More Demi-Human Thoughts

 I've spent my free time this week working up Dokkaebi (Korean goblin), Koropokuru (Ainu dwarf), Shenseng (Pan-Asian spirit folk) and Vanara (Indian monkey-men) as classes for TSR-East. 

Mostly I'm satisfied. The koropokuru is mostly a fighter variant, but has a few special abilities, similar to the way the dwarf and halfling classes do in normal Classic D&D. Shenseng are spellcasters, but may be clerical or magical depending on spirit type (forest, mountain, river, or desert). Vanara are just a variant of my new (Flying Swordsmen inspired) Martial Artist class, with some unique martial arts abilities. I think these are all playable and fill niches in the game. 

The dokkaebi class, however, I'm not so keen on. I started out making it another fighter variant, but since Nate is playing a dokkaebi shaman, and in legends they have magical powers, I gave them spell-like abilities instead of most Fighter abilities. While this may fill a niche (slightly better at fighting than a Cleric...but not a lot, and able to fill some Cleric duties but not a lot), the Forest and River Shenseng also fill this niche, although a bit more clerical than fightery. 

Since the dokkaebi is the class with redundant purpose and novel mechanics that haven't been tried before (by me), I'm thinking to revise or scrap it. 

I could go with just three demi-humans. But I would like something definitely Korean in origin. I've been living here 13 years, am going to be living here a lot longer, might as well give Korean legends and myths some love. The problem is, Korea doesn't have a lot of original mythical creatures, and most of the ones it has probably aren't appropriate for PCs in an RPG of dungeon delving and treasure accumulation. 

So, make the dokkaebi class more like the Fighter? Or find something that might fill in a pseudo Thief slot? The koropokuru class has a bit of Rangery ability, with better surprise, hearing, dwarf-style trap detection, and infravision, so they can make good scouts in dungeons or wilderness. 

If I want a more thief/ninja type demi-human, though, there aren't a lot of good candidates with Korean flavor. Bears and tigers are important in Korean mythology, but anthropomorphized bears and tigers seem like variant fighters to me, so I might as well stick with the Dokkaebi. Or maybe I should stop thinking about Nate's character (I won't be switching my West Marches game to these rules) and make the Dokkaebi more of a bruiser and less of a support caster type.

Demi-Humans In Race-as-Class TSR East

 I'm still not 100% sure that I want to go back to demi-human classes, at least not for my main West Marches game (I and the players are pretty happy with separate race and class there), but if I ever wrap up West Marches and start East Marches (or start running it as a side campaign), I am leaning toward that, as discussed in my previous post on classes for a pseudo-combined Flying Swordsmen/Chanbara type game. 

The problem I'm having is that I need to pare down the list of demi-humans. Sticking to core rule books, not supplements, BX/BECMI has just three. AD&D has six. AD&D OA has three, but one of them is really a dozen different types, and another has three subtypes. 3E OA has an additional two or three races added on to AD&D's OA races. 5E has the AD&D races plus two more. But AD&D, both versions of OA, and 5E all have separate race and class. So the precedent is for only a few demi-humans in a race-as-class set-up. Sure, I could have more, but then if there are more demi-human classes than human only classes, will it really be a humanocentric campaign? Probably not. 

So, my options, from 1E OA, 3E OA, Chanbara, and my TSR-East rules are: 

Dokkaebi (Korean version of Japanese oni, more or less), big scary looking guys who are sometimes mischievous goblins and sometimes punishers of the wicked. 6-7' tall. Red, blue or yellow skin. Wild hair. Tusks and horns. [TSR-East]

Gumiho (Korean fox fairies, also spelled kumiho, equivalent to Japanese kitsune), tricky creatures with lots of magical powers, who most often are after human souls in the legends, but occasionally are helpful. 4' tall. Red or white fur, but able to transform into human form. Nine tails at full power (more tails = more magic in the legends, and the name is literally "nine tailed fox" as just regular fox is "yeou"). [Chanbara, TSR-East]

