Moorcock Mirth #1 - Social Satire & Alternate Deity Creation

It is important to never forget that the works of Michael Moorcock also contain hefty doses of social satire and political criticism, originally anchored in the postwar British context, but growing ever more global. As many have noted, references to real world figures abound especially in the Hawkmoon books: 

Aside from retro-fitting 20th Century nations into his post-"Tragic Millennium" world, Moorcock also name-drops many historical figures of the past in the guise of "the old gods". For example, "Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl and Rhunga" are the dimly-remembered names of members of The Beatles. From the political world, "Chirshil, the Howling God" refers to Winston Churchill, "Aral Vilsn, the Roaring God" refers to British PM Harold Wilson, and "Pawl Bewchard" probably refers to the neo-fascist writer Paul Bouchard. Literary friends are also pseudo-cited: "Bjrin Adass, the Singing God" (Brian Aldiss), "Jeajee Blad, the Groaning God" (J. G. Ballard); "Jh'Im Slas, the Weeping God" (James Sallis).

(Reference HERE)

I think anyone wanting to run or play games nearer to Moorcock’s source fiction should, at times, lean into this. It is a good antidote to the over-seriousness of recent Fantasy, and harkens back to the counterculture roots of UK New Wave fiction.

Herein I’d like to give a few examples of deities or demons made using social satire. There are no stats, as these entities should not be beatable through mechanics or dice rolls, but by wit and roleplaying.

Deity # 1 - Nosnhoj Sirob

Description: A huge, straw-haired ape of a creature in a multihued clown suit, carrying a balloon with a constantly-changing array of words, such as ‘ME’, ‘Integrity’, and ‘Responsibility’

Image HERE

Powers: 

1. Summon Partygate - Nosnhoj can make a shimmering portal through which pours an unending stream of gibbering, chinless demonoids who make execrable noise while debauching on wine and space mead. Any mortals must make a CON save or else contract a fever from them.

2. Exit Reality - Nosnhoj can seal the area off from other planes, causing it to grow slowly poorer. Objects begin to breakdown, buildings begin to fall apart as long as this stays in effect.

Weakness - Nosnhoj simply HAS to be the center of attention, and if wily PCs can appeal to this vanity, they may cause him to commit an error that could get him exiled to Limbo.

Deity # 2 - D'lanod P’murt

Description: A corpulent entity with a golden haired pompadour atop its head, draped in a mantle of shimmering red, white, and blue.

Image HERE

Powers: 

1. Summon Deplorables  - Dainod can open a rift that lets in a throng of subhumans who attack any that oppose him, and desecrate any ideologically opposed holy site.

2. Art of the Steal - Dianod can take any object it desires from anywhere in the Multiverse and hide in Ogal A Ram, his fetid swamp castle, but only does so for his own inscrutable reasons.

Weakness - Dianod always has to be loved and be convinced that it is the best at or has the best of anything. Also, never thinks of repercussions for its actions, so can be tricked into offending higher powers.

Kanus Ihsir

Description:  Kanus is a smart looking man, six-armed man in an embroidered long jacket, with a rictus grin permanently on his face

Image HERE

1. Avoid Conflict - If any sort of argument or melee breaks out, Kanus simply evaporates and materializes elsewhere.

2. Gentry Flimflam - Nobles instantly believe anything Kanus tells them, regardless of how spurious or at odds with reality it may be.

Weakness: Kanus can never tell the truth, and so if smart player characters can force him into a conundrum, he may dematerialize for good.

Hawkmoon redux #1 - Science vs Magic, and WTF Happened To This 'RPG'?

Greetings fellow Moonbeam Roadsters!

As threatened, er, promised, I am looking at the Hawkmoon RPG.

No, not that one.

Zhod, I wish it were that one! No, I mean this guy:

Yes, I feel the same way. After nearly two years swimming in the deep sea that is Stormbringer, time to wade onto the sandbar of the classic (?) Hawkmoon RPG.

WTF CHAOSIUM?

I remember distinctly finding a pristine Hawkmoon boxed set twenty years ago and wishing I had the lucre to get it. My previous Stormbringer 4E had been nicked by a long haired ambidextrous player, and I longed to purchase this to fill the hole in my heart and bookshelf.

I am glad I didn't.

There are a few reasons that classic Stormbringer went through 4 editions (basically slightly modded reprints I know), as well as the conversion to Elric!, then Moongoose, and finally RQ Stormbringer, not to mention Dragonlords of Melnibone for D&D 3E and Elric of Melnibone 1 and 2. Throw in all the recent indie games (Black Sword Hack, SWADE Bringer, Through Sunken Lands) and fan mods (BoL Stormbringer), and the continuing resonance is no less than astounding.

Hawkmoon, by comparison, has two games. Why? I can think of three reasons.

THE LESSER GAME

1) The setting is less meatier - The vibrant pulp nations of The Young Kingdoms are an exotic magnet for the imagination, while The Tragic Millenium Europe, although an interesting conceit, is a bit too close to our present dystopia, even moreso after Brexit and the UK's descent into the cult of Neoliberalism. Add to that, Elric is a cypher for the misunderstood adolescent in all of us, with his epic passions, while Hawkmoon is largely what Andy at Breakfast in the Ruins calls a bit of beurk, if I recall. Add to that in the YK you could conceivably roll a sorcerer, changing the game dynamic completely, while rolling the cognate of a scientist in Hawkmoon... doesn't change the game much. Speaking of magic...

2) The magic is less sinister and less coherent - For all my houserules and clarifications, the magic system of Stormbringer held together fine enough at publication to let the game catch fire, and keep players coming back decade after decade. Chaosium even filed off the serial numbers and put it out as Magic World, a testament to its playability. The fact that I can fine tune the magic system for modern players while keeping the original framework also shows how well designed it was.

By comparison, in Hawkmoon, the technomagic system itself is missing. There are Lore skills that give technological abilities, as well as a scattered laundry list of esoteric cannons, vehicles, and other trinkets that appeared in the novels. But there is no real system for creating or maintaining any of these. The cannons have no statistics save damage. This is a gaping hole in a game contending to stand alone, and this more than anything makes it a poor cousin to Stormbringer. This lack of polish extends beyond the rules...

3) The original ruleset was less inspiring - Another pertinent flaw to today's discussion was the lackluster design of the boxset. The title painting is attractive but an admitted step down from the cover piece of Elric holding Stormbringer on the brother game. Ditto the covers of the three books in the set - Hawkmoon's simple line drawings appear comic bookish and unfinished next to the fine ink shadows of the Stormbringer booklets. Added to this, the cramped juxtaposition of random background tables, the amateurish maps, and the lack of Stormbringer's tight chapter organisation, and the buyer gets an unflattering, rushed impression of Hawkmoon.

I don't think Hawkmoon is hopeless, however. Instead, if there had been a system of technomagic at the center of the game, I am sure the warts of setting and product would have been easily overlooked by fine gameplay that also reverberated with Stormbringer crossovers.

(NB: I haven't read the later game or its innovations, and am only focusing on the original box set)

What a lost opportunity. I don't know if management rushed the product to market, or the designers had trouble adapting the long series of novels. Whatever the case, I'm not here to blame them, just commiserate at a lost opportunity and set things to right in my own way.

THE METAPHORS OF MAGIC & SCIENCE

Just as I did with Stormbringer, I'd like to start by conceiving of the Scientific 'magic' of Hawkmoon as a metaphoric construct before jumping in willy nilly with rules. Basically, how was Moorcock thematically using the technology of Granbretan and Count Brass in his Hawkmoon novels? 

In my view, both Science and Magic as Moorcock conceives them are a type of Power that come at differing prices. To review, this is how magic works thematically in Stormbringer:

In Stormbringer, Magic is religion. Cosmology and theology are one. You worship greater powers and call their aid. You pay in souls, yours and others. These powers play games with worlds, and we are all pawns. The individual that stands against this hierarchy is doomed to be ensnared in its machinations.

By contrast, in Hawkmoon, Science is the dominant ideology. Faith has devolved into the cults behind the imperialism of Gran Bretan, and the ancient technology they wield. The orders of its army are the pawns, and they pay in tribute and resources from conquered lands. Only individuals who band together can stand against the onslaught of technology.

This is the thematic / metaphoric key to (re)designing rules for Science in Hawkmoon.

THE NEEDS OF POWER

One of the great missed opportunities of this game was tying the descriptions of lands under attack by Granbretan with what it needs to power its war engine. Reading the description of Carpathia, we get this gem:

"The mountains are rich in oil, iron, copper, gold, and silver. However, the soil is insufficient to support many people."

Initially, I thought this was fluff or padding in a light game that needed it. I have no idea if the designers had the same thought as me, but now I see such descriptions as a perfect resource for Gran Bretan's science, necessitating capture for their resources. Previously, I suggested the old Elric boardgame, which was concurrent with Stormbringer and used the same map, could be used to track the contest between Law and Chaos, with the player characters contributing to the success or failure of moves made by The Lords of the Higher Worlds.

In the same way, you could use the map of Tragic Millenium Europe to see what resources are available to Gran Bretan as it advances, predict its troop movements, and have the PCs move to thwart the advance.

The linking of Science to a concrete system of object creation based on resources not only improves the 'magic' of Science in the game, it also turns it into a tight French Resistance style thriller.

Here is the key not only to Science in Hawkmoon, but also the motivation of Gran Bretanian invasion, and the raison d'etre of the protagonist. This metaphor, and mechanics derived from it, is the key to rehabilitating Hawkmoon.

Thanks to the Glatisant!

So, it looks like The Glatisant has given this blog a signal boost. For those few who don't know, Glatsiant is the blog / newsletter of Ben Milton, also known as the Questing Beast, the author of Knave. Although I am currently not interested in D&D, I really do appreciate his rigor and enthusiasm for classic gamestyles. He is a breath of fresh air that reminds me of the early days of the OSR before it became a marketing dumpster fire for WotC.

Ben included my post "The Stupidity of Social Skills in Combat" in one of his weekly link roundups. Looking at my analytics, which I never do, I see that it has jumped 10 x in readers.

Thank you Ben! 

I doubt Ben needs the signal boost, as he is a compelling game theorist and expert marketer, but I exhort my readers to give his YouTube channel, his blog, and most importantly, his books a good look. I have some friends who are smitten with Knave, so I'll have to pick up copies when I get some life stability again.

So whether you like D&D or other old games, give Ben a listen.

HERE

(PS Thanks for calling out my error Gordon)

Character Creation, Character Death, and Stormbringer

I've thought about the relationship between chargen and character death for quite some time.

Then I heard Dave (Tentacled Whisperer) say the following on the Breakfast in the Ruins podcast :

(I dunno why that turned into a GIF from Word, but whatevs)

THIS is precisely the issue with modern RPGs, and all RPGs.

Basically, the formula is thus:

The amount of time it takes to create a character is inversely proportional to the GM's willingness to kill them.

So if you're playing OD&D, you roll 3D6 in order 6 times, grab some gear and a name, good to go, knowing you may die at any time, but that you can turn a henchman into a new PC in 5 minutes.

Conversely, if you've spent days agonizing over backstory, build, and character concept, you want some time in the limelight, and the GM is reluctant to take that away from you with a random encounter.

So Stormbringer...

As Andy of BitR puts it, 90% of Stormbringer characters are shitkickers. As he points out, "You're not Elric."

Therefore, a Stormbringer RPG should make chargen plain and simple. Like the Barbarians of Lemuria Stormbringer hack someone put out a few years back.

Hold on, wait a minute...

But if we're talking about emulating the fiction, characters are definitely NOT shitkickers. They ARE Elric, and Hawkmoon, and Corum. Or else Moonglum, and Jhary. Then Count Whatsisname. And finally unnamed solder or sailor.

Reusing pics like a boss

In this case, instead of rolling for Nationality, MAYBE we should be rolling for the role of the character in the Multiverse. Are they...

The Champion Eternal?

A Companion?

A love interest?

An ally or rival?

An unnamed supporter?

This way reminds me of the suggestion I made on BitR for using Ars Magica to turn Stormbringer into troupe play with the EC at the center and other players as various levels of mooks.

Or else we choose the style of play from the two I proposed previously:

Saga Play - We need the Eternal Champion and his or her attendants, and the stakes are existence.

Pulp Play - You are shitkickers, killing and dying in the Young Kingdoms. Stakes are enough coin to live or get dead drunk.

This choice also determines much of the rules used:

Saga Play - Encumbrance and wealth are handwaived, possibly linked to social standing.

Pulp Play - Count every coin and every stone of weight.

These are good issues to ponder.

(Postscript: The above was written exhausted from passing the DELF and celebrating with Strongbow, so bear with me...)

Stormbringer Lineage

Andy over at Breakfast in the Ruins podcast has just put out another cracking Moorcock roleplaying podcast.

He included THIS flowchart of the game's lineage:

Interesting. I find BRP gets more clunky and gamey with each new edition, and Stormbringer coming between RQ1 and RQ2 is probably why it has such a 'sweet spot' of rules.

I'll also need to pick up a copy of Magic World at some point.

So RUN don't walk and go listen to Breakfast in the Ruins!

Link is HERE

How Call of Cthulhu Should Be Played

 THIS right here.

Brilliant stuff.

Stormbringer redux Interlude - Demons! Demons! # 1

In addition to making changes to character creation, I created a random demon generation system from the bones of the old 4E point buy (HERE) for lesser demons. Add this to the demon motivations (HERE) and demon summoning should be more substantial.


Let’s give it a test drive!

Name: Hurling Gobbelin Type: Combat

Motivation: 12 Pleased: The fiend has wanted to come play among mortals for some time. It thanks the PC for the chance.

(One Melee Attack, one Missile Attack, one Defence, one Random Ability)

STR 18 CON 18 SIZ 18 DEX 18 INT 9 POW 5 CHA 9

Hit Points 18 Armor 9 Damage: + 1D6

Melee Attack Ability - Claws 1D6

Missile Attack Ability - Loathsome Stain Attack

Defence Ability - Wall of Flesh, 8 armor

Random Ability - Membrane Shape, 1 armor

Professional Skills: Attack, Parry, Dodge at 60% OR attribute x 3%

Description: What to make of this? Some sort of clawed, puking ball of flesh? Maybe best not to describe it overmuch and let players’ imaginations run wild. Not incredibly tough, more of a nuisance than anything.

REFLECTIONS

Overall, I am underwhelmed, as would be anyone who summoned this monstrosity. There are three things I’d like to work on for a version 2.0.

1) The number of options for each ability category needs to increase. Minimum 20, maximum 100.

2) POW seems a bit low. Should be a challenge to bind, but nothing too crazy. Maybe change from 3D8 to 2D8+8 to give a base?

3) Although I prefer freeform association to choosing the demon’s shape, I’d ideally like a table of descriptions or shapes of demons for GMs who would like something to fall back on. I started one but abandoned it. Time to check my old files.


Anyway, what did YOU think of this, dear reader? Leave a comment below.

Stormbringer Redux Interlude - Rogue’s Gallery #1

So, I proposed a whole new method for making characters (HERE). I also ran 3 sessions with players using some of these characters, to good reviews.

        

Today, I’d like to roll up some characters to see how they stand up. I don’t mean mechanically, I mean, are they interesting to play? Do my houserules make compelling characters?

Let’s find out.

I’ll be playing close attention to two houserules, the Description and Life Purpose. The latter was liked by my players, and gave them self-directed story hooks. The former was met with puzzlement, so I’m hoping to see if it is worth rehabilitating or unnecessary.

To review, Life Purpose was decided on the following table, and players had to interpret it for the gameworld.

