My Dungeons and Dragons - Fighters

The fighter is NOT a meat shield. His role is not to be a pile of hit points to soak up damage that might other wise affect the guys who are actually doing the fighting. The fighter's job is to fight--he can soak up damage and dish it out as well. When it comes to a straight-up fight (not a sneaky assassination or the neutralization of a whole group of bad guys with one spell), the fighters should dominate. To this end:

• The fighter has the most hit points of any of the core classes.
• The fighter has the best to-hit bonus of the classes.
• The fighter can use any weapon, and does more damage with a given weapon than any other class in a straight-up fight.
• The fighter is proficient with all forms of armor.
• The fighter has the best saving throws of all the classes. In 3e it was just too easy for a spellcaster to put the whammy on the fighters and turn them against their allies. Fighters should be good at resisting all sorts of effects, not just physical ones.
• The default fighter should probably be the "heavy" fighter. This is what you get if you don't do any tweaking. He sacrifices mobility and evasion for being able to take strong blows due to wearing heavy armor. He is big and strong and tough and hits hard with any weapon.
• Fighters are proficient with all weapons, but should choose a favored combat style (e.g. 2-handed hammers, sword-and-board, etc). A fighter gets bonuses to attack and damage when fighting in this style. These bonuses increase slowly with experience, and fighters may eventually choose to learn additional styles.
• Tweaking can yield a non-default fighter who focuses more on speed, or an archer who favors ranged attacks, and so on. The character who likes to flank his opponents and attack through weak points in their defenses is still a fighter--not a rogue (rogues attack from the shadows, and are not seen at all until they strike).
• Fighters can choose to be war-leaders at a certain level. They attract followers who will fight at their side, and may eventually acquire a castle of their own, though this will typically require a certain amount of adventuring as well (i.e. finding a keep overrun by orcs, killing all the orcs, and then fixing up the keep).

My Dungeons and Dragons - Intro

It looks like Wizards of the Coast is going to make yet another version of D&D. On a series of postings on Google+, some friends and I have started talking about how we'd remake D&D if it was up to us. I decided to start posting here, as it will probably be better for long-term use than a G+ conversation.

Here are some high-level thoughts on what my version of D&D would be like. Note, this is meant to be recognizably D&D, not GURPS, Hero, etc.

• There will be classes and levels.
• The four "main" classes will be Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue.
• Hit points will go up with level, though the rate will probably go down above a certain level.
• Fighters will have the most HP, Wizards the least, with Clerics and Rogues in between.
• HP will represent damage--they will not be an abstract "pacing mechanic." If you lose hit points, you are injured, though a given amount of HP loss will be less severe to tougher characters.
• XP will be awarded primarily for achieving goals, and to a lesser extent for defeating monsters, disarming traps, etc. The focus will be on looting dungeons, helping NPCs, and achieving personal goals, and not on fighting monsters, though obviously there will be monster fights in there.
• Attack rolls will be 1d20 + bonus, versus a defense value. I haven't decided whether armor will increase your defense, or soak up damage.
• Saving throws will function similarly. There will be at least three types (e.g. Fortitude, Reflex, Will) and possibly more. I have been toying with a save for each ability score.
• There may or may not be a formal skill system, but there will definitely be skill-like traits that at least some classes will get (e.g. rogues sneaking and picking locks, wizards making sense out of musty old tomes).
• A lot of skills will be absolute, to one degree or another. If your rogue can pick locks, he will pick any reasonable lock given enough time--the main problem will be picking it before the dungeon's inhabitants figure out he's there.
• Creating a character using the simplest rules will consist of generating ability scores (probably randomly as this requires less planning), picking a race, picking a class, making one or two choices to customize the character, and buying equipment. Making a new character should not be a full-session activity, unless you really start getting into optional rules to custom-build a character.
• Combat roles will be greatly de-emphasized, in favor of roles relevant to the adventure as a whole. Anyone can fight, but fighters will dominate. If youre not a fighter, you have to figure out how to turn the encounter from a fight, into a type of encounter that better suits your skills, or let the fighters shoulder most of the load (or run away--that's always an option).

More things will come later.

EABA

I've been toying around with several RPG systems and worlds lately, due in part to not actually being in as many games as I usually am in, and in part to things being enough less chaotic at work that I actually get a chance to think about such things. One of the ones I've been playing with is EABA, from BTRC.

