Using FATE for Scion: Epic Knacks

A few weeks ago I mentioned I'd started to think about how to use FATE to handle Scion (Using FATE for Scion: Starting Thoughts). I've done some further work on that, figuring out the skill list and how I plan to handle damage (borrowing from Dresden Files plus the Collateral Damage mechanics from Mike Olson's Kerberos Club). I've started to work on how to handle the system of Epics from Scion. In particular I've put together the knacks associated with each Epic. Here's what I have so far.

EPIC STRENGTH

Each dot doubles the Scion’s lift. Each dot adds +1 to damage dealt with muscle-powered weapons.

Chain Breaker: With a simple flex, you may snap any but magical or the strongest mundane restraints upon you. You gain +1 to all check to escape grapples.

Crushing Grip: You do +1 damage when grappling. When grappling you may choose to grapple one handed or add an additional +1 to the damage. You may grapple two opponents simultaneously with a single hand each.

Feet Planted Firmly: When you set yourself, you’re nearly impossible to move. You cannot be tagged with ‘unbalance’ effects. You effectively double your strength to stop anything.

Holy Rampage: When you strike an inanimate object or surface, you may freely add a persistent tag like cracked or bent.

Hurl to the Horizon: Baseballs, beer kegs and other thrown objects become tiny specks in the distance when you throw them. This doubles the distance you can throw unresisting objects.

Knockback Attack: You may opt to do a physical attack which does no damage, but sends the target flying back, possibly taking damage from the landing. If you get spin, opponent gains a negative tag in addition to usual spin effects.

Making It Look Easy: Even when you push your strength to the limits, to others, it looks as if it takes you no effort what-so-ever. You might yawn as you lift a horse over your head. You never break a sweat or look strained.

One Inch Punch: You can exert full strength through even a single finger, the tip of a toe, a crooked elbow – any single point of contact with your body. You could head-butt a car down the street if you had the strength to push a car that far.

Shockwave: Spend a Fate point and make a Might test, if successful, all persons in a radius around you gain a sticky Unbalanced Tag.

Smash On Through: If you try to move through a barrier (fence, door, crowd) that you could reasonably smash through, you may keep going as if was nothing- splinters flying in all directions and sometimes even a person-shaped hole left in your wake..

Titanium Tools: When the character uses equipment or devices with their strength, those items maintain their integrity and will not crumple or break.

Uplifting Might: Characters with Epic Strength can always lift a silly amount; this doubles that again!

EPIC STAMINA

Each dot adds one additional Physical Stress box. Each dot after the first acts as +1 Armor (not cumulative with worn armor).

Body Armor: The character may parry weapons bare-handed. He gains an additional +1 Armor.

Damage Conversion: By spending a Fate point, you may select any box on your Physical Stress track to mark for damage.

Doin’ Fine: Even when you’ve been battered, bruised and beaten, you always look fine. Your clothes may be in tatters but you look ready for round two.

Holy Fortitude: You may freely go without sleep for a number of days equal to double your Epic Stamina +1.

Inner Furnace: The Scion can survive by eating or drinking even the most inedible substances. Poisons or drugs swallowed by the character get burned away before affecting them.

Invulnerable Nail: By concentrating for some time (a couple of actions in combat), the character may render a small portion of their body invulnerable- a toe, a fingertip, an earlobe, an eyeball.

Raging Bull: Add +1 to Physical damage for each Physical Consequence you have taken (up to +3).

Self-Healing: At any moment, the Scion may spend a Fate Point to clear one marked box of Physical Stress or one modest physical consequence. Outside of combat this can clear three boxes or one moderate consequence.

Solipsistic Self: For an attack with the Scion did not see, hear or know was coming, you may spend a Fate point to ignore the damage or other effects. Can only be used once per scene.

Tough: Gain an additional Physical Stress box.

Under Pressure: You can hold your breath for a frighteningly long time. As well, crushing pressures like cave ins or water depth do not affect you.

