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Post by hengest on Mar 2, 2021 9:37:27 GMT -5
In this subfolder, I'm working on (still a little behind) ideas for incorporating fairy tales into a campaign or even building a setting around the possibility of interacting with them in some conscious way. One idea here is the "fairy tale minigame railroad." I use railroad kind of tongue-in-cheek. What I mean here is that, in an area with rather "deep" fairy tale characteristics, it is hard for people to resist the "flow" of certain events and sequences. So there might be, from a ref's or even a PC's perspective, a "trap" that one can get into where the PCs autonomy is somewhat restricted. The PC can "resist" the flow but will likely fail and the "scene" will go on for a bit despite anyone's efforts. This is not to reduce player agency but is more like a slightly extended "experience," part of which is the fact of being swept along (for a time) even if they player tries to shake things up. It would be a characteristic of that place, not a true and larger railroad plot. We're talking about something the length of a mini-scene here. Like in the " Devil's grandmother" stories where the devil's / dragon's grandmother hides the hero or heroes and then they overhear what he tells her. Even encountering the grandmother might result in the PCs' getting "swept up," "helped," and hidden under the table or under a rock. Like a riptide. A few more ideas to come. Edit: The idea here is that, in accordance with this post elsewhere in this subforum, areas have different distances from "the Source" and are therefore more or less tightly bound to eternal (or at least timeless) truths, such as expressed in fairy tales, dreams, myths. So this thread has suggestions for things that might happen when a PC goes to an area that is lower in number that the usual 3+ of a fantasy RPG setting. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 2, 2021 9:44:45 GMT -5
I think you have hit on something here, this is indeed a fairy tale trope and tropes are to be used to your advantage and this as not to my knowledge been used in anything RPG related that I have seen published.
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Post by hengest on Mar 2, 2021 11:16:55 GMT -5
Scene from The Frog PrincePC loses something in a pool or even just wants to retrieve a treasure (ideally, a golden ball) glittering at the bottom of a pool. The frog assists as in the story. Here, the PC or PCs cannot break out of the narrative. At the end of the "scene," escape is possible, otherwise, the PC will be whisked along back to the castle and end up playing the role of the prince / princess who has to deal with the frog suitor for a time. The options are generally to escape at a "scene change" or to play along and bend the narrative (to PC benefit) without breaking it. Fairy tale characters are very well-informed about treasure, creatures, and adventure hooks on the borders of their country, although they are ill-informed about matters farther away than those. Whether the golden ball is a treasure to the PC or simply an object, useless outside of its home narrative, is up to the ref. In general, there is a wide variety of possibility for "fairy tale" narratives to act as mysteries, mini-adventures, or things somehow related to other adventures. |
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Post by hengest on Mar 2, 2021 13:13:14 GMT -5
Among the "fairy tale" / "myth" types, there is a wide variety of applicability to what you and I think of as "normal" narrative. The sun rising is important, but completely inexorable and almost inhuman in its regularity. The idea of controlling it is quite distant from our regular considerations. However, there are stories that express timeless truths but with which we might hope to interact meaningfully (or at least to understand them better). For example, the type of story in the English song "The Two Sisters" ( texts from the Child collection. and Wikipedia description). A sister (or two) are jealous of their younger sister's beauty and popularity and kill her. Later, a musician finds her body and makes a fiddle out of her remains. When played, the fiddle tells the story of the murder. Obviously, this is a narrative with elements that we can understand in a "human" way, although it also feels timeless, with charater features such as *WANT / ENVY*, *INNOCENT*, *EVIL*, *JUSTICE*. So there is an adventure hook here for the intrepid PC. Adventure hook is running into the sisters together and recognizing what is about to happen, even witnessing it. Suppose the PC is from 3.3 and the scenario takes place in a 2.3. A scenario that loops or at least takes place there regularly with variations. But remotely possible that an intrepid PD could somehow swing a rescue, easing or forcing the narrative into a new channel. Outcomes should not be determined in advance, but it might be possible that a 3.3 character ends up with a "fairy wife" from such an adventure. There could be in-game benefits and drawbacks of having such a spouse. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 2, 2021 13:25:49 GMT -5
