Dokkaebi

 So I was reading Gus L's excellent analysis of The Dragon Of Icespire Peak, here, on All Dead Generations. If you haven't read it, do so. Because in a way, his review can act as a kind of mini-guide to how campaigns should be structured. 

I was struck by what he says about orcs being a wasted opportunity in that campaign because you can't negotiate with them and they're predictable and its always going to end in a fight. I realised this was true in some of my own stuff where I had deliberately swapped out orcs for something else. My go-to swap has been hobgoblins,but they can easily fall into the same stereotype and often, I end up playing them as something very different from, well hobgoblins.

For my Dark Peak setting, I wanted to include a creature the players were not already familiar with. So I looked around. And I found the korean Dokkaebi.

Now  I could change their name in a campaign, but so far, I've chosen not to in my notes because I want to remember where they come from. 

But what I took away from my reading about them on the internet (okay, not that extensive as research goes, but sufficient for my own game),  is that they are unpredictable. That's kind of their thing. They might be helpful, mischievous or aggressive. I don't want to randomise these responses too much, in game, because if they become too unpredictable, the players won't want to interact with them. And I very much want them to do that. But if I were writing a campaign that was kind-of-inspired by The Dragon Of Icespire, then I would use these in place of orcs and I would do this everywhere orcs might otherwise crop up in that setting (I don't usually use orcs anyway, for all of these reasons) with the express intent that PCs could negotiate with them without them being totally reliable. And without different groups of Dokkaebi being the same. One groups is cool; they negotiate and play fair. Another group has a different outlook. They cheat and steal and commit murder.

Okay, that's the  play dynamic I'm after. If you want a summary of the real world Dokkaebi, you can look online; Wikipedia has a good page. What follows is how they will appear in my campaign.

In the korean mythology, Dokkaebi seem to mainly appear as yellow or red. I'm going with red; I can introduce a yellow population later if I want to. They are red, not red-brown, not 'redskins', not reddish but a non-human, unmistakable red. They sometimes have horns. They sometimes have beards and wild hair. They have large teeth which sometimes appear to be tusks. And they have large features, such as eyes, nose, etc. I'm giving mine large ears with hairy tufts like a red squirrel. Just because. Oh and they are human sized. Done. 

Dokkaebi are not fey; that's a western tradition and therefore well-worn, and also has been boxed and sold already by WOTC et al. I'm not interested in explaining exactly what Dokkaebi ARE, and I won't explain it in my campaign either, other than that mages say they exist differently, and thus have power over different things than humans. So, Dokkaebi are  potent against evil spirits. Any rolls they make to banish, intimidate or expel supernatural beings gains a +2 bonus, which becomes Advantage against beings with lower Hit Dice than the Dokkaebi.

Dokkaebi also know how to ensure a good harvest, good catches of fish and general prosperity. This is knowledge-based. They have knowledge of fungi, the nitrogen cycle, etc..

But they can also carry disease, such as Black Speckle Fever. Not all Dokkaebi have this, and it isn't easy to catch, but if a human does get infected, its unpleasant. It doesn't spread from human to human, which is why Dokkaebi have the reputation for carrying it.

Due to the intrinsically magical nature of Dokkaebi, their exended presence can cause a human's perception of reality to shift, or even falter. They can essentially cause a condition in humans that appears a little like what humans call 'madness'; at the GM's discretion, after each week spent in daily contact with Dokkaebi, a successful Will save is needed, to avoid a roll on the Madness table on p161 (at GM's further discretion count only even-numbered results). 

Dokkaebi often make sue of mystical clubs or hats. The hats confer the spell  Limited Transmogrification, which can transform the wearer a number of times equal to their level, into a member of another humanoid race. Clubs confer one of the following spells (d4) Dark Slumber, Crush of the Warp, None Shall Pass or Shadows And Dust. 

STATS

DOKKAEBI

#4d6 AC11 (14 with armour) HD2 Club d5, Nat 19 1d10 Blunt Trauma or Spell (see above). S13 D14 C11 P13 W8 Ch10 L7 Reac 2-4 hostile 5-7 indifferent 8-10 curious 11-12 friendly

 Dokkaebi get Disadvantage on all Charisma checks with non-dokkaebi due to their appearance and reputation for unpredictability.

Dokkaebi get Advantage on all trickery-based Dexterity checks.  

 If you try them out, please let me know how they play at the table. 

Hello and Welcome Back and Sorry.

 Well, before anything else, I have to say, if there is anyone out there actually reading this, apologies.

