Trying to Make Sense of Skills, BX, and a Sci-fi Setting

Once I accepted the idea of skills for a sci-fi version of BX, my brain started to run in several directions at the same time. I apologize if this rambles a bit, but this post serves the function of trying to find some order within the chaos firing off in my brain...

Firstly, I am sore tempted to fiddle with ability scores. D&D has never really seemed to understand WIS. Indeed, CHA seems to be a better fit for what WIS should be. I also think there needs to be a better representation of knowledge and how society and individuals understand themselves in relation to knowledge.

The first place I went to begin this exploration is my favorite Sci-fi RPG — Traveller. CT also has six ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Status. I really like the distinction between Intelligence and Education as well as the implications on the game for the existence of Social Status. I am not done fiddling yet, though.

There are quite a few rules that are unique to the Holmes edition of Basic D&D. On paper, one that seems to be broken is DEX = Initiative. I held this opinion for many years, but I did so without ever putting it into practice. Once I had the humility to do so, however, it became my favorite way to handle initiative at the table. Once everybody gets used to the overall order within the party, it makes combat faster. Players understand when they always go, and so have a tactical and strategic role to fulfill, which they no longer have to think about, just do. I know what to expect, because the basic pattern remains similar if not the same. It is difficult to explain other than to say: It works.

I do, however, worry that using DEX = Initiative places too much mechanical weight on DEX. While in my own games I have tried to mitigate this weight by giving low DEX characters tactical choices higher DEX characters would likely not make, I think Initiative should be its own thing. Thus, I am tempted to roll up STR and DEX into one attribute: Physical. I'll address the mechanical implications of this below.

Before we get there, I need to explain my own expectations of a classic D&D campaign vs. those of a generic Sci-Fi RPG campaign:

The first is centered around delving into various areas of a campaign map looking for treasure and fighting/avoiding a variety of monsters and traps along the way. As the party delves deeper, monsters and traps get harder and treasures become more valuable. Thus, as the campaign goes on characters need to gain abilities that can better adapt to the increasing difficulty of these monsters and traps.

The second is much more mission oriented with a healthy slice of exploration/information gathering. Thus, the rewards that characters get along the way are much less about the character's ability to deal increasingly difficult challenges, but rather on obtaining better equipment and reputations so that they can attract better paying/influential patrons to get increasingly more meaningful missions.

To illustrate this, let me compare Conan the Destroyer and the original Star Wars. At the beginning of the movie, Conan is fighting normal soldiers. As the movie goes on, the relative strength of his opponents increase in strength and danger until the climax where he is trying to kill some demon/demi-god thing. In contrast, the main combatants throughout Star Wars are Storm Troopers and Tie-Fighters. What really changes is the mission, who is sponsoring that mission, the equipment being used, and the importance of that mission.

As an aside, the guys that I played D&D with growing up almost all prefer low-level campaigns. The stories we tell each other about the old days almost always involve a PC that has absolutely no business adventuring, let alone succeeding. As a consequence, we have discussed at length about various mechanical means by which to keep the game low-level without sacrificing a lot of the other stuff we love about the game. One bugaboo we keep running into is the Hit Die — a central mechanic in the older rulesets we prefer to play.

Given the narrative structure of a sc-fi game, the import of the Hit Die is far less significant. Characters are just as likely to encounter their campaign's version of storm troopers early in the campaign as they are late in the campaign. Thus, the need for the HD/hp arms race of D&D isn't really necessary. If I wanted to be radical about it, Hit Points could even be static throughout the campaign.Thus, I am sore tempted to simply equate Endurance/Constitution with hit points.

This brings me back to Physical — combining STR and DEX into one ability. Given that STR and DEX both have a lot of mechanical consequences in combat, this seems like I am putting too much mechanical weight into one ability score. I would agree, if I kept all of the mechanical bonuses that STR and DEX have in D&D. I don't plan to.

Classic D&D has three Classes (Cleric, Fighting-man, and Magic-user), three Prime Requisits (STR, INT, and WIS), and (almost) three Abilities that directly affect combat (DEX, CON, and CHA). I want to use this structure.

Classes: Adept, Expert, and Warrior

Prime Requisits: INT, EDU, PHYS

Combat Abilities: INI, END, SOC

One might notice (and even complain) that this set-up gets rid of various mechanics such as "to-hit" bonuses, AC modifiers, etc. You aren't wrong; however, this is where the idea of a "trained" skill comes into play. Classes and Backgrounds will give players an opportunity at Character Creation to choose various skills that are "trained" and therefore give the character access to an additional mechanic based on an Ability Score. For example, if you wanted a melee character, you would choose a class or background that gave you access to PHYS skill training and then choose a skill that would give you access to melee "to hit" bonuses or damage bonuses.

I'd have to play-test this, but there is also the opportunity to have two levels of "trained" skills. As a general rule, all skills are 1-in-6. Class and Background allow characters access to training all skills under specific ability scores, allowing them to increase their success chance based on the Open Doors mechanic from B/X.

All I have to do now is come up with a balanced list of skills for each ability score and the mechanics associated with them...God help me.

