Runequest – how much flavor do you force on it?

One of the most challenging things about running classic Runequest, beyond the mechanics of full character creation and combat crunch, is setting the mood. Hell, originally I wasn’t even sure a proper mood could be set.

A little over 30 years ago I was a kid at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, playing in whatever game one of the older pricks decided they wanted to run (and that owner Gary Switzer wanted to play). That meant very little D&D, and lots of things like Bushido, Traveller, and Runequest. There were always a couple of Runequest campaigns going on.

Outside of the focus on god worship and common spell use (I do remember thinking that everybody pretty much ran clerics in RQ), I don’t remember much of what I learned of the secrets of Glorantha at that time. The older guys seemed to know the world and it’s conflicts very well, and it makes sense that Gary would because as a store owner he could read all the material in the form of books and fanzines that filtered through. This and that battle; this and that war; this and that location. Stuff on that classic setting that you have to search through a thousand sources to get bits and pieces of. And it’s worse now, because there is so much more that has been added to the milieu over the decades.

With limited time on my hands, I put in much more research in the Dragons Pass setting (where I would ultimately start the first game; that was another hard decision – Prax or DP?) than studying up the rulesbook. In all honesty, I forgot how much there was too the crunch. I ran a lot of Call of Cthulhu in the 90’s, but I forgot that is a fairly retarded down version of those RQ rules. Basic Role Playing at its most basic.

But whatever. In games I’m a “flavor man.” A good solid foundation in your setting and the player’s surroundings is crucial for my style of character development. So, with the under-populated classic Runequest forums being of little help, I thrashed about for Dragons Pass location info, at least enough to hang my hat on and add my own items to it to make it my own. I got the Kerofinela Gazette, but that describes things to a certain degree in terms of at least several years after the time period I am using. So I have to play fast and loose with that info. Just use what I need to describe a location. And of course Cults of Prax is big help, but that describes the gods in terms more of the natives of that area.

So into it I go with only shards of info and my own winging skills, on the raggedy edge of trying to express a world I did not create with scattered and sketchy info.

I did not want to hit these guys over the head with too much data. A few days before the game I created a several page primer on the setting. Basically, getting across that it is a Bronze Age version of a marriage between ancient Scotland and ancient Norway. That city civilization is a very new thing, and that even the haughtiest noble is not far removed from barbarian herd culture. I gave the basics of how the Lunar Empire has spent a generation chaining Dragons Pass because they need it as a highway to the holy land, and how they are suppressing the god Orlanth. That all the characters, townsfolk or barbarian, are of the kingdom of Sartar, and how it is a conquered kingdom, but has not been so for long.

As far as the official history of the era, I hope I am not too far off with all this. So much is assumption.

To get away from the D&D reasons for adventure, I explained that this particular period (1615…two years after Starbrows famous Sartar rebellion) was a time of youngsters of both sexes hitting the bricks in search of combat and mysteries for a variety of reason that created a perfect storm: a feeling that major wars are on the horizon, that the gods and their before-time adventures and dungeon crawls are to be emulated, that success in all endeavors is achieved by personal fitness and growth, and a sort of hipster faddishness (“everybody’s doing it, mom” sort of thing). That last reason alone seems to makes sense to me as to why teenagers who can’t use a weapon for shit would set out into a world where one lucky sword hit could take an arm off you, and probably will no sweat.

As you might know I like to have music going during my sessions, although in the long run I’m not sure how the group on a whole feels about it. But in all honesty I don’t really give a rats ass about that. The “right” music going during a game is important for MY mood, and I’m running the game so my mood matters most. But when you run your games somewhere were somebody else is the host, there can be some ackward moments. There was a point not too long ago when our kind host seemed to think Butthole Surfers was good for D&D. And when I emailed the group saying to bring any ancient Celt/Tribal music for our first Runequest session, the first thing said to me when I showed up was “we decided David Byrne was ancient enough for Runequest”. Oooo-kay. "We." Right. But again, MY mood, so before long I had some drums and pipes going, as well as some Vasen (Swedish super-folk group I met last year at a music camp). Set the mood for me.

