Behold! Treasure

For a while now I've looked for fantasy coins that I can use in my games. In games such as WFRP, where those pennies matter, I figured it'd be a bit easier if the players could just hand over the coins, rather than fiddle around rubbing out numbers on their character sheet. For a long time, I couldn't find any that were cheap enough.

I got these from the 'SuntekStore'. No, this is not an advertorial, but it wouldn't be much use as a post if I didn't actually tell you where I'd got these from. In truth, they're not much use for D&D, in which characters are regularly carrying around more than 100 coins - these come in packs of 100 - but for games such as WFRP, or Advanced Fighting Fantasy, or for many other flavours of fantasy in which fortunes aren't measured in tens of thousands of pieces of gold, these will be very useful.

Wage Rates and Treasure Hoards

On my other blog, I wrote about the route to a quick fortune in the Old World of WFRP1e - busking. Not too long ago, I wrote about my preferences for systems that accommodate the PCs employing NPC hirelings. Both of these posts touch on another concern of mine - levels of reward.

I have no need for the extensive price lists found in many games. I couldn't give a flying feather about the price of a chicken. I couldn't give a snort over the cost of salted ham. But that is because those kind of 'realistic' price lists are focused on the wrong kind of thing for my game. I don't need to know the minutia. But I do want to know, at a glance, what it will cost a PC to live. And I do want this broken down, not into a series of line items, but into consequential differences - into a series of bands from 'poverty' to 'princely'. I don't care about the difference in price between a cup of mead and a jug of ale. But I want to know what a carousing session costs, perhaps broken down by quality of neighborhood. Cost of a cloak? Pah! Cost of 'dressing in finery' vs 'dressing in rags', yeah, I can use that.  And so on.

As an aside, this is why I also can't be bothered with platinum and electrum coins. Gold, silver, and copper are enough - in fact, in practical play, two types of coins often provides a perfectly workable system, with simplified accountancy.

Thing is, I do like keeping track of the cash available to the PCs. I do like having the PCs grub around for the gold to cover their living expenses. This can lead to trouble, and trouble leads to adventure. But I don't want to play a game in which the players discuss whether they can do without cloaks, or whether they will wear boots or shoes, and so on. I don't find that fun.

What's this got to do with levels of reward? Well, a good, game-able pricelist allows a GM to calibrate rewards based on wealth. And more importantly, it allows players to understand the level of their PCs' wealth with regard to the game world. They are being paid 500GP to recover the Icon of St. Cuthbert? Is that the same as the yearly income for someone of their class? Is is 10 years' income? Is it the revenue a minor baron would collect? How many months of 'upper class' living would this reward grant the low-born PCs? And so on.

Of course, the much maligned (outside the OSR, at least) random treasure tables provide an additional mode of reward calibration, this time by risk. More or less. So is this a deadly adventure, akin to taking on a Dragon? Or it is like knocking over a couple of Goblins? Either way, and anywhere in between, D&D (and its clones) has you covered.   

More Slaves (Awkward Treasure #4, part two)

Or not strictly slaves, but captives. If there is one thing that RuneQuest taught us (and it taught us lots of things) it is that an enemy defeated and held for ransom is worth more than a dead one. And having someone willing to stand for you PC's ransom might just well save their lives.

Obviously, the PCs might seize a ransom-able captive in the course of their usual adventuring. Indeed, if your PCs are of the murder-hobo variety they may make a healthy business out of kidnapping. Such is mundane human traffic, which warrants little more discussion, for now, than to simply say, 'give your players a choice'. Choices are the material of the roleplaying game, and presenting the players with an opportunity to spare an enemy's life in exchange for GP, or ending their enmity once and for all (Raise Dead notwithstanding) is an interesting in game choice. 

No, here we are talking being given the opportunity for the PCs to seize a high ransom individual who is *already* a captive. In a world in which people of status are ransomed on a regular basis, it would surely not be that unusual a circumstance for the PCs to raid a stronghold, fort, or lair and find that valuable prisoners make up part of their enemies wealth. What would a band of PC knights do, for instance, if they stormed Durnstein Castle and ended up with Richard the Lionheart in their hands? Sure, they could win his favour by releasing him, but they could also raise 80,000 marks of silver if they were of a mind to hold him prisoner. But would they offend the Pope, holding such a noble Crusader? What would happen when they next encountered English knights in the Holy Land? &c.

