Thinking about Warhammers while reading Wolf Hall

I recently read Wolf Hall, partly because it's well regarded and I needed something to read but mostly because it's mainly set from 1520 to 1535, or about the time that a bunch of ne'er-do-wells are getting caught up in goings-on at the Schaffenfest in Bögenhafen. It seems well-researched but, even if not, it's plausible enough to be taken at face value, especially as my primary interest is for insights for an RPG set in a fictional, historical-ish world.

I'm not sure what themes Mantel was hoping to bring to the fore when she was writing the novel but to me a number stand out -

• The functioning of power
• The role of religion (clearly a major theme of the book, and of the time)
• Status, class and wealth
• The emergence of modernity
• The medieval family 

 

 The functioning of power

This is central to the book, given the viewpoint is that of Thomas Cromwell who rises to become Henry VIII's chief minister. But the key point is that all power comes either from the King, or the Pope (although some claim to be servants of God) with nothing by way of checks or balances other than "what will other kings think" (e.g. if you de-throne their niece) or "what does God think". Being human that source of power is rather arbitrary, especially when (depending on how charitably you look at things) they're a man in their late 30s / early 40s with a roving eye or a king with no heir whose father siezed the crown on the battlefield (or both!).

First Cardinal Wolsey and then Thomas Cromwell gain tremendous power and wealth by gaining the ear of a king who's prepared to delegate, but having gained that ear he still needs to be treated with kid gloves. Both are clearly very able men, one being the son of a butcher who's risen to become the preeminent churchman in the realm, the other the son of a blacksmith who's become a successful lawyer and investor. Being close to even a fickle source of power they almost can't help but enormously enrich themselves, with all sorts of people just wanting to shower them with gifts for some reason, while the king is also awarding them propery, incomes and titles.

I'm not quite sure how to take stock of this in game terms, and am not at all comfortable with the idea of a game with the players functioning at these sorts of levels. Nightmare GM pretty much describes both how the game would need to be played and how it would seem - not a fun prospect.

So I think the take-home needs to be not to even think of the term "power" without the modifier of "fickle".

The role of religion

There are two connected religious developments which are highly significant for Cromwell and his peers - firstly Henry's desire to break from Rome and hence grant his own divorce (and handily also get hold of those taxes which would otherwise go to the Pope) and also the stirrings of Protestant reform and in particular the forbidden tome that was Tyndale's Bible.

There are two aspects to this which I struck me as eminently gameable -

1. The absolute belief in God
2. Heresy

On the first point you have a king who's trying to divorce his queen, and nobles who are trying to dispose of a cardinal who's displaced and undermined them, and in both cases one of their major concerns is "what will God think?".

From a secular modern perspective this absolute belief has always been the hardest part of a game for me to "get", and in most game settings it's even more important than it was historically given that, in the words of the great Terry Pratchett, the gods have "a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows". Why do players very rarely seem to give as much weight to the gods as their historical or fictional counterparts would?

This leaves me wondering whether some sort of mechanical impact of divine disfavour is needed, not just for cleric types but for anyone. Perhaps (for minor disfavour) once per day a successful roll is converted to a fumble (the player gets to chose which roll). For severe disfavour, who knows?

On the heresy front it seems to me that the Warhammer world is missing several tricks. After all, what could be more WFRP than this Wolf Hall quote - "They have their old bones, their glass saints in windows, their candles and shrines, but God has given us the printing press"? In Warhammer of course you have witch hunters and rumours of forbidden gods, and more openly the rivalry between Ulric and Sigmar, or the displacement of the Old Faith by newer gods. But what's entirely lacking (as far as I've seen) are struggles within the following of a particular god, which is both far more interesting than the chaos / not chaos choice but probably also rather vicious.

The two heresies we see in Wolf Hall are Lollardy and Tyndale's Bible - heretical primarily because they undermined the authority of the Catholic church but also in the case of Lollardy being seen as a threat to the establishment more generally. Given how close it is to the establishment in The Empire I think some heretical beliefs about Sigmar are called for...

Status, class and wealth

Part of what makes the Renaissance interesting as a setting is the emergence of the merchant class and how this plays upon the gulf between the nobility and the commoner. But the gulf is still very much there.

Henry VIII is notable for advancing people based on merit, but both Cromwell and Wolsey are commoners in a courtiers' world. Cromwell and his merchant friends are in many cases significantly more wealthy than the nobles they interact with, with at least one noble being heavily in debt to them. But the nobility have status and, equally importantly, heritage. The word of the son of a blacksmith is worth very little, but even physical evidence doesn't stand up particularly well to the friendships that the nobles have nurtured from a young age, or the fact that their grandfathers fought together on some battlefield long ago.

Couple this with the gentry being concious of their relative loss of status and these elevated commoners are on oncomfortable ground.

The emergence of modernity

Another aspect which makes the Renaissance a refreshing change from the pseudo-medieval setting of most RPGs is the emergence of recognisably more modern elements of architecture and culture. The elite are now building palaces rather than castles (Mantel suggests that one reason Henry was keen to reduce Wolsey in status is so that he can claim Hampton Court Palace for Anne Boleyn) and gentlemen are laying out impressive gardens and worrying about the cultivation of strawberries. As a GM you can mix in a dash of costume drama into the grim dark.

The medieval family

The family though is still thoroughly medieval - there's a high mortality rate and a lot of interdependence. Cromwell's wife and daughters die of sweating sickness when he's in his mid-forties, while his nephew Richard Williams adopts the Cromwell surname and prospers as much as Cromwell's own son thanks to Cromwell's favour from the king.

Cromwell also gains a wide variety of hangers-on, running a large household and having minor gentry "apprentice" their sons to him in the hope of them learning his knack for making incredible amounts of money, while Mantel also speculates at various wardships. Certainly his household is exceptional in some ways, considering both his humble beginnings and the high status to which he arises, but the complex, fascinating and slightly melancholy picture which emerges is hopefully one that will stay with me and enhance my game worlds.

And finally...

Most of the way through the book WFRP was at the front of my mind but it belatedly occured to me that it was also saying something about Warhammer 40K, and probably other sci-fi settings as well. In a dystopian future the messages about the fickleness of how power is gained and exercised, as well as in the importance of status and how it influences or limits people's rise and hastens their fall are well worth bearing in mind.

