Note: This post, as well as the seven others which will follow it next week, were originally written about two years ago. They were intended to be nothing more than a short series, building on my then-popular Cool Stuff in the Wrong Direction posts. The idea quickly caught fire in my imagination, and I started to develop and expand it beyond the original 8-post run.
Before I knew it, I’d written an entire book. Literally. For over a year now, I’ve had 150+ pages sitting on my hard drive while I work on gathering art and saving money to pay for a proper layout. My plan was to hold these posts in reserve until it was time for a big marketing push. The thought was that I’d post all of these, then after the last one went up I’d say “Didja like that? Well guess what, it was just the first draft of a book that is on sale right now!”
I don’t think it was a terrible plan, but the further out I get from originally writing these posts, the rougher my rough draft starts to look. At this point I don’t think they’re very representative of the quality of the book. Which isn’t to say they’re bad posts–I wouldn’t post them if I thought they were bad–but I don’t want to hold them in reserve any longer. It’s time to get these out of my drafts folder, and out into the world.
Enjoy!
It’s entirely possible that I’m just stupid. There have been many times when I felt certain that what I was looking for didn’t exist, only to be proven humiliatingly wrong the moment I opened my mouth about it. Having said that…
I’ve never seen a good explanation of how the nitty gritty of hex crawling is supposed to work. In the past when I’ve said this in a public space, I’ve been given links to some ostensible explanation. However interesting these links might be, they tend to focus on how a hex crawl ought to work in theory, and have never satisfied my curiosity about the practical, at-the-table mechanics of running one. I’m sure there are people out there who know exactly how a hex crawl should run in practice, but unless any of them want to explain it to me, I need to make the rules up myself. Just for the sake of being comprehensive, I’m going to start with the absurdly basic stuff.
Each hex is 6 miles across. The terrain type shown on the space accounts for the majority of the hex’s terrain. But just because a given hex shows plains doesn’t mean you can’t find a copse of trees there. Plains dominate the space, but the world’s environs aren’t actually broken down into hexes. The hexes are an abstraction. The straight lines between one environment and another actually represent a gradual, uneven transition. Saying “The trees become more spares, giving way to plains over the 6 hours you travel West” is fine. The map itself may be ugly, but since the players will be describing their movement in terms of how many hours they walk in a given direction, a more detailed map doesn’t really improve your ability to manage the campaign much. Though, there’s no harm in taking a prettier map and slapping a hex grid on top of it, that works just fine as well.
It has occasionally been pointed out that a 6 mile hex is ludicrously huge in size. Video games noted for their vast playing space, such as Oblivion or Skyrim, are small enough that the entirety of the game world would fit within a single hex. This vastness is actually beneficial in several ways:
It means that no matter how often the players travel through a given hex, you can always justify finding something new there. Barring significant effort, this ensures that a given wilderness environment never becomes safe and mundane.
The math for converting hexes into miles is very simple, if for some reason you ever need to do that.
It allows you to portray vastly different political situations, environments, and cultures, without forcing you to manage an unwieldy amount of game spaces.
Moving on: the most confusing thing about hex crawls for me has always been how to translate what the players say into what is happening on the hex map. In the past I’ve tried giving players a blank hex grid of their own so they could fill in spaces and tell me which edge of the hex they wanted to explore out of, but I don’t like how this feels. Players already have an idea of how to communicate movement in the wilderness using the cardinal directions. The hex map can be a great referee tool, but I’d prefer not to make the players think about the world in terms of hexes. Unfortunately, cardinal directions don’t always give you a good idea of what hex the players will move to.
If your map were drawn on this hex grid, it would be easy to know what to do if the players say “we go East,” or “we go West.” But what about the North/South axis? Do you choose to skew them slightly to the East, or slightly to the West of where they wanted to go? You could just determine it randomly, then remember to skew back in the other direction if they keep going. That would keep them moving in vaguely the right direction, and is probably the best choice for maximum simplicity. It’s not unreasonable to think they meander a bit as they travel.
If you’re more ambitious, you could try to keep an idea of where your players actually fall within their hex. This requires more granular tracking of how far your players move at a time, but it does have the benefit of making their time expenditure more meaningful, and of making it more clear what hex to move them into next. The geometric simplicity of a 6 mile hex, along with the fact that LotFP’s daily movement rates are all divisible by 6, should make this a feasible task. Though I can’t imagine doing it without constantly marking little travel lines on my hex map. I’d probably tend towards the simpler option myself, at least until I’m more confident running hex crawls than I currently am.
Which brings us to terrain difficulty. You can’t just have characters moving through mountains at the same speed they move along a road. Some hexes are more difficult to get through than others. There’s a whole range of methods, with varying degrees of complexity, that you could use to determine just how much travel is slowed on rough ground. For now, I’d like to keep it super simple. There are three types of terrain:
Normal. Players move at a normal rate through most terrains. If it doesn’t fit into either of the other categories, it’s normal.
Difficult. Players move at half speed. This is anything that would present a significant challenge to movement, like mountains or swamps.
Roads. Players move twice as fast so long as they’re walking along a road.
Hand in hand with terrain type is encounter checks. How do those work? How often do you check for them? Again, I say keep it simple. Check once per hex. Twice if the hex’s terrain is difficult, and once every second hex if the players are on a road. (That’s once every 6, 3, or 12 miles respectively). Commensurately, I’d probably place relatively uninteresting encounters along the roads. (After all, anything interesting will have been found), and more interesting encounters in difficult terrain. That creates a nice risk-reward dynamic between fast travel with no loot, and slow travel with tonsaloot.
So what are these encounters, and how are they determined? I’m a big proponent of Brendan’s overloaded encounter die. In ORWA, I use three different encounter die charts based on how frequently a check is required. This is what I use for my 4-hour checks, which I think should translate well to once-per-hex checks.
Encounter.
Location.
Spoor
Rations.
Lost
Safe
Encounters are stuff like wandering monsters or NPCs. They’re rolled on an overall list that covers multiple hexes, like an entire cluster of forest hexes, or maybe even just a whole hex map. There’s between 4 and 8 entries on this table, and nothing is too specific. I don’t want to have to restock it. The point of the encounter table is to provide a sense of cohesion. No matter where you go within the domain of the Goblin King, you might encounter a goblin war party.
Locations are the beating heart of the hex map. They’ll require some extended discussion, so I’ll do that below.
Spoors are hints. They’re footprints, eggs, nests, or a dropped note. They let you know that something exists nearby which you haven’t encountered. When you roll a spoor, you should flip a coin to determine whether it’s an encounter or a location, then roll on the appropriate table to find out what the spoor points to. Once you know that, you can tell the players what kind of spoor they find. Then it’s up to them to interpret it, and choose how to respond.
