TEXT: A E D A L U S
  Daedalus
  Volume 1, Issue 1
  Fall, 2003
  Editor
  Matt Snyder
  Contributing Writers
  Jason L. Blair
  Chris Chinn
  Lisa Clark-Fleishman
  Pete Darby
  Emily Dresner-Thornber
  Ron Edwards
  Bruce Ferrie
  T.S. Luikart
  Jonathan Walton
  Eddy Webb
  Cover Artist
  Chris Martinez
  Special Thanks
  Greg Stafford 
  & the Issaries staff
  Editorial workshop for the role-playing hobby
  FEATURE STORY
  HeroQuest unbound!
  Q&A with Greg Stafford, page 3
  by Matt Snyder
  FEATURE STORY
  HeroQuest unbound!
  Q&A with Greg Stafford, page 3
  by Matt Snyder
  Argonauts
  Sneak peek, page 10
  By Jonathan Walton
  Happy Halloween
  From cover artist Chris Martinez and Daedalus.
  This creepy illustration is copyright 2003 © Chris Martinez
  PLUS
  Redeeming Thed,
  goddess of rape, page 10
  by Ron Edwards
  The power of myth, page 18
  by Chris Chinn
  PLUS
  Redeeming Thed,
  goddess of rape, page 10
  by Ron Edwards
  The power of myth, page 18
  by Chris Chinn
  
  FROM THE EDITOR
  What I want to be
  when I grow up
  TT
  hree months ago I decided it was high time
  I grew up. I have spent many, many hours
  playing role-playing games, reading role-
  playing game books, participating in online dis-
  cussion groups like the Forge and RPG.net, talk-
  ing with my friends and fellow gamers, and even
  designing my own games. I’m passionate about
  role-playing games, and I decided its time to give
  something back to the
  role-playing community. 
  This e-zine, DAEDALUS,
  is my effort to do just
  that, to give something
  back to the role-playing
  hobby and hopefully to
  do a little growing up in
  the process.
  I have some pretty
  strong opinions about
  this hobby, and especially
  the industry.  Hopefully,
  I’m also wise enough
  not to let that confound what DAEDALUS can be
  for you, the reader.
  What is DAEDALUS? It is an editorial work-
  shop and forum, a crossroads where designers,
  writers, and readers can come to think critically
  and seriously bout their beloved hobby. And
  let’s not forget that this hobby is about having
  fun. My mission with this publication is to help
  people have more fun with their hobby.
  So, three months have passed, and here I am
  on the eve of the inaugural issue’s release. It’s
  been a lot of work. Fortunately, I had a number
  of role-playing enthusiasts who agreed to go
  along for the ride. And what a ride it’s been. I’m
  proud of DAEDALUS, and I hope that DAEDALUS
  shows it.
  Welcome to the first issue of DAEDALUS. Long
  may we run. Ω
  2
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Issue contents
  www.chimera.info/daedalus
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  SNEAK PEEK!
  Argonauts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
  Epic Greek heroes and their inevitable tragedies; an
  M&M Superlink game preview. By Jonathan Walton.
  ARTICLES
  You do what for a living? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
  The economics of adventuring. By T.S. Luikart.
  World design, block by block . . . . . . . . . . . 35
  How to build a setting with a creepy haunted
  Halloween example. By Emily K. Dresner Thornber.
  Improvisation techniques for gamers. . . . . . 39
  How to use the tools of improvisational theatre in
  your gaming sessions. By Pete Darby.
  COLUMNS & EDITORIALS 
  This just in: Your favorite game sucks . . . . . 44
  A critical view of harsh critics. By Jason L. Blair.
  A role-playing game by any other name . . . 47
  Accept no substitute—role-playing games are their
  own thing. By Eddy Webb.
  Guilty pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
  A call for change in the way hobby markets itself the
  the mainstream public. By Lisa Fleishman.
  COMIC
  Trollbabe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
  “Sex and Death, with Music.” By Ron Edwards and
  James V. West.
  FEATURE
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy .......3
  An eye-opening Q&A with Greg Stafford, cre-
  ator of HeroQuest, By Matt Snyder.
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape........10
  One group’s amazing heroquest that delves
  deep into painful subject. By Ron Edwards
  The power of myth in role-playing.........18
  Harness the power of myth in your role-playing
  sessions. By Chris Chinn.
  We want to hear
  from you!
  Daedalus wants to hear
  what you think about the
  inaugural issue. Please
  send an email if you
  would like to comment
  on the e-zine or any of
  the articles. Daedalus will
  feature select letters on
  this page in future issues.
  Looking for
  articles, artwork
  for Winter 2004
  Daedalus is looking for
  contributors for the winter
  2004 issue. If you would
  like to write an article,
  showcase a game, review
  a game, or provide art-
  work for the upcoming
  issue, please contact edi-
  tor Matt Snyder:
  matt@chimera.info. The
  Winter 2004 feature will
  be cyberpunk and science
  fiction in role-playing
  games. The deadline for
  contributions is
  December 31, 2003.
  Please donate
  Daedalus is free e-zine
  with volunteer contribu-
  tors. Please consider
  donating via PayPal to
  keep Daedalus going! You
  can make payments to
  matt@chimera.info
  Advertise
  Game publishers, please
  contact Daedalus 
  Editor Matt Snyder
  (matt@chimera.info) for
  information about ads for
  your game or product in
  this e-zine.
  Matt Snyder
  
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Editor
  II
  n the history of role-playing games, there
  have been a few imaginative places that
  have truly stood the test of time. Like aging
  siblings, legacy game-related settings like
  Greyhawk, Tekumel, and Glorantha have
  become the grandfathers and great uncles of fan-
  tasy role-playing games. 
  Greyhawk is, of course, the long-lasting realm
  in which countless Dungeons & Dragons adven-
  tures have taken place. With the release of the
  third edition of Dungeons & Dragons,
  Greyhawk became the “default” setting, and it
  has been recast and rekindled as a fan favorite.
  Tekumel, that baroque, bizarre realm world
  imagined in games and writings by M.A.R. Barker,
  persists in an online site (www.tekumel.com) and
  in the hearts and minds of dedicated fans and col-
  lectors. And, Guardians of Order promises a new
  Tekumel role-playing game in December 2003.
  And then there is Glorantha. It is the creation
  of Greg Stafford, a living legend of the role-play-
  ing game community. Glorantha began, in the
  public eye, with the relase of the board game
  White Bear, Red Moon in 1975. Stafford
  explains Glorantha existed well before that in
  his writings and imagination.
  After another board game called Nomad
  Gods, Glorantha became the setting for fantasy
  role-playing game RuneQuest. RuneQuest was a
  very popular game for a young hobby. The game
  developed a fan base that continues to play the
  game today, despite the fact that the 3rd edition
  of the game was published in in 1985. 
  In 1998, Stafford split from Chaosium, with
  whom he published RuneQuest and other
  remakable games like Pendragon and Prince
  Valiant, as well as working on classics like Call
  of Cthulhu and Thieves World. He formed
  Issaries, Inc., and put together the publication of
  a new game set in Glorantha called Hero Wars.
  Hero Wars experienced problems in produc-
  tion, and the product was difficult to read and
  use. However, it contained an innovative system,
  designed by Robin Laws, that broadened the
  scope and story of Glorantha. The game devel-
  oped a dedicated following of fans, and it changed
  the way players interacted with Glorantha, urging
  more mythic stories and heroic struggles.
  HeroQuest
  is an outstanding game. It
  employs a single, simple mechanic to model con-
  flicts of all kinds. The system scales beautifully,
  allowing conflicts among everything from peas-
  3
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  Creator Greg Stafford explains the evolution of his world
  About 
  Greg Stafford
  Greg Stafford began
  publishing games in
  1974 as a founder of
  Chaosium. He has
  created numerable
  role-playing games,
  including RuneQuest,
  Pendragon, Prince
  Valiant, Hero Wars
  and his newest game,
  HeroQuest. Stafford
  was born in 1948, is
  married to Suzanne
  Courteau, and has
  three children: Noah,
  Alisha, and Jason.
  This year, Issaries, Inc., published HeroQuest,
  a revitalized edition for Gloranthan role-play-
  ing. Issaries reached an agreement with Steve
  Jackson Games to distribute HeroQuest, and it
  is available online at:
  www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?ISS1001
  Learn more about
  HeroQuest and
  Glorantha online:
  www.glorantha.com
  
  ants to demigods. The game emphasizes the
  value of community and relationships more so
  than the might of a solitary hero as other fantasy
  games so often do. Characters can overcome
  challenges using their
  personal relationships
  in exactly the same
  way as they would use
  their own ability with
  a sword. This empha-
  sis on community and
  truly makes the game
  and its well-developed
  world shine. The result
  is a game system that practically begs players to
  craft powerful, meaningful myths on their own.
  In short, HeroQuest is a milemarker for role-
  playing games. Greg Stafford and company have,
  at long last, achieved a great accomplishment with
  the game. It is one that will hopefully encourage
  years of enjoyment among gamers and one that
  inspires future designs to live up to its legacy.
  Glorantha realized
  Greg Stafford agreed to answer some ques-
  tions from DAEDALUS to shed some light on the
  creation myth of Glorantha and HeroQuest.
  Q:
  I understand HeroQuest is, for you, the 
  ultimate realization of Glorantha?
  A:
  Perhaps not the “ultimate,” but certainly 
  the best to date. 
  Q:
  Can you explain what about this specific
  game really makes it all “come home” for 
  you?
  A:
  I’ve been writing about Glorantha since 
  1966. I’ve been making games set there
  since 1975. I’ve made or helped to make two
  board games, two roleplaying games and a com-
  puter game set here. During that time it has always
  been a growing thing, and each game has helped
  to clarify Glorantha for me. That is, it’s an ongo-
  ing process where I learn something new about the
  word and attmept to put it into shape as a game.
  Then the game provokes all kinds of com-
  ments from other people that in turn cause me to
  consider, reconsider and discover new things.
  Thus, this game is the culmination of 28 years of
  creativity. It has been fun, but also hard work. I
  spent almost a whole
  year doing little else
  but write HeroQuest,
  but as a result I feel it
  really does bring it
  home this time. I feel
  like HeroQuest cap-
  tures the vison, the
  color and the excite-
  ment of Glorantha in a
  form that is the most accessible yet. Robin Laws
  created a slick and dynamic system that makes
  storytelling more important than rules lawyer-
  ing, so Glorantha is now quite accessible.
  Q:
  Has Glorantha changed in its latest 
  iteration? How so?
  A:
  Glorantha has always been changing. 
  However, I don’t feel that is has changed
  radically. With each game I’ve just added more
  detail and interesting depth.
  But, this time some changes feel larger than
  others. For instance, this is the first time that I’ve
  had the clarity of vison to definitely state that
  the three Otherworlds of magic are absolutely
  separate from each other, except where they
  overlap in the human world. But the lands and
  peoples have remained essentially the same from
  the first game, the gods and goddesses are the
  same and so on. 
  Q:
  Where is Glorantha going from here?
  A:
  To the End of the World. I have always 
  had a perception that I wanted to create
  the world, show how it worked, crank it up and
  then send the machine towards it logical end,
  which is the self destruction that precedes a new
  creation. HeroQuest is the game for it. It shows
  how the world is, sets the mechanics to make it
  work and also provides the tools to break it. So
  Glorantha is going to end. 
  4
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  “I wanted to create the world,
  show how it worked, crank it
  up and then send the machine
  towards it logical end …
  HeroQuest is the game for it.”
  
  Reaching out
  Q:
  Who is the primary target audience of this
  game? Is it existing Glorantha fans, or do
  you aim to capture new fans? What is 
  Issaries marketing target, and how does 
  the game strive to that goal?
  A:
  This is aimed at
  new comers. I
  am really happy that
  I’ve finally managed to
  make the depth and
  compexity of Glorantha
  into a feature instead
  of a bug. This game is
  designed 
  from 
  the
  ground up to be acces-
  sible to newbies. It
  always bugged me no
  end that people were
  intimidated 
  by 
  the
  game and the world.
  So this time I wrote it
  so 
  that 
  everything
  needed to play was
  concise and simple and
  made it clear that play-
  ing the game would
  reveal other things, but
  all you need to start is
  right there. 
  So, a new player really has to read two pages
  to make a new character. Since the game is based
  on verbal storytelling with a very simple rule sys-
  tem it’s easy to get into without reading a hun-
  dred pages of complex rules. 
  Q:
  How well do you think HeroQuest serves
  people new to Glorantha?
  A:
  Very well. It has a simple rule system and
  is written to start small and go larger if
  you wish. It stresses "This is all you need to
  know." The new comers I have communicated
  with have found it to be so. 
  Q:
  Do you think the dizzying amount of 
  material and even things like potentially
  confusing game titles are an obstacle for them?
  A:
  No, not if they actually look at what is 
  there. Think of it this way. Does a couple
  of million books about World War II make it
  harder for someone to
  learn to play their first
  war game? Not if the
  game is simple! Same
  for Glorantha. Ignore
  whatever you don’t
  know, take what is
  there and play.
  Q:
  What can you
  suggest to these
  people as the best way
  to “getting into” the
  game?
  A:
  Start small. Not
  even the Narrator
  has to know 
  every-
  thing about the world.
  No one has to know all
  the gods, cults and
  magical spells. Just use
  what you need. And
  the narrator needs to
  always remember the
  two main principles of the game:
  YGWV: Your Glorantha Will Vary. Even I
  don’t know everything, so be confident that
  whatever you want to make up is OK; and
  MGF: Maximum Game Fun. If there is a con-
  flict betwseen a “known fact” and fun, then go
  for the fun!
  By the way, neither of these abbreviations
  were made up by me. I got them off the lists.
  Q:
  What about people who’ve loved Glorantha
  for years—how does the game serve them?
  Do they lose anything in this edition?
  A:
  I don’t think so. Most of the comments 
  that I have heard in person or read on the
  5
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  Darra Happans, members of the Lunar Empire
  
  lists are extremely positive. Most of them express
  satisfaction that so many of their previous questions
  have been answered. The only thing lost is a lot of
  dizzying detail for such odious things as hours-long
  hand-to-hand combat and limitless spell lists. But
  now we have a good presentation of what
  HeroQuesting is and how it works. People can take
  their characters into the worlds of the gods and
  spirits now, and participate in the great myths. 
  Issaries’ stance on third-party publishing
  Q:
  I recently read a post describing the 
  HeroQuest rules as “narrative GURPS,”
  meaning that it is a fantastic rules set for creating
  stories of many kinds, Glorantha or otherwise.
  A:
  Thank you. We feel the same. 
  Q:
  So, I'm interested in hearing what Issaries 
  stance is on development of supplemental
  materials for HeroQuest. I see two prongs here:
  Gloranthan support materials (clearly, there's
  already a thriving Glorantha fan following) and
  non-Gloranthan materials. Can you explain
  your company's position on people creating sup-
  plemental material and/or conversions of the
  HeroQuest engine for other settings? Does
  Issaries support this? What about for-profit
  materials? Have you considered any kind of pro-
  gram or licensure for such development? 
  A:
  As for Glorantha, we have a program 
  underway to update known material and
  also, more excitingly, to publish a lot of new
  material about the unpublished regions of
  Glorantha. We are going to concentrate on
  expanding knowledge of the Lunar Empire first,
  but we are also preparing supplements for other
  regions of the world.
  Fans have the liberty to do what they wish
  with their own games of course, and we support
  their publications as long as they are not for prof-
  it. We don’t especially feel obligated to agree with
  fan publications, of course, but then, YGWV.
  That said, we often draw official material from
  the fan material. We urge anyone with a finished
  manuscript to submit it to us first. 
  As for non-Gloranthan materials, we have
  some items in the long-term works that will take
  the game system and expand it to other settings.
  I think it’s counter productive to talk about them
  in detail at this date. I have just too much expe-
  rience of letting a single sentence slip out and
  then be plagued by people for years who want to
  see it and are so often disappointed when I
  haven’t lived up to their desires. We are a small
  company and have a plan for the next couple of
  years to make sure that Glorantha is properly
  supported. Then we will see about the next stage.
  As for licensing the system to someone else,
  we would be more than happy to entertain any
  offers. But we are a professional company, and
  we expect to work with professionals. But, I
  want to repeat: If someone has an idea or a new
  setting, contact us first!
  We have no interest in doing an open license
  thing, either. And on that subject, let me say here
  that we have no plans to use the d20 license for
  Glorantha. Glorantha is bigger than d20. I
  would, frankly, licence it for the right amount,
  paid up front. But the number is such that I
  doubt anyone would want to pay it. 
  Creating by collaboration
  Q:
  Glorantha is your creation, an yet it is 
  obviously a world made by a number of
  people. Was there a point at which you had to
  “let go” and let others color the world and its
  myths, regardless of what they did fit some nas-
  cent vision you once held? How have you
  approached that over the years, and how has it
  shaped your own view of a world you created? 
  A:
  It has been a struggle. Obviously I have and
  have had a lot invested in Glorantha, and
  I used to be horribly possessive about it. I regret
  my attitude from years ago where I turned off
  some very creative individuals and forfeited their
  contributions. But part of the appeal of
  Glorantha has always been its internal consis-
  tancy, and I don’t regret holding that vision.
  One of the virtues of HeroQuest is that it
  really does set the frame, the macro-structure, to
  6
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  
  such an extent that I am confident people will be
  able to work within it without me peering over
  their shoulders.
  That said, it was only within the last decade that
  I rally began to loosen
  up. My attitude used to
  be that everything had to
  match my preconcep-
  tions, and if I didn’t have
  preconceptions then I’d
  spend time working
  those out, often to the
  detrtiment of potential
  contributors. It was as if,
  “If it isn’t mine, it does-
  n’t work.”
  There have always
  been exceptions, of
  course. Sandy Petersen
  was one person in par-
  ticular who could per-
  fectly anticipate my
  own vision. But I have
  changed that old atti-
  tude. I have always
  wanted Glorantha it to
  be a group effort, and
  so now I have convert-
  ed to the practice that, “if it isn’t wrong, it is
  ok.”
  From Hero Wars to HeroQuest
  Q:
  How did the rules system emerge? That 
  is, how did you work with Robin Laws to
  create this system for Hero Wars, and what
  input did you have on the design? I'm interested
  in the thought process and the objectives for cre-
  ating this rules system as seen in Hero Wars and
  now HeroQuest. 
  A:
  I struggled for years with HeroQuest. I 
  wrote hundreds of pages, dozens of rules
  and systems to try to make it work. I never could.
  Fianally I decided to try to find someone else to help
  out. Rob Heinsoo told me one day that Robin Laws
  was a Glorantha fan and I went right to him to ask
  for his input. I had admired Robin’s skill for some
  time, but didn’t know he was a Glorantha fan. If I
  had I probably would have asked him to collabo-
  rate earlier. I was ecstatic when he agreed to do it.
  We spent a lot of time in conversation and
  email with me outlin-
  ing and detailing my
  ideas and needs, and
  with Robin asking his
  own questions, pump-
  ing me for details. He
  was astute in his ques-
  tions, even bringing
  me to clarify things
  that I’d not consid-
  ered. And he was
  absolutely sensitive to
  my desires. As a result
  he came out with a sys-
  tem that worked. He
  even did things that I
  insisted on that he did-
  n’t really want, like the
  edges and handicaps.
  He submitted his
  manuscript on time.
  We tweaked the system
  a bit. For instance,
  Shannon 
  Applecline
  convinced me that the numbers in the original res-
  olution system were backward, and so we
  reversed them. But most of the system remained
  intact. Then I began to fill in the details, ran out
  of money and published the then-current result as
  the incomplete game called Hero Wars.
  Q:
  Incomplete? Care to explain what you 
  mean by that?
  A:
  Sure. I’d been publishing games for  decades
  as Chaosium, but we owners and debtors
  broke the company up in 1999 or so. I got what
  I had begun with: Glorantha and its products.
  But I needed money to finish the game and
  publish it, so I asked the fans if they could help
  out to make the new game. They responded gen-
  erously and I exceeded my mark of $50,000.
  Well, that seems like a lot of money but it was
  really just a tad compared to what we needed.
  7
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  Heortlings, free people and worshippers of Orlanth
  
