Now if you are a DM or Player who believes that D&D and real-world/ history/ cultural elements have no business ever being brought together let me say that I respect your choices but suggest you move along to another post. This thread will only anger you and make you mad. However if you are a DM who likes color and enjoys history or a Player who considers yourself to be either an Actor, Explorer or Storyteller then this thread might be for you. If you do want to explore how a DM or Player might use such real world concepts in 4E please share! The goal is to help make our adventures, worlds, and campaigns more gritty and textured.
Let me start with a little data I have complied recently. While doing a little historical reading I came across an article that described the appearance of Londoners in the late Renaissance. I thought that some of these ideas might make for a nice piece of setting material and descriptive color in a gritty campaign.
People as a whole tended to appear a lot rougher in the past. Teeth often came in crooked and rotted if the person had a diet which included sugar. Skin was pocked with disease and mottled by the sun. Trimmed finger nails were jagged and rough often pared off with a knife or shears. Hair was often dirty and ridden with lice especially amid the working class/ peasantry. Hard work could deform a person by wrenching arms and twisting backs. Injuries left people with limps, twists, and scars. Parasites infested the entrails of many people as well as their clothing, bedding, and person.
Let’s look at ourselves today… How many scars do you have? I have a few nasty one I earned a kid and a couple more as an adult. How about chipped teeth? A constant pain in you back from an old car accident? Imagine how advanced our medicine is today yet we still bear these marks upon our bodies? Imagine our ancestors? The Porter who just got used to the tension and pain caused by a hernia earned by the daily unloading of carriages. A Mercenary who lost a limb in a battle (Heal doesn’t mention re attaching limbs nor do most curative magics). The child who body is twisted and discolored due to a poor diet in an impoverished preindustrial city. We have it pretty good now.
So when your Players want to create PCs or you describe an NPC what about taking a brief moment to describe a few physical features that may be a little more realistic? Does Wynn the Rogue walk with a slight limp due to a clubbed foot? Wynn was once run over by a horse and bears a horrible scar on his shoulder and upper back. And what about Sister Klava with a Charisma of 16 who came from a wealthy family before she entered the convent? Her family’s wealth and connection to the church may have provided her a better diet, medicine and access to Clerical healing but what about her poor eyesight from hours of reading by candle light. It might explain Sister Klava’s 9 Dexterity stat.
Further ideas and suggestions?
Your examples of how tough times were is about the best any DM can do to set the mood, and if done well enough will easily get the players into the feel of the setting. This has always been key in my experience. The DM always has a picture of what he/she wants in their head, and unless they can portray the everyday life of their world most players will default to what they're most familiar with-- which is usually the sort of self-porodying image of conemporary fantasy from book covers/video games.
Mechanics can also help, even if just a liberal use of the +2/-2 modifier (the DM's best friend) to represent ashen winds, burned hands, or chipped weapons.
Another way is to create physical wound attacks using diseases. By treating lingering wounds like diseases, you can control when/where they are afflicted and it's balanced with the game. I much prefer this to any sort of random "wound chart" attempt to make the hp system feel "gritty".
One easy way is to remove the +NUM items. It's actually pretty easy. Give a +1 to the three +NUM item types every 5 levels when wielding a non-magical item. This makes magical items feel more "magical" as they do something interesting other than the bonus to hit.
Another way is to create physical wound attacks using diseases. By treating lingering wounds like diseases, you can control when/where they are afflicted and it's balanced with the game. I much prefer this to any sort of random "wound chart" attempt to make the hp system feel "gritty".
I agree with the treatment of wounds as diseases. This way you are using a mechanic that is already established in the game and seems to function fairly well for the purpose.
The first two diseases in the MM provide good example of what could be flavored as a lingering wound. i.e. the removal of healing surges or the addition of HP that cannot be healed.
Example: Player: I rolled a "1" to hit the Troll.
DM: What happens?
Players: Yggr's hands are slippery and covered in blood from the combat. He drops his sword and has to quick draw a hand axe.
I feel that real-life monsters (bears, wolves, or rhinos and elephants, depending on the setting) contribute to the realism. Also, instead of the various kobold/goblin/orc ambushes, just put various types of human bandits.
I also like the idea of re-fluffing the various "races" into different humans. So, dwarves are stocky, strong people, halflings are small and likeable, eladrin are smart and pompous, etc... But they are all human (you will have to explain the racial encounter power somehow, though).
