Category: GM Resources

Margol’s Defiance – a light in abyssal darkness

The name of Margol Endlessein is lost to the cataclysm that reduced their home civilization to dust and ruin. Little remains of the once great and magically empowered nation whose mighty structures stand only as sparse ruins, so thoroughly scourged that little history is to be gleaned from the few crumbling walls and sunken chambers.

The one remnant that hints at the power harnessed by this ancient empire is the vast array of magical items that serve as weapons against fiendish enemies. Margol’s defiance is one such item that empowers the wearer in their battle against the abyss.

This golden circlet houses a small yellow gem which rests in the centre of the wearer’s forehead. The gem contains a small mote of sunlight which can be harnessed to bring light in the darkness and guide the wearer’s hand against creatures of darkness.

The circlet has 5 charges, and it completely regains all charges when it is touched by the first rays of dawn sunlight.

An attuned wearer can say a command word and expend 1 charge to cause the gem to glow as if the Light had been cast on it. While the gem is glowing, the wearer has advantage on all attack rolls against fiends and undead, and such creatures have disadvantage on all attack rolls against the wearer.

Staff of Soul’s Fire

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This magical staff is made from blackened redwood, and infused with magic that stirs up energy and emotions. It can cause the air to burst into flames, and stir up the passions in one’s soul, even to a point of madness.

Staff, very rare (requires attunement by a Bard, Sorcerer, or Warlock)

While attuned, you can cast the  fire bolt cantrip as long as you are holding the staff in at least one hand.

The staff has 10 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: heroism (1 charge per target, up to max. 4), enemies abound (3 charges),  fireball (3 charges), or wall of fire (4 charges).

While holding this staff, you can use it as an arcane focus for casting any spell that requires an attack roll, and expend 1 charge to add 1D6 fire damage to the spell’s effect. Any target that takes damage form this effect is set on fire, and will take 1D10 damage at the start of each of their turns, until they spend an action to extinguish the flames. A maximum of 1 charge per spell can be spent in this fashion, and this ability cannot be used to further enhance the casting of spells contained in the staff.

Anyone who attempts to attune to this staff who is not a Charisma-based spell caster must make a Charisma saving throw (DC15). They take 4D6 fire damage on a failed save, and 2D6 on a successful save.

The staff regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff instantly ignites, crumbles into cinders, and is destroyed.

Staff of the Elemental Master

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This is a homebrew item for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Modeled after the Staff of Power, it exists to represent the idea of a caster gaining a degree of mastery over natural elements.

Staff of the Elemental Master

Staff, Very Rare (Requires attunement by a Druid)

This 5’ staff is made of the gnarled, petrified branch of an ancient redwood. It weighs over 240 pounds; however, once attuned, it becomes as light as fresh cut timber and can be used as a magic quarterstaff in Melee.

A Druid attuned to the staff can always draw breath in any environment, and gains resistance to fire and lightning damage.

The staff has 20 charges, and regains 1d8+2 charges every sunrise and sunset. The staff can regain an additional d6 charges per day by submerging it in a large quantity of any natural element that is highly active (e.g. a raging river, a burning conflagration, a gale-force wind, etc). If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff retains its ability to grant breath in any environment, and damage resistances, but loses all other abilities. On a 20, it unleashes a level 9 lightning bolt directed by the wielder, using normal spellcasting rules.

Lightning Strike: When you hit with a melee attack using the staff, you can expend 1 charge to deal an extra 1d6 lightning damage to the target.

Spells: While holding the staff, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC and spell attack bonus: Gust of Wind (2 charges) Plant Growth (3 charges); Move Earth (6 charges); Lightning Bolt, 5th level version (5 charges); Wall of Fire (4 charges); Control Water (4 charges); Control Weather (8 charges)

RPG Setting Rumours: street brawler edition

adult-ancient-armor-289831.jpg[NOTE: This post sat in my drafts folder for over a year. No, I don’t know why.]

There are two things I like to do when developing RPG settings:

First, I love to populate settings with rumours and local legends. These give a feel of being living places, and also you never know when a rumour will spark a plot hook that leads to a fun new adventure.

The second thing I love to do is crowd source ideas so that a) I don’t have to do all the work and b) I end up with a more varied and interesting range of possibilities to work with.

