A Villainy Amok type thing for FH?

[assault]

The passing of Scott Bennie has got me thinking about an equivalent to Villainy Amok for Fantasy Hero.

 

For those unfamiliar with it, it takes a bunch of classic superhero plots, pulls them apart and shows how a GM can use them to make their own adventure. It also contains more or less ready to play examples.

 

Appropriately, some of them could quite easily be used in a fantasy game, and the others could be tweaked into something suitable.

 

But I'm on my phone so I can't really go into more detail.

 

Anyway, a book of Fantasy plots could definitely work, and could either be run as a campaign or be used in bits.

[Christopher R Taylor]

That is a really good idea, I'll have to look it over

[assault]

The good thing about this is that it could be written in chunks. None of this 128 page tome stuff.

 

It would actually be possible to nick some of Scott's ideas.

 

Instead of a bank robbery, characters could raid somewhere, in search of loot or a McGuffin.

 

Wizards are basically Mad Scientists.

 

Invasion don't have to involve aliens - but they could!

 

Superhero weddings aren't the only ones that can go pear shaped.

 

Fire is more dangerous to heroic characters than to supers - all the more fun.

 

The other two ideas are harder to fit in.

 

Super drugs could be literal potions, or could be any other dubious source of power.

 

Shrunken heroes could actually be taken literally, but in general could be a weird situation or curse 

 

And finally, the general plot seeds would be straightforward enough.

[assault]

Thinking some more...

 

The shrinking thing works. The PCs could interact with rat people (Fafhrd/Grey Mouser), ant people (Tarzan), bee people, or something else.

 

Or they could stay normal size, and interact with big things - giants, dinosaurs or whatever.

[assault]

A more specifically Fantasy thing: Dragon Hunt.

 

The PCs get to face a proper Smaug grade dragon, or maybe a toned down Colddrake, for the more Leroy Jenkins types.

 

Other possibilities: a tournament, or a gladiatorial contest. Good for practising combat, and a classic bit.

 

A wizard duel?

 

I'm sure I will come up with some others.

[assault]

Some ideas don't really work.

The beheading game, for instance. There are quite a few stories from legends here and there where a character is invited to cut off another character's head, as long as the second character gets to return the favour in a year's time. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is probably the best known example.

 

That's the kind of thing that doesn't really work in a game. For starters, it really only involves a single PC - everyone else is just along for the ride. Also, the GM has to set things up so that the player agrees to this dumb deal. Finally, what does "in a year's time" mean in game terms? (A shorter time span would be possible.)

It could potentially work - but it can easily be avoided by the players, resulting in any preparation by the GM being wasted.

Another possibility is the Doomed City. Atlantis, Sodom, whatever. Can the Doom be averted? What happens if it can't? Again, a classic bit, but a bit handwave-y. The obvious solution for the PCs is: "we get on our horses/boat and get the heck out of Dodge".

 

You could trap them haunted house style, but that's a bit clumsy. Far better for them to Doom themselves...

Yet another possibility comes from Shakespeare (Henry the Fourth, part one):

"GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?"

 

But that's just really another "from the Mad Scientist's lab" situation.

[DShomshak]

12 hours ago, assault said:

Other possibilities: a tournament, or a gladiatorial contest. Good for practising combat, and a classic bit.

 

For particularly decadent societies, or especially mad tyrants, the Game of Death first introduced by Edgar Rice Burroughs in, IIRC, Chessmen of Mars. Gladiatorial combat structured as a chess game (or analog), with gladiators as the living pieces and the arena as the board. Two players order the gladiators around. When one gladiator moves into another's square, they fight to the death.

 

One of the requirements is unfortunate: The Master of the Games needs a smackdown-hammer big enough that the captured PCs can be compelled to go along with the game instead of saying "Screw this" and trying to fight everyone at once. Or, well, some reason that a pack of egotistical murder hobos (and their player) will play along. (At least until the equally traditional slave revolt, when the heroes persuade the other gladiators to break their chains and turn on their debauched and evil masters.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

OK, going for 7 things. So far, the following look viable, without overly ripping off Scott's work:

 

1 Loot/McGuffin raid. (It's a dungeon.)
2 Dragon Hunt. (If the PCs don't want to fight a dragon, why are they playing fantasy?)
3 It came from a Mad Wizard's lab. (Because you need sorcery with your swords! Also, this is a holding title.)

 

Dungeons, Dragons, Sorcery...

Evil Gods/Cults?
A Warlord?
These aren't plots in themselves, although the first can involve sacrifices, altars and Nameless Things. Or names that Must Not Be Spoken. And probably a rescue.

"We'll Sing The Old Goblin Songs"
The halflings are getting restless. Are their grievances justified?

"From Out of the Depths"
Something has been washed ashore...

 

[assault]

I think "Evil Gods/Cults" and "From Out of the Depths" are strong enough to add to the list. That makes 5 things/chapters. Two to go.

Oddly, the Sword and Sorcery flavour is so strong that Dragon Hunt is starting to look like a (sub)genre mismatch.

[Lawnmower Boy]

I don't see:

 

i) Exploring the Mysterious Place (island that's actually a whale; lost temple of forgotten god; plateau/valley where the dinosaurs survived; lost kingdom; Forbidding Wilderness That Is Actually A Laboured Allegory, etc.)

 

ii) Hunting the Thing (Orc raiders that captured your bestie; the Questing Beast; Your Daddy; Bling That Is Actually A Laboured Allegory, etc.) 

[assault]

A couple more possibilities:

"A Sword is not a Shield."
Swords are classic McGuffins. They often come with Destinies and/or Prophecies. But they don't make you invulnerable.

"A Game with a Throne."

Heroes often win thrones, or at least have the opportunity to win one. Keeping it once you have it is another story.

Obviously they can tie a character down, and other PCs might not want to hang around while someone else gets to sit on a Big Chair.

[Scott Ruggels]

So, then, what does work?

[assault]

I've been trying to live and breathe this enough to work on it enough to produce at least a first draft of a single chapter by the end of this month.

 

Of course this has required me to change from my own weird take on fantasy to something more generic, that can use the already published material. Annoying.

 

A side effect has been that plots for short stories have been popping into my head at an interesting rate. I've been having to write them down and ignore them.

 

"Cho-bu and the Goddesses" makes perfect sense if you know who Cho-bu is. (A very minor god). But he's a product of my brain, although "inspired" by a Lord Dunsany story.

 

I've also had to learn to ignore a whole lot of shiny things.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The thing is, this kind of project doesn't presume style of setting, its just typical fantasy adventure concepts explained and made more readily usable for gamers, who can then adapt it to any sort of setting.

[assault]

True, although ready to play examples makes it more useful. In fact, they make it possible to use as a pre-made mini-campaign, if you are that way inclined.

--
More distractions: Furries of Doom.

Based on Scott's super drugs chapter, we have a cult that uses potions to allow themselves to shed their human forms and their human inhibitions.

If they adopt predator forms, they can hunt a victim turned into a prey species, or just a normal unarmed human. Alternatively, they can turn a victim into a prey species and set human hunters on them.

Naturally, sustained use of such potions make them less and less human, and more and more animalistic - and less likely to turn back into their human forms.

[SCUBA Hero]

Sounds like a BtVS episode! 👍