and of itself), I can understand the desire to do so.

So why do I do it?

Because it is fun to go back to old adventures with new rules becoming the focus of the fun! When I include these rules, the goal is to make the characters think about their equipment and about their environment. If you find a room with two full treasure chests, how are you going to get them out? Say you have a fighter (Str: 15) and a thief (Str: 12). Between the two of them they can carry 100 lbs unencumbered. But the fighter has chain mail and the thief has leather armor: 55 lbs of their weight is taken just in their armor. This is unencumbered of course, If they are carrying weapons and some gear we might get from encumbered to lightly encumbered. 

So the large chest weighs 100 lbs (maxed out capacity based on Table 50 in the PHB, page 105). So let's just say that our characters are sharing the load and we'll assume the chest is evenly packed. That means each character is lifting 50 lbs. So for our fighter, we'll say that puts him at moderate encumbrance, and our thief is now at heavy encumbrance. Both are humans, and now the fighter has a movement rate of 6, but the thief has a movement rate of 4. When moving did you ever hear someone say: "You're going to fast!"

Well due to the shared load, the fighter is now at the same speed as the thief - four. If the fighter tries to go faster, then the thief is going to fall down, or lose his hold, etc etc. Now you're party is moving this chest through a dungeon at a movement rate of 4. How many random encounters will they have? Did they clear the dungeon first? Are they sure? How long will it take to get it outside? Is outside even safe? There is another chest too - so now you have to repeat this!

Now you've added an additional layer onto the dungeon for the PCs. Not only do they have to concern themselves with the monsters, but they also have to think strategically. This leads to four major areas for additional role playing opportunities:

1. Making Camp

The first is the base camp. Many adventures start in an inn, jump to the dungeon, and end with the players partying it up back in town. Again, there is nothing wrong with this style of play. However, encumbrance means you have to have a place to leave your gear and it needs to be secured. Making camp then, requires actually working through the outside of the dungeon area. The players need to think about:

• Concealment - is it hard to see where they want to make camp?
• Accessibility - can it be easily accessed when carrying a heavy load?
• Safety - can it be easily defended if necessary?

As a DM you can either have the players talk through this: "I look for a small cave, more a crack in the rock which we can conceal with freshly cut branches." Or you can have the players use non-weapon proficiency, such as survival or camping:

Camping (General/Fighter)

 # of Slots: 1 | Relevant Ability: Intelligence | Check Modifier: 0 

You know the basics of setting up a camp in the wilderness, such as creating a safe fire pit, and the best location for a refuse pit. Most people know that you can pitch a tent and set up a fire, but when they make camp randomly, they might end up sick if they put their refuse pit to close to the spring or they might start a forest fire if they didn't properly set up a place for cooking. You can avoid those mishaps easily. Without an ability check and with proper equipment such as tents, a shovel, flint and steel, and tinder, you can set up a camp for 4 people for each hour you spend working.  

With an ability check, you are able to set up shelters if you have none, for the same time frame. Each hour requires an ability check, and you gain a bonus of +2 to your ability role if you have the survival skill. You are able to scour the local site for what you need. This assumes ideal conditions, and problems such as inclement weather could impose penalties.

When taken by a fighter as a fighter skill, the fighter can make additional skill checks to conceal the camp, or set up a camp as a siege camp. When concealing a camp, the character imposes a penalty equal to difference between their target, and what they rolled. For example, Arwin the Halfling Fighter is attempting to conceal a camp in the mountains. His intelligence is an 11. He has chosen a good site, and had all the necessary gear to get the camp set up. He begins the process of concealment and rolls a 9. The orcs that have been tracking them end up having to take an additional -2 penalty to their tracking score or they lose the party and move on.

If you use additional skill points on this skill, you are mastering camping skills in specific terrains, such as mountains or temperate forests. You gain that additional skill point bonus when in that specific terrain, and that terrain only. You can use more then one additional skill point for one terrain type, for example, a fighter with three skill points spent on camping would have general, and then could either declare a +2 bonus for camping in mountains, or a +1 bonus for camping in mountains and a +1 bonus for camping in temperate forests. Non-fighters can spend a skill point to gain the fighter abilities above.

