Against "Quests"

The little terms we use in this game culture always seem to trip me up. Something has convinced me that roleplaying games will somehow be better if the jargon of each game fits naturally into whatever is being depicted. I want specific terms for capabilities and resent using a term like "powers" to describe something someone can do, no matter how mundane or otherwise unfitting. I resent "stealthing" and "doing a maneuver" instead of "sneaking" or "maneuvering." And while most of this must surely be navel-gazing and gall, the feeling persists. And while you may think it a small point, one of the examples I am keenest to advocate against is the way the term "quest" is used in fantasy roleplaying.

Cover, Fires of Heaven

I will not be pretentious with you, or try to prescribe a strict definition based traditional English and French literature. I think if we search are hearts, we all sort of get that hunting for the holy grail or journeying to defeat an archdemon is a proper quest, a "quest-quest", and massacreing a ruin full of violent strangers for $2,000 just isnt.

For some reason, perhaps as an inherited convention from video games, the term "quest" has been used around some of the tables I played at as a blanket term, describing plots and situations the DM had prepared for the other players to complete. Having spoken to other people, this is not unique to my experience.

If someone outside the culture that uses the term "quest" in its gamist sense joined a table whose characters spent their time exploring haunted houses, breaking into crypts, busting up random cults, and other mercenary actions, all for pay, they may well come to enjoy that time-honored game genre, but I don't think they would be likely to call these actions quest unless slicked with sardonic irony. The use of the term is vestigial in games with such crusty subject matter, and ill suit that genre.

In games appropriate to eventually reach the heights of a grand undertaking, overusing the name of Quest still hampers the aim. A quest is a beautiful, romantic concept. It is a weighty thing. But it often comes to pass that by the time a table has begun a quest-quest, they've fulfilled ten contracts on mundane "quests" and may well treat this awesome quest with little awe because of it.

Where this format of creating situations becomes the essence of the game, players often lack a meaningful way to set personal ambitions in motion on their own. Even in "OSR" games where it really does behoove the table for the players to be able to discover myriad methods of achieving a goal, the classic method of consulting an oracle who will give you a "quest" can streamline the fun out of attaining that goal.

Ultimately, my suggestion for DMs is to dispense with the framework of hard objective-based story framing. It's better if rather than a "quest-giver" the PCs have friends or allies or especially competing interests. It's especially good when the reward for some major achievement is intrinsic to it, since this encourages players to be self-motivated. From an adventure-simulation standpoint, there's nothing wrong with people offering to pay the PCs to deal with some problem, but things just work so much smoother if they decide there is something to be gained in a calculated risk and take it.

Twelve Non-Quests

1. As you come into town, a goblin wagon laden treasure is galloped away, rebuffed by a local mob.
2. The lame king of a wasteland guards a cup said to make you immortal.
3. A wealthy and eligible suitor seeks your hand in marriage, but the patriarch of their family distrusts you.
4. The exiled heir of a neighboring dwarven kingdom sings for pennies at the saloon.
5. Homesteading laws offer free land within three miles of a dungeon entrance.
6. You know the ruler of the metropolis only keeps power on the basis of their fraudulent magical powers.
7. A famous warrior with unfinished business was buried with her famous magic sword.
8. It is known that with the right magic, one can create a stone which will make gold from nothing. What's more, most magicians of the land have some scrap of the knowledge.
9. Your uncle has passed away and left you his summer home and the curios it contains.
10. Fruit stolen from a dryad's tree is poison to your enemy.
11. Your prodigal brother has convinced the neighboring empire to support his claim to your throne.
12. A wealthy wizard is bullying you.

PS The Realm kickstarter is halfway through its cycle, and already 150% funded! Please check it out if you might be interested in a quick, tried and tested domain play and mass combat system that keeps player characters in the foreground.

Location: Lost Temple of the Lizard God

 Was playing around with chatgpt. It's pretty good at giving dungeon and spell prompts, even for the old-school games I favor. 

AAAAAAAAAAH

The Lost Temple of the Lizard God

Long ago and never, the Lizard King and his servants sealed themselves away outside of time but not outside of space. It is said the halls of their temple contain visions of other eras, and the accumulated wealth of all the past and all the future.

