The Book of Dooms

I'm an Opinionated Gamer

2008-02-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Over on the forum, the following thread was started:

Speaker One: Somebody asked about using Seeing to find pollution. I don't think they got a complete answer. I just read the rules on divination and realized that a Gleaning (to find something unknown or secret) does the trick. It's TN 18 so it's not easy but priesthoods in sacred places can do it to prevent the place getting fouled.

Speaker Two: You certainly can use a gleaning to get the information; however, any answer will be metaphorical.

How every under most conditions, people will not do so, they will instead use purifications on them selves first before entering a sacred area and the priesthood are likely to purify the space regularly.

Speaker One: Why would the priesthood rely solely on purification? Why do cleansings to get rid of pollution that need never be introduced in the first place? A regular scan of the population that usually visits a space (and a compulsory scan of strangers who enter) costs as little as one point of the priesthoods Spirit, they can even do people in batches to save time and resource (one of you is dirty, ok now we split you into two groups and ask if anyone's dirty in each, etc). Routinely washing people who don't need

Now no doubt you're going to pop up with some ridiculous argument that "the culture isn't like that". The hell it aint. The priests know their job and the skills and resources they have to achieve it. The most efficient way is to Glean regularly. Often enough that there is a low chance that someone entering has pollution above the Purification Rune level. Of course you encourage the locals to clean everyday, and that's their normal routine (after they take their nightclothes off but before they put their clothes on) and then make sure anyone dirty washes themselves. Small regular washings are done on the site. Every so often (daily for well trafficked sites, weekly for less well known ones) you do a Gleaning on the site itself just to make sure it isn't getting away from you.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This kind of thing drives me batshit crazy. There, I've said it.

Yes, the book says a "Gleaning can be used to discover basic facts or even hidden secrets of a person, place or object…" But that statement needs to be taken within context. Below is the full quote from the book:

"Gaining a magical glimpse of the past, present, or future through a Divination is a powerful form of magic much sought after by everyone from peasants to Kings. It can be so powerful, and the things it reveals so upsetting, that many Cultures (particularly Divine King Cultures) will regulate if not outright ban the use of Divinations, particularly in regard to the fate of Kings, Princes, and other powerful political or religious figures in a Culture…

There are two basic types of Divinations in the Known World, Gleanings and Foretellings. A Gleaning is a Divination performed in order to reveal information, to learn something about a person, place, or object in the past or present. A Foretelling is a predictive Divination designed to reveal something about the future fate of a person or course of action. A Gleaning can be used to discover basic facts or even hidden secrets of a person, place, or object, learn what they have done, where they have been, who made them, and so forth. A Foretelling can be used to discover what might happen to someone in the future, or the possible results of a course of action that someone is considering taking, for good or for ill."

Looking at the full text, I would rule that the result of a Gleaning would give a glimpse of the actions that earned Pollution. For instance, a successful Gleaning would show a person going to the privy, killing a hen for breakfast, slogging through mud, or saying a god’s name in anger. These are simple actions that earn a character Pollution.

Speaker One asked, "Why would the priesthood rely solely on purification? Why do cleansings to get rid of pollution that need never be introduced in the first place?..."

Because that's what priests do and have always done. A font of holy water is near the entrance to a church for a reason. A shaman cleanses himself with sage smoke for a reason. Every day Pollution happens. There is no need to Glean why or how it exists because it will be there regardless. The point is to be cleansed of Pollution before entering into a sacred space or ritual.

Speaker One said, "Now no doubt you're going to pop up with some ridiculous argument that 'the culture isn't like that'. The hell it aint."

Ridiculous? I don't think so. Remember that quote from the book? "It can be so powerful, and the things it reveals so upsetting, that many Cultures (particularly Divine King Cultures) will regulate if not outright ban the use of Divinations…"

They "will regulate if not outright ban". Guess what, the priest culture isn’t likely to use Divination to Glean the Pollution levels on every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks in its church doors.

Speaker One continues with, "every so often (daily for well trafficked sites, weekly for less well known ones) you do a Gleaning on the site itself just to make sure it isn't getting away from you."

This comment concerns me first in that it's written as if performing a Gleaning will just tell you the floors need scrubbing. Again, my interpretation of a Gleaning is that you would learn how Pollution was earned not that it was earned at all.

With the understanding that Pollution happens as an every day part of life and that certain amounts of Pollution are bound to be brought into sacred spaces, a Gleaning for Pollution is an unnecessary and out of the ordinary act of Divination.

Dreamation 2008

2008-01-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

If you aren't terribly far from New Jersey, you should go to Dreamation. From Thursday, January 24 throught Sunday, January 27, 2008, there will be a crazy number of very cool games going on in Islin, New Jersey.

