Reality check

Realism, in an RPG, is mostly a mirage. Even if the dice could do more than broadly approximate probabilities in the real-world, most players – and GMs – would not want to subject their characters, for example, to the actual risks of death and injury in a medieval battle.

Some groups aim for genre emulation – heroic fantasy, anime, pulp, horror, and so on – as a touchstone. But genre is a literary and narrative construct, and so it can lead you to try and meet the expectations of the story rather than find the story by playing the world.

In the fictional worlds of the games I play, I aim for _verisimilitude_, the appearance or sense of being real, which comes through consistent and believable details that emerge from real-world experience and expectations. Verisimilitude creates the impression that things are plausible without trying to accurately simulate the precise parameters and probabilities of any given event, like a sword-swing or a hike on an icy mountain path.

So in pursuit of verisilimilitude, it's a good thing to check your expectations against the real world. Over the years, I've gone into dungeons (like the catacombs of Paris), castles, towers, and recently the bunker forts of the Atlantic Wall, and each time I'm reminded of some useful, and grounding, facts that we can apply to our fantasy adventuring sites.

Passages, chambers

Passages in fortifications tend to be narrow – and cold. In your dunqeon designs, the corridor space is often less than 5 feet across, and ceilings are low. 

In game terms, there's often no room to swing a blade. Slashing sword attacks and similar strikes will be at a severe disadvantage. Dungeons favor thrusting weapons.

And in a chamber, the roof is rarely flat. It's likely a vault or an arch. Even so, there's often not a lot of headspace, and you're unlikely to be able to manage a down strike, or shoot an arrow or thrown spear very far without hitting the ceiling.

In game, missile attacks are limited to close range.

And stairs

Towers are great settings, but stairs, especially circular stairs tend to be extremely steep and narrow. Climbing is tiring, and the risk of putting a foot wrong on the narrow steps is considerable if you're under pressure: attacked or in a hurry. 

In game, climbing stairs under pressure should require a dexterity or fatigue check. And defenders have an advantage striking down. Consider also how missiles and objects thrown down stairs can create serious hazards!

Darkness and light sources

The actual underground is absolutely dark. Without light, players are effectively blind, and almost blind a very short distance from the entrance.

In actual pre-modern contexts, lights such as lanterns, candles, lamps, rushlights, and torches, only effectively illuminate a few paces in advance, or a small chamber. And if they're knocked out of your hand, they're likely to go out instrantly.

On the other hand, even a dim light is visible to observers from a long way away – effectively in line of sight.

This means that the most effective scout will move forward in the dark towards an unknown light source, rather like Bilbo Baggins sneaking up on the trolls' bonfire.

Used well, the effects of undeground darkness and low light can help create a tense, engaging situation for players, and keep them on edge as they explore unknown spaces. But many games, including current editions of D&D, forestall these options by making many character backgrounds adept at seeing in the dark, or with magical or other options for lighting available throughout the dungeon complex. If you like your encounters to effectively play out in well-lit arenas, so be it. But to add back some of the danger and uncertainty of low-light conditions, consider restricting those "night vision" abilities to situations where there is at least minimal incidental light, or applying other restrictions (for instance, low-light vision is greyscale only).

And while we're at it, lamp oil is not the basis for some kind of medieval Molotov cocktail. Fire, on the other hand, is potentially a great hazard in structures built with wood, with many wall-hangings and flammable materials.

That Year in the D&D20

So for about a year, the Tinkerage has been playing various editions, mainly the 5th, of the game with the ampersand in the title. This has been a surprise to everyone, since I've mostly steered clear of that system, having started in skill-based system like Traveller, and strongly preferring Basic Roleplaying and tinkering with various rules-light system options, such as Fighting Fantasy.

But there you go. When friends want a visiting GM – no DM – to help get started, why turn down a chance to try the system?

Here are some observations and non-binding recommendations.

5e is great for beginners

I didn't expect this, but for a first game session or three, 5e is great for beginners. New players with new characters feel capable, but with low hit points they're also vulnerable. Low-level threats are interesting, but usually go down after 1–2 hits, enough to pose a threat but not overwhelm. Players have a few custom options, but they're much more likely to be inventive and try fun strategies.

It's also interesting how many D&D rules seem designed to remove inconvenience or difficult choices. When I pointed out the finesse weapon rules, the dextrous halfling suddenly gained another level of damage with melee weapons.

Leveling up works, until it doesn't

Gaining levels is fun, and characters feel incrementally stronger and more capable, giving you scope to introduce more substantial threats – at least at low levels. But there are rocks ahead. Even within a few levels, there are more options, more special abilities, more feats to accommodate, and the complexity and number of considerations rises rapidly. Our campaign reached Level 4 – milestone leveling, not by experience points accountatncy – after just over a year of intermittent, mostly monthly play. I doubt the game is as easy to run after Level 6.