Unyielding: You may take an additional major Physical Consequence. 

EPIC PERCEPTION

Acts as a bonus to all senses checks.

Broad Spectrum: Your Scion can see energies like wi-fi, magnetism, radio waves, heat, etc. Interpretation may require a check. Shifting vision to this and back requires a round of concentration or spending a Fate point.

Double Vision: Your senses are protected, making it nearly impossible to blind or deafen you with an attack.

In Your Dreams: Even when sleeping, you continue to sense things. You will recall everything that happened around you while you slept.

Microscopic Senses: By concentrating, you can see incredibly fine detail. You can perform forensic observations without equipment and the like.

Parallel Attention: When surrounded by multiple information inputs- several radios, people talking in a crowd, a bank of TVs- you can hear & see everything simultaneously and process it.

Real McCoy: You immediately see through normal disguises. You have a +2 bonus to detect Shapeshifted persons.

Refined Palate: You may sniff out or taste specific ingredients or components with a test. You can list out all the elements of something easily.

Sense Fatebound: By concentrating, you can sense if a person has been Fatebound. A check may reveal additional information.

Spatial Attunement: By concentrating for a round, you can map the space around you, allowing you to act easily blind or in darkness. You can also see 360 degrees around n that state.

Subliminal Warning: You cannot be surprised. On a surprise round, you act first, then the attackers, then your fellow ambush-ees.

Telescopic Senses: By taking a moment to concentrate, you can extend any of your senses (sight, smell, hearing) to an extreme distance.

Unfailing Recognition: If you have seen someone before, you can immediately pick out their face in a crowd, regardless of other difficulties. 

EPIC ACCURACY

Acts as a bonus to all attack rolls.

Absolute: Your character instinctively knows which way is north, what time of day it is and how long it has been since X happened.

Crippling Blow: Instead of applying Physical Damage, you may spend a Fate Point to instead cause a Physical Consequence. This does not work if the target has already taken all of their Major Consequences.

Find Weakness: When doing damage, your opponent has an armor value of -1, minimum of 0.

Forger: You gain a +2 to all attempts to forge anything- documents, relics, jewels- provided you have access to the right materials. Your bonus applies to disguise attempts as well.

Microscopic Precision: You can manipulate at the finest levels with absolute steadiness. You still need the right tools and have to be able to see the details to do this.

Perfect Pitch: You can echo exactly any sound you have heard. If you know an instrument, you can replay any song you’ve heard. You gain a +2 to all attempts at mimicry, in addition to the Epic Accuracy bonus.

Photographic Assessment: By observation, you can accurately estimate the weight, size or number of objects in an area.

Photographic Penmanship: You can reproduce an image from memory in any medium with the clarity of a photograph.

Precise: When firing into combat, you can never hit anyone but your intended target.

Ricochet Symphony: You can bounce your ranged attacks, allowing you to ignore cover or concealment.

Striker: You may use Epic Accuracy instead of Strength for damage bonuses. In this case each dot adds +1 to damage dealt with muscle-powered weapons.

Trick Shooter: By taking an Aim action, you gain a +4 on your attack roll on the following round. Additionally, your Aim tags last until you take the shot, regardless of movement or actions. 

EPIC MOVEMENT

Acts as a bonus to all dodge rolls.

Each dot of Epic Movement doubles your pace out of combat. If using zones, then it allows you on your action to shift one zone per dot without rolling. If using hexes, then it adds +2 hexes to each half move.

And the Crowd Goes Wild: Gain a +2 bonus for any athletics or physical performance test, like football or ballet.

Blur: If you gain spin on attack roll, you make immediately move within a zone or to an adjacent zone. If using hexes, you gain a free half-move.

Cat Steps: You leave no tracks and may walk on semi-solid surfaces (sand, quicksand, thin ice) without worry.

