Scavengers Reign - An Exploration of Xenomorphology

I saw this trailed last year and, as a big fan of the art of the great french comic book illustrator Moebius aka Jean Giraud, I was gobsmacked with how similar in style it looked to many of his amazing strips.

It immediately brought back memories of watching Les Maîtres du temps (The Masters of Time) and I knew I would have to give it a watch.

More than just a Robinson Crusoe Rehash

The story revolves around the lives of three groups of survivors who landed their escape pods on a lush and verdant planet in very different circumstances.  Many of their shipmates have not been so lucky and did not survive to reach the surface, although it is not long before you start to realise that maybe its the dead who are lucky.

The 12 episodes are a busmans guide on how to create a planet full of interesting and diverse flaura and fauna which spends all of its time trying to eat you.  Wrapped around this core survival trope are evolving backstories which explore why each of the very differnt characters chose to thrust themselves out into the great void.

Beautifully animated and biologically complex, the writers have crafted a world which has so much natural diversity and complexity in their life cycles and symbiotic relationships with each other.  This goes well beyond the simple and makes Gieger's Xenomorph look like a children's story book.  

In the same way, the individual backstories of each character are explored in detail from the venal and pathetic Kamen to the strange relationship between Azi and her robot companion Levi.  These are as complex and interesting as their surroundings.  However, sometimes I feel this is designed to lull you into a false sense of security.  Needless to say in these more tender moments their next brush with the disaster is only around the corner.

Traveller Eat Your Heart Out.

This is exactly how I remember early Traveller scenarios going back in the day.  Every scenario was an exercise in exploration and discovering new and deadly lifeforms.  I remember playing those classic double adventures like Shadows or the Chamax Plague and loving them.   

Justifiers - Out of The Mists	Traveller - Shadows

It also brought back memories of running my favourite long dead sci-fi exploration RPG Justifiers.  With only a little modification each of these episodes would make for an entertaining set of encounters for any party.

Is Scavengers Reign Worth Watching?

If you enjoy carefully crafted and beautiful landscapes filled with interesting biology then yes, absolutely.  If you want fast paced action then this is not the animation for you.  If you can imagine watching a 6 hour long Studio Ghibli masterpiece where your own mortality is repeatedly rammed down your throat in the most violent but interesting ways.  Only then are you getting somewhere close to the gorgeous grotesqueness of this show. 

It is rare for a show like this to ever get greenlit or make it past a 30 minute long short so we have to reward the creative geniuses behind the scenes and watch their show.

Session Blogging - Why I Bother Recapping my RPG Sessions

I have mentioned before that I have been the defacto session writer for our group at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club for some time now.  It takes up a good portion of my weekend but here are a few reasons why I do it.

5 Reasons Why I Write Session Reports

1. It Engages Me - Yes, that's right, if I am scribbling notes througout the game I am completely focussed on what is happening at the table.  I've been roleplaying on and off for 40 years and it's easy to become blase and become distracted by the joking, camaraderie and snacking that usually fills up at least 50% of the game.

2. It Helps the GM - Most sessions begin with a recap of what happened in the previous week.  I have witnessed several instances of the GM logging onto the last session and skimming through their own game and pulling out the salient points.  It helps their worldbuilding consistency as there's always a reference to NPCs we have interacted with (especially those created on the fly).  It helps them to remember the important details of who said what and to whom.  

When I am the GM the session report is formed from my game notes and I get the players to read the report before we start the next session.  That way I don't have to do as much of a recap to the previous session and we start playing faster.

3. It Helps Players - Real-life happens and it is a more common occurence as we get older that we have to forgoe our game night to deal with other priorities.  Having a session blog helps missing players to pick up where they left and still feel like a valued member of the group.

4. Player Engagement - Players like to read about their exploits every week.  I know of at least one player in our group who loves to see their quotes in print.  They know that they can always send me an update or an amendment if they want to highlight something or heaven forbid if I got it wrong

5. Free Content for my Blog - A selfish reason, I know, but it hardly makes me a monster.  I love the fact that I have weeks worth of sessions on my blog which I reminisce about in my dotage.  I've also published session reports on RPGGeek, so if you are a member send me a gamebuddy request.

Why Don't You? 

It's surprisingly easy, why don't you have a go yourself, you just might like it.  If you are already blogging your sessions, stick a link in the comments below as I would love to share them with my readers.

The Scribe, by George Cattermole - Art UK

The Self Insert. Is this valid roleplay or just bad roleplay?

I came across this term whilst browsing YouTube and I have to confess that I hadn't heard of it before.  It would seem to originate from the world of academia and specifically media studies.  As the Urban Dictionary puts it:

  "When an author or writer puts themselves into a story they have written as a character."

I can see where this literary concept might be fun for the author and a hidden easter egg for the reader,  but does it translate to roleplaying games.

Who is the Author in an RPG?

Technically speaking it is the Games Master, they write the plot and the players inhabit characters within that plot.  That said, the players are collaboratively creating the story within the boundaries of the plot and could also be considered authors.  They certainly have free creative rein when it comes to their own character and how that character impacts on the world that they share with the other players.

I have witnessed that inexperienced players, or dare I say the less imaginative players, will naturally want to put themselves in the game rather than playing their character.  I think that this is a by-product of how we are exposed to fantasy and science fiction tropes these days and how they are born.

The creators of most RPGs drew their inspiration from the media of their day, the great fiction writers of the day who were collectively read by a large part of the RPG fandom.  We all read the same books so we had a shared understanding and acceptance of the concepts we consumed.  The characters were largely the work of one person, maybe two and often spanned epic cycles like scandanavian sagas.

A lot of the media we consume today is watched and not read and is the creative endeavour of many people from Directors to screenwriters to producers, each one has their own vision of what should happen and where the story should go.  These stories are then fed into the studio screening system where analysts record audience reaction in a minute detail.

The danger with this system is that we are forced to watch the current crop of Hollywood stars essentially play themselves in whichever cinematic masterpiece they are currently attached to.  You know the ones, Arnie, Sly, Statham, and Johnson.  They aren't being paid to be someone else they are being paid to play themselves.  This isn't the exclusive preserve of the action genre there are plenty of talented actors out there who can't help but play themselves, even the likes of method actors such as Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lawrence have their moments of phoning it in.   

I always try to encourage my players not to inject their personality or knowledge into their PC in order to inhabit the character.  If you were playing a Mega City One Judge you would play up the harsh and brutal nature of the job despite what your personal thoughts are about the crime and punishment.  Similarly if you are playing in a fantasy campaign it would be anachronistic to use modern understanding of science to Macguyver your way out of a situation.       

Your Character is not You

The challenge, nay the fun of roleplay is the opportunity to play someone other than yourself.  That might mean you are a 6 foot tall one legged retired pirate who pretends to be a Dwarf or a 85 year old art historian named Gertrude with a penchant for the hurdy gurdy.  These are not extensions of your own persona they are persona's all of their own.  

Your character sheet, stats, backstory and ephemera that you create to describe the person you are playing are all tools to help you to portray that person.  The art of roleplaying a character is to get inside your characters head and to come up with a believable and convincing portrayal.