Rations means the players are tired and need to rest and eat. If they don’t, they’ll take whatever penalties tired and hungry characters suffer. (Personally, I call it a flat -1 to all rolls). This result can be dismissed if it comes up more than once in rapid succession, but having it attached to the encounter roll is a lot easier than tracking rations separately. A+++++ highly recommended.
Lost means that the players are lost. The referee doesn’t tell them that they’re lost, but you roll 1d6 to determine which direction they start moving in. Of course, if they’ve got some means to avoid getting lost, consider this a “safe” roll. Means do avoid getting lost would be following a road or river, having a guide who knows the area. or even just having a compass.
I’d actually be interested in exploring the idea of getting lost in greater depth, since it’s fairly easy to avoid it. Maybe compasses should be a lot more expensive than they usually are? A high level luxury, perhaps. But that discussion is for a different post.
Safe means nothing happens. Sometimes you move from one hex to the next hex without anything exciting happening.
Alright, so, Locations. Locations are tied to individual hexes. When the encounter die rolls a location, you have to check to see what hex the players are in, and then what locations exist in that hex. If a hex map were a dungeon map, the locations would be the room descriptions. But unlike a dungeon, the “rooms” are so vast that there’s only a small chance of seeing the description each time you pass through a hex.
Locations can really be anything. Of course they can be actual locations, such as villages, dungeons, altars, statues, magic trees, whatever. But they can also be something more transient. They can be wandering wizards, recently summoned demons, or a big scary monster. These are things you might normally think of as encounters, but they’re unique, so you don’t want to put them on the encounter list, which is meant to be more general.
How many locations should a hex have? From experience I can confirm that it’s easy to underestimate just how large an undertaking stocking a hex map really is. There’s no need to create a table of locations for each hex. It’s not like players are going to spend a ton of time exploring a single hex and run through all your work. Hexes are made for passing through. After a session of hex crawling, you can just go back through and restock all the hexes where the players discovered locations with new locations. That keeps the work a lot more manageable.
If you want to be safe, you could push it and put two locations in each hex, but honestly I think it’s fine putting just one location in each. Though that’s not to say you should feel bound by whatever your standard is. If one of your hexes is special for some reason, put as many locations in that hex as you like. Overall, though, it’s best to keep the standard number of locations per hex as low as possible.
Finally, what other information should be included in a hex crawl? I’d probably throw an overview in the front with a brief description of the region, its history, and the forces that are at play there. Something to keep short and sweet, since most of the flavor should be communicated through hex content and encounters. This is also where I’d make note of any particularly important and well known locations, like a large city in Hex XXX. The sort of thing everyone the players meet would be aware of, and which the players themselves might be on their way to reach.
I’d also write about any notable environs, particularly if they span multiple hexes. If the cluster of 8 forest hexes in the south of the map is “The Forest of Doom,” where gremlins sneak about through a persistent chest-height pink mist, that’s something the referee should be warned of up-front so they know to mention it as soon as the PCs enter that hex, even if they don’t think to check the hex’s information.
That’s everything I can think of for now. I don’t know if this has been a useful document for anyone else, but I have to say the process of writing it has made me feel more confident about preparing and running hex crawls, which is something I’m in the middle of doing right now.
Next week will be the first in a 7 part series of posts where I stock a hex map. In point of fact, this post started its life as a footnote on the first entry of that series.
Good dungeons have nigh-incoherent architecture. They exist to challenge players, which is the exact opposite design goal to just about any structure that exists in real life. This is why dungeons with realistic layouts are usually as dull as a -2 dagger. It’s also why most attempts to explain why a dungeon exists are embarrassing to endure.
None the less, giving a dungeon some reason to exist is incredibly useful for informing its development. There’s a few classic explanations that try to lend an understandable intent to the incoherent architecture: catacombs, temples, mad wizards, etc. All are tried-and-true ideas that do the job well enough, but sometimes it’s fun to reinvent the wheel.
The dungeon predates the world. Its shape correlates to mysteries of creation beyond the scope of an adventurer to even think about. It floated in space for eons before drifting into a gathering ball of dust that became our world.
A space ship which crashed here in ages long past. The auto-repair function was severely damaged, resulting in the difficult-to-navigate interior.
The dungeon has not actually been built yet. The structure of it moves backwards through time. It was destroyed long ago, and in the future someone will build it. Examining the architecture may reveal some clues about what is to come.
Built by a species of architect ant, which is compelled to create dungeons.
When the goblin wars ended, the two races came to terms. The races of men could have the surface, but only if they built a home for goblinkind beneath the earth.
The dungeon was built in an earlier age by a religion which still exists. It is a sacred site, but because many of its secrets have been lost to time, it is dangerous to explore.
The dungeon is alive. It builds itself. It reacts.
The dungeon is a board game for gods. They got bored with it when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, and have forgotten where they left it.
Built as a kind of rat’s maze, by a powerful cosmic entity. This is not hidden. Everybody knows that when you enter this dungeon, you’re being watched and tested. People go in anyway because the “cheese” is legitimately bounteous treasures.
Built by dinosaurs, who foresaw their death and the dominance of disgusting ape creatures. They built it and placed their greatest treasures within it to tempt as many of us as possible to our deaths.
Built by a guild of engineers and architects, as a showcase of their many and varied skills.
Eroded into existence by spiteful river spirits.
The biggest, most elaborate sex dungeon of all time. Built by the ruler of a sexocracy.
Was a facility for containing creatures and objects with dangerous abilities and unknown purpose. There was a breakout long ago, so many of these things have long since escaped into the world, and may even be widely known and considered normal today. (Perhaps nobody got cancer, pregnancy was easy, and human lifespan was triple what it is now). Some of the safeguards are still here and dangerous, some of the anomalies are still here and dangerous. Some of them are still contained, and the world is better for it. Dungeon should list some stuff that used to be better before the breakout.
Conquered locals were forced to build a palace for their new distant ruler. They intentionally built it to be dangerous and confusing for their oppressors.
An active temple for the god of foolhardy death. Attempting to plunder the temple is an act of religious devotion. At least, that’s what the priests say. Everyone else figures it’s just an elaborate form of human sacrifice. Sure, a few might make it out with fabulous wealth, but far more will perish in the attempt.
Built in ancient times by a jealous nation. They built this labyrinth in hopes it would be listed as one of the wonders of the world.
A subterranean civilization, digging up, did not realize eventually the earth would end and give way into the terrifying sky. Believing they had discovered hell, they created the most complicated maze of passages and rooms they could, to prevent the creatures from this terrible place from finding their way down into the wholesome lands below.
A time capsule, created to commemorate the 1,000th year of a city’s founding. It is meant to showcase their culture and civilization. And to play a few pranks on the naughty futuremen.