Hengeyokai (Japanese for transforming spirit/fairy), animal shapeshifters in OA, but in Japanese legend could be anything from a rock to an animal to a household tool! Gumiho and Tanuki would actually fall under this race if I added them in. OA has the forms they transform into as one of a dozen animal options (mammals, birds, fish), a human form, and a hybrid form. If I add them in, then I'd probably limit the number of forms to animal and hybrid only, and have fewer options for animal type. [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Kappa (Japanese water imps), small water creatures resembling a cross between a turtle, frog, and monkey. They like wrestling, cucumbers, and sucking the souls of drowning humans from their buttholes in the legends. 3-4' tall. Green skin. Shells on their backs. The tops of their skulls are concave, and hold magical water that gives them strength in the legends. [Chanbara]

Koropokuru (Ainu fair folk), dwarves. 1E OA has them as gruff barbarians, legends have them as similar to primitive but pastoral gnomes or brownies. 3' tall. Typically tanned skin. Generally good hearted but suspicious. [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Naga (Hindu snake-spirits), which are the same name as a monster type, but also pretty much just like yuan-ti. From 3E OA's Rokugan/L5R material, I have no desire to add these guys, but put them on the list for completeness. 10-15' long. Humanoid torso, snake the rest of the way down. [3E OA]

Nezumi (rat-men made up for Rokugan/L5R as far as I can tell), which again I don't feel the need to include these guys, but they appear in one of the sources for this list so here they are. 4' tall. Furry. Stinky. Long tails. Kinda like wererats who can't transform or infect people and not immune to normal weapons. [3E OA]

Shenseng, or Spirit Born (or Spirit Folk in the OA books), which in my estimation should be based on Japanese tales of spirit foundlings like Momotaro, Kaguya-hime, and Kintaro, but are basically half-spirit/half-human "elves" in the OA books. OA has them as bamboo, river, and ocean subtypes. 5-6' tall. Human-like, but prettier. Get benefits from being in the environment of their subtype in OA. Get benefits to interaction/followers in TSR-East.  [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Tanuki (Japanese raccoon-dog fairies), are again sometimes tricksters and sometimes protectors/benefactors to humans, depending on the story. Some legends give magical powers to their oversized scrotums, others say they can transform into human form. 3' tall. Raccoon-like fur, dog-like faces (hence the English name). [Chanbara]

Tengu (Japanese crow-men), usually depicted as wild mountain goblins and tricksters in legends, but occasionally legends tell of them training swordsmanship to humans they take a liking to. Kotengu (small tengu) have crow or kite heads and wings, while daitengu (great tengu) have humanoid heads, usually red skinned, with very long noses. 3-4' tall. Feathered bodies with wings and bird heads (or red-skinned and long nosed winged humanoids). [Chanbara, TSR-East]

Vanara (Indian humanoid monkeys), although in myths they are usually described as beast-like, not necessarily monkeys, the most famous mythical vanara is Hanuman, who is always described/depicted as a humanoid monkey. Probably also the inspiration for Son Wukong (Son Goku - yes, this name may be familiar to some of you), the Monkey King of Chinese legendary novel Journey to the West. 4-5' tall. Brown to grayish fur. Prehensile tails. Curious and friendly (at least according to 3E OA). [3E OA, TSR-East]

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So obviously 11 races in addition to humans is too many, especially when there are only 5 human classes (although with subclasses there are really 16). I already mentioned I'll not be considering the Rokugan races of Nezumi and Naga because they just don't thrill me. So that's down to 9 options unless people in the comments really convince me to keep one or both of these. Also, if I use hengeyokai, again as mentioned above, gumiho and tanuki are already included there so that takes it down to 7. If I don't use hengeyokai, 8 options remain. 

TSR-East already has the Dokkaebi, Gumiho, Koropokuru, Spirit Born, Tengu and Vanara with stats for separate race and class, so it wouldn't be hard to manipulate those into classes, but it's still a few too many options. 

At the playground with my son yesterday, I jotted down an idea to cut it down to Dokkaebi, Koropokuru, Shenseng (spirit born), and Vanara. That's easily doable, but while I don't want to overdo the demi-humans, I also feel like I'm leaving out some cool options. 

So, I'd like to ask you readers what you think. Which of the races listed above would you consider the top three "must haves" for an Asian fantasy inspired campaign? Or should I just stick to humans only, as in Flying Swordsmen or Chanbara minus the last page?