King Richard held captive

So, Awkward Treasure #4.3 is Noble Captive.

The PCs complete clearing out the [adventure site]. As the last of their enemies gurgles bloodily on the floor, the PCs find a trapdoor that opens into a oubliette. Inside is the bedraggled, but recognizable [opposing noble/potentate/bishop/whathaveyou]. He is not the PCs outright enemy, but has frustrated their plans in the past/supported their rivals/is the agent of a polity currently in a tense state of peace with that the PCs represent. What to do? The captive is effusive in his thanks - he believes he has been rescued. But any PC with a passing knowledge of local culture will know that the captive carries a ransom of 20,000GP*[1], if only it can be realised. But to demand such a ransom will come with unknown political (and personal) consequences. How will the PCs own people react to such a hostile act? What will their status in the captives territory be? What will they do with all that money - if the players are canny, this could be a way to feed an excitingly destabalising amount of wealth into a low level campaign, which will turn into a cross between A Simple Plan, Raising Arizona, and Brewsters' Millions if I know D&D players. But simply freeing the captive has consequences too.

And at least one player will, more than likely, want to simply kill the bastard and throw the whole place into turmoil.

[1] 20,000GP will buy you a fair sized sea-going ship in most OSR D&D-alikes.

    

A Coffle of Slaves (Awkward Treasure #4, part one)

Now, you don’t get much more awkward than this. Not just physically and logistically awkward, but politically and morally awkward – in and out of game! Most game worlds feature at least some societies that allow the ownership of human beings (and/or sentient beings), so the idea of thinking, speaking beings (and people) as wealth is unavoidable. So what do the PCs do when a whole heap of potential GP (and XP) falls into their lap?  

Now, slaves need feeding, guarding, and care to get them to a suitable market in saleable condition. But things might be more complicated than that...

1d6 Slaves - Part One of Three

1. Humanoids. So the Goblins the PCs are fighting fail their morale check and surrender? What are the PCs to do? Let them go? Gygax would say not - he was a 'kill 'em all, the Gods have aleady sorted them out' kinda guy. Ransom them back to the Goblin Overboss? What, deal with that duplicitous bastard? Or tie them together and march them to the slave market of Xamptang? They won't fetch a great price, but they can make good latrine cleaners, chimney sweeps, provide replaceable muscle for the city engines, laboratory subjects, and arena 'amusement'. If the PCs are to engage in any kind of slave trading, this is the one that is morally and politically the least awkward - not only have the Players happily had their PCs butcher Goblins and the like, but in the game world it is likely that Goblins and their kin are afforded few rights or protections by human societies. The 'treasure' is still awkward in the sense that the Goblins will need feeding and guarding, and because their tribe might mount a rescue mission, but there are no special ethical problems for Players and PCs happy to see and treat Goblins as mere 'Monsters'. 

[A slightly more ethically... erm... interesting 'treasure' would be humans from another, enemy, culture. If your game doesn't make things easy for players by making their PCs' bidepal enemies bestial Chaotic beings, you might find humans filling this role in your game. Depending on the setting, it may be entirely right and proper that a victor in battle makes slaves of his enemies. To run against this would be wrong - to be acting badly - in terms of the setting. And PCs behaving badly is the source of great adventure, no?] 

2. Children. Who would want children as slaves? The Faerie King, of course! He wants children to amuse and placate his barren, melancholy wife. What, you thought it'd be about transporting captive children to help populate a hardscrabble colony? Maybe. But right now, let's remember this is a fantasy game. The children the PCs 'sell' to the Faerie King will live lives of beauty and plenty, but will be ejected from the Queen's garden - re-entering the mundane world - when they reach puberty. As time passes differently in Faerie, this will be 1d8 years after they enter the Hidden Kingdom. Depending on how these young adults view the loss of their normal childhood, and then the pain of being ejected from 'paradise', in just a few years the PCs might find themselves with a number of young enemies, each blessed in some way by their time in Faerie. 