This post contains a series of ideas shared on twitter in response to this post:

Continue reading “RPG Setting Rumours: street brawler edition”

The First Singer – A DnD 5e Bard variant

E.g. Chorister / Cantor / Hazzan / Muessin

This Bard is the leader of a religious rite or congregation. Their songs are drawn from the myths, legends, and rituals of a particular god or gods and their chants are part poetry, part prayer or mythic storytelling.

As a First Singer, the bard might be a part of a temple, leading worship and rites for the crowds, or they might be a wandering preacher, carrying the word and songs of their gods across the land. They are adept at engaging a large audience, and capturing a crowd with their mythic storytelling and song.

A First Singer is different to a Cleric, in that they find their inspiration in the stories and music, rather than more devout forms of worship. A First Singer need not even be a true believer, and may find religious songs a helpful ruse as they ply their crowds for donations and rumours.

Inspiration for a First Singer bard can be found in many cultures and times. The ancient greek chorus used to chant and sing and dance their epic tales as part of grand religious festivals, wearing masks and using small drums, cymbals and beat sticks. Among the many variation of Christianity you will find the Cantor, who leads a congregation in prayer. A similar role is played by the Jewish Hazzan, while the Muslim Muezzin leads the call to prayer to bring people to the mosque for worship.

Alignment: A First Singer’s alignment will usually partially align with the god whose stories they tell, or the temple in which they lead.

Instruments: Instruments that keep rhythm, like tambourines, drums, prayer cymbals or bells are very common among First Singers. Some may have stringed instruments, though would favour those like a lute that have a chamber for resonance and can be heard over a larger area.

Bard Colleges:

Bard(Web) (1)
Johan, a Cantor of Pelor. Image by @EthanMAldridge

College of Lore: A First Singer who joins the College of Lore may pursue the greater truth of the universe beyond the teachings of a particular god or belief. They may become mystics or gnostics who recognise a greater mystery of the world beyond a single deity.

Their spell choices will likely favour detection and dispelling, and the ability to perceive and cross into the meta-planes in pursuit of the ultimate, world-creating song.

College of Valor: It’s an easy step to go from leading a choir in song to inspiring an army with a battle hymn. First Singers who walk the path of valor may become the heart and soul of a fighting unit, crying inspirational charges and rallying songs, and soothing soldiers during brief respite.

Spell choices will favour those that inspire others to greater feats of heroism, heal the wounded and aid the Bard’s own fighting skills.

College of Whispers: These First Singers use their knowledge of ancient tales to invoke holy terror in their enemies in order to seek out heresy. Their chants and songs take on a darker tone as they seek out enemies of their god and deliver appropriate punishment. These questioners are not well liked, because they are often the vanguard of a full blown inquisition, and sometimes even their very presence, if known, is enough to create a religious panic and invite all manner of accusations between neighbours.

Questioners learn spells that distract and terrify their targets, compel truth or otherwise give the Bard an advantage in squeezing confessions – true or otherwise – from the subject of their investigation.

The GM & the Tarot: 4 – A sample session outline

<<<Previous: 3 – Devising a session

The purpose of this post is to provide a sample of a session outline developed using the processes outlined in Part 3 – Devising a session. This example will be for a Shadowrun game session and will build on the campaign frame and sample NPCs developed in Part 2 – framing a campaign. If you haven’t read the previous posts detailing the use of cards, this post may be a little hard to follow, though the scenario outline at the end should still be of use.

First, in order to kick off the story a begin building plots involving my major NPCs, I’ve opted to incorporate two of the Major Arcana/NPCs into my session draw. After a bit of shuffling, The Chariot was mixed into the 7 card draw, and The Hierophant is a secondary factor in the story.

Session outline draw

The initial 7 card draw comes out as follows:

Story Element Card Suggested meaning
Inciting Incident 9 of Swords Failure, death, delay
Story Goal The Chariot (Major NPC – Smuggler)- also, war, triumph, providence
Primary Obstacle 10 of Cups Contentment, perfection
Assistance 9 of Cups (inverted) Concord, victory, success
Opposition 6 of Swords (inverted) Journey, route, way
Consequences / Stakes Judgement (inverted) Accounting for past actions
Rewards 4 of Pentacles Resisting change

Interpreting the cards

Because The Chariot emerged as the Story Goal, the objective of the story is for the characters to help the Major NPC of the Smuggler achieve a significant goal. As another Major Arcana emerged under Consequences / Stakes, that aspect of the story will be related to the second NPC in this story, the corporate military R&D agent (The Hierophant). Because the Judgement card is inverted, the Hierophant’s involvement in the story will be indirect and possibly not something the player characters are aware of.