Gamer ADD: A Meditation on Skill Systems

This time of year (Great Lent & Holy Week) are always very busy for me, so I haven't been able to keep up with the various Cruthanarc battle reports or even put miniatures on the table. Thus, my Gamer ADD brain has been contemplating what Cruthanarc might look like if it were a D&D campaign. Of course, my system of choice is B/X because of its flexibility and built-in sci-fi elements; however, sci-fi always seems to imply a need for a skill system in order to emulate all the technology that exists in these kinds settings.

Those familiar with this blog will understand that I am very wary of skill systems because they tend to tell players what they cannot do rather than what they can do. Thus, when meditating on modern and sci-fi settings I have been trying to reconcile the mechanical need with the mechanical drawback of skill systems. 

My recent musings have seized upon an already extant skill within B/X — Open Doors. It is tied to an ability score (STR) and is a simple d6 roll. There are two implications here that I really appreciate about this nascent skill system:

1. No matter how low an ability score a character has, there is always at least a 1 in 6 chance at success.
2. There is a benchmark for when a skill check is necessary. If something is not as difficult as opening a heavy locked door, no dice need to be rolled.

There is one more implication here that I can derive from how I handle Opening Doors in my own campaigns. I got sick and tired of seeing players roll d6 after d6 trying to open a door they saw as necessary to their progress in an adventure. Thus, the way I rule the Open Door roll is not to see whether or not the PC can physically open the door, but rather whether they can open the door and still surprise any monsters that are behind that door. Thus, the roll isn't success vs. failure, but rather success without complication vs. success with complication.

Should I ever write out a skill system, I would be sore temped to use the Open Door mechanic as the basis for that system. It does not encourage players to think their character cannot do something, rather it encourages players to think in terms of risk/reward for doing things. "Am I willing to accept complications for trying this?"

Regardless, here is some advice I have for Referees/GMs/DMs/etc. on how to use skill systems:

Before asking a player to roll the dice, go through the following steps:

1. If you are unwilling to accept the consequences of a bad roll, don't have the player roll any dice. Rather, simply arbitrate an outcome that you see as fair.
2. If the task at hand is easier than opening a heavy locked door, simply rule that the PC automatically succeeds.
3. If the task at hand is necessary for the PCs progress in their chosen adventure, the roll should not be success vs. failure. Rather, it should be success without complications vs. success with complications.

Are there any ways that you arbitrate skill systems that encourage players to experiment and try things rather than seeing skills as a barrier that tells them what they cannot do?

 

Why Star Wars, etc. Now S*cks

I was one of those kids who saw Star Wars (before it was dubbed A New Hope) in the theater. I was doomed to be a sci-fi/fantasy fan for the rest of my life. I began to buy comic books. I found Dr. Who on my local PBS. My mom brought home the Holmes Basic Box set. I tried reading the Lord of the Rings and found I could scratch my fantasy itch elsewhere. I even tolerated watching Star Trek with my Trekkie friends. Though for many years my entertainment dollar has rarely gone towards anything beyond RPGs and war games, I am still a fan at heart and hope that some day there is a franchise out there that I will find worthy of my time and my dollar.

Unfortunately, companies like WotC, Disney, WB, Paramount, etc. have all decided that I am toxic and whatever is the most recent flavor of -ist this week. I want Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and even Star Trek to be good; however, I don’t just think they won’t be anytime soon, I know they won’t be.

In the past, I have critiqued various movies and shows for abandoning the Divine in their story telling. God is the first storyteller. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament quoted by the writers of the New Testament and the oldest version of the OT we have today, the verb in the first sentence in Scripture (In the beginning God created) has the same root as poetry. This version of to create is only used when in association with God, and he creates (makes poetry) through speaking, “Let there be light.” Thus, just as all creation was doomed to decay and death by humanity turning its back on God, stories are doomed to meaningless drivel when the storyteller turns their back on the source of all stories.

While I still stand by this critique, there is another level of horrid storytelling that has been cropping up recently that I think needs to be addressed because it goes beyond turning its back on God and turns its back on the human person. Let me explain.

Reality can be broken up into two categories: the general and the particular. For example, I am using a computer in order to write this post. Some portion of those who are reading this post will also be using a computer to do so. While the term “computer” helpfully describes all of these devices, I am using a particular computer and the reader is using another particular computer. All computers = the general; my computer = the particular.

The crux of my critique depends on the fact the human beings always experience the particular and never experience the general. Whenever I encounter “computer” in my life, it is always a particular computer. The general “computer” is an immaterial concept that, although outside the particular experience of human beings, is nonetheless very real. The general allow us to make sense of the particular. Without the general, our empirical experience of the world would be a chaotic string of ever-changing data with no basis for interpretation or understanding.

From a Christian POV, this is how we experience and understand the Trinity. The general is God and the particular is the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is why Christ became a human being — so that we can intimately know God in the particular.

The reason story telling in the present is so awful is that the characters that occupy our stories are the general instead of the particular. Let me illustrate this my favorite literary inspiration for the Thief class — Bilbo Baggins. In JRR Tolkien’s works, Bilbo Baggins is important because he is a particular hobbit with individual quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and interests that qualify him to be the burglar that Gandalf chooses for the purpose of recovering what was lost to the dragon Smaug. If The Hobbit were written by today’s crop of storytellers, Gandalf would have chosen Bilbo because he is a hobbit and no other reason.