  It wasn’t enough, so I reached the point where
  I had just enough money left to print the game
  up. I had a choice of either publishing it as it was
  or never dong it at all. Since I’d made a promise
  to the contributors to release a game I printed
  Hero Wars. I was never happy with the result. It
  was unprofessional, full of typos and mis-
  spellings. I always thought it was an embarass-
  ment, and that my world and Robin’s game sys-
  tem deserved better. 
  If I had had the assistance of my loyal sidekick
  Stephen Martin at that time it would have been
  much better, but he was busy having a baby and
  tending to his wife. Nonetheless, the established
  fans took to it, and it sold out. So, we could gath-
  er enough new funds in and work some more,
  then print the finished version that is HeroQuest. 
  Q:
  What about in HeroQuest—what roles did
  you and Robin (and others?) play in terms
  of game system for this new iteration of the game?
  A:
  The biggest changes are in the presentation.
  HeroQuest makes it accessible, presented
  in digestible bites instead of a massive feast.
  If there are faults, I take most of the blame for
  them. Robin had met his obligations and didn’t
  do much for the new version, for HeroQuest.
  His contribution was and is the graceful game
  system and for asking the questions that brought
  out the details in Glorantha.
  For the second version I’d been playing it for
  some time, and I had decided to take some of the
  confusing game system parts out, like edges and
  handicaps that I had originally insisted on. As I said,
  Robin had put them in at my insistance, but they
  were bad rules, just gumming up a sleek system. So
  now they are supplemental or optional rules.
  Other people also helpd to improve and finish
  the system and details. I am especially indebted
  to Stephen Martin, Mark Galeotti and Roderick
  Robertson who filled in spell and feat lists and
  so on. I also owe a huge debt to Jonathan Geere
  who oversaw the manuscript at a critical juncture
  and both made suggestions and filled in some
  details. And there is a host of others, whose
  credits are in the game. If I listed them all it
  would fill up a page.
  Q:
  What do you see as the most significant
  changes in HeroQuest versus Hero Wars
  in terms of system?
  A:
  The most significent changes are not really
  to the system at all, but to the way they
  are presented. The biggest change is that now
  the rules insist that people tell the narrator what
  they want to do, then the numbers are figured
  out. In Hero Wars the numbers came first, but
  that was awfuly clumsy and got in the way of the
  story. I owe that insight to my friend Fergie who
  used to play in my game and say, “Look, Greg, I
  don’t care about the numbers. I just want to jump
  on his head and push my spear through its eyes.”
  Personal myths
  Q:
  How much of you is in this game? How
  much of your own philosophies have col-
  ored both Glorantha as a fantastic place, and
  HeroQuest as a workable game? 
  A:
  I have been working on Glorantha for 
  more than half my life, so of course it has
  a lot of me in it. It is my primary artistic expres-
  sion. I love mythology, both as a subject of study
  and a personal practice, and so of course that is
  expressed in this game. But I don’t try to use it as
  a propaganda tool for either politics or religion.
  Q:
  Are you making a statement with
  HeroQuest, and if so can you explain that? 
  A:
  If I am making a statement it is that we 
  are still beings with a mythological part
  deep within us. The modern Western world pre-
  tends that it fosters a superior way of thinking. It
  insists on a scientific, rational perspecive and has
  dismissed spirituality and consciousness as being
  just superstition and primitive nonsense. This is
  of course bunk. I certainly believe in science and
  rationality, but don’t believe that they hold the
  secrets of meaning that so many people seek.
  Except for health, science hasn’t made people hap-
  pier. Sure, it has given us computers, let us fly
  around the world and talk with each other on the
  internet. Big deal. Science hasn’t done much to let
  8
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  
  people learn more about each other, to find love,
  or to remove the barriers of fear, jealousy, and
  prejudice. Those are
  things that live within
  us all, and it is mythol-
  ogy and spirituality that
  can change us inside.
  Of course, I am not
  promoting irrationality
  of blind belief, either. We
  must struggle to live with
  our need for both ration-
  ality and irrationality. 
  Q:
  Do you have any hope that what 
  you're “saying” with this game will have
  an effect on people who buy and play the game?
  A:
  I don’t really hope that the game will 
  change people. That isn’t part of my pro-
  gram. I want to provide this game to have fun. I
  do believe that it provokes and feeds, in a posi-
  tive way, the mythological selves that we all
  have. I also feel that feeding those parts of our-
  selves is a good thing. But the game isn’t going
  to solve the terrors of life, fill someone with love,
  or help them find the right mate. It doesn’t teach
  magic. It just feeds our spirit.
  Q:
  HeroQuest has a three-pronged approach 
  to magic, and each is defined by worship or
  deification, even the type of magic labeled wiz-
  ardry. While this may be more fitting considering
  the historical nature of magic and myth in actual
  cultures, it is contrary to the “secular” magic found
  so commonly in RPGs. Can you explain this a bit,
  and comment on why you've included no “secular
  magic?” Do you see it in any way as a “correction”
  for a hobby trend that demystified the nature of
  magic, ritual and worship in human history?
  A:
  Of course, it isn’t the hobby that has secular-
  ized the idea of magic. Everything in our
  Western way of life has done that and the majority
  of game designers don’t have real experience with
  magic, so they just mimic the "common knowledge"
  and treat magic as if it was another technology. But
  it isn’t. Magic comes from the place where poetry
  and psychology meet,
  which is in our souls. I
  don’t try to proselityze
  with my games, but I do
  try to provide soul food,
  in the form of fun, cre-
  ativity and group com-
  munication. So I guess
  you could say this is a
  sort of "correction" for
  the erroneous method-
  ologies that are promot-
  ed in other games and in our culture at large.
  Teacher’s pet
  Q:
  For you, and perhaps your own group, 
  are there any particular regions or myths
  that you’ve found special affection for using the
  new game?
  A:
  I have always had affection for the 
  stormy mythologies, but this is just a
  reflection of my own tumultous spirit. That is, I
  think, the source of my long-standing develop-
  ment of the Heortlings, the Orlanth-worship-
  ping people of Dragon Pass. At the same time I
  have developed a deep understanding for the
  reflective values that manage to reconcile the
  contradictions of life This has come about more
  recently, hence the development of the multi-
  faceted Lunar Empire. Nonetheless, all of the
  aspects of Glorantha are a part of my love of
  mythology in its many, many masks. I have deep
  attachments to all of it. If I had enough time I
  would eventually develop the subtleties,
  strengths and weaknessess of the rest of
  Glorantha as well. As it is, I am extremely happy
  to have the assistance of so many others who
  have had their own imaginations and creativity
  provoked to contribute to the world. I am happy
  to have such a team of people helping out. I am
  happy to have fed so many minds and spirits,
  and look forward to this continuing. Ω
  9
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  HeroQuest revives Glorantha legacy
  By Matt Snyder
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  HeroQuest Copyright © 2003, Issaries, Inc. Images used by permission. 
  Interview replies Copyright © 2003 Greg Stafford
  “The game isn’t going to
  solve the terrors of life, fill
  someone with love, or help
  them find the right mate. It
  doesn’t teach magic. It just
  feeds our spirit.”
  
  ““H
  H
  ello, my name is Ron Edwards, and
  I’m a rabid advocate for playing
  HeroQuest.” Everyone else: “Hi,
  Ron!” This article is intended to illustrate just
  what you can get from playing the game, and it’s
  pretty deep-end. HeroQuest isn’t about swinging
  swords and improving
  your character’s abili-
  ties, 
  although 
  that
  does happen. Playing
  this game is about
  stuff, and the good news is that ultimately, what
  the stuff really means is up to you. What do you
  need to know, to read this article? Not much.
  The name of the setting is Glorantha, and there
  are lots of cultures involved. Gods and goddess-
  es are a big deal, very much like what you’d find
  in reading The Iliad. This essay is about one of
  them: Thed, the Gloranthan goddess of rape.
  In my role-playing group, during our very
  first discussion of the setting’s mythology and
  cultures, the other players’ initial reaction to this
  concept was probably similar to most people’s:
  “Whaaat? You must be kidding me.” I saw their
  point. It doesn’t sound good, does it? Especially
  the “of” part, which means what it sounds
  like—this goddess represents, facilitates, pro-
  motes, and rewards the act in question. To wor-
  ship her is to perpetrate rape and its associated
  agony of all kinds. I was looking at my players,
  and they’re giving me that No Freaking Way
  look back. Now, years later, I’m writing this arti-
  cle to show that the Gloranthan setting is built
  to prompt these kinds of responses from people,
  and that HeroQuest has the guts, as a game, to
  take even such a difficult ball and run with it for
  some outstanding, uniquely powerful play. In
  many other games, such a response means,
  “Avoid this issue from now on.” In HeroQuest,
  it can mean, “Go there, now.”
  So here we go, on a discourse about Thed.
  She isn’t a very powerful deity. Her primary
  worshippers are the broo, or goatkin, a stock
  monster for the setting and arguably the most
  debased kindred ever invented for a fantasy-
  world. They propagate exclusively through rape,
  and they are cross-fertile with just about any-
  thing. The offspring may have features of the
  victim-parent, but it’s
  a broo, usually male,
  and usually riddled
  with “Chaos features”
  (i.e. magical muta-
  tions) and diseases. They worship Thed in ani-
  mistic terms as an ancestor-spirit, and probably
  through misapplied theistic worship as well,
  using all manner of sacrifice and vicious evil-
  doing as currency. 
  The broo are found in all published versions
  of Gloranthan role-playing. They’re always the
  same: humanoids with nearly-random animal
  features, although with a tendency toward goat-
  part; festering and stinking with diseases; dis-
  playing all sorts of deformities and wild magical
  features; and running around intent on rape and
  pain. On occasion, united by a shaman or the
  occasional debased human, they may be
  involved in more subtle plots, on the scale of
  “poison the village well” or “steal ten babes for
  sacrifice.” They’ll hire out as mercenaries,
  although their employer would certainly be
  ostracized by his or her other potential allies.
  Broo vileness shows up everywhere. Check out
  any edition of RuneQuest (The Chaosium 1977,
  1978), and the supplements Snakepipe Hollow,
  River of Cradles, The Big Rubble, Dorastor:
  Land of Doom, and Shadows on the
  Borderland.
  The role-playing source material on the
  mythos can be found in Cults of Terror (The
  Chaosium, 1981). Its text was recapitulated in
  the Avalon Hill publication Lords of Terror
  (1994) and also in the first three chapters of
  Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars
  10
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  Article by
  Ron Edwards
  Ron Edwards is the
  owner of Adept Press,
  and he has published
  several role-playing
  games including
  Sorcerer, Trollbabe, and
  Elfs. Ron won the 2002
  Diana Jones Award for
  his work in independent
  role-playing publishing
  and success with
  Sorcerer. He was also
  named Person of the
  Year in the 2002 Indie
  RPG Awards.
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  A powerful account of one group’s profound heroquest
  
