Brave New World
--Koeas-Civin, Words of the Elders
The column returns to world building full time this month as the Black Steel campaign setting rolls out. This time around, the focus isn't only on rules and kingdoms but also on the heart of the story: the interaction of the players (including the GM) with conflicts within the world to create a shared story. This column will explore what it means to use a fantasy RPG world to tell stories using the medium of the table top roleplaying experience.
While this column will use the Pathfinder rules to describe the setting, the campaign could certainly be run using RuneQuest, the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, D&D, or another fantasy RPG.
Getting to be Cool
When I started this column a few years back I was focused on creating worlds and exploring fiction through roleplaying. I possessed an underlying assumption that my players felt exactly the same way.
They don't. At least not as the fundamental driving reason for taking the time to game.
My players work for a living, raise kids, or take an insane amount of college courses. Maybe once they got to make the winning touchdown or march in a victory parade in uniform or otherwise be recognized but now their large contributions to society and their hard-won victories are likely to go mostly unnoticed.
So when they show up every two weeks, of course they want a good story, fellowship, and some good roleplaying. But they also want to get to be cool.
Getting to be cool means that they want their characters to beat the bad guys and look movie star bad ass while doing so. They don't want me giving them that moment; they want to overcome the challenges of the game to achieve that success themselves. Along the way they want plot twists, some invented by me and some randomly thrown in, which surprise everyone.
Real emotions are generated by passively watching a movie or reading a really well written novel. Actually getting to star as your own action hero provides a chance to generate even more powerful emotions like the fear of (fictional) death and the exhilaration of coming out the winner in combat. A GM may see his game suffer if proper attention isn't paid to letting the PCs be cool.
The Black Steel campaign will focus primarily on providing chances for the player characters to shine. I can combine that goal with the process of creating numerous plot hooks and entertaining villains and powerful challenges to generate a wonderful synergy that empowers the whole campaign.
A Group Story, Told Well
What exactly should the Black Steel campaign be about? Urban adventure? Dungeon crawls? Carving a kingdom from the wilderness?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted something bigger. Something I reached for many times in 3.5 but never achieved.
Keeping a campaign alive until 20th level.
However, the next question has to be, why would the players want to get to 20th level? If the only reason is simply to get to that level, then the game becomes a slog and an accounting game of counting experience points.
Any good long-running TV show or fictional book series has characters that the audience enjoys watching and a storyline that begs the question what happens next? If the characters are so exciting and their stories so compelling that the players just have to know what happens next, that will provide the momentum needed to reach the end game.
There is no reason to detail a kingdom, a city, or a dungeon if it doesn't first engage the GM fully and then engage the player characters, drawing them into the world. Nothing should be created that doesn't generate the possibility of story and adventure.
However, it isn't the GM's job to write the story. It's his or her job to create possibilities for the PCs to create the story. So how does the GM do that?
In my personal case, that means creating villains that are annoying jerks. Not in a roleplaying obnoxious way but in the plots they try to carry out.
My players have quickly come to loath drug dealers in Magnimar. They hate that the dealers prey on the poor, they hate that the law won't defend the poor in anything but a token way, and they hate the sleazy way the dealers try to turn the law against the PCs. Real emotion is generated when a dealer tries to thwart the PCs.
On the other hand, I have to be careful. As the GM, I have a huge amount of power. So I have to show the players that I'm on their side (as a fellow player) but that this annoying NPC (not me) is trying to destroy their characters. On the other hand, I have to point out that the NPC is going to try to destroy them and that only they (the PCs) can defeat him and not to expect any favors from me the GM.
Done correctly, this sets up the characters versus the dealer not the players versus the GM. In fact, if I am balanced in how I present the dealer (not using knowledge of the characters he wouldn't have and trying to roleplay the responses of other NPCS in a logical unbiased way) then I actually build trust between all of us players (GM included) and open the way to more complex situations in the future.
All of which transcends the rules and creates story. We will, of course, resolve this conflict in a variety of ways from rolling dice to calling in old favors from other NPCs, but the result ultimately becomes story not just gaining levels.
The goal of the Black Steel campaign is a group story, told well. A GM wanting to use the campaign in whole or in part should find the plot hooks that most fully engage his or her players and then reel the PCs into the world of Black Steel through a shared roleplaying story.
Pathfinder Books
If you want to run the Black Steel campaign setting, you will need setting details. Varisia is the kingdom in which the campaign setting is set. Magnimar is the first settlement I'll be detailing. An updated, free map of Magnimar can be found here as the map in the book has a mistake in the legend.