This blog suddenly became very irregular. What can I say - real life happened and although it didn't include anything terribly dramatic, the blog just wasn't on my mind too much for a while there. I guess this post is going to be a general catch up  and overview, and then I'll make a separate new actual post

RPGs, however, have been. In a couple of specific ways. I've been running a couple of games (Tales of Argosa) and I've been reading blogs and I've actually been reading quite a bit of fiction, which got me thinking maybe I should write a review or two. 

So I've been running a couple of ToA games for kids. One group is age 13 to 14, the other 115 to 17ish. It's been a lot of fun, even though the sessions, for reasons beyond my control, run to no more than an hour. The younger group actually played an adventure before summer break, so they mostly know the ropes, but the older group are all new to me. 

First off, I found ToA to be a good fit for these groups. Short sessions need fast, simple rules to get anything done at all. The players are largely new to playing, too, so simple is good. 

So here are my observations and what I have learned about a) running games with kids and b) running very short sessions. 

The first thing that comes to mind really speaks to both of those things: have something happen immediately. With both young players and anyway with a short session, you have to move the action forwards pretty much as soon as you're at the table. I often find myself scripting my opening comments in my head in advance, about how whatever was going down last week has moved on. The groups have to finish very promptly, for reasons of transport, so we often finish abruptly, sometimes before a scene has completely concluded. This might sound awful. It really isn't. Here's why.

Knowing this happens provides an incentive to keep the pace quick and things happening throughout the hour. It also negates any temptation to drag things out or get bogged down in minutiae. The following week, I summarise what happened and move on. I do not, in that summary, ever include character actions, however; if there are character choices or decisions pending they get returned to and played out. But otherwise, and most of the time, I skip to the end of what was happening and go to the next scene/choice/room, etc. 

And, so far at least, nobody ever minds. 

In the younger group, there are four boys and a girl. Some of the boys get insanely excited about combat and slaying monsters/bad guys. I need to keep that possibility in focus to keep them focused and maintain the 'promise of action'. I say 'promise of' because i do try not to curtail their choices by forcing action. But if I leave it too long between action scenes, some of them start to drift. And Man, do they drift! Phones, my dice, their friend's dice, their friend's phone... If they're rolling dice, its all good.

One thing that does hold their attention without dice, though is NPCs. If they're colourful. Weird accents. and occasionally allowing their suggestion for a name (such as Galgamax the dwarf, which was thrown out as a 'silly' suggestion by a player when a hesitated cos I couldn't remember the dude's name. It was quicker to go with it and everybody at the table remembers it. That NPC is never going to be far from the PCs from now on!

Younger players seem more prone to just shouting out random thoughts and ideas. They haven't learned not to. I can't stop it, so I try to make use of it. So when one of them says: "Is his (the dwarf king's son) cloak green cos there's arsenic in it? That's green!" I respond "Yes, it is; they use it as a dye for their clothes because they're resistant to poison, to it but it means humans can't wear them."

That's cannon now. I might even use it in other games. I can see it being a clue in a murder mystery where a dead local is found in a green cloak his friends don't recognise. 

They also tend to take an instant liking or dislike to NPCs based on minor details. I let that influence the roles the NPCs have quite a lot. I suppose that's good practice anyway, but its especially easy with young players because they tell you everything they're thinking. Everything.  

The older group is totally different. For a start, there are two boys and four girls. And that is different from any game I've ever run. They are very interested in meeting NPCs and in those NPCs' lives, so I do have to make sure I have some stuff to share about them. I also have to limit or at least be mindful about how many I introduce because they are ALL potentially important. But it does make it easier to run an investigation adventure, because the players are actually curious about everything;  I suspect the number of girls involved also has a significant positive impact for the girls. They can experience the game the way they want to, not just how five male players would. And I suspect there's a difference. 

The main difference between the two groups is how easy or difficult it is to keep track of, and therefore communicate back tot he players, where everyone is and what they're doing. i tend to try to keep the younger players together, or they can lose track of who is where or even where their own character is and I occasionally have to remind them that they need to tell me if they are following their friend's character or  doing what everyone else said. The older group are way easier in this regard and more or less manage that themselves. 

Money is also of almost no interest to the younger group beyond being told that they just found/earned/were given lots of it. They soon forget how much they have, or who has it or where it is, so i minimise that aspect except to maintain a loose idea of what I think they can probably afford. ToA's pricing system really helps me with this - rolling a die for prices is so much quicker and easier than looking it up!

That's pretty much all my thoughts for now. I may edit later if I think of anything else, or write another post in a few weeks.