Now onto the rest of the cards:

While the common conceit to start a story in Shadowrun games is that the PCs are hired to do a job or ‘run’, and not wanting to over complicate things for the first session in a new campaign I will stick with that arrangement. The reasons for the job, however, can be coloured by the card that is drawn and influence the circumstances of the rest of the session.

So this story begins when the characters are hired to replace another team who have failed to do a job (‘failure’ as represented by the 9 of Swords). This immediately suggests that the job is particularly difficult. The reasons for their failure will be determined after more of the session outline is completed.

The goal of this story is to help the Smuggler deliver a package – they PCs are to meet the Smuggler somewhere just inside the national border and take possession of a package and then get it to its intended destination.

The primary obstacle of this session is defined by ‘contentment, or perfection’ – following on from the influence of the 9 of Swords as the Inciting Element, this card could be interpreted as a further absence of contentment, or even the opportunity for contentment, meaning that the pressure is really on for this task. The job has just become incredibly time-sensitive and so the PCs have far less than their usual time for preparation – effectively none – and will have to improvise more than usual to complete the task in time. To further expand on the idea of an absence of contentment, the primary setting for the story will be on unfamiliar and hostile territory. In the default Shadowrun setting of the Seattle city-state, there are plenty of hostile urban sprawls and slums in which such events can take place. In this case, the PCs have to meet the Smuggler in one of the abandoned regions of the city rendered uninhabitable by an erupting volcano, occupied now by urban predators, gangs and magical nasties that dwell in the dark places of the Shadowrun universe.

Whatever assistance is available to the characters at short notice is not immediately evident and would therefore require some exploration or creative thinking on behalf of the PCs to uncover. In the context of the story so far, and given a primary meaning of the 9 of Cups is ‘concord’, or agreement between groups of people, there will be a small community of homeless people living around the area who can help the PCs navigate through unfamiliar terrain. This help will not be offered freely, nor will their presence be immediately evident.

Opposition, defined by an inverted 6 of Swords, has to do with the route or journey the characters or their goal will take. A clear use for this card is not immediately evident, so I’ll wait to apply the remaining cards before deciding in this one.

The inverted Judgement card relates to the NPC of the Hierophant, or the military R&D agent, who themselves have a hidden motive. This character is behind some aspect of the story but their involvement is indirect, so I interpret that as meaning that the character will be acting through third party agents as well as further ciphers to protect their identity, should the PCs go looking. I also have to remember that this character is meant to be the primary antagonist of the campaign and so it can’t hurt for their relationship to the characters to get off on a bad foot.

Therefore, I choose to interpret this card and it’s position on the draw as referring to the ‘consequences of success’ in the style of ‘no good deed goes unpunished’. If the characters succeed in their task they will incur, at least, some ongoing bad favour from their hidden adversary.This means that the hidden NPC doesn’t want the characters to succeed. But why? The NPC has an investment in the characters failing in their task. This NPC wants to claim the item that the characters are helping to smuggle, which, given the secret motivation of the NPC suggests that the smuggled items have some value to the NPCs secret pursuit to ‘transcend humanity’ through cyber-technology.

The last card in the ‘rewards’ position  indicates that ‘resisting change’ will be a primary benefit of success in this story. Given the result of the card/story element above, this is going to mean that succeeding in this task will prevent something significantly worse from happening – it means a significant delay in the NPCs progress towards their goal, which, by extension, means that the NPCs goal is something worth stopping.

With these two final cards in place it helps to interpret the card in the ‘Opposition’ position. The characters will be opposed by others who want to get the smuggled package on a different route or journey than the direction the PCs will take it. The one element I will then add to the story that isn’t immediately suggested by the cards will be the agents that are trying to intercept the package and prevent the PCs from succeeding. Given that the major NPC has an allied NPC (or group) in the form of an elite squad of soldiers assisting in the research, some manifestation of that group will be the opposing agents in this session.