Rules? What rules?

For a year, I DM-ed mostly without a rulebook. I picked up the basics of how to run the game because I read the free, online Basic Rules, not to mention any one of the dozens of excellent retro-clones online.
D&D Beyond is a terrible app, but it's got most of what you need for 5e with the Basic Rules. The full online SRD has the rest. The players needed the Player Handbook, because they need all the trinkets and bolt-on abilities that come with leveling up (see above). If you have experience as a DM for any system, you can mostly create rulings to carry you through (Ability checks, screening rolls an a d6 or d20).

And there are many rules that you can dispense with or adjust. Too many characters can see in the dark. Short rests are extra HP on tap and encourage stilted adventuring (fight, rest – fight, rest). You can work without a lot of them.

Speaking of which, monster stat blocks are ridiculously long and detailed. I used a flat 1-2 line format (and you can find almost any D&D monster online with a simple search).

For instance:
GOBLINS
In+2*, Spd 30, HP 9, AC 15 Treated Hide, Spears +4 (1d6+2 pierce); light x-bow +4 (1d6+2 pierce)
*modifier to initiative roll

HOBGOBLINS
In +1, Spd 30, HP 15, AC 18 chain+shield; Longsword +5 (1d8+3)
+2d6 damage if striking in battle-line (martial advantage)

Use your own stuff

While there's nothing wrong with leaning on source books, the implied setting of the D&D rules is a veritable mishmash, a trope salad. Use your root and branch campaign ideas, and develop your own setting. Your player will appreciate a world to discover, not a tour.

Early sketch of the campaign setting. A city, mysterious woods, strange lands

Furthermore, if players have read through or skimmed the Monster Manual there's a fair chance that most enemies will also seem familiar, and they'll start anticipating your moves and tactics. With a healthy disregard for "encounter balance" and "challenge ranks", find chances to throw your own custom encounters or variants at the adventurers.

And speaking of "encounter balance", it's no bad thing to consider how a party can be overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) as you develop your scenario, but true balanced encounters are a mirage. Provide strategic balance by allowing characters to withdraw if the opposition is too powerful, or press on with advantages they acquire though adventuring or the environment. Gives them battlegrounds where they can push a foe into a pit, control who runs across a narrow bridge, or chase down an assassin on a city-wall.

Move on from 5e

When you reach level 6 or thereabouts, consider moving on from 5e and its accelerating options and complexity. As GM, you'll face much more work for comparatively little increase in fun. Once you're familiar with the common language of D&D systems – classes, ability scores, hit points, armor class, saves – there are many alternative systems that retain the familiar D&D frameworks but also the excitement and simplicity of lower-level play.

• White Hack: excellent flexibility and scope for player input. Can accommodate many professions and magic system/styles. Simple mechanical core; for example, combat damage only uses d6.
• Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures: evokes traditional fantasy in the best way, and perfect for beginners and younger players. The core rules combine elements of older editions of D&D, including saving throws, with elements of 5e, but there's a solid, flexible game there. There are only three core classes, Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, but the free-form skill system and open list of spells mean it's easy to customize for professions. A ranger can be simply a warrior with tracking and outdoor survivals skills.

And finally, don't be afraid of "breaking" a finely balanced system with a few simple house-rules, especially if they ease the burden of managing combat and other intensive interactions. Rolling for initiative felt like fun the first few times, but it hampers a smooth transition to combat, and the more and varied the enemies, the more likely you are to lose track of turn order. I went to a tried and tested method of counting down by DEX score, and never noticed a problem.

Root and Branch: generating your campaign

 When you start a campaign, solo or with a group, the best advice is always to start small. Unless you're following a published sequence, the most satisfying turn of play is to begin with one locality and watch the inciting incident grow into its own world.

But even starting small, it might be hard to come up with concrete details on the plain canvas, or it's tempting to try and visualize the campaign end game, and then back-engineer details to the very beginning.

This method gives you a starting point and leads, but is also open-ended, so the campaign grows as you unfold it. I've used it to launch solo campaigns and group campaigns, and it's always astonishing how soon you can find yourself in a fully-realized setting with a rich set of options, when all you started with was a punch-up in a tavern.

1. Set the entry point

Specify the point where your adventure begins. This could be the first step into the dungeon, or a mountain pass, or a rough tavern, or the starport, or something broader, like the western marches or a border city. The tone, theme, and style of the starting point are up to you: this is the world you want to enter, but you're only concerned with where to start, not what comes next.

2. Generate branching paths

This step takes inspiration from solo roleplaying. Using whatever semantic generators you have at hand – and why not Play ALL the Books – create 3–4 possible options. These are not whole scenarios, but possibilities, rumors, adventure hooks. Assign them to points just beyond the starting point.

For example, imagining a campaign of into the wilds treasure hunting, with a fantasy element, we started at the edge of the old empire and generated these random prompts:

• Plain, village; closed, suspicious 
• Rough, farm; urgent hunt (beast)
• Hills, hamlet; innocents, omens
• Plains, hall; ruins, wolves

Of course, if you need stronger narrative hooks, you can flesh out preliminary ideas so:

• A crypt said to contain a weird black sword
• A village threatened by wolves and bandits
• An abandoned wizard's tower infested by goblins
• Imperial spies are searching for an unusual schematic
• A strange group of cultists, threatening residents of a peaceful hamlet

3. Follow a path

Now, either choosing yourself, randomly, or following your player’s decisions, begin to play out one of the potential scenarios, expanding on and developing the simple prompt with encounters and locations, as you would.

As you go, keep thinking how the other paths not yet taken might link to and reinforce the situation that emerges. Are those bandits lurking in the woods somehow connected to the goblins crawling over the ruined tower, and in that case, what are they really looking for? Who do they serve?

In the case of the first example, the randomly generated hamlet (innocents, omens) was under threat from a strange cult, following omens and clues linked to a prophecy and a lost ceremonial blade. It turned out that the place they would seek the blade next was the ruined hall where wolves were prowling, a day’s march across the plains.

4. Shadows and omens

By now, you probably start to see how the situation suggested new branches and possibilities. They can generate new options and points to move to, or begin generating connections between the existing points. Develop the next scenario that follows organically from the first. 

But to create something that is more than just action and reaction, you can begin sketching out the points and movements that hover just beyond the horizon of the current play. In Dungeon World, these looming possibilities are called “fronts”. In Against the Darkmaster, there are wonderful generators for establishing the identity of the “Darkmaster” the players will eventually confront. I think of these as threats or shadow states, that are established but not yet explicit, just at the horizon of the next branching path. 

In the example I started above, it turns out that a dark god of the old empire, a patron of greed and destructive consumption, was rising again in the near-forgotten ruins.

It might take a while to get there – that’s the campaign.

On Converting Your FRP Rules System

One of the intriguing sections of the old Iron Crown Enterprises modules for Middle-earth using MERP or Rolemaster (MERP/RM) was the section that sometimes appeared in the introduction: "Guidelines for Using Your FRP System with this Module: Conversion Notes". Not the snappiest title, but the table for converting between d100, d20, 3d6 stats, and even 2d6, contained the suggestion, even if impractical, that the mechanical bones of the module could in some way be translated and adapted between game system, providing a way into ICE's resources for Middle-earth without their cumbersome house system,

The best of ICE's modules were packed with detail and context, including excellent maps and locations, but they were often thin on actual scenarios. These materials were more like a campaign overview or a sandbox setting that assumed there would be a great deal of GM design and adaptation to draw out playable adventures from the details. If you could adapt to a simpler system, how much easier would it be to leverage to module content?

Of course, Basic Roleplaying, now in the new Universal Game Engine edition, would be an excellent solution and provide for extended campaign play. But what about a simple, universal, free-form system like XD20? Could this allow you to dive into the ICE Modules – and even capture the tone and style of MERP/RM – without the overhead of a point-by-point mapping to BRP.

Here's some tinkering with the idea.

Running ICE Middle-earth Modules with XD20 2ed

MERP Characters in XD20

XD20 characters have far fewer stats that MERP or Rolemaster, so the key is to approximate not to calculate equivalence.

For the key XD20 stats:

• TAC: record as ST (Strength/Toughness) – this is the prime characteristic for a warrior or ranger
• PSYCH: record as IT (Intelligence/Intuition/Initiative) – this is treated as the prime for scout/bard
• WAH: record as PR (Presence/Resolve) – prime characteristic for mage/animist

Although the standard roll for STATS is d8 (1–8), I prefer to roll "first-level" stats on a d6 (1–6) so there's still a maximum stat to work towards (although stat raises are very, very rare in XD20).

Animist is an odd profession for Middle-earth, but conceptually is something more like a seer, loremaster, natural magician, or healer, than the cleric of a established religion, which are thin on the ground in Middle-earth.

