Movie Review: The Green Knight (with SPOILERS)

We saw The Green Knight in a local cinema yesterday, and I have to say, it is a disgrace to the original. Calling this an 'adaptation' is stretching it so far that the Super Mario movie looks like a win in comparison. The audacity of that director to touch a classic like that without even a hint of an idea what the source is about (beyond the basic premise) to then project some very immature, pseudo-intellectual thoughts unto it (and I'm being generous here), seems very much to be a sign of our time. I want to talk about that a bit. Originally I started writing a comment on MeWe about it, had to stop in the middle to make it a post, as it very much concerns the state of what "art" is supposed to be nowadays and we can make a good example of this. This will contain spoilers and I will rant about this movie. You have been warned.

 

Preamble 

 

I have read a prose translation just last week. It had an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien attached where he talks about why this is an important work. I came prepared. If you want my two sentence take on the original (just as far as story goes), I see it as a pre-psychological examination of what is supposed to be the ideal man of the 14th century, measured versus Christian and social morality and values, tempted by seduction and fear of death. How Gawain (the best of knights) acts and why and what that means are themes that the author of the original masterfully played with. Let's talk about what the film did.

 

[source]

--**SPOILER ALERT**--

So Gawain is still King Arthur's nephew, but not even a knight. Instead the film begins with him waking up in a brothel, not knowing where his shoes are. He has no father, you see, and his mother seems to be a witch (as soon will be very clear, as she summons the Green Knight), so to flee facing this, he makes himself useless by drinking and whoring a lot. On Christmas eve the mother doesn't want to go to King Arthur's court and sends Gawain alone so she can do some witchcraft. Arthur is all splendor and father figure, but weak and decaying (a returning theme here, kudos to the actor actually pulling that off). Enough of a father figure, though, to be present enough at christmas to ask little Gawain if he is the man Arthur hopes him to be. Gawain says no, the queen says 'Not yet'. Then the Green Knight appears with his challenge, and Gawain, primed like that, jumps on the challenge without understanding a single word of it.

 

In the original Gawain protects the King from himself (Arthur wants to take the Green Knight head on) and takes the challenge willingly. Here? Not so much. Gawain thinks they are playing a game and is surprised that he just beheaded somebody, even more that it didn't take (side note: he gets to use Excalibur for the beheading, which should have done the Green Knight in, since it's all Morgan Le Fay's doing). A year goes by (just like in the original), but nothing changes for little Gawain, just more drinking and whoring and a bit fighting when the mother is addressed. Then the King appears to push him a bit to go to the Green Chappel and find out what's up (which in the film is supposed to be 6 days travel due north). He doesn't want to, but goes nonetheless. Scenes of the brooding mother are interjected throughout. Two days later he meets a stranger on the remains of a battle field. The stranger pretends to help, but sends him into a trap instead, where he is bound and gagged and left behind ... to die!

I kid you not. The camera moves from his concerned face through the forest and back to his dead and decayed remains, then back through the forest and then to the concerned face again. Next thing you see is him encountering a ghost and interacting with it. Actually, this is the point in the film where the quest turns psychedelic and 'magical' (before that magic is shown as something people like Merlin and the witches are the cause for, after that it's the land itself). It is reduced to nothing more than Gawains soul travelling the in-between to face death through the Green Knight's axe. The whole seduction part of the original (the core of the piece, according to Tolkien) is just one more random encounter, again with a massively changed focus. The frame is there, but the picture drawn is something else (and, I'd argue, lesser) than what the original had to offer.

In the end, the fox that accompanied him ushers a warning not to go (a warning like that was in the original, but mainly to elevate Gawain's resolve, here, again, it's all twisted and changed). Gawain chases him away and enters the boat that would lead him to the chapel (there is no obvious reason why the boat or the small river is necessary, he could have walked, again underlining the underworld-character of the scenery ...).

When confronted by the knight, he offers his neck to be chopped off, but flinches the first time (like in the original, but not with the same effect or for the same reason ... again, twisted and changed). The second time around, Gawain flinches again and asks "Why like that", just to get a "How else" as an answer. Before the third attempt goes through, he flees, screaming he can't do it, runs home, gets his low-status fling pregnant only to have the baby taken away from her (she wanted to be his lady, ended up being his brooding station ... many witches and a Merlin had been involved), he becomes king, gets married to a princess (witches and the mother, again).

 

He stays a coward long enough to see his son die on the battle field (the kid, for sure, believing the lies about the great Gawain, thinking it would make him invincible as well, because blood and all that ... that's only implied, though), and in the end, before "they" run down the gates to get to him, he sees all the women excerting power over him, leave him. Sitting alone in the throne room, realizing his unavoidable doom ... his head falls of and the scene cuts back to the chappel, before that last attempt with the axe.

 

Gawain is in the know now. He has been dead all the time, his life would have led to nothing. He gets rid of the garb that is supposed to protect him and tells the Green Knight that he is ready. The Green Knight says something to the effect of "Good boy, and now off with the head ...", which is how the movie ends. You don't see the actual death, the original ending is off the table, too, at this point.

 

If you disagree with my take on this being a dead Gawain, travelling to the great beyond, I'd just like to add that there is actually a scene where he sees himself decaying AND he brings it up in a discussion with the lady in the castle, where green is associated with decay. The director also uses the the old 'god shows the character how his life would have turned out to let him find peace'-trope*** to bring that shit home. So yeah, you can disagree, but dismantle that for a hot second ... 

 

Analysis (light spoilers)

What we have here is the story of a loser boy that believes the stories about knights and heroes enough to be forced into a quest by his mother and a sick father replacement, dies two days into the quest due to his naivity only to get tormented some more and get killed in the end again, this time accepting his fate, because being alive would have sucked way more (he came to this conclusion himself?).

 

It inverts and perverts the Heroe's Journey, which should be bad enough, but it also categorizes the relationship between men and women as evil and toxic. The mother is a witch, love doesn't exist, only obligation does, the idea of maturity through trial and initiation is a lie, institutions are a lie ... They went as far as having Gawain's shield, in the film a portrayal of the Holy Mother instead of the pentagram in the poem, splintered in front of him (which he laments, for unexplained reasons, more than anything else in that scene).

 

Now, in Symbolism, Mother Mary is The Throne of Wisdom, she is a positive influence on Jesus, helps him finding his way and bear his cross. A positive representation of the relationship between men and women. Psychology has caught up to that, actually, so it's not only the Bible talking about this. All of this is shat upon in that movie.

 

It'd be the hip thing to say "it is deconstructing Christianity and its cultural influence as a lie", but I don't think it does the harmful ideas given air in this movie any justice at all. This is, plain and simple, an aestheticization of Satanism*, and not the cute kind of Satanism people like to flirt with, but the serious kind that aims to pervert you towards uselessness.

The methods to convey those ideas are the most effective propaganda tools available to humanity: the film is drowned in music, the scenes are hypnotic, always aesthetically highlighting something irrelevant to veil the interaction and intentions between the characters (something you can see quite well in the discrepancy between Arthur's gravitas and his decay, for instance).