The official schedule hasn't been posted yet, however there will be an Artesia: AKW game run on Saturday morning.

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World
"Doom of the Fallen"
Run by Don Corcoran

Artesia is part of the Indie Game Explosion track at the convention.

In addition to the indie rpgs there are traditional rpgs, board games, LARPs, card games, video games, panel discussions, a dealers' room, and more. I've been to the last few Dreamation Conventions and always have had a fantastic time. I have so much fun in fact, it has become my 'vacation' convention. You won't find me running any games or volunteering any time behind the scenes. :)

Hail the Return of THE FORUMS

2007-11-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Artesia Forums are up and running again! YAY!

Please don't forget about us... okay, well we won't let you. We'll be posting twice as much as you! ;)

Click HERE to check it out.

UberCon IX an Artesia:AKW Report

2007-11-05T07:24:00.001-08:00

I had been late to submit my events for UberCon so I found myself with the ever fabulous midnight slot on Saturday night. Once pre-registration closed I wasn't terribly surprised that only two people signed up for my Artesia: Adventures in the Known World session.

Can you imagine how I felt when 8 people showed up hoping to play? I only had six characters available and unfortunately character creation isn't a quick process: two of the guys had to go. My sixth player was a friend with whom I game regularly. Since this was the case, and since player six was a rockin' gm as well, I told her that it would be fine if she stepped out of my game so that she could gm something for the two guys I turned away.

Thus, I ended up with a table of five players. Of the five, three were entirely unfamiliar with the world of Artesia, one had read some of the comics, while the fifth had read the comics and gm'ed sessions of the game at conventions. And I had thought my game would fold due to lack of players.

The addition of conflicting goals to the character backgrounds created some fun scenes at the start of the game. Anisa wanted to get together a group to go into the Erid Wold and find her lover. Jaila wanted to travel to outside of Westmark to visit a specific herbalist to get some supplies for a difficult birth that was pending in the village. With her gift of Honeyed Tongue, Anisa got her way.

During play, the guy playing the mid-wife, Jaila, asked me a fantastic question. "What could be the spiritual consequences of the child being born early, late or on schedule?" We decided that the 'on time' option should be determined by a roll on the random star sign chart in the book (pg 147), modified by the character's Star Lore. The result was The Scales with a strong influence. My interpretation was that a child born under that sign and influence had the potential to become a wise and just leader of men. However a difficult birth could result in the child growing up to be a spirit of vengeance under the guise of justice. Fun eh?

Considering the lateness of the game and the tiredness of some players, the session went really well. There was strong role-playing and entertaining consequences to rolls and player decisions. I learned some weaknesses of some characters, particularly Olan the blacksmith. He has reasons to be with the group but the character isn’t terribly effective once on the road to the Erid Wold (he’s much more effective if Jaila’s, his own or Lagaine’s quests are undertaken.) I’ll need to look at the character sheet and do some tweaking. I had been playing with the idea of his being immune to the effects of the flower pool. I may put that into play.

After the game, which ended around 4am, most of us talked for a while. Cameron (the guy who has run the game before) thought a random Arcana draw on critical successes and failures could be interesting. For instance, Lewin crucially fails his Courage check and draws a card. The resulting card can then be interpreted as an influencing factor to the failure. The same could be done for critical successes. I think I'm going to try this as I find anything that encourages storytelling to be a good thing.

The player who had the character Jaila was incredibly pleased with the game. He kept telling me how happy he was with his character choice and that he had a great time. He went on to say he would love for his gm to get the game and learn it so he could play again. That of course developed into our talking about the availability of the game book and where it can be purchased. It would be very cool if these guys try running it at home.

I'll be running the scenario twice more before the close of 2007: at Philcon in November and AnonyCon in December. Maybe by the December game I'll have all the kinks worked out. LOL

And now for a note about the character names in my scenario

If you have read The Witch's Price, the scenario in Artesia: AKW, then the names above may seem familiar. They should, as they're names of some of the NPC villagers in the game.

I had been writing my scenario, slaving away over were to set my village, the types of people in it, etc. Only to find that the village of Belward, the main location of The Witch's Price, was nearly exactly what I was making.

"Why should I do all this work," I asked myself, "if it's already done and with beautiful illustrations?"

So I made player characters out of six of the named villagers, designed some conflicts that are totally unrelated to the published scenario, and voila! I had a game.

Was this cheating? Maybe a little. However, I've put a lot of hours into the characters (none of them had stats of any sort, just names and occupations) and the conflicts in the game are very different from those of the scenario. Additionally I added new NPCs and a handful of small locations. The more I work on it, the more I add and make it my own.