Characters today are largely just a collection of general categories based on immutable characteristics. While I acknowledge the reality of bigotry in the world — there is no question that bigotry exists and affects people on a regular basis — none of us have ever experienced “white,” “black,” or whatever category is fashionable in the present moment. We have, however, experienced particular human persons that have these immutable characteristics.

Herein is the insidious nature of the kind of storytelling we see in today’s popular culture, and why it is so awful. Characters are no longer human persons. They are no longer unique, irreplaceable, and valuable individuals. Characters are merely categories. As individual persons, they have no value because they can be replaced by another character from the same general category.

This type of storytelling can only produce uninteresting and valueless stories because the individual characters that occupy these stories have no intrinsic value in their particularity. As consumers, it becomes increasingly difficult to care about these stories because there is no particular to encounter — these stories deny us the very basic human experience of the particular that is our reality.

This also explains why it is so easy to label fans who demand the particular as toxic and -ists of various flavors. We are denying and criticizing the immutable characteristic — the general category — of the character. Since there is no particular and only the general, we must therefore be toxic and -ist.

All of this dehumanizes everybody. History has shown again and again that when we dehumanize the other, nothing good follows.

Conceptually, Picard is the Best Star Trek Ever

Long time readers of this blog know that I am no real fan of Star Trek. So, it might surprise people to know that I think that Picard, the most recent entry into this long franchise, may conceptually be the best that has ever hit the screen.

Since its premiere, I have listened to fans of all stripes whinging about various aspects of the show. The two most prominent are the overt criticisms of Trump and Brexit (confirmed by actor Patrick Stewart) and the abandonment of Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic, utopian vision of humanity’s future. Ironically, I think both of these are actually the strengths of the show (although both are probably unintentional). This is why I hedge my praise of the show with the word “conceptually.”

Let me explain. Star Trek was always a humanist propaganda tool. It posited that if we could just adopt the right world view, humanity could overcome all of the basest instincts of human nature and stick a fork in the ideas and conflicts that have plagued humanity since we were self-aware. The problem I have with this is that it is wildly unrealistic. It fails to understand that those base instincts are baked in and that they will destroy every single human endeavor regardless of how noble it may be.

The Mosaic Law proved this reality long before humanism ever became a thing. The Law has no salvific value. Rather, it demonstrates that we are incapable of saving ourselves by strictly following any kind of law or order. We will always fall short and fail. The only hope we have of overcoming evil and sin is God.

So, when Picard tried going after Trump by painting the Federation as a xenophobic fascist state I actually was intrigued. While I think criticisms of Trump as a racist and a tyrant are misplaced, lazy, and get in the way of more constructive criticisms of the man and his policies, I don’t think they are misplaced when it comes to the realities of what the Federation would probably have to look like.

Humanity has tried imposing utopias before. They have always devolved into authoritarianism. As the OT points out, we are incapable of living up to any lofty standard demanded by a utopia. Thus, it requires an iron fist to make people toe the line even in the face of a reality that proves the absurdity of the utopia.

Thus, Picard, rather than being a criticism of current political events, becomes an internal criticism of Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision. It transforms the entire canon from a naive but hopeful humanist vision of the future into propaganda films shoved down our throat from an authoritarian regime that wants us to buy the lie that it isn’t a xenophobic dictatorship.

Thus, all of the various inconsistencies with canon that cause cognitive dissonance within the mind of those used to the propaganda are fair game. For example: Romulus was never the massive empire we were led to believe. If it were, they would have had the technology and resources to save themselves without the intervention of the Federation. So Picard’s rescue mission reveals the lie.

I don’t know if this concept will hold true for the rest of the show, but conceptually I think this is the best thing to happen to Star Trek since it got a second pilot.

Meditating on Altered Carbon

As I have stated in the past, I am not a huge fan of modern science fiction. That doesn’t mean I don’t hope that there might still appear on the horizon a good or even great modern sci-fi tale worth taking in. Thus, I occasionally dip my toe in the water to see if anybody comes close. Altered Carbon happens to be one of those tales that does get close.

For those who have not yet taken a look at the new Netflix sci-fi show, it is based on a 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan about what might today be called a transhumanist culture where people’s consciousness is recorded into what are called “stacks” and inserted into different bodies. Originally intended to be a means of space exploration (transfer your consciousness to a body light years away without having to physically cross space), it ends up being used to create a man-made version of immortality.

To its credit, Altered Carbon does a very good job of depicting what a world without God looks like: it is hedonistic, brutal and miserable even for those who hold all the wealth and power. It is the Marque de Sade writ large. It also acknowledges that Christianity (in this case the “Neo-Catholics”) would stand in opposition to the idea of stacking.

Unfortunately, like much of entertainment today, the mouthpieces for what passes for a theological discussion are cookie-cutter, inflexible, intolerant and have the rhetorical skills of a piece of cardboard. This show could have been great had it taken this aspect of the story more seriously, because it is a fascinating exploration of what is the soul, what does it mean to be human and where does God fit in to all of this.