The Faerie King won't pay in gold - though he may offer greedy PCs an improbably amount of money, but that will only be an illusion. This will dissipate as soon as the PCs try to spend the treasure, leaving just a pile of smooth pebbles. But not, if all the PCs do is keep the 'treasure' in a vault it will retain its glamour. No, rather than money, the Faerie King pays in magical favours, and he takes his debts very seriously. The PCs will be given some token, most likely a hunting horn, but perhaps a bell without a clapper, or a hawthorn wood 'torch' that burns invisibly when lit. The token is used to call in the debt, requesting assistance from the Hidden Kingdom. The aid may come in the form of some form of animated plantlife (tangling grass, a walking tree, etc.), a 'gift' provided by the little people (magical food and drink), a guide, anything up to even the appearance of the Wild Hunt itself. What is most likely is that the PCs will be seeking a specific favour from the Faerie King. There may be many ways to win his favour, and the PCs should have a choice, but this option will be tempting as what could be as easy as stealing a few children? 

Of course, if the PCs haven't been invited, they will face the problem of finding a way into Faerie, through which they can safely transport their captives. And if (when) news of the PCs alignment with the Old Folk reaches the common people they can be sure that there will be very awkward moments indeed.  

To be continued...

The Epic of the Ur-Men (Awkward Treasure #3)

My PCs are always coming across hieroglyphs, runes or frescos when they explore ruins. As a GM, I use these to reveal a bit of that epic backstory that I have written (or am making up on the spot), to help the Players (and PCs) to make sense of the ruins and its place in the game world, and to foreshadow the dangers (and rewards) that might be found.

But these are also ancient (and valuable) works of art. When real-life looters stripped ancient sites (and, later, museums) of their treasures, it wasn’t just the gold they plundered. On occasion, it was aspects of the very structures that were taken as loot; statues, columns, masonry of artistry and significance. There is no reason why the PCs in a fantasy RPG should not take the same approach.

These marbles are powerful and valuable objects, even though Hermes and Dionysos (the seated figures with their backs to each other) are not real. In a fantasy RPG these depictions of Gods, myth and legend can not only be true, they can be imbued with the magic of these Gods, myths and legends. 

Carved into a wall, the PCs come across the Epic of the Ur-Men, a history of the First Age of Man ‘written’ in a confusing mix of carven images, metaphorical pictographs, and letter-like runes. It is stunningly beautiful – its aesthetic value alone would bring an expedition profit – and scholars would sell their souls for the opportunity to study and interpret the images, but it is also of great political significance. The lord or city who possess this artefact can assert a link back to the dawn of human existence, to the mythical heroes who challenged and threw down the very Gods.

The only problem is getting the Epic back to civilization. Intact. Removing the required section of the wall will require the skill of at least 2 master masons and a 3d4 journeymen. Loading and transporting the wall will require 4d4 labourers and teamsters and 4 carts. Removing the Epic at the site will take 4d6 hours of labour, with 8 hours work per day being the most that can be relied upon without there being consequences. The GM should allow a good plan, or a larger workforce, to modify this roll, but simply driving the men harder will come at a cost of loyalty and fatigue, both of which may prove costly on the return journey.

This is an expedition, and an expedition is visible. The PCs will need to operate in secret, to draw on trusted contacts, or to mislead (or outright press-gang) their workmen, or else they will find themselves in a race against time. The Epic is worth killing for, and rivals will mount their own expeditions once word of the PCs plans reaches their ears. The PCs will have a head start, but can they keep this as they journey into the wilderness, and can they remove the Epic before any rivals arrive at the site? Regardless of the PCs discretion and speed, the work camp will need to be defended from wandering monsters – if a marauding Owlbear eats their master masons, the PCs might end up bringing only ancient rubble back to civilisation.   