This dungeon features a handful of time rifts. Walking through one allows you to truly exist in another time, but you cannot stray more than a few miles before the world seems to break down for you. Let this time travel allow for clever plans on the part of the PCs, but don't sweat the details if they're confusing.

It's a short, fighty, pulpy adventure. 

Encounter Table (d6 outside the maze, d8 within)

1. 1d4+1 Lizardfolk guards (HD 1)

2. 1 Giant Centipede (HD 1/2)

3. 1d6+2 Velociraptors (HD 1/2)

4. 1d4+1 Troglodyte Saboteurs (HD 2), +1 reaction, hate the lizard king

5. 1d3 Rock Pythons (HD 5)

6. 1 Ankylosaurus (HD 5)

7. 1d3+1 Lizardfolk Shamans (HD 2)

8. The Lizard King (HD 3) and his retinue of 1d4+2 Lizardfolk Elite Warriors (HD 2)

1. Entrance Hall: The entrance to the temple is a massive stone doorway flanked by two towering pillars carved to resemble rearing cobras. The door itself is stuck shut, requiring a combined strength of 30 to open, but it bears a clue to the temple's secrets: a carving of a lizard with a glowing orange-white gemstone eye.

1. The gemstone is actually a polished heat sink crystal. When left in the sun, it is hot enough to burn.
   
   

2. Chamber of Traps: The next chamber is densely tiled with stone trapdoors, chutes in the ceiling, and pressure plates along the walls, which are themselves studded with hole housings for dart traps. In the far wall, there is a door next to an alcove with a lacquered red egg in a gilded stand. Running down the chamber is jagged, shadowy 25' slit in the very air.

1. Copious traps: Walking naively through the room leads one to fall down a trapdoor after 1d4 x 5 feet, landing in a 20' pit full of sharpened stakes for 3d6 damage. Any clever ideas, like balancing along the hinge-side of a row of trapdoors, triggering dart traps with a pole until they're exhausted, or filling pits with rubble falling from the ceiling chutes will work well, but there will necessarily come at least one point at which a change in strategy is required.

2. Time rift: Looking through the slit, one can see a distant future where the temple is completely looted. The trapdoors are either triggered or stuck, the dart traps are exhausted, etc. Passing through this rift takes you to that distant time, but reality falls apart if you go more than a few miles away. You can use the rift to bypass half of the traps in the present-day chamber, which combined with a good traversal strategy will risk no rolls.

3. The Egg of the Firebird - a large, flame-colored egg that contains a baby Firebird. When the egg hatches (1d10 weeks after exposure to sunlight, or half that if in fire/hot ashes), the Firebird will be loyal to the character who hatched it. Once it reaches adolescence (~3 months, 1 HD), it can breathe fire like a dragon every 1d4 minutes.

4. Door: one final trap. Careful inspection shows it lifts up like a garage door. Pulling the handle flips the handle out like the cover of a book, revealing a poison dart trap. Save vs devices or become afflicted with Gordonois. Upon failure and each week thereafter, permanently lose 1 constitution but get scalier and gain +1  to saves vs gas and breath. Cured only by magic or a medicine made from gas spores and boiled fur.
   
   

3. Sacrificial Altar: The centerpiece of this chamber is a stone altar surrounded by offerings of bones and fine boxes. A giant, lazy lizard (as Caecilla) resides here. In the back of the room looms an ornate, spiked suit of armor over 9' tall.

1. Giant lizard: expects intruders to make a sacrifice for it on the altar, which it will eat. Otherwise, it will probably attack.

2. Altar: high, wide table with darkly suggestive stains and scratch-marks. Murals along the table show scenes of mammals sacrificed on a table, and a portal to a cthonic underworld underneath it. On the near side, the face of the table can be pulled aside to reveal a tunnel leading down to area 4, and there is a faint scrape mark on the floor evidencing this.

1. Within the fine boxes laid around the altar are rare herbs and spices from throughout all time, in observance of a rite of respect in the lizard religion. These spices are worth $500 for cooking or their medicinal properties.

3. Giant, ornate suit of armor. It is not only beautiful, but also incredibly well-crafted. If a creature was the right size, this would function like +1 plate mail with sufficient spikes to be used like a +1 dagger. As it is, it is worth $1,000 to collectors, nobility, and servants of the lizard god (for whom this was nominal constructed).
   
