Monitors: some like it hot 1

So I want to have another look at heat mechanics. They seem like an important part of the mechanics, and they're also something I don't know of a parallel to in any game I've seen (admittedly that leaves plenty of room) because they're effectively a curve with a peak of efficiency and Bad Things at either end. I like the idea of a points mechanic, because it feels intuitively nice to be gaining heat tokens as you warm up, and then spending them as you head off into the cold. However, I'm also not sure that a fundamentally additive and threshold-free mechanic is going to be a good match for our curve. I'd also like something that's relatively simple to use in play, because while I want it to be a core mechanic, it's not really something you need to do anything that fiddly with. I want something significant, but slick.

A point worth bearing in mind: whatever mechanic I want to use should also be not completely incompatible with the use of non-reptiles elsewhere in the game. Just something to think about.

Basically this will be another one of my thinking-out-loud posts, so it's a bit messy and long-winded and entirely devoid of silly artwork. Bonus points if you guess the outcomes earlier than I did.

Issues in temperature mechanisms

There are several main issues to consider in terms of the temperature mechanism for Monitors.

• Body temperature, which determines activity levels
• Environmental temperature, which either supplies or absorbs heat
• Insulation, which reduces transfer between body and environment and so maintains body temperature
• Specific heat/light sources, which allow a reptile to warm up regardless of environmental temperature
• The slowing effects of low temperature, which means losing heat is a problem
• The heat-shock effects of high temperature, which means absorbing too much heat is a problem
• Inevitability – heat loss or gain is a physical law, not a personal or dramatic choice, and failure to at least loosely follow the science will make the system ridiculous

Possible pitfalls

In a straight token pool system, a Monitor might choose to take damage from cold, rather than spend heat points to avoid it, allowing them to keep acting at full capability in arctic conditions. This would lead to a ridiculous situation where they are simultaneously taking damage from being cold, and warm enough to run around at normal speed.

In a points-per-turn system based on environmental temperature, problems would arise when Monitors use insulation to maintain a body temperature different from the environment. You could say that insulation modifies the points, but then simply donning insulating gear would effectively warm you up, whereas inability to warm up without a heat source is one of the key features of heterothermy.

The main issue is though, in a genuine heat points system, what would heat points actually do?

• You could use heat points to determine actions, where you receive points per turn based on body temperature. At this point, though, it’s just another name for action points, and you’re tracking body temperature on a chart.
• You could have a large pool of heat points, and allow limited spending to perform extra actions or gain a bonus on skills. Points would be lost when in cold environments. Broadly speaking, this gives greater competence at higher temperatures.

General principles

• At average body temperature, you can perform perfectly well.
• At low temperatures, you become slower and clumsier, and find it increasingly difficult to do anything well. Your metabolism slows, reducing healing, digestion and the effects of drugs, illness and poisons.
• At very low temperatures, you slow to a crawl and eventually to a standstill.
• At high temperatures, your metabolism can perform more efficiently, allowing you to move faster, react more quickly and heal better. However, chemicals and diseases will also take effect more quickly.
• At very high temperatures, your body is no longer able to adapt to the heat. You overheat like any other creature, becoming exhausted, and eventually suffering pain and injury from the heat.
• Direct application of extreme heat or cold will damage a reptile as it would anything else – the temperature difference is simply too large for them to cope, so they will be frozen or burned accordingly.
• In environments hotter than you, you tend to get hotter.
• In environments colder than you, you tend to get colder.
• It takes time to warm up or cool down and adjust activity accordingly.

Experimental models

Ten-point tracker

This model simply uses "points" as a tracking system on a scale that determines activity levels. As I mentioned before, you'd gradually change body temperature to suit the environment, and insulation would help you to resist this change.

Heat points	Description	Actions	Skills/Speed	Notes
0	Torpid	-	-	Metabolism stops
1	Very cold	Minor only	-2	Metabolism slowed
2	Cold	Major only	-1	Metabolism slowed
3	Cool	Major + Minor
4	Average	Major + Minor
5	Average	Major + Minor
6	Warm	Major + 2 Minor	+1	Metabolism increased
7	Warm	Major + 2 Minor	+1	Metabolism increased
8	Hot	Major + Minor
9	Very hot	Major + Minor	-1
10	Overheated	Major only	-2
++	Heat Shocked	-	-	Unconscious

Notes on Tracker

Naturally, the exact effects of temperatures would depend on other mechanics for the game; I wouldn't necessarily be using Major + Minor actions, for example.

This system seems to cover all the principles I outlined above. It calls for checking your activity against the chart to determine activity, which is potentially a burden on the player; I've streamlined it down from my original idea but I suppose it could potentially be simplified even more. The chart could be cut down to five states, say; on the other hand it could be expanded to weight sections differently, which would generally mean giving players a bigger safe zone. This would depend on likely rates of heat loss and gain in play. I'm inclined to say that slightly larger pools are better because it makes the loss or gain of one point less dramatic, and this makes it easier to judge and take risks, provide challenges that penalise without crippling characters, and so on; Dan's analysis of this problem in Deathwatch pretty much covers it.

There might be some confusion because it's not completely symmetrical.

Large Spendable Pool

In this system, heat points are actually spent. The heat points pool is very large, perhaps even 100 points, and we assume that tactical considerations and spending limits will avoid major breaches of physical law.

Any environment has a temperature rating. Monitors will gravitate towards it, losing or gaining heat depending on their body temperature and insulation. This might range from 10 per minute when stark naked, to 3 in thick woollens, to a percentage chance of losing even 1 point when wearing a genuine spacesuit.

Heat points can be spent on a small number of specific things, probably only once per turn:

• bonus on skill rolls
• faster healing
• additional actions

So, let’s say you’re moving into a Temp 20 set of tunnels (cold) from your nice warm Temp 50 vehicle. The Captain is wearing combat fatigues, lightly insulated, and will lose 5 points per minute as she gravitates towards ambient temperature, which will take a mere six minutes; on the other hand, she’s mobile and can react quickly for now. The Engineer, on the other hand, has a bulky insulated suit that reduces heat loss to 2 points per minute, which means she can act more or less normally for half an hour even in these tunnels, but is impeded by her bulky suit. When a clutch of skitterbugs burst out of a side-passage, both characters can start spending heat points every round to make additional actions or take more effective shots. However, the Captain’s player needs to watch this spending, as a few rounds of high-spending combat will leave her slow and vulnerable until she can find a new heat source. In contrast, the Engineer’s player can spend fairly freely.

Once in the tunnels, the pair... actually, they can continue to spend points even when very cold, because they'll actually gravitate back up to the higher temperature. Nope, this model is not going to work! But let's continue.

Emerging (slowly) from the tunnels an hour later, our pair find themselves in a huge greenhouse (Temp 70). The Captain warms up to normal function in only four minutes (and to toasty warm background in ten), while the Engineer will take ten minutes to reach normal capability, and a whopping twenty-five minutes before she's as warm and active as the Captain - and will still have the bulky suit impeding her. However, with a constant supply of heat coming in, the two can spend heat points without a care in the world.

In this system, the player balance is between spending heat points early on while you still have them, and keeping a supply of heat for long-term use.

You'd have to find a balance between the cost of bonus actions, the size of the pool, and the speed of temperature change.

Problems:

• It would difficult to make this work in both short and long term consistently. A very large pool with slow point loss would allow players to act with impunity for long periods unless actively chilled by something. A small pool would make long-term activity in cold environments very difficult. Working a suitable balance out would be very difficult.
• The present system doesn’t really model the effects of low temperatures, nor high temperatures. Both should cause general impairment. High temperatures have a particular problem, because it's actually in the player's interest to spend heat points to minimise any damage caused by excess, but that makes them more effective with heat rather than less. I could tweak the system by requiring a heat point spend for every action, but this would need very careful balancing to allow more than a few minutes’ activity. What about using insulation as a modifier on that spend, and having the per-turn heat spend include an action? However, all this would ultimately do is add a lower bound, not model impairment; and that can be done anyway simply by stopping activity once you run out of heat points.
• In this system, simply being in a warm environment allows you immediately start spending points like water. It doesn't even have to be warm - just warmer than your current body temperature! There's no mechanical sense of taking time to gradually get warm again, and being stiff and awkward for a while after you come in from the cold.
• Similarly, being in a cold environment makes it unwise to spend points, even if you're very warm and highly insulated, because you can't regain them. This feels wrong to me. A warm lizard in a spacesuit should stay highly active and effective in the cold of space.
• If you have a low cost to bonus actions, then you can take these even at low temperatures. However, if you have a high cost, then in a cold environment you'll cool down immediately unless insulation also reduces the cost of actions.
• Insulation is powerful, and needs careful balancing against other considerations, such as speed, armour and clumsiness, especially if different players are likely to take different levels of insulation.
• If you can drop below the background temperature, then insulation is a burden as long as it reduces heat change to less than the cost of an action.
• If you can't, then you can take bonus actions forever as long as they cost less than the current temperature rating.
• I tried some messing around with insulation that cuts the cost of actions, and a few other things, but nothing works. Fundamentally, unless any change in heat points is affected by body temperature and environmental temperature and insulation, it's not going to work. That's getting pretty complicated already.
• What about things like drug metabolism? This should be faster at higher temperatures and slower at low temperatures. You can’t make players spend points on things like that (particularly for poisons etc.) and you’d need to set boundaries for when a GM can do it so they know how to avoid unfairness – don’t want the GM spending all your precious heat points on poisoning you!

