A pernicious thing, memory

So I've been sent home from work because I burnt my hand like a giant idiot and I thought to myself 'oh well, what better an opportunity to get down to some long-neglected blog writing, even though I'm typing with one good hand and what is essentially a claw wrapped in gauze.' The left side of my keyboard suddenly seems like an expansive desert which I can traverse only with a single digit, one character at a time. And don't even THINK about trying to hold shift and type at the same time. At least caps-lock exists.

ANYWAY, I'm working on a longer kind of post that I want to accompany with my own artwork and RPG templates. I might even compile it into a PDF and put it up here for people to run if it sounds interesting to anyone, a la Deep Carbon (which is absolutely gorgeous). I read that particular adventure whilst listening to some Cryo Chamber stuff on Youtube and since then I haven't been able to get the weird and wonderful feelings out of my head.

Now would be a good time to mention my utterly sycophantic fanboy-ing for From Software's Souls games, including Bloodborne, so any superficial similarities are by no means coincidental. I adore them. They are hugely inspiring as sources of the kind of bleak and existential aesthetic I simply cannot get enough of, and which seems to influence a lot of the things I write and invent almost without me even realising it. In many ways, I feel they are representative of gaming as an expression of literature and art just as much as they are games in and of themselves. Very good indeed.

The thing I am envisioning at the moment seems to be a kind of megadungeon, a format to which I am rather partial. I suppose smaller and more episodic installments in an overarching campaign would be good too, but the idea of a sprawling expanse of random and spontaneous adventure potential amidst unknown depths and uncertain climes is too tempting to pass up. With regards to the aesthetic, I am imagining it being very heavy on the neo-gothic, or gothic revival style of architecture common in the 19th century in European cities like London, Prague, Ulm, Budapest etcetera. It's a style characterised by a kind of soaring grandeur, hopefulness, and optimism yet it looks simultaneously so foreboding and dreadful. Without further ado, some exposition:

Imrastone

A pernicious thing, memory. What is forgotten is only buried. Wounds heal but beneath the skin is a knotted welt of scars and mangled bone. Pushed below the wash of consciousness into the murky depths, it is free to warp and twist in the primordial trenches of the mind.

 A city in the grips of a nightmare, caught in the throes of a fitful sleep fuelled by its own memory. A city haunted, not by apparitions of people or monsters as such, but by the dreadful remembrance of its own history. A city haunted by a building. A city in mourning for its past, today naught but a ghost of its previous self.

In a flurry off noise and motion, the phantom disappears
(this is the Santa Maria Della Salute in Venice and is more baroque than neo-gothic but you get the idea)

A building that does not exist. Ghosts seen in reflections. Crumbling spires reflected in windows, in puddles of stagnant water that, when one looks up, are not there. A phantom of spires and arches that looms out of the fog, only to dissipate a moment later, nothing but a coalescence of smoke and vapour. Old signs point to a place long demolished or left to ruin. The building's physical locus is long gone, forgotten except in maps yellowed by age. But if one knows where to go, one can get inside this place, this brooding monument. One can see the remnants of its spirit and the collective experience of the people who walked its corridors, tarried in its halls.

It can be seem looming over with no discernable way to find
(and yeah St. Paul's is baroque too but gimme a break man)

It is a place that sits, foreboding, at the back of the city's mind. It is almost as if it is itself a manifestation of a city's collective hallucinations, part of their gestalt consciousness. But the place is real, at least in a historical sense. Years ago, it was built to be a place of hope, a place where things were fair and just. A civil court, a library, a hospital, a place of learning and knowledge and healing. But that was before the misdeeds of a generation past. Deemed irreconcilable and desecrated beyond repair, the building was condemned. The people set it ablaze and watched the place go up in flames, and come down naught but ash. This marked the night of the great fire, as great swathes of the city were forgotten in a sweeping amnesiac madness.

Sometimes one cannot be sure which architectural apparitions are real

A mausoleum of dreams, a place where thoughts go to rest. It holds the memories of a painful past. The remembrances that make people weep, a history steeped in sorrow, in redness and madness. Things that should be forgotten, but languish with restless trembling in the pits of the shadowed mind.

In a flash of anamnesis, one sees the jutting windows, hears a flock of birds. One sees spectres pressed upon panes of glass, having been once forgotten and all of a sudden recalled, their accusatory eyes filled with grief.

The city of Imrastone these days is a barren and blasted place. Fields of scrub, rubble, and wasteland intersperse the tightly packed and crumbling streets. People live here, people stay, but they are strange. A look in their eyes and the way they speak, disjointed as though they only say aloud a fraction of what runs through their minds. They are without hope, equal parts recklessly indulgent and wild, jealous, and fearful. During the day some take to the streets and roam in gangs. The only law now is violence, the rule of the mob, and they revel in the power they have. Lynchings are commonplace when the crowd gets riled. Others huddle in the dark and secret safety of their homes, keeping silent, extinguishing the lights, they remain by clinging to the memories of their ancient houses. There are scavengers who comb the rubble and ash for riches, scant though they may be. Old churches dot the blasted landscape and the rituals are carried out still, although dry and lifeless, a parody of once great and sacred rites presided over by the forlorn and the desperate. Bells toll for the lost and the forsaken, throwing their voices out across the thin air, bereft of cheer or promise of sanctuary. There are markets and people, but their wares are insipid, pathetic. Food for general consumption is mostly along the lines of anemic meat and etiolated vegetable matter. Inhabitants often go hunting for food if they have the guts to do so.

A casual visitor might conclude that the city is not such a fearful place. Granted it is strange, barren, and sometimes dangerous unless one has their wits about them. Perhaps other oddities may become apparent, with strange vistas in the fog which clear within moments, or confusing encounters that cannot be explained. The locals are certainly mad, and drink a lot in any case. But it is not a place steeped in horror and tormented by relentless, accusative memories as the inhabitants might suggest.

Until the sun begins to set. Until the inhabitants become frantic to find safety. Until they see those who have gouged out their eyes so they cannot see the abominations of their own minds made real.

When shadows grow long, an elemental and ineffable fear
makes a home in people's hearts

Impending dusk casts a pall of dread over the place. The fervent, clasping terror that assails the city is not truly felt until the time of sleep, when the unconscious comes bubbling to the surface unbidden and unwelcome. Dark enfolds the senses and the mind makes its own demons come rushing from the unknown shadows. Deep-seated fears are reified, given concrete form and intent.

Most people stay inside at night. They huddle around pallid candle flames and listen with bated breath for noises in the streets, noises magnified by the silence. A yowling cat becomes a banshee, a low wind is a lost voice. A pinpoint of light seen from afar becomes the accusing glance of the revenant. A tolling bell fills the immense void with reverberating delusion. Chills run down their spines and lurid imaginings plague their thoughts.

The security of a windowless room
awash with the glow of illumination
is a sacred and precious thing

Night is the time when the beating core of this nightmare, the great basilica and home of all that is wrong with Imrastone, is realised. Towering over every single instance of terror is the dome of the great Tribunal Cathedral of St. Lucidus. This was the place where the great fire was started, where the doors were barred and people screamed and clawed their hands to the bone trying to escape on that dreadful night. A place where the innocent were condemned to die along with the guilty because the people's hearts were carried to despair on a tide of rhetoric and scare-mongering.