Escape Artist: Spend a Fate point to get out of any restraints quietly- from strait jackets, to handcuffs, to locked boxes.

Freedom: You suffer no movement or action penalties for dense or buffeting environments, such as underwater or in a tornado.

Holy Bound: Your character doubles his leaping distance- both running and standing. Combined with Epic Movement dots, this can get crazy.

Lightning Sprinter: You move as if you had an additional dot of Epic Movement. You ignore movement penalties for uneven or rough terrain.

Monkey Climb: You can climb surfaces at a steady walking pace. You only need to make checks for super-smooth surfaces, difficult environments or trying to go fast.

Safe Fall: When you fall besides a vertical surface like a wall, a rope, or something of the sort, you divide the distance by your # of Epic Movement dots.

Spooky: You can enter or exit a room without being seen…just like Batman. You just pop up and startle people.

Stay on Task: Rote or mundane tasks involving movement and concentration (assembling furniture, reading, cleaning) take half the time.

Unruffled: When moving- running, evading attacks, spinning like a top- you always look composed and in control. 

EPIC REFLEXES

Acts as a bonus to all parry & block rolls.

Between Raindrops: When a non-aimed group of objects flies at you, you can avoid them (falling rocks, raindrops) easily. For combat effects, like automated pitching machines or robot guns, you must spend a Fate point.

Bodyguard: You can parry or block for adjacent targets. May not be combined with Untouchable Opponent.

Cat’s Grace: You always land on your feet. When knocked down you automatically get up.

Gambler: For any gambling contest where you control the movement (rolling dice, shuffling cards, flipping a coin) you automatically determine the result.

In My Hand: If you have something you’re carrying, you can declare you have it in hand- in the blink of any eye. If it is on someone near you and controlled (say a gun) you must make a check.

Omnidexterity: You can use either hand with equal ease, even simultaneously (for example, texting with two phones).

Perfect Balance: You can balance along extremely or absurdly thin ledges or lines without having to make a roll.

Pickpocket: Gain a +3 to all attempts to pickpocket or place something upon another person. You’re absurdly goodat this, defying physics and logic.

Rabbit Reflexes: You go first. If more people have this, compare Epic Reflexes dots.

Untouchable Opponent: If you take no aggressive or offensive actions in a round, you gain a +2 to all defense checks. If you take a full defense action, you gain a +4 to all defenses and reactions.

Wheelman: Gain a +2 to any driving or piloting checks. In a chase, you may add one aspect freely to the environment at the start.

Whirlwind Shield: You may parry projectiles, even bullets. You can catch low velocity projectiles (knives, arrows) with a successful parry. 

EPIC CHARM

Dots act as damage value for social conflicts.

Benefit of the Doubt: When speaking with someone you wish to convince, you may spend a Fate point to have them give you the benefit of the doubt for the moment. This can change, depending on later events or evidence.

Blame James: When avoiding blame (either through “Boys Will Be Boys” or persuasion) you may spend a Fate point to subtly pin the blame on another target.

Blessing of Importance: By sticking up for a person in public, you can heal them of Mental Stress (1-3) or a minor Mental Consequence immediately. On non-mortals, this requires spending a Fate point.

Boys Will Be Boys: When you get into trouble with an angry witness or authority figure—you need only shrug haplessly, grin foolishly and spend a Fate point. The offended party decides that whatever you did wasn’t that bad.

Center of Attention: By spending a point of fate you can draw the attention of everyone in an area (or watching an area). Useful for making a spectacular entrance, this lasts # of minutes = to Epic Charm. Scions/Titans may resist.

Charmer: By spending a Fate point, you can suppress a reaction of panic, suspicion or utter hatred directed at you for one scene. The feeling will remain, but beneath the surface- giving your Scion time to ease or get around it.

Come Hither: By sending a message- a gesture, a text, a letter- you may force a target to come to you. The message must include an image of yourself. Scions & others with Epic Charm or Presence may resist.