  (Issaries, Inc., 2001). From the Thed section in
  Cults of Terror:
  Before Time
  Prior to the Lesser Darkness, Thed was an
  important goddess. She was the wife of
  Ragnaglar, who later was called the Mad God,
  and their children were the broos, then untaint-
  ed by chaos. Together with Ragnaglar and
  Mallia, she schemed to introduce chaos into the
  world in the form of the Devil [clarification:
  this is a slight misstatement; previous text
  establishes that chaos already existed in
  Glorantha before this event - RE]. The three
  had found jealousy and pride in themselves, and
  they dreamed of usurping the functions of the
  world, and of becoming its unchallenged rulers.
  Thed herself was the mother of the Devil, and
  his malevolence twisted and distorted her in
  childbirth. She participated in the ways of
  Chaos and her broos aligned with her.
  Since Time began
  Though protected in her existence by the
  Great Compromise, Thed was on the losing
  side, and occupies a distinctly minor place in
  the vast pantheon of deities. It is probable that
  only her initial role as Mother of the Broos has
  been effective in maintaining her powers.
  Regardless, she is overwhelmingly significant
  to Gloranthan mythology and magic. Thed is one
  of the main bad guys. She is the central member
  of the Unholy Trio, who in the cosmology,
  birthed the Devil to begin The Greater Darkness.
  From the general section in Cults of Terror
  and repeated in the later texts listed above:
  Cosmology
  These murderers [of Rashoran - RE] were
  the Unholy Trio. Hatred, selfishness, greed, and
  jealousy motivated them. These short-sighted
  emotions are now considered to be symptoms
  of chaos in the world, and they were originated
  by the three, who concentrated their forces and
  wills to create something new.
  The first of the trio was Ragnaglar, whom
  some called kin to Storm Bull, driven to hatred
  by jealousy and dishonorable acts. The second
  was Thed, said to have been wife to Ragnaglar
  at one time. The third was Mallia, another god-
  dess who had great properties to aid birth and
  growth. These three joined together and per-
  verted their natures to make their weapon of
  hatred and vengeance.
  The Unholy Trio made the end of the world.
  ... The product of the ritual was the Devil, the
  product of poisoned souls ... Wakboth the Devil
  is the moral evil of the world.
  From Lords of Terror (in addition to the
  above text):
  Wakboth’s first act in the world was to slay
  his father, so that none could be born to rival
  him. He then forced Thed and the broos to aid
  him as he destroyed the world. Thed’s willing
  submission to rape [I’ll have more to say about
  this later -RE] provided him with other, more
  powerful, brothers and sisters, and these mon-
  sters served him as lieutenants or champions
  during the Darkness. 
  And from Anaxial’s Roster (Issaries Inc, 2000):
  Broo (goatkin)
  Broo are humanoid, but have many animal
  features, especially those that derive from their
  mother. Ragnaglar, the broo ancestor, was goat-
  shaped . . . .
  ... Thed, goddess of rape, is their favorite,
  for she was the mother of the first broo, after
  her violation by Ragnaglar, the Mad God.
  All right, that’s not too out of line for a villain
  deity, albeit a vile one. But, what’s all this about
  “she”? How can a female figure play this kind of
  theistic role? On the face of it, the concept sounds
  frankly awful —mean-spirited, at the least, or
  insensitive to the issue, or all manner of similar
  things. Why not have the broo god be Ragnaglar,
  the rapist perpetrator? No, it’s Thed—the goddess
  who was violated, including the birthing of the
  rapist’s child, who itself proceeds on to further
  abuse. Not only the plain physical violation, but
  the trauma. A goddess who claims ownership of
  11
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  rape. Is Gloranthan myth assigning the responsi-
  bility for rape to its victim?
  Even worse, you can’t ignore it. Thed is a
  major element of Glorantha, mythically speak-
  ing and also in terms of potential foes for role-
  playing; if you house-rule this stuff out of the
  setting, you leave behind gaping holes. Thed’s
  actions gave a face and intent to Chaos (previ-
  ously fairly neutral, if disturbing), and that
  intent necessitated the Great Compromise and
  the birth of Time. It set up the relationships
  between gods and mortals that define the theis-
  tic rules of Gloranthan role-playing, most espe-
  cially those of HeroQuest. 
  Close examination
  Clearly there are some fuzzy areas in the texts
  quoted so far. For example, just to pick a detail,
  the origin of the broos’ goat-ness is ascribed to
  both parent gods in Anaxial’s Roster. When get-
  ting hip-deep into philosophical and cultural issues
  in Glorantha, the place to go is Greg Stafford’s
  novel King of Sartar: How one man became a god,
  which is sort of a deconstructionist collection of
  after-the-fact documents about the events of the
  Hero Wars. My copy is from The Chaosium
  (1994); here’s what it says. Bear in mind that every
  “document” in the collection is intended to reflect
  the writer’s bias to an extreme degree.
  [Orlanth and the other gods] had never
  thought that the very things that were good
  could be turned upon them.
  Orlanth discovered that there was too much
  justice when the goddess named Thed came to
  his court, demanding her share of it. Orlanth
  granted it, of course, but regretted it when she
  revealed that she was the victim of his brother’s
  aggression. He had overcome her and taken her
  by force against her will. She showed everyone
  her gaping wound, which had never healed, and
  demanded full recompense. Orlanth, of course,
  agreed, even though it brought him great shame.
  And Thed considered what would be the worst
  thing she could do to her enemy, and she said
  that she wanted to be the Goddess of Rape, so
  that Orlanth’s own wife and daughters would
  fear the same thing forever. And they did. ...
  And he was horrified to discover that even
  his most sacred progenitive urges could become
  vices. Orlanth’s brother Ragnaglar was so over-
  come with sexuality that he had no limits to
  what he would take as a partner, and he was so
  fecund that everything he mated with bore chil-
  dren. In this way a horrible race of monsters
  was born, the broos, who are like their father
  and have no sisters.
  It doesn’t sound to me like she was Ragnaglar’s
  wife. Furthermore, Ragnaglar is kin not only to
  Storm Bull, but directly to Orlanth himself. A pre-
  vious section in the book describes how he fails an
  initiation in “the sex pit” and is driven mad, but
  his brothers rescue him and put up with him
  thereafter. I’ll discuss this fellow later.
  I should also explain the fictional writer’s bias
  as well. All this occurs during the Storm Age, in
  the Lesser Darkness. Orlanth has usurped the
  rulership of the gods by killing Yelm the
  Emperor. That’s significant: there is no rule of
  established, community-supported law. Orlanth’s
  justice is all about a “king” being a chief of
  chiefs, and to such a chief, justice is a matter of
  case-by-case judgment and assigned compensa-
  tion (e.g. weregild). And bear in mind that all this
  is before the advent of Andrin the Lawgiver, who
  provided a better structure for negotiating justice
  and establishing precedent. Therefore Orlanth
  presents judgment by saying to Thed, “Here’s the
  culprit. Name your punishment.” 
  What does Thed do? She ignores Ragnaglar
  and turns her attention to the world itself. She
  chooses to become a full goddess of what hap-
  pened to her. She inflicts the crime that was per-
  petrated upon her onto all of reality—i.e., she
  brings rape into the world as a potential subject
  of worship, which includes transforming her
  goat-people into their current form. Through
  her decision, and through the broo’s atrocious
  activities, all women and indeed all beings must
  now fear this act to a vastly greater degree. The
  net total of suffering and torment in the world
  jumps up a notch. And as stated above, her story
  continues with her alliance and coupling with
  Ragnaglar and Mallia, to create Wakboth.
  So the whole Unholy Trio story is really
  12
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  Thed’s. Ragnaglar and Mallia are secondary;
  they make no particular decisions and do noth-
  ing she’s not involved with. Unlike the Cults of
  Terror text, which introduces these three as
  already-malevolent conspirators, this material
  tells us who did what before that, and how Thed
  came to be the center of the Trio. Her whole
  Godtime saga proceeds as follows: (1) she is
  raped by Ragnaglar, (2) she seeks justice from
  Orlanth, (3) she chooses to deify rape, (4) she
  allies with the other two deities of the Unholy
  Trio and they are first exiled and then killed by
  Humakt, (5), they kill Rashoran, (5) “they did
  what they could do to each other” (King of
  Sartar) and Thed births Wakboth, (6) she fights
  with Chaos during the Greater Darkness, and
  (7) she is defeated and skinned by Kyger Litor.
  Keeping in mind the central question (why a
  goddess of rape?), what does all this imply in
  moral, mythic terms? Some possible initial reac-
  tions include: “Bullshit—what kind of woman
  would do such a thing?” And, “It’s all Thed’s
  fault, eh? Sounds like the same-old ‘Blame Eve’
  story.” And, “The men are being let off scot-free
  in the whole issue.” One might even peg Stafford
  as an outright sexist pig, to use the terminology
  of my upbringing. 
  However, our game-play, my thoughts on the
  issue in question, some careful reading of the
  texts involved, and much input from the men
  and women in our group has yielded a more
  complex reaction. In play, it turned out to be the
  entire thematic motor (Premise) underlying our
  game, and indeed, our Glorantha. 
  As I see it, the crime of rape is Ragnaglar’s
  and the crime of injustice is Orlanth’s. He does
  not enlist the community/society in passing judg-
  ment on the rapist. He says, “Oh, you were
  raped? OK, here, justice is your problem, you
  take care of it.” Orlanth does not acknowledge
  the responsibility of the community to pass judg-
  ment on the rapist, as a representative of the
  injured party. By hard-line Orlanthi mores,
  established community values play no role in
  justice. Everything is taken case-by-case as an
  individual revenge issue. This is one of two
  issues (the other is kinstrife) where Orlanthi cul-
  ture falls flat on its face. For these issues, such
  “justice” only yields further harm.
  Orlanth does not acknowledge that the act
  was itself wrong, in a generalized sense, and that
  it needs a standing penalty that will be enforced
  even in the absence of the victim’s power to
  enforce it. Even worse, the King of Sartar text
  strongly implies that if Orlanth had known his
  brother was the perpetrator, he would not have
  offered justice at all. Thed’s response suddenly
  takes on power and meaning—she rightly pegs
  the existing society as insensitive to, even dis-
  missive of, the crime of rape that exists within it.
  Thed did not invent rape. It already existed, and
  she suffered it. Nor did she invent its atrocious,
  explosive properties (as expressed in the broo);
  they are the result of society’s inability to admit
  to the rape within it. Instead, despite her appeal,
  she was isolated by that community. She invents
  neither rape nor its societal denial. Nor does she
  invent Chaos. She reveals them. “You think this
  is judgment? I’ll show you judgment. You think
  this is Chaos? I’ll show you Chaos.”
  I then reviewed all the literature again to
  make sure that I was not sugar-coating or rewrit-
  ing—this was not out of a sense of purism, but
  rather to see whether some inkling of the con-
  clusion was there. And you know what? The
  King of Sartar writeup never assigns Thed guilt
  (unlike the Lords of Terror text which mentions
  her later willingness to be raped by Wakboth).
  Although it’s not articulated in the terms I out-
  line above, I’m convinced that Stafford knew
  exactly what he was doing.
  Now for Ragnaglar, for a moment. His broth-
  ers knew he was an uncontrollable rapist, and
  they knew he was crazy. But Orlanth perceived
  justice against his acts as “shame”? And to proj-
  ect some of my reading onto the text, I think
  Ragnaglar’s own view toward Thed is, “She
  must have liked it.” Nowhere is any commit-
  ment of Thed to Ragnaglar mentioned, and the
  phrase “said to have been wife to Ragnaglar at
  one time” becomes especially interesting.
  It also strikes me that the the ritual of the
  Unholy Trio, which refers very directly to a sex-
  ual threesome in my reading, is still rape; it had
  to have been, to produce the Devil. Given that
  Thed entered into the ritual (and quite likely
  13
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  organized it), the act signifies, to me, an inter-
  nalization of the abuse on her part—gaining
  “power” through trying to own the suffering she
  experiences, rather than empowerment per se.
  It’s sex whose power is generated through hate.
  Is Thed a heroine, then? Emphatically not—a
  vengeful victim is not automatically a hero. But
  neither is she a Disney villainess who mucks up
  reality just because her ego is wounded or a
  bitch who does it just because she can. Nor is
  she lacking in insight. She effectively tears the
  veil off the notion that rape is an individualized,
  isolated indiscretion. The crime she suffered
  always existed, and now, it never stops. Her
  spawn, Wakboth, prompted the end of Godtime;
  he will also prompt the climax of the Hero Wars
  and provide the transition to the world to come,
  as hinted in King of Sartar. Thed is literally
  Glorantha’s “open wound.”
  Gloranthan mythology is not wholly original.
  It is syncretic, incorporating elements of many,
  many real mythologies: Celtic, Persian, Native
  American, Scandinavian, Greek and more.
  Whether this is good or bad is up to the individ-
  ual, although I know some folks who find it
  aggravating. However, this issue stands out. I am
  unaware of any real mythos that deals with the
  issue of rape in the sense I’ve described here. The
  only parallel I find is in literature, in John
  Milton’s Paradise Lost, which similarly brings
  up rape and the origin of moral evil in the char-
  acter of Sin. From Paradise Lost (Book Two):
  Before the Gates there sat 
  On either side a formidable shape; 
  The one seem’d Woman to the waste, and fair, 
  But ended foul in many a scaly fould 
  Voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm’d 
  With mortal sting: about her middle round 
  A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark’d 
  With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
  A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep, 
  If aught disturb’d thir noyse, into her woomb, 
  And kennel there, yet there still bark’d and howl’d
  Within unseen. ...
  [The other “shape” is Death, who gets snippy
  with Satan and almost prompts a fight, except
  the “Snakie Sorceress” intervenes; Satan asks
  who she is. She describes her birth from his
  Satan’s forehead long ago. - RE]
  ...  back they recoild affraid 
  At first, and call’d me SIN, and for a Sign 
  Portentous held me; but familiar grown, 
  I pleas’d, and with attractive graces won 
  The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft 
  Thy self in me thy perfect image viewing 
  Becam’st enamour’d, and such joy thou took’st 
  With me in secret, that my womb conceiv’d 
  A growing burden. Mean while Warr arose, 
  And fields were fought in Heav’n; wherein remaind 
  (For what could else) to our Almighty Foe 
  Cleer Victory, to our part loss and rout 
  Through all the Empyrean: down they fell 
  Driv’n headlong from the Pitch of Heaven, down 
  Into this Deep, and in the general fall 
  I also; at which time this powerful Key 
  Into my hand was giv’n, with charge to keep 
  These Gates for ever shut, which none can pass 
  Without my op’ning. Pensive here I sat 
  Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb 
  Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown 
  Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes. 
  At last this odious offspring whom thou seest 
  Thine own begotten, breaking violent way 
  Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain 
  Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew 
  Transform’d: but he my inbred enemie 
  Forth issu’d, brandishing his fatal Dart 
  Made to destroy: I fled, and cry’d out Death; 
  Hell trembl’d at the hideous Name, and sigh’d 
  From all her Caves, and back resounded Death. 
  I fled, but he pursu’d (though more, it seems, 
  Inflam’d with lust then rage) and swifter far, 
  Me overtook his mother all dismaid, 
  And in embraces forcible and foule 
  Ingendring with me, of that rape begot 
  These yelling Monsters that with ceasless cry 
  Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceiv’d 
  And hourly born, with sorrow infinite 
  To me, for when they list into the womb 
  That bred them they return, and howle and gnaw 
  My Bowels, their repast; then bursting forth 
  Afresh with conscious terrours vex me round, 
  That rest or intermission none I find.
  14
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  [emphasis mine - RE]
  [Then Satan tells her:]
  ... know 
  I come no enemie, but to set free 
  From out this dark and dismal house of pain, 
  Both him and thee, and all the heav’nly Host ...
  [Sin responds:]
  The key of this infernal Pit by due, 
  And by command of Heav’ns all-powerful King 
  I keep, by him forbidden to unlock 
  These Adamantine Gates; against all force 
  Death ready stands to interpose his dart, 
  Fearless to be o’rematcht by living might. 
  But what ow I to his commands above 
  Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down 
  Into this gloom of Tartarus profound, 
  To sit in hateful Office here confin’d, 
  Inhabitant of Heav’n, and heav’nlie-born, 
  Here in perpetual agonie and pain, 
  With terrors and with clamors compasst round 
  Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed: 
  Thou art my Father, thou my Author, thou 
  My being gav’st me; whom should I obey 
  But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon 
  To that new world of light and bliss, among 
  The Gods who live at ease, where I shall Reign 
  At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems 
  Thy daughter and thy darling, without end. 
  Thus saying, from her side the fatal Key, 
  Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; 
  And towards the Gate rouling her bestial train, 
  Forthwith the huge Porcullis high up drew, 
  Which but her self not all the Stygian powers 
  Could once have mov’d; then in the key-hole turns 
  Th’ intricate wards, and every Bolt and Bar 
  Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease 
  Unfast’ns: on a sudden op’n flie 
  With impetuous recoile and jarring sound 
  Th’ infernal dores, and on thir hinges great 
  Harsh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook 
  Of Erebus. She op’nd, but to shut 
  Excel’d her power; the Gates wide op’n stood ...
  That’s powerful stuff, and Gloranthan
  mythology probably borrowed a thing or two
  from it. But in that mythology, Thed takes the
  issue much further, specifically to those of the
  community, justice, and denial. Since it’s a solid,
  sobering, and narratively-inspiring treatment
  even in comparison with Milton, I stand in awe.
  In this instance, the fictional mythos of
  Glorantha rears up on its own hind feet and
  says, “I am myth, derived from none other.” It
  speaks uniquely to our reality, to our problems,
  and to our self-image.
  Our game
  The player-characters were some back-woods
  Heortlings whose community history includes
  inadvertent incest. After a few sessions, their loy-
  alties centered on Aething, a modified Antigone
  character, as the clan leader, and that decision
  became the core of everything to follow. They dis-
  covered their clan myth included a Thed-Daimon
  named Eech’ya, specialized to issues of incest-
  abuse. Eech’ya, a stalking figure with long clawed
  hands but beautiful features, cloaked in pale, soft
  leather, became a station in their heroquest to
  establish themselves as a Hero Band. This quest
  “crossed” other heroquests, including those by
  exceptional broos. Later play saw more servitors
  or aspects of Thed-worship, such as Sheth the
  anti-Lunar, hard-line-Thed broo shaman, and his
  rebel son Tenslayer, a broo who struggled to con-
  tain his own defiled nature through the help of the
  Seven Mothers and who suspected that Thed had
  received a raw deal in the core myths. 
  The original plan had been to play out a story
  over perhaps five or six sessions. But when the
  players established the Graming Hero Band and
  determined upon their political goals, there was
  no stopping. As I prepped for our tenth, then our
  eighteenth, and eventually our twenty-seventh
  session and beyond, with yet more to work with
  each time, I considered the myths more and
  more. My watchword for myths, whether taken
  whole cloth from the Gloranthan source materi-
  al or made up by me or a player, is always to
  look for the gaps, because those become unex-
  pected stations during heroquesting. Eventually,
  I came upon these questions which I could not
  15
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  answer based on the texts and myths: Why did
  the women goddesses not speak for Thed?
  Especially, why didn’t Vinga? And regarding
  Thed, where were her kin? 
  These questions powered the final story of our
  game. I introduced a historical character,
  Kistralde, based partly on the real-life legend of
  Boudicea, but bringing in spousal rape as well, as
  the fellow on the other side who rapes her,
  although not her daughters, is her husband. I fur-
  ther included the splintering of the three daugh-
  ters’ loyalty to their mother over the fate of the
  resulting child. This scenario was set in Far Point,
  and I decided that both Vingan and Yelornan
  heroquesters were attempting to co-opt the histo-
  ry of the event into a myth. Both cults (one pro-
  Lunar, the other anti-Lunar) rely on denying sex-
  uality as a basis for power, and they wanted to
  “own” the story for that purpose.
  Our heroes learned that Kistralde’s chaos-
  tainted child was the problem at the center of the
  history, and that’s why two of her daughters, one
  a Vingan, wouldn’t help her, and that’s where
  Manslime comes from. This is a bit of canonical
  fun on my part, as in Dorastor: Land of Doom,
  Manslime 
  is 
  a 
  significant 
  character 
  in
  Ralzakark’s broo army. (As a side note, that’s
  why Sheth was such a powerful shaman, as he
  knew this as a subcult Secret.)
  Our heroes’ interaction with this conflict pro-
  vided the climactic sequence and heroquest for
  the whole game. They invented the myth of
  Kistralde themselves, defying the other two cults’
  attempts to do so. Unlike the others, they
  acknowledged the child instead of suppressing
  his existence. Here’s where things got hinky.
  Acknowledging a chaos child of this sort crossed
  this heroquest into another one, which was a big
  deal in our story as well. Women and women-
  cults all over Far Point were conducting a very
  deep, shared heroquest to determine who
  Ernalda’s husband is, Yelm or Orlanth. Basically,
  our heroes crashed this heroquest and said,
  “Listen up, this ‘husband’ business masks a seri-
  ous problem.” This permitted them to crack
  open a still “deeper” heroquest into the Storm
  Age itself, forcing the participators in the
  women-ritual to enter into the judgment of Thed.
  It was time for me to consider what Thed might
  be like in visual terms, especially early in the
  myths. Thed is not described physically in the pri-
  mary RuneQuest material (few gods are), so I
  checked out the secondary RuneQuest literature
  that arose through intensive game-play during the
  1970s and 1980s. A lot of it is in fanzines and for-
  tunately a lot of that has made it onto the internet,
  so a search for “Thed Glorantha” or anything
  similar yields a lot of stuff. Some of the scenarios
  and stories troubled me greatly, as they relied on
  Thed being all about manipulative, uncontrollable
  lust, a kind of evil Venus or Ishtar. The similarity
  of this viewpoint on the part of role-players to my
  interpretation of Ragnaglar is frankly appalling.
  As far as descriptions/imagery goes, what I mainly
  found was fairly predictable: a goat-headed female
  broo, with a distended belly, and with an over-
  sized, toothed vagina from which tentacles issue,
  and similar. I think it’s mainly derived from
  Lovecraftian pastiche images of Shub-Niggurath
  (“the goat with a thousand young”).
  The same kind of thing can be found in the
  additional text in Lords of Terror (1994): 
  Thed is usually pictured by her children as a
  bestial female broo, often with snakes for breasts
  or a gaping fanged mouth where her vagina
  should be. The Praxians and Orlanthi picture
  Thed as a gigantic, slim figure with a long, tuft-
  ed tail and two deformed, clawed arms. Her
  head has four curved horns, ropy hair, and five
  antennae or tentacles arrayed about her mouth.
  Her eyes or vagina are usually ritually disfigured
  as a ward against her power.
  I’m relatively certain that this published text,
  as well as the reference to her willing submission
  to rape (!) are derived mainly from these fan-
  based sources. As such, I decided that all of these
  implications could be jettisoned with little loss.
  Significantly, in Glorantha: Introduction to the
  Hero Wars, the Cults of Terror text is repeated
  but the Lords of Terror text is not.
  I interpreted Thed as a maiden with goat
  horns, as I figured the goat-affinity didn’t have
  to be all negative at this point in the myth, but
  otherwise quite human. We figured her twisted
  16
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  and misshapen qualities originated in the later
  ritual and the birth of Wakboth. As this portion
  of the heroquest began, it was a terrrifically
  unsettling experience to play the raped goat-
  maiden, occasionally slipping in her own blood
  as she climbed the harsh path alone to Orlanth’s
  Hall. When she displayed her wound, it was of
  course her vagina, and I played the scene full of
  shame, yet with desperation for justice just bare-
  ly strong enough to overcome it. 
  Orlanth’s hall is a scary place, full of Storm
  Warriors’ roistering and Orlanth’s justice hand-
  ed out left and right. When Thed presents her-
  self, Ragnaglar cackles and leers, hiding behind
  his brothers. Orlanth is sincerely shocked by the
  evidence of rape, but also uncomfortable with
  allowing judgment, and he makes excuses for
  Ragnaglar. Vinga turns away but will not speak
  up. For the characters, in game-mechanics
  terms, this was an ugly situation. They were los-
  ing affinities and suffering greatly in acquired
  penalties to be defying their King this way. Their
  only hope was to shame the goddesses with the
  lesson of the new Kistralde myth. 
  Because the heroes had included women
  priestesses and followers from all around Dragon
  Pass into witnessing these events, they could
  then, in the myth itself, enlist the women of the
  pantheon as Orlanth struggles with his decision.
  They told them: marriage will not save you from
  rape (here we brought in the “husband” issue of
  Ragnaglar, as one of the goddesses suggests that
  Ragnaglar and Thed be married to solve the
  problem), and motherhood will not provide you
  with automatic morality (strong words to
  Ernaldans!). The climax of the story, then,
  arrived when Tenslayer and Aething spoke up:
  “We are the children of the damned, and we have
  come home.”
  I won’t say what happened then in detail. I
  will ask, instead, if you and other people you
  know were playing in this scenario, “What do
  you think?” What abilties would you roll, and
  what Action Points would be bid, about what?
  The answer is crucial for your Glorantha.
  Conclusion
  I submit that the issue of rape in Glorantha
  cannot be ignored in the long term. In play, if you
  meet and fight broos, rape enters the story. If
  rape enters the story among non-broos, Thed is
  there as well. Certainly one might avoid both of
  these entirely, but to do so is to avoid a primary
  monster-race of Dragon Pass and Dorastor, and
  to gut the mythological setting of one of its cen-
  tral back-story elements. And to remove rape and
  sexual abuse of any kind from a desperate
  wartime setting seems disingenuous or worse.
  The mythology in question is especially key to
  Dragon Pass play. Broos are all over the place. A
  Lunar worshipper must be confronted with the
  expectation to “include” broos in We Are All Us,
  and a Heortling must be confronted with the eth-
  ical and judicial limitations of his or her culture,
  which are responsible for the broos’ existence.
  Yes, Thed is a minor, grubby goddess, but as I
  played her in our game, I heard her crone-cack-
  ling, poisoned laughter at the Lunar conceit that
  Chaos can be included and controlled, and also at
  the Orlanthi conceit to fight Chaos using cultural
  mores which themselves perpetuate the wrongs
  that Thed represents. Unlike the more powerful
  gods, she knows that the Devil (moral evil) can be
  neither embraced nor beaten. That’s why the Old
  World must end. I don’t think I can role-play in
  Glorantha again without knowing that abused,
  vicious laughter is in the background.
  I submit that Thed represents one of the pri-
  mary Mysteries of Glorantha, which is to say, an
  issue for which a Hero Band must literally invent
  the New World’s morality, as past myth and cul-
  tures failed to do. In our game, we did that, and
  we spoke for Thed for a brief moment of glory,
  and assigned the injustice where it belonged. We
  couldn’t save her entirely, nor stop the Great
  Darkness, which was “set” in the story too
  deeply. But the characters were heroes who would
  not let Thed face her fate alone. That’s why my
  deluxe copy of HeroQuest bears the rune of
  Thed, which on the face of it seems obscene. But
  for our group, it’s a badge of pride. Ω
  17
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Redeeming Thed, Goddess of Rape
  By Ron Edwards
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Adept Press
  
  18
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  The power of myth in role-playing 
  By Chris Chinn
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Chris Chinn
  TT
  his article is inspired by two major
  sources: HeroQuest and The World of the
  Dark Crystal. I highly recommend both
  books. That said, this article came from my per-
  sonal observation that myth in HeroQuest play
  can become a background element, a history,
  whereas Glorantha is all about living a myth, liv-
  ing in a myth, and creating a myth as you play.
  While thinking about the “living myth” of
  Glorantha, I began to think about the necessity of
  leaving enough “space” in myths for players to
  create their own legends. And along with that, I
  thought of the necessity of making theme happen.
  Bringing myth into your game
  We all know at some level what myth is, but it
  is not so easily translated to role-playing games.
  We may have all the elements of myth, such as
  magic, monsters and strange lands, but some-
  where the mythic quality is lost. At the same time,
  we watch movies—Star Wars, Gladiator, or The
  Matrix—produce new myths before our eyes, and
  they do so sometimes without many of those ele-
  ments. Clearly it’s not the fantastic elements that
  define myth. Rather, it is the style of presentation.
  Here’s how to bring that into your game.
  Theme
  All myths are based around themes. We may rec-
  ognize memorable characters and amazing stories in
  mythical tales, but it is the themes that we connect to
  on a deeper level, themes that give the myth deeper
  meaning. Abstract themes are common in mytholo-
  gy. Many myths are filled with tales of light, dark-
  ness, good, evil, life, death, rebirth, logic, passion,
  redemption, corruption, innocence, and more. If you
  want to create myth, you must create theme.
  Introducing theme
  Theme in role-playing games determines
  “what the game is about.” I recommend sitting
  down as a group and agree on two or three pri-
  mary themes in your game. At this point, you’re
  simply deciding what themes are active and
  whether any specific groups or characters are
  acting as representatives of those themes. You
  are not casting judgment on the theme. It is best
  if the player characters are “undecided” and not
  already supporting one theme for sure. Consider
  it simply declaring where the crux of the conflict
  is, thereby agreeing as a group upon the theme
  you will explore in play.
  EXAMPLE: Members of a group decide they
  want to have the themes of Life, Death,
  and Rebirth. No one makes any decisions
  like, “All three are necessary for exis-
  tence,” or, “Death comes to us all,” or
  anything like that. All those sorts of ideas
  come forward in actual play itself. But, the
  group does decide that a particular politi-
  cal group represents Death, and a group of
  indigenous people represents Life, and the
  conflict between the two groups plays as a
  mirror for the thematic conflict.
  Using Theme
  Obviously, during play, most games have no
  explicit rules to encourage people using theme.
  They players either “just do it” or they don’t.
  This is the simplest, but also the hardest, way to
  make themes happen in play. 
  Your group might consider house rules that
  encourage theme. The easiest way to do this is
  have the game master to reward players each
  time they advance theme. Or, the game master
  might award bonuses (experience points, hero-
  points, karma, etc.) to any roll involving the
  group’s chosen themes. Some games, such as The
  Riddle of Steel or The Questing Beast have these
  rules built into their systems as an integral part
  of the game.
  The power of myth in role-playing
  Article by
  Chris Chinn 
  Chris Chinn is an avid
  gamer, writer, philosopher
  and cook. He’s written
  some things, illustrated
  some stuff, and did
  some of that other busi-
  ness over there. He has
  also been known to eat
  mangos.
  How to make your sessions resonate with meaning
  
  19
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  The power of myth in role-playing 
  By Chris Chinn
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Chris Chinn
  EXAMPLE: A player character uses magic
  and brings an enemy back from the brink
  of death. The character says, “You have
  died. Your bond to your master is finished,
  for you have given your life. This life you
  have now is yours, free of obligation. Find
  out who you are. Live your life.”
  The game master considers this to be an out-
  standing use of theme, not to mention a great
  twist on the story events in the game.
  Accordingly, he rewards the player with a good
  amount of extra points.
  Personal Themes
  Characters should be built on personal themes.
  As a group, you should all sit down and create
  characters together, speaking freely and trading
  ideas. Instead of starting off rolling dice and jug-
  gling points, you should start with a personal
  theme. This theme can be a variation on one of
  the primary themes, or it can be a neutral theme
  to interpret in the light of the primary themes.
  Again, the game master can choose to
  mechanically reward use of personal theme.
  Many games make personal theme a focal point
  for their systems, including Sorcerer, Dust
  Devils, and Everway.
  EXAMPLE: One player chooses to base his
  character around the theme of Redemption.
  While this plays close to the concept of
  Rebirth, it also indicates a form of guilt, sin
  or corruption, a form of Death. His charac-
  ter is a priest who has lost his faith.
  Another player decides to mirror the con-
  cept with Fanaticism, a zealot who is
  absolutely sure of his beliefs, yet only paves
  the road to hell with his good intentions.
  Perhaps the fanatic will be able to show the
  priest the path to Redemption, or perhaps
  he will only drive him straight to damna-
  tion. Perhaps the priest will be able to show
  the fanatic Redemption. The situation
  between those two player characters alone
  makes the game very interesting.
  The Past & Future, the Chain of Destiny
  In mythology, everything has a past, and
  everything important has a future. The past in
  myth is a mirror to the future, either predicting
  what may occur or warning against it. Within
  your game, make sure all of the player characters
  are connected to a sense of history. While not all
  of the characters may be aware of their history,
  that history should still exist. The players should
  be aware of it, though their character may not be. 
  The past points to the future. It could be a lit-
  eral prophecy that must be carried out or pre-
  vented from occurring. It could be like the tale of
  Atlantis destroying itself with forbidden power
  as a forewarning to prevent its reoccurrence. It
  could be a hopeful tale of a messiah who returns
  once every 10,000 years.
  EXAMPLE: “This sword has slain the great-
  est king the world has ever known, and
  the greatest tyrant the world has ever seen,
  and now it lies in your hands. This sword
  cuts for destiny. How will you use it?”
  Looking at this example, its pretty clear that
  the character will probably encounter some more
  powerful individuals, and be able to shape histo-
  ry by either letting them live or putting an end to
  their lives. The past foreshadows the future. . . .
  Some games allow players to give input to
  “set up” the sorts of events that may occur with-
  in play. Sorcerer, The Riddle of Steel, and Dust
  Devils all achieve this by allowing players to set
  up focal points for conflict with their characters.
  It’s easy for mechanics to support the idea of
  destiny or fate conspiring to bring a character to
  a moment of truth.
  The Broken Link—Now
  Here’s where things get tricky. All of the
  above is set up for actual play. For myth to come
  forward in your play, you need to be able to uti-
  lize the aforementioned themes, but you must
  also leave “space” in which the group will actu-
  ally play. You might say that the mythology
  you’ve developed cannot be a finished product;
  it must make “room” for the heroes to write
  their tales, from triumph to tragedy. 
  