 

It's one sleight of hand like that after another. You don't question what you see because the film never asks those questions. It rather takes your attention to something else, something 'magical', and lets the interactions stand as something 'given', as if it is reality. That is some powerful psychological manipulation right there!

Really, just take all the glitter and lights on face value. What does it add up to? Beautiful noise, nothing more. Abusing the original like this only adds to the diversion by claiming the story is in dialogue with something bigger, but it only pays lip service to that (or attempts to corrupt it).

 

We need to start looking closer ... (no spoilers here, I think)

 

In the end, it's either very shallow and nice to look at, or it's hiding something very ugly while trying to inject certain values into an unassuming viewer. I tend to believe it's the latter, for the reasons I state above. 

Readers might be inclined to think this is about Christianity since I talk Symbolism and Satanism and what-not. They are mistaken**. This is about the values we held high in our society and culture for a long time.

 

Those values are, naturally and to some degree, influenced by the religions surrounding us, and as far as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is concerned, an early idea of Christianity is a key element and needs to be considered. However, we, as a society, had been on a good way to transcend religious values into a set of staples that exist independant to religion (at least I'd argue as much).

 

It seems we are learning the hard way now that these values need to be upheld and protected. Taking movies like The Green Knight apart in public is part of that process. I know my reach, so this is of no significance for any Hollywood type out there ... still had to say my piece. But I see this happening again and again. Star Wars is a good example, Wanda Vision seems to be another one (see where the * leads). The US Comics scene has massive problems with telling 'good' stories, and the successfull ones seem to hide questionable messages. 

 

In a discussion on MeWe an online friend wrote that a lot of the public discourse today isn't about right or wrong, it's about having values or not having them. I agree with that a lot and I believe it applies here. Could I be off with my assessment? Maybe. You've seen me argue my case, I can provide sources for all of that (if I haven't already), so to take that apart, you should at least be able match that. I'm confident I can hold my ground, but would be happy to hear some great counter-arguments about it.

 

So would I recommend seeing this movie? Well, actually, yes. Avoid paying for it, if that possibility arises (in a legal way, of course), but yeah, if you've read the above (even if you disagree with my take), see the movie. The visuals are often stunning, as is the soundtrack, and there are some nice little story bits in it, all things told, so you'll most likely not be bored. I'd use some of the visuals for my games, for sure (and some of the ideas to portray evil, heh).

 

Far more important, though, would be trying to see what I saw, verifying it, if possible (it maybe all in my head, after all). If nothing else, I believe it can help creating an awareness for some ugly trends and ideas manifesting in our culture. Just because something is nice to look at, it doesn't mean it's virtues or 'true'.

If you have seen the movie already, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on it. Can you see my points? Where am I off?

I'll leave it at that (although I'd have to say more, I think I said what I needed to say).

* Jonathan Pageau has a great take on Satanism like that. See the video here on yt.

** I'm not a Christian, but I appreciate the positive influences Christianity had in our culture (there's lots of bullshit, too, mainly stupid politics, but anyway). If pressed, I'd say I'm a Daoist. If I were pressed to explain that, I'd say it's like Zen Anarchism (in that Zen is the little brother of Daoism, and thinking like that makes you an anarchist, it seems). 

*** Only thing is, where that insight comes from is not explained. If that's something the character is alluding to, it's even more stupid than I assume it is.

Your Gold is no Good Here: Fortune Tokens in Lost Songs of the Nibelungs (Design Post)

Time to do one of those again, I suppose. LSotN is a bit on the backburner here at Disoriented Ranger Publishing, since we aim to bring some bunkersploitation Christmas presents to your tabletop. Nonetheless, the brain goes where it goes and I just now had an idea that might solve a (minor) gripe I had with what rules already exist: the prices of wares and services. It's an interesting topic, historically speaking, but full of problems, as far as design goes. Unless ...

On the arbitrary value of money

This is not a commentary on current political events, but as it is, we need to have some basic understanding of what's happening around us and why and how that might inform the designs of our games. So bear with me here. It'll all come together in the end. Pinky promise.

We are learning right now what it means to have so called Fiat Currencies running our economies (that is, currencies that are not backed by a commodity such as gold), as the big banks all over the world flood the markets with money and you can see almost in real time how the value is diminished the further it trickles down, leading to inflation, ending in (potential) collapse.

(Good that the rich are getting richer by the minute as well as a side effect ...)

Anyway, I digress. However, it is the biggest shift of wealth since the invention of printed money (or so they say), so it's something that comes to mind. That said, the people who lived roughly 1500 years ago did not have to worry about money in the clear terms we do. I say 'clear' in the sense that we have an economy based on a virtually generated value in relation to our net worth and the available goods and services (or something like that ... I'm no economist).

Benefit of a system like that is the superficial transparency of worth and value. We have an idea what an article should cost, or at least, what we are willing to pay and what selection that assessment leaves for us to invest in. You don't expect to get something exceptionally good for a small buck, and you certainly expect something great if you spent the money to warrant it.

There is wiggle room, of course, but it's mostly (if legal) within a set of rules everybody more or less agrees upon.

But the most important thing is: most of it is arbitrary, if only for the one major reason that in a very large economy way too many pieces shift way too much and way to fast to calculate a proper in-time value of almost anything, while value itself, from an individual point of view, isn't necessarily the result of a rational or even mathematical evaluation.

Value has always been a compromise, of sorts, between quality and power (some would say 'supply and demand', but I think that falls somewhat short, at least for the design I have in mind ...). Our monetary system only manages to mask that fact, and only to some degree (which becomes obvious as soon as no one has an idea what something should be worth, for instance the work of an 'influencer').

That's quality losing vs. power, I'd say ... [source]

 All this describes more of a road map than, say, a railway system of rules, and while most stay on the road, there are still ways to sidestep the system (or leave the road, so to say). Still, it comes with a specific frame of mind, a specific idea how things work.

D&D shows a vanilla system of the above

Vanilla D&D has a mighty vanilla take on the subject of money. Gold is the standard, silver is argued to be the more 'realistic' standard, but overall you get one price system (with little variation) that applies to almost everything one would encounter in the game.

I'm not saying that is a bad thing, not at all, but it's a very specific flavor, and it changes the narrative, imo, significantly towards a very modern take on a mostly medieval setting. It is a better fit for eras that already experienced some form of industrialisation, but it works just as well for D&D if magic is understood as a driving force very similar to industrialisation (in as much as it is able to change and alter a society).

What I'm saying is, that high fantasy like that goes well with our understanding (or rather 'intuition') of how economics work. If those things move within our realm of expectation, we have an easier time to dismiss it as a necessary dimension of a gaming world. Something that has to be as it is to elevate the other parts of a world within a comfy shadow of a system everybody dreams to overcome ...

Actually, if playing D&D is categorized as a game allowing to live a fantasy of 'playing the system' by all means necessary (which certainly was a huge part of the game in the early editions*) to get rich and famous, the economy needs to be a vanilla, but ingrained part of the system to make it work.

D&D life goals in a nut shell? [source]

Fittingly, many I know play to get to a point where so much wealth is accumulated that caring about it becomes obsolete, which could be one more indicator that the early D&D economy is successfull design**.

The more 'historic' your game attempts to be, though, the more problematic will the D&D approach turns out to be for the flow of the game.

It's all about expectations!

If you want something to happen in the game, it needs to be reflected in the rules. The more you want something, the more consequential need the rules to be for the game. You want character death? Have a system for that. You want them crippled as well? Have a system for that. You want people to use the rules at the table? Make them essential.

A good example for what I'm trying to say here would be Skills in Lost Songs. If the players want to evoke an ability asociated with Rank, they need to describe how they do it. No roll necessary (for the special abilities like 'earning one's keep'), but the player needs to describe how the character uses their skill to benefit from it. This simple necessity helps enriching the narrative with little stories how the characters use their skills and how society respects that, both help creating the feel of a more grounded and 'historical' game.

Ø2\\'3|| (that dysopian sf rpg I wrote) might be another good example for the argument I'm aiming for. The game features a credit system that strongly links what you are able to buy to your social status. Not only that, it also considers what the player does on social media as well as uncontrollable spending a character would do if exposed to advertisement 24/7 (something citizens with a lower socialt status have to content with ... higher up ads can be regulated or even ignored).

Regardless of what players want to do, then, this (far more oppressive) system will rear its ugly head regularly and sidetrack them as they fall in debt or try to get more famous or fall from grace or hit a lucky streak with a system they can't entirely controll themselves. That way, tropes become part of the narrative that are necessary to manifest a feel of dystopian science fiction by exposing the characters to it, not by having them come up or interact with it themselves (which they'll do as well, just with a different set of motivations, which is just as important!).

You see? Systems can give impulses that manipualte a narrative on different levels and with different directions of impact to achieve a certain feel a game needs to manifest, for instance, a genre or a historical mindset just by making them natural occurences of playing the game. Side effects, basically. DMs and players will bring this to the table to some extrent, but it is important to understand the power that is in a system that produces an ambient noise floor lie that to begin with. Something to carry the game and keep its themes present.

It's something like that I'm aiming for here as well (seems to be something I like to have in my designs). Oh, yeah, so systems actually do matter, btw. Because if you design elements of a game on purpose or not, they will have an impact just by using them. It's better to have a firm controll on what exactly those elements do, then, right?

Anyway, a different historical frame of mind, right?

The Dark Ages are not known for being a 'global village'. Not by a long shot. Still, the Roman Empire was no more at around 500 AC, and there was lots of movement at least on most of the Eurasian continent to get an interesting mix of people and values.

In a sense, though, that would have devalued lots of things people would cherish in their culture, for (1) the simple reason that those values don't translate well over thousands of kilometers and (2) hardship brings its own, very basic set of values as a priority. Considering this, many had to start from scratch to formulate valid worth as new communities formed across Europe, while fighting to keep what they accumulated.

As far as desings go, this is actually pretty nifty, as characters can take part in creating those values, individualize them, in a way. Of course one would have something like the Roman Coin and valuable items from the Old Age that would be recognized by many. Naturally you'll have legendary smiths, and in Lost Songs you may add magic or holy items of renown. But all this would have to find a place in an organically growing value system of a community.

Visigoth coins, 568-586 [source]

Furthermore, we'd have to let go of the idea that a piece of paper carries a certain 'fixed' value, or that currency is the end-all-be-all of every imaginable bargain. It'd be an exchange of wares to some extent or another. I'd also wager that travelling merchants would have been a rare occurance during the Dark Ages, as it'd have to be quite dangerous to travel with goods through unstable regions (people would still do that, of course, just heavily protected or connected, and not everyone could do that).

Sure enough, the Romans (Antiquity in general) had travelling merchants and you will have local trade, even import and export. Just not to the extent we'd see before the fall of the Roman Empire or in the Middle Ages. Between 500 and, say, 900 AD you'll most likely have a ever-changing patchwork of arrangements, with some stable regions or market places developing over time in cities, near castles and with monasteries (here's the Wikipedia entry, with nothing specifically about the Dark Ages, hah!).

Hence, what we'll need is a system that allows ballparking values of everything one living back then would value to the degree they'd value it and why, at best while generating a little story about an item and without having tons of tables with varying values of items in different cultures over time ... because that'd be never complete enough to be satisfying (the game would feature examples, of course, which would come in tables, of course).

The abstract for the arbitrary ...

Okay, we have our parameters, we know what we want this to achieve. The trick to make this work is to go as abstract and basic as possible so that every possible scenario a group would come up with could apply the rules to the same effect.

It helps that a lot of this is arbitrary to begin with and the basic axis we formulated in the beginning, quality versus power, should help producing a dynamic that is consistent and somewhat within the historical context.

So here are the basic rules (preliminary version, naturally):

The smallest Narrative Unit (NU) of a thing is worth 1 Fortune Token (FT) and Honor Points (HP) spent multiply the value of FT needed for the next transaction. 20 HP spent will give a character what they desire. Skill value act as multiplier for the NU from Master Rank upwards if the creator is known or present (if several high rank skills are necessary, the values stack). If a thing is connected to layers above normal level, they also function as multipliers.

So one could say, a horse is worth 1 TF, and there should be situations where this is true. That said, a horse, if you think about it, is composed of more than one narrative unit, isn't it? Ancestry can play a huge part, the trainer might be a master or grandmaster even (both act as multipliers), it might have won prizes (another NU) or have a famous owner (NU), maybe even magical properties (more NU)!

So a horse (1 NU) with famous breeds as parents (2 NU) that is bred and trained by a Master (at least 2 skills, let's say a multiplier of 12, the least possible) and owned by a king (1 NU, Epic Layer = 500) would be worth 24.000 FT. A truely royal price for a horse!

That's what a 1 FT horse looks like ... [source]

There is a lot one can do with this, and most importantly, all of it tells a story. A copper piece from the legendary Roman Empire might be worth more than a gold piece from an unknown source, unless an alchemist can be quoted that verifies that gold's purity, for instance.

One sure can lie and cheat to add NU or multipliers to a thing, but it might come back to haunt a character. One might, for instance, swear upon the gods that it is true, and the gods don't take kindly to lying in their name (and something like hat woud be common place with bargains, so cheating would be dangerous). Again, it creates narratives that fit the setting and make value something that is elevated by the stories defining it. Connecting this with Honor is only fitting, as it might be an honor to give a king something for only a small price (or as a gift, even).

My guess is that it'd shift a group's drive to loot somewhat towards following up on legends, actually caring about the items they won. Another welcome effect, of course.

And that's it, so what do you guys think?

This will need to connect with several sub systems the game features, so I might have a little bit of work ahead of me to make it fit, but my guess is it'll fit quite nicely and maybe even help figuring out a couple of kinks of the other systems (lower levels of random encounters will need another dimension now, for instance, but that's a good thing!).