The DM might allow you to also purchase specially designed camouflage supplies. These would add an additional bonus to the concealment check. Of course, if you have animals in your camp concealing it could be difficult. You might need to hire guards. Especially when you start carting out treasure.

2. Carting Equipment Around

So the party wants to make their way into the mountains. They know of a good camping site near the ancient tomb of Xylocan the Terrible, but they want to be absolutely sure they are ready for what they encounter. They want to bring tents, supplies for a few days, and some spare weapons. They also know that the last time they went exploring, that they had found some items that were to large to carry out easily, so they want to bring block and tackle and some hand carts.. wait! Hand carts? What?

First, making an expedition out into the wilderness requires bringing along everything you are going to need - or making it as you go. Hunting and fishing, for example, can maintain food supplies, as does foraging. However, having ready made food is easier as you do not have to spend all your time just focused on survival. The same is true for weapons - you're better off with prepared weapons versus making your own. So you decide you need:

• Tents
• Bedrolls
• Rope (lots and lots of rope)
• Poles
• Lanterns/Torches (and oil for lanterns)
• Block and tackle
• Grappling hooks
• Extra ammo and weapons
• Food and water (jugs or barrels are probably the best approach)

How do you get all of this up into the mountains? A wagon makes the most sense, pulled by a mule or ox. I've always ruled that a horse, mule, ox, or other pack animal with a cart harness is able to pull 150% of their stated weight on the encumbrance table. They can pull more then moderate encumbrance if the character passes an animal handling check with a -2 penalty for each level above moderate (or for each movement penalty point if using the optional encumbrance rules). However, wagons don't fit into most dungeons easily (there are obviously exceptions!).

So what about inside a dungeon? Well, the characters can use a block and tackle to load up a small cart. There are three types: Hand Carts, Miners Carts, and Wheel Carts. When using a cart to transport, the weight is considered to be 50% of the total weight if pulled, and 80% of the total weight if pushed.

Hand Cart (10 gp): A handcart is essentially a chest on wheels. It can carry up to 100 lbs, and is 3' long by 2' wide by 2' deep. A cart might come with an optional closure on the top which can be locked and secured (+2 gp), or it could just be open. If open, ignore depth - though putting a tall statue in the cart could cause it to tip over. 

Miner's Cart (30gp): A miner's cart is larger then a hand cart, being 5' long, by 3' wide, and 4' in depth. Miners carts can carry 200 lbs. Miners carts sit on two axles and four wheels. They are often pulled by mules or pushed by the miners and are well constructed for that purpose. As they are designed for use underground, most make sure to include a place to hang a lantern, torch or candle from the front. Fancier carts will include a small mirror of highly polished silver to help improve the visibility of a miner's candle (+10 gp, miner's candles burn even in poor air quality, and brightly - they cast light out in a 10' radius and last for 20 minutes per inch. The polished silver mirror extends the light out to a 20' cone, which is 10' wide at the end. Miner's candles cost 5cp each).  

Wheel Cart (5gp): A wheel cart is usually nothing more then a single axle with a small base that is 2' wide and 0.5' long. A single rope is included that can be tied around objects laid on the platform, allowing them to be pulled along. Wheel carts are most frequently used by foresters who down a tree and put one end on the cart, and the other end of the tree is harnessed to a mule or pony to be carried back to their mill. Wheel carts cannot carry a large number of items, but can only carry one item that is secured via the rope. 

With these options the players are able to cart more equipment, and now have an additional reason to set up a camp. Remember, if they're using mules or ponies to pull their gear they will also need feed for them as well!

