Fun Fighters part 2 (Ygg)

[Christoffer Lernö]

I wrote this stuff at home unaware of any comments to my first posting, so I apologize for any overlap. I'm gonna keep lagging on the postings for a while though, but on the other hand that will usually mean longer postings. Anyway, here is the second part of my posting with further thoughts on the subject.

Continuing...

On the subject of making the fighters unique I stated I wanted to make it visual and said armour and weapons are obvious choices.

A very simple patch is simply introducing new exotic weapons. This gives the fighter using the new weapons a different look from the standard warrior. However it quickly introduces weaknesses. The player still choosing standard weapons don't benefit anything from this method. It also encourages trying to make "cool" characters in an attempt to give a face to them. This only works until the "cool" becomes standard. And then you're back to square one. Another big gripe is the exotic weapons themselves. Most of them are only designed to look cool on picture (and some don't even have that). Weapons intended for combat should be functional and sturdy. Few of the exotic weapons introduced in fantasy could be said follow those guidelines.

Armour could be made more exotic, and strangely enough this is an area usually overlooked. Maybe because an exotic weapon can be given more abilities and damage rating, but a new piece of armour would still only give protection just as the normal chainmail or what happens to be the standard outfit in the game.

Still we don't have that much room for making generalized visual armour and weapons. One reason is that it becomes commonplace rather quickly and second you can't introduce too much of it.

It would have been convenient to have some sort of orders or sects or whatever, each with their distinctive armour/weapons even though it might only be details.

Let's look at this idea for a while:

Sects, orders, armies

This is an idea occasionally used in fantasy RPGs. They range from a few isolated cases (the Solamnic (sp?) knights of Dragonlance for example) in the game world, to building up most of the character professions (WH40K run as an RPG with all the different types of marines).

This is in theory a great way of making the fighters well characterized. This way they are provided with a background, a world-outlook and an outfit. Ready to go.

However, the way this is usually done requires serious hard-wiring of the sects/orders/armies into the world setting.

For example, if the game has sects and every sect has a special look, it's very tempting to maximize the effect to simply list every single sect. And then you can make a sourcebook and supplement for every single one of them. Disregard the fact that those that don't have the sourcebook yet are fairly unplayable.

Certainly this is the case more or less of many games using this approach. But it fits very badly with the basic Ygg idea of providing the GM with a framework to assist in making a world. Listing sects makes the world more rigid (and more sensitive to upcoming sourcebooks. What if the next sourcebook says that the members of the "Immolation of God"-sect are all vegetarian and lives out their humble existence in small monasteries in the southern parts of Kur when the GM used them as ultra fanatic bad guys in his latest adventures?)

One could think of it in a different way though. If the sects are small enough and common enough, it would be easy to allow creation of sects/orders on the fly.

So, the player doesn't choose a sect, he/she makes one up as freely selecting a name for the character. And the GM can make up evil and good sects/orders as he/she pleases.

However, this puts us almost back to square one. Because the hard-wiring of the sects/orders are necessary to give material to make each special to begin with!

The only solution to this dilemma would be to create a kind of "sect/order" construction kit to generate its special characteristics. Everything does not need to be generated this way, but a certain framework of rules and/or guidlines need to be in place to make it of any use for character creation.

To create such a thing, we need to know what could characterize a martial sect/order.

For example:
* Weapons trained along with primary weapons if any
* Moral code and general behaviour (benevolent? peaceful? aggressive? evil?)
* Based around what area
* Devoted to god(s)/goddess(es)? Which ones?
* Martial skills trained along with primary martial skills
* Type of armour used
* Name and symbols associated with it.
* Dresscode? How does it look?
* Other skills stressed and taught
* How widespread and well known is it?
... feel free to add to this list

If this is all that is needed then you could simply make a character and then say that "well my martial skills are the skills my sect teaches. The way I look is the way my sect usually dresses." and so on.

Basically the character becomes the template for the sect. Of course the player may also state that some traits of his/her character chose are unusual for members of that sect/order.