Among the "fairy tale" / "myth" types, there is a wide variety of applicability to what you and I think of as "normal" narrative. The sun rising is important, but completely inexorable and almost inhuman in its regularity. The idea of controlling it is quite distant from our regular considerations. However, there are stories that express timeless truths but with which we might hope to interact meaningfully (or at least to understand them better. ... ... So there is an adventure hook here for the intrepid PC. Adventure hook is running into the sisters together and recognizing what is about to happen, even witnessing it.Suppose the PC is from 3.3 and the scenario takes place in a 2.3. A scenario that loops or at least takes place there regularly with variations. But remotely possible that an intrepid PD could somehow swing a rescue, easing or forcing the narrative into a new channel. Outcomes should not be determined in advance, but it might be possible that a 3.3 character ends up with a "fairy wife" from such an adventure. There could be in-game benefits and drawbacks of having such a spouse. I think instead of intrepid PD you meant PC or did you insert me for a reason?   I think you are really on to something hear and are writing a new method of taking a game from generic medieval game to adjacent/dipping into fairyland game. I think this is pretty unique. The "fairy wife" and in-game benefits and drawbacks of having such a spouse is ripe with game ability and a lot of fun could be had with that. Have you given any thought to the Seelie and Unseelie courts? Reply Seelie Court vs. the Unseelie CourtThe Nature of Law & Chaos |
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Post by hengest on Mar 2, 2021 13:39:04 GMT -5
You're right, The Perilous Dreamer, that was a typo.  But if I ever ran it you would be welcome to play that PC. I am aware of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts but am not particularly mining them right now. Not because it is a bad idea, but because I have seen representations in literature and want to avoid a prepackaged feeling. For the moment I am mining "older" tales for suitable hooks and thinking about how they might work. But that is a good idea, it might be worked in in some way. |
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Post by hengest on Jan 12, 2022 11:08:31 GMT -5
I think the way to go with this, as far as making any sort of product or generator goes, is taking a set of intelligible but "mythical" stories and crunching them into elements, possibly reskinnable elements. Make a list of the stories and decsribe them in this way, make a game aid that aids the imagination by creating contact points for PCs at unexpected places in the story. Ideally the game aid would help the ref to weave these things into a campaign invisibly if desired, so that the mythicalness of the story could be felt without making the game feel like a pastiche. Or maybe this is the technique for planning a fantasy novel, not sure.
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Post by hengest on Feb 8, 2024 15:58:50 GMT -5
This was a good idea, though I'm not sure I have much to add to it, or the ability to execute it. Seems like a good game aid, although I doubt there are many refs around who could use it. Seems most refs would not even want such a thing, and those who would likely don't need it.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 8, 2024 18:51:36 GMT -5
This was a good idea, though I'm not sure I have much to add to it, or the ability to execute it. Seems like a good game aid, although I doubt there are many refs around who could use it. Seems most refs would not even want such a thing, and those who would likely don't need it. To me it is a resource to spur ideas and I am glad it is here. Who knows, someone might see this 50 years from now and run with it. I try to run backups in the Internet Archive of the forum, but you have to go all the way to the thread level to get it to save everything and if the thread is longer than a few pages you have to select about every 3rd page and run the backup to get the whole thread. But I keep working on it. |
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Post by hengest on Feb 8, 2024 19:12:03 GMT -5
This was a good idea, though I'm not sure I have much to add to it, or the ability to execute it. Seems like a good game aid, although I doubt there are many refs around who could use it. Seems most refs would not even want such a thing, and those who would likely don't need it. To me it is a resource to spur ideas and I am glad it is here. Who knows, someone might see this 50 years from now and run with it. I try to run backups in the Internet Archive of the forum, but you have to go all the way to the thread level to get it to save everything and if the thread is longer than a few pages you have to select about every 3rd page and run the backup to get the whole thread. But I keep working on it. Who can even imagine what people will be doing for recreation in fifty years...I guess chances are low, but not zero, that I'll see any of that. Or understand it! |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 8, 2024 21:02:05 GMT -5
To me it is a resource to spur ideas and I am glad it is here. Who knows, someone might see this 50 years from now and run with it. I try to run backups in the Internet Archive of the forum, but you have to go all the way to the thread level to get it to save everything and if the thread is longer than a few pages you have to select about every 3rd page and run the backup to get the whole thread. But I keep working on it. Who can even imagine what people will be doing for recreation in fifty years...I guess chances are low, but not zero, that I'll see any of that. Or understand it! Yeah, the odds of me reaching 118 are pretty low. But I am not doing this for people my age. I am hopeful that 50 years from now there will still be people who enjoy running OD&D face to face. Along with a whole host of other things. The great thing about OD&D is that even if the world collapses, if people still have any leisure time, playing it would still be an option, if the knowledge of it remains, whether the rules themselves do or not. |
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Post by hengest on Feb 8, 2024 21:20:36 GMT -5
Who can even imagine what people will be doing for recreation in fifty years...I guess chances are low, but not zero, that I'll see any of that. Or understand it! Yeah, the odds of me reaching 118 are pretty low. But I am not doing this for people my age. I am hopeful that 50 years from now there will still be people who enjoy running OD&D face to face. Along with a whole host of other things. The great thing about OD&D is that even if the world collapses, if people still have any leisure time, playing it would still be an option, if the knowledge of it remains, whether the rules themselves do or not. That's true, it doesn't require lots of tungsten or computers or anything of the kind. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 8, 2024 21:29:10 GMT -5
