Downtime Activities: Magical Research

The great fun of playing wizards is learning ancient sorceries, concocting abstruse theories, uncovering forgotten tomes, apprenticing yourself to eccentric maniacs, and, of course, putting your mark on a campaign world by contributing spells, quite possibly with your own name in the title. If given the choice, I always prefer to play a wizard, which goes to show that as an academic I don't really play D&D to compensate for what I lack, but to pursue things I already love in new and fantastical forms.

This is a system for doing all of that, for learning spells from other practitioners, concocting new spells, writing scrolls, and authoring terrible grimoires.  It is the latest contribution to my now quite extensive system of downtime activities, which is nearing provisional completion.

The baseline I consulted was the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules on magical research, which are the best retro-gaming rules on these matters I know. Part of the reason I like them is that they encourage "early domain play" with magic-users who can create spells from first level, and who are encouraged to build laboratories and hoard tomes in private libraries. This fits with the general thrust of downtime activities, which, from one point of view, could be seen as introducing "haven" or "domain" turns into early and midlevel play. However, I departed from the LotFP rules in many ways, employing the same system of trackers (Apocalypse World "clocks") as the other downtime systems I have been presenting, and putting my own more resolutely Vancian spin on spell books. While I give credit where credit is due, the plus side is that if you're tired of LotFP for real life reasons, and want to move on, you can use this instead. Just throw the ladder away.

There are no rules here for creating magical items, because magical items are born not made. This post also doesn't cover alchemy, making potions, or growing Mazirian's garden, which seemed like their own topics worthy of a separate treatment. Finally, I have left out clerical and druidic magic for a second post, because this one was long enough.

Writing a Scroll

An ordinary written sentence is a potential meaning that is only actualized through reading, when it is grasped in thought or speech by the reader. But spells share something of the nature of God's mind: for them the distinction between capacity and act, potentiality and actuality, breaks down. For a spell to exist in any form it must already be working magic. We might say that spells are virulent potentialities. Like a coiled spring they may only be contained by countervailing forces. Only years of training enables a mage to hold them within his memory. To embody them temporarily in a worldly substance is no simple task. Not just any materials may house them, but only those of special arcane qualities.

A character may only create a scroll for a spell they are able to cast. In order to scribe a scroll, the caster must spend the gold pieces necessary to procure the materials to be used in the downtime action. This costs 300 GP per downtime roll. The DM will set a tracker for the creation of the scroll with one step per spell level. In order to advance the tracker one step, the player must roll 7+ on 2d6. The player receives a bonus on the roll equal to the difference between the maximum level of spell they can cast and the level of the spell they are transcribing. For example, if a magic-user is able to cast 2nd level spells, then they would receive +1 to rolls to transcribe magic missile (a 1st level spell) onto a scroll. Note that snake eyes is always a failure.

Copying a Scroll

You can't do it. They're too unstable. For magic-users, finding a scroll is not a way of acquiring a new spell to be memorized. 

Learning Spells

To learn a new spell you must have the spell in a book, and the spell must be of a level that you can cast. When the player declares they are learning the spell, they open a tracker with a number of steps equal to the spell's level. For each downtime action spent learning the spell, the player rolls 2d6. On a 7+ the tracker advances one step. The player receives a bonus on the roll equal to the difference between the maximum level of spell they can cast and the level of the spell they are learning. They may also receive an additional bonus if they are instructed by a teacher who already knows the spell, adding to their roll the difference between the spell level their teacher can cast and the one they are trying to learn, up to a maximum of +3. If they roll a snake eyes at any point in the process, they are defeated in their attempt and lose all progress on the tracker. They may not try to learn the spell again until they advance a level.

For example, if a magic-user is able to cast 2nd level spells, then they would receive +1 to rolls to learn shield (a 1st level spell) alone from a book. But suppose they also have a teacher, who both knows shield and is able to cast third level spells, to help them learn from the book. In that case they will receive an additional +2, for a total of +3 (the max). Note that such assistance also counts as a downtime action for the instructing wizard.

When a magic-user gains a level, they may learn a single spell they already have in a book for each new spell slot they receive in a single downtime action (no roll required). This represents a breakthrough in their previous attempts to advance, as their mind transforms, suddenly acquiring new infolding spaces to contain a spell with which they have struggled previously in their quiet moments. If they do not possess a spell of the requisite level, then as soon as they acquire one they may learn it in a single downtime action without a roll.

Spell Books

I'm just gonna say it: spell books in AD&D are gross. They have all the charm of little black address books, as though magicians were like: "Hey, gimme a minute I'm just gonna jot this magic phone number down, I might want to call it later." As much as I love Gygax (and I do), there was something taxonomic and utilitarian about the direction his imagination took him at certain points. Here's a Vancian alternative to go with this system that is more flavorful. I was inspired originally, way back when, when I read this post from the glorious Planet Alog blog.

As virulent potencies, spells can't just be written down in a book, they must be permanently arrested like a flash of lightning held in a temporal stasis field. The vessel of their containment must be suitably wondrous, a splendid items in its own right with a bit of magic about it. Within its pages, the spells must be surrounded by a prison architecture worthy of Piranesi, whether they are embedded deep in abstruse theoretical discussions, or sung by the heroes in an epic poem at the consummation of battle, or surrounded by shackles of illumination and incredible artistry. Once brought into the world, such books can be copied by those of lesser skill.

Under this system, accomplished magic-users do not have a spell book, they have many tomes, each a memorable grimoire likely containing a few spells. Wizards worth their salt will know the names of most of the major texts containing spells, and are jealous hunters for tomes possessing spells they lack; some spells exist in many tomes, others in only a few, but the sad truth is that most are lost entirely to this dying earth. It is true that this system makes traveling for magic-users more of an ordeal, and the choices about texts to bring more draconian. But you know what: by the time they are able to cast huge numbers of spells, magic-users are like fragile gods themselves. Trust me, with their floating Ioun Stones, invisible servants, teleportations, and all the rest, they can handle the logistics of mundane book transportation.

Making a New Spell Book

To create a new spell book, containing newly researched spells or those copied from multiple sources, is difficult. The magic-user must commission a master artisan to create a grimoire, which is a splendid artifact. A 1000 GP book may contain 4 spell levels; a 2500 GP book 7 spell levels; and a 5000 GP book 9 spell levels. Upon launching on the project the player must name the book, and describe its wondrous physical form, drawing as usual on the remarkable materials provided, the character of the book's artisan, and the nature of the book itself. The player must describe the theme and nature of the book, including the surrounding material that contains the spells and binds them together. The book's theme must explain how all the spells included fit together in one text; you cannot just slap any old spell alongside any other spell and connect them with some text--such ramshackle bonds could never hold potent sorceries together in one volume. Once completed, the book will become a known item in the campaign world, attracting the interest and envy of other wizards. To make such a book is to leave ones mark on the campaign world forever.

The starting cost is for the production of the book and the surrounding material, but the insertion of spells can only be accomplished by one who has mastered them. As with scrolls, the player opens a tracker for each spell to be included with as many steps as the level of the spell. The magic-user must pay 300 GP in materials and preparation to roll 2d6 as a downtime action. On a 7+ they may advance the tracker for any spell one step, taking as a bonus or penalty the difference between the spell level they can cast and the highest level of spell they are including. Note that the book can be used in an unfinished form as soon as the trackers of some spells have been completed.

Copying a Spell Book

To copy an existing spell book, the magic-user must commission the copy, but they have the option of only paying half as much for a product that it is not a splendid item, and need not be made by a master artisan. The player must describe how the appearance of the book differs from the original, and what (minor) and stylistic alterations set the book apart from its predecessor--if it is not a splendid item, then it must appear as a pale echo of the original. As with the creation of a new spell book, the artisan creates the surrounding matter, but the magic-user must scribe the spells into the book paying 300 GP for each downtime roll. Note that copied spell books cannot contain spells of 7th level or higher. Such potent sorceries are found only in unique and remarkable tomes which are known by name to all powerful wizards.

Researching a New Magic-User Spell

Magicians of any ambition hunger to pull from the depths of secret knowledge unknown sorceries. Some few dispassionate seekers of knowledge simply thrill at discovery; most intermingle this elevated aspiration with a desire to be recognized as great wizards who leave a legacy for posterity; others are drawn by the lure of power and fear, for those daring enough to bring new sorceries into the world are rightly to be feared.