Deeds: Rethinking Acts for your Artesia Games

2007-10-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Right now the Book of Dooms is reactive to the players actions and gives them a little drive in developing their character. By rewarding certain important actions the players may then develop their characters in a certain way. What if we took those actions (or Acts) and made them more pivotal to the story at hand? I mean, currently the Guide establishes what sorts of adventures and situations the characters face. What if there was a way to have the players direct input in the sorts of stories they want to participate in and reward them for it?! That's Deeds!

Each character has three Deeds. Each Deed dictates what the player wants for his character and how the character will develop through it. Be careful. Do not assume this is an easy process. This could very well be the most critical part of character creation. It takes some finesse and practice but after a short while the play group will get the hang of it. For those with experience in games like Burning Wheel (duh!), Hero's Banner, The Shadows of Yesterday and Star Wars SAGA some of these ideas should sound familiar.

A Deed has four elements to it. Arcana, Focus, Approach and Acts. Arcana is the first piece of the puzzle and it describes, simply, which Arcana is influencing the Deed. Basically, if the character were to act in accordance to the Deed's approach what sort of Arcana would the character gain? The Arcana Influence should, of course, match the meanings behind the twenty-two major Arcana in the Book of Dooms. If, when you've completed the Deed, you find it no longer fits the initial themes you set out to cover then you can either switch to an Arcana that may seem more appropriate OR rework the other elements to better get in line with the Arcana's influence.

Secondly is the Focus. There are four Foci - People, Places, Gods and Objects. Your Deed centers around this focus so your Approach should reflect what you want out of the Focus. Deed Foci centered around people dictate what you want out of a relationship or membership in a group. Deed Foci about places emphasize discovery, ownership and great events as well as centers of cultural significance. The Gods indicate worship and the God's Influence in your life in a more or less direct way. Objects tend to generate Deed Foci that revolve around heirlooms, valuable items, powerful magics, and sentimental trinkets.

Approach tells everyone what the final goal is. An approach should detail a specific resolution and what the player wants from that resolution. Does she wish to marry the roguish hero? Does he seek to clean out the bandit's forest? Does she search for the Sword that killed her father? Does he wish to cleanse himself of his sins against the Divine King? Describe what the goal is and why it's so important to the character and you have an approach. The group should all agree that this is an interesting goal and one they are interested in exploring. Try to be sensitive to the needs of the group as a whole. Try phrasing the Approach on a way that meshes with the groups scope and mode of play. I suspect that each Approach will be tweaked in reflection of the other players own Deeds.

Finally, the Acts display the same information Acts do on the Major Arcana in AAKW. However, these Acts revolve around actions you do in direct relation to the Approach and the Deed's Focus. We're naming names and ironing out details. This doesn't mean you'll say "I will walk down the hall and kill my brother in his sleep" but it may say "kill my brother before he knows what hits him." Every Deed should have three Acts and may develop more if appropriate. One should be a minor act dedicated to your goal. A second should be something that will cause the character some significant problems if he carries out the act and the third is an act that resolves the Deed in some way. The character gains 2 Arcana for minor Acts, 5 Arcana for Major Acts and 10 Arcana for resolving the Deed's Approach one way or the other.

Next: How to play with Deeds...

convention characters: all in the GM's hands or a little player input?

2007-10-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

In which our heroine finds herself wondering about character portrayals and if providing entirely complete player characters is a bad thing.

A:AKW is a traditional role-playing game in that it has a GM driven setting. I don&'t like to drive story, rather I enjoy setting up a world in which the player characters explore and interact. I don't sit down and GM with an ending to the story in mind so players have a lot of freedom in the directions they may take.

This is all well and good during home games as the players get a fair amount of hand with the setting when they create and explore their characters. As the beliefs and desires of their characters change and develop, I happily go with the flow and run the world they are ultimately changing around them.

Convention scenarios are different. Unlike a home game, the characters and their driving beliefs are born from my imagination. I'm not so certain if this is what I want to continue doing. By putting the same pieces on the table at each session, the same situations and story come about nearly every time. I'd far rather players have a bit more "hand" in what unfolds.

Here's the rub: character creation is too complex to do before a game.

Maybe I should I leave one of the characters' beliefs blank. Player characters have 3 beliefs, one regarding what they want, one regarding another player character, and one regarding the world around them. It may be interesting to leave the "other player character one" blank.

I already start a session describing the characters and their place in the local society. Once players choose their character, I can then have them read the backgrounds and ask them to write a belief about another player character that is in play. The last part is important as very often I don't have a full table of 6. Sure, Lagaine would naturally have a belief in regard to his sister Jaila. But if Jaila isn't in play for the scenario, the belief isn't important.