Inserting yourself into your character is easy because your motivations and feelings are second nature.  If you are playing a streetwise orphan in a sprawling fantasy undercity your middle class sensibilities are going to seem out of place in a dog eat dog world where you have to survive on your wits and be prepared to do whatever it takes otherwise you don't eat tonight. 

Representation

I have heard it said that roleplaying games need to be more inclusive and representative.  The crux being that unless people see themselves represented in RPGs that they don't feel like it is "for them".  

I'm not so sure I get this argument which it would seem stems from traditional media such as books, movies, TV and even video games.  These media are traditionally consumed, the reader / player has limited agency with regards to the direction of the story or the major NPC characters encountered.  Even with video games where you might have some input in what your character looks like, if the options aren't programmed into the game then it doesn't appear.

Roleplaying has never suffered from these issues because you, the GM and the other players make the game what it is.  Important NPCs are often pulled directly from your back story, your species and their cultures have always been yours to houserule to your hearts content.  

This should not be confused with the goal of increasing diversity within the RPG Industry.  This is absolutely to be encouraged so that we get more diverse ideas and inspiration for the stories we continue to enjoy. 

What the designers of the latest D&D edition may put in their book may or may not make it to the table in my games and there's no way that anyone can "police" how I use the content once I've bought the books.  What flys at the table is that which the group collectively agree is acceptable.  If I want to include a story arc that has the heroes being enslaved by the villains so that they can bring the whole evil practice to a permanent end then I should be able to. The classic Heroes Journey as they confront absolute evil has to be a challenge otherwise it becomes insignificant.  Barely an inconvenience.  

Similarly If I want to outlaw the +1 wheelchair of dungeoneering in place of a house rule magical armature of mobility then so be it.  I might want all my drow to be evil to allow a player to be the mythical rebellious "Good" drow, then that's fine too.  In fact the whole concept of evil bad guys and good rebels throwing off their cultural heritage falls apart if these tropes don't exist. 

Okay which one of you is a rebel sympathiser?

Which is why I am a little bemused by the whole narrative that seems to swirl around the internet these days which states

"I can only feel comfortable and safe if I can see myself represented in the game and you are a bad person for not understanding my feelings".  

I thought the express purpose of roleplaying games was not to be yourself and to have fun being challenged with making decisions you might not personally agree with safe in the knowledge that this isn't real life, it's just makebelieve.  To demand that the industry makes RPGs some kind of non-triggering safe place by design removes that quintissential element of challenge and seems like the presumptuous demands of a self insert to me.

If the imaginary world you inhabit is safe and non threatening, why do we need heroes?

Why a Canonical D&D is the Only Way Forward for WotC

ComicBook.com reported recently that Principal D&D designer Jeremy Crawford offered clarity on the subject of what is canon in the Dungeons and Dragons RPG world.

Crawford said.

"Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014 [the year that Dungeons & Dragons' Fifth Edition core rulebooks came out], we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

Typically this got a fractured response from the RPG community who are typically divided into two camps, those who slavishly follow the product/story lines of D&D and everybody else.

Why a D&D Canon is Important to WotC

Wizards of the Coast is a business owned by toy making giant Hasbro.  Dungeons & Dragons is just one of its properties, not the most profitable one but it is the most recognised brand in the Tabletop Role Playing Game (TTRPG) sector.  Each edition of D&D has its own life span.  At the time of writing 5th edition is 7 years old and as with any games system the bulk of its sales will always come initially from the sale of its core rulebooks and as the edition ages these are overtaken by supplemental materials such as adventures, settings, campaigns and other entertainment properties.  

Older gamers like myself have seen this pattern repeat itself over many editions of many games systems.  It's similar to the way that movie and tv franchises like Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica have been rebooted multiple times over many decades.

The rise in popularity of streamed D&D game channels such as Critical Role or Acquisitions Incorporated has changed the audience dynamic,  For some their only experience of D&D is watching it being played by people on Twitch, YouTube etc.  They passively consume the content in exactly the same way as you would a movie.  It is a story from beginning to end and a history of play emerges which becomes canonized episode by episode.

When this audience wants to begin playing their own sessions their desire is to emulate what they have watched, after all it is their only frame of reference.  WotC needs to take this into account and provide a world and a shared canonical history which they can control in order to feed the various different projects that they have planned for this edition of D&D such as movies, books, TV series and merch, merch, merch. 

It's not personal it's just business - The Godfather

If WotC D&D is to make more money then they have to sell more than just rule books.  They have to control their universe to make other properties easy to write and to enable their consumption as passive entertainment.  Good luck to them I say.

So why are some people getting upset about this?

Older players might view this as just one more betrayal in a long list where WotC is taking their beloved franchise and turning it into something else entirely.  We've seen this happen across all of the rebooted movie and TV franchises in recent times but I don't think we are going to see the same voracity or backlash in D&D.

But stop, calm down, put down the keyboard and step away from the monitor...

Everyone's D&D Experience is Different.

Playing D&D is not like watching a movie, reading a book or watching a twitch stream of internet celebrities playing a game of D&D.

When we play D&D we do not play the same game, the choices we make during the game change the story and our experience becomes unique.   How the Dungeon Master brings the story to the table, the characters in the adventure, how the rolls go, how players react to events, everything becomes a unique experience.

With the best will in the world, once those books leave the store, WotC has lost all control of how they are used, interpreted, played, written about, podcasted and most importantly experienced.  Your D&D experience is a product of all the choices and decisions made around your table regardless of what the author, designer, WotC or Hasbro might say.

The D&D Expanded Universe (DDEU) vs My Exapanded Universe (MEU)

WotC is carving out it's DDEU so that it can continue to make products for the coming years.  To me this signals that 5e is here to stay for many years.  It wants to homologate these products into a framework of historical canon which helps its many writers and designers to navigate the confusing and inconsistent waters of a property that has existed across many different editions over the last 5 decades. 

Good for them.

My Epanded Universe will continue to beg, borrow and steal it's material from anything which I have read or watched in my 5 decades.  WotC can't police what I'm doing with it's product, it doesn't dictate what can happen in my games, my players do. 

Good for them.

The Only Thing that Matters is Having Fun

The concept of control strikes at the heart of the recent "Culture Wars" that are ongoing in every hobby and every social or political structure at the moment.  The incessant labelling of ist, ism and phobe being bandied about on the cesspool of social justice that is social media (mostly twitter) is a mask worn by those without imagination and creativity. 

These people play the person and not the ball because they cannot win (control) the argument.  The only way to win the argument is to not play the game by their rules.  The recent debacle with the relaunched TSR is a case in point.

What happens in your game, what rules you specify for the alignment or moral choices made by orcs and dark elves or what frameworks you implement to ensure that your games are internally consistent (or wheelchair accessible) are for you and your players to decide.        

WotC and the horde of blue check mark allies can shout all they want and try to define what is and what isn't D&D.  I am not forced to use what WotC is selling to still play D&D, those books walked out of the store many years ago.  If they sell something I like I might buy it.  If they don't I won't.

In summary the only voices I hear are the ones around my table.  If they don't like something they'll tell me.  If they like something, they will be laughing and having fun.

And that my friends, is all that matters.