With all of those elements in place, it’s time to draft the final session outline…

Session outline

Backstory: The NPC R&D agent is involved in some less-than-ethical research into pushing the limits of cyberware and the human condition. While doing more mainstream research for their primary employer, a corp-run military outfit, they are also pushing their own agenda and subtly manipulating some experiments in order to test personal hypotheses alongside the corp-approved research goals.

One facility that operates in a location outside of the games setting was the subject of a successful run to capture a lot of research data, and then damage or destroy the facilities and any available data backups.

The perpetrators of this run did not know that the facility and research they were targeting were part of the NPC R&D agents personal agenda.

Upon learning of the heist, the NPC set a couple of members of their available allied soldiers to track down the perpetrators and reclaim the missing data. Because the true nature of the research was secretive and the NPC didn’t want to draw additional attention, they send only a small number of soldiers on this mission (perhaps the corporation that owned the facility considered it an acceptable loss, especially seeing as such espionage is a common part of doing business in the world of Shadowrun).

So the team of runners that were meant to receive the package were intercepted by the soldiers while the smuggler with the data was still in transit, leaving the person who initiated the job to arrange for a new crew to make the pickup with little preparation and deliver it to a third and final agent.

Gameplay outline: The PCs are hired by a generic agent to pick up a job after the previous team have dropped out of contact. They have to meet the smuggler in a remote and hostile part of town, collect a package, and get it to another destination back in the inhabited part of the city. They characters are offered an enticing bonus to their pay to make up for the lack of preparation time and the extra danger implied by the disappearance of the previous crew.

The location of the meeting is a particularly desolate and alien piece of terrain. Long-cold lava flows engulf the bottom stories of buildings, many of which are crumbling and unstable due to the damage to their lower floors – rubble and difficult terrain abounds. The Smuggler will be coming in an aerial vehicle to land on one of the few large, stable buildings in the area that has a still-serviceable landing pad on its roof, where the PCs will meet, collect the package and aim to get back out the way they came.

This will involve a bit of planning and improvising on the part of the GM to characterise the terrain and consider how it may present challenges to the characters. Being inaccessible to most conventional vehicles is a good starting point.

Once the PCs have the package, the soldiers tracking them will make their move and try to reclaim the data being smuggled. Because in the world of Shadowrun, data can be smuggled/transferred via the Matrix, this package will also include a physical element. A prototype device that is also being transported.

The major conflict of the session then will be the PCs trying to either fight or flee from a small group of elite soldiers who will be better equipped and trained to operate in this environment. If they succeed, they will be marked by the NPC as being part of an opposing conspiracy, and if they fail they will either be killed by the soldiers, or at least lose the package entrusted to them by the Smuggler.

This will be played out in roughly three main scenes,

One – the hire. The PCs meet with the hiring agent who will impress upon them the urgency and potential dangers of the job (set the stakes high!)

Two – the meeting. The PCs enter the area of the ground, where the GM develops the alien nature of the surroundings and the challenges it presents. The PCs may have a little bit of time to explore and in which to potentially uncover the possibility of assistance from the local community (which might come in the form of a secret passageway out or helping transport the package so the characters can lead the soldiers away – this would be high risk and possibly result in achieving the story goal while still suffering significant personal consequences or death).

Three – Ambush! The soldiers spring their trap which, depending on the PC’s actions, could results in a deadly stand-up fight or a pursuit through difficult territory to freedom.

And that’s it! There’s an example of using tarot cards to develop a session outline and related story elements.

If you have any questions or comments, please post them below.

<<

The GM & the tarot: Part 3 – Devising a session

<<<Previously: 2 – Framing a campaign

Next: 4 – A sample session outline>>>

Having used the Major Arcana to develop the landscape of your campaign, it’s now time to bring the rest of the deck into play in order to devise an individual session.

While this post refers to generating a ‘session’, that is shorthand for ‘a single narrative arc of complication-action-resolution that might realistically be expected to be played in a single session’. This means a single complication that needs to be resolved through character action, with factors to add options, obstacles and assistances for the characters.