  20
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  The power of myth in role-playing 
  By Chris Chinn
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Chris Chinn
  Protagonists Matter
  In myth, the decisions of the protagonists
  have important effects. Success and failure each
  have consequences. There are no meaningless
  actions. Likewise, the GM needs to drop player
  characters into situations that matter. Player
  characters must make hard decisions, and the
  situations must put something important at
  stake. The effects of these choices may come
  back in unusual or unexpected ways, or perhaps
  they will have larger effects than anticipated. 
  EXAMPLE: In the example above, the player
  chose to resurrect a villainous character.
  Much later, the villain returns to save the
  player in a dangerous situation. “You have
  saved my life, I have saved yours. We are
  equal. Next time we meet, I shall be your
  foe once more!” The previous actions of the
  player character return at a crucial moment.
  A Crossroads
  In all myths, we have a crossroads. While many
  meaningful decisions are made along the way, at
  some point, near the climax of the story, a “final”
  decision must be made. It is a final statement involv-
  ing the abstract forces at work. Either one emerges
  dominant, or else a form of reconciliation occurs.
  For players to be able to create their myth, they
  have to be able to freely choose how that happens.
  The crossroads is a tricky spot because what
  you consider to be a “major decision” may not, in
  fact, be the real crux of conflict for the character.
  The player may push for a decision that he con-
  siders to be the true focus of play for his character.
  This is why some games give mechanical rein-
  forcement allow both players and games masters
  to really indicate to each other how “high up”
  decisions are on the “drama meter.”
  EXAMPLE: In the example above, the char-
  acter created a priest who lost his faith
  and whose theme is redemption. Now, the
  priest lies beaten and battered, and he’s at
  the mercy of his foe. The villain demands
  to know where the indigenous tribes have
  hidden their holy artifact. The priest looks
  up and says, “I may not know if God is
  watching anymore, but I know in my
  heart what is right and wrong. And that is
  enough for me. You will never know!” He
  lunges up and pulls a dagger from his
  foe’s belt, then stabs himself before the
  villain can do anything.
  Here, we have Death, but with Redemption.
  Both the group’s primary theme and the player’s
  personal theme tie together in one final decision.
  Consequences
  The climactic decision must hold greater weight
  and importance than simply the action alone. The
  decision must reward the player by rippling out its
  effects. The player’s decision must matter. Usually
  with the final decision, whatever was at stake
  enjoys or suffers consequences accordingly. 
  We see this final moment in popular films. In
  the animated film Princess Mononoke, the land
  is saved. In The Dark Crystal, the world is
  healed. In Tron, the system is made free. In all of
  these, we see fantastic consequences that are the
  result of characters that make decisions. This is
  what you should aim for in your game.
  EXAMPLE: Though the priest character in the
  previous example died, his death was not in
  vain. The villain struggles, and he still cannot
  find the holy artifact. He discovers the indige-
  nous tribe only when it is too late for his
  aims; the tribe completes their ritual to heal
  the land. His henchman (who was resurrected
  in the earlier example) has a change of heart
  at the last minute. The henchman sacrifices
  himself to stop the villain. The player charac-
  ter who saved him runs up in time for the
  henchman’s last words: “I don’t know if God
  is watching, but your friend was right. I know
  between right and wrong ...  Even when I try
  to do what is right, I still chose death.”
  “No, you chose right,” the player char-
  acter responds. “You chose right.”
  Tears are shed, sad music plays, but the land
  is saved. Death becomes rebirth becomes life.
  Yay! A deep game and meaningful outcome is
  shared by all. This is myth in action. Ω
  
  21
  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  Preview by Jonathan Walton
  An Inside Look at the First “Genre Book” 
  for the Mutants & Masterminds Superlink license
  “It is the will of heaven and destiny that
  you shall return here with the fleece.
  Meanwhile, both going and returning,
  countless trials await you. But it is my
  lot, by the hateful decree of a god, to die
  somewhere far off on the mainland of
  Asia. Thus, though I learned of my fate
  through evil omens, I have left my father-
  land to sail on this ship, so that after my
  embarking great honor may be bestowed
  upon my house.”
  —from The Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius
  Mutants & Masterminds, M&M
  Superlink, the M&M Superlink
  logo, and Green Ronin are trade-
  marks of Green Ronin Publishing
  and are used with permission.
  Argonauts, 1001 Designs, the
  Argonauts logo, and the 1001
  Designs logo are the intellectual
  property of Jonathan Walton.
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  
  Sing, Muse, of the Rage of Achilles…
  II
  t is a time of heroes. Mythology runs in the
  veins of the people. Who will step forward
  and take up the mantle of the hero? The son
  of a king, the daughter of a god, or the orphaned
  child of mystery? The call to greatness pounds in
  the ears of every mortal that draws breath. With
  every splash of your heart, a legend is summon-
  ing you to be a part of it. It says, “If you will
  only give yourself to me, dear child of the
  Achaeans, I will raise you above all others, up to
  the pinnacle of this Age. They will look to you
  and say, ‘That is how a life is to be lived.’ I will
  burn you bright and fast, and you will not last
  long. But, I will make you into a beacon that
  shines eternal. And you shall never truly die.”
  This is the promise made to every hero, and the
  bargain, once made, is never broken.
  You did not decide to become a hero while
  sitting beside a roaring hearth. You decided with
  your sweat and sword and blood and bone.
  When you slew the monster that stalked your
  village. When you dared to drive the chariot of
  the gods. When you escaped the clutches of your
  enemies on wings of wax and feathers. When
  you sang a song that made the trees weep. This
  is the path of the hero. For you, there is no
  other. This is what your own heart expects of
  you, and it is only satiated by the thrill of victo-
  ry and the exaltation of thousands. You were
  not born to do this, but you have made the life
  your own. There is no turning back. The headi-
  ness of adoration is sweeter than wine.
  Joining the few and the proud, you have
  given up all hope of every leading a peaceful
  and boring life. You will never grow old,
  watching your grandchildren blossom in the
  springtime. You will never clutch your true love
  to your chest, hold them tight, and promise
  them forever—without knowing it to be a lie.
  For the hero, there are no happy endings. There
  are no sunsets to ride off into. There is only
  disaster and weeping. It is not a question of
  “if.” It is only a matter of “when” and “how.”
  But this is the sacrifice you have willingly made
  in order to become myth. Nothing is gained
  without risk. And so you have risked all for a
  single chance at everything.
  It is not as if you are going in blindly, with-
  out full knowledge of the agreement you have
  made with Fate. Troy, after all, was not
  destroyed in a day, and the indomitable spirit
  of a hero is not so quickly crushed. Instead, it
  is slowly disassembled, piece-by-piece, as you
  look on, helpless to stop the ruin of everything
  you hold dear. Your existence has become a
  grand tragedy of epic proportions. Act-by-act,
  scene-by-scene, line-by-line, it plays out on the
  world stage for all to see. And, when it’s over,
  there will be no curtain call. You will never
  even hear the applause.
  I was a Grade School Mythology Freak
  Superheroes rock. Doesn’t matter if they wear
  tights or scream in vain to the gods while dying
  a tragic, ill-fated death. Heroes appeal to our
  sense of drama. We want to hear about people
  living more fully and passionately than most of
  the plebes on this puny little blue-green planet.
  We want to hear about people fighting for ideals
  and their own personal feelings, and we want to
  see them actually succeeding, actually making a
  difference, since this world often frustrates those
  who would make real changes.
  Argonauts is a “genre book” designed for use
  with the Mutants & Masterminds Core Rules
  released by Green Ronin Publishing. The game
  itself will be published under their M&M
  Superlink license, along with the OGL. Instead
  of dealing with the modern genre of 4-color
  superheroes, Argonauts focuses on the super-
  heroes of Classical mythology, the warriors and
  demigods 
  of 
  Greek 
  legends. 
  Ultimately,
  Argonauts is about the same things that M&M
  22
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  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  Preview by 
  Jonathan Walton
  Jonathan Walton is trying
  to stop being a senior
  East Asian Studies major
  at Oberlin College, but
  there's so much left to
  do. In any case, he
  hopes to see “Argonauts”
  in print before he gradu-
  ates and is currently
  working on a raucous
  operetta based on
  Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
  Being a creature that
  lives and breathes aes-
  thetics, narratology, and
  identity studies, Jonathan
  thinks role-playing is
  peachy keen.
  
  is about: following your passions and dealing
  with the aftermath. Or, to quote that infamous
  superhero cliché, power and responsibility.
  This isn’t to say, of course, that there are no
  differences between the spandex types and the
  Classical heroes of Greek myth. While
  Argonauts will pay passing homage to Achaeans
  showing up in comics (various incarnations of
  Hercules, the Amazons, the Olympian Gods,
  etc.), its main focus will be presenting mythic
  heroes within their own context, or at least
  something like it. Deciding what mixture of gen-
  res to emulate is ultimately not up to me, the
  designer, but to the players and game masters to
  whom Argonauts belongs. Still, the main text of
  this “genre book” will assume your Amazons
  are the kind that cut off a breast to be better
  archers, not the ones that carry magical lassos.
  Real Heroes Always Die
  They do. Die like dogs. And then people tie
  their corpses to chariots and ride around the
  city. Not a pretty fate and that’s exactly the
  point. Happy endings don’t prove that you have
  the mettle of a hero. If you can face your fate
  with courage, knowing that it is of your own
  doing, you just might get made into a constella-
  tion. Hey, don’t laugh. It’s better than Hades.
  Hercules. Jason. Oedipus. Achilles. Theseus.
  Daedalus. Atlanta. Orpheus. Hector. Medea.
  Agamemnon. And the casualty list goes on and
  on. Not clean, pretty deaths either. Orpheus was
  torn to bits by revelers at a bacchanal orgy.
  Agamemnon was diced apart in his bathtub, by
  his own wives. Those who managed to survive
  after their fate manifested itself (Daedalus,
  Oedipus, Theseus) lost sons, wives, and fathers
  in horrible accidents of fortune. Tragedy is the
  name of the game. No one gets out alive.
  So how do you take a game like Mutants &
  Masterminds and make it work in a genre where
  everyone meets a tragic end? Clearly you can’t
  just include monster write-ups for Minotaurs
  and Harpies, throw Homer quotes around, and
  hope to do justice to the original material. This
  is why Argonauts takes the form it does, not just
  a sourcebook for M&M, but a full-fledged
  genre-based adaptation.
  Killing D20 and Taking Its Stuff
  M&M fans will notice several major differ-
  ences from the system they are familiar with.
  Λ Smaller Skill List: Argonauts uses a skill
  list that is significantly lighter than the
  one in M&M, reflecting the time period,
  the iconic nature of myths, and a shift
  away from skills in general.
  Λ More Limited Super-Power Selection:
  Classsical Greek heroes are much more
  limited in their array of “super-powers”
  than modern heroes—who can walk
  through walls or shoot energy out of
  their eyes. To reflect this, Argonauts
  offers a short list of Common powers, a
  more costly set of Uncommon ones, and
  then Sorcery, an alternative for those
  who want to get in touch with their
  inner Medea.
  Λ Power Levels replaced by Myth: Instead
  of having Power Levels, the three types
  of Mythic Entities (Mythic Beings,
  Mythic Beasts, and Mythic Tasks) are
  rated by their level of Myth. This is used
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  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  both in character creation and in the
  advancement system.
  Λ Experience System replaced by Mythic
  Deeds: Instead of advancing through
  GM-awarded points, Mythic Entities
  advance through conflicts with each
  other. By achieving Mythic Deeds (defeat-
  ing another Mythic Entity of equal or
  higher Myth), a hero’s myth grows
  stronger, empowering them further, but
  moving them closer to their Fate.
  Λ Damage System replaced by Fate:
  Classical heroes don’t just die in medias
  res because of a bad roll or an ill-
  planned decision. They only die through
  meeting the tragic end fated for them.
  Therefore, Argonauts replaces Damage
  with Fate. Characters don’t become
  damaged at all, as far as the system is
  concerned. Wounds and mental anguish
  simply move them closer to their Fate.
  Λ Hero and Villain Points replaced by
  Invocation of the Gods: In order to
  reflect the gods’ influence on the mortal
  world, Hero and Villain points have been
  dropped in favor of the new Invocation
  system (described below), which deter-
  mines which gods are attentive to the
  heroes’ plight and just how they go about
  helping or hindering them.
  The Agony and the Ecstasy
  The double-edged sword of Myth & Fate gov-
  erns every hero’s descent into a personal hell.
  Myth is the passion that drives you, responsible
  for both your rise to greatness and for protecting
  you from the dangers you’ve faced thus far. Fate is
  the darkness that will tear you down, something
  ultimately both external and internal. Myth and
  Fate are the most critical components of Classical
  heroes. Everyone has Fate, but only heroes temper
  it with the blood and glory of Myth.
  Your Fate Record is on the right-hand side of
  the character sheet and measures your charac-
  ter’s progress on their path towards catastrophe.
  The sheet begins blank, with 20 boxes that rep-
  resent the thread of a hero’s life, one strand of
  the epic tapestry of existence. In time, the thread
  will be Spun, Measured, and, finally, Cut. To
  record the character’s tragic movement towards
  the end, boxes will be marked off during the
  course of the game, just like the damage boxes in
  M&M. Damage is an obvious reason to mark
  off boxes, but you also loose them for other
  things that make your fate draw nearer.
  Myth, the second half of this equation, is
  measured numerically, like Power Levels.
  Similarly, characters can start at any level of
  Myth, from 0-19. You could start at Myth 20,
  but that would mean your Fate was moments
  away from destroying you utterly, and what fun
  would that be? In addition to providing a meas-
  ure of power and the points with which to build
  your character, Myth can be invoked anytime as
  an additional modifier equal to its level. For
  instance, a Myth-7 hero could have a +7 modifi-
  er to use at will. The only downside: after invok-
  ing your Myth modifier, you have to make a
  Myth Check, rolling over your Myth on a d20
  or checking off a Fate box and moving closer to
  your doom. So, it’s relative low-risk, but only at
  low Myth levels.
  Myth and Fate also balance each other. The
  more power and prestige you gain, the closer
  you are to the end of the line. After all, what
  kind of tragedy would it be if you lived to enjoy
  all the rewards of fame? For every point of
  Myth a character has, one Fate block is perma-
  nently blackened out, unable to be healed or
  recovered in any fashion. As each hero advances
  in Myth, they loose more and more Fate blocks
  and progress towards their ultimate end. For
  this reason, characters starting at different Myth
  levels are really quite distinct in nature, being at
  different points in their path towards Fate.
  Starting characters can either be No Myth (0),
  Low Myth (1-4), Medium Myth (5-9), High
  Myth (10-14), or Blaze of Glory (15-19), each
  having a slightly different perspective on the
  hero’s life and their immediate purpose:
  Λ No Myth: Starting out with 0 Myth
  means that the character is not yet a
  “hero.” You haven’t accomplished any
  Mythic Deeds, nobody knows who you
  24
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  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  are, and anybody with an ounce of
  Myth in them rightly ignores you.
  However, all great heroes had to start
  somewhere. Not everyone can strangle
  serpents as a baby. Your first key task,
  however, is going to be a test. You have
  to prove yourself, so begin looking for
  Deeds worthy of a hero.
  Λ Low Myth: Starting the game with 1-4
  points of Myth marks you as a local
  champion with promise. Each point of
  Myth is one Deed that you’ve accom-
  plished, winning you fame, fortune,
  admiring glances, and quite a few scars.
  Still, you’re not quite ready to march on
  Troy or even join the crew of the Argo.
  You still have some growing up to do.
  All the poets in your hometown may
  sing your praises, but you’re still a
  nobody to the bigwigs in Athens. It’s
  time to move beyond your old stomping
  grounds and hit the big time. Maybe get
  a crew together and set sail for dangers
  unknown. In any case, it’s time to make
  a real name for yourself.
  Λ Medium Myth: Characters starting with
  5-9 Myth are well renowned, no matter
  where they go. As your record of Deeds
  grows, everyone is abuzz with news of
  your exploits. They’re wondering with
  bated breath what great feat you’re
  going to attempt next, and you can’t
  keep the audience waiting. You’re also
  beginning to feel the pressures of life on
  the top. People come to your with their
  problems, instead of just hoping some-
  one will save them. You may ever
  receive requests from faraway mon-
  archs, who will try to marry you to their
  beautiful and dangerous daughters
  (who inevitably practice Sorcery). Even
  more worrisome, there are signs that
  things may not be all fine-and-dandy.
  Prophecies and omens hint at an unfor-
  tunate Doom to come. You’re not
  sweating yet, but you’re definitely con-
  cerned. Still, you’re also having the time
  of your life and being adored by thou-
  sands upon thousands. Things could
  definitely be worse.
  Λ High Myth: Things have gotten worse.
  Sure, characters starting at a Myth of
  10-14 are the real thing, world-class
  heroes like Atalanta or Theseus, but
  they have come to realize that their
  Doom will be of their own doing. The
  laurels of victory sit a little heavier on
  those jaded by so much admiration.
  Thoughts often grow dark and intro-
  spective, pondering past behavior, old
  enemies, and broken relationships.
  There is a thorn in your soul, a Flaw
  that permeates your being and cannot
  be separated without unraveling the
  foundation of your heroism. You can
  begin to sense your Doom approaching,
  though it has not yet begun to take
  shape. It stalks you like a predator, no
  matter how much you try to run or hide
  behind greater glories. Despite what the
  masses may think, you are not divine
  but mortal, and the gods will eventually
  call upon you, making you pay for the
  rewards they have given you—and for
  failing to show proper gratitude.
  Λ Blaze of Glory: Starting with a Myth of
  15+ means that the hero has caught a
  glimpse of the end. They have seen their
  Tragedy, but cannot say for certain
  when or how it will enact itself.
  However, it is only a matter of time. It
  has always been inevitable, of course,
  but never has it loomed so imposingly
  before you. At this point, two options
  present themselves: denial and accept-
  ance. Those who would run should start
  now, seeking every opportunity to move
  themselves far away from the danger
  that is coming. Those who recognize
  their Doom as the proper end for a hero
  should pull their armor from the closet,
  bellow a trademark war cry, and ride
  out onto the battlefield. It’s your last
  chance to make a difference. Very soon,
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  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  the thread of your existence will be cut
  and Persephone will greet you with a
  bittersweet kiss.
  If you choose to start at a Myth Level over
  0, you’ll need to work with your GM and the
  other players to develop a history of your past
  Deeds. Like you, your adventures probably
  started out small and got more and more dra-
  matic as time went on. Perhaps truly accom-
  plished heroes were lucky enough to participate
  in famous incidents. Perhaps they sailed aboard
  the Argo or just happened to be at Marathon.
  Be creative, but remember that people every-
  where will know you by your Deeds, so make
  them worth remembering.
  The Long Spiral Downward
  So just how does a hero progress from epic
  champion to a destroyed shell? How do you
  break someone so noble and righteous? Easy:
  Λ Damage & Marking Boxes: Just like in
  standard M&M, characters in Argonauts
  get a Damage Save to avoid the effects of
  a successful attack. However, failed rolls
  result not in hits but in marks on the
  character’s Fate Record, marks that are
  hopefully only temporary. Marks from
  damage are recorded as slashed boxes,
  just like Stun Hits in regular M&M. The
  only difference is that slashed boxes can-
  not push the character’s Fate past one of
  the black dividing lines on the Record. If
  a hero’s Fate Record is filled with slashed
  boxes up to one of those lines and fails
  another damage roll, they must go back
  and re-slash one of their slashed boxes,
  turning it into a “X,” just like a Lethal
  Hit in M&M. Boxes that are crossed out
  in this manner (having accounted for two
  hits) represent more lasting damage and
  are not easily healed. Additionally, once a
  divided section of a hero’s record (boxes
  1-5, or 6-10, or 11-15, or 16-20) is filled
  up with blackened and/or crossed boxes,
  that step of the character’s Tragedy is
  complete and the next section of boxes
  can begin to be filled.
  Λ Failing Myth Checks: Any time a hero
  uses their Myth Modifier to boost a
  roll they have to make a Myth Check
  afterwards. Failing a Myth Check
  means that the hero’s actions, while
  larger than life, have resulted in edging
  them closer towards their ultimate
  Doom. Failed Myth Checks convert
  directly to slashed boxes, just like
  failed Damage Checks.
  Λ Bringing About Your Tragedy: During
  the progress towards their Doom,
  heroes will eventually see Omens, learn
  of their Fatal Flaw, and even catch
  glimpses of their actual Fate. Players
  should not ignore these guideposts, as
  it’s not good to tempt the Fates too
  much. Persuing courses of action that
  seem to lead the hero closer to their
  Doom (as they have come to understand
  it from signs and portents) requires that
  players roll against their combined Fate,
  including blackened, crossed, and
  slashed boxes. The boxes on the Fate
  Record are conveniently numbered so
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  Fall 2003
  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  players can instantly see the number
  they have to beat. Failure to roll higher
  than your combined Fate number earns
  you yet another slashed box, just as
  with failed Damage and Myth Checks.
  Λ Raising Your Myth: Raising your Myth
  during the course of the game requires
  filling in yet another blackened box on
  your Myth Record. Blackening such a
  box 
  immediately 
  supercedes 
  and
  replaces whatever markings the box
  already has. The Fate Record does not,
  then, “slide down” to make room for
  the new blackened box. You simply
  blacken over a box, ignoring and effec-
  tively “healing” whatever damage was
  already there. However, since blackened
  boxes cannot be removed in any way,
  unlike crossed and slashed ones, you’re
  not really gaining in the long run. Still,
  increasing your Myth can be a good
  way to make annoying crossed boxes
  obsolete, instead of going to the trouble
  required to get them removed. This, of
  course, assumes you can afford to wait
  until your Myth goes up.
  The Kindly Ones
  Additionally, the road downward is paved
  with markers to help you recognize it:
  Λ Prophecy: When a character has 5 Fate
  boxes marked off, they experience their
  first revelation of the end. In this case,
  it’s in the form of an Omen, a sign or
  hint of the future doom to come. This
  Omen marks their actions and may even
  repeat on occasions where the cause or
  circumstances of the hero’s Fate are
  especially close at hand.
  Λ Spin: When a character has marked off
  10 Fate boxes, they gain knowledge of
  their tragic Flaw, the aspect of them-
  selves that calls to their doom and ush-
  ers it nearer. The Flaw is often some-
  thing hinted at by the original Omen
  and is inexplicably tied in with the
  hero’s ultimate end. Indulging in their
  Flaw can force the hero to make a Fate
  check (as described above), since they
  are treading on increasingly dangerous
  ground. Fate is not to be tempted. This
  step in the journey also indicates that
  Clotho, the youngest of the Fates, has
  finished spinning the thread of the
  hero’s life.
  Λ Measure: When a character has marked
  off 15 Fate boxes, they gain a glimpse
  into what form their Fate will take, gain-
  ing knowledge of their Tragedy.
  Lachesis, the middle-aged member of the
  Fates, has already measured your life and
  discovered where the end is to be, and
  this discovery is passed onto the hero in
  the form of a vague intuition about the
  future. The hero begins to be drawn
  towards his destiny, leading him to the
  places, people, and circumstances which
  will result in his final end.
  Λ Cut: When a character has marked off
  his 20th and final Fate box, his Doom,
  the final stage of their Fate, is enacted.
  All the pieces come together, as Atropos,
  the eldest of the triumvirate, cuts the
  thread of the hero’s life.
  One of the only ways to avoid this quick
  decline is to exchange marked Fate boxes for
  points of Hubris. Prideful heroes must make a
  Hubris check, rolling over their Hubris, when
  Invoking the gods (see below). Failure is generally
  bad news, as the Olympians despise uppity, arro-
  gant Mortals. Hubris basically represents a char-
  acter throwing off their Fate and running from it,
  denying that they will ever have to confront it.
  Oedipus and Achilles come to mind. In the end,
  Hubris only offers temporary release from Fate,
  which, now that the hero has angered the gods
  with his pride, will not be long in coming.
  So You Want to Be a Hero
  So if that’s how a hero dies, how are they
  made? Heroes are created by the Mythic Deeds
  that they perform. Through this, and nothing else.
  Mythic Deeds are anything that involves besting,
  killing, humiliating, escaping, or otherwise defeat-
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  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  ing another Mythic Entity of higher
  Myth than yourself, Hercules-meets-
  Highlander style. Mythic Entities
  come in three distinct varieties:
  Λ Mythic 
  Beings:
  These
  should be obvious,
  since your hero is one
  of them. Any mortal
  or demigod with a
  level of Myth above 0
  is considered a Mythic
  Being. Some are heroes,
  some are cruel tyrants,
  some are nymphs or
  other semi-humans who
  are still subject to the gods
  whims.
  Λ Mythic Beasts: The usual suspects.
  The Minotaur. Cerberus. Spear-
  birds. Hydra. The Nemean Lion.
  Medusa and her sisters. Fire-
  breathing 
  bulls. 
  Chimera.
  Cyclopes. Sirens. All the things
  which are more supernatural than mor-
  tal. All the things that like to eat heroes
  for breakfast.
  Λ Mythic Tasks: The Labors of Hercules.
  Not all challenges take the form of
  “defeat somebody” or “kill something.”
  Some require wits and planning. The
  Cretan Labyrinth. The voyage to
  retrieve the Golden Fleece. Recruiting a
  crew for the Argo. Cleaning the world’s
  filthiest stables. Whenever a hero gets a
  little to arrogant, thinking they are the
  greatest warrior in all of Greece, Fate
  throws a Mythic Task their way, keep-
  ing them humble.
  All three types of Mythic Entities are built
  using the same point-based creation system. So
  you build a Labyrinth or a Harpy the same way
  you create a hero, choosing their starting Myth
  Level and working from there, purchasing pow-
  ers and other abilities as you go. 
  The character sheet has a box specifically set
  aside for recording your Mythic Deeds. This is
  important, since every Mythic Deed gains your
  hero another level of Myth. An inter-
  esting facet of the game is the abili-
  ty to tackle Mythic Deeds in
  groups. Of course, since defeating
  Cerberus with a small army of
  heroes is much easier, parties
  of heroes have to set their
  sights 
  high, 
  tackling
  Deeds with very potent
  Myth Levels if they all
  expect to raise their
  own Myth.
  The View From
  Olympus
  What would Classical roleplaying
  without the intervention of those boister-
  ous and changeable divinities? Not
  nearly as fun, that’s what. In
  Argonauts, the Olympians are con-
  stantly hovering around the edges of
  the action, influencing outcomes
  and responding to prayers, but
  rarely taking a direct hand.
  Λ Spheres: Each major and minor deity is
  assigned Spheres of influence. For
  instance, Apollo’s Spheres might cover
  Archery, Prophecy, & Music, while his
  daughter, the muse Calliope, only gov-
  erns the Sphere of Epic Poetry.
  Aphrodite would likewise have more
  Spheres than Eros.
  Λ Invocation: Additionally, at any point in
  the game, deities are either counted as
  being 
  Attentive 
  or 
  Inattentive.
  Normally, all gods are Inattentive by
  default, unless you can convince them
  that there are situations in your life that
  are worthy of their attention. They’re
  busy conniving and chasing after
  nymphs, most of the time. You can
  attempt to gain a god’s attention by
  Invoking them, sending them a prayer
  while doing something related to one of
  their Spheres. This is a roll just like any
  other, adjusted by circumstances and
  your Invocation modifier. Olympians,
  28
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  Fall 2003
  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  while more broadly powerful within a
  large number of Spheres, have a much
  lower (or even negative) base Invocation
  modifier than minor divinities like
  muses or Aeolus, the wind-god. Once
  one or more gods become Attentive to
  your circumstances, they will help or
  hinder you according to their own
  whims, but are very likely to assist those
  who amuse them or act in accord with
  their own secret purposes.
  Λ Patronage: Over time, a hero may even
  make friends and enemies among the
  gods. A character’s Patron deity has
  begun to show special favor to them and
  is much more easily Invoked. However,
  their standards are much higher than a
  spirit simply showing passing interest.
  Patron gods expect heroes to do things
  for them, not the other way around. The
  perks of Patronage are merely the bene-
  fits of following the god’s wishes. Worse
  yet are the attentions of a hero’s
  Nemesis, a god who has decided to
  make your life miserable. Nemeses are
  automatically Invoked whenever the
  character enters their Sphere of influence
  (like Odysseus setting out for home on
  Poseidon’s ocean) and, if the Invocation
  is successful, can start plaguing the hero
  until they destroy his life or their atten-
  tion is drawn elsewhere.
  Gods, no matter if they’re your Patron or
  Nemesis, are fickle and have huge demands on
  their attention. Invoking them merely makes
  them Attentive for a short period of time, usually
  a single scene. Afterwards, they automatically
  revert back to being Inattentive, at least in
  regard to your own circumstances. They can’t
  watch you all the time, but will most likely
  return for all the highlights. Still, smart heroes
  should know better than to rely on the gods’
  favor too much. Divinities quickly tire of con-
  stant Invocations and may change their ways
  from favoring you to working towards bringing
  your Fate closer.
  Demigods & Monsters
  Because of the details of the OGL and the
  M&M Superlink license, I can’t easily include
  fully-stated example heroes and other Mythic
  Entities in this sneak peak, but I wanted to provide
  some idea of how bits of Classical mythology
  might by adapted for use in Argonauts.
  Λ Daedalus: The Reed Richards of the
  ancient world, responsible for the
  Cretan Labyrinth and other marvels of
  craftsmanship and invention. While not
  a hero in the traditional sense, Daedalus
  would 
  be 
  a 
  great 
  character 
  in
  Argonauts, either as a young inventor,
  not yet aware of his Fate, or as an old
  man serving Minos, the king of Crete.
  Daedalus’ ultimate Doom, of course,
  would be the death of his son, Icarus,
  thanks to his own Hubris. In seeking to
  fly, Daedalus violates the natural order
  of things and angers the gods, so per-
  haps Daedalus’ Doom was always close
  at hand, ever since Minos threw him
  into his own Labyrinth – a punishment
  for helping Theseus & Ariadne slay the
  Minotaur. Daedalus, then, was simply
  building up Hubris to buy some time,
  crafting the wings that would ultimately
  free himself and his son. However, the
  gods would not leave him alone forever.
  Λ Theseus: The son of Poseidon, Theseus
  is the classic model of a hero, one who
  uses his muscle and sword to do most of
  the hard work, but still is as intelligent
  as they come. Theseus’ outsmarts
  Jason’s old flame, Medea, who tries to
  poison the mind of Theseus’ step-father,
  King Aegeas, as well as literally trying
  to poison Theseus himself. Then he vol-
  unteers to sacrifice himself in an attempt
  to stop the tithe of youths and maidens
  that King Aegeas makes to Crete every
  year, offerings that are fed to the
  Minotaur. Theseus, of course, slays the
  Minotaur with help from Minos’ beau-
  tiful and crafty daughter, Ariadne (who
  may or may not practice Sorcery in the
  29
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  Medean model), so he’s quite charming
  too. Theseus’ ultimate Fate lies in the
  death of his step-father and his love,
  Ariadne, both ironically through his
  own oversight and stubbornness. His
  father commits suicide, jumping into the
  sea, after Theseus forgets to change the
  color of his sails to signal his success (as
  opposed to his death). Likewise,
  Theseus abandons Ariadne along the
  way home, deciding he can’t marry a
  woman who betrayed her own father
  and country. So Theseus Fate, in this
  way, is a model for the kind of self-
  destructiveness that was so common
  among Greek heroes.
  Λ The Minotaur: A pretty basic monster,
  half-man, half-bull, and people-eating.
  The Minotaur was born of the mating of
  Minos’ wife with a beautiful bull that she
  became mysteriously infatuated with.
  Yes, they have bestiality in the ancient
  world too. Supposedly, the Minotaur was
  strong enough to tear men in half and had
  the teeth of a predator in addition to its
  horns and hooves. While not dangerous
  when compared with most Super-Villains,
  the Minotaur was a match for many
  Classical heroes who fought without guns
  or eye-lasers. It also reflects the animalis-
  tic nature of most mythological monsters,
  which are often just giant, ill-tempered
  beasts, or a bunch of different human and
  animal parts stirred together.  
  Λ The Labyrinth: A great example of a non-
  living Mythic Entity, the Daedalean
  Labyrinth was supposedly so complex
  that those without the proper route would
  be killed, by the Minotaur, by the various
  traps and tortures, or simply by wasting
  away with no way out. Many modern
  notions of a “dungeon crawl” come from
  this Classical model. Daedalus, then, was
  the first “dungeon master” to put heroes
  through their paces. In any case, the
  Labyrinth could be built using Argonauts
  point-based system, just like a hero or
  monster. You would buy super-powers
  and attributes for the Labyrinth like nor-
  mal and simply use the resulting modifiers
  and abilities whenever the power and
  deviousness of the Labyrinth came into
  conflict with other Mythic Entities.
  Not as good as full-blown stat blocks, I know,
  but hopefully that gives you some idea.
  Art & Artifice
  The cover art for Argonauts will be handled by
  John Harper of Shooting Iron Designs/One.Seven
  Design Studio (www.shootingiron.com/feng), while
  the interiors will be the responsibility of Antti
  Karjalainen (www.kotiposti.net/xakarjala). Some of
  John’s early cover sketches and a few of Antti’s illus-
  trations have been sprinkled throughout this preview.
  I plan to finish and publish the Alpha Version of
  Argonauts during the Winter of 2003. Argonauts will
  be released as a “progressive PDF,” and a hardcopy
  version will follow in the Summer of 2004. What does
  this mean? Well, the Alpha Version will be sold as a $3
  PDF and will include a comprehensive list of Playtest
  Notes, asking specific questions on parts of the system
  that can only be illuminated through extensive play.
  Based on feedback from purchasers of Argonauts,
  there will be a Beta Version released in the Spring of
  2004, including updated and expanded rules, play sug-
  gestions, example heroes, monsters, additional super-
  powers, and more. The Beta Version will be free to
  those who bought the Alpha Version and participated,
  in one way or another, in the post-Alpha playtest
  phase (for newcomers, the price will move up to $5).
  Finally, the Gamma – or hardcopy – Version will be
  published next Summer, in time for Origins and
  GenCon, and will included additional material that did
  not appear in previous incarnations. Again, those who
  purchased earlier versions will be able to buy the print
  Argonauts at a discounted price.
  Questions & Comments
  Got something you need to say? Feel free to
  email me personally: Jonathan.Walton@oberlin.edu,
  and check out the soon-to-be-updated 1001
  Designs website, (1001.indie-rpgs.com), for more
  info on Argonauts and my other roleplaying proj-
  ects, as well as webcomics and other fun stuff. Ω
  30
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Argonauts: The Tragedy of Heroes
  By Jonathan Walton
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Argonaut Preview Copyright © 2003 Jonathan Walton.
  