To that end, I would like to present the case historical Christianity would actually make should such a technology ever be made available (and Note to Sci-Fi authors: the Church will survive all the philosophical crap thrown its way despite the existence or non-existence of aliens or fantastic technology so you don’t need to cheapen your stories by coming up with crap names like “Neo-Catholics”):

Christianity has long maintained that the body is an integral part of the human person, Christ became incarnate in order to save us, after all. Thus, from very early on, people have been asking the question where in the body does the soul reside, because one doesn’t want to go around getting manicures if the soul happens to reside in the fingernails.

St. Athanasius the Great actually tackled this question in a way that directly speaks to the story presented in Altered Carbon. He understood that the soul would not reside in a part of the body that the body could survive without. Thus, it is not in hair or the fingernails, or limbs or eyes or even things like the kidney or the frontal lobe of the brain. Human beings can survive without all of these things (maybe not well or for very long, but life would continue). He posited three areas of the body that life cannot do without:

• Arteries (destroy an artery and the human body bleeds out very quickly and dies)
• Heart (pretty self-explanatory)
• Back of the Head (the place where the Medulla Oblongata is, that part of the brain that controls involuntary functions like the heart beating, etc.)

This last observation is the most intriguing in terms of Altered Carbon because that is where the “stacks” are placed inside the body. Therefore, it could be argued that they contain a human soul based on the part of the body they function in. A conversation could be had about whether or not the whole soul was contained therein (having left behind both the heart and the arteries) but the Church has long been comfortable with organ transplants. The first recorded transplant was done by Sts. Cosmos and Damianos (a leg) some sixteen hundred years ago.

Due to the fact that a donor is preserving life, there has been no serious objections, even to heart transplants other than the admonition that the recipient is now responsible for not only their own soul, but for that of the person who saved their life.

Thus, from a practical and theological point of view the objections that the Neo-Catholics have for the “stacking” technology bear little resemblance to historic Christianity. That doesn’t mean the Church wouldn’t have objections to the society depicted in Altered Carbon and the way it uses stacks.

As I stated above, the human body is an integral part of the human person. Preserving one’s consciousness or even one’s soul does not mean that the human person is being preserved. More critically, however, is the use of clones by the uber-rich to emulate immortality and the treatment of human bodies in general (they are derogatorily called “sleeves” as if they are clothing rather than people).

Despite the fact that cloning technologies are popularly associated with science fiction, clones already exist among us: they are normal called identical twins, triplets, etc. I have been blessed to know several pairs of identical twins in my life. While it is almost spooky how similar twins are in their likes and dislikes, etc. there is no question that each one of them is a unique and unrepeatable human person. It would be considered unconscionable for the eldest twin to “own” their sibling because they came from the same genetic code or for one twin to harvest the organs of a living twin because those organs “belong” to them.

In other words, when we gain the ability to make clones of ourselves, each and every one of those clones will be a unique and unrepeatable human person in the same way identical twins are. To treat them as property to be used to emulate immortality would do so on the back of slaves. Actually, they would be worse than slaves, because even their basic humanity would be denied them. They are just “sleeves” that aren’t even allowed the freedom to consciously be forced to serve their masters.

At the core of the story told by Altered Carbon is the question: What does it mean to be human? Specifically, is death part of what makes us human? A society that has replaced God with demigods who fake their immortality through technology is depicted as vile, violent, stagnant and bored. It is even hypothesized that they have ceased to be human.

Had this show bothered to have more than a cardboard caricature of Christianity (and a fundamental misunderstanding of it to boot), this show could have plumbed the depths of the questions it asks in a far more interesting and, dare I say, entertaining way. It could even have been one of those great science fiction tales.

A Rogue One Rant

Recently, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story appeared on Netflix. To be honest, after enduring Star Wars VII, I was not particularly interested in this movie despite all the rave reviews. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to sleep the other day and decided to see if Disney’s take on what has already been covered in Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama was boring enough to put me to sleep. I made it to about the 40-minute mark.

Here is the thing: all of us already know this story. We all knew going into the movie that rebel agents would steal the Death Star plans and get killed delivering this vital information to Princess Leia. If this last bit came as a surprise, evidently the pitched battle at the beginning of A New Hope was not a big enough clue, or, as I mentioned above, you haven’t listened to the Radio Drama (and you really should).

Therefore, plot was not a tool the writers had when writing this script. There was no plot twist, turn or surprise that was going to change the outcome of this movie. The only real option in stories like these is character development. In the case of the story supposedly covered in Rogue One there are three basic characters:

1. The Empire
2. The Rebellion
3. The Agent who gets killed

Thus, the job of the writer is to ask a couple of questions:

• What motivates The Agent to be willing to die?
• Is The Rebellion/The Empire worth dying for?

Answering these questions can make for a gripping story despite the fact that we know the plot. For example: The Patriot has a basic plot that we all know: the American Revolution. The movie, however, was not about the American Revolution. It was about how Mel Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, went from being a guilt-ridden combat veteran who wanted nothing to do with the war to becoming a Patriot.

