In defence of false rumours [#deadbird]

I'm not a huge fan of RPG Design discourse. I know what I enjoy in tabletop games and my openness to embracing new ideas extends to adventures and rulesets rather than abstracted diatribes and forge-era "theory". I love hearing about the obscure media and radical thought that inspires the brilliant worlds practitioners of this weird hobby continue to create, but for the life of me I can't recall an occasion where anyone's Appendix N included a patronising twitter thread.

So let's keep this brief.

False rumours can be bad. Exhibit A:

RUMOUR: 

The Bewilderbeast can only be harmed by ROOT VEGETABLES

CONSEQUENCE:

Player 1: My fighter attacks the Bewilderbeast with a carrot.

GM: Roll to hit. 

Player 1: 15... hits AC3! Am I good?

GM (makes performatively furtive eye movements, giggles etc.) uhhh... yeah. I mean.. you HIT the beast... with a CARROT! The Bewilderbeast remains unharmed!

TPK ensues. Sad!

But they can also be FUN (if not GOOD):

RUMOUR:

The colonialists plundered the Old Kingdom's mines, loaded their wagons and headed to the hills. They were set upon by Winged Terrors near CREEPERS CREEK and the wagons of gold were never recovered.   

CONSEQUENCE

The party head to Creeper's Creek to recover the lost gold... but the legend is false, the gold was recovered long ago. Nonetheless there's a weird druid guy, a cool place to build a fort and a cave network that they can go and check out now that they're here. 

Why not just post a rumour that Creeper's Creek has a cool place to build a fort and a cave and a druid?

Because uniformed idiots are part of what makes a world seem real, and the promise of gold that isn't there will compel them to continue to explore in a way that vague notions about a weird druid will not. 

Anthropology and Archaeology: The RPG Blog Carnival

This is essentially a slush-pile post: last September, user Rook of Beneath Foreign Planets on the Weird and Wonderful Worlds discord server hosted the RPG Blog Carnival with the theme Anthropology and Archaeology. The complete list of posts is at this link is a veritable treasure trove.

Beautiful Neolithic figurines, Gozo Museum of Archaeology, Malta

My first (and I should add, incomplete) degree was in anthropology and it's a discipline I would dearly like to return to one day, possibly when (if?) I (get to?) retire. Consequently I had a few ideas but never, had a chance to expand on any of them. The following is a list of posts I’m likely never going to write out in full: I hope they might inspire someone to make something more of them. In no particular order...

THE LEGO PATAPHOR

UPDATED 10th July for greater clarity, thanks to feedback from Dan of Thrown of Salt
 
You might be familiar with the Lego analogy used for the design of roleplaying games.

There's memes and everything.

Designers do some subtly disturbing shit with LEGO

..but I came across it thanks to Monkeys Paw Games:

if you buy a lego set that has a castle on the front of the box and use the lego inside to build a spaceship are you playing lego "wrong?" are you told "no, idiot, you should have bought the spaceship lego, instead!"

interesting interesting

https://twitter.com/monkeyspawgames/status/1432440582790684677

HAMLET: A ONE LETTER RPG

 …totus mundus agit histrionem

- Petronius

Sometimes it takes a while for me to catch on, and so it was with Hamlet: a One Letter RPG by W.H. Arthur. Regular readers may recall my interview with Arthur back in 2021, but if not please follow the link or have a glance over his itch.io page: he has built up an excellent catalogue of games and material during the two years that have passed since he kindly agreed to be interviewed.

This post very specifically examines one game in particular: Hamlet: A one-letter RPG, inspired by the Business Card RPG Jam and We Are But Worms. You can download the game here:

https://aryl-ether.itch.io/hamlet

Screenshot: a business card RPG, Hamlet

LONG LIVE THE BLOGOSPHERE!

TL/DR: bookmark this blog, use my sidebar to keep up-to-date on other interesting blogs

I received a message from Reddit yesterday, congratulating me on my "7th cake day".