Mega City Morphs - Sci-Fi City Geomorphs

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I made a few citymorphs and was one of the featured artists on the Inkwell Ideas Citymorph dice Kickstarter.

Now I am about to run a new Judge Dredd campaign (Mega City Blues) its time to spruce up Sector 55 with some new sci-fi orientated Mega City geomorphs.  So far I've created a set of 9 tiles which you can download here Mega City Morphs Set 1 zip

I have submitted these to Dave's Mapper in the Sci-Fi City collection and they should be available soon.

example of 9 tiles arranged in a 3x3 grid

The whole point of this exercise was to generate a quick and dirty map for my Judge Dredd campaign which I am running online in Discord / Roll20.  You can follow the exploits of Judges Hammer (Apo), Teal (Mark) and Uthred (Ryan) in the Sector 55 Blues weekly session reports.  

I will also be publishing occasional articles where I detail house rules or tips which make my GMing life easier.

Sector 55 Mega City One

Happy geomorphing.

RPGs and Inclusivity

First post of the New Year and it's time to say that I'm glad to see the back of 2014.

For a while I've been worried that the hobby (and to some degree popular media) was descending  into a a pit of bile and hatred. 

So I'm going to start off this year by reminding everyone that:

By this I mean that they are a framework around which you hang your shared experience with your friends.  They don't tell you:

Who can or can't play the game - Yes, the artwork contained inside the books may give off the same sort of vibe as 1980s Heavy Metal albums, but to be honest they're just visualisations to give you ideas of what one possible world may look like.  Frankly, I don't care if you're female, black or transgendered, I want to give you the opportunity to be part of my world and through the various challenges I set, collectively explore and change it.

What characters they can play or how they play them - Yes there are classes and races, but these are just framework suggestions.  As a DM with 30+ years of experience I don't want you to slavishly follow those, I've seen them a thousand times already.  I want you to choose what you want to be and add flavour to my world.

How to play the game - Yes, every rulebook contains an example of play demonstrating a game in progress, but you only learn how to play by interacting with the other players and DM.  There is no right or wrong way to play an RPG, but there are plenty of player behaviours which can make playing a game a horrible experience.  If you're a new player you might want to consider "rules" but the DM and players ultimately choose which ones to follow and which to ignore.  I've yet to play in a group that hasn't had at least a handful of house rules.  My own preference is that as long as things appear consistent then any rule can be chopped in favour of cinematic style.  

Anarchy in Your D&D...

... and other popular types of government.

Anarchy - A society without a publicly enforced government or political authority.  This can be a natural, temporary result of civil war in a country, when an established state has been destroyed and the region is in a transitional period without definitive leadership.  

Fictional Example: Mad Max 2 (George Miller) - 1982 saw the return of Max Rockatansky and in the intervening years what was left of civilation has fully descended into anarchy.  What passes for government is either the gang rules of the Lord Humungus' Marauders or the commune style democracy led by Pappagallo. 

Max doesn't fit neatly into either of these camps and only agrees to fight alongside the travellers because his car is held hostage.  In the original script Pappagallo was the CEO of 7 Sisters Petroleum and  interestingly some of the marauders appear to be ex cops, although it is not explicitely referenced.

Autocracy - A system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.  Autocracy has a nasty habit of turning into a dictatorship without appropriate impartial oversight or scrutiny.  Revolution and assassination tends to be the only outcome for these leaders.

Fictional Example: Ankhmorpork Discworld (Terry Pratchett).  Despite the "sharing" of power with the Guilds, the city is governed through a system of one man, one vote - the Patrician being the "one man" in question.  The best portrayal of Lord Vetinari can be found in the Sky mini series "Going Postal".  Charles Dance's performance is a masterclass in veiled menace and manipulation of Machiavellian proportions.

Matriarchy - Not so much a form of Government but a is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

Fictional Example:  Memory of Earth (Orson Scott Card)  In the first book of the Homecoming Harmony series we are introduced to the matriarchal society of Basilica.  All property is owned by the women and many of them hold high ranking positions within the government and academia.   Despite this being OSC's "Book of Mormon" I am quite fond of the concept of the oversoul and how it controls what technology is allowed to be invented to essentially prevent the warlike tendencies of humanity.

Plutocracy - Rule by the wealthy; a system wherein governance is indebted to, dependent upon or heavily influenced by the desires of the rich. Arguably every government is financed by plutocrats, as the saying goes "He who has the money makes the rules".  When the rules are made by the rich, who do you think reaps the greatest benefit? Oh it's the rich, funny that...

Fictional Example:  Game of Thrones (George R R Martin)  Technically this is a feudal monarchy with the various lords of the Seven Kingdoms being appointed by ruling King.  The position of the King is largely decided by the person with the biggest standing army or banners pledged to their house.  Financing this support comes from key houses such as the Lannisters and the Tyrells in exchange for grace and favour. 

Unfortunately the War of the Five Kings leads to Tyrwin Lannister becoming massively indebted to the Iron Bank of Braavos and when that line of credit dries up Cersei must turn to Euron Greyjoy to help her in the final battle for the Iron Throne.  Once again the stand out performances always come from Charles Dance as he pulls the strings, until he gets ignominiously shot by his son Tyrion whilst on the toilet.

Stratocracy - Rule by military service; a system of governance composed of military government in which the state and the military are traditionally or constitutionally the same entity. Citizens with mandatory or voluntary active military service or who have been honorably discharged have the right to govern.  

Fictional Example: Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein).  "Service guarantees Citizenship" was the oft quoted line in the Mobile Infantry recruitment ads.  Johnny Rico's rich parents both want him to go to Harvard.  When they are both killed in the Buenos Aires meteor bombardment it only fuels Johnny's desire to do his bit for the war effort.

Technocracy - Rule by the educated or technical experts; a system of governance where people who are skilled or proficient govern in their respective areas of expertise in technology would be in control of all decision making.  In fantasy fiction Technology would of course be replaced by Magic. 

Fictional Example: The Rift War Saga (Raymond E Feist).  Whilst all Tsurani are governed by the Emperor along the lines of a Feudal system, the Assembly of Magicians stands apart from the law and no magician can be compelled by any non magician.

Which just leaves...

Idiocracy - When a US Army cryogenics experiment goes wrong Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) and Rita (Maya Rudolph) awake in a nightmare future. Americans have devolved into idiots ruled by an ex Wrestler President Camacho (Terry Crews) and they are the most intelligent people in society by default.  I just love the craziness of this movie.

How to Build a Medieval Castle

My favourite living history team are back on TV again and this time they're belping to build a 13th Century Castle from scratch.

Secrets of the Castle is a new 5 part show in which Historian Ruth Goodman, and Archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, learn the skills needed to build a castle and get a taste of life in the 13th Century.

(L to R) Peter Ginn, Tom Pinfold and Ruth Goodman

Not sure if this series is available to international viewers but it's on BBC iPlayer right now.

You can learn more about this ambitious 25 year long, Guedelon Castle project from wikipedia or at its own website.

RPG Blog Carnival - What Campaign do I want to Play Next?

This month's RPG Blog Carnival hosted by Age of Ravens is entitled "Campaigns I'd Like to Run".  The short answer to which is always "my next one".