Yeah, the odds of me reaching 118 are pretty low. But I am not doing this for people my age. I am hopeful that 50 years from now there will still be people who enjoy running OD&D face to face. Along with a whole host of other things. The great thing about OD&D is that even if the world collapses, if people still have any leisure time, playing it would still be an option, if the knowledge of it remains, whether the rules themselves do or not. That's true, it doesn't require lots of tungsten or computers or anything of the kind. Yeah, you don't need the rules, just the idea of the rules. You don't need dice, you can make a coin to flip from a small round flat rock and mark each side. |
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Post by hengest on Feb 8, 2024 21:30:54 GMT -5
That's true, it doesn't require lots of tungsten or computers or anything of the kind. Yeah, you don't need the rules, just the idea of the rules. You don't need dice, you can make a coin to flip from a small round flat rock and mark each side. It's "great" that we can both so easily accept or assume a post-apocalyptic scenario for just fifty years from now. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 8, 2024 21:46:11 GMT -5
Yeah, you don't need the rules, just the idea of the rules. You don't need dice, you can make a coin to flip from a small round flat rock and mark each side. It's "great" that we can both so easily accept or assume a post-apocalyptic scenario for just fifty years from now. Well, my game worlds are post-apocalyptic, only it is a long time in the past. If I listen to the news it is fairly easy to imagine. Corporate media and independent media both wants clicks, so everywhere you look you see CIVIL WAR and WORLD WAR III and even though I don't take either seriously (a choice I make) it is easy to send my mind down those paths. I love those books and some of the movies, so oddly enough I (in some really weird way) find thoughts of a post-apocalyptic world to be comforting. Not sure what that says about me. |
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Post by hengest on Feb 8, 2024 21:51:37 GMT -5
It's "great" that we can both so easily accept or assume a post-apocalyptic scenario for just fifty years from now. Well, my game worlds are post-apocalyptic, only it is a long time in the past. If I listen to the news it is fairly easy to imagine. Corporate media and independent media both wants clicks, so everywhere you look you see CIVIL WAR and WORLD WAR III and even though I don't take either seriously (a choice I make) it is easy to send my mind down those paths. I love those books and some of the movies, so oddly enough I (in some really weird way) find thoughts of a post-apocalyptic world to be comforting. Not sure what that says about me. I also feel that way. I think in my case it means that I find a lot of the accretions of culture to be pretty burdensome. In a post-apocalyptic world there would be none of the completely useless nonsense that we all have to do like begging an insurance company to listen to us. There would be lots of other problems, and I'm not saying I could handle them all, but I think I could understand them a little better. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Feb 8, 2024 22:01:04 GMT -5
Well, my game worlds are post-apocalyptic, only it is a long time in the past. If I listen to the news it is fairly easy to imagine. Corporate media and independent media both wants clicks, so everywhere you look you see CIVIL WAR and WORLD WAR III and even though I don't take either seriously (a choice I make) it is easy to send my mind down those paths. I love those books and some of the movies, so oddly enough I (in some really weird way) find thoughts of a post-apocalyptic world to be comforting. Not sure what that says about me. I also feel that way. I think in my case it means that I find a lot of the accretions of culture to be pretty burdensome. In a post-apocalyptic world there would be none of the completely useless nonsense that we all have to do like begging an insurance company to listen to us. There would be lots of other problems, and I'm not saying I could handle them all, but I think I could understand them a little better. I remember outdoor toilets and drawing water from a well, working from spring to fall from sunup to sundown. Growing your own food and then just going out and doing what you have to in the winter, caring for the livestock, milking the cows, gathering eggs and then dad telling stories and reading. A lot to love about that kind of life. A lot of ways to preserve food, many of them forgotten, but they would be relearned. |
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Feb 11, 2024 8:56:01 GMT -5
Yeah, you don't need the rules, just the idea of the rules. You don't need dice, you can make a coin to flip from a small round flat rock and mark each side. It's "great" that we can both so easily accept or assume a post-apocalyptic scenario for just fifty years from now. Well, you guys aren't the only two that can see and accept a post-apocalyptic scenario just fifty years from now. |
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I think you are really on to something hear and are writing a new method of taking a game from generic medieval game to adjacent/dipping into fairyland game. I think this is pretty unique. The "fairy wife" and in-game benefits and drawbacks of having such a spouse is ripe with game ability and a lot of fun could be had with that. Have you given any thought to the Seelie and Unseelie courts?
But if I ever ran it you would be welcome to play that PC.