SGAM Ryuutama Session 1: Tholo the Peddler

This is the first session of my Ryuutama game for SGAM. The goal of this first week is to try out a RPG I've never played before. I've heard some talk about the game Ryuutama and some of its themes and mechanics. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

A Brief Bit About The Game

Ryuutama is a Japanese TTRPG that is made for beginners in mind, to teach people about Western TTRPGS like D&D. The game itself is labelled as honobono, which is a more pastoral, heart-warming style of game. It has a charm and style that reminds me heavily of Studio Ghibli films as well as the Dragon Quest video games, both of which I'm very fond of. Instead of a focus on dungeon delving and combat, Ryuutama's adventures revolve around travelling, exploration, and meeting new people.  You gain experience by exploring different sections of the map, with more difficult terrains and weather granting more XP. You also gain XP from combat, but you only get it from the toughest encounter of that session. The standard classes of fighter, mage, thief, and cleric are replaced by professions, like merchant and farmer. In addition, there are three Types that dictate how your character approaches obstacles. They are Attack (the fighter), Technical (the skilled), and Magic (the mage). There are only four attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Spirit) and the scores are all even numbers from 4 to 12. They are tied to the different dice you have. So if you have a Strength 6, you roll a d6 for your checks. Skills don't exist. You just roll the correct combination of attributes and meet or beat a Target Number to succeed. So for Perception, you roll Dex+Int. If my Dex is a 4 and my Int is a 6, then I would roll a d4+d6. Rolling snake eyes is a fumble, while rolling either boxcars or the maximum of each dice is a critical check.

What is interesting about this game is that it has a GMNPC called the Dragon (or Ryuutama). In the implied setting, these dragons latch onto travelers and feed off of adventures and stories. The Dragon has some GM moves that can either help the players along, or complicate their lives a bit. As the players go through different sessions, this Dragon actually will level up and gain new abilities (called Benedictions and Reveils). After some time, the dragon will grow enough to fly off and leave an egg for the players. The game is an interesting blend of the different styles of Western TTRPGs. There are aspects of classic OSR style gaming with exploration and hexcrawling being big, but also some characteristics of narrative games and story games with the Dragon GMNPC. What I really like about the game is the implied setting, where people simply just decide to travel the world and see new things. It's a rite of passage in a way and while it can seem like a flimsy way to explain why there are adventurers, I think it works with the theme of the game.

I decided that I would give this game a try. Presented below is the first session of Tholo the Peddler, a merchant that has decided to uproot and travel north of his village of Gretelburg. The dragon I chose is the basic Green Dragon (a Midori-Ryuu) named Bard. This dragon is all about exploration and is the suggested one for beginners. For things like random weather, procedural terrain, and encounters, I use The Perilous Wilds' generators as well as Save Vs Dragon's free hex terrain generator found here. For music, since I was inspired by classic JRPGs I played as a child, I used Dragon Quest's Unknown Lands and Never-Ending Journey for travelling, and Final Fantasy VI's battle music.

Session 1: Northward Ho!

Tholo is a young man of lithe build with tawny skin and white hair. Today, he is embarking on his journey, a rite of passage to the people of Gretelburg. Tholo hopes to get a taste of the adventuring life, even if only for a few weeks. With his pack animals fed and equipment set up, Tholo sets out!

It is April 7th, and it is bright and sunny outside. The weather is clear but unseasonably hot for springtime. Tholo wipes the sweat off his brow and travels through the grasslands along the dirt path with his two pack mules and loyal dog, Uno.

Terrain+Weather Difficulty Class (This is the Target Number to beat with the checks down below): 7. Grasslands are fairly safe, but the heat is making it a bit rough.

Condition Check (this is Tholo's current fatigue level): 8. Tholo is feeling pretty good.

Travel Check (this is to see if an injury or exhaustion happens): 8. Tholo doesn't encounter any hardships.

Direction Check (this is to navigate the wilds): Tholo is travelling the roads, so he doesn't get lost.

Encounter: Yes, Friendly.

As Tholo travels north, he spots a wagon on the side of the road with two people by it. They seem to be fixing the wagon wheel and having a rough time of it. Tholo lends a hand, helping the couple fix their wagon to get back on the road. Gratefully for the assistance, the couple introduce themselves as Gregori and Priscilla. Both are newlyweds that have decided to leave their professions and become mail carriers. They go between the frontier towns, bring mail and supplies to them. Greg and Priss also sell things occasionally, dabbling in the mercantile arts here and there. Tholo asks where they are going, and Priscilla says they are going north to Hanselboro from Gretelburg to drop off supplies. Tholo offers to travel with them for a time and the couple agree. The trio set off to the north.

Camping Check (this is to see how they rest for the night and regain HP and MP): 8. The trio have a restful night under the stars, enjoying the cured fish and each other's company.

April 8th. The group is still travelling along the prairies. The weather is pretty hot and muggy, and now there's a rainstorm slowing the party down!

DC: 8. Grasslands are hot and visibility is low due to rain and wind

Condition: 9. Tholo is feeling pretty great

Travel: 8. The trio doesn't encounter any issues travelling

Direction: Despite the rain, they are still along the worn roads so don't need to make this check.

Encounter: No

The rains pelt the canvas-covered wagon, but this doesn't stop our intrepid adventurers. Instead, they talk about their lives before going on their journeys, their goals and dreams, and their homes. Gregori was a bricklayer at a town called Rumplestilton. His claim to fame was helping to rebuild an old bridge that led into the town. Priscilla was a fisher-woman at the same town, responsible for bringing in trouts and bass to the dockside mongers. Both ran into each other during the reopening ceremony of the bridge and decided on a whim to go on their journey together. Greg and Priss fell in love, and when they returned, they had a quaint wedding and decided to live out on the frontier as mail carriers.