Finally, you might want to change the religion system. You might want to ditch polytheism in favour of several clashing monotheistic faiths, each with it's own specific elements (patron saints, various aspects of God, heresy, church hierarchy, etc).
Instead of removing magical +# weapons or other items, just re-fluff them as superior. The best materials, skilled blacksmith, or some other explanation for the +2 property.
I feel that real-life monsters (bears, wolves, or rhinos and elephants, depending on the setting) contribute to the realism. Also, instead of the various kobold/goblin/orc ambushes, just put various types of human bandits.
I also like the idea of re-fluffing the various "races" into different humans. So, dwarves are stocky, strong people, halflings are small and likeable, eladrin are smart and pompous, etc... But they are all human (you will have to explain the racial encounter power somehow, though).
Finally, you might want to change the religion system. You might want to ditch polytheism in favour of several clashing monotheistic faiths, each with it's own specific elements (patron saints, various aspects of God, heresy, church hierarchy, etc).
I have included the religious system changes that you suggest and it works very well in my home campaign. Another easy change if you like the polytheism feel is to give the gods different names in different cultures. Some times even changing the gender of the deity (hey they are gods!). So the god is Lokar for the Norns but known as Sutehk to the Nither. Same god but with slightly alerted customs.
You could also make a simple hit location chart or buy a blank die and write in your own body parts.
My current campaign is really unheroic, merely revolving around people having to battle things to get places. They're not as much 'heroes' as people on missions. Generally speaking, if my character damages something, I describe it based on the damage it did. Then, based on the description, I may apply it to later descriptions. (A goblin getting it's leg sliced moving as if encumbered, and with a limp.) Of course, I've applied this to PC's as well (But with less severity and commonness). One time one of my characters was fighting a battle he would've lost, and he was sliced across the chest, which nearly killed him in one hit (3.5, -9 hp). Not wanting him to die at Level 2, I allowed his survival (the chieftain wanted him executed, not killed by his guards.) During his escape, I constantly made him have trouble, as he was wounded grievously. (He moved slower, and when he had just gotten up he had to make Fortitude saves every time he made a move to avoid falling over or blacking out.)
So, Realistic and Gritty.
I love Realistic campaigns. I usually run them like that.
My current campaign is really unheroic, merely revolving around people having to battle things to get places. They're not as much 'heroes' as people on missions. Generally speaking, if my character damages something, I describe it based on the damage it did. Then, based on the description, I may apply it to later descriptions. (A goblin getting it's leg sliced moving as if encumbered, and with a limp.) Of course, I've applied this to PC's as well (But with less severity and commonness). One time one of my characters was fighting a battle he would've lost, and he was sliced across the chest, which nearly killed him in one hit (3.5, -9 hp). Not wanting him to die at Level 2, I allowed his survival (the chieftain wanted him executed, not killed by his guards.) During his escape, I constantly made him have trouble, as he was wounded grievously. (He moved slower, and when he had just gotten up he had to make Fortitude saves every time he made a move to avoid falling over or blacking out.)
So, Realistic and Gritty.
We run games like that too! Most of the time when trying to find an explanation for how something works one of the players will site a real world example. I think you can maintain a wonderful and grounded balance between real world flavor and fantasy.
We run games like that too! Most of the time when trying to find an explanation for how something works one of the players will site a real world example. I think you can maintain a wonderful and grounded balance between real world flavor and fantasy.
That's good. I was beginning to think my dark approach to fantasy was a bit weird.
For some reason high fantasy with huge amounts of heroics has never been appealing to me.
Cities, while often dirty today, tended to be even filthier in the past. Piles of human waste, rubble, ash, and other garbage was often left in piles in the streets and alleys. People deemed/ entitled "Scavengers/ Nightsoil Men/ Gong Farmers would often remove such offal but in a large city it could take days for a pile of such waste to be removed (and in some areas it could be over looked and seldom removed). Such piles grew large enough to block kennels (early street gutters) and block the traffic of carriages and carts.
Also today we think of cities as being urban but in the pre-industrial world it was not uncommon to keep animals in the city. Pigs where very common and often roamed about eating from these mounds of refuse piled in the streets.