This ‘treasure’ could be used at a range of levels of play – it could found at a bona fide ‘adventure site’ such as deep within a dungeon (which presents additional problems) or a ruined city, but it could be a lucky find in the wilderness, a mere remnant of some long forgotten structure, with distance from civilisation the main obstacle. Low-level PCs could be recruited to join such an expedition, leading scouting parties, patrols and so on. The PCs might have discovered the Epic in a previous adventure, its location might have been provided to them in the form of rumours, advice from a sage, etc., or it might be presented to them as a straightforward ‘mission’. Or low-level PCs might lead such an expedition, though they would probably need to win the backing of an ‘investor’. Mid-level PCs might seek out the Epic in order to cement the allegiance of a Lordly patron, while high-level PCs might keep the Epic for themselves, to adorn their stronghold and legitimate their own political ambitions. Of course, the content of the Epic could also be useful in other ways. For example, it would make sense if possession of the Epic counted as a contribution to a magical library or laboratory, and it stands to reason that careful study of its narrative might reveal the locations of potential further adventures – perhaps even the last refuge of the Gods! 

The Inhumanity of Law (Awkward Treasure #2)

The PCs come into possession of a fantastic painting, titled the Inhumanity of Law. 5ft tall and 9ft wide, the painting depicts three scenes from the rise of Laziano as the capital of the Second Empire of Man. The first scene depicts the assassination of Julen, a successful general who named himself Tyrant. Julen drew on popular support from ordinary soldiers and other commoners, but his reforms alienated the oligarchs and denied them their legal rights. The oligarchy included his own family, and he was stabbed to death in public by his mother, his brother, and his sister. The second scene is depicts the increasingly gruesome and imaginative ways in which the oligarchy attempted to eliminate the Julenian factions and cow the people of Laziano. The final scene is truly nightmarish, with the dead walking the streets of Laziano as servants of the oligarchs. From this ordered necropolis the Second Empire of Man expanded across the known world.

The painting is worth a fortune, painted by Hybok the Cynic over two hundred years after the barbarians sacked Laziono and killed the Octatus Octatus, the Demon of Law who had assumed the role of Emperor. It is such an evocative painting that is exerts a malign influence on all those within 30ft of the painting. Even if it cannot be seen, its message can be felt. And its message is: Law is inhuman. Rules, explicit or tacit, cannot be trusted. Even the social contract between you and your neighbour is to be doubted. The PCs will feel this message, and their assessment of NPCs will be coloured by the presence of the painting.

In game terms, the presence of the painting triggers a Loyalty or Reaction Roll in all NPCs, and modifies all 2d6 Reaction Rolls be -2. The (2-12) range of possible NPC reactions will not get worse in the presence of the painting – i.e., if the Referee has determined that a Reaction Roll of a 2 would ordinarily result in a particular merchant attempting to cheat the PCs, when in the presence of the painting he won’t do anything more hostile than that on a roll of 2-4. Of course, as the merchant is more likely to cheat the PCs, the Players are more likely to react, and so begins a downward spiral.

And, of course, low Reaction Rolls will often prompt more hostile action than a bit of harmless swindling, and the players will have to negotiate with the buyer of the painting as the minds of everyone present thrum with the message: Do not trust this deal or the oaths sworn.   

[In a way, this ‘treasure’ was inspired by Picasso’s Guernica, as every time I see it I am horrified that we have seemingly normalised aerial bombardment as a clean, humane form of warfare. But arguments about that aren’t for here.]    

D6 Awkward Treasures #1

Perhaps it is the Warhammer GM in me, but some of the best fun I’ve had at the table has not been watching the players’ travails in search of treasure, but in watching the players plot and scheme once they have obtained said ‘treasure’. How do they get the treasure back to civilisation? How do they elude or defeat rival claimants? How do they convert the treasure into wealth or influence? In standard D&D-esque games, the adventure precedes the PCs getting the treasure. But if the treasure is, let’s say, awkward, the obstacles to reaching the treasure can be surprisingly, disarmingly easily overcome. Getting the treasure is a prelude to adventure, a pre-credits sequence so to speak. The real adventure begins once the PCs have the treasure, perhaps only tenuously, in their possession.