To research a new spell, the sorcerer must first commission a new spell book to house it. The player must write up a spell description in the style of the rules employed in the campaign. The DM will decide if the spell is over (or under) powered for its level, and will suggest emendations required to make the spell viable. Note that a character cannot create a spell they would not be able to cast. The player will then open a tracker on the spell qual to 2 plus the spell level. 

The magic-user may thenceforward pay 300 GP for a downtime roll on research. The player may take as a bonus the difference between the maximum level of spell they can cast and the level of spell they are researching. The tracker advances on a 7+. Once the tracker is complete, the creator of the spell counts as having learned the spell, and it is inscribed with no further cost or downtime rolls in the spell book that houses it. It  may henceforth be memorized. But such research comes with significant peril, for should the player roll snake eyes, then a magical  disaster occurs. They must roll on the table below adding the level of the spell to the roll. At this point all progress on the tracker is lost, and the player, if they survive, must begin again.

Note that the table that follows would be more flavorful if it was more specific. I recommend coming up with a different table for each different school of spell that exists in your game. Or simply lift any of the many DCC corruption tables, or magical catastrophe random tables floating around on the internet, for this purpose.

Magical Disaster (1d8 + Spell level)

1. ---------. 
2. The spell in its current incarnation proves too unstable to capture. You know in your heart that you have failed. Luckily, your notes can be salvaged as a one time scroll of the spell being researched. 
3. You are stymied working one night on the spell and weep in rage. Overtaken by a black sleep, you dream that you have--at long last--finished the spell! When your eyes open at the touch of the honeyed fingers of dawn you are filled with a profound peace at the memory of your dreamed success. You return to your notes with renewed confidence, only to discover that they are blank and the spell now exists only in your memory as a one time memorized spell. Start the next session with the spell memorized.
4. As you try to inscribe some part of the spell onto parchment, the magic vanishes from all your notes with a sizzle. Back to the drawing board!
5. You have a near catastrophe as the spell inflicts a wound on the skin of reality, and like thick black blood welling welling up, the unwelcome waves of the vibrating orbs press forward urgently through the cracked flesh. You are able to contain the disaster, beating back the waves long enough to cauterize the wound--but only by exhausting your mind. Until the next downtime, you lose one spell slot of your highest level.
6. Something is wrong. You feel the heavy presence of the spell in your mind, but you cannot get at it. It has taken on a life as a parasite, reaching its feathered tendrils deep into the recesses of your mind, making itself very comfortable. It is uncastable but occupies a spell slots of the relevant level. Perhaps some kind of thaumaturgical chirurgy could help?
7. Your thoughts dwell more and more obsessively on the spell. By the time you realize something has gone wrong it's too late. The spell has colonized your mind. It is now the only spell you are able to memorize! (You may memorize it multiple times, but spell slots of other levels must go unfilled.) The only way for you to free yourself from this obsession is by completing research for this spell and inscribing it in a book. 
8. The spell leaps from the pages of your notes to hang in the air as a disorganized luminous sigil for one beautiful moment before it is cast on you with inimical intent (if applicable)!
9. As 7, but if the effect of the spell is a negative effect with a duration (e.g. sleep, charm, light, etc), its effect is permanent until remove curse is cast by a cleric of higher level than than you. If the spell does damage, triple it. 
10. Working on the spell, visions flood your mind in a revelation of shapes and forms like abstract art for hours on end. Rightly or wrongly, you believe with a strange confidence that the visions have come from a cosmic entity. Once per session for the next 1d10 sessions, you are subject to an illusory vision at inopportune times. These visions seem like they are trying to communicate something of vital importance.
11. Your ministrations produce an unwelcome vibration in the fourth sphere. The harmonics are too much for your vulgar material to contain. Roll on this table now as your flesh is changed forever. 
12. Your research tears open a rent in reality in your study that leads elsewhere. To see where and what might come through, roll here. This portal opening remains for 3d6 days, allowing entities during this time to travel freely either way.
13. The spell has invoked chaos upsetting the ecology of some distant world. You have earned the enmity of beings from that distant orb. Terrible huntsmen now pursue you, crossing through the astral plane to your world. The DM should prepare a rival adventuring party of slayers. At the start of each session, the DM should roll 1d20. The huntsmen will find the magic user during this session at the most dramatic possible moment on a 1.  
14. Unquenchable black flames pour forth from the faulty broken sigils you have crafted. Silent and stuttering they cover your body and spread in a strange conflagration to your workspace, and then beyond in a half mile radius, withering and aging everything they touch. Anyone touched must save vs death. If they survive, they permanently age 10d6 years from the temporal flames. Inanimate objects are likewise aged.
15. It starts with little things. When you speak there is an echo of the words in reverse. Your milk curdles and the wine is vinegar when it touches your lips. You can glimpse him in the mirror, behind you, the visage of your father (or mother, younger brother...), but decrepit and lascivious. Your ruined spell has served as conduit for a demon who will torment you until you agree to do its bidding. If you refuse it will take what you love most and deliver it to your most hated enemy. 
16. The disaster happens swiftly. You think you have it under control. But you are wrong. Soon it is standing before you: a terrible reflection of you that you cast like a shadow (or does it cast you?) in another dimension. It looks identical to you, and has all of your powers. It can do everything you can do, and if you do not slay it this instant, this inimical entity will escape and sew endless havoc in your form, trying to undermine and usurp your station. 
17. For your terrible transgression, tampering with the deepest layers of reality, the original guardians--chthonic angels who dwell in the foundations--have snatched from the face of the earth, casting you into the Emerald Fane beyond space and time. All wizards of 5th level or higher know in an instant with dread what has happened to you. Even to utter your name is dangerous now. 

Daydreaming with Karlman

In this post, I want to talk about my favorite podcast, Judd Karlman's Daydreaming About Dragons. Karlman is the creator of the Dictionary of Mu, a super evocative setting book for the Sorcerer RPG. He's also one of the hosts of a very early RPG podcast called Sons of Kryos, which I've only started listening to. You can check it out on Youtube.

In Daydreaming About Dragons, Karlman spins out a topic freeform. The episodes are very short, generally reflecting on one thing that happened in a game, or one topic, e.g. "setting research", "the power of names", "ecology of the undead". The effect of his generous demeanor and his meditative tone, combined with his garrulous faux rambling is entrancing. Karlman often has something interesting to say, but my favorite episodes are ones where he spins out a fragment of a setting by riffing on a theme or illustrating his techniques in the moment. His imagination is wild, and to see it in action is a pleasure. Over time one gets a sense of his whole approach to gaming, which is probably the most valuable thing of all. Another thing I like about the podcast is that Karlman plays both retro and story games. As someone who is interested in that liminal space,  but is more on the retro-gaming side, I find his approach congenial.

It's about 50 (short) episodes in by now. If you haven't given it a listen, I can tell you where to get started. The order of episodes is a little chaotic on some platforms (Apple Podcasts, I'm looking at you!), since Karlman has "reply shows" that are not numbered, where he replies to listeners who have called in (using Anchor) between episodes. You should listen first to Episode 3. If you like what you hear, next listen to Episode 6.

Episode 3 is titled "Everything is Worldbuilding", by which Karlman means: everything is worldbuilding if you approach it in the right spirit. A corollary of this, dear to my heart, is that you can do all the worldbuilding you need without info dumps or walls of lore text, simply by making things players care about interesting and evocative aspects of the world. His main example in this episode is schools of magic and spell lists. Spell lists raise metaphysical and cosmological questions about the nature of magic and reality, and Gygax handled this by imposing his typical obsessive principles of order by repurposing grandiose synonyms for the sake of taxonomy, dividing the spell list into categories of evocation, abjuration, enchantment, etc.

Karlman's idea by contrast is to use the historical source of the spells as the principle for carving up the list. Karlman says at one point that he wants finding spells to be like finding arrowheads on an ancient battlefield and wondering, "What happened here?" In other words, they should point to history and draw players into the past conflicts of the setting by evoking wonder. Here are his spell types: (1) Hidden Caches of the Mage Wars, (2) Gifts from the Fey Queen ("when the fairy realms were in Spring, her laughter was like rain--she just threw off gifts, but now the fey realm is in Autumn"), (3) Fiendland's Relics (the spell books of ancient order of knights who worshipped devils), (4) Black Market Hobgoblin Cantrips (military camp spells, like boot polishing and potato peeling), (5) The Old Queen's Druidic Tomes, and (6) Gnomish Family Country Illusions.