If a player has trouble coming up with ideas, I could always have a list of possible beliefs that they could use.

Would this be something of interest to players in a convention environment? Tell me - I'm curious.

A New Spin of Telling Stories in the Known Wolrd

2007-09-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

This blog is called the Book of Dooms because we believe the arcana are the most crucial and unique part of Artesia: Adevntures in the Known World. Not that a fantasy set of tarot cards is unique, but how the tarot are integrated into the setting and system spins a central focus that completely supports the philosophy of the setting. This sort of thing speaks to me. It's my opinion that in the world of roleplaying GAMES if a theme or aspect of the setting isn't part of the rules it's just window dressing and the play group is welcome to ignore it. Mark has done a great job integrating a lot of the setting into the rules making the flavor of the setting come out in full color during play.

We will be spending much of our time talking about the Book of Dooms. We will be covering it's themes and meanings, developing an expanded deck beyond the major Arcana, exploring how players can drive story centered around their character's Arcana and even a new game that allows you to tell rich and epic stories set in the Known World.

Anyone in the NY/NJ/PA region can join us in playing Adenvtures in the Known World and Artesia Tales at several local gaming conventions (as spring mentioned) such as UberCon (1st weekend in Nov), PhilCon (3rd week of Nov) and Dreamation (last weekend in January).

Convention Sessions on the Horizon

2007-09-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

After GenCon I took a bit of a vacation from A:AKW. However, with a pair of November conventions coming up it's time to get back to work.

I will be running a session of Artesia: Adventures in the Known World at Ubercon IX in Edison, NJ. The game is scheduled for a crazy hour: Sunday, Nov 4th at 12:00am. Someone has signed up for the game but I'll be very surprised if I get enough players to run the scenario.

I'm tempted to reschedule the game for another time during the convention, such as 9am on Saturday. The problem with that is that I'm scheduled to run The Mountain Witch at midnight on Saturday. That game has 5 out of 6 seats filled and will definitely run. Am I willing to run a game from midnight to 4am, and then run another game 5 hours later?

I will also be running a session or two at Philcon. The convention is the weekend of November 16-18, 2007 in Philadelphia, PA. A game schedule should be posted by the end of October.

With the sessions coming up quickly, I'm tidying up character sheets and backgrounds. I'd love to have the A:AKW character sheet as an editable PDF. The Excel version (downloadable from the website) is very cool and very functional, but sadly doesn't have the same visual 'oomph' as the one in the book.

I'll be running a couple of trial sessions with folk at home. Hopefully you'll see some actual play reports in a couple of weeks.

Unanswered Questions of the Known World

allow me a moment to be snarky
If there were a forum, I'd start this discussion there. But as there isn't a forum, I'll have to talk to myself in the hollow darkness of the internet.
end snarkiness.

Is there a game in the Known World that is comparable to chess? If there is, how would you imagine it would look?

I'm not out to design a new game, but rather have a story hook in my head that involves images of game pieces found in stained glass and tapestries. I think I've read one too many Arturo Perez-Reverte novels.

"Corrupting the World's Youth, One Penis at a Time"

2007-08-21T14:09:00.001-07:00

I just got back from GenCon where I ran a couple of successful AKW games.

The first session gave me the quote of my weekend. Of the three players at the table, two were a father and his 14-year-old son. Before passing out the Arcana cards I mentioned to the father that they contained some nudity.

His response? "As long as it's not male nudity."

I was floored, said nothing and just passed out the cards.

Oddly enough, the cards knew the situation: The son received The Hermit, The Emperor, and The Sword - all featuring fully clothed images, the father received The Sword, The Emperor and The Sphinx, only one featuring female nudity, the third guy received The Lovers, The Hermit, The Empress and Death cards which had both female and male nudes. Creepy.

The Beliefs worked out well and elicited some fantastic role-playing. I've tweaked some characters since Origins (adding a sibling religious conflict and other pc paranoia) and the players jumped on some of that.

The 14-year-old played a character that I've unfortunately spent less time on than I'd like. However he did a great job in making him his own. I'm probably going to add a belief to the character that came about as a result of the awesome job the player did.

The second session was just as cool. All the players got into character quickly and again latched onto a lot of interpersonal play that I had hoped for from the beliefs. Arcana points were earned and used, AND they went to a NPC fortune teller and had a reading done. Fun stuff.

Both groups said they had a great time - I hope they were honest with me. I'd hate to continue to run a dull game for folk only because no one wants to tell the cute woman the truth.