Thinking about Rogue Trader while watching Rogue One

I find my lack of franchise loyalty disturbing...

From the opening scenes Rogue One draws you in visually and lifts you. Although it's theoretically long ago it's really a mostly aspirational future - you'd happily live on Scarif or Lah'mu and technology would help you survive on Jedha.

It struck me though that only two of the worlds shown would fit into Warhammer 40K - volcanic Mustafar and Eadu with its unlikely rock formations. Despite the long-standing utility of aquarium plants for miniatures scenery, Scarif is far too clean and functional for a 40K setting: despite being theoritically the future, Rogue Trader actually the Spanish Inquisition with lasguns and space hulks.

Thinking more about living in the Star Wars universe, superficially it doesn't seem too bad: for the majority of the population the Empire is mildly chafing at worst - although your city or planet might get destroyed from space one day; Luke didn't see anything wrong with joining the Imperial Academy before the untimely demise of his aunt and uncle. But approaching it as a gamer its black and white nature is definitely a shortcoming - stormtroopers are fantastically iconic figures but behind them are the faceless operators of the Death Star, and they themselves are mindless killers (when they can shoot at all).

It may not seem much more conscionable to take the part of the Imperium but (notwithstanding that it's all a bit of a giggle) in its own way it's at least as palatable, not least because you can chose between internal conflict and external conflict (shooting genestealers is OK). Looking at it another way, the Star Wars universe is primarily a story-telling setting and, like Middle Earth, creaks a bit when asked to be a gaming setting.

So, having enjoyed the film, what's my take out at such time as my paint queue allows me to look at 40K?

1. Hire better location scouts
2. Urban scenes need a lot more civilians - at least until the shooting starts

Game-related historical snippets

I'm reading a lot of history resources at the moment (slowly, as I need to keep a notebook on hand) and in my typical fashion this is a bit all over the place although mainly focussed on the dark ages early medieval period.

I've also at the strength of this intro at Ex Urbe started watching Borgia: Faith and Fear. That intro is fascinating in its own right (a couple of highlights: pink was for poor people, Vikings loved clown trousers), if anything after that the TV series itself is a bit of a disappointment although still worth watching. The main problem with the series is that the writing seems really clunky - characters spend an awful lot of time describing recent events to one another - but when I can overlook that it's very worthwhile for the scenery and mood.

The scenery because it's a good reminder how much more modern the Renaissance was, and hence WFRP is, than the vanilla pseudo-medieval RPG setting. Think palaces not castles - on which note, having also just watched Sam Willis' The Silk Road series, it's worth adding that the Doge's Palace in Venice is also in-period as far as WFRP is concerned.

The mood because it's great to see the cardinals being incredibly corrupt and self-serving while at the same time being devout and god-fearing (this is also a lesson I'm hoping to take on board from the Robert Low I've been reading recently, of having characters be properly influenced by their religious beliefs). Borgia is at times teaching me things I was just as happy not knowing - I'd dimly heard of the Breaking wheel in the past, I now have a much more gut-level appreciation of it thanks to the beginning of the second episode. I don't think there's anything gameable in that, but it always good to be reminded of other sorts of grim for the grim-dark.

On the early medieval side of things I'm struggling slightly to get my bearings. Thanks to Monty Python we know that in many ways the Romans were quite sophisticated, then you had the Dark Ages and then 1066 and all that. The general sweep of the period is quite easy to pick up but the day-to-day, which seems to me essential in a game setting sense, much less so.

A couple of interesting (to me, at least), and related snippets so far concern the development of agriculture. At the start of the period the two-field system was used for agriculture, but was relatively fragile leading to lower surpluses and more frequent famines. The three field system, which apparently was first used in the Loire region in the 8th century, seems to have spread slowly and erratically (both systems were in use in England in the 14th century). But the greater yields from and robustness of the latter not only reduced the likelihood of famine but in addition produced surpluses which in turn made horses more "affordable". Also the horse collar doesn't make its way to Europe until after 900AD so prior to that yoked oxen were the main source of power for ploughing and so on. Over the next few hundred years horses (being more powerful, faster, and having greater endurance) made agriculture still more efficient and made day-to-day existence less precarious.

So, oxen and famines it is!

What does the medieval family look like?

Rick Stump's recent article about village and family demographics, and in particular the graph on there, really got me thinking about what the medieval village and family looked like.

The graph shows population before the first demographic transition which is yet another reason that, despite enjoying medieval game worlds, I really don't want to live there. In simple terms, people are dying as fast as they're being born, mainly from the old standbys - disease, famine, war and famine caused by war.

From the starting points in Rick's article I thought I'd try and visualise what the population of a village really might look like but then, deciding that particular rabbit hole was a bit too deep, thought I'd instead try to get a picture of just one family. I'm sure there's been all sorts of scholarly study on this but only a few interesting data points came to light from my initial hunting. This gives me enough to hang some ideas on to while seeming to me at least to be plausible, however wrong those ideas may in fact be!

• Högberg et al, Maternal Deaths in Medieval Sweden: An Osteological and Life Table Analysis has all sorts of interesting information, but of most use is the life expectancy graph.
• There's a widely quoted figure of 14.4 maternal deaths for every 1,000 births in 15th century Florence. This initially seemed a bit low to me given the gap in life expectancy for men and women in Högberg's paper, until you remember Rick's figure of 6 children per family and hence a 9% chance of dying in childbirth for the average mother...
• The life of Lucrezia Borgia is interesting anyway, but especially so in this context, giving the stark reminder that a limiting factor in the size of a family wasn't the parents deciding not to have more children, but one of the parents dying! Again from the Högberg's paper it can be seen that the average life expectancy for a woman was around 33, for a man around 40 (although interestingly if they can reach age 50, life expectancy is actually slightly higher for women - presumably due to the risk from childbirth being removed).

From there I had enough (probably dodgy) data points to get started from -

1. Given that 33 year life expectancy and an average family size of 6 children, in hand-waving terms I called that a 1/3 chance of a child being born per year from when the mother is age 16 until age 40
2. Rick furnished figures for death in infancy and up to mid-teens
3. The Högberg's paper allows me to generate life expectancy for those who make it to the advanced age of 15!

