Wizard Dad: Blog Update

As I am sure you have noticed, the blog has been on something of a hiatus, as I have a final coming up in my online courses, and like it or not the I have to focus away from the gaming table and blog.

But there are a few things that are, very slowly, in the works.

I am scaling back the Worksheet and Charts index to just worksheets. That is what I have the most trouble finding so that is what I am going to focus on. I think it will be a useful tool for everyone, so I will slap it up here. 

After that, still on the Index front, I am going to do a reverse publication order list off all articles including brief descriptions, that way if you want to peruse what is in a magazine or compellation before purchasing you will have a better idea what you are getting into. I have tragically fallen behind on (due to school) on being able to do anything but do a speed read of articles to add them to the primary Index. (this is probably going to be the slowest project I am working on).

There is a new category of articles I have in mind (with a couple of nearly finished) called "But what if we use it like this" to show alternative uses of ideas from Word Mill products, especially the Magazines.

Lastly, I am working (at a snails pace) on transferring the byzantine rules for early Shadowrun (I am going with 3e) into a Mythic and Fudge friendly format. Both are excellent toolkit games. Mythic tends to be more swingy for those wild action scenes, but if you want to play in the Shadowrun lore as more of a slice of life game (maybe between Runs), the Fudge tendency to pull towards the mean mathematically could be to your liking. I will post both, but expect a bit of overlap.

Well that is all that is fit for print. Be patient with me folks, Wizard Dad can not stand to be out of the lab for too long, so articles will be heading down the line soon.

Wizard Dad's Workshop: The Villain's Turn: Power, Resources, Influence, Knowledge, and Personal Life

Good villains make good stories. Well perhaps it takes more than that, but a good villain can really help a story along. Just as your characters are not static so too your villains have lives in motion. I am in the camp of nothing is real till it happens in game, but that doesn't have to mean that nothing is going on behind the scenes. So, I suggest that you consider giving the bad guy a turn every now and again. I am not saying focus the lens on the antagonist like you would a PC, that would take the fun out of the discovery later on. Instead I suggest a broad view procedure that gives a sense of the type of action your nemesis is taking over a certain period of time. 

Let's say, your PC is a sword swinging, good natured, friend to the common man. Now, early in his career he encounters a manipulative lord who uses his aristocratic powers to oppress and exploit the very people your PC focuses on caring for. Sounds like you have a good foil to your actions, and a nice focus for your campaign. If your villain is doing so much for you, perhaps you, the Solo Player, should do him a nice turn as well. 

In this system (partially inspired by Mr. Kevin Crawford's very well detailed faction system in Stars Without Number) you can break the action of a powerful person into five categories: Power, Resources, Influence, Knowledge, and Personal. Each Villain Turn you will roll for the category, and roll if the action is focused on acquisition or exercise, then a second roll on for success or failure. Lastly make a check on your Oracle of choice on whether the action as an outward facing effect. In other words does it generate a rumor or news event. Even if it does, that outward facing effect probably won't exactly reflect what happened, it is just what was seen and talked about. It is important that the action only loosely be defined, because it remains an unknown to the PC, until either the PC investigates and uncovers the truth behind the rumor or the villain takes an action which reveals what is behind the scenes.

Lets meander through the list and discuss what each label constitutes, and show some examples that could come up in play.

Power is any action taken to enhance the personal power of the villain or its organization. This could be getting a new magic item it covets, increasing its magic or weapon prowess, or any other action that makes the villain itself greater in magnitude.

Resources is similar to power excepting it is outside of the villain's personal being. This could mean making an ally of a powerful creature, strengthening a lieutenant, gaining control of business, or laying hands on a large pile of money. 

Influence is social or political in nature. This could involve seducing a local lord to their side, gaining  a political appointment, insinuating a spy in an organization, or gaining blackmail material over an important individual. 

Knowledge is information that is useful to the goals of the villain. This maybe gained through books, sages, reports from spies, or personal investigation. The knowledge is rarely abstract, save for more esoteric villains, and will probably be used as an asset in the future to gain more of the advantages listed above.