On this initial pass, it seems to me that:

• points pools are very good for modelling dwindling supplies, but don't handle over-saturation well.
• spendable pools are good for choice-based mechanics, but not so good for cause and effect.
• a point-adjusting model is likely to make the environment-body interaction fiddly because constant adjustment is called for.
• most importantly, a replenishing points system based on relative factors has fundamental patterns of supply and cost that don't model resource limitation well.
• the interaction between environmental temperature, body temperature and insulation is quite complex and difficult to model in a point-spending system.

Tap and Burn Model

An alternative point-pool model would involve tapping and burning of heat points depending on insulation levels.

1. A Monitor would spend heat points every round to do things like move or use skills. These would be tapped.
2. At the end of their turn, they can untap a number of points equal to their insulation value.
3. Any excess tapped points are lost.
4. Warm environments, or basking near heat sources, allow you to gain heat points.
5. Heat gain is also modified by insulation.
6. Any time you would gain heat points but are at maximum, you take damage instead.

In the following examples, Cold is Heat 2, Warm is Heat 10, and Hot is Heat 18. Assume that you can spend 1 point to move, use a skill or gain a bonus on a roll, to a maximum of 5 points per turn. Good insulation is 4, poor insulation is 1. These are all arbitrary.

If somewhere cold:

• Warm reptiles with good insulation can spend points fairly readily, which models the high activity and efficiency appropriate for this situation. However, unless they have perfect insulation, it's tactically best for them to be less active than an equally warm reptile in a warm room.
• Warm reptiles with poor insulation can spend plenty of points, but will rapidly run out. This allows them to act effectively for a short period, then slow down. However, they can also conserve points to avoid losing them, which is problematic; they can trudge slowly in the snow for hours on end, then suddenly have a burst of activity.
• Cold reptiles with good insulation don't have many points to spend, but will recover all of them, so they can consistently act slowly. This could work okay if point supplies and costs are well-balanced, allowing them to do a small number of actions per turn.
• Cold reptiles with poor insulation will rapidly run out of points if they spend them. This makes it sensible to conserve points, which models their torpor at these temperatures. If they have no insulation, it's best to do nothing at all.

If somewhere warm:

• Warm reptiles with good insulation can spend points readily, which models the high activity appropriate for this situation. Depending on the way heat gain works, they could potentially gain heat, which is a problem.
• Cold reptiles with good insulation don't have many points to spend, but will recover most of them and so keep acting slowly. They can potentially gain additional heat points over time. Their best option is to remove layers and try to warm up faster.
• Cold reptiles with poor insulation will lose any points they spend, but will gain heat points easily, so they have a way to replace them. However, if heat points are only gained slowly (one a round, say), it's possible for them to burn their full supply each round, keeping them effectively slow and awkward because their pool will not increase. Alternatively, they might build up a sizeable pool, but then lose it all in a few rounds of activity, despite being somewhere warm.
• Warm reptiles with poor insulation: depending on the way heat gain works, they could potentially gain heat, which is a problem. If the rate of heat acquisition is low, they can easily run out of points despite the temperature, effectively cooling down!

If somewhere hot:

• Warm reptiles with good insulation can spend points readily, which models the high activity appropriate for this situation. They would slowly gain heat, which would allow them to do more until they overheat.
• Warm reptiles with poor insulation can spend points, because even though they burn them, they'll gain fresh points. They will rapidly overheat and take damage, and ideally ought to either seek shelter or wrap up.
• The best mechanical option for everyone is actually to spend points as quickly as possible, making them effectively fast and effective rather than impeded by the heat. If the rate of heat gain is slow, then this problem is reduced.

Notes on Tap and Burn

This seems to work as expected for insulated characters, but fall down badly without insulation.

Reptiles can simply avoid spending points in cold situations, which is fine when they're cold, but problematic when they're hot. You can stand quite happily naked in a freezer without losing points, as written, as long as you don't do anything. You can hoard points for long periods by not doing much, then spend them when it's convenient.

There is a kind of fluffy long-term effect of background temperature, but it isn't actually enforced in the short term. Warm reptiles can act slowly and clumsily in the cold to retain points for later; colder reptiles can spend all their points to do one thing very effectively; and getting hot makes you more likely to be active and efficient, not less.

This system would need very careful balancing between multiple factors: the rate of heat acquisition, the effects of insulation on heat loss and gain, the size of the pool, and the cost of activities. I am wary of anything that needs pinpoint balancing.

Overall, I can't really see this system working. It seems to me that dealing with the problems would involve adding several points of complexity, and having players do arithmetic every round to determine exactly how many points they start and end with. Moreover, some problems seem to call for a low rate of heat gain, while others call for a high rate.

Thermal Hit Points

Let's briefly consider a model where heat points work rather like conventional hit points, and are lost through cold or regained through heat-based "healing".

1. Reptiles have a capacity of 10 heat points.
2. Environments are classified with brutal simplicity as "Cold", "Moderate" and "Hot", with only "Moderate" being survivable in the long term.
3. A Cold environment, or exposure to cold, damages your heat points.
4. A Hot environment, or exposure to reasonable heat, heals your heat points.
5. Insulation gives a (non-optional) die roll to soak changes to heat points.
6. If you run out of heat, you go torpid.
7. Any time you'd exceed your capacity, you take damage instead.

The first disadvantage here is that players are naturally going to be inclined to max out heat points unless they expect to face Hot environments, as there is no phasing-in of impairment. The second is that there's no penalty for being cold until you actually go torpid, so you can act completely normally.

On the plus side, this would probably work okay for non-reptiles, because you just either give them very small heat capacities or none at all, and have them simply take damage whenever their insulation fails.

The solution to both disadvantages seems to be adding thresholds for impairment. Let's say, outside the 3-8 range the difficulty of everything goes up one step: I've already mentioned using broad scales of Difficulty (which gives modifiers) and Speed, so using these keeps things within an existing system where you don't need to track exact modifiers, just the number of them. This way, you'd slow down and be less effective outside core temperatures.

This doesn't cover changes to general metabolism, which is a shame, as I think that has interesting dramatic and tactical possibilities.

You know, what we've ended up with is a tracker. It's just an even simpler version of the first one, isn't it?

Closing remarks

Of the models I tried here (and a couple that didn't even make it this far), both points models seem pretty much hopeless. It might just about be possible to salvage some version of the Large Pool with very careful parameters; I'll take another look when I'm awake again. However, it really does end up being a very complex model, with interaction between (at least) maximum pool, current pool, background temperature, disparity between temperature bands, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, value of heat-point bonuses, and insulation. More or less all at the same time.

Some version of the tracker seems usable to me, despite not being a points system, and I have to admit I'm finding it the most appealing model so far because it actually seems a lot less fiddly, which is unexpected.

I have also had an idea for an alternate (and somewhat complicated) tap model, which I'll discuss next time, unless it looks too boring to talk about.

Tomefoolery, part five: powers

Part of a continuing series of uncertain length on Tomes of Unspeakable Evil and the PCs who love them. I've discussed how people get their hands on such books in the first place, the effects of their dreadful contents on tiny human minds and the purposes and designs of the tomes themselves, and most recently why TOUEs exist at all.

Today I want to take a more general look at the sort of powers, abilities and general properties a Tome of Unspeakable Evil might possess. I reckon the list below is a reasonable starting point.

• Gift of tongues
• Speech
• Dream-haunting
• Book possession
• Imprisonment
• Physical attack
• Flight
• Spellcasting
• Madness
• Physical transformation
• Fire resistance
• Water resistance
• Regeneration
• Meme implantation
• Domination

Okay, let's take a closer look at what I actually mean by those arbitrary bits of terminology.

The Gift of Tongues

This is hopefully pretty obvious, but I mean the language of the text changes so anyone can read it. I'm sure I've seen this before in fiction. While the stereotype of ancient tomes has people scrabbling round for ancient school Latin or long-lost Asiatic languages, it's perfectly possible to have one that's eager to be read, and able to help the readers out. Looking at the list of reasons for a TOUE to exist, this makes most sense for books designed either to spread some message, to ensnare victims, or otherwise cause damage. A mage's personal spellbook or a straightforward compendium of knowledge is much less likely to have such a property. In the former case they probably don't intend anyone else to read it - they may go so far as to use a cipher, magical writing or traps to prevent it - and in the latter authors don't necessarily have much reason to consider future readers who don't speak their language. In fact, they may see the use of some languages (say, Latin) as a way of restricting dangerous knowledge to an educated subset who can handle it.

Speech

Of course, there's no reason why a tome can't speak as well. It would be pretty in-your-face, but as long as you're happy with that. Perhaps it only starts speaking to someone once they've read it, and are beginning to fall under its spell. Perhaps it doesn't speak, but changes its text to convey new messages. Or perhaps it gloats like the worst pantomime villain, eerie voice echoing down dusty hallways. Perhaps its whispers carry across the library, always ceasing before anyone can track down the source, trying to lure potential readers towards it. I have to say, the idea of the villain always hidden in the shadow of the tall chair (or who always appears in shadows, or disappears like Batman) being a book rather appeals to me.