3. Making Shields and Armor Actually Worthwhile

Additionally, I have made shields and armor more worthwhile. I allow fighters to gain a bonus of -1 to their AC in any kind of armor (i.e. leather armor goes from -2 to -3) by using a weapon proficiency. Further, for all classes shields are better:

Buckler/Target: Improves AC by 2 against one attack, or 3 if used against a missile attack.
Small: Improves AC by 2 against two frontal melee attacks. or 4 against missile attacks.
Medium: Improves AC by 3 against all melee frontal and flank attacks, or 6 against missile attacks.
Body: Improves AC by 4 against melee frontal and flank attacks, or 8 against missile attacks.

Halflings and gnomes cannot use body shields, however they, and other Small sized creatures, treat their shield as one size larger. For example, Arwin the Halfling Fighter has come back to town. During his latest foray into a dungeon, he was attacked from behind and had to drop his short bow and fight with his short sword. He got hurt badly, and has decided he needs a shield. He goes to the shop, and finds a human armorer who has created a small round shield with a bronze leaf pattern. He loves it and purchases it. In his next encounter, he will have an AC bonus of 3 against all frontal and flank attacks: 2 for the shield, and 1 for using a weapon proficiency.

This allows weight to be saved on armor, and also is slightly more in line with history - where shields were key to a soldier's defense. 

4. Hirelings as more then Torch Bearers

Porters, carters, and camp guards all become necessary if encumbrance is going to be a serious concern. The players will need to balance, however, the cost of a team against the potential reward. And this also means that they have to think long term: should we quickly scout a place out and determine what we'll need ahead of time? If we have to leave and come back, what could happen? 

Perhaps the main treasure of the adventure isn't even monetary. An ancient evil has overtaken a temple far in the mountains. The church wishes the PCs to go into the temple and recover important relics: statues of their goddess. These statues are made of marble and are fragile, each double the size of a regular human. In exchange, the PCs will be well rewarded - but not with gold, but access to restoration and healing spells. To recover those statues the PCs will need to clear the dungeon, evaluate the safety of the route, and then bring in a team to get each statue safely out of the dungeon and into wagons or onto wheel carts, and then back to the temple. All of those people will need to be paid, and all that equipment secured or rented. A team of teamsters going all that way will be a handsome sum. Add in laborers and you have a large team of people heading into the mountains. What will that attract? Is the route truly safe? The PCs will have a very difficult time... and that's what makes it so much fun!

And also note: you aren't going to double up here. Guards aren't going to do the job of porters and porters make terrible guards. Maybe if the guards are getting some of the action they'll help load - after all, the more treasure that comes out, the larger their share - but do the players want to share?

Building a Kingdom from the Ground Up: Magic

Decisions on Magic in a New Campaign Setting

Back in my previous post on Building a Kingdom from the Ground Up, I talked briefly about character creation and how I and the players built out at the same speed. As the players grew, the campaign world grew. A player wanted a halfling, so we built a halfling village. Another wanted a wizard, and so we quickly addressed magic in the setting. I then took a moment to beat on the Forgotten Realms as that is one of my favorite hobbies.

But let's step back for a second and examine the consequences and design decisions of the various levels of magic.

Definitions

Magic is one of those things that can be defined on a simple scale: None, Low, Medium, High, Extensive. This is the basic Likert scale I use to define fantasy worlds. I'll quickly give a basic breakdown of them below:

