Armor...Why the Hell Do I Bother?

People who dig fantasy artwork (like myself) or watch a lot of fantasy films or read fantasy comics, or appreciate a decent Frazetta cover (or his many imitators) have been treated to a wide range of terrible, historically inaccurate images of armor over the years.

Kayce down at Gary's Games is a trained visual artist and has at least some experience with both costume design and historical armor and I showed her the following image and put the question to her:

What the hell is this supposed to be exactly?

Bronze Age?

Keep in mind that I realize actual gladiators didn't tend to wear much in the way of torso armor. But here's this...what? Leather breastplate? It's not metallic, it appears to be flexible. Despite a ceremonial appearance, it would appear to offer at least some protection compared being bare-chested or just wearing a toga. But what would you call this, and was such a form of gear ever actually worn in battle?

And the reason I ask is you see this kind of thing in film. Conan the Barbarian is full of stuff that looks like this...perhaps more or less decorated but the same general theme...something stiff, but flexible, perhaps moulded from rubber like the Batman costumes of the last twenty years.

[speaking of the last twenty years, man, do I feel old sometimes. I heard a Nirvana song playing at a restaurant the other day and realized it's been twenty years since that song was first on the radio. In the 90s I used to listen to the "classic rock of the 70s" radio station...now, something that was NEW when I was in college is just as old as those "oldies" I used to listen to. That's just...ugh. I feel OLD. And going to yoga classes this week has just made me feel FAT and old. I better hurry up and get these books published before I'm too fat and old and decrepit to get out of bed!]

It's possible that this is supposed to be some sort of light, embossed cuir boulli (what gamer folks often equate to "leather armor") but from everything I've read, people weren't boiling leather for armor until around the 8th or 9th centuries (if that early), whereas the Gladiator film is supposed to take place in the 2nd century (and Conan is set sometime 1000 years plus earlier).

But these are films, sure, and films designed to be visually spectacular, which leads to all sorts of weirdness: like King Arthur and his knights wearing full plate armor in the movie Excalibur (despite the Arthur's legend being set in the 5th or 6th centuries...only missed this technological development by a millennium or so). Or this from the most recent Conan movie:

What IS this?

Fantasy armor is cool and all...it's fun to look at, it's fun to fantasize about , and it's neat to visualize one's character (or a neat NPC) wearing some sort of weird hardware in your fantastical, semi-mythological RPG world...but then why even bother trying to inject ANY kind of historical reality into your game?

Padded armor in action!

Have you SEEN what padded armor looks like? Do you think wearing heavy, knee-length padding would make it any easier for a thief to scale a sheer castle wall than wearing a hauberk of chain? Come on! You've got to be friggin' kidding me!

The point is this: in my opinion you've got two ways to go with your armor in an RPG...specific or abstract. And if you're going to be specific, you should either being paying close attention to historic accuracy (like not including plate armor in a time before the invention of firearms, for instance), or making up your one whole-cloth fantasy environment with people wearing crab carapace armor and fiber-and-hide and whatnot. In other words, go big or go home.

[by the way, you CAN choose to go the way of D&D and just include a big mish-mash of nonsensical and historic, though inaccurate, armor types lumped together, where a brigandine jack from the 17th century is seen on the thief in your pseudo 10th century world. Maybe YOU have more important things to worry about like what orcs plan on doing with all that hard earned coin they've stolen and hoarded. When I say "you've got two ways to go," I really mean I have only got two ways to go, for my own peace o mind]

Of course, if you go for the "specific" approach where you actually want to say, "Here's your chain mail...it costs 100 silver shillings and weighs X number of stone and is this effective against axes and that effective against bludgeoning weapons..." if you're going to model that degree of specificity then you had better make sure it actually makes sense, or else people are going to give you a shit hard time...the same way people give Gygax crap (even in death) for originally charging 60 gold pieces for plate mail armor.

You can say, "it's just a game," or you can give it specificity...you don't get both ways.