Lastly, whether your villain be an ambitious business man or a demigod, all of them are people (with rare exceptions). Things of a private nature will effect the Personal Life of the villain as they do with the protagonist. Maybe they fall in love, find a long lost child, have a religious revelation, or fall off a horse and break there leg. This may sound like a skipped round, but personal experiences can change a villain (though rarely into a hero) in such a way that there goals may change, or there approach needs to be altered. Or maybe they just need to be personally benched while that leg heals. In any account a Personal Life experience will impact a villain as much as it does a PC and should be taken into account as goals grown and bloom.

Ok, that is enough philosophy.

Lets talk mechanics.

After encountering a Villain, a trusted lieutenant, or a demonstration of his power base, note them down on their own card (or word doc, etc.). Here you will add all the details that you think you know about them. These details will only solidify if they come up in game, but details you think you know will inform your decisions. (If you use a character list, such is found in Mythic GMU make sure note them down there as well, if there is a noteworthy outward display).

Next, continue playing your normal solo campaign and at the conclusion of an adventure (or after one game month has passed, which every is shorter), whether or not it involved the villain, roll for the type of action that the villain engages in during that time period. Just use a 10 sided die with 1-2 being Power, 3-4 being Resources, 5-6 being Influence, 7-8 being Power, and 9-0 being Personal Life. Note the result.  After that roll on your random word generator of choice roll the  first word (preferably from some Action table) and put it with the result. This is meta knowledge, but it will work in the back of your mind until such a time when a revelation in reasonable. 

The next step is to find out if the action had any public facing consequences. This is as simple as asking your Oracle "Did the Villain turn have public facing fall out?" Judge the likelihood based on what you know of the Villain's public persona, what type of action it was, and what the first of your word pair turned out to be.  If the answer is no, you just go on with your next phase of your adventure. If the answer is yes, take the first word and add a second or more words until you have an idea what shape that fall out took. From there build a rumor or plot hook from it, and then pick move on to your next adventure. (Though this is written for protagonist it could also be done for any non static element of your game, but I don't want to make this article 17 pages long)

Revelation 
Remember all Revelations should work within the context of the game. Merge both the context and the results to give the picture presented to the characters.

Rumor: Revelation can come in the way of an outward expression of the the action of the villain turn, in which case you build a rumor from the first word, adding as many as you need to solidify it. After you have the rumor throw away all the words save for the first rolled, as that clings to he character to be used in the second phase.

Investigation: Assuming the PC wants to take the time to dig deeper, and has the resources to do so, investigating what a rival is doing, could reveal some of the secret information, if they have the skills to do so and aren't to clumsy implementing them. If they are successful, they learn one aspect of the rival's endeavors. In that case take the cumulated words from one category and develop them into a plot device. Which very well may lead to ...

Confrontation: There will come a time when you will clash with a antagonist or some aspect of there organization. At that time take a moment and figure out which category or categories (Power, Resources, Influence, Knowledge, or Personal Life) will be on display. It will probably be obvious from the context of the confrontation, but if now just roll to see what aspect is displayed. 

At this point use the cumulated words in each category used to produce a picture of what comes to bear in the encounter. Lets toss out a few examples using the oppressive lord mentioned in the introduction.

Power: Truce: While the lord was always a smooth talker now his voice produces a calming lassitude that seeps the will to fight from you and your allies. You notice he wears a strange platinum pendent that, is that the source of his new ability?

Resources: Distrust: A well know champion of right and law is on the side of the lord. This cast doubt in the minds of your henchmen on whether they are on the right side of the fight.

Influence: A couple of the kings own knights are flanking the Duke acting as his body guards. To strike at them is the break Royal decree, is it worth it?

Knowledge: Free: Before the fight can commence the he calls for a parlay. He offers the location of your characters missing family member if you just stand aside this one time and let him have his way. He promises that if you don't that information will be lost to you forever.

Personal Life: Trust: The lord's own son, carefully kept away from fights in the past is armed and armored and standing next to his father. They look like a formidable team.

In actual play there will be several words to weave together to give you an idea of what is manifesting, but the point is to show, in a very gameable way, that your rival is in motion as much as your characters.

