Postmortem

I come to bury my Flashing Blades campaign, not to praise it.

It's been over a month since the last in-character post and while one of the players disappeared from the site altogether back in mid-October, three of four remain active on other forums at RPG Pub, so it's safe to say this campaign has fallen and it can't get up.

It stings, not gonna lie. I started prepping this setting when I ran FB more than a dozen years ago and I put a lot of work into it, and therein may lie the problem. I asked for feedback when things slowed down and only one of the players responded, so I'm left to conjecture, but I strongly suspect I simply bored them to the point of losing interest.

One of my goals when I run a historical tabletop roleplaying game is to capture the feel of the period and I think I just overwhelmed them with exposition, such as lengthy conversations between non-player characters explaining, frex, court jurisdiction in the setting.

This is the sort of stuff the players in my last campaign enjoyed, so it may just be a mismatch between styles; I'm not sure if play-by-post made this more or less problematic. It feels to me that pbp makes this easier because the pace is by necessity more desultory but perhaps not.

I would've appreciated more feedback, to be sure. This is an exception for me, and I hoped to learn from my mistakes, but c'est la vie.

So, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, Sainte-Argène-sur-Barmie. You remain one of my favorite settings, and hopefully your promise may yet be realized at some later date. My blogging pace slowed as the campaign wound down, but I still have a list of topics and some half-written posts to finish, so please continue to check in for more swashbucklery content in the new year.

#RPGaDay2024 for 16 August: Quick to learn . . . or not

Today's prompt: Quick to learn

Honestly, I got nothin'.

So let's go to the alternative topic generator. For the 16th, the alternative topic is Dungeon, and I roll an eight: Present an idea for a Random Encounter.

Dungeon. Random encounter. Okay then.

First, I need a random encounter, so I'll go to the tables in the back of Flashing Blades. One of the dungeons - and yes, there are more than one - in my campaign is located in the basement of the hôtel de ville - city hall. I roll a 5; the encounter is with a Lawyer and a possible Patron. The offered patronage is a 7: "The Patron wishes to have a message taken to someone in a dangerous position (a prisoner in the Bastille, perhaps, or a soldier on the front)." Perfect.

Next, what's the story of this encounter? I grab a handful of Rory's Story Cubes - since this patronage is about delivering a message, I grab the Voyages collection for inspiration and roll the following: Amoeba, Spectacles, Puzzle Piece, Map, and Domed City. Oh, this could be good.

A procureur - procurator, a legal professional like a solicitor - named M. Bondurant approaches the adventurers with a proposition: he needs a prisoner in the dungeon to look (Spectacles) at a document and confirm whether it's genuine or not. If it is, the procureur believes the document will be exculpatory when presented to the magistrate, but the gaolers will not let him see his client, by order of the consuls - aldermen. If the adventurers can get the document to the prisoner to confirm its provenance - bribing the guards is trivially easy - Bondurant will be very grateful; a small satchel of louis d'or and free legal advice will be offered for their trouble. If asked why he cannot see his client, Bondurant will claim that one of the consuls holds a petty grudge against the procureur from a previous case.

The aforementioned document is a key to a map (Map) in Bondurant's possession. The key is written in a code (Puzzle) that only the prisoner, a renegado - corsair, or pirate - named D'Enfer can decipher. The map is to a city in Barbary (Domed City) where a great jewel stolen by D'Enfer is hidden and it's Bondurant's intention to retrieve it; he also intends to double-cross D'Enfer and leave him to his fate at the hands of the consuls.

Somewhere in here is a disease (Amoeba) - in the dungeon? in the corsair city? - that presents a threat to the adventurers, or D'Enfer, or Bondurant, or everyone. Will D'Enfer share the contents of the key with the adventurers? Will the renegado attempt to double-cross Bondurant by enlisting the adventurers to recover the jewel? Will the adventurers try to put one over on both the procureur and the corsair?

#RPGaDay2024 for 12 August: RPG with well supported campaigns

Today's prompt: RPG with well supported campaigns

There are many roleplaying games out there with literally dozens of campaign modules.