This use of cards can actually be a more complex process as it requires an even more abstract interpretation of the cards, and does not present quite as ‘neat’ a framework as just using the major arcana for the broad strokes of a campaign. As with all parts of this process, it is intended to prompt ideas that might be outside of your usual approach to generating story ideas, not to restrict or limit ideas. So go with interpretations of the cards that makes sense in the context of your game, rather than being concerned about finding the ‘right’ or ‘best’ use of a card in any given context.

Before beginning a draw of cards to outline a session, you have to decide what to do with the Major Arcana cards relating to your primary NPCs

How to use the Major Arcana

The way you incorporate the Major Arcana into a session outline card draw depends on whether you want your overarching campaign narrative to develop quickly, or to be a background part of a more open-world campaign with lots of subplots.

You can either keep the set of Major Arcana representing your primary NPCs separate from the deck, or you can mix them in with the other cards to see if and when they emerge. Whichever you choose, mix the remainder of the Major Arcana into the deck (including the ones used to identify NPC motivations).

  1. If you expect to be playing for an extended time and want any developing meta-narrative to emerge slowly, with NPC plots developing along in the background, then mix them into the deck. Should they turn up in a draw, then you interpret them in a way that directly relates to that NPC (which is an interesting way to have subplots and unexpected twists turn up in your game)
  2. If you want your game to quickly develop an overarching narrative that focuses on the machinations and conflicts of your major NPCs, leave them out of the deck. Before completing the draw below, draw two of the Major Arcana. Mix one of those 2 into the cards you’ll draw for the session outline (below) and place the other one to the side. The card mixed into the session outline draw will be the NPC who is primarily involved in the session / story, while the second card will be the one whose interests are invoked in the story, though maybe not by the NPC themselves being directly involved.

The session outline draw

After deciding what you want to do with the Major Arcana, shuffle the deck and draw 7 cards and lay them out in a row (or 6 + one Major Arcana as detailed above) . The cards inform the following elements of the story:

1 – Inciting Element

2 – Story Goal

3 – Primary Obstacle

4 – Assistance

5 – Opposition

6 – Consequences / Stakes

7 – Rewards

When shuffling the deck, you can introduce a swirl or reversal of some cards so that the orientation of the cards is also mixed up, as with the drawing of motivations in Part 2. Those cards that appear inverted indicate something hidden or secretive about the result, while those that are drawn upright indicate elements of the story that are available.

Interpreting the cards

When interpreting the cards, the abstract (vague?) meanings and imagery of many of the minor arcana can be interpreted to represent physical or abstract ideas within your story. If, for example, you drew the Four of Swords to represent the major obstacle in your session, you might interpret it as an actual person who is vigilant and ever watchful, or it might be that the scenario calls for the characters to be vigilant, and therefore you’ll throw lots of distractions and red-herrings at them. You have a lot of flexibility to shape the cards to suit the style and tone to the kinds of stories you like to tell.

However, the following guidelines can also help to make the abstract meanings and imagery of most tarot decks more relevant to a role-playing game:

  1. If any of the royal cards are drawn (page, knight, king, queen) then use those to represent a new NPC who is of significance to that particular session – and who may become a recurring secondary character in your game. Whether or not that secondary NPC has any direct relationship to your primary NPCs is up to you based on how you interpret the remainder of the cards.
  2. If an Ace is drawn at any point, then make that story element something of ‘greater-than-usual-significance’ to the setting of your game. This way, you occasionally introduce heightened stakes, or elements of drama in your stories.
  3. If any Major Arcana are drawn, then that element of the story/session must directly relate to the business of one of the primary NPCs defined earlier in the process.

a. If you chose the option to mix the Major Arcana relating to your major NPCs back into the deck, then you choose which NPC a card relates to.

b. If more than one Major Arcana appear, then connect each card to a different primary NPC – this is how new conflicts and subplots can develop within your game. If you have chosen to draw 2 Major Arcana as part of your session outline draw, the relate any further Major Arcana to those 2 first before reaching further into your NPC deck.

c. If you actually draw one of the Major Arcana that is the card used to define a major NPC then that element of the story directly relates, if not personally involves, that character (this will definitely happen if you chose to mix one of the Major Arcana cards into your session outline draw).