   

4. Maze of the Lizard King: The maze is a twisting, turning series of corridors patrolled by the Lizard King's minions. The walls are decorated with murals depicting the Lizard King's triumphs, and the maze itself seems to shift and change as adventurers progress through it. If mapping is attempted, backtracking will always succeed. Every 1d2 Turns of exploring, uncover a random location. The DM should adapt odds and results based on strategies employed.
   
   d8 Maze Features
   1. Time rift: returns to a period when the temple was under construction. Imperious lizardfolk architects plan out the maze with chalk and wands, the treasure vault already constructed, though currently empty. The forebull wields the Heart of the Earth, a large, glowing gemstone that can shape stone at the user's will. If using the plans to navigate, may roll d6+2 on this table instead.
   2. Dead-ends in an alcove containing a small, reptilian crystal skull. Allows the wielder to spend 1 intelligence to cast ESP. Any spent intelligence returns after a day of rest.
   3. Tracks. Give evidence of a random encounter, and the next roll is 1d4+3
   4. Dead-ends in a chronoographic library, flush with maps of cities and complexes from the forgotten past and the far-flung to-be. Can be used to find lost treasures, untapped resources, and any dungeons the DM wants to hint at, or can just be sold for $1,000.
   5. Time rift: returns to a time of crisis in the temple, where lizards fight lizards in a religious schism. The lizard god comes to curse the Lizard King with the killing sight, and all his servants and mammal slaves are frothing with fearful rumor.
   6. Major intersection, d4 (1. fountain, 2. graffiti, 3. nest, 4. skeleton) Make an extra encounter check.
   7. Obstacle, d4 (1. pit, 2. cave-in, 3. illusory wall with mural clue, 4. obvious dart trap) If retreated from, roll d4+2 for next maze feature.
   8. Treasure Vault entrance. See area 5. This is in the center of the maze, so parties following the "left-hand-against-the-wall" trick will never find it.
   
   

5. The Treasure Vault: 40x40. Puzzle-door of concentric circles that must be arranged to complete a picture of the lizard god. Reveals a chamber full of shallow piles of gold and silver coins, draped fineries, and opposition. If not already slain, the lizard king is here with his retinue

1. Hoard of precious metals: The Lizard God's treasure chamber contains a hoard of gold, silver, and other precious metals in various forms, including coins, ingots, and jewelry worth $3,500.

2. Cache of valuable trade goods including silks, spices, and precious gems. These goods could be sold for $1,500.

3. The Fangs of the Spider God, taken from a rival deity's servants. Pair of wickedly-curved +1 daggers that deal 1d8 damage to reptilian creatures. If used in concert, deal 1d6 damage and 1d10 to reptilian creatures. One can have its attack and damage bonus expended for a week to cast spider climb. One can have its bonus expended for a week to cast web.

4. The Crown of the Lizard King - a golden crown set with large emeralds that provides the wearer with immunity to fear and allows them to speak and understand the Lizardfolk language.

5. Motorcycle, a metallic mount that moves at the speed of a tireless riding horse. Must be fed a cubic foot of dinosaur every two days or it will whine and seize up.

Stats

• Lizardfolk guards (HD 1) as orc

• Giant Centipede (HD 1/2)

• Velociraptors (HD 1) as giant shrew

• Troglodyte Saboteurs (HD 2)

• Rock Pythons (HD 5)

• Ankylosaurus (HD 5) as stegosaurus, but 5 HD, trample only deals 1d6. In maze, attacks may be limited.

• Lizardfolk Shamans (HD 2), as acolyte, but 2 HD and cast 2 random spells from the following list:

• Dino Call: This spell allows the caster to call a nearby dinosaur to come to their aid. The dinosaur will arrive within 1d6 rounds and will be friendly to the caster for the duration of the spell.

• Solar Flare - This spell creates a powerful burst of energy that can be used to power various devices or to stun enemies for one round (save vs spells).

• Stone Shape - This spell allows the magic-user to shape and manipulate stone and rock formations. The spell can be used to create shelters, fortifications, or tools.

• Reptilian Missile - deals 1d6+1 damage and leaves the affected area scaly for the next few days.