Other than the setting overview, you'll also need a set of rules. I'll be using the Pathfinder RPG supplemented by the kingdom rules presented in Kingmaker volume 2. If you choose another set of rules, I hope the setting details in this column will still be of use to you.
After you have rules, you need an adventure. Magnimar abounds with villains plotting dastardly deeds that may draw the attention of the PCs and kick off an adventure. Here are some story seed ideas for Magnimar.
Plots
The GameMastery Guide is full of lists that can be randomly rolled to generate ideas. Rolling on the Plots table, Plot Twist table, and MacGuffins and Quest Items table can generate ideas for dozens of possible adventures. The book also contains many NPCs, each of which carries plot seeds that could grow into roleplaying stories.
For example, the battle mage is an adventurer that might be questing to thwart villains or he might be a dangerous thief seeking to make a fortune in valuable relics. If the PCs don't fight the battle mage and instead befriend him, he may be willing to sell them scrolls at a 10% discount.
I started my campaign with some random rolls and came up with the idea of cannibals (from Table 7-44: Rooftop) preying on the poor. The Hellknights are too busy keeping law and order on a grand scale in order to spend much time finding out who is killing and eating transient seamen and the lower class. Since most 1st-level PCs are transients by their very nature, this neglect became a real spur in their side to drive them into investigating the murders.
Here's a d6 worth of plots ideas (monsters are found in the Bestiary and NPCs in the GameMastery Guide) to kick off a possible adventure:
1. A sea hag and her merman lackeys are kidnapping Varisians and imprisoning them on an old ship. They are looking for witches and soothsayers to force into a coven through cult brainwashing. Other Varisians face a more permanent end. Here's an optional waterfront map pack complete with a ship to use for the hag's lair.
2. Cannibals are plucking the poor off the street and eating them. Their lair is an abandoned theater and clues pointing there include grease paint found on the bodies, an old play bill nearby from a defunct production, and the terrifying singing that goes with a kidnapping (a song from the last performance before the theater closed).
The GameMastery Guide provides advice on running a mystery (pages 246-247). And here's an optional theater flip-mat.
3. A dealer is pushing scour (GameMastery Guide page 237), a drug made from spider venom that boosts agility and weakens the mind even as it inflicts damage on the body. A friend of the PCs is addicted, and they struggle to help their friend kick the habit. Then, the PCs can punch the drug dealer's ticket or better yet follow him to his goblin suppliers and kick in their faces to cut off the flow. Watch out for the spider-riding goblin drug cartel!
Thistletop (sections C1-C27) from Rise of the Runelords volume 1 can be used as the goblin lair using the free 3.5 conversion guide to update it to the Pathfinder rules.
The refugee goblins in C4 should be replaced with a giant spider and two spider swarms. Ripnugget's giant gecko in C19 should be replaced with a giant spider. Also, a goblin in two in that encounter could be replaced with a spider swarm.
4. Wererats are skulking through the city alleys. In a twist, they are being pushed out of the sewers by their enemies, a pack of werewolves. The werewolves want the PCs to do their dirty work and pick off the wererats. A sewer map pack could be used or the Game Mat: Ratfang Sewers works well as a sewer lair.
The head wererat, Ragnar, has an ooze mephit girlfriend (please don't describe specifics) named Moppit who provides a surprising magical punch in any conflict. If Moppit succeeds in summoning another mephit (25% chance) she conjures her brother Mufar who hurls scathing abuse at both Ragnar and Moppit about their disgusting (and that's coming from an ooze mephit) and unnatural relationship even as he tries to kill the PCs. Think Jerry Springer complete with a murderous onstage brawl.
5. A pack of noble scions have taken to beating the daylights out of beggars. Eventually, someone is bound to get killed. The nobles are armed, dangerous, cruel, and worst of all rich. Killing them will bring the Hellknights down on the PCs, but they can't let the young rakes get away with this kind of abuse.
6. A racketeer (a turnkey backed up by street thugs) is muscling in on the owner of the PCs' favorite inn. The innkeeper can't make the criminal's exorbitant payments and may lose his inn or even be killed but the authorities don't have time for him. If only he knew some heavily armed violent vigilantes who could help him out for some free beers ... .
Next Month
The City of Magnimar updated to the Pathfinder RPG stat block. The marketplace for Magnimar is expanded and various locations for trading magic items are described. Also, Black Steel campaign traits.
May you find the path, Charlie