Sometimes this soaring edifice appears somber and dark, brooding and reliving its past, other times it is incandescent with the flames of its consumption. It is almost as if the smouldering building remembers itself, recalls the injustice and seethes with rage, with a visceral need for justice in retrospect of the atrocities committed in its lifetime.

St. Paul's during the blitz is an apt illustration of the irrational kind of hatred I am picturing 

Ideas for Monsters

The gazing spectres which roam during the night are part of the collective guilt that the citizens feel, the combined grief of thousands made real. The gaze of these revenants, which accuses and invokes memory, is a terrible thing. It drives people mad, makes them do anything to forget, brings them low into a state of bestial rage in the face of such powerful emotion and pain. They are somewhat benign creatures, and tend not to cause direct harm to observers save emotional trauma but they are terrifying nonetheless.

Hold tight the light, small one
For the flame brings warmth
And cheer against the dark.
The Candle King will come to thee
When hope flickers like a torch.
Let your spirit take courage, small one
The Candle King will come.
(A lullaby)

Elsewhere in the city, there are stories of a being that has come into existence deep in the heart of Imrastone's twilight. One which is almost half-hopeful. Where every shadow is conjured there is an implicit light somewhere else. The Candle King of Imrastone is part vengeful spirit, part ambiguous saviour. Even so, what little hope there is at night for the people of the city is clung to fiercely. Votive tapers are lit in honour of the king, a call to invoke him, with the hope that he will arrive to cast away the dark. Some say the Candle King is a spirit garbed in spun gold drifting through the otherwise accursed streets, with light cascading from its body, bathing the city in the radiance of true being. A creature made of hope. Others say he is simply a courageous man who took it upon himself to crusade against the dark and the legend started there. Perhaps it is both. Perhaps one begat the other. Either way, stories proliferate and grow within the minds of the people. A powerful thing, to be sure.

The memory contained and controlled
allows communion with the dead,
or so it is thought

There are those that make their peace with the pernicious memory. Those that grapple with it and grow to accept it as part of them, as part of their history. By not denying it, they do not come into contention with the memories, but they are forever altered in the process. By accepting the dark of their unconscious they become pariahs, but with that they become immured to the horrors of Imrastone's night. They realise that fear of the dark is only a fear of one's own mind. But this has a strange effect. When they shun the light and shun contact with those who fear the dark, they become almost as liminal as memory itself. They only partially exist in the physical world. On an emotional level, on a psychological level, they feel shifting and indistinct. If one talks to them, half their mind seems to be somewhere else, fixated on some unseen thing. When night comes they become dangerous creatures, powerful and nebulous as shadow itself. Dark magic, one might call it. Witchcraft. It is said of them that they may speak to the memories, make contact with the spirits of the departed. They can contain the pernicious memory and shape it, control it to an extent. Cavorting in the ruins of the city, they indulge in rituals that bring them even closer to the source of this memory. They are said to sleep with the dead, to broker abominable pacts between the living and the departed. They are said to feel something beneath it, some kind of ultimate cause which draws power from the memory.

Back in the years before the blaze, there was a sickness which wracked the city. A mysterious illness which was difficult if not impossible to cure. A plague of sorts, it left its victims spluttering and weak before they eventually died of asphyxiation. There was a curfew and quarantine introduced and any suspected of catching the illness were dragged to the wards of the Tribunal Cathedral, which was set up as a temporary hospital so great were the numbers of diseased citizens. Those who enforced the curfew had orders to take any in violation to the Cathedral to stand trial, or to be themselves quarantined. They wore masks to keep out the vapours of the disease, and kept dogs to track down any in violation of the curfew. Catchers, they were called. The people of Imrastone grew used to hearing frenzied chases in the streets some nights, accompanied by the baying of their hounds and the wailing of their quarry. These days, some say the hounds can still be heard on the wind, searching for any in violation of the curfew, the masked catchers stalking the streets and knocking on doors, hoping to fill the Tribunal Cathedral with poor and sorry souls. The Catchers that prowl the streets of Imrastone at night are emanations of the Cathedral itself, manifestations of its hunger made solid by the collective fears of its citizens. They are towering, hulking creatures that bear little resemblance to the catchers of the past save the masks they wear. And the dogs- slathering hell hounds that leap and bound, seeking to rip and tear, to collect and feed the memory's hunger.

As amorphous and shifting thoughts come oozing from the psyches of Imrastone's people, there is no telling what one might come across if they ventured into the city at night, save that it would be quite awful. Manifestations of the deepest and most perturbed regions of the unconscious mind warp the buildings and streets. It is impossible to navigate with a conventional map of Imrastone, with timelines and hallucinations overlapping so. The geometry of the buildings appears to subtly change with each observation, as in a dream. 

Yet the entire city is not without some recourse, not without some method of recovery, however obtuse or self-destructive. Even though it is difficult to face any kind of recollection directly, there are a number of ways by which people seek to assuage the memories and lay them to rest. They are a mixture of curative and palliative measures. Some seek to destroy the madness at its heart, others perhaps lacking courage can only bring themselves to find a kind of temporary respite.

The Church of the Lethean is one such institution that has taken it upon itself to cure Imrastone of its affliction. A cult which has risen to prominence since the time of the fire, its task it to expunge the memory forever with rites and rituals of amnesia. They are partly an organisation of healing, and partly one on a self-righteous crusade against the dark. The Lethean is a hypothetical perfect being which has no memory and exists only in the present. It has no past and no future because it remains the same forever in ecstatic bliss, utterly at peace. The parishioners of the cult aspire to emulate the Lethean and do all they can to attain a similar perfection. As such, anything which is thought to carry overt connections to the past or to the pernicious memory in particular is to be put to rest forever, to be erased from the cosmos.

There are other methods that citizens use on an everyday basis to combat the memory. Alcoholism is rife in the populace and is frequently consumed until the imbiber lapses into a drunken stupor. Other substances like opium are widely taken to dull the senses and cloud the mind. But drugs of this kind cannot be found in such quantities as to medicate the entire population.

Ravens and crows are killed on sight- they are dark birds of memory that plague sites of death and decay. People find their cries to be like the pointing of a finger, the laughter of damnation. Tame birds of this kind are kept by the Church of the Lethean in the belief that they can search out places where the pernicious memory resides so it may be erased.

One surefire way to rid Imrastone of its past, of course, is to kill all those that remember it- to erase the collective memories by destroying the houses in which they reside. However, many say this method is controversial, rather like throwing the babe out with the bathwater so to speak.

And still, the search continues for the ultimate cure. For knowledge of the cause. Perhaps the pernicious memory can be purged, but the wound might still remain. No one is sure. The memory seems like a catalyst, a bridge of sorts between the world and some other place, but why this should happen, why Imrastone should be snagged on the metaphysical barb of its inhabitants' past misdeeds is still unknown. Scholars of the esoteric search blindly for the answer, plumbing depths of the universe without recourse, without recompense. If living memory of the atrocity were to be erased, were to be cured, there might still be an opening to Imrastone's past.

