Stormbringer redux #23 - Cracking the Class & Genre Connection

EUREKA!

I've messed around several times with conceptions of how to use social class to tie together pre-existing mechanics in a way that emulates the writings of Michael Moorcock.

I think I've done it.

Take a look at this table.

This table organizes the different facets of a character (Class, Game Style, Wealth, Magic, and Bonds) in a useful framework explained below.

Social Class

Characters are created firmly enmeshed in the hierarchy of the Young Kingdom, with several game effects.

Vertical Relations - Characters of higher class will look down on and order about those below them, while lower class characters will fear and fawn before higher class ones. There is little to no repercussions for accosting people of lower class, while lower class people will be punished for bothering those above their station, with the penalty being more severe the farther apart the classes are. For example, a YK noble might have to apologize for insulting a Melnibonean, while a Merchant (urbanite) might be handed over to a torturer, and a farmer executed on the spot.


Changing Class - Characters of higher class can become lower class by choice (ie slumming temporarily) or by misfortune, ie stripped of the rank due to failing their sovereign or native land. Lower class characters may move up one rank by doing two things.

First, they need to choose a profession of the rank desired and learn the skills of that profession.

Second, they need to pay a guild 1000 coins of the currency of the rank to which they aspire. 

For example, a beggar wanting to become a warrior has to obtain the skills (First weapon x 5%, second x 4%, third at x3%, Ride at x 4%), and may have to pay for training if necessary, gather the requisite gear (weapons and armor), and pay a warrior’s guild 1000 LB. 

If a character wants to skip several levels, ie a Beggar wants to become a King, they have to pay 1000 x the number of levels jumped, plus gain the requisite skills, AND engineer the in-game narrative events leading to that change. A Beggar wanting to be a King would have to get the skills, pay 5000 LG (yikes), AND engineer some skullduggery to get that position. And still they would have to face treachery or opposition from outraged NPCs who hate the 'uppity' character.

Game Style

The Game Style suggests what type of adventures the character is suited for. This is not meant to be prescriptive, but as a guide for GMs and players, and the style of game is of course up to players & GM to decide.


Epic, or Elric Mode - In this style, the main focus is power and the cosmic struggle, with the following tenets.

• The powers that be are morally ambiguous, and will do anything to win.

• There is usually lots of discussion and investigation, and characters do not attack while parlaying. Combat is sparse and avoiding it to focus on the goal is the norm. NPC mooks or henchmen should be used as damage sponges where possible.

• Adventures are usually sagas stretching over multiple sessions, involving massing armies, travelling to exotic locales to gather objects of power, parlaying with treacherous nobles or sorcerers, and using magic to travel between realms and challenge the gods themselves!

• Any territory or objects of power obtained change the gameworld permanently, and may be met with repercussions.

Pulp, or Moonglum Mode - This style focuses on small scale capers and adventures against clearcut foes, with the following expectations.

• One shot, episodic adventures in which characters band together to search for treasure or fight evil.

• Enemies are black and white, with an occasional reversal or twist adding to the excitement.

• Magic is considered dangerous and evil, and is used with caution.

• Any wealth obtained is half squandered by the time the next adventure begins.

• Should include copious amounts of combat, stealth, treasure and carousing afterwards.

Note that Epic characters can play in Pulp games and vis versa, but are bound by restrictions on Wealth and Magic below.

Wealth

Abstract wealth (High classes) - Higher class characters in Epic adventures do not need to track money, and so long as the character is in their place (ie civilized part of their nation), they usually can obtain whatever reasonable gear they need.

• However, if an Epic character is cut off from their support, either by calamity during an Epic adventure or participation in a Pulp adventure, they roll starting money in their currency and can buy equipment or hire henchmen with that. For instance, a YK Noble who goes adventuring will roll starting money in Large Gold instead of Large Bronze.

• While adventuring, higher class characters are vulnerable to robbery and other loss of equipment.

• High class characters using abstract wealth WILL NOT give money willy nilly to poorer characters. They may hire them for INT x their currency a day. For instance, a Noble hiring a warrior and a beggar will pay the warrior INT x Large Bronze a day, while the beggar will receive INT x Small Bronze a day.

Concrete Wealth (Lower classes) - Lower class characters always need to track money, and must always pay or otherwise obtain any gear they need.

• While adventuring, lower class characters are vulnerable to robbery and other loss of equipment.

• Lower class characters CANNOT simply borrow wealth from high class characters who use abstract wealth. They may be hired for INT x their currency a day, as above. This inequality should spur lower class characters to accumulate enough wealth to change their class and improve their income.