• Lizard King (HD 3) as medusa, but 3 HD and instead of poison, stone executioner's sword for 1d8+1 damage. Eyes shine like a gem. Once, can lose a tail or limb to parry 1d12 damage.

• Lizardfolk Elite Warriors (HD 2) as lizard man, but, once each, can lose a tail or limb to parry 1d12 damage.

PS: The kickstarter for the Realm is well underway. We are completely funded, and now I'm just trying to get the domain rules for sagas and romantces in the hands of as many people as possible. If it seems interesting, I hope the art by skilled illustrator Thorø Larsen settles things for you.

The Realm Kickstarter is Live!

 Very pleased to announce that I will be kickstarting a submission to Zinequest this year, alongside talented illustrator Thorø Larsen.

The Realm is a domain play ruleset most directly inspired by my experience running the Acmori campaign. It is compatible with most classic dungeon games while still letting a PC "matter." In battles, the numbers on your normal character sheet will be relevant. In setting your realm's agenda it will pay to make decisions that facilitate your normal career of dungeoncrawling and adventure. The presumed scale of the Realm is small and always in the eye of the characters, so a player continues to experience the game by playing a character, albeit one who may rule a country, rather than as a disembodied national spirit as in some strategy games.

I like to say the Realm is a game for "romances, sagas, and chronicles," and what I mean by that is that it is intended to simulate the dramatic, personal, lethal stories that mean a lot to me-- tales of King Arthur and his knights, the legends in the Book of Kings, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and others. In these narratives, a character can be a champion out of scale with real life, yet never be too far from ignominious death and never above the personal drama of duty, entanglements, and betrayal.

I think this product is valuable because it solves the problems of how to run a domain game, at least in the dramatic milieu that moves me. I know the game works because I've played it for over a year and have been playing games like it for a decade. If this blog has given you any value over the past few years, I'd appreciate if you'd consider telling your friends who might be interested about it. If you are interested yourself, the link is here: http://kck.st/3YUJwew

If you have a blog or a podcast or something and you'd like to shoot the breeze about domain games, I'm happy to talk to you about it.

15 More More Magic Items

 See also here and here and here. This time, I wanted to do some more mundane objects, and ones that mostly lacked names. I feel like in some campaigns a magic pepper mill would be considered silly, but if you're consistently depicting a world where everyday objects really do feature, there's nothing too odd about it.

1.  Deck of marked cards, with intricate, faded backs. Each card contains a charge of magic missile, triggering when someone looks at the face. Afterwards, the face loses magic and color. 1-54 cards/charges, plus an informational card that tells of the cardmakers.
2. Peppershaker containing the Buds of Noo. Inhaling or ingesting the buds causes a save vs death. On a failure, your mind blooms with the genius of Noo the Mighty for 1d4 hours. He loves drinking and poetry, and is probably mortally offended by whatever you were up to. He will probably try to take the peppershaker from whoever has it to stick around for longer.
3. Spy canvas, a framed, amateurish painting of the street outside a tavern popular with noble women and their lovers. This same canvas has been painted over many times. Any scene that is painted on the spy canvas changes in real time to show a view of what is going on in the depicted place. Suns set, steps are swept, and people wander through. Seems to work even on fictional locations, but it's not clear what that means.
4. Green inkpot full of red ink. Paper covered in writing from this ink can move on its own, obeying commands by folding itself into origami creatures and sliding into hiding places. The paper servants have intelligence dependant on what is written on them, and marring the writing can destroy them. Enough ink for 2d6 pages.
5. Sturdy quilt with a handsome pattern of squares and diamonds in an autumnal palette. Anyone or anything covered in it is immune to fire, water damage (but not suffocation), cold, and other ills.
6. Scylla-bone umbrella, covered in thick fabric and handled in polished ebony. Anyone under the umbrella just looks like a patch of rain to anyone out from under it. This makes them invisible when it's raining and at least obscures their identity otherwise. Can cover about one and a half people.
7. Silver pen-knife with a squared iron handle. Can cut through wood as easily as paper. If used without a glove, the handle makes your hand smell like blood.
8. Wide-brimmed hat with a snakeskin hatband. If you die while wearing this, a snake will slither out of it, with HD equal to the creature that killed you. It has a fondness for your friends and family, but it's not wise to push it.
9. Lightning-gold scabbard. Weapons sheathed in it still do 1d6 damage. Unsheathing a weapon takes a full round, and for a minute after it fills the air with pressure, ozone stink, and grim promise. Cowardly enemies must test their morale to approach, and critical hits with the weapon discharge the lightning, causing a save vs death. On a failure, the creature's heart is stopped and it is slain.
10. Coin purse, held closed with a striped red-and-white string with a couple metal clips hanging off it. Each day, will give an accurate count of distance traveled.
11. Dark leather waterskin, etched with a depiction of a bearded man in a conical, striped hat. The one who carries this skin is immune to all magics cast on them by anyone who has drank from it. Sought by medusae.
12. Banded trunk, banged-up and patched. At the command, follows its owner with elephantine determination. Attracted to luggage cars, porters, and mimics.
13. Telescoping balsa spyglass in a round bamboo case. When used backwards, shows magic as motes of different-colored dust.
14. Brass bearing compass, always pointing first to the nearest road and then, when on a road, in the direction of the great city Nibelene.
15. Mask of Ekofa, a black fabric mask with three eyes and an amiable expression. Semi-intelligent and capable of speech. Can be left on a clothesline to serve as a watchman.