For me, I've decided to go abstract, because...well, because it's easier. Originally, Gygax was abstract, too (with his CHAINMAIL rules), grouping individuals as light or heavy or armored (for plate armored). Since my game (5AK) is set in the 8th century, I don't have plate armor so I can get away with just saying characters are wearing light armor or heavy armor (or that they're unarmored). And even if I ditch my semi-historical setting and shift back to a prehistoric myth age like Howard's Hyboria, I'll probably do the same. 'Cause it's just damn easier.

People have worn armor, in some form or another, throughout history. Protective gear is important when people are trying to do you bodily harm (duh), and what you wore was pretty frigging custom compared to the way we treat it. You didn't just walk into Sears and pick up a size 42 long coat of chain off the rack...you got sized and measured and paid a ton of scratch for a decent armorer to fit something to you. And hopefully the person knew their craft and wasn't having an off-day or suffering from a lack of decent material or the need for new tools or some other monkey wrench that might throw the process off. But even so, different cultures did their tooling and lacquering and styling differently from each other...resulting in very different pieces of the (ostensibly) "same armor type." And, no, I'm not just talking about different looking helmets.

So rather than try modeling how one guy's double-layer pauldron and vambrace gives him a better AC than the guy with the outmoded spaulders, I'm just going abstract: are you lightly armored or heavily armored. Now, sure, it's a bit more fiddly than that because, well, because I'm a big nerd...but not much more. And while I realize it's not terribly ORIGINAL of me to go this route (Randall Stukey does this in his book, as I recently noted...and the earliest place I've seen it in a true RPG is probably WHFRP), but being "original" isn't, in the final analysis, the point of the exercise. The point is to craft a game that I want to play and that models what I want it to model and leaves out what I don't need.

Good against stakes.

My RPG isn't about historic reenactment, it's about playability, and the different armor types found in most versions of D&D just include more minutia than what I care to include solely for the sake of "options." My players already have PLENTY of options and choices to make (as they should)...the type of armor one wears, in the end, is more a matter of STYLE when it comes to fantasy role-playing. Does your character wear a heavy chain coat that would drop a lesser man to his knees? Do you have interlocking plates, lacquered with the colors of your family crest? Or is it simply a quilted coat with metal studs, easily pierced with a well-placed spear or sword tip?

Now folks using the standard D20 versus AC combat system that want to go this same (abstract) way will need to look to something like Stukey's book...or else rename "leather, chain, and plate" to "light, medium, and heavy" or similar. Folks playing AD&D or Pathfinder with their wide range of armor nuance are going to have a much tougher time, because those editions of the game are designed to be more fiddly (i.e. "detailed") than OD&D or B/X or Chainmail. And if you're playing a more detailed version, there's a chance you're doing so specifically because you LIKE detail and specificity and so an abstract method of doing armor ain't your cup o tea. But boy-o-boy you folks have your work cut out for you...unless you're not into taking yourselves (or your game) too seriously.

But then, if you weren't about taking it seriously, why would you opt for a system of specificity? Just saying.

For me, abstract is the only way to do armor that's going to keep me sane. It doesn't matter to me if your armor looks like something off a medieval tapestry or something out of the Road Warrior. The form doesn't matter nearly as much as the function. At least, for the sake of modeling the armor's effect in combat. There are, of course, other considerations (like cash outlay and routine maintenance, but I generally hand-wave the latter for the sake of expedience...like I hand-wave characters answering the call of nature).

Thus ends my game design "thought of the day."
: )

Ripping Off Ali Baba (Part 2)

[continued from here. Just BTW, this is NOT what I want to write about at the moment, but I definitely want to get this play-test report out-o-the-way so it’s not bugging on my mind; on the other hand, this would have been posted a lot sooner if I hadn't spent the last couple hours watching Beastmaster]

Okay, so the last thing I wrote was that invisible sorcerer, Hakim, ended up in the “throne room” cavern of the “bandit king,” while Rhiann the thief went chasing down a lone messenger-bandit. We’ll deal with the latter first.