With some random number generation and the WFRP name generator I came up with the following for a family on a farm somewhere in Reikland in 2504 -

Klemens runs a farm where his recently deceased wife's grandfather still lives, her father having died just a few years before. They have four surviving young children (although the random number generator says Gustaf will be dead within the year). Brother-in-law Friebald and his wife Esmeralda are an invaluable help as is his sister-in-law Carlotta, although she'll probably be married off soon. Rigo (aged 13) and Eldred (aged 11) are both expected to do a full adult's share of the work as well.

I found generating the above an oddly poignant process, as the random number generator killed off children that various stages of infancy, or mothers with families, and that was just for entries on a page with labels like "Son A3-2"! But it did bring home those bare statistics about mortality rates in a way that will hopefully give my in-game villages a bit more soul in the future. 

There's are a few things I might give some more thought to when I get the chance, such as making couples more varied in age, especially if I ever tackle the "village" problem - the (fairly obvious) thought being that the smaller the community the more it comes to who's available, or simply not related to the suitor, rather than any thoughts of romance. Passing adventurers who show any sign of success and who have all of their limbs and some of their teeth suddenly move from "we don't like their sort" to "eligible"...!

The other thing to think about is to have the deaths cluster more - although certainly people would die from isolated incidents and accidents, such as the "minor wound becomes infected" theme that I've started to notice from certain historical and dark fantasy authors, at least some would be clustered from disease, famine or violence. It'd be interesting to know what the balance should be between the isolated and the clustered - maybe 3 of the 4 deaths across 2502 / 3 / 4 could actually have been caused by the same event? 

Meanwhile I go back to being thankful for epidemiology and all the rest of our modern wonders.

So, Tékumel...

On Thursday evening I got to try Tékumel in a Hangouts game brilliantly hosted by Barry Blatt, and I'm still digesting the experience.

Barry's clearly a Tékumel devotee, the players mostly (or perhaps all) novices to the setting. The session took the traditional approach of having the characters be refugees newly arrived in Tsolyánu (the city of Jakálla to be specific) which helps deal with the fact that the players as well as their characters are dazed and bewildered.

Amongst my notes of the session I jotted down "claustrophobic, exotic, bewildering". There are lots of things to love, including the fact that the chief vermin are not your standard rodents but some overgrown bug, and the mishmash of sword and planet meets vaguely ancient Eastern meets advanced (does having lawyers mean advanced?) civilisation.

It's also quite unsettling - in your typical pseudo-medieval (or even grimdark) setting a starting character may be at the bottom of the food chain but they're out to improve their lot - it may be risky but one of these days... And in the meantime they've got a reasonable idea of how the society around them works. Our characters were (literally) fresh off the boat with no contacts other than their fellow refugees in this society where it's not what you know but who you know and what clan you're in that counts. Clearly the whole Foreigners' Quarter saw us as marks whereas the city proper barely acknowledged our existance. And one of the worst things that could happen to you would be for anyone that matters to pay any attention to you. We were very much in the "them" camp, and exceedingly unlikely to ever become "us".

So in a bizarre way the setting's both very offputting and incredibly fascinating, and as a roleplaying experience deeply rewarding as a result.

I'd very much like to play again (I think...). But it does leave the impression of a setting that's extremely hard to GM, which is a shame.

Middle Earth gaming and power levels

An amusing and informative post ranking the most metal deaths in Middle Earth has been doing the rounds on G+. It's given me somewhat more sympathy for the writers of MERP, to add to my appreciation for the critical hits tables - although they still have a fair way to go to make up for the mundanity of the magic system.

It is a good reminder though that Middle Earth as a setting seems almost impossible to systemise. Even setting aside the (perhaps legendary?) exploits of various Noldor in the First Age, it's clear that the Dúnedain, not to mention various elves of different heritages still around in the Third Age, are capable of extraordinary feats.

Personally I'm comfortable with playing in Middle Earth as a fairly low-powered game, but in doing so I'm quietly ignoring arguably a major aspect of the setting. So am I being fair on game designers where that option may not be available, else they would risk short-changing some portion of their audience?

Stormbringer and the world of Elric

Nearly 30 years after buying the game I've finally read the main books in the saga of Elric of Melniboné. Somewhat backwards you could argue, but such was the power that Games Workshop's marketing department held over me back in the day...

Inspired by the How Do I Run a Tolkienesque Game? column over on RPG.Net I thought I'd try and draw out the main themes that a successful Stormbringer game should incorporate, at least in my mind.

Everyone's someone

Elric is obviously exceptional himself (Emperor of Melniboné, etc., etc.), so this maybe a poor inference to draw, but equally just as the whole tone of Lord of the Rings is that it's told primarily from the point of view of the hobbits, it seems important to me that in the saga everyone is someone. The warriors, like Brut of Lashmar or Rackhir the Red Archer are, in Joe Abercrombie terms, all Named Men. Other supporting characters are merchant princes, or kings and queens.

So this doesn't seem to me to be a game where a freshly generated character should be setting out for the first time to make a name for themselves. They're not rich or famous yet, but they've at least seen a bit of the world and made something of a name for themselves. They should also have some contacts, and maybe foes, out there.

No one is safe

Not quite on a Game of Thrones scale, but these named warriors, kings and merchant princes often don't last very long, often discarded in a bare sentance once their part is done. And of course (spoiler alert!) everyone dies by the end. It's a dangerous place.

A menagerie of monsters

The rulebook seemed odd to me when I first owned it, in terms of the shear variety and diversity of the creatures it presents. No longer - it's simply a listing of what Elric encounters in the saga! In terms of a novel it's a bit jarring - some new creation appears without rhyme or reason, sort of like when I sat down to populate my first dungeon many years ago. Except that comparison does Moorcock a great disservice of course; not only does he have to first imagine his creatures, but also he's trying to convey the multitude of planes that are out there, and the breadth of the sorcerors' arts. It only works at all because Elric, as the primary focus of the books and the most powerful sorceror of the age, can recognise these creatures on behalf of the reader, and can and remember their particular weaknesses or the rite to summon their sworn foes.

For it to work in a game I think two things are necessary - firstly to tone things down a little, after all hopefully the characters won't have made quite as many powerful enemies as Elric has. And again, have the characters be reasonably well travelled, or to have studied the arcane, so that they have at least some rumours of the creatures they're facing. But a diverse range of dangerous things seems to me another core theme to bring out.