From there it is up to your interpretation of the cards to create story elements for your characters to engage in. Be flexible in your interpretation of the cards, and if something comes up that you just cannot make work in a story framework you’re otherwise happy with, then ignore it, replace it with another story element that makes sense to the rest of your story, or even consider drawing another card to replace it.

<<<Previously: 2 – Framing a campaign

Next: 4 – A sample session outline>>>

Exalted 3 Combat Cheat Sheet – First Draft

After playing a couple of session of Exalted 3rd edition, I’ve started work on a quick combat rules summary that (hopefully) covers the most commonly needed rules for combat situations.

This is a first draft, which will probably end up being 2 pages, or one double sided page, once I add rules for movement, ranged attacks, cover and a couple of other combat situations.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions in the comments below.

Exalted 3e combat cheat-sheet

The GM & the tarot: 2 – Framing a campaign

<<<Previous: 1 – Why tarot?

Next: 3 – Devising a session>>>

“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. It is a process; it’s not random” – Ken Robinson.

As stated in part 1, the primary reasons to use a tarot deck to devise RPG stories is because of the elements of randomness and variety it brings, and the creative challenge that comes from trying to fit random elements into a story. As per the quote at the top of this post, the random draw of the cards provides a new idea, and then you give that idea value in the context of a story.

When starting a new campaign, a random draw of tarot cards can be used to quickly create a landscape of NPCs whose conflicts, goals and motivations will be played out over the course of your campaign.

The steps of this process are detailed below, along with an example from a Shadowrun game devised using this method.

Note: This approach is based on a couple of assumptions about the way people run and play RPGs; primarily, that people engage in ongoing ‘campaign’ style play with a continuous set of player characters, and that campaigns are made up of a series of sub-plots and stories (each usually representing 1-2 sessions of play) that fit within a larger, overarching narrative that develops throughout the course of many sessions. Later posts will detail a variation of this process for devising stand-alone or one-shot story ideas.

Game Concept

First, come up with an overall concept for the game/story you wish to run. This provides some indication of the kinds of characters and scenarios you’ll create and a lens through which to interpret cards drawn as part of the process.

Example: After a few years of running ‘specialised’ games in the Shadowrun universe (all PCs are gang members, elite military, a magical circle, etc), I decided to run a game that went back to the original setting of the game. The characters were to be runners navigating between the big players at the top, and the gangs and hard life of the streets.

For the sake of something different, instead of using one of the mega-corps to be the immediate representation of the ‘big players’, I wanted to focus on the corp-run security and military services of the 6th world.

Initial draw – creating primary NPCs

The first use of the tarot cards is to define the landscape of the campaign, the pattern of key NPCs who will feature in your stories and who will return as primary allies and antagonists for your player’s characters.

Extract the 22 major arcana, shuffle them and randomly draw around 8 cards (more or less depending on the scale and scope of the story you wish to tell). Keep in mind that you can always add to this at a later date if you wish to expand your story.

Each of these cards is used to inform the creation of a major NPC who will feature in the game/campaign. Take time to devise a concept for an NPC based on each of these cards, as appropriate to the overall game concept you’ve chosen.

Example: As I was only expecting to run this game for a handful of sessions, I limited myself to 6 cards.

The cards I drew to start the game were The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Chariot, The Hanged Man, Death,  and The Devil (presented here in their numbered order within the deck).

As NPCs, I interpreted these cards as follows:

Card Suggested Meaning NPC
 The Emperor Wisdom and power, top of the hierarchy, male ego A community leader/organiser with significant influence in one of the slums of Seattle.
 The Hierophant Knowledge & education, studying higher values, accepting discipline A senior researcher in a corp-military R&D division.
 The Chariot Adventure and risk, mental and physical journeys, desire for victory A smuggler who brings things into and out of Seattle.
 The Hanged Man  Transition, limbo, taking a step backwards in order to move forwards A crime boss whose efforts to grow influence have been stalled.
 Death Change, beginnings and endings, getting to the gritty details The ‘agents of change’ – an elite squad within the corp-military that works alongside The Hierophant.
 The Devil  Thirst for money or power, obsession, addictive patterns of behaviour, manipulation by others The crime-boss’ second-in-command, a heavily cybered warrior.