Some folks believe in craftsmanship. It doesn’t matter if nobody will ever see a thing, you still make it as beautiful and intricate as you can. Even if all you’re making is a sewer system, you do something to make that sewer system stand out. If not to people, then to god, who sees everything.
The structure of the dungeon is incredibly precise shape. A sort of ‘magic circle,” (though it is not a circle) used in an ancient summoning to create the moon.
A prince ordered the dungeon built long ago as a trial to test the valor of his potential suitors.
The holy temple of maturity. Before a girl of this tribe can be considered a woman, she must present a plan for a new corridor or room, and build it with her own two hands. She may be instructed, but never aided.
An alien algorithm meant for creating video games got ahold of some nanobots, sent them to our world, and built a dungeon for real.
Knowing they would be conquered when the campaigning season began, a whole civilization dedicated themselves to building this dungeon as a way of preventing their conquerors from ever finding their treasure. They sold their souls for magics. The whole treasures of their people are visible from the very first room, but are behind and impenetrable wall of death.
A structure built to trap a god, while still showing that god proper respect.
The dungeon itself is a kind of computer, and those who attempt to navigate it advance its computations through their actions. Once enough people have attempted to plunder it, the problem will be solved. It’s unclear what happens then.
There is a creature which gestates in dungeons, the way a bird gestates in an egg. The parent created this place to foster their child.
Once, men were at peace with a strange race, with strange needs. They built an embassy here, to better maintain relations. Eventually, though, peace broke down, and the two races parted ways. Only the embassy is left, as hostile to human life as it was necessary to theirs.
To play D&D in space, you need space ships which retain the individual agency of the players, even as they are all stuck inside a single vessel with a single pool of hit points. I first proposed my space ship system back in July of 2017, with a revision to the system coming just a week later. At the time, this was all theoretical. Now that I’ve been running Fuck the King of Space for a few months, I can tell that there’s something worth exploring here, but some tweaks are definitely needed.
Also, it has been annoying to have the system spread across two contradictory posts. I often meet people who are interested in the system, but put off by the way it is presented. So this post will explain space ships, as they exist now, in full detail.
And I do mean full detail. If you’d like a concise version of the 4,000+ words I’ve written below, check out the FKOS player document linked above. Ship rules are on pages 20 and 21. This post will include all the details too trivial to include there, as well as explanations of my thought process.
The Spaceship
Space ships are like characters. The ones controlled by the players will need a character sheet, probably managed by the referee. NPC ships need fewer details, and can be represented by as little as a statline.
Player ships have 8 basic variables to track.
Hit Dice: A measure of the ship’s build quality. This will probably start at 1 for any ship the players would have access to.
Hull Points: An abstraction of the ship’s ability to absorb damage before its systems start to break down. A ship’s hull points advance as a fighter’s, starting at 8, and increasing by 3 with each additional hit die.
Space: How much space is available on the ship for systems, modules, and cargo. It doesn’t only measure the internal volume of the vessel, but also how much weight the superstructure is able to support. (This is why external systems, like mechanical arms, still take up space)
A small ship would have 15-25 space inside of it. This would typically be a 1 or 2 man ship, with internal space ranging from a single seat, to the size of a studio apartment.
A moderately sized ship would have 26-50 space in it. These are your cargo vessels, your personal yachts, etc. They’ll have enough room for a crew to live and work, to carry cargo, or to serve as a platform for weapons.
A large ship would be anything with more than 50 space. These are mostly military ships. Weapons platforms, troop transports, flying fortresses, and even carriers which ferry around smaller ships inside of them.
As players tinker with their ship, adding or removing modules, the available space is likely to change relatively frequently. It is most helpful to express a ship’s space as a fraction: [Currently Used] / [Total]
Cargo Space: The difference between the currently used and total space on a ship. Anything left over once the ship’s systems are accounted for is how much room the ship has to haul cargo. The referee should track this between sessions. If the ship is ever carrying too much, the players will need to decide what they left behind before the start of play next session.
Maneuverability: The total amount of space a ship has determines its size category, as explained above. A ship’s size category determines its maneuverability. Small ships have 6, moderately sized ships have 3, large ships have 0. This will be the target number of any attacks made against the ship, modified by distance, and pilot skill.
Speed: Determined by the ship’s engines. For most vessels, it is 1 AU.
Power: Also determined by the ship’s engines, usually at a rate of 1 power per 1 space the engine takes up on the vessel. Most of a ship’s systems require power to operate, with the exception of things like living quarters and the cockpit. If the ship ever seems to have too many systems active at once, the referee should pause the action to take quick inventory of the party’s power usage.
For the sake of simplicity, most systems will work as described using only one power to operate. However, players can put extra power into a system to try an eke some extra functionality out of it.
For convenience, the referee may want to mark some of a ship’s systems as “assumed active.” Things like Life Support, and Artificial Gravity. Power can then be noted as a fraction: [Available Power] / [Total Power]. This will speed up the process of taking inventory whenever that needs to be done.
Fuel: Explicitly, this refers to the material a ship’s engine uses to generate power. But, it could also also be abstracted to include food and water. Each ship has a fuel tank which can store 10 fuel per 1 space it takes up. A point of fuel is consumed anytime the ship passes into a new hex or engages in space combat.
Improving a Ship
Most frequently, ships are improved by adding or upgrading their modules. You can think of modules as a ship’s tools and equipment. Where a player might carry a rope and wear leather armor, a ship might have a mechanical arm and a missile interception drone. Likewise, while a player might eventually upgrade to silk rope and plate armor, a ship might upgrade to tractor beams and energy shields.
The other way ships improve is by raising their hit dice, and thus, their hull points. This is done by overhauling a ship’s superstructure in a repair dock. To determine the cost, refer to the Fighter’s experience table, and multiply the experience requirement by 10.
So, to reach 2 hit dice requires 20,000 money. To reach 3 hit dice requires 40,000 money, and so on. This is exorbitantly expensive for two reasons.
First, as the ship is a shared resource, it is assumed the player’s will pool their money to improve it, and the cost must be a commensurate challenge. Second, because of the way combat works, it is highly desirable that ships are always in imminent danger of reaching 0hp, as this is where players will need to make the most interesting choices.
Spaceship Movement
A ship’s speed determines its local movement, measured in Astronomical Units, or AU. AU are an abstraction of the relative distance between objects. 3 dimensional space can be difficult to describe in exact terms, so it is sufficient for the referee to say “You are 2 AU away from the enemy ship, and 3 AU away from the planet’s gravity well.” Players will not describe their movement in terms of “North” or “South,” but rather, “Towards” or “Away” from points of reference.
No matter how fast a ship is locally, its interstellar movement rate is 1 hex at a time. Each hex of movement consumes 1 fuel, and prompts a roll of the hazard die. Space may be a vast empty void, but it’s more interesting if there’s stuff to encounter out there.