15 More Magic Items

See also here and here.

1.  Blessed Bag. Sanctified to carry relics or perhaps an important skull. Will preserve what it contains and protect it from evil forces. If you put a cursed or evil object (like poison or a hateful screed) inside, it starts to sweat red foam.
2. Amazing Boots. +1 to all rolls that involve your feet or legs, like climbing. +2 to rolls that are very leggy or footy, like sprinting, marching, or kicking.
3. Twisting Spit. Heads cooking on the spit murmur secrets, most cogent at the point in cooking where the twisting of the spit negates the rotation of it, and just before the fire burns up the head from the bottom up.
4. Rivendine Steel Cutlass. Cutting blade forged in the forges and choruses of Rivendell, or some other such place. +1 to hit. Cuts through undergrowth with ease, allowing full-speed single-file travel through jungle hexes. Can be cleaned of sap or blood with a single, cool-looking flick.
5. Somnal Spear. Pale-hafted spear, ready at-hand in dreams. Can dowse for the dreams of nearby warriors if held by the worthy.
6. Obnulate Long-Axe. Ceremonial axe. At will, can be the most prominent thing or the least prominent thing about your party.
7. Arcane Rod: Polished staff with a minor, mindless will. Will aid its wielder by creating small flames, doing sums, telekinetically stirring brews, etc. If a magician attempts to invade its owner’s mind, the Rod can temporarily distract them with psychic struggle.
8. Chemic Polesword. Sharp, flat +1 blade that softly weeps a gigre as oil, creating a dose per day.
9. Ilten, Reluctant Khopesh. Chipped sword of arsenical copper. On its wielder’s turn in combat, it can attack once with THEWS 14. It will only do so to end violence or punish the grossest offenses. Capable of betraying its user.
10. Sober Pipe. Mauve wood pipe worn smooth. Smoke from the pipe is corrosive to illusions, disguises, and charms. Makes anyone mid-lie cough.
11. Singing Spear. Functions as a 1st-level wizard.
12. The Many Implements of Sainted Eleazer. Indeterminately-sized collection of +1 daggers, sickles, and pokers. Enough to arm a large band, or two sworn duelists. None slain by such an implement will bear witness against the slayer; inspecting the corpse reveals they were stabbed, but nothing else.
13. Censer-Flail. When lit, embers deal +1 damage. Also functions as a narcomanta for any drugs burned, infusing all nearby allies with the drug's effects.
14. Lover's Flask. Immaculate silver vial, engraved with two robins. Keeps all fluid warm. Renders a limb or torso immune to frostbite, etc. If worn over the heart, can be sacrificed to downgrade a critical hit to a normal hit.
15. Master Tools. Handled hooks, prods, and picks, the ends covered in sensitive aluminum hairs. A lock picker can use these to stretch a lock up to a 12-inch diameter, revealing the presence of any additional mechanisms that would give away a trap or alarm.