Regeneration

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Though it can be damaged, the book will repair itself. This might be a rapid process, with matter drawn from the air or dust around it to rebuild lost pages. On the other hand, it might require a kind of feeding, as the TOUE absorbs paper and ink from other, more innocent books to rebuild itself. It might tie in to my earlier thoughts on vampirism, with the TOUE only able to regenerate by drawing energy from a reader to fuel the process, in one way or another.

Another option would be for a less direct but more insidious regeneration. Perhaps the book, when wounded, directs vulnerable minds to start rewriting the missing sections, piecing together lost fragments, or otherwise repairing it. It may not care about maintaining its original integrity; perhaps it's perfectly happy to be a Frankenstein thing of mongrel pages and materials from across time and space, so long as its terrible contents are complete.

Perhaps the tome's malevolent magic even makes it like a starfish; every torn-out page able to regenerate itself into another copy of the book, if only it can find a suitable mind to repair it, or suitable other books to devour. In this way, innocent bibliophiles might be baffled to find this tome in their collection, where a scrap of paper used as a bookmark or bound into a flyleaf has corrupted an innocent book into a copy of itself. Evil tomes might sprout, fungoid and loathesome, in the dark and melancholy heaps of a bookseller's graveyard or the bins a library's binding room. Surely that, in itself, is a scenario waiting to be written.

Book possession

That blends nicely into the next idea, which is that the tome itself can corrupt, control or simply overwrite other books. This might only apply to other magical books, whose power it absorbs as it spreads, or it might apply to anything.

In a subtle version of this, the tome initially just influences nearby books with something of its nature, which will of course depend on the book. A heartwarming novel gains cryptic cameos from unsettling masked figures who quote lines that scratch at the reader's consciousness, and the characters seem a little deranged as the book progresses. A mathematical treatise includes unusual equations that hint at unexplained mysteries. A medical text is no more graphic, but seems to take a mocking delight in its discussion of bodily frailty and to rejoice in its lurid colour plates.

Perhaps, instead, the control is more ephemeral. The reader suddenly detects unsettling undertones in the story, or is sure they read a doom-laden and alien quote just moments ago, but on flicking back they find only harmless writing. It is only when fully engrossed in reading, the mind vulnerable, that the tome's influences rises to the surface. This power might be an interesting symptom of someone partially under the tome's power: no matter what they read, sooner or later they find the text of the tome leaking through into it...

A nice bold version, of course, is that the tome literally overwrites nearby books. Whether page by page or all at once, their contents are blotted out, replaced with the horrific contents of the tome. This is particularly useful for tomes that want to be read, either to gain slaves in the process or to spread havoc. The Revelations of Glaaki would love an ability like this.

This might tie into the regeneration (again) by providing a means of survival in extremis for the tome. Set on fire by pathetic quivering mortals? Just project your essence into a nearby book, visible only momentarily as a loathesome cloud of foulness before you find sanctuary and begin to plot again, though it might take you some time to recover your power.

Dream-haunting

Dreams are a classic of horror, of course, and it's natural for a magical book of enormous evil to strike when the mind is vulnerable in sleep. They might provide a means of communication, letting the book project suitable images to tempt someone into reading it, or guide them to its location. Alternatively, it might use this power to drive people mad with horrific images. It might project itself - or a mask, perhaps an attractive or powerful person - into dreams to actually talk to people, or grant them lucid dreams where they can converse and plan. It might grant them visions showing how to find great treasures, or give them dreams where they use its power to conquer armies, gain vengeance, or even do great deeds for the benefit of all humanity. As always, the type of dreams will vary with the book's nature and goals. A book trying to tempt people will be inclined to show them what they want to see, or rather what it thinks they will want to see - some books will be far more wily and deceptive in this than others. A book of Khorne, for example, is most likely to be very direct and unsophisticated in its attempts, but perhaps relentless and forceful, while a book of Tzeentch will probably work very slowly, patiently, and with a complex network of lies and half-truths, never giving away its true aims, even if it feigns weakness or honesty.

This sort of power can be a two-edged sword. A tome might have no control over its influence, and simply inspire nightmares or thematic dreams, which PCs could use to track it down, learn about it and destroy it. The kind of dreams inspired will give clues to the book's nature and goals (though they should be taken with a pinch of salt). Raw power might leak out into the building or district, corrupting and maddening citizens, which some books are perfectly content with. Other tomes might have perfect control, choosing specific victims through unknown means, or perhaps targeting those who have interacted with some other arcane artefact or place. For example, a book might track someone who has taken an amulet, or invoked a particular spell, or visited a sinister temple.

Physical abilities

Flying books are a pretty classic idea, with all those nice flappable pages. However, a tome might also scuttle spider-like or crab-like over the floor, with nice creepy sound effects. It could turn into a cloud of letters and dust, like the classic vampire, and whoosh away through keyholes. It could even extend legs, tendrils or wings to move around.

The extent of a tome's senses is also important. Can it see and hear, in particular? A tome that can do both has a great advantage. A hearing-only book is potentially quite fun: I'm imagining a batlike book here, which flutters about finding its way by sound and tracking down people by the noise they make. Or it could be a static, blind, speaking and hearing book, which can't tell what the reader is doing (except interacting with it) except by what they say and what it overhears, and so the readers have at least one lever of control over it by what they are willing to say. A sight-only book might be functionally deaf because it only understands the language it's written in (even if it's as common as Latin, or even French) rather than because it can't hear at all; on the other hand it might be totally dependent on what it sees and on the written word. Perhaps, like some D&D manuals, it has a single staring eye on the front cover, or perhaps any part of the book can see.

Physical attacks are potentially important, depending on genre. Biting is a pretty straightforward one, and a book might use its weight, nasty metal clasps or even grow unexpected fangs to chomp on tasty victims. A book that actually eats people (or needs feeding in general) has nice horrific potential, as Terry Pratchett already realised.

Defences

Ordinary books, of course, are often fairly vulnerable. Not so the Tome of Unspeakable Evil; well, possibly. It depends what you want from it.

Fireproofing your books can be an important decision. A tome that's vulnerable to fire has a handy weakness which players can exploit to destroy it - fire might even be the only thing that overcomes regenerative abilities or other escape routes. In a light game, this could be an easy and predictable technique which players can use to eliminate a troublesome tome with a little bit of planning.

In a heavier game, a powerful tome is likely to plan around its weakness, taking measures to protect itself. There might be magical wards that extinguish any fire brought near it, or it might simply be encased in a metal box for that bit of extra security. Moreover, such a tome may respond immediately and brutally to anyone trying to bring fire near it, without bothering to check their intentions: blasts of ice, powerful winds, mental assault, lightning bolts, summoning creatures to remove the fire... a less magically-inclined tome might instead flee the sight of fire, taking refuge in rafters or shifting itself to the body of another book at the slightest provocation. In some cases, fire might be a way to force a reluctant tome to divulge secrets or obey instructions - at least for now. The tome may be reluctant to use its full strength until it's definitely under attack, and treat the fire merely as a threat worth obeying, not wanting to really test its prowess against a determined human who has managed to impress it (by capturing it, for example). Or the book may not have abilities that let it directly confront humans.

On the other hand, a fireproof book eliminates a key weakness and forces players to look for other options to deal with the book. Certain books really should be fireproof - anything Hell-related, pyromantic or otherwise fiery in nature, for a start. Books of iron, stone, or otherworldly substances are a good bet too. The book might be completely fireproof, or simply be able to regenerate despite severe burning (though completely incineration might work). This is a sensible choice for the most powerful tomes, where a mundane solution may not fit into the feel you want, especially if you're intending to have the destruction (or otherwise disposal) of the book as a quest in itself or a long-running feature of a campaign.

Very similar issues arise with waterproofing, and to a limited extend with physical damage, though fire is really the easy get-out that needs considering most. A tome might be impaired by waterlogging, and need careful drying to restore it to full 'health', though perhaps it won't actually disintegrate as an ordinary ancient book might. Flying through the rain, for example, may not be an option, and this sort of thing could actually provide a nice check on a tome's powers.

Time

Naturally, any ancient tome is likely to be immune to the major effects of time and decay, except insofar as they make it look cool. There are a couple of exceptions, though.

The first exception is the kind of tome that's half-disintegrated, providing only bewildering fragments of information, or else a smeared and faded text that requires huge effort to make out. Such tomes may rejoice in their damage, which perhaps makes them seem less dangerous than they really are. Others simply put up with it as the price of a dangerous existence, being snatched from the burning ruins by desperate cultists. Those able to communicate might grumble about their injuries, or boast of them.

The other likely kind of damaged tome are those able to repair themselves (see Regeneration). Perhaps they simply haven't yet replenished their power enough to do so when discovered, or perhaps they use their decrepit state to draw attention, and even pity, from a scholar or bibliophile who might spend the time to restore them or to study their remains.

Reproduction and Meme Infection

One arbitrary division you can make for tomes is into unique 'individuals' who might jealously guard their status (or simply be utterly unique), and 'type specimens' that are simply one physical expression of an Ur-Tome. The Necrotelicomnicon or the Ildatch are reasonable examples of the former, while something like The Revelations of Glaaki is a good example of the latter.