As a post-Christian movie, Rogue One failed miserably on this front. While they did provide us with a bunch of cool characters, not one of them had any real depth and the movie never really bothered to give us an arc to understand why these people were willing to die for the Rebellion. Further, the portrayal of the other two main characters (The Rebellion and The Empire) was fraught through with relativism.

The Rebellion was portrayed as a fractured, schizophrenic movement that really didn’t know what it wanted to be, all the while doing whatever it took to survive including murdering its own and committing acts of terrorism. The assumption here is that simply taking on the mantel “The Rebellion” automatically makes these people the good guys; however, being rebels does not a good character make. For example, the Bolshevik Revolution executed around 1000 political prisoners a month into the early 1920s.

The Empire was portrayed as an entity that wanted to bring peace to the galaxy at all cost, up to and including the use of a super weapon; however, having and using a super weapon does not an evil character make. The U.S. is the only country to ever actually use a nuclear weapon in war. The U.S. did so to end WWII and it is arguable that not only did its use save lives, but that the cause for which they used that weapon is one of the greatest countries ever to exist (warts and all).

So, 40 minutes into the movie I didn’t understand why the Rebellion was so important to save because they were portrayed as not being much better than the Empire and I certainly didn’t understand why all these cool characters were so willing to run off and die to save it.

Back when Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas I was hopeful that new life would be pumped into the franchise after the bitter disappointment of Episodes I-III. Unfortunately, Disney has proven once again why I trust Hollywood about as far as I can throw a bantha. All they have done is produce movies that make Episodes I-III look good in comparison. After all, no matter how badly they were done, at least George Lucas attempted to answer the question as to why Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

Meditating on Firearms in D&D

So, following up on my recent thoughts about firearms, here are some simple concepts that could accompany the idea that the main defense against firearms is not armor but saving throws.

All firearms have three ranges:

• Short: full damage, save for half-damage
• Medium: full damage, save for no damage
• Long: half-damage, save for no damage

Cover (and the Referee gets to decide what is Cover and what is not) makes all ranges into Long Range.

Therefore, there are two main ways to modify how aspects of a gun function: adjust the Range or adjust Cover. This allows a huge variety of mechanical ways to express various “tech-levels,” barrel lengths, calibers, accessaries, etc. For example:

• Shortening or lengthening ranges is an easy way to express the relative effectiveness of a gun. A muzzle-loader would have a much smaller range increments than a 21st century sniper rifle.
• Different saving throws (if one uses the saving throws from B/X, LL etc. instead of the “one-size fits all” approach of S&W) can be assigned to different calibers. For example: "Poison or Death" could be used for the smaller end (.32 or 9mm) and "Breath Attacks" could be used for the higher end (.50 cal) and/or shot guns.
• Armor Piercing rounds could reduce Cover to Medium Range
• Scopes could reduce ranges to Short and Medium (Medium = Short, Long = Medium)
• Sci-fi weapons like plasma guns could only have a Short Range (however long the Referee wanted the range of a plasma gun to be).
• etc.

Let the world building commence!

Meditating on Realism

So I noticed a couple of sorties in what Talysman has dubbed The Realism War. It began with Noism trying to make the claim that it is absurd to try and be realistic in a fantasy game:

Fantasy gaming rests on a fiction: that you could have a society like England in 1200 AD which also has supernatural beings, magic, and active deities. That fiction, in turn, rests on the understanding that nobody thinks about it too hard.

Talysman countered:

it's not the attempt to inject realism into a game that is absurd, but the fetishism of realism and application of a scientific world-view to a fantasy game.

To a certain extent, both are correct. Fantasy worlds are just fantasy and applying our scientific world view upon a world where magic exists can be absurd. I would argue, however, that they both miss a greater point and a magnificent opportunity.

To me the fun of it all isn’t trying to explain how radically different AD 1200 England would look if dragons went around eating cattle by adjusting historic cattle/people ratios or cultural norms. For me, the fun is trying to explain how AD 1200 England and dragons can coexist without having to do all that obsessive number crunching.

Herein, our scientific world view can actually be a boon rather than a bane. What if, for example, dragons were an silicon based alien life form trapped here on earth when an ancient space ship crash landed? Their diet would not consist of carbon based life forms. They would rather be interested in crystals, minerals, gems and precious metals (thus the need for giant treasure hordes). It would also explain the whole breath weapon thing. The byproduct of breathing oxygen would be silicon dioxide — a solid. In order to easily expunge this byproduct, the dragon simply heats it up and expels it in liquid form as a breath weapon.

There, now you have an entirely plausible, entertaining and geektastic explanation for how dragons could exist in context of an otherwise historically accurate AD 1200 England without having to crunch one number. All you have to do is dash on a little science to get your fantasy even farther out of the box.

Gamer ADD: Meditating on a Traveller Campaign

Over the weekend, Library Bob, a fellow Orthodox Christian and gamer dropped me a comment on an older post of mine ostensibly about Traveller. He writes his own blog that occasionally touches upon his own Traveller game and was interested in tying his Orthodox musings to his Traveller musings.

I found the idea intriguing enough that a bit of Gamer ADD has had me thinking about how I would run a Traveller game and the themes I might bring to the table. Let me begin by noting that a really good starting point for this discussion is the tragically cancelled Firefly (created by Joss Whedon, the genius behind the success of the Avengers) and one of the greatest sci-fi TV shows of all time.