Tholo is happy for the couple, and their story inspires him to push forward on his journey even longer. He remarks about how his father was an owner of the village's general store, and that's where Tholo got the itch to become a travelling peddler of wares and goods. But first, he wants to go onto his journey to prove to his family and himself that this is a good idea. He's had Uno for a year and the boxer dog is a great companion.

Camping: 9. The rains clear up some, though there is no starry night tonight. Tholo can't sleep well, as the ground is muddy and uncomfortable.

April 9th. The trio approach a forested area. The rains from the previous day have cooled the area off, but now there is a nasty thunderstorm brewing above Tholo and the gang.

DC: 11. Forests are harder to traverse, and the thunderstorm is slowing the party down greatly.

Condition: 2. Tholo is feeling Out of Shape. He gets the [Poisoned:4] Status Effect, which drops his Strength down to a d4.

Travel: 7. Because of his food poisoning, it complicates travelling. He is at Half HP [8 HP].

Direction: 9. The road is less defined here and the rains are making it hard to travel. The trio only go halfway through the hex.

The heavy rain and winds have made it harder for Tholo and his crew to traverse the forest road. The wagon slows down some as Tholo and Priscilla try to keep the canvas from flying off and Gregori tries to keep the pack animals calm. As they travel, they see a bunch of logs and trees have fallen onto the road, blocking their travel! Tholo is suspicious, but before he can check it out, the shrill cries of something terrible ring out. It's an ambush! Four calico konekogoblins jump from the thickets, clubs in hand, and ready to waylay the trio.

Round 1

Greg is first to react. He draws his short sword and strikes at the first cat goblin. He is able to hit the creature, but barely grazes the cat's shoulder. Priss is next, and she barely misses the second konekogoblin. The koneko strike together, but only the second one lands a hit on the beleaguered Tholo. Luckily for our sick protagonist, his armor helps deflect most of the damage. Tholo has one hand over his sick stomach and the other on a dagger. He strikes at the first konekogoblin that Gregori hit and lands a solid hit, knocking out the first cat monster.

Round 2

Gregori goes again, smacking the second koneko with the flat of his blade. Priscilla tries to hit the second one again, and lands a mighty blow on the feline creature, almost knocking it out! The remaining konekogoblins attack, but all miss. The third one missed so terribly that he drops his weapon on the ground! A boon for our heroes! Tholo takes advantage of this and strikes at the second konekogoblin, felling him in one swoop!

Note: the critical fumble combat effect for the koneko was something I added. I felt it made sense for the scenario, but it's not actually a part of the rules.

Round 3

Here I decided to make a morale roll against the konekogoblins' Condition, since they are now outnumbered. They failed their roll and will now run away. This isn't a part of Ryuutama, just something I generally do for combat in my games.

The remaining two konekogoblins realize that these travellers aren't nearly as easy to ambush as others before them. And so they take off, leaving their fallen cat comrades to the trio. Unsure of what to do to the would-be highwaymen, Tholo and Priscilla tie them up. Using the pack animals and their own two hands, the crew are able to move the logs in about an hour. As they set up camp, Tholo looks at the hungry konekogoblins they captured and feels a bit of pity for them. He takes some of his cured fish rations and give them to the two cat monsters.

Negotiation To Befriend the Konekogoblins: DC 9; I rolled a 13!

The konekogoblins are a bit cautious at first as Tholo approaches, but he presents the cured fish to them and unties the monsters. They sniff the fish as they stare at Tholo to judge his intentions, but soon, hunger takes over and they gobble the food down. 

Camping: 7. It's a rough night for the quintet, and they don't quite regain all of their Health and Mental focus for the night.

April 10th. The party is still in the same hex as before, but now it's a clear and beautiful day!

DC: 8. The weather is clear and temperate, so it's just a matter of travelling through the trees.

Condition: 8. Tholo is able to kick the food poisoning and feels a lot better. [Poison; 4] is now cleared.

Travel: 9. There aren't any hitches in their journey to leave the hex.

Direction: 11. Despite the roads being unclear, the trio make it through to the next hex.

Encounter: Yes; Passive

Tholo and his compatriots travel deeper into the forest, making it to a fork in the road. Hanselboro is more to the west from here, while Tholo wants to keep going north, into the heart of the forest. Gregori and Priscilla warn our hero that in the depths of the overgrown forest, few humans reside. Instead, the spirits of the forest as well as monsters dwell there, waiting to prey on travelers like Tholo. Not one to be dissuaded, Tholo appreciates the concern, but knows that he must continue this journey to prove to himself that he can be a travelling merchant. The konekogoblins, inspired by the kind treatment of Tholo and his willingness to go on, decide to stay with Greg and Priss as helping hands. Priscilla is a little hesitant, but Gregori is more than happy to expand their mail carrier business to their first two employees. Tholo waves goodbye to his newfound friends and heads northeast, ever deeper into the forest.

Along the fading road in the afternoon, Tholo spots something on the ground. Footprints! Giant footprints! Whatever made these prints must be huge! Curiousity overtakes fear, and Tholo runs headfirst into the true wilderness of the lands. What has made these prints, and will Tholo survive the perils of the deep woods? We'll find out in the next session!

Stocking a Solar System's Sum of Stunts and Stories

My current game is a science fiction exploration game, where the players are scouts surveying their new home and getting it ready for colonization. One of the things I've done is that right from the get go, the players have a spaceship that can take them anywhere in the new solar system. Here, there are seven celestial bodies that the players can blast off to. Many of those are either jovian or ice giants with tons of moons to look at. Add in all kinds of asteroids, comets, and other stuff floating out there, and you have a great deal of sites for adventures and discovery.