For those who aren't followers of RPG systems, EABA is one that is, in my opinion, not well enough known. It is, at its root, a point-based, build-your-character-from-scratch, "simulationist" game in the vein of GURPS and Hero System. However, there are a number of nice and unique things about it that I like.

First of all, dice. The best way I can think of describing it is that it works like rolling up character stats in 3rd edition D&D (at least, the default way). You roll a number of d6s based on your attribute and skill, but you only keep the best 3 (if you roll 3 or fewer dice, you keep 'em all). Thus, more dice gives you better chances of success, but only up to a point--beyond a certain level, tasks are completely impossible no matter how good you are (unless you've got a certain trait called "Larger than Life" which basically turns you into an action movie hero who CAN do impossible stunts). Pretty much everything in the game can be expressed in this manner, and there's a nice chart correlating this with various real-world quantities--how much you can lift with a given number of Strength dice, how quickly you can read X amount of information with a given number of Awareness dice, and so on.

Second of all, Powers. Lots of games have generic power creation rules, but EABA's is different. In something like GURPS or Hero, the default model is super hero powers. Characters have some ability that they just have, like superman's flight or invulnerability, or cyclops's eyebeams. Each of these is bought as an advantage with its own cost--powerful powers cost more than weak ones.

EABA's powers are more like spells. You build them using a system of additive points--doing nastier types of damage adds points to the total, taking an hour to cast removes points, for instance. However, those aren't attribute or skill points. Instead, you look on a chart to get the difficulty to cast your spell. Powerful spells are harder to cast, spells with lots of limitations on them, such as costing fatigue or requiring expensive spell components are easier to cast. You can improve your chances by adding such limitations, or simply by improving your casting skill--but remember, you can only get so much benefit from improved skill. Some spells are simply impossible for mere mortals to cast. In some ways, this reminds me of Inhuman/Zen difficulty from Anima, only better integrated into the system.

But if spells aren't how you want your powers to work, consider this. You can reduce the point level of the spell (and thus it's difficulty) by spending 3 attribute points on it--do this enough times and you've got a "spell" that's more like a talent--easy to use, but it's something you're either born with or not. Thus, you can do Cyclops's eye beam.

The third really cool thing about EABA is "Stuff!" This is the set of technology (plus creature and settlement) design rules for EABA. It's a separate product, but useful enough to be highly recommended. I'm a big fan of GURPS Vehicles, and am still bummed that 4th edition doesn't have a version of that yet. Stuff is somewhat similar, except that a) the math is simpler, and b) it's for more than just vehicles.

Stuff is basically a set of design rules with a built-in slide rule. Everything is additive (much like Powers--a big theme in EABA), even though the quantities themselves are multiplicative. Consider weapons. Being a high-tech weapon adds to the weapon's power. Being a big weapon also adds, while being tiny subtracts. Being a machine gun subtracts from the power--it's not that machine guns are weaker, but rather that they have to be bigger than semi-auto guns for the same amount of power per bullet. Add up all the modifiers and convert the result into dice of damage. If you don't like doing that, use the included PDF worksheet which does the math for you. It takes me more time to write down the stats for a gun than it took me to design it with the PDF worksheet.

There are some caveats. EABA is a lot more generic than other systems. For instance, I like sense powers and sensors--infrared, light amp, millimeter-wave-radar, detect magic, you name it. However, there's no "Sense" power modifier, and no "Sensor" function for a Stuff gadget. Instead, you can think of these as either Acting as an Attribute (Awareness), or negating a certain type of penalty. There's a lot of thinking outside the box involved, but this also means that things are a lot more fast and loose--you can take Acts as Attribute (Awareness) to mean that a gadget can sense things, or you can take the same modifier to mean that the gadget can make decisions. A pair of infrared goggles and a computer may be the same thing in terms of modifiers, but in terms of what you can actually do with them, they're totally different.

EABA's handling of damage is also, imho, not up to the standard of the rest of the system. It's a fairly simple ablative hit point system, with the addition of types of damage (lethal and non-lethal). The problem is the same as with any system that uses ablative hit points and logarithmic damage. Targets, especially vehicles, are too vulnerable to multiple weak attacks. Two 5-point hits are as effective as one 10-point hit, even though 10 points is much more than twice as effective as 5 points. I've found a better solution is to treat size as armor, rather than giving logarithmically-increasing hit points, but this is a fairly minor point. EABA gets around this issue for the most part by using things like damage limits when hitting big things, and the fact that taking damage makes you harder to damage further, but it sometimes feels like a patch rather than a true fix.