Magic

This means that characters can use magic appropriate to their background.

• Nobles can try to become Agents of their deity.

• Elemental Priest Sorcerers can summon the elemental of their deity, or call on their deity for aid as per the Elan rules.

• Chaotic sorcerers can try to summon demons, or risk calling on their deity for aid as per the Elan rules.

• Lawful Priests or Agents can make or use Virtues, and may summon Elementals or call on their deity. They generally avoid using Demons unless in great need or explicitly permitted to do so. 

• Lower class characters wanting to use magic can either have it gifted (but will still need to bind it with a POW x POW roll), or may alternately increase their social standing and learn the requisite skills to become a Sorcerer, or Noble if they want to apply to be an Agent.

Note that some may cry foul that Agents are limited to Nobles, but all I can say is

Emperor Elric

Duke Dorian Hawkmoon

Prince Corum Jhealen Irsei

Bonds

Most characters are born bonded to their people and place, which comes with attendant benefits and drawbacks.

• They can expect support and civility from NPCs of the same class, nationality, or church, but will be exiled and hounded should they betray their bond.

• The table entries give groups they are especially loyal to, and can be rewarded for protecting or punished for betraying or neglecting.

• They are expected to follow the commands of their liege and protect their nation. Failure to do so can lead to exile, imprisonment, or a death sentence depending on the severity of the betrayal.

• The Dispossessed may not have obligations, but cannot expect any civility or support either.

Do You Need These Rules?

One of the big draws of Stormbringer for me is the real authentic sense of place and people it conveys by the great descriptions, effects of nationality, and of course inspirations from the fiction. If you want the same thing, consider implementing this as a GM guide rather than canon that must be followed slavishly. 

What of Hawkmoon's World?

You could definitely adapt this for Tragic Europe, but it is a sunny Sunday in the waning days of summer and I intend to spend it with sonny.

Take care!

Stormbringer Redux # 14 - Untangling The Threads of Stormbringer

Classic Stormbringer is a funny old game. In some places it replicates Moorcock's fiction, while in others it totally deviates from or subverts it. It has some mechanics and tropes from D&D and BRP, but also does lots of things entirely its own way.

So let's try to follow some of these strands to see Stormbringer's DNA, and the implications for running or playing the game.

I see three categories of Stormbringer concepts:

1) Moorcockisms (ie narrative conceits), what most of us lovers of the novels came for

2) Stormbringerisms (ie game designer conceits specific to the game), which were made supposedly to please us fans of Moorcock, but which largely go off in a different direction due to the change in genres from fiction to game

3) Chaosiumisms or D&Disms (ie mechanic conceits specific to certain systems), such as dice rolling or number crunching from the hobby's wargaming roots.

Let's look at a few of the major gameplay characteristics associated with Stormbringer to see where they come from, and whether they work or not.

Lethality

This is definitely a Stormbringerism. For Moorcock's characters, death serves the story, so there is no chance of an unlucky roll or a TPK. That said, regular Chaosium rules (ie Runequest) give a bit more robust characters than Stormbringer. From my rereading, the critical hits and fumble rules are the main culprit for Stormbringer's storied lethality, which is why I proposed a way to mitigate crit/fumble lethality while giving players more choice in my combat rules.

Personally, I have no problem with some lethality. Just as in Moorcock's fiction, a character's death should be linked to their choices, and thus the threat of death from the road the player puts his alter ego on gives a very Moorcockian vibe.

Random Nationalities

The different nations come from Moorcock, naturally, but the various bonuses (and especially penalties) attendant with them are Stormbringerisms. I used to think they add a bit of verisimilitude to characters through diversity, but the penalties especially are very D&D grognard in their 'challenge of using a hopeless character' ethic. As the designer notes in [2.3.10.3] on running a beggar,

"However, those players who enjoy a challenge may get a special kick out of attempting to beat the system and win with a character who is blind, deaf, or partially crippled. Any triumphs won with such a character would be correspondingly greater than those won by more normal characters. If you do choose to play a Beggar, you have my condolences and best wishes."

The problem I now see is that there is a decided lack of 'triumphs' in the system of Stormbringer. I suppose you could become an Agent, but this is a power up, not an endpoint. Alternatively, you could accumulate wealth and enough political power to rule a nation, thus gaining the ear of greater powers if you are also a sorcerer. But as noted, this would have to happen largely through GM fiat, as no overarching system exists for it. This system of linking social class and arcane power is precisely what I sketched out in previous posts on the cosmic struggle, and is something that I hope to complete at some point.