With this in mind, I will present six ‘awkward’ treasures, with some notes on turning possession of the adventure into an adventure in itself. Naturally, most of these have the tone of a low-fantasy 'caper', though some have a more magical character. I haven’t given these treasures a GP value, not only because most of these things are priceless, but because if you actually want to use any of these in your game you’ll have to fit them into the economy of your campaign. Obviously the reward must have the potential to compensate for the inconvenience of transforming these ‘treasures’ into wealth, but if the players are making real risk/reward decisions, there must be the potential for them to make a loss - though this need not be financial.

#1 The Ornamental Birds

Rainbow Fantails are beautiful, bad tempered, high-maintenance pets, about the size of a peacock, only both more spectacular and much more vicious. If you didn’t know that these were dumb, pea-brained birds, you might get it into your head that Rainbow Fantails were haughty, snobbish aristocrats, such is the attitude they present. Their highly territorial nature means that they are most often kept in large gardens, where they shelter in miniature mansions and are served on by their own staff. As most Rainbow Fantails that are found in the city states of the Ebon Sea were imported as eggs from Bactaraya, a breeding pair is extremely valuable. And that is what the PCs have in their possession.

The PCs might come into the possession of these birds in a relatively mundane manner, as the loot from an urban heist or a caravan raid. More adventurously, they might find a lost, abandoned garden as they explore a ruined villa and its grounds. They may spot the birds in the wild and, softly, softly, catchee birdy. Or they might be gifted the birds by a grateful, if mischievous, Raja.   

Turning a pair of Rainbow Fantails into wealth or power is complicated. Obviously, the birds could well be highly distinctive stolen goods with only a small, specialist market of buyers. But it is transport will be the key issue – if the birds are subject to stress their plumage fades extremely rapidly, turning a dull brown and coming to resemble to entirely unremarkable Dun Hen.

Transporting a Rainbow Fantail is best done at night, in a sealed wagon, when the birds are sleeping. During the day, they must be allowed to roam, but being stupid, domesticated animals, they must be vigilantly protected from predators. They demand luxury, and time and skill must be spent preparing their food each day, and their wagon must be appointed with silks and shiny baubles. Naturally, they ruin their quarters in short order, clawing the fabrics and swallowing the baubles.

[Each day, count up the number of sub-optimal conditions - food, accommodation, freedom, threat, noise, weather - 'suffered' by the birds and roll 1d12. If the roll equals of exceeds the number of sub-optimal conditions, the bird is content. If the roll is less than the number of sub-optimal conditions, the stress might have triggered the fading of the bird's plumage. Toss a coin - tails and the bird loses it's beautiful tail. Terrible conditions might count double, and if the bird is exposed to extreme stress - if it for example, attacked - skip straight to the coin toss. On the other hand, if the roll is a 12 for two consecutive days the female has laid an egg!] 

Peacock from the Book of Kells

If the PCs bore of this, the birds can be killed and their plumage sold for a fraction of the birds’ value, so long as their death is quick, painless, and unsuspected.   

In game terms, handing the PCs a pair of Rainbow Fantails can be used to produce an overland journey during which the players must make a number of risk/reward decisions, deciding which route is best for travel at night, which terrain is safest for the birds to roam during the day, which settlements to make their waypoints for resupply, perhaps with a mind ensuring the information does not reach any potential pursuers. Such a route might well lead the PCs into more adventure, and both the acquisition and 'disposal' of the birds ought give the PCs enemies/contacts/friends among the local elite.

Of course, you could add a bit more magic to this treasure, but this suits my low-magic world. It was inspired by the real world trade instolen pedigree dogs and the international smuggling of endangered creatures. 

2kCP? It's 1d8SP that's the problem.

I have already expressed my views on the non-problem there being 2000 copper pieces in a nest of Giant Rats [Abstract of that post: D&D is a game of abstractions]. 1-8 silver pieces in the purse of Goblin, on the other hand...

I spent a part of Friday[1] converting U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh[2] for use as an intro game for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I'm still not sure whether I'll invite the players to roll up first level characters, which are pretty powerful compared to classic D&D first levellers, or whether I'll use it as a 'funnel'. A group of townsfolk investigate the haunted house - what could be a better funnel than that? [3] And, never mind the fact that the rest of the U series provides possibilities for future adventure, should the players so choose, U1 itself has the zero-level funnel - The Haunted House - and the first test of the surviving first-level characters - The Sea Ghost.