This post about gold and honor will need an update as well (quick fix would be to just exchange gold with FT, but I'd have to see if the values I go with in 2015 match with what the system produces ... it might, given that characters can spend HP as multipliers, still seems steep, though).

It's all still very much a WIP, but piece by piece I'm inching towards  finished game. I'll keep you guys updated, of course, as I get to work on LSotN.

Anyway, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on this.

[source]

* Nowadays, with the characters already starting rather mighty, it's more like living a power fantasy, which is a significant shift in narrative focus, but of no interest here in this post, I'd say.

**  It is not without faults, I think, as there need to be rules for characters flooding an economy with the loot they gained, but that's neither here nor there. I wrote my thoughts on this here, though, if you are interested.

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In other news,  you can check out a free preview of the Ø2\\'3|| (that rpg I published) right here (or go and check out the first reviews here). This will be with the general populace for a little while now, but we will do some sales in the future, of course.

If you need more convincing, maybe this post might get you there. If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here ...

 

My OnePageDungeon Contest entry: Opik's Magnificiently Damning Door Bravery

I ended up having the time and energy to throw something together for the OnePageDungeon 2021! It's a full page, and trust me, every millimeter was fought for. Naturally, I sent it in on the last possible day (with a couple of hours to go and I wasn't the last, but still, cutting it short). I'll try and talk a bit about it here (sharing it as well, of course, as that seems to be the custom), but this might end up being my shortest post in a long while ...

Opik's Magnificiently Damning Door Bravery

It's the nature of the beast that I'd rather share the page itself before saying anything about it, as it should all be on the page, really, not needing any context. If you know the blog, you know I'm quite verbose. I think that's alright for the medium, but other formats need other types of writing or a layouter cutting corners. Guess what I did. Ha!

Anyway, here we go (open in new window for detail):

What can I say beyond that? For one, I actually aimed to have three puzzles in there instead of two. Good thing I only had a vague idea what that third module could have been and time was the deciding factor to just go with what I had. Thankfully so, since I barely had room to do those two modules justice (close call, but I managed ... I think). Still, maybe something to expand on?

As per the guidelines, this is system neutral, and that turned out to be a challenge as well. How to scale something like that in a way that is easily adapted to every imaginable system without ending up being arbitrary was something that needed lots of consideration. I tried :)

Oh yes, but doing the dungeon modules was the hardest part, btw. Who'd have thought? Lining up some squares is easy enough, for sure, but making them presentable from scratch was harder than I thought (I looked into online variants, but even there some work would have been necessary). I aimed for 'playful' in the end, I guess.

Anyway, I hope this will give a couple of people some joy. I sure had fun writing it and putting it on the page (using inkscape has a very meditative quality, for me at least). Not sure if this has a chance for anything but being in the publication in the end, but I'm happy with the result and hope I'll get another chance next year.

So, what do you guys think? Useful? Too much? Fun?! I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on it!

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In other news, I will keep the discount on Ø2\\'3|| (that rpg I published) up until tomorrow and you can check out a free preview of the book right here (or go and check out the first reviews here). This will be with the general populace for a little while now, but we will do some sales in the future, of course.

If you need more convincing, maybe this post might get you there. If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here ...

 

Ø2\\'3|| - A little play-report with notes (Season 1, Episode 1: Deadly Electric Pussy-Cat Fart)

I had an opportunity to DM Ø2\\'3|| the other day, first session of a two-session gig (favor for a friend, nice people to game with). Other than having the pleasure to get some more gaming going (aside from play-testing THE RISE OF ROBO-HITLER), it was the first time I was able to use the printed book for the game, which was all kinds of interesting in itself. Since that first session went (imo) exceptionally well, I thought it might be a good idea write a play-report and give you guys an idea what Ø is like at the table and why ... I'll write this up as it emerges for the players, general description of the setting aside (which you can read here, if interested).

THE SETTING

Using the District Generator the game comes with, I created the basic hex where the characters reside and the six neighboring districts. 3 hexes (including the main one) stick out to be some sort of play ground for a game I ended up calling "The Vales of Evardonn". Main hex is a poor area that is used to initiate new citizens ("NuPees") into their citizenship under the United States of Europe (USE, for short). I decide to make this the District Grünau in the greater Berlin-Leipzig city cluster. Here NuPees will train to join the "Halls of Heroes" in the District Friedensaue located just NW of Grünau, which would allow them access to the vales in the NE.

Basically, the characters believe that they are part of a huge, real life MMORPG, which is nothing more than the state and big corp gamifying work through all-encompassing augmentation. Since citizens are already indoctrinated in the artificial womb they are raised in (think Matrix meets Teletubbies), they actually believe that what they see is reality. They might believe they are hunting down goblins for xp, while in reality they are slaughtering, for instance, some illegals or commit other atrocious acts without even realizing, since it's all nicely augmented. Rainbows included.

So while the characters live an extended Anime experience on a sugar rush, training to be "heroes", reality is a dirty and improvised mass living complex under the totalitarian regime of The Family, looking a bit like this:

This will be available as a poster, eventually ...

THE CHARACTERS

Character creation begins with the characters realizing tat they are being lied to and how they react to that (blue pill/red pill moment). The players describe how they'd been playing when a terrorist attack took away the veil. They saw reality for the first time, didn't like it and decided to take care that somethng like that won't happen to them again. They told the officials the same, hoping to be recruited as terrorist hunters or something like that.

Since they didn't opt for a higher social status (which would have been costly), they remained being small fish, but seemed content with playing the game and supporting the family (making life miserable for others if opportunity arose, for sure).

And that's the set-up. After that the players described how they imagined their characters to be. We ended up with:

PAULINE - Augmented, she looks like a nice little girl in a white dress, behind that veil, the dress is less glorious (more like ripped, bloody and dirty) and half her face as well as one arm are replaced with cyberwear.

[source]

MR. SMITH (aka Boss Baby) & MR. NOBODY (modified Smart Assisstant) - Chubby little guy (puberty blockers and a sugary diet will do that to you) with a black suit and sun glasses, capable Hacker. The augmented version is way more slick and cartoonish than the meatspace version.

GRUBS & POOPSIE - Augmented Grubs looks like a little cherub, wingy and all. In reality it's a fat little kid carried around by huge, spidery legs implanted in his back. Too lazy to walk, in his hands always something sweet and an energy drink. Poopsie is the electric cat he carries around in a duffle bag.

They assign their potentials and roll for Anger (9, 11 and 14, not Falling Down, but still quite angry ... good). With that, the character creation is done. The basic idea is that they can be whatever they want in the scenario as long as all agree and they are willing to make the DM stronger when they describe powerful character features (which they did ... I ended up with 14 Pennies to start). I also gave a short introduction to the rules and after that we were ready to roll.