Comparing movement rates, Rhiann was able to catch-up to the lone messenger and bushwhack him (that’s the technical, game term) from behind, clubbing him unconscious with an unlit torch. Deciding that Allah (or, rather, “Halah”) would not want her to slit the throat of an unconscious man…even a brigand…she opted instead for tying him up with his own turban and dragging him over to the side of the road. She then decided to pad off back after the other brigands (curiosity getting the better of her) to see what they were up to with the bodies. And perhaps to find her cousin.

Said cousin was poking around the huge cavern, trying not to bump into anyone and checking out exits. The bandit king meanwhile was ordering his men to go back and look for the wretch that had stoned his people to death…not knowing that she was already on her way, right to his very lair.

Needless to say she was captured.

It’s been a few days now (and I was pretty hammered at the time) so I don’t remember exactly how it happened…she may have been surprised by the brigands coming back down the tunnel, or else she was discovered when trying to make a stealth or hide roll (though I don’t remember her ever actually failing the latter). Dragged before the “king” and questioned regarding her intrusion, Rhiann opted for the simple truth: she had entered the caves looking for missing “swamp people” and had not meant to disturb the brigands nor infringe on their territory, and had only acted previously to defend herself.

“Aye, such was not your intention, but this is what happened,” intoned the bandit king. “And it is death to reveal our secrets, for that is our law. Right or wrong you now know where we lair, but since you came upon us unprovoked, we will offer you one of two choices:

“You may choose death, swift and merciful. Or you may choose life…but it will be a life here in darkness, never to again return to the surface world. You will indeed discover what has befallen the people of the swamp (for you will share their fate)…but I warn you, you may prefer the swift death. Regardless, you may never again return to your home.”

Now I don’t remember if Rhiann actually had a chance to choose an option (though I’m pretty sure she would have chosen life over death if only to assuage her own curiosity)…what I do remember is Hakim deciding it was time to “make his move,” and he used his invisibility to sneak up behind the bandit king, knife in hand.

[said knife had been stolen from the cavern itself…we had a nice little sidebar about whether or not the knife would remain visible if it were picked up, and whether (if it DID remain visible) whether or not it could be wrapped in the folds of the invisible sorcerer’s robes or whether its glaring visibility would “shine through.” Ahhh…one of the age old questions of D&Disms: if my invisible character decides to eat something, will the contents of his belly be revealed to all?]

Anyway, Hakim sidled up behind the bandit and put the curvy knife blade to the man’s throat, before dropping the invisibility spell for utmost dramatic effect. “I suggest a third choice: you let her free and you get to keep your own head.” As the knife was to his throat, but he was on display in front of his subjects, I elected to have the player make a morale check for the bandit king (in this game there are a couple of interesting “oddities” compared to standard D&D…one is that rolling HIGH is always better for the person doing the rolling. Another thing is that when an NPC has a chance of breaking morale it is the player (doing the breaking) who gets to roll the result of the possible surrender or route).

Hakim rolled the worst possible result (snake eyes) indicating that not only the bandit king NOT going to be intimidated on his own turf, and instead wound up hostile and enraged. Turning on the sorcerer, the bandit lord wrestled him for the knife while the sorcerer attempted to stab him (“Because you’re SO good at that,” quipped Rhiann)…and as might be surmised, Hakim was disarmed and thrown to the ground.

Whereupon we decided we’d stop the adventure so that Will could catch his bus home.

Despite getting used as a punching bag for much of the night, Will did express his enjoyment of the game. His character was no shakes in hand-to-hand combat (I don’t think he really expected to be), but he was still effective at doing stuff, magic-wise. I think is the first time I’ve ever had a 1^st level character with one (1) hp on an adventure, before…well other than a game of DCC…and Will’s PC still survived (unlike your average DCC adventurer).

I had more opportunity to debrief with Kayce afterwards. She really liked her character’s effectiveness (rather than having to go through a 1^st level “shmucky” period as is usual for a thief). She liked the setting, but agreed it was much more “Ali Baba” than gritty sword & sorcery. She DID think the setting was neat, but wondered if the game would have slowed down with more players. Not because the system is slow (the mechanics are fairly fast and light…even faster than, say, DMI since there’s no justification needed for using abilities and no “buy back” card mechanic)…but because of the attention paid to characters (so as to better integrate folks with the setting)...well, it might be tough.