Although I used to swear by the old random nationality table, hearing the Breakfast in the Ruins podcast pisstake on it the other day, and based on my own reflections, if I ran or played Elric! or later editions, I would be happy to let it slide. I think modern players would appreciate the equality of all starting characters more, and at some point I may make up a Random Nationality table that provides balanced bonuses to all nationalities instead of rehashing the superior civilized and inferior savage dialectic the old table reinforces. Although this is a staple of pulp fiction, it is much less than fun in a game.

My few memories of national characteristics from Moorcock's fiction are either descriptions of personality (ie Melniboneans as cruel and aloof, Purple Towners as gregarious yet mercenary), or very brief introduction of troop types (ie Chalilite archers). This latter was my inspiration for the troop rules I posted earlier, and will inform any nationality rules if I devise them.

Churches of Law and Chaos

I do not recall mass worship churches of the planar forces ever being mentioned in the Elric books, save for the existence of the Theocrat of Pang Tang, whose title reflects the hierarchy of organized religion.　

As the designer notes at the start of the Magic section [5.1]

"Michael Moorcock is not a simple man, and he does not write simple stories. The implications behind his theology of Law and Chaos at war with each other are profound, and would bear considerable philosophizing, but this is not the place for it. Unfortunately, in order for this game to work well, I must simplify and abbreviate many of Moorcock's concepts."

This quote really points out the crux of the matter - for Moorcock's fiction to work as a game, it needs simplification & abbreviation. In the Elric novels, Law vs Chaos is NOT a 'theology', which is defined as religion or belief in god, but is rather a cosmology, an explanation of how the universe works. Stormbringer skirts the overarching cosmological system and replaces it with a theological system, so every PC or NPC can have their 'alignment' like in D&D, even if it doesn't mechanically matter for anyone but priests and agents. Law vs Chaos thus become a hybrid D&D / Stormbringerism.

Honestly, even though such a theological interpretation is largely absent from Moorcock's works, in a roleplaying game about lowlifes traipsing around the Young Kingdoms, it is acceptable, almost inescapable trope of D&D derived fantasy roleplaying games.

Magic

Many have already noted that the magic system of Stormbringer is largely ported over from Chaosium's Magic World, and the debate about whether Stormbringer magic is 'like in the books' rages on. Frankly speaking, no systematized magic in a game could ever satisfy or completely emulate what a great writer like Michael Moorcock makes up to further his story and the themes therein, so I will refrain from going into that. Magic in an RPG is thus inescapably a systemic conceit.

What I will say is that it is easy to see what works and what doesn't. The rules for Elementals work well - they are rules lite, narrative more than mechanic, and were largely untouched from 1st to 4th editions. Demon rules in 1E are half baked, which is why they went from an unfinished and disorganized mess in the first 3 editions to a GURPS style point buy in the 4th. I don't consider this a total success.

Lords of Law and Chaos are arguably overpowered for a game, but emulate the fiction, to an extent. I always objected with the D&D urge to stat out every god and demigod - shouldn't some beings be too powerful for the PCs to touch?

Once again, a balanced systemic approach is lacking with demon magic, which I hope to address sometime in the near future. For the time being, the random tables I previously posted to determine demon, elemental, and deity reaction to being summoned should give the GM some good narrative hooks to help them roleplay summoned entities better and more consistently.

Currency and Encumbrance

Breakfast in the Ruins rightly lambasted the currency and prices list especially, envisaging Moonglum and Elric bickering over the price of canoes. As they note, the trope of pulp fiction is, a la Conan, rags to riches and back to rags again next week. This would seem to be better abstracted instead of codified into currency and prices, which lean into the resource management aspect of D&D and wargames. Considering that Elric never touches money except in rare instances, enforcing bookkeeping would seem to detract from the game.

On the other hand, I could see this being useful if tied to social status and ambition within the larger struggle of the gameworld. As posted previously, I tied the currency of starting characters to their social status, and in our Stormbringer game the Melnibonean high priest that was generated instantly became the patron of all the other Young Kingdom adventurers. In future, I hope to add to this what old D&D bloggers like Hill Cantons call 'the domain game', where PCs play a long game of gaining wealth, buying influence, and building their base while acquiring followers.

If the beggar character mentioned by the game's designers and lambasted by Breakfast in the Ruins could have a chance of climbing the rungs of Young Kingdom society, and even playing a part in the struggle between Law and Chaos, THAT would certainly be a worthy triumph to shoot for.

