Campaign Log: Winter 1470

The characters are still in Rimini, scouting out a location for their covenant. They have a potential site, with just one problem - the local residents. The site is on Mount Titano, and the locals are a stand-offish group who haven't had much interaction with the rest of Italy. As magi, the PCs could probably destroy the small community without much effort or repercussions, but despite strong representation for that option, the majority are against founding their covenant with a bloodbath.

Efforts at negotiation have been made more difficult by Carlos, who played around with some illusions last session, provoking the village. Tito had to fly in and put a stop to it, managing to stop the confrontation from escalating, but not really ingratiating himself with the villagers.

So in the morning, its up to Valantino to head up the mountainside and negotiate. Flying most of the way there, he lands and approaches on foot to avoid spooking the villagers. He spots the guards before they can ambush him, and speaks his piece, offering gifts and asking to speak to the leader. When the leader agrees to speak with him, he continues his humble approach, submitting to the silly (and quite uncomfortable - bathing in winter?) rituals and is allowed to come up and speak to the High Priest.

Meanwhile, Tito is wandering around Rimini, trying to find out something about the bandits that are living in his forest. Of course, Tito being Tito, he says the wrong thing to the wrong person, and he finds himself in an escalating confrontation with a very loud shopkeeper. He shouts "Fine, see if I care if you get killed by bandits!" and tries to leave. But the crowd blocks his way. He forces his way past them, but the crowd follows, yelling insults, and working its way up to throwing stones at him.

Before it can get to that stage, though, Tito cracks. He starts blubbering, crying "I'm sorry that I'm so ugly, I don't mean to be!"

Confused, and more than a little disturbed by the sight of the big man blubbering, the crowd disperses. Tito goes back to his rooms in the castle (the players are guests of the Duke, Sigismundo) and sulks. When Valantino comes back with news that the villagers are ready to move on to the next step in negotiations, Tito is in no mood to hear it.

The rest of the party are pleased to hear that things are moving forward. Valantino tells them that the next step is for the people that were fooling with and/or killing the villagers last night will have to come forward and apologise. Its suggested that they will have to pay were-guild for the dead raiders. Sigismundo steps in a this point, and says that there's no need to stint on the gifts - he provides silver, fine cloths and wine for the characters to offer.

And offer them they do. The High Priest is pleased with the gifts, and impressed by their powers - it seems he is no stranger to magic. He admits that the warriors that were killed were on a raid, so their deaths were honourable and accepts the gifts as reparation. He declares that there will be a feast. He doesn't mention that the feast will be a test of the characters good nature, but they get that anyway.

The feast is held, and the characters acquit themselves well. Gaius makes an impression on one of the prettier villagers, but he manages to sneak off with her and not cause any trouble. Carlos declines to make any more mischief. And Tito has a chance to save a young kid from a nasty fall. The kids mother thanks him profusely, and Tito starts to come out of his sulk. The characters are invited to stay the night, as climbing down the mountain isn't safe - but the characters have a flying carriage, so they decline. Gaius manages to re-join the party in time, and they depart.

As the party flies down to the castle, they spot a figure wandering the battlements. A closer approach reveals that it is Valantino's wife, sleepwalking or in a trance. Valantino snaps her out of it, and gets her back to bed. Carlos also retires, but Gaius takes Tito out into town. Tito has been moping far to much for Gaius' liking recently so he gets Tito drunk and pays a 'large woman' to spend some time with Tito. Tito is too chaste to take advantage of her offers, but he feels better at least.

The next morning, Gaius declares that he needs a coffee and a kebab to deal with his hangover. Since neither of these have been introduced into Italy yet, he teleports to Tunis, where such things are available. He quickly regrets it, as it turns out teleporting is bad for hangovers. Even with the recuperative powers of coffee and kebabs, it is noon before he feels well enough to teleport back. But he's in time to join the party's bandit hunting expedition.

Tito has learned from Sigismundo that the bandits are ex-members of his mercenary company. They are skilled, know the forest and are trained to deal with magic. Worse, they have got a hold of at least one of the helmets that Sigismundo equips his trusted soldiers with. These helms allow the wearer to see through illusion and provide magic resistance. Nevertheless, the characters are feeling confident as they set out. The weather is good, if chilly, and they hope to fly over the forest and identify the bandit camp by the smoke from the campfires. A high aerial pass shows 5 possible sites, Valantino volunteers to do a close inspection as he can both fly and go invisible.