What do we need to do to make this work in actual play keeping in mind that less is actually more?

Well maybe only laying down some ground rules:
1. A sect/order (I'm gonna write sect only from now on, but everything should be just as useful for a sect as an order or a special type of unit within an army) has 2-3 primary weapons and any number of secondary weapons

2. Moral code: A general alignment maybe.. something like "good/neutral/evil" A gross simplification surely, but a useful one. Most should to fall into the "neutral" category. "Good" is reserved for sects that go out of their way explicitly to fight evil. An AD&D paladin would come from a "good" order. Neutral are all that don't involve themselves much in the way of the world. And evil to those sect who use not-so-pleasant methods of fighting, like poisons and assassinations and stuff, regardless of whether they involve themselves in the outside world or not.

3. Based around what area, well that's simple. Usually it's in rather remote or hard to get to areas.

4. Devoted to gods and stuff. Well there's the division between religious orders and sects and those simply seeking enlightenment and finally pure army units. This really has little impact on the game mechanics and could be chosen rather freely.

5. Martial skills trained. Well each sect should have a set of primary skills. How many boils down to later game mechanic game balance considerations. But from 3 to 7 seems to be logical. The secondary skills will be much bigger. It might be possible to construct this from some archetypes. For example "primary focus on unarmed combat" "secondary focus on horseback combat" will generate a specific profile, so it boils down to chosing among a few themes for the sect. On the other hand this could be said to limit the amount of possible combinations. This mechanic requires some serious thinking.

6. Type of armour used: This depends very much on the martial skills trained. If you have unarmed combat as primary skill then chances are low you're wearing heavy armour. This hints at making a kind of a martial arts generator which decides the martial skills and look of the character.

7. Name and symbols ought to be freely chosen by the player

8. Dresscode is also something for the GM and the player to work

9. Other skills taught.. well this is mostly for giving the sect an unique touch. Two places might teach the same martial art, but one focuses on religion and the other on strategy and thus they have different non martial skills. This also insures the character has a characteristic non-combat related skill.

10. Famous or not? This should be up to the player and the GM


Now after doing that lengthy stuff, did we actually gain anything?

We wanted something to make the fighter look like a fighter outside of combat, did we get that?

Well outside of combat we get:
1. Specific dresscode
2. Specific armour
3. Specific weapons
4. Specific skills
5. Specific religion (maybe)
6. Specific background

...and so on.

This is by virtue of making the character member of a sect.

But do we need the construction kit? Can't we just say that he's a sect member and leave it at that? What do we gain by doing it this way?

Well what would a player do making a sect fighter without any guidelines? It would probably look like a generic fighter since his/her outfit would not need to define a dresscode. The same for the rest.

But if the character provides the sect template then the GM should be able to create more sect members using the template the player created in making his character. And that makes it a wholly different thing.

I can't optimize my primary skills taking an illogical skill, because how can I motivate that all the people in my evil sect are running around having Medicine as a primary skill?

The downside is the whole generating a martial art thing and that it might seem like a lot more work than it's worth. I suspect it can be streamlined. This is just a sketch of a possible solution.

[contracycle]

See other note on politics and warriors; you are definately ion the right track regarding sects IMO.  The purpose of sects and similar systems of ideological control is partly tod efine who these fighters enemies are.  A fighter who fights anyone and everyone is just a mad dog; a Kings Musketeer, on the otherhand, fights to protect the king.  So you are quite correct to say they must be embedded in the game world; these are components of the political and ideological structure which determines how, why, by whom and against whom violence can be employed.

[Ollog Herder]

there was an editor's letter (or whatever that's called) in dragon magazine back right after 3rd edition d&d came out. it was the Dwarves! issue. anyway, in the editor's article, he talked about playing the first 3rd edition dwarf in his gaming group.
this gave him an opportunity to help make up the mythology of dwarves: they like mustard pastries, they dress a certain way, etc.
that's exactly (without dwarves) what you're talking about. and that's a good thing. i like your approach a lot.