But then again, it might not be. All you have to say is, “hey, you’re cousins…go adventure” and away you fly. It may be that I’ve made the setting too complicated…again, in an attempt to keep a very specific historical (if fantastic) world setting I’ve made it a real bitch to justify going underground in the Underworld. In making a world with a well-developed civilization, I’ve limited the number of “ancient ruins” and crypts and tombs that are ripe for exploration and exploitation.

I may have to just junk much of the setting…at least as far as the history and religion goes. But if I do that, I’ll have to reconsider the way I’m currently doing the cleric class.

Which I’ll talk about more in my next post. Cheers.

Ashen Stars – Indie Space Opera

[this post was written up back in..what…early November? Maybe late October. Though it may not be entirely timely, I know SOME folks are tired of reading superhero discussions…I thereby offer this up as “new content” for the blog]

You know why people are crying out for space opera RPGs? Because in the imaginary fantasy world of space opera, all your child care needs are as simple as handing off your child to your portable android while you and the wife are busy flying the rocket ship or fighting the forces of the villainous emperor or making sure the color of your capes match that of your ever-charged ray guns.

(*sigh*)

At least I live in a day and age where my ability to eat is not based on my personal ability to cultivate crops or hunt the local wildlife.

Ah, well…so in looking over my recent posts, I see I STILL haven’t finished my “Benjamins” series, nor even yet posted my “offensive post” (exactly 1500 words in length and only about half finished…ugh!). And yet here I am with an urge to discuss my latest RPG acquisition and the points of interest are directly related to these (un-posted) topics. What O What is one to do in this kind of situation.

Press on, I guess.

Ashen Stars is yet another GUMSHOE system RPG, this one written by Robin D. Laws and featuring a space opera setting that is about as space opera as space opera gets…in the old school, serial series sense of the phrase. I know I’ve talked GUMSHOE before (Mutant City Blues, Trail of Cthulhu, etc.), largely heaping it with praise and when I first saw Pelgrane’s space opera offering a few months back I immediately wanted it…until I remembered that I’ve yet to play a single one of these excellent, excellent games.

Here’s the problem: I’m the only person I know that actually owns these games. Which means that if I want to play one, I’ll probably be the one introducing it and running it for folks. And in addition to the normal headache of trying to interest non-interested parties in learning a new RPG system (let alone getting them fired up and enthusiastic) investigation-type role-playing really isn’t my thing. I like fantasy adventure, not mystery solving. I suppose I’d be much more comfortable PLAYING such a game (as a player myself) as opposed to running it…but there again I have the issue of being the only person I know who even owns these books.

In other words, the usual issue. 

Whatever…this isn’t just a woe-is-me post (really!); I’m simply explaining my reservations at buying yet another GUMSHOE game. But Laws and Kenneth Hite (the other main GUMSHOE designer) are excellent at what they do and usually good for both insight and inspiration (not to mention good reads) AND space opera has been my flavor-of-the-month for awhile now and I’m trying to get my hands on as many different games of the genre as I can find. So when Diego and I were in the game shop a couple days ago with a little extra money, we picked up a copy (D really liked the pictures). My first impression?

Wow.

Laws doesn’t disappoint. Well, actually, he does disappoint (we’ll get to that in a moment) but his entry into the space opera genre of RPG is one of the best I’ve seen. I mean it’s really got some good stuff going on, and I’m not just talking about the artwork and layout and writing (though those bits are pretty good, too).

[just by the way, did WotC ever carry an original SciFi setting for D20? I know they did Star Wars, and I seem to recall a D20 Future game, but was there ever anything more “space opera” specific? Just wondering…having had my fill of D20 I sincerely doubt I’d ever buy such a thing; it’s a question of curiosity]

Laws, like Bezio, takes a lot of the same design tactics I was using myself when attempting to design a space opera RPG…in fact, if you were to remove the unique settings and splice Ashen Stars together with X-Plorers, you’d have a (very) rough approximation of the direction I was going, pre-DMI. My problem, though, was in my attempts to “pull it all together,” and the way both Mr. Bezio and Mr. Laws manages to do so is by adding specific space opera settings to their games, something I was extremely loathe to do (I was shooting for a more “generic” space game with an “add setting to taste” sensibility…in the end it hamstrung my efforts).

