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Old 06-21-2021, 08:48 PM   #1
muduri
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Harlem, New York
Default shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Hi all, I find myself in an interesting situation and wanted to float it for thoughts. The campaign's been low-to-middle fantasy so far (as realistic as possible TL2.5 population distributions and social structures; acknowledged a necromantic theocracy supplementing their troops with undead). But the PCs have escaped the European-style lands and then blown off course (unexpectedly for me as well) to North Africa.

I'm a big fan of the Thousand and One Nights, and would love to change the tone for this interlude. Between GURPS Arabian Nights and the Venarive setting I feel like I can figure the social world out. The challenge - this is where I'm reaching out - seems to be doing justice to the totally different tone of the setting, without breaking things for the old one. Some good suggestions already in G:AN but a couple examples on my mind -
- Is it possible to give precedence to fate and the whims of djinni as mentioned in G:AN? The characters are used to winning through fighting, persuasion and persistence - are there mechanics that could help determine the players accept their lot when they're alternately cursed or bestowed fabulous treasure?

- And if you do win that treasure, or the princess' hand, how do you slot that into the campaign? Are those treasures taken away before the party returns northward, without seeming overly arbitrary, or do those characters retire, or should I just prepare future challenges that can't be solved with a diamond the size of a fist?

- The Arabian Nights themselves are usually about a single protagonist. Have any of you been satisfied with the result awarding a princess per PC, or having each win in turn, or just making a single character the focus of the story?

- Finally if there are historical-grounding books I should be speed-reading through before the next session I'm happy to take suggestions. I've been referencing Gellner's Muslim Society and Abu-Lughod seems useful.
Many thanks for any thoughts on these issues or any others we might come up against!

Last edited by muduri; 06-23-2021 at 01:46 PM.
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Old 06-21-2021, 10:38 PM   #2
DangerousThing
 
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Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

One problem with the use of fate like that is that it will take away from player agency.
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Old 06-22-2021, 05:04 AM   #3
muduri
 
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Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

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Originally Posted by DangerousThing View Post
One problem with the use of fate like that is that it will take away from player agency.
Absolutely, that's well put - it seems like peripety by fate or djinn is close to the heart of the Arabian Nights, and fate largely decouples success from the usual roleplaying mechanics like combat prowess and persuasion.

We have already been tracking personality traits Pendragon-style (generous vs selfish, chaste vs lustful etc.), but virtuous actions paying off with a kind of karmic reward feels like it checks an Arthurian box but is still only slightly closer to the spirit of the new genre. If there is a way to nail the flavor without totally sacrificing [at least the feeling of] player agency it'd be a real coup.

Last edited by muduri; 06-22-2021 at 06:11 AM.
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Old 06-22-2021, 08:33 AM   #4
Rolando
 
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Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Make fate an atmosphere or theme and not a mechanic. You may have some hermit NPC say something cryptic suggesting they where expected to arrive and save the kingdom or whatever but at the end the hermit may have been saying that to any foreigner from a while ago.

I think you may get some inspiration of the Symbad films, they are not strictly The One and One Hundred Nights but they are good Arabian nights inspiration for fantasy gaming.

The landscape change, weather, etc. will help make the gear shifting feel more natural, new land new adventures. So you may be a it more flamboyant with the descriptions and the adventure may be more dramatic and higher fantasy.

Africa may be a more magical continent, Plinio described it as a fantasy land full of magical and strange creatures.

Make it more about adventure and showing the new more wondrous world, new strange cultures, more Connan, Gulliver or Baron Munchhausen than the historic fantasy you where probably playing in. Strange, magical castles may pop up from a mirage in the desert as well as cities of brass or jewels inside a jungle or island. Make it magical, make it wondrous.
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Old 06-22-2021, 09:18 AM   #5
Polkageist
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Quote:
Originally Posted by muduri View Post
Hi all, I find myself in an interesting situation and wanted to float it for thoughts. The campaign's been low-to-middle fantasy so far (as realistic as possible TL2.5 population distributions and social structures; acknowledged a necromantic theocracy supplementing their troops with undead). But the PCs have escaped the European-style lands and then blown off course (unexpectedly for me as well) to North Africa.

