Reworking B2 - The Keep On The Borderlands // Design Questions and remarks // spoilers

#21

I’m going on and off of what I want to do with the adventure.

On location:
I kind of want to plop it down in a real-world location. I mean, Law vs. Chaos lands fits some locations, right? I’m thinking of places like Hadrian’s wall, where the Keep could be the last beacon of Law behind the wall. On the other hand I don’t want to get needlessly bogged down in history and historic thought. I don’t want to have to retcon needlessly. Like, “these weapons were unavailable during this time period”, “women stayed at home doing needlepoint”, etc. Also, I’m kind of tired of standard “English History”.

It would be more interesting to me to set it in Medieval Europe, like France or Italy or Iberia and use these cultures to spice things up a bit. I’m consciously going for cultures that are still quite close to mine (Belgian, ya know, we weren’t even a country back then, just some rowdy Gauls) because if I try to do a culture too far from my own (say south east Asia) I might head into unfair generalization and untruths. If all else fails I might just make it a pseudo-historical thing and have made-up cultures. That goes less deep but makes for more modern, inclusive types of player characters. In the end we’ll have to decide with whoever ends up playing with me.

On the adventure start:
It’s kind of a lame start as written that first has a bit of “city adventure” type stuff. That could be nice, getting to know the people in the keep etc, but it also could take a session and might not be why we really want to play. I might want to have people start in the keep itself and have some rolls to determine how they got in there as a sort of flash-back, introduction.

Another option that I quite like is that the players could just be Keep Soldiers. New recruits, patrols, etc. It will keep things less open or less sandbox and more mission driven, that’s true, but it would be more like a Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Tactics or Fire Emblem type game, with a cast of colorful NPC’s no nameless NPC’s (I’m thinking of how Valkyria Chronicles deals with their ‘henchmen’/recruits). And once the PC’s gain some level or reputation, they might get more autonomy and get to choose about the missions they get, lead their own troops, etc.

It all depends on what type of game the players want to play I guess, but the option could be out there.

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#22

Slight update as I’m working on and off at this.

The Keep and the human kingdom/empire/whatever lawful lands will be based on French/Breton knights and culture.

Halflings are short Gaul that live in the Chaos tainted lands while still being mostly lawful. They have a good connection with the land and are mainly known for being good with animals. Hunters, beast masters, … usually accompanied by a loyal dog. Some might herd animals like sheep (which to them might also be mounts) pigs (same) geese and poultry. Led by druids and a council of elders, tribal communities that don’t always agree. Very brave (or stupid according to some, but they would compare them with scared little birds of whom they’d pin the wings to their helmets!).

I’ve been compiling name lists and amounts of people in the keep so that I can name them and maybe give them all a few quirks or other details. It makes the world/setting feel more alive for sure!

Still deciding on what kind of Dwarves I want. I’m thinking they might be from the Pyrenees. Which means they’d have more Spanish/Basque/Catalan sounding names and culture or from the Alps (which means they might have more German/French/Swiss/Austrian sounding names and culture). But I’m also thinking … why not both?

I’m not sure about my elves yet, except that I want them to be very childlike (they take literal ages to grow) which gives them the trope of the 500 year old child and such stuff. (I should maybe see what TV Tropes calls it, but that site is a black hole for my attention.) I’m thinking I might focus on their link to nature and give them names from Fauna and Flora, but maybe not in whatever language is spoken by the players. I’m thinking Frisian or Scandinavian, but I’m not sure yet. It might be fun to suggest their age to have their names be in Latin or Roman, but I might just settle on Fauna and Flora names by it’s own, without extra fluff. I’m not there yet though.

Also working on a horse name generator which gives horses more like titles rather than names. Things like “Lightning that chases the Morning” and stuff like that.

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#23

Seems like a functional setting – personally for these kinds of games I try not to get too deep into the setting at the start, especially with the identity of character species. Like your elf players might want an Dwarf named Sun Wukong, and it’s always been more fun to let the players decide why/create the fluff around distant or unknown parts of the world. At least for me.

I do like your halfling concept quite a bit - one thing from my own B/X and OD&D games that I’ll mention is being careful about animal handling. Packs of attack animals are a powerful aid to players, and suddenly they’ll have 25 “war pigs” or whatever that they launch like guided missles at everything they encounter. Depending on the system, even the relatively limited attacks of war beasts add up very quick. Basically it seems to me that one needs some mechanics around number, morale, loyalty and availability of beasts for animal handlers.

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#24

Oh, they can have characters from completely different cultures for sure. I mean, “wanderers” are established in the tavern description. I would welcome more diverse and even silly concepts I think. This is mainly me having solitary fun with perhaps an idea to try some online game stuff over the summer to test it out.

Good point about the animal handling. I’d have to think about that, but I can easily see their herd of pigs or something tied in into the henchmen/followers mechanic based on CHA. For now it’s just mainly flavor. (I mean they are the “noble savages” or whatever of this setting) But thanks for the heads up!

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#25

With all the posting I’ve been doing in this thread I’ve been thinking of starting a blog to put more finished ideas on. This has now been done.

So far I’ve only put some older stuff on it and a review of a comic I recently read. Some of the things I’ve written here and got feedback on from you guys will probably get on there pretty soon. I’ll still just brainstorm questions here and will keep the blogpost for more well-formed ideas (at least half-baked!). But yeah, an introduction, some thoughts about alignment, the halfling Gaul idea and world-tone stuff will probably be some of the first. There are also more of the other articles coming. It will not be limited to just gaming stuff, but we will see what sticks. Not planning on making a living out of it or anything. It’s just my playground, but you’re all invited :slight_smile:

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#26

New blogpost related to thoughts I’ve had that sprouted from this thread here: https://thebeardedbelgiansplayground.blogspot.com/2021/03/starting-at-keep-part-one.html

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#27

Some more thought about alignment in the module, especially Chaos. The truly chaotic characters in the module seem to be only out on destruction, that is to say, they will try to kill the characters. I think this is a missed opportunity. What about cheaters, or liars? They don’t necessarily want to kill you, but they also don’t want to follow the rule of law if it doesn’t benefit them. What about characters that want to corrupt others? That offer dark deals etc?

What types and flavors of evil/chaos do you guys use in your games?

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#28

The follow up blogpost has been posted here: https://thebeardedbelgiansplayground.blogspot.com/2021/03/starting-at-keep-part-two.html

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#29

I mean I don’t. Not in the Gygaxian (or even cosmic alignment) sense.

Liars, thieves and cheaters are of course everywhere in game - it’s one of the mainstays of Swords & Sorcery. But both lying barkeepers and ancient demingods awakened from death-grey slumber to set the stars aflame (or you know whatever) aren’t chaotic good or lawful evil. They are all simply factions with goals and justifications: why not cheat adventurers? You’ve got a business to run and they’re rarely repeat customers or the world has broken its troth and the blood doesn’t fill the altar bowl, it is time to remind the worshipers of your power and the proper chain of being.

I don’t think this is a mere affectation, but almost a key to fitting both faction intrigue and moral play into a classic style game. To the degree that alignment tells the players who to trust, or who its okay to murder they will generally follow it. If one wants players to have the room or motivation to make moral decision, cosmic clues or justifications often disrupt that. This is even the historical intent of alignment.

Law, Chaos, and Neutrality originally modeled what sort of magical creatures one could have in ones wargaming army, a way to simplify army lists for the Chainmail Fantasy supplement. They also served as a convenient shield for 80’s TSR to push back against claims of moral hazard, and a way to keep play running smoothly on inoffensive lines - a module like King’s Festival shows the ultimate incarnation of this bland “orcs in a hole” style play. Finally it seems like Gygax really liked alignment, though he seems to have loved any reductive taxonomy that broke complex things down into simple bits.

The history of the rules aren’t really important, but alignment seems to me a drag on morally complex play and faction intrigue – both of which I find a lot of fun.

Specifically about lying NPCS:

Make sure all NPC voices are clearly not the GM’s voice. Don’t be afraid to signal untrustworthiness or even falsehood especially with tangential NPCs the players don’t know anything about, expect players to murder any NPC that seems slightly untrustworthy. I wrote up my thoughts on deceptive NPCs a few months ago here:

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#30

This is a long blogpost, but I’m interested! I will read it once my Friday evening brain full of screaming kid voices calms down a bit. For now I’m running out of focus and concentration after a week of teaching.

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#31

You’re welcome to it, though I don’t think the post offers anything revelatory.

Funny thing (and this is likely a problem for me) is that when I posted that and thought - short, concise post.
:?

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#32

Oh, I did not mean to offend! I’m currently reading it and it’s very interesting. And it’s teaching things, which needs some words! No worries!

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#33

No offense, I just find it funny that my blog posts have been getting consistently more essay like :slight_smile:

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#34

Some updates on my thought process, or more a digression with all the Troika Hype at the moment. Read along here:
Mixing all the troika I’ve been seeing with my Keep on the Borderlands thing. A Brainstorm. A first pass. Will be iterated on.

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#35

Well, my brain kept going.

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#36

After having just plowed ahead, today I got a bit of a revision boost and I think these 1d6 Knightly Backgrounds have way more of the flavor that I’m going after. Check it out. Feedback is welcome.

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#37

A second set of Backgrounds:

This time they are wanderers or travellers that might roam around the Keep.

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#38

I keep plodding along and thinking about this. I’ve updated some things and played around with blogposts before this but I think things are shaping up and this is becoming a good enough result to share here again:

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#39

I’ve been thinking about this project a lot since, but most of the things I’ve managed to make I’ve put on my blog. As I’ve actually ran it (both for kids in my class, as a recent play by post) I’ve been forced to have more answers. A lot of my nitpicking has fallen away in way of my own historic setting for the keep. I still have it for my own sake, but play and the players input are equally if not more important. The setting is just framing. The systems I wanna run in keep changing. At the moment I’m running it in Maze Rats (which gives magic a whole different approach, which changes magic users slightly) and I’ve played it with Roll 4 Shoes with the kids in class for the end of school.

At the moment I just finally looked up what a Castellan actually is, because I just assumed they were nobility. But they aren’t! They are basically the people taking care of the property while the noble in charge is away. This poses the question about who the actual noble is that owns the property and lands that are now managed by the Castellan.

I’ve got a few ideas about this. It may be a castle built by the Order of the Golden Fleece in name of King Filips the Good of Burgundy, but more compelling and interesting story wise might be that the Baron went hunting or on an expedition to the caves to route the monsters out of the land … and never returned. “What happened to the Baron?” might be a story seed/front/… that is a possibility for the players to investigate. And I like that better.

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