OOC

[Rex]

I got a link to a good interactive map up and some cell pictures of the maps on my game room wall. The cell pictures suck but sort of give an overview. I will try and dig my digital camera out and see if I can get some decent pics of the maps on the wall sometime soon.

[shaidar]

Thanks Rex.

[Pulpatoon]

Rex, thanks for sharing these maps! It's really interesting to see such a developed shared world.

As someone who can't remember the details of a setting unless I made them up myself, I'm curious about the experience of running in a world like this, long-term. Do you ever feel hampered by the weight of the material? Or is it all just more inspiration? What do you do with ideas that don't quite fit Harn? Do you have players who are also experts in the setting, and does that ever lead to clashes?

[shaidar]

Yeah, cool maps, very useful, thanks

[Rex]

Rex, thanks for sharing these maps! It's really interesting to see such a developed shared world.

As someone who can't remember the details of a setting unless I made them up myself, I'm curious about the experience of running in a world like this, long-term. Do you ever feel hampered by the weight of the material? Or is it all just more inspiration? What do you do with ideas that don't quite fit Harn? Do you have players who are also experts in the setting, and does that ever lead to clashes?

Good questions, I will start with a little about me and how the publishers of Harn approach it and then why it works for me and my players. Also, I can see why it wouldn't work for others in the same way.

I am a highly analytical individual with degrees in Chemistry, Math, and Statistical Analysis. I also love maps and competed in Orienteering in high school and college and was good enough that I worked with the US Army as a civilian trainer at the Underhill VT base and Fort Drum in NY. What I am not is creative on the fly and my English grammar/writing skills are very poor.

How the publishers approach the material. The creator created/started using Harn as his home campaign in 1976 using a house ruled OD&D. Then started selling the campaign setting in 1983. he established then that everything official they would publish would be set in the 720 Tuzyn Reckoning. Thus if your campaign starts in 720 TZ anything they publish will be in your history and the events your players trigger will be unaffected and it is easier to ignore anything that conflicts with your campaign. There is also a very productive fan base that publishes free stuff for the setting and for the most part they also follow this rule. Both also include lots of adventure hooks or 1 paragraph ideas that you could use from the material.

For me as a DM, I create an adventure idea and outline it. Looking up and using the published/fannon material that will help flavor my outline. I don't try to remember or memorize anything. If the characters are in the city of Tashal I do a quick read through what I think is important or I know they will be interested in and then just look up anything I need. During character creation we pick a location that fits the players character idea and look up details to use for contacts or things they would know etc. Then a reason why they would be where I need them for the adventure. Other DM'd are great at just making the details of a campaign world up as they go. "You meet a smith and his name is ..." I am not. But with Harn if you are in a settlement that is detailed (most major ones are) and I can look and see how many metalcrafters there are, what there specialties if any are, how large the shop is (# of employees), name, quality of there work (1 to 5 stars) and cost of there products (again 1 to 5 stars) and use that info to help me conduct the interaction. If there is something noted that I can use to reinforce that this is a real world I will. For example the smiths daughter has a club foot and sits and watches her father at work all day. I can mention that and all it does is give a bit of realistic feel to everything without me having to think about anything. If there is something I don't like or it doesn't fit my version of Harn I just don't use it and make a note in my notebook. The detail also allows political or social adventures much easier to run then most other RPGs. Sometimes the amount of information can be overwhelming and I will just limit myself to only using some info or none at all and don't worry about it.

My players love the setting, but are not not they types that buy all the material and read up on it. I currently have 4 players. Two have been playing with me from the start (late 80's), My godson who started playing with us at age 10 and is now 32 and my wife started playing with us at the same time as my godson. Everyone but my wife has a copy of HM and the HarnPlayer book, which is an over view of the setting from a player perspective. All the common knowledge that the character would know but the player might not. they have been playing plenty long enough that they are fairly familiar with the setting locations (where things are in relation to each other and the very general overview) and maybe a couple of locations within those they have interacted a lot with in the past) and the species/races and monsters common to Harn. But I change/don't use info along the way and note it in my notebook and they have no idea what I change or delete or add and don't care. The point is to have a great time with friends and even when an adventure doesn't go how I expected we always do. That is another thing about all the detail, the players go in different directions then I expect or prepared for all the time and the setting info allows me to go with that a lot easier.

We don't ever clash, but I am occasional reminded of stuff I forgot or screwed up and I just acknowledge it and move on. We are all imperfect and have been friends/family to long to be a-holes about that sort of thing. An occasional ribbing or joke about it is among friends.

In the end we have had a lot of memorable adventures, many of which were not your typical D&D type adventure but some have been. I am a sandbox DM in that I let the players take it wherever they want even if it means a little more work for me getting ready for the next session and at times it means we can sort of spin our wheels and not actually accomplish anything, but they are always building their characters place in the setting and that is fun in its own way.