The Lands of Dual

It's been over 2 years since I last ran my Castles & Crusades campaign world, The Lands of Dual, and high time that I revisit it.  Of course I can't go into much detail about what will be happening as some of my players may inadvertently read this blog and that would most definitely let the cat out of the bag.

Geography

The Lands of Dual (interactive map availiable via MapLib)

In previous campaigns I've asked players to pick an unexplored area on the world map as their birthplace and write up a little description of it as part of their background. 

This has been quite successful but there are a still quite a few parts of the world which could do with being explored or at the very least developed:

• The Frozen North & South - no-one has ever visited the northern icecaps so no-one knows what's there.  Perhaps a hidden valley with it's own microclimate, perhaps even a tunnel into a hollow world below, on the other hand it could just be the land of the long white death.
• Hjorselandte - The interior of the land of the horsemen is rumoured to be inhabited by a race of wild and savage centaurs.
  
• Kharis and Haki - These two warring domains, one a Matriarchy, the other a Patriarchy, could be of interest to the ladies in my group.  Think Amazonia, She-Ra, Xena Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman.

Races 

I'd like to expand on my demihuman races a little:

Salamankari (Lizardfolk) - Early on in my last Dual campaign one of the players chose to be a Red Salamankari (Red Lizardman).  We had a blast with the species racial history,  particularly in setting up some great bio-religious schism which caused the species to fork into two distinct coloured subtypes, the green marshdwellers and the red desert dwellers.  I'm thinking about adding at least one more subtype, but the details will have to stay secret.

Elfenkin - In Dual, Elves also have subtypes which are very closely aligned with their respective environments and elements.

• Sea Elves (Vassadhim) - I'd like these elves to be something like the mariner from Waterworld, semi aquatic they can breath underwater and cruise the deep oceans in boats crafted from driftwood and kelp.  Their magic is restricted to the elements of Air and Water crucial to their survival on the high seas.  Their skin has a lightblue colouring and shimmers like fish scales.

In my world Kevin Costner is blue, honestly it will make sense, I promise.

• Cloud Elves (Aerohimm) - The Aerohimm have broken the bonds of Earth and risen into the clouds in their glimmering floating cloud fortresses.  They keep a watchful eye over all the lands and are said to resemble angels being very tall and lithe with long flowing white hair.  They have a longstanding pact with the Grand Caliph of the Djinn, who supplies the Aerohimm with Elementals to power their great crystal castles.  It is said that they are the most cultured of the Elfkenkin and are fond of humans, often having relationships with them which bear children.  Their magic is largely concerned with the element of air although they are the only elfenkin who practice all forms of elemental magic.

• Green Elves (Woedhimm) - Woedhimm shun contact with the other races of Dual and are rarely seen outside their woodland kingdoms.  They are reclusive and secretive, the few sitings of them suggest that they are the most diminutive species and their mastery of camoflague is exceptionally.  Their magic is restricted to the sphere of Earth and Water.
• Desert Elves (Desierto, literally "The Abandoned") - Desierto are a peculiar species of elves in that they are a loosely knit community of fierce nomadic tribespeople who roam the great deserts in large caravans ekeing out an existence.  They are legendary masters of desert survival and their skills are highly prized by caravanserai who employ them as trackers and guides for journeys through the treacherous deserts.  They have ruddy skin, and wear brightly coloured gallebya, their dreadlocked or braided hair is woven with complex beadwork which is said to be a record of their life.  Their magic is restricted to the elements of fire and wind, but they are alo excellent desert animal handlers.

House Rules

I have been doing a fair bit of blog reading and some of the house rules I've seen have piqued my interest:

No Alignments at Level 1 - I first read about Character Funnels in the Giblet Blizzard article DCC: Funnel Runners, and it struck a chord with me.  One of the things that has always bugged me is the chasm of difference between what a PC's character sheet says their alignment is and how it ends up getting played.  This is sometimes the fault of the player but it can equally be a reaction to a party dynamic.

Whilst I don't think I could convince my players to go the whole hog by using the Character Funnel approach to create zero level PCs (check out Purple Sorceror's neat DCC Generator), I think it is perfectly acceptable to only let them decide what alignment their character is at the end of a few sessions of play when they level up.  I might even knock up some quick alignment tokens to award players during play or have Karma Points or something.

Magic Corruption - I wrote a little D20 table of Corruption Effects for Mage Levelling and I will be getting my players take on whether or not they like it and if they would still choose to play a mage knowing that this house rule would be in effect.

Magical Prosthetics - Loved this random table of 100 Magical Prosthetics so much that I will definitely have to use it in my campaign should anyone lose an appendage through combat or the above corruption effects I shall be deploying prosthesis.  This might become even become a bit of a hook (pardon the pun), King loses his nose in an ill conceived duel and requires PCs to find him a replacement.

Meat Shields - In all my years of DMing and playing I've never used or utilised hirelings.  The closest that I've ever come to is when my fellow Hobbits Holer, Richard Wells, had us playing each others sidekicks in his Victorian Science Fiction game, but they were more than just hirelings.  This worked brilliantly and gave everyone the opportunity to be in two places at once.  So I think I'll return the compliment and do it in my game with mandatory meatshields.  Perhaps I'll utilise the DCC Party Generator to furnish them with stats or just stick with the meatshield generator.

The Desert of Desolation

It's been my long term ambition to run the Desert of Desolation series of modules (I3-I5), but I think I'll be having a mixed 1st and 3rd level party this time around so they're safe... for now

Plenty of food for thought I think you'll agree.

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Thanks of course go to Of Dice and Dragons for continuing to promote the RPG Blog Carnival.  This is my 4th entry and you can read the rest by clicking the RPG Blog Carnival tag below. 

A Fresh-ish look at Goblins

After a year long hiatus I'm back at work hanging more meat on the bones of my campaign world.  A long time ago I decided to have one of the land masses, Khorngeldte, inhabited by the goblinoid races who were locked in an incessant war with their neighbhours, the teutonic humans of Wulfschlossen.  This has been largely restricted to both sides forming raiding parties which cross the narrow Straits of Desperation.

In my last campaign I hacked an old Dungeon Magazine scenario for the Therran Campaign (The Secrets of the Towers) in order to visit Korngeldte and introduce two new characters, a Wulfschlossian Knight and his enslaved Half-Orc tracker of undetermined orgin.  Essentially the towers became a convenient plot device allowing the PCs to escape numerous pursuers, cheat death and travel great distances quickly, but importantly, it allowed me to break ground on an untravelled section of my campaign world.

Inevitably this caused me to think about the bigger picture and how the goblinoid races fit into the world, and in the best traditions of world building, do something different which the players won't be expecting.

Goblin by Marcus Dublin

Revisiting Goblinoid Stats

When looking at the D20 SRD we find that as stats go goblins are the weakest goblinoid races, but what they lose in physical strength they make up for in cunning and dexterity.  This lead me to the conclusion that if they are to be able to build (and sustain) a kingdom capable of waging war across the straits of desperation then they must rely on either technology or magic.  

A similar concept is seen in the Lord of The Rings movies where the goblins essentially assist Saruman in the construction of his Uruk army as blacksmiths, engineers and medieval geneticists.