As for the combat, I think it was a good “working out the kinks” session. It did take awhile. You can tell when a combat it taking too long – I usually judge it by the look on Terry’s face. If it is kind of blank, half smiling, with the eyes half shut zombified sort of thing, then things are getting old. But I think it will go quicker next time, especially when people have better chances of hitting and are a little less challenged by everything. But just the fact that they are young dumbshits with no training; punks cracking wise and full of piss and vinegar, seems flavorful to me. I hope they see that too.

And I see things already for the characters that might evolve naturally for maximum flavor, things I realized later on after the session. Big Ben’s guy seems to favor the bow, and with archery being invented by the sun god Yelm he might want to go in the direction of that cult. Might go good with his characters apparent love for singing. Andy’s guy has a Power and INT of 17, and he happens to be from the city of Jonstown which has the biggest library in all of Sartar. That might make Jonstown a “college town,” and that would go good with his apparent scholarly leanings. Terry as a female fighter and devotee to Orlanth’s daughter, Vinga, will surely lead her to some interesting things. And Paul’s midget barbarian, well, nuff said there. Character was born with flavor (and “Shorty” uses a long spear, which is pretty amusing).

In the long run, the guys seemed to have fun doing something new. But it was very much a learning experience for us all. I’m sure the second session will go much smoother. If not, well, Terry was hoping we were doing a Call of Cthulhu campaign instead of this…




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasen

Paul Crabaugh and Me

The other day no less than two well known blogs (Grognardia and Jeff’s Game Blog) posted about a gentleman named Paul Crabaugh, who wrote some interesting articles for Dragon Magazine (and some others) in the early 80’s. I knew Paul a little from my youth playing games at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, so I thought I would do a post about him myself since the name is getting bandied about.

Oh, and the title of this post is a play on Michael Moore’s famous first documentary. I actually did not know Paul well, and can only speak on experiences surrounding gaming with him at a dingy, smelly little game shop.

I bought most of my first D&D stuff as a kid at a place in West LA called Chess and Games. Way in the back they had a medium size rack that contained the LLB’s, Greyhawk, and Blackmoor. I snapped them up with what little allowance money I had.

But my real gaming started at Aero Hobbies. For my first year or so gaming there it was mostly kids my age I think, plus a couple of much older former leftover wargamer beardo’s who probably should not have been around kids.

But not long after I started going there it stopped being so much about young folk, as a passel of 20 and 30 something guys, including some friends of owner Gary, started playing a lot at the store a lot more. Most of them were not so nice to the younger teenagers, acting like their presence was a liability, and were typical of snarky D&D geeks.

But one guy who was actually pretty nice to the younger folk there was Paul Crabaugh himself. Not that he particularly wanted to play with kids, but he didn’t seem to resent their presence so much as the other older guys did. He never put the younger people down, ever, which seemed to be the stock in trade of his peers.

The first thing you would notice about Paul was how huge he was. He was a massive man. Not especially tall, but he very much looked like Michael Moore after doing three months worth of a Morgan Spurlock routine super-sizing at Mickey D’s. No-Chair-Can-Hold-Me big (and I say that being no Jack Sprat myself lately). But he was a gentleman in every way to everybody. He spoke to a 15 year old very much the same way he talked to adults, with respect and interest for what they had to say. Very rare among gamers. That is one thing that even though I didn’t think of it at the time, made me really like the guy. A gentleman in a sea of owner Gary’s asshole peers and cronies.

I didn’t know until quite some time after meeting and playing in games with Paul that he had written D&D articles for Dragon. Since Paul only really seemed to like Traveller and other science fiction games at the time, I’m guessing that his heaviest D&D period had been in college. He was writing about stuff he didn’t seem to play anymore (though I think he wrote some Traveller items as well) unless he was doing it away from the shop. The interesting thing was he never talked about those articles. He had zero ego about it. Owner Gary had pointed them out to me. I thought it was pretty cool.