Globetrotting (and plane-trotting)

Elric and his associates really do get around a bit, not just in the Young Kingdoms but on various planes too. The Young Kingdoms are well connected and varied, so it seems to me a campaign should make the most of this - chasing a quarry, searching for an artefact, or otherwise touching on a wide swathe of the world. My WFRP background makes me think of plots involving local interactions with interweaving factions but that wouldn't really fit the spirit of the saga, which is far more broad-brush.

A bit of planar travel is important as well. With the wide variety of creatures and environments available just in the Young Kingdoms this risks becoming a bit too much to get across without all becoming a bit blurred.

Alternatively there's the option of just starting off in the Young Kingdoms and then moving to a truly planar campaign - maybe not a bad idea given what the planet has in store. But that's another genre entirely - it's noticable that Elric always manages to find his way 'home'.

The eternal battle is central

The Lords of Chaos are ever-present in the saga, and although again Elric is a bit special any long adventure should see the impact of this struggle. It's difficult though to know where to strike the balance if characters are active agents of Law or Chaos - on the one hand the Lords do actively intervene (when it suits them), on the other Elric acts directly against his patron demon on a number of occasions without apparent repercussions. They are distant and mysterious, so maybe the patron's true goals and wishes are unknown, but there's more to it than that.

It's a long way from your typical D&D or WFRP experience where a cleric receives their powers directly from their god and suffers real consequences if they sway too far from the tenets of their cult. An agent of Law or Chaos may have a patron, but also deals with other more minor demons so in a strange way although direct manifestations of the Lords are apparently more common than in other settings, the relationship is also more distant.

Plenty of pulp

Elric may have been conceived as the antithesis of Conan, but the saga is pulp high fantasy all the way. Even setting aside the creatures you have boiling seas and perpetual mists, not to mention a literal edge of the world. Quests end in fantastic castles containing puzzle traps, or tunnels and caves with overt supernatural features. Despite his demeanor Elric himself is a swashbuckler in deed even when not powered by a glut of souls from Stormbringer - in pitched battle he becomes superhuman.

Conclusion

I had and have reservations over the Young Kingdoms as a setting - it has much to recommend it but overall I'm not quite sold. It doesn't call to me as somewhere I want to play, unlike Middle Earth or Warhammer's Old World. I think though I'd like to give it a go some day - but if I do there's one question which I would need to answer, which is where or when to set the campaign.

A big concern with the setting in game terms is the heavy hand of Fate - Elric is firmly on a railroad, the end of which is very much The End. Presumably the entire world is on the railroad with him, which doesn't immediately appeal. It seems there are 7 or so years between the sack of Imrryr and the end of the world so if you do want to adventure in the timeline of the saga then there's scope for that, but not a great deal!

To my mind there are 3 other possibilities -

1. Set the campaign in the past, with Melniboné still a recognisable Empire. However you can't go too far back without redrawing the map, as the Young Kingdoms are called that for a reason. Perhaps in the youth of Sadric, Elric's father. It gives you longer, but...
2. Take the multiverse concept to its first stage. The campaign is set in the Young Kingdoms, but with slight, perhaps barely discernible differences. You probably should let on that this isn't the Elric's world, but maybe not...
3. Go for the full treatment, and slightly rename all the places and people. This though seems the weakest option - why is this a Stormbringer campaign at that point?

Chaos warbands and the pathetic aesthetic

A few weeks back I took some time to get to grips properly with the warbands rules in Slaves to Darkness, in preparation for our mini campaign. In the process one thing that stood out to me was the disconnect between the Realm of Chaos material and Warhammer Armies in terms of tone.

From second edition onwards the rules and army lists have seemed (to me at least) to emphasise the power of chaos warbands and armies, and de-emphasise the consequences. Yes, the warriors have made some perhaps unwise pacts with the chaos powers, but Look At Those Stats. Ravening Hordes and onwards toned this down somewhat with the introduction of chaos thugs and marauders but the theme remained - small, elite, hard-hitting forces.

In Slaves to Darkness the tone is, dare I say it, grimmer and darker, but done well, and before the slide into cliché. The artwork is a big part of this, but also the rules themselves. The champion has a chance of ascending to deamonhood - but will probably end up dead, incapacitated, or a chaos spawn. The warband will primarily be made up of beastmen and standard humans, with a chaos thug - never mind a marauder or warrior - being the rare elite.

With this in mind my slow progress towards a force of chaos raiders has taken a turn towards the pathetic. Or, to put it another way, I want my chaotics to encompass the mad, the bad and the sad.

The bad are clearly the proper chaos thugs - on the path to worldly power and damn the consequences. But before they get there they'll start out like the chap in the middle there - angry, violent, but not especially accomplished fighters.

The sad would rather not be in the ranks of chaos at all. But the taint of chaos has given them the choice: exile or death. Perhaps they took the job of guarding that wierd-looking crate - probably not strictly legit, but they had a family to feed! Or maybe they just woke up one morning with an extra ear. Either way, the path has been chosen for them.

And the mad - probably started off as the bad, or the sad. But now the attention of the chaos powers has overwhelmed them, and in a fight they're lucky if they remember which end of the club to hold.

In model terms, I was always thinking of mixing in various proxies along with my recognisable thugs. But I think I should also field some human "levy" types - probably eager to fight, unlike their counterparts in other armies, but inadequately armed and carelessly led. And chaos spawn, which I never really saw the attraction of before - I'm definitely going to need some of them, and some spawn handlers.

The Squat heresy

If you haven't read Cryptonomicon the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson go and read it now, then come back... [edit - vagueness on the title, they're both good but one's far more relevant to this!]

Good, wasn't it?

That mindset of Hooke and co. is just a hint of what it's like to be a Squat in the 41st millennium. Except rather than twisting yourself into knots, and going off on false tangents, trying to square your understanding of your god with your understanding of the world, there is no separation. There's no science, only worship of the Emperor and the relics of the past, and your every thought is heretical.

That device in your hand - what on earth are this and that bit doing there? They're completely useless, throw them away. And if you just adjust this, like so then it's so much more efficient... Except this is a sacred artefact created by the priesthood, and your very soul is now forfeit.