• None: This is a fantasy world with no magic. It might have something like orcs, or goblins, but in general, there is zero magic involved in the campaign setting. Examples would include The Three Muskateers or the Count of Monte Cristo, fantasies in zero magic settings. It could also occur in D&D if you were to use an all fighter or all thief campaign, without magic items. Not necessarily the most common or favorite of anyone.
• Low: A lot of people point to Middle Earth as an example of a low magic campaign and I tend to agree. A small handful of magical items, a heavy dependence on fighter types, and if wizards are present - they are rare. I generally prefer this setting type, though it is hard work. Magical practitioners will either practice physical magic (i.e. sleight of hand) or be hedge wizard types. Another example would be the Kingdom of the Isles in the Riftwar Saga, while Kelewan would be an example of a medium to high magic campaign setting. In general, average folk will know magic exists and they will either be hostile or neutral towards it. I generally prefer neutral, but have played at tables where it was hostile.
• Medium: An example of this setting type would be Pre-War of the Lance Dragonlance. The distrust of magic was strong and wide spread, and while magical items and the magical gods do exist - as does an organization of mages in the Tower of High Sorcery - they are on decline. The campaign is not necessarily magically hostile - but Wizards still have to be cautious. Average folk will know wizards and magic exists, they will know it can generally be helpful, but they will have little to no practical knowledge of what magic can do. Most folk will range from nervous to generally enthusiastic about magic.
• High: Most campaigns in the various incarnations of D&D fall into this category. Magic is pretty much everywhere and magic users can be encountered in every town and region. Although some campaigns might stop short of magic shops in the market, it is a "Just barely" kind of thing. Mystara, Greyhawk, and the Forgotten Realms are all squarely in this setting, with Mystara and Greyhawk handling it well, and Forgotten Realms handling it poorly. In general, people will have a neutral to positive feeling in regards to magic, and a solid foundation for player character wizards. In my mind, this is the default setting for most D&D campaign worlds and is the easiest for DMs to implement.
• Extensive: The opposite of none. Pretty much magic is in every part of the campaign world from the word go. This could take the form of the Eberron where there are magical trains, to the world of Golem Arcana where even the poorest outcasts are able to assemble powerful magically forged Titans to defend themselves. Such campaigns are often built on the "What ifs..." that we all ask when we first start going through the spell lists... "What if I cast continual light on a bunch of stones and use them as street lamps?" In an Extensive magic world there is a city employee doing just that. In general average folk love magic, and probably practice it themselves. Forgotten Realms crosses into this realm every once in a while.

Thinking About Magic

The purpose in thinking about magic is to think about your long term, without planning out every aspect of your long term. In a high or extensive magic setting, for example, you have to not only deal with planning epic encounters, but also building in defenses against magic wielders as well. Magic is powerful, and it has the potential to completely derail a well thought out campaign. If you are going to go high and extensive you need to think in that dimension. You need to consider what will teleport and fly do to your campaigns. What about polymorph or wish? If you have an extensive magical campaign, what happens when bar fights start having web or summon monster used? 

Planning a magic level is something you should work on with your PCs finding a comfortable fit for what they want out of the world and what you want out of the world. At the end of the day, however, the DM makes the final call. 

Further, because random tables are fun, I threw this together as well - if you don't know what you want to do - or just think rolling dice is fun - then use the following tables:

1. How will average commoners react to a magical spell in your campaign world? (Roll 1d10)
   
   
2. How common do you want NPC wizards to be? (Roll 1d6)
   
      
3. When you hear "Magic Shop" your reaction is... (Roll 1d6)
   
   
4. How do you want players to react to a +1 Sword? (Roll 1d8)
   
   

Now simply take the results of each roll and look at them. Mostly low? You would prefer a low magic setting. Is it a mix? Take the one in the middle. You have one or more extensive results? Consider using that as your magical base. 

As a note, if you use these tables I'd love to hear your results. I am generally biased towards low settings and as a result these tables are too - please feel free to play with them!

Building a Kingdom from the Ground Up

And we're off!

One of the favorite things I love about 2nd Edition AD&D is that it IS the system for world building. It doesn't matter if you're looking to create a simple setting to build around an adventure, or you are going for a full multiverse that puts Brandon Sanderson to shame - you can do it in 2nd Edition. Especially with the release of the Player Options series. Let's stop for a second.

A Minor Note: Player's Option, Optional Rules, and Kits

Many people do NOT like the Player's Options series. They'll tell you about their dislike, at length, for long periods of time. And that's totally fair. Most times, if you dig into their dislike, what they hated was that the system - when player's just showed up with everything and the kitchen sink pulled into their character - could do a lot of min/maxing. This is a royal pain to adjust for, and it is very difficult on the DM to adjust a game for that kind of player. Especially in the 2nd Edition days when computer tools were limited and you couldn't just have a tablet on the table that let you manage your game.