Of course the difficult part for this is how do we stock all of these for adventure? Much like a standard hexcrawl, you have all kinds of adventure, ruins, and obstacles that are keyed up and ready for the players to stumble upon. However, things get a bit more difficult because now we are dealing with the planetary scale. Planets, moons, hell, even asteroids are much bigger than your standard hexcrawl map. Stocking an entire planet of adventure like that simply isn't viable, let alone an entire solar system. Luckily, I have my way of taking care of that.

First thing I like to do is end a session asking what the players want to do next. It doesn't always happen, as sometimes I like to through stuff at them to react to next session as a cliffhanger, but it's nice to know where your players are going to next. That way you can simply prep for where they are going. So if my space scouts want to travel to Chicken Island next session, then I know that I can prep stuff specific to that area and I won't be wasting any time when I do it. Pretty basic stuff. Still, it's nice to have some stuff ready to roll when things happen in the middle of a session, so we turn to my rule of threes.

For each celestial body, I have three landmarks and three possible adventures, made from three words (a verb, adjective, and noun). We can usually describe planets with 2-3 landmarks or interesting things easily, especially if they aren't Earth like worlds. For example, Mars has red sand, Olympus Mons, and several canals across it. Jupiter has the Great Red Spot, intense radiation, and a great deal of gravity to contend with. I generally write these as tags like you'd see in FATE or DW. All of these can be the source of adventure, or simply add complications to another adventure on the same planet. Imagine trying to rescue a hydrogen freighter in Jupiter, but you have to save them without getting caught in the gravity well yourself. And the good thing about being in a sci fi genre is that thanks to future tech, players can scan for a lot of the potential sites of adventure from their CIC in orbit. So these landmarks can be made readily apparent and easy to spot. It does tend to simplify each planet a bit, but luckily, that's where the 'three words' come in.

So for me, three words are just me generating a verb, adjective, and noun. So for example, I simply will have 'Destroy Large Generator' as an adventure seed. From there, I flesh it out as I see fit. Get creative with how you interpret the seed. For example, your generator could be the fusion power plant on a space ship, a solar generator on an asteroid base, or even the wide leaves of an alien plant that feeds and powers a hive of plant-bugs. It's sci fi so go crazy with it! What I like to use are these verb, adjective, and noun generators for free. But sometimes that gets you some weird combinations that are hard to work with (Quoit Micrococcal Tracheitis?). One thing I use a lot of for developing adventures on the fly are Ennead Games's Adventure Generator Sci Fi and the GM's Apprentice Sci Fi deck. But, as great as those are, you can still keep it free. And you don't even have to use three words. Images are a great way to get some vague icons and interpret them how you wish. I know I've seen a lot of good stuff about Rory's Story Cubes, but if you don't have the scratch, I like using Tangent Zero's Dice for that. I like to roll three or four and have that as my main adventure. Hell, I'll even use a set of tarot cards I have to give me a good set of twists. The important part is, you have a good improv generator that will give you just enough structure and inspiration to craft a good adventure, but vague enough to allow for your creativity to kick in.

Putting this all into use, in my game, I have an extremely hot planet close to the sun. For its three landmark tags, I have "Large basins and mares", "Huge chains of volcanoes", and "One massive crater at the equator". The first landmark is almost like a safe zone for players to land at, but can also house future adventures (things hidden under the basalt flats? a colony appears there and stuff happens?). The second adds the danger, but can have a high reward. There's lava and high temperature everywhere, but there's also a hidden ancient alien facility in the volcano with secrets and mysteries inside. The third is a definite adventure site. What caused the crater? Was it an impact or an explosion? A landmark that makes the players ask questions about it will hook them line and sinker.

From there, I have three 3-word sentences that I generated. "Survey Massive Graveyard", "Destroy Alien Facility", and "Aid Strange Rival". For the first one, I decided to have an orbital graveyard filled with the corpses of large, spaceborn aliens. The second one has that alien facility in the volcanoes. The third one was a bit vague, so I added more using Tangent Zero's dice and created an adventure where the players and a rival scout group go through an old space hulk looking for stuff before the others do. But, things go wrong and it becomes a fight for survival as something vicious lurks in the hulk. Or, thanks to a little Kessler Syndrome, the players and rivals are separated from their shuttle and now have to try and escape the space hulk as it careens into the planet. I like to keep it flexible for this one, as either can be fun. 

There we go. That planet has a decent amount of adventure for a good while, and if they ever want to go back, I can always add more to it. As for the rest of the solar system, it can still be a bit daunting. I generally prep a cache of landmarks and sentences for each body, and then detail it at a later date. Luckily, limits in space travel in my game make it to where the players will generally eyeball the closer planets rather than the far off ones. But with PCs, you never know what they'll do! I also really add specific tags to important bodies. So planets, some moons, and asteroids that are big enough to be interesting (like your Juno and Vesta). But it's good to have some generic sentences and landmarks in case they land on some random Trojan asteroid in Jupiter's orbit.

There's a bit more I do inspired by ACKS, but I think I'll save that for another time. For those that run any sci-fi space-faring sandboxes, how do you set up your adventures for your players? 

GMing Challenge: Non-Sapient Wilderness Encounters

The last couple of months has seen me running a really fun sci fi game where the players are part of an expeditionary force going planetside to explore and colonize a lush but dangerous garden world. This is to ensure the survival of a dying human race, suffering from a shattered moon that has made the Earth unlivable for humanity. It's inspired by media such as Interstellar, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Alpha Centauri/Civ: Beyond Earth. 

So this has been my sci-fi, planet-focuses hex crawl that I have been running. The maps are bigger because the players have an all-terrain, and there are lasers and such, but essentially, it's a good little excursion into surviving a deadly and alien wilderness. Because this is a brand new world that is mostly untouched by civilization (more on that another time), one of the biggest challenges I imposed on myself was to have wilderness encounters that didn't involve ancient ruins, forts, or dungeons. Essentially, nothing built by a sapient species, except for certain things that fit the metaplot of the game (for example, crashed resources pods launched ahead of their expedition). I wanted to make all of the encounters based on the xenowildlife on the planet and showcase a world virtually untouched by advanced civilization.