Squats are not cool biker dudes. Those in the mainstream of the Imperium's society are outwardly very, very conformist and occasionally manage to conform well enough to rise moderately (but not too far, they are mutants after all) in the Army or the Adeptus Mechanicus.

But hidden at the heart of their society is a heresy - the Guild: tinkering; investigating; discovering... and acutely, constantly aware that everything they do goes against the priesthood and their living god. Squats are a proud, stubborn race - sometimes hurt pride or jealousy lead to betrayal, and another cabal is rooted out and destroyed by the Inquisition. Those that survive in secret may have magnificent beards, but furrowed brows and few hairs on their heads.

Left to their own devices Squats could well be the saviours of humanity - or at least help them claw their way back towards their previous technological glories. But there's no hope of that while the deathless Emperor shuts off any chance of regime change.

...

It may be derided as grim and dark, but the original Rogue Trader universe has enormous potential I feel, even if I quibble with the balance on the tabletop. However brilliantly realised it is though there's only so long you can visit a universe illustrated by Ian Miller without wanting something a bit more shiny. And so it's been slowly watered down into what it is today - but the occasional quick glimpse of the grim dark is so much more interesting.

The WH40K universe - in my head

This hopefully isn't one of those situations where a geeky person takes something they love, applies their geekiness, and sucks all of the fun out of it, but it might be (just how does the small town of Bree survive in desolate Eriador, anyway?).

In my youth 40K was only ever a passing interest, with its fantasy cousin proving far more of a draw to our gaming group, but my older self sees the Rogue Trader universe as a brilliant but flawed creation. Mostly I can happily continue to shun it and stick to my orcs and dwarves, until something like Axiom's astropath grabs my attention.

The setting's brilliance is in how it frames "medieval in space" as vaguely plausible, and hence allows table top battles between space-faring civilisations, without the technical levels being so mismatched that the only possible conflict is asymmetric. At least within the Imperium.

But you can only pull that "technology is religious mantra" trick once, so where does that leave our other standard races?

Orks

I like orcs probably more than most, but let's be clear - orcs are not a spacefaring civilisation (or arguably even a civilisation at all!). In orcish society there is none of the standing on the shoulders of giants that's needed for any sort of technological process. Let's be generous and say that their limit is muzzle-loading firearms.

Who knows how orks came to be spread through the galaxy from their home world, or even if they had a home world - maybe they were seeded widely by the Old Slann? When they travel through space now it's in the retinues of Renegades, or mercenary commanders keen to make use of their love of battle. Occasionally an exception individual will rise to lead a mercenary company themselves, but when that individual is killed or toppled the remnants of the company may well find themselves stranded on whatever world was the scene of their latest engagement.

So, orks have no space fleets or dreadnoughts of their own, and their vehicles (invariably wheeled or tracked) have a Heath Robinson appearance which reveal their cobbled-together origins and are highly unreliable.

The occasional wealthy mercenary my have carapace armour, and a mercenary company will often be outfitted in a moderately uniform fashion, although there will always be the odd lucky individual with a prized favoured weapon (usually loud = good!). Conversely though there will also be units where the prime weapons have been lost or gambled away and hence the slowest and weakest members end up mustering with clubs, muskets or bows.

"Native" orks on frontier worlds will be even more variable - any more advanced weapons will be the spoils of previous battles and raids, with primitive firearms in the hands of the majority.

Eldar

With Eldar the paradox is in the other direction - they're in decline, in terms of numbers and ambition, but they still have the full capabilities of their civilisation. There are hints in the Rogue Trader rulebook of their mysterious abilities, including mastery of the warp, but in combat they're on a par with, if not somewhat more fragile than, the Legiones Astartes. It seems that any serious encounter between the Imperium and the Eldar should be more akin to Arnie and his team meeting the Predator!

Clearly the Imperium's xenophobia isn't going to accept that they're in any way superior - of course they're decedent - but do recognise that they have abilities bordering on witchcraft. So, to take a leaf from Arthur C. Clarke, I'd suggest that all craft world Eldar (including dreadnought and vehicle pilots) be treated as psykers with the following abilities -

• Telekinesis (level 1)
• Jinx
• Hide (level 1 Elementalist spell)

I toyed with suggesting Teleport, but then backed away from this - although now I'm wondering whether I've gone far enough!

All abilities should automatically succeed, with no need to test against or track psi-points, but for points value purposes assuming they have 20. Hence your basic Eldar now costs 68 points (without equipment).

These powers are technical rather than psychic in nature though so aren't detectable as such. They're consequently not always available to mercenary Eldar (50% chance) or pirates (25% chance of having these abilities).

I've no idea what these ideas would be like in actual play - in fact I'm sure that in purely commercial terms the direction taken with the rules of effectively having a level(ish) playing field is a more sensible solution. But in my head as big a degree of disparity as possible feels so much more "right".

Reikland versus reality - some conclusions

Ages ago I rambled on about older and later incarnations of the Reikland, specifically about how far there are between the "points of light".

At the time my view was that Andy Law's map was probably a more realistic view of the Principality - but less interesting than the Death on the Reik version in terms of adventure. Now I'm not so sure...

I finally sat down to work out some demographics, drawing on figures from Wikipedia, and S. John Ross's Medieval Demographics Made Easy, and here's what I've come up with. There's some pretty extreme hand-waving involved here, so probably any other conclusion is equally if not more valid, but with a couple of tweaks it seems that the Reikland Gazetteer is at least plausable.

In Demographics Made Easy terms Reikland has 2 cities (Altdorf and Nuln), although it shares them both with neighbouring provinces. Despite the Renaissance setting, given how surrounded and riven with enemies (orcs, beastmen, etc.) the Empire is I'll stick with just 9x the number of towns compared to cities, and not the 14x the number. So we have 18 towns.