However, when you use the optional rules to build your campaign setting - you can do pretty much anything. I feel a lot of people discounted the Player Options series due to the explosion within the player base that was brought out by the material in Skills & Powers - yet, I hope this blog helps people revisit the material.

How big should your setting be? Big enough.

A lot of people make one very big mistake with campaign settings: they try to build everything at once. They will draw/find a map that represents a planet the size of Earth or larger, and try to make sure that they know every NPC and organization on every square inch. They'll want to be able to tell you that on the Island of Froz, the butcher's cousins wifes uncles great niece twice removed was born on the night when the second and fifth moon were both full, and what this means in terms of the full cosmology of religions as well as the ancient space fairing race that monitors all life from their hidden base on the third moon.

Okay - I might be slightly exaggerating. However, if you see yourself in that description above, don't worry! I used to be that person, too! In fact, my first attempt at building a world did JUST that. Except I hand drew AND colored the map on a three by three map of 8.5" by 11" graph paper (so 25.5" by 33"). And one day I might even have enough courage to tell you just how badly it flopped. For now, let's use the short cut version!

After getting a good sized group together, I went into detail about the setting to "help" with character creation. If you can't figure out why this was the only sentence I can really write that is positive about that night, I can't help you - but let's just say no matter how bad of a DM you think you are, I am 100% sure I can beat you!

The following month, I sat down with two friends - and we had an on the fly session. I created a town named Highfall, and the adventure was based around a group of rock gnomes who had a small, but profitable life, pulling jewels out of the water at the base of the falls that gave the town it's name (in my defense I grew up in a town named Milford.. because the Mill was on the river ford, so don't judge). Suddenly, without realizing it, I had a setting - sure it consisted of one town, only a few NPCs, and a cave system (and yes, I'll post this adventure at some point - I have the notes, but will have to recreate the maps). I needed a setting and created one, and it was good enough.

Building out the Options -Work with the Players

So I started off with a quick town, and one player said they wanted to play a Fighter, the other wanted to play a Cleric. So I quickly throw together a local Baron who has a guard organization and the Fighter character comes from here. The Cleric comes from a local monastery that also has a vineyard as the player wanted to know how to make wine. So now the setting is growing. We started with a town, and we added a local keep with a Baron, and a religious presence. We haven't done anything to figure out religion yet, nor anything really complicated with the government, but our setting is growing.

As we added other players, we continued to add and grow the campaign world. We had a player who wanted to play a halfling, so that required building out that option. Now, where the river ended in a lake, a small halfling community was formed. Why a lake? Because the character took the fishing Nonweapon Proficiency. One of the benefits of this approach was that the halfling town was detailed by the player - he built out the NPCs and everything else associated with it, and even came up with what roll they played in the local environment. They traded cheese, wood, and wool north to the Highfalls folk in exchange for gemstones and metalworks. They also built a large barn where the humans and gnomes could store their trade goods for when barges would come. Now where are those barges going?

Think about Magic - But only when you need too!

Of all the early decisions you can make about your setting, the most important is the level of magic. This is a big point of debate in almost any forum for any edition. And I'll be frank on where I stand: I prefer low magic settings. At the same time, I like the setting to be low magic - not the party. As a result, when I had a player express interest in a wizard, I worked with the character on developing a back story where the character was instructed by an isolated recluse.

I quickly decided on a low magic setting as I wanted to avoid the single largest error that the Forgotten Realms setting makes: that it is nearly impossible for any true danger to exist due to the sheer number of apparently omnipotent magical characters that exist. If the players screw up, Elminster or someone else will float down from the sky and solve the problem in a classic dues ex machina. This isn't necessarily bad if you like it - and if you want a high powered/high magic campaign, go for it. FR I feel fits the bill nicely, and so homebrew allows for low power/low magic games which I feel are more fun.

Summing it up:

• Build a setting when you need a setting, and only what you need at the moment in time you need it.
• Work with your players, make them a part of the setting and they'll take ownership for making the game work.
• Think about magic early - but remember to focus on the setting. Your players are unique in your world - they are brave enough to go adventuring!