Just from the titles of the spell types you learn something about the world, the factions, and powers and potentates, and historical conflicts. If I were playing a magic-user in this game I would instantly be hooked. Can you imagine how much fun it would be when you find that first Fiendland spell book, and learn about the infernal knight who had it, and about his devil liege?

Episode 6 is about setting research. I'm not going to expound on it much, although it's my favorite episode, so you can experience it for yourself. I'll just say that in it Kalrman spins out two glorious settings in this episode, one from a single sentence, "The world is made of ash and blood," and the second from a single idea, "There is a city called Rose that was colonized by sorcerer kings." In the one case he starts with the magic system, and the other with the pantheon. His idea is that what you need to do in worldbuilding is not exhaustive research or interminable cataloging of "setting information", but rather you should find little evocative nuggets, which he calls "your apple pie". You can spin out this little evocative ideas into a badass setting through daydreaming and riffing on a single theme.

This rang true for me, because it's basically how I came up with Zyan. I had one post where there was a single entry on a random table I had written for my home game about what appears in a tear in reality leading to other worlds. This single entry said that the portal opens on an inverted alien jungle that hangs from the bottom of a flying city in the dreamlands. When I turned this into a campaign premise, I had just one other evocative idea (my apple pie): that a door to this city of the dreamlands had opened a century ago, and that everyone knew about it through the fairy tales told to frighten children. So I daydreamed about this city of the dreamlands seen through the lens of children's fear. Naturally, I hit upon the idea that everyone in the city wears a mask, and that they use puppets to punish people for being naughty. I then asked myself questions like: what kind of a pantheon would they have in a place where ordinary life was a masked carnivale? What would the law be like in a place where there was punishment by puppet? Is there a puppet deity? So Zyan was born.

So anyway, check out the podcast if you want. It's cool. I got myself a honking Blue Yeti microphone that looks like a prop from a Call of Cthulhu larp. So maybe I'll start a podcast myself one of these days. Who knows?

Downtime Activities: Spiritual Exercises

A young Jedi descends into an evil hollow to learn about his dark side. A paladin has broken a vow of her order, and wishes to regain her purity by embarking on a quest. A priest devotes himself to the study of a perilous branch of the holy law to draw new miracles from his faith. A monk has come upon a place of the ancients and wishes to meditate there to understand its nature.This is an open-ended system for engaging in spiritual exercises like this. It is part of a system of downtime actions, the other members of which are available here. The idea is that when in a safe place--a home base, a haven, secure camp, etc.--between adventures, a character may perform up to one downtime action, whatever else they do.

I have one player in particular who likes spiritual exercises. Here are two real examples from play. His earlier character was a heretical priest of Nepthylys, who at a certain point wanted to found his own pantheistic splinter sect by fashioning a holy eidolon of a perfect being. His more recent character, a former NPC with a mystical bent, encountered the (undead) shade of a brilliant former painter, who could not rest until he finished the self-portrait of himself that had thwarted him in life. The character wanted to meditate with the artist and provide spiritual counsel to overcome the block that had stymied him for more than a century. I think more players would do things like this if they were given a scaffolding that let them imagine it as a possibility. This is the system I wish I had had when he made those proposals to me.

A character of any class may pursue a spiritual exercise. To do so, the player must specify their goal. T'his will be the result if the spiritual exercise is successful. It can be vague, i.e. "receive guidance from my deity in this hour of need", "come to better understand my origin", or quite specific, "I wish to acquire the following mechanical benefit." They must also say through what spiritual exercise their character will be pursuing this goal. The goal and method of pursuit must be spiritual or mystical in a broad sense, although they need not be narrowly religious.

The dungeon master will first decide if the goal is feasible and the proposals makes sense given the character and the situation, informing the player if the goal is unachievable, or if it seems somehow implausible. There are obvious ways this could get out of control, for example by allowing a character to pray for a miracle that would mimic a very powerful spell far outside the reach of the character, like restoring the dead to life or healing the lame--especially if the character is not even a spell-caster to begin with! This downtime action thus requires a sensible DM and player, and  trust to work, so that the DM has the space (and confidence) to redirect proposals that are inappropriate. (As always, the dungeon master should try to be "yes and", offering possible feasible substitutes where the player strikes the DM as overreaching.)

Once a goal has been settled on, the dungeon master will next decide how big the tracker is that must be completed to achieve the goal using the guidelines below, telling the player how many steps it will take to complete their spiritual exercise. Only then will the player will then decide whether they wish to proceed. To advance the tracker, the player rolls 2d6, adding their wisdom modifier to the roll. On a 10+ the tracker advances one step. On a 7-9 the tracker advances one step, but the DM should introduce a complication. A complication may be a blockage in the spiritual exercise that requires some action to address, or the DM can ask the player to propose an inconvenient vow, or some disadvantageous condition during the next session. 

Here are some rules of thumb and examples for the size of trackers:

1 step: a result that is purely color, or a mechanically minor or ephemeral spiritual goal.  Example: a paladin prays to the Saint of her order to give her mastery over her fear when facing the spirits of the night, demonic beings that infest a broken tower to which her party plans to return next session. If successfully completed, this spiritual exercise allows her to re-roll a failed saving throw vs. fear against this specific foe for 1 session.

3 steps: a slight campaign goal, or a mechanically basic advantage. I would use this number of ticks for the player character spiritually counseling the artistically blocked shade; by meditating and advising a major NPC in a dungeon, the character can help them overcome their artistic block, and so release them to achieve final rest. (Were the NPC a throwaway or merely a bit of color then I would make the clock 1 tick.)

5 steps: a minor campaign goal, or mechanically moderate advantage. Example: a fighter with an alignment opposed to a magical sword wishes to struggle with the blade on the spiritual plane where it dwells. A successful completion of the spiritual exercise means that each will change their nature so as to become compatible with the other.

10 steps: a medium campaign goal, or mechanically significant advantage. Having proven his worthiness through service to the forest, the Old Man of the Wood, an ancient Ent, offers a gift in return. The druid proposes a spiritual exercise, asking him to instruct the druid in the secret language of bees. Upon successful completion of the spiritual exercise, the character may speak with bees at will and they will be favorably disposed towards him, considering him a true friend of their kind. (Note that to propose a 10 step spiritual exercise or higher, given that it grants a permanent power, there must be a strong reason in the game world why this makes sense, as for example, like the offer from the Old Man of the forest.)

20 steps: an epic campaign goal. A psionic character has learned through play that the ancestors of all with his gifts were invaders from the stars. He attempts to use his powers to access the shared genetic memory of his inhuman ancestors. If successful, he will learn the location and the method to open the generation vessel in which his ancestors arrived eons ago--the ultimate super secret dungeon of the campaign world for which every adventurer worth their salt is searching!

Downtime Activities: Martial Training

In war as in peace, practice makes perfect. There is the ordinary matter of staying in form through sword play with a dueling partner or fencing dummy, or through sweaty knife work alone in a darkened barn, or shooting a bow on a range or at pigeons in flight. To remain at the height of ones combat powers, one must practice. Then there is serious martial training, which is not a matter of keeping ones skills sharp, but rather about learning secrets of the crafts of war from masters of the art. This post provides rules for such practice and mastery of techniques . It is another entry in my growing system of downtime actions--you can see the other entries here. The idea is that during each downtime session you can perform one such action. Here are some ways to spend that precious action on the arts of war.

Keeping in Form

Anyone may spend a downtime practicing at arms, either alone, or with a suitable partner. The player must choose a weapon type (sword, knife, longbow, etc) with which their character practices. Only weapons open to their class may be selected. They roll 2d6, adding their level if a fighter (or fighter sub-class). On a 7+ the player may choose one: all rolls with that weapon type are +1 to hit or all rolls with that weapon type are +1 to damage until the next downtime. On a 6- there is no benefit. Note that snake eyes is always a failure, regardless of the bonuses received.

