Humans are social animals. Our big brains are optimised for navigating social environments, for worrying what people think of us, for dealing with questions of cooperation, negotiation, duty and shame. We’re prone to mass hysteria and tabu. Our thought processes are skewed by the moods of those around us.
Attanasio writes that the first act of human imagination was the immortality of the soul. I’m not sure this is true. I would guess instead that the first act of imagination – and the origin of what we call magic, both in fiction and in the practice of various real-life wizards and occultists – was animism, the perception of the material and natural world as a social environment.
All magic arises from this personalisation of the world. Any transformative process without this personal, social element is necessarily science, and not magic – simply an observable, repeatable feature of the world.
#RedHack combat rounds are 30 seconds long – long enough for multiple attacks and for a sprinting PC to cover 180' or more. Each character only has one action during this time, but the additional opportunities for action are provided by reactions. These might be the biggest divergence between the rules and B/X D&D.
Each character with class levels has a pool of reactions per round based on level:
Wizards have one reaction. They aren't good at fighting. I'm toying with letting them spend it to maintain certain spells or fire off magic-missiles, rewriting some spells to utilise the mechanic.
Thieves have one reaction, but it hits hard. If they use it to attack, they deal double damage plus half their level, and may roll DEX to attack instead of STR. They can also spend it immediately to attack an unaware or surprised foe, dealing triple damage plus their level.
Fighters gain a reaction every other level, and also have special Techniques which give them additional opportunities to spend them – for example Riposte allows the Fighter to make a reaction attack against anyone who misses him in melee.
Clerics also gain a reaction every other level, but can only use them in the standard ways.
On the one hand, writing #downtimes has been one of the most rewarding parts of running games with #RedHack. On the other, it’s also the most time-consuming and demanding, equivalent to prep for the game itself.
So as well as providing for a range of downtime activities and results, I’m looking for ways to reduce bookkeeping.
In a addition to resolving downtime actions, I like the idea of Lodgings: Allowing PCs to trade upkeep costs for ameneties and the security of their possessions and persons, but there’s a risk of ending up with many steps of bookkeeping for each character – deducting upkeep, checking for illness, robbery, poor maintenance of equipment and so on, applying any perks, before even getting into downtimes and having to design progress clocks and roll for complications.
How much of this can we concentrate into one roll?
I'm looking at rules for #downtimes, in particular the creation of minor magical items. I'm happy with magic items being born and not made, but for consumables such as potions and scrolls I want PCs to be able to make them during downtime, but need to limit supply.
In the 1E DMG Gary requires monster parts for potions, scrolls and spell research. This is clearly a way to drive players back into the dungeon and keep supply linked to risk.
I find the term “AI art” offensive because it’s not only a provocation, but also inaccurate in every particular.
Art involves, in the first place, having something to express, and then a creative process where decisions are made about how best to express that thing. Talent and skill are optional – you don’t have to be good to create art, and that may be one of the most inspiring things about it.
This week we’ve been working on a gemstone table for Red Hack. We started by looking at Gary’s tables from the AD&D 1E DMG, and aiming for the similar base values and odds of the value increasing or decreasing.
The system I'm using for my current game is based on the Black Hack, and perhaps my favourite part of it has been the experience system. In place of XP certain actions count as 'experiences' and are recorded on the character sheet. Players can check off a certain number of them to gain a level (in BH equal to their current level, though I'd suggest going a little higher.)
BH requires PCs to carouse to gain a level, though in my game any downtime action can be used to level – training, research, crafting, building relationships – and will be a little more effective for it.
An article from my previous blog, first published in 2021.
Character death is often held up as a positive feature of OSR games, sometimes associated with a degree of machismo and the idea that without the possibility there's no challenge or interest. I don't believe this – video games manage to have challenge with no real possibility of failure, you try again until you get it right. Stories where you know the hero is going to survive can still be tense and interesting. There are other stakes.
In my game it's technically possible to die by the roll of the dice, but there are a couple of safety nets – magical healing, the Black Hack d6 roll for survival, and if all else fails, coming back as a ghost.
Ben Laurence's Shades of Zyan section in Issue 2 of Ultan's Door provides a wonderful model for this, which doesn't feel like a merely mechanical recourse but rather adds to the mythical atmosphere and lore of the setting itself.
The truly dead dwell in Ushanpoor, the City of Brass Sepulchres:
The living will never know the city of the dead’s geography—endless clustered sepulchres, stacked like empty baskets atop incense filled arcades, rich with pungent cherry blossoms, and black mirrored pools.
I love Ushanpoor. Like everything Laurence comes up with it's heady and evocative. The city of the dead is a specific place, neither a heaven nor a hell but something sombre, exotic and beautiful, and utterly unattainable for the living.
In response to the community revolt over changes to the #OGL WotC have released an updated OGL1.2 draft. There are various changes to the terms of the proposed 1.1 but I wish to focus on those that affect the existing body of Open Game Content developed over 20 years.