With the random 10% to 40% drop in size from town to town, here are my 18 towns compared to the Gazetteer -

Generated town	Pop	Reikland town	Pop (adjusted)
Town A	7200	Carroburg	8000
Town B	5040	Bogenhafen	4500
Town C	3024	Kemperbad	3750
Town D	2722	Ubersreik	3500
Town E	2177	Dunkelburg	3000
Town F	1306	Auerswald	2500
Town G	1176	Schoppendorf	2500
Town H	1058	Delberz	2000
Town I	952	Stimmigen	1750
Town J	857	Grissenwald	1500
Town K	686	Grunburg	1200
Town L	411	Rottefach (nr Altdorf)	720 (was 88)
Town M	370	Autler (nr Altdorf)	648 (was 81)
Town N	296	Segeldorf (nr Nuln)	518 (was 48)
Town O	237	Geldrecht (nr Altdorf)	414 (was 49)
Town P	213	Koch (nr Auerswald)	373 (was 95)
Town Q	128	Wurstheim (nr Nuln)	223 (was 78)
Town R	102	Kleindorf (nr Grunburg)	179 (was 35)

Of course this is very arbitrary, but the exercise did highlight what seemed odd about the Gazetteer listing, being the complete lack of any settlement in the 101 to 999 population range. So selecting some villages at random (but concentrating near Altdorf and Nuln for obvious reasons) I've upgraded a few to towns.

Equally there's no reason why lots of more villages can't exist, but since the Gazetteer goes down to such small populations I'm happy assuming it lists them all. And a small number suits nicely the zone model described in the world guide section of the rulebook.

All of which is a very roundabout waying of saying I can justify to myself using the Death on the Reik version.

I'll check through the major coaching routes and make sure there's at least a coaching inn (perhaps heavily fortified) for each reasonable days travel. But prepare yourself for a much lonelier journey than would be the case with the later map.

Or at least, you hope you're alone...

One other thing

The reason I mentioned the Wikipedia demographics - the top 3 cities in the Holy Roman Empire in 1500 accounted for around 1% of the empire's population. So taking Altdorf, Nuln and Middenheim (total population 40,224) and allowing a much higher (3%) proportion of the population - allowing for how dangerous the rural areas are - that gives us a very rough population for the Old World Empire of around 1.3 million.

The Old World is a lot less densely populated than early 16th Century Europe.

Reikland versus reality

I managed to pick up a copy of Death on the Reik last week in decent condition for a very reasonable price, but with one downside. As seems to be common, it was missing the A3 Reikland / Castle Wittgenstein map, which is obviously not ideal.

On the plus side it did make me think rather more about how Reikland should look than I otherwise would have (and perhaps more than is healthy!). It also made me more conscious of an insightful post I read on G+ recently about how geek fans (that'll be me) sometimes loose sight of theme because of over-emphasis on facts. You'll see what I mean in a minute...

Back to the maps - there are lots of useful Reikland maps on the internet, and Gitzman's Gallery collects some of the best ones together. There's a wide variation in what they portray, which is fair enough for a pseudo-16th century setting, but the detail which is bothering me is how densely populated they should be.

Exactly where point A is in relation to point B is fairly irrelevant to the characters on the ground, but what is relevant is if you leave (for example) Bögenhafen on the road to Altdorf and travel for most of the day, how many settlements do you pass? As it gets later do you press on in reasonable expectation of getting to the next town or village?

Going by the map in Shadows Over Bögenhafen (Hogshead version) there are 3 coaching inns and a village between Bögenhafen and Heiligen on the outskirts of Altdorf. The detailed map in Gitzman's Gallery (which I believe is by Andy Law, who knows his WFRP) has 4 coaching inns, two villages and a town on the same route.

This may seem like I'm being pedantic, but hopefully that's not it. The Warhammer Old World, and especially the Empire, is fun because its a bit more modern than the usual fantasy setting, and can give rise to themes that wouldn't work in a more traditional medieval setting. To support the scheming nobles and growing merchant class that we all all know and love you need a certain scale and level of advancement to the place. But that same scale and modernity act against the lonely wildness of parts of the Empire, with beastmen (and worse) lurking in every stretch of forest.

Even the more densely populated maps have plenty of wildness for such things to roam, but I think I rather prefer the "points of light" approach of the older maps, where every settlement of any size in Reikland (Harke, population: 25) can be listed on two sides of A4.

Old world / real world empires

My official excuse for buying dwarves on eBay is to put together the entire forces of the Blood on the Snow scenario from White Dwarf 91. It occured to me that, given reasonably priced old school dwarves are hard to come by (but plenty of manufacturers make compatible humans), my non-orc force could be the human elements from that scenario plus (initially) a few of the dwarves.

I thought I'd look a bit into which period of European history most closely relates to the Warhammer 3rd edition Empire, so as to be able to interpret historical figure manufacturers' catalogues. It's commonly known that Brettonian armies are early medieval and Empire armies are late medieval / renaissance, but what does this mean in terms of dates (or, more importantly, historical wars and hence figure ranges)?
There is clearly some hand-waving involved, however taking Warhammer Armies* as a reference point my guidelines were -

• The dominant infantry weapons are the halberd and crossbow
• Pikes and spears are also in use
• Arquebuses are used but unreliable

According to Wikipedia -

Arquebuses were first used in any significant numbers by the Black Army of Hungary (1458–1494) but this was unusual for the time. They started to come to the fore when pike and shot formations were developed by the Spanish following their defeat at the Battle of Seminara (1495), with the first notable success of this tactic being the Battle of Cerignola (1503). By the Italian War of 1521 these formations were starting to dominate the battlefield. Battles such as the Battle of Ceresole (1544) still have a Warhammer 3rd ed level of technology, but it seems to be that the Empire is earlier than this.

Halberds were a primary infantry weapon during the Burgundian Wars (1474–1477) and Wars of the Roses (1455–1485) - though the English used bills. Pike regiments at the time also incorporated halberds or zweihanders when fighting other infantry but when the role of pikes became primarily protection for gunners the role of halberds declined. The English retained the bill (in conjunction with the longbow) for some time after the pike and arquebus were adopted on the continent, with the Battle of Flodden (1513) being notable amongst other things for being a contest between the two systems.

So where does this leave me? It seems somewhere between about 1470-ish and 1521; perhaps if I had to go for a specific date then 1493, the start of the reign of Maximilian I as Holy Roman Emperor.

I could have reached a very similar conclusion by noting that Wargames Foundry sell their ex-Citadel Empire figures as Wars of the Roses, and that the Perrys have similar ranges both for WotR and European Armies, 1450-1500. However I wouldn't have learned so much in the process, for example why historical Burgandian armies are also a good reference, or why Foundry's gendarmes seem as appropriate as their Renaissance knights as Empire substitutes.