  31
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  You do what for a living?
  By T.S. Luikart
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 T.S. Luikart
  SS
  ince the first incarnation of Dungeons &
  Dragons, we’ve been told that many
  adventures begin when a hardy band of
  likely youths go traipsing forth to seek their for-
  tunes out in the wide, cruel world.  There’s
  money to be had in the dark places of the globe
  and plenty of it if you’re skilled or lucky.  So why
  don’t more folk turn to this lucrative career?
  Because it’s dangerous?  Because it’s foolhardy?
  Because they’ll have to kill a bunch of sentient
  beings?  Nope.  Because it’s B.S.  The economic
  foundations of most “fantasy heartbreakers”
  {thanks, Ron} are, quite frankly, not very sound.
  Over the last few years, I’ve become more and
  more interested in the study of economics as
  they apply to fantasy role-playing games.  My
  interest began with a great deal of research I did
  for the (mostly) real world equivalent gold and
  silver prices you can find in Green Ronin’s Skull
  & Bones, but it has since expanded to the hobby
  in general.  The greater bulk of this article is
  directed at campaign settings that claim to be
  “realistic” but are anything but.  Obviously,
  when depicting a fantasy world, you can do
  whatever you darn well please.  I would like to
  note, however, that a number of the more
  famous fantasy authors I’ve read emphasize that
  the more “realistic” a fantasy world is, the more
  accepting of it and audience is capable of being.
  Economic Foundations
  According 
  to 
  present 
  anthropological
  thought, almost every culture begins as nomadic
  hunter – gatherers before acquiring the knowl-
  edge of crop cultivation and settling down into
  an agricultural society.  Some tribes remain
  nomadic and/or proceed to raid others for their
  goods, depending on how aggressive they are.  A
  culture can spend a very long time indeed using
  nothing more than a barter basis for their econ-
  omy before ever needing to come up with inter-
  changeable units of wealth, e.g. coins, shells,
  teeth, etc.  A number of cultures equate value
  with specific animals and how many an individ-
  ual owns, so wealth is measured by the size of
  one’s herd of cows, horses, buffalo, etc.  Long
  after coinage was introduced in Europe, service
  “in kind” was the standard for well over a thou-
  sand years, as most peasants were unlikely to
  ever see more than a handful of silver coins in
  their entire life.  Thus, they passed on part of
  their crops and a chicken or two when their lord
  asked for his rent.  Coins eventually predomi-
  nated in Europe mainly because of trade.
  Merchants, when dealing with folks they know,
  can continue to barter at a certain level, but
  when they start dealing with foreigners they
  need a unit of measurement whose value is, rel-
  atively, fixed and easy to agree upon.  
  I could continue on this topic for quite a
  while, but I’ll steer back to my point: For-profit
  adventurers do not come from barter-based soci-
  eties.  A campaign world’s society has to have hit
  a point where goods and economic units, e.g.
  “treasure,” were in wide scale use for some time,
  either in the past or the present, for such adven-
  turers to even exist.  Fantasy campaigns based
  on Europe must inevitably have a Roman
  Empire equivalent in their past, or a truly thriv-
  ing present economy, to explain how so many
  far-flung beasts got their claws on so much
  portable wealth, which leads to my next point.
  Where did all that specie come from?
  Specie, in this case, is cold hard cash and for
  the sake of my sanity and your edification, we’ll
  just assume it’s all gold and silver.  Coinage
  implies both a mint and ready sources of the
  material in question.  Some places on Earth did,
  indeed, have gold and silver deposits on the sur-
  face, which required little to no mining, but they
  are the exception, not the rule.  Extensive
  amounts of specie inevitably mean mining.
  Mining implies fairly formidable technology.  It
  Article by 
  T.S. Luikart
  T.S. Luikart lives in a
  cramped house in
  California that more than
  vaguely resembles a role-
  playing game library.  He
  is responsible for (or is
  guilty of depending on
  your point of view) con-
  tributing to or designing
  such products as
  UnderWorld, The Last
  Exodus, Promised Sands,
  and Skull & Bones.
  You do what for a living?
  A critical look at the economics of fantasy role-playing settings
  
  is true that anybody can dig a hole, but the
  process of producing the proper tools for exca-
  vation, shoring up the mine’s walls, transporting
  ore, etc. all require a fair amount of sophistica-
  tion.  However, a mineral rich environment and
  a large work force can also cull quite a bit from
  the earth.  Slavery was frequently the main
  choice of labor for the Roman Empire, fantasy
  worlds may follow suit, but they also have
  access to golems, zombies, elementals, etc.
  There has to be some sort of reason for need-
  ing large amounts of wealth dug from the earth.
  Trade and expansion are the mostly likely reasons
  our world has to offer.  Trade demands other
  nations who have similar outlooks on what con-
  stitutes “wealth” and expansion means taking
  into account population growth and the absorp-
  tion of other peoples into one’s nation, e.g. there
  needs to be enough money to go around.  Trade
  also means that large amounts of wealth get
  moved around, which is somewhat critical for the
  dissemination of wealth.  How else do beasts in
  the wilderness get their hands on currency?
  Previous dead adventurers?  Cynical economists
  will tell you that no matter how much wealth
  there is to be had that, given enough time, it will
  inevitably end up in the hands of a select few.
  The Spanish Empire is pretty much Earth’s
  poster child for ludicrous amounts of specie pro-
  duction.  However, it didn’t do half so well from
  its holdings in the New World as you might
  think.  The costs of running and maintaining the
  Spaniard’s world spanning empire were enor-
  mous.  Every time a new load of silver specie
  arrived in port, there would be a shockwave of
  inflation that would radiate outwards through-
  out Europe as more silver was dumped into the
  economy.  However, the heavy raise in prices
  would inevitably crush the local Spaniards first,
  who weren’t benefiting from their ruler’s oversea
  holdings.  Eventually, they came to dread the
  arrival of the New World flotillas and stock up
  on basic goods when rumor of their arrival came
  around.  Thus, the economic windfalls of the
  New World actually had a large part in bringing
  about the downfall of the Spanish Empire, mak-
  ing them victims of their own success.
  Oh, no!  Adventurers!
  Bet you can see where I’m going with this, eh?
  Adventurers, especially successful for-profit
  adventurers, while a boon to merchants are
  quite probably a bane to common folk.  The vast
  amounts of wealth they carry with them can
  destabilize carefully built economies overnight.
  D&D d20 presumes a base wage of one silver
  piece per day to an unskilled laborer, which is
  barely adequate for survival.  Presuming a 30
  day month, with 5 days set aside as holy days,
  and a 12 month year, said laborer makes 300 sil-
  ver, or 30 gold in a year.  A 5th level adventurer
  is nominally worth 9,000 gold, in specie and
  equipment.  In other words, it would take the
  ditch digger 300 years of money accumulation,
  presuming not a cent was spent on surviving, to
  reach the equivalent.
  Is it any wonder that all old taverns seemed to
  be owned by ex-adventurers? 
  Adventurers are also one of the only ways
  through which incredible amounts of previously
  unavailable specie can suddenly enter an econo-
  my.  Translation: dragon slayers are great news
  for the King’s exchequer and bad news for every-
  body else.  Let’s consider Smaug the Golden in
  economic terms.  I’m going to presume that
  Smaug was very old with a particularly impres-
  sive hoard.  The result runs something like this:
  100,000+ in loose gold, 100+ gems and art
  objects worth over 140,000 gold, 8 medium
  strength magic items worth approximately
  80,000 gold and 6 major items worth approxi-
  mately 240,000 gold.  Grand total: 560,000+ in
  gold value, not to mention several tons of dwarf-
  wrought armor, weapons, etc.  All of which is
  200,000 gold less than the 760,000 gold equiva-
  lent that a 20th level adventurer is supposed to
  be worth according to the 3.5 d20 Dungeon
  Master’s Guide. 
  Yep, that’s right. A single {admittedly very high
  level} adventurer’s money and equipment are
  worth more than a very old dragon’s whole
  hoard.  Which do you think is easier to kill,
  hmmm?  Tolkien had it right, 5 armies would,
  indeed, march at the death of an elderly dragon—
  but a single high level adventuring party is even
  more valuable and probably easier to waylay.
  32
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  You do what for a living?
  By T.S. Luikart
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 T.S. Luikart
  