The first rays of morning are met with tears of joy and relief

In any case, these memories are felt and endured by all those who continue to live in Imrastone, whether they were there at the burning or not. Whether they live in denial or strive to set the city free from its past. And each morning, the dawn is greeted with ashen, sweat-drenched faces by those who remain, knowing that after the next day they must face night once more. That is unless this cursed memory can be purged.

What's more, the dear reader will no doubt be pleased to learn, during the writing of this article I returned to the doctor's and they gave me a much smaller dressing and now I can type completely normally and fluently. Hurray. Although now I have little to no excuse for my blogging negligence.

There's still a lot of ideas to get down for this, so in the future I'll try posting some designs for adventures and monsters and more of the setting etc etc. It's a good place to keep track of ideas for now.

Alignment and epistemology -Part 1- A Comprehensive or Narrative System?

I realise it's been a while since I posted anything. I have a number of articles approaching a state which one might call 'messy', and as such, it's taking a while to puzzle them all out before I feel it's right to actually publish them... Sorry everyone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Excuse me, where is Ron?

Epistemology is a word I've been throwing around quite a lot recently, and I'm not sure I should continue to do so without offering a little explanation as to what I mean and why it's such an important word in understanding many things in a traditional D&D game, not least of all alignment (in my opinion).

Same alignments, different epistemology.
(also Ron is not important)

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge- how we know things, how we might go about differentiating the subtle line between opinion and some kind of more concrete and informed belief, how we construct knowledge, and systems of understanding. Michel Foucault and successive scholars who built on his writing developed his theory of social discourse over the course of several books, and it is this idea which I feel is key to understanding the importance of epistemology in RPGs. More specifically it is integral to understanding the reasons for different outlooks that groups of people have regarding the same thing, i.e. the world and its content. Basically what I'm trying to suggest is that with the addition of a bit of complexity, a few more layers of meaning, we can get to a system which is deeply meaningful and fulfilling when it comes to player interaction with the world. From the perspective of a DM, we can see that this might potentially help to create more believable NPCs, and from a player perspective it could help to solidify their character's relationship with the world around them.

Foucault

Of course, this discussion is nothing new. The topic of alignment is divisive and people will debate it forever, and I'm sure I'm not going to say anything that hasn't been said before by a great many people, but I'll say it now in my own words, for my own reasons.

(p.s. I'm not saying I don't want to hear other people's opinions. I really do- morality is a debate, and it will go on forever. To suggest otherwise is utter hubris.)

Actually no this is Foucault.

I don't want to suggest that the alignment system in D&D (for example- it's the main go-to I have when it comes to RPGs) is useless or somehow broken, but it can be seen as deeply flawed when trying to construct a more nuanced view of the world that a given character or NPC might have. It seems that. naturally, the alignment system presented in the Player's Handbook is somewhat devoid of context. Of course, it has to be. Any given rule system that isn't blind to context is inherently limiting, and the more constrained a given system is to a context, or a world, the less flexible it is in facilitating the kind of campaign the players or DM actually want to run. And I know, I know, that in D&D the alignment system is inherently absolutist, as are a great many spells and effects and actions and whatnot, and that's the game. It's touted as evil vs good, holy vs demonic, avenging heroes defeating villains bent on global destruction, and that's all fine. People are of course allowed to play the game exactly the way they want to play it, but I think we can go further with this. Of course, to create a system that isn't blind to context means you have to create that context, and that might take a lot of work. Potentially a looooooot of work, but with that work I think it's possible to make something a little more interesting. A little more complex. And by complex, I mean specifically in the academic way. Not unnecessarily purposefully obtuse or confusing, but the product of interacting layers that give an output which is less predictable and (in my opinion) ultimately more engaging. 

But you have to admit, they do look similar...

(p.s. I'm not going to suggest a system as such in this post- I'm not going to write a whole new RPG here. Not yet. I'm just discussing how it might be done. Make of it what you will and play the games you want).

So...

A person's outlook and behaviour is deeply linked to the world in which they live and the model of the world (both material and social) that they build in their minds. In traditional D&D, the different alignments reflect a person's opinion and ethical outlook- the likelihood of a person to do or not do a certain thing, act to benefit themselves or others and so forth. I mean, I don't need to explain this to anyone who might stumble across this, I'm sure, but I'm trying to explicate what I mean in order to suggest how things might be different.

What I mean to say is that things like social context, social class, and environment should play a big role in deciding how a character acts whether they are conforming to their role or acting against what is expected of them. Interpreting the same alignment for one character might be wholly different for another from a different context, and a large part of what a character things is informed by what they know. One person's lawful good might be one thing, whereas another's take on the same alignment might be wildly different, depending on their world based context. A helpful bureaucrat, looking to give the full support of the state to those in need, would be wholly different to a righteous crusader whose only aim is to smite infidels and evildoers. Similarly, a (good) serf living off the land and providing food for their community, being exploited and stripped of all their worldly wealth by their (evil) baron, might still follow the law and subscribe to the feudal model. Likewise, this baron (good, in their eyes) has no knowledge of the serf's life other than that they often withhold the resources necessary to to pay for their liege's standing army, which keeps the neighbouring kingdom (evil) from invading and slaughtering all the serfs. This neighbouring kingdom (good) might be seeking to invade in order to expunge the malign influence of a wicked sorcerer (evil) from the land. While all this is going on, this sorcerer (good) who has uncovered mysteries of the universe is working to bring all life to a halt, an un-moving state of entropy, eternal stillness, and harmony in order to counteract forces (evil) that seek to torture and destroy all living souls. I mean this sorcerer might have to do some pretty gnarly stuff to get there but, in the end, his (admittedly utilitarian) viewpoint can still be argued as the right thing to do. Of course, these aren't watertight examples. I'm just trying to illustrate that alignment cannot be devoid of context when everyone has a reason for their actions which isn't just 'I'm lawful good'. In-groups can see out-groups as whatever alignment is convenient for their own world-view, and justify their actions thus.

Good versus evil as self-interest- We might be able to help tease this argument apart by explaining what we mean by 'good' and 'evil' in the alignment system, and we can explain it in a couple of different ways. It is often thought that characters in the 'good' bracket are lacking in self-interest. They place their own needs after the needs of others, and that would perhaps include things like economic and bodily security. Conversely, evil characters are inherently self-interested. They put their own needs above others, which would imply they are okay with theft and violence. The problem here is where we draw the line. In an adventure game, there is a certain degree of violence required for almost all characters. A lawful good fighter would still have to fight, and most likely kill, even if it were in defense of another. Similarly there is the need for cooperation is paramount. An evil character might have to actually help another at their own expense, justifying it by providing more long-term personal safety. Again, we see that the implications are in- and out-groups. The lawful good fighter can kill as long as they are destroying a kind of 'other', an 'evil', in the process, and the evil character can help their in-group because they are part of the group, and it is in their own interests to do so. In the same way, we can see how actions relating not only to self interest but also self sacrifice can be made apparent between members within a group. A good character might act against the interests of the group (and thus themselves) by trying to purge evil from within, and an evil character might similarly take from within to benefit themselves personally. A good character might fight a member of the group if they are putting group safety in danger, whereas an evil character might seek to kill a good party member if they feel they are putting the group (and thus themselves) at unnecessary risk. Furthermore, can we not argue that a good character's inner motivation for self sacrifice actually comes from a self interested desire to be praised? If everything is a form of self interest, no matter how obtuse, can good even be said to exist? Is an evil character's motivation for group destruction actually a hidden self-loathing, wanting all to hate them as much as they hate themselves for being such a rascal? Dunno.