This proved to be incredibly difficult.

Wilderness encounters were much more limited to either finding evidence of an animal, encountering it, then fight or flight. While there has been some variation here and there, many of the encounters have felt the same sadly. And without intelligent, sapient aliens, there isn't too much in the way of role-playing opportunities. To my players' credit, they have spent a lot of time taming the animals in the wild rather than killing them. But I can really only get so much mileage out of throwing an animal-of-the-week at them and exploration of forests and caves before things get boring.

One solution I did was to take advantage of the fact that it's an alien planet, so I can get away with crazy, gonzo things for the players to explore. I found that I could write up a dungeon as a ruined keep, but then reflavor it as something natural. For example, the players found a massive mound-like structure with several tunnels throughout it, similar to a termite mound. It was essentially one big dungeon, but it was easy to explain as part of the alien wildlife. Same with having trees that grow rooms, or massive vines that excrete a sap that slows the players, or natural burrows of some trap-door predators. I've gotten pretty adept at making these encounters for the game, though I do have a hankering for adding some kind of alien ruins in the future. 

I'm curious how everyone else would do a game of just wildlife and wilderness adventures, with no dungeons, no ruins, and no sapient creatures and structures.

Sandboxes and Quagmires

I generally don't like doing advice blogs since there's a million opinions, but I can't quite get this topic outta my head. So here we go.

Since 2010, when I cracked open Paizo's Adventure Path Kingmaker, I have been enamored with the sandbox game (and hexcrawls in general). The idea of running a more player-driven game where the PCs choose where to go and what to do is really appealing. There is something nice about seeing your players getting invested in the game and in many ways, doing the GM work for you. And as a player, having that total freedom is pretty awesome. It's something you can't get from video games, even open world ones like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim.

Sandbox gaming is very common in the OSR community and for good reason. That freedom is awesome, but also it's great for the open table style of gaming, which is great for us adults that simply may not have the schedule to do a consistent campaign. Among the community, sandbox gaming is seen as the way best way to game and believe me, there are many grognards that would certainly defend that.

Unfortunately, sandboxes have their pitfalls, especially to those new to them. And in the last six years, I've experienced them all.

Pitfalls of Sandbox Gaming

In a sandbox, especially the more West Marches style, there is very little in the way of structure or concrete goals for players coming in. Aside from generally "rob the tomb, fight monsters, get rich". Nothing wrong with that, but for players not used to this style of gaming, the freedom of choice can get overwhelming and cause option paralysis. The game suddenly becomes one of "what do we do today guys?" and can grind to a halt. I have run sandboxes with new players that have bogged down because players really didn't know what to do.

There are more ways that a sandbox can slow down. A common factor I see with both new and experienced sandboxers is that with player choice, you have players that want to do their own thing. Generally, my experience is that you'll have two players that want to do different things, with other players neutral on what adventure they want to do. This happens because while there is the freedom of choosing your adventures in a sandbox, the team still has to agree on what they want to do. A gaming group follows general social dynamics, so you'll have one dominant player that will try and steer the group in a direction while another dominant player will want to do a different direction. And the other players generally don't care as long as they have fun, so no one really takes sides and it becomes an argument over what we should do that night. When running a sandbox, it is important for the players to have some sort of way to decide where they go next so that everyone gets a turn. Voting, choosing, picking straws... whatever works. But even with this, you will still have a person that is left choosing last, and depending on the adventure, they could have to wait weeks or even months. As a GM, you'll really have to step in and adjudicate things when this happens, or else game night could be ruined.

A common fix to both of these problems of inaction and arguing is to "have a guy with a gun kick down the door and attack". That is, throw some interjecting problem at them that they have to deal with right now. That does have its issues in a sandbox game.

With sandbox gaming, the style really emphasizes player agency and is seen as the opposite to adventure paths and railroading. However, most players confuse what player agency really means. Player agency is the player's ability to have a meaningful choice in what to do. If a player wants to do something, they have the freedom to attempt to do it. However, many players misunderstand this term and believe it means they have control over the fate and narrative direction of their character. In addition, players get rather attached to their characters the longer they play them. So, when they have to deal with a negative consequence to an action their PC did, or an interjecting problem out of nowhere, things once again grind to a halt as the player(s) get upset about it. This gets more exacerbated with games like Dungeon World, where narrative control is shared by the DM and the players. You'll have people breaking out the accusations of railroading and things bog down.

I think the most common issues I've seen is that with player option, you will have players that will do things that the team doesn't like. Maybe the character antagonizes an NPC that the other PCs are interested in bartering with, or does something that genuinely offends a player in the room. Eventually, a player or more will get disruptive and start becoming an obstacle to the team as a whole. Sometimes, all of the players get in the way of each other. This is because players are coming in and wanting to portray, experience, roleplay, and do things for their characters in a vacuum and eventually, this will conflict with the other players doing the same thing. And again that "player agency" term will rear its ugly head and players will get mad that the other is trying to stymie their game. And boy will things muck up

The Quagmire

Muck up is a good description for what I'm describing. If a railroad campaign is the eventual extreme of the adventure path style of gaming, then I would say that the extreme to a sandbox is the quagmire. A quicksand like pit that bogs everyone and everything down until you cannot escape.