As an interesting aside I came across a useful Brief History of WFRP Time in my search which states that Sigmar's real world equivalent (except without the godhood, obviously) is from around 714-814, which might be an interesting campaign one day.

* For extra old school appeal I could have used Ravening Hordes and the results would have basically been the same. WA is handy though because of the additional illustrations

The shaman did it...

... and other orcish motivations.

This post has been sitting in my draft pile for a while, fortunately Erny's Orctober has finally got me to knock it into a finished state, and so improve my pathetically slow posting rate.

Warhammer orcs aren't complex / confused like World of Warcraft orcs - they're evil, violent and none to bright. They're also a popular army choice, which means coming up with scenarios for them. And to me that means giving them a range of motivations that fit with their character, which I like to feel is a bit more three dimensional than that portrayed in the rulebook.

The shaman did it - as illustrated by Warlord Paul and Thantsants, the shaman, as the intellectual of the tribe, can help out when a scenario is more quest-like than war-like. And given their tendency to the spiritual or downright possessed, it can be as deranged a quest as you'd like! I see the relationship between an orc warlord and their shaman (or a shaman and their pupil for that matter) as something like that portrayed by David Gemmell with the Nadir, except an orc shaman is far more tribal and has no interest in uniting the fractured orc tribes.

The goblin / half-orc did it - half orcs are noticably brighter, and goblins are considered more cunning, than your average orc, so these provide extra possibilities when a scenario requires brains as well as brawn. However unlike with the shaman your thinkers here are down-trodden and despised, which gives the scenario a bit of a twist.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, or, the warlord did it - your orcish warlord probably got to his position by killing and eating the previous incumbent, and will probably pass on the crown in the same way. He also won't be the first despot to realise that uniting against a common foe is a good way to keep the tribe in line (as long as the battles go well, that is), and might also have the advantage of cutting short the careers of potential contenders. I like to see these sort of campaigns as petty raids and feuds rather than the grand battles that seem to be depicted in modern Warhammer, but each to their own.

The freebooter did it - personally I think Orks are a bad fit to the 40K background, but the freebooter mindset does seem a good fit to orcs of any era. Orcs love to fight and loot, and there's clearly some sort of commerce between orcs and other races by some means or other. So I like to feel that Hector Barbossa wouldn't change a great deal if given green skin and tusks.

I'd rather be in the Dark Lands - orcish society is in a state of continual fighting and flux, so it's entirely likely that your orc invasion isn't really an invasion at all, it's just that the invading tribe is being driven out of their stamping grounds by an even bigger, tougher tribe. They just want to be left to live in peace, honest!

The dwarves / humans did it - for some reason the orc side of the table is generally portrayed as the aggressor in your typical scenario, which is clearly indicative of some sort of bias... Perhaps those nasty, aggressive dwarves / humans are mounting a punitive expedition against a peaceable orc tribe, for reasons no right-thinking orc can understand, or perhaps they're after something that's in orcish territory. Time to work out what orc buildings look like, to go along with your Warhammer Townscape.

Anti-heroes for wargames

I imagine a lot of roleplayers have done "playing as the monsters" at some point, even without taking into account things like World of Darkness, factional MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, or of course fantasy wargames.

In a traditional fantasy setting such as the Old World, dark elves or goblinoids would seem the obvious choice for monster PCs, but the former have a distinct ring of Mary Sue to them, whereas orcs and goblins are too fractious and (dare I say it) unsophisticated to give much depth to the roleplaying or longevity to the campaign.

Chaos cults are another obvious choice within the Old World, and to some degree would suit a WoD "society with society" type campaign, but I'm not sure that offers anything particularly new.

What would interest me would be a "killing things and taking their stuff" campaign playing as Skaven, or un-reconstructed WoW Forsaken, where characteristics and motivation are sufficiently human while morality and quest objectives are diametrically opposed to the norms of the game. I wonder, having played such a campaign, how players would then approach a traditional D&D scenario once they're back in the shoes of the "good guys".

Middle Earth campaign - when and where and why

Probably the most far-reaching decision to be made when starting a campaign in Middle Earth is the date. You want the familiar aspects of the setting without having the characters playing second fiddle to the Ring quest.

I.C.E. addressed this by setting their modules mainly in early part of the Third Age, most often around 1640. At this point the Shire barely exists, so your chances of bumping into (or bumping off) Frodo and Samwise are limited.

Cubicle 7 seem to have gone for the aftermath of the Battle of the Five Armies - upheaval, and familiar names in the background, but still 70+ years clear of the Ring quest.

I thought I'd go back to first principles and see what starting date would suit my purposes best. My guidelines are these -

1. Some time in the Third Age. Second Age (and earlier) is very different - more high fantasy than gritty
2. Set principally in Eriador*
3. During or after a significant event, so that Middle Earth's history is very present rather than just a backdrop. Also, as Noisms explained, times of societal change are good settings.

My short list becomes somewhat familiar to someone with a MERP background -

1409: Invasion of Arnor
1432 - 1448: Kin-strife (but see (2) above)
1636: Fall of Cardolan
1974: End of the North-kingdom
2510: Rohirrim settle in Calenardhon
2770: Erebor destroyed by Smaug
2941: Battle of the Five Armies

Of these, the fall of Cardolan strikes me as the most interesting, hopefully not because of the deep roots I.C.E. placed in my gaming conscience. The North-kingdom is still in existance, but on the wane, so you have interesting bits of Middle Earth's history that are still current (e.g. Fornost and the Seeing Stones) while retaining that sense of the Elves and Dunedain being in decline. You have an obvious source of conflict (and adventure) between Arthedain and Angmar and more of the sort of support structure that adventurers expect in terms of safe areas and friendly forces than is the case after 1974. Speaking of which post-1974 is probably my second favourite in terms of settings, with a bit of a post-apocalyptic struggle for the remaining settlements not destroyed by the fall of the North-kingdom. I'm not sure though that it's the sort of campaign I'm particularly good at running.