I believe here we can begin to see that the traditional alignment system is potentially quite difficult when it comes to actually justifying the 'right' actions for the 'right' reasons, in that ... well, they are all justifiable, really. I might even go so far as to say that 'good' and 'evil' as such are almost entirely meaningless. Even if we add more dimensions to the equation, namely the third moral category of 'neutral', what happens? All we see is another category that is kind of self interested, but not as much as evil characters. Does that then shunt evil from self interest in a passive sense, to actively wishing or enacting harm towards others regardless of who they are? I mean, perhaps, but I have real issue with citing that as a core motivation for any character. We might be verging on discussing the difference between a rationally minded and a mentally ill person, but then again that is a discourse that Foucault has written extensively on and I wouldn't go as far as to critically engage with that right here right now in a fantasy RPG context. Furthermore I wouldn't espouse anyone to actively play a mentally ill person in an RPG without extremely careful and considerate thought, nor would I like to suggest that an alignment system can accurately account for mental illness. Categorisation of the mentally ill is a minefield that I am not remotely qualified to talk about.

We might then talk about whether a person's core motivations and principles can be accurately represented in their actions in context to all that is going on around them. Some characters are more courageous than others, and stand up for their own beliefs, but then again some characters don't necessarily have strong beliefs about method, and others care little for outcome. It's all a bit tricky really. Furthermore, I'm a staunch believer that in real life, no one wants to be evil. No one wants to cause pain and suffering for its own sake. It's tragic and misguided. But then in an RPG, the rules are different. We can do these things. We can explore impossibilities. I get that.

One thing we can do, however, is to be aware of a character's context and knowledge, and take into account what they think of other groups of people and other individuals as well as themselves in order to gain a more realistic and less reductive picture of what they are like as a person. If it might have seemed so earlier, I'm not trying to suggest a system for restricting player action, only that player actions should be convincingly justifiable within a system that can account for human complexity without violating itself several times over.

A comprehensive system of alignment can be a good thing- it allows for greater understanding of characters and NPCs within a given system and a more believable sense of verisimilitude when it comes to roleplaying. However, perhaps one advantage of a more simplistic system of alignment is that, when a character's actions don't fit with their pre-determined alignment, we can see it as an opportunity for change- a deepening of a character's complexity and a furthering of their development as a person- in other words, a narrative. And in essence, is that not what RPGs are about? In my eyes, they have always been a medium for collaborative storytelling. I will try to write up some more of my notes on the matter soon.

Of course, there are almost infinite potential systems. One interesting, putative model might be something akin to a Myers-Briggs test, which combines four mental processes in various forms to produce a complex array of personalities. In my opinion, it could offer an interesting way of looking at alignment without getting into all the 'good guy' and 'bad guy' stuff... Plus it does go so far as to suggest societal roles that each type might embody. I don't think this test has all the answers, of course, but it is an interesting (actually quite fascinating) tool with which to think about people. The pictures are from 16personalities, for those who are curious. Worth a look, in my opinion.

A well as that, this page gives an interesting analysis of alignment in a slightly different way.

I suppose I could sum up all my thoughts on the matter by with a typical Chaotic Neutral response. In the end any system of rules is unimportant as long as you play the game you want. Comments are actively welcomed. :)

And as always, of course, the hunt continues for a gaming group in which I can actually run some of these ideas...

A Paradigm- Magic, Knowledge, and Belief in RPGs

So, this is a post I've been working on, thinking about, and refining for a little while now. I have other posts in the works, but I keep on coming back to this one, trying to finalise and fully articulate what I actually think about the matter.

If a degree in Anthropology has taught me anything (aside from the fact that it will never be relevant for the purpose of job interviews), it's that human systems are interesting. As myriad and multifarious as the human species itself, and a product of countless iterations of the most complex object we currently know of (that being the squishy lump of fat in our skulls), human culture and society is a source of never-ending brilliance and baffling oddity in equal measure. Ingenious and flexible and enduring.

So why not take inspiration from it? Why not use the massive amounts of scholarly and anecdotal information available to make some vaguely interesting stories for an RPG? Hmm?

(as an aside, I hate the use of the phrase 'why not.' Such as 'why not try one of our tasty new cinnamon sugar bagels, now with added STUFF?' or 'why not treat yourself to a relaxing bath-soak-bubble-bliss-bomb-ball?' (which doesn't sound very relaxing, really) because they're only trying to sell you something. They're only trying to appeal to the part of your brain which says 'oh, people say you should always try new things, even if I think I shouldn't. In fact, if I think I shouldn't then I probably definitely SHOULD.' And don't get me started on the word SHOULD. It's all total garbage.)

Think about gods as concepts, personifications or representations of time, place, object. A manifestation of the anthropic principle. It's the time/place/object's importance to the people that need them which makes a thing sacred. Regardless of whether they exist physically or not, a people's deities are important because the objects around them are significantly intertwined with their lives.

In many RPG systems and settings the presence of belief in a person's life seems all too often to be a mere addendum, a bolt-on to be considered after the fact- the fact itself being the creation of a society or culture in which the belief structure resides. It seems like many settings are merely a secular society much like our own which has merely had a pseudo-feudal veil draped over it. But then feudalism was only considered a right and proper way to govern because of the divine right of monarchs- something people actually had to believe in, or at least pretend they did. More often than not, a set of religious, spiritual, or metaphysical beliefs is quite integral to how the inhabitants of a given culture understand themselves and negotiate their life within this system. The feudal system was intertwined with the idea of 'God and the King', with the church being the reason why most people did anything at all.

And this is heavily linked to how people view their daily lives- the normal and profane sphere of their existence as well as the special and sacred. Consider a more polytheistic or animist setting. A pantheon of deities and spirits specific to one village might be subtly different to one a few miles away. Different saints, different spirits, different festivals, different rites to observe, and different sacrifices to be made. Belief is about culture, and culture can be argued to be a manifestation of a person's deeply held beliefs about themselves and their world. I don't even want to use the word 'religion'. It has too many connotations, and what I'm talking about isn't the 'go to church on Sunday and feel bad for an hour about your life and how you're not living it properly' kind of thing a lot of us are vaguely familiar with (in the anglophone-sphere). With the ideas which I'm trying to get at here science could belong, too (and I mention this specifically as a cultural posture and not the scientific method, which I consider to be different). It's a set of precepts by which you understand the world and how to live within it.

(before I go any further with this, I want to point out that I'm not trying to equate religion and science. I don't want to get into an argument about empiricism and research and evidence or lack thereof when it comes to informing someone about how to conceptualise their world. I'm not going to address how someone comes to have this information, nor whether or not it is 'correct'. I only want to talk about what they do with it and how it influences the way in which they interact with the world, themselves, and others. For the purpose of this post, consider *all* knowledge as an epistemology on an equal footing with any other systemic and intra-dependent system of knowledge. An economist might view the world different to a physicist, a conservationist, a teacher, an artist, etc etc. based on how they think and what they know and believe to be important. In a way, it touches on cognitive linguistics and could be a certain manifestation of the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis.)