I may have an unhealthy obsession with Pokemon

The issue I see is that the sandbox is player driven, but people take that to the extreme. In the case of the players, they see it as them taking some form of metagame control over the fate and story of their characters. Being given too much freedom can be detrimental to the game, especially when that choice isn't tempered by the feelings and thoughts of your fellow players. It's very easy to do things that sabotage other players and claim it was in the name of roleplaying and staying in character. That freedom will also bite you in the ass when everyone wants to do something different. Basically, everyone is out to make their own awesome sand castle, but there isn't enough sand for everyone's castle. So now people are kicking over sand castles to make theirs bigger and bigger.

For the GM, I notice that sometimes, you get lax in adjudicating and instead remain a neutral force. I find that this happens because of the player driven part of sandboxes. Mentally, I feel that because the players drive the action, the GM sits back and lets them deal with the big issues while you just throw NPCs and monsters at them. It's really for this to happen since being a GM can be a lot of work, so having players doing the heavy lifting for you is really nice. I know I have done this on many an occasion. Also, especially for new GMs in the sandbox, you sometimes don't want to come down with the GM hammer for fear of being a railroading judge. 

After dealing with these, sometimes you just want to give up and run simpler modules. I'll admit, after seeing some hexcrawls implode, I kind of crave the simplicity of running an adventure path or module. But we don't have to give up and throw out the baby with the bathwater. So what can we do for this?

These are my non-negotiables for running a sandbox. This goes for players and GMs.

1. Gaming isn't a story, or a game, or a competition. Gaming and game nights are social activities done between friends and peers to have fun. Ultimately, we as players and GMs need to remember that. This is a social group and the things we do as player characters are not done in a vacuum. So we have to remember to keep our peer's feelings in our minds when we make decisions, because that is more important than emulating a genre trope or simulating reality. We can't just do whatever we want, get mad when someone gets offended, and hold our breath until we get our way. And at the same time, we can't get offended with everything and deal with everyone issue with some kind of righteous indignation. When an issue arises in game, we have to chill out and talk it over. Cooler heads prevail and it's easy for things to get heated and leave bad feelings. If you can't talk things out reasonably and compromise like a fucking adult, then you don't have any business gaming. Period.

2. Talk with the players before the campaign even starts and let them know that this is a player driven game where you can make whatever choice you want. But, and this is important, impress the idea that this is a living, breathing world and that with this freedom of choice comes the burden of responsibility for them. All actions and inactions have consequences, positive or negative. And sometimes, things bigger than them will happen and they will have to react accordingly. Impress this to them over and over again if you have to. 

3. Sandboxes need to have some sort of structure and goal. By doing this, it helps to keep your players focused on something while they go after their own goals on the side. It also gives something for players to fall back on when they don't really know what to do. 

4. Having bonds between PCs is great. Many times in sandbox games, I see the same ragtag group of scoundrels and rogues out for number 1. While OSR games do focus on what the players do rather what they have done, there is something to be said about having preexisting backgrounds with each other. I find that more often than not, it helps the group mesh better and many of the issues of sandcastle kicking I mentioned above don't happen as much. Also, with backgrounds, you have some delicious hooks you can use.

5. GMs, don't get lazy. I think sandboxes need more GM adjudication more than any other style of gaming. It's really easy to sit back and let the players and the dice do your job. But, you have to be active in squashing anything that can bog down the game or more dangerously, break up the gaming group. You are the leader and probably have the most important job in the social group. Be active, assertive, and fair.

Doing these can help to prevent your game from becoming a quagmire and help make your sandboxes memorable and fun. It has certainly worked for me.

To Vesper Skies VII: Propulsion

Distance is a bit thing in space. Everything is so far away from each other. So when making a sci fi game, you have to ask yourself how fast all of the spaceships can travel outside of combat. To answer that, you first have to figure out what kind of scale you want for your game.

From skymaps.com

Distances

First things first, we have to discuss different measurements used for space movement. There are three measurements used. Astronomical Units (AU), Light Year (ly), and Parsec (pc). We've heard these before but some probably don't know the definition of the terms.

AU is the smallest measurement used in space and is very useful for solar system travelling. 1AU is the distance from the Sun to the Earth, about 93 million miles (or 150 million km). A ly is the distance light can travel in one year. This turns out to be about 186,000 miles per sec (300,000 km/s) or roughly 5,880,000,000,000 miles (9,460,000,000,000 km or 63,240 AU) in a year. That's a lot of distance and is great for going between stars in the same sector. Of course, sometimes even that's too small of a scale. So we get into parsecs, which are 3.26 ly in distance. So each unit of measurement here will have its usage when figuring out the scale of your game.

Propulsion Technology

In science fiction, you can categorize movement into subluminal and superluminal movement (slower and faster than light, respectively). Subluminal can cover anything from basic rockets to solar sails and any kind of drive that simply can't reach light speeds. There are all kinds of examples of superluminal drives, but they can be generalized into three categories.

• Faster Than Light Drive: Simply put, FTL drive gets you from point A to point B at faster than the speed of light. You see this kind of warp drive in Star Trek, where Warp # is essentially used like the Mach number system, but for FTL speeds.
• Hyperspace Drive: Seen in Star Wars, hyperspace is a higher dimension that can get you to where you need faster. By imputing coordinates and doing the calculations, hyperdrives can cut down the distance between two points and open up more of the galaxy.
• Wormholes: This technically isn't superluminal, as you aren't really moving. Instead, you open a hole in space-time that folds two points together. This bridges the points and allows for instantaneous travel. Wormholes can be stuck to just gates, or more advanced ships can simply do it.

If you want to limit these methods of propulsion so your players aren't zipping to the other side of the galaxy, there are several tried and true methods. Wormholes can be limited to gates and treated like a turnpike system. A common trope for hyperspace and FTL are that gravity wells interfere with the drive and make it difficult to leave. "Tachyon inhibitors" or any other techno-babble thing could prevent warping out. I'm generally okay with players zipping around a little bit, so I'm fairly cool with FTL in star systems until they approach a planet.