Comparing the stat blocks for the major goblin/orc races shows that in every case goblins do not suffer an INT penalty making them far more likely to develop technologies to compensate for their small size and weak nature.

	STR	INT	DEX	CON	WIS	CHA	TRIBE SIZE	FAV. CLASS
GOBLIN	-2	-	2	-	-	-2	40-400	Rogue
HOB-GOBLIN	-	-	2	2	-	-	30-300	Fighter
BUGBEAR	4	-	2	2	-	-2	0-20	Rogue
ORC	4	-2	-	-	-2	-2	30-100	Barbarian
HALF-ORC	2	-2	-	-	-	-2	-	Barbarian

Goblin Blacksmith from
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Goblins only have an improved DEX stat but their Rogue class leanings lends nicely to the idea that they are tinkerers and inventors as well as skulking backstabbers.  This is supported in the Warhammer universe where the goblins are seen to be quite inventive in nature and get all manner of cool, if shoddily constructed, war machines like the Spear Chukka, the Skull Crusher and the Man Mangoler.  One of my favourite depictions of a goblin was in the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army where the Elf King employed the goblins to manufacture an unstoppable army of robots to wage war on humanity. 

Another popular goblin trope is that of the Warg or Wolf riding goblin which suggests they have become accomplished animal handlers in order to seize a tactical advantage.  Using animals as beasts of burden and ultimately as a power source for machinery is a necessary step upon the ladder of technological evolution.

Hob-Goblins are slightly less numerous and do not suffer the CHA penalty which hints at a possible demi-human connection.  Their Fighter class makes them likely to resolve conflict through arms rather than cunning so I can quite happily see them being turned into some sort of specially bred warrior class.

Bugbears are the rarest of all the goblins and their propensity for living in caves in very small tribes esssentially writes them off for me as a potential leader.

Orcs are basically big, strong, dumb, savage, barbarians and have significantly smaller tribe sizes than goblins which leads me to conclude that an organised goblin leader could control these creatures in small numbers if he found suitable forms of leverage as a reward for loyalty such as an addiction to a psychotropic brew or some other delicacy that the Orcs enjoyed but could not manufacture for themselves... human flesh perhaps?

Half-Orcs occupy an uncomfortable middle ground in my world, they are despised by both Humans and Orcs for not being Human or Orc enough but are an unhappy by-product of Orc raids.  I have already used a Half-Orc PC as an enslaved tracker and suspect that the goblins will have some sort of menial place for those Half-Orcs that escape the clutches of the their trueblood bretheren.

The Goblin King

Putting David Bowie's portrayal of the Goblin King Jhared aside, the concept of a Goblin King features in many myths and legends.  Some etymological research suggests that the word "Gob" or "Ghob" refers specifically to the King of the Gnomes and that Goblings are lesser gnomes.  I need a Goblin King to rule my Goblin Kingdom and see this role being filled by a goblin of unnatural intelligence, cunning and deceit.  A goblin society founded on the meritocrious principle that any goblin could rise to be the ruler through cunning, deceit and backstabbery might also produce a peculiar class of goblin politicians which I find perversely appealing.

Goblin King by Tristan HaoHao

Technology

In order cross the Straits of Desperation, my goblin war bands would need boats, these could be orc powered in the form of a bireme or longship, but if the goblins have started their own industrial revolution then a more fitting form of transport would be crude steamships.  My background for the goblin capital Tak Mor has this situated between the "Iron Tree Forest" which supplies the ore for smelting and the "Fetid Sea" which the goblins are polluting with their oil waste.

I am particularly enamoured by the Empire Landship models produced by Warhammer Forge.  I'm sure that any Wulfschlossonian villagers would be terrified if they saw one of these monstrosities lurching out of the sea on its paddle-wheels.

Marienburg Class Empire Landship - expertly painted by James Wappel

I know I'm not the first person to suggest the concept of intelligent goblins, but I feel that their current niche in the fantasy bestiary as monster minions just doesn't do them justice.

Congratulations Bradley Wiggins...

I've just watched Bradley Wiggins become the first British rider to win the Tour de France, the world's most gruelling bicycle race covering 4,000km over 21 days.  Congratulations to Bradley and all the other members of team SKY who helped make this possible.

Bradley Wiggins leads out Mark Cavendish during the final lap of stage 20 of the 2012 Tour de France

What has this got to do with roleplay you ask, "plot and decoration" I say, and an excuse for a rambly article about sports in RPGs.

Sporting events have featured throughout all the ages of history in some form or another and there's no reason why they cannot be incorporated into any RPG scenario when the PCs enter a new town or village. 


Medieval Sports

Victorians are often credited with inventing "leisure time" but it is estimated that medieval peasants had up to 8 weeks holiday a year, during which they engaged in a range of games and sporting activities such as:

Archery - In "The Assize of Arms" of 1252, King Henry III, mandated that every Englishman between the ages of 15 to 60 equipped themselves with a bow and arrows. In 1363, Edward III, Passed the Archery Law obliging all Englishmen to practise with their longbow every Sunday and holiday.  Needless to say archery competitions were very popular and should be a staple of any pseudo medieval fantasy game.

Bowls - Medieval bowls was a simple game of throwing a ball at a target, this illustration from the Bodliean library, shows a group of peasants taking turns throwing a bowl at a feather stuck in the ground. So popular was the game that In 1366 Edward III outlawed it as it had become a distraction from Archery practise. Edward IV issued a similar edict in 1477 against a range of pastimes such as "bowles, closh, kayles, hand-in and hand-out".

Feather-bowling (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Douce, 275, f. r12)

Boxing - Traces its origins to the Pankration of Ancient Greece where early pugilists wrapped their hands with leather thongs leaving their fingers free.  Romany Gypsies often resolve family disputes in bouts of bare knuckle fighting and there is no reason why these should not feature in the arsenal of every DM either to prove a PCs mettle or just to earn a few silver pieces when the times get tough.

Colf - The game of Golf has its origins in a much simpler version where contestants tried to hit a ball at a target such as a tree, with a wooden club.  The winner being the player who hit the target in the least number of strikes.

Gameball - Many games are considered to be the progenitor of football, but my favourite example is that of gameball and the report of a match played in the village of Ulgham, Northumberland in 1280, which resulted in a player being killed after running onto an opponents dagger.  Sounds more like Bloodbowl than football to me and could be a great opener for a murderous plot..

Henry VIII throwing a sledge hammer

Hammer-Throwing - This olympic event can trace its origins all the way back to the Tailteann games held in Ireland in 1829 BC.  Even the young Henry VIII is said to have enjoyed the sport.  I expect that every Dwarf in the Known (and unknown) Kingdoms to have a penchant for this sport.

Hurling or Shinty - Another Gaelic sport which can trace its origins back 3000 years. 

Horseshoes - Given that every village worth its salt would have at least two things, an Inn and a Blacksmith, it's inevitable that someone would invent a game which involved throwing old horseshoes at a target.

Horse Racing - The chariot races of ancient Rome had long since died out and by the Middle Ages, equestrian sport was largely confined to using horses in jousting tournaments, although I find it hard to believe that races between bored rich nobles did not take place in Medieval England.  However, on the continent the Palio di Sienna can trace its origins back to 1590 when the then Grand Duke of Tuscany outlawed bull fighting and so the population took to racing buffalo and donkeys around the piazza.  Those crazy europeans...