Flashing Blades has exactly one. But it's a corker.

An Ambassador's Tales by game designer Mark Pettigrew put the player characters in the service of a French diplomat and agent of the Cardinal (Richelieu or Mazarin, no matter), and together they travel the length and breadth of Europe in the service of the King. The adventure sees the player characters visit Habsburg Austria, the Serene Republic of Venice (at Carnival, no less), Spain, the Dutch United Provinces, and finally England.

There's a lot to like about this adventure - action, intrigue, terrific locations, three-dimensional antagonists - but my favorite part is the potential rewards the adveturers may receive at the end. The campaign fulfills the promise in the core rules that social and professional advancement shouldn't come exclusively from die rolls. Characters may receive promotions, be knighted, and earn gold as a result of their efforts in the service of France, and it's something I keep in mind as I run FB, looking for opportunities for someone to step in and send a character to the head of the class.

Sea Soldiers: Marines in Flashing Blades

MARINE
A Marine is a Soldier in the Royal Marines Regiment. Marines are trained to fight at sea, and are stationed onboard warships and important government ships. Being a Marine is quite dangerous, especially since French Marines were expected to learn by experience. They had their initial training on land, although expected to serve at sea. Characters with this background are assumed to have spent enough time on ships to have 'learned the ropes.' Characters from other backgrounds who join the Royal Marines will always start as Recruits (not Troopers) and will be expected to fight at sea. Characters with Marine background are allowed to determine starting rank normally (just as Soldiers in Flashing Blades). The Royal Marines are recruited in both France and the Colonies. - High Seas, 2.2 NEW BACKGROUNDS & SKILL CHOICES, p. 1

The piracy supplement High Seas gives us French Royal Marines as a character background and career path, along with a very good colonial "small wars" adaptation of the original military campaign minigame in the Flashing Blades core rules. Established in 1622 by Cardinal Richelieu - who was sincerely dedicated to improving France's presence as a marine power - as les compagnies ordinaire de la mer, the first royal marines were composed of independent companies commanded by naval officers to patrol the docks and man the ships of the nascent royal navy. By 1626, the independent companies were first organized as a regiment, le régiment de La Marine, and through various reformations and renamings through the rest of the 17th century, French marines would remain a fixture of the Royal Navy, though not without challenges, such as a succession of ministers of war appropriating the various marine regiments for service in the Royal Army.

A Marine's duties are described in High Seas as follows (4.2.3 Marine Duty, p. 8).

Marines may be stationed either on land (as additional garrison troops for forts) or at sea. For every two months served aboard ships, a Marine may spend one month at a colonial port. While garrisoned in the colonies, Marines determine Colonial Campaigns in the same way as Colonial Soldiers. Marine troops are added to the French total in Colonial Campaigns, but are usually stationed only in small numbers (twenty or forty).

At sea, Marines are assigned to serve as boarding and defensive troops on French Warships and Merchantmen. On a small or medium sized ship (such as a Corsair, Merchantman, or Small Warship) a squad of twenty Marines will be stationed. Larger vessels may have forty or sixty Marines (two or three squads). Warships rnay carry large numbers of Marines for raids.

On board Merchantmen, Marines are only defensive. Roll for normal encounters for the ship (as detailed in section 6.2.3). If a hostile encounter occurs, use the rules in section 6.4 to determine the outcome.

On Warships, Marines rnay participate in Naval Battles (as boarders), or in land raids on foreign colonies'(as raiders). The design and use of naval battles are up to the discretion of the Gamemaster. If the High Seas players are familiar with wargaming, the Gamemaster may wish to use some advanced rules for naval battles (see the beginning of section 6.4 for a list of good ship-to-ship wargaming rules). Otherwise, the rules in section 6.4 may be adapted for small naval battles.

Marine raids on foreign colonies should be handled as detailed in section 4.2.2. Marine raiders, however, may face varying numbers of defenders, depending upon the colony and the situation (as determined by the Gamemaster). After successfully taking a foreign port, Marines may roll twice for Booty.