Crowd Control: With a check and a Fate point, you can quell the energies of even the largest crowd for a moment, enough time to put your case forward or make an escape.

God’s Honest: By making a swear gesture and spending a Fate point, you can convince one mortal target what you’re saying is the absolute truth- no questions asked. This lasts until they’re faced with incontrovertible proof.

Grin and Bear It: Gain an additional Social Stress box.

Hapless Cool: Your character is always cool, regardless of what they’re doing. They set the trends or are simply seen as far above whatever mundane activity they’re engaged in.

Never Say Die: After your character takes a Physical Consequence, you may spend an action to pop up and show you’re OK. Your fellow players who see this gain one Fate point. This may only be done once per scene.

Not in the Face: You may use Empathy or Fast Talk instead of Dodge for checks against intelligent targets. You may apply Epic Charm as a bonus.

Pied Piper: By spending a Fate point, you make your character the person to be around. Mortals nearby flock and become groupies and hangers on. This effect lasts an evening (or day) and can be resisted. 

EPIC PRESENCE

Each dot adds a box to your Social Stress track.

Advantageous Circumstance: You set up groups like a machine, knocking the first domino over and watching them fall. Your intended effect can’t take more than a scene and can’t be more than a personal, temporal gain for you.

Blurt it Out: In a conversation, you may spend a Fate point to have a target reveal information about a subject of your choice. A test determines how much and how embarrassing or private that information is.

Damage Control: You may take an additional major Social Consequence.

Dreadful Mein: For Scions with a hidden hideous appearance (often children of Death gods). You may spend a Fate point reveal yourself to a mortal, forcing them to run and flee.

Implacable: Your dots of Epic Presence act as an Armor Value for Social Damage.

Knowing Glance: You can use Epic Presence for your Social Damage value.

Lasting Impression: You may spend a Fate point to add a persistent aspect to a target- lasting a day. Lovely Scions can add an uplifting sense; hideous Scions may add a debilitating one, unsettling the target.

My Eyes Are Up Here: By spending a Fate point, you can make yourself forgettable to all mortals for one scene.

Overt Order: By spending a Fate point, you can make a victim perform in a single, simple action- like Freeze! Drop It! Shoot Him!

Perfect Actor: By spending a Fate point you can place an emotional aspect on all viewers for the duration of a scene.

Rumor Mill: Your skills and contacts allow you to spread rumors and hearsay with lightning speed.

Secondhand Persuasion: You may use your Epic Presence bonus to manipulate someone through writing, drawings or text messages.

Self Esteem: By spending a Fate point, you may select any box on your Social Stress track to mark for damage.

Serpent’s Gaze: By spending a point of Fate you can lock eyes with a target and hold their gaze. The target’s rendering inactive until you break the gaze. Any actions you take while locking eyes is at a -2 penalty.

Unimpeachable Reference: You can lend someone a portion of your authority. By spending a point of fate and vouching for someone (in person or with a token), you force the target to give your agent the benefit of the doubt. 

EPIC KNOWLEDGE

Each dot adds one dot to Mental Stress track.

Blockade of Reason: You may use an appropriate knowledge skill in place of Fast Talk or Intimidation for social interactions.

Certainty: You may take an additional major Mental Consequence.

Cipher: You can encode or decode a message freely. You can create a cipher which will only be decodable by a target who has been given a key.

Fast Learner: You may freely switch the values of two skills at the beginning of each session. Once per session you may spend a Fate point to make this switch, before dice are rolled. These changes remain between sessions.

Know-It-All: When making declarations, you may add two aspects.

Language Master: After hearing a language for a short time, you may speak it with some fluency. You will borrow the accent you’ve heard. This does not apply to written languages.

Math Genius: You can perform on the fly high level calculations in your head. This provides a +2 bonus to any check relying on Math and allows you to check other people’s calculations rapidly.

Perfect Memory: Your character has photographic memory and may ask the GM to fill in details of past events you character witnessed. Once per session, you may make a retroactive assessment.