The second kind are keen to reproduce themselves and spread across the world. These are likely to include books of revelation, books designed to corrupt and enslave mortals, and books whose purpose is simply general malevolence and chaos. On the other hand, books with a strong personality and sense of self may be less interested in duplicating themselves - what evil tome wants a rival, after all? On the other, other hand (the one with peculiar claws and scales you tend to keep under your jacket), the idea of a whole family of evil tomes working together as one towards joint evil goals seems pretty cool to me... In some genres you could even think of it more like a Sinister Six-type supervillain team. Of course, that sort of idea doesn't necessarily call for them to be related - or even to all be books. One member of an evil team turning out to be a sentient magic book would potentially be a pretty nice reveal.

Anyway, I was here to talk about mimetic infection. This is the idea that, as well as simply having people physically copy it, or some of the regenerative ideas I mentioned above, a TOUE might use some of its other powers to force people to rewrite it. For example, people who have read it might feel compelled to rewrite it, possessed by a fragment of the book's consciousness that wants a new body to take on and grow into its full power. Alternatively, a book might inspire even ignorant writers through dreams. In the case of revelatory books, inspiring someone to write down the message through dreams or direct dictation are established ideas, and this is precisely how texts like The Revelations of Glaaki come about.

This ability makes a single physical copy of the book more like an agent than the heart of the evil. PCs might find themselves trying to eliminate multiple copies before they can wreak havoc, or tracking down a chain of increasingly old and powerful copies of the tome (much in the vein of vampire-hunting). The books themselves might be symptoms - very dangerous symptoms - of a much more fundamental foe that needs to be dealt with, such as a powerful spirit, lich or mage whose influence reaches out to corrupt the world.

Spellcasting

Of course, a tome that doesn't have magical powers isn't much of a tome.

I've already touched on trap tomes, but of course trapping people doesn't just have to be the book's core purpose. It can be simply a tool used by the book to get its way. The book might engulf people, but it could also turn them into statues (or other books), bind them with spiderwebs, or otherwise render them helpless.

Other spells are likely to be tied into the book's specific nature. Necromantic tomes will raise the dead, perhaps control darkness and cold, implant horrific visions and drain life. Elemental tomes are simple enough. Books tied to a particular individual, on the other hand, might have very specific powers that link in with elements such as an ancestral castle or temple.

For books eager to gain temporal power, either in general or to fulfil long-term goals, then enchanting magic is a good bet, and ties in well with various kinds of mind-draining abilities I've discussed before. Some tomes might potentially have whole armies of mind-slaves; of course, cult-type books could reasonably have quite large numbers of actual acolytes, who aren't necessarily strictly enslaved.

Tomes with a heavier magical feel might want to pick up some wizardly world-shaping powers, giving them more of an archmage (or lich) vibe. Conjuring magical shackles, firing off bolts of lightning, creating portals, or even raising magical fortresses out of the very earth are all nice possibilities. Monster-summoning is always fun.

If you want to play up the "book" aspect of the entity, you could introduce themed abilities such as firing off bits of text, which might turn into razor-edged projectiles, form flaming barries, or tie people up like snakes. Perhaps a book can do different things depending which words it decides to use. Pages might detach from the book and transform into batlike spies, or even attackers - a whole flock of pages could harry a target before returning to the book (and this would provide a possible way to slowly weaken the book, by destroying pages rather than confronting the whole tome). Leather bookmarks could become tongues (again with the Pratchett). This sort of thing does carry the risk of seeming corny, cartoonish or just plain silly, and depending on the game you're running it might really mess with the mood. On the other hand, a GM might be able to take something that could seem silly and use it really effectively in a serious game.

Transforming people into other things is a nice classy move, though perhaps not suited to every kind of book. A tome might simply mutate or otherwise physically corrupt victims, particularly anyone it manages to overpower physically or mentally. This could be simply a nasty thing to do to people, ideal for books of plague-magic or raw chaos, or it could be a method of creating monstous servitors. Other tomes might go the whole hog and turn them into statues, dolls, oddly-smoking crystals, horrific living paintings, spiders or whatever you like.

The classic sort of Tomes of Darkness tend towards more gothic magic. They can slam and lock doors anywhere in a building, conjure up spiderwebs to choke and slow victims, deepen shadows and create strange noises or hallucinations. Weather is another good option for such tomes (and indeed for any tomes - weather is a really good mood device). Rather than simply conjuring straightforward monsters, such tomes might summon beings of raw shadow, or draw things from the nightmares and hidden fears of the household. Friends might be made to seem monstrous so a panicking victim will attack them, and ordinary things warped into hideousness. Madness and deception are the main focus here. Of course, you can also summon clouds of bats, grow twisted vegetation, and even warp the geography of a building so victims get hopelessly lost.

Tune in next time...

Next up I'm planning to think about what to do with a tome when you've actually got one, but we'll see.

Monitors: cornerstones 1

So I mentioned previously that Monitors ought to include, at a minimum, the following elements:

• Space travel
• Cybernetics and general tech augmentation
• Sneaking, observing, breaking in, tracking, decoding, arresting and other secret agent stuff
• Armour
• Spellcasting
• Being a lizard

On reflection, I'd also add:

• Fighting stuff
• Being part of an intergalactic organisation

Okay, that's actually a pretty hefty set of objectives, but let's take a look at broadly how I might model the biggest one: being a lizard.

It ain't easy, being green. And scaly. And poikilothermic.

Playable reptilianity is going to be one of the major planks of Monitors, so I'm keen to make sure that it actually feels special. Things need to happen, mechanically, that make people feel like they're playing a reptile. Because not everything in the game is a reptile, this also means some clear distinctions should appear between the PC reptiles and any mammalian or avian NPCs they encounter.

Now, part of my background is in biology, so I'm always inclined to think about the actual science behind things, but I need to remember that scientific accuracy should play second fiddle to dramatic license. It doesn't matter exactly how it should feel to be a reptile; it matters how people think it should feel. This is a game. A system that perfectly reproduces the biological facts is going to miss the more important target.

Skin deep

Everyone knows that reptiles are well'ard. They have tough, scaly skins that protect them, which in the case of larger reptiles will turn aside claws and teeth, impede spears and swords, and maybe even deflect a bullet.

This is a lie.

It's been tricky tracking down any specifics - I'd have loved a scientific comparison of the skins of various critters, but alas, I didn't find one, only scattered bits of information. Mostly, it turns out, reptile skin is often less tough than leathery mammal skin; the individual scales are tough, but lie over a thinner membrane that's more vulnerable to splitting. Reptile skin takes longer to heal, too. The scales are not just physical protection; they reduce evaporation and help grip. Reptiles, on average, are no tougher than mammals of the same size, with thick fur to protect them. Chelonians are the main exception, with serious armour. Crocodilians have tough hide, though mammals of similar size are nearly as resilient.

However, that's not the point. Everyone knows that reptile skin is tough, and so reptilian PCs need to have tough scaly skin for them to feel like a "narrative reptile", regardless of what actual reptiles are like. Moreover, since the idea is for PCs to be reptiles by default, then there's less need to worry whether it's balanced with non-reptiles.

I'm probably going to use a damage-reduction scheme for armour, so the simplest thing is if Monitors have a point or two of armour to begin with, with exact values varying by lineage.

Right, that's the easy one over with...

In the blood

Reptiles are ectothermic poikilotherms with bradymetabolism. For those of you not obsessed with zoology, that means:

• Ectothermy: they rely on external sources of heat, either air temperature or light
• Poikilothermy: their body temperate can (and does) vary considerably (without killing them - not the case for mammals)
• Bradymetabolism: their metabolic speed varies according to food availability and temperature, so they can be very active, very sluggish or completely torpid.

This means I really need a mechanism that will:

• Take account of environmental temperature and light availability
• Have poikilotherms taking on the environmental temperature
• Have poikilotherms' activity vary according to their body temperature

I think this is really one of the things that could add something to this game. I'm not aware of a single game featuring body-temperature management as a common mechanic. More importantly, I think it can add to the narrative strength of the game in helping people feel reptilian. The traits I just listed mean that the relationship reptiles have to temperature sources and sinks is substantially different to that of mammals.

Walk in winter

Mammal

You step out of the cave, into the chill February wind. Shuddering, you wrap your scarf tighter and stride out. It's a long walk back to the campsite, and the evening sun's weak. Several times you hunker down in the lee of bushes or rocks, letting yourself warm up again before you venture back outside. The thick clothes make you feel awkward and clumsy, but they keep the heat in.

The fastest route's over the fell, but it's windy out there and there's no point rushing when you can stay warmer (and sweat-free) on the long path through the woods. At least once you get back to the tent you'll soon warm up.

Reptile

You step out of the cave, into the chill February wind. Shuddering, you wrap your scarf tighter and stride out. It's a long walk back to the campsite, and the sun's weak. You hurry out onto the fell, the shortest route; you can't waste a second. Every moment, the cold is leaching away precious heat, and with the setting sun this weak you've no way of regaining it. The thick clothes make you feel awkward and clumsy, but they keep the heat in.

Are you getting slower? You're sure you're getting slower already. It's windier this way, so you'll cool down faster, but the woodland path will take twice as long, and that might be time you don't have. You feel vulnerable, nervous; if anything jumps you in this temperature, your reflexes might not be good enough to save you. Occasional bushes shelter you for a moment, but there's no point stopping, you'll just keep getting colder. Let's just hope the tent will protect you until morning comes and you can soak up some rays. Let's hope it's a clear day.