So, good enough as far as it goes. Can it be more?

First, in 17th century France, another option for characters wishing to serve as sea soldiers is a military Order, the Knights of Saint John, based on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Sergents, lay brothers of the order, served as marines aboard the knights' galleys, and later roundships, in their ceaseless war with the Barbary corsairs and the Sublime Porte. Sergents can also be found at commanderies - abbeys - of the order in France. A campaign of player character knights, sergents, and sailors aboard a ship of the order could be a lot of fun.

Second, does a character with the Marine background have to be a marine at all? Looking at the skills available to Sailors/Pirates and Marines in High Seas (2.2 New Backgrounds & Skill Choices, p. 2), both backgrounds offer the following skills: Acrobatics, Captaincy, Seamanship (which Sailors/Pirates receive automatically), and Strategy. Both backgrounds may take the Gunnery martial skill as well. The main differences are in bonus skills between the two backgrounds - Marines get Captaincy and Strategy, Sailors/Pirates get Acrobatics - the presence of Pilot on the Sailor/Pirate's skill list, and martial skills, with Marines getting three and Sailors/Pirates only two.

With this in mind, a character with the Marine background could take the necessary skills to be eligible to sign on for a Sail or Gunnery position aboard ship from their own background skills. This effectively makes a "marine" simply a sailor who is better trained at fighting than his shipmates.

So is a "trained fighter" really a thing in High Seas? Well, as a matter of fact . . .

Once an enemy ship has been grappled, boarders (led by the ship's Master-at-Arms) may swarm aboard. At this point it is necessary to determine how many Trained Fighters are in each crew, as shown below:

• 1/4 of a Merchantman Crew are Trained Fighters
• 1/3 of a Navy Ship or Privateer Crew are Trained Fighters
• 1/2 of any English or Dutch Crew are Trained Fighters
• All Pirates are Trained Fighters
• All Marines are Trained Fighters
• All of a Ship's Officers are Trained Fighters

A boarding party may only be made up of Trained Fighters. (6.4.7 Grappling and Boarding Melee, p. 20)

So, a "Marine" then could be a Royal Marine, a sergent of the Knights of Saint John, or simply a sailor or pirate who's a bit more badass in a fight and serves in boarding actions.

My current campaign includes one more option for service as a sea soldier: the marine militia. Members of the city militia may also serve aboard the chamber of commerce-owned privateer galleys as "marines" and are treated as Trained Fighters.

More Pseudoskills

In our new campaign, one of the players created a pseudoskill for his character, an unconventional healer using the Physician skill house rule.

Chemist + Physician = Paracelsian Medicine

Not gonna lie, I was pretty excited to see this idea of creating specialty skills out of the standard skill list take root in another player's character.

Here are some additional ideas for pseudoskills.

Oratory + Bargaining = Negotiation
I created this one for my own character, a smooth talking Student of Law, and used it to help his landlord get an investment loan to become an olive oil merchant. Negotiation is the polite or refined form of hustling, as represented by the Bargaining skill.

Oratory + Literacy Master = Poetry
Oratory + Seduction = Sonnetry
This one was also for my character - I wanted to make poetry a thing for him, a part of his Occitan heritage. These are pretty self-explanatory; one normally doesn't take check marks for Literacy, but a character pursuing this as a pseudoskill should be permitted to do so, using Wit as the defining attribute.

Oratory + Theology = Preaching
The ability to deliver a rousing or edifying sermon or a moving eulogy, this is an obvious choice for priests and ministers.

Theology + History = Hagiography
Hagiography is the "lives of the saints" - this is useful for identifying the connection between a saint's name and a location or an organization, similar to the Heraldry skill, or for invoking the proper patron for blessing an activity.

Horsemanship + Polearms = Jousting
Jousting was still a thing in early modern France; frex, jousts were held as part of Louis XIII's coronation celebration and appear in Richard Lester's 1973 epic The Three Musketeers. This could be a remarkable alternative to rapiers and pistols as a dueling challenge!

