A rose by any other name wouldn’t be a rose though would it,
it’d be whatever that other name is. I
dunno about sweet smells – I live in Cleveland.
The name of the thing – the thing in itself. I gotta tell you – writing up
spellbooks? It makes you kind of
philosophical. What does it mean to be
well? What does it mean that there are other dimensions? You read up on some things you might not
otherwise have glanced at. The unity of
ideas – synthesis of them – they come together and mix creating a kind of thing
– an idea – the existence of which isn’t directly predicated upon perception –
how weird. A thing that is that can’t be
touched or seen. This we regard as the
Unreal – and I have to tell you – the different names you give to your
Unreality have a whole bearing on what’ll become of them. At the very least they’ll set an expectation.
Star Wars – I’ve been running Star Wars – a neat game – and
it’s been cool. Everything you need to
know is right in the name though – Stars?
Yep, in the stars? Yes. And War?
Not just war – but WARS – there’s lots of them. Short, sweet symmetrical & kind of rhymes.
Middle Earth – As a kid I never got this. I took it, as a child, to mean that there
were supposed to be layers – worlds within worlds and the middle one was in the
middle shell of the concentrically hollow earths. Which – Maybe that’s what old JRR was going
for? Probably not, but not something I’d
just put past him. Anyhow – It’s the kind
of name that raises questions – and that’s what you like because it
engages.
 |
| What I thought Middle Earth might refer to before I read the Hobbit |
I’m not the worst at names.
Not even.
The Fabulous Unknown City is still just fun to say – and it
was a great campaign – maybe my best ever.
 |
| The First Campaign Guide is Intended for Fall of 2017 |
The Hundred Worlds? I
kept thinking – this could be better – and then kept thinking – this could be
worse. It’s the perfect middle ground
for a setting with professional adventurers & jaded interdimensional
travelers – it’s Fine. Not great and
that kind of fit the bill.
In the Ruins?
Whenever this gets its proper launch I think it’ll land with some poise
& have a lot to say for itself. I
think the name really emphasizes broken dreams & landscapes & the
instincts of people in the ruins to rise.
 |
| Expect the Campaign Guide in late summer 2017 |
The War of the Kliali Succession? Still love it, still maybe just for me and
no-one else. Who knows?
So when I started down the OSR path the game I ran wasn’t of
my own design – it was someone else’s with the hard parts provided by me - I ended up calling it The Game of the North –
and the whole matter seems to have taken off from there. I liked it so much in fact that when I put
all the customized modified rules all together I decided to name them
collectively The Game of the North.
So now that I’m putting together guides & appendices for
that campaign – to share it with everyone instead of the (really devoted)
audience of 10-12 people who played it with me for a few years. I, anyway, think it’s got value – value &
heart & a good deal to offer the community of gamers OSR or otherwise. So now that I’m writing it all down &
making it into a nice book? Well Game of
the North is already taken – it’d be confusing to call that campaign the same
thing as the rules no? Probably I should
name the campaign setting.
Sometimes I think a campaign is named really well,
evocatively. Sometimes I think the name
that’s on the package isn’t really explanatory or it’s somehow contradictory of
the whole premise. Sometimes it’s a neat
name that just lingers in the consciousness.
But I like a good name for a campaign – something that will
make it memorable, tangible – something you can hang your hat on and say – “I
did that adventure”.
I’ve come to see some of the shared experiences that a canon
provides as being really valuable in making This Thing We Do Together into a
community – and it’s the community aspect of our Hobby that’s got the most to recommend
it (I mean, otherwise – we’d all just be novelists right? Not that we can’t be that too). Anyhow – shared experiences that disparate
people can all point to and recognize – That’s a Big Thing – to me. So I don’t do this just to do something – I do
this to try and do something Great. May
as well be ambitious no?