Mastering Martial Techniques

But one may also work over time to learn more sophisticated fighting styles. These are special abilities that, having mastered them, one may use freely in combat. Modern editions of D&D have developed baroque feat trees to model such things in the name of customizing and building a character. While there's probably a lot that could be extracted from those serious efforts for retro-gaming play, for B/X or AD&D lite, with its simpler combat rules and lack of skill trees, the general approach feels wrong. But luckily the OSR has produced many house rules presenting options for combat. My idea here is to simply make these house rules into learnable skills that provide combat tricks and options.

In order to attempt to master a martial techniques, one must first find a teacher who knows the relevant art and is willing to instruct you. The DM may require you to pay a fee, or to develop a relationship with the individual. PCs can always teach other PCs, but this counts as their downtime action. For each such martial technique, there is a tracker to show progress towards mastery. For each downtime action spent attempting to move a step forward on the tracker, the player rolls 2d6, adding their level if they are a fighter. On a 7+ they move forward a step. On a 6- there is no benefit. Note that snake eyes is always a failure, regardless of the bonus received.

Each of the martial techniques listed below requires 3 successes to master. You could introduce less effective techniques available for fewer ticks, or more effective techniques for more ticks. If you include more effective techniques, my advice would be to treat acquiring them as major campaign goals, on a par with having a splendid artifacts crafted. They should be secret arts known only to a few masters, who must be sought after in game, and who will likely only teach their art to fighters who prove themselves worthy. Once again, this is delightful opportunity for worldbuilding as you place the masters of secret martial techniques in your sandbox. (I may try my hand at some of these in a later post.)

Martial Techniques 

(3 Step Tracks Each)

Shields Will Be Splintered (Originally from this amazing post by trollysmith!)
If you take melee damage when using a shield, you may opt to negate the damage at the cost of splintering (destroying) your shield. You may only employ this ability once per session.

Wall of Strokes
Each round, you may forgo attacking, focusing solely on warding off your enemy's blows with a wall of deft strokes.  Your AC improves by 4 for the round. The use of this power must be declared before you roll initiative.

Due Caution
Each round you may opt to fight cautiously, giving greater care to your defense. For the duration of this round, your AC improves by 2 but you receive a -2 penalty to hit. The use of this power must be declared before you roll initiative.

Wild Abandon
Each round you may opt to fight with wild abandon, ignoring your screaming sense of danger to press the attack without concern for safety. For the duration of this round, worsen your AC by 4, but receive a +2 to hit. The use of this power must be declared before you roll initiative.

Swashbuckling
You are trained in the arts of dynamic fighting in the most dashing Hollywood style. If you are lightly armored (studded leather, leather, or padded armor), or unarmored, improve your AC by 1 as you swing from chandeliers and roll under tables like Jack Sparrow. Fighting classes (fighters, paladins, and rangers) may complete this track twice for a total AC bonus of up to 2.

Fight Like an Argive
If you have a spear readied, you may throw it and charge into melee combat in the same round.

Sharpshooter
Choose a missile weapon type, e.g. bows, slings, throwing weapons, etc. Spend one round taking aim with your chosen missile weapon at a visible target. On the next round receive +4 to hit. You may take this technique multiple times for different classes of missile weapons.

Eagle Eye
Choose a missile weapon type: bows, slings, or thrown weapons, etc.. Increase short, medium, and long-range ranges of your chosen missile weapon type by 10 feet. You may take this technique multiple times for different classes of missile weapons.

If you have ideas for more martial techniques, please post them in the comments below--or better yet, on your own blog!

Downtime Activities: Building an Institution

David Macauley

It feels good to have built something. If your players are anything like mine, then a big part of the agendas they form have to do with building, bolstering, or creating institutions. I use the term institution loosely here to mean any kind of ongoing enterprise, the fortunes of which could rise or fall over time. Examples would include a bar, teahouse, or shop, a theater troupe, garrison, or mercenary outfit, a gang, guild, or orphanage, and so on. Since a large part of open world retro-gaming play revolves around factions, and since factions are often associated with institutions, players often develop a keen interest in helping along the enterprises of some and hindering those of others. As play evolves, of course, players often wish to found their own institutions, and this is one way that "domain level play" can start even in the early or mid-level game.

Here are some examples from my home games. One party worked to enhance the fortunes of one of the lowlier hanging merchants of the White Jungle, lifting his fortunes against his overweening rivals. Another party cooked up the more ambitious long-term scheme, yet to be acted on, of restoring the hanging pagodas to their former grandeur as a carnivalesque tourist attraction for the jaded Zyanese. For a little while one group was running a printshop (yes, that one) and employing a gang of street urchins, a la the Baker Street Irregulars. One of the longest running characters, who is a dancer, recently started up a dancing troupe with growing renown, another started a heretical new religion before departing on a vessel sailing the Oneiric Seas, and a third is currently in the process of building a monastery to MANA-YOOD SUSHAI, the Slumbering God.

This is a rough system for handling things like this. It fits with my developing system of downtime activities--check out the other posts here. (Someday, when I've finished the system, I'll put them all together in a free PDF.) Building an institution is a downtime action, of which each PC can only perform one each downtime. For inspiration with this downtime action I considered the very structured systems in Blades in the Dark, by John Harper, and the looser system in The Nightmares Underneath, by Johnstone Metzger. You should check those out, they're great on this very point.

Like my other downtime actions, the basic mechanic involves a reaction roll (2d6) and a tracker (or "clock" in Apocalypse World jargon). In order to make the roll the player must describe how their PC is attempting to build the institution which will usually (but not always) involve a cash expenditure. They cannot simply say, "I spend X GP and roll". They must tell the DM how, in the game, they intend to bolster the institution. The DM must agree that this makes sense, that the activities being described are within the power of the PC, and that they would indeed plausibly strengthen the institution. In some cases, the PC may spend extra gold in order to receive a bonus on their roll. They may receive further bonuses or penalties for situational advantages or disadvantages the PC has with respect to building the institution, given the "fictional positioning" of the PC (another bit of storygame jargon, meaning the advantages or disadvantages the PC has given the fictional situation).

If the player get a 10+ on the roll then the institution advances one step on the track. If the player rolls a 7-9 the institution advances one step on the track but the PCs also incur a complication, some kind of problem for either the bolstering PC or the institution. Ideally, the complication will call for problem solving and might point towards further adventuring possibilities. Often the complication will present a problem that must be addressed if the institution is to hold on to its fragile gains.

You can calibrate the size of the institution tracker to the possibilities for growth. If you want to become the top gang in Chicago, that's going to be a long road to hoe, with many possible kinks along the way. On the other hand, if you're trying to support a small town inn that has fallen on hard times, that's a modest proposition with a smaller track: since there's less room for growth and fewer looming complications. I present a generic track below that you can use as a default and a basis for modification either upwards or downwards. I also include a generic table for complications. The DM needn't roll on that table if they have some complication which fits even better in mind.

The fictional and mechanical advantages for moving up the track will vary significantly depending on what the institution is and how much of a stake the PCs have in it. Generally, speaking, robust support for the institution gives one access to the goods and services available through the institution free of charge. It may also aid in the cultivation of relationships (another downtime activity). Theoretically speaking, the difference with building an institution and cultivating a relationship is that in cultivating a relationship one strengthens the bond between the PC and NPC, and the roll is affected by Charisma, whereas in building an institution the PC strengthens an institution, and the roll is affected by expenditures. But in cases where an institution is run by a single NPC, it may be that building an institution is one very good way of cultivating a relationship. That's OK! The system exists to facilitate and encourage dynamic engagement with the setting. It's meant to liberate your players, not imprison them.