This is actually something that would make sense more (to my readers) if I’d bothered to do the original posts on Action/Reaction and Benjamins/Motivation. I know, I know…cryptic references to un-published blog posts really don’t really help explain anything, but without going into to great of detail:

• Player behavior can be self-motivated or GM motivated
• Self-motivation is better but requires tricky game design
• A strong theme can keep players on the same page
• Most games take this shit for granted

Prior blog topics regarding “reward systems influence behavior” can all be filed as a sub-heading under this very broad category of discussion. The fact that I haven’t (yet) been able to pound it out should tell you something of the slipperiness of the subject matter.

But MEANWHILE let’s just grapple with Ashen Stars; here’s the basic premise:

1. The setting is a multi-(alien)-culture galactic quadrant that is a few years removed from an interstellar war (THIS, by the way is new…I usually classify space opera in three ages: Golden Age, Age of Corruption, and Age of Strife (war). What Laws does is find a fourth stage to the cyclical space opera paradigm following Strife but precursor-ing the new Golden Age…call it an Age of Reconstruction).
2. Characters are all members of the LASER profession: highly competent individuals acting in a capacity of mercenary troubleshooters/detectives/peacekeepers in the absence of strong government/law enforcement due to the aforementioned war.
3. The PCs are all members of the same ship crew. PCs pick their ship and customize it, then have to upkeep it by accepting and fulfilling contracts (“missions”). Most normal GUMSHOE procedures regarding investigation and task resolution applies.
4. Characters main driving motivation is one of Reputation: being successful LASERS and handling things in an altruistic or heroic fashion increase their Rep while being scumbuckets (acting in selfish or homicidal fashion) will lower Rep. Having a low rep means time between lucrative contracts is increased, meaning characters can run low on money and fail in the upkeep of their ship and equipment leading to a reduction in their personal (and ship) capabilities.

And if they stopped right there that would be a good enough AND cool enough game. However, in emulation of the genre (especially such serial shipboard trouble-shooting TV shows as Star Trek or Firefly), Mr. Laws oversteps in his design process, with (to my mind) nonsensical results.

[by the way, there’s a lot of other neat stuff I’m leaving out: like the various races/species, the classifications of lifeforms, the various cyber-enhancements, etc. all of which are cool and well-thought out and neater-than-your-average-inside-the-box-RPG. But those things aren’t pertinent to this discussion. However, I’d strongly recommend purchasing or thumbing through a copy if you’re into “cooler-than-usual” space opera weirdness. Lots of stuff worth stealing for your own game even if you don’t want to play in the world of Ashen Stars]

The over-stepping is with regard to Drives and “arcs” (both story and personal) which are “personality mechanics” even less useful than “alignment” in a standard D&D game. And I’m talking about usefulness with regard to mechanics and effective game design.

The funny part is I went through the exact same thought process with my last couple games, especially with my space opera game. Hell, I even called these character motivations “drives” in my game, too…and while mine were based on Jungian (astrological) archetypes, I still ended up with a lot of the same ones (duh…there’s a reason they’re archetypes). However, while mine have mechanical effect (and fail to work in practice), Laws’s Drives have almost ZERO mechanical effect…and appear to fail in practice.

[I say “appear to fail” because I haven’t played the game, but the principles seem to be in place for a failure…or at least for an extraneous system that adds little to the game]

[hmm…I’m not a very nice critic, just reading back over what I wrote. I’m not even in a bad mood or anything!]

By not providing game mechanics (i.e. a system) that describes how the mechanics impact the game you end up with little more than useless “color.” Oh sure, the author describes how the GM should take these drives and arcs into account when shaping a story, and how players should pay attention to them when determining behavior…but nothing in the rules COMPELS participants to pay any attention to such things, and nothing INCENTIVIZES participants either.