Magistracy + Pilot = Maritime Law
Magistracy + Heraldry = Salic Law
Two more areas of legal expertise, the law of the sea and the law of noble succession.

A Small Footprint, Or A Curious Omission

I stumbled across a review of Flashing Blades by Arthur at Refereeing and Reflection: Tangled Thoughts On RPGs and Related Hobbies published about seven years ago. Here's a short excerpt.

What’s even more interesting to me than these rules themselves, however, is Pettigrew’s notes on their use. He makes the entirely fair point that they aren’t necessarily going to suit all groups – especially if you’re just running a one-shot – but for the purposes of an ongoing campaign they can add a heap of flavour. On top of that, he even makes the point that you can use them to break up periods of adventuring (with one or two adventures happening a year) and make a truly generational game, with the campaign unfolding over a span of years. This I find fascinating because it has Pettigrew enunciating, a full year before it was published, the concept of generational play over an epic span of history which became a major factor in Pendragon – thus anticipating a widely-celebrated innovation in game design and in the idea of what a campaign might cover.

I find it intriguing that FB still gets positive reviews, in this instance thirty-three years after it was released, as well as a well-deserved call-out for innovation in roleplaying games.

It's rare that I find anyone with anything bad to say about the game. Many of the retrospectives I read over the years speak highly of Flashing Blades, and the stories of different campaigns are fun to read. And that made me curious: how big a foootprint did this fun, innovative game make when it was released?

If the major roleplaying game magazines of the mid-Eighties are any indicator, Flashing Blades didn't even leave a pinky toeprint. A search of the indices of Dragon, Polyhedron, Space Gamer, and White Dwarf don't mention the game at all: no reviews, no articles, no adventures, nothing. Only Different Worlds mentions it, with reviews of the core rules and the Parisian Adventure and High Seas supplements.

That makes the game's continuing good vibes, which appear to be largely a blogosphere phenomenon, all the more fascinating forty years after its release.

You Got Your Boot Hill In My Flashing Blades! Reputation and Non-Player Character Reactions

Other gamers are suprised sometimes when I'm asked about my favorite roleplaying game and I tell them it's original, "classic" Traveller. In fact, I've played more Traveller over the years than any other game, roleplaying or otherwise. As a result, I've internalized a lot of Traveller's rules, which is why when I need something like a reaction table or encounter ranges or something, I tend to default back to the system I know so well.

When I returned to Flashing Blades about thirteen or fourteen years ago, I brought in Traveller's reaction table; random non-player reactions are something of a cornerstone to how I referee roleplaying games, and I can recite the little black book table and its modifiers from memory. In the years since I last ran FB, however, I played in a three-year Boot Hill campaign, which has my favorite reaction table in roleplaying games, full stop.

The first thing to understand is that 2e BH doesn't have a "social attribute" for player characters: no Charm, no Charisma, no Fellowship. It also lacks social skills, or really any skills at all, and the original rules include only one social rule, minor (non-player) character morale. Boot Hill's NPC Reaction Table was introduced in its first published module, BH1 Mad Mesa, and it was included again in BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine. For a game with no social attribute or skills, it's absolute genius, a rule based on the adventurer's reputation, built from the player character's actions and standing in the setting.

So as I start a new Flashing Blades campaign, I'm changing up my reaction table. Now there's one important difference between BH and FB; the lattter has attributes and skills affecting social interactions, so the challenge before me is to incorporate those while keeping the essence of a reputation based system. First, there are a few small changes to the reaction tables as published in Mad Mesa and Lost Conquistador Mine - we made some of these same changes when we played our Boot Hill campaign years back.