Season 1, Episode 1: Deadly Electric Pussy-Cat Fart

DISCLAIMER: What follows is the mash-up of the established setting with the characters in it, the Narrative Encounter Generator (NEG, based on this, but specified to emulate dystopian fiction with an Anime bent) and a SF-Fluff table the game offers. The NEG offers a direction, but the characters are free to act as they please. It is a sandbox with narrative impulses ... It is also SATIRE. You have been warned.

We start on a September evening. The characters are enjoying their free time hanging out at their apartment when an explosion shocks the building and the augmentation starts stutering, interwoven with the message, that their existance is a LIE and that they need to WAKE UP ... Of course, it's those damn domestic terrorists again. Normaly The Family would just activate the population to act as D/escalation Troops (the chip every citizen has implanted in their brain would activate to change them into mindless drones), but the explosion seems to interfere with that as well and the characters see their opportunity to finally shine!

Mr. Smith tries his hands on finding out where exactly the explosion has occured, but the roll fails and nothing he could come up with would change that (which makes him slightly more angry: Anger is raised by 1). They decide to just follow the destruction. Mr. Smith wants to go armed, so he grabs the one weapon in his possession. His roll comes up with a gadget that has two usages left before being useless ... a boom stick! That'd be his second Slot. They head for the door.

Outside the apartment they see some smoke and some scared neighbors (flickering between weird cartoon zoo and chubby-dirty freaks, as the state augmentation keeps switching on and off). They follow the trail of smoke to find a huge pile of rubble and a whole in the ceiling, several stories above. Had been a long time for them to see the blue sky. The whole district is one big building, basically, with no real infrastructure but the one big corp installed throughout the district, which no one living here is able to use due to the low social status citizens living here have.

In the middle of the free space the bomb created, they see a digital graffiti that says YOU ARE ALL SLAVES OF THE SYSTEM. No other signs of the terrorists, but Mr. Smith wants to try his hacking skill on the signature, with the hope that it might lead to the terrorist cell responsible for the bomb and interferrence.

The roll's a close call, so Pauline decides to offer a Relief Die for support. She connects herself to Mr. Robot, rolls the dice and it's a Double 10! That adds 20 against the difficulty, more than enough to know EXACTLY where the terrorists hide (somewhere on the roof, in a secret hideout between giant air conditioning vents). Pauline also gains an Achievement for the Double: it'll be easier for her to track down those terrorists from now on.

They decide to climb the rubble up to the roof, creating new Slots along the way: Pauline can shot her cyborg hand as a grappling hook and the spiderlegs coming out of Grubs' back are quite capable of climbiung almost every surface (to keep the illusion up that Grubs is a flying cherub, of course). They see military transport helicopters crossing the hole in the roof as they make their way up.

Mr. Smith resorts to just climbing, but as soon as they arrive on the roof, he's left behind fast by the other two speeding towards the hideout and what sounds like gun-fire and explosions. He hacks himself a ticket for a flying taxi to catch up with Pauline and Grubs at what seems to be the border of a prohibited area the military set up digitally as they engaged with the terrorists.

They approach the hideout and only find signs of battle. The prohibited area seems to have moved with the battle. Grubs sends Poopsie to scout. The cat does cat things while going through the rooms and ends its scouting at a huge hole in one room that leads outside again. In the distance the cat sees a dog fight (ha! sorry ...) between military and terrorists in front of a massive shopping mall that displays an insane shoppingspree-lightshow on its outside.

[source]

The group assumes that there's still a chance to help, so they move on towards the battle. Shortly after that, the whole block goes into Lockdown as the battle seems to shift down into an urban canyon (I had to spend 10 Pennies due to a high Oppression Die result, they had to go somewhere ...).

With the circumstances changed like that, they need to find a Safe Space or an excuse really fast, as drones are already swarming the area and they see D/escalation Troops appear on the roofs as well as a Bias Judge crawling towards the scene of the skirmish. They decide to go for an excuse. After all, they still want a chance to get those terrorists!

So it turns out Grubs is still in good contact with the Family beaurocrat that debriefed them after they had experienced that first terrorist attack (he created a Contact Slot for that). Isabel, that's how she identifies, likes the chubby little cherub and would love to help, but giving military authority is no easy task and she plays coy about it. Grubs decides to put some preassure unto her, burning the contact for that Season, but giving his roll a whopping +18.

It'll take a while and some nice cherub pics to get her back in the friend zone, but the test is made and the authority to hunt for the terrorists is given. Just in time, as they are already approached by some D/escalation type. Now the frowning smily on the mask turns into a smile and the meat-drone turns away, looking for other dissidents and trouble makers.

 

A short sigh of relief later they are already looking how to exploit their new powers. They have some access to the military feed and at least know where the conflict is hot. This is where Pauline's Achievement comes in handy: she finds some terrorists hiding in a nearby club with a bavarian alp theme (based on some crazy tv show). There are six of them and they seem to have some skilled hacker among them that was able to shield their presence from the military.

Bad luck for them that Pauline had rolled that Double ... 

It doesn't take the group long to come up with a scheme that does not involve direct assault. They hack into the video feed and see those criminals in the main club room, waiting it out, laying on the fake meadow that is the floor while lazily waving away some nanite flies (it's an all-in "authentic" alp-feel club house). The hacker seems busy keeping the fuzz away.

It all lines up beautifully for the characters, it seems. The plan is to send Poopsie inside, as part of the scenery (fittingly so, it appears). Grubs also explains that he had that cat "weaponized" with a fart canon of sorts (creating a Gadget Slot for that), which turns out to be quite weak (just Stage 1, not even enough to make damage). However, if they succesfully hack the cat, they could actually do some damage, weakening the opposition in the process. Not a problem, is what Mr. Smith says. The others are on stand-by to support the roll with Relief Dice, if need be.

Alas, Mr. Smith comes up with a Triple 8! That's not only 24 as a result, it's also a Season Highlight (which creates a DM Slot and counts as absolute success)! Mr. Smith added another 14 Anger Points to the result (he had gained three more Anger points in a failed test before, so he had 4 remaining) and using the cat gave another 6. It resulted in enough damage to take the room out (and was quite satisfying to get all that anger out of the system). That cat was weaponized with a fart from hell.

I think we took ten minutes to describe how it all went down because we laughed so hard: the cat would enter the room and do cat things, like sweeping some legs and looking for attention. When in the middle of the terrorists, the gas would be released, and one would imagine that they first looked around who might be the culprit ... then the dying would start :D

[Source]

It was glorious, and pretty much where we ended it. They called the authorities and Mr. Grubs took care to make a "cat video" of the incident and put it online (to some effect, it raised his Social Status a bit as people seemed to like what they saw), and that was that. The DM received two Pennies since the other two players forgot about their Social Media presence (if you aren't posting regularly, the state gets suspicious, too).

Thoughts

It turned out to be sufficiently "cyberpunk". The players ability to come up with skills, gadgets and contacts as they need them allow for a wide range of wild results, all with individual touches.