And if there’s nothing compulsory and no incentive then, um, why do I care?

Now I don’t think Laws includes this information just to “pad” the word count or something, nor simply as a writing exercise/practice. My guess is that his idea was (by including drives as a part of the chargen process) to try to draw players’ minds deeper into the role-playing “immersion experience;” something that is either unnecessary (because your players are already on-board with developing characters) or a waste of time (because players are NOT on-board and the whole idea is unenforceable within the rules).

I mean, alignment in D&D has some consequences of behavioral compulsion…specific alignments are required for some classes and the use of some magic items, and some characters run the risk of loss of class effectiveness for failure to follow their alignment (not to mention XP loss suggestions given in the DMG for alignment violations). Even though it matters little whether or not a fighter is Lawful or Chaotic (with the possible exception of picking up an intelligent sword), it still has SOME enforceable game effects.

“Okay, okay, JB,” I already hear some of you yelling. “We get it! You don’t like it! So what? If it has no mechanical effect on the game, just ignore it and play the game without it. The rest of the rules work, right?” Well, sure, I guess they do. But here’s the thing:

I don’t get it. I don’t understand it. Laws’s motivations for including it at all is a mystery to me…and I’m afraid I’m missing something here.

I own several of these GUMSHOE products, and I don’t recall seeing something like this in any of the previous books. They’re not necessary…the setting provides all the motivation you need! In Trail of Cthulhu the PCs are investigating weird Cthulhu happenings, and work as a team to do so. In Mutant City Blues the PCs are members of a (super-powered) police force trying to solve cases and keep the streets clean (and work together to do so).

In Ashen Stars, characters are all members of the same LASER crew, on the same ship, taking contracts and making money. They already have incentive to work together (completing missions) and doing things in a particular (heroic) fashion: the Reputation mechanic, which affects the monies received which affects the team’s ability to perform maintenance and upkeep which affects the crew’s effectiveness (if you can’t keep up your ship, rules-wise it starts to deteriorate) which affects the ease with which you complete missions. What did Laws find (in play-testing or the design process) that made him think it was necessary to include this aspect of the game? Is it a gross over-sight? Laws seems too good a designer for that to be the case. Did he find players would lack the proper motivation without drives? Was there something particular that “bugged” without a named character “arc” for each PC?

It confuses me and muddles things (for me) putting a damper on an otherwise excellent game. 

[I do also have some gripes with the STARSHIP COMBAT mechanics…which I have described in an earlier post…but those gripes aren’t with principle design tact taken so much as the EXECUTION of that tact; but like I said I already wrote about that]

All right, that’s enough of that…since picking up Ashen Stars (and writing the bulk of this document), I’ve since nearly completed my own space opera supplement for Bezio’s X-Plorers AND drafted the basic core of a DMI Supers game AND moved onto other things, none of which are GUMSHOE related. I really don’t want to beat up on the book; I just think it might be a little misguided in including “too much” (something I’ve been guilty of on occasion myself).

You know, one of these days someone will come out with and RPG that deals solely with the interaction of different personalities in a cloistered environment…like a spaceship or a submarine. It IS one of the more interesting aspects/dynamics you find…in film and fiction anyway…and a lot of RPGs simply take it for granted that such “interesting group dynamics” will spontaneously develop. And they do…but without some direction, some “help,” from the game mechanics/design it’s going to be kind of happenstance how it happens. And maybe THAT’s what Laws was aiming to do, but I think the execution of it was less-than-adequate (to be charitable).

Incidentally, Kayce (who will be joining the play-test tonight) has been running Bulldogs! recently, a FATE-based space opera RPG which I do not own. For her, the most interesting part of the game has been the interaction between the various PC crewmembers and their drunken oaf of a captain. But I’m not so sure that interaction was intended to be the EMPHASIS of the game (hard to say without reading the rules)…it’s just developed that way due to the disparate personalities of the players. But that’s the thing…you can’t count on your players always stepping up to that particular plate (and sometimes, you might not want them to!)!

: )