Solar System Focus

The scale of your sci fi game will decide on how fast your ships can go. If it's going to be centered on a single solar system, then chances are most ships will be going at subluminal speeds. Movement will be based on AUs or even miles/km for early technology. If you want your game to focus on solar system exploration or a race just getting into space, miles and km or fractional AUs will be useful. Original Gundam is a good example of this, where only the moon is really colonized. If you want the inner system explored but have a focus on exploration of the outer planets and Oort Cloud, then AUs will be more useful. Remember that Pluto is on average 39 AUs from the Sun. 

Your propulsion tech will also be much more early. Chances are that you'll probably want to keep it at subluminal drives. This makes exploration to the outer system and back a much bigger deal. Depending on how much of the system is colonized will depend on how fast your ships can go. Something like Gundam or Total Recall, for example, only focuses on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and orbiting stations. On the other end of the spectrum, Eclipse Phase and Cowboy Bebop has a large focus on the outer ring as well as the inner system.

You can actually have wormholes if you want if they are stuck to gates. These wormholes act as kind of a Panama Canal in space. It'll take you to between two areas only, so that makes them prized and limited, but still opening up an entire solar system to your players.

Star Focus

If the focus is going to be on travelling between the stars, then you probably want to go into the superluminal propulsion. Everything is measured in lys and if you want to get to the stars in your lifetime, you'll probably want ships that can go lightspeed. Like before, this is dependent on the story you are looking to tell. If you want to emphasize the journey and exploration, then maybe lean on the slower end of things. This is especially true if the focus is on a singular, alien planet like the movie Avatar, or the video games Alpha Centauri, Pandora: First Contact, and Beyond Earth (see the previous section about focus on a singular system).

If you'd rather the focus be on the destination of exploration and seeing more in a star cluster, then lean more towards the faster side of travel. Wormhole gates would fit pretty well with this, as would hyperspace for covering the large distances involved. FTL would have to be fairly high if you want to get to the nearest star in a game session within the lifespan of the PCs.

Galaxy and Beyond Focus

If you want your players in a galaxy spanning adventure, zooming around the Milky Way or beyond, then you pretty much want the fastest propulsion available. Unlimited wormholes to get from one galactic arm to the other if the focus is more on the destination. Super FTL  or Hyperspace drives if you want the focus on the journey (I'm talking severaly ly/pcs per hour). Parsecs are going to be your main unit of measurement going between star clusters and galactic clusters. This would be interesting if your players end up in another galaxy or even an completely different galactic cluster.

Remember, space is big, but it's only as big as you want it to be. Whether the focus is on a single colony or a massive galactic empire, choose the propulsion that will fit your story.

Survivor Series I: Weather Forecasting

Fun fact, before I decided to be a chef and go to culinary school, I went to college to be a meteorologist. I have always been enamored by the weather and decided I wanted to do that for a living. Sadly, I wasn't the best at it, mostly the math sections. You'd be surprised how much math we had to take. I think only the mathematicians beat us. But enough about that.

I've always loved tornadoes and got to chase them! (Source: Wikipedia)

When I started DMing 3.5 and later Pathfinder, I would incorporate a lot of OSR survival stuff into my games. I always focused a lot more on the Man vs. Nature battles as players would deal with wildlife, natural disasters, disease, and weather. Weather is awesome and a game changer, and most players don't expect to deal with the blistering heat or cold, let alone storms and tornadoes. One of the most memorable moments in a game was when a PC tied himself to a pole and survived a tornado going over them, all while screaming and shouting obscenities. This earned him a place of honor among the tribes of kobolds that saw what he accomplished and he became a hero to them.

Of course, when adding more survival stuff into your game, it helps to know a little bit about the rules as well as how it works in real life, especially in a world very different from our modern world. For today. it's weather forecasting. In Pathfinder, one can forecast the weather using the Survival skill. And I use this in my ACKS game too, with a 16+ roll to do it, but those with Survival gain a +4 to it. However, many of my players have wondered how, without modern equipment, did our ancestors divine the weather?

We have to remember that people didn't use the scientific methods that we use today. A lot of weather forecasting was pattern recognition, based on astronomy, observing animal behavior, and simply looking at patterns in the sky. This would be compiled into almanacs as weather lore. You can see a pretty good list of them on the Wikipedia article about it. You can use these or have them as inspiration to make up your own weather lore for your game. Remember, it's all based on observations, not rigorous testing. If a bunch of crows gather the night before a rainstorm, you can bet that people will assume that a murder of crows brings the rain. And with running a magical fantasy setting, maybe that is actually the case! There are more magic methods of forecasting the weather, Dowsing and haruspicy are some real world examples. The classical definitions of pyromancy and aeromancy are also good to use for divining the weather (among other things).

Forecasting the weather is an important tool if you make weather a decent obstacle. Players dealing with torrential rainstorms and the flash floods that come with them will value a survivalist's prediction in the future. Or, the players trap an enemy army in a terrible thunderstorm to weaken and gain an advantage on them. Anything is possible! The more you use weather, the more of an impact it will have. I generally use the Pathfinder rules for weather, since they are pretty robust, but use or make up whatever you like! For a generator, I like to use the Dodeca Generator here. I find it is a good weather generator that takes into account the previous day's weather as well as the climate.

The Wild Primeval Mechanics

Earlier I talked about a part of my setting called the Wild Primeval. It's one part Feywild, one part Wonderland, and one part Princess Mononoke. It's not an alternate dimension of magic, spirits, and fairies, but a true part of the world that covered the world in ancient times but has now been assarted by man to make room for civilization. Below are the rules I use, though translated to using D&D rules. I use these but for Savage Worlds. Hope you enjoy!