But let me talk about that first Game of the North
campaign. I’d drifted out of running and
playing in some big campaigns that had all contained a real abundance of cosmic
power & eternal struggle – that worked on a scale & in a direction that
I just couldn’t really buy anymore. I was tired of playing characters that most
certainly must have been tired – who rose levels encounter after encounter
without barely pausing to rest. I was
tired of running PCs through these ordeals & being run through them
myself. “Just to say this – my fighter
has not slept in a bed in almost two months, has not showered – ever – has killed,
personally something like a hundred guys – all of whom wanted to fight to death
rather than surrender all so I can get this one McGuffin upon which the whole
universe spins?” I’d really, factually,
burned out of the epic scale. Everything
was so urgent, everything was so demanding – and in the end not fun. Fun for me – Sure! But I thought about my character, my PC’s and
I just felt bad for them. Absurd magic
power and enough gold coins to build a house out of – but who could even
imagine being bathed in so much blood and so little soap. So I thought about that – what if I was my PC
– not what I would do if I were a player – but what I would want if I were the
player’s character – in the setting.
What would I want.
I settled on Adventure.
And after that I resolved that the stakes for the PC in this campaign
would only be as high as they set them.
The rewards would be numinous & physical and Every Waterfall Would
Have A Secret Cave Behind It. Adventure,
thrills. No cosmic struggles, no Forces
of Good & Evil. Adventure. Only.
And that was fun. I
had the right players – for sure – and they were game for an adventure where
they got to drive the story forward with their character’s own ambitions – to conquer
the wilderness, to defy convention, to name & to defeat enemies
.
The game itself became a game within the game – the meta-game
of party vs. party and stronghold vs. stronghold – the things that I think
somewhat distinguish The Game of the North from other OSR systems.
And it was good. It
was so good I write books all about it now.
For fun.
The trouble – again – is now what do I call these
books.
Thematically the game – this campaign, that is near
completion in terms of publishing and accessibility – final forms and all that –
thematically that game is about the wilderness, about conquest &
colonization. It’s about intense
competition between factions to accomplish all of those things & it’s about
trying to knock over the petty fiefdoms of your adversaries.
So I got philosophical about that. I end up on Hobbes – the Leviathan – Bellum Omnia Contra Omnes – the war of
all against all. I mean –that’s not an inaccurate assessment of how the various
playtests & playthroughs of that campaign have gone – they’ve gotten to be
brutal.
But it’s a little on the nose – a little too… Latin.
 |
| Eh, not quite. Pass. |
(now, bear in mind that I came up in gaming while gaming was
coming up – and back when, back in the 80’s – they’d advertise these books
& say that they were the Hardest or the most complicated – like that would
win over players – and knowing the old school of players – it probably
did. And I came up in gaming so I…
respond to that kind of pretension. To
the point that I don’t mind including common latin phrases in my own stuff –
sure! Why not? Why not?)
So I looked a little deeper and ended up following the trail
– Homo Homini Lupus – Man is a wolf
to other men – that’s yet more latin and with a better vintage – not English but
Roman. Still a bit on the nose – and really
I’ve got to give some consideration to the material in question – Man is a wolf to other men sounds a lot like this is
a game about Werewolfs.
Instead of being a game that Might be about Werewolfs.
So Durkheim.
Insatiable Will. I
liked that – I liked that plenty – it encapsulates what the Ref needs the PC to
portray – to have in the game – ambition, drive & desire. To get rich & to dominate. Things, again, that I felt were woefully
missing from my years-long sessions about saving the world. I thought- to hell with the world – what about
mine? And while that’s probably not a
great attitude as a citizen – it’s exactly what I thought of when I thought of
adventurers. Not heroes, not villains, not
saviors at all. Adventurers – out for
their own – Wolves to each other, At war with the world & driven in the end
by their own implacable desires.
 |
| Too similar to something else - something I can't quite recall the name of... |
 |
| What name goes here? Huh? I mean - it's ALWAYS going to be The Battle of Lepanto because of course The Battle of Lepanto. |
So I got Unquenchable Will of Wolves. It anagrams nicely – UWoW – as well. A fair title for a fun campaign.
It’s pending – this month the first installment – the Arrival,
as well as the first guide to NPCs & Monsters and procedurally generating
encounters – all of that is upcoming.
In the meantime – the first appendix is up – in case you
want to have some OSR style naval conflicts – you can help yourself.
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