So the PCs come to the big city looking for some R&R and to buy/ sell some items. They need to wander in a rough section of the city inhabited by the poorest of the poor. Here they find alleys choked with offal and narrow streets with rubbish banked up on either side like snow in winter. The waste is so heavy and thick it has backed up rain water and made stinking puddles of mire, several almost a foot in depth or more. This is complied with the fact that it is currently mid summer and the heat has been oppressive. The stench is legendary and the flies are bloated and aggressive. The PCs blanket their faces as they tip toe through the filth when they come to a cross road where they find a group of skinny peasants attempting to butcher a pig that has wandered away from its stye. Suddenly a merchant class NPC arrives and sees the commoners about to brain his swine with the leg of a table. He flashes the PCs a look of concern and offers them a handful of silver to teach this rabble not to steal from their betters. Before the PCs can react the peasants draw forth rusty looking knives, hooks, and other crude weapons. The fight is on with areas on the battlemat that show slippery, deep, and other movement effecting offal. Roll for disease, roll for fun!
Let me put it this way. The last PC to die in one of my campaigns died because an enemy poisoned them. Not a particularly impressive enemy either, just a rich merchant who slipped some poison in their food and antidote in their drink(the merchant then drank huge amounts, while one of the players who was suspicious about the drink, didn't.)
Genius.
Genius.
The player wasn't that happy about it. That said he had threatened the merchant with a sword because the merchant didn't want to let him into his house earlier, so he was asking for it. He had a contingency plan for someone sneaking into his room with a knife at night too.
Feel free to implement poisoned food/antidote drink, or antidote food/poisoned drink into your campaigns by the way. I don't think I'm done with the concept
.In reading through the 4E DMG I noticed a brief topic on the various type of D&D play. My group has always thrived on a game with a little more grit and realism. We often use real cultures or historical events to embellish the games. For example, in our 3.5 game that is wrapping up we have a mercenary group who behaves very similar to those companies that were active in the 30 years war. This is not to say that we don’t have fantasy elements (flying ships, dragons, teleportation arches) but the game does tend to be a little more of a “low magic” setting. What I wanted to do is find if any of you are like-minded and would like to share ideas on how to describe certain to keep a game founded in a world of dirt, blood, ash and uncertainty.
Now if you are a DM or Player who believes that D&D and real-world/ history/ cultural elements have no business ever being brought together let me say that I respect your choices but suggest you move along to another post. This thread will only anger you and make you mad. However if you are a DM who likes color and enjoys history or a Player who considers yourself to be either an Actor, Explorer or Storyteller then this thread might be for you. If you do want to explore how a DM or Player might use such real world concepts in 4E please share! The goal is to help make our adventures, worlds, and campaigns more gritty and textured.
Powerful Magic is Unique
Considering a Flying ship costs upward of Five million GP and takes 100 years for a 20th level wizard to enchant I think they would be almost non-existant - Archimage Jendoval's Flying ship becomes a crowning achievment of a lifetime of Wizardcraft.
Mercenary Bands
I used an army of Mercenaries in a Campaign called the Charcoal Wars (it was a fight over firewood fuel resources). When the King went Bankrupt and could no longer pay for their services, the Mercenaries turned on him dividing up the Kingdom (and occupied/overrun provinces) into what later becomes the "Free Baronies".
Plagues, Famines, and Diseases are Gritty
It looks like non-linear death rates of one to fifty percent per month in any urban population where Plague, Famine, and Disease are present depending on the level of Plague, Starvation, lack of Hygine. Plague - now apparently moving through the bird population rather than the rat, settles into Pidgeon Populations in cities - fed on by the Poor (sold openly in the Market Square), the Game Birds and Waterfowl fed on by aristocracy and rural peasant alike.
Think Mass Graves and Body dumps (too resource dependant to cremate the bodies), Bodies stacked twenty to the Wagon every day (half children). Add that to the 1/2 hourly execution rate.
Paris was Executing Templar Knights at a rate of one every half hour of every 24 hours of every day of every year for 14 years (the templar population was still growing in the first eleven years).
Powerful Magic is Unique
Considering a Flying ship costs upward of Five million GP and takes 100 years for a 20th level wizard to enchant I think they would be almost non-existant - Archimage Jendoval's Flying ship becomes a crowning achievment of a lifetime of Wizardcraft.