Palio di Sienna

Jousting Tournaments - The joust has its origins in the Gladiatrial Arenas of Rome, the word joust is actually derived from the Latin 'Juxtare' (to meet together).  By the Middle Ages these had formalised into one of two forms, the Joust a Plaisance, an organised tournament taking place over several days with several elimination rounds or the Pas d'armes, where a Knight would advertise for combatants from the local area and then take on all challengers at once in a single bout.  Could your Knight or Paladin resist the temptation to sign up if they found one of these adverts nailed to a tree?

Quarter-staff Contests - The Robin Hood vs Little John duel is probably the most famous example of a quarter-staff contest in popular culture.  The rules for such contests are unknown but by Elizabethan times these had evolved into a contest between two people similar to fencing.  Examples of a range of polearm fighting techniques are graphically illustrated in the 1459 Fechtbücher (literally Fight Book) "Alte Armatur und Ringkunst" written by the fencing master Hans Talhoffer (An online version of the which is available courtesy of the Royal Library, Copenhagen).

Skittles - The ancestor of modern ten-pin bowling which shares its origins with bowls and other ground billiards games.  An example of a skittles set was found in the tomb of an Egyptian child dating from 2000BC.  In England this was mostly an indoor game played in a wood or clay floored alley with many local rule variations.  For bored PCs what else is there to do in a tavern when you don't feel like quaffing or listening to that rubbish bard?

Stoolball - An ancestor of Cricket, originally played between two "wickets" made from the seats of stools hung from trees or fixed to poles approximately 16 feet apart.  The object of the game was for the bowler to attempt to hit the stool whilst the batter defended with a paddle shaped bat scoring a point for each delivery defended.  A game which has clearly stood the test of time, as a formalised version is still played today.

A game of medieval Stoolball

Wrestling - One of history's most ancient sporting contests which needs little explanation.

The Challenge of Champions
The Challenge of Champions series of scenarios (published in Dungeon issues #58, #69, #80, #91, #108 and #138) by Jonathan M Richards pits a party of 4 players against a series of D&D puzzles with specific challenges for fighter, priest, wizard and thief classes.  They are a lot of fun for the players and can be a great way to put a party of disparate PCs together at the start of a game.

Fantasy Mass Transit - A Technology Too Far?

A warforged hangs from the gondola of an airship as a
Lightning Rail loco passes below (artist unknown)

In his recent article, The Architect DM: Seven Wonders of Your World, Danny Rupp highlights the Lightning Rail from the Eberron setting as an example of a World Wonder.  As I was largely ignorant of the detail of the Eberron setting I did a little more research and was both intrigued and horrified in equal measure by this concept.

As I've written before, in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting personal mobility is generally restricted to a couple of days walk and even those who own horses don't tend to travel long distances unless they have a pressing need.    Long arduous journeys or quests to find this artifact or that magical location are the stock-in-trade of the fantasy novel and it is often the journey itself, not the final destination that defines the hero.

In Charlie Jane Ander's round-up of the 10 worst mistakes that Alternate History Authors Make, author Terry Bisson states that "if you don't bring your alternate history up to the reader's present, then you leave out half the fun".  Whilst I agree that this often the case with Sci-Fi and especially with the alternate history subgenre, it is not the case with fantasy literature.  In fact introducing some relatively mudane modern day solutions into a medieval setting can have disastrous effects.  

Although attractive as both a plot generator and as a mechanism for swiftly moving PCs from one location to the next, a system like The Lightning Rail (even if access to it is heavily controlled) opens up a whole new can of worms in that it also ushers in an age of mass transit in the same way that the real railways did in the 1830s.  With mass transit comes huge socio-economic upheaval as people inevitably migrate towards cities and goods suddenly become cheaper as transport costs are reduced.  Consequently cities will gradually expand in size, usurping nearby land which no longer needs to be used as farm land because produce can be brought in just as cheaply from further afield.  This is just the start. 


As always there is the "exception that proves the rule" and in this case it would be a setting which has suffered some form of technological regression.  There are often pieces of working ancient technology to which access is heavily controlled and the knowledge of its operation is usually forbidden by some form of techno-priesthood and the population will often rationalise this as being magical or divine.

A couple of good examples of this being:

Orson Scott Card's Memory of Earth features an Artificial Intelligence (which the population call the Oversoul) which uses mind control to prohibit access to ideas which will ultimately lead to the development of self destructive technologies.  In this way he allows access to things like electricity and magnetism but avoids the wheel and the industrial revolution arguing that they ultimately lead to the development of war machines.

In his novel Cat Karina, Michael G Coney uses a sail driven monorail concept, which utilises the remnants of technology left behind by a previous human civilisation.  A religious belief system prohibits the use of manufacturing and power systems which would ultimately lead to the development of faster, better "trains" and stems the onset of any transport revolution that might ensue.

Kicking off Campaigns by Keeping Players in the Dark

Joe Bloch's recent thought provoking article on Greyhawk Grognard suggests that the question facing DMs when starting a new campaign is one of information flow.  This may be true in sandbox campaigns but I often find that if PCs know too much about the campaign world it results in Analysis Paralysis rather than driving their decision making. 

Less information to begin with usually helps them to concentrate on the immediate choices to hand rather than worrying about the world at large.  The worst trait that players can exhibit is that of the "Setting Lawyer" where they bring their own knowledge of the world, gained by playing other scenarios, into play.  This can be a real problem for DMs who are not as familiar with the setting as some of their players and can be very disruptive or diverting for the rest of the group, particularly if conflict between player and DM arises as a result.

Chaucer's Pilgrims - The Canterbury Tales

Medieval history tells us that travel for peasants was fairly limited, many never having travelled more than 50 miles from their home village in their whole lives.  The pilgrims of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" took part in a round trip of some 120 miles from Southwark to Canterbury and back, which would be considered to be a considerable undertaking for anyone at the time.  However, Chaucer himself travelled widely, making trips to France, Spain Flanders and Italy in various roles as a civil servant and diplomat (and perhaps spy).  He even embarked on a Crusades, and like many English soldiers would have travelled unheard of distances, by comparison to their stay at home cousins.  I like to see my player's PCs as more like Chaucer and those Crusaders (ie: adventurous persons) rather than like his pilgrims who, to all intents and purposes, are really nothing more than NPCs.

Gary Gygax's sage advice on the subject (A&D Dungeon Masters Guide, p. 87), which is interesting to read nonetheless,  seems to be aimed at DM's running their first campaign and perhaps at novice players.  


I entirely agree with Joe that the first few sessions of any campaign are really spent getting to know one another and less about finding out where in the world they are or what their next move should be.  Starting of with a simple scenario to get them used to each other's company, traits and talents is a must.

When running my own campaign world my objective is as much about developing my world as it is about playing out interesting plot lines.  To help me achieve this goal I insist that the majority of players select lands other than the starting location as their PC birthplace.  This often requires them to come up with a convincing reason for embarking on some form of quest as part of their background, giving me the opportunity to weave parts of this into the arc plotline (clever, yes?).