In general, though, I find EABA to be a mostly elegant gaming system based around a few central principles, and sadly underappreciated in the gaming community.

Grand Mall Seizure

I like shopping malls. I don't necessarily like shopping there (most of the stores don't sell the sort of stuff I like to buy) and I'm not necessarily into the sort of crowd that hangs out there (teenage girls are cute, but definitely too young for me). Rather, I like the buildings themselves--probably part of my general liking of buildings. So, when I go somewhere, I often find myself looking for the local malls and checking them out. Seeing what they're like.

When I first moved here (Orange County, CA) from Ohio, I did just that. I think I've been to all the major shopping areas here at least once. One of the places I went to was a mall just off the 405 in Huntington Beach. This was maybe a year or less after I moved out here--quite a while ago. I'd already explored the places closer to home, and had a definite picture in my mind of what a socal shopping mall looked like. This place was totally different. For one, the parking lot was essentially deserted--a stark contrast from other shopping centers I'd been to, with their packed garages and people parking-sharking for a spot up close. I parked near a Montgomery Wards (something they didn't have in Ohio, at least not in the places I grew up) that had either just gone out of business, or was just about to. I forget if I had managed to make it into the Wards, but I do know that I made it into the mall itself, which was sort of dark and creepy--more like the older Ohio malls than the ones I'd seen out here--and which was almost completely closed off. I was pretty weirded out by this, so I left and went to another mall up the highway which was much busier and not nearly as ghostly.

I didn't return there--there was no reason to as all the stores were closed and you couldn't even walk through most of the mall. I did hear that they were going to tear the place down (no surprise) and build a modern open-air shopping area in its place. But this was years ago, and my old car was already starting to show its age--I didn't drive places unless I had to.

I have a new car now, and I'm in the process of reviving my interest in road trips. I have a saying that "The second time makes it real." I have a tendency to have vivid dreams, and sometimes I can't remember what things I've really done and what things I've only dreamed of. I find if I go someplace or do something twice, then I know it's real. Thus, yesterday I did two things I'd only done once before. One was to go back to that mall, and the other was to drive up to Torrance, near where I used to go when I worked at my previous job, and drive back along the PCH, which is also something I'd only done once (most other times I took the 405 back).

The new shopping center in Huntington Beach is called "Bella Terra" and it's...weird. It is indeed an outdoor shopping area, but it's not like the other ones (such as the Irvine Spectrum Center, near where I work) which are basically normal malls without the roofs. That is, the stores are on the outside and you walk on the inside between them. This place is the opposite--an island of stores, with broad sidewalks around them, and one area which is more like a typical outdoor mall, complete with water feature and a place for kids to play. I parked at the Barnes and Noble (I love love love bookstores and always go in the ones I find), and walked around. Everything was different from when I was there. I saw a couple of buildings with distinctive patterns on the outside walls, that I think I remembered from the mall days, but that was about it.

Until I got around to the far side from the B&N. There I was confronted with a parking lot, as expected, but beyond that a cruddy, ruinous-looking wall. It was exactly the sort of thing you'd see in my dream world--a modern shopping center nestled right up against abandoned buildings. Only, in my dream world those buildings would be crumbling red-brick factories, and not the distinctly retail-y looking structure I was staring at. From the look of the thing, it seemed like it had once directly abutted the mall--you could see the scars from the demolition, and even the boarded-up doors that would have at one time allowed mallgoers to enter this building. I continued walking and when I could see a different side of this structure, I realized this was none other than the same Montgomery Wards that I had parked by years ago. Except for not being attached to a mall anymore, it looked more or less exactly as it had when I'd seen it the first time. Seeing it now, I could clearly visualize the rest of the old mall--I had found my anchor, in more ways than one, and I knew exactly where I was. I returned to my car and drove around the old Wards store--it was amazingly intact--even the old automotive center was still standing. Except for the old mall side, it looked like they could re-open it tomorrow. I have no idea why this building hasn't been fixed up like the other ones, or torn down to put something else in, but it was cool to be there while it was still up.