The reason being, Firefly plays with Christian themes and has Christian characters — including the main character Mal (despite his protestations to the contrary). In other words, sci-fi, Christianity and Christian themes are not only complementary, but can create some really great stuff.

So, here is a short list of themes and ideas that I would use as the basis of a Traveller campaign.

Outer Darkness

I have spoken on this blog a lot about the dynamic between the Chaotic/Demonic Wilderness vs. Lawful/Christian Civilization in D&D. This theme can easily be modified to fit into a sci-fi setting. In the history of the Orthodox Church, the Wilderness is normally associated with the desert — a stand-in for the Land of Nod where demons reside. It is the place where monasticism flourishes — where Christians of all ages have taken the offensive in the spiritual war against the devil and his minions.

In a world where entire planets are civilized and even terraformed, the new desert will be outer space. The Wilderness will be unexplored planets in the outer darkness. I have long wanted to include a monastery inside a giant asteroid in an asteroid belt in a sci-fi campaign, for example.

The key for this to work, however, is having some kind of demon. In D&D the are a plethora of monsters. Curiously, Traveller has always been human-centric even when it comes to its aliens (more on that in a bit) so this requires a bit of imagination. Firefly, though, has a great bit of inspiration — the Reavers.

If one is willing to deviate from canon and if used properly, the Zhodani could also play this role quite well.

What is Humanity?

One of the reasons I love the Third Imperium as a sci-fi setting is that it confronts the reality that the greatest alien is us. The idea that when humans finally make first contact, they come face to face with themselves is genius.

It forces us, as players, to confront the question what makes a human human? Is it culture? Is it genetics? Is it the ability to create a Jump Drive? The fun part of asking this question (from a gaming perspective) is that if one limits that answer to any sort of category (and there are plenty of those available to one playing in the Third Imperium), it opens the flood gates of conflict.

Historically, any time we take one aspect of the totality of what it means to be human and elevate it above ever other aspect, it always ends badly. Nationalism, fascism, communism, slavery and racism are all examples of this. Playing aspects against each other is a great way to generate adventures and even entire campaigns.

Having the Solomani Confederation as a central part of a campaign is a great way to play with this theme. I have always been fascinated by the cultural conflict within Solomani space between its fierce independence, its racial pride and its totalitarian impulses through the ubiquity of the Solomani Party.

Adding non-human aliens to the mix just makes the question more complicated. What is their place in God’s plan of salvation? How does Christ’s humanity speak to these alien species? Does his taking on human nature exclude them — again what is humanity?

Who is God?

This is closely related to the question What is Humanity? due to the nature of Christ, who is both God and Man. In a setting that has an ancient alien race that toys with genetics and seeds worlds throughout the galaxy with humans and elevated animal species, one is tempted to doubt that there is a God who created all things.

This doubt is a fantastic source for campaign ideas. There will be NPCs, planets and entire regions of space that will deny the existence of God. This denial leads people to try to replace God with themselves. As it has throughout human history, this course of action results in disaster of one kind or another. For example, take a look at the death toll of Communism and Fascism in the 20th century.

Firefly plays with this theme with its conflict between the inner and outer worlds. When, as is revealed by the movie Serenity, the inner worlds try to play God, bad things happen.

The Solomani Party has much in common with the Communists and Fascists. Therefore, they are a great way to play with this theme. If one has the Zhodani using psionics has an excuse to replace God with themselves, this can add a level of depth to both the psionic suppression and the Frontier Wars.

Patrons

One of the best ways to run a Traveller campaign is via Patrons — the folks who hire the players to do their dirty work. This, frankly, is one of the best ways to introduce Christian elements into the game. Patrons can be Christians (like those monks who live inside an asteroid). Or they can be those who work against Christians (like a politician who wants to prevent an important Christian relic from reaching a region/planet that the politician is having a hard time controlling/wants to take control of and sees the relic as key to his/her goal).

Grrr. Now I want to play Traveller.

Saintly Saturday: St. Raphael of Brooklyn

Today is one of two recognized feast days for St. Raphael of Brooklyn, one of the most recently recognized Orthodox Christian saints (glorified in 2000). These two feast days are February 27 and the first Saturday of November (which places it shortly prior to Raphael's own patronal feast for the Archangels on November 8).

St. Raphael was born Rafla Hawaweeny in Beirut, Lebanon in 1860 where his parents had fled from Damascus in Syria due to religious persecution. In 1879 he was tonsured a monk. After receiving a theological education at the Theological School at Halki (in Turkey — which, by the way, has been shut down by Turkish authorities since 1971) where he was ordained to the deaconate in 1885. He then went to study at the Theological Academy in Kiev where he was ordained a priest in 1889. He was then invited to New York to become the pastor of the city's Syro-Arab Orthodox Christian community (which would later move to Brooklyn). He arrived in New York in November of 1895.

He would spent the rest of his life traveling the U.S. seeking out Orthodox Arabs to minister to them, and to gather them together. Before his death in 1915 he had established 30 parishes and had gathered together around 25,000 faithful. He was also involved in founding St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery (which is also now a seminary). In 1904 he was the first Orthodox Christian bishop ordained in North America.