The district generator already gave me lots to work with, the NEG and Fluff results added to that. They gave me the opportunity for the characters in the beginning, the signs of the gun battle, the dog fight in the distance in front of a huge building going crazy with advertisement, the struggle in the end, the nanite flies ... all those little bits and pieces I could use to build on and make it a rich experience with relativeley little preparation (and completely flexible ... I had no idea where this all would go).

Pretty much what I'm writing about here.

I had to put more work into getting my brain around the system again as I thought I would (I'm balls-deep into be67 right now and this was rather short notice), but once it clicked again, I found a new rhythm quite fast. The game seems complex in the beginning, but as soon as you see it all realized at the table, I'd wager it'll all fall into place quite easily.

The tools provided in the book did their job, which was great. However, I already saw some room for improvement. I think one of the future supplements should be a DMs Guide, or something like that. The DM part in the book is already extensive and full of examples and all that, but I found there is still more to say, and maybe room to discuss some tricks and traps (and, maybe, an errata of sorts, if I find any really bad hickups). 

All in all, it ended up being satire again, which is also nice to see. The setting is so dark that people seem to gravitate towards humor to lighten the mood. Just as intended. That critical fart was just plain random luck, though. You couldn't come up with that :D

I'm looking forward to the next Episode. I'll send this to the players as well, and maybe they'll add their thoughts and impressions in the comments :)

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In other news, I will keep the discount on Ø2\\'3|| up until end of July and you can check out a free preview of the book right here (or go and check out the first reviews here).

If you need more convincing, maybe this post might get you there. If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here ...

 

How to alter D&D, the be67 revision: Part 1 (Basic/Expert rules supplement, grindhouse style)

Lockdowns have us playing more D&D again (first digitally, recently in meat space, even!). If you know this blog, you know I have a set of house rules I'm constantly tinkering with. It's all spread over the last 10 years of posting. The last iteration is something I call be67 and it pushes the whole concept into grindhouse/splatter territory. It's basically a D&D RC/HackMaster 4E hybrid with a special twist or two. This is going to be a revised collection of all those ideas, in several parts, putting all of it into a D&D context. This will be a little booklet in the end, hopefully some time this year. Stay tuned, stay safe, stay healthy ...

A word on compatibility

This should work with all and any early versions and clones of D&D. Those games are build in blocks and some of it is interchangeable or added to without much fuss. The D&D RC and the Labyrinth Lord rules are what I've worked here with, but even AD&D could be modified accordingly.

However, you'll have to take into account that heavy changes might need additional rules or changes that accomodate those alterations.

Let me give an example here (a sketch to the detailed explanations below): this system will do way more damage than D&D would do normally. Not only can dice somewhat explode (Echo, see below), you will get additional and better damage dice if the die result allows for it and the players cooperate. To compensate for that, you need to allow for tactical decisions to where a character takes a small disadvantage to be harder to hit, for instance.

It might not be enough, though, which means you'll have to install more measures to counteract massive amounts of damage. It's why we introduced hit locations (you might lose a limb but not your life) and a luck pool (reduce your luck attribute to manipulate rolls) as standards. The result is that characters are harder to hit, might get maimed instead of killed and save their lifes by spending luck points (being unlucky in future rolls as a consequence).

All those alterations are minor, as the system stays intact, but crucial, as the system would fall apart without them (due to a VERY high lethality, of course). It's the rules of tinkering. Change something, see what it affects and introduce counter-measures where necessary ...

Adding to the rules being like ... [source]

What stayed the same

You still have six Ability Scores, although partially renamed (this has to work for the late 1960s, after all). The Saves are still there. I have been looking for alternatives, but have to say, beating the original 5 Saves system is damn hard. All the alternatives I have seen, even the 'official' ones, haven't even come close.

I know people see that differently, but I found they mostly ignore the flavor and sense of gravity the original Saves radiated (Save versus DEATH RAYS!). A character's passive reaction to their surroundings should be taken as seriously as their conscious interaction. Having just three Saves (or even one!) and without the flavor (Reflexes, blech) takes too much away from the game, imho. So the Saves stay.

Attacks are still 1d20 + modifiers vs. AC.

Classes are still there, although somewhat modified. The engine is the same (Fighter, Thief, Wizard & Cleric classes), but the chassis is quite different (again, as per the assumed setting, you'll need to have convicts, hippies, veterans and such). The approach is somewhat similar to what the D&D RC actually offers, as I assume that the canonical characters are nothing more but inspiration and should help informing a DM to build their own cadre of classes.

How far I'll push this in terms of level advancement, I can't quite tell right now. We are still testing options, and while it's nice to have something simple like later editions, I can't help but admire the subtlety a class bases advancement offers (thieves are weak, but advance faster, if played right, Elves take a really long time on paper, but a capable player will have no problem advancing as fast as the others, if the game is played RAW).

I wrote a post about this, if you are interested in my thinking here (go here). I'll leave my options on the table for now, but how xp are gained had a massive overhaul and might work as enough of an equalizer to allow for the same progression (I also like to see level advancement as a group endeavor ... maybe I should push more towards something down that road?).

Anyway. As many, many people have pointed out when deconstructing D&D, those are the core tenets of the game. All changes and additions are build with this in  mind and to achieve a very specific gaming experience: 60s grindhouse splatter. Compatibility is so high, you could easily use be67 to play Temple of Elemental Evil. You just have to find a way to have those hippies crash in the Hommlet ...

Not the Europe you had imagined, though ... [source]

So this has lots of options to play the same game with a very different tone. Maybe a bit like as if Tarantino had written D&D instead of Gygax, but today and with the 60s grindhouse features in mind and gallons of blood. Could also be Wolfenstein: The New Order as a role-playing game.

Let's start talking about how to make that happen, following the example given above. In a way this is also a 'Best of the Blog'-feature, as we are turning 10 years old here :)

Step 1: Hacking HackMaster 4e to run with D&D RC

This is basically a back engineering of AD&D 2e (revised) to work with B/X. The main features in HM had been (1) exploding dice, (2) a big HP buffer for more hacking, (3) a honor system that allowed for a meta system where characters by sacrificing their honor could gain benefits from rerolls to actually surviving a deadly attack, (4) a complex and detailed advancement system with goodies for everyone and (5) critical hits that may leave you maimed instead of dead.

Most of them established in AD&D 2e, all of them good things to have in a game of SPLATTER, but also rather baroque and extensive (that honor system alone ... man, it took me ages to wrap my brain around that one).

AD&D 2e at the end? [source]

As I said in the beginning, took me 10 years get the fine-tuning done for this, but I did manage to translate ALL of that into B/X somehow:

(1) EXPLODING DICE are Echo now. This means, if a player rolls the maximum on a die, they may roll the next lower die and add the result. There is no die lower than the d4. IMPLICATIONS: it opens up the game in places where people tend to roll often, which would be mostly combat, and that means more damage. This was to be expected, so measures have been implemented with randomized hit locations and by opening up the Funk ability score (originally Charisma) as a luck pool players can drain to alter results effecting them. Limbs are lost easily, but this being the grindhouse genre, alternatives are gained easily enough (see The Rule of Cool). RESULT: Characters are maimed easily, but it's not that hard a disadvantage.