After stopping for lunch, at the same shopping mall (and the same Wendy's) that I had eaten at those years previously, I continued up the 405--a route I had not taken in a long time. I got off near an oil refinery that I had driven past many times when I went up that way for work. The weather's been humid lately, and there was a lot of steam blowing out of that refinery--gave it a very cool, creepy, steampunky look that I like.

Anyhow, I wound up at yet another mall that I had only been to once before. This one is called the Del Amo Fashion Center, and was apparently at one time the largest in the country. The one time I'd been there (the same time I'd driven back along the PCH) I recall I hadn't been too impressed by its size--it had seemed to be way smaller than South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, which is huge. This time, I parked where I had before, near the Sears. I went inside, and saw that things hadn't changed much. The ceiling was still startlingly low for a mall ceiling, and there was still the weird basement Burlington Coat Factory. I continued on until I reached the two-story section I remembered. There was a Penneys and a Macy's and...another Macy's. Most of the malls I go to have at least one of these, often more than one. Anyhow, that seemed to be it--the two-story section dead ended at the Macy's. Then, I checked a directory and realized that you had to walk through the Macy's, and beyond it was another section of mall, even bigger than the section I had been in. This section went on and on, though twisting and turning several times, and like the section I'd been in, it felt more like the malls in Ohio that I'd been in as a kid in the 80s, or as a teenager in the early 90s, than the ones I was used to seeing out here. At the very end of this section, past a corral full of really freaky ridable robot animals playing tinny children's music, was a set of doors leading into...an outdoor shopping court that felt like it belonged to a totally different mall than this one--it could have been down in Orange County, attached to South Coast Plaza or to the Spectrum Center. It was very modern and very trendy-looking and very different from the rest of the place.

On the way back to my car (which felt like I'd parked it in a different city) I discovered that this section still had some vestiges of the old mall. I found a couple of side passages that led to parking areas. One of them led to a very dark, almost industrial-looking garage that I swear I'd seen in a dream before. This whole mall was straight out of one my dreams--complete with the multiple sections that didn't quite fit together, and the store you have to walk through to get from one side to the other. Back inside, I decided to go out an exit I'd spotted on the way in (the whole place is full of these--some of them reachable only by escalator and elevator) and I found myself walking on a sidewalk, along side a parking lot, in what I would have taken as a run-down strip mall if I hadn't known that there was a regular-type mall on the other side of those doors. Ahead of me, and across the parking lot was another set of more modern-looking stores and...another B&N. There was also a Starbucks here, where I got a much needed glass of iced tea after stopping at the B&N. After this, it was back to the car. The whole place was so dreamlike it wasn't even funny--the stripmall exterior was just the icing on the cake. The malls in my dreams are massive edifices with soaring multi-level sections, outdoor areas, and cramped, run-down, hallway-like appendages stretching into the extreme outer limits of their parcels, and even beyond. They are more diverse than many cities. Until yesterday, I don't think I'd encountered one in the real world even remotely like them. Now I had.

From here, it was a road trip down Hawthorne to the Pacific Coast Highway. This runs from as far north as I've been along the coast, down almost to where I live. Along the way, it goes through very diverse areas. At the start of my journey, it led through what I deemed to be typical southern California commercial area--there were strip malls full of chain stores, and some big-box retailers. As I had remembered, however, as I progressed I found myself in crummier and crummier neighborhoods. The chain stores were replaced by no-name local outfits, and the overall character was more run-down. It continued like this for quite a while until I saw the chimneys of factories looming ever closer. I drove up a ramp and over a massive industrial landscape, like Blade Runner without the rain and darkness. Nothing but pipes and smokestacks and tanks and flame-belching flares as far on either side of the road as I could see. Multiple parallel railroad tracks, each heavily laden with cars, ran under the road, like a superhighway for trains. In the distance, I saw mountains of stacked cargo containers, like a giant's LEGO bricks. Then, the road descended down into a more human scaled industrial area, and then, more ghetto.

As I had remembered from my previous trip, the next big change took place at a traffic circle. It was there that the part of the PCH that I thought of as looking "Los Angeles-y" became the part that I thought of as more "Orange County-y" Things started looking nicer after that, and I found myself driving through a distinctly oceanic community, with both nautical and beach themes. There were boat-dealers and marinas, and surf-board shops, and at one point I passed what looked like a giant water tower, converted into a residence. I'd love to get the view from there someday. From that point on, I was driving through familiar territory--placed I'd been to many times, and which I knew were real. The rest of the trip was merely a trip home.