Ships equipped with a Jump Drive may skip the hazard roll, and travel quickly to any desired point in the galaxy. However, this requires 3 fuel per hex crossed.
Spaceship Combat
In most respects, ship combat works the same way combat normally does. Players who are operating weapon modules roll a d20. Their goal is to roll equal to or higher than their target’s maneuverability, which is modified by the skill roll of its pilot. Note that pilots make only a single roll each round, which establishes the target number for every attack made against their ship until the next round.
Attack rolls are modified by any native bonus the weapon operator may have. They also suffer a -1 penalty for every AU of distance between the attacker and the target. (Ships may close to 0 AU from one another to avoid this penalty.) Weapons may be set to fire automatically, but doing so requires at least one player to spend an action identifying valid targets. Automated weapons suffer a -2 penalty to attack.
When weapons hit, the attacking player rolls a d6 for damage, which is subtracted from the enemy vessel’s hull points. Hull points can only be restored by visiting a space dock, and each point of restoration costs 250 Darics. Ships can only be damaged by ship-scale weapons. Weapons small enough to be wielded by an individual character cannot typically affect a ship.
When a ship reaches 0hp, it is not destroyed. If a hit would reduce a ship below 0 hp, it is reduced to 0hp instead. Once a ship is at 0hp, additional hits affect the ship’s systems directly.
For each hit, the referee should roll to randomly determine one of the ship’s modules. Damage is then rolled normally, and that damage is applied both to the module, and to any character who was in that module or operating that system.
Damaged modules do not function, but they can be repaired. Each round, characters can make an engineering check to repair a system. If they succeed, they remove 2 damage from the system, if they fail, they only remove 1. If the system takes more damage while they are repairing it, they take that damage as well. Once a system has 0 damage, it can be brought back online at any time.
If a system or module takes 10 or more damage, then it is too mangled to be repaired in combat. Each engineering check to repair will take 1 hour of time, and will require access to the outside of the ship.
If a system or module takes 20 or more damage, it cannot be repaired in the field. The players will need to visit a repair dock.
Note that, using this system, it is actually very difficult for a ship to be destroyed. In fact, there is no explicit way to destroy a ship. There are two reasons for this.
First, it is much more interesting for the players to try and persist with a thoroughly disabled ship, than it is for them to simply die. Second, when everyone is sharing the same island of habitability in an endless void of death, a destroyed ship is an instant TPK. Running a game with lethality that high seems like a chore to me.
Modules & Systems
As noted above, a ship’s modules & systems are analogous to a character’s equipment. And, like equipment, players are meant to use them creatively. Just as a rope could be used for climbing, or creating a tripline, or making a lasso; so too can a ship’s artificial gravity be used to keep people on the ground, or to increase everybody’s weight tenfold, or to shove them up against the ceiling.
The goal here is to make sure every character can find something to do with themselves. It’s no fun if the pilot decides where we go, and the gunners decide what we shoot, and everybody else is just sitting in the back seat making suggestions. They should be able to tinker with systems, alter the way they work, or juice them up with extra power to make them do something beyond their normal capabilities.
This list is suggestive, not exhaustive.
Basic & Essential Modules
Engine (Variable Space)
Engines both produce a ship’s power, and consume some of that power to create thrust. Most engines produce 1 power for every unit of space they take up, and can provide 1 AU of speed for every point of power put back into them. Though, more advanced engines that improve on those numbers may exist.
Most engines take up 5 space (and, thus, produce 5 power). Engines of this size cost 4,000 Darics. Successively larger engines increase in cost by 50% for every extra unit of space/power they have. So, an engine which produced 6 power would cost 6,000 Darics. An engine that produced 7 power would cost 9,000 Darics. Engines sell for 1/2 their purchase price.
There is no way to ‘upgrade’ an existing engine to provide more power, nor can multiple engines work effectively in tandem with one another. To improve a ship’s engines, an entirely new engine must be purchased.
Jump Drive (1 Space)
Allows a ship to accelerate beyond the speed of light, traversing years of distance in mere hours. Jump drives function only in open space. If a ship attempts to jump while in a gravity well, or if they pass through a gravity well during a jump, their engine will shut down.
Because space is a vast empty void, any malfunction could leave a ship stranded in the literal middle of nowhere. With no chance of rescue, the crew would be lost for all time. To minimize this risk, Jumps are carefully planned to pass within communications range of as many inhabited worlds as possible. Making these calculations in any sort of reasonable time-span requires a navigation computer.
Navigation Computer (1 Space)
Without a NaviComp, plotting a course takes 2 hours per hex the jump will cross. With one, a safe jump to any location in the galaxy can be plotted within 10 minutes.
In an emergency, NaviComps can be used to calculate short-range (1 hex) jumps in as little as 1 minute, but there is a 1-in-6 chance the ship will encounter a hazard if this is attempted. When this happens, the ship’s hull points will be reduced to 0, and every system will take 5 points of damage.
In the most dire of emergencies, players may attempt to plot a 1-hex jump in a single round. If the players are mad enough to try this, have them roll a d6. If a 6 is rolled, the jump completes successfully. On a 2-5, the ship encounters a hazard as described above. On a 1, the jump fails almost immediately. The ship moves 1d6 AU from where it started, and both the engine and the Jump Drive take 15 damage.
Cockpit (1 Space)(No Power Required)
Essential for any ship. The cockpit houses the piloting controls, and may have several other control stations in it as well. Any character is capable of performing the basic functions of piloting a ship, but when attempting particularly tricky maneuvers, or trying to evade enemy fire, there’s no substitute for a trained pilot.
Artificial Gravity (1 Space)
Beneath the deck plates of most ships are microgravity generators. Tiny things, individually cheap, arranged in a latticework to create a simulation of comfortable gravity within the relatively tiny space between the floor and ceiling of a space ship’s rooms.
Without gravity, it is very difficult to move around inside of a ship. Particularly because ships have not been designed to to be navigated without gravity since pre-history. Meaningful rest in a ship without gravity is basically impossible.
Atmosphere Recycler (1 Space)
Maintains oxygen and heat to human comfort throughout the ship. Without it, the crew would need to wear environment suits to survive.
If the AtmoRecycler loses power, conditions will degrade rapidly. One minute after the system loses power (10 turns), everyone within the ship has their maximum hit points reduced to what their max was at 1st level. Additionally, actions take twice as long to attempt as normal.
For each successive minute this condition persists, maximum hit points are reduced by 1, and the number of rounds required for an action is increased by 1.
So, after 1 minute, a fighter’s maximum hit points would be 8, and it would take them 2 rounds to make a single repair check. After 2 minutes, their max hp would be 7, and it would take 3 rounds to make a repair check, so on, and so forth.
Communications (2 Space)
Basic units allow for communication with anything in the same hex as you. If there is a relay satellite within range, you may be able to connect to a larger communications network.