(2) THE HP BUFFER is regulated through rules for dodging and cooperation, as well as randomized hit locations and Funk. The origin of the rules of dodging are based in the necessity of gun play and the lack of AC in the game, playing in the 60s and all that. Therefore it became necessary to make it easier to gain protection from the surroundings and the support from your fellow buddies. IMPLICATIONS: It made a point-based initiative system necessary that actually made it possible for people to support each other in various ways. They can now protect and help each other, ideally overcoming enemies with ingenuity before they are seriously getting hurt themselves. Additionally they may gain via advancement a Second Wind Pool that allows for some fast regeneration. RESULT: Those rules will automatically have people change position and support each other. If still hit, it might be a limb or it might be modified by Funk. People get hit less often, but harder, which then can be negotiated to some degree with the tools provided.

(3) THE HONOR SYSTEM was reduced to Funk. Easily enough, Funk can be reduced by the points needed to alter some result effecting a character. All results can be altered, but always only the last result effecting the player (you can't just wait how it plays out and then alter the combat die after damage has resolved, for instance). Low Funk will result in disadvantages, as all low ability scores would. Which element of the game is effected is determined randomly at the beginning of each session and Funk regenerates every time a character advances. Furthermore, players can decide to start a Funk Pool with level advancement whre each point collected allows for a reroll. IMPLICATIONS: Since Funk has such strong implications for the game, it became rather necessary to make the same true for all other ability scores. There are no dump stats in be67, instead players will have to make meaningful decisions during character creation. RESULT: As characters progress between levels, their Funk usually will take a hit or two, but those decisions are ALWAYS dramatic and will fit the genre quasi automatically.

(4) THE ADVANCEMENT SYSTEM is reduced, but more detailed than what B/X offers. Characters not only gain HP and occasionally an additional attack or maybe some skill points, they can also attempt to gain a benefit associated with the ability scores. Each Ablity Score stands for another aspect relevant to the game (the Second Wind and Funk Pools are already mentioned, Weapon Mastery as well as skill points and better initiative are also options). Another heavy focus was on HOW experience is gained. This changed mostly towards xp for damage, in several variations. Usually, all damage made or taken during the game is collected and multiplied by 10. However, dismemberment, high damage and instant kills are worth a higher multiplier. IMPLICATIONS: While being totally in tune for the genre, this lends itself easily to an award system as one would know it from first person shooters. As a consequence, the whole advancement experience adapted towards that approach. The group collects special xp awards over the course of a session and check, if the awards stack towards a higher goal (combos, flawless attack, you name it). RESULT: The game resolves about the art of SPLATTER in a way that translates a computer game experience into D&D, very much with the same effect. People will cheer a gory insta-kill just as they would with your favorite FPS. What's more, everytime characters advance, something happens. Small changes, for sure, but still meaningful to the players.

(5) CRITICAL HITS, finally, are directly connected to Echo (as are fumbles, but reversed), so the result of the d12 that is rolled after a natural 20, will have additional damage implications with rising severity. Furthermore, the damage system has been altered. Instead of having weapons with specific damages, characters have Weapon Mastery in different categories and damage dice associated with that. How high the Damage Die is relates to class, level and cooperation, how many dice are rolled is determined by the attack result. IMPLICATIONS: This is quite gory to begin with, which means the critical hit tables need to offer an additional aspect to the table (it can result in nicknames, for instance, and signature moves against specific enemies, if the results are high enough). Damage is also now tied to how well a player knows the system (as well as to high rolls), and since all of this is connected with gaining xp, there's another incentive to use rules that help manifesting the genre at the table. It all loops rather nicely. RESULT: Characters can be as deadly with their fists as with their guns, which, again, is quite like you'd know from the grindhouse features. Big gun makes big bang, but the kung fu master will have organs explode with their attacks. It's all quite satisfying, actually. Even more so when players start cooperating for higher results.

And that's that. The beauty of it is, not only is it a great deal reminiscent of HackMaster 4e (to me, at least), it's also less clunky and fits the D&D RC rules (or Labyrinth Lord or Basic Edition or any other clone) rather well while emulating the genre, as you can see.

That's already a lot, right?

With the basics established like that, we can go into the specific rules next and talk about how they alter the original rules and to what effect in detail. Step 2 should be something like "Altering B/X classes to fit the 60s", Step 3 should handle combat, Step 4 everything else (Skills, Saves, the lot). Step 5 would be about advancement and Step 6, finally, will adress what DMs have to keep in mind when DMing be67 ... I'd say that's some posting for the foreseeable future.

The high art of improving the basics ... [source]

That said, what do you guys think so far? Was I able to explain how the changes apply and what they alter? Or that it's all still D&D? Are any HackMaster afficionados among you that can appreciate (or hate?) the design choices alluded to above? As always, I'm happy to read your thoughts.

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In other news, I managed to publish a cyberpunk role-playing game and you can check out a free preview of the book right here (or go and check out the first reviews here).

If you need convincing, maybe this post will get you there. If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here ...

 

The Rule of Cool (for be67): Changing the Game outside the Rules?

We are meeting regularly right now to play-test The Rise of Robo-Hitler (which is tons of fun , just so you know), and something came up during play a couple of sessions ago, that should be in the rules as well: the Rule of Cool, or, in other words, a 'soft rule' to inject some grindhouse-awesomeness. Turns out, people have been doing this for decades now (shocker!). Still worth looking into, still what I'm writing about today. Lets take a look.

The Rule of Cool in other Media

So the (mostly?) great wiki TV Tropes defines The Rule of Cool as follows (find the whole entry here):

The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its awesomeness.

Another great (and short!) way to put it, is 'rad herring' (see whole entry linked above). I like that a lot ...

Either way, we almost already have an idea what that means or what that might look like. It's when you lol in cinema, it's when a director or writer go out of their way to (consciously or not) visualise something absurd with glee, with a wink to the audience (when done well, even with a nod to the audience).

You know it ... [source]

I love the Expendables franchise for shit like this. Anime is having fun with this, like, ALL THE TIME, generating memes like crazy. The Rule of Cool is adding lots of spice to pop-culture and nerd-dome and we love having those moments in our games (me and my players do so definitely, but I assume this to be generally true?). 

That said, for this being relevant in gaming, it is important to realize that while we certainly applaud what's cool when we are surprised by it on the screen (or in the game or on the page ...), it is always the creator's intention to test the boundaries of the Suspension of Disbelief for that specific effect (successfully or not, even consciously or not!). Moments like this need a stage and preparation AND perfect execution (through several instances, if we are talking film).

Let's take a look at how to manufacture that in general.

So, artificial spontanity, or what?

We should start by comparing the techniques used to evoke The Rule of Cool with jokes, as those two actually seem to use some of the same mechanisms. Working towards a joke needs a lot of things that are relevant for gaming as well. There is precision and focus to it, as well as deception, it needs to establish a scenario that makes a sleight of hand (the punchline) possible. If you ever listened to comedians talking about their craft, you quickly get an idea how much work it is to get a presentable result. That includes, incidentally, enough practise to have the jokes come naturally.