It was, in short, the most fun (in my strange way) weekend I've had in a very long time. I hope to be able to do stuff like that more often, now that I've got a car I trust again.

World of Ruin - Characters

Well, I haven't posted here in a while--been busy with my new job and all. I'm being oh-so-subtly pushed toward running GURPS again, so I'm back on World of Ruin, which is probably what I'll run. Since it's looking more like this will be an actual game setting rather than a conceptual exercise, I'm going to talk about a different topic than previous ones. Specifically, player characters.

I like game settings with a "default" campaign concept. That is, unless the GM decides otherwise, the players will be making a certain type of characters, with the intention that they be used in a certain way. For instance, Dungeons and Dragons assumes a mixed party of adventurers, some with magic or other powers, others without, who delve into monster-filled underground dungeons in search of treasure. This is an instant hook for players (action! adventure! vast riches!) and a good guideline for character creation. Similarly, Shadowrun assumes as a default the titular shadowrunners: skilled but low-status operatives-for-hire, who are hired by shadowy and secretive agents of various corporations and other organizations to perform black operations. Again, a hook for players and a guide to character creation.

World of Ruin assumes Zonerunners. These are somewhat like a high-tech version of D&D adventurers. They venture into the Dead Zone in search of treasure, though unlike D&D treasure, the loot they find will more likely be in the form of strange extradimensional artifacts, pieces of magically-imbued plants and animals, bizarre mineral deposits, and the like. Zonerunning is dangerous, and thus PCs will need training in combat and survival, and will likely have powers to assist them.

Zonerunners are not low-status outcasts--SanTiMA society values their contribution. However, they are not the type to live quiet ordinary lives, and often hang out with other violent or unorthodox people. While various organizations (governmental, corporate, or otherwise) sponsor expeditions into the Dead Zone, the default PCs are "wildcat" Zonerunners who explore as they wish, selling their finds to the highest bidder. This gives them more freedom do do what they want, and not be required to ride a plot train. For those players who prefer the plot train, however, it is there for them to ride in the form of the aforementioned sponsors.

The World of Ruin is home to many extradimensional beings who were banestormed in, and who brought their own traditions of magic or other powers with them. To keep things simple, I'm limiting the number of such beings and powers in the SanTiMA area. This makes character creation simpler, and also allows for other regions to have their own mix of races, magical traditions, and so on.

Humans remain the predominant race in SanTiMA (and are the only race in Angel City, with the exception of certain artificially-created beings). Also present are the ever-popular elves, who are the ones who introduced magic to the area, and a race of cat-like humanoids. Elves are probably the most popular non-human race in gaming, so it was a no-brainer to bring them into the default starting area. I had considered adding dwarves as well, but decided against it--in most of my games, they bring with them a tradition of rune-magic, and I wanted to have only a single magic system in SanTiMA. I do however like cats (and catgirls) so a race of cat-people was an obvious choice. I may introduce others, or have the occasional individual or small group of other races banestorm in. NPCs of any race may be encountered in the Dead Zone, as the victims of a recent banestorm. Some of these may be monstrous and simply attack anything and anyone, while others might need rescuing from the horrors of the Zone. The idea is that I can throw pretty much anything I want, from any world I want, into the Dead Zone, and other similar areas around the globe.

But anyhow, back to PCs. There are two main sources of supernatural powers available to PCs: Magic and Psionics. Both are in wide use in SanTiMA. Magic was introduced by the elves, but has since been adopted by humans as well. Magic uses the standard GURPS Magic rules, but I'm using Thaumatology: Magical Styles to create various styles to help players pick their spells based on the character's background. I find that doing this helps flesh out how magic works in the world. The main source of magical instruction in SanTiMA is SUMMA (SanTiMA University of Magical and Mystical Arts). This is structured much like a regular university, and teaches mundane subjects along with magic. For instance, students of High Energy Manadynamics will learn energy-oriented spells, as well as thaumatology and mundane high-energy physics. Magic is very much a science in SanTiMA. Other organizations, such as corporations, government agencies, and criminal gangs also teach magic to their members.

Psionics are humanity's home-grown powers. Parapsychologists have been studying the powers of the mind for many years even before the cataclysm. Afterwards, instances of practical psi powers have been increasing steadily, possibly as a result of (or adaptation to) the extradimensional disaster. These use the rules from GURPS Psionic Powers. PCs will have access to all the powers there, except for Anti-Psi. I'm reserving this for certain NPCs.