Some three hours pass, and Valantino does not return. The party heads out after him. They quickly investigate a charcoal-burners camp and a lone cabin by a lake. As they approach the third site, a man pops out of concealment an fires a crossbow right at Tito. Tito is protected by his Shriek of the Impending Shafts spell and dodges the arrow. The man pops back into concealment and sounds his warning horn, as the flying carriage zooms up to his hiding place. He is not to be seen there, and as they fly over the ridge in pursuit of him, they espy the remains of a hastily-vacated camp. Ignoring their attacker, whom they have lost track of anyway, Tito lands in the camp and identifies the direction the bandits have left from. He follows on foot, leaving the rest of the characters to follow.

The bandits left a few traps to slow pursuers down, but Tito uses his magic to disable them without breaking stride. Much to his dismay though, he finds that the tracks split a number of times. Each time they do, he knows the chances of finding Valantino grow smaller. He runs on. Carlos falls behind, gives up and heads back to the carriage. Gaius manages to keep up, and spots another ambush ahead. He teleports above the ambushers, ready to serve up an ambush of his own....

End of Session.

What a random link gets you

So I click on this link and get a fascinating article (well, sample chapter really) about our assumptions and perceptions of national cultures and how they are completely shit. Lazy Japanese indeed!

So in the early days of capitalism when most economically successful countries happened to be Protestant Christian, many people argued that Protestantism was uniquely suited to economic development. When Catholic France, Italy, Austria, and Southern Germany developed rapidly, particularly after the Second World War, Christianity, rather than Protestantism, became the magic culture. Until Japan became rich, many people thought East Asia had not develop because of Confucianism. But when Japan succeeded, this thesis was revised to say that Japan was developing so fast because its unique form of Confucianism emphasised cooperation over individual edification, which the Chinese and Korean versions allegedly valued more highly. And then Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea also started doing well, so this judgment about the different varieties of Confucianism was forgotten. Indeed Confucianism as a whole suddenly became the best culture for development because it emphasised hard work, saving, education, and submission to authority. Today, when we now see Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia, Buddhist Thailand, and even Hindu India doing economically well, we can soon expect to encounter new theories that will trumpet how uniquely all these cultures are suited for economic development (and how their authors have known about it all along). 

Must remember to keep that prediction in mind and see if the pundits do start declaring the unique aspects of Indian culture that made it destined to succeed.

He also talks about how cultures aren't monolithic and unchanging - I don't think he goes far enough. I think that any trait you care to name is manifested in all cultures - we fixate on what is dominant, or perceived to be dominant, but under the right circumstances traits that are more valuable come to the fore. Thats why cultures can change so radically, so quickly.

Character Profile: Azaith

Character Name: Azaith

System: Twilight (Home grown)

I miss Azaith. I miss a lot of my old characters - RPG characters rarely get the closure that the characters of a novel get. RPG characters can die, retire, or the game can just end - either because its finished or because some new game has come along. When that happens, the character sheet goes in a file, probably never to be looked at again. Sometimes a character sees new life in another game, but its rarely the same.

Its difficult to describe Azaith, because he was a shapeshifter. He could also go invisible, and was able create illusions, most commonly of himself. He was the slipperiest character I've ever played or seen. He was like paranoid water. And he was crazy, and he was so much fun to play. To get an idea of what Azaith was like, you could check out Fuzzy of Sam and Fuzzy. I used him a lot for inspiration. Of course Azaith was a lot more paranoid. He had to be, a lot of people wanted to kill him.

I've played evil characters, violent characters, deluded characters - but Azaith was something special. The sheer randomness of his actions, his ever-changing justifications and excuses... it was exhilarating constantly having to come up with this stuff, and tremendously liberating to constantly create new goals without being limited to common sense, consequences or recent history.

One thing I was dissatisfied with though was that Azaith was a lot more destructive than he was creative. I had meant for him to be more balanced, but its a lot easier to destroy than it is to create. Assassinating the lead member of a trade delegation could be done on a whim,  but staging the epic musical "The Necromancer Has No Pants" took a lot of effort from the entire gaming group.