I will also note that my version of Harn has a few changes to make it more gritty and dark and to fit the type game I like to run and they like to play.

For your style of play I think you could just use the maps and maybe the highest level overview stuff, which in my mind are the best of any campaign setting and just make up whatever you wanted off of the maps. We have actually done this for side campaigns to break stuff up. My godson did this with the first time he ever DMed a game, using D&D 5e as they system. It was fun.

[Rex]

Another map is up.

[Pulpatoon]

Wow! Thanks for the fascinating and insightful response! I'm envious of your decades-long gaming crew, running in a consistent world!

Being a magpie-brained non-analytical sort with a passel of fine arts degrees, what gets me most excited is making up new stuff from whole cloth. I tend to start a new campaign every year or so, because i get excited about a new idea. What about a campaign set at the heat death of the Universe, where physics are breaking down? What if we ran a bakery where the oven was a mouth to Hell? How about an all-kobold campaign, where we're tasked with protecting a dragon's hoard, centuries after the dragon disappeared? If I could, I'd start a new campaign world every month.

So I couldn't run a campaign like Harn, but I find it very appealing and admirable, and respect the hell out those who can.

[Rex]

Yeah, I wish I had that sort of creative drive. I think it best to stick to our strengths when running something but for playing I like to try different approaches and try and challenge myself. It doesn't always work but it usually does. I am enjoying playing with the three of you, it is enjoyable to see you coming together and developing a chemistry all your own.

[GreyWolfVT]

The maps are cool. I like how Harn is basically a big island. So my question would be in Harn do you ever have to worry about cannon characters or details or are there any novels even set in Harn that would cause this? I know this is one of the larger issues with games in D&D set in Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms.

[Rex]

There is one novel, but it really doesn't add any characters you would worry about. I am not sure it was very successful. There are lots of detailed NPCs of all sorts. Nobility of course but also craftsmen and interesting persona. But the details could be just a name and where they live to more detail about there family business etc. I find it very useful and am not afraid to simply ignore it so I don't have any issues with the info and keep in mind all the detail published is for the same date so the problems that show up in Forgotten Realms where all the published material assumes different dates is never an issue.

I have to go help my wife in the garden for a little while then I will post a couple examples of the info and format so you can get a better idea what I am trying to explain.

[Rex]

From the City of Tashal. The capitol and largest city in Kaldor. I will post a map of Tashal in the map thread. All of your characters would have been there at some point.

Tashal page 2 3.jpeg (1.04 MiB) Viewed 592 times

Tashal page 10 11.jpeg (935.01 KiB) Viewed 592 times

Older Tashal page 2 3.jpeg (993.32 KiB) Viewed 592 times

[Rex]

I have thought about how to speed up the process of Psychometry use on several items in PBP. So I will have shaidar roll until he gets a success (MS or CS) or critical failure for each item he is going to question. Then I will figure out the amount of time it will take to including the hour rest between each roll (attempt). He can list his questions all up front or one at a time in case the next question will change depending on the answer. This will hopefully help to minimize some of the back and forth. As always I am open to ideas on how to streamline it for PBP.

[shaidar]

Sounds like a good idea. I always have fun trying to work those questions out.

EDIT: I like to include everyone in coming up with these kind of questions, when appropriate. Helps keep everyone involved and sometimes I'll have a mental block in a particular area and others might have a point of view I've not considered

I was wondering, if CF can give false info, should the rolls not be done in secret by the GM?

[shaidar]

I'm completely confused myself as to what questions to ask and what item to try first, bearing in mins we have one word answers. Time to try and ponder.

[Rex]

At the table I usually do behind the screen rolls and am not opposed to it here. It does add a bit of uncertainty to it since both CS and CF give extra info and CF is false.

[Pulpatoon]

I suppose what we really want to know is where is the nearest lock this key will work on. But how to phrase that so a one-word answer will be actionable?

[shaidar]

Well, we could use two questions to get distance and compass direction?

[Rex]

The phrasing of the questions is the tricky part for sure. Keep in mind you have a magic item that points to North. Once you have come up with your first question post in the in-character thread and I will make the roll and answer your first question. Keep in mind you don't have to start with the key. If you wanted to try and get more info about the owner from the dagger for example. Feel free to use as much table talk here as you want and any questions for me are fine too.

[shaidar]

So, the questions don't have to be related to the specific item, as long as the person they are about owned the item?

So we could legitimately ask "who is (was?) Baild of Elendsa" of the dagger?

[Rex]

Correct. The general way I have ruled on it is that if the item were intelligent would it reasonably know the answer. The longer the individual carried the item or interacted with it the more likely it would know.