Other characteristics

Hits (concussion hits): 10 base hits plus the lowest two of ST, IT, PR

It's a nice balancing factor that your hits in XD20 are circumscribed by your weakest stats. You might be strong, but too slow to dodge incoming strikes. (This is actually a little lower than Health in the XD20 book, but critical hits always counted more in MERP/RM.)

Level: corresponds loosely with MERP/RM levels, mainly as a way of estimating the challenge comparatively.

In XD20, levels don't confer much mechanical benefit but explicitly indicate greater skill, experience, and power.

Profession: use the MERP/RM professions in place of XD20 Character Type. Since there are no explicit skills in XD20, profession stands in for the skills and knowledge the character can most likely apply.

Background: Use the MERP/Middle-earth backgrounds to fill in the XD20 Story and Backstory.

Additional details

These are fun to add, especially if you want your character sheet to capture more of the feel of the old school systems with their abbreviations and numbers.

• AT: Armor Type, not strictly necessary in XD20, but the RM system had a neat chart converting armor worn to a 1–20 value that could stand as a handy to-hit target number.
• Melee OB: the close combat to-hit modifier (offensive bonus) – use ST
• Ranged OB: the ranged combat bonus –  use IN
• Spells OB: the "directed spells" bonus – use PR

Roll on

The old MERP/RM descriptive modifiers, from Routine to Light to Medium to Hard/V.Hard, and my favorites Sheer Folly and Absurd, would suggest a difficulty scale for XD20. But my aim is not to get the systems to scale each other, but to leverage the rich content of the classic modules for interesting gaming. If you roll it out, and it works, let us know in the comments.

Russ Nicholson: an appreciation

Some years ago I made an off-hand remark that the fantasy world I would create would be a "slipstream version of Middle-Earth and the world of Firetop Mountain, illustrated by Russ Nicholson".

The mention of Russ Nicholson, who died this month, was not casual. Nicholson was one of the most important, distinctive, and influential of modern fantasy and gaming illustrators. Where writers and game designers described imaginary worlds, Nicholson visualized them, and in the process made them vivid, distinct, and memorable.

As an illustrator, Nicholson's line-work was extraordinary—dense and kinetic. He was incapable of creating a boring or static scene. As you flick through a now-tattered copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, you see swirls of smoke, lantern light, debris, decoration, rags, and finery. There was an element of Celtic craft and Medieval illuminated manuscripts in his work, in the whorls of dragon-smoke and the patterning and stitching of leather armor, that suggested depth and richness and danger. The fantasy underworld was an ancient world, trapped in darkness and flickering lamplight, but also filled with treasure, craft, and strangeness.

Consider these ORCS at their grog:

They're ragged, down-trodden in their patched armour and cloaks, Bored soldiers assigned to an unwelcome duty on the threshold of the labyrinth. But they're also sly (one of them is pouring from his more drunken mate's tankard), scarred-looking, and dangerous even in their stupor. They’re neither muscular savages nor hulking brutes. These are creatures of the underworld, characters, guards briefly caught off-guard.

Or who could forget this GHOUL:

The rags and decaying flesh, the sunken, desperate eyes, the hand reaching out of the dark. The detail, the sense of sudden motion, exaggerated the horror.

There’s much more of course, from the density of the city-scapes and crowd scenes in Blacksand to the preternatural beauty of the “houri” character class for White Dwarf magazine. And yet always, as in Beowulf Beastslayer, his fluid and intricate line reflected the craftsmanship of these magical worlds.

If you want to make a full fictional world work, you need to describe it. And for me, that means to see it first, and deep down Russ Nicholson remains one of the artists who let us see things, in line and motion and texture, for the first time.

Rise of the meta-GM

If you find yourself flicking through one RPG system, like Imperium Maledictum, and thinking to yourself that it could be played with XD20 or Basic Roleplaying (BRP), then you might be a meta-GM.

Meta-gaming, from the player's point of view, is when a player uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the game rules or setting to guide their in-game character's actions. Sometimes this is useful, or at least tolerable, and sometimes this can disrupt or short-circuit a scenario. 

Meta-gamesmastering, the domain of the meta-GM, by extension, is when the GM or referee uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the patterns of RPG mechanics and game design to guide their in-game practice, improvising, interpreting, anticipating, or modifying the procedures of the game system in use at the table.

The phrase came to me because I'm in the situation of GMing for friends and players new to gaming and perforce using their preferred system—Dungeons & Dragons 5e. D&D has its faults, but for new players it's a smooth and engaging introduction to fantasy RPGs. All the same, D&D's exception-based structure and parade of feats and special cases has the tinkerer looking at how others adapt the core rules, which led me to the Dungeon Craft channel and this hugely informative take on the core mechanics of the D20 system: You Don't Need Apps to Play D&D. 