I also recommend that DMs run short solo encounters, as prequels for each PC as a prelude to a campaign.  These do not need to be any more than 30 to 45 minutes each and can usually be done as part of the first session or offline if needs be.  Your players will thank you in the long run as it bridges the gap between character creation and provides believable reasons for turning up at that cliche of a  tavern looking for work.

RPG Mapping Tools Part 4 - Planet and Star Maps

In this part I zoom out even further and take a look at planetary system maps and star maps.  Which conventionally use the hex grid I looked at in Part 3: Region Maps.

Regina Subsector Jump Map

STARMAPS

The definitive starmap has to be a Traveller sector map, which has some particular conventions of its own, namely the positioning of features around the edges of each hex to denote the hexes contents (clockwise from top; Starport Type, Gas Giant, Allegiance, World Name, and Base Type.)  Stellar trade routes which are also the main lines of communication are denoted by solid lines from one planet to anotherand the hex center contains world information (water present / not present or if it has an asteroid belt).  The sample I'm using is the Regina Subsector Jump Map and the standard 1½ hour rule applies.

Hexographer (http://www.hexographer.com)

Hexographer "Cosmic" output

If you've read Part 3: Region Maps, you'll know I rate this highly as an easy to use tool with great output.  "The Daddy" of free online hexmapping solutions has its own "Cosmic" menu which offers features such as planets, stars, and spacestations which can each have custom colours.  Hex features can also be placed at various clock positions around the hex, but these are not entirely traveller compliant and are time consuming to include and to be honest if you're running anything other than traveller you won't need them.  7/10 - "Not too Shabby"

The Traveller Map (http://www.travellermap.com)



An awesome bit of interactive mapping which shows the full stellar map divided into it's individual sub-sectors.  Double clicking on the sectors zooms in and you can even print off the results in booklet form.  If you're GMing a game in the Traveller universe then this should be your first starport of call.  9/10 - "Why DIY when it's already done for you?"

PLANETARY MAPS


The inherent problem of mapping a globe onto a flat plane has plagued cartographers ever since our view of the world changed from being flat to round and has resulted in a number of map projection techniques of which we are most familiar with the Mercator Projection.  However, Sci-Fi roleplayers will be most familiar with the icosahedral projection popularised by Traveller.

 
Icosahedral World Generator (http://inkwellideas.com/2011/09/isocahedral-worldmap-generator/)
Joe over at Inkwell Ideas has pulled off an amazing planet generator which should keep most DMs more than happy.  Not only does the tool allow you to customise the random size, temperature and percentage of land, mountains and vegetation, it also includes a hex editor allowing you to replace terrain as you like.  There's no export to image function but you can export to hexographer for even more editing possibilities.

Inkwell Ideas Icosahedral World Generator

Other Notable Tools

Donjon's Sci-Fi World Generator (http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/world/)

This browser based tool will happily generate planets for you all day long.  You can customise the generator a little to make each planet a bit more useable, the output includes a map, physics (size and physical composition), gravimetry (gravity and esape velocity), rotation (length of 1 rotation and axial tilt),  hydrosphere (ratio of water/ice), atmosphere (chemical composition), climate (temerature ranges) and biosphere (chemistry and lifeforms).  If you want to create a whole star system Donjon also has a Traveller System Generator and a Star Wars D6 System Generator.  There are a lot of really useful tools on his tsite I particularly like the Sci-Fi Name Generator's Star Trek Technobabble option. 
9/10 - "Superb"

Other Posts in this Series:

• Part 1 - Battle Maps
• Part 2 - Dungeon Maps
• Part 3 - Region Maps
• Part 4 - Planet and Star Maps

Guilds of Dual - Basic Guild Concepts for Fantasy Roleplaying Games

Worshipful Company of
Feltmakers of London

I recently read a couple of interesting articles on Trollish Delver and Grognardling discussing the use of Guilds which inspired me to go revisit the guilds for my own FRPG campaign world, The Lands of Dual.

My first challenge (and one all GMs encounter) was to bring as diverse a party from the four corners of the globe together in as believeable a fashion as I could.  I decided to use the scenario Challenge of Champions by Jonathon M Richards (featured in Dungeon #58) which called for the use of a Guild to host the annual competition.  Thus was born the Adventurers Guild of Ayfal.

THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD

The seaport of Ayfal, and specifically their lodgings in the guildhouse, became the party's defacto base of operations for quite a while (15 sessions in fact).  The guild offers a number of useful services for its members in exchange for an annual membership and I came up with the following template:

AYFAL ADVENTURER'S GUILD
Motto:	"In Darkness Find Rich Reward"
Membership:	500+
Annual Membership Fee:	200 GP
Guild Leader:	Guildmaster Fenwick
Notable Members:	Guild Secretary Ignatius, Guild Quartermaster Renfrew, Guild Loremaster Ehnid (Deceased)
Background:
Catering to the needs of the discerning traveller, the membership of the Ayfal Adventurer's Guild is an eclectic mix of Warriors, Wizards, Priests, Bards, Rogues and other occupations.  Guildmaster Fenwick - A middle-aged Priest has led the Guild for the last 5 years and his greatest achievement has been to expand the welfare services that the Guild offers.  The Guild is well received among the townsfolk of Ayfal and they enthusiatically support the annual Challenge of Champions contest and the increased trade it brings to the town.
Services Offered:
Banking - Money (or valuable items) can be left with the guild in it's secure vault and withdrawn at a modest 5% fee.  Depositors are required to give instructions on what to do with their funds in the event of their death.  Guild Secretary Ignatius handles all banking transactions.  International transactions are also possible through the use of "letters of credit" which are accepted between affiliated guildhouses. Boarding House - Limited lodgings are available on a first come first served basis and the guild has arranged members discounts at several hostelries within the town. Employment Services - The Guild acts as an employment agency for many of the other guilds and organisations such as the Town Council where tasks of a questing nature are concerned.  However, the Guild has a strict policy of not accepting tasks which involve the intimidation or assassination of town or guild officials.  At breakfast each morning Guild Secretary Ignatius reads out the list of quest opportunities. Hospital - The Guild has several staff priests well versed in the medical arts and it's multi-faith membership ensures that last rites can be performed correctly irrespective of race or denomination. Procurement of Supplies - Superior quality adventuring supplies can be purchased through the Guild's Quartermaster at a reasonable rate (+10% cost above normal) and the Guild has arranged a generous membership discount scheme with local suppliers such as smiths, jewellers, tailors, corsers, and cartwrights. Training - The guild employs a team of veteran members in order to pass on their knowledge and skills to younger members.  Library - The Guild has a well stocked library run by Guild Loremaster Ehnid who employs several scribes, clerics and cartographers to undertake research into ancient myths and legends and his pet project the cataloguing of creatures and monsters into the Guild's own Bestiary.

OTHER GUILDS

The Ayfal Adventurer's Guild is unusual in that it is multi-class in nature, accepting members from all the major character classes.  Each career class should have a "guild" of its own dedicated to the furtherance of their own particular talents although in some cases these may not be structured in the same way as in the example above.