Converting an [A]D&D adventure to DCC RPG is a piece of cake[4], for the most part. Monsters can be statted up very simply and straightforwardly, and without the 'compulsion' to make every person a properly levelled character so can NPCs, using the examples in the book as a quick rule of thumb. Treasure is not so straightforward. U1, like many AD&D modules, hands out a fair bit of treasure, and more than a few magical items. This runs counter to the intended tone of my game, which,  while it does not adhere entirely to the principles the in DCC RPG that magical items are exceptionally rare and unique and that no-one is lugging tens of thousands of gold coins about the place, does try to keep close to that flavour.

The DCC RPG fanzine Crawl! #2 has a pretty nifty treasure generation system (which pretty much makes magic items an incredibly rare random possibility - but there is nothing to stop you putting one there as a Judge), and Chris Hogan of Vaults of Nagoh has a couple of useful thoughts on treasure [Simplified Corpse Robbing, Corpses as Treasure], and I could always use the random treasure generators from Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e or WFRP1e (yup, there is one), all of which would provide more appropriate loot than the hundreds upon hundreds of GP on offer in U1. Of course, first I would have to scale back the reward from the Saltmarsh Council - 500GP per person is the sort of money that could hire an army of professional soldiers in AD&D. 

Anyway, I did not mean for the big treasures to be the point of this post, but some of the smallest. So, there's some Goblins, see. And they're each carrying 1-8 SP in their coin purses. If you are going to get flustered by Giant Rats and their 2000CP, you damn well ought be annoyed by this. Why? Because Goblins carrying currency that the PCs can spend raises far more (interesting) questions about the way the game world works than does a pile of treasure in a rats' nest. Does the Goblin economy rely on human currency for exchange? In the default AD&D setting, I'd guess not. Do Goblins regularly trade with human settlements? In the default AD&D setting, I'd guess not. Maybe rarely, when a tribal chieftain carries a strong box full of stolen loot down the crossroads at midnight, to trade with an arms dealer (yes, I know where U are going...). So there is a case for coins in a goblin lair, but 1-8 SP of walking around money...? What are they going to spend it on? Now, despite what is written in U1 (and nearly every other [A]D&D module), in which the Goblin's personal treasure is a handful of coins, perhaps, in fact, they have (silver) jewellery worth 1-8 SP. 

Or, perhaps Goblins do engage in inter-humanoid trade a little more regularly than the default AD&D setting suggests. Perhaps the rules imply a setting that is a bit more Blacksand! than Greyhawk?

They might love their job, but they still want to get paid.

Of course - D&D is a game of abstractions, stupid [5]. Don't break the fun! 

[1] The game didn't happen as everything got delayed and delayed until it was too late to begin, so we played a boardgame instead. Kids, eh? This week though...

[2] Eight pound odd for .pdfs of the complete U series is good value. The scans from dndclassics.com, however, are far from brilliant - nothing like the quality of the free teaser, B1. The whole thing looks shoddy, not least because there are missing characters down the edge of some of the pages. The characters can be easily inferred, but still, it is far short of what I had been expecting.

[3] Well, actually, I'd actually like to see - maybe I'll write - a zero-level funnel in which the players are the mob, pitchforks and all, storming Frankenstein's castle. That's 'Frankensteen', by the way.

[4] Though, we will still have to see how this cake actually tastes.

[5] I'm not saying that it breaks the fun, but if you want the abstractions to make sense - at least relative to each other - then you can do a lot worse than Adventurer, Conqueror, King System (ACKS), which is up there with LotFP as a clean, efficient version of classic D&D.

On the Great Copper Coin Debate of 2012

So some GIANT RATS have 2,000 copper pieces, do they?

Well, so what? D&D is a GAME of ABSTRACTIONS. HP, AC, Characteristics, Saving Throws, Levels...