(If you enjoyed this article, check out the Blog Index for more content that may entertain or inspire)

Blank Page to First Scene 4: Out of the Frying Pan; Into the Fire

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The last step to wrap up this little project is to jump into the first scene. Now, I could ask a series of Mythic questions narrowing it down to a final step, or I could use the method from MM38 Solo Setting & World Creation System, to sketch out a place with a little history. Instead I am going to pull another tool from my toolbox and use  The Adventure Crafter, which is a wonderful tool for inciting events. 

As a brief overview (I seriously suggest you pick this up and its deck version as well), TAC gives you a series of story elements that contrive to make up a scene. I wish to start in media res so the TAC results will be the thing that leads up to the moment I start, and set the conditions of my Fate Chart questions to determine what action is going on. 

A couple months ago I made a deck of adventure starters, and boost, for when things got slow. These are full Adventure Crafter result sets on standard index cards. They are agnostic with no context. Because a little context is needed to interpret them I am going to grab a multi genre bestiary I own and just randomly pick a monster from it to give some simple context I need. The result is futuristic and horror. Now, I am going to draw from the deck until a starting scene takes shape. To be more precise these are the events that will lead up to the starting scene, the immediate background of the adventure.

Meta: (I am holding meta results to just one, two many of these muddles a scene)

• Character Upgrade 

Mystery: 

• Something lost has been found.
• This isn't working
• The observer
• Beat you to it
• The Plot Thickens
• Hidden Agenda

Action

• Destroy the thing
• Confrontation
• Protector

Personal

• Untouchable
• Character Assistance
• Willing to talk

Social

• Injustice
• A rare or unique social gathering

I may not be able to fit all of these hooks into a coherent back scene, but lets see what we can do.

Social gives us a strong location in "A rare or unique social gathering". We know the setting is both horrific and futuristic. Social also tells us that someone or some group faces an injustice. In Personal we have untouchable, which suggest my own character is considered either to exalted to touch or to loathsome to interact with. Lets go with the later, and we are going to expand that to the others at the meeting as well. We, collectively, represent a group of lone-wolf pariah gathered for a purpose.

There are two factors that would make my character unique that I can think of off the top of my head. The first is that I am dimension hopper, but we know those are very rare. The second is that I am a wizard, but I mask it in the trappings of the local system, and sense this is sci-fi we will go with Psionics. This a world where both hyper science and psionic power are present, and those who practice the later are seen as unclean. 

I am just going to interject that psychics in this setting are lone-wolf types, with no over arching organization, which shows that meeting to discuss a problem (willing to talk) and banding together (Character Assistance) to face it is almost unheard of. As a persecutor minority they probably stay as far away from each other as possible, as not to draw attention.

If, the setting has hyper tech and the typical run of peace keepers and soldier, then this must be a scenario that only psionic power can handle, and it must be important enough to gather people from all parts of this space sector. 

Looking to the Mystery section we know that something, maybe an ancient psionic artifact, has been found, but we know that the group that has gathered think it is too dangerous and should be destroyed (Acton: Destroy the thing), which will lead to a confrontation with its guardian (Protector). 

Whatever it is even most psychic powers are bouncing off it (This isn't working). From seeming nowhere a character thought lost earlier in the adventure emerges from concealment, perhaps invisibility (The Observer) rushes past the combat and guardian, to seize the artifact for themselves (Beat you to it, Plot Thickens, Hidden Agenda). Upon seizing the object the power within it, that the guardian was trying to keep safe floods into our traitor, filling him with power (Meta: Character Upgraded). Which leads us to the opening scene...

A small group of psychic loners, along with Saul, are banded together, with the Protector joining them to face a seeming now much empowered psychic, who is a danger to this entire galactic sector.

Roll for initiative. 

Full Blog Table of Contents (a work in perpetual progress)

It has been brought to my attention that my blog isn't very user friendly, so now if you check the side bar you will see this ToC is the featured post.

It is going to take some doing to get all the project home pages up, but I am going to work from the most recent and work my way back. 