Happy Birthday to the Ground

THE BEYOND: POLARIS REVISITED, via Carcosa and... The Imperium of Man?

In this post I return to THE BEYOND in PARIAH, principally the realm of POLARIS. This idea's been stewing for several years now but two recent blog posts by others prompted me to revisit it. 

CONTENT WARNING: The Absolute Worst Stuff Imaginable is alluded to. 

DEAD BIRDS #2: COLLECTED OCTOBER UN-THOUGHT

Two dead crows, hung by string from Chris Packham's gate. Image courtesy The Guardian

I actually did restore that twitter account, purely to protect my burgeoning brand, man. Follower count is a proud zero. You're here instead, welcome to my mind, October 2022. 

1. SEA TROLLS: Barnacle-encrusted and carrying driftwood clubs, they hide beneath the sands (or shingle, if you live on the Blighted Isles). Regenerate only by bathing in seawater. Courtesy Louis and family 
   
   

DEAD BIRDS #1: COLLECTED SEPTEMBER UN-THOUGHT

Still Life with a Dead Bird by Marina Dormidontova

 It's good to have a filter. Here's what would happen if I did not.

1. OSR IS AN OPERATING SYSTEM: there's a post in this, it may become one. What FKR newbies don't realise is that old school D&D is just a framing device. DISCUSS. 2022.09.02
   
   

HUDLESS Adventure Gaming

Over the past 12 months it has been interesting to observe the rapid growth of the FKR: the reinterpretation of Free Kriegsspiel wargaming conventions in the indie RPG/NSR/OSR roleplaying spaces. Free Kriegsspiel  is a mode of wargaming whereby players are encouraged to immerse themselves more thoroughly in the "game world" by detaching themselves from the games' mechanics. Instead, an umpire or referee decides the outcome of the players' actions, cleaving as closely as possible to what they believe would be the "real world" outcome of such an action.

Giving a) the predilection for rules-light gaming/rulings not rules in the OSR and b) the preference for narrative over mechanics in many parts of the indie game scene the attraction of these 2 RPG "blocs"  towards free kriegsspiel is unsurprising. How such an approach is interpreted varies a great deal: last year I had the opportunity to speak at length to friend-of-the-blog Jim Parkin of   https://d66kobolds.blogspot.com/ on my very occasional podcast. He did a great job of explaining how such a philosophy might be applied, and it's well worth a listen if this stuff tickles your fancy:

https://anchor.fm/alonein-thelabyrinth/episodes/THE-JIMTERVIEW--Interview-with-Jim-Parkin-of-D66-Classless-Kobolds-enfrqm

..actually it was an off-hand remark Jim made about FKR on the NSR server he runs with Yochai Gal (https://yochaigal.itch.io/)  which prompted this post.

Let's Play - 4 Vignettes and a bad poem

This is an informal essay — more a collection of notes, really — which represents an attempt to jot down some thoughts I've had since listening to (and occasionally participating in) discussions on discord, anchor and twitter about general RPG "theory" (scare quotes mine).

Apologies for those, by the way. The scare quotes. I can get defensive when I see attempts to intellectualise the hobby, mostly due to my an ambiguous relationship with design theory. This isn't a boast, it's a confession: part of me is and always will be passive-aggressively anti-intellectual, while another part craves the validation of the labyrinths of Hod. Both these aspects of myself shame me, or I shame myself by outing them in public...

But look. We're here now, you're reading, I'm writing and we both may as well persevere. GNS still gets touted around and we really have to move on....

How? 

Well, there aren't really any answers here, but I hope the anecdotal vignettes that follow might provide some further thoughts and discussion.  It's also likely to be in two parts: both are inspired by childhood play, but the second part is perhaps more relevant within the context of street culture and children's folklore and I'm more likely to post it at my other blog psychocartography, as I've neglected it for nearly two years now and I think I'd like to resurrect it.

Here's some half-formed thoughts. Bon appétit.

