The Neighborhood Game: Thirteen Questions

Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque recently had an interesting post outlining a quick and collaborative method for city design for RPGs. For what should be obvious reasons, I wouldn't use this in my current H+I historical fiction campaign. But since very few GMs seem to run campaigns based on historical settings (Call of Cthulhu being probably the biggest exception to that rule) the method should have broad acceptability. For myself where I think it would work really well would be in my science fictional campaign settings. I've run two Sci-Fi settings. The first setting was Star Trek where we had a shared universe setting with most games run by one of two alternating GMs. The game was set in the gap between TOE and TNG. (For those of you who are not up on Trek jargon and devoid of an internet connection that's the old show or the original show and The Next Generation).  The second setting was Star Wars starting before the first movie (by which I mean Episode IV: A New Hope) and ending sometime before the second movie, The Empire Strikes Back. I ran four campaigns in that setting. One of which had the same co-GM as for our Star Trek games and for three of which I was the only GM. And to complicate things just a bit (because anyone who knows my GM style probably recognizes my over fondness for complexity) three of the Star Wars campaigns had a few crossover adventures. Come to think of it there was also a crossover between our Star Trek campaign and the future for one of the Star Wars campaigns. Also there was a cross over between our Star Trek campaign and a dark alternate future of one of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns, but since none of the crossovers are especially relevant to my original point....which by now everyone except me probably has forgotten. 

So just to remind you of the question, when is a quick and collaborative method for city design useful?

Answer: For me that method would work really well for the sort of mostly episodic, wide ranging, fairly open settings of the sci-fi campaigns that I like to run and have run. Wide ranging, episodic  settings often require, even demand, at least the occasional dose of the planet-of-the-week. By which I mean a more-or-less one-off location that serves as a central focus for a session (or a few sessions) after which the PCs fly off to either their home base or to their next scene of adventure probably never to return. 

The same sort of location works really well for the sort of episodic fantasy campaign that a lot of people run or that one sees in classic Swords & Sorcery fantasy like Howard's Conan or Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. Any setting where a location can be treated as more or less disconnected from other locations in a setting is appropriate for fast, collaborative design. (Whether one wants or does not want player collaboration in setting design is a separate issue which I don't plan on discussing here.)

The process that TotGaD suggests is...

The Neighborhood Game

I'll quote TotGaD below. Quoted text appears bolded and in green. My editorial comments will be in [normal text] set in brackets.

• Make this part of the character generation: go around the table, asking each player one of the thirteen questions below in turn. [Obviously if you existing characters this doesn't apply. Instead must make this part of the current session or (my preference) arrange a separate session for this collaborative activity.]
  
• Write down their answers. 
• Keep at it until each of the thirteen question has been answered. 
• Riff on the answers given, making changes to suit the game world if necessary. [Obviously for an existing setting the changes can't be too wide ranging or broad in scope.]
  
• Now you have a neighborhood that is fleshed-out for the kind of things that are likely to come up in play. You're ready to go.

Alternatively, post the thirteen questions below on your blog or the social media of your choice and let people answer. I posted them on G+ and got other people to do the heavy lifting. Bask in the feeling that you are Tom Sawyer as others whitewash your fence.

(Note: with a little tweaking these questions can also get you a decent town or village [or planet] if you aren't running an urban setting.)

The Thirteen Questions

1. Tell me about a church, temple, ashram, etc. in this neighborhood [For a lot of sci-fi settings substitute planet for "neighborhood" in each question. Also for some sci-fi settings a religious location may not fit. But one thing that often is necessary is a star port or at least a landing field. So either make that an optional answer to either question #1, #3, #10, or add in a question "14. Tell me about the star port on this planet."]
   
2. Tell me about a shop that sells standard equipment and one of the shopkeeper's quirks
3. Tell me about someone who sells something illicit in this neighborhood
4. Tell me about a powerful wizard, sorcerer, or warlock in this neighborhood [For a sci-fi setting substitute superpowerful being, ancient lost technology, or Force user as appropriate.]
   