Rogues Guilds - Thieves and Assassins ply their criminal trades in the shadows and likewise their guilds operate in the murky underworld of organised crime.  The chief concern of these guilds is to:

• Organise Crime - function as an industry regulator, ensuring that the overall level of crime does not escalate to a point at which the local law enforcement would attempt to increase their arrest rate and to ensure that unregulated thieves do not practice within the city limits thereby protecting their members incomes.
  
  
• Legal Services - including the provision of bail funds, legal counsel, patsies and corpses when members are inevitably caught, tried and possibly even executed.
   
• Benevolence and Welfare - thieves guild members may use part of their share of any loot to fund a welfare scheme to provide for their children and wives if they are incarcerated or killed.
  
  
• Fencing - ensuring that stolen goods are quickly converted into cash through a network of related tradesmen and merchants.
  
  
• Racketeering - some scams or rackets can only be successfully operated with access to a large network of skilled individuals.
  
  
• Support Services - some jobs require access to equipment such as forged documentation or disguises.  Others require detailed plans of municipal buildings which can only be acquired from certain city planners.     

Bardic Guilds - Bards, Actors, Jugglers and Circus Performers all have unique talents which to be supported different ways.  In large cities a Bardic Guild may restrict itself to certain types of performers but the most successfull will have an ecclectic mix of membership covering all the entertainment needs of its surrounding population.  Their activities would mainly revolve around:

• Employment - ensuring that members have steady work and incomes commensurate with their skills or disciplines.  Usually this takes the form of "promoting" members appearances in the taverns, theatres and other performance venues which exist in large towns and cities but also by forming travelling companies which travel from village to village in the lands between them.
  
  
• Library - each guild will have access to thousands of pages of prose, verse, lyrics and music which any member can access in order to expand their repetoire or to assist in the creation of entirely new works.  Members are encouraged to transcribe their creations and are rewarded with performance rights or credits when other members perform their work.
  
  
• Training - members are regularly assessed to ensure that their performance skills are maintained at as high a standard as possible and tutors are available where performers need instruction and assistance when learning new techniques, instruments, disciplines or material.
  
  
• Licensing and Protectionism - unscrupulous inn keepers and venue owners are kept in check by the guilds licensers, ensuring that venues pay performers the appropriate fees.  Performers can also avail themselves of bodyguards or escorts when playing venues in some of the less salubrious parts of a town or city.  These bodyguards are often called to perform enforcement services when venues fail to pay their acts.
   
• Instrument Makers - Luthiers and other instrument makers are generally not populous enough to warrant their own guilds and the functions of quality and cost assurance and regulation therefore falls to the bardic guilds.  Members will be able to commission appropriate craftsmen to fashion and repair instruments at fair and reasonable prices whilst the craftsmen enjoy the benefits of a steady steam of customers and the odd celebrity performer endorsement. 

Spellcasters Guilds - The organization and function of these guilds largely depends on how your game deals with the concept of magic and more specifically its abundance (or scarcity) or legality.  In societies where magic is rare or outlawed these guilds may be non-existant or operate in a similar way to that of a thieves or assassins guild.  In societies where magical practice is commonplace or legal then they will function much like other class or occupational guilds.  If the magic system you have adopted has different schools or types of magic it is also possible that some schools will operate within the law and others outside it.  Either way these guilds will largely be concerned with:

• Power Control - ensuring that access to knowledge of spells and their components is controlled to restrict the development of uncontrolled and destructive power.  This may take the form of a hierarchical self regulatiing organisation such as a wizards college or in more extreme cases by the state or government using a system of registration and examination.  These organisations may also be responsible for the licensing of magic shops or vendors of mundane items which may be used in the practice of the magical arts.
  
  
• Procurement - many spells require components which may be difficult or costly to procure.  A guild may control the supply of these components or may even fund expeditions to source and recover or harvest them.  The existence of proscribed spells may result in certain components appearing on "banned lists" and either the guild is responsible for controlling their supply or actively engaged in acquiring these items on behalf of its members.
  
  
• Library - new spells and magical techniques will need to be recorded for the benefit of other scholars or practitioners.  Members may be actively encouraged to register new spells with the guild or if a competitive scholarly structure exists to publish their findings for peer review and adulation or advancement within the ranks of their organisation.
  
  
• Training and Apprenticeship - the magical arts take years to master and there really isn't any alternative to the apprenticeship system.  Schools and colleges may operate systems to locate, and test candidates for basic magical aptitude and then provide training until they reach the level when they can be apprenticed to a master magician.

Warrior Guilds - These may exist in many forms from the gladiator schools such as the Ludus Magnus of ancient Rome or dojo specialising in specific weapon forms or unarmed fighting techniques.  The specific membership recruitment techniques of the guild can also vary from the lowliest slave fighter, to the wealthy merchants and gentlemen members of fencing clubs.

• Tournaments - the guild's primary means of income generation outside of any membership system will be to regularly hold contests or tournaments which demonstrate their members prowess.  These may range from gladiatorial contests (much like the roman colliseum) to organised boxing matches or illegal pit fighting against men or monsters or even a simple archery competition.  Admission revenues may be supplemented (or more likely eclipsed) by gambling revenues, although this largely depends on the type of event, patronage and the local view on the legality of gambling.
  
• Employment and Recruitment - wealthy merchants (and in some cases the state) will always need bodyguards to protect their persons and establishments and who better to supply them than the guild.  Some governments may even use the guild as a front for recruiting fresh soldiers to fill out the rank and file of their army.
  
• Training - the type of training on offer will largely depend on the theme of the school.  It could be as simple as churning out capable swordsmen or wrestlers for entertainment at public venues or it could be dedicated to teaching the swordcraft of a single weapon.
  
• Medical Benefits - fighting in any form will likely leave you with wounds at some stage and the medics of the guild will be specialised in patching up their members ready for the next bout.  They may employ underhand or illegal means to do this such as magicians or alchemists and it is unlikely that they will be able to cure chronic illnesses, disease or poisoning.

NON-CLASS GUILDS

Some classes do not lend themselves to guilds in the traditional sense, but may instead be constructed around fraternal or religious lines.

Clerics, Monks and Paladins - their faith is their guild and their temples or shrines their guildhalls, although Monks may be aligned to a particular fighting school and it is through the application of their fighting technique that they achieve a zen like state, enlightenment or may commune with their Gods.

Knights - swear fealty to their King or Baron and do not seek out the brotherhood of other knights unless they are compelled by their code to seek out a common cause.  Less scrupulous knights may engage in tournaments for sport or financial gain but are unlikely to join or form organisations unless it satisfies their chivalric duty.

Racial and Ethnic Guilds - Demi-human or humanoids such as Dwarves or Elves may form fraternal guilds out of a common need to support their "own kind" or to preserve or practice aspects of their culture.  Humans from other nations may also band together under a common nationality in order to further their own cultural goals or to present a united front when engaging with a nation state where they may be a cultural or ethnic minority.

Occupational and Mercantile Guilds - The vast majority of guilds will be either occupational guilds designed to support the needs of a particular set of workers (skilled or unskilled) in the form of a labour union or mercantile guilds which control, regulate and promote their members business interests.  More information on the history and structure of medieval guilds can be found on the website of the Economic History Association.