Do you want more detail? If it is the round numbers that bother you, make something up or use the random number generators that came in that red box you bought thirty years ago. If it is that there is a pile of coins in the lair of Giant Rats that bother you, remember that 2,000CP is 20GP* worth of treasure that weighs 2,000cns / 200lbs (at AD&D convention of 10 coins to 1lb) / 40lbs (at AD&D2e convention of 50 coins to 1lb). In other words, a big, bulky treasure that isn't worth very much. A nice piece of furniture, perhaps.

I play treasure all three ways - "here's a pile of 2,000CP" / here's a pile of 1,876 Emirati Coppers / "as you catch your breath [after fighting the Giant Rats], you notice that the sideboard on the far wall would complement the furniture of your dining room."

D&D is a game in which advancement is driven by loot. Even if Giant Rats having piles of coins (or any treasure) wouldn't make sense in the real world (if there were such things as Giant Rats), it MUST make sense in a D&D game world. Okay, maybe Giant Rats could be Treasure Type: NIL, but the principle that monsters (might) have treasure, and that this treasure is relatively easily convertible to GP/XP, is an essential part of D&D. 

*Correction - In AD&D it is worth all of 10GP.

Building From the Ground Up

"What does your Character want to do?"

"How should I know?"

Giving PCs 'world knowledge' [*1] is a central problem of a sandbox campaign. Sure, the Character part of 'Player Character' knows, in principle, a lot about the world, but that doesn’t, in itself, much help the Player. If we’re running a tightly plotted 'railroad', the GM can tell the Player what the Character knows, as appropriate. What is appropriate is determined by the plot, and perhaps moderated by a skill/characteristic check. But what is 'appropriate' world knowledge if you are trying to build Player (and Character) agency into the game at a more fundamental level?

(An aside - I'm aware that I'm teaching fish to swim, here, for most people who read this.)

Well, a Player will never reach the level of world knowledge that we have about our own, real, world, which allows us to act freely, to make any number of decisions of where to go and what to do, given adequate resources. We are not constrained by our lack of world knowledge, but by our family ties, employment obligations, duties, social norms, and our limited resources. PCs in a sandbox campaign are not only constrained by these factors, but also by the fact that the Player making decisions on their behalf hasn’t spent 20/30/40-odd or more years being socialised into the geographical, political, social, and mythic possibilities of the incomplete, fictional world in which their Character adventures.

What are the sources of world knowledge for Players? Well, obviously, a GM might provide a description of the setting as a handout. The D&D Gazetteers actually did this quite well, with a players' section that described what characters might know of the history, myth, politics and social structure of the region. Something similar for a DIY setting need not be so detailed [*2] – it is the player’s job to ask questions. The players can put meat on the skeleton that the GM provides, either by prompting on-the-fly-world creation or by engaging in collaborative world creation themselves.

"What is the most important local festival?"

"I don’t know – didn’t Locnar the Brave grow up here? You tell me."

Of course, this needs inventive players who have bought into the concept. And the GM always has the privileges of elaboration – to flesh out the one line concept in ways that might surprise the player – and, of course, veto.

A much more evocative source of world knowledge are maps (a good post on the subject of maps can be found on the Hill Cantons blog). A staple of fantasy fiction a map covered in place names and geographical features should excite any adventurer. The map doesn't need to be accurate, or to scale, or of an area much greater (at the start) than of Threshold and the surrounding few miles. A hex map might allow exploration to be mechanised somewhat, but a more abstract map might serve our purposes – of giving PCs the possibilities to act – just as well.

And then we get to rumour tables (there's a nice rumnour table here at Blue Boxer Rebellion). The world should hum with the chatter of rumour tables. They don't necessarily need to be random – though we might enjoy letting the dice decide, and there are various ways of doing this, some of which (especially in skill based games or games that use characteristic checks) can reward roleplaying – but NPCs (even generalised as 'the people in town are talking about') provide ways to populate the developing fantasy world with possibilities for adventure. A more structured way of providing adventure appropriate world knowledge is the use of patrons – but the Players should have been provided with enough information about the possibilities of patrons for their Characters that the GM doesn’t need to turn every night in the pub into a speed-dating session for out-of-work strongarms and potential sugar daddies. With enough world knowledge, of the right kind, the Players should be able to seek out patrons, and their choices ought to be so unconstrained that their decisions force the GM to create patrons on the fly to meet the actions of the players. Fewer notices pinned to trees in the centre of Nuln, more PCs creating the world-on-the-fly, even if they don’t know it, by thinking up original ways to get paid to kill monsters (or whatever).