5. Tell me about a feared warrior who lives in this neighborhood
6. Tell me about someone who is wealthy in this neighborhood
7. Tell me about someone you can go to for help in this neighborhood
8. Tell me about someone you can go to for information in this neighborhood
9. Tell me about a gang or criminal organization operating in this neighborhood
10. Tell me about a pub, club, cabaret, gymnasium, bathhouse, etc. where adventurers hang out
11. Tell me about an ongoing problem in this neighborhood
12. Tell me about a popular form of entertainment or a popular entertainer in this neighborhood
13. Tell me about a food or drink that is popular in this neighborhood
    
    [14. Tell me about the star port on this planet. ]

The Williamite Universe

Last February I came across the Williamite Universe an historical resource focused on the period 1650-1750.

From the site's own description: 

The Williamite Universe is an international network, established in 2002, the tercentenary of the death of the King Stadholder William III. Its purpose is to bring together scholars interested in and working on international politics and culture between 1650 and 1750. Aimed primarily at historians, the website also includes related disciplines, such as art history, political theory, philosophy, theology, economics and international relations. The network organizes frequent conferences and hosts a book series. Anyone interested is invited to register.

Pinterest 17th century images

"Breakfast of a Young Man" by Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt (1640-1691)

The picture is from the 17th century site on Pinterest. I happened across it a while back and mildioux, but it has tons o'pictures.

And for those that want pictures from earlier or later, well Pinterest has that too.

Note that you will probably need to register for Pinterest to access everything.

Paris in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries

Ice skaters on the Seine in 1608

It's now August of 1624 in my H+I campaign, but I must remember this picture for when winter comes back around. I love the idea of skating on the Seine. On the one hand it looks very prosaic and peaceful, on the other it reminds us that the 17th century was in the middle of a Little Ice Age so it was significantly colder in Europe then than it is now. Additionally I like the idea of the PCs slip-sliding on ice as they try to fight a bunch of adversaries. I envision this like this duel, but with more fighters.

The infamous frozen river duel from "The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge" (1974)

This picture is from the Wikipedia article on 17th century Paris. Every now and then I like to provide links that I find useful for GMs. These four links provide information and some great pictures for historical Paris.

• History of Paris

• Paris in the 16th century

• Paris in the 17th century

• Paris in the 17th century

 

The first is a general overview. It is followed by specific links by century. The links by century have a level of detail that is useful for an historical campaign without being overwhelming. While historians and pedants will want even more detail this will be sufficient to get most GMs started creating a setting for historical fictional campaigns. The tables of contents will give a good idea of the sorts of information as well as a hint at the level of detail that these links contain.

Contents for Paris in the 17th Century

• 1 Paris under Henry IV
• 2 Paris under Louis XIII
• 3 Paris under Louis XIV
  • 3.1 Turmoil and the Fronde
  • 3.2 "The new Rome"
• 4 The city grows
• 5 Parisians
  • 5.1 Beggars and the poor
  • 5.2 Charities - Renaudot and Vincent De Paul
  • 5.3 Thieves and the Courtyard of Miracles
• 6 City government
• 7 Industry and commerce
  • 7.1 Royal manufacturies
  • 7.2 Craftsmen and corporations
  • 7.3 Luxury goods
• 8 Religion
• 9 Daily life
  • 9.1 Public transportation
  • 9.2 Street lights
  • 9.3 Water
  • 9.4 Food and drink
  • 9.5 Cabarets
  • 9.6 Coffee and the first cafés
  • 9.7 Processions, carrousels and fireworks
  • 9.8 Sports and games
• 10 Press
• 11 Education
  • 11.1 Academies
  • 11.2 University
  • 11.3 Primary education
• 12 Gardens and promenades
• 13 Culture and the arts
  • 13.1 Literature
  • 13.2 Theater
  • 13.3 Comédie-Française
  • 13.4 Music and opera
  • 13.5 Ballet
  • 13.6 Architecture
  • 13.7 Painting and sculpture
• 14 Chronology
• 15 References
  • 15.1 Bibliography
  • 15.2 Notes and citations

Here are a sampling of some other pictures. I especially like color drawings and paintings, that show what the city looked like.