More powerful comm systems exist, which allow connection to be made with even more distant recipients.
Sensors (2 Space)
Allows the operator to discover information about their environment. Can scan up to 1 AU away for every point of power pumped into the system.
Without sensors, players are limited to what information is transmitted to them directly, and what they can see with their eyes out the viewports. They may not even be aware of an enemy ship until it’s in the same AU that they are.
Housing for People and Objects
Living Quarters (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 3 people for every 1 unit of space. Without these, characters cannot rest to recover hit points on the ship.
Brig (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Can house 2 prisoners for every 1 unit of space.
Magic Laboratory (Variable Space)(No Power Required)
Functions as any magic laboratory. Shipboard labs require 1 space for every 5,000 total value they have.
Science Laboratory (2 Space)
Allows characters to perform scientific analysis or research on their ship.
Cryogenics (Variable Space)
Requires 1 space and 1 power for every 2 frozen people. If power to this room is lost, each frozen person has a 1-in-6 chance to die, re-rolled every hour.
Docking Bay (Variable Space)(Does not require any power)
Docking bays may be any size, but must be at least 1 space larger than the total space of all the ships it will contain.
Docking bays are often left open to space, with only a mag-shield keeping heat and atmosphere contained. (Even so, they tend to be chilly). If need be, they do have sliding doors which can move into place.
Escape Pod (3 Space)(Does not require any power)
Each pod can house 2 people. They have minimal life support, 3 fuel, 1AU thrusters, no Jump Drive, minimal sensors, a robust communications package, and food to last about a week.
Useful Doohickeys
Autopilot (1 Space)
Autopilots are computers which can operate the ship in lieu of a living pilot. The most common, affordable autopilots have no piloting skill to roll at all, automatically rolling a ‘0’ any time a roll is called for. More advanced autopilots have a d4, d6, d8, or d10 pilot skill. Autopilots with d12 skill have not yet been invented, and even a d10 autopilot is extraordinarily rare and expensive.
Door Blast Shielding (1 Space)
Without power, this central control allows individual doors to be opened, close, locked, and unlocked remotely. When powered, this system generates a shield around each door, making them dramatically more difficult to force open.
Fire Suppression System (1 Space)
Fires on a space ship are a very bad thing. Without a robust fire suppression system, the only reliable way to put one out is to vent the area into space, which gets the job done, but also causes you to lose anything that wasn’t nailed down on a path between the airlock and the fire.
If the system is already active when the fire starts, it will automatically activate when needed.
Cloak (5 Space)
Blocks all incoming sensors, AND outgoing sensors. Makes a ship invisible, but blind. This hindrance may be circumvented by an external sensor drone, or by a significantly more advanced cloak.
Hacking Station (2 Space)
Emits a special, penetrating signal which allows hacking to be attempted across the void of space. When operating normally, the system works at 0 AU. It may be overpowered to extend its range.
Arms (2 Space per Arm)
Tractor beams are expensive. Mechanical arms mounted on the exterior of the ship allow the operator to directly manipulate objects within the ship’s immediate vicinity.
Tractor Beam (1 Space Per Beam)
If you can afford them, tractor beams are superior to mechanical arms in nearly every way. As an energy-based manipulator, they have greater flexibility, range of motion, strength, responsiveness, and even take up less room. Just about the only drawbacks are that they must have line of sight (rarely a problem in open space), and that they can be disrupted more easily than physical arms can.
ExoPod (2 Space)
A small, 1 person pod with thrusters to allow it to move independently of its host ship. Power, atmosphere, etc are provided to the ExoPod via a cabel, which can reach up to 1 AU away from the ship. Weapons may be mounted on the ExoPod if the players so desire.
Gravity Well Generator (12 Space)
Creates a miniature gravity well, preventing any ship from engaging a jump drive within 30 AU. Can also be used to drag ships out of a jump, if the operator can predict their path. Being pulled from a jump unexpectedly works like encountering a hazard, as described in the Navigation Computer module above.
Weapons & Armor
Shields (5 Space)
Shields reduce incoming damage by a set amount. Usually 1, though more advanced shields may be available. If a player specifically orients the shields in a specific direction (fore, aft, port, starboard, up, or down), then their effectiveness is doubled in that direction, and completely removed in all other directions.
Blaster Cannon (1 Space)
A basic weapon which, like all weapons, deals d6 damage. Multi-barrel variants exist, including dual-, tri-, and quad-. Each additional barrel multiplies the price by 2x, and increases the critical range of the weapon by 1. (So a dual blaster cannon crits on a 19 or 20, etc.)
Halberd Laser
Has a maximum effective range of 2AU. If the target vessel is at 0 hull points, the Halberd can be used to target 2 different systems with the same attack. Overcharging the laser may allow for additional systems to be hit.
Space Torpedo
Firing a torpedo first requires that the operator spend a round establishing a target lock. This is done by making an attack roll. On a successful ‘hit,’ the lock is established, and the torpedo can be fired next round. Torpedos bypass any shields a target may have.
Flak Cannon
Designed to overload a ship’s shields, and temporarily take them down. Can only be used at 0 AU from the target. On a successful hit, the target’s shields are down for 1d6 rounds before they can recharge.
Drones
Drone Control System (2 space + 1 per Drone)(No Power Required)
A prerequisite for a ship to be able to operate drones. By itself, the control system requires no power. However, each active drone does require power. Not because it is drawing power from the ship, but because the Drone Control System needs power in order to operate an active drone.
Anti-Missile Drone
Equipped with auto-trackers, and a highly specialized non-damaging laser. Combines its own data with that of its mother ship to perfectly triangulate incoming missiles, and trick them into detonating early. Has a 4-in-6 chance of success, and may attempt to shoot down up to 2 missiles each round.
Probe
Equipped with a full range of sensors. Can be sent out at a speed of 1AU per round, or may be left in a fixed position. Probes are difficult to detect (d12 stealth), and will relay information back to their mother ship up to 1 hex away, assuming no interference.
Weapon Platform Drone
Must be equipped with a weapon. Drone may be placed at any location within 10 AU of the mother ship. The weapon can be operated remotely, or given a set of automated instructions (with the usual penalties).
Repair Drone
A robot on magnetic treads. When activated, it will pop out of its nook, and trundle to the nearest damaged system to begin repairs. It is able to repair 1 damage each round it works.
Sample Character Sheet
This is the sheet I maintain for my players’ ship in Fuck the King of Space. Modules I’ve marked with “ON” are those which I assume the players have running unless they say otherwise. Modules marked with an X are those which do not require any power to function.
After each session, I update the sheet to show the hit points, space, cargo, and fuel the players ended the session with. I then share the updated sheet with my players, so they know whether they need to urgently take care of any issues.