Player characters will be TL9 by default, and will have access to most or all of the technology of that TL, including superscience items like plasma flamers. PCs with Gadgeteering may have invented higher-tech items. Gadgeteers (called "Makers" in-setting) have invented a lot of the technology in common use, and are widely considered essential to the continued survival of the human race. Most work as inventors, freelance or corporate-employed, but some prefer a life of adventure, and are thus also available as PCs.

I will provide more information later as I settle on specific race templates, etc.

Ending and Beginning

We tore down my old office today.  It was just a closet, jammed into an upstairs corner of an old building, and jammed full of computers, but it was my closet, and while most of the computers there weren't technically mine, they sure felt like it after eight or so years in that little room.  I made like 3 or 4 games, plus a training simulator there, in those years, and the room had become littered with the debris of those programming sessions--to-do lists, data sheets, scrawled equations and notes and diagrams from problems long solved or abandoned.  All of this, we cleared away today, sorting the trash from the treasure, and good memories from bad, and throwing away anything we didn't want or need.  How many bytes of obsolete, unwanted information were lost today, and how many over those eight years?  

I suppose it's always like this when you move--it certainly was when I left my old apartment in Ohio and made the long trek, an epic quest across the US, following the rough path of old Route 66 across the hills and plains and mountains and deserts of this country.  It was like that a bit when we left the old office for the new one--in the old office there were other workers, and so it was big and crowded with the stuff of multi-person teams.  Much of this got tossed aside when the other workers left and only I chose to remain.  This proved a good decision, as it kept me employed during those eight years, and gave me games and simulations under my belt--I'm an experienced programmer now, and not merely a well-educated one.  Still, this era of my life--the Closet Office era, you could call it, is over now.  The room is once again empty, as it was when I first saw it, and realized how much smaller my world would become.  It's funny how big it looks now, with all the stuff cleared out.  It was full of a lot of things, but mostly it was full of me.  Every object there had been placed where it was by me, thrown into a corner or under a table in search of a bit of free space, and as I cleaned it out, those memories came back to me, yet I wasn't sad.  

Yesterday I was--I broke down sobbing as I turned off computers that had sat in their spots for years: computers that I had turned off every afternoon, and turned on again in the morning.  But this time I would not be doing that--the computers will stay off.  I know that this isn't the end--someday, and soon, I will turn those machines on again, to finish up the miscellaneous tweaks and maintenence builds that any large simulation project has, but I won't be turning them on in my old office, and most of my personal files, the ones that made the computers seem like mine, are gone now.  I've still got them, of course, but at home, they're not the same.  

Nonetheless, today was closure--the end of an era, but the beginning of a new one.  I start a new job on Monday, which is better in pretty much every way than the one I had.  I will be working with people again, and not stuck alone in my little office, where I was the good, quiet neighbor that the other people in the building always say but never interacted with much.  I will be making more money, and working in a nicer place.  My old job will become just an occasional maintenence task, nothing more, not even really a job at all.  My new one will become my life as my old one had been since I moved out here nine years previously.  The future looks good for me, but the past still calls, faded and dusty with years of accumulated fallout from the dirty old heating ducts of a refurbished hotel.

When I moved out here, for a long time afterward, I couldn't look at a map of Ohio, or really of the eastern US at all, without breaking down in tears.  I had been ripped from my old ground and transplanted into unfamiliar, sandy California soil.  Eventually, though, I put down new roots and this place became my home.  I can look at maps of Ohio, or pictures of that state, or even go back to visit and return here without any problems.  Most of these roots are still there--in the form of my friends I have out here, and even my old boss and those computers that served me so well.  One root has been severed, but I know this is not truly an end, or rather, that all ends are beginnings as well, as the wheel of my life turns and the new comes to replace the old.  Already I am feeling better, though sort of hollow, as if a part of me was surgically removed, and the incision healed over by magic.  I know that come Monday everything will get better.  But for now, I shed one tear for the life I led so far, and smile, for the one that still awaits.

World of Ruin: The Dead Zone

Finally, after months of non-posting (lots of  RL stuff going on for me) I finally get around to the meat of the default area of the World of Ruin setting.  This would be the Dead Zone, the oft-mentioned region between Angel City and SanTiMA.  