Hotel_de_Ville_Paris_Hoffbauer_1583 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Hotel_de_Ville_Paris_Hoffbauer_1583.jpg

I particularly like this picture because the lower left foreground gives a clear illustration of the weird pier-like projection. I think it is a water mill, but can't recall off the top of my head. On the maps of the period it looks like someone started a bridge and never finished it. Here, see what I mean.

The Place de Greve and the Hotel de Ville are at the left, the Pont Notre Dame at the bottom, and the unusual object is in the middle of the picture. See how it looks like another bridge like the Pont Notre Dame that was started and never finished. It looks like a 16th century version of the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But it's not.

This picture gives a better idea of what a water mill looked like and how it worked. Notice the wheels below the houses and bridge at the lower center and right of the painting.

 

The Cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, the largest in the city, in 1550. (19th century engraving by Hoffbauer)

The Cemetery of the Innocents was incredibly gross and creepy. Bodies buried on top of bodies. It got so crowded that they created galleries where they stacked up bones to make room for even more burials. And disease. And smells. The miasma was like a D&D Cloudkill...but in reality. What would make a better setting for a confrontation with the big bad villain as the PCs try to stop a blasphemous ritual or prevent the villain from unearthing some terrible relic. Make the villain a necromancer and the adventure practically writes itself.

Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu in 1628

When D'Artagnan is challenged to a duel by each of the Three Musketeers in turn, the second duel, with Porthos, is to take place "behind the Luxembourg." What Dumas was referring to what was the Luxembourg Palace and gardens that were built by King Louis' mother, Marie de' Medici to recall her native Florence. Presumably by "behind" Porthos means in the gardens.

View and Perspective of the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens by Israel Silvestre drawn 31 December 1648

Wonder: Piège à Loup lantern

 

Wonders

Wonders is a catchall term I’m using for what are often called magic items in other systems and settings. Wonders artifacts, relics, and all the various objects described in part V: Mysteries, Horrors, and Wonders in the Honor+Intrigue rulebook such as the creations of Alchemists, Apothecaries, Magicians, the inventions and contraptions of genius Craftsmen and Scholars, the dark castings of Sorcerers, and any other special objects that inventive GMs may decide to create and include in their campaigns. In my campaign I include relics like the Sword of Solomon, the bones of Saints, and nails from the True Cross. Just like in the real Early Modern world there are also fakes, frauds, and hoaxes to fool the gullible. 

To inaugurate this category I've included a wonder that the PCs have encountered and used in my own campaign. 

Wonder: “Piège à Loup” lantern

Legend says that a werewolf can be trapped or held by means of the “Piège à Loup”. 

Illustration of a Piège à Loup being used to trap a werewolf hung from a gallows

A Piège à Loup (English: Wolf Cage or Wolf Trap) is a lantern of unusual baroque designed. If the lantern is lit with a blessed candle, then no lycanthrope within the illumination of the lamp will be able to exit the illumination of the lamp. They are trapped as if in a cage of light. 

Two lanterns are known to exist. One is in the collection of objects in the museum-like Wunderkammer room in Amsterdam, Holland. The other is in the vaults beneath the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

Game Mechanics: A lycanthrope in beast or semi-beast form must succeed in three Daring rolls (or Flair) to exit the circle of illumination: Daring, Daring-2, and Daring-4. Each success moves the creature closer to the edge. The GM may describe this with the light forming chains, bars, or bonds and the creature howling and fighting to get free. If in their normal human form, the creature need only succeed in an easy roll of Daring+1 to exit the area of illumination, but a keen observer may notice a hesitation even on the part of a human form lycanthrope who succeeds in their Daring Roll.

In my H+I campaign I added a reference to a Piège à Loup in the Discours des Sorceirs.

