Mining the D&D Anti-Canon

This month the RPG Blog Carnival is all about Cabals and Congregations - which got me thinking about the organisations and factions we use (or rather don't use) in our games.

When I play D&D particularly, I get the feeling there's a whole load of built-in backstory that often gets ignored because it's not used going forward, especially in published adventures. I'm fully in agreement with Luka Rejec on canon and anti-canon and that I'd rather do this stuff at the table to make our own world than spend days reading and remembering details of someone else's world.

None of our PCs exist in a vacuum; explicitly Bards have Colleges, Druids have Circles, Rangers have favoured enemies, Sorcerers have Bloodlines - these are all potential factions to draw into our stories, and more are implied for all classes.

Since Dungeon World and Stars Without Number* helped change my DM worldview I've been keen to try to build the story round the PCs, not push the PCs into the story. 

Here's some session zero thoughts to bring these background factions to the foreground, e.g:

• Barbarian - who are your tribe? Who are their enemies and allies? Who else roams your lands?
• Bard - where did you train? Are/were you part of a troupe? Who have you worked for?
• Cleric (also Druid) - do you belong to an order? Who are the enemies of your god/religion? What are your holy gathering places?
• Fighter - where did you train / who did you train under? Is there a local fighter's or mercenary's guild (and what's your relationship with them)?
• Monk - where is your monastery and what are its rites and rituals? Who threatens or empowers your way of life?
• Paladin - draw from Fighter and/or Cleric, but also: what organisations are aligned with / opposed to your Oath?
• Ranger - who else lives outside of the points of light (and what is your relationship with them)? Who of your favoured enemy do you have history with / are currently active locally?
• Sorcerer - who shares your bloodline and how do they live among other people? What organisations seek to regulate or exploit your magic?
• Warlock - are you part of a cult to your patron? Who are the enemies (or allies) of your patron?
• Wizard - where did you train/learn? Who is/are the largest/wisest holder(s) of arcane knowledge in the region?

I've talked before about how I like to use factions to help generate plot threads and story arcs and (I think) making the movers and shakers relevant to the PCs helps to tie the characters to the world.

The above are version-independent ideas, but if 5e is your D&D flavour  there's also backgrounds to mine (as well as them being bags of proficiencies)! 

• "Guild" backgrounds aside - Acolytes, Entertainers, Gladiators, Sages, Soldiers all probably belong to some sort of professional organisation
• Charlatans, Criminals and Urchins surely must have had run-ins with (or been members of) underworld organisations
• Folk Heros need a folk to be the hero of!
• Sailors have crews, Knights have orders, Nobles have houses... Outlanders have people back home
• Even Hermits have people, even if it's just the ones they are pointedly avoiding!

These low hanging fruit are often overlooked, but I'll be making a point to try to remember them in my future games. How do you go about creating and using factions?

For more information on the RPG Blog Carnival, or to check out the archive (going back more than a decade) make sure to check out the link - you can sign up to host here too.  Thanks to Gonz for hosting this month!

* I'd forgotten, but I started working on something similar for SWN a few years back too!

On creating elements for a setting

When I saw this as the title for the April RPG Blog Carnival my mind started ticking over campaign and setting planning and how I want to go about it.

Image credit: cosmicgrooveart

It's easy to just start building things that will never get played and I think a solution is:

• to break prep into separate and reusable elements (I've talked about this before)
• to only plan what you need

So, leaping off from that into the void, what sort of elements and what does each need?

Places

TTRPG games generally involve some exploration, and even if they don't the scenes have to be set somewhere.  Places are everywhere from towns to rooms to dungeons to continents and planes!

In my opinion, Places are often containers but I think they need the following themselves:

• Flavour descriptions / scene setting (depending on scope and scale)
• Rumours / things to interact with

As well as being the basic things you need for a dungeon room, these settle nicely with the start of a "three act" story - Set the scene, call to action - so can often lead to setting up a sidequest nicely.  Can we run the full mile and prep some of the rest too?

• Rising action
• A climax
• How the place is left changed

Oh - there's a location based adventure!

Antagonists

TTRPGs are about conflict and resolution, and where would conflict be without antagonists to rub against our protagonists (the party) - these are the factions and moving parts!

Blogging back for March, and thoughts on April and beyond

Sorry for not being more active, real life takes its toll once again.

I haven't really had any time to read around the blogosphere or to get anything written, but here's a whistle stop tour of the (active) blogs that sent me hits in March, as a thankyou!

of Dice and Dragons, of course, has been keeping the RPG Blog Carnival rolling - please go show your support if you can, there are still some slots available to sign up to host in 2023 I believe!

Seed of Worlds has several very readable recent posts, and many better and more frequent blog link lists than I do (or can)

Hobgoblinry showcases some Oathmark Orcs and some Mordheim Skaven and terrain

Sea Of Stars has not only been hosting the March carnival but is also embarking on an A-Z blogging challenge for April (good luck!)

DIY & Dragons has a 2022 in review (not just gaming) in a smorgasbord of interesting things

and Shuttered Room has been cataloguing creatures, all the way to Z! (more talent and tenacity than I)

I'm planning on getting back on this horse every month, as part of my bid to be a more sociable blogger, and trying to participate in the Carnival and just see what great stuff is going on.

Dungeon23 has burned me out but I'll hopefully be back on that as well ... I have a whole shelf of stuff I could review ... comments welcome on anything you'd particularly like to see more of!

Campaign Planning, Reusability, and Separation of Concern

Some important concepts from my work in computer software can definitely be applied to campaign planning. Let's talk about two of them.

Image (cc) Tim Probert

Separation of Concern

Think of any dungeon* you've seen - or have written - with a map of the layout, lists of encounters for each room, key items and notes on where they are hidden.  How many times have you, as GM, had to skip, rearrange, shuffle or rebuild parts in response to the party's actions? Exactly.

Separating the elements means more flexibility.  Generally, the dungeon map doesn't care what monsters lie within and the monsters don't care what important treasures they guard. So if we plan loosely we can make it easier to change or add things on the fly.

RPG Blog Carnival - A Band of Fair Folk

Image (cc) amorphisss

Fae don't seem to feature much in Dungeons and Dragons games (that I have played) and I think it's probably because they're low challenge in combat. But why would faeries, who are essentially physically weak extradimensional magic users, be interested in engaging in combat when they could be playing to their strengths?

By their nature, the Fair Folk are otherworldly, capricious, playful, powerful, and broadly disinterested in us and our world unless they can derive some entertainment or gain.

Here are my thoughts on how to take advantage of this nature to have fun at the table: