Rule of Law: Importing Eastern Ideas

Translating ideas from one culture to another can be difficult. Things don't match exactly, whether you're talking about words or institutions. But I think this can be done, and its one of my goals for the Rule of Law setting. To that end, I've been thinking about how a number of institutions from East Asian (mostly Japanese) culture could be imported into a western setting. I'm not looking to just add Samurai into a western setting, or to say that a game that uses Samurai and Ninja classes is bad. The goal of the Chinese Rome ideal is to translate concepts from a game I'm interested in playing into a language and milieu that some of my friends would be willing to do.

These are a few of the ideas that I think could fit:

Swords are restricted

One interesting and rather iconic era of Japanese history had strict arms control. That is, swords and other weapons were restricted to the higher casts. This would be an interesting import, as only citizens of the Empire or certain races might be allowed to use "real" weapons. Swords are restricted to nobles and warrior-caste types. Or, perhaps put otherwise, some races are banned from using swords: Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, Goblins, Orcs, etc. Dwarves might use axes and picks because they are their tools. Halflings would use sickles and staves because they're practical.  This restriction saw the rise of all types of non-weapon implements used as weapons in Japan. We don't need to import non-western weapons though. Rope weapons, sickles, scythes, flails... there are plenty of options in D&D without needing to borrow heavily from iconic eastern weapons.

Rule of Law: Regional Focus

One of my favorite RPG settings is Fading Suns. I routinely forget about it for a year or so here and there, but I keep coming back to it. One of the things I admire about it is the way the just about every story you can think of can be told with the setting. High fantasy world-saving stories, alien prophecies, zombie apocalypses, mythic quests, gritty and dirty politics... It's got it all.

But what does having that much room buy us? And alternately, what is the risk in breadth? And can we avoid some of those risks?

A game with a narrow focus is likely to be able to have better key mechanics. I slightly yearn to play Trail of Cthulhu for a good investigation game (with rules designed for investigation games!).  This type of game, however, is probably no good for anything other than they're designed for though, whereas Fading Suns can handle a lot.

With the Rule of Law, one of the things that I envision is the Chinese Rome notion, where all roads lead to the Empire. The Empire is a melting pot of cultures, but is still threatened by barbaric hoards and the diabolical (maybe even literally devil-bound) Elven Kingdom. I like the freedom to tell and retell the great myths and stories of human history. I worry that the game/setting might lack focus, however. In a game with everything, what's to stop the players from rolling up a paladin, infernal warlock, shaman, and inquisitor? How do you fit characters from the Arabian, Chinese, Incan, and Iroquois cultures in the game together?

That's why I'm interested in building a small number of possible regions for a focus, and using alignment for the party.

Rule of Law: Halfbreeds, Quadroons, and Octoroons in D&D

D&D has had half-elves for much of its life, and the archetype has a history in fantasy literature. But I'm also interested in adding some more variability in terms of race into my games.  I'm curious about how best to implement some similar racial options. So following some earlier thoughts I have on race and racism, I'm still thinking of this. I'm not talking about half-dwarves, half-goblins, and half-halflings. I'm talking about what happens to the children of half-breeds: the quadroons and octoroons.

D&D 4e Half Elves

Why bring up these antiquated terms? Well, its not like the quarter-breeds or eighthbreeds are a mysterious concept these days. I'd like to think that the world cares less about one's parentage than they did 50 years ago, but there's probably places where it is still quite important, and not just for acceptance in certain religious or cultural communities. As far as the terms go, there's really no 100% politically correct or even 100% unoffensive term to describe people of mixed origins like this. I'm going to use these two because they seem relatively inoffensive (You don't imagine that's the last word anyone hears as they're being murdered) and are somewhat descriptive such that someone, given the context, could reasonably guess what a quadroon or octoroon is.

I think these "races" also bring up issues of family history, potentially more than just the regular half-elves and half-orcs. Sure, you can spin a great tale about someone never knew his orc father, or the illicit love-child of an elven princess. But what about their children? What prejudices will they face? Not every character needs to deal with issues of racism, but I like the fact that it could be there and the game might address it, if not including rules for it. It also expands these niche races a bit. If the elfborn include not just those with an elven parent but also an elven grandparent... well, now you have more options that are mechanically distinct. You have another option for playing a character with elven heritage than the standard half-elf. And it keeps the racial mixing, unlike the reimagining of half-orcs that we see in D&D 4e.

Rule of Law: Race

One of my goals with the Rule of Law setting is to be able to explore some complex social, moral, and philosophical issues. So tying these questions into the basics of the fantasy world is a high priority to me. Race is one pretty clear way to bring up some of these issues, particularly social class and racism. But some philosophical issues also come to the fore.

First, the game is art. And art is one way that we not only try to express ourselves, but to explore how we feel. RPGs are a different kind of art, and they let us explore things differently than more physical forms like painting or sculpture. An RPG is also entertainment. But good literature or poetry both is an attempt to express the human condition and a type of entertainment. An RPG need not be any different in that respect. So when I write that I think racism is an interesting topic to explore, I mean that we can use RPGs to explore these all-too human feelings.

But racism exists in this world, and to assume it doesn't exist in a fantasy world ignores the sorrow that exists here and now. Portraying non-humans in an RPG, or at lest in the Rule of Law, should give one a sense of how marginalized people might feel, or how easy it is to hate someone just because they're different.

Classes for D&D Revisited

I've posted about class lists before, but my ever changing thoughts on the matter are here again. Since my big document o' thoughts has things listed differently, I thought I'd take the time to think about the changes that I've made any why. I should also note that this list is somewhat setting-specific. There's no need for some of these in a setting based on the Incas or Celts, for example. I think that these fit a really broad setting that incorporates traditional western fantasy but also some non western (specifically East Asian and Southeast Asian) fantasy elements.