Institutional Advancement Tracker

1. Inconsequential: The institution is a small fry, a little known and bottom rung institution, barely hanging on, and in need of much love and care to develop. Examples might include a back room noodle shop, a rag-tag gang of hungry street hustlers, a dingy and dusty fortune teller's shop on a desolate street. To roll on the advancement clock, the PCs must invest 500 GP in the institution. For each additional 250 GP they may receive +1 to the roll, up to a maximum of +3. 
2. Minor: The institution is a decidedly lesser quantity, easily forgotten. Examples might include a shrine to a dwindling faith or a new gang with a small and threatened turf. To roll on the advancement clock, the PCs must invest 1000 GP in the institution. For each additional 500 GP spent, they may receive +1 on the roll, up to a maximum of +3.
3. Middling: The institution has carved out a place for itself as part of the scene. Examples might include a small but active temple or a lively neighborhood bar. To roll on the advancement track, the PCs must invest 2500 GP on the institution. For each additional 1250 GP spent, they may receive +1 on the roll up to a maximum of +3.
4. Major: The institution is major part of the scene. It is generally known and a point of reference. Examples might include a gang that has cornered some racket, or a bustling steak house. To roll for advancement, the PCs must invest 5000 GP on the institution. For each additional 2500 GP spent, they may receive +1 on the roll up to a maximum of +3.
5. Influential: The institution shapes the scene, setting the trends, and exercising major influence. Examples include the temple of a meteorically rising faith, or a theater troupe with an avid and enthusiastic following among the city's aesthetes. The PCs must invest 10000 GP on the institution. For each additional 5000 GP spent, they may receive +1 on the roll up to a maximum of +3.
6. (In)Famous: The institution has great renown, and may be known outside the locale of its operation. It's the kind of institution that is an object of fear or fascination, and it likely attracts visitors. Examples would include the thieve's guild in Lankhmar, or a puppet theater known to all children and shaping the very fabric of childhood in a city. The PCs must invest 25000 GP on the institution. For each additional 12500 GP spent, they may receive +1 on the roll up to a maximum of +3. 
7. Legendary: There is nowhere higher to go. The institution is known throughout the campaign setting. It is an extraordinary instituiton, one of a kind, the stuff of song or tales. 

Complications Table (1d10)

1. Envy! Other rivals at the old level resent the newfound success of the institution. They begin circulating rumors (true if possible, false if not) about the unsavory past of the institution that threaten to undermine the whole operation. Something must be done to bolster the institution's reputation. 
2. Competition! One or more rivals at the new level of institution step up the competition, ruthlessly cutting prices and stealing current patrons, in an effort to strangle the upstart in its cradle. 
3. Sabotage! One or more rivals at the new level of institution engage in some act of sabotage to ruin their new competitor, e.g. arson, spoiling or poisoning of supplies, or something more creative, like a giant spider in the basement, or a curse to drive off customers, etc.
4. Emulation! The sudden rise of the institution has led to rampant emulation. Whatever your institution's thing is, suddenly everyone is doing that thing, in the most aggravating way possible. Unless the institution somehow distinguishes itself by the next downtime, it will fall one rank on the track.
5. A Dangerous Offer! An institution of one rank higher offers an alliance with the upstart. Accepting means accruing the even more powerful enemies of this institution who will react on the next downtime. Declining means that the higher ranked institution will seek revenge on the next downtime.  
6. Unwanted Criminal Attention! A criminal outfit notices the success of the institution and decides to shake it down in some aggravating and ongoing way. The PCs must pay the current level x 100 GP per downtime or have the institution lose a rank until the criminal problem is dealt with. Perhaps the problem can be made to go away with a show of force...or by doing the criminals a favor.
7. Unwanted Legal Attention! The growth of the institution attracts the attention of the authorities, who busy themselves with inspections, assessing fees, and so on. To acquire the necessary licenses, the PCs must pay the level of the institution x 300 GP by the next downtime  (or find some other solution) or have the institution shuttered.
8. Shortage! Perhaps owing to its recent success, something necessary for growth of the institution is now in short supply. Whatever is in short supply will have to be provided by the end of the next downtime or the institution will lose its newfound gains falling one step on the tracker.
9. Suspicion! The rising institution has drawn the attention of an NPC or faction in the city, who suspects the hand of a resourceful and enterprising group behind its success. They begin to keep tabs on the party, looking for opportunities to exploit the situation, perhaps trying to get the party to do something for them through blackmail or with some combination of threats or offers regarding the institution. 
10. Puritanical Opprobrium! The rising institution has been chosen as an example of the rot within society by some zealous sect, grasping politician, self-righteous reformer, or two-bit orator. There are rising protests, speeches, or boycotts against the institutions--unless the players do something about ti. 

Looking at the table, in terms of prep, the best thing a DM could probably do is this. When the party makes it known that they are going to be advancing an institution, the DM should develop some quick notes on the institutional scene as it exists, focusing on rival institutions. The DM should jot down four or five lines about, say, two institutions at each level the institution exists in the scene. This will take maybe 15 minutes, and then on a complication result of 1-4 the DM will always have ample material to draw on. The DM can seed the future fun by starting to casually mention the rival institutions in downtime threads, or campaign news, or city adventures, etc.

A Quick Example

Navilus, a former fisherman in Rastingdrung turned adventurer, has decided he wishes to bolster Old Nin's, a tiny shanty serving a passable crab stew and shots of vile rotgut. He used to come as a child with his father and remembers playing at the feet of sailors. Outside of the walls of Rastingdrung, it is a place away from the prying eyes of the Scarlet Censors. The party has been meeting there, and would like to use it as a more stable base of operations and a place to stash their contraband goods. Navilus thinks it's time to give the place a boost.

It is an inconsequential institution and the aged Nin, tough as she is, is holding on by a thread. Navilus decides to hire carpenters to shore up the rickety structure and expand the place to give it some light and air. He tells them to construct a back room where the party can meet in total privacy, and to dig out a small cellar for storage. He also goes shopping for some better lighting than the greasy candles that produce only a dim light. He says he will spend 750 GP on this endeavor, giving him one roll of 2d6+1. The DM judges this all makes sense, and the player rolls...and gets an 8+1=9. So that's a success and Old Nin's advances to a minor institution, drawing in new crowds to the more comfortable and attractive setting. She is very grateful and tells Navilus his father would be proud of him. But there's a complication, and the DM rolls a 1. Envy! Some kind of gossip from old competitors will be the problem...

The DM, consulting their notes, decides that the source of the problem is another wretched seashack called The Devil's Egg, run by Bartholomew, a crafty former stevedore with a horseface. He is circulating the rumor that Nin is getting money for her expansion from the Scarlet Censors as a rat-faced informant on the fisherman. Navilus is going to have to do something to counteract this if he wants Nin's to hold on to its gains. Navilus takes it to the party, and talk about putting the heavy on Bartholomew to get him to recant, but it's not really their style to intimidate an impoverished former stevedore. Instead they decide that Nin will loudly sponsor a flagrantly impious float mocking the Scarlet Censors for the upcoming Festival of Sybarites. That should do the trick at the modest (!) price of 200 further GP. The DM thinks this is an excellent way of counteracting the problem, but decides that the Scarlet Censors might take note in the future.

Later, Navilus wishes to expand Nin's operation further. The party is now interested in building a network among the Fishermen to whom the party's cleric has been preaching his strange new faith. (Having meanwhile started another institution in the form of a tiny congregation!) Nin's is currently a minor institution, and so Navilus decides to drop 1500 GP for the next roll. This time he wants to pay off the Guild of Fishers to get Nin choice crab and other more succulent fare, help her hire some cooks and further help, and build another expansion, including a second story with a deck for summertime. He really doesn't want to just lose this gold, so he decides that he will also give to Nin a treasure the party has recently acquired, a decanter of fine wine that is never empty. The DM decides this provides Nin's with a major situational advantage, and gives Navilus an additional +2 for the roll. Navilus' player rolls a 4 +3=7 and just squeaks by!

So it works! Nin's restaurant is now a middling institution, a fixture on the scene that attracts large number of fishermen, and even some others, who in summertime might wish to eat crab on a deck looking out over the oily waters of Lake Wooling. The DM decides that the success is due largely to the freely flowing wine, high quality but sold for a remarkably low price even fishermen can afford to pay. But there's that complication...the DM rolls a 10 Suspicion!

The Scarlet Censors have been watching ever since that odious and clearly blasphemous float was sponsored. The DM decides that they have a spy working at Old Nin's, a cheerful serving lad named Merrick. Merrick has told the Censors about the decanter, and with further investigation they have found out about the adventuring party and its exploits, not all of which have been strictly legal. The Voluptuary Venguld sets up a meeting at which she will try to strong-arm the party into performing a "mutually beneficial mission" on behalf of the Temple of Ulim. Will this entangle the party in the Temple politics they have heretofore avoided? Will it lead to enmity and conflict with the Voluptuaries? Or will it lead to new and valuable Temple contacts? Let's play to see what happens.