  33
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  You do what for a living?
  By T.S. Luikart
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 T.S. Luikart
  How much gold fer that there wand?
  Giving magic items a gold piece equivalent,
  while useful as a game-balancing mechanic, was
  a really bad idea from a realistic economics
  point of view.  It is true that supply and demand
  greatly increases the value of a given commodi-
  ty, but hardly anybody would have enough hard
  cash to justify the costs of any of the mid-range
  magic items in d20, much less the more expen-
  sive ones.  If you ever happen to find yourself in
  a position where you’re coming up with a magic
  item system, I strongly suggest you connect their
  existence and the faint possibility of purchasing
  them to the rarity of materials and the difficulty
  of any given item’s creation.
  So what’s my point?
  A lot of people, gamers and otherwise, tend
  to cringe if you start discussing economics, but
  thinking about the foundations of your world’s
  finances can only enhance your campaign and/or
  game.  The underlying structure can provide a
  lot of room for adventure, as can the interac-
  tions of cultures with different priorities.  Say,
  for example, that you’re GMing a game where
  the PCs all come from a Celtic style clan that
  only values how many heads of Yaerwen Cattle
  a man owns.  Stealing cattle from other clans
  and making a good marriage are typically the
  only ways to improve one’s fortune in their cul-
  ture, so a few adventures, at least, would revolve
  around raiding and protecting their herd from
  the raids of others.  Gold and silver acquisition
  wouldn’t mean all that much to such warriors,
  until they find out that there are some fools that
  will actually sell Yaerwen Cattle for coins!
  Another common example, certainly the most
  common that I’ve seen in fantasy and science fic-
  tion, is environment influenced economy, e.g.
  desert areas or worlds.  Water is always the most
  precious of substances and there are areas where
  no amount of gold will be able to purchase it.    
  Questions to consider:
  Is this a barter or specie culture?
  Where did /does their money come from?
  What does this culture / race value?
  Why?
  Dwarves and their gold. . . . 
  Let’s take one of my favorite races, dwarves,
  and build on a number of the more common
  conceptions about them with an eye towards
  economic implications.  They live deep in the
  mountains.  They have a clan-based structure
  that values honor.  They love well-crafted goods
  and greatly value gold, silver, jewels and alcohol.
  They live deep in the mountains for both spir-
  itual reasons and the fact that it puts them far
  closer to the ore veins, which supply the raw
  materials for their smith work.  They have the
  capacity to acquire gold, silver and jewels easier
  than most other races.  If there is any race that
  would’ve produced their own coinage, surely, it’s
  the dwarves.  Living deep in the mountains
  means that they’re either self-sufficient or have
  long since set up trade routes with others for any
  goods they cannot produce.  Seeing as they have
  a large and expanding subterranean empire, I
  figure they must have established trade routes.
  Because of their well known reputation for
  honor, traders would be willing to deal with
  them regularly, however, they’re probably
  known for being hard bargainers, for they value
  both their work and their gold highly.  Work,
  however, can be replicated.  Gold cannot.  Thus,
  the mountain dwarves are far more likely to
  want to trade a shipment of dwarf-wrought
  arms and armor than their gold for goods from
  outside their kingdom.  
  So what do they need?  They have access to
  wool from their mountain sheep.  However, they
  need leather for a number of their goods and silk
  or other unusual cloths might interest them.
  They certainly need every kind of foodstuff,
  from meats to produce.  Barley and hopps for
  their beloved ales are absolutely essential, and
  probably one of the few things they’d be willing
  to trade gold for.  Fruits coming from trees that
  will never grow in their cold high mountains are
  delicacies.  I can easily imagine dwarves loving
  apples and swooning at the thought of a tumbler
  full of apple brandy. 
  Thus, we have a dwarf kingdom with a
  healthy internal economy based on specie and
  work.  Among their fellows, they use gold and
  silver coinage to purchase goods, or trade one of
  their creations whose value is proportionate to
  
  how much time and craftsmanship went into it.
  They prefer to keep their specie in dwarven
  hands, so most of their agreements with outside
  traders involving the selling of dwarf-wrought
  goods, though certain crops will pry some of
  their specie away.  Citizens of the kingdoms sur-
  rounding the dwarf mountains are far more like-
  ly to have seen a fine masterwork axe then a
  dwarven silver penny.  Characters wishing to
  purchase wares from the dwarves are better off
  acquiring a couple of bushels of apples.  The
  dwarves would certainly take gold without com-
  punction, though they would make a better deal
  on jewels that they didn’t have in their moun-
  tains, such as opals or pearls.
  I hope my musings were of interest.  I’ll leave
  you with China Miéville’s awesome take on for-
  profit adventurers:
  They were immediately and absolutely rec-
  ognizable as adventurers. … They were
  hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of
  allegiance or morality, living off their wits,
  stealing and killing, hiring themselves out
  to whoever and whatever came.  They
  were inspired by dubious virtues.
  A few performed useful services: research,
  cartography and the like.  Most were noth-
  ing but tomb raiders.  They were scum
  who died violent deaths, hanging on to a
  certain cachet among the impressionable
  through their undeniable bravery and their
  occasionally impressive exploits.
  —China Miéville, Perdido Street Station
  Ω
  34
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  You do what for a living?
  By T.S. Luikart
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 T.S. Luikart
  
  II
  ’m sitting on the floor before a big plastic
  tub of LEGO. The tub is about two feet high
  and four feet across. It’s clear-ish in that way
  plastic tubs are universally clear-ish. It holds sev-
  eral thousand assorted bricks. Instructions are
  lost to the whims of time.
  Today, although I am thirty years old, I am
  going to build something neat.
  I have two choices, two predestined paths
  before I thrust my hands into the giant bin and
  pull out heaps and heaps of small plastic pieces.
  The first path is the path of Zen. I grab sev-
  eral bricks and click them together in a logical
  way. What begins as a bit of a house with some
  walls becomes a house on large, ponderous
  wheels and pairs of small LEGO anti-aircraft
  machine guns on a hinged roof. Inside, tuxe-
  doed minifigs carrying trays of hors d’oerves
  serve fighting pirates ready to fight all the other
  giant wheeled armed houses of the post-apoca-
  lyptic basement floor. It’s the Mad Max of
  LEGO, Beyond the LEGODome, a nightmarish
  conflagration of pieces and parts bringing a
  vision to life.
  The second path is the path of Meditation. I
  sort and shift the pieces before me into cate-
  gories and parts and groups of color. I ponder
  the numbers of wheels and wings and parts of
  appropriate size and build. And then, I come up
  with a Grand Scheme, a super plan bringing all
  my LEGO dreams to fruition. I cackle. Perhaps I
  even model my plan on my renderer on my com-
  puter, and have it spit out step-by-step instruc-
  tions. (I have software that does this precise
  thing.) Once I have fiddled and changed and
  edited and planned, I build. What I build is com-
  plicated and difficult and uses many fiddly parts.
  The end result is perfection: a fully motorized
  minifig death machine, destined for small plastic
  doom. Days of work, and it stands before me,
  great and proud.
  Some say the first path is more fun, but the
  second path is more satisfying.
  RPG building blocks
  Role-playing games aren’t actually LEGO
  blocks—there are no plastic bits to leave on the
  carpet for unsuspecting toes. But building games
  is not unlike building the grand machine of plas-
  tic death. In the universe of actual World
  Building, two approaches come to the fore: start
  at the very center and work out, or start out and
  work in. This is the “Bottom-Up” approach ver-
  sus the “Top-Down” approach, respectively.
  The most common method of constructing a
  world by game masters is the “bottom-up”
  approach. The game master (or designer or what
  have you) is faced with a collection of objects—
  characters, NPCs, villains, objects, maps, mon-
  sters, etc. Some he swipes from other game sys-
  tems. Others, he makes up out of whole cloth.
  He starts at a small place: a village, a house, a
  small dungeon. The game begins with the hand-
  ful of people, places and things. Everything out-
  side this small area is grayed out—yet to be
  explored. Yet, it exists by consensus.
  As the game progresses, and the game master
  adds to the world, he tacks on new parts helter-
  skelter. Even the best-organized game master
  spontaneously generates bits of inconsistency,
  spawning the well known “That’s not quite
  right—didn’t we meet this guy in another form
  last week?” effect. It is the weaving and inter-
  weaving of characters and places where some
  earlier details are forgotten. Some parts of the
  world become disjointed. Notes are lost. Bits of
  potato chips collect on the floor.
  A town here, a dungeon there ... for most
  games, it’s perfectly fine. Especially if the game is
  short, or limited in scope, or segues into a well-
  documented area, like published and canned
  material. But some games turn into a large
  wheeled monstrosity with anti-aircraft guns on
  the roof. The game lacks proper scope—not
  knowing the great outdoors until we all venture
  outside and are promptly eaten by bears.
  35
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  World design, block by block
  By Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  Article by
  Emily K. Dresner-
  Thornber
  Emily K. Dresner-
  Thornber has written for
  numerous publications
  including Pyramid
  Magazine, In Nomine,
  Kindred of the East,
  Vampire: Dark Ages,
  and Big Eyes, Small
  Mouth, including Cute
  and Fuzzy Seizure
  Monsters.  Currently,
  she spends more time
  writing small games
  than playing them.
  World design, block by block
  
  Think big
  The other approach is considerably more dif-
  ficult and time consuming. It’s also what we, the
  great unwashed gaming populace, pay for at the
  game store. Starting from absolute scratch, or
  using some ready-but-unusual resources, the
  game master assesses the entire world, starts
  from the outside and works in. He envisions an
  entire world, and populates it with people,
  items, places, things, history, and politics in
  smaller and smaller circles before the players
  even sit down to create their characters. The
  result is a very detailed playground.
  Starting from a clean slate, a game master
  asks, “What do I want in my world?” And then
  he starts writing (or indexing or populating a
  database), and does a little research to fill in the
  areas that need a little coloring in.
  The easiest way to do top-to-bottom world
  building approach is to ask several questions and
  write down the actual answers. For example:
  Setting: Can I imagine a world full of coun-
  tries and populate it with races of the correct
  genre and feeling? Can I describe my setting in a
  few sentences without referring to specifics?
  What is my world, precisely?
  Geography: How do my countries look? Do
  they bump against each other? Do they have
  giant mountain ranges as boundaries, or
  immense rivers of blood? Cartography software
  or fractal generator software is useful for gener-
  ating a country, a continent or a world. It gener-
  ates random, natural looking land with rivers
  and other physical features to lay out boundaries.
  History: Now that I can see my world visual-
  ly before me and infer some political boundaries.
  Which groups have been at war? Which are
  allied? Which shares resources? How has the lay
  of the land contributed to the history? Imagine
  the history of the world in chunks: 10,000 years
  ago, 1000 years ago, 100 years ago, last year,
  last month. Imagine the phases of change over
  time. Have they always hated each other? Who
  populated these lands when, and why?
  Religion: What do the people believe? Is there
  one god? Many? Do they believe in the ultimate
  coming of some evil or an uncaring God from
  beyond understanding? Is existentialism the
  reigning philosophy? Who believes what, and
  why do they believe it? Religion can tie very
  neatly into history—defining changing political
  boundaries, the backing of holy wars, and mil-
  lennia-old racial tensions.
  Politics: With the political boundaries of
  countries and their religions, what kind of gov-
  ernments do these countries have? Are they
  theocracies? Are they ruled by iron-fisted kings
  who repress their people and push forward the
  dogs of war? Are they constitutional monarchies
  with the state held in careful political balance of
  secret infighting and collusions across borders?
  Is the entire world descending into post-apoca-
  lyptic anarchy?
  Dramatis Personae: With a setting, countries,
  a history, religions, and the political landscape,
  the world needs important people—movers and
  shakers the players might or might not care
  about. Build convincing non-player characters,
  give them histories and motivations of their
  own, and let them go.
  The above points collude to an Earth-like
  fantasy world, although it works with some
  modifications with everything from Steampunk
  to the Ancient World to Space Opera. And to
  show how this works, here is a small, mostly
  incomplete example.
  This old house
  Instead of starting from a more difficult
  point—designing a universe, or a world, or a
  country—let’s start with something simple.
  Imagine a house.
  I start with the setting. Then I add the politi-
  cal dynamics, and flesh out some of the history.
  Now, with three simple steps I have where, who,
  and why for any game I wish to set. The world
  is bounded by the house. While theoretically
  there is a road and it leads to a town and the
  town has people, it’s not interesting to the story,
  and therefore does not exist.
  Setting: A House out in the woods, slightly
  smaller than a rambling Victorian mansion, yet
  too large to be a generic split-level ranch. It’s one
  of those big, named houses crumbling off some
  forgotten lane, a heaping relic of a forgotten
  time. Behind the house are some untended, over-
  36
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  World design, block by block
  By Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  
  grown rose gardens and a small creek. Down the
  lane a ways is civilization.
  Geography: The House is a large, multi-level
  affair built in a much earlier time with large ban-
  isters and dark corners. It’s complete with a
  basement, a large formal dining room, several
  bedrooms upstairs, and an attic. Who knows
  what’s in the attic? Old, forgotten servant and
  slave chambers are off the large kitchen.
  Everything in the House smacks of age,
  growth, and mold. It’s old. Old as the gnarled
  trees outside the windows. Old as the day and
  the night.
  Outside are a small creek and a giant rose
  garden. Down by the creek is a small family
  graveyard. All is overgrown with ivy and time.
  That which is beyond the house does not mat-
  ter. While there is a road and some people come
  in and some people leave as needed, there is
  never any reason to follow the road to some
  other world—or at least not desired. Why would
  you ever leave the protection of the House?
  Politics: The House is run by the Grand
  Matron of the House, old Theodosia. She holds
  the household in an iron grip, supported by her
  sister, Henrietta. After this come the aunts and
  uncles and children populating the House like
  rats—and acting much the same. Sometimes new
  people are brought into the House through mar-
  riage—met in some mysterious way, arranged by
  old Theodosia and married into the Family.
  Sometimes people just disappear.
  All the rest—the uncles, the aunts, and the
  cousins—jockey for Theodosia’s attentions and
  desires through their own internal politics.
  Whoever has the favor has the most attention,
  and can lord over the others their control.
  Whoever is out of favor may be dismissed from
  the protection of the House, never to return.
  History: The history of the family itself is a
  story of inbreeding and murder and bloody
  secret ritual.
  The history of the House goes back far
  beyond 
  Theodosia, 
  to 
  her 
  grandfather,
  Thaddaus, an evil old man who built the House
  on the time of a great confluence of powers
  between the Heavens and the forgotten God
  Iadalath, oft referenced in forgotten alchemical
  texts of the Middle Ages. He sanctified the cor-
  nerstone of the basement with blood of those
  relatives who refuse worship Iadalath in a ritual
  of murder and suffering, holding up the
  Trimethius as his guide. After building the
  House, he only allowed those who truly believed
  in the cult to survive. Forthwith, it brought the
  family great Wealth and Power in times of yore.
  Perhaps not by murder, but terminal accidents
  happen within the family with an uncomfortable
  frequency. Uncle Joseph’s wife Laura drowned in
  the creek. Aunt Marcia tragically fell from the
  window of the attic. And children mysteriously
  died after the conjunctions of Mars and Saturn.
  Although Thaddaus is dead and buried in the
  graveyard by the stream, Theodosia still lives on,
  practicing Thaddaus’s rituals. Those of the fam-
  ily who have survived through the years have
  lived through currying Theodosia’s favor while
  remembering Thaddaus’s forgotten god. The
  power of the House is waning; only renewed rit-
  ual will bring it back into power.
  To Do
  Flesh out the history to have a timeline so play-
  ers can dig up truth about the world as they play.
  Fill out the names of the assorted uncles and aunts
  and determine their relationships. Build a family
  tree full of inbreeding and murder. Draw a plan of
  the House and the surrounding grounds.
  The Game
  The setting demands a creepy conspiracy
  game to escape the house to the outside.
  Obviously, this is not a long running game, but
  it has a setting, a history, and people to populate
  the world with motivations and lives. The play-
  ers would best play children—grandchildren of
  Theodosia. Then, the game master can relish
  offering up bits and pieces of their history and
  the plotting of their elder relatives to keep them
  from escaping the House.
  We have a place (the House) for a Setting,
  some evil History to expand upon, and some
  surrounding Geography to give the players
  someplace to go and something to do. So far, no
  players have created characters. But everything
  is ready for the players should they play. If the
  37
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  World design, block by block
  By Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  
  game master completely fills out the world, fin-
  ishing the exercise, the players will jump him
  with fewer surprises. He’ll also create a richer
  tapestry of game for the players to game in.
  Too small, too large, just right
  Certainly, in the above example, there is an out-
  side world, and in the top-down world creation
  process, if it was important to build outside towns,
  we’d start with a town (containing the House) and
  work in. If it was important for the characters to
  travel to a city, we’d start with a state, build some
  towns (one containing the House) and work in.
  But for this example, the entire world is the
  House—and all the evil therein. Although this may
  feel constraining, several books, including Stephen
  King’s Misery and The Shining, and V.C. Andrew’s
  Flowers in the Attic, have been set entirely inside a
  house to great effect.
  Small is good, however. Trying to build a
  world over-ambitiously may mean too much
  work, too much scope, and not enough focus.
  There is too much information to assimilate and
  write down, and not enough time in the day. A
  large world can be built from the top-down
  approach, and it’s preferable for a long-term
  campaign or a book. But, small is manageable. It
  is just enough to chew and swallow.
  Most game masters won’t want to put this
  amount of work and effort into a game, but a
  good game designer must if the game designer is
  building a convincing setting or world. If other
  people are to play in the big box of LEGO with-
  out the designer standing over them and holding
  a whip, the world must fit together in a way that
  is easy to understand and believable.
  The Realized World
  One of the stumbling blocks of putting all the
  pieces together in a top-down approach is to
  build something plausibly realistic yet still stays
  within the intended theme. Staying in theme is
  crucial. If a Space Opera is suddenly interrupted
  by warriors from Conan breaking through the
  airlock because the game designer was watching
  Conan The Destroyer while working on the
  game world, the interruption strains the suspen-
  sion of belief. Unless the world plausibly
  demands, for whatever reason, that space bar-
  barians be a part of the world, the barbarians
  shouldn’t be included in the game design.
  When working on a world from the top down,
  keep underlying themes in mind. These include
  the timeframe, the races, and the progress of sci-
  entific invention. Keep races and their interaction
  in mind. If the steam engine has yet to be invent-
  ed, it should not appear in the history of the
  world, nor should it suddenly be included in an
  invading army’s arsenal without good reason.
  The final, secret trick to true top-down world
  building is keeping the project in scope. The
  world remains believable as long as the designer
  doesn’t throw in everything, and then some, into
  the design. Simple is best. Tempation wags its lit-
  tle fingers at any game designer – the devil him-
  self causes fledging game designers and neophyte
  game masters to see piles of neat shiny things
  and shove them willy-nilly into a game where
  they don’t belong.
  The End Product
  The end product is, for me, a completed
  LEGO abstraction of plastic bricks. I will take a
  few digital photos, share my design, and perhaps
  bother to tell people for a few days. Games are
  much the same, although in words and concepts
  instead of physical: parts and pieces carefully
  planned to build a coherent whole.
  If the designer does put in the work, he or she
  will be satisfied in the end. The designer will
  walk away from the process with a complete
  product in a neat package to either run a private
  game or share with the greater and more won-
  derous world. Ω
  38
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  World design, block by block
  By Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Emily K. Dresner-Thornber
  
  II
  mpro: Improvisation and the Theatre by
  Keith Johnstone, for those who haven’t
  been bored to tears by old drama queens, is
  an amazing book, ostensibly about acting and
  story telling. 
  So what? Why should Impro matter to role-
  players? Because Impro is practical, fun, and, by
  itself, is virtually a freeform game players hand-
  book. Here are my views of how the ideas in
  Impro can help you in your role-playing hobby.
  Harnessing Spontaneity
  In Impro, Johnstone reckons there are three
  main things that stop people from being cre-
  atively spontaneous: 
  1) Fear of psychosis
  2) Fear of obscenity 
  3) Fear of unoriginality. 
  I’m not entirely sure the first two aren’t aspects
  of the same thing, which is fear of being strange,
  crazy, or unacceptably different. Ironically, trying
  to break away from those leads to his third fear—
  fear of being boring and normal.
  The first fears—the fears of being alienated—
  lead to people playing it safe with their charac-
  ters and games. So, we go back to the same old
  habits and the same old adventures and adven-
  turers, this time dressed up in new costumes,
  names, races and pow-
  ers. 
  Conversely, the last
  fear—the fear of being
  bored 
  or 
  boring—
  leads 
  to 
  that 
  old
  favourite, 
  “acting
  crazy.” Everyone’s had
  that one member of
  the gaming group who
  has to do something suicidal or inappropriate
  because he says, “I’m bored,” or,“My character
  would do that.”
  Let’s look at those first two fears. They indi-
  cate we’ll be discovered by others as crazy, or
  perverts, or crazy perverts. A small word to the
  wise—our hobby mostly consists of getting
  together with people we tend to know fairly well,
  then immediately pretend to be other people.
  Most “standard” behaviour for an adventuring
  party, as remarked by many designers and com-
  mentators, would be seen as illegal, immoral and
  borderline psychotic behavior. A standard role-
  playing session includes the use of techniques of
  fantasizing in a social context that many psychi-
  atrists only recommend to be used under the
  supervision of highly trained therapists. 
  In other words, we’re already acting crazy.
  People are strange
  I’m going out on a limb here: Playing role-play-
  ing games will not drive you crazy. If you’re wor-
  ried that playing role-playing games will reveal that
  you’re odd, well, you’re already odd for playing
  role-playing games in the first place. Don’t sweat it.
  But, maybe you’re not as odd as people who try to
  conceal their oddness by never trying anything
  odd. That’s downright weird! Trying to conceal
  how you’re mentally different from the other play-
  ers is not only detrimental to your fun, but it’s also
  detrimental to theirs. And trying to demonstrate
  how you’re mentally
  different (whether more
  artistic, or funny, or just
  plain “wacky”) tends to
  demonstrate 
  nothing
  more than your desper-
  ate need to hide your
  fear of normality.
  As 
  for 
  worrying
  about being dull or
  unoriginal, consider this. There’s a grand old tra-
  dition that says there are only a dozen or so plot
  lines, and they’ve been done a million times each.
  39
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Improvisational techniques for gamers
  By Pete Darby
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Pete Darby
  Article by
  Pete Darby
  Pete Darby has been
  noodling about with
  RPG’s for about 21 years,
  but previously confined
  his published contribu-
  tion to the field to argu-
  ing badly on the internet.
  Now he is bald, thirty
  something, overweight
  and shortsighted, he feels
  it is time to become a
  proper RPG writer. 
  “Trying to conceal how
  you’re mentally different from
  the other players is not only
  detrimental to your fun, but
  it’s also detrimental to theirs.”
  Improvisation techniques for gamers
  Shed your fears and open your mind to better play
  