Exploring Space: Procedure in Different RPG Environments (Part 2)

Part 1 of this 2-part post special can be read here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/01/exploring-space-procedure-in-different.html

In a previous post I look at play procedures in different environments, in the hope that this might somehow "unlock" the secret to running a city encounter. For many readers I'm trying to solve a problem that isn't there, and I'm not going to argue with you: I think this is probably about my own obsession with cities and what they mean. Hopefully something good can come out of it.

Lilith, Anselm Kiefer

Before digging into the urban environment I want to examine the final play procedure: delving. In producing this text it occurred to me that my issues with cities in RPGs is that they can offer the same high risk/high reward scenario that dungeons and other discrete locations can offer, but the procedure for exploring such sites is entirely unsuited for the majority of play within a city.

Anyway, here's my breakdown of dungeoneering. Again: this is not didactic, merely how I interpret old-school style play at my table, ymmv:

Exploring Space: Procedure in Different RPG Environments (Part 1)

Constant's New Babylon Nord. It is upside down, courtesy the internet.

Work for PARIAH VOLUME 2: CITY OF GHOSTS continues apace. There is no way I am going to be able to have this ready for Zine Quest 3  unfortunately, but I have at least settled on a format. The nature of the space is closer to a dungeon crawl than a city crawl, so there will be a somewhat granular approach to the space... by which I suppose I mean a keyed map with defined locations and routes around.

However, I'm still thinking about a bigger, more urban setting for another project, but feel the need to really define the procedure for exploring an urban environment, as it's the least defined in old school play. To get there I'm first going to have a look at some traditional play procedures with additional commentary regarding how this manifests in PARIAH.

The Knife: the very last skills post (until the next one)

I had the unusual pleasure of playing in a pariah game that someone else (specifically Louis from So Much Game) was running. One of the other players (specifically Nye of the internet and Garblag Games) expressed frustration at the lack of opportunities for his character to be useful: he seemed to have a lot of social, charisma-based abilities that weren't of use in the wilderness scenario Louis was presenting.

I did a pretty terrible job of explaining tactical infinity in old school games, and how this can work alongside a skill system, but I stand by my words: I know a lot of old school RPG enthusiasts would say that this is because character skill always detracts from the application of player skill. I want to address that supposition—it in a non-confrontational way—with the notion of skills as tools.

Neolithic flint knife blade.

First among tools is the adventurer's friend, the knife.

Our Man in [the] Moscow [Metropolitan Area]: Interview with Eugene

This post is to share a podcast I recorded on Thursday 17th December 2020 with Eugene, one of the regular players in the PARIAH campaign.

https://anchor.fm/alonein-thelabyrinth/episodes/Our-Man-in-the-Moscow-Metropolitan-Area-Interview-with-Eugene-eo00fe

Up for discussion:

• ...the Russian-language RPG scene...
• Eugene's unlucky PARIAH characters... 
• Eugene's Russian-language PARIAH one-shot... 
• The joy of Stonehell!

All other music sampled from Никто не в безопасности (No-one is safe) by Supruga:

https://open.spotify.com/track/4FG6YLDTSsnRO0UMZ2upZJ?si=wHZHv4a1RmagKrZ7HLeViQ

Used without permission: fair use in non-commercial context. 

Supruga do not endorse this podcast or PARIAH!

Order the digitally printed edition of PARIAH Vol. 1 distributed by Soul Muppet:

https://soulmuppet-store.co.uk/products/pariah-volume-1

Pariah wilderness supplement available here:

https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/pariah-wilderness-supplement

The mega-dungeon Stonehell by Michael Curtis can be bought from Lulu:

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/michael-curtis/stonehell-dungeon-down-night-haunted-halls/paperback/product-1v8vy2zz.html

TAKE THE INITIATIVE [from TROIKA!]