Zine Review: The Dirge of Urazya

The Dirge of Urazya is created by Jack Shear of Dolorous Exhumation Press, author of the long-running blog Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque. The zine is available in print + PDF here for just $6, and in PDF here for $4. Shear has written about the process of making it here and especially here. He did it all, from writing and illustrating to assembling the zines by hand. The zine presents the background of an apocalyptic gothic setting, and provides a series of questions for players and DM to answer in a session 0 where they collaboratively build the setting for their game together.

How is the Zine Made?

The zine is trimmed and saddle-stitched (stapled) with a black cardstock cover. The interior is 26 black and white pages printed on decent white paper (a step up from copier paper, maybe 24 lbs). Let's start with the cover. Just look at that thing. With just a few brushstrokes of white acrylic paint applied in a stencil, shear has created the ragged outline of white fangs, which emerge, luminous, from the darkness of the pitch black background. There is an aura or mood that hovers around the zine before you even open the cover. This simple but clever artistry is why I love handmade zines. Hand-painted covers using a homemade stencil? Brilliant.

It makes me think of a range of other possibilities. I'm a lover of elegant ink stamps. How about a white cover with a black and white illustration, embellished with a single elegantly placed red stamp? Or why just the cover? How about a motif that runs through the pages of the zine. You could pay black and white printing prices and then hand stamp certain pages of the zine. It would be a delicate operation, but the effect could be striking.

Back to Shear's zine, the interior is laid out in a single column for each page (double column for the facing pages), using the free word-processing program LibreOffice. It is self-illustrated by Shear. The opening illustration of the castle outline is great. The other interior ones have crude DIY vibe, which won't win any awards but work with the overall aesthetic of the zine. Again, I love about this zine how much Shear is able to do with basic resources.

The zine was printed online by a service called Best Value Copy, a competitor to Mixam, which I talked about last time. Shear ordered the prints as unassembled sheets, and folded, stapled, and trimmed them himself. Although this is not a big deal by any stretch of the imagination, unfortunately there are telltale signs of printhead smudging or misalignment in the zine. In inkjet printers, printheads are little nozzles that spray droplets of ink onto the page. In laser printers, they're lenses that fire a laser beam at a drum, building up an electric charge to attract toner to the drum in the pattern to be printed, which is then transferred to the paper. In both kinds of printers, the print heads can be become dirty (inkjet printers get clogged, laser printer printheads get smudged). In inkjet printers, they also need to be lined up and coordinated with the paper that's fed in, since they jiggle and spray the ink directly on the paper. If they're misaligned or dirty you get strange features, like blurry or darkening text or thin white lines running through text and images.

In my copy of the zine, the type on some pages is a little crisper than on others. In particular, the type tends to get marginally darker and blurrier as it moves across the page. It was subtle enough that I had trouble getting a photo of it on my phone, because the phone corrects for the differences in the shade and blurriness of the writing. To be clear, It's not the kind of thing you would notice, unless you know about printing and are anal about this kind of thing. But if you're going to pay someone else to do the printing and copying of your zine, you probably don't want this to happen, so I guess I don't recommend Best Value Copies. But I do recommend Jack's zine!

Castlevania is in the zine's appendix N, with good reason

What is the Zine About?

The zine presents the fantasy setting of Urazya (Eurasia). Humanity here was ruled like chattel by the Nobility, four great vampire houses. The vampire houses jealously guarded their knowledge of powerful magic and technology (including AI, and robots), keeping the human masses they ruled in ignorance. The vampire houses fell in the Global War, a nuclear and magical apocalypse that left standing only the great Capital, a Duskvol like gothic metropolis with crumbling steampunk technology, ruled by humans. The Capital is surrounded by the Borderlands, an uncharted post-apocalyptic wild-west, full of small villages, witches, demon worshippers, and--of course--vampires. Beyond this lies the Devastation Zones, forbidden irradiated zones full of mutants, environmental hazards, and lost technological wonders. The players play a group of "hunters": monster-slaying heroes.

The briefly presented scaffold of setting material is neat, but I had a little trouble holding the three thematic elements in my head at one time. First, you have a post-apocalyptic Gamma World type setting, with AI, robots, radiation, and mutants. Second, you have a setting where great vampire houses ruled ignorant human chattel. Third, you have a gothic metropolis, with dark streets, occult secrets, demons, vampires, werewolves, unhallowed fey, and 19th century historical trappings, including both the gothic city and a wild west periphery. I found that I could get two out three of these in view at any time. When I tried to hold them together in my mind, the closest I could get was the kitchen-sink aesthetic of Rifts, which I don't think is quite what Shear is going for, since it treats any period trappings as just one part of a pleasing but incoherent melange. To be clear, I think this may be a failure of imagination on my part (maybe I just need to watch more gothic themed anime), and more importantly, it is an issue that could be posed and hashed out in the Session 0 that Shear's zine equips you to run.

This is another item from Appendix N.
I haven't read it, but I always love Yoshitaka Amano's art.

This is where the zine really shines: the real innovation is what the zine does with this setting. The zine presents a simple system neutral procedure for a session 0 get together, in which your group collaboratively creates a setting on the provided scaffold. The retro-gaming scene (OSR, NSR, *Dream, whatever) has been excellent in providing vivid and intensely imagined worlds in a bottle. In other words, it has excelled at worldbuilding in the service of open world style (sandbox) play. But this has tended to take an authorial form, where someone invites you to play in their created world, and an associated culture where people encourage each other enthusiastically to share their creations with one another. The scene has not explored collaborative worldbuilding sufficiently, although there are some notable and excellent exceptions, like the home village generation in Beyond the Wall, or the use that some have made of Microscope to launch campaigns. I think this is a shame, because there's a lot of room to experiment with techniques for drawing players into collaborative worldbuilding, without undermining the asymmetry between player and DM that is crucial to retro-gaming play.

The method of collaborative worldbuilding the zine presents involves breaking the setting into 4 thematic sections: the world, the Capital, the borderlands and devastation zones, and a catch all including technology, the populace, magic, and the hunters (the party). Each section first provides some setting background to serve as the scaffolding for improvisation. The background is followed by a brief section called "aesthetics, themes, and imagery" that names a themes and mentions common elements to give you a sense of the flavor you should aim for in answering the questions. For example, the aesthetics, themes, and imagery of the section on the Capital begins like this:

Urban Decay. Slums and tenaments, rust, fog-choked streets, gangs and the criminal underworld, ramshackle homes made from scavenged materials, vermin, graffiti, outbreaks of disease.

Each such section is followed by a series of five "prompts", i.e. questions, about different aspects of the setting that the group poses to themselves and collaboratively answers. This is the heart of the technique, and it's worth looking at some of the questions Shear poses.

My favorite question is this one from the prompts on the capital: "Whose thrilling exploits are written about in pulp novels and penny dreadfuls, adapted to the stage, and the subject of popular ballads?" This is an amazing question, because it's such a creative way of projecting your imagination into the setting. In essence, it asks you how the people in the setting imagine their own heroes. It also shows rather than tells a lot of setting materials, communicating that this is a place where there are penny dreadfuls, and that people in the Capital read pulp fiction, and throng to a lively theatrical scene. It conveys immediately that there are legendary hunters or daring criminals out there, and that they have a role in the popular imagination, which might or might not align with reality. The answer to this question just oozes adventure possibilities: one hopes that the party of hunters will, in one way or another, cross paths at some point with this figure of popular legend. I can also imagine these kind of questions eliciting riffs on a theme, sprawling unpredictably outwards into a shared world. 

Other questions are more prosaic, such as, "Name an eldritch horror and describe their cult." The question is solid, conveying that the setting has eldritch horrors and cults. But it lacks the verve of the question about the penny dreadfuls. Most of Shear's questions are of this latter, more generic sort, for example, "What commodity is currently sought after in the Capital?" I though this was a bit of a missed opportunity. Perhaps this latter question might be pepped up in line with the penny dreadful question like this, "What commodity in the mail order catalogues has recently become all the rage in the Capital?" This would suggest that there are old-fashioned mail order catalogues full of wares and consumer fads in the city. It presents the same information but in a way that conveys the sense of a broader world, while also suggesting elaboration into immediate adventure possibilities. What are the main catalogues called? Who is running them? In short, I find the penny dreadful versions of the questions more fun to think about, and I suspect they would produce more fruitful collaboration.