The Bosco HD 1 HP 8/8 Space 29/45 Cargo: 2/16 (2 space are secure) Maneuverability 3 Speed 1 AU Power 4/7 Fuel 30/30
Nobody wants to bother with a full sheet for every NPC they encounter, let alone every ship. If the amount of fuel another ship has becomes relevant, the referee can make a roll. The pre-prepared information should stick to what is most likely to be relevant. Something like this:
Modules: 2 Blaster Cannons, Cockpit, Engines, AtmoRecycler, Gravity Generator, Sensors, Communications, JumpDrive, NavComp, Door Blast Shielding, Escape Pod
It may seem tedious to list out all the basic stuff (cockpit, engines…) but it’ll make things easier when it comes time to randomly determine which systems are hit in combat.
Conclusions
I recognize this system is far from perfect, but I think it’s more on the right track than any other space ship system I’ve read. It accommodates most of the things that interest me when I think about battles in space; and it does so without being a clusterfuck of complexity.
That being said, there are some flaws I have not yet addressed. The big one is that there’s no provision for players saying “target their weapons!” I suppose I might be fine with it if the target ship were at 0hp, but then, it seems uncool that players are allowed to make such decisions, while NPCs have to roll randomly. I could let NPCs make the decision as well, but then I don’t think there would be as many interesting results. Why disable a ship’s gravity when you could disable their engines?
Complexity is another thing that worries me. This system isn’t nuts, but it’s not exactly rules-lite either. I have a tendency to over-complicate things initially, then gradually shave away everything superfluous. I’ve already done that with this system to some extent, but it still feels a little heavy.
“Balance” is another sticking point. By which I mean “what numbers should I assign to things in order to achieve the results I want?”
For example, earlier drafts of this system had the basic engine being a size 10 (both space and power). I eventually noticed that this never forced the players to make any hard decisions about which systems had power. When I started FKOS, I reduced this to 5, but the players quickly went out to purchase additional engines, which led to the rule I came up with for this revision that engines must be replaced entirely in order to upgrade.
Furthermore, the system is notably incomplete. Modules lack prices (because of that same uncertainty about numbers), the weapons are underdeveloped and bland. There are a lot of questions I haven’t had to answer yet. Eventually I’ll probably make a snap judgement ruling at the table, and immediately regret it.
A little bit ago, I was looking for sources on a post I was writing, and I stumbled on this challenge issued by Kiel back in 2015. Essentially, it’s a call for referees to revel in self-indulgence by writing up a bunch of details for their setting that players probably won’t care about. I never saw this at the time, but after 3 years I think we’re long past due to try for it again.
And since this is one of those dumb “tag three people” things, I have chosen Red Flanagan, Chris H. and Tore Nielson to follow my bad example and post their own self-indulgent campaign world exposition. I’ll turn each of those names into a link when the associated person answers the call.
Since I have two big active campaigns–On a Red World Alone and Fuck the King of Space–it only seems appropriate to perform this exercise for both of them. But I will not punish you by spreading this out over two posts. Below are 20 random facts about my campaign worlds, 10 from each active campaign.
On a Red World Alone
1 – Penelope the Seleucid is older than anyone realizes. Old enough that her name is an accurate and literal description of her. She was one of the few magicians who had mastered the craft prior to humanity’s transplantation to the red world. She predicted that mars would bring about a revolution in wizardry, and even encouraged some of her contemporaries to join her in emigrating, but only she was will to abandon her existing power structures on the dubious promise of increased access to magic. By the time anyone realized just how profoundly mars impacted the abilities of magicians, Earth was a field of rubble in space.
Penelope has fostered generations of apprentices in the dome, and guided the magic community into its current form. She is well known and respected by the highest class of wizards, but rarely spoken of since she retreated from public life some 150 years ago.
2 – Most working technology is due to the efforts of Techno Priests. This strange sect have a series of rituals based on tech support manuals. Acolytes first learn to check if a thing is plugged in, and to turn it off, then back on again. The most learned priests carry soldering irons like scepters, and can perform rudimentary circuit board repairs with them. Even the highest ranking among them, however, don’t actually understand why what they’re doing works. It’s just rote ritual to them.
3 – Occasionally, a form of mutated human will become consistent enough that it could be called a species unto itself. Morthuks were one such mutation. Slime-skinned things, with soft bones, and overall too sensitive harm–physical and emotional. They were deeply distrusted due to their moderate ability to plant suggestions in people’s minds. Sixty years ago, after a rash of suicides were blamed on them, they were subject to a series of pogroms which were thought to have wiped them out.
When the Internet came into existence, they made a point to gather up every specimen still extant; those living in the depths of the sewers, or in the private menageries of various Wizards and Redstone Lords. They managed to collect a breeding population of 12 of the things, but were never able to make use of them in any meaningful way. The creatures were eventually forgotten about and–recently–escaped.
Using their ability to make suggestions, as well as by espousing a platform of Mutant Supremacy, they were quickly able to establish a sizable little territory for themselves, which they dubbed New Morthuka.
4 – When Mongrel the Magician was killed by The Breakfast Club, the many ape-men he had created to be his servants didn’t have anywhere to go, but knew they wanted to stick together. They made their way out of Comet Caller territory (where they would doubtless be dissected by someone eager to learn Mongrel’s secrets), towards the edges of Outsider territory. There they constructed a barricade wall for themselves, turning the center of a 5-way intersection into a private encampment they dubbed “Ape City.” The locals hate them for their travel-disrupting walls, but the Outsiders themselves are loathe to get involved. It is really on the outer edges of their concern, after all. Besides, they have a certain respect for the ape men’s resolve. The Highlander actually quite interested in how the Ape Men might be put to use to serve Outsider interests.
5 – The sewers beneath the dome are bizarrely labyrinthine. The Dome is, after all, a planned settlement. The first brick was not laid until the whole thing had been thoroughly diagrammed in every aspect. Why, then, do its sewers snake back and forth in maddening patterns?
The truth is, the ‘sewers’ were already present when the surveyors first arrived on Mars to scout out a suitable location to build. Everyone who knew about this considered it fortuitous. Think of all the money they’d save! For unknown reasons, it never occurred to anyone who knew this fact to consider how strange it was for these sewers to be there. But it did seem obvious that their presence should be kept secret. I mean, right? Finding mysterious structures on an uninhabited world just seems like the sort of thing you don’t share with people.
6 – There are a number of space stations in orbit above Mars. One was meant to serve as port for ships to come and go from, to limit the number of vessels that had to do the expensive work of dropping down onto, and coming up from, the Martian surface. Others housed communication, observation, and operation facilities. With no ready source to replenish their fuel, these were abandoned within a few years of the catastrophe that destroyed earth, with only robots left up there to man them.