That campaign ended with a climatic finale - the evil god was destroyed or banished or whatever. Azaith made a brief return as a 4th Ed Halfling Thief/Warlock, pushing the boundaries as much as a 1st level character could, but it wasn't the same. Twilight was really a unique system, and I'll probably never really play Azaith again.

Games I Play: Pendragon

Pendragon is fabulously flawed. Its a game that only does one thing, and it does it badly. But its great fun to play.

The first thing you need to know about Pendragon is that you are going to play a knight. None of the varied roles that are normal for a roleplaying game are available. There is magic, but you are not going to play a wizard. Its too early for duellist-types, mercenaries and archers are beneath notice. You are going to play a knight, you are going to hit things with swords (and lances when you ride a horse) and you are going to wear the heaviest (and therefore best) armour. That is all.

You may have some hobbies: hunting, singing, poetry, etc. which may distinguish you from the crowd, but really: everyone start out bad at those skills and gets better as they go along. You have lands and rank, but again, there's a simple progression from less to more as you play.

This might sound a little boring, and to be honest, Pendragon doesn't have the staying power of other games. Once you've played a knight a few times, you start looking for other things to do. Which means other games, because there's nothing else to do in Pendragon.

Its a great game though, for those few times. Why? Because even though its a poor roleplaying game, its a great way to really feel like you're fighting with King Arthur. Those old legends didn't feature modern fantasy's list of archetypal characters. The dragons weren't ancient and wise beings, full of advice for the plucky young bakers apprentice. The trolls weren't unionised - they stayed under the bridges where they belonged. Pendragon is a return to twelfth century fantasy.

Admittedly, the combat system is simplistic, with only a few tactical options (each more brutal than the last) and the skill system is easy to break. Characters with a high enough Constitution can live underwater. Lancelot has enough skill to critically succeed on every hit. But there is one area where Pendragon shines, and that is Personality Traits.

Whereas DnD had its Lawful/Chaotic, Good/Evil scales, Pendragon has 14 matched traits, like Chaste/Lustful or Energetic/Lazy. Each is graded on a scale of 1 to 20, and gets modified in play according to your actions. Character development is literally a development of your character. And its not just for fun - having high virtues has a game effect, with a Chivalric bonus for having high scores in the virtues considered chivalric and religious bonuses for both Pagan and Christian virtues. Not to mention the advantages of having a high Valourous trait when its time to fight a dragon.

Having this complex virtue system makes it possible for adventures to be like the old stories. A knight stands vigil overnight, but does not make his Energetic roll and fails the test. You can be tempted by all the evils of the world, and if your stats are high and you roll well, you can find the Grail. Pendragon is the only game I've seen which both encourages and rewards virtue. Its something that a lot of games could do with.

Pendragon is  a classic game, one you'll keep coming back to every 5 years or so. Its also a game where I'd recommend the published adventures. Normally I like to tell my own stories, but all the best stories for Pendragon were written 600 years ago.

Free at last

Whenever I told people that I was taking the rest of the year off, the universal response after, "Wow." and "I'm jealous." was "Where are you going to go?" It bugged me, because I didn't have a good answer. Well, I did have an answer, but staring incredulously at the person and saying "Why would I want to go anywhere?" didn't seem to be the right one.

Don't get me wrong, I think travel is great - see new places, get away from the rut at home, etc. I've done that, and I will do that more in the future. But Perth is a fantastic city to live in - clean air, open spaces, filled with greenery and with a great standard of living. I've spent years collecting books and video and other entertainment, making my home as comfortable to me as possible. All my friends, whom I regularly game with are here. Why would I want to leave this?

So if I got through that question, the next one was inevitably, "So what are you going to do?" And again I was pretty much stuck for an answer. As if there was only one, or a short list of things, that I could do in three months. The best answer I could come up with was - live. And here I'll add that I don't know what I'll be doing. I have plans, sure. But what I'm going to do, for the first time in my life, is do whatever I want most to do, without having to worry about expenses, without worrying about the time it will take, without having the excuse that work is taking all my attention.

This blog is part of that, the rest remains to be seen. Maybe I'll volunteer to work in East Timor, maybe I'll stare at the ceiling for two days straight. But whatever it is, for the rest of the year, I'll be free to do it.

First Post!

Write something every day... who said that? Well, just about everyone who knows about writing. So. Lets see how this goes.

(like I'm going to write anything until I've played with all the template settings. Lets see how this post looks)