Social Chameleon: You possess an instinctive knowledge of foreign customs. This gives you a +1 on interactions in those situations. You may spend a Fate point to stop a faux pas from happening.

Specialist: For each dot of Epic Knowledge you possess, you may choose one “specialty” for a skill, a narrow use in which you gain +2 to tests.

Speed Reader: You can read through written or visually presented material in 1/10^th the time.

Telepathy: By concentrating and spending a Fate point you can send a simple message into the mind of someone a short distance away. If you can see them, the distance is further. 

EPIC WITS

Each dot acts as armor value for Mental conflicts.

Adaptive Fighting: When engaged in single battle, you may add a bonus each round after the first: +1 to attack, +1 to damage, +1 to armor, +1 to dodge or +1 to parry. You may add a # equal to Epic Wits; each may be applied once.

Don’t Read the Manual: You suffer no penalties to working with unfamiliar equipment. You may make a check (or spend a Fate point) to figure out instantly the purpose of any machine.

Insight: When engaged in a battle of wills, your Epic Wits acts as a damage bonus.

Instant Investigation: You can look at a scene and immediately may a forensics-style reading of the scene, like a CSI machine.

Iron Will: You gain an additional Mental Stress box.

Jack of All Trades: For each dot of Epic Wits you possess, you may choose one “specialty” for a skill, a narrow use in which you gain +2 to tests. You may declare this during play by spending a Fate point.

Jerry-Rig: With a check, you may rewire and realign a machine to a new and bizarre purpose.

Meditative Focus: The character never suffers penalties or checks for distractions due to noise, explosions, riots or the like.

Multitasking: You may perform a number of separate mental tasks simultaneously equal to your refresh pool (play chess while composing a poem in your head and announcing the results of a baseball game).

Opening Salvo: On the opening round of a conflict, you gain a +2 to all checks.

Perfect Imposter: You gain a +2 to all checks (disguise, mimicry, acting) when disguised as another persona you’ve researched. This may be a specific person or a general figure (like Mall Cop).

Tactical Planning: When a conflict breaks out you may immediately add two aspects to the scene.

Cracking Mystara: Ten Last Thoughts

Now that I've finally finished my review of the Gazetteer series, I have a few final thoughts. I pull links to all of those reviews in my previous post: Gazetteers of Mystara: the Review List.

1. TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GAMING
I’ve said it before, but the volume of rich material in these books means that WotC really ought to be offering some kind of reprint or electronic version. I understand some of the logic for avoiding that: piracy, driving players towards new editions, production costs. Of these only the last seems to hold any merit. But illegal electronic versions exist already and I would love to be able to purchase clean, well-done and legal editions. The OSR movement has peeled off players- better to gain some market share within that rather than ignoring it. I doubt the existence of these materials with significantly impact sales of a present edition.

During the brief time WotC did sell electronic versions, I picked several up. Some of them had been scanned well- pages aligned, clean up done, contrast balanced. However many sucked. They were nearly useless because whoever’d done the scanning job had been asleep at the switch. Producing good quality materials will obviously take some time, effort, and therefor expense. I’m not saying I want Original Electronic Version quality, just something relatively clean. If WotC's serious about drawing back fans across all of the editions, then reprinting- electronic or otherwise- ought to be an arrow in their quiver.

I’m saying this because I really want a PoD copy of The Rules Cyclopedia.

2. OPEN GAMING
In going back to reread these gazetteers, I once again had to reconfigure my vision of the Known World and Mystara. I’d forgotten the scale of Ylaruam or that Thyatis had a mainland presence, the westernmost segment of the Empire. I’d forgotten how important Minrothad was- I’d recalled it as a kind of throwaway place but it has a significantly larger impact. I’d even forgotten that Alfheim was completely surrounded by another country. I’d never seen a solid “overview” of the world, so I had to put the pieces together myself. What’s interesting for me- especially given the way I picked up and put together a vision of Mystara exclusively from the gazetteers over the year- are the relatively rare invalidations.