• NEW CONTENT! Annotated Mythic Magazine Table of Content (WiP)
• NEW CONTENT! The (Semi-)Comprehensive Guide to Solo RPG Styles
• NEW CONTENT! The A6 Pocket Project (A Pocket Analog RPG in the Making!)
• NEW CONTENT! Mythic Musings 5: Megadungeons and Other Places you Probably Shouldn't Visit
• Four Generic Locations for any game!
• Protecting your favorite campaigns from runaway one shots
• Raw data of worksheet and flow chart locations
• Popular Content! Hub Characters, a New(ish) Playstyle for Solo Gamers
• Popular Article! West Marches on one character a day, or a Crosshatch Campaign
• Popular Article! Resurrecting Old Solo Campaigns
• Popular Article! Starting a solo game beyond "first level": Flashbacks.
• MGME2, MRPG1, and MM Worksheet Index (alphabetical order)
• Wizard Dads Workshop: Layering games for a richer setting.
  
• Wizard Dad's Work Shop: A bundle scene starters sans context: Part 1.
• This is a new idea I have been working on. It is the output of a pen and paper hook generator, but stripped of any context whatsoever. That way you can take it, apply your own context and jump right into a first scene. They are also useful if game begins to lag. I have been doing this for myself on notecards for months now, so I figured it was time to share the goodness. Now expanded out to 15 hooks over three pages, all cross linked to one another. They have everything they need but context and your PC.
• Mythic RPG: Blank Page to First Scene (Brought to you by the Red Book and Mythic Magazine)
• This is a project showing how to both create and customize a Mythic RPG campaign. Work still in progress.
• Mythic RPG Project 2; Ideas and Addendums
• This is a set of house rules for Mythic RPG. Each entry is a completed house rule. More will be added as created.
• The Mythic RPG Project
• This is a fairly comprehensive overview of the rules for Mythic RPG with examples.
• Various Variations on Variations: Connecting the second half of Mythic GM Emulator 2e to supporting magazine articles
• This one is pretty self explanatory. I plan to revisit it soon and update for the newer MM articles. 
• A Mythic Magazine Index by Topic
• Far and away my most useful project, this charts where to find every Mythic Magazine Article by Vol. number, Page number, and Compellation number. This is a living document that sees some addition and revision monthly. It has an attached link to an alphabetical index and also links to specific topics.
• The Mythic Worksheet Index, by publication
• I have a lousy memory, but I do like a useful worksheet, when I can find them. So as I find them I will post them here. It starts with Mythic GME2, covers (so far) the first 18 Vol. of Mythic Magazine, and then we have a jump back to the book that stated all the Mythic RPG and its sibling books Variations I and II.

There are a few non Mythic related project scatter hither and yon. When I figure a way to group them I will pop them in a ToC and link it here, but here is a competed project chain or two.

• The Moreau Bug, An Experiment in Solo Fate Game Design
• Here the title says it all. This turned out to a lot of fun and fairly popular
• A Simple d6 GME
• This was an experiment in re-inventing the wheel. But it does show that anyone at any price level can enter the solo RPG hobby.

There are a number of one off articles that I feel are pretty strong, but weren't part of a series. When I have the time I will build a miscellanea ToC and link them here.

 

I also have some legacy content from when this was an OSR blog, but I will leave off that unless someone expresses an interest.

Blank Page to First Scene 3: Let's Make Some Magic

Back to Toc

Looking back to character creation, you will see three magic related traits. Two Attributes Vis Pool Maximum and Current Vis Pool, and one skill Wizardry. Now lets give them some meaning. 

For the purposes of this game I picked the Latin word for power, vis, as a universal energy source. (I didn't want to use words that currently exist in actually spiritual believes of cultures I am not part of, so I picked a dead language). And though it is reasonable to think of it as a power pool, it really represents how much and how often a mortal mind can interact with an extra-mortal power source, the Universal Realty Engine. The complexity of channeling the very mechanics of the cosmos are exhausting, and can be exhausted. So, while it is easier in game terms to think of it as an actual pool of energy, the reality it is more a measure of mental/spiritual stress, thus it is derived by Smarts and Ego.