The scope of this article is quite huge in an RPG sense. It could be applied to a myriad of things and I could devote hundreds of hours to writing about it. Indeed, more eloquent and informed persons have done so already. I intend to write more on it, but for now I will content myself by suggesting that I think it adds so much more flavour to a setting and makes something in the way of an attempt at verisimilitude, or the approach to something with the appearance of the authentic. I feel it makes a constructed world like that of an RPG setting more cohesive, more real, more engaging.

This book features quite a lot in my thinking on the matter

As does this one. I recommend it- it's pretty interesting.

So, how can this be related to an actual game session or a setting? Imagine a pantheon of spirits and deities which represents the metaphysical beliefs of a single village somewhere in the countryside. I'm thinking along the lines of bucolic deities of the woods, the fields, the mountains, the sea. That kind of thing. Personifications of those forces that lord over the elements, the sky, stars, winds. They reflect the world in which people live, and represent not only aspects of humans and their lives, but also that which is external to society. That is to say, in this context, that the gods are the bridge by which people conceptualise the line between the tame and the wild- that which is civilised and that which is savage. It's a dichotomy that people carry with them at all times, and one which informs the extent of that they consider human or humane, and that which is inhuman, that which is monstrous or unknown or unknowable. They are deities with two sides- the inscrutable aspects of divine beings who are beyond the knowledge of mortal souls.

Mortals honour them, love them, and fear them in equal measure.

I want to continue with my thoughts on this theme in the future, so watch this space, if you're interested in what I think.

Comic making and the digital format PNG nightmare.

The first panel of a comic that I am beginning to work on. I have a lot to work on. My drawing skills not least of all... But I hope to upload more some time soon. I want to tell the story right now but if I did that there would be no point in making the comic, so I must exercise a little restraint. But expect stuff inspired by my frequently read blogspot pages, including the brilliant Goblin Punch, Games With Others, False Machine, and other weird goodness like KSBD.

I should have waited until I had at least a whole page I suppose, but I'm impatient. I'm still trying to refine a kind of style, so I may vary it a bit until I've found one I consistently like. Drawn using a rotring 0.2 grade fine liner, a pentel brush pen, and coloured using Games Workshop wash inks, because I have no others...

I mean, consider these two doodles. Same subject matter, different styles. I can't decide which one I prefer. Eh. I mean, there is a distinct difference between the two, but which to use? Perhaps I'll just draw it all twice. (Also please ignore my complete inability to format pictures for internet purposes. I am not proud of myself.)

There is a certain boldness to digital colouring that I can't seem to capture when colouring with inks or watercolour, but then there is a lot more texture and interest with hand-coloured images. Hmmm...

I recently got a wacom in order to get cracking on some digital colouring, inspired by people like Brandon Graham. More specifically, his continuation of Rob Liefeld's Prophet- a graphic novel he's written and co-drawn with a bunch of other extremely talented artists, to which I can only aspire. By the way, if you haven't heard of it, I can only recommend it, and desperately so. It is brilliant.

The Megadungeon That is a Train

I've been thinking about different ideas for a dungeon setting. Specifically an interminable, unfathomable megadungeon that defies the normal rules of the world. Such places seem to be the perfect setting for an adventure story that would be told, but scarce believed, around a campfire, or at a bar strewn with empty glasses.

Railsea cover from the art of Les Edwards

For some reason I thought about a train. I'm sure it's not original, and has probably been done before somewhere, but there's something about the idea that is at least interesting. Trains can be somewhat demonic and unpleasant things at the best of times. The process of a long train journey can be tiring endeavour, and that's when things aren't specifically trying to kill you or sabotage your trip. It might seem that way, but it is indifference only.

Things about trains that can be bad include- 

Waiting for a train you think might never turn up.

Finding out you have the wrong ticket and have to pay a penalty fare.

The toilets.

The food on the trolley.

Drunken passengers.

Sober passengers.

Screaming babies.

Motion sickness.

Hearing 'the train approaching platform 1 will not stop here. Please stand back' and then a train screams past at 500 miles an hour going 'SHOOM-SHOOM-SHOOM-SHOOM-SHOOM!!!!' for a whole awful minute. One of the things that truly terrifies me.

But anyway, this dungeon. Possibly inspired by my own fears and prejudices.

A train of blackened and rusted iron, in perpetual motion that stretches for miles and miles, carriages as big as cathedrals, seething and coursing through the different dimensions, planes, and planets of the universe like the river styx. No windows- an oppressive, coffin-like edifice which feels like it could be in the deepest reaches of some mechanical hell. Always in motion, always a roaring cacophony of machinery. The tacking, thrumming noise driving into your skull forever, the swaying and shuddering motion making its way unbidden into your very bones, and the howling train's whistle heralding its approach, echoing through the dimensions of the multiverse like a banshee. I'm imagining the fantasy elements somewhere along the lines of China Miéville's Iron Council or Railsea. That is to say weird, overwrought, and excessively rich and bizarre, but all the more brilliant because of it. A train in perpetual motion, older than anyone knows, being forever patched and repaired by engineers that spend their entire lives aboard the locomotive. A caste of creatures dedicated to keeping the train moving, keeping its masters happy- pursuing agendas that they cannot possibly understand, and probably wouldn't want to if they could.

But why are the adventurers aboard the train? Perhaps they happened to see it in the wilderness, making its inexorable way across a blasted landscape. One of the rare occasions when it bursts into the physical plane- exploding out of a mountainside like dynamite from the walls of a quarry, or shooting from the mouth of an ancient cave, or roaring and steaming out of the ocean like some unholy, hulking iron cetacean, only to vanish again without a trace

Perhaps they woke with a pounding headache, their alcohol-pickled brains barely remembering the night before. They boarded the train in a moment of drunken delirium.

Or perhaps they needed to barter for passage onto the train- to reach another plane or chasing the rumour of a great artifact currently in transit. There would be those in the know. Shady dealers that know where the train might be passing through next. Occult diviners of the locomotion, seers of the engine.  The oil they use is from the train itself- black and viscous. They take it like a psychoactive drug and peer through veils of steam, selling their knowledge to the highest bidder. The train could next come coursing through an urban sewer, an immense subterranean waterway, or screaming through an abandoned station on the edge of town.

And once aboard, where do they go? What do they do? It seems hopeless. The train is miles long and each carriage the size of the greatest edifices of human-kind's architectural imaginings. Is it possible to tell which way the train is going? Do they want to go forwards to the driver's carriage, or back to the end of the train? Does the train even have an end? Perhaps it stretches back into an abyssal mass of machinery and fire, steel and grease. No one knows. These questions may never be answered. The characters must face the interminable decision- stay where they are and wait for the train to come to a halt, or forge on in either direction.