    LIFE PURPOSE

    Example Verbs Example Nouns

        1 Find 1 Gods

        2 Lose     2 Ruler

        3 Protect     3 Homeland

            4 Destroy     4 Family

            5 Oppose     5 Love

            6 Serve     6 Wealth

I originally had intended Description, based on the highest and lowest attributes, as a ‘bennie’ that could be milked for story effects. My intent was too vague, and now I see it as a description to help roleplaying instead. Basically, by noting the highest and lowest attributes of a character, the character is fleshed out in a way that reflects the attributes. Additionally, it gives a first impression for NPCs encountered. Lastly, describing characters is a forte of Mr Moorcock, and so a mechanic emulating this should be welcome in a game based on his works.

Let’s begin!

Name: Behet Nationality: 68 Argimiliar (no mods)

Purpose: 6,1 Serve the gods Description: Weak-limbed (STR) but hearty (CON)

Profession: 62 Farmer Cult: Grome & Lassha

STR 6 CON 16 SIZ 14 DEX 13 INT 8 POW 14 CHA 9

Hit Points: 16 Damage: NA Armor: leather Weapons: cudgel & spear

Professional Skills: Blacksmith (INT x 2), Track (INT x 2), Cudgel Attack (DEX x 3) Parry (STR x 3), Small Ax Attack (DEX x 3) Parry (STR x 3), Plant Lore (INT x 2%), 2H spear Attack (DEX x 3) Parry (STR x 3)

Other Skills: 4 + 2 = 6, left open

Story: Behet’s family farm in the hinterland of Argimiliar once thrived, but was destroyed by a succession of unnatural events - swarms of locusts, endless drought, crop circles. Behet took this as a sign that the gods who watch over the fields, Grome and rain bringing Laasha, must be at war with the forces of Chaos and Law, who overturn the rhythms of nature. He left his ruined homestead and along with his sister, Leharn, he has vowed to travel The Young Kingdoms to aid in the fight of the Elemental Lords against the forces that seek to destroy the world.

Name: Leharn Nationality: 74 Argimiliar (no mods)

Purpose: 3,4 Protect family Description: Unassuming (POW), but nimble (DEX)

Profession: 56 Hunter Cult: Grome

STR 9 CON 12 SIZ 8 DEX 12 INT 7 POW 3 CHA 8

Hit Points: 12 Damage: NA Armor: leather Weapons: Bow & cudgel

Professional Skills: Cudgel Attack (DEX x 5) Parry (STR x 5), Self Bow Attack (DEX x 3) Parry (STR x 3), Set Trap (DEX x 5), Ambush (DEX x 5), Track (INT x 5), Blacksmith (INT x 2), 

Other Skills: 3+2=5, undetermined

Story: Whereas Leharn’s family disowned her brother, Behet, when he announced his ‘mission’, the huntress made it her mission to protect him wherever he roamed. She doesn’t know if she believes her brother’s claims, but feels a great sense of purpose in keeping him safe.

Name: Ohlga Nationality: 18 Shazaar (+ 1D6 CON = +2)

Purpose: 2,4 Lose family Description: Charming (CHA) but conventional (INT)

Profession: 88 Beggar Cult: Arkyn of Law

Affliction: Missing one ear

STR 10 CON 11+2= 13 SIZ 9 DEX 12 INT 9 POW 10 CHA 15

Hit Points: 13 Damage: NA Armor: leather Weapons: dagger

Professional Skills: Persuade (CHA x 6), See (INT x 6), Search (INT x 3), Pick Lock (DEX x 5), Dagger Attack (DEX x 1) Parry (STR x 1) NB: + 1 per other beggar around

Other Skills: 5+2=7, undetermined as of yet

Story: Ohlga was the daughter of a Shazaaran beggar clanmaster, and spent her life learning how to beg and steal on the streets. One day she was accused of keeping profits to herself, and as punishment the clanfather, her own father, sliced off her ear. The next day she left Shazaar and never looked back. Ohlga wants to find somewhere where her old clan can never find her, ideally among a new ‘family’ that will treat her well. Falling in with Behet and Leharn feels like a good first step to her, and she will use her wits and charm to protect them.