I don't what an over complicated system so it essentially has two elements. First, is casting spells using the Wizardry Skill. This is as simple as defining the spell effect you want, setting a difficulty to it, and rolling to see if you succeed. A Yes indicates a successful casting. An Exceptional yes, allows you to raise one aspect of the casting (say include more people or cause more damage). A No indicates that you failed to cast the spell successfully, but it isn't a catastrophic failure. If the spell should have been well be low your abilities, down grade the qualities of the spell and have it perform in a sup par manner (you may want to aske a Fate check to see if it is a simple Failure, but I think Wizard should waist a round casting for nothing). If it was at or even stretching your abilities then it is just a failure, but still may cause Drain. If the answer is an Exceptional No the magic gets out of hand and either backfires or produces some interesting random result (I suggest a Fate check with backfire as the probably outcome).

Whether the spell is a success, a failure or a backfire you have to roll for Drain. Drain is a roll set by the difficulty of the spell against your Current Vis Pool attribute. The question is Did I suffer Drain. If Yes lower the Current Vis Pool by one step. If it is an Exceptional Yes, lower the current Vis pool by two steps. If the answer is No then your Vis Pool remains the same. If your answer is an Exceptional No then your Vis Pool actually raises by one step indicating some insight into casting that particular spell. Make a note of that, as it may indicated a growing talent for that sort of spell (giving you a plausible reason to get a Gift easing the casting of such spells). 

(Remember when doing skill checks in Mythic RPG you set the CF to 5 for the skill check. Varying CF is to escalate role play scenes. Otherwise this magic system would get way out of hand very quickly.)

Current Vis Pool Refreshes over night to its maximum if the character gets a chance to rest in a safe environment. Once per day, the character can meditate using Wizardry skill against current Vis pool. A success raises the Current Vis pool by one rank. This can be attempted just once per day. An Exceptional Success raises it by two point. All failures simply result in no raise.

Modifiers of all sorts could be applied to this roll. A favorable environment, a failure to concentrate, some special "components" that boost magic in this dimension, etc. I will future out more about that in play. 

When I have a chance to play this system (the next installment should lead up to the opening scene) then I will drop back in here and add some examples from real play, and we will see if this system needs a bit of tweaking. 

Mythic Worksheet Index, Mythic Magazines 13 through 18

ToC

Volume 14

Emotional Quest Adventures

• Emotional Quest Record Sheet, pg. 19

Volume 15

Randomized World Generation

• Known Elements Region Sheet, pg 27

Volume 16

Location Crafting Random Cities

• Known Elements Region Sheet, pg 31

Volume 17

(Highly Useful back matter)

• Adventure Lists worksheet, pg. 32
• Nested Characters List Sheet, pg. 33
• Adventure Crafter List Sheet, pg. 34
• Adventure Crafter Deck List Sheet, pg. 35
• 2E Adventure List Sheet, pg. 36
• Keyed Scenes Record Sheet, pg. 37

Volume 18

Adapting The Event Focus Table To Your RPG

• Adaptable Event Focus Table, pg. 46 

Blank Page to First Scene 2: World Building 1, Paradise

Return to ToC

World Building with the Mythic RPG is both extremely easy and rather challenging. It is easy because, with the loose idea of what you want, and the Fate chart, you can ask simple yes/no questions and start filling in the details. It is challenging because it can and will subvert your expectations quickly, which can lead to a game that wasn't what you had in mind. When an actual GM does this to his players, and he sees it isn't quite working out they can intelligently course correct, getting back on track. Mythic RPG, for all it is a wonderful system, isn't a thinking one. We bring the thinking to it. Thus, it is better to nail down anything you want to be concrete as soon as it comes to mind and NOT to leave it all up to Mythic.

There are two starting places we need the Hub, a district of Paradise, and Shadow, the term that Paradisians call everywhere else. I want to start in media res. So, I will be jumping straight into action, so I don't need a lot of details on Paradise yet, and because exploring is the purpose of travel for Saul, I don't want to go over board with the starting location either.

If you were to follow this link Setting Creation Elements, you would find that Mythic Magazine has provided us with a plethora of tools for creating setting and parts there of, but lets first look at the suggestions from Mythic RPG.

Chapter 9, World Creation (starting on pg. 85) gives us gives us a number of tools for emergent world building, and we will put those to good use in the near future, but starting with the Hub we are going to nail down some details before we let randomness take the wheel.