Types of Sieges and Their Use for RPG Adventures

Siege of La Rochelle, with nearby Île de Ré, by G.Orlandi, 1627.

An important, perhaps to the participants even the key, feature of Early Modern were sieges. It is true in all times and all places that soldiers spend very little of there actual time engaged in battle, especially big, clash of armies battles. Hence the aphorism that war is -

Months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror.

A lot of a soldier's time is spent waiting and trying to stave off the boredom of having to wait. And in early modern warfare some significant time periods were spent waiting on one side or the other of a siege line. Sieges could last for years: 

• Ostend (1601–04)
• Breda (1624 – 1625)
• La Rochelle (1627–1628)
• Mantua (1629–30)
• Casale Monferrato (1629–31)
• Candia (Crete) (1648–69) Yeah that’s right that's  twice as long as the legendary 10 year siege of Troy.
• Waterford (1649-1650)
• Copenhagen (1658–1659)
• Fort Zeelandia (1661–1662)      
• Ceuta (1694–1727) - 33 years! Claimed as the longest siege in history.

 

Our post Blitzkrieg, post Shock & Awe modern military viewpoint has a lot of difficulty comprehending the importance and focus that siege warfare and fortification design held on 17th century military and political thinkers and decision makers. Indeed we have a lot of trouble understanding the thought processes of the General Staff on either side in the First World War or the French over reliance on the Maginot line that followed it.



Capturing strong points was important to the way political and military leaders conceptualized war and its aims. And for the noble classes who provided most of the officers in the armies of the period, war was a way to gain glory and renown. And with the exception of a one army smashing into another sort of big battle - which only happened rarely in that or most periods, a successful conducted siege - whether as the besieger or the defender was likely to result in glory and promotions for some of the officers. And for the besiegers there might even be the bonus of a chance to loot the town.

The original inspiration for my post was an article I read about a year ago on the English Civil War blog Siege types of the English Civil War by David Flintham, a military historian specialising in 17th century sieges and fortifications. Flintham says,

"The origins of the great transformations of the 18th and 19th centuries (the Enlightenment, and the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions) are firmly in the 17th century. The transformation on the battlefield was no less dramatic – military engineering which was regarded as an ‘art’ during the 16th century was very much a science by the end of the 17th ..." 

Siege warfare with on one side the immense precisely designed star-shaped fortifications on the one  side and the geometric traceries of multiple circumvallations connected by parallel communication trenches on the other is the aspect of warfare most amenable to the new fascination with reason and science. And the acknowledged master of the period was Vauban.

Later Flintham divides sieges into four types.
"Civil War sieges fall into four types:

• The coup de main, where surprise was used (such as Alexander Leslie’s capture of Edinburgh Castle in 1639).
• The ‘smash and grab', where an assault was launched after a preliminary bombardment, a preferred tactic of the New Model Army (and on at least one occasion, at Dartmouth Castle in 1646, the assault was launched without any bombardment). Here, just the threat of the assault was often enough to persuade the garrison to surrender.
• The blockade, which was a longer-lasting affair, and the besieger invested the place of strength, preventing communication and offensive activities by the garrison. This was the preferred option by an attacker unwilling (or unable) to attempt an assault and was used (without much success) by the Royalists at Gloucester, Plymouth and Lyme Regis.
• Finally, and quite uncommon was the complete investiture, where a circumvallation of rampart and ditch, fort and battery would be constructed around the entire town, in so doing cutting it off from the outside world. Examples of this are few: Newark (1645-6), Oxford (1646) and Colchester (1648)."

  Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle, Henri Motte, 1881.

These same categories are prevalent in nearly all military periods. Any of these types could be rich fodder for an RPG. Note that here I am not contemplating an RPG where the players are running the characters who are commanding the opposing armies or major units. That situation is closer to the typical wargaming session than it is to the typical RPG session. And if all the players are up for that the appeal should be obvious. Instead lets look at the more common situation where the PCs do not control major military units. So how does the GM use these situations? Let's look at them one by one.