Are you getting slower?

Busy train in winter

Mammal

You squeeze your way into the train, and wait. It was cold outside, but within a couple of minutes you're wishing you'd stopped to take off the coat before you got on. And maybe the jumper. It's too crowded to think of it now.

You're getting hotter. You don't feel too well, actually. A little light-headed. Hope you get there soon.

Reptile

You squeeze your way into the train, and wait. It was cold outside, but in here it's a decent temperature. You let it soak into your exposed snout, and take off the gloves. It's all you can manage in this crowd. A little extra heat will make things easier when you disembark. You wish you'd stopped to take off the coat, too.

A shame the journey isn't longer. You don't have time to soak up much heat though the layers of clothing.

Snowbound

Mammal

You huddle in the hut. No firewood, but enough food for a week, and snow for water. Just wrap up in as many layers as you can and ride out the worst of the weather. Need to be careful, though. If the weather holds you, you could be dead in a fortnight.

Reptile

Snow. No firewood, either. There's plenty of food, but in a day or so at the outside, you'll be chilled to the bone and barely conscious, no matter how many blankets you wrap up in. You won't need the food with your body slowed to a crawl, and it's most likely to turn rancid in your belly and kill you if the weather doesn't. At least it's safe in here; you can hole up and pass the days in torpor until the sun finally returns.

Summer day in Hong Kong

Mammal

It's hot. Too hot to think, really. The sun beats down beautifully, but it's too hot to enjoy it. The trek to the office is going to be a nightmare. You bundle the suit into a bag, slap on sun cream and set off, with a hat and shades. In a few minutes, you're drenched in sweat, but humid as it is and with no breeze, you can't cool off. Even a five-minute halt in the shadow of the town hall doesn't help much. At least you'll soon be in a nice, air-conditioned office. As soon as you grab a shower.

Reptile

It's hot; warm enough that you sleep in an extra hour (thanks, thermometer alarm clock!) and skip your morning bask. With an eye to the sun, you find shades and the biggest hat you can, and set out. At this temperature, you move quickly and easily, jogging through the crowds to get to the office bright and early. You stroll into the foyer, smooth the creases out of your suit and head on up. At this rate, you'll be able to skip your sunbreaks entirely and walk out in mid-afternoon. Ah, the joys of summer!

Spring showers

Mammal

Not a bad day, really, now the rain's stopped. The sun's even come out, though it's not quite warm enough to ditch the long sleeves. Suddenly, a passing bus hits a puddle and drenches you from head to foot in cold water. Ugh! It's going to take ages to dry out. You shiver, and fold your arms to keep warm.

Reptile

Not a bad day, really, now the rain's stopped. The sun's even come out, and with no wind to speak of you're taking a stroll. Suddenly, a passing bus hits a puddle and drenches you from head to foot in cold water. Ugh! You feel the cold spreading immediately, and you start stripping off, movements already getting clumsier. If you stay wet, the evaporation will sap precious heat, and you'll be spending the whole day basking to try and recover.

Oh, and because there's no particularly logical place to put this: it's important to remember, I think, that for reptiles there's no such thing as "warm clothes" (okay, barring anything with heating implants, which is actually pretty likely). There are insulators and non-insulators, and they can both be friend or enemy depending on the circumstances. A reptile in a cold environment still wants to wrap up snugly, but if they've already got cold, they need to strip down the second they get into a warm room. A reptile in a really hot environment would, confusingly, put on as many layers as possible to protect them from the heat.

Well, that was fun. Here's an idea or two for some mechanics.

As poikilotherms, they can take on the ambient temperature within reasonable bounds, and do so deliberately if they want, without suffering actual harm (though they might slow down). This has obvious applications in stealth and recon. A Monitor can take some time adapting in order to slip effortlessly past infra-red sensors, or evade searchers using heat-tracking by using a river to cool down. This ability will be affected by things like armour and large equipment. Want to infiltrate that cool-vault with the biosecurity checks? Cool yourself down to 5°C, wrap up in insulating gear and make a (very slow) trip through it. You'll be too cold to sense on camera, and your breath won't even steam. A reptile assassin could lurk undetected in the undercarriage of a plane, warming up once it's in flight and breaking out to take down a target.

Arthur also made a very fun suggestion during a chat today: chill down a reptile to torpor, pack 'em in a crate and send it through to a target as a standard delivery. It'll sail through most security checks without a problem: their metabolism will be so slow you don't even need airholes. Once they warm up inside the nice office - or, if you're cunning, once a heating charge goes off and warms them back up - they can break out and perform their mission, and maybe even post themselves right back out before anyone has time to work out what's happened.

Sticking an injured colleague in a fridge and sending them home for surgery is actually a pretty sensible tactic for reptiles; you can slow down the metabolism far enough that they won't die during the journey, as well as slowing the effects of most poisons or illnesses. It would be handy if colleagues develop insanity, too; send 'em home for therapy in a coolbag. This amount of chilling would kill most parasites, too. On the other hand, it won't do much against plain chemicals like acids, or cryophilic microbes.

So spending X rounds to acclimatise would provide a significant bonus on checks to evade such detection. Of course, depending on the background temperature, it could have some downsides...

Another fun possibility is that reptiles can actually bank body temperature to cope with later conditions. Need to adjust a malfunctioning furnace? Cool right down to nothing, then slap on protective gear and march in; you'll be in and out before the room's heat gets to you. Some mammals laying an ambush outside your igloo? Warm right up, then rush out without any of that cumbersome winter clothing; you'll be far more manoeuvrable and easily get away, or fight them off if you want. On a less dramatic angle, reptiles can avoid many of their disadvantages by planning ahead for the conditions.

As body temperature drops, they should become slower and less active. If I use an actions-per-turn system (likely), their number of actions might drop; I could also have them roll to see whether they got an action this turn. For example, in a Major-Minor system, they might alternate between these on subsequent rounds, or roll each round. There could even be an attribute roll each round to see whether they can force themselves to act more quickly.

As well as this, there would naturally be penalties on certain tasks. Anything requiring reactions would be penalised, from dodging to fighting to driving. There's even an argument that just about everything should be more difficult, since thinking should also be slower. On balance though, I think it's fair that you could do some things just as well but slower, so I'd need to think about how to implement that (perhaps just increase the duration of certain tasks).

A torpid reptile is not like an unconscious mammal. As well as losing consciousness, their entire metabolism has slowed to a standstill. They barely breathe, have no perceptible heartbeat or reflexes. Drugs, poisons and chemicals effectively do nothing, since their cells just aren't interacting with the substances - however, in some cases the chemicals will resume their effects once temperature increases, while a few will denature naturally and become harmless (or more toxic...). Only high-quality scanners will detect any nervous activity. They can't even dream, since their brains just aren't doing anything.

Within their comfortable temperature range, they can act normally.

Exposure to high temperatures or very bright light would initially be helpful, but in time can become a problem, as they can't reduce body temperature easily by themselves. While it's not strictly accurate, I think I'd allow a period of hyperactivity in the 'warm' band, when they react faster and get more actions. However, after a short period they begin to suffer heat stress and start taking whatever penalty I'd normally impose for that (damage or exhaustion - may depend on the temperature).

Temperature-band model

So first, I'm going to try just setting up a group of temperature bands, which are used to describe the reptile's body temperature. Note that this will typically not be the same as the background temperature - at least, you'd hope not, because most places aren't in the mid-30s and that's there you want to be, speaking as a lizard.

Temperature-shifting would take a certain amount of time, perhaps modified by the existing background temperature (it's much faster to defrost in a warm room than a cool one). Protective equipment would buffer the effective temperature and reduce effects on brachymetabolics. I might set this as a default 1 hour to shift one rank. I'm vaguely thinking of having a temporal scale of Turn (~10 secs), Minute, Quarter (15 mins), Hour, Half-Day (12 hours), Day, so I could decrease the time by one measure per rank of temperature difference. On this basis:

• Shifting from Average to Cool in a Cool room takes 1 hour
• Shifting from Average to Cool in a Freezing room takes 1 minute
• Shifting from Average to Freezing in a Freezing room takes 76 minutes (1 minute + 1 quarter + 1 hour)
• An insulated suit (or similar) might slow transition by one measure, or cancel out one rank of difference (which both slows and limits transition). I notice that astronauts can spacewalk for many hours without injury, so proper environment suits need to effectively prevent any temperature change.

In practice, that could well be too crunchy for the sort of game I'm thinking of, and I might be better sacrificing accuracy for simplicity.

Hypothetical brachymetabolism chart

Temperature	Actions	Skills	Speed	Daily Healing	Notes
Torpid	Alternate major and minor action.	Incur a two-step difficulty penalty to most rolls.	Decreased three steps.	Reduced.	After one hour without heat source, enter full torpor.
Cold	Major action only.	Incur a one-step difficulty penalty to most rolls.	Decreased two steps.	Reduced.	-
Cool	-	Incur a one-step difficulty penalty to reaction-based rolls.	Decreased one step.	-	-
Average	-	-	-	-	-
Warm	Can attempt a bonus action once per hour.	Gain a one-step difficulty bonus on reaction-based rolls.	Increased one step.	-	After 24 hours without cooling, become exhausted.
Hot	-	Gain a one-step difficulty bonus on most rolls.	Increased one step.	Increased.	After one hour without cooling, become exhausted.
Scorching	Reptiles cannot adapt and take heat damage as normal.	-	-	-	-

Note that the table's effects are not symmetrical. While reptiles gain some benefits from heat, they can become overheated and exhausted just like mammals, and so I didn't simply let them speed up when it's hot. Even staying in Warm temperatures for extended periods will tire them out, because they're used to cooling down overnight (and I didn't want to give them an unmitigated benefit). This table refers to the Monitor's body temperature, not the background temperature as such, so they can use shade, fans, hot-water bottles, cooling drinks and so on to regulate their temperature.