Determining NPC motivations

The next step of the defining the landscape is to determine the prime motivations of each NPC in the context of the story. To do this, once again take the 22 major arcana, including the ones you’ve already drawn. One card will be drawn per NPC, which will inform their objectives and/or motivations.

This time, when shuffling the cards, lay them face down on a table and swirl them around so that the direction of each card is randomised as well as its order. When a card is drawn upright, that indicates that the character’s goals are a part of their public persona, while if it is inverted (upside down) that means the characters goals are hidden or secretive.

For each inverted card, you may also choose to draw another card to identify what kind of public face the character puts forward to mask their hidden intentions.

Example: For the NPCs identified above, I drew the following cards to define their motivations:

Character Card/Motivation
Smuggler The High Priestess
Community Organiser The Hierophant
Crime Boss Temperance
Crime Boss’ Lieutenant The Fool
Elite Soldiers The Magician
R&D Agent The Tower (inverted) + The World

I interpreted this card draw as follows:

Character Motivation
Smuggler Seeks to uncover secrets – believes there is a secret plot connected to some of the jobs they carry out.
Community Organiser Seeks to build a traditional, somewhat nostalgic, community to support people in the slums.
Crime Boss Is seeking to achieve a sense of harmony, and heal themselves. At this point, the interaction between The Hanged Man and Temperance provided the idea of a Crime Boss inflicted with a mental illness. This is what was responsible for their stalled empire, and their current motivation was to overcome those problems in order to get business running again.
Crime Boss’ Lieutenant Seeks experience – is a hedonist. Seeks new challenges and to overcome them. In this case the combination of The Devil and The Fool provided the idea of a figure who revelled in confrontational approaches to building power, yet was unaware of the implications of their boss’ health issues. In the context of Shadowrun, I translated this idea into a fledgling AI that controlled various drones and humanoid forms in the physical world.
Elite Soldiers This unit seeks to elevate their skills and unit tactics. For reasons connected with their past experiences, they volunteered to work with R&D so they could test better equipment & tactics.
R&D Agent This character’s hidden motivation is to transcend humanity. Having worked on cybernetic development for his career, this character wants to move beyond cybernetic enhancement of individuals and create a genuine hybrid entity. The character’s public motivation is to improve military cybernetics in accordance with company policy.

Determining relationship to PCs

Once you have you list of NPCs, take the cards that represent them, shuffle, and lay them out in a row from left to right, which represents the relationship to the PCs that these characters will have in the game.

Those towards the left are the ones with whom the PCs will be most closely aligned, and those on the right are the antagonists whose machinations will be driving many of the plots and forcing the characters to react.

Example: In this instance the cards came out in the order of: The Chariot, The Emperor, The Hanged Man, The Devil, Death, The Hierophant.

So the primary antagonist of this game will be the military R&D agent, followed closely by the soldiers working with them. The crime boss and their 2IC are more neutral, though the lieutenant is slightly more antagonistic. Finally, the Smuggler will be their greatest ally, and the community organiser will be generally, though not universally, supportive of the characters.

With that process, the social landscape of the campaign is defined and some tensions between characters as well as potential story lines start to emerge. As you progress to develop individual plots and session outlines, these NPCs and their motivations will play a role in interpreting additional cards drawn as part of your story.

Note: As stated in the introduction to this blog, one of the primary elements of my approach to creating RPG scenarios is to create conflicts of values and motivations that the players need to navigate. For this reason, I leave it to last to determine the NPC’s relationship to the players, letting conflict arise out conflicting an overlapping motivations rather than any predetermined concept of being heroes, allies or villains. This way the interpretation of cards to define NPCs and their motivations are free from expectations base don the characters role in the story.

If you wish to run a game that is more closely defined by the genre conventions of the game’s setting, or in a style that requires a more definite sense of heroes and villains, you can complete this step as part of the initial draw to identify NPCs. That way you are interpreting cards knowing what role each characters will play in your story.

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Next: 3 – Devising a session>>>

The GM & the tarot: 1 – Why tarot?