• The traditional OD&D dungeon crawl is an example of a coup de main. And it points the way towards how to use the PCs. Obviously they, with their mad skillz and willingness to take insane risks at the drop of a gold piece are invaluable for a surprise assault.
• The 'smash and grab' also sounds like a traditional dungeon crawl, but arguably the preliminary bombardment may differentiate the two. Though clearly these two categories overlap as Flintham acknowledges when he mentions that the assault on Dartmouth Castle was launched without any bombardment. And presumably the assault on Dartmouth came as a surprise to defenders who, once the saw the besieging army march on up to their walls, were probably expecting the traditional bombardment prior to an assault. The PCs are perfect for the quintessentially forlorn hope that leads the assault. And if your game is one that features powerful magic users (like many versions of D&D) why your PCs are also the artillery for the initial bombardment of the 'smash and grab.' And don't forget the defenders. Most fortifications have a few key areas and a few key vulnerabilities. Put the PCs there defending the important redoubt or holding the gateway once the ram has battered it down.
• The blockade is probably the least used type for RPGs, with the possible exception of  naval and sci-fi based RPGs. The blockade and on its other side the blockade runner (you know that ship that we see at the beginning of A New Hope and the end of Rogue One). In part I suspect that is because blockade duty, like a complete investiture, is boring most of the time, but it lacks the fun of siege engines and the pageantry of one army staring at the other across their fortress walls and encircling  circumvallations. As mentioned, crashing the blockade is probably the easiest and most natural use for PCs. For naval blockades it does require that the PCs have a ship and for land blockades they should be mounted rather than infantry. 
• The complete investiture has some of the same aspects as the blockade. We may see the defenders sending for help like we see, unsuccessfully, in Last of the Mohicans. PCs are perfect for this role. Otherwise I think that the investiture is best used as a backdrop. It may be the starting point for an assault or escalade (ascent by rope or ladders) which defaults to either the coup de main for, say a night escalade, or to the 'smash and grab' for an attack on a breach in the wall or a day time assault under covering fire. Another way to use the full investiture type of siege is assign the PCs to special forces or commando roles. They may be tasked to special missions to: sabotage an enemy battery, capture or kill an enemy leader, poison the water supply, blow up the ammo dump, set fires, drop the drawbridge and jam the portcullis, etc. I used several of the special missions during an arc where I set the PCs inside the town of Bergen-op-Zoom during the Spanish siege. Their roles included counter espionage, foiling attempts to blow up the towns powder magazine or to poison wells, stopping terror attacks aimed at destroying civilian will, holding important strong points against vigorous assault, and launching harassing raids to sabotage enemy guns or destroy the attackers morale.
• Flintham left out one more way to take a fortress - treason. This too is good fodder for the PCs and it allows more scope for the more talkative and intellectual PCs and players beyond simply killing everything in their path. Figuring out how to find a weak defender who is susceptible to bribery or threats on the one hand or, for the defender, trying to catch the attacker's saboteurs and agents provocateur before they can strike on the other.

Wild Wild East - Part 2

Czumak Ox Train

In yesterday's post I mentioned the idea of using a central Asian setting to get some of the same openness and edge of the wilderness tone that is largely based on the fictional American West and that is the typical setting seen in D&D. 

Today's post on Dariusz caballeros on the Czumak peoples contains a bunch of great images of Czumak wagons and ox carts winding across the steppes that would enhance a Wild East setting.

The top image gives me the feel of the vast expanse of the steppes. I like how the artist includes so much of the sky so that it feels like the sky is thing of immense weight hanging over your head.

I really like this painting. Seeing a caravan of bright red ox carts like this appear out of a snow covered steppe is an evocative and colorful image that would stay with the players.

And it seems my speculation in the comments for Udan's post was correct. The steppes did have windmills. See the shadowing mill on the far left in the painting below.

And to give credit where credit is due, the artist of the above paintings is Ivan Aivazovsky.