Although St. Raphael is a fantastic example of the kind of wandering cleric one might expect in a D&D campaign (and even demonstrates how, in extreme situations, priests and bishops will wander far and wide), I am going to indulge in a little Gamer ADD. Given the relative modernity of St. Raphael, he provides a marvelous model for the wandering holy man in a wide range of setting and genre-based games.

Let me preface this by reminding folks that today Orthodox Christianity uses a version of the Divine Liturgy that was redacted by St. John Chrysostom in the 4th century using a version even earlier than that. Despite the radical changes that the world has gone through in the last sixteen centuries, Orthodox Christianity has stayed true to what has been passed down from generation to generation. This is not due to a reticence to change with the times, but rather out of an ability to make that which was passed down relevant to each successive age.

This is my way of pointing out that sixteen centuries from now, the Orthodox Church will still be with us and most likely will still be praying the same words St. John Chrysostom wrote sixteen hundred years ago and that we pray today. Therefore, any genre that hypothesizes a world based on our own ought to have a place for a St. Raphael — a wandering Christian missionary — even if it only ever remains a potentiality.

One of my pet peeves about the sci-fi genre (particularly in the last two decades or so) is that it not only ignores this potentiality, but actively tries to deny it. Despite surviving heresy and schism, Roman persecutions, Persian invasions, Muslim conquests, and Communist depravities, Christianity will somehow disappear in the face of modern science? Really?

It is for this reason that one of my all-time favorites in any medium of sci-fi is Firefly/Serenity. Joss Whedon is honest enough to make Christianity and Christian characters part of his story.

Indeed, Malcom Reynolds is a great simile for the modern American. Despite all his protestations to the contrary, Christianity forms the core of his principles and often explains why he makes the choices that he does.

St. Raphael himself personifies an archetype appropriate for such games as Boot Hill, Deadlands and Weird West. For another example from popular culture, let me highlight my favorite Gene Wilder movie, The Frisco Kid where he plays a rabbi trying to cross the country to minister to the Jewish Community in San Francisco.

This archetype is easily applicable to such hard sci-fi games as Traveller, Thousand Suns and Stars Without Number. Book from Firefly/Serenity is an excellent example.

Even in games that envision a world that destroyed itself (such as Gamma World), Christianity was part of that past and (through the power of the Holy Spirit) could have either survived or be part of a character's quest to recover.

In other words, my love of the cleric class goes far beyond the confines of D&D and its descendants and St. Raphael is my guide.

Thoughts on Sci-Fi RPGs Part 4

I've been under the weather this past weekend, and as I've demonstrated in the past, I tend to deal with such misery by doing thought experiments. Since a comment by Erin on my musings on Sci Fi RPGs brought my attention to this particular thought experiment, that is how I spent my weekend. Since Scott of Huge Ruined Pile has done much of the hard work with the rules themselves, I busied myself with the Inspirational Source Material at the end of Molday's Basic D&D. I felt entirely justified in doing this, because I vividly remember staking out literary territories that inspired and informed D&D worlds that my friends and I built and played in when we were first trying to feel our way through the game.

I did give myself a limitation, however. I only allowed authors and works that I had not read before. As I was ill, I was limited to free on line resources. One of the first authors that I had success with was Leigh Brackett and her fabulous tale "The Black Amazon of Mars," which was the original title and version of The People of the Talisman — one of the titles cited by Moldvay.

Please note, Leigh Brackett is a sci fi writer and "The Black Amazon" is a sci fi tale. Interstellar travel is a given. The story begins with the aftermath of a gun battle. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are all mentioned as places the hero Eric John Stark has been.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Having been completely drawn into Brackett's vision of Mars and her version of the solar system and inspired enough to put on paper some kind of D&D version of this vision, I have come to the conclusion that I think James' question makes an erroneous assumption. Despite the sci fi source material, D&D (especially Moldvay's edition) is a perfectly suitable game with which to create a world and universe inspired by Brackett's work. Thus, D&D is a science fiction RPG, and the most wildly successful one, at that.

We forget that the classification of sci fi and fantasy as two separate genres is a fairly recent phenomenon. Although James is very good at mining and giving homage to the past, his question fails to remember this reality. Which brings me to what I think is the real answer to his question. D&D has been as successful as it has because it so good at pastiche. It is perfectly capable of being high fantasy, dark fantasy, pulp, sci fi, horror, etc. It doesn't matter what you want to do, D&D is quite capable of handling it. In contrast, games like Traveller are too much tied to their niche within the sci fi/fantasy spectrum. In other words, you could do the Third Imperium with D&D, but you couldn't do Greyhawk with Traveller. That narrow focus necessarily limits their appeal and thus their audience.

So the real question isn't why these other games have failed, but rather why D&D succeeded. The answer is the wonderful goulash that sci fi used to be and the fact that D&D was not only was born out of it, but embraced it.

