AFF & Good & Evil

The thing about Fighting Fantasy that helps it in a vs. TSR comparison is that it's poor and short. They can't pad anything, instead going the complete opposite and becoming bewilderingly brief and to the point. There's this and this  and they take you here and what do you do? From moment to moment it doesn't make much sense. They handed the writing over to a sweaty pile of authors and let them have at it, then made sense of it retroactively much like they'd go on to (well, kinda simultaneously) do with Warhammer 40k. And as we all know, 40k is the best setting ever made, so the system works.


All of us who play Advanced Fighting Fantasy are obliged to become one of the sweaty pile, to possess only cursory knowledge of what everything else in the setting is doing, and to worry about it later. It'll be stronger for it.

With that please consider Good and Evil. Titan is all about the conflict of good vs evil, with you being Good, if you're to believe everything people tell you as Mr. Protagonist. An initial reaction as a GM is to dismiss it as childish and cut it out, but that's against the sweaty writer code. Instead, look at the subtext: Titan (the book) is the foremost explainer of the situation, blaming certain gods for making evil races and us being justified in wiping them out. It describes places like Port Blacksand that apparently integrate evil and good races as being eeevil, it also describes instances of the good guys genociding orcs to take the habitable bits of Allansia and admits they went a bit far but oh well, good guys.

In one throw away paragraph the narrator of Titan admits to being from Salamonis, heart of Good and Humans and Civilisation. It's a small jump to start looking at Titan in a similar context as the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. A biased work of history, something a Victorian gentleman scholar would put out. Something the players and not the gm needs to worry about.

Good and evil only exists in the context of the people talking about it. It is as objective and fabricated to the people of Titan as it is to us. The only real paradigmatic conflict is Law vs Chaos, duh.

Bribes and Beggars

Procedure for Offering Bribes

Ask what the player offers as a bribe then roll to see if it's enough. If the roll is more than the bribe, they don't take it (and may react poorly); if it's less they do. If it's exactly equal to the bribe they will take the money and shop the players later if it's profitable or convenient to do so.

To determine what to roll either pick a good sounding die or figure out the risk and level of corruption, picking the die between.

For instance, say they're bribing a guard to forget he saw them. You decide there's no risk that he'll get in trouble (d6) and that bribes often compliment his earnings (d12). Between those results is d8, so roll that. If there's a choice of two, choose the higher.

d6 - No chance of getting caught/Totally corrupt
d8 - Unlikely to get in trouble/gets bribed a lot
d12 - Slight risk/bribes compliment their earnings
d20 - Could get in serious trouble/not above a bribe now and again
d100 - Very risky/considers themselves to be honest

If the bribee is a shitbag you might be able to renegotiate. When the players pick another sum, take the old number and add a die of the next higher level. So in the previous example you'd add a d12 to whatever you rolled before.


Beggars

Beggars aren't a symptom of inequality and economic pressure, they're thieves! Eyes and ears and whatever other limbs they still have of the Guild. For a bit of jink they might shed some light on the dark of things for a private operator.

If you give a beggar any money, roll d100 on the following table and add how much you gave them:

2-3 - He hisses, whips out a knife from some clammy nook and shanks you as you hand him the money.

4-5 - The beggar coughs wetly. Save vs gross poor person diseases or you develop thick callouses on your face which cause people to be sickened by your presence.

6-7 - The beggar slips a few extra coins out of your purse with his sticky, sticky fingers. Lose d6 more without knowing it. Pretend you rolled a 16-50.

8-9 - He rants and raves, talking complete nonsense, pointing and waving his arms about. What at first seems to be a crazy person instead turns out to be a crazy wizard who still has some magic left from better times. Roll for a random spell across all spells you have to hand, or just flick to a random page of a convenient book. He casts that.

10-11 - He's not a beggar, but a noble young buck in disguise out to see how the hoi polloi treat the downtrodden. He is not impressed and challenges you to a duel.

12-13 - Thrilled at the attention he starts tell you his life story in excruciating detail. He'll follow you until physically restrained. He never stops talking and relates everything to something that happened to him in the past.

14-15 - The beggar will wink and give a knowing nod. He now has an unhealthy obsession with you and will turn up at weird and uncomfortable times, spotted through windows and down alley ways, standing over you while you sleep.

16-50 - Thanks you in his best beggar patter

51-60 - He'll drop an adventure hook on you. A fat tip

61-70 - He'll offer you a useful bit of mundane information.

71-80 - The beggar will answer one question you might have.

81-90 - Full access to any info that doesn't piss off the thieves' guild too much.

91-92 - The beggar will wink and give a knowing nod. Next time you find trouble in town you just might find a hobo with a hatchet coming to your rescue.