The Five

I haven't blogged about this yet, but I actually finished it up over a week ago. I went back to my old TSR-East file, and using some stuff from my condensed TSR version (Euro and Asian archetypes together, and the current rules for creating characters in my West Marches game), cobbled together something that's a little bit Chanbara, a little bit Flying Swordsmen, and a bit of its own thing. 

There are five base character classes: Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, and Martial Artist. 

In the combined TSR, each of the four main classes has a martial arts style subclass. I took all of them and made the Martial Artist class from them, along with a bit of Flying Swordsmen to fill in some gaps and even things out. 

For the standard four classes, I removed, added, or combined some subclasses from Chanbara, and revised some of the existing ones from the combined TSR document. Since only a few people reading this blog have seen these documents, I suppose I'd better go into a bit of detail. 

The Cleric

As you'd expect, a bit of fighting, some healing/utility magic, and turning undead. Subclasses are now:

Exorcist (Onmyoji), similar to the Chanbara Mahotsukai Onmyoji subclass, but with some improved Turn Undead ability.

Shaman (Mudang), similar to the Chanbara Soryo or Flying Swordsmen Shaman minus the martial arts. They get a small boost to spell casting, and some once per day rituals. 

Warrior-Monk (Sohei), similar to the Chanbara Bushi Sohei subclass or the OA class, but with normal clerical spell casting. They have a slightly different spell list.

The Fighter

Again, as you expect - the best combat progression, hit points, and access to weapons/armor [for most subclasses]. They have special abilities from my TSR combined rules (Parry similar to "shields shall be splintered," Sweep as in AD&D, Smash from BECMI Companion, multiple attacks at high level). Subclasses are now:

Knight (Hwarang or Samurai), which is basically the Cavalier from TSR combined edition, and a bit like the Bushi Samurai in Chanbara. 

Vagabond (Ronin), which is a bit like the Chanbara Bushi Abarenbo, and a bit like the Bushi in OA, with a bit of Flying Swordsmen Thief Vagabond in there as well. 

Weapon Master (Kensei), which is of course the OA Kensai, Flying Swordsman Weapon Master, and Chanbara Bushi Kensei class you'd expect. 

The Magic-User

Spells -- lots of spells, and instead of the Holmes edition's scroll scribing ability, they get a Craft Charm ability which is really just a refluffing of the scroll ability. Subclasses are now:

Geomancer (Wu Jen or Shugenja), which is a little bit OA Wu Jen, a little bit Chanbara Mahotsukai Yamabushi, and have casting a la Flying Swordsmen's Wizard (know X number of spells per level, instead of having a spellbook, but still need to prepare from those spells known), and Taboos a la the Wu Jen. 

Scholar (Wushi), pretty much the standard Magic-User, but get bonus spells for high Int. 

Soothsayer (Suan Ming), which is brand new (but very much ripped off from the 5E Diviner specialization for Wizards). They have a slightly different spell list.

The Thief

Pretty old school, with % Thief skills instead of the d20 + mods of Flying Swordsmen or the 2d6 system of Chanbara. Backstabbing, language deciphering, scroll reading, it's all there. Subclasses are now: 

Gangster (Yakuza), which is a little bit like the OA Yakuza, but with magical tattoos that they get every third level. Pretty much straight from my original TSR-East (and combined TSR) with little modification. They get improved pickpocketing and a bribery skill (like in Flying Swordsmen).

Infiltrator (Ninja or Shinobi), which is of course similar to the Chanbara Ninja Shinobi subclass, or the 2E Complete Ninja Handbook ninja. They get improved backstab and stealth. 

Outlaw, which is based on the Flying Swordsmen Thief Outlaw subclass. They have improved trap busting and lock picking, and a ranged "backstab", plus tracking. Still haven't decided if I want to use a Chinese or Korean name for these guys. 