Both sessions ended with discussion about the system and talk of future game supplements. Also, everyone was in agreement that Mark Smylie needs to publish and sell the Arcana cards as a deck.

Things to Change:

Both sessions (and the sessions at Origins) covered one of the possible 4 plots going on in the scenario. My next goal is to strengthen some of the "side plots" hinted at in character beliefs in the hope to make them more important for PCs to accomplish.

Aquatic zombies are fun and all but I'd like to try something new. ;)

Oh, and I've decided to up the creepiness of The Flower Pool when viewed with Second Sight:

Beside the pool grows a huge black tree. Its roots twist and undulate into the red water like the tentacles of a squid. Among the roots, floating on the water surface are toothy mouths that sing a high pitched and discordant tune.

The trunk of the tree is broad with bark like a reptile’s skin; a blue black shimmer on the craggy surface. Someone may notice a slight pulsing under the bark, like blood flowing beneath skin. From the tree’s limbs hang ropes of fire; strange flowers blooming from the branches.

On thicker limbs, some of the fiery ropes have been formed into nooses and from them hang strangled demons. Acrid black smoke rises from the demonic flesh but doesn’t burn through. The bodies sway in the still air of the Otherworld. Examining the demons may reveal that their hands are burnt and scared from forming the nooses to hang themselves.

Do you think it's too much?

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World

2007-08-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

I run single-session scenarios of Artesia: Adventures in the Known World (AKW) at conventions. This means I have a limited amount of time to introduce a table of players to the world of Artesia and the game system. It also means the players won't be terribly invested in their characers, setting and story we are sitting down to tell. As such, I've started adding elements to my games that aren't a part of the written rules.

Beliefs

Each character starts with two Beliefs: one pertaining to something they want to accomplish and one dealing with a relationship to another player character.

Anisa
Belief (The Lovers): My lover Ainge should have returned from hunting by now. I think he may be ost in the Erid Wold. I must find him.

Belief (The Empress): Jaila may show a natural connection to the Goddess, but I am the one being trained as her Priestess. Jaila will always be but a simple midwife.

The examples above immediatly tell the player some things about their character. First, Anisa is concerned about the safety of her lover and is determined to find him. Second, Anisa is very proud of her Priestess training and when confronted with Jaila's natural connection to the Goddess, she is possibly both jealous and condescending to her friend.

Area Knowledge

Local Expert is an existing skill in AKW. However, in addition to points they may have in the skill, I like to give each character a piece of that knowledge as an additional belief.

Anisa
Area Knowledge (The Hermit): Close to the southern edge of the Erid Wold lies the Belbog. It's a marshy place where at some point past, Ninava, your teacher, sent you to pick water plants. At the time, she warned you away from the northwestern edge of the bog. You have since overheard Ninava speak of "That crazy witch in the bog". You now believe someone is living out there.

With this sort of knowledge, each player gets an opportunity to, without GM prompting, describe a piece of the world during the adventure.

Arcana Awards and Use

In AKW, characters advance by earning and spending Arcana Points. In a single-session game, advancement isn't terribly important and can be easily overlooked. However, I believe the Arcana are far too important a game element to leave out. In an effort to show their importance, I use the Arcana as an "artha" or "hero point" system.

Each character starts with 3 or 4 business card sized Arcana cards each with a d10 to represent the number of points available. Each card will have a brief list of ideas relating to that Arcana.

Anisa
The Lovers: 4
The Empress: 2
The Hermit: 1
Death: 6

In the example of Anisa, the first three cards are linked to the character's Beliefs and Area Knowledge. The last card, Death, is related to part of her history and subsequent Grief Binding of 4. Anisa has witnessed a lot of death in her lifetime.

Let's look at The Hermit:

(click below to see a larger image)

During play, if Anisa does something particularly Hermit-like such as leaving the group to explore something alone, she will receive additional Hermit Arcana Points. Those Arcana Points can be spent at any time in ways particular to the Arcana they represent. Again using the Hermit example: Anisa could spend points toward improving her self-reliance for a scene, or give herself a bonus to figuring out a puzzle.

This is of course all under development. As I run games at conventions and for my group at home, I hope to flesh out what I'm doing as well as show more examples of use.

Players have asked where I got the cards I've been using. Actually, I emailed Mark Smylie and asked if I could use the Arcana as cards in my games. He didn't mind and was kind enough to send me a document with Arcana already formatted as business card sized images.

Welcome all ye vassals of the creatrix

2007-07-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

This blog chronicles and discussed the Artesia: Adventures in the Known World RPG by Archai Studios Press. We will cover all manner of play aids and game discussions including a few variants on different ways to run A:AKW.