NPC Reaction Table

Roll	Reaction
2 or less	Deadly - NPC will attack at slightest provocation
3	Hostile - NPC will attack if player makes slightest threatening move
4	Insulting - NPC tries to pick a fight
5	Suspicious - NPC watches character closely
6	Undecided - NPC watches character
7	Undecided - NPC is cautious
8	Friendly - NPC is off-guard
9	Trusting - NPC is friendly and does not suspect character
10	Helpful - NPC will give reasonable aid
11	Helpful - NPC is willing to join character
12 or more	Loyal - NPC is willing to risk his or her life for character

	Reaction Roll Modification
-4	Character has killed a friend of the NPC
-2	Character has killed someone known to the NPC
-2	Character is caught performing a criminal action
-1	Character is a known criminal
-3	Character is a known enemy
-1	Character is a stranger
-2	An argument is currently in progress between the character and the NPC
-1	NPC is drunk
+1	Character has previously helped the NPC
+1	Character and NPC are together in the same group
+1	Character refrained from killing a friend of the NPC when given the chance
+1	Character is an individual known to have performed a heroic deed
+2	Character has saved the NPC's life
+2	Character is a known friend
-3 to +3	Character skill check results

Now, Flashing Blades has six social skills: Bargaining, Bribery, Captaincy, Etiquette, Oratory, and Seduction. As presented in the adventures, social skills are pretty straightfoward rolls against an attribute, as seen in thie example from An Ambassador's Tales.

The player-characters must be fairly tactful about dealing with the explosive cake and saving the Ambassador. The Bavarian chocolate cake is the Emperor's pride and joy, and any violent destruction of the pastries or ill-concealed removal might result in a bad scene. Clever characters may think of special excuses for removing the cake (e.g. saying that M. de Bienvenu has been advised by his doctor to avoid sweets, or, perhaps, that he is allergic to chocolate). Similarly, they might 'switch' cakes with him. Otherwise, some player-character with Etiquette skill must make a successful roll against Charm to avoid a scene. - "Habsburg Hospitality," An Ambassador's Tales, p. 8, emphasis added

One of the problems I have with a system that depends on an attribute or skill roll is that the universe comes to be defined by the character sheet. Persuade the count to loan the adventurers four horses? Oratory roll against Charm. Make sparkling small talk with the baroness over supper? Etiquette roll against Charm. Bribe the guard captain to overlook a transgression? Bribery roll against Wit. This is very unsatisfying to me. I jumped through a variety of hoops to make this work in my last FB campaign, but given how smoothly the combination of reputation and morale worked together to create nuanced social system for BH, I want FB social skills to fit into this framework.

The solution is, a social skill check becomes another modifier to the reaction table. Taking a cue from Flashing Blades' combat rules, a social skill check is a simple attribute check but the results will be handled similar to extra damage (4.53 Weapon Damage, p. 17) for serious wounds.

Modifier	Social Skill Check Result
+3	Roll of 1 exactly, at referee's discretion
+2	Roll of one-half or less of skill value
+1	Roll of more than one-half of skill value to skill value exactly
-1	Roll of one more than skill value to half-again skill value
-2	Roll of more than half-again skill value
-3	Roll of 20 exactly, at referee's discretion

Example: Jacques has Charm 12 and Etiquette skill. He wants to impress a potential mistress with his manners. The referee determines the skill check number is 14 - Charm 12 with +2 bonus for Etiquette - and Jacques' player rolls a six on 1D20. In addition to whatever modifiers he has for reputation, Jacques gets an additional +2 modifier to the reaction roll to see if the mistress is indeed impressed by Jacques' rizz.

Flashing Blades lacks a Bravery score like Boot Hill, but for purposes of rounding this into a social system, a Wit check will work; if the situation is especially complex, or the non-player character is particularly significant, the referee can even call for opposed Wit checks. Together the skill-influenced reaction roll coupled with a Wit roll produces something comparable to what we used for BH while maintaining the role of FB social skills and skill checks:

Negative reaction, fails Wit? Cowed

Neutral reaction, fails Wit? Resentful compliance

Positive reaction, fails Wit? Possible ally

Negative reaction, passes Wit? Possible enemy

Neutral reaction, passes Wit? Disinterested

Positive reaction, passes Wit? Willing to negotiate

And this avoids the situation of a player character's attribute score defining the universe, my personal pet peeve.