The Martial Artist

Like the various Monk classes or BECMI Mystic, or any class in Flying Swordsmen, these guys fight mostly bare handed, and sans armor. Instead of basing the AC on Dex scores as in Chanbara and combined TSR martial arts subclasses, or special abilities as in Flying Swordsmen, I gave them a set AC at each level, modified by Dex and magic as usual. They get a Hard or Soft fighting style, Light Step (for wuxia action), empowered strikes to damage the "magic only" monsters, and secret techniques for each subclass. Subclasses are:

Acrobat, which is a bit like the Chanbara Ninja Taijutsuka subclass. They get some thief skills, and secrets that give them expanded mobility and/or defense. 

Iron Fist, which is pretty much just the Fighter (sweep, smash, extra attack) but mostly unarmed, and with a bit of self-healing and resistance to breath weapons at high level. 

Monk, which can cast cleric spells at 1/2 level progression, and gets the "mental" abilities of other Monk classes, and poison/disease immunity at high level. 

Mystic, which can cast magic-user spells at 1/2 level progression, damage reduction a la the Flying Swordsmen Wizard Taoist subclass, and the good old "death touch" ability at high level.

 

Demi Humans? 

My TSR-East rules assumes human PCs, but I did make some optional demi-human races like I did for Chanbara, but not exactly the same ones. 

Dokkaebi (Korean version of oni), Koropokuru (dwarves from Ainu legend like in OA), Kumiho (fox fairies, Korean name just because, but the same as kitsune in Chanbara), Spirit Born (sort of like OA Spirit Folk, but more like Japanese legends of adopted spirit children), Tengu (crow-headed humanoids from Japanese myth, also in Chanbara), and Vanara (monkey-men from Indian myths and 3E OA).

I've revised the classes allowed and maximum levels allowed for them, but this morning I was thinking that maybe I should go back to race-as-class for this rule set, to keep the demi-humans rare. I have these demi-humans in my TSR combined rule set, and they've been more popular than humans. Of course, so far only two players have tried TSR-East options, but they've been a Koropokuru Yakuza and a Dokkaebi Shaman. 

If I go race-as-class, I probably won't include all of these. And I might bring back the Kappa or Tanuki in Flying Swordsmen if I feel like it. We'll see. Basically, it's a pain in the ass trying to decide which archetypes each demi-human could fit with all these classes/subclasses to deal with. So a single class for each race might be best. Give them as an option, but keep them rare.

New Project?

 Right before bed last night, I had an idea. It may be a dumb one. We'll see. 

I've spent the past year or so tinkering with my Treasures, Serpents and Ruins house rules to get them to where I pretty much like them (a few tweaks still needed, as we play with them). And after a lot of effort to combine traditional Western and my preferred Eastern fantasy tropes into one simple set of classes/races, I was struck with the idea that I should make a second edition of Flying Swordsmen that is completely compatible with Chanbara. That way I'll have samurai/ninja action as well as Hong Kong style kung fu/wuxia action in one integrated rule set. 

Of course, would it be worth my time to make a completely new game, or just the player facing rules as a supplement to Chanbara? The latter is much easier and more likely to be completed. I added a lot of monsters and spells from FS already into Chanbara, so just adding some rules for martial arts classes Chanbara style might be enough.

Movie Review: Black Widow

 Last Saturday, the family and I braved covid19 (South Korea's only at around 11% fully vaccinated, we should be getting our first shots next month) to go see Black Widow on the big screen. We took in a matinee, and about a third of the seats were blocked off for social distancing, and there were maybe only 50 or 60 guests total in the theater which seats around 200. So it was a good gamble on our part. 

Mandatory swear word notice*: There's a lot more swearing in this movie than the typical Marvel movie so far. Especially from Yelena. My 6-year-old was giggling every time she said shit, and she said it a lot! No F-bombs that I remember, though.

So, about the movie. Well, I'll try to keep this spoiler free, since it hasn't been out for a week yet. 

The movie was pretty good. I was entertained. So was my wife and older son. The 6-year old was bored by a lot of the talking parts, but was focused on screen during all the action sequences. That said, it wasn't the strongest effort Marvel Studios has put out. And that's sad, since Scarlet Johanssen deserved a strong solo movie as her Marvel swan song, IMO. I mean, it's Marvel Studios, so everything is technically well done. Solid story. Good casting. Excellent CGI and action choreography. Good acting. I felt for these characters. 