Gaming at Aero was pretty bland and more often than not boring for me. Whether GM'd by a sleazy, druggo Vietnam vet, or a college educated computer programmer, it was not so much as story-making or painting a picture for players. It was monotone descriptions of things, usually some pun or two thrown into (like older geek from all walks of life seemed to love back then – more often than not based on Monty Python), then something attacks and you fight it (owner Gary's games had a bit more peronality to them than the others). I’m grateful for my Aero exposure to Runequest and Traveller and other games I may have never played otherwise back then, but even as a kid I knew games were better when you could inject a little personality, passion, and wonder into them.

Paul’s Traveller games were moderately interesting, nothing really special in retrospect, and like most younger guys at Aero I didn’t get too involved in them. Games by older guys like Paul, owner Gary, and other regulars seemed to be aimed at one or two other older guy’s characters no matter how many people sat at the table. One or two characters doing everything and everybody else were just side characters; side-kicks at best. Just sitting and watching. Looking back, that was a real shame. One time, towards the end of my going to Aero on a regular basis (sports, girls, and my own gaming groups were too attractive compared to the dust, moldy smells and the heinous attitudes of the Aero sausage-fest) my sweetheart of the time, who lived an hour north in Ventura, was in town for the weekend and I took her to Aero to play in one of Paul’s Traveller games. I spent all this time getting her a character set-up to play (if you know Traveller you know what that takes), but when we were ready it was once again an ignore fest as Paul pretty much ran the game aimed directly at owner Gary and left us and everybody else to sit, fidget and stare. I really get the impression that Paul would have been most happy just running for Gary alone with nobody there.

You’d think that a tall, beautiful girl at the game table for a change would generate some interest, but these guys were just too into how they did it at Aero (or maybe they didn’t know how to deal with a female gamer who didn’t look like Janet Reno) so In retrospect I guess it wasn’t Paul’s fault, although we never once got so much as a “so what are you’re characters doing?”. Young people, who these games were ostensibly aimed at, got no props at Aero. It was adults playing games and the young’uns be damned, unless you were one of owner Gary’s little blond cabin boys he got to watch the register now and again (I think one of those grew up and eventually bought Aero from Gary before he passed a few years ago). Thankfully, a couple hours of being ignored at the table ended when one of my high school friends showed up and asked us to hit the mall with him and we got gratefully the hell out of there to go have fun. That was the last time I actually sat in on a game at Aero I think. I was outgrowing it. Moving on to my own groups, and to non-gaming related activities. This was one of my experiences at Aero that shaped me as a GM. In this case, I would always make sure and give lots of time to other players no matter what character was shining at the moment. Actually, now that I think of it, most of my good qualities as a GM comes from doing the opposite of things I experienced in those old games at Aero.

I guess Paul passed away a couple or three years after I stopped hanging out at the shop. Sometime after abandoning the place for more fulfilling pastimes, I saw Paul walking in downtown Santa Monica. He was unmistakable, what with his size and the ever-present long-sleeve office job shirt with pocket protector he wore all the time. I just kept on moving for whatever reason, probably because I had so many unsavory experiences at that dingy game shop that were still fairly fresh (including Paul's Traveller game), but I wish I had stopped to talk to him a bit away from the negative environment that was Aero. He was one of the very, very few older people I came away from the place having any respect or admiration for. I’m glad his name still gets mentioned in the gamer community all this time later.

You’d GM it if you could (but probably never will)

Since the 80’s, I’ve always tried to have an alternate game to do for my D&D groups whenever I was feeling a little burnt out, or if a player important to the current scenario was missing. From the late 80’s until the late 90’s, my usual alternative would be either Champions (my long-running setting was based heavily on Superhero 2044), or Call of Cthulhu. Both genres originally would meet with resistance by the group (they never burnt out on my D&D), but after a couple games under their belts my players would often request an alternative session.

After several years off from gaming, I have had this new group going strong for over a year now. At a time of year where it is easy for players to miss a game due to end of the year obligations, it is more important than ever for me to introduce an alternative game. Something that we can do if only three players can make it (I like at least four players for the D&D session, but three is ok for most other stuff).
For months I have been putting thought to this. For the most part, I don’t feel like putting all the prep into Cthulhu like I used to do. My Champions setting is something I would like to rekindle, with my only consideration being that we play for only around three hours on a Wednesday night. Many simple combat scenarios can take more than three hours with Champs.