93-94 - He's not a beggar, but a noble young buck in disguise out to see how the hoi polloi treat the downtrodden. He's touched by your kindness and insists on returning it. He invites you to visit him, or offers you riches, or some other adventure worthy excursion.

95-96 - He tells you how he used to be an adventurer like you until he lost his legs/arm/nerve but he still has this map to a massive score. Wasn't interesting to the thieves guild 'cos they're thieves, not tomb robbers. Have it and good luck.

97-98 - The beggar gives you a piece of information so insanely obscure and useful that you couldn't possible fathom how he knew it. It could be an obscure spell, directions to physically enter heaven, the location of the bastard son of a king, anything. You never see him again.

99-100 - Gain a point of luck for being such a sweet guy. Spend this for a free success or to demand something goes your way. 

101+ - Slow down big spender. The beggar freaks out, cries, and runs off. The thieves will hear about how much cash you carry and will plan a professional robbery or burglary in d3 days to clear you out.

Marked Maps of Titan

Link to the full sized images: http://imgur.com/a/y5CRX

EDIT: If you see any glaring mistakes or niggling issues in the linked maps let me know in the comments.

These have all the gamebooks I own on them, which is most. Now we can use the old game books as meandering setting material if we fancy it.

Mapping Sholani

Got sent a copy of Island of the Necromancer recently. It's not great, but the first half of the book is a free form romp around the island of Sholani, poking things and hoovering up anything you can carry. Easy thing to map, I thought, so I did.

First thing I noticed though, was that it totally disagreed with the new maps by the original cartographer; Sholani is not 100 miles across, as the map suggests. The book was quite clear about times and distances, and mine more or less accurately reflects that. Still, can't hold it against them. Mapping Titan accurately is mental.

Full size version here.

It's nice to see the patchy and confusing text take shape into an actual map. In classic FF "you're not the boss of me, I'll do what I want" style, there's a swamp next to a desert on an island the size of Cambridge. Which is fine. Interestingly, I think the whole island is U shaped in its east/west profile, with swamps and bays in the middle and cliffs on the top and bottom.

Next step is to add in all the surprise elements that the players shouldn't automatically know about and run a little hex crawl on it. Minus all the maths puzzles, of course.

Currency of Blacksand and wider Allansia

Fangthane Mark
A large, octagonal coin struck in the mint of the Holy Mountain of Fangthane. The Fangthane, or Dwarven, Mark appears to be made of pure gold but is in actuality an alloy whose makeup is known only to the royal metallurgists. It is an exceedingly hard metal and therefore easily tested for authenticity, simply grab a file or a knife and have at it; if the coin dulls or chips then what you hold is a debased forgery. The currency is backed by the massive wealth hauled up from the mountain's depths and guarantees the bearer its value's worth of gems or rare metals if presented to the exchange office in the city at the mountain's base. However due to waiting times, administrative fees, and religious observances, this is rarely done. Much more common is the reverse, whereby outsiders bring their wealth and valuable possession to the dwarves in exchange for marks, causing the dwarven holy city to be accused of being a glorified pawn brokerage. Regardless, the Fangthane Mark is the standard of international trade, trusted beyond all other currencies for its reliability.


Dwarven Mark = 240 Silver Pennies




Silver Penny 
The standard coinage of Allansia is the penny, whose popularity is a holdover from more civil and centralised times. The size and design changes by region but they are generally very small (less than 2 grams), vaguely round and mostly silver. They can be made even smaller with the application of bit of elbow grease, splitting them into up to four "bits". A penny will get you a night in the common room, a beer, or a loaf of bread AKA whatever your base gold or silver standard fantasy cash gets.


Divvies
Port Blacksand has its own peculiar currency which rides on top of the two staples: the divvy.


All city guilds produce these speculative lead coins, each minted in their own manner but generally rectangular and meaty, pressed with the guild insignia or ship flag. By default they are just coins of various values and convenience backed by the guild's resources, but some are more arcane.


Pirate divvies
(At any time there are 20 or so pirate ships active in Port Blacksand)
If one finds their way through the docks and into the smokey common room of The Black Lobster they'll likely find a few tables of pirate captains offering a table full of lead token. Each coin theoretically offers a stake in the ship. just bring your coins back to the captain to retrieve your share of the booty. As long as the ship doesn't end up on the bottom of the Western Ocean the share is redeemable from the current captain whenever he's in port.

Pirate divvies are always worth d12x12 pennies, only redeemable from the captain and only against his last foray. If used as currency the vendor will take a very conservative estimation of their previous hauls when valuing it.

The Guild of Thieves
Thieves coins aren't so much a currency as an insurance policy. People will buy them and then display them prominently in their homes or from their belts, places easily spotted and "redeemed" by burglars, thugs and pickpockets.