Most reptiles would enter torpor in very cold conditions, but can't survive actual freezing in reality. As yet, I'm not sure whether I want to let just any reptiles survive freezing (for cheerful pulpy roleplay purposes), or give it as a special ability to specific species and make the others take more care about their body temperatures.

Each of these temperatures would also affect mammals, but would do so differently. I'll think about that some other time. Later on I might well compress this chart down, but we'll see.

Thermal Points model

A complete alternative to this system would involve no charts at all, but instead involve managing a pool of Thermal Points. These would be increased by spending time basking, maybe having hot drinks or meals, or simply being in a warm environment and not too heavily insulated. They would be depleted by exposure to cold things, serving as a buffer between the character and the effects of the cold. As in the model above, having a small pool will impose penalties on some actions. However, there would also be a maximum capacity, and exceeding the permitted number of Thermal Points would have bad consequences for the character.

This model might make the flow of heat more salient for players, and highlight the importance of certain decisions. Chilling down to background to bypass the cameras sounds cool, but that'll leave you just one Thermal point, so you're moving slowly and have no idea when you'll next be able to warm up. A campfire isn't just comforting, it's a precious wellspring of Therms.

For symmetry, I'm thinking a pool is from 1-9 Therms, with each representing about 5°C, giving an arbitrary functional range from 5°C to 45°C. That's body temperature, remember.

The complication of this model is that you'd still need to be tracking temperature bands, to some extent, as reptiles in a warm environment won't chill to zero in the same way as in the Arctic. Also, I was initially thinking of a fun little token system where players spend tokens to avoid negative effects, but actually I'm not convinced that'd work - cooling down is a law of nature, not really something you can avoid, in the way you might spend a Luck token to avoid harm or something. I suppose you could have something like "lose a Therm or take 1d6 cold damage", with Therms lost first, but then there's also heat-replenishment and damage from excessive heat, which can't involve spending Therms. Plus, the way metabolism changes with temperature seems pretty key to me. If players don't get active control of a pool, then it's not really a token pool - what you're looking at is really a state tracker that happens to use tokens, in which case you might as well just use the tracker.

So I'm thinking all I can really take from this is some kind of temperature track on the character sheets that helps players follow their status. It's better than a hit-point-like model for something that changes a lot within a small range, I think.

Basking

Whatever system I end up with, basking needs to be catered to. Reptiles find sheltered places to just soak up the sun, and are really pretty good at it. Similarly, they use shade to help them cool down on hot days. So sun strength is another important factor. It might sound fiddly, but actually it only needs to apply when outdoors, since standard electric light puts out negligible heat. The exception, of course, will be buildings designed for reptiles, which might well blend together lighting and heating, rather than separating them as we tend to (at least nowadays with electric light).

Because there's nowhere more logical to put it, let's also note here that reptiles tend to darken when cold, and lighten when hot, which affects the amount of radiant heat they absorb. This means they're good at warming back up, and good at avoiding overheating, but I think this mostly affects basking rather than ambient temperature (clearly I need a project physicist).

Other stuff

Lineages

There will, of course, be heredity-specific traits for particular characters: chameleonism, say; secondary eyelids; prehensile tails; suction pads; night vision; and all that sort of thing. But I think that really warrants its own post.

Carrier's Constraint

Strictly speaking, Carrier's constraint isn't necessarily going to apply to bipedal reptiles. But it's distinctive, at least.

This can be modelled relatively simply, if I want to use it: I just slap a relatively low limit on running time for most reptiles and amphibians. Varanids get off scot-free because they have special breath-assisting neck muscles, and crocodilians get off lightly because their locomotion is less sideways and so more efficient. Do I use this? Not sure yet.

Snake Eyes

Reptile senses are somewhat different from ours, but this varies a lot by species. Their vision often extends into the ultraviolet, which isn't actually all that helpful but might be handy for noticing security markings and so on. You could have secret Monitor marks left on places to warn other agents, which most mammals wouldn't even see.

Esoterica

Not everything has an obvious category, but reptiles have some pretty weird traits that could lend a lot of flavour to a game. For the most part, these won't have much mechanical effect, though.

For example, reptiles - like most animals, in fact - don't sweat. There's no guilty brow-mopping under interrogation. The cliff-dangling ally won't slip through their slippery claws. They also don't smell sweaty, of course, but some produce musks of varying strength, sometimes as a defence mechanism.

Some reptiles excrete excess salt through nasal glands.

Reptile skin-shedding tends to be much more noticeable than the tiny flakes that come off in mammals - some shed their skin in a one piece or several very large ones, and they may eat it.

Right, I reckon that's enough for one post.

Actual Play: Hellcats and Hockeysticks

Sometime last summer, a gang of us got together for a game of Hellcats and Hockeysticks. I'd picked this up at the suggestion of someone on the YSDC forums, partly to help with planning for a now-abandoned Call of Cthulhu scenario, and largely because I really like the St. Trinian's films. Dan has already blogged about this quite a long time ago, so I'll try not to retread the same ground, but focus more on my experience of running the game.

In any case, I ended up recording the game. It was a fairly impromptu idea, so we didn't do any of that stuff like introducing ourselves or sound testing, and it was recorded just on a portable recorder plonked in the middle of the living room where we were lounging on various comfy chairs, windows open because of the heat. As a result, some people (Kat) ended up very quiet, and there's quite a lot of background noise from traffic, let alone our own rustlings and clattering.

I've slowly and irregularly been editing away at them (learning how to audio edit in the process) and finally got them in some kind of shape to post publicly. So, I present what might conceivably be the start of an irregular series: the Librarians and Leviathans Podcast. It's probably the only Actual Play of Hellcats and Hockeysticks out there. Enjoy!

EDIT: I've managed to combine the files into a single item, now available for download on Archive.org.

Homework

I do feel bad about not being better prepared for the game. I fully intended to do some more prep, but personal stuff got in the way and I had to run it more or less cold, on the basis of a couple of readings weeks earlier. I’m normally an over-preparer and ended up trying to handle things on the fly, with a scenario that I still think is tricky in retrospect. As a result, I was a bit stressed and nervous about it, though I don’t think too much of that comes through in the recording. I did delete a lot of the long pauses and “Um...”s, though.

In particular, I was absolutely not on top of the Willpower mechanic, which is the main way PCs are expected to impose their will on the world. Partly as a result, the first scene was a bit shambolic because I was struggling to work out when and if the PCs were actually controlling the conversation and achieving their aims. However, this was compounded by some problems with the scenario itself. Having a firm idea of exactly how Willpower is supposed to work in practice, and how to model various situations using Willpower, would have made the whole thing much slicker and probably improved everyone's opinion of the game. If anyone's planning to give this a shot, I would strongly recommend setting yourself up some sample situations (or nicking them from films, or whatever) and doing a dry run to see how you'd actually apply the Willpower rules.

Practical Exam

Because I didn't have an especially firm grip on things, I didn't adapt especially well to off-script activity (the scenario is fairly scripted for its length). The first scene expects the girls to isolate and interrogate one or two first-year diggers, whereas they chose instead to confront the whole lot. This was a perfectly reasonable decision: they're dangerous bolshie girls, terrors of the local populace, and having decided the boys were intruding on their drinking space beach, they wanted to chase them off. I suspect also the image of a gang of boys digging doesn't immediately inspire the idea of isolating one; perhaps Peregrine pictured it as individual first-years digging some distance apart, with older boys roaming around giving orders, but I don't think that's quite how it came across to us. If you picture it as a group close together, the idea of wandering up and marching one away to question seems quite odd. Anyway, because of that we ended up with basically a standoff between the gangs, and I struggled to get enough information to them without it just being a GM fiat infodump. The conflicting goals of the boys, and the girls' own uncertainty of exactly what they wanted, added to the issue.

Short on information, the PCs did some freestyle roleplaying (which was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game) before biting the hook again and heading off to get more information. Since they hadn't learned that much, they didn't go back to their own school, where they'd have learned about a missing girl whose room contained clippings about stolen gold. Instead, they went to recapture one of their new acquaintances (poor old Fred), and dragged him away to interrogate. Of course, this would still have been a perfectly reasonable decision if they had picked up the hints about Annabel, but it's a shame they ended up unable to make that call. Although on the plus side, I got quite fond of Fred by the end.

This is possibly the biggest oversight on my part, because I had a good opportunity to smooth things over and failed. As was pointed out in the discussion, I should have had Fred start talking before they left the school and spill the beans about Annabel, so they could extend their incursion and rescue her immediately. Instead, they snuck out of the school, interrogated Fred, then had to sneak back into the school again to find Annabel! It's no catastrophe, but it could certainly have been slicker.