  There are only a couple of dozen possible basic
  character traits. On a grand, cosmic scale, you
  can’t be original. Or, at least, you can’t be origi-
  nal be comprehended by the rest of humanity.
  So, I don’t think anything you do in a role-
  playing game is going to expose you as being any
  stranger than the average gamer, or indeed the
  average member of the public.
  To give you an example of “normal” people,
  among the guys I work with are two flight sim-
  ulation nuts, a gentleman who turned down the
  attentions of his wife to play a video game, a
  tropical fish enthusiast, a train enthusiast, a
  martial artist, and a guy who has more DVD
  space than clear wall space. Some of these
  “enthusiasts” are the same person. That’s just
  the stuff I can tell you about that’s legal. And all
  of them tease each other for their idiosyncrasies.
  Since I started working, I’ve been pretty up front
  about my hobby, and they’ve given up teasing
  me because I don’t get defensive. But, call the
  train enthusiast a train spotter, and hooo boy!
  There will always be a lot of interest in how
  much role-playing games reveal about you. And,
  sure, when you look back on your characters
  and games, you can gain a certain amount of
  insight into your own real-life character. But
  either analysing while playing or skewing your
  play to try to display or conceal your personali-
  ty just cramps your playing style. Doing so dis-
  tracts your attention from the game and having
  fun. Besides, what can you possibly learn about
  yourself if you don’t let yourself go?
  Good enough, right now!
  Here’s where we come to the great, unifying
  characteristic that links impro theatre to role-
  playing: immediacy. The other players in a role-
  playing game and the audience of an impro (and
  the other improvisers!) don’t want a perfect
  response in a week’s time. They want a good
  enough response right now! 
  You can at least partially assess a good system
  for a given group of players by finding out what
  results the system mechanically produces in what
  time frame. An “imagineer” player may be more
  comfortable with a longer wait to consult tables.
  A challenge-seeker may gladly wait a bit to check
  the effects of new tactics. And, the player priori-
  tizing story or theme may pause long enough to
  refer to a relationship map of characters involved
  in a scene. All of these are part and parcel of the
  “good enough” part of the response.
  What role players and improvisers can’t stand
  is the response “I don’t know.” In impro, it more
  often takes the form of the phrase “I can’t think
  of anything.” At least role-players have the
  crutch of mechanical game system results to fall
  back on. “I can’t think of anything” is usually
  code for “All I can think of is weird, perverse or
  dull stuff, and I want you all to think of me as
  fascinatingly normal.” This is the impossible
  thing of Impro.
  A liberating phrase that Johnstone advises is
  “Heh ... I’m not saying that!” It acknowledges
  that you’ve got an idea, but one that you feel
  will either be unacceptable to the group or to
  yourself. But that phrase (as well as its para-
  phrases) has two interesting consequences. The
  first is that it becomes easier to accept what’s
  constantly running through your head because
  you recognise that you don’t know where a lot
  of it comes from, and you’re not responsible for
  the contents, just the expression. Secondly, you
  get used to hearing the phrase, “Go on then ...
  what?” Once you’ve made it plain that you’ve
  already said you didn’t want to say it, it kind of
  makes the responding person mutually responsi-
  ble for the expression of the idea. You’ll be ini-
  tially surprised at how little you get the response
  “You’re right, you shouldn’t have said that,”
  and how often you get “Heh ... why not?”
  Offering, blocking and accepting
  The most basic tools of an improviser are
  Offering, Accepting and Blocking. These terms
  are jargon for some very simple things, but label-
  ing them as such brings a level of awareness that
  illuminates proceedings.
  Offering is simply providing a hook, or a
  statement, for another performer to react to. It
  should be fairly obvious what Accepting and
  Blocking are in this context. In a free-form the-
  atre improvisation, blocking is generally held to
  be Very Bad, but it’s also a default defensive tac-
  tic. If we’re afraid of where another improviser
  40
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Improvisational techniques for gamers
  By Pete Darby
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Pete Darby
  
  may be leading us, we instinctively block. If
  we’re invested in the illusion of not breaking
  character, as most performing improvisers are,
  it’s about the only way to express discomfort
  with another improviser’s actions.
  The example Johnstone gives is as follows:
  Actor 1: I’ve brought the elephant
  Actor 2: For the gelding?
  Actor 1: NO!
  Actor 1 offers, Actor 2 accepts and offers,
  and the Actor 1 blocks. Perhaps understandably,
  but it’s to the dismay of the audience and the
  other actor.
  How role-playing games differ
  Role-playing games tend to have a more pre-
  defined universe in which events occur. Role-
  playing games also accept at least a few restric-
  tions in terms of simulation. Also, they do not
  restrict participants choices to “in-character”
  plausibility (most improvisations are so restrict-
  ed). Finally, role-playing games must acknowl-
  edge the social contract and boundaries of a
  group, which often intends to play together for
  an extended period of time rather than one iso-
  lated session.
  These differences mean that role-playing games,
  by and large, are far less free-form than improvisa-
  tion sessions. The basic technique of “accept every-
  thing” that keeps improvisations flowing so freely,
  such that they seem the products of telepathy
  between performers, shouldn’t be used in pure
  form when playing role-playing games.
  Never say no
  This is where rules such as Nobilis’ Monarda
  Law arise: “Never say No.” It seems strange to
  the traditional role-player, if only because
  explicit blocking of other players offers is often
  the primary form of interaction between players
  and the game master. “You can’t do that because
  ... ” The Monarda law clarifies itself by defining
  the ways you can say yes: “Yes,” “ How,” “You
  Can Try,” and “Yes, but . . . . ”
  If we break these down into offering, block-
  ing and accepting, we can see that only “Yes” is
  an unconditional acceptance. “How” is actually
  a form of blocking, a challenge to the stated
  action, as in “Give me a more acceptable or
  interesting offer.” “You can try” is acceptance of
  the offer not as a completed action, but as a
  statement of intent. “Yes, but . . . . ” is an
  acceptance and offer; that part of the story goes
  ahead, and creates a further development.
  The very mechanic of offering blocking and
  accepting is the basis of some games, notably The
  Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
  and Pantheon
  from Hogshead Publishing.
  Pantheon works by having players build a story
  one sentence at a time. A written sentence is
  accepted by default by the other players. In order
  to block, players must wager or commit limited
  resources. In The Extraordinary Adventures of
  Baron Munchausen, there is a slight reverse, in
  that the block to another players’ offer (which
  can be any part of their monologue) must consist
  of a wager of a limited resource and an offer of
  an element to be accepted by the active player. A
  simple block is not available to a player wishing
  to interrupt, though the active player may block
  the interrupting offer (at the risk of their own
  limited resource).
  The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron
  Munchausen presumes an 18th century European
  milieu for much of its style, but there is no
  mechanical restraint on this. Pantheon’s various
  scenarios reward genre tropes and clichés in the
  scoring endgame, but out-of-genre offers are
  mechanically no different from in genre offers.
  They differ from many role-playing games in
  that there is virtually no simulation, no “reality
  checking” beyond what the players will allow. I
  feel that this is part and parcel with their
  “acceptance by default” mechanisms; once
  checking against plausibility comes in, you
  impose (sometimes small) barrier to the free-
  wheeling creativity that these games thrive on.
  In more traditional role-playing games, this
  free wheeling creativity can be very rewarding.
  Players can benefit significantly by changing
  their unconscious behaviors from blocking to
  accepting and offering.
  Of course, this creativity can be abused.
  Players may find their characters taking paths
  they neither intended nor wished to tread. This
  is a problem the average improviser doesn’t
  41
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Improvisational techniques for gamers
  By Pete Darby
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Pete Darby
  
  often face, given the lack of continuing charac-
  ters and artistic freedom granted performers.
  Stage improvisers tend not to get attached to the
  “guy on a park bench” they just portrayed, and
  often they don’t invest much in the way of
  preparation time or longer term goals, unlike
  many carefully constructed player characters.
  Thankfully, role-players have a couple of
  tools most improvisers don’t. Most especially,
  they have an understanding with fellow players,
  a social agreement on how and why the game is
  played. If need be, the group can “roll back” a
  game to before a problematic offer was made.
  The price is that players loses many of the bene-
  fits that automatic acceptation offers, but if it
  keeps people playing, and enjoying playing, I’ll
  take that any day.
  However, don’t abandon spontaneity. Getting
  rid of the fear of psychosis, obscenity, and mun-
  daness mainly consists of treating what pops into
  your mind as another offer to be accepted or
  blocked according to the needs of the game. And,
  according to Johnstone, releasing creativity main-
  ly consists of changing your default attitude to
  offers from blocking to accepting, at least within
  a creative context like a role-playing game.
  Story building skills
  Johnstone’s guide to building stories is one of the
  simplest methods I’ve ever seen. It has only two tech-
  niques—breaking routines and re-incorporation.
  Breaking routines
  Every story begins with a routine being bro-
  ken. Johnstone’s favourite example is the movie
  The Last Detail, where military police bringing
  a deserter in across country decide to turn the
  trip into a final binge. Other examples include
  Hamlet (a prince in mourning is visited by the
  ghost of his father urging revenge), Red Riding
  Hood (a girl going to grandma’s meets wolf),
  and Spiderman (a high school nerd is granted
  super-powers). In each case, an easily established
  pattern is broken, and the act of breaking the
  pattern causes a level of dramatic tension,
  because hey, that shouldn’t happen!
  Of course, before you break a pattern, you
  need to establish the pattern. In fantastic set-
  tings, this can take some time. That’s why
  Tolkien starts Lord of the Rings with a long
  sequence in the Shire. He shows what’s at stake
  in the war, but more importantly he establishes
  what these short fellows do normally. That
  makes the bearing of the ring across a continent
  so much more remarkable.
  Failure to break patterns can be a source of
  great frustration, especially to role-players. One
  of the most famous routines in role-playing
  games is the cyberpunk double-cross. The
  Johnson who hired you for a job is actually out
  to kill you and take your stuff. Apart from
  stretching the bounds of credibility (if the under-
  world really worked like that, it would collapse
  in a week), it forces players into the high farce of
  either going along with it, which makes them
  look like idiots, or taking the only sensible course
  of action, and killing anyone who offers them a
  job (with thanks to The Critical Miss team for
  that particular example of actual play.) The
  problem here is that the wrong routine has been
  established, and isn’t being broken.
  That’s another creativity tool. If things are
  looking “too damn quiet,” it’s because the routine
  has been established, and it has, well, become
  routine. Break the routine, and do it now!
  So your routine’s broken, now what? Well,
  you’ll probably find yourself, after a short while
  in another routine. Hey, remember those dozen
  or so stories? You’ve just jumped from one of
  them, what did you expect? Well, take heart that
  at least this routine is likely to be a little more
  interesting. But apart from that, the rule in
  improvisation is to keep with a routine until just
  before it ceases to be interesting. Yes, just before,
  and no, there’s no way of knowing for sure.
  Again, a routine needs to be developed long
  enough to be identifiable. Once it’s broken we
  can see that something’s changed.
  The game master in most role-playing games
  has the most latitude to break things up, but
  bored, frustrated players shouldn’t let someone
  else have all the routine-breaking fun. Even if you
  don’t want to take things in a direction you’re
  afraid will ruin everyone else’s game (breaking the
  routine by, say, firing tear gas into the Vatican for
  no good reason), a routine can be gently broken.
  42
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Improvisational techniques for gamers
  By Pete Darby
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Pete Darby
  
  Reincorporation
  So you’re happily hacking away at routines
  whenever they get too established, and every-
  one’s on their toes inventing stuff like no tomor-
  row. But, now your campaign is looking like the
  weakest, most baffling moments of  “Twin
  Peaks.” It may be art, but it’s ceasing to be fun. 
  This is where re-incorporation comes in. You
  take hold of some stuff you’re no longer using,
  and you put it back in. Chances are it’ll have
  been part of a discarded routine. So much the
  better. The way that stories end, according to
  Johnstone, is that everything used so far has
  been used up. Every element is destroyed,
  returned to an old routine, or recast in a new
  routine. Hamlet ends with everyone, apart from
  the guy mentioned in passing in the opening
  scene, dead. Red Riding Hood ends with the
  wolf dead at the hands of a woodcutter men-
  tioned in passing earlier. Spiderman ends with
  the villain dead, and Spiderman established in a
  new routine of lone superhero.
  Now, if you’re looking to have a successful,
  invigorating campaign, that’s what to aim for. In
  a longer term campaign, you get a more “soap
  opera” effect, where no routine is safe from being
  broken (even death), but there’s a constant re-
  incorporation of elements to keep the world from
  seeming too bizarre. Re-incorporation gives play-
  ers a feeling, however illusionary, that there are
  some things that are, like them, continuing
  through the shared imaginative space, despite the
  constant breaking of routines. Even in wildly dif-
  ferent adventures, the appearance of old elements
  can be comforting or disturbing. Either way,
  events are bound to be interesting for the players.
  Re-incorporation is not just a technique for
  game masters. In a game where players can
  introduce elements into the game world (and
  most do, even in a limited fashion), it’s usually
  easier to get a re-incorporated element accepted
  than a newly invented one. 
  People often enjoy re-incorporation more so
  than the creation of an entirely new plot ele-
  ment. It’s somehow more satisfying to find an
  old college pal in the dungeons of the insect god
  than some heretofore-unknown character, espe-
  cially if the college pal cropped up as a throw-
  away plot feed two game sessions ago.
  I especially like this method of story creation,
  because it works in the opposite fashion to most
  advice. Rather than starting with asking what
  story you want to create, then bending everything
  to create that, this technique launches play into
  the wilderness. Through re-incorporation, the
  technique manages to make play look far more
  planned than it appears. Where Chekhov famous-
  ly stated that a gun hanging on the mantle in the
  first act must be fired in the third, Johnstone
  instead says “If you’ve mentioned a gun in the
  first act, it suggests someone will be shot later.
  Wait until everyone’s forgotten about it.”
  By the book
  The most important thing I can do for any
  role-player of more freeform tendencies is to
  urge them to get Johnstone’s book.
  Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith
  Johnstone, available now at the publisher’s Web
  site: www.methuen.co.uk/impro.html. Ω
  43
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Improvisational techniques for gamers
  By Pete Darby
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Pete Darby
  
  II
  f you’ve spent enough time online in gaming
  forums or chat rooms, you’ve probably
  heard that before. Of course no one game
  will suit everyone—but why does there appear to
  be so much open hostility toward some games?
  Especially, it would seem, your favorite game?
  There are many reasons for this, and, in fact,
  I’m going to go over some of them below.
  Maybe at the end we’ll find out which games
  actually do suck and which ones don’t.
  Fight or Flight Pattern
  There’s a school of thought that humans as a
  group will inherently draw into a pattern of com-
  fort and familiarity. Anything that disrupts that
  comfort or obscures that familiarity will elicit a
  negative response. The greater the discomfort or
  alienation, the more negative the response.
  Gamers, if no one else, seem to follow this pat-
  tern. To throw some completely anecdotal infor-
  mation at you, I know a guy who has been play-
  ing only Axis and Allies for at least a decade. He
  has no interest whatsoever in playing anything
  else. It’s not that he hates the other games. (How
  can he? He’s never played them.) He just happens
  to really like Axis and Allies.
  There’s nothing expressly wrong with this
  outlook. There exists no mandate that people
  must play a variety of games. As long as the per-
  son isn’t spewing bile about games they’ve never
  played, it’s a pretty harmless viewpoint.
  But let’s look at another camp: There are
  gamers who are miserable in their current
  groups because the other players only want to
  play Dungeons & Dragons. Those gamers rec-
  ognize that Dungeons & Dragons is not a bad
  game—they’re just tired of playing it. They crave
  something new, some different.
  This is a classic example of group dysfunction.
  If you’ve played in the same group long enough,
  you (or someone else at the table) has probably
  experienced it. These people need to get out and
  find another group—if their current group can’t be
  persuaded to try something different.
  Then there’s the third camp: The hateful, bitter
  camp. The ones who only play Axis and Allies
  because “every other game sucks.” The ones who
  only play Dungeons & Dragons because “they
  can’t be bothered to learn something new.” They
  are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and it’s best
  not to look directly at them.
  This stance is really just ignorant hand-wav-
  ing and doesn’t amount to a whole lot. Frankly,
  there’s no argument for or against it. It’s just
  yabbering, and best left alone if the person can-
  not be educated otherwise. If you are a person
  from the second camp and are surrounded by
  people in the third camp: Get out. Get out now.
  Dis Game ith Buh-woken
  Gamers will often malign something they
  construe as being broken. But in terms of games,
  what does “broken” mean? As far as I’m con-
  cerned there are only two definitions that fit
  here: “The game doesn’t do what it says it
  does!” and “This game doesn’t do what I want
  it to do!”
  Let’s address the first one. It’s a pretty basic
  concept that a game should do what the subtitle
  and adcopy say it does. “Yes, I do want to play
  demonic soldiers in a shoujo manga-inspired
  Rome while being able to use all these nifty
  Sword & Sorcery Studios sourcebooks I own. I
  think ApollyoNominataQuest d20 is the game
  for me!” If the person buys ANQ d20 and finds
  out it only has rules for creating the lesser-known
  members of the Getalong Gang, then the game is
  “broken” from a marketing perspective.
  If the game promises “brand-new revolution-
  ary magic rules” and is really just filled with bad
  photocopies of the spell lists from AD&D
  Second Edition, then it is “broken” from a
  whole different perspective.
  Does a broken promise equal a broken game?
  44
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  This just in: Your favorate game sucks 
  By Jason Blair
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Jason Blair
  Column by
  Jason L. Blair
  Jason's first game design,
  Little Fears, was a critical
  and commercial success
  for his company Key 20
  Publishing that went on
  to be nominated for a
  Best RPG of 2001
  Origins Award. His next
  game, Wyrd is Bond, is
  set for release in early
  2004. After that, he will
  be tackling the re-release
  of Justifiers, the very first
  game he ever played.
  Jason lives in a suburb of
  Cleveland, Ohio with his
  wife, daughter, chinchilla,
  two dogs y dos tortugas.
  JEUX NE SAIS QUOI
  This just in: Your favorite game sucks
  
  No. The mechanics may function beautifully for
  the design they express—even if they’re not sup-
  ported by the rest of the book. Let’s be honest,
  the “world” is just window dressing for the sys-
  tem. Like it or not, your favorite game is proba-
  bly a generic system even if it’s not sold as one.
  When you buy a game, you typically buy two
  things: the mechanics and the world. The former
  can be used for pretty much anything and the
  world just does the buyer’s research and/or
  imagining (or at least the first steps) for them.
  But that’s a different column.
  The second type of “broken” isn’t the matter
  of a broken promise but broken expectations.
  From what I’ve observed this is the number-one-
  with-a-bullet reason most people get pissed off
  at a game. In fact, it’s pandemic across all media.
  “Man, ‘The Sum of All Fears’ is the worst
  romantic comedy ever.” “ ‘The Matrix’ really
  fails as a period piece about the trials of forbid-
  den Victorian love.” “
  ‘Vivaldi’s 
  Four
  Seasons’ is a terrible
  compilation of rock
  ballads.” When some-
  thing fails to meet your
  expectations, 
  your
  reaction is usually very
  contrarian. So whose
  fault is that? Most of the time, yours.
  I’m not talking about a game that doesn’t
  match what all the adcopy says. That’s the mar-
  keters’ fault, as we discussed earlier. I’m talking
  about the public’s expectations of what a game
  should be. As a designer, I’m interested in creat-
  ing the game that interests me. If I’m not jazzed
  by the idea then the follow-through will be lack-
  luster at best. As a consumer, you’re interested
  in buying the game that interests you. If you’re
  not jazzed by the idea then you feel your money
  is wasted.
  Now, I’m a consumer also. When I buy some-
  thing I want to be inspired; that’s my primary
  pocketbook motivator. If I buy something and I
  am not inspired, I don’t fault the purchase. We’re
  just not a good match. Because of this, I don’t get
  pissed off when someone likes Chuck Palahniuk’s
  novel “Choke.” I didn’t like it, but I know others
  who did. Okay, so be it. I feel the same way about
  games. Despite some people’s beliefs, it’s okay to
  not like something. That does not however auto-
  mate fault to the “thing.”
  All of that is a matter of receipt failing to
  match expectations. Just because something does-
  n’t do what you want it to do doesn’t mean it’s
  broken. There are some of you out there that need
  to repeat the previous line as a mantra.
  A matter of mechanics
  Oh yes, this old chestnut. Many a debate and
  flamewar has erupted because of one’s cry that
  Game X’s mechanics are broken, broken, bro-
  ken. See, this one is tricky. You have to get into
  some math that, frankly, I’m not too comfort-
  able with. I have people who check my odds for
  me to make sure my designs match my goals,
  and I like it that way. Perhaps there are “bro-
  ken” mechanics, but who’s to say?
  You can’t tell me a
  mechanic is broken
  unless you know the
  designer’s purpose. I
  have a suspicion that
  some of the people
  who point to a certain
  ruleset as broken are
  using that elusive yard-
  stick called “reality.” Woe are they. Reality is not
  a valid measurement, nor is it a suitable design
  goal (my opinion here, people). I’m not saying
  reality can not be great inspiration, however.
  The InterLock system from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.
  is a fine example of a nifty mechanic heavily
  inspired by reality and real-world principles.
  Once you are certain of the designer’s
  mechanic and emulative intent then I may con-
  cede a certain level of “breakage.” After all, if a
  designer expressly states she wanted a game
  where players would succeed 75% of the time
  and then made it impossible for a player to suc-
  ceed more than 10% of the time, the designer
  failed. But then it would be a matter of broken
  execution and not necessarily true that the game
  is broken. Instead, the designer just failed to
  meet her own goal.
  45
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  This just in: Your favorate game sucks
  By Jason Blair
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Jason Blair
  “As a designer, I’m interested in
  creating the game that interests
  me. If I’m not jazzed by the
  idea then the follow-through
  will be lackluster at best.”
  