Mercenary Bands
I used an army of Mercenaries in a Campaign called the Charcoal Wars (it was a fight over firewood fuel resources). When the King went Bankrupt and could no longer pay for their services, the Mercenaries turned on him dividing up the Kingdom (and occupied/overrun provinces) into what later becomes the "Free Baronies".
Plagues, Famines, and Diseases are Gritty
It looks like non-linear death rates of one to fifty percent per month in any urban population where Plague, Famine, and Disease are present depending on the level of Plague, Starvation, lack of Hygine. Plague - now apparently moving through the bird population rather than the rat, settles into Pidgeon Populations in cities - fed on by the Poor (sold openly in the Market Square), the Game Birds and Waterfowl fed on by aristocracy and rural peasant alike.
Think Mass Graves and Body dumps (too resource dependant to cremate the bodies), Bodies stacked twenty to the Wagon every day (half children). Add that to the 1/2 hourly execution rate.
Paris was Executing Templar Knights at a rate of one every half hour of every 24 hours of every day of every year for 14 years (the templar population was still growing in the first eleven years).
Yeah this the stuff that I like in my campaigns! I had a PC in a 3.X game get stuck performing executions because the winning army did not have enough food to spare for the common foot soldiers of the enemy forces that surrendered. He was a little freaked but got the grit and loved the campaign!
You will have heroic battles and such, but that doesn't mean real effects (like that blood stained hand caused him to drop his weapon thing above. Genius) can't happen. It humanises it, and that is important to make it a good story.
Where there is good (and I mean true good, not good-but-with-some-corruption-to-make-it-plausable), it may well be 'clean', as per the requirement of it being trad. high fantasy, yet when it gets evil, it could get gritty, and nasty. Therefore I think that grit and reality is a necessity to make it come to life.
Critical hits and fumbles
structural damage to body's - broken limbs from a high fall...
cursed weapons with wounding effects
I especially enforced all the side-effects and back-draws of magic - making it a dangerous and somewhat unpredictable art in stead of an foolproof solution.
teleport leaves you disoriented and makes you feel sick (throw up) - bad accidents possible...
fireballs fill the volume indicated by their explosion-radius - very dangerous indoors and in dungeons
the duration of some spells - like fly is variable. If you want to use the full duration, you better fly not too high or over dangerous terrain...
there were Rules for mixing Potions - I used the same for combining self researched or otherwise less explored (non PH spells) or conflicting spells (fire-aura and fire-shield)
enforced the spell-component rules -lots of creepy and disgusting stuff there:
swallow a living spider for spider-climb, use the eyeball of a hawk for mage eye and magic mirror, the stomach of an adder for acid arrow.....
I'd also scrap racial alignments for non-supernatural creatures (so demons are dstill all evil, but gnolls are not). Of course just because they aren't evil doesn't mean they don't want to kill you. Gnolls eat people - maybe they only eat people they are at war with and they say, "How little respect you show your enemies when you leave their bodies for the crows- a gnoll eats the flesh of the enemy that he might live on in the warrior." (Of course few gnolls are so articulate, but an encounter with a shaman might be disconcerting).
http://www.xrpshop.citymax.com/page/page/2561954.htm
I think a gritty campaign will have good and evil, but it shouldn't have all the good guys in the white suits or the bad guys in the black spiky armour. Wars and conflicts should be about land, fueds, succession, resources and so on. Both sides will have evil psychos running around, as well as ordinary soldiers and civilians and also the rare good character struggling to do what is right when all the odds are against it.
I'd also scrap racial alignments for non-supernatural creatures (so demons are dstill all evil, but gnolls are not). Of course just because they aren't evil doesn't mean they don't want to kill you. Gnolls eat people - maybe they only eat people they are at war with and they say, "How little respect you show your enemies when you leave their bodies for the crows- a gnoll eats the flesh of the enemy that he might live on in the warrior." (Of course few gnolls are so articulate, but an encounter with a shaman might be disconcerting).
I agree.
I think grit is great ... when it's done right. Grittiness for the sake of grittiness doesn't really appeal to me, but going for that realistic atmosphere, like Werral mentioned, can really make a game fun.
Plus that Gnoll thing was just awesome.
I have not had the chance to purchase the whole book but I did read through this freebie and found it wonderful!
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=XRPFREE1