Rebecca Borgstrom in her essay “Structure and Meaning in Role-Playing Game Design”
(Second Person, MIT Press 2007) talks about the way rpg supplements can actually close down a world. Gamers begin with base material, usually a core or setting book which lays out the essential elements. Places or concepts might get a fly-over pass in that product. GM’s can start running from just that material- filling things in as they go along. When later products appear, coloring those previously blank areas they contradict material the GM’s established. That’s usually a given, but some products may present themselves in such depth, with such a distinct reading that they don’t recast the GM’s read but act as a completely exclusive read on the material. This makes it more difficult for the GM to usefully adapt that material. It becomes worse if the architecture of further supplements depends on that. Borgstorm points out how some of the first edition Exalted materials do this. The Mystara Gazetteers, for the most part, never felt like they offered a closed interpretation.

3. SOME GAMERS JUST WANT TO SEE THE WORLD BURN
Outside the gazetteers, Mystara does have an invalidation problem. In 1992, TSR began to introduce metaplot elements to the setting. Previous to this, events appearing in modules and supplements didn’t really impact the setting material. Most of the gazetteers mentioned the modules affiliated with their areas. The only mention of a module event potentially affecting a setting came for Elves of Alfheim where success or failure of an outside adventure could impact Elven life. Now TSR “blew up” the setting with the adventure presented in Wrath of the Immortals. That moved the timeline forward and drastically changed several areas including Glantri. A series of Poor Wizard's Almanacs then continued to push the history forward. The later AD&D revisions of Karameikos and Glantri assumed those events as canon, as did Champions of Mystara. GMs who didn’t move their campaigns forward ended up with supplements with useless material or material requiring more work to whip into shape. Plus, as I did, they might cringe at some of the choices.

White Wolf’s legendary for problems with metaplot in their games. Paranoia alienated some gamers with their Post-Whoops line of products. Legend of the Five Rings most parallels Mystara’s problems. I enjoyed the first edition of L5R and I bought every supplement for it. However at a certain point, they needed to advance the game setting to parallel the story happening in the CCG it was based on. It happened slowly at first, but then accelerated. Incidents and ideas began to appear in supplements based on those world changes. By the midpoint of the L5R 2e life cycle, we’d jumped forward significantly. The Secrets of... clan books were essentially incompatible with the Way of... books for setting and characters. Of course both offered different mechanical options. It became a mess. Third Edition L5R tried to clean up the mechanical contradictions and establish a new baseline, but the history kept rolling forward, rendering interesting past material more difficult to use. The newest edition has embraced a broader approach- playable across different eras.

The problem here- as in Mystara is that I liked the world and status quo established by the original materials- I like pre-Clan War Rokugan. And I like the world of the gazetteers. I don’t want another person’s vision of what should happen; I want more ideas to play with inside that setting.

4. PICKING THE BEST
What are my top five gazetteers? GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri remains #1- I’ve gotten more interesting ideas from that than any other volume. It also has the best cover. GAZ12: The Golden Khan of Ethengar is #2. I’ve used some of those ideas, and it is so well-written, an example of how to actually put together one of these. GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is #3. It has great characters and a smaller scale. I’ve only used a little bit of it in the game, but I appreciate the atmosphere and the adaptation. GAZ2: The Emirates of Ylaruam is #4 which seems a little weird to me. In my review I wrote about some of my reservations with it, but there’s a ton of great detail in it. I’d really like to do some sessions with more of this civilization. It is almost a tie with #5, but I think GAZ5: The Elves of Alfheim just edges out GAZ6: The Dwarves of Rockhome- primarily because I’ve lifted more from the former. Next on my list would be GAZ13: The Shadow Elves, GAZ9: The Minrothad Guilds or GAZ7: The Northern Reaches.