* Why Eriador?
This is clearly a key question, as this preference knocks out over half of my short list. Without meaning any disrespect to the professor, the Lord of the Rings strikes me as a deeply parochial tale. In fact, I even have a feeling that this was the intent. The Shire is "home" and everything that Frodo and company do is in defense of home, rather than being about adventurers setting off with whatever (often selfish) motivation that drives your typical RPG character. Hence the view of Gondor (or Rhovanion) should be much the same as that which a British package holiday tourist had of France or Spain a generation ago - somewhere you visit, before going home again. So it's not really appropriate to have the campaign set outside of Eriador, or more precisely for the characters to originate there.

Campaigns I'd like to run

I say "like to run" as a I'm quite keen to do the research and prep work. I'd be equally happy to play any of them too.

Middle Earth
I played a fair bit of MERP in my youth, but I'd like to try to re-visit Middle Earth with a more appropriate rule set and my now much greater appreciation for the setting. In what little spare time I have at the moment I'm laying some groundwork for a campaign (although I don't currently have a gaming group!) and as part of this have just re-read the last few chapters of Lord of the Rings on my way to the appendicies. It struck me how morally black and white the book is (although some of the history less so, e.g. relations between the Rohirrim and Dunlendings, where the "good guys" can't really claim any moral high ground) which will be a challenge. I'm used to characters being a lot more ambiguous... I'm getting more and more interested in The One Ring as a system, which amongst other things seems to have some quite flavourful mechanics to address the Shadow that hangs over Middle Earth.

Norse / Celtic / Sidhe
A mashup of Tad Williams' Norns and Hernystiri and C.J. Cherryh's The Dreaming Tree, with a smattering of the Bloody Nine. Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum is looking quite interesting too.

Original Enemy Within campaign - Warhammer FRP (1st edition)
I've never run the original Enemy Within campaign which is a bit of an oversight, given that when I was actively playing WFRP was my preferred system.

Tekumel
I first heard of Empire of the Petal Throne in my teens, and thought it sounded cool, but never discovered anything about it. Now I know somewhat more I'd be interested in running a campaign to move me a bit away from my northern European default.

Old-school D&D
I originally dropped BECMI D&D for WFRP, through a mix of Games Workshop marketing and loss of faith with D&D and PC power levels in particular. Nowadays I think I'd cap things at level 14, or perhaps even try E6. However it'd be fun to try a stereotypical high fantasy campaign, applying everything I've learned since I last ran D&D.

Roleplaying in Middle Earth - low magic healing

I received some useful feedback on G+ from my previous post about the challenges of an RPG properly set in Middle Earth, specifically on the healing side of things.

One of the main points I hadn't really considered is that in both in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings the fatality rate, and even the injury rate, from some fairly hairy situations is pretty low. Bilbo is knocked out and misses the Battle of the Five Armies, Frodo is injured on Weathertop and Eowyn by the Witch King, but otherwise characters are either fine or dead. So, we have 'a large dose of "don't be a wimp, carry on anyway"' (thank you +Jane Williams), perhaps a mechanic as per Heroes Against Darkness where characters can recharge significantly during or after a battle.

There are also plenty of the things I had considered - herbal cures, the "orc draught" and various other pieces of mystical healing, especially by Aragorn and various elves. The internet being what it is, there's good documentation on Wikipedia (of course) but also stacks to think about in a long article by Tinw.

So, I think that characters can be made fairly resiliant, although the challenge as always will be keeping some of the mystery and magic in the mechanics.

The Hobbit: The film and the game

Finally got around to see The Hobbit last weekend. I've been drafting this blog post ever since, and then decided to give up and re-write the hard bits as sequels...

Overall I enjoyed the film, mostly I really enjoyed it, but there were a few bits that I actively disliked as they totally broke my suspension of disbelief:

• Most of the Radagast bits, but especially the orc chase*
• Standing on the knees of giants
• Bits of the escape from the goblin king

While putting the quest to Erebor in its broader context, and basking in the scope of Tolkien's worldbuilding, the film simultaneously made me want to play in that world again and reiterated to me how difficult a game setting Middle Earth is. I played a lot of MERP in my youth, and it always struck me then how poor a fit the game was to the setting. But I'm struggling with four (at least) aspects of the world which don't really fit my views on what a game setting need -

• Low magic - so healing is hard and downtime is long
• Low magic - so rewarding players with cool stuff is tricky
• Mary Sue madness - lots of beings that are off the RPG power scale, but not sufficiently aloof from the world (Elrond bad, Gandalf good)
• That story - how to really involve the players in Middle Earth, without having them anywhere near the One Ring or its Fellowship?

I've some thoughts on working around these issues which I'll cover in future posts. Meanwhile I'd be really interested to hear of approaches to these questions (especially the first), or even to hear that I'm plain wrong!

* Two Istari (one of whom we've just seen defeat a wraith) plus twelve decently armed dwarves versus a dozen or so warg riders - seriously? Gandalf may have an injunction against confronting Sauron directly, and it may have gone totally against the mood of the book and the film, but those orcs are toast...!

Fundamental questions about your world setting

Some great posts got me thinking about one of the fundamental questions of a world setting - Thought of the Day: A World Without Heroes (The Alexandrian); Disease and Disaster in Hammerstein! (Dr Bargle) and Medieval England Did Not Have Dragons (Monsters and Manuals).

The question being, if gods, magic and monsters exist and affect the world, just what does this mean?

I don't know my answer yet but my initial thoughts, for my medium-fantasy setting, are -

• Some disease is natural, most is supernatural. But actually what does this matter to the world, as they've not had, and may never have, Edward Jenner or John Snow?
• The intelligent (playable) races were created, although at what stage of progression I've not yet decided. Were the first mages / shaman living a stone age lifestyle, or later than that? I'm a bit vague on my Tolkien, but I think he had elves born into Middle Earth in quite an advanced stage.
• What's the dynamic between other intelligent races (here I'll include the less-smart humaniods, such as ogres), and monsters (here I'll include dragons, at the risk of offending). My thought is that the former compete with the playable races, in the same way that different races and realms compete. The latter are rare (although they need some way to come into contact with the adventurers) but not so rare that your sheep are safe.

My other thought is, the setting is unusual that has a pre-history. Most I can think of - game and novel - exist only in the now, unless the past is just there to provide ruins to explore. Exceptions spring to mind - Tolkien, Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy and Paul Kearney's Monarchies of God - but equally most settings exist for a very long time at a medievalish level of development. Is this laziness, or again supernatural?