Thoughts on Sci-Fi RPGs Part 3

Given everything that I've said on this topic the last couple of days, here is what the OSR Sci Fi RPG I would write might look like:

Thoughts on Sci-Fi RPGs Part 2

The only long term sci fi campaign I was ever involved with was a Star Wars (d6) campaign. I've played a lot of Traveller over the years, but my friends and I were more enamored with the mini-game that is character creation in CT than we were in the game itself. I've also played a lot of other sci fi games, none of which had the kind of pull that Star Wars did.

I must admit that one of the reasons that the campaign was so successful is the way it was run. The party had ties to the rebellion, and as a pseudo-military unit were sent on various missions. In the hands of a good Referee and willing players, this set-up can work very well; however, I also believe that the source material played large in the longevity of the campaign.

Firstly (and most importantly, in my opinion) religion is an integral and even central part of the Star Wars universe. As a Christian, I have some serious qualms about what George Lucas calls religion, but Star Wars cannot be Star Wars without the Force. This is a far cry from most science fiction (like Star Trek).

Secondly, Star Wars has more in common with fantasy literature than it does with sci fi. The characters are archetypes found in fantasy dressed up for space travel. The hero wields a sword and rescues a princess. We hear Obi Wan referred to as an old wizard. I could go on. In addition, just as fantasy normally does, Lucas borrowed heavily from mythology. He took very basic mythological and cultural themes, figures and tropes and recast them for a space opera. Thus, like fantasy, the Star Wars universe feels very comfortable.

Lastly, there is also one very important factor that I don't think many appreciate. Due to the geographic simplicity of the Star Wars universe, it lends itself to the fantasy sandbox style of play much more easily than Traveller or dozens of other sci fi games I've played over the years.

Let me explain. Tatooine is a desert planet. Yavin is a forest moon. Hoth is an ice planet, etc. These are akin to hexes on a hex map, where each hex indicates a different kind of terrain. When one needs to have a more detailed map of a particular section of said hex, it is easily done, but for the most part all one really needs to know is desert, forest, ice, etc. This might not seem very important, but I believe it is. Compared with the level of detail required of even the simple and abstract system used by Traveller to describe worlds, the scheme used by Star Wars makes universe creation no harder than creating a hex map for a fantasy campaign. In contrast, even in its relative simplicity, Traveller is rather quite intimidating. I firmly believe that one of the reasons my friends and I never got beyond an entertaining number of one-offs in Traveller is the fact that none of us had the confidence to pull a multi-world campaign off.

In other words, the more a science fiction RPG has in common with fantasy, the more playable it becomes.

Thoughts on Sci-Fi RPGs Part 1

Like James over at Grognardia, I have recently been meditating on science fiction, especially about the question James posed a couple weeks ago:

why do you think science fiction is a lot less broadly appealing than fantasy as a genre for roleplaying games? Is it something inherent to the subject matter or is it simply a matter of presentation? That is, has there been some flaw in previous SF RPGs that have limited their appeal, a flaw that could possibly be fixed?

For most of my life I have been a science fiction fan, not necessarily a fantasy fan. Whereas I couldn't stand reading Tolkien, I devoured Asimov. My best friend growing up came from a house-hold of trekkies. Star Wars plays very large in my development as a person. Whereas I never played out of the LBBs, I did play Traveller from those wonderful little black books. Finally, as I've mentioned before, I've been as much, if not more, of a war gamer than a role player and many of the war games I have played over the years found their inspiration in sci fi.

There is a big however here, though. As I've grown older, wiser and have come to accept my faith as central in my life, science fiction, as a whole, has become a place I no longer feel welcome. This is largely due to a prevailing assumption that Christianity somehow cannot survive or defend itself against the assault of a scientific world view. This a false premise. Science cannot and does not ask or answer the same kinds of questions that religion (especially Christianity) does. If you are asking those religious questions and trying to answer them with science, you have left science and entered into the pseudo-religion of scientism which is not science. Most current sci fi that I have tried to enjoy seem to go out of their way to go down this path. It reminds me of why I was never, or am ever going to follow in the footsteps of my childhood friend's trekkie family.

Take a look at the Prime Directive as defined in the Star Trek episode Bread and Circuses:

No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations.

Please note how antithetical it is to the Great Commandment:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. — Matthew 28:19-20

The underlying implication in the Prime Directive is that the basic assumption and world-view of Christianity is not only wrong, but destructive. Now, I realize that this is not necessarily something a lot of folks out there will have a problem with, but it does speak to the question at hand.

Fantasy works extremely well for the purposes of an RPG because it is a cultural pastiche. Regardless of how alien a setting might be, there is always something familiar that players can relate to. One of the most important realities of human history is religion. There hasn't ever been a human civilization that did not have religion as part of its make-up (though we did see the disastrous attempts of wiping religion out in the horror show that was the 20th century). Even D&D acknowledges this with the inclusion of the Cleric class (with a clear nod to Christianity in OD&D, no less.)

Star Trek rejects this reality, and is representative of a lot of science fiction today. In fact, Star Trek rejects most of human history — as can be seen over and over again by the embarrassment the shows have for the way we have behaved in the past (and even the outright rejection of its own history).

In other words, science fiction has a tendency to ignore, try to move beyond or outright reject the cultural pastiche that makes fantasy RPGs so accessible.