Scenarios

As I noted before, the scenarios of Stormbringer are hit or miss. For every Hall of Risk that hints at the greater cosmology and sets things on a literal cosmic chessboard, there are a dozen Crystal of Daerdaerdath dungeon crawls that are ripped from D&D. To combat this, I implemented the system of life goals, and it has generated side quests and character motives that, by and large, obviate the need for a published scenario by producing organic and genre-appropriate character ack stories. Just take a look at the motivations of our party members:

Lord Soo (Melnibonean high priest)

Purpose: Restore Melnibone to glory (she was sacked by Pan Tang in our world)

Bones (Vilmir sailor)

Purpose: Get enough money to captain a ship again

Maleia (Dharijoran merchant)

Purpose: Protect her lord

That said, there are things to be ripped from old Stormbringer scenarios, as some of them did hit the mark on occasion. My campaign, The Laughing Tower, is an updated homage to The Hall of Risk, and for the next arc of our campaign, I will be repurposing the Sisters of Chaos from the Sea Kings sourcebook. Basically, I would probably not run any Stormbringer scenario from back in the day as is, but I would definitely take the best parts, amp them up, and fling them at my players.

Conclusion

Classic Stormbringer is a mixed bag, but also a trove of treasures that the original designers put their blood and souls into. I am finding my own ways to make it emulate the source material better, but I realize that it can never fully do that. As lovers of Moorcock's fiction, we have to be realistic about what we can expect the game to do, and what we might need to change to fit our conception of what Stormbringer should be. What complicates this for the GM is, of course, the players. Where fans of Moorcock might play true to character despite this leading to their doom (or even because it does) , a more D&D-honed or modern player might try to 'win' by exploiting gaps in the rules, such as when one player in my old game carried ten swords because they break often and there is no encumbrance system. So my final suggestion would be that GMs, as much as possible, let players in on what their conception of Stormbringer is, whether it is pulp or saga, or just D&D in Elric's world. That way, a better experience can be had by all.

DUNGEON ROBBER INSPIRATIONS

Show of hands from those of you wasting copious amounts of time on Blog of Holding’s ‘Dungeon Robber’ game?

 

Thought so. It is putting my thesis writing in jeopardy, the game is that good.

It has its bugs (a kobold killed me with d20 damage – WTF??), but the gameplay makes you forget those quick enough.

Anyway, the game also has tons of inspiration for tabletop gaming as well. For me, the biggest thing I’d swipe is the retirement system.

Now, before I get into details, I’d have to admit I am not a true grognard. I haven’t memorized the differences between woodbox vs whitebox vs BE vs BECMI vs RC. I haven’t bought or kept up on the domain games of ACK or whatever else is out there, so if I am reinventing the wheel, bear with me. I write this to make things clearer for me, and if a reader can get something out of it as well, bonus.

Hell, I can barely remember the domain system from my old gaming days and the Rulescyclopedia on my shelf. And that tells me they are too complex. If you can’t remember how a rule goes, it is probably not a good rule in terms of usability.

Dungeon Robber’s retirement system IS excellent in terms of usability. It is simple, memorable, and adds so much flavour to the game world based on character actions.

Basically, a player can ‘retire’ a character at any level past 1 and make that character a functioning part of the town they come from.

The town starts as a small hamlet, with very little goods or services. However, anyone retiring at level 2 becomes a Yeoman, producing more food which can be dropped to distract monsters. Retiring at level 3 makes one a Tavernkeeper, so henchmen can be recruited at their establishment. At level 4, a retired character becomes a Merchant, offering more useful equipment for sale and also unlocking the Thief class. At level 5, a retiree becomes a Gentle(wo)man, selling leather armor and rapiers. Level 6 sees the emergence of a Mayor, drawing a Smithy that can make proper swords and chainmail. A level 7 retiree is a Knight, so the Fighter class is unlocked and the Smithy can now produce plate armor and bastard swords. At level 8, the retired character becomes a Bishop, starting a temple selling healing potions and unlocking the Cleric class. A level 9 retiree is a Count(ess), who opens a Wizard’s college unlocking the class and a magic shop. Level 10 sees a Duke or Duchess, who erect a coliseum where you can train monsters or fight them. A character who retires at level 11 is a Prince(ss) who unlocks magical arms & armor. Finally, a level 12 retiree bcomes Queen or King, unlocking a Treasurey with powerful items.

And that’s your domain game right there. Simple yet brilliant, portable into any old school game, be it original or retroclone like DCC or S&W. It could be extended and played with in so many ways, offering multiple roles for retirees, letting the setting grow with the players, and providing a reason to keep useful characters going and let others drop into the scenery.

Good job Paul! I don't know whether you stole it from a pre-existing game or cobbled it together yourself, but either way great presentation.