tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post2509305306714563449..comments2024-03-25T00:18:14.319-07:00Comments on Against The Wicked City: City of Spires part 1: Theory vs. PractiseJoseph Manolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-52860790236225913122022-07-13T18:20:58.008-07:002022-07-13T18:20:58.008-07:00Interesting post. Lots of good ideas. Especially w...Interesting post. Lots of good ideas. Especially with what is actually practically gameable vs what you’ve written and/or collected. I’ve long been interested in running a good city game but I think I’ve collected more than is suitable for a realistic game length. Your original AtWC posts augmented a lot of ideas I’d had, and spawned others such that they’re part of the background of my ItO “Bastionland” game. Before I go too far I think a gentle cull may be in order. As you say it is easier to add things (back) in than to remove them. Alistairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04631364538623314004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-77540747285960796142021-08-02T13:03:22.189-07:002021-08-02T13:03:22.189-07:00I am currently setting up a second campaign in my ...I am currently setting up a second campaign in my own setting and making the same kind of experience. The previous campaign was only nominally set in my setting, being really about the journey to the Isle of Dread and using the cultures from my setting for NPCs.<br />Now that I'm setting up another campaign right in the heart of the world, the process of making things playable mostly consists of making them smaller and turning them into digestible chunks that can be dealt with in one or two sittings, instead of each of them having enough scope for a entire campaign.Yorahttp://spriggans-den.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-35041268575356764622020-09-10T04:42:07.116-07:002020-09-10T04:42:07.116-07:00No, I don't think it's a misconception. Bl...No, I don't think it's a misconception. Blog content is much closer to the kind of notes we might make before or after actual play than most published content. No-one's actual-play adventures look like a published module. No-one's actual-play setting notes look like a published campaign setting. But blog content is scrappy and fragmentary, and thus much closer to things that actually get used. 'Yeah', one might think, 'I can use this guy. I can use this room. I can use this monster. I'll put them into tomorrow's game, between the bit with the hydra and the bit with all the zombies.'<br /><br />But, honestly, you'll still probably change them a bit along the way. Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-40638296764119334832020-09-09T09:29:00.908-07:002020-09-09T09:29:00.908-07:00Fair enough! Thanks for the answer.
That gap is a...Fair enough! Thanks for the answer.<br /><br />That gap is a little weird, isn't it? A whole lot can happen in there. For whatever reason the gap feels more opaque or less obvious with blog-borne content (maybe because they're less formal and stable than a book?). Maybe that's just my misconception.mudfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06423394358383800324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-58225575800626730282020-09-09T02:21:05.169-07:002020-09-09T02:21:05.169-07:00I'm not sure it was that different, to be hone...I'm not sure it was that different, to be honest. It's the same way I approach everything. I never run a setting or module exactly as written: I always just use them as raw materials, available to be reworked into something that fits the needs of the actual game at hand. Same with other people's blog posts: I've used a number of ideas from Chris Tamm and Arnold K's blogs over the years, but always in adapted forms. So doing the same with my own work felt pretty natural. <br /><br />In RPGs, I think there's always a gap between theory and practise, what we write and how we play. I don't think my work is any exception to that!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-49487900883938363412020-09-08T17:37:18.737-07:002020-09-08T17:37:18.737-07:00It takes a lot of discipline to point a gimlet eye...It takes a lot of discipline to point a gimlet eye at your favorite stuff and cut out everything that doesn't meet the needs at hand. Sounds hard.<br /><br />But this also sounds like a cool exercise in reinterpretation. You had this toolkit of stuff that you could pick and choose from and remix as needed to generate a given effect. (I mean, you have to do when running even a vanilla game - including everything in the Monster Manual would produce a weird and pretty disjointed setting. But you had a toolkit you'd made yourself.) Did that make the process different? (Or will this be a future post...)<br /><br />The idea of a Wicked City sort of endlessly refracted through different worlds is striking. Probably not game-able, but enticing in that old "Dancers at the End of Time" feel.mudfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06423394358383800324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-27551917601551879012020-09-05T18:12:19.476-07:002020-09-05T18:12:19.476-07:00'Small and tenuous enough for players to easil...'Small and tenuous enough for players to easily affect them' is the key, yes. The bigger things are, the more a campaign will need either heavy scripting or excessive length before the PCs are able to effect credible change. Whereas when everything's small and lying in ruins it's much easier for a small group of dynamic individuals like the PCs to bring about rapid and lasting shifts in the status quo. <br /><br />Regarding the Wicked City itself, I kinda think of it as already in a deeply unstable equilibrium. The current regime's only been in power for seventy years, and the whole polity is already a total wreck, so I doubt it has much of a long-term future in its current form. I can easily imagine it declining and declining until it's little more than a haunted ruin in the desert, inhabited only by ghosts and madmen and a mask-wearing murder cult descended from the original secret police. Might be a good setting for an adventure, actually...Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-91368282368251642492020-09-04T23:05:39.923-07:002020-09-04T23:05:39.923-07:00I like the idea of the newer, pared-down version o...I like the idea of the newer, pared-down version of the Wicked City being built in the ruins of the original, expansive one - the Cobwebs are standing but abandoned, the Murder Harlots have no one left to appreciate their art, and the Wicked King's inscrutable nature is just because it's been so long since people even pretended he was still in power. That way any idea can easily come back as a holdout or resurrected concept from the city's "glory" days (if you could call them glorious), but things are still small and tenuous enough for players to easily affect them.Malcolm Svenssonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14324502676937817722noreply@blogger.com