I'm a big fan of the Thousand and One Nights, and would love to change the tone for this interlude. Between GURPS Arabian Nights and the Venarive setting I feel like I can figure the social world out. The challenge - this is where I'm reaching out - seems to be doing justice to the totally different tone of the setting, without breaking things for the old one. Some good suggestions already in G:AN but a couple examples on my mind -
- Is it possible to give precedence to fate and the whims of djinni as mentioned in G:AN? The characters are used to winning through fighting, persuasion and persistence - are there mechanics that could help determine the players accept their lot when they're alternately cursed or bestowed fabulous treasure?

- And if you do win that treasure, or the princess' hand, how do you slot that into the campaign? Are those treasures taken away before the party returns northward, without seeming overly arbitrary, or do those characters retire, or should I just prepare future challenges that can't be solved with a diamond the size of a fist?

- The Arabian Nights themselves are usually about a single protagonist. Have any of you been satisfied with the result awarding a princess per PC, or having each win in turn, or just making a single character the focus of the story?

- Finally if there are books I should be speed-reading through before teh next session I'm happy to take suggestions. I've been referencing Gellner's Muslim Society and Abu-Lughod seems useful.
Many thanks for any thoughts on these issues or any others we might come up against!
Very cool change of pace, and it's a great way to shake up the low/high magic and wonder dynamic.

Question 1, since the characters are from outside they may be uniquely resistant to the fate assignments that a djinn might put on them. No need to put point values on it, it's simply a feature of the game and drives the engagement of the world with the PC's. As outsiders, they can do things that locals can't and draw the interest (or ire) of djinn who may feel threatened by their resistance to their whims or see them as tools against rivals who won't be as able to defend themselves against these strange foreigners who are capable of forging their own destinies, if only they can be manipulated into serving their desires.

Question 2, the difference between a cave with a djinni's treasure and a cave with a dragon's hoard is the name on the mailbox. Treasure is treasure. Treat them the same, but look to make it unique by seeding magic items and artifacts suitable for the local challenges.

Question 3, that's a problem we're always solving when adapting a world with a single protagonist into a group-based RPG. Give group-sized treasures, let the PC's determine who wants what honors, try not to use people as prizes, and lean on your usual problem solving to figure out how to spread out the victories, and shifting the spotlight around to give each person some time to shine in the story. Again, the look is different, but how is the High King of the North awarding a castle to PC all that different than the Sultan of the Sand Sea awarding them a palace?

srsly what's with the princess thing
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Old 06-23-2021, 11:51 AM   #6
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

GMs should know best how their players will react to the feeling that they're pawns controlled by the whim of fate (whether manifested in the form of djinn, divine curses and blessings, or just weird Stuff), but hopefully the Arabian Nights-style events you put together will be entertaining enough that the players will forgive a little bit of GM arbitrariness. I'd also note that Arabian Nights characters are sometimes victims of their own obsessions and urges; no external influence made Sinbad go off on nine voyages when he made a decent fortune on the first one -- he just suffered from nigh-terminal wanderlust. So if any PCs have appropriate disadvantages on their character sheets, well, now you have an excuse to mash those buttons.

All of which said, to some extent at least, the interesting stuff in the better Nights stories is how the protagonists react to the weird stuff happening to them. It's usually with pious devotion for good luck or hair-tearing self-flagellation for bad decisions (and open-handed generosity to all passing storytellers), admittedly, but, for example, Aladdin not only gets rich and marries the princess; he leads the city's armies in battle when war breaks out with a neighbouring city, and distinguishes himself thereby. So perhaps the trick is to use wild and dramatic turns of fate, not as all of the plot, but as the start of scenarios.

"Congratulations, your Wealth has gone up three levels. Have the points for that for free (but I reserve the right to take them away later), and you get the accompanying Status. Oh, and the Sultan has invited you for dinner - how are your Savoir-Faire and Politics skills? You only have Streetwise? Well, word on the street is that his exiled brother is organising a plot against him -- perhaps he wants you to help deal with that. Oh, and the djinni who helped you find that treasure has decided he likes hanging out in the city, and keeps getting drunk in illegal wine-shops, picking fights, and dropping your name as his best friend..."
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Old 06-23-2021, 01:45 PM   #7
muduri
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Harlem, New York
Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Many thanks, that's a round of excellent suggestions -
flamboyant descriptions and wondrous events;
possible outsider resistance to local fate;
novel's-single-protagonist-to-group-RPG adaptation techniques are just as transferable here;
disadvantage obsessions could lessen apparent fate and arbitrariness;
use peripety as kickoff rather than plot - and perhaps encourage players / PCs to react with appropriate AN-style ostentation to it
- in particular are extremely helpful. Looking forward to trying them all out - will report back any particularly interesting results!