Having remembered the great times running Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha when I was a kid, I have also been tossing around the thought of doing Met. Alpha using the Mutant Future rules.

So last week I got together with a couple of my players (the ones most into doing an alternative genre) over a few beers, to work on characters for both Champions and Mutant Future just to see how we feel. Both players came up with mutants (a human and a plant), and the results of their random mutation rolls really brought back the old fun of those old mutant games. Both characters ended up with one really crippling bad mutation, but the others were so good they wanted to use the characters as is (the plant got the faster aging mutation, but also got the three dice of acid blood damage mutation – nice. The human mutant got the slow action mutation, but also got the disintegration and teleportation powers).

Then we really got to work on the Champs characters (oh, the crunch) and there were some good ideas there as well. A street level game is what I want to go for at first. Andy came up with a chop socky Hong Kong cop, and Paul (a fairly new player to the group) dreamed up a two-fisted chemist who carried special attack vials of chemicals (web, acid, smoke screen) and knew Savate (French kick-boxing.)


So the alternative will for sure be Champs or Mutant Future based mostly on great characters getting created, maybe both. But this has me thinking about the games and settings I have wanted to do for a long time, but probably never will. Maybe one day I will game more, and on the weekends, but twice a month on a Wednesday night isn’t exactly conducive to lots of experimenting. And with at least a couple of my players not wanting to play if it isn’t my D&D, these alternatives will always be the least priority in what we do.

But here are the ones I’d like to do if I could, but may actually never get the chance:

DUNE – I never really could get into the book when I was younger, but I always got a kick out of the David Lynch film. Several years ago I suddenly got into a Dune phase. I watched the directors cut of the film, and went right out and got the book. With the film setting up some of the locales and themes in simpler form, I was able to enjoy the nuances of the book more. I even read the two or three sequels that followed. Then I logged in countless hours on the Dune 2000 video game. It was around that time I got a real hankering to GM a game in the Dune setting. With no official game releases on this, I probably would have used the Hero system . With players running mentats, pilots, warriors, etc. I would have adventures across the planets of the empire and finally to Arakis itself. Whenever I mention wanting to do a Dune game to my players, it usually goes over like a lead balloon. So I guess this one shall remain a dream unfulfilled.

RUNEQUEST – I played this more than I ran it as a kid, but I loved it. I always dug the simple elegance of the Chaosium basic role playing system, and the mythical, ancient Greece styled setting was a great break from our D&D games that were going strong at the time. With most of my current players preferring the pulp fantasy of D&D, this one shall likely remain a dream as well.

TRAVELLER – another great game from my youth. Like Runequest I played more than I GM’d back in the day. At Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, where I hung out as a kid, this was a heavily played game, much more than D&D. I also really loved the Dumarest novels by E.C. Chubb as a kid, a major influence on Traveller even thought it doesn’t get enough of that credit. Although I’m not a fan of the whimsy of the character creation process, and that I think there could be more character development as games progress, I really would love to do a straight Sci Fi game with little or no fantasy elements.

KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC – I loved the video game on XBOX so much it made me want to run games in that setting, despite not being a hard core Star Wars geek. KOTOR is so removed from the yammering muppets, mincing droids, and lame humor of Sir George’s works, it really shines as a separate, more mature section of the SW multiverse. I actually got the chance to run several games for an established Star Wars gaming group recently, and despite that not working out the way I would have liked, I would love to spring this on my regular group. Problem is, they ain’t exactly hard core Star Wars geektards either. Long live Jar Jar (not).

BUNNIES & BURROWS – Even though I sold my first edition of this 1970’s game on Ebay a few years ago (sniff), I would love to run a small campaign of this Watership Down inspired old school RPG. I think I would find an alternative sytem to use for the character types (maybe Chaosium’s basic role playing) as presented in the original game, but I would really love to see how game play would pan out. Just going out in the field to look for truffles is a huge danger to these characters. So tense, furtive gameplay would be the order of the day. Yep, another lead balloon for my players. I don’t think they would buy my pitch.

So, those are some of mine. What kind of game would you like to GM, but probably never will?