5. AT THE BOTTOM
While each has some interesting ideas I think the three weakest volumes are GAZ11: The Republic of Darokin, GAZ14: Atruaghin Clans and GAZ4: The Kingdom of Ierendi. Ierendi gets last place because it feels like it so missed the boat about what makes the gazetteers great. Atruaghin Clans' weakness lies in the rush job done to produce it. Darokin just bugs me and I’m sure won’t be on others lists of the weakest.

6. NARRATION & STYLE
One of the criticism I’ve seen leveled at the gazetteers is the “narrative” fiction. Generally I’m not a fan of game fiction within supplements. Some game books substitute that for providing setting or clear material. Where the gazetteers use first person voice, it has a purpose. It can an insider perspective or an unreliable narrator. Sometimes it is used to convey tone or cultural style. A few of the books overuse the technique (Ierendi for example). But where it does appear it works more often than not.

7. OUTSIDER PERSPECTIVES
I’m in a strange position reviewing these gazetteers. I never used any of them for their mechanics: I never ran basic D&D and by the times these came out, I’d already moved away from AD&D. Instead I use these materials for Rolemaster, GURPS and homebrew campaigns. I also never ran a “Mystara” campaign. Instead I tore some of these places out and dropped them in to fill out areas of the game world. That’s required quite a bit of tweaking over the 25+ years I’ve run that world. Rereading these threw me a little- having mixed up what I’d adapted and what I’d developed myself. Mystara veterans probably wouldn’t recognize much of it. Still it isn’t the worst- Gloranthan experts would probably do a spit take with my bastardization of that material, patched together as I started to figure out how that cosmology actually worked.

8. MANY WORLDS THEORY
I know this can be said for most established settings, like Forgotten Realms or Cyberpunk’s Night City- but I love the idea that there are multiple different Mystara’s out there. Worlds where the Hollow World is a vital and important part of the setting, worlds where it doesn’t even exist. Campaigns where the players battle against the rampaging awfulness of the Thayatian Dominion and others where they battle magical conspiracies wrought by the Alphatians. Games that perhaps play in only one or two of the regions- the Karameikan or Ethengarian campaign. That an NPC my players have come to love my be completely off-stage in another world…or might actually be a hated enemy.

9. FOR THE FUN OF IT
IMHO Forgotten Realms and some of other recent settings aspire to be Tolkien-esque: historical, detailed, logically consistent, rich and deadly serious. The Gazetteers and Mystara as a whole take another approach. They’re closer in tone to earlier D&D material. I don’t believe that renders the material any less compelling or dramatic. But in some places it does go perhaps a little too far for my taste. As I mentioned in my GAZ10: The Orcs of Thar review, I think humor emerges at the game table and it is harder to actually craft into the material without risking a groaning reaction. But I do believe that lighter tone makes the setting feel more accessible, more friendly. As bizarre as it might sound, given some of the horrors in the setting, I feel like Mystara’s a good and happy place. I feel like my characters would be welcome there- and could make a difference.

10. EMERGENT WORLDS
One of the most interesting things in the current campaign has been watching the players evolving sense of Glantri (which goes by another name in my world). I really love it when a player embraces their background and becomes a kind of ambassador for their people. Lucy d’Ambreville has served to illustrate some of the contradictions of Glantri- and the complexity of their perspective on gods and divine magic. As a GM, embrace what the players come up with about their culture- let them build that from the material. Sherri, Lucy’s player, read through the Glantri material what’s come out is her reading of it. That’s provided great opportunities for world-building with minimal input on my part. It illustrates how useful a “Yes/Yes, but…” approach can be even for these kinds of larger scale details.

LASTLY
My next set of reviews will cover another series I love- one which has major utility today twenty years after the first volume was published. After that I eventually plan to return and review some of the more interesting later Mystara products including Red Steel, Savage Baronies, Champions of Mystara, and Hollow World.