  The following line is true. 
  The previous line was false.
  So when is a game broken? When it doesn’t
  match its own logic. A game is an abstraction, not
  a treatise on the principles of existence. A game
  doesn’t have to make sense in the “real world”
  but it should follow its own laws. If it doesn’t,
  then it may very well be broken. Notice the lack
  of quotations. In the end, a game being able to
  abide by its own rules is what truly matters.
  Controversial, my ass!
  Some games are disliked not because they are
  “broken” and/or the gamer is xenophobic but
  because they tackle subjects that a certain audi-
  ence would rather they not. Trust me, I know
  whence I speak. For some reason, in doing so,
  these games upset some gamers so much that
  those gamers think no one should deal with the
  subject and anyone who does is some twisted
  deviant pervert (*cough*cough*) but I digress.
  Perhaps they have a point. Perhaps games that
  approach the subject of child abuse, brutal power-
  mongering, and domineering sexuality have no
  place in the gaming market. However, the sole
  gauge of that is the buying audience. Last I
  checked, Little Fears, Unknown Armies, and
  Vampire: the Masquerade sold pretty damn well.
  Right about here someone usually brings up
  that most fantasy gaming centers around wan-
  ton destruction, thievery, and genocide. This
  argument assumes that wanton destruction,
  thievery, and genocide are of the same quality,
  caliber, and level of appropriateness as abuse,
  powermongering, and sexuality. Are they? I have
  no idea.
  Mores and morals are as much absolutes as
  beauty is a truth. That is to say, it’s a perpetual
  and fruitless, in the terms of resolution, debate.
  Even if there were absolutes for each there aris-
  es the problem of, you guessed it, intent. To
  ignore intent is akin to stating a game sucks
  without being bothered to read it. Of course, to
  some folk, certain topics are out-of-bounds
  regardless of how they are handled.
  In my opinion, no one can make any judg-
  ment call on anything without taking the time
  and expending the effort to familiarize them-
  selves with it. That means no skimming reviews,
  no latching on to hearsay; that means picking up
  and reading the material.
  This means finding out the author’s intent, as
  well. (Am I the only one who hears that record
  skipping?) Yes, in a perfect world full of perfect
  authors, intent would be blatantly obvious in the
  material and comprehension on behalf of the
  audience would be immediate and without fault,
  but as long as we reside on this whirling blue
  and green rock doing some research into the
  author and the process are integral to fully
  understanding something. This is the same
  across all media. This understanding is not nec-
  essary for you to enjoy the game or dislike the
  game, but it is absolutely necessary if you plan
  on damning or condoning the effort made.
  Another problem rears its head after both the
  intent and the execution have been deciphered
  and agreed upon: Appropriateness. And here is
  where the thorns stick out the farthest. The will
  of the buying public (as mentioned above) is
  actually pretty supportive of things the vocal
  moral minority decry. Make of that what you
  will. As long as dollars are spent, those products
  will get made, as profitability and sales are the
  fundament of any good publishing plan.
  In the end, the question of morality is one
  without answer, or rather one with as many
  answers as witnesses.
  In England, your game’s called a ‘Hoover’
  So, does your favorite game suck? Of course.
  It’s probably the worst game ever made. I know
  all my games suck, especially my favorite one.
  Which is fine by me if it motivates you to create
  a game that doesn’t suck. Good luck on that,
  though. Trust me, you’re going to need it. Ω
  46
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  This just in: Your favorate game sucks
  By Jason Blair
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Jason Blair
  
  AA
  ll right then, so you’re not a wet-behind-
  the-ears gamer. You’ve played for a
  while, and you know your way around a
  dice bag, and which books make better blunt
  objects to club people with than others (person-
  ally, I don’t recommend anything produced by
  Matt Snyder–there’s not nearly enough mass in
  Dust Devils to cause a good concussion). 
  No matter how you got into role-playing
  games, you’ve probably read many, many of
  those tired introductions to our hobby that com-
  pare role-playing games to movies, radio plays,
  TV shows, computer games, books, tactical sim-
  ulation wargames, comic books, Greek tragedies,
  Christian 
  passion 
  plays, 
  and 
  Monopoly
  (although usually not all at once). These passages
  invariably tell you about a few things that the
  game is allegedly like, and then they immediately
  reverse themselves to tell you how it’s not like
  those things at all. You realize that the implica-
  tion of these introductions it to produce some
  magical addition and subtraction of common
  ground that will show the new reader exactly
  what the enigma of the
  mysterious “role-play-
  ing game” really is. Of
  course, we all know
  that none of it made a
  damn bit of sense until
  we sat down and
  played, but still the
  introductions come.
  Let’s 
  not 
  beat
  around the bush, here. A role-playing game is a
  role-playing game, period. It isn’t “like” any-
  thing else. Sure, it’s fair to say that role-playing
  games have some things in common with tacti-
  cal simulations, fiction, and traditional games.
  But, after 25 years we still feel this need to quan-
  tify our games by the things that they’re “kind of
  like” rather than what  they really are. Even
  though the initials RPG have come to mean
  “role-playing game” to a vast majority of people
  (even if many of them associate it with comput-
  ers games), we are still trying to push, pull, fold,
  spindle, and mutilate our hobby into looking
  like something it isn’t.
  These persistent analogies, which appear to
  be grand unification theories for the Odyssey,
  Candyland, and James Bond movies, are so per-
  vasive that they start to color our perceptions of
  role-playing games as a whole. As we keep
  thinking that our games are like fiction, like
  games, or like tactical simulations, we try to
  push them in those directions in order to make
  them “better.” Entire theories of role-playing
  game design attempt to cast a game’s appeal by
  how close to fiction, games, or tactical simula-
  tions it comes. While role-playing games do have
  elements of each of these, the parts do not easily
  extract from the whole.
  Role-playing games used to be wargames, but
  they aren’t wargames. It’s safe to say that the
  emphasis most role-playing games have on kick-
  ing the crap out of this week’s bad guys stems
  from tactical simulation roots, but there seems to
  be a latent terror in admitting that our games
  evolved from pushing
  little metal men around
  on a table, as if bring-
  ing any detail to the
  rules might cause play-
  ers to spontaneously
  start 
  spewing 
  out
  weapon caliber and
  penetration informa-
  tion like a reject from a
  Vietnam film. Most role-playing games are really
  fairly poor models of “reality,” but since we keep
  being told that they are “kind of like Risk,” this
  perception has stuck.
  Role-playing games want to be fiction, but
  they aren’t fiction. Most popular fiction revolves
  around one or two core characters, even if those
  characters are the first among equals in a large
  group of minor characters. Role-playing games
  tend to focus on a party of characters, each of
  whom has equal say or chance of participating.
  47
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  A role-playing game by any other name …
  By Eddy Webb
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Eddy Webb
  Editorial by
  Eddy Webb
  Eddy Webb is the Co-
  Line Developer for
  Cartoon Action Hour
  with Spectrum Studios.
  He is also an active role-
  playing game industry
  freelancer. Eddy is cur-
  rently working on
  Midway City, a retro-
  cool role-playing game
  in the future with roots in
  gangland past.
  “After 25 years we still feel
  this need to quantify our
  games by the things that
  they’re ‘kind of like’ rather
  than what  they really are. ”
  A role-playing game by any other name …
  
  Besides character emphasis, fiction has a prede-
  termined and fairly rigid plot as a necessity, while
  RPGs are more interactive and fluid, lest the game
  master be given the scarlet R for Railroading on
  his forehead for all future players to see. The very
  nature of role-playing games makes it self-defeat-
  ing to try to emulate fiction accurately, but yet we
  push harder to do exactly that.
  Role-playing games feel like games, but they
  aren’t games. Calling something a game implies
  a competitive contest with easily understood
  goals that determine which competitor has suc-
  ceeded, thus ending the contest. Role-playing
  games are traditionally cooperative efforts with
  very vague goals that are rarely resolved defini-
  tively with any one “winner” in mind.
  Even the very name we’ve attributed to our
  hobby reinforces the belief that these are just
  games with a few extra bits tacked on, but again
  that really isn’t. Trying to make role-playing
  games more like a game is an uphill battle–the
  closer it comes to being a game, the further it
  goes from being a role-playing game.
  As an example of the entrenched identity cri-
  sis that the role-playing industry has, take a look
  at our muddled terminology. The game master
  can take player characters on an extended cam-
  paign. This sentence deftly encompasses all three
  elements of tactical simulation, game, and fic-
  tion in one lump of jargon. As a result, many
  games have the mistaken belief that reinterpret-
  ing our collective lexicon (turning a “campaign”
  into a “series” or a “chronicle,” for example,
  making it more “literary”) somehow purges the
  game of its undesirable roots. This extends to
  just about every term we have. Non-player char-
  acters can become “Extras,” “Set Dressing,” or
  “Antagonists,” and game masters gain enough
  titles to make a nobleman blush. Invariably,
  whether you call your randomizers the Hand of
  Fate or Lady Luck, players will still ask you to
  pass the dice.
  This is where we can stop the tide of muddled
  thinking. There isn’t any harm in using common-
  ly-understood terms, because the original meaning
  of that term has changed over time. Most of us
  know that a “campaign” originally meant an
  extended series of military conflicts, but now it
  means a connected set of role-playing game adven-
  tures to us – it’s as connected to the military in our
  minds as spam email is to canned meat or Monty
  Python. Instead of explaining to players why they
  should call you the Great High and Mighty Grand
  Poobah every time they want to spend their expe-
  rience points (excuse me, “Improvement Traits”),
  can we forget the pedigree of the haphazard tech-
  nical terms we’ve developed over the years, and
  just call you the “GM”?
  I think it’s time we acknowledge that role-
  playing games are a unique form of entertain-
  ment, even art. I’m advocating an appreciation
  that role-playing games are something special
  unto themselves, and that they aren’t like any-
  thing else. What I’m not advocating is that we
  stop innovation in our industry, or that we
  should become complacent with the state of
  gaming. While analogies are good for explaining
  to outsiders what role-playing games are, role-
  playing games aren’t truly analogous to other
  things. We have to recognize that. When we
  strive to improve and better our games, whether
  as creators, game masters, or just players we
  should do so by improving what role-playing
  games are, not what they aren’t.
  Now I’m off–I have to write the introduction
  to Midway City, and I’ve just gotten to the part
  where I compare role-playing games to late
  1940s flamenco dancing. Ω
  48
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  A role-playing game by any other name …
  By Eddy Webb
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Eddy Webb
  
  G
  G
  amers are violent, masochistic, socially
  deviant persons worthy of the general
  public’s fear and loathing.
  Not true? College textbooks, designed for
  future police officers, tell us so. “ ... fantasy games
  such as Dungeons & Dragons also promote vio-
  lence, destruction, and a total disregard for
  human life.” (Bennett, Wayne W. Criminal
  Investigation. Minneapolis, MN: West Publishing
  Company, 1994.)
  Critical commentary of role-playing games is
  not limited to Jack Chick tracts or right-wing reli-
  gious fanatics. Mainstream media inform us that
  our children and young adults fall under the evil
  sway of gaming, leading them down a slippery
  slope of bizarre and violent behaviors that fall out-
  side of typically accepted social norms. Murderer
  James Nelson was said to have developed an
  “obsession with Dungeons & Dragons ... ”
  www.msnbc.com/local/vcolptld/m313318.asp
  Would-be murderer Matthew Lovett was declared
  “an avid player of role-playing video games.”
  www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91280,00.html
  The prosecuting attorney in the Michael
  McDermott murder case asked pointed ques-
  tions about whether or not two decades of role
  playing experience made McDermott “a skilled
  storyteller 
  who 
  could 
  concoct 
  stories.”
  www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,50081,00.html
  And, of course, who could forget the game-related
  finger pointing made after the Columbine disaster.
  Many more examples of the role-playing
  hobby’s tarnished image exist, and such anec-
  dotes are no longer sequestered in the low qual-
  ity, mass-produced anti-role-playing game pam-
  phlets of the early 1980s. It takes only a few
  clicks by a concerned parent on the Internet to
  turn up horror stories such as these and many
  more to boot. It’s enough to make a well-rea-
  soned adult wonder what the hell their kid is
  involved in.
  It’s also enough to drive well-adjusted, nor-
  mal individuals who participiate in the hobby
  into hiding. At worst, those who do not partici-
  pate view the gaming hobby with suspicion. At
  best, its participants are mocked as immature or
  socially inept; in other words, participants are
  “geeky” or worse.
  The real image problem
  Mention the previous points to most gamers
  and you’ll likely receive a shrug of the shoulders
  and a brief explanation or defense of how the
  hobby really is. However, smart, conscientious
  gaming doesn’t make the headlines, even though
  it exists. School related programs, like this one:
  www.roleplay-workshop.com, use role-playing
  as a teaching method with success. Nevertheless,
  the mainstream is bombarded with images that
  create the impression that role-playing games
  are a negative influence, and role-playing gamers
  are social derelicts waiting for the first opportu-
  nity to ritually sacrifice the neighbor’s cat.
  Such imagery is so oppressive that numerous
  individuals in the hobby either downplay or
  completely hide their involvement to avoid the
  negative social stigma attached to the hobby.
  Many gamers are like secret agents; they simply
  don’t discuss their hobby in mixed company. For
  this reason, it’s difficult to get a true representa-
  tion of what the gaming hobby looks like as a
  whole. The only widely available survey of this
  hobby’s demographics was released by Wizards
  of the Coast and can be found here: www.theg
  pa.org/wotc_demo.shtml Upon its release, the
  survey received criticism based on methodolo-
  gies used to calculate the final tallies. Some ques-
  tioned the legitimacy of the survey.
  Despite what may or may not be inconsisten-
  cies in the Wizard of the Coast survey, some
  information about gamers, and more specifical-
  ly their attitudes toward the hobby are clear.
  49
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Guilty pleasures
  By Lisa Fleishman
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Lisa Clark-Fleishman
  Editorial by
  Lisa Clark-Fleishman
  Lisa Clark-Fleishman is an
  avid gamer who has done
  occasional freelance work
  for White Wolf Game
  Studios. Her current
  work in progress includes
  The Lands of Myria, an
  independent Riddle of
  Steel supplement.
  Guilty pleasures
  The shame of being a role-player
  
  Many game groups are insular, and they don’t
  actively seek membership from those outside of
  the hobby population. Hobbyists of other genres
  frequently seek new membership from outside of
  their circle of influence, but gamers don’t enjoy
  trying to explain their
  “weird” activities to
  co-workers, neighbors,
  or 
  other 
  social
  acquaintances 
  who
  they think, perhaps
  rightly, will label them
  as strange, or odd.
  While gamers under-
  stand the problems
  facing the hobby, solutions are fleeting.
  There is a definite public relations image chal-
  lenge facing role-playing games. This is bad
  news for the game industry and hobbyists alike.
  Gaming has two faces in the public eye. One is a
  deviant criminal warning sign. The other, more
  disturbing because of the larger scope, is the
  social perception of gamers in a negative light.
  Both prongs are ugly and equally unnecessary,
  not to mention costly when one considers the
  missed opportunities of expanding the target
  market. So why aren’t industry leaders howling
  for change?
  Little has changed
  Charges that the game industry has grown
  stagnant aren’t completely unwarranted. Since
  inception, the general market strategy and sales
  techniques of game related products have
  remained the same. While no significant official
  studies or surveys have been released to the gen-
  eral public, a quick flip through game products of
  years gone by compared to today’s publications
  show us that the look, feel, and general appeal of
  the products themselves have only superficially
  improved. Ditto for the marketing arms and dis-
  tribution techniques. Without large scale restruc-
  turing of the business philosophy of these entities,
  positive change, and a shift in mainstream appeal
  is nearly impossible. In business environments,
  change equates to risk, and risk is scary.
  And so the status quo prevails.
  What this means to game enthusiasts is that
  they are part of a system that, in its stagnation,
  inadvertently promotes unhealthy attitudes
  towards an activity that should be viewed no dif-
  ferently than any other legitimate leisure time
  hobby. If you think this isn’t true, take a look at
  “occult related” sui-
  cide articles. Never will
  you see the media spec-
  ulate about how little
  Johnny was obsessed
  with going to Boy
  Scouts. Instead, you’ll
  read a tragic tale of
  how he listened to
  heavy metal music,
  played violent video games, and was involved in
  weird role-playing stuff. Prior court rulings have
  held that companies that produce music, video
  games, and even role-playing games aren’t liable
  for the unfortunate incidents when young people
  take their own lives. 
  The public at large doesn’t seem to buy the
  notion that listening to music or playing the X-
  Box actually drives kids over the edge either.
  “Some people feel angry a lot of the time. Some
  situations can make anybody angry. We do not,
  however, expect that playing violent video
  games will routinely increase feelings of anger,
  compared with playing a nonviolent game.”
  www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp784772.html#c71
  However, when the topic of role-playing
  comes up, it’s a totally different perception. Why
  is that? Quite simply because role-playing games
  have never enjoyed the widespread appeal that
  other escapism activities have. It’s not a question
  of how marketable the products are, but a ques-
  tion of how they are marketed and to whom.
  The initial wave of role-players has matured
  and grown up. These individuals are well adjust-
  ed, professional people who generally contribute
  to society rather than detract from it. These are
  also the people who have the most discretionary
  income. Even though gamers have grown up, the
  role-playing industry field has not, barring a few
  exceptions. What little promotion and market-
  ing that is done seems to be geared to the 13-18
  year old crowd. This dichotomy puts off older
  gamers, who now see gaming as a “kid thing.”
  50
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Guilty pleasures
  By Lisa Fleishman
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Lisa Clark-Fleishman
  “There is a definite public
  relations image challenge 
  facing role-playing games.
  This is bad news for the game
  industry and hobbyists alike.”
  
  Not surprisingly, the hobby fails to hold the
  interest of the older demographic, and those
  individuals leave the market, taking their dollars
  and their credibility with them. Because of this,
  the role-playing game market remains relatively
  juvenile, instead of
  maturing into its full
  potential. 
  This isn’t to say that
  some attempts haven’t
  been made on a large
  scale to improve the
  general appeal of the
  game industry. Wizards
  of the Coast and White
  Wolf Game Studios had
  a movie and TV show,
  respectively, to market
  their brands. Considered mediocre successes at best,
  neither endeavor bolstered the role-playing hobby.
  In the case of the D&D movie, some would say that
  the immature stereotype was further enhanced.
  www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/
  12/07/review.dungeons.dragons/index.html
  Seeking solutions
  So what is the solution?
  The act of role-playing itself isn’t seen as odd;
  in fact many organizations in various industries
  use role-play as a learning tool for employees.
  web.ask.com/web?q=role+play+job+training&qsrc=2
  Attorneys, sales people, social workers, and a
  myriad of other respectable professions pretend to
  act out situations that may occur in order to pre-
  pare the best responses to any given situation. So,
  it’s not the act itself that’s seen with derision.
  Rather, it’s the content, or perceived content that
  seems to make a difference. It’s perfectly accept-
  able, and in some cases encouraged, for serious
  professionals to use role-play as a learning tool. If
  that same professional admits to his colleagues that
  he role-plays for fun, it’s a whole other ball game. 
  Other fantasy-based leisure activities such as
  going to the movies or playing a round or two of
  paint ball are seen as harmless fun. The differ-
  ence in the public eye is due in large part to the
  ineffectual marketing
  campaigns of role-
  playing game publish-
  ers. Instead of promot-
  ing products to parents
  as something they can
  do with their kids, the
  promotional items are
  geared towards the
  kids 
  themselves.
  Rather than create
  smart, 
  intelligent
  games designed to cap-
  ture mature imagination, companies focus their
  marketing on the “kewl” factor to draw more
  sales from the teen crowd, all the while alienat-
  ing the very people who should be their target
  market—the older people with money!
  Change the stereotypes
  Until some serious change occurs in the actual
  marketing philosophy of the industry as whole,
  the casual gamer will always be bombarded with
  negative and often incorrect stereotypes. Radical
  change is necessary for not only the growth, but
  for the well-being of the hobby itself. Grassroots
  efforts to change the scope and market of role-
  playing games can be a positive influence; how-
  ever it’s the industry leaders who must step for-
  ward to say enough is enough. Gaming is a legit-
  imate hobby; gaming enthusiasts are no different
  than the demographic of other hobbyists.
  Gamers can support positive change by vot-
  ing with their dollars.
  Until that occurs, it’ll be gaming under cover
  for the majority of the hobby members.
  51
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Guilty pleasures
  By Lisa Fleishman
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Article Copyright © 2003 Lisa Clark-Fleishman
  “Until some serious change
  occurs in the actual marketing
  philosophy of the industry as
  whole, the casual gamer will
  always be bombarded with
  negative and often incorrect
  stereotypes.”
  
  52
  Daedalus
  Fall 2003
  Trollbabe
  By Ron Edwards and James V. West
  Daedalus Copyright © 2003, Matt Snyder / Chimera Creative
  Comic strip Copyright © 2002 Adept Press & Copyright © 2002 Random Order Creations
  Trollbabe
  “Sex and Death, with
  Music” is written by Ron
  Edwards and illustrated
  by James V. West. This
  comic is reproduced
  with permission.
  Trollbabe is based on a
  role-playing game by
  Ron Edwards. Visit
  www.adeptpress.com
  for details.
  Visit James V. West web
  site: www.randomorder
  creations.com
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Daedalus/Daedalus 001.pdf