The Wild Primeval

Hexes that spawn on the map, having a 1% chance per day. This is Increased by several factors, some caused by the PCs.

Spells cast in the previous day: +2% per spell

Existing Wild Zone: 2% per Wild Zone Hex

Existing Wild Realm: 5% per Wild Realm Hex

Existing Ascended Wild Zone: 10% per Ascended Wild Zone

The percentage from spells cast are added the following day, then reset. These are all cumulative and go to a maximum of 75%.

When they spawn, check your 10 x 10 hex map and roll 2d10 to choose the random spawn coordinates. If you have a different sized hex map, you can choose different dice that would fit, or pick a 10 x 10 area on it. If it spawns on top of a settlement that is a town or larger, re-roll. The Wild Primeval tends to avoid civilization when first spawning.

Once spawned, every day you roll 1d6 to see if the origin Wild Zone continues to anchor itself into our reality or fades away. Rolling 4+ succeeds, raises (every 3 over the success DC for non-Savage Worlds players) count as additional successes, dice explodes. Three success means the origin Wild Zone is now permanent. Three failures means it dissipates.

Once it has become permanent, the origin Wild Zone starts spawning more Wild Zones in adjacent hexes. Every day, roll 1d6 to see which adjacent hex becomes a Wild Zone. Do this until the origin Wild Zone is surrounded by the secondary Wild Zones.

Once surrounded, the origin Wild Zone becomes an Ascended Wild Demesne and the surrounding six hexes the Wild Realm. Every week, roll 2d4 to see how much it expands. The numbers rolled are how many hexes are spawned. Each expansion must be adjacent to two existing Wild Zone hexes.. These can spawn over settlements that are towns or bigger. Wild Zone hexes that no longer border normal hexes become Wild Realms.

An Ascended Wild Demesne can erupt into something greater called an Unbound Wild Demesne. More on that later.

Multiple origin Wild Zones can spawn and it’s not unusual for a Wild Realm to have two or more Ascended Wild Demesne. When spawned, you can connect the realms with the spawning Wild Zones to form a larger Wild Realm.

Rules in the Wild Zone

In all Wild Zones, the laws of reality are warped. Magic is more random. All casters gain the Wild Magic backlash. Every time a spell is cast, there is a 10% chance they set off a Wild Magic event. Roll a d6 and see the results are below. Each result is simple and the GM or player can embellish as they see fit. The results are purposefully split between beneficial, neutral, and negative.

1. The spell doesn't work, but still uses up a slot. You take 1d4 damage per spell level.
2. A different spell on your list is cast, GM's choice.
3. The spell's cosmetics changes. Fireball becomes purple and grease smells like lavender.
4. Something cosmetic changes either you or the target(s). Hair color, smell, clothes, gender, whatever you or the GM decides. It lasts for 1d6 hours.
5. The spell casts for free, without using a slot.
6. The spell heals you or your target for 1d4 per spell level.

In addition, casting a spell adds to the chance of an Arcane Tempest forming. Arcane Tempests are terrifying storms that ravage the countryside with magical energies and fundamentally warp the area. The GM checks once a day for an Arcane Tempest to spawn in the PC’s hex. The percentages are listed below.

% of Tempest in a Wild Zone: 2%

% of Tempest in a Wild Realm: 5%

% of Tempest in an Ascended Wild Demesne: 10%

% of Tempest in an Unbound Wild Demesne: 20%

Spell Caster in the Hex: +2% per Spell Caster Level per Character

Spell Cast: + 5% per Spell Cast

Arcane Tempests unleash harsh winds and rain onto the countryside. The precipitation is always strange, ranging from unusual to the climate (snow in the desert, sandstorm in the jungle) to the downright weird (raining frogs or blood). These cause the usual penalties to sight and ranged attacks. In addition, eldritch energies surge through the area like lightning. These bolts of arcane lightning do 2d6 magic damage to anyone struck. Casters also lose a random spell when struck. Eldritch lightning has a 1 in 12 chance of striking a random character per 1 hour in the Arcane Tempest. Arcane Tempests disappear after 1d6 hours. When an Arcane Tempest is done, it changes the landscape drastically. Change one or more of the magical vistas in a hex when the storm is done. I usually change an amount equal to the hours the storm lasted.

The terrain in the Wild Zone becomes more treacherous. Forests become overgrown, deserts become hotter. Movement through all terrains are halved. Terrain in a Wild Realm and Wild Demesne become very chaotic. Floating islands, talking trees, rivers flowing into the sky, and fields of fire are all common vistas in these areas. These areas become great landmarks and potential adventures for the players and can be randomly rolled or placed appropriately. Each Wild Realm has one or two of these vistas. An Ascended Wild Demesne has three to four, and an Unbound Wild Demesne has five and up. I plan on making a list of these in a future post, but feel free to go crazy with this.

Monsters are more common in Wild Zones, and many are much more dangerous. Some monsters are spawned from the Wild Zones and will attack intruders to protect their home. The origin Wild Zone is the nexus of the all other Wild Zones. Within it is a strange glowing bulb called the Golden Blossom. It is what anchors the Wild Zones in our world. It has roots that extends out to all the other zones, making it easy to track.

Unbound Wild Demesne

Sometimes enemies or the PCs want to see the Ascended Wild Demesne grow even stronger. To do this, they can sacrifice creatures to the Golden Blossom to truly make it powerful. The blossom takes a lot of sacrifices to erupt. Below is a table that shows how many sapient mortals are needed to sacrifice to unchain the Golden Blossom.