I currently have six class groups: Warrior, Knight, Scoundrel, Magician, Priest, and Ascetic.

Rule of Law: A Chinese Rome

One of my beefs with a lot of the fantasy worlds floating around these days is that they're pretty euro-centric. That's not necessarily bad, but it leaves out a lot of concepts and archetypes that I'm interested in exploring.

Could this represent a Druid too?

One of may favorite aspects of Fading Suns is that you can use the setting to tell so many stories. Sure, at heart its a sci-fantasy space opera game, but you can tell stories of zombie plagues, dirt-farmers who barely leave their hometowns, or spaceship odysseys. The setting is so broad that its hard to find a concept that can't fit with a little modification. From intergalactic hobos to alien freedom fighters, its got just about everything.

So that's where I'd like to take the Rule of Law setting that I originally developed with some friends a few years back. The term that I'm using is Chinese Rome. And the idea behind that is things are familiar, but also new. Crucially, grounding things in the familiar is important for me.

Rule of Law: Church of the Wisdom Kings

The best D&D world I've played in is, of course, the homebrew one I made with two good friend a few years ago. I don't want to catalogue all of its greatness here, but the way we created the setting was amazingly good. I'll use the Church of the Wisdom Kings as the best example of our collective world building.

Originally, we wanted a morally clear orc-killing game. Knowing me and my friends, we drifted from the original goal a bit, but were all pretty happy with where we ended up. The way we did it though was pretty fun and ensured that everyone could have a say in the setting. That's because we made it all up.

The basic rule: whatever you introduce, you get to define.

Lingering Innovations: Warlocks and Witches (And Sorcerers)

Going back to Second Edition again, its pretty easy to find the precursors to the Sorcerer and Warlock class in the Player's Option: Spells and Magic book. I'm strongly in favor of the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock being core classes in the new D&D. I'm concerned, however, that an emphasis on the four 'core' classes might lead to the downplay of non vancian wizards.

For the first two decades of its existence, D&D hasn't been too keen on accepting alternative magic styles. The rules give us casters who memorize (or later prepare) their spells for the day, and that's basically true until a few innovations in second edition, like the runecaster from the Vikings sourcebook (later redone as a Totem-Sister in Elves of Evermeet and again as a runecaster in Giantcraft). We saw a couple alternatives like the Sha'ir and Ghul Lord from the Al-Qadim line and the later Shaman product, but the core of spellcasting in D&D has always been fire-and-forget magic.

Spells and Magic focuses, like so much of second edition, on world building. There's a wealth of character options there, but it didn't seem to occur to the authors that one might mix and match their channellers (sorcerers?) with the magic systems for witches and warlocks or alienists (basically infernal pack and star pact warlocks). The assumption is that the wizard class works one way in any campaign world, but providing distinct mechanisms for arcane magic (and similarly for divine magic) as distinct classes seems like the plan. It even now has a bit of a history in D&D.

Now, channelers don't quite equate to the modern D&D sorcerer, but that's a relatively minor difference. Technically, they could be studious scholars who channel powerful forces too. What I'd still like to see in future editions, however, are options so that one could create a campaign setting so that we have magic users who use these distinct types of magic (or possibly more). This is what my friends and I did in our Rule of Law setting. There were two arcane caster classes, so they represent different magical factions in the game. But that was the essence of the extravagance that was second edition: world building.

Forgotten Innovations: Dragonlance

The Dragonlance setting may seem like a pretty vanilla fantasy setting today, but it hides a lot of ideas which were innovative at the time for AD&D. The setting suffers a bit too much from NPC theatre for me: I want the PCs to be the special heros. But I admire the setting nonetheless for some really innovative design.

The Wizards of High Sorcery are one prime example of innovation. Not only do the red, black, and white wizards make some sense of a rather abstract mechanic (alignment) but they also get tied into the world with the three moons (gods of magic) and mechanically they had access to different sets of spells. This is huge for me, because you could run a wizard-heavy campaign and have some mechanically distinct characters, even if they're all wizards. This wasn't possible in basic D&D, and becomes difficult again in 4th edition. As someone who still dreams of running a Wizards' Guild type of game, this is huge.

In the Rule of Law setting that my back-home group plays in, we did something similar with the 3.5 wizards and sorcerers. The wizard class became part of a world-spanning wizards' guild where magic was heavily regulated. Sorcerers were hunted and villified because the guild couldn't regulate or control them. Two relatively similar classes become quite distinct with the right story.

Along the same lines, rather than the generic paladin/cavalier of the time, Dragonlance has its own unique order of knights. Later on in the timeline, we even get a dark mirror order of lawful evil antipaladins. These setting-specific orders for the classes (and come on, we'd be fine if they were just mechanically cavaliers or paladins) really give us a foundation to work with for some of the rarer classes. This, I like.

Reimagined races are another good example of the innovation here. While slightly annoying, the halflings (kender) and gnomes (tinkers) of Dragonlance really do help make the setting unique, along with some of the cultural differences betweeen the subraces of elves and dwarves. Furthermore, they do a pretty good job of having some unique villanous races (draconians) and avoiding some of the standards of fantasy (orcs). Its not a kitchen-sink fantasy world where everything can be found, and the races have some solid history and story behind them.

The last notable innovation is the specialty priests. No longer must each god grant the same array of clerical spells, but by dividing the cleric's list into spheres of influence (cf. Domains in third edition), the priests of the gods in Dragonlance are each unique. This level of customization isn't seen again in the official D&D line after second edition.

When all is said and done, I still don't really want to play or run a Dragonlance game. But I admire the setting, and its definitely worth a look for how to adapt things in one's own games.