P.s. I realize that this could sound like an impossibly awful and linear dungeon. It is literally a big line of rooms, however you might spin it. But a train this big would have other ways in which to traverse each carriage. Auxiliary corridors and emergency transit corridors, more walkways running under the main floor of each carriage, and walkways hanging high above it. Similarly, each carriage could be so big it could house multiple types of ... carriage biome? Whatever. My point is, I'm trying to convince myself that is't not an entirely boring and linear adventure. I think the main appeal is that it is modular. The train can be filled with anything, and there is no restriction on the order in which things are encountered, except perhaps the locomotive itself at the front, if they ever get that far.

By Rivende on Flikr

What do they find in the next carriage?

As they make their way along the train, the heavy doors and flimsy corridors that connect the carriages reveal ever stranger sights and sounds. Roll and find out. I feel like I've gone a bit mad on the exhaustive description of this list, but hopefully you get the idea.

• A freight carriage: Crates, boxes, murky jars. Hundreds upon hundreds of them stacked up into the soaring darkness of the train. Names, routes and destinations scrawled upon them in a myriad of different languages, they contain goods from countless places, on their way to countless more. Huge iron containers graven with unrecognised sigils, immense wooden boxes with warnings and official documentation nailed to them. A giant glass tank, filled with viscous brown liquid, holds a faint and indistinct shape twisting and turning in its depths. Oddly alluring smells come from terracotta urns big enough to hold a person, stoppered with black wax and stamped with seals proclaiming their ownership. There could be untold wealth in these containers, if only one could leave the train and find somewhere to spend it. Some containers have been broken into and looted, worthless contents like clothes and personal effects strewn over the carriage. A wide-eyed vagrant rests in an upturned crate, nursing a pitiful campfire and muttering to themselves.
• Passenger car: This portion of the train is dedicated to those who actually want to be on the train. Those who have paid for a place on the train that is quiet (relatively) and pleasant (again, relatively) and guarded. The passenger cars are like whole towns stacked three houses high, with gangways and catwalks crisscrossing above and up into the shadowed vaults  of the carriage's ceiling. The carriage is free for passage through, but each apartment is sealed tight from the inside, and good luck convincing anyone to open their door. People can spend their entire lives on the train. Indeed, entire generations live in the carriage-apartments. Waiting for their destination or trading for their room as one of the engineering crew, them and their children forever bound in servitude in exchange for a safe place to rest.
• Dining car: Less of a restaurant, more of an abattoir. A hectic marketplace, a teeming mass of feeding and bizarre livestock which thrives in the dim light. The stench would be unbearable- rotting meat and vegetable matter to be carted off to the furnace at the front of the train. The bodily odor of a hundred different animal species all mingled together. There are creatures here whose tastes are somewhat singular. One might have to watch out that they don't get mistaken for the next piece of cattle to come up for auction...
• Plants have overgrown this carriage: A piece of cargo containing a particularly aggressive vine got broken, or holes in the carriage to the outside started letting in water and plant matter. The carriage is seething with greenery and insect life. There might be a cool breeze, even edible fruit or vegetable matter. Like a self contained biome, the carriage breathes, respiring within itself. Or perhaps it is not plant matter, but alien fungal growth that has overtaken the carriage. The air would be thick and heavy, full of spores. Luminous, fleshy fungi would line all the walls and floors. Poison everywhere.
• A prison carriage: The train as a prison sentence would mean life. Life imprisonment in an iron tomb. A screeching, roaring, hammering tomb that moves forever further from your home, from your life. Spending their days in barred cages amidst a mass of groaning metal, fed nothing but scraps from passing charnel carts, brutalised by guards who share a similar fate- to be forever aboard this train. The people and not-people imprisoned here would be driven mad soon after their arrival. Screaming, wailing, crying, cursing, they live a transitory mental life, their minds soon succumbing to the stress, the cruelty. The smell of bodily secretion, excrement, sweat, and blood permeate the carriage as the players move along corridors lined by rusted bars and concrete. Light in the carriage is largely regarded as a waste of oil, and prisoners lurk at the back of their cells as light approaches, their eyes not used to the flaring, searing pain of a lantern or a torch. Some of the cells are empty, others have clearly been broken out of... The escaped criminals would probably not stay in the car. They would run tearing away from the place as fast as their legs could carry them, but no guards would even bother to give chase. As far as the guards are concerned, they're not getting off any time soon. They would probably run off to seek solitude, to seek a way off the train, or to find a quiet place to die, to drown, to lie forever.
• Corpse car: 'Coach D is the designated quiet coach.' Where people can go if they wish to remain undisturbed. A sepulchre of stone built to blot out the engine noise, carpeted with a layer of bone dust. It also means that the creatures here would be rather distressed at the intrusion of noise. Adventuring parties included. This coach would be stacked full of coffins of every conceivable shape, size, and material. Wooden caskets piled indiscriminately on top of finely carved stone sarcophagi. Insectoid cocoons made from spittle and mud attached to the walls and suspended from the ceiling by transparent strands. Giant's tombs and exposed ossuaries waiting for the train to stop at some far-flung cemetery, where loved ones can be put to rest in the places of their distant ancestors.
• This carriage is full of machinery: The noise here is louder and more incessant than other carriages in the train. Unbearable crashing and hammering of pistons, roaring steam assails your senses as you stumble through this carriage.
• A shanty town: A community of vagrants has cropped up in one of the carriages. They have banded together for security and companionship, cobbling together their resources. The town is not a sanctioned passenger car, and the law keepers on the train frequently raid the community. But for now it is relatively peaceful. If one finds a place to rest here, they might hear music echoing off the walls high above. They might even find that the rocking of the train is somewhat soothing. They might.
• A feral carriage: The door is marked with an 'X' painted on in red. The contents of this carriage have been written off as lost. There are people or creatures in the carriage now that are openly hostile to any interlopers. Feral humans who cannibalize their own, chitinous monsters that lurk in the heights of the carriage, waiting to descend and prey on a likely morsel. The carriage smells of blood and death, and chattering can be heard from the deep recesses where light cannot fall.
• The water tank: Like a miniature oil-slicked ocean, this carriage provides the water the train needs to power the pistons which drive it ever forwards. It also provides passage for the train's aquatic passengers. Adventurers gaze upwards through steel-ribbed glass tunnels, seeing skeins of light pouring through rainbowed patterns of oil and indistinct forms drifting through the swill. Ancient species that have been on the train for aeons can be seen lurking on the bottom of the tank, staring with bulbous and glowing eyes from amongst ersatz reefs of rusted iron and banks of silt. It might be a sign the party is nearing the front of the train- the driver's cabin and the locomotive engine itself. Perhaps a mighty Aboleth lurks in the waters, looking to enslave passers by to strive for its freedom.
• The locomotive engine: The party has reached the front of the train. The engine that pulls the train ever further from whatever abyss it originally emerged. The noise here would be deafening- rank upon rank of immense pistons chug and scream and hiss while the furnace is fed by a never-ending stream of coal, oil, waste, bodies, anything flammable. No one the players have encountered had any stories about the driver. Even the engineering crew have never met the driver. There are rumours that the driver is a demon, a fallen angel, some abomination from the far places of the multiverse. Some say the driver is just a person, aimlessly hauling on myriad levers that number in the thousands, scrabbling at dials, and checking the pressure gauges. In any case, the driver would be dependent on the cosmology of any system currently in place. Could be anything. Could be nothing. Maybe there IS no driver. Maybe the driver is the latest poor soul to reach the cabin and find no one at the controls. They desperately try to bring the train to a stop, and spend the rest of their life figuring out how whilst being driven mad by the noise. Oooohhhh...