Level of Sacrificed Creature    Number Needed

1-4                                                 625

5-8                                                 125

9-12                                               25

13-16                                             5

17-20                                             1

When it has taken enough victims, it becomes an Unbound Wild Demesne. The surrounding six hexes become Ascended Wild Demesne. The Golden Blossom also uproots itself and becomes a colossal spirit plant monster I call the Primeval Guardian. It acts as a guardian of the Wild Primeval and will continue spreading the influence across multiple hexes and destroying any signs of civilization. Whoever created it doesn't control it and many times, the Primeval Guardian will try and kill its master. There is a way to control it, but I haven't figured that out yeah. I will definitely make some stats for this colossal monstrosity.

Destroying a Wild Zone

When you destroy the Golden Blossom, you destroy the origin Wild Zone and all hexes it spawned. Other Wild Zones cannot exist without the original one and disappear immediately.

Sometimes a large realm of Wild Zones and Wild Realms will have multiple origin Wild Zones. If one origin Wild Zone is destroyed, then the six surrounding hexes are also destroyed. In addition, 2d4 hexes disappear at the start of the next day, GM’s choice. After this, if there are any hexes that aren’t somehow connected to an origin Wild Zone, they too disappear.

The Players and the Wild Primeval

Whenever the players destroy or let a Wild Zone bloom, it affects the spawn rate in the area. Doing certain actions can also stymie the birth of these areas. In general, Civilization is anathema to the Wild Primeval, and taming the lands will make it harder for them to spawn. If there are four or more Wild Zones still in an area, the slider can’t go above 0.

Slider

5 -- All Wild Zones gain a -4 to all of their anchoring rolls

4 -- Roll the % to Spawn dice three times and take the lowest

3 -- All Wild Zones gain a -2 to all of their anchoring rolls

2 -- Roll the % to Spawn dice twice and take the lowest

1 -- All Wild Zones gain a -1 to all of their anchoring rolls

0 -- Spawns normally

1 -- All Wild Zones only need two successful anchoring rolls

2 --Spawns one extra Wild Zone on a success

3 -- All Wild Zones only need one successful anchoring roll

4 -- Spawns two extra Wild Zones on a success

5 -- Spawns three extra Wild Zones on a success and all Wild Zones anchor after one day

Building a Domain: +1

Building an Urban Settlement: +2

Destroying a Wild Zone: +1

Destroying an Ascended Wild Demesne: +2

Destroying an Unbound Wild Demesne: +4

Wiping out a horde of monsters/an alpha monster: +1

A Domain gets destroyed: -1

An Urban Settlement gets destroyed: -2

A Domain/Urban Settlement gets claimed by a Wild Hex: -2

A Wild Zone anchors: -1

A Wild Zone ascends into a Wild Demesne: -2

An Ascended Wild Demesne becomes Unbound: -4

The Wilds and Magic

The inaugural post for this blog!

I love magic and fantasy worlds. It's something amazing and wonderful because it doesn't really exist in our world. However, one thing that I see often in RPG settings and games is that magic feels different or disconnected from the rest of the world. Yes, there are monsters in them, but many of the mundane monsters (orcs, goblins) feel too much like part of the mundane world, while more magical beasts tend to hail from other planes of existence. These magical beasts and dangers can be fantastical obstacles that can make the players feel really heroic. There's also this sense of wonderment of adventuring in vistas that wouldn't be possible in the real world.

Imagine the PCs tripping in this area...

Yet, there is also something interesting about the mundane world. There are still dangers, both from animals and the elements, that add a great amount of danger and conflict, thus adding adventure. These down to earth conflicts can help the players connect to the setting in ways that a more epic, magical style can. Saving the village from vicious bandits, or helping out citizens dealing with a drought, or even braving a terrible storm in the wilderness can fill the players with a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel as though they earned being called heroes.

So, what if we want both the mundane and magic vistas in our setting?

This is why I've added a phenomenon called The Wild Primeval in my settings. In this, there is a chance that an area of arcane energies spawn in the world. This changes the mundane into something more akin to a fairy tale. Floating islands, crazed monsters, talking trees, cannibalistic fog... these are all possible and common in the Wild Primeval. When spawning, they tend to avoid larger settlements and cities. One concept I enjoy is Man vs. Nature, with the best and worst of civilization warring with the best and worst of nature. With this concept, I have the Wild Primeval as a sort of primordial state of the world before the races of the world began building cities and taming the wilderness.

Floating mountains are always cool!

Not only can these zones of eldritch energies change the landscape, but they can also grow and expand. At the center of the Wild Primeval is a blossom of arcane energies. This is what anchors the wild zones into our world and giving time and care, they can expand overland and begin swallowing cities. And that can put the Wild Primeval against the PCs. Again, this really showcases the civilization vs nature I really want to be more at the forefront in the games I run, as well as secularism vs spiritualism.

I do plan on having the PCs able to counter the effects of the Wild Primeval (as well as causing them). Casting spells increase the chances of a Wild Zone event to happen, as does overcasting (casting past your limit, which is dangerous). There is also a cascading effect if Wild Zones are left uncontested. The more there are on the map, the more that will spawn. Of course, taming the wilds can help reduce and prevent the Wild Primeval from spawning. PCs can destroy the blossom that anchors the Wild Zone into place. I plan on the Wild Primeval having effects on casters (both positive and negative), as well as mundanes, but that can be expounded upon in another blog.

This may feel like an invasion from another dimension taking place in our world, but truthfully, it is the world reverting to its primordial, magic heavy state. Like overgrowth and animals retaking an abandoned city long after humans are gone. Yet it should still feel very alien and different to the players, almost as if they've entered another plane of existence filled with spirits.

Of course, the mundane wilderness is still saturated by spirits and beings from the Spirit World as well as magical beasts. Magical vistas also still exist in the mundane world, but they tend to be the exception and usually built by creature of magic or casters. In the Wild Primeval, magical vistas simply are the norm

I plan on expanding more on this in later blog posts. I want to have these spawning rules for hexcrawls that I wish to run now that I have free time.