Last edited by muduri; 06-23-2021 at 01:49 PM.
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Old 06-23-2021, 05:34 PM   #8
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Quote:
Originally Posted by muduri View Post
Many thanks, that's a round of excellent suggestions -
flamboyant descriptions and wondrous events;
possible outsider resistance to local fate;
novel's-single-protagonist-to-group-RPG adaptation techniques are just as transferable here;
disadvantage obsessions could lessen apparent fate and arbitrariness;
use peripety as kickoff rather than plot - and perhaps encourage players / PCs to react with appropriate AN-style ostentation to it
- in particular are extremely helpful. Looking forward to trying them all out - will report back any particularly interesting results!
I agree; all of what Phil proposes is useful, more so than I could come up with.

I will propose a general guideline, one that should not supersede this but may supplement it: Before you plan scenarios, review the PCs' disadvantages, especially those that tie them to other characters or organizations, and find ways to springboard off of them. I once ran the first two-thirds of a fantasy campaign largely off of the backstories of two of the PCs.
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Old 06-23-2021, 09:03 PM   #9
maximara
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Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Quote:
Originally Posted by muduri View Post
Absolutely, that's well put - it seems like peripety by fate or djinn is close to the heart of the Arabian Nights, and fate largely decouples success from the usual roleplaying mechanics like combat prowess and persuasion.

We have already been tracking personality traits Pendragon-style (generous vs selfish, chaste vs lustful etc.), but virtuous actions paying off with a kind of karmic reward feels like it checks an Arthurian box but is still only slightly closer to the spirit of the new genre. If there is a way to nail the flavor without totally sacrificing [at least the feeling of] player agency it'd be a real coup.
I disagree. Arabian Nights and Classic: Greece both have this mentality to fate; if anything it is even more "on rails" in Classic: Greece than Arabian Nights.

The story of the Merchant and Death hammers this point home.

In Rome, a Merchant sees Death beckoning to him, Terrified he gets a horse and rides to Damascus. In Damascus the Merchant sees Death again. Summoning up his courage he confronts Death.

Merchant: Why were you beckoning to me in Rome?
Death: I was not beckoning to you in Rome. I was expressing my surprise as we were to meet here... in Damascus.

I might add that GURPS already has a world set up something like this called Burton. The area (perhaps whole world) where the Arabian Nights occur is in a 23-year time loop. The locals hope that they can majorly participate in the adventures of one of the people in this cycle (like Sinbad) so they can live forever young.
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Old 06-24-2021, 01:46 PM   #10
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: shifting gears from lowish fantasy to arabian nights

Quote:
Originally Posted by muduri View Post
- And if you do win that treasure, or the princess' hand, how do you slot that into the campaign? Are those treasures taken away before the party returns northward, without seeming overly arbitrary, or do those characters retire, or should I just prepare future challenges that can't be solved with a diamond the size of a fist?
This seems like it is as much a player decision as a GM decision.

Historically, there are many examples of Europeans discovering the advanced and wealthy Islamic world and never leaving. Generally, they carved out kingdoms (e.g., the Visogoths in Spain and North Africa in the 7-8th centuries and the Crusader States in the Levant in the 11-13th centuries). Over time, they blend in with the locals until their kingdoms get swept away by the armies of bigger states.

If you want to keep in the spirit of the source material, a great calamity (fire, flood, invasion, plague) could take away the character's power just as fast as they gained it. The princess dies of plague and the Mongols sack the plague-weakened kingdom. The PCs survive, but with no more loot than they can carry on a single horse/camel. Tales of vast loot buried beneath the rubble of a haunted and accursed city of the farang and a beggar king forever cursed to weep for his beloved bride become part of campaign legends.

Alternately, they might be forced to leave most of their power base behind in order to quickly travel to meet the overarching campaign threat. This might be straight railroading via Djinn teleportation or a player decision based on campaign events. If you're a good GM though, you can always invent a scenario where the players think that they're making their own decisions while actually moving in a direction that you wanted them to go.

Last edited by Pursuivant; 06-24-2021 at 01:51 PM.
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