After the collaborative prompts, there are various further tools for play, including a set of "Additional Prompts". These are not formulated as questions, but rather seem to be different elements (locations items, villains, gangs, etc) that can be included in the game by DM with further elaboration. They were a tad generic, e.g. under uncanny locations one entry is "An island used for secret rendezvous". There is also a list of one line adventure seeds that strike me as quite useful. There are several alternate campaign premises (play revolutionaries, or missionaries, or entertainers, etc.), and very barebones character background and personality traits that didn't do much for me. 

In Sum

This zine shines in two ways. First, it shows you just how much you can do starting with a good idea, a free word processing program, a long-arm stapler, and some creative flourishes.  The second is that The Dirge of Urazya is innovative, presenting an original template that can easily be reproduced. At its best the template fills a real lack in retro-gaming play. The zine's structure of four sections, each with background scaffolding, followed by terse notes on themes and imagery, and then a series of collaborative prompts is solid and could be easily replicated with any number of settings. In fact it's a great premise for a continuing zine. I think it would be neat if Shear continued with future issues for other worlds: each issue presenting a different world to be collaboratively built in a session 0. I hope he does it.    

So You Want to Make a Zine: Printing

This is the first a series of posts about the craft of zine-making for tabletop rpgs, all intended to act as a community resource to lower the bar of entry. You can find the rest of the posts under the tag, "So You Want to Make a Zine?"

I'm also going to be linking to resources as they become available. Let's start with this: if you're thinking of doing zinequest, check out this post at Caradoc Games for a bunch of good links. If you use twitter, start following @zeshio and check out his data on last years zinequest. Join the discord server linked there for real time help from a community of zine makers!

But back to the main business. This series will cover all aspects of zinecraft, from writing, to working with artists, layout, and physical assembly. This post is about the options for printing your zine. I'm going to cover four options, with a couple of permutations along the way: (1) use a copy machine, (2) print at home, (3) print it at a print shop, and (4) have an online company print it for you.

Option 1: Use a Copy Machine

The most barebones option available to you is typing up or handwriting a zine on loose sheets of paper that you photocopy and then staple together into booklet form. (More on assembling a zine in another post!) In terms of startup costs, you could literally have 100 issues of a medium zine made--say 32 8.5 x 5.5 pages plus a cover--for the price of $45 dollars worth of black and white copying at 5 cents a side, plus the price of a long arm stapler and staples. Here is a guide by the wonderful Julia Gfrörur that makes this process crystal clear. The main headache will be getting your pages in the right order.

She originally linked this on this twitter thread, making clear that she wanted this guide shared widely. I was put onto that thread originally by Jack Shear's excellent blogpost about making a zine here. (Hi Jack, I'm going to be reviewing your zine Dirge of Urazya soon!) While you're at it, check Gförur's etsy store too where you can buy a $1 physical copy of this guide along with her other alluring zines.

One downside of photocopying your zine is that you'll probably be using copy store paper, which is very light weight. Also, any images in your zine are going to lose some details in copying if they're complicated. An upside to this method is that it allows you to use collage in your zine rather than fancy layout programs. Just cut out a public domain image, and glue it right onto your page. You can do the whole thing in analogue, just like the punks did it in the 1980s! You don't even need a long arm stapler if you do a zine  like Mike Davison's Boarding Action, which was a single sheet of double-sided paper (admittedly, it's more a newsletter than a zine):

This is actually on pretty thick blue graph paper, so I think Davison
actually scanned it and then printed it at home.

To sum up, the bar to entry for the copying technique is very low. You need almost nothing to get started, and it can be really satisfying to make something with your own hands. It gives you the freedom to use collage techniques, and hearkens back to the DIY values of the punk and riot grrrl scenes. Just for very detailed images with a lot shading to reproduce a little unclearly, and you'll need to be satisfied with copy paper, which can feel a little thin.

Option 2: Print It at Home

Another option is to print your zine at home. Provided you have access to a computer and printer, this allows you more control over the process. You can lay things out digitally. That might sound intimidating, and it can be if you use a professional layout program like InDesign. But it's possible to do simple layout in Microsoft Word. For example, Gabor Lux's excellent Echoes From Fomalhaut, one of the most popular and well-loved retro-game zines, is laid out entirely in word! And if you have access to a scanner, at home or through a copy shop, you can even combine the analog and the digital methods by scanning collaged pages in and so forth. Printing at home also allows you to experiment with fancier paper, within limits.

This excellent zine is laid out entirely in MS Word. A little utilitarian, but otherwise fine!

But there are a couple of problems you're likely to run into printing at home. First of all, if you're going to buy a printer, make sure that it has the duplex function, i.e. can print double-sided. Otherwise, you'll have to feed each sheet in twice to get both sides done, and if you do that, good luck keeping the pages in order.

The second thing to think about is ink, which is expensive. One way to get around that is with Epson ecotank printers. They're not cheap, but once you make the investment, ink is very inexpensive. So depending on the volume of printing, over the lifetimes of the printer they can end up being a steal. I have the Epson ET-3750, and it's a wonderful machine, but it costs $355 new, (there's a less expensive but still great ET-2750 that costs $300). It prints relatively quickly, and does pretty good color and black and white images, and also color scans and copies. You could easily use it to print a full color zine for the staggeringly low cost of 15 cents a zine, immensely cheaper than a color zine copied at a copy shop. Counterintuitively, it's cheaper to print a color zine using this printer than it is to print black and white zines. But even for black and white you'll print each issue for under 25 cents, which is amazing.

Epson Ecotank 2750

A cheaper option in terms of initial outlay, but more expensive in terms of ink, is a monochrome (black and white) laser printer, which you can get in the $50-$80 price range, although they're a dying breed. On the higher end of this spectrum is the Canon Image Classic line of monochrome laser printers. I have the Canon Image Classic LBP 251dw. It prints duplex in black and white at superfast speeds, with reasonably crisp image. With an official high volume black ink cartridge for this printer, you can print a 32 page zine plus cover for only 55 cents, only slightly more than a copy shop, although you'll have to pay for your own paper.

This Canon Image Classic is a simpler model than what I have. But it costs only $80. 

A problem with all home printers is that in big print jobs, things often go wrong. There are jams, which are obvious, since they grind everything to a halt. But there are also insidious problems that creep in without your noticing it, for example misaligned print heads that lead to smudged and blurry text and images. There are also more arcane technical problems. So if you're printing high volume at home (as you will be if you do 100-200 print runs for your zine), plan for some headache, some heartbreak, and some wasted supplies.   

Another problem is that, depending on how fussy you are about images, and how complex the images your zine has, it's hard to get detailed images to come out looking crisp and pretty, with all the details visible, and the contrasts just so. This problem is only amplified if you're printing in color. What's more, no matter what the printer says on the box, my experience is that no printer you can get for your home can handle high volumes of printing on heavier (i.e. fancy) interior paper and cardstock covers. It's going to misalign your print heads, lead to interminable jams, and ultimately break your printer. This is wisdom won from great personal suffering.

So my advice to you, if you're going to do your printing at home, don't go crazy with your paper quality, and don't include highly detailed images with a lot of fine contrasts. Make the most of what you've got. With a little patience, it'll be a step up from photocopying, with more options and control over the process. It'll work great as long as your demands aren't super exacting and you don't push your equipment too hard.

Option 3: Print at a Print Shop 

This option is more expensive than other options, although not necessarily as much more expensive as you might think (and in large volume for some methods it'll actually be cheaper). It's also the level where the technical limitations are really removed. Print shops can do high quality printing in big volumes very quickly. They can handle heavier paper weight and cardstock. You can purchase paper directly from them, or you can give them your own special paper to print on. They also can fold, staple, and trim a zine for you. In fact, the trimming services they offer, especially for offset printing, outstrip anything that you can do at home, allowing you to go "full bleed" with images that run right out to the edge of the page. (This is only possible with precision trimming, since every printer leaves a border of white around the pages printed. To make that border go away, you need to be able to trip the top bottom and right side of the zine perfectly. I have a super fancy trimmer, but I could never reproduce this effect consistently at home, certainly not over large quantities of zines.)