I feel like the incursions went okay, but the fight in the Common Room felt a bit wooden to me. The combat rules do work, but it's not really what you're supposed to be doing with the game, I think. Thankfully, the fire alarms they'd set off provided a nice reason to take the scenario's suggestion and cut down on the number of boys inside, so they didn't need to come up with another plan to distract them.

I'm not sure how obvious this was, but by the end everyone was more familiar with the rules, and I was also a lot less nervous, so I think things went more easily in the final scene. There was a bit of uncertainty over what they were 'supposed' to do, which I think is significant - even by that point, people were still struggling to decide what genre they were playing in, and so they ended up taking the Mallory Towers ending rather than the St. Trinian's one (in Mean Girls, presumably the whole gold business would only have been relevant as a tool to attain some social ambitions).

Syllabus

The scenario felt odd to me somehow.

I don’t think it introduces the core mechanics very well, because while it lays out characters and events (and the characters are decent), there’s no specific guidance on how particular mechanics might be used in particular scenes. This was a particular issues for the atypical rules like friendship and Willpower – I’m quite happy running skills and combats, but when a game is asking players to not jump to a fight, nor to chat and negotiate in character, but instead to browbeat and humiliate the opposition, it’s going against established instincts. They weren’t sure how to narratively achieve their in-character goals within the expectations of the game, and I wasn’t sure how to guide them. Even the finale of our playthrough was resolved physically, rather than through the Willpower rules for crushing an opponent. Similarly, the scenario had absolutely no occasion to use the much-vaunted friendship rules – as someone commented in the recording, that would just have got in the way of the adventure story plot. The two didn’t really feel compatible.

As I mentioned, I also found the directions for the scenario genuinely confusing. In the very first scene, the boys “are keen to get away” (from the girls) but also “curious to find out how much the girls know” about the gold and the missing girl, without giving away more information in the process. For the life of me, I could not work out how to blend “escape” and “perform subtle interrogation” coherently. I couldn’t even work out how they could question the girls without telling them what they were up to, especially given the boys are a) clearly being quite suspicious; b) a very obvious plot hook for the PCs to investigate; c) NPCs, whose job is to answer questions, not ask them; and d) afraid of the girls and so not in a strong negotiating position. This is probably one of those times when the writer has a strong mental picture of the situation and how things might go down, but struggled to communicate it.

There's some pretty solid detail and several tactics offered for the rescue mission, though because they'd already been in the school once I treated it fairly broadly. Similarly, the final scene in the churchyard has quite a few suggestions. I wish the initial scene had been as detailed, because setting the hook firmly and providing basic information is key to a decent scenario. The rescue mission is basically always intended to come down to a fight - arguably a useful opportunity to teach the combat rules, if you're planning to play more games - but there are several ways to handle the ending.

In overall fairness, I think it's really very hard to write scenarios, especially hard to write scenarios that complete strangers are going to play without you around to help, even harder to do so with a very limited page count, and perhaps hardest of all to write introductory scenarios that are also intended to teach players the core of a game with some unusual mechanics, while still being fun and interesting. So the fact that this one struggles to meet all those requirements is no great surprise.

References

We didn’t quite manage to discuss the experience mechanic, but I found it quite interesting. I like the idea of “specific learning outcomes” from the game’s events. In a nutshell, the Headmistress asks each player what they learned. You can say “dunno, miss” and just get a generic skill point to spend. The more interesting expectation, though, is to name something quite specific, in which case you get to write down a unique bonus that applies in particular situations: lying to police officers, say. I can see it might end up unwieldy in very long campaigns, but honestly, I don’t see anyone playing a very long H&H campaign; it’s a one-shot sort of game.

As I mentioned in the podcast, I also found the rulebook quite oddly laid out, and struggled to find important information. In fairness, I was using the PDF rather than the physical book, and the real thing is (as usual) rather easier to navigate, but it’s still hard to pin down things like the complete Willpower rules, or the Skills rules. Cross-references or just repetition would have helped.

Fundamentally I think the source materials they’ve chosen are too disparate and conflicting to build a cohesive game on. St. Trinian’s is fast-paced slapstick chaotic farce, full of action and quite complex plotting, with minimal character development, and often features adult NPCs as the main drivers behind events (the Headmistress uses loyal girls, government inspectors use undercover agents, criminals use their relations in the school...). The Craft, on the other hand, is more or less entirely about personalities (even the supernatural stuff is secondary to character, and events are mostly important as they relate to the characters) and adults are largely irrelevant.

St. Trinian’s, to come back to the references, notably doesn’t feature friend-politicking. There are several power blocs within the school, each with their own goals, from the Headmistress to the younger girls to the Sixth Form, as well as outside agents like Harry, criminals or parents. The groups play off against each other, but not within their group (people sometimes act against their peer group, but not their friends). I don’t think there’s ever any change in relationships during a story, because that’s just not what the films are about.

I think to some extent “badly behaved schoolgirls” isn’t a... strong enough? concrete enough? ...central idea. Mallory Towers and St. Trinian’s and Mean Girls are very different genres (as is The Worst Witch or Harry Potter or The Craft), and so what you end up with is a game that doesn’t have one solid strand running all the way through it, but several related sets of mechanics, none of which you need for all of these genres. I suppose the Willpower-humiliation mechanics is the main focus of the game, but I felt like there wasn’t enough guidance in how to actually apply this in real play.

It’s a grab-bag of ideas from various school-themed sources, and in practice you can just ignore whatever elements don’t suit your game style, deliberately or not. In our case, most of the friendship mechanics never got a look-in, though best friend and rivals did come through in roleplay. We also ignored Mad Science and Magic. We ended up making very little use of the Willpower rules, but that’s partly because I couldn’t work out how to and tended to handwave it.

It would have helped if they’d given the scenario more space to breathe, and in each section offered some suggestions for how the girls might defeat their opponents’ Willpower. In fact, just provide some sample vignettes to test out before the game, so everyone can see how it works beforehand in isolation. I think the difficulty isn't the mechanic itself, but getting used to interpreting in-character situations through a lens of “what do I want to achieve, and how do I undermine this person until I get it?” and then coming up with in-character actions that will have the right mechanical effect. It's quite different if you're used to taking more direct action through just using skills on people or hitting them with swords. It also ties in to the power dynamics of the game, which are a bit unusual: you're officially fairly powerless and subject to school and adult authority, but everyone's supposedly scared of you, but you need to manipulate them rather than just doing whatever you like.

Final Report

I think on balance, I wouldn’t choose to run this system often. If I had a particular idea in mind, I’d probably pick a system that I thought supported that kind of play – hijinks, or social dynamics, or jolly school adventures – and add a school skin, rather than a generic Schoolgirl Game that’s trying to serve several, well, mistresses. The main time I’d use this system might be to run a one-shot improv game where I didn’t really know where it might go, or possibly to introduce people to roleplaying who might find the St. Trinian’s idea appealing. That being said, the game as it turned out didn’t feel especially St. Trinian’s-y, and I think that’s partly because tightly-plotted farce (and all farce is tightly plotted, however chaotic it may seem) is one of the least suitable genres for roleplaying, driven as it is by players. That’s not a specific criticism of this game, which does aim to support that type of play – I’m just not sure how successful it’s possible to be.

I think it would actually work out better if you abandon any attempt at scenarios and just ran it on the fly, allowing the girls to direct the plot. The mechanics are simple enough that you could work up NPCs very quickly, and it's the sort of game where clichés and stereotypes would probably work fairly well to construct cheerful chaos around. This is a fairly radical departure from the films, where a lot of the action comes from the adults, but NPCs directing things doesn't tend to do well in RPGs. It would also reduce the issue of getting anarchic self-willed schoolgirls to bite plot hooks.

All that being said, I don’t think it’s terrible, and I’m quite conscious that we didn’t really explore some of the game’s main talking points at all. Neither Willpower nor Friendship really got a look in, and while I do think a lot of that is down to the introductory scenario, it still leaves me unqualified to give any kind of final verdict on the game.

Genre-appropriate characters

This post is inspired by a recent post on Really Bad Eggs, which opened like this:

Me: . . . [I]f you sat down to play a game of, say, swashbuckling adventure, why did you create a character who desires neither swashbuckling nor adventure?

TheBigDice: What if I want to play a Jesuit priest? Someone completely genre-appropriate. But that doesn't own a sword, has never had any training in swinging from chandeliers and has no intentions of ever personally killing a man. Of course, he's got political acumen, contacts and social skills. He's a completely functional character for the setting. He just needs a reason to adventure, a push out of the door.

Me: Then he's not genre-appropriate as a swashbuckling adventurer. He's suitable as a period-appropriate npc, not a player character.

TheBigDice: See, now we're getting somewhere. What you're actually saying is, in a swashbuckling adventure, everyone must play a swashbuckling adventurer, or the campaign isn't about what you as the GM wants it to be about. So we're not actually in a true sandbox here. It's probably got aspects in common with a sandbox, but given that you're saying no to a primarily social character in favour of action oriented ones, I wouldn't say that the "open world" ethos is really on the table. If you're unwilling to accommodate a character that talks his way out of situations rather than fights his way out of them, and aren't prepared to give what [Mike 'Old Geezer' Mornard] described as an unwilling adventurer the push the character needs, then are you really giving your players the freedom that a sandbox seems to demand?