This really means that you don't need the D&D app, loaded with sourcebooks and rules links (or even, in fact, the rule book) to make a determination at the table about success or failure, especially within a statistically "balanced" system. The Professor DM has often referenced XD20 and, in particular, the insight that there are only 20 numbers on a d20—so however complex the decision tree around chances of success or failure, the end product is only ever a roll of a d20 with 20 possible outcomes, and for any given roll a few points either side of the target are rarely significant. 

Which, in meta-gaming terms, leads us to a table like this (with apologies to Dungeon Craft):

Roll a D20 —Did the character succeed?
20 — Yes! A 20 always succeeds and the roll is taken as a critical success
15+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds
10+ —Yes, perhaps. The character usually succeeds, if proceeding with skill OR an advantage (situational bonus, weaker enemy)
6+ — Maybe, but only with skill AND situational advantage, otherwise, mostly no; the GM decides.
2+ — No (there's always a change of failure from 1-5)
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble

You might notice, as a meta-GM, that this table itself only has six rows, which, with a glance at And Play, can be further abstracted thus:

Roll a D6 —Did the character succeed?

6 — Yes! A 6 always succeeds and this is often the best possible result
5+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds (unless the task is desperate or foolhardy)
4+ —Yes, probably. The character usually succeeds, all things being equal, unless the task is notably difficult or the character is challenged or unprepared)
3+ — Maybe, but only with skill OR situational advantage; the GM decides
2+ — No, unless the task is easy and the character is fully prepared; the GM decides
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble (always a chance of failure)

So, if the GM (or DM) is playing as a referee, mediating between the rules and the players but working within the general structure of the system, which includes adapting the given procedures for situations that aren't specifically anticipated, such as calling for an ability check when no specific rule applies, then the meta-GM is applying their knowledge of the rules and the general processes and trends to emulate the experience without strict reference or fidelity to the rulebook.

This might be the trick to FKR style play: you're still running a game, not proceeding by GM fiat, but the meta-GM has tools that generate the same experience with fewer intervening processes.

This isn't necessarily the best or easiest way to play. With a balanced, grounded system like BRP and engaged players, running encounters within the frame of the published rules can make for great sessions. Adjust the meta/in-system balance to your taste (and keep the d6 handy).

But, as I suggested earlier, if you wanted to pick up the concept of a game but not the overhead of the system itself, then the path of the meta-GM beckons. The premise of Imperium Maledictum, playing the agents of a powerful yet flawed patron against the grim background of intrigue and violence of the Warhammer 40K setting, is intriguing. Perhaps it would also work well as a gritty medieval fantasy, restaged in the mazy courts and alleyways of a city on the borderlands? Can the meta-GM then run everything with a handful of gothic-looking d6s?

In X-Treme Dungeon Mastery 2E, the Hickmans liken their XD20 system to the custom car engine that the GM has to attach to the transmission to turn the wheels of the game. That’s the meta-GM role: assembling the engine and welding it to the chassis to make the custom vehicle for their game, their adventures. The particular parts you choose—d6, d20, d100—classes, skills, abilities, counters, and stage-dressing, are all up to you.

Micro-Encounters and scene aspects

Mostly, all you need is a d6. Here are a couple of compact six-sided die tools developed for inspiration and guidance when either playing solo or with a group.

Micro-Encounters

This is a compact, generic tool for whenever you check for encounters, either in the open or in a closed environment, like a dungeon.

Roll d6; +1 for safer environments; -1 for dangerous environments:

1- Hostile, typically an immediate attack by a hostile encounter
2- Danger, a dangerous or potentially hazardous encounter; can mean an active physical threat (storm, flood, trap, etc.)
3- Obstacle, a barrier to progress, which could be locked gates, guards, security systems, and so on.
4- Neutral feature/observation, a point of interest, not immediately dangerous, such as a landscape feature
5- Information, a potential lead, or opportunity (clue, track, hint, informant)
6- Useful, a discovery, meeting, or useful resource

Guiding Aspect

For situations where you need an oracle to suggest an interpretation or inspire the next move, the guiding aspect is the overall governing term of the moment.

Each aspect can be "reversed" for another layer of possibility or meaning. If the aspect does not immediately suggest a suitable meaning, roll 4+ to check if the aspect is reversed.

Roll D6

Element: Aspect — Aligned/Reversed

1- Shadow: Darkness — Mystery/Discovery
2- Earth: Growth — Harvest/Decay
3- Air: Breath — Message/Silence

4- Fire: Energy — Revive/Conflict

5- Water: Movement — Journey/Stasis

6- Spirit: Light — Order/Chaos