Mythic Magazine 38, pg. 3 gives us the article  “Solo Setting & World Creation System” (This can be found in Compilation 7). This has several tools useful for us (bonus points for us as it mentions that this or a variation of it will be used in Setting Creation in MRPG2). First off, there are lists of  Adventure Genre to roll randomly or at least consider for inspirational purposes. I like Hybrid Fantastic Sc-fi. That gives us a broad base for our local district in Paradise. Next, and just as important, not just for this setting but for the campaign at large, is Adventure Tone. Epic and Strange match our needs, but I am going to add Whimsical as well, to remind myself that this is more of a light hearted game for fun than a dash to rescue the multiverse. The penultimate tool at hand is Context. Here we are going to lay down ground rules for play in Paradise.

"Context is what informs our expectations. Context

is everything we know about our adventure world,

from the genre and setting to important past

events and our Player Characters themselves." MM Vol. 38, pg.8

So, to describe the context of the campaign, and Paradise specifically I think "Madcap Genre-bending Multidimensional Adventure!" pretty much covers both the city of Paradise (or at least the hundred or so miles we are likely to explore) and gives us a good idea of the types of adventures and scenes to come.

Along with context we can set Context Rules.

"A Context Rule is adventure Context

that you elevate to a game rule. Treat it

like a mechanical element of your RPG

or adventure, like any other rule. It’s

an instruction you can refer to when

interpreting Mythic prompts and events." MM Vol. 38, pg. 10

Context Rules for Paradise and Beyond

1. In Paradise there is no death, and very little want. If a character from Paradise dies in a Shadow the reappear in Paradise, though worse for the wear (and possible naked).
2. If a setback can be interpreted in a humorous way in Paradise it is. Most Shadows will have more serious consequences.
3. As Paradise holds an aspect of anything in creation, nothing is out of place there, though somethings maybe pretty weird nonetheless.
4. Paradise is a safe haven (like a home base in a West Marches style campaign) which isn't to say adventure can't happen there, but if you put your loot in a bank or stow it with a powerful friend it will still be there when you get back. 
5. You can reach any time or world from Paradise, as it has it cast its Shadows all over creation, it is harder to get back to than to exit from (excepting through dying of course, but that tends to be unpleasant).
   

The last tool in “Solo Setting & World Creation System” is a history generator. As Paradise has always existed and (theoretically) always will this would be a bit daunting, even for one neighborhood, so lets just give it one go for a brief local immediate history.  You will find the grid for generating histories in MM 38, pg. 9. (As I don't own the compilations I can't narrow it down for you there, sorry). For, those who haven't picked up this gem of a magazine yet I will briefly explain. There is a 5 by 3 grid of boxes, with interconnections by way of random d10 rolls taking you to other boxes. 1-2 may lead down to a box while the next box may have 3-4 lead right. That isn't too important right now. I am just going to run through it quickly and give you the narrative outcome.

Start>Attack Depletion>Deposit Freedom>Indulge Elements>Deny Attention>End

When Saul first came to the more or less abandoned Transcorp industrial district of Paradise it was a pretty much a slum. It was a corner that reminded him largely of the old fossil factory towns on old Earth which had been totally abandoned as soon as there was a way out, but people did live here, natives that were pretty dang close to looking like humans, and so while desolate it looked a lot like home. 

Saul had already been doing some dimension hopping for a while and in his wild rush from Domain to Domain he hadn't spent a lot of the loot. So, he arranged for a few cheap fabricators from a richer district (and by doing a few favors) and flexed a bit of his "magical" muscles and started cleaning the place up and arranging the tools the locals would need to refurbish the neighborhood. There were some clashes with various gang types, and one mob syndicate, but honestly it wasn't like the place was churning out the cheddar, so a deal was cut that it would remain something of a safe haven for people who wouldn't hassle the locals, on the condition that the locals wouldn't ask too many questions. That and bit of the vig was expected should the place turn a profit. And with that they let it go. 

To make sure that it didn't draw too much in the way of speculators and gentrification, it outer edges were left pretty rough, though the inside became a homey safe haven for locals, your more good natured banditos, and weirdos from across paradise and beyond. Saul really pushed for it to be named Saulsburg, as it was his idea, but it ended up being name Haven, about the least interesting name they could come up with. 

With the next installment we will drop Saul into some hot water, and then generate an opening scene