Apparently this is an argument about games and character options. However, it seems to me TheBigDice is using arguments about character limitation to criticize sandboxing, without entirely understanding what a sandbox is. Black Vulmea's post covers this, but there were a couple of aspects that I wanted to mention.

A Game of X

It seems to me that part of the issue with TheBigDice's hypothetical character is that "a game of swashbuckling adventure" is not the same as "a story of swashbuckling adventure". The Three Musketeers is a story of (amongst other things) swashbuckling adventure, and features characters who do other things than fighting. In fact, such characters can play very important roles in turning a swashbuckling adventure from a series of lovingly-described fights into an actual story. They can be major characters in a story, with great influence on events.

Take such characters in isolation though - the simple country girl, the well-meaning priest, the villainous noble, the protective mother, the thuggish landlord - and have them interact, and they will reliably not produce a swashbuckling adventure. Confront them with the typical challenges faced in a swashbuckling adventure, and they will either overcome them or not, without ever buckling swash. This, I think, is a useful hint.

Fundamentally, I think "a game of swashbuckling adventure" is not simply "a game in which swashbuckling adventure occurs", but "a game about doing swashbuckling adventure". In exactly the same way, "a game of investigative horror" requires at minimum a) "horror"; and b) "investigation" to befall the player characters. "A game of social intrigue" is about doing social intrigue: it is about being at the Duke's ball and mingling with the crowds, about turning people to your advantage or cutting them dead, about spreading gossip (or carefully not spreading it), or displaying the creations of an undiscovered milliner, or gaining the right person's hand for the waltz. If you are, instead, sneaking through the palace attic in search of the vampire's lair with lemon in hand, or battling a horde of orcs in the street just outside the palace while the nobles chat and nibble, you are not playing a game of social intrigue. At least, not if you're doing those things for more than a fraction of the time, but quite possibly if you're doing them at all.

Note this crucial line:

TheBigDice:...given that you're saying no to a primarily social character in favour of action oriented ones, I wouldn't say that the "open world" ethos is really on the table. If you're unwilling to accommodate a character that talks his way out of situations rather than fights his way out of them, and aren't prepared to give what [Mike 'Old Geezer' Mornard] described as an unwilling adventurer the push the character needs, then are you really giving your players the freedom that a sandbox seems to demand?

We're still talking about a swashbuckling game here. A Jesuit priest with zero ability to buckle swashes, but who is a primarily social character, is not competent to do swashbuckling adventure, which is the very basis of this specific game. As Black Vulmea notes, the priest is a setting-appropriate character, but not a genre-appropriate PC. And this question is irrelevant to the openness, or otherwise, of the world. You could easily run several campaigns in the same world, each in a different genre: social intrigue, swashbuckling, mystery, survival horror. In each game, different characters would be appropriate, even though the setting doesn't change. The Jesuit priest is perfect for a game about sociopolitical interactions in a small town, or even low-action mystery (think Brother Cadfael), where actual swashbucklers would be unsuitable; you could include swashbuckler-types, but they wouldn't have any swashes to buckle, so they'd be using that background while relying on social skills and family influences.

The next quote is apparently intended to be a killer argument against character limits in sandboxes, but I think it gets it very nearly right without realising it:

TheBigDice:...What you're actually saying is, in a swashbuckling adventure, everyone must play a swashbuckling adventurer, or the campaign isn't about what you as the GM wants it to be about. So we're not actually in a true sandbox here.

Not quite. What I'd personally say is, "in a swashbuckling adventure, everyone must play a swashbuckling adventurer, or the campaign isn't a swashbuckling adventure".

Okay, that's wording it very slightly too strongly, but it's close. Any PC needs to be able to engage with the core of a game, be that mechanical prowess, skill set or attitude. A Call of Cthulhu investigator who adamantly refuses to do any investigation whatsoever or engage with the situation at hand is inappropriate. A D&D wizard who refuses to learn any spell not to do with interior decoration is very unlikely to be a functional companion in a dungeon-crawling campaign (though they might do perfectly well in some other D&D-based campaign).

To take an extreme example, imagine a four-player swashbuckling campaign in which every single player creates a pacifist Jesuit priest. No swashbuckling is going to happen. Is this still a swashbuckling adventure? Of course not. It may be a perfectly functional political game in the same setting - and the players' chocies may indicate that that's what they're rather be playing - but you cannot describe it as a swashbuckling adventure.

This is not simply a case of grumpy GMs complaining about their precious game being spoilt. Players commit themselves to a particular type of game, and everyone is expecting a particular type of experience (though of course, games can change over time by mutual agreement). An inappropriate character is very likely to undermine the game experience for everyone. A character who refuses to join in with the rest of the party's activities must be either dragged along (awkward and hard to maintain), left behind (boring for them, and causing split attention) or allowed to limit the party's activities to those they prefer. If four people have signed up for a game of swashbuckling adventure, but find themselves stuck trailing around behind a priest intent on using "political acumen, contacts and social skills" to solve every situation, they are not getting what they wanted, and may well not be enjoying it. This is especially likely because characters who have been created as swashbucklers or semi-swashbucklers, in accordance with the genre, probably aren't much good at politicking. What this leads to is one player controlling the game and hogging the limelight, consciously or otherwise.

Another point in this particular case is that action games tend to feature physical danger, and anyone lacking the ability to defend themselves is at risk. Even if the player decides to tag along with the swashbucklers, therefore, they will not be able to do their fair share of the work. They will need defending from enemies, placing other characters in unnecessary danger. They are more likely to be injured, and need healing, or to need help to overcome physical obstacles - the priest described above won't be leaping from burning buildings onto a horse, or vaulting aside from a runaway coach. While the stereotypical wizard can end up in a similar position in fantasy games, they compensate with an array of useful abilities that can defeat enemies, protect allies, and accomplish extraordinary feats within the range of likely situations faced by the party. In contrast, the priest's abilities are mostly relevant to situations the rest of the party have no particular reason to get involved in. It's the equivalent of putting a well-honed Fighter into our social game: her astounding prowess with a double-headed axe and ability to shrug off poison are of precisely zero use when trading bons mots with the Duke, while her complete inability to flirt, dance or discuss poetry will be a crippling social burden for her friends.

Taking a more coherent example: A feeble decadent aristocrat, a psychic Inquisitor and a manly manly Space Marine are all perfectly canonical and appropriate characters for an RPG set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but each is fitted to completely different genres. The aristocrat thrives in political games, the Inquisitor is ideally-suited to rooting out mysteries, and the Space Marine is a perfect soldier. However, the first two will be trampled underfoot in the first rush of Tyranid termagants, and the aristo can't sneak or banish worth a damn, while the Space Marine has no small talk and stands out like a sore thumb when you're trying to blend into a slum on the trail of depraved cultists. Each game type has not only particular things you need to try and succeed at, but its own specific dangers you need to be able to survive, be they physical, mental or social.

Sand, Sink and Genre-Specificity

The other issue I want to briefly mention is that I don't think TheBigIdea's notion of a 'sandbox' matches mine very closely, and even Black Vulmea didn't quite cover this. BV says:

Put simply, a sandbox game-world isn't the same thing as a kitchen-sink setting.

Sandbox games, in my view, are those where players can go where they want (within reason) and determine for themselves what's important and what objectives they want to set. This generally calls for a reasonably close match in skill-sets between PCs (social types, adventuring types, detective types), so that they are looking for similar types of situation to interact with. In contrast, a kitchen-sink setting is about the content of the gameworld: it's something that incorporates a disparate set of cultures, technologies, fantasy archetypes, mythologies and tropes. A game can be sandbox, kitchen-sink, both or neither.

But neither sandboxiness or kitchen-sinking is really the limiting factor in character choice. As far as I can see, the thing that sets the boundaries for what sorts of characters are appropriate (and will contribute to the game's success, rather than detracting from it) is fundamentally how genre-specific a game you want to run.

You can have a fantastically kitchen-sink sandbox game where PCs head from the Hobbit village to the Dalek headquarters in their elven steam mech to unleash Great Cthulhu on their enemies, having determined the entire course of the plot without the GM's intervention; but if that's the kind of thing you're always getting up to, then you need characters who are action-based. Mixing Wolverine, Superman and Mr Bennett won't work. Or you can have a very controlled game where the GM establishes each chunk of narrative and the players follow up on it, aristocrats dealing with the latest French threat to their social influence in London whenever it arises. You need social characters who are in a position to have social influence, so a street urchin is not an appropriate character, and nor is Captain Hornblower.

It's possible for a game to accommodate a very wide range of characters, but I think there are two main occasions when that's readily workable. The first is when a genre isn't really established until after characters are created, and then the game is planned out to accommodate whatever you've got; I haven't seen or heard of this happening, but I can imagine it. The other, more likely one, is where you're basically using the same campaign to run a variety of genres, or mashing multiple genres together, rather than having a specific game for each genre. So maybe one week you're swashbuckling, but the next is a tense political battle for control of key resources in the region. In this kind of mashup game, different characters will dominate in different segments, but as long as everyone's happy with that (and with sometimes helping out the weaker characters of the moment) then it could go perfectly well. That being said, I imagine it would still work best with genres that are relatively close together and there's at least some overlap in skills: police procedural and political thriller, say, rather than Ten Things I Hate About You and Enter the Dragon.