I imagine it looking like something akin to Battlefleet Gothic, but without the space guns.
Concept art by Zachary Graves

Encounters/events

So that the slog through doesn't become interminably dull, events crop up. During the passage through the belly of the train, various encounters the party might have with its denizens could include...

• A conductor: An unfortunate ticket inspector who became separated from the rest of the crew. 'Tickets please' doesn't even enter into their head as they're stumbling lost through the myriad carriages. Though perhaps they do ask the players for tickets... They probably wouldn't be able to read the cryptic scrawlings that pass for a valid ticket, inscribed on vellum and issued by some deep and unfathomable pseudo-divinity hundreds of years in the past. The worst the conductor could do in the event of an invalid ticket would be to respectfully ask the stowaways to alight at the next stop. When and where this might be, the conductor could not possibly know, however. (Aside: These tickets valid for travel aboard the train might be handed down from generation to generation on the material plane- each inheritor waiting for a chance to find the train, to use the ticket. They obviously don't know what it's really like on there. No timetable, no destination. Horrible.)
• A door to the outside: A solid iron valve-wheel door as high and wide as five people, or little more than a hatch. A sign next to the door says 'Door will not open while train is in motion.' There is a 50% chance that creatures congregate around the door, desperate to leave the train when it next stops. There could be a meager camp of disheveled and hungry vagrants clustered around it, running out of food and supplies with a jealous glint in their eyes. Or a long-dead party of adventurers. People say the longer you wait at the door, the closer to home you will be. These people could be mad.
• The engines become quiet: The train's engines thrum and pound, but grow slower and slower, the incessant pitch descending as the engines cease to strain, but the crashing sounds of the wheels on the tracks remain. Is the train going downhill? Perhaps the land beneath it has stopped. Perhaps gravity has ceased to be a burden.
• The wheels cease their thrumming, crashing noise: Almost as if the train is no longer moving on the tracks. The noises of the engine whir around you, but the noise sounds muffled. You become aware of a ringing in your ears. Now the noise is lessened, it is apparent that the train is slowly deafening you.
• A window: The window could be caked in soot, inside and out. Or slathered in paint or grease. Either way, it is difficult to see through. Someone looking through might make out indistinct shapes. Trees, mountains, the walls of a cave. Lights of uncertain origin flashing by at regular intervals. A glowing landscape of red-hot mountains. Shadowy masses of leviathans in the deep waters. A sweeping starscape.
• More people lost aboard the train: They might be able to tell the players what lies in the next carriage. They might have stories of their own. Injuries- a crippled foot, a heavily bleeding bite.
• An announcement: Some creature aboard the train- a conductor or a wayward passenger- has reached the broadcast terminal near the front of the train. Could be an official train message like 'we will shortly be arriving at KRRUUAADGIYDGHDSGHHHGHHHHH', or 'the dining car is now open. We are serving an array of cuisine from the deep oceans of ISEEEEEGHISDUUHBGAI, baked uterine tissue from fresh GNMASGOAOSSFOOOOGLLEL cattle, boiled cephalopod offal, fresh bacon rolls, sandwiches, and a drink of your choice.' Or perhaps a desperate voice imploring the passengers to rise up and seize the train, for the good of all those trapped on board, and then a sickening noise followed by silence.
• The food trolley: A slimy, seedy merchant pushing a comically large and unwieldy trolley packed with goods from the dining car comes trundling along. They are probably wearing an oversized coat stuffed full of extra-special products. Bottles of spirits (liquid and ectoplasmic alike), intricate contraptions and exquisite jewelry. Possibly legit, possibly not. It's hard to tell. But there would definitely be many a squeaking wheel. The merchant seems of uncertain origin, and it's likely they have spent their entire life on the train. Besides the sundries and salvaged goods they sell, there might be a great deal of information available to an astute questioner.
• The train begins to turn: With a convulsing of the engines, the train sways ominously. Your footing becomes unsteady and you must struggle to stay upright. Hold on to something, but be careful what you grab. Burning hot pipes are everywhere.
• The engines roar louder: The train might be encountering a patch of difficult land. Or ocean. Or non-land. A more viscous transitional medium. The noise of the machinery and steam builds to an unbearable cacophony. Speech is impossible to hear, and perception checks for sound are nigh impossible.
• The machinery begins to scream: With the mechanisms screeching and trembling, it becomes apparent that the brakes are being applied. The train is slowing down. Is it coming to a complete halt? All aboard can only wait, and hope. There is a mad rush for the nearest door as the trains inhabitants jostle and scrap amongst each other.
• Inter-planar travelers: For some, the train represents a way to transition through the walls that separate the planes, a way to traverse the soundless depths of the multiverse. They cannot control its direction, but sooner or later, it might pass through somewhere interesting. These travelers embarked to see the universe. A rash and venturesome decision, but one driven by a wild wanderlust. Getting off the train, however, is another matter... They each have stories of their own home, their origin. Some of them wish to return. Others realize they never will.
• A fugitive: A desperate miscreant evading law-keepers. The train would be a perfect place to hide. Its constant wending and shifting through dimensional boundaries makes it supremely difficult to follow, and those that make it aboard to look for the escapee would find it even harder to return, providing they even caught up with their quarry. Conversely, the party might find...
• Law-keepers looking for a fugitive: Perhaps there are indeed those aboard who are looking to apprehend someone who has evaded justice. But their task quickly changed. Instead of finding whoever it was they came for, their main concern would turn to simply staying alive long enough to make it off the train. The seekers would realize that this place is punishment enough. An eternal, mobile purgatory.
• Repair crew: The train requires constant maintenance, and those who are tasked with its repair would spend weeks, if not months or years attempting to find and fix any malfunctions. The train could be like a broom which had its head and shaft replaced intermittently for a million years but a billion different people. Same broom? It really doesn't matter. They can't get off anyway. The engineers of the train are covered in grime, dirt, oil. Wearing overalls and goggles, they scour the train in gangs, carting around scraps with which to patch holes in the pipes and the walls. They build and build and paint and hammer and build, working their way ever onwards down the train. Do they ever come back? Who knows?
• Inter-caste conflict: Two groups of engineers are encountered, going at each other all hammer-and-tongs. There is bad blood here. When the dust settles, it is apparent that there are subtle differences in the way they dress and the tools they carry. Perhaps there is a bitter conflict amongst different castes of the engineers about how best to care for the train. One caste's elders eschew a certain welding method which is deeply sacred to another, and one disdains the use of certain tools held to be holy objects by another. Either way, the conflict would be brutal. Not that anyone else would care, as long as the train keeps moving.

The combine from Half Life 2. Like this, but more ... messy.