I think an RPG setting should have a default campaign concept.  For D&D, this would be "a party of adventurers goes down into underground ruins and caverns full of monsters, kills those monsters, and takes their stuff."  For Shadowrun, it would be "a party of Shadowrunners gets hired by Mr. Johnson, hacks their way (in more ways than one) into a corp facility, performs some objective, and bugs out, and most likely at some point gets double-crossed by their employer."  This sort of thing provides an immediate hook for both the players and the GM.  The players know what sort of characters they're going to need to create, and the GM knows what sort of adventures to write.  Of course, a good setting will support more than just this one type of story.  Still, it provides a good place to start, and a place to return if no other options show themselves.

For the World of Ruin setting, the default campaign concept is a group of Zonerunners--adventurers, most likely based in or around SanTiMA, who venture into the Dead Zone to retrieve items, creatures, or other resources, or simply to learn more about its mysteries.  In between such trips, they engage in ancillary quests within SanTiMA's society, and perhaps from time to time they come into conflict with the forces of Angel City.  There is room for action and adventure, but also mystery, intrigue and wonder in the Zonerunner campaign.

The Dead Zone itself is a region located between Angel City and SanTiMA.  It occupies the area of south Orange County and north San Diego county, and probably extends inland to some degree (I haven't actually mapped its boundaries yet, and really the very idea of firm boundaries goes against the nature of the Dead Zone).  It serves, among other things, as a buffer between those two city-states, and has so far prevented all-out war between them.

Despite the name, the Dead Zone is far from dead, though it is quite easy to die there, particularly if one is unprepared.  The fabric of space-time is weaker there than elsewhere, and it is common for banestorms to occur.  These are usually very small, localized ones that only bring in a monster or two, or a small region of bizarre terrain, but some are larger and can swallow whole parties of adventurers and take them to other worlds should the GM decide to take the campaign on that sort of a radically altered course.  Sometimes the unstable nature of the Dead Zone even interferes with the more subtle laws of physics, meaning that technology is prone to malfunction.  Zonerunners are wise not to become too dependent on their equipment.  Of course, going into the Zone without high-tech equipment is also not advised...

Magic too is unpredictable in the Zone.  The mana level can fluctuate wildly from place to place, or even in the same area over time.  Zones of Wild or Twisted mana are also disturbingly common.  All of this chaotic magic makes the Zone a haven for mutated and tainted creatures, and even outright otherworldly monstrosities.  Some of these are common and consistant enough to merit classification and scientific names, while others are unique individuals the likes of which are never encountered again.  The GM is more or less free to invent whatever monsters he likes and put them whereever he wishes to.

All of this explains why the Zone is dangerous, and why people don't go there unless they're prepared for trouble.  But, you might be asking, if the place is this nasty, why go there at all?  The answer is that the same unstable spacetime, physics, and magic that make it so full of danger also make it full of resources.  Some of the creatures that live there have powerful mana organs that can be harvested and used for alchemy.  Similarly, crystals with strange properties can be found in the ground in the Zone (or even growing on the surfaces of ruined structures).  The same banestorms that bring in monsters from other worlds also bring in items from other worlds.  Some of these are magical, others utilize superscience far in advance of that of Angel City or SanTiMA.  All of these are in high demand by researchers, and sometimes can yield insights directly to a suitably trained PC.  The Dead Zone is, in effect, a giant outdoor (and sometimes indoor or underground) dungeon, full of monsters, traps, hazards, and plenty of loot.

The Dead Zone is also full of mystery.  Its origins remain unknown, though Zonerunners occasionally encounter artifacts from before the Manaclysm (a word which I'm borrowing from GURPS Magic Items 3 because I like it so much) that may shed some light on how and why that great disaster happened.  The Zone seems to be directly related to the Manaclysm, and there may be other Zones elsewhere in the world (expeditions sent outward by Angel City and SanTiMA rarely return with any conclusive information on this subject, if they even return at all).

So, in summary, the Dead Zone and the exploration thereof provides a focus for adventures, dangers to be overcome, material rewards to acquire, and plenty of opportunity for plot hooks into the larger-scale situation in the World of Ruin.  I think that these three regions (Angel City, SanTiMA, and the Dead Zone) provide a good microcosm for starting campaigns in, with plenty of room to grow from there.