Next: 2 – Framing your campaign >>>

I find tarot cards to be an invaluable tool for generating interesting RPG stories, or even individual session plots. The idea of using tarot cards as a way to generate story ideas or as a mechanism in RPGs is hardly new, however the purpose of this series of posts is to detail some of the ways I use tarot cards as a GM, particularly to help quickly generate new and interesting story ideas for characters, campaigns, stories, individual sessions and even single scenes.

‘The GM & the tarot’ series

Why TAROT?

The primary reason I use a tarot deck is for randomness and variety.

When writing stories for a game session you can create interesting and unexpected subplots and scenes by allowing an element of randomness to determine key story elements. Responding to that randomness by incorporating a new ideas into your game’s story can also be a fun creative challenge and break you out of those personal patterns of style or story structure that you may not even be conscious of.

Then there’s the variety of ideas represented by the number of cards and their various interpretations. Once you move past any ideas of mysticism, most tarot decks-which originated as playing cards before being co-opted by fortune tellers-are built around representations of human experiences and struggles, with cards and images imbued with symbolism to depict many aspects of those struggles. With 78 cards (usually) made up of 22 trump cards plus 56 cards divided into 4 suits, there are more possible card combinations to generate ideas than you’ll ever be able to incorporate into a lifetime of games.

This makes them a handy way to quickly devise interesting and original characters, motives and plot hooks for role playing games, or to add additional depth and nuance to an existing story line.

For those unfamiliar with tarot cards, here’s a quick summary of the way most decks are structured:

Major Arcana: 22 cards (also known as Trump cards) – each card depicts an archetype or ideal, and when taken in sequence the cards tell a story of the journey from innocence to worldly experience. Even if you do nothing else, these cards provide a structure for milestones of an extended campaign.

Minor Arcana: 56 cards divided into 4 suits-common suits are Pentacles, Cups, Swords, Rods/Staves-and each suit has 10 cards plus 4 court cards-Page, Knight, Queen, King.

Each of the suits has its ‘traditional’ meaning and associations, but if those don’t work for you, you can give them whatever meaning is appropriate to your game in order to make individual cards more relevant to the stories you wish to tell. For example, in games with a more Eurocentric mythology, you may wish to associate each suit with it’s primary elemental association, or associate suits with significant factions, houses or families within your game.

Finally, while purchasing tarot decks can be a costly exercise, there are plenty of free online resources including random card selectors, or sites with full decks and card meanings. You can even buy tarot deck apps for phones and tablets at a fraction of the price of a physical deck. I won’t link to any directly as many of them are associated with attempts to sell online tarot readings, so if you find such a site, I would encourage you to use of what free resources they have and view with extreme scepticism any other offers or promises they may make.

Next: 2 – Framing your campaign >>>

“I thought WE were the good guys?” – a story framework

This is the outline of the story that turned the encounter Little Demons on the Prarie into a 2 session event.

Presented here is the overarching story framework and the elements that define the core ethical dilemma of the piece – the running of this scenario involved additional encounters along the way, which will be presented in separate posts at a later date.

Themes and Objectives:

This story engages an old device that pits the characters’ morals against their integrity and reputation. A powerful being engages the characters to complete a task that seems entirely reasonable, but as they discover more about the task they realise they are potentially acting on behalf on the bad guy of the story.

In this scenario I’ve combined that plot twist with two other story telling devices (because who doesn’t love an over complicated story?) the device of the characters having to travel a distance to meet a deadline and facing delays along the way, and the device of the identity of the true antagonist being hidden. Continue reading ““I thought WE were the good guys?” – a story framework”

Little Demons on the Prairie – an encounter

This encounter was devised for Exalted, 2nd edition and was originally posted here. Presented here is the outline of a single encounter, which can be inserted into a game by itself as just an odd moment that raises the question of the nature of good and evil, but in my game this encounter formed the basis of a longer story which ran for two sessions. I will post that longer story outline in a future post.

Main themes and scenario objectives:

This encounter ultimately revolves around questioning the nature of purity and corruption on a micro level, and forces the characters to consider where their thresholds are on the scale between the two. The characters ultimately have to decide, on behalf of others, just how much ‘corruption’ is acceptable, and at which point suffering or death are preferable options.

The elements of this encounter might seem a little specific to the setting of Exalted, so I have included some suggestions to help swap out exalted specific elements for things suitable to other game settings. Continue reading “Little Demons on the Prairie – an encounter”