How does one leave the train? How indeed. There must be a myriad of ways to get off, but they would be secret. Hidden. Difficult. There might be interdimensional doors that lead to innocuous places in various planes of existence. The door in the back of  an inner-city bakery might lead directly to one of the freight containers on the train. A sewer grate might give access to the dining car, and likewise provide a method of escape. The train might actually stop, allowing hundreds of desperate passengers to alight in what could be a lush paradise, or blasted wasteland. Either way, whole cities of displaced people could spring up. Perhaps the party separate the locomotive from the rest of the train- decoupling and forsaking the entirety of the rest of it to ... gods know what. Entropy and death? A welcome silence? The biting cold of outer space? Well, whichever, they then use the locomotive's interdimensional powers to go have some really weird adventures. If they can ever figure out the controls.

Eh. That's enough about trains. I don't even like them that much...

Hit points and abstraction. A flexible narrative device, or unhelpful meta-gaming?

The situation as it is

So, I quite like D&D as a system, but one of the things I really would rather do without is the hit points. I feel like it does a couple of things which I would argue are detrimental. As follows.

One- it encourages too much in the way of the 'reduce to zero' kind of thinking prevalent in RPGs and games. It's a whole mentality. Imagine the scene. You're in Skyrim and you see a wolf in the woods. It just fucking COMES AT you and WILL NOT STOP until you've battered it to death. Even if you land a solid hit to its nose with a war hammer or set its pelt on fire it just won't leave you alone. It won't run skulking off into the woods never to bother you again. It hasn't learned its lesson not to bother heavily armed travelers on lonely roads through the wilderness. Even if it does run the other way, it will regroup and COME BACK. The idiot. Either that or you'll be compelled to run after it and continue to batter it until it can't run anymore, then you steal its fur and for some reason a gold coin it was carrying (where??).

I mean, the specific gripe I have here is enemy AI in games but in the context of player-game mentality, it reinforces the idea that they have to kill everything. This way, killing means a neat and tidy job of reducing things to zero hit points whereafter they pose no threat and can be conveniently looted.

It's an endangered species you dick. Just leave it alone.

But really, things can take quite a long time to die. For me, reaching zero hit points and lapsing straight into unconsciousness fails to reflect that brutal but necessary moment when you beat an opponent into the floor after inflicting upon them a series of increasingly grievous injuries and, once they're lying helpless on the floor, begging and blubbering for mercy or defiantly cursing your name, you run them through and finish the job. Or you could just leave them to die. It's more unsavoury. More realistic.

I feel it would be a little like this.

Two- I get that it can represent an abstract system of fatigue, bruising, and whatnot, but it's not ... fun. I can't look at hit points on a character sheet and get an accurate depiction of what state my character is in. Maybe it's because I'm more of a visual person and I really like the idea of cards detailing abilities, equipment, and effects arrayed in front of me in picture form rather than scrawled on a character sheet in an incomprehensible list, complete with smudgy eraser marks. It makes for an easier and more enjoyable game (in my opinion) if you can give a card to a player and it has the effect right there on it, complete with a neat little picture.

Another way

So, the alternative? Something a little less abstract, perhaps. I haven't really had a chance to test this, but I feel like it could work. It could be fun. Though I can't figure out if it would make combat more deadly, or less so. I'm always in favour of upping the deadly.

Injury- There are already plenty of injury-based systems around, but I'd rather like to create my own. I'm not very well read when it comes to RPG systems specifically (it's more the lore and story I'm interested in, to be honest) but I'm wanting to come up with something at least fun if not workable.

So, AC can still come into play, and to-hit mechanics would have to overcome the AC of their target, but if a hit is made, no hit points are lost because there are none to lose. Instead, the player rolls an injury die. Depending on their toughness, or their evasiveness, or their training, they roll. A d4 reflects a squishy character without toughness, instinct, or training (perhaps a magic-user), whereas a 10 represents someone almost untouchable. I mean, this is a putative mechanic at the moment. It feels a little unbalanced, but it can be changed, of course.

On a roll of 1, or maybe even a 1 or 2, the player sustains an injury, determined at random by drawing a card. Could be anything, from getting a lacerated artery to merely a flesh wound. Preferably, the nastier the better. Some early ideas include...

• Lacerated artery (time): Something hit just the wrong spot. -1 con and a fortitude save per turn. On a roll of 0 or less, you fall unconscious and continue to lose con until dead. A successful heal check will staunch the bleeding and limit further con loss.
• Gouged eye: Some bastard got you right in the eye. The injury could be permanent, but only time will tell. -1d6 wis and half any perception roll.
• Torso stab: Your core strength has been seriously compromised. -1d4 str, -1d4 con.
• Bashed in the head: -1d6 int, wis, and/or cha. Fortitude save or fall prone.
• Ear-whack: Momentarily disorientated. Left with a ringing and a rattling. Might need a sit down.
• Fractured arm: One or more bones in your arm seem ... crunchy. -1d6 str and -1d6 dex.
• Fractured leg: One or more bones in your leg seem ... scrape, scrape. Crunch. Oooargh... -1d6 dex, 50% movement, no dex to AC.
• Missing chunk: Something took a big bite. -1d6 con.
• Gored: Something pointy has ripped you open. It really hurts. -1d6 str, dex, and con.
• Just a flesh wound: But it still really hurts. -1d4 str, dex, or con.
• Bleeding: Something in you is gushing quite a lot of blood. -1d4 con per turn until staunched.
• Fatigued or Exhausted: Not necessarily an injury, but an effect that could come into play once too many minor injuries are sustained. Perhaps.

Furthermore, there could be a list of grievous injuries that a player might sustain if something gets them really bad (critical hit or something really, really big). They could come with a suite of their own regular injuries as standard.

• Cracked skull: Fort save every turn or fall unconscious, -1d6 int, wis.
• Loss of limb: Lose use of limb, Bleeding
• Disembowelment: Organs are spilling. Hold them in or you might snuff it pretty quickly.
• Crushed bones: Not just a simple fracture
• Impaled: Cannot move. -1d6 dex and con. If removed, apply Bleeding.
• Cut throat: -1d6 con per turn. Save fort or fall unconscious.

You get the idea. They would of course come with fully articulated effects and a nice hand-drawn illustration.

Mandatory illustrative diagram

This would mean players who have taken a bit of a beating would be able to continue the adventure, probably. Healing ability loss as a result of broken bones etc would take longer than the average gaming session, so it might make players choose their fights a little more carefully, and role-play their way out of potentially deadly combat encounters. I don't want to force players to do things, though. I just think it would be more fun, and encourage more creative thinking.

Further implications for game mechanics could come into play. New feats could allow players to shrug off one injury per day, or per encounter, or up their injury die to the next level.

• Tough: +1 injury die type
• Really tough: A further +1
• Huge and tough: Another +1

• Canny: +1
• Really canny: +1
• Foxy bastard: +1

• Combat Training: +1 die type

• Deadly: Allows player to reduce opponent die type by 1. But that seems a little powerful.

Different injury die- Gregor might have a d10, poor Oberyn might be stuck on a d6.

Barbarian rage could allow the player to temporarily ignore the effects of any injury, making it possible to sustain a lot of damage until it wears off, at which point they might immediately drop down dead. Hmmm... Many possibilities.

Anyway, I feel like a system of this sort could have positive effects on gameplay, in making character sheets simpler and more streamlined. And although this system is more complex than hit points, it can be implemented in a way that makes it more interesting. Far more interesting.

I'll follow up on this in the future. A more concrete system, and some nice little injury cards to download.