But two bog standard standard features of a D&D-style game are really exciting me about building both the world and Player world knowledge – random encounters and randomly rolled treasure. An encounter in itself is pretty adventurous, and there is no reason why it should be so simple as, 'You run into some bandits. Fight!' Daddy Grognard has been developing 'An Adventure for Every Monster'. So far he’s up to Cockatrice, so there a lot more monsters to come. My thinking at the moment is that there is no reason that random encounters couldn’t perform an even greater world building role by incorporating MORE random tables. Tables of adventure seeds and geographic features would create three points of variation providing interesting (and potentially very strange) perpectives that can be quickly fleshed out by GM improvisation on the structure of bare bones.

You can build a whole lot of stuff from bare bones.

And last, treasure, the point of much of this adventuring, can itself provide a great in-game source of world knowledge. Lots of adventures do this in reverse – the PCs are tasked with recovering the Sceptre of Dismay from the cannibal bandits of the Jagged Hills. More often than not, that involves the GM telling the PCs what to do. Doing it the other way round, the PCs find a sceptre after exploring the Jagged Hills marked on their maps, investigating a rumour that they heard several sessions. The PCs acted, the GM filled in the world. And while the GM has an idea of what the sceptre is (and this should be fixed, lest it become a quantum sceptre), what the PCs decide to do with the sceptre that they found will both flesh out its ‘reality’ and its future – shaping the game world at both a meta-level (what exists in the world and how are these ‘things’ related) and at the level of its fictional history (what happens in the fictional world once the existence of these things are decided). Again, Daddy Grognard has been filling his Adventures of Every Monster with interesting treasures, and has started a complementary series, 'A Horde for Every Treasure Type'. Wow. But he’s not the only one, we have the WFRP Random Treasure Generator, of course, and we have RuneQuest/OpenQuest found 'Found Items' HERE and HERE. Honestly, the latter link, to the list of Found Items at the Chaos Project, makes my own list seem paltry. 342 entries! But, hey, this game is building a world from the ground up, so here is a d10 table of shoes!

1 A pair of indigo dancing shoes in immaculate condition, in an elegant, plain wooden box.
2 A barrel of foul smelling vinegar, in which float 13 pairs of leather shoes.
3 A pair of knee-high riding boots. Etched into the hard leather is a dragon, with small red crystals for eyes, that coils up the wearer's thighs.
4 Three pairs of wooden clogs; small, medium, and large.
5 A pair of armoured boots with a nasty barbed spike on each toe-cap.
6 A rough sack filled with dirty children’s shoes. There are 20 pairs and 6 odd shoes.
7 A pair of fine shoes, suitable for a gentleman, with a hidden compartment in each heel. One heel contains a ‘lucky’ gold coin of an obscure design. The other contains a small green silk pouch containing white powder that acts as a stimulant.
8 A pair of glass slippers to fit very small feet. One of the slippers is chipped and is crusted with old blood.
9 A pair of sandals. The hairy feet of the previous owner are still inside them, cut off at the ankle.
10 A pair of waders made from seal skin that smell of the rancid oils used to waterproof them.


*1 'World knowledge' isn't about Players knowing the facts of the world, but knowing their Character's 'possibilities for action'.

*2 Although there is no reason why this handout need not be an ever growing document, providing short pen sketches of significant NPCs, organisations, and locations. The Players cannot be expected to retain the world knowledge of their Characters between sessions, so a well organised handout that develops into a guidebook (easily enough managed now we’re not building worlds in school exercise books but on endlessly editable electronic documents) might be one of the best ways of externalising the world knowledge of the characters without relying on the GM re-cap/prompt that might restrict PC agency.