This is a page from the "print ready" version of the PDF I bring to my digital print shop.
See how page 34 is opposite...page 3?

Before discussing the options, my main advice about printing at print shops is this. Prices and services vary tremendously. You need to find a printshop that is careful, competent, and willing to do what you want to do at a reasonable price. Different print shops are willing to do different things at different prices. There is no alternative but to talk to a whole bunch of print shops in your area, and find out what services they offer, and what rates they're willing to offer you. I recommend going in face to face if you can. (They often may want you to email to get a quote, so do that, but face to face meetings are even better.) I hate this kind of thing, negotiating, asking people what they're willing to do, getting turned down, etc. But it's worth it, since once you find a print shop you work with and trust, this will be a valuable relationship that will support and enable your zine-craft. Since zines are potentially long-running affairs, this can be a long term relationship. You should take it seriously and find out who is out there doing printing, and what they might be willing to do. 

This Indigo Digital Printing, the print shop I used for Issues 1 & 2 of Through Ultan's Door. 

There are two printing options for your zine: digital printing and off-set printing. They are very different printing techniques, in theory each better for different sorts of jobs. (But as we'll see, changes in pricing may be shifting the balance towards offset printing for a wider range of jobs than in the past, at least for a brief window....before offset printing is replaced by advances in digital printing.)

Digital Printing

Digital printing uses electrostatic rollers called drums to apply toner to paper, one drum for each color. The drums use an electrostatic charge to attract the toner onto the surface of the drum, which is then rolled onto a sheet of paper. The paper is then heated to fuse the toner to the sheet. 

In terms of quality, if you've purchased my zine, you can ask yourself this: does my zine look good enough for you? If the answer is yes, then digital printing will work fine. The word on the street is that digital printing does better with black and white than with color--since it loses some of the sharp contrasts and vividness of color printing. Since most zines are black and white, digital printing seems like a good option. 

Illustration by the amazing Orphicss.

In terms of price, there is no setup cost for digital printing. I've watched my print shop do it a few times now: they just load the paper into the machine, toggle a few settings on the computer, and the machine starts churning out copies. Given that there's no setup, it makes no difference if you're printing 1 copy or 1000 copies of something. For this reason, it has a lower cost for smaller print runs than offset printing, since no setup is required and volume doesn't affect the pricing. This is another reason that digital printing is a good option for zines, which often have a small print run of 100-200 copies. 

But there is a catch. Owing to the availability of high quality color digital printing, print shops have phased out black and white digital printers. This means that if your zine is black and white, it will have to be printed on a color printer. In fact, it's likely that your digital print shop won't even list separate prices for black and white printing. And this isn't a good development for us, because most zines are black and white, and color printing is much more expensive. 

Indigo printing works with me because of the volume of sales I'm bringing them to offer me a considerably lower rate their full color price. But it's still not as cheap as I would like. I'm paying 10 cents a side, so $2 to print a single zine. And I'm providing super fancy paper for them to use and doing the assembly by hand. The paper costs me about 55 cents per zine. So it's costing me $2.55 in total for materials and printing for each zine, even before we factor in the price of layout, art, and editing--PLUS countless hours to assemble them myself. 

Here I am trimming the umpteenth copy of my own damn zine

Don't get me wrong, in the past I've enjoyed physically making my own zines, and it does allow me to hold my assembly process to exacting standards. But I feel like I could definitely do better, both in terms of price and in terms of focusing my effort where it counts.  Right now I'm shopping around Chicago to see if anyone will do offset printing at a lower price using my own super special paper. I'm hoping they can assemble the zine for me to a sufficient level of quality, so I can focus my energy on the creative rather than mechanical side of zine production. Also, if I'm being honest, my circulation has grown enough that physically assembling zines threatens to take the joy out of the whole thing--and in fact is becoming nearly impossible.

Offset Printing

Offset printing is an older, more exacting, more tailored printing process. In contemporary offset printing, they begin by separating the colors of your PDF into black, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and etch each color onto its own separate flexible aluminum plate. Each of these four plates is put onto a roller, and the parts of the plate without an image are dampened with water. Then a vegetable oil based ink corresponding to relevant color is applied, flowing to the parts of the plate that are dry. The image is then offset (or transferred) from this roller onto a second roller with a rubber blanket on it. (That's why it's called offset printing.) Sheets of paper then are run through these four sets of rollers, where the colors mix to produce the final resulting image.

Offset printing is offered only in select print shops, since it requires expertise and machinery. It comes with fixed startup costs, since the plates must be etched for each job separately. So it is expensive for smaller runs. But the vegetable based ink is much less expensive than the toner used in digital printing, so the larger the run is, the less cost there is for this method of printing. At high volume, offset printing is actually cheaper than digital printing. It produces higher quality images, particularly when it comes to color images, and gives you some more paper options. So if your zine has fancy color art that's a little complicated, or images where the color scheme and crispness really matters, then off-set printing might be for you. If you're doing a large print run (1000 copies), then off-set printing is almost definitely for you. But for smaller volume print runs, say under 200 copies of your zine (and likely, if you're just getting started, you might want to do a 100 or 200 run), off-set printing might not be economical.

However, given the elimination of black and white digital printing, offset printing is becoming increasingly attractive economically speaking, and may be less expensive even for some smaller print runs, if you can find a print shop that will work with you on smaller runs of offset printing in your area. There are other, more specialized and arcane printing methods, like risograph printing. But I don't know much about it yet. When I learn more maybe I'll write a post about it.

These pretty colors were made with a risograph printer

Option 4: Print through an Online Printer

If you can't find a good printer near you, or just want to compare prices, there are now excellent online printing services that fill the role of printshops. It used to be that your only option was print on demand services that handle both printing and distribution. You submit a PDF, and then they host it. When a customer orders a copy, they have a printing center that prints one up, and then they handle the shipping. These services were attractive at the time for those who didn't want to worry about figuring printing out, or trek to the post-office and deal with packaging a ton of orders. The main print-on-demand services I've seen people use are Lulu and DriveThruRPG. The problem is that in terms of printing, these print-on-demand services are set up primarily to print books rather than zines. As a result, they don't give you many printing options, in terms of materials and binding, and all the printing is (obviously) digital. The zines that I've ordered from Lulu or DTRPG never feel or look right. Often they're perfect bound, or have a glossy cover that seems chintzy in a depressingly corporate way.

Luckily, nowadays there are outstanding online print services that are not print on demand. They print, fold, staple, and trim the entire print run of your zine for you. They pack them in a box and ship them to your door for distribution. The online printing service that most people I've talk to currently use is Mixam. Depending on how large your order is, they will either print it digitally (for smaller runs) or offset (for larger runs). You can select different paper weights for the interior and cover, and even various finishes to apply, as well as your method of binding (likely saddle stitch for a zine). The service, in addition to having numerous options, is also remarkably affordable. Have you read Tuesday Knight's Games, Mothership, Dead Planet, or Pound of Flesh? Did you think they were pretty? Well, they were all printed through Mixam.

This looks good right? It was printed on Mixam.

Printing my zine, Through Ultan's Door, at Mixam would save me a lot of money, although it would give me a little less control over the process.  If you are willing to handle distribution yourself, but don't want to fuss with a local print shop, then Mixam is an excellent option. The only technical hurdle is that you will have to prepare electronic files that match their specifications. But even that's pretty easy: you upload pdfs of each separate zine page in the order they are read (e.g. 5, 6, 7, 8, etc). So you don't even need to worry about having a print-ready copy with the crazy page order.

So that's a wrap for my first post in the new "So You Want to Make a Zine?" series. My next post is likely going to be on finding artists and commissioning illustrations from them to bring your precious zine worlds to life. Or maybe I'll talk about setting up a webstore. Look for upcoming posts in my other new series "Zine Reviews". I'll be starting with separate reviews on (in this order) The Dirge of Urazya, Lowcountry Crawl, and The Doom That Speaks "zinis". In the meantime, if you have further thoughts on printing, want to share your experiences, or know about other online resources and discussion, drop a comment below!