But despite that, something was lacking. I think it all stems from the fact that most movies in the MCU, and now the TV shows, all seem to be building towards something. This movie seemed like it was just looking back. Now, it IS building toward things. The post credits scene definitely shows what they are building towards. But it wasn't obvious until the post-credits scene. 

Another thing may have been that this was both a spy thriller type superhero movie, and also a family building type movie. That meant the tension in the spy segments wasn't as tight as it could have been. The family building theme got more attention. The family dynamic between Natasha, Yelena, Melina and Alexei was a lot of fun. But because of that, we didn't get really well done spy drama like in Captain America: Winter Soldier. 

It's definitely worth a watch, especially if you've enjoyed previous MCU films. But is it a must see to follow the MCU metaplot? Probably not. It is interesting that this is the first film to come out since Marvel Studios started making Disney+ shows. When the credits started to roll, I asked my 13-year old if he thought the post credit would plug Eternals or Shang Chi? Neither one seems very thematically appropriate. And ... sorry, small spoiler here ... it didn't plug either. It was a plug for an upcoming Disney+ show.

*Having a blog with the word "curse" in the title gets a lot of Google searches for "curse words in movie X" directed here.

Not Mother-May-I: How to use rulings in RPGs

This post is related to several recent posts by Alexis over at Tao of D&D. Like him or not, he's a smart guy and I think he's been posting some quality content recently (not ONLY recently, but I've really liked his stuff of late). 

In old school D&D circles (including but not limited to the OSR), you often hear one of the things that sets old school play apart from new school play is the fact that the old school game doesn't try to anticipate every eventuality, which requires DMs to improvise and make rulings. New school games try to be comprehensive in their coverage, often by providing a universal mechanic for actions. To be fair, though, there are quite a few older games that have universal mechanics. I've been playing WEG d6 Star Wars, definitely an old school game, and it has a universal die pool mechanic. But even then, reading through the 1st edition reprint I bought a while back, there are a LOT of holes in the rules that aren't covered. The referee has leeway to make calls. 

Anyway, that argument about what is old school or new school is beside the point. We're here to talk about rulings in the game, not what makes something old school or new school (today at least). 

Why the emphasis on rulings in old school play? Well, as far as I can figure it, it comes from Matt Finch's Old School Primer. It's the title of the first of his four Zen moments. He may have gotten the phrase from somewhere else, but it's likely the Primer that made it famous. 

In the Primer, the section talks about how description should trump die rolls and common sense should trump dedicated game mechanics. I don't have a problem with that. It's advice I would generally follow, except for the fact that where the rules stipulate die rolls for game purposes, that should trump "common sense." What do I mean by that? Well, there are examples in the Primer of things like having players ask questions, get detailed descriptions, and use those descriptions to disarm traps or find secret doors or things like that. I think that's great. But if we're playing old school D&D, we DO have definite mechanics defined by the rules for these things. If players can, through smart use of description and questions/answers about the state of the game world, discover a secret door or trap or hidden treasure, or can sweet talk the guard to let them talk to the prisoner or get into the Duke's Ball without an invitation, that's fine. But if their description falls short, we have the die roll prescribed by the rules to see if they stumble upon the right answer despite the players' descriptions falling short. 

I don't think that's a controversial position, but I have seen many times people on blogs, on Google+ back when that was a thing, on message boards (which I rarely frequent these past 10 years or so), or other online places talking about "rulings not rules" in a different way. These people seem to think that rulings should trump the rules. There's "the rule of cool" and the various improv theater derived "say yes" rules: "say yes, and", "say yes, but" or "say yes or roll the dice" that all seem to be coming from a desire to improve the game, but in my opinion, may ruin it. 

The rule of cool says that if players want to do something cool and awesome like in a movie or video game, let them. The various say yes rules tell the referee to never deny players anything, unless the dice determine it so. You can't deny them, only give limitations through "and" or "but" statements.

Newer versions of D&D (since 3E) try to cover as many situations as possible, in as much detail as possible. And players of those games have been, in my experience, the ones decrying a game based on rulings not rules as mother-may-I. I think they're not quite accurate in their claims, but they do have a valid point. If there's a rule in the book that covers something, why is there a need for an arbitrary ruling?