The signal codes meant to command those robots have long since been discovered and used by the Internet, to no avail whatsoever. If the machines are still operating up there, they’re no longer listening.
7 – The Internet, as an official organization, has existed for roughly 15 years. It was originally founded as a sort of non-aggression pact between rival wizards. Among those working to understand technology and become Techno-Wizards, the _Brain Drain_ spell became an endemic problem. Every year, promising researchers were found with their minds drained of all knowledge by some rival.
When the constitution of the Internet was signed, there were only two immutable laws put down. First, _Brain Drain_ was banned completely, regardless of subject. Even having the spell inscribed in your library was forbidden. Second, it was decided that no one outside the Internet’s control should be permitted to understand technology.
Unbeknownst to the Techno Priests, Internet conspirators have worked to inject several doctrines into their faith. Most notably, it is heresy to try and understand technology without strict adherence to the rote memorizations of the support manuals.
8 – Legally, the Dukes of the Dome are not a single territory. They’re a confederation, united by a mutual defense pact against the larger territories that surround them. In practice, only the Dukes themselves care about their individual microterritories anymore, some of which are little more than a single building. The common people tire of the squabbling between dukes that occurs whenever there is no external threat. They have a strong shared culture, and a unification movement is growing in strength. Particularly now, after so much territory was lost in wars against The Redstone Lords, Technotopia, and New Morthuka in the last two years.
Some of the more powerful dukes are quietly courting the movement, believing their own power might be increased. The weaker dukes are fiercely opposed, believing that unification for them will be no different from outright conquest.
9 – In the last days of Earth, retro technology was all the rage. Everybody had an old Apple ][ or IBM 486 to play with. (All retrofitted with modern cold microfusion power sources, of course). As a result, technology in the post apocalyptic dome is wildly anachronistic. USB Flash Drives exist, and they’re great, but sometimes all a person is going to be able to find to store their data on is a CD, or floppy disk. And with no new computers being manufactured, sometimes that’s got to be good enough.
10 – Nearly everyone in the dome was raised “Beneath the Black.” It’s the dominant religion, though there are a number of others (including the TechnoFaith).
Preachers Beneath the Black tell us that the black sky above is a benevolent blanket of protection, holding back the white hot fires of destruction that wish to destroy all life. What we call “stars,” are holes pierced that have been pierced through this protective curtain by the sins of man.
Fuck the King of Space
1 – Distant Tumon is the god worshiped by The Most Reverent Faithful. The church wields significant power in the Kingdom Galactic, with an entire bureaucracy existing alongside the King’s. Only the lowliest priests are not members of the 36,000 families, and those who aren’t see an instantaneous leap in their status within the Kingdom.
For millennia, the King was also the Ur Flamen of the Church. However, “independence for the priesthood” was the pretense under which Kulga “Bloodfist” Osbert waged the wars which brought the current Osbert dynasty to power. Thus, the Most Reverent Faithful have a vested interest in maintaining the legitimacy of the crown–though they are aware that if the crown is ever too discredited, some future warlord might start a war to “return the office of the King to its traditional religious dignity,” or some such thing.
Given how terrible a King Bassiana Osbert is turning out to be, the Church has been forced to walk a political tightrope these last few years.
2 – A few hundred years back, some schismatic nobles lost their bid to establish some change that nobody remembers, and went into a self-imposed exile. They made a big to-do of finding the first world–Earth–and building their castles there. No one much cared at the time, and after so many years, the only ones who even know about it are those descendants still living in the castles of earth.
3 – The King is a classic Tiberius figure. She’s checked out of the day-to-days of her kingdom, indulging her own hedonism and leaving the busywork of rulership to more interested men and women. As such, the de facto highest authority in the Kingdom Galactic is the Table of Invested Citizens, a group of the 11 wealthiest Nobles alive.
4 – Every unit of the King’s Loyal Soldiers (KLS) has one former criminal in it. These criminals have had parts of their brain surgically removed, and replaced with lab-grown grey matter, which makes them unfaltering loyal to the King. The idea is that this will ensure no unit can easily turn traitor, since any which tries will have a strong core of loyalty either to dissuade them, or report on their plans.
In reality, these hyperloyals are easy to spot, easy to avoid, and even easier to fool. Soldiers learn how to manage their local nark quickly, just to facilitate the normal lapses in discipline common to any military unit. The program is thus completely ineffective, but it plays well with conservative, out-of-touch nobles.
5 – It’s something of a popular myth that the 36,000 families or an organization of merit. It’s the Great Galactic Dream: if you work hard, fight hard, and make hard sacrifices, someday your family may be elevated to join their ranks. It’s a myth that’s easy to perpetrate, as there are too many families for most people to keep track of.
In truth, nearly all 36,000 families derive their position from ancient bloodlines, meticulously traced back further than most reliable histories are able to go. Only the lowest 300 ranks of the nobility are any kind of meritocracy, and those are not granted for hard work, great sacrifice, or heroism in war. They are sold to the highest bidder, and held for only so long as a family remains prosperous enough to afford them.
6 – Bluesidian is a teal mineral. It’s brittle like stone, but can be melted down and forged like a metal. It has little practical purpose, and thus is used almost entirely to create artistic displays of ostentatious wealth. It is also occasionally used in transactions where Darics are too trivial a currency to bother with. A loaf of bread or a space ship can be purchased with Darics. If you want to buy or sell whole worlds, you deal in bluesidian.
7 – The galaxy is full of countless alien species. Unfortunately for them, none managed to develop space travel before they were discovered by the rapidly expanding human race. Or, if they did have space travel, they were too peaceful, or too weak to put up much of a fight when Humanity decided to show them who was boss.
At first, humanity dominated these ‘rivals’ with superior technology. The implemented one absolute law for non-humans, which stands to this day: they can never settle off their world of origin, save by the explicit permission of the king. The punishment for disobedience is genocide.
In modern times, the difference in technology between humans and non-humans is much less pronounced. Though, aliens are legally barred from access to the most modern high technologies. However, millennia of the One-World policy has led to a different sort of imbalance. Humanity as an inconceivably overwhelming advantage in numbers. If every non-human were counted together, they would amount to less than one third of the galaxy’s human population. The KLS alone outnumber the entire population of any dozen races taken together.
8 – “Magic” is the word used to describe anything that completely defies the scientific method. Magic cannot be repeated. Each time a spell is cast, it has to be done slightly differently. It’s not really accurate to describe a magician as “knowing” a spell. Rather, a magician becomes familiar enough with the feel of a spell, that they gain an intuition about it. In a given moment, at a given galactic position, they can work out what needs to be done to make that spell work. But what they did could never produce the same result again, no matter how identical the material conditions were replicated.