 Wow! \I'm really doing it! I'm making a post about initiative! I mean, I re-blogged shuttered room once... https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2020/01/shuttered-room-classic-six-initiative.html

Actually I have no really contribution to the discourse, just wanted to say what I like about Troika! initiative and there's a bit of chat about it's application in skirmish games and/or tactical RPGS... here's my take...

Such a beautiful cover!
You can buy it from The Melsonian Arts Council and they'll even include a free book inside it!

The memorious among you may remember that I was working on a Salute of the Jugger game a little while back and one of the most fun elements of the playtest with Tinhead Ned and Eugene was the random initiative system which I adapted from Troika.

...most fun for me at least, I don't think anyone else enjoyed themselves...

1D20 x 1D20 SPICY HOT TAKES TABLE

You can download a slightly better resolution pdf of the above image FOR FREE using the internet:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.itch.io/sofinhos-spicy-hot-takes-alternative-rules-generator

Alternatively, cut and paste this table and print it yourself without going to another website.

“Okay, okay so: what if….”
...instead of...		...we simply...
1	...CHARACTER SHEETS...	1	...use jungian archetypes.
2	...SEARCHING FOR SECRET DOORS...	2	...search for obvious windows.
3	...DEATH AT 0 HP...	3	...make characters quantum immortals.
4	...RANDOM ENCOUNTERS...	4	...say that everything’s going to be just fine.
5	...SPELLS...	5	...recognise the right to  believe in pseudoscience even if (or because) it expedites humanity’s inevitable extinction.
6	...LEVELS...	6	...kill all characters to which players have become attached.
7	....MONSTERS...	7	...embody our subconscious fears in a more subtle manner.
8	...SAVING THROWS...	8	... discuss a range of possible outcomes and take a vote on the one which “best serves the fiction”.
9	...SKILL CHECKS...	9	...play “The Game”, not some platonic ideal, but “The Game”, the one we’re always playing but if you remember you are playing it you automatically lose. Which means we all just lost.
10	...EXPERIENCE POINTS...	10	...tune a shortwave radio to the nearest numbers station and interpret whatever message is broadcast accordingly.
11	...CLASSES...	11	...escalate the CLASS WAR!
12	...PERCEPTION CHECKS...	12	...fart into jars and try to identify which fart belongs to which player.
13	...TURN BASED COMBAT...	13	...hold a bake-off (in game or out of game, roll 1d2 to decide which).
14	...ROLLING FOR INITIATIVE...	14	...interpret the entrails of a recently deceased animal.
15	...THE CLASSIC 6 ABILITY SCORES...	15	..improvise a ballet inspired by James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
16	...HIT POINTS...	16	...cut off a digit.
17	...CORE RULE BOOKS...	17	...ask everyone to bring their favourite piece of literature to the table and together construct a new fictive reality.
18	...ROLLING DICE...	18	...we each stick our respective heads in our respective ovens.
19	...a GAMEMASTER...	19	...play trust exercises with our genitals.
20	...PLAYERS	20	...use dogs.

BRINGING META ELEMENTS INTO THE FICTION PART I - Player/Character

This is the first of two posts in which your author (me) will take a stab at the disc-horse (or at least give it a half-hearted flogging) concerning incorporating non-diegetic (i.e. meta) game elements into the diegetic fold. If that doesn't sound like fun to you then please, skip ahead: no one will ever know. You could read this post about a giant psychic parasite that lives inside a pyramid instead.

In a sense this post (and its forthcoming daughter, to be linked here at some point in the future) is a response to a conversation running back and forth across multiple platforms, from which I'd hitherto abstained but to which I now feel I have something to contribute.  Back in September, Cavegirl published this post on diegetic and non-diegetic game elements to elevate (and clarify her contribution to) the ongoing discourse surrounding RPG mechanics.

It is, as you can appreciate, a somewhat delayed response. The intervening period of fermentation has led to it taking on taken on some other aspects.

Dice: because we are talking about GAMES.

DIEGETIC AND NON-DIEGETIC ELEMENTS IN A TYPICAL RPG