Honestly, there have been some times in a game where players have such an interesting (or funny, or ridiculous) plan that I just go ahead and say sure, you can do that (rule of cool). But not every time. Maybe I'm inconsistent. Maybe that is me playing mother-may-I with them. I'm trying to be better. More consistent.

Here are how I think rulings should be used during a game, and how "rulings not rules" should really be interpreted to avoid mother-may-I situations.

First of all, the DM needs to know the rules well enough. They don't need to have everything memorized (although that's the ideal), but they need to know the basics and be familiar with the less often used rules. Once that condition is satisfied, there are four situations that may come up which require a ruling:

1. When a situation arises in game in which clever play by the players would circumvent the need for a roll, then the DM can make a call that that action succeeds without a roll. That's the first kind of ruling, and the thing Finch was talking about in the Primer. 

2. When a situation arises in game and the DM has forgotten the rule, and they know it will take time to look up the actual rule, then they should make a ruling in that instance to keep the game moving. If the rule is something they can easily find in the rules (a spell description for example) then they should NOT make a ruling, they should look up the proper rule. It only takes a short time and shouldn't interrupt the flow of the game. After the game, the DM should look up the rule and get to know it better.

3. When a situation arises in game that is definitely not covered by the game's rules, the DM in this instance must make a ruling. In this case, it is a good idea to record the ruling, and pending consideration by the DM, and possibly consultation with the players, it should then become the new rule for that situation in the future.

4. When there is a dispute among players (including the DM) about the interpretation or implementation of a rule in the game, then the DM needs to make a ruling as to how it will be interpreted in their game. Again, the DM may wish to consult with the players for their opinions, but as with any ruling, the DM gets the final say. Again, this should be recorded and kept for reference in the future. 

In any other situation, the onus is on the DM to know the rules and implement them fairly. Arbitrary judgments that aren't recorded to set precedents for future games are exactly the sort of thing those players were afraid of when they said "rulings not rules" is just mother-may-I.

Initiation

 Several weeks back, in April or early May, an acquaintance from the local English radio station* started liking my posts on Facebook about my twice-monthly West Marches games. I reached out to her, and yes, it turns out that she was interested in trying out D&D. She'd never played any RPGs before, and when I asked a few questions to see how much I'd need to explain, it seems like she hasn't really had much experience with computer RPG games either. 

We chatted via text, and I explained in fairly simple terms how RPGs play, and made a few suggestions, tried to find out what sort of character she wanted to play. 

Then when the next game session came up, she was too busy. Didn't hear from her for a while. I thought maybe she had lost interest. I did give her quite an info dump, even if I was simplifying things. 

But this past week, she contacted me again. She'd seen some 5E character sheets and a YouTube video about how to roll up a character. I assured her that the system I run is simpler than that.

She still wasn't sure about what sort of character to play, so I ended up rolling four pregens, a Human Cleric, Dwarf Fighter, Elf Magic-User, and Halfling Thief. Yep, hitting the four iconic (stereotypical) characters. Might as well start her with something easy. 

She quickly emails me back, asking if she can play a Half-Elf Ranger. And I'm like, of course! I made a few modifications to the pregens to make that PC for her, and sent it to her. 

At game time, several players were late, and she was also late. So we started the game. She finally contacted me, asking if it was too late to join. I said no, and resent the game links. She had some trouble logging into both Roll20 and Meet at the same time, but we finally got her in the game. 

And she did brilliantly. Granted, she does have some amateur acting chops. She's been in some local plays and short films in addition to her radio work. She got into character, asked good questions, had some good teamwork with the existing players, etc. And of course my usual crew is used to new people popping into our games, so that was no big deal for them. 

She sent me a message yesterday, thanking me for the game and asking if I was running again that night! I mentioned another game that I play in that is next Saturday, but she's already got plans (we'll get her in it eventually, I think). But she's on the hook for the following week when I run West Marches again. 

*Yes, I do a 1-hour radio weekly show. Yes, it's on the internet, but trust me, unless you listen to the other programs on the station, my show won't be interesting at all. Even if you do listen to the other shows, it's still not THAT interesting.