Thief divvies are the equivalent of 3p (though this can change) and one will generally cover petty larceny and assault. Burglaries will require various degrees if "insurance" to be covered, please speak to you local guild representative for details and home valuations.
 

Welcome to Port Blacksand. Turn to 172

The Assassins' Guild (Beggars' Coin)
Assassins' divvies are a promise and a weapon. Purchased from certain beggars, they appear like any other penny, blackened and bashed up. Closer inspection will reveal that it is not a silver penny, but lead. Only amongst new money would this be at all obvious, spurring many folk sayings to the effect of distrusting old money.

When given to an individual or placed under their doorstep, they are marked for death. Due to strong links with the thieves and beggars guilds an assassins' coin is rarely missed, it's location and personage reliably being communicated to the guild.

Importantly it is the transaction and intent, not mere possession, which secures the contract. How they ensure this accuracy and avoid killing people who have just purchased the coins is unknown, but ensures the value of the coins.

One assasins' divvy = 50p = a guaranteed assassination attempt (roll more than their social scale on a d10 to see if they succeeded)
 
Sorcerers' Lodge
No one uses these any more, since they have a habit of disappearing.

Specialists got bare skills

Lamentations' skills are a bit weird. We thus fix that by lopping them off completely. Hyah. Like so:

A Specialist's Skill is equal to his level.

Much better. Now instead of 3in6 sneak and 2in6 bushcraft and 1in6 architecture and, and, and, you just have one number to keep track of, just like those lucky fighters. And like fighters you batter your ever climbing number against an opposing number. We'll call those numbers predicaments, 'cos difficulty class is as ugly as AC and you can always just ignore me anyway.

Definitions and Examples of Adversarial Encounters

10 - Trifling predicament - Sneak up behind someone in pitch darkness

12 - Modest predicament - Track a horseman through a muddy field

14 - Worthy predicament - Steal the guard's key from under his nose

16 - Significant predicament - Scale a sheer and slimy wall

18 - Confounding predicament - Find the seamless secret door

There is of course room for further gradients, but less is entirely trivial and not worth the time, while higher is rather unfair and possibly just impossible.

What about Sneak Attacks? Simply add the specialist's Skill to their attack roll, anything they roll over the required amount is inflicted as additional damage.

Can you attempt a task multiple times? Generally that should be obvious, but if in doubt then no. Locks are just too complicated, doors are just too well hidden. If you took the lock home and pored over it for days at a time then maybe you'd figure it out, but in the heat of the moment you're just not good enough. But if you just fell off a wall, then sure, climb it again.

Example: Conan over there is a level 6 specialist, he wishes to climb a pesky tower. The GM decides that the tower is tall but abundant in handholds, so declares it to need a roll of 14+. Conan would then roll a d20+6 aiming for that number. Job done.



And guess what else? Every other class just got access to skill checks. Roll the dice and see if you get lucky. Hey, why not also get a default +1, just like on attack bonuses? Sure!

An alternative expression of the canonical multiverse

Following on from this post about elves.

Basic Careers

Elven Chorus

Advance Scheme

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Dex

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Fel

+10

+10

+1

+10

+10

When a performance happens not everyone is a tragic hero or vile demon. Some must give the hero shelter, or block his progress. These are the nameless elven chorus.

Skill

Acting

Disguise

Mimic

Sing

Trappings

Mask

Career Entries

Any elven mummer or poet may return to being part of the choir

Career Exits

Elven Mummer

Minstrel

Knight of the Post

Advanced Careers

Elven Mummer

Advance Scheme

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Dex

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Fel

+20

+10

+1

+3

+10

+10

+10

+10

+20

Pick a part or make another. Handful of skills, weird trappings and a line of blurb. Add to the part as you learn about it through play. The history of the people will develop.

Career Entries

Elven Chorus

Career Exits

Elven Poet

Girelda, the Humaness

Skills: Charm, Cook, Storytelling, Wit

Trappings: Dagger, Pot and pans, Constant sunny disposition

Girelda the Humaness, loyal companion to Fadl Jory who turned aside the spear of Balachandra. 

The White

Skills: Follow Trail, Orientation, Ride, Strike to stun, 

Trappings: Horse, manacles, d6 followers

The White, taker of children, Boreal Duke on the Hidden Plateau, who challenged the order of things

Elven Poet

Advance Scheme

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Dex

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Fel

+30

+30

+1

+2

+5

+30

+2

+20

+20

+20

+20

+20

+20

Fadl Jory, who turned aside the spear of Balachandra

Skills: Disarm, Dodge blow,

Trappings: Dagger, Pot and pans, Constant sunny dispositio

Balachandra, who hangs from the tree of woe

Skill: Specialist Weapon: Spear, Strike Mighty Blow, strike to injure, very resilient

Trappings: Spear