9 – The CommNet is so heavily regulated and censored, that it can’t really be used for much of interest or import. Much more useful is the RatNet, (short for Pirate Network), maintained by a dedicated contingent of relay ship operators. They’re forced to constantly move about to stay ahead of the KLS, and CommNet Men, without ever leaving the sector their relay ship serves. It’s the closest thing that exists to an organized resistance to the established order on a galactic scale. Though, few running the RatNet has any such grandiose ambitions.
It’s always tricky to access the RatNet. A hacking check is required just to log in. And you never know how strong your connection will be, since your local relay ship might be close by, or it might be on the other side of the sector.
10 – A few centuries back, the Guild of Robot Craftspeople successfully lobbied to outlaw human slavery. Limited indenture is still a common punishment for many crimes, but only where a clear and feasible path out of indenture exists.
This is a great source of frustration to the Union of Sapient Machines, which doesn’t see why low-class humans deserve a special dispensation not afforded to low-class robots.
A few months back I wrote about how conspiracies fit into my game. Little mysteries sprinkled into the background, obfuscated to the point where they’re really just something I do for myself. Within a week or two of posting that, I found myself in a relevant conversation with John Bell. He argued that it was better to develop campaigns around a central problem, rather than a central mystery.
That dichotomy has been bouncing around in my head ever since. It feels true to me. It’s not necessarily in conflict with the way I run conspiracies, but when I look back over the many campaigns I’ve run in the past, mysteries are consistently more central than problems are. Dungeon Moon is the only exception to this, where the clearly stated central problem was “How do we get off of Dungeon Moon?”
Players understand how to engage with problems. Problem solving is what the game is built on. It only makes sense that the room-to-room or hex-to-hex problems they encounter while adventuring exist in the shadow of some great looming problem that lends a suggested direction to play.
In particular, what is great about problems compared to mysteries (this was John’s main point), is that they allow for a healthier flow of information. With a mystery, the referee has to be a little anxious about how much they give away. If the players get too much information, the mystery is ruined. Almost by necessity, the referee has to err on the side withholding too much, rather than revealing too much. Much as I enjoy weaving a mystery into the game here and there, this stifled information flow is anathema to my general principles. I’m the guy who got rid of the search roll because I don’t like withholding information from players that I feel they’ve earned.
A central problem allows for the opposite approach. The referee can err on the side of giving the players too much information, because understanding a problem is no guarantee of being able to solve that problem.
In pondering the relative merits of mysteries and problems, my thoughts keep drifting to John’s old Necrocarserous campaign. Playing in that campaign was pivotally educational for me, and directly inspired way more of my blog posts than I’ve ever openly admitted. That campaign had a number of big, ‘central’ problems, but the one that stands out to me the most is the issue of Nepenthe.
Without digressing into a full explanation of the campaign world, I’ll just say that it’s a well known fact that every person in that world has had their memories stolen from them. These stolen memories are distilled into a liquid, called Nepenthe. Finding and reclaiming your own Nepenthe would be a huge boost to any character. We decided this was something we wanted to pursue.
There was some initial mystery in discovering where our Nepenthe was, but we actually solved that pretty quick. We knew what Nepenthe was, and that ours existed somewhere in the world, so we knew what questions to ask. The larger problem was getting to each of our Nepenthes (they weren’t all in the same place), and recovering them from whatever barriers might protect them.
We never accomplished that goal, but the struggle is something I remember fondly, and I’m sincerely proud of the clever solutions we employed along the way. In contrast, I don’t know that any of my players have ever really been aware of the mysteries going on around them in my campaigns. They’re fun for me, certainly, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having them. But I do think that failing to include some central problem has been a major failing of mine, and it’s something I’d like to remedy.
As an exercise, here are 12 potential central problems. Some of them include a bit of initial mystery. But, like Nepenthe, those mysteries can be presented frankly to the player, and solving them does not in itself overcome the problem.
A powerful government spy agency is constantly ferreting out everybody’s secrets. Even private conversations in your own home may lead to finding one of their dreaded blue envelopes in your pocket the next day. Public shaming and fines for improper thoughts are common.
The undermen–creatures of the deep earth–have reclaimed all metals and ores stolen from their lands by human invaders. Humanity has been forced to fall back on tools of wood and stone. The undermen occasionally burrow up for “surprise inspections.”
A titanic beast wanders the campaign world, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Its feet are the size of castles. Fighting it in any conventional sense is an absurd notion. Its body is crawling with otherworldly parasites that are themselves massive and dangerous beasts. The most noble and revered vocation is as the creature’s herald. Brave men and women ride ahead of the creature, evacuating settlements with as much advance warning as they can manage. The world has no great cities, no settlements older than a few decades.
An army of conquest is sweeping forward through the land. Wherever they go is changed, permanently. They impost strict laws, and harsh punishments. They gradually transform lighthearted D&D adventure land into a grueling, grimdark police state.
A virulent disease passes over the world in waves. Most who contract it are killed, and those who survive are mutated into horrible creatures which ought to be killed. The disease has rampaged for so long that no one now living can remember a time without it. The population of the human race has been dangerously reduced by its ravages. Any NPC the players encounter has a 1-in-6 chance to have contracted it if the players wish to go back and see them again.
At birth, every child’s soul is extracted by the Priests of the Only God. These souls are carefully stored and catalogued by the Divine Bureaucracy, held hostage to ensure everyone’s continued faith, and obedience to the traditional interpretations of the Only God’s Law. A select caste of nobility are allowed to retain their souls, which in turn makes those nobles stronger and more capable than their subject peoples.
Humanity is dominated by an alien force from another world. They use their advanced technology to keep humanity trapped in a perpetual middle age.
The world is wracked by endless conflicts between rival wizards. No community–however remote–lasts long before half their population is drafted into some wizard’s army, or rounded up to serve as test subjects for some vile experiment.
The sea god never wanted humans anywhere near her domain. She tolerated swimming, that wasn’t too bad. But she views the invention of ships as an insult. Humans are exploiting an unintended loophole in physics to trespass where they are not wanted, and so she has put a stop to it. As of 1 year ago, nothing is buoyant. Anything of the land placed upon the water sinks instantaneously, as if it were falling through thin air. This has completely cut off the player’s society from the rest of the world.
The rapid advance of technology has made many traditional jobs obsolete, forcing people into ever more menial and demeaning professions. They work longer hours, for less pay than their parents did, while a small group of oligarchs profit off the surplus value created by their labor.
A drunk god has granted human level intelligence to every creature with a brain. Domestic animals have revolted against their enslavement, game animals have united to form mutual protection pacts, parasites and large predators employ advanced tactics to feed on humans. Society is breaking down from every side, and it seems almost certain that humanity will become extinct within a generation.
The orphan nation needs a new roof.
In closing, I’d like to say that I am intensely proud my topbanner choice for this post. Like, you get it, right? Goddamn I am such a clever lil’ boi.