If they are any good craftsmen (talented or not), they come extremely prepared to appear spontaneous. If they are brillant, they bridge the set pieces with improvisation according to the live feedback they receive on stage with ease. Which is, or so I have heard, the reason why sets presented without an audience don't work that well ...

And those things matter, because they show that those moments are orchestrated as well as tapping into the immediate moment of the presentation. You set the tone, but the tact will differ from audience to audience, and while a movie just has to assume that the attempt will work in general, good immediate crowd work allows for a different kind of setup and direct manipulation. As you'd have a good DM do in a game. Come prepared, work yourself towards the best delivery of your highlights you can manage under the circumstances.

So it takes more than some good ideas to surprise an audience into laughter or to get them engaged enough to integrate something strange into their suspense of disbelief just because it's cool. That sleight of hand, that surprise attack needs you to tap into something deeper hidden in our ways to communicate than mere originality (as execution can kill almost all good attempts at something like this, as you'll be well aware if you DM regularly).

This is just ... epic?! [source]

In a way, it actually needs to be spontaneous to have a lasting effect. I know there are games out there that evoke this with either fancy art or some stylish set of abilities/items/feats/what-have-you that will create "cool" moments in the game. However, this is limited to using the rules as part of the game and not necessarily related to actually playing, if you get my drift.

Ideally, the game should inspire players to create awesome moments and offer spaces for that as well, one would think. While artwork and templates can go a long way, it's having that room to allow for the players to come up with it on the fly during the game that really transports The Rule of Cool from the rule-book to the table.

So, how would one codify something like this into a rule book, one might ask.

Soft rules versus hard rules ...

Here's a good rule of thumb: the setting formulates the soft rules of any role-playing game. Social norms, physical/magical/technological/other anomalities, laws, all those things often help navigating characters through a gaming world without immediate involvement of the rules.

To communicate this, genre forms easy markers that allow translation of ideas and concepts between the participants of a game (offering hints, like, for instance: "Imagine Japan in the Edo period, but in Space!", or something like that). To some degree it allows players to make conclusions about a setting without actually knowing it very well. If the stage is set like that, the set-pieces of a setting will accumulate over time and allow for a unique "feel" of a setting.

Again, art can go a long way here to establish a base-line, but it's language you'll need to elevate all of that into something that can produce peaks of "cool". It also usually needs the build-up during a session to really come to fruition, so consecutive time is one aspect to consider here.

Sometimes a gif is more than 1000 words ... [source]

What's more, it's usually not the DM that should evoke The Rule of Cool in a game, it's the player. Actually, DMs going for The Rule of Cool will most likely have him lose credibility if they do so, unless it is not only very cool but also very beneficial for the players. The Rule of Cool is, in a sense, about subversion as much as it is about being impressive. The DM can barely act in that realm without seeming like a show-off*.

"Gaming the system" actually has a long and celebrated tradition in role-playing games. If you need any examples, look at creative uses of D&D/AD&D spells or for stories where the "soft rules" a DM offered where successfully used in-game to circumvent the "hard rules" (that's mainly the DM allowing access to some powerful tool or circumstance the players are bound to abuse as much as possible ... without the DM participating it beforehand).

Knowing this gives gives a skilled DM an opportunity to open the game into the meta-game. Because willfully done, leaving (or even provoking!) those (say) windows of opportunity for the players to exploit can actually help evoking certain genres. In a way, you play the players for them to "game the system" as part of what would actually be expected. HackMaster 4E excelled at integrating that kind of thinking into AD&D, imo**.

You'll never know for sure ... [source]

I think the above describes all the pieces we need to come to an understanding what The Rule of Cool can be in be67 - A Game of Extraordinary Splatter ...

The Rule of Cool in be67 (D&D goes Grindhouse)

The rules we play with are an extension to your Basic D&D rule-set. As such, people will lose limbs and gain extra xp for extra carnage. It's a bloody mess, literally. And comically excessive, of course.

The characters are quotes of the classic tropes the sploitation genre can offer. The Veteran, doing one last favor for the president, the convict doing something dirty to get his freedom, the spy doing James Bond things ... but they also experience great bodily harm.

Since all this happens in the pseudo-reality that is Grindhouse movie features, D&D magic is replaced by movie logic: The Rule of Cool! While D&D might offer a spell or miracle to recreate a lost limb, The Rule of Cool allows for a montage where a crazy scientist builds a new arm for the character (although with a twist, of course!). Or (as it happened in our game) the player gets to have a machine gun for an arm. Or mutants help a character to grow a new limb ... but it's a tentacle!

That's one way. Another twist in the rules is that characters do damage according to categories instead of weapons. If a player wants to, their fists are as deadly as a machine gun or they are able to do as much damage with a spoon as they would with a sword ... Again, movie logic helps explaining it. The result is that players can summon The Rule of Cool to do some very creative damage.

The Rule of Cool, for sure! [source]

In a sense, the soft rule here is more of a mind-set. Players can do what they want within the setting (if it makes sense at all, that is), but it comes with a disadvantage that matches the benefits while not really altering the "hard" rules.

The hard rules accomodate this to some extend, the rest is provided by a setting that might have a werewolf fraternity doing the dirty work for some corporate lizard people by fighting some eco-witches while the characters move between the lines to save some spirit of the forest (or something like that ... I'd add some possessed lumberjacks and laser guns). It's wild so the character can be as well.

It all seems so obvious now ...

 ... has it been done before? I haven't seen something like this written down in a role-playing game yet ... but it is implied, for sure. As a matter of fact, many lite-rules systems completely seem to rely on something like a "rule of cool" to compensate for the lack of rules. "Movie logic" seems to be replaced by "rpg logic" that way. No judgement, just an observation. A good DM with some creative players can definitely make that work (although not for any kind of long-term campaigning, I presume).

Anyway, it's not necessarily a big leap in innovative game design, but I thought it might offer some interesting perspectives on something every rpg-player might have experienced one way or another, why that might be, and how I aim to exploit this for the supplement I'm working on.

If you have seen other games implementing something like this, I'd be happy to hear about it! Always interesting to see how other designers handled aspects of the game like that.

I'd also love to hear stories where you guys made The Rule of Cool apply. I'm sure there are thousands of stories like this out there.

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In other news, I managed to publish a cyberpunk role-playing game and you can check out a free preview of the book right here (or go and buy it here).

If you need convincing, maybe this post will get you there. If you already checked it out, please know that I appreciate you :) It'll certainly help to keep the lights on here ...

 

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* Irritatingly so, content creators have found ways to provide DMs a good excuse to evoke The Rule of Cool by offering "artsy" and "edgy" content for them to recite instead of having them create content themselves, furthering that one way of playing role-playing games that reduces the DM to a form of entertainer (not to say "clown") by becoming the mouth-piece of the author.

** You want to know my opinion why? Read this.