Railroading chat devolves into nonsense, as people are working with unclear definitions. Here’s the solution:

‘Railroading’ means that an out-of-game white-list constricts in-game actions.

A ‘white-list’ is a complete list of things one can do. A ‘white-list of websites’ would mean that someone can only connect to those websites, and no others. Conversely, a ‘black-list’ is a list of things which one cannot do, such as a list of websites which one cannot visit.

Referring to elves as a ‘race’ makes perfect sense. They’re clearly different from the other humanoids, have their own features, and biological properties and oddities.¹

But ‘sylvan elves’? The elves who live in forests, but generally act like any other elf? They’re clearly just elves living in a different climate. Likewise, gnomes who lives deeper underground may well call themselves ‘deep gnomes’ (or be called that by others), but the D&D stats show no reason to consider them physically distinct. Even Tolkien’s different types of elves, who had plenty of physical differences, gained those differences mostly due to different lived experiences.²

I want contradictory things for BIND, so I’ve been trying to do both. And I have finally made it work…I think.

Rules are Like Onions

Rules for resolving actions now comfortably fit on about three pages at the start of each adventure module. The rest appear where needed:

• Adventure modules come with price-sheet handouts for local markets.
• The modules also have pre-made character sheets, which removes the need for character creation rules.
• Character sheets show the character’s Knacks and spells.
• Random encounters are presented as encounter-lists for the Judge.

The core rules have all the details on the Knacks, and longer spell descriptions, with notes on how to stop the spell’s effects.

All magic systems imply some ontology, and most of the European ontologies come from Aristotle’s view of the world. This is why someone turned into stone might retain their vision, motion, and thoughts.

In Aristotle’s view, everything has:

• form (the shape)
• substance (what it’s made out of)
• telos (what it’s for)
• first-cause (where it came from)

For example:

• Rain forms drops, is made out of water, it’s for watering plants, and it comes from the sky.
• People have people-shapes; flesh, sinew and bone constitute their bodies; people exist to praise the gods and achieve glory; and mothers provide the first cause.
• Fireballs have rain-drop shape but fire for substance, they exist to burn, and come from angry wizards.

Anyone transformed to stone would retain their organs with the same telos, meaning that a liver would continue to process toxins, and the eyes continue to see, because that’s what eyes are for (regardless of their ‘substantive cause’ (meaning, the substance they are made from).

RPG worlds need histories, so I had to write some history for BIND’s world, Fenestra. This was a big mistake.

The writing smelt bad, in that peculiar way that most fantasy writing is bad, before half a page went down. The problem came from having to write - every word was vestigial, nothing really mattered; it wasn’t fun.

So when large sections of the rules needed to be rewritten, I took the opportunity to go through every book with a new attitude. Like King Hagard in the Last Unicorn, I destroyed everything that didn’t make me smile, including the whole history of Fenestra. The new vision of Fenestra only has one historical event.

With BIND’s redesign, I’ve been thinking about options for religions. I don’t know if the old gods will survive the redesign.

Polyamorous Polytheism

I’ve always felt a missed note when I read D&D-style fantasy books where a country has many gods, but priests worship only one. Couldn’t a priest love many gods? Wouldn’t they get on better by invoking the god most related to what they want to do?

I call upon Hermes to give me speed, Apollo to give me insight, and Zeus to help me select the perfect gift for the baron!

Read More…

The cost of learning a new RPG system is…well just the cost of learning a system. Even for those who like the process, it takes time, and it limits those who can play the game. Ask a regular gaming group of four people to try ‘FISHBLADE: The Diceless RPG’, and chances are high that at least one will veto the suggestion.

The benefit is, of course, a bespoke system.

So when is the cost worth it? I can’t put a number on it, but I can plainly see that the number of systems out there are not really worth the cost of learning the lot.

I don’t believe in ‘complex’ or ‘simple’ things - those words point to feelings, not facts, so we may as well debate the nature of beauty. But I can count how many steps a system has, and show anyone the result.

RPG systems have a minimum number of steps to retain that nice feeling of realism, and I think that minimum number is ‘4’.

Step 1: Resolution

RPGs can give all manner of results, but at the very least they must show ‘pass/ fail’.

I wanted to make an elemental magic system, and tried to deviate from the four classical elements. It’s a lot more challenging than I thought.

If you go with random stuff, like trees, birds, and rivers as your basic elements, then you end up with a multitude of items.

We could divide the world into larger pieces of course - perhaps ‘small’ vs ‘big’? And have a small-o-mancy wizard?

No - clear nonsense.

I’ve just clicked what’s good about Goblin Slayer: it scratches the problem-solving itch.

It looks a little like trash. Standard anime, with modern computing techniques for some nice 3D sequences. A fantasy world where the hero kills goblins, along with his companions: Elf, Dwarf, Lizard-Man, and Underage-Priestess. It opens with an extremely distasteful scene of goblin-rape, which feels like the author hitting you over the head with the central premise: ‘goblins bad’.