Monster-Themed Campaigns

Entering the planning phase of my upcoming Pirates vs. Vampires game, I am just starting to consider themes. Even though I will be world-building as I go and possibly using the Mythic Game Master Emulator to drive the game into unexpected directions, I would like to incorporate one or more recurring motifs. Themes are a great way to focus adventure design and they can really give a campaign a unique character.

[Spoiler Alert - My Players Should Turn Back]
In Pirates vs. Vampires I'd like to use a monster-based theme. Specifically, I'd like to feature the various "traditional" undead types from the D&D Monster Manual (edition is irrelevant). This is a game about vampires and vampires should be involved (directly or indirectly) in every story. But as we proceed from adventure to adventure, I'd like to successively move through the various D&D undead types as a way of marking the progress of the campaign. And by making a particular type of undead the focus of an adventure, I can incorporates all sorts of related thematic elements.

I've done this before with my sadly aborted Dragonspire campaign. Inspired by the Dragonlance modules of old, I wanted to create a campaign that walked through the various chromatic dragons in order of their deadliness. Of course, I only actually completed the white dragon adventures in both my online and face-to-face games. But those adventures were fantastic. Set during the height of winter, the characters ventured into snowy peaks and faced down many of frost-related challenges. Each adventure concluded with an exciting set-piece battle with an appropriately scaled white dragon "boss". And though the campaign was discontinued due to scheduling issues, the black dragon-themed adventure was going just as well.

To start things off, I think I'll start with the lowly skeleton. What comes to mind when one thinks of skeletons (especially as they relate to pirates)? Off the top of my head, I imagine a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad-esque adventure along the Barbary Coast.  Images of skeleton-crewed galleys and scimitar-wielding skeleton warriors practically leap into my head. No doubt there is a vampire necromancer who is using these skeletal minions to control the Mediterranean. Already, the simple choice of a skeleton motif has moved the setting out of the Caribbean and into a Arabesque North Africa.

Creating the World with Meta-Game Rules

I'm a huge fan of the idea that role playing games are a collaborative storytelling experience. One innovation in the recent generation of games is the ability of players to help create the game world by using some kind of meta-game mechanic to declare facts. As far as I know, the first time this popped up in a rules set was with the appearance of the Serendipity advantage in Gurps 3e. But using Serendipity to declare that "there is a convenient swimming pool for me to land in when I fall out of a burning building" is obviously limited to characters with the advantage. A whole host of 21st century games open this kind of thing up to everybody through Drama Points (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: RPG), Style Dice (PDQ#/Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies), FATE Points (FATE/Spirit of the Century), or something similar.

I'd love to have the ability do something similar in Risus but I wouldn't want to invent a new character trait to do so. I have two ideas:

Lucky Shots/Questing Dice: The Risus Companion already details the use of Lucky Shots and Questing Dice to trigger a montage sequences via the "Eye of the Tiger" rule. What is a montage sequence other than a brief scene where a player usurps narrative control? Dictating facts about the game world is not quite so useful, so I'd say the cost would be reduced to 1 LS/QD for moderate fact declarations (e.g. "I knew the ambassador back in my university days"). It would cost 2 LS/QD for major fact declarations that bring significant benefit (e.g. "the ambassador and I pledged of the same secret fraternal order and he owes me big for saving his life when a hazing ritual got out of hand").

Target Number Rolls: Rather than forcing players to purchase LS/QD for their characters to dictate facts about the world, a GM could also use simple Target Number rolls to simulate the effect. I'd use the guidelines described in the Companion in the "Target Numbers And the Single Showoff" section to determine what sort of Target Numbers would be appropriate based on the dramatic impact of the facts being declared. I've created the example table below as an example of my thinking (don't forget to adjust the Target Numbers to reflect how closely the  new fact relates to the cliche being used).

Minor Fact (TN5): New information adds color to the scene and provides the character with no more than a small benefit (e.g. "The desert nomads of Gargalahar are known to export a particularly potent spirit produced from over-ripe pucker-fruit pouches"). This includes the creation of minor characters that have little game impact

Moderate Fact (TN10): A moderate fact provides a definite mechanical benefit such as helping to deal with one small obstacle (e.g. "I've got this drinking contest in the bag because I've developed an tolerance to pucker-fruit spirits"). Minor characters created may offer some assistance in a scene.

Major Fact (TN15): Information of this nature actually allows a character (or party) to largely bypass a scene and potentially steel some thunder from the other characters (e.g. "I'll diffuse the situation with the suspicious desert nomads because I used to drink pucker-fruit spirits with Chief Dakon the Inebriated"). Significant recurring characters can be introduced that may assist the character or party on an occasional basis.

This is just a half-baked notion at this point and I'd certainly revisit the Target Numbers listed above before employing them in a campaign. But something like this seems like it should be permitted. I'd welcome any feed-back from folks who use it their games.

No One Escapes From Village 13!

For your daily dose of Risus goodness, Berin Kinsman has the ultimate in "chocolate in my peanut butter". His crazy-brilliant idea is to cross Hogan's Heroes with the Prisoner. Sounds like an amazing Risus one-shot or mini-campaign!

Risus with Cards

The Risus Monkey is coming out of cold sleep to report on a new set of Risus rules over at the Risusiverse. The Ruminator has written rules for playing Risus with a deck of playing cards here. They are supposedly based on some old TSR game. To me, they greatly resemble the rules for one of my favorite games of all time - Castle Falkenstein! I've always had a thing for card-based systems, though I do confess that I have never had great success using one in play. But the idea of using cards seems rather cool. For certain settings and genres, like Deadlands or Falkenstein, they just seem to be especially appropriate.

Stalin's Monkey Man

From Wired News (12/21/05)...
Stalin's Monkey Man
In need of Soviet supermen to build his workers' utopia, Josef Stalin ordered the creation of half-man, half-ape creatures during the 1920s, The Scotsman reports. Recently uncovered papers document the Soviet dictator's enlistment of Ilya Ivanov, Russia's top animal-breeding scientist, to help create the "living war machine" Stalin desired. "I want a new, invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat," Stalin reportedly told the scientist. With $200,000 funding, Ivanov went to West Africa to experiment on chimpanzees. But the mad research failed, and the scientist went from chimps to chump: Exiled to Kazakhstan in 1931, he died a year later, reportedly after falling sick while standing on a freezing railway platform.